25   by killing Harpalus:This is the account of Diodorus (18.19.2); Pausanias (2.33.4) says rather that Harpalus’ own servants killed him or possibly a Macedonian named Pausanias. Heckel ( Who’s Who) reconciles the two accounts by supposing that Pausanias was an agent employed by Thibron.

26   this ingenious icon:I am not concerned here with the question of whether the Mir Zakah coin recently uncovered in Afghanistan, seemingly containing the forerunner of Ptolemy’s elephant-scalp image, is genuine or not, a question that has yet to be resolved. Perhaps Ptolemy did not invent the image, but he certainly recognized its power and made full use of it in a way the issuers of the Mir Zakah coin never did.

27   Justin:The relevant text is 15.4.16, where the name “Alexandrum” found in the manuscripts has been replaced by “Nandrum” in modern editions. The original reading, certainly erroneous, had the young Chandragupta escaping from Alexander.

28   in fact dates from later centuries:As established on linguistic evidence by Trautmann, Kautilya and the Arthasastra.

29   the brief record Plutarch made: Alexander62.9.

30   they had already:It is generally assumed that Chandragupta’s attack on the Nandas preceded his reconquest of the Indus valley from the Macedonians, though almost no hard evidence exists. The flight of Eudamus, Alexander’s last remaining appointee, from the region, presumably as a result of Chandragupta’s advances, occurred in 318.

31   Some have guessed:The suggestion was first made by the great nineteenth-century British expert on the Greek experience in India, John Watson McCrindle, in his commentary on the Justin text ( The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great[1893; reprinted numerous times]). McCrindle noted that the Sanskrit epics use a term roughly equivalent to “outlaw” in referring to the non-monarchic Malli and Oxydracae, but as he provided no citation, I am unable to confirm this intriguing verbal overlap. Vincent A. Smith endorses the idea that the takeover of the Indus valley by Chandragupta was in essence a “rising” of subject peoples or a “revolt” ( Early History, pp. 122–23).

32   after killing the raja Porus:Attested by Diodorus (19.14.8) but without elaboration. We may guess that Eudamus was motivated primarily by the desire for elephants. The confused situation in India during and after Alexander’s invasion has been analyzed in great detail by Bosworth in the three works cited under “Chandragupta and India” in the bibliography.

33   Letodorus:His name is given as Lipodorus or Leipodorus in the manuscripts but has been changed by some modern editors.

Chapter 5: The Athenians’ Last Stand (II)

  1   such pleasures:For Hyperides’ fish-shopping habits, see Athenaeus 8.27; for his assortment of courtesans, 13.58. Besides the three mentioned here, Hyperides also had the famously beautiful Phryne as a lover. When defending her on a capital charge in court, he reportedly exposed her naked to the jurors and thereby won her acquittal (the subject of a dramatic nineteenth-century painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme).

  2   when Hyperides was ill:The anecdote is related in a brief biography of Hyperides included in the pseudo-Plutarchan Lives of the Ten Orators( Moralia849).

  3   their confidence was shaken:The demoralizing effect of Leosthenes’ death is attested by Pausanias 1.25.5.

  4   a devious tactic:Related by Plutarch, Phocion24.1–2.

  5   He even proposed:As attested in the pseudo-Plutarchan biography, Moralia849f.

  6   (among other names):There is some confusion in the sources as to which names Olympias held and when; Myrtale and Stratonice are also reported. According to Carney ( Olympias, p. 16), “It seems likely that [Olympias] had different names or epithets at different periods and that the changes came at significant moments in her life.”

  7   Other rumors:Plutarch ( Alexander10.8) reports the suspicions surrounding Olympias after Philip’s murder, and Justin (9.7.1–2) accuses her more directly of complicity, but the other Alexander sources say nothing of her involvement. Modern scholarly opinion is divided.

  8   arranged the killing:Plutarch Alexander10.8, with lurid details filled in by Pausanias 8.7.7.

  9   Mother and daughter:Only Cleopatra is attested by the sources as having sent the letter, but it is highly unlikely she did so without her mother’s participation.

10   Hecataeus found Leonnatus:The details of the complex scene that follows are taken from Plutarch Eumenes3.3–7. I have somewhat expanded on Plutarch’s inferences about the thoughts of Leonnatus and Eumenes.

11   fondness for wrestling:Attested by Plutarch, Alexander40.1, with the outlandish detail that Leonnatus had the sand used for his wrestling practice imported from Egypt by camel train.

12   When Leonnatus woke:A biography of Eumenes by the Roman Nepos, differing in some places from that of Plutarch, claims that Leonnatus sought Eumenes’ life after he realized the Greek meant to betray his plans, and that Eumenes’ nighttime departure was actually an escape ( Eumenes2.4–5).

13   “Of the words”:I have based my translation on Worthington’s text of the speech ( Greek Orators II). Because the speech is known through only one tattered copy, many of the readings remain uncertain or rely on editorial insertions. I was not able to make use of the new edition by Judson Herrman, Hyperides: Funeral Oration(Oxford, 2009).

14   King Xerxes:The Hellespont bridge built by the Persians in 480 B.C. is described in detail by Herodotus 7.33–36. The key to its construction was the immensely strong cables, made of papyrus and white flax (7.25), that were stretched across the decks of the ships to bind them together.

15   many shirked it:The earliest preserved political speech of Demosthenes, “On the Naval Boards,” presents a plan for reforming the system for financing the navy. Demosthenes himself had served on the boards and witnessed many abuses.

16   were hard to come by:Bosworth, in “Why Did Athens Lose the Lamian War?” (p. 15), cites evidence that Athens had only forty ships at sea during the two summers preceding the war. That meant only eight hundred rowers had gained precious experience of naval service.

17   110 warships:Attested by Diodorus 18.12.2, who explains them as a treasure convoy but without specifying what the money they carried was to be used for. The assumption of most historians is that Alexander was already anticipating war with Athens before he died.

18   details of these battles:Because Diodorus almost totally neglects the war at sea in his narrative of the Hellenic War, much uncertainty about it cannot be resolved. Ashton (“ Naumachia”) and Bosworth (“Why Did Athens Lose the Lamian War?”) have both made brave efforts at a reconstruction.

19   a peculiar denouement:The strange story is told by Plutarch, Demetrius11.

20   sat idle:Evidence assembled by Green, “Occupation and Co-existence,” and Bosworth, “Why Did Athens Lose the Lamian War?”

21   He had brought Phila:Not attested by the sources but conjectured by Heckel and others on the grounds that Phila was in Cilicia at the start of the war (see note 17). Craterus’ remarkable reassignment of his existing bride, Amastris, to Dionysius of Heracleia is recounted by Strabo (12.3.10) and Memnon (4.4).

22   usually reckoned:Because of the vagaries of the Athenian calendar, it is not possible to give exact Gregorian correlates for the ancient dates Plutarch and other sources supply.