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This alleged incident has always troubled me, doesn't Herodotos state that even the Great King could not execute anyone without thinking it over for a day? Much of the Persian material in Curtius seems suspect, in the great procession of troops prior to Issos for instance III 2 he mentions Barcanians, which seems a made up nameand the armament is bizzare as well.Kleitarchos' father had written a Persian History and I wonder if the son didn't lift typical Persian behaviour according to daddy and foist it upon Darius, sadly there is no way of knowing the quality of this Persica I suspect it was low and that judgements based on evidence in Curtius need to be qualified by reference to Herodotos, who was a more honest reporter.

Greetings Karl:But of course Herodotus was a collector of stories rather than a historian as we define them today. He certainly was not one to critique what he was told a la Macedonian Kings, giant gold digging ants, etc. Of course one could use that broad generalization for all historians I suppose, though some would be insulted. Much of what is written about the Persians is very suspect and a good deal of what is written about the Greeks themselves. Curtius tries to cast the Persians as 'the good' vs. 'the bad' Alexander at times. It is part of his narrative style to make strong opposites even in character traits much as the story you refer too. Is Curtius suspect? Absolutely - but he does give valuable information that other sources did not think important enough to tell us. It just exists out there, ready for a good reader to strip it clean from the rhetoric. It is particularly interesting to compare the focused military mind of Arrian who attempts to be a brilliant writer/ historian with limited success, the artistic yet moralizing mind of Plutarch who was never one to let history interfere with a good point, and the novelistic inclinations of Curtius together. Very different people and personalities, very different histories.Regards,Tre

Hello,
My reading at the moment consists of "The History of the Persian Empire" by W.M.Olmstead of the university of Chicago.It is really giving some brand new insights- and putting Persian things a little more into perspective as I have always been biased in favour of the west. I am only a couple of hundred pages in yet the author has already surprised me by saying that Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, never really sacrificed the Egyptian god Apis- as he was not in Egypt during the period when allegedly the bull was killed.The amount of detail present in the book is great and I think I would readily recommend it to anyone interested in Persian history.
The chapter I am just starting to read at the moment is dealing with Persian law- usually seen as quite extreme.
According to the book, the Persian's; from Darius I onwards, seem to have developed a complex system of laws but like I said, I am just starting the chapter so I will have to get back to you on it soon. The punishments were extreme and brutal yet they did take into account a number of factors in deciding the punishment.
Best wishes,
Dean.