Endnote 9 – Alexander in the East
The first-century A.D. Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus (Life of Alexander the Great 8.3.1–15) claims that Spitamenes’s beloved wife begged him to end the war, but he refused. She therefore cut off his head as he slept and then personally delivered the trophy to Alexander’s tent. The king rejoiced but ordered the woman to leave his camp, lest she unnerve his army. The daughter of this woman was later married to Seleucus, one of Alexander’s generals and the founder of the Seleucid dynasty in Syria.