Note 699 — Chapter XCV · GRECIAN AFFAIRS FROM THE LANDING OF ALEXANDER IN ASIA TO THE CLOSE OF THE LAMIAN WAR.
Reading edition
Curtius, x. 2, 1. “Igitur triginta navibus Sunium transmittunt” (Harpalus and his company), “unde portum urbis petere decreverunt. His cognitis, rex Harpalo Atheniensibusque juxta infestus, classem parari jubet, Athenas protinus petiturus.” Compare Justin, xiii. 5, 7—who mentions this hostile intention in Alexander’s mind, but gives a different account of the cause of it.
The extract from the drama Agên (given in Athenæus, xiii. p. 596) represents the reports which excited this anger of Alexander. It was said that Athens had repudiated her slavery, with the abundance which she had before enjoyed under it,—to enter upon a struggle for freedom, with the certainty of present privations and future ruin:—
A. ὅτε μὲν ἔφασκον (the Athenians) δοῦλον ἐκτῆσθαι βίον, ἱκανὸν ἐδείπνουν· νῦν δὲ, τὸν χέδροπα μόνον καὶ τὸν μάραθον ἔσθουσι, πυροὺς δ᾽ οὐ μάλα. B. καὶ μὴν ἀκούω μυριάδας τὸν Ἅρπαλον αὐτοῖσι τῶν Ἀγῆνος οὐκ ἐλάττονας σίτου παραπέμψαι, καὶ πολίτην γεγονέναι. A. Γλυκέρας ὁ σῖτος οὗτος ἦν· ἔσται δ᾽ ἴσως αὐτοῖσιν ὀλέθρου κοὐκ ἑταίρας ἀῤῥαβών.
I conceive this drama Agên to have been represented on the banks of the Choaspes (not the Hydaspes—see my note in the Chapter immediately preceding, p. 240), that is, at Susa, in the Dionysia of 324 B. C. It is interesting as a record of the feelings of the time.