Arrian: Alexander Seeks Darius

pp.158-159, Book Three

My book opened up to this page, and because I just mentioned Mazaeus
in the Pierre Briant excerpt, I found this interesting paragraph...

Alexander reached Thapsacus in August, during the archonship of
Aristophanes in Athens. Two bridges were already across the river.
For some time previously, Mazaeus, under orders from the Persian
King, had been guarding the approaches to the river with a force of
3,000 mounted troops, two-thirds of them Greek mercenaries; and for
this reason the Macedonians had not carried their bridge to the
further bank, lest the enemy should attack it from their end.
Mazaeus,however, no sooner got wind of Alexander's approach than he
made off at his best speed with all his men, whereupon, the two
bridges were promptly completed and Alexander was able to use them to
get his army across

and this paragraph appears later...

While the troops were resting, there was an almost total eclipse of
the moon, and Alexander offered sacrifice to Moon, Sun, and Earth,
the three deities supposed to be concerned in this phenomenon. The
opinion of Aristander, the seer, was that the moon's failure was
propitious for Alexander and the Macedonians, and that the coming
battle would be fought before the month was out; he concluded,
moreover, that the sacrifices portended victory

I used both paragraphs because one, the reference to Mazaeus
fascinates me since Pierre Brinat has pointed out that he was the
first of the Persians to be appointed a responsible positon, and the
second for the reason that Alexander is so dependent upon the
soothsayer or seers readings of the sacrifices and interpretations of
portents. This latter demonstrating the significance and importance
of the spiritual to Alexander which I maintain must not be discounted
in appreciating Alexander's devotion to his sacrifices and his duty.

Again, I take the responsibility of writing these passages as
my "psychic" pull is what opens the page for me, and I then follow up
with my beliefs.

There is actually more on these two pages about some of Darius's
troops who have been taken and interrogated. Because of seeing the
movie Pride and Glory which I discussed in a separate post, I cannot
help but wonder at interrogation techniques, as to how abusive or
torturous they may have been.

Something else occurred in that film that hit a nerve in me when the
torturous treatment given to a victim in this film reminded me of the
Plutarch article that I had found, as the word "splinters" jumped out
at me.

When I had my teeth pulled, I also found "splinters" from the wisdom
teeth area, and that along with the dialogue in the movie PG made me
think as the autopsy produced teeth and "splinters" in the man's
esophagus proving that he had been tortured.

With Alexander it was the shankbone, with the victim in the movie, it
does not directly state, but in my case I know it is in the wisdom
tooth area...I wondered at when this dialogue for the film was
written...sometimes one has to question so called synchronicities or
coincidences...

Just for the record and still mumbling and thinking to myself all the
while...