Arrian, a Greek historian of the Roman age, wrote the Anabasis of Alexander from the accounts of Ptolemy and Aristobulus. This is Book 4. By Book 3 Alexander has beaten Darius, taken Egypt, won at Gaugamela in Iraq, burned Persepolis, and is hunting Bessus, the governor who murdered the king, across Iran.

This book is Bactria and Sogdiana, northern Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, where a battle won is not the country held. Bessus is taken in a collar. Three hundred climb the Sogdian Rock; Roxane, daughter of Oxyartes, is among the captives and becomes a wife. Spitamenes rides circles around the garrisons until allies send his head. Then the court turns inward. Philotas is tried and broken; his father Parmenion, the old general, is killed the same week at Ecbatana, too far to answer. Drunk at Maracanda (Samarkand), Alexander spears Cleitus, who had saved him earlier. The pages plot; Callisthenes, the historian who would not bow, dies in irons.