Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/239

 MUTILATION OF BliKSSUS. 207 even Arrian, admii-ing and indulgent as he is towards his hero, censures this savage order, as one among many proofs how much Alexander had taken on Oriental dispositions. We may remark that his extreme wrath on this occasion was founded partly on disappointment that Bessus had frustrated his toilsome efforts for taking Darius alive — partly on the fact that the satrap had com- mitted treason against the king's person, which it was the policy as well as the feeling of Alexander to surround with a circle of Deity.^ For as to traitors against ].^ersia, as a cause and coun- try, Alexander had never discouraged, and had sometimes sig- nally recompensed them. Mithrines, the governor of Sardis, who opened to him the gates of that almost impregnable fortress immediately after the battle of the Granikus — the traitor who perhaps, next to Darius himself, had done most harm to the Per- Bian cause — obtained from him high favor and promotion.^ The rude but spirited tribes of Baktria and Sogdiana were as yet but imperfectly subdued, seconded as their resistance was by wide spaces of sandy desert, by the neighborhood of the Scy- thian Nomads, and by the presence of Spitamenes as a leader. Alexander, distributing liis army into five divisions, traversed the country and put down all resistance, while he also took measures for establishing several military posts, or new towns in convenient places.^ After some time the whole army was re- united at the chief place of Sogdiana — Marakanda — where some halt and repose was given.* ' After describing tlie scene at Rome, when the Emperor Galba was de posed and assassinated in the forum, Tacitus observes — " Plures quam cen turn et viginti libellos prremia exposcentium, ob aliquam notabilein ilia die operam, Vitellius postea invcnit, omnesque conquiri ct interfici jussit: von honore Galba, sed tradito principibiis more, miinimenlum ad prasens, in posterum uhionem'^ (Tacitus, Hist. i. 44). 2 Arrian, i. 17, 3 ; iii. 16, 8. ' Curtius, iii. 12, G ; v. 1, 44. ' Curtius (vii. 10, 15) mentions six cities (oppida) founded by Alexander in these regions; apparently somewhere north of the Oxus, hut the sites cannot be made out. Justin (xii. 5) alludes to twelve foundations in Bak- tria and Sogdiana. desertaest; octingenta fere stadia in latitudinem vastas solitudines ten- en t." Respecting the same country (Sogdiana and Baktria), Mr. Erskine ob-
 * Arrian, iv. 16, 4 ; Curtius, vii. 10, 1. " Sogdiana rcgio magna ex parte