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ALEXANDER THE GREAT DARING HIS MEN
TO LEAVE - 324 BC
Depart!
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Alexander the Great.
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Depart! speech by Alexander the Great.
It follows the text transcript of
the Depart! speech by Alexander the Great, delivered at
Opis, Mesopotamia - August 324 BC. This is Alexander's
speech according to the Greek historian
Arrian.
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The speech which I
am about to deliver will not be for the purpose
of checking your start homeward, for, so far as
I am concerned, you may depart wherever you
wish. |
But for the
purpose of making you understand when you take
yourselves off, what kind of men you have been
to us who have conferred such benefits upon you.
In the first place, as is reasonable, I shall
begin my speech from my father Philip. For he
found you vagabonds and destitute of means, most
of you clad in hides, feeding a few sheep up the
mountain sides, for the protection of which you
had to fight with small success against
Illyrians, Triballians, and the border
Thracians.
Instead of the
hides he gave you cloaks to wear, and from the
mountains he led you down into the plains, and
made you capable of fighting the neighboring
barbarians, so that you were no longer compelled
to preserve yourselves by trusting rather to the
inaccessible strongholds than to your own valor.
He made you colonists of cities, which he
adorned with useful laws and customs; and from
being slaves and subjects, he made you rulers
over those very barbarians by whom you
yourselves, as well as your property, were
previously liable to be carried off or ravaged.
He also added the
greater part of Thrace to Macedonia, and by
seizing the most conveniently situated places on
the sea-coast, he spread abundance over the land
from commerce, and made the working of the mines
a secure employment. He made you rulers over the
Thessalians, of whom you had formerly been in
mortal fear; and by humbling the nation of the
Phocians, he rendered the avenue into Greece
broad and easy for you, instead of being narrow
and difficult.
The Athenians and
Thebans, who were always lying in wait to attack
Macedonia, he humbled to such a degree, I also
then rendering him my personal aid in the
campaign, that instead of paying tribute to the
former and being vassals to the latter, those
states in their turn procure security to
themselves by our assistance. He penetrated into
the Peloponnese, and after regulating its
affairs, was publicly declared
commander-in-chief of all the rest of Greece in
the expedition against the Persian, adding this
glory not more to himself than to the
commonwealth of the Macedonians.
These were the
advantages which accrued to you from my father
Philip; great indeed if looked at by themselves,
but small if compared with those you have
obtained from me. For though I inherited from my
father only a few gold and silver goblets, and
there were not even sixty talents in the
treasury, and though I found myself charged with
a debt of 500 talents owing by Philip, and I was
obliged myself to borrow 800 talents in addition
to these, I started from the country which could
not decently support you, and forthwith laid
open to you the passage of the Hellespont,
though at that time the Persians held the
sovereignty of the sea.
Having overpowered
the satraps of Darius with my cavalry, I added
to your empire the whole of Ionia, the whole of
Aeolis, both Phrygias and Lydia, and I took
Miletus by siege. All the other places I gained
by voluntary surrender, and I granted you the
privilege of appropriating the wealth found in
them. The riches of Egypt and Cyrene, which I
acquired without fighting a battle, have come to
you. Coele-Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia are
your property. Babylon, Bactra, and Susa are
yours.
The wealth of the
Lydians, the treasures of the Persians, and the
riches of the Indians are yours; and so is the
External Sea. You are viceroys, you are
generals, you are captains. What then have I
reserved to myself after all these labors,
except this purple robe and this diadem? I have
appropriated nothing myself, nor can any one
point out my treasures, except these possessions
of yours or the things which I am guarding on
your behalf. Individually, however, I have no
motive to guard them, since I feed on the same
fare as you do, and I take only the same amount
of sleep.
Nay, I do not
think that my fare is as good as that of those
among you who live luxuriously; and I know that
I often sit up at night to watch for you, that
you may be able to sleep.
But some one may
say, that while you endured toil and fatigue, I
have acquired these things as your leader
without myself sharing the toil and fatigue. But
who is there of you who knows that he has
endured greater toil for me than I have for him?
Come now, whoever of you has wounds, let him
strip and show them, and I will show mine in
turn; for there is no part of my body, in front
at any rate, remaining free from wounds; nor is
there any kind of weapon used either for close
combat or for hurling at the enemy, the traces
of which I do not bear on my person.
For I have been
wounded with the sword in close fight, I have
been shot with arrows, and I have been struck
with missiles projected from engines of war; and
though oftentimes I have been hit with stones
and bolts of wood for the sake of your lives,
your glory, and your wealth, I am still leading
you as conquerors over all the land and sea, all
rivers, mountains, and plains. I have celebrated
your weddings with my own, and the children of
many of you will be akin to my children.
Moreover I have
liquidated of all those who had incurred them,
without inquiring too closely for what purpose
they were contracted, though you received such
high pay, and carry off so much booty whenever
there is booty to be got after a siege. Most of
you have golden crowns, the eternal memorials of
your valor and of the honor you receive from me.
Whoever has been killed has met with a glorious
end and has been honored with a splendid burial.
Brazen statues of
most of the slain have been erected at home, and
their parents are held in honor) being released
from all public service and from taxation. But
no one of you has ever been killed in flight
under my leadership. And now I was intending to
send back those of you who are unfit for
service, objects of envy to those at home; but
since you all wish to depart, depart all of you!
Go back and report
at home that your king Alexander, the conqueror
of the Persians, Medes, Bactrians, and Sacians;
the man who has subjugated the Uxians,
Arachotians, and Drangians; who has also
acquired the rule of the Parthians, Chorasmians,
and Hyrcanians, as far as the Caspian Sea; who
has marched over the Caucasus, through the
Caspian Gates; who has crossed the rivers Oxus
and Tanais, and the Indus besides, which has
never been crossed by any one else except
Dionysus; who has also crossed the Hydaspes,
Acesines, and Hydraotes, and who would have
crossed the Hyphasis, if you had not shrunk back
with alarm; who has penetrated into the Great
Sea by both the mouths of the Indus; who has
marched through the desert of Gadrosia, where no
one ever before marched with an army; who on his
route acquired possession of Carmania and the
land of the Oritians, in addition to his other
conquests, his fleet having in the meantime
already sailed round the coast of the sea which
extends from India to Persia - report that when
you returned to Susa you deserted him and went
away, handing him over to the protection of
conquered foreigners.
Perhaps this
report of yours will be both glorious to you in
the eyes of men and devout I ween in the eyes of
the gods. Depart!
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