Book 12
55
They were followed also by numerous beasts of burden, which carried sand for the use of the palæstra. And Leonnatus and Menelaus, who were very fond of hunting, had curtains brought after them calculated to enclose a space a hundred stadia in circumference, with which they fenced in a large space and then practised hunting within it. And as for the golden plane-trees, and the golden vine—having on it bunches of grapes made of emeralds and Indian carbuncles, and all sorts of other stones of the most costly ad magnificent description, under which the kings of Persia used often to sit when transacting business,—the expense of all this, says Phylarchus, was far less than the daily sums squandered by Alexander; for he had a tent capable of containing a hundred couches, and fifty golden pillars supported it. And over it were spread golden canopies wrought with the most superb and costly embroidery, to shade all the upper part of it. And first of all, five hundred Persian Melophori stood all round the inside of it, clad in robes of purple and apple-green; and besides them there were bowmen to the number of a thousand, some clad in garments of a fiery red, and others in purple; and many of them had blue cloaks. And in front of them stood five hundred Macedonian Argyraspides; and in the middle of the tent was placed a golden chair, on which Alexander used to sit and transact business, his body-guards standing all around. And on the outside, all round the tent, was a troop of elephants regularly equipped, and a thousand Macedonians, having Macedonian dresses; and then ten thousand Persians: and the number of those who wore purple amounted to five hundred, to whom Alexander gave this dress for them to wear. And though he had such a numerous retinue of friends and servants, still no one dared to approach Alexander of his own accord; so great was his dignity and the veneration with which they regarded him. And at that time Alexander wrote letters to the cities in Ionia, and to the Chians first of all, to send him a quantity of purple; for he wished all his companions to wear purple robes. And when his letter was read among the Chians, Theocritus the philosopher being present, said— He fell by purple πορφύρεος is a common epithet of death in Homer. Liddell and Scott say—The first notion of πορφύρεος was probably of the troubled sea, v. πορφύρω, —and refer the use of it in this passage to the colour of the blood, unless it be = μέλας θάνατος. death and mighty fate.
