Cleitus the Black
4th-century BC Macedonian cavalry officer
Cleitus the Black (Ancient Greek: Κλεῖτος ὁ μέλας; c. 375 BC – 328 BC) was an officer of the Macedonian army led by Alexander the Great. He saved Alexander's life at the Battle of the Granicus in 334 BC, only to be murdered by him in a drunken quarrel six years later. Cleitus was the son of Dropidas (who was the son of Critias) and brother of Alexander's nurse, Lanike. He would be given the epithet 'the Black' to distinguish him from Cleitus the White.
Military service
Cleitus was made a commander of the Macedonian Cavalry under Philip II, a position he would retain under Alexander the Great.
At the Battle of the Granicus in 334 BC, when Alexander was being assailed by both Rhosaces and Spithridates, Cleitus severed Spithridates's arm before the Persian satrap could bring it down on Alexander, thus saving his life.
He would later be promoted to one of the two commanders of the companion cavalry following the trial and execution of Philotas.
Death
In 328 BC, Artabazos resigned his satrapy of Bactria, and Alexander gave it to Cleitus. On the eve of the day on which he was to set out to take possessions of his government, Alexander organized a banquet during a feast day for Dionysus in the satrapial palace at Maracanda (what is now the city of Samarkand).
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This entry incorporates text from “Cleitus the Black” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.