Note 331 — Chapter X · —Alexander goes homeward by land, leaving Nearchus to follow by sea and conduct the fleet to the head of the Persian Gulf—Disastrous march through Gedrosia—Alexander arrives in Carmania, where he holds Bacchic revels to celebrate his conquests

This description is much overdrawn. Thirlwall thus remarks upon it: “We cannot wonder that, in the enjoyment of pleasures, from which they had been so long debarred, they abandoned themselves to some excesses, perhaps only following the example of their chiefs and of Alexander himself;” and this was probably the main ground of fact for the exaggeration of later writers.