Historiae Alexandri Magni 7.7-9

This Good Works Translation gathers Curtius Rufus' account of Alexander at the Tanais, the Scythian king beyond the river, and the embassy that rebukes Alexander's hunger for conquest.

The passage is a major Roman literary witness to Scythian moral imagination: freedom, open country, gifts of plough, yoke, arrow, spear, and cup, and a claim that the Scythians seal faith not by oath formula but by keeping faith itself.

The English below is a Good Works Translation from the Latin text in The Latin Library.

Translation

The king of the Scythians, whose rule at that time lay beyond the Tanais, judged that the city which the Macedonians had founded on the bank of the river had been placed on the necks of his people. He sent his brother, named Carthasis, with a great force of cavalry to tear it down and to move the Macedonian troops far away from the river. The Tanais divides the Bactrians from the Scythians who are called European; the same boundary flows between Asia and Europe.

The Scythian nation, lying not far from Thrace, turns from the east toward the north. It is not, as some have believed, a neighbor of the Sarmatians, but a part of them. It then dwells in another straight region lying beyond the Ister; it touches the furthest part of Asia where Bactra lies. Those who live nearer the north are followed by deep forests and vast solitudes. Those again who face the Tanais and Bactra are not unlike other peoples in human cultivation.

Alexander was about to undertake his first unforeseen war with this nation. The enemy was riding in sight of him, while he was still sick from his wound, especially weak in voice, which both scanty food and pain in his neck were wasting away. He ordered his friends to be called into council. It was not the enemy that frightened him, but the injustice of the moment: the Bactrians had revolted, the Scythians were also provoking him, and he himself could not stand on the ground, ride a horse, instruct, or exhort his men.

When he could no longer bear a face so unequal to his spirit, Alexander withdrew to a tent deliberately set on the riverbank. There, with no witnesses present, he spent the night awake, weighing each plan in his mind, often lifting the tent skins so that he could look out at the enemy fires and judge from them how great the multitude of men might be. At daybreak he put on his breastplate and came out to the soldiers, then for the first time since receiving his wound.

So great was their reverence for the king that his presence easily drove away the thought of the danger they dreaded. Joyfully, with tears running from delight, they greeted him; and the war which they had earlier refused they now fiercely demanded. He announced that he would carry the cavalry and phalanx across on rafts, and ordered the lighter-armed men to swim on skins. The situation required no more to be said, and his health did not allow the king to say more.

The rafts were joined with such eagerness by the soldiers that within three days twelve thousand had been made. Everything was now ready for the crossing, when twenty envoys of the Scythians, in the manner of their people, rode on horseback through the camp. They ordered word to be brought to the king that they wished to deliver instructions to him. Admitted into his tent and ordered to sit, they fixed their eyes on the king's face. I believe that, measuring his mind by the size of his body, they thought his modest stature by no means equal to his fame.

Among the Scythians, unlike among the other barbarians, perception is not rough and unformed. Some of them are said to take in wisdom too, as much as a nation always under arms can take. So the things that memory has handed down as spoken by them before the king may perhaps be foreign to our minds and manners, since we have been allotted more cultivated times and temperaments. But even if their speech can be despised, our reliability ought not to be; as the things were handed down, whatever they are, we shall transmit them uncorrupted. Therefore we have received that one of them, the oldest by birth, spoke thus:

“If the gods had wished the form of your body to be equal to the greed of your mind, the world would not contain you. With one hand you would touch the East, with the other the West; and after gaining this, you would wish to know where the brightness of so great a divinity was hidden. Even as you are, you desire what you cannot contain. From Europe you seek Asia; from Asia you cross into Europe. Then, if you conquer the whole human race, you will wage war with woods and snows and rivers and wild beasts.

What? Do you not know that great trees grow slowly and are uprooted in a single hour? Foolish is the man who looks at their fruit and does not measure their height. Take care that, while you strive to reach the top, you do not fall with the branches you have grasped. Even the lion has sometimes been food for the smallest birds; and rust consumes iron. There is nothing so firm that it is not in danger even from the weak.

What have we to do with you? We have never touched your land. Are we, who live in vast woods, not permitted to be ignorant of who you are and where you come from? We can neither be slaves to anyone nor do we desire to rule. Gifts have been given to us, so that you may not be ignorant of the Scythian nation: a yoke of oxen and a plough, an arrow, a spear, and a cup. These we use both with friends and against enemies. To friends we give grain won by the labor of oxen; with the same cup we pour wine to the gods. Enemies we strike from afar with the arrow, and close at hand with the spear. So we overcame the king of Syria and afterwards the Persians and Medes, and the road lay open for us all the way into Egypt.

Finally, if you are a god, you ought to give benefits to mortals, not tear away what is theirs. But if you are a man, always remember what you are. It is foolish to remember the things because of which you forget yourself. Those to whom you have not brought war you will be able to use as good friends. Friendship is strongest among equals, and those seem equal who have not tested strength against one another. Beware of believing that those whom you conquer are your friends: between master and slave there is no friendship; even in peace the laws of war remain.

Do not believe that the Scythians seal favor by swearing. They swear by keeping faith. That caution belongs to the Greeks, who sign agreements and call upon the gods. We know religion in faith itself: those who do not revere human beings deceive the gods. Nor do you need a friend whose goodwill you doubt. For the rest, you will have us as guardians both of Asia and of Europe. We touch Bactra, unless the Tanais divides it from us; beyond the Tanais and all the way to Thrace we dwell; rumor says that Macedonia is joined to Thrace. Consider whether you wish us, neighbors to each of your empires, to be enemies or friends.”

So spoke the barbarian.

Translation Notes

This translation keeps Curtius' rhetorical frame visible. The speech is not a stenographic Scythian document; it is Roman literary historiography about Alexander's frontier.

The gift set — yoke, plough, arrow, spear, cup — deserves comparison with Herodotus' symbolic objects in the Scythian reply to Darius.

Colophon

This Good Works Translation was made from the Latin text of Quintus Curtius Rufus, Historiae Alexandri Magni, Book 7, as presented by The Latin Library.

The English translation is independently derived from the Latin. No modern English translation was used as the base text.

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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Source Text: legati Scytharum

Latin source text from Curtius Rufus, Historiae Alexandri Magni 7.7-9, The Latin Library. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.

VII. At rex Scytharum, cuius tum ultra Tanaim imperium erat, ratus eam urbem, quam in ripa amnis Macedones condiderant, suis inpositam esse cervicibus, fratrem, Carthasim nomine, cum magna equitum manu misit ad diruendam eam proculque amne submovendas Macedonum copias. Bactrianos Tanais ab Scythis, quos Europaeos vocant, dividit; idem Asiam et Europam finis interfluit.

Ceterum Scytharum gens haud procul Thracia sita ab oriente ad septentrionem se vertit; Sarmatarumque, ut quidam credidere, non finitima, sed pars est. Recta deinde regionem aliam ultra Istrum iacentem colit: ultima Asiae, qua Bactra sunt, stringit. Habitant quae septentrioni propiora sunt; profundae inde silvae vastaeque solitudines excipiunt. Rursus, quae Tanain et Bactra spectant, humano cultu haud disparia sunt.

Primus cum hac gente non provisum bellum Alexander gesturus, cum in conspectu eius obequitaret hostis, adhuc aeger ex vulnere, praecipue voce deficiens, quam et modicus cibus et cervicis extenuabat dolor, amicos in consilium advocari iubet. Terrebat eum non hostis, sed iniquitas temporis. Bactriani defecerant; Scythae etiam lacessebant; ipse non insistere in terra, non equo vehi, non docere, non hortari suos poterat.

VIII. Ceterum, cum animo disparem vultum diutius ferre non posset, in tabernaculum super ripam fluminis de industria locatum secessit. Ibi sine arbitris singula animi consulta pensando noctem vigiliis extraxit saepe pellibus tabernaculi adlevatis, ut conspiceret hostium ignes, e quibus coniectare poterat quanta hominum multitudo esset. Iamque lux adpetebat, cum thoracem indutus procedit ad milites, tum primum post vulnus proxime acceptum.

Tanta erat apud eos veneratio regis, ut facile periculi, quod horrebant, cogitationem praesentia eius excuteret. Laeti ergo et manantibus gaudio lacrimis consalutant eum et, quod ante recusaverant bellum, feroces deposcunt. Ille se ratibus equitem phalangemque transportaturum esse pronuntiat; super utres iubet nare levius armatos. Plura nec dici res desideravit, nec rex dicere per valitudinem potuit.

Ceterum tanta alacritate militum rates iunctae sunt, ut intra triduum ad XII milia effecta sint. Iamque ad transeundum omnia aptaverant, cum legati Scytharum XX more gentis per castra equis vecti, nuntiare iubent regi velle ipsos ad eum mandata perferre. Admissi in tabernaculum iussique considere in vultu regis defixerant oculos; credo, quis magnitudine corporis animum aestimantibus modicus habitus haudquaquam famae par videbatur.

Scythis autem non, ut ceteris Barbaris, rudis et inconditus sensus est; quidam eorum sapientiam quoque capere dicuntur quantamcumque gens capit semper armata. Sic, quae locutos esse apud regem memoriae proditum est, abhorrent forsitan animis moribusque nostris, et tempora et ingenia cultiora sortitis. Sed, ut possit oratio eorum sperni, tamen fides nostra non debet; quae, utcumque sunt tradita, incorrupta perferemus. Igitur unum ex his maximum natu locutum accepimus:

"Si di habitum corporis tui aviditati animi parem esse voluissent, orbis te non caperet: altera manu Orientem, altera Occidentem contingeres; et hoc adsecutus scire velles ubi tanti numinis fulgor conderetur. Sic quoque, concupiscis quae non capis. Ab Europa petis Asiam; ex Asia transis in Europam. Deinde, si humanum genus omne superaveris, cum silvis et nivibus et fluminibus ferisque bestiis gesturus es bellum.

Quid? tu ignoras arbores magnas diu crescere, una hora exstirpari? Stultus est, qui fructus earum spectat, altitudinem non metitur. Vide ne, dum ad cacumen pervenire contendis, cum ipsis ramis, quos conprehenderis, decidas. Leo quoque aliquando minimarum avium pabulum fuit; et ferrum robigo consumit. Nihil tam firmum est cui periculum non sit etiam ab invalido. Quid nobis tecum est? Numquam terram tuam attigimus.

Quis sis, unde venias, licetne ignorare in vastis silvis viventibus? nec servire ulli possumus, nec imperare desideramus. Dona nobis data sunt, ne Scytharum gentem ignores, iugum boum et aratrum, sagitta, hasta, patera. His utimur et cum amicis, et adversus inimicos. Fruges amicis damus boum labore quaesitas; patera cum isdem vinum dis libamus. Inimicos sagitta eminus, hasta comminus petimus: sic Syriae regem et postea Persarum Medorumque superavimus, patuitque nobis iter usque in Aegyptum.

Denique, si deus es, tribuere mortalibus beneficia debes, non sua eripere; sin autem homo es, id quod es, semper esse te cogita: stultum est eorum meminisse, propter quae tui obliviscaris. Quibus bellum non intuleris, bonis amicis poteris uti. Nam et firmissima est inter pares amicitia, et videntur pares qui non fecerunt inter se periculum virium. Quos viceris, amicos tibi esse cave credas: inter dominum et servum nulla amicitia est; etiam in pace belli tamen iura servantur.

Iurando gratiam Scythas sancire ne credideris; colendo fidem iurant. Graecorum ista cautio est, qui pacta consignant et deos invocant; nos religionem in ipsa fide novimus: qui non reverentur homines, fallunt deos. Nec tibi amico opus est, de cuius benivolentia dubites. Ceterum nos et Asiae et Europae custodes habebis. Bactra, nisi dividat Tanais, contingimus: ultra Tanain et usque ad Thraciam colimus; Thraciae Macedoniam coniunctam esse fama fert.

Vtrique imperio tuo finitimos, hostes an amicos velis esse, considera." Haec Barbarus.

Source Colophon

The Latin source was checked in The Latin Library: https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/curtius/curtius7.shtml. The page claims only an independent source-language rendering from the named witness.

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