The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army

[Paralus]

... however I still maintain that can be read as a conclusion of the entire digression, which does not necessarily belong to Aristobulos. Please note that in the last series of infinitives (genesthai, phanai, apothanein) introduced by "kai"s the last one uses a different verbal aspect, a fact which can also be interpreted as a shift from a eye-witness account to a summary of a past event.

Your grasp of the ancient Greek will certainly be better than mine. My advice, though (from a scholar of the ancient Greek), is very straight forward in that the last clause (“that thereupon he killed him, striking with a sarissa” ) is a subordinate clause to “Aristoboulos does not say from whence..." Hence all is Aristobulos' testimony.

Arrian knows two versions of the story, so it seems at some point someone altered something

No, simply that there was one story: the murder of Cleitus. There were, though, two traditions regarding the weapon. No one actually "altered" anything simply that the two source traditions Arrian relied on diverged only in the nature of the murder weapon - which is not unusual . That and the fact that Aristobulos exculpated Alexander by glossing over the drunken revel leading to it - as one might expect from a fellow about whom Arrian writes "Aristobulus also asserts that Alexander used to have long drinking parties, not for the purpose of enjoying the wine, as he was not a great wine-drinker, but in order to exhibit his sociality and friendly feeling to his Companions". Cleitus, were he around, might strongly disagree with that. In any case, the fact that the weapon - a sarisa - was in the hands of a phylax is the point.

However there are two occurences of the word in our fragment of text. In the beginning (tôn sômatophulakôn) and in the part which we both agree it comes from Aristobulos (tou sômatophulakos). My observation is that this wording might not be accidental, and thus Aristobulos' account may be a detailed story as known by "some", not by the "others".

Yes, the first is "some say" and the latter is Aristobulos. He is here, though, designating Ptolemy as a somatophylax ("the somatophylax")and it has no import other than that in the report.

The words are ton phylakon and indicate a guard not of the somatophylakes or paides basilikoi.

Or a generic name coming from a later source less concerned about 'technical details'.

That, of course, might always be possible. Arrian, though, is very plain in his methods. These are not to rely on later "histories" of Alexander but the primary sources so as to dispel what he perceived "rubbish" circulated by the extant later material on Alexander. He has a famous digression on the siting of the battle of Gaugamela where these later sources or writes say "Arbela". His method was to collect material of witnesses - hence his preponderant reliance on Aristobulos and Ptolemy. The word (phylakon) was almost certainly used by a Ptolemy or Aritobulos (or even Nearchus or, *gasp*, Cleitarchus) who felt no need to explain its meaning. As I say, Arrian has the hypaspists morph into the hetairoi at Tyre.