Alexander would have rejoiced in the Homeric scene straight from the pages of the Iliad, where Achaeans and Trojans fought over the bodies of their heroes. The howls from inside redoubled the efforts of the men outside trying to get through a gate in a curtain wall, until with superhuman strength they snapped the bolt. The gate was still wedged half shut, letting only one man inside at time. Then others put their shoulders to the gate and with a heave sprung it open. In poured the Macedonians, by then joined by Perdiccas' larger force, in white-hot fury.

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Alexander was carefully placed on a shield and carried out of the citadel to his tent as the city was given over to massacre. The shouts and screams of a dying city became a muted backdrop as the Macedonian leaders huddled around their king. They had all seen mortal wounds aplenty, and every warrior must have thought Alexander a dead man. The arrow that quivered in his chest was heavy, with a large barbed head. Alexander's physician, Critodemos of Kos, ordered him stripped naked and the shaft of the arrow cut off. He determined that the only way to extract it without the barbs doing greater damage was to enlarge the wound. Critodemos was a man of extraordinary skill, but the prospect of the king dying at his hands evidently unnerved him so much that even Alexander, who had regained consciousness, was aware of his fear.

Even in this Alexander led. 'Why are you waiting?' he asked. 'If I have to die, why do you not at least free me from this agony as soon as possible? Or are you afraid of being held responsible for my having received an incurable wound?' Critodemos told his commander that he would have to be held down during the operation. Alexander said there was no need, and went through the ordeal unflinching. When the barbed head was extracted, blood spurted from the wound, and Alexander finally fainted. At first the hemorrhage could not be stopped, and the onlookers began to wail as if for the dead.

The Macedonian troops, refusing to go to their camps, instead had stood in arms around the tent, waiting for news. Panic must have raced through them when they heard what they thought was the sound of death; without Alexander, they would be stranded at the ends of the earth. Mixed with that fear was the shame and grief that they had let him down. Inside the tent, the bleeding finally stopped, and Alexander regained consciousness.

Bad news never waits for confirmation, and a report of Alexander's death sped from his camp to the main Macedonian camp on the Acesines, throwing the army into paralytic despair. Even assurances from Alexander's senior officers were dismissed as forgeries. Reports of the army's state reached Alexander as he recuperated, and he determined to address them in person. It was barely seven days, and his wound had not even completely closed when he arranged to be carried by ship down the Hydraotes to the main camp.

As his ship approached the quarters, he had the awnings pulled back so that the men could see him on his bed. They thought they were seeing only a motionless corpse until he raised a hand to wave at them, prompting wild cheering from the shore. As the ship docked, the Guard brought out a litter, but Alexander refused it, walked down the gangplank and, in an act of extraordinary will, mounted his horse to ride to his tent. '[A]t the sight of him, once more astride his horse, there was a storm of applause so loud that the river-banks and neighboring glens re-echoed with the noise,' Arrian wrote. 'Near his tent he dismounted, and the men saw him walk; they crowded round him, touching his hands, his knees, his clothes; some content with a sight of him standing near, turned away with a blessing on their lips.'

The officers assembled in the commander's tent were far more serious. They remonstrated with Alexander for risking his life and thereby the survival of the army. This did not sit well with him, but he was cheered by an old Greek soldier who said in his broad Boeotian dialect, 'Action is man's job, my lord.' The Mallians and the Oxydracae at this time sent delegations to offer submission. Alexander did nothing more than accept the proffered tribute and hostages.

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