What authority Diodorus followed, we do not know. He may have followed Kleitarchus, a contemporary and an Æolian, who must have had good means of information respecting such an event as the capture of Thebes (see Geier, Alexandri M. Historiarum Scriptores ætate suppares, Leips. 1844, p. 6-152; and Vossius, De Historicis Græcis. i. x. p. 90, ed. Westermann). I have due respect for the authority of Ptolemy, but I cannot go along with Geier and other critics who set aside all other witnesses, even contemporary, respecting Alexander, as worthy of little credit, unless where such witnesses are confirmed by Ptolemy or Aristobulus. We must remember that Ptolemy did not compose his book until after he became king of Egypt, in 306 B. C.; nor indeed until after the battle of Ipsus in 301, according to Geier (p. 1); at least twenty-nine years after the sack of Thebes. Moreover, Ptolemy was not ashamed of what Geier calls (p. 11) the “pious fraud” of announcing, that two speaking serpents conducted the army of Alexander to the holy precinct of Zeus Ammon (Arrian, iii. 3). Lastly, it will be found that the depositions which are found in other historians, but not in Ptolemy and Aristobulus, relate principally to matters discreditable to Alexander. That Ptolemy and Aristobulus _omitted_, is in my judgment far more probable, than that other historians _invented_. Admiring biographers would easily excuse themselves for refusing to proclaim to the world such acts as the massacre of the Branchidæ, or the dragging of the wounded Batiz at Gaza. [92] Arrian, i. 8; Diodor. xvii. 12, 13. More than five hundred Macedonians are asserted to have been slain, and six thousand Thebans. Thirty thousand captives were collected.[93] The final destiny of these captives, and of Thebes itself, was submitted by Alexander to the Orchomenians, Platæans, Phokians, and other Grecian auxiliaries in the assault. He must have known well beforehand what the sentence of such judges would be. They pronounced, that the city of Thebes should be razed to the ground: that the Kadmeia alone should be maintained, as a military post with Macedonian garrison: that the Theban territory should be distributed among the allies themselves: that Orchomenus and Platæa should be rebuilt and fortified: that all the captive Thebans, men, women, and children, should be sold as slaves—excepting only priests and priestesses, and such as were connected by recognized ties of hospitality with Philip or Alexander, or such as had been _proxeni_ of the Macedonians; that the Thebans who had escaped should be proclaimed outlaws, liable to arrest and death, wherever they were found; and that every Grecian city should be interdicted from harboring them.[94] [93] Diodorus (xvii. 14) and Plutarch (Alexand. 11) agree in giving the totals of 6000 and 30,000. [94] Arrian, i. 9; Diodor. xvii. 14.