Zopyrion was made a governor either of Thrace[1] or of Pontus[2] by Alexander the Great. In 331 BC, he led an invasion of Scythian lands, "thinking that, if he did not attempt something, he should be stigmatized as indolent".[3]
For this purpose, he collected a force of thirty thousand men.[2] They marched along the Black Sea coast and besiegedOlbia, a colony of Miletus (which was taken by Alexander in 334 BC). But the Olbians "gave freedom to their slaves, granted the rights of citizenship to foreigners, changed promissory notes and thus managed to survive the siege".[4] They also made an alliance with the Scythians and possibly some other Greek communities in the area.[5] Curtius Rufus mentions a great storm on the sea that devastated the Macedonian navy.[1] Zopyrion, lacking resources to continue the siege, decided to retreat. On his way back, Scythians destroyed his army by constant raids. Defeat was probably accomplished beyond the Danube by Getae and Triballi avenging Alexander's devastation of their lands in 335 BC. Zopyrion perished with his troops in the winter at the end of 331 BC.[6]
Alexander the Great learnt about his fate from a letter from Antipater in Macedonia the same year, along with deaths of Agis, King of Sparta, in Greece, and of Alexander, king of Epirus, in Italy. Alexander the Great "was affected with various emotions, but felt more joy at learning of the deaths of two rival kings, than sorrow at the loss of Zopyrion and his army".[7]
Justin was a Latin writer and historian who lived under the Roman Empire.
Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus(fl. 1st century BC), also anglicized as Pompey Trogue, was a Gallo-Roman historian from the Celtic Vocontii tribe in Narbonese Gaul who lived during the reign of the emperor Augustus. He was nearly contemporary with Livy.
The Battle of Gaugamela, also called the Battle of Arbela, took place in 331 BC between the forces of the Army of Macedon under Alexander the Great and the Persian Army under King Darius III. It was the second and final battle between the two kings, and is considered to be the final blow to the Achaemenid Empire, resulting in its complete conquest by Alexander.
Quintus Curtius Rufus was a Roman historian, probably of the 1st century, author of his only known and only surviving work, Historiae Alexandri Magni, "Histories of Alexander the Great", or more fully Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis Libri Qui Supersunt, "All the Books That Survive of the Histories of Alexander the Great of Macedon." Much of it is missing. Apart from his name on the manuscripts, nothing else certain is known of him. This fact alone has led philologists to believe that he had another historical identity, to which, due to the accidents of time, the link has been broken. A few theories exist. They are treated with varying degrees of credibility by various authors. Meanwhile, the identity of Quintus Curtius Rufus, historian, is maintained separately.
Alexandria on the Indus was a city founded by Alexander the Great at the junction of the Indus and the Acesines river. Arrian tells that colonists, mainly Thracian veterans and natives, were settled there.
The gens Pompeia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, first appearing in history during the second century BC, and frequently occupying the highest offices of the Roman state from then until imperial times. The first of the Pompeii to obtain the consulship was Quintus Pompeius in 141 BC, but by far the most illustrious of the gens was Gnaeus Pompeius, surnamed Magnus, a distinguished general under the dictator Sulla, who became a member of the First Triumvirate, together with Caesar and Crassus. After the death of Crassus, the rivalry between Caesar and Pompeius led to the Civil War, one of the defining events of the final years of the Roman Republic.
Iollas or Iolaos was the son of Antipater and the brother of Cassander, king of Macedon. He was one of the royal youths who, according to the Macedonian custom, held offices about the king's person and was cup-bearer to Alexander the Great during the period of his last illness.
Menander was an officer in the service of Alexander the Great. He was one of those called etairoi, but he held the command of a body of mercenaries. He was appointed by Alexander to the government of Lydia, during the settlement of the affairs of Asia made by Alexander when at Tyre. Menander appears to have remained at that post until the year 323 BC, when he was commissioned to lead a reinforcement of troops to Alexander at Babylon — he arrived there just before the king's last illness. In the division of the provinces, after the death of Alexander, Menander received his former government of Lydia, of which he was quick to take possession.
Stasanor was a native of Soli in Cyprus, who held a distinguished position among the officers of Alexander the Great.
Philotas was a Macedonian officer in the service of Alexander the Great, who commanded one taxis or division of the phalanx during the advance into Sogdiana and India. It seems probable that he is the same person mentioned by Curtius, as one of those rewarded by the king at Babylon for their distinguished services. There is little doubt also, that he is the same to whom the government of Cilicia was assigned in the distribution of the provinces after the death of Alexander, 323 BC. In 321 BC, he was deprived of his government by Perdiccas and replaced by Philoxenus, but it would seem that this was only in order to employ him elsewhere, as we find him still closely attached to the party of Perdiccas, and after the death of the regent united with Alcetas, Attalus, and their partisans, in the contest against Antigonus. He was taken prisoner, together with Attalus, Docimus, and Polemon, in 320 BC, and shared with them their imprisonment, as well as the daring enterprise by which they for a time recovered their liberty, when they took possession of their prison, overpowering their guards. He again fell into the power of Antigonus, in 316 BC.
Neoptolemus was a Macedonian officer who served under Alexander the Great.
Barsine was the daughter of a Persian father, Artabazus, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, and a Greek Rhodian mother, the sister of mercenaries Mentor of Rhodes and Memnon of Rhodes. Barsine became the wife of her uncle Mentor, and after his death married her second uncle, Memnon.
There are numerous surviving ancient Greek and Latin sources on Alexander the Great, king of Macedon, as well as some Asian texts. The five main surviving accounts are by Arrian, Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, and Justin. In addition to these five main sources, there is the Metz Epitome, an anonymous late Latin work that narrates Alexander's campaigns from Hyrcania to India. Much is also recounted incidentally by other authors, including Strabo, Athenaeus, Polyaenus, Aelian, and others. Strabo, who gives a summary of Callisthenes, is an important source for Alexander's journey to Siwah.
The Gold of Tolosa was a treasure hoard seized by the ancient Roman proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio from the Volcae town of Tolosa, modern-day Toulouse.
The gens Curtia was an ancient but minor noble family at Rome, with both patrician and plebeian branches. The only member of the gens invested with the consulship under the Republic was Gaius Curtius Philo, in 445 BC. A few Curtii held lesser magistracies during the Republic, and there were two consuls suffectus in imperial times. However, the gens is best remembered from a series of legends dating from the traditional founding of the city to the early Republic.
The Vulgate is a fourth-century translation of the Gospels and of most of the Old Testament into Latin produced by St. Jerome.
The Histories of Alexander the Great is the only surviving extant Latin biography of Alexander the Great. It was written by the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus in the 1st-century AD, but the earliest surviving manuscript comes from the 9th century.
Bubares was a Persian nobleman and engineer in the service of the Achaemenid Empire of the 5th century BC. He was one of the sons of Megabazus, and a second-degree cousin of Xerxes I.
The Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus by the second-century Roman writer Justin is an abridgment of the Augustan historian Pompeius Trogus' lengthy work the Historiae Philippicae, which has not survived. Justin's epitome is the only surviving source for Trogus' original work.
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