Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and Son ... - Historia Antigua

94 PHILIP AND ALEXANDER AT WAR
for the action around the Tripylon Gate. Arrian, more interested in
Alexander and less disposed to give credit to others, has reduced the
action to the bare minimum. Adaeus is given his honorable death,
but that is all. There is no indication how he died. The two pentakosiarchies
are confl ated for a single engagement, and the commander
of this combined unit is loosely termed chiliarch. It is an easy transition,
made easier by the fact that in the Roman military hierarchy
chiliarch was synonymous with tribune, a military offi ce that Arrian
himself may have held under Trajan. It was certainly natural for him
to think of a commanding offi cer as a chiliarch, no matter what the
paper strength of his division. 15
The Hekatostys (Group of One Hundred)
and Its Role in the Infantry
We must now turn to Arrian’s account of Alexander’s last days.
Shortly before his death he had received a sacred embassy from Siwah
that gave the god’s formal endorsement of Hephaestion’s hero cult. 16
On receiving the news, Alexander celebrated on a grand scale and
performed a number of sacrifi ces; some were the thank offerings customary
after favorable events and others too that had been sanctioned
by the oracle. Consequently he and his friends drank well into the
night. 17 Up to this point Arrian uses direct speech, which should
mean that his principal sources were in agreement. There were sacrifi
ces, prescribed by Ammon and conducted with all the lavishness
one would expect when the new cult was established. Next Arrian
reverts to indirect speech ( δοῦναι δὲ λέγεται ), and moves from the
customary sacrifi ces of the high command to the largesse bestowed
on the troops. The source here is almost certainly Ptolemy; the qualifi
cation suggests that Arrian was choosing between differing authorities,
and Aristobulus was unlikely to have dwelt on the repeated
carousing of these last days. Now, what Ptolemy recorded is highly
instructive. He reveals that the troops received wine and sacrifi cial
meat, a regular source of protein, which would supplement the usual
cereal diet. It is no wonder that there were daily sacrifi ces performed
by the king (Arr. 7.25.2–5). It was a duty that he discharged religiously,
even when he was burning with fever, and the troops would
expect to receive the residue. On this occasion, according to Arrian,
the meat and wine was distributed by lochoi and by hekatostyes.
These divisions are diffi cult to explain. They comprised a substantial
number of troops, but not too large a number. Otherwise the individual
soldier would end up with a very meager helping of sacrifi cial