dies of troops distinguished from the rest, and occupying positions of high honour, but these were selected in advance above the others. Not on account of their courage or strength or superior martial efficiency, but from considerations connected with their birth and rank, and other aristocratic qualities. There was one body called the kinsmen, who were the relatives of the king, or at least, so considered. Though, as there were fifteen thousand of them, it would seem that the relationship could not have been in all cases very near. They were dressed with great magnificence, and prided themselves in their rank, their wealth, and the splendour of their armour. There were also corps called the immortals. They were ten thousand in number. They wore a dress of gold tissue, which glittered with spangles and precious stones. These bodies of men, thus dressed, made an appearance more like that of a civic procession. On an occasion of ceremony and rejoicing, then like the march of an army. The appearance of the king and his chariot was still more like an exhibition of pomp and parade. The carriage was very large, elaborately carved and gilded, and ornamented with statues and sculptures. Here the king sat on a very elevated seat in sight of all. He was clothed in a vest of purple, striped with silver, and over his vest he wore a robe glittering with gold and precious stones. Around his waist was a golden girdle, from which was suspended his scimitar, a species of sword, the scabbard of which was resplendent with gems.  The guards who proceeded and followed him had pikes of silver, mounted and tipped with gold. It is very extraordinary that King Darius took his wife and all his family with him, and a large portion of his treasures, on this expedition against Alexander. His mother, whose name was Cisigambus, was in his family, and she and his wife came, each in her own chariot, immediately after the king. Then there were fifteen carriages filled with the children and their attendants, and three or four hundred ladies of the court, all dressed like queens. After the family there came a train of many hundreds of camels and mules, carrying the royal treasures. It was in this style that Darius set out upon his expedition, and he advanced by a slow progress toward the westward, until at last he approached the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. He left his treasures in the city of Damascus, where they were deposited under the charge of a sufficient force to protect them, as he's opposed. He then advanced to meet Alexander, going himself from Syria toward Asia Minor, just at the time that Alexander was coming from Asia Minor into Syria. It will be observed, by looking upon the map, that the chain of mountains called Mount Taurus, extends down near to the coast at the north-eastern corner of the Mediterranean. Among these mountains there were various tracks of open country, through which an army may march to and fro between Syria and Asia Minor. Now it happened that Darius, in going toward the west, took a more inland route than Alexander, who, on coming eastward, kept nearer to the sea. Alexander did not know that Darius was so near, and as for Darius, he was confident that Alexander was retreating before him. For, as the Macedonian army was so small, and his own forces constituted such an innumerable host, the idea that Alexander would remain to brave a battle was, in his opinion, entirely out of the question. He had, therefore, no doubt that Alexander was retreating. It is, of course, always difficult for two armies, fifty miles apart, to obtain correct ideas of each other's movements. All the ordinary intercommunications of the country are, of course, stopped, and each general has his scouts out, with orders to intercept all travellers, and to intercept the communication of intelligence, by every means in their power. In consequence of these and other circumstances of a similar nature, it happened that Alexander and Darius actually passed each other, without either of them being aware of it. Alexander advanced into Syria by the plains of Issus, marked A upon the map, and an arrow passed beyond called the gates of Syria. While Darius went farther to the north, and arrived at Issus after Alexander had left it, here each army learned to their astonishment that their enemy was in their rear. Alexander could not credit this report when he first heard it. He dispatched a galley with thirty oars along the shore, up the gulf of Issus, to ascertain the truth. The galley soon came back and reported that, beyond the gates of Syria, they saw the whole country, which was nearly level land, though gently rising from the sea, covered with the vast encampments of the Persian army. The king then called his generals and councillors together, informed them of the facts, and made known to them his determination to return immediately through the gates of Syria and attack the Persian army. The officers received the intelligence with enthusiastic expressions of joy. It was now near evening. Alexander sent forward a strong reconnoitering party, ordering them to proceed cautiously, to ascend deminances and look far beyond them, to guard carefully against surprise, and to send back word immediately if they came upon any traces of the enemy. At the present day the operations of such a reconnoitering party are very much aided by the use of spy-glasses, which are made to now with great care expressly for military purposes. The instrument, however, was not known in Alexander's day. When the evening came on Alexander followed the reconnoitering party with the main body of the army. At midnight they reached the defile. When they were secure in the possession of it they halted. Strong watches were stationed in all the surrounding heights to guard against any possible surprise. Alexander himself ascended one of the eminences, from whence he could look down upon the great plain beyond, which was dimly illuminated in every part by the smouldering fires of the Persian encampment. An encampment at night is a spectacle which is always grand and often sublime. It must have appeared sublime to Alexander in the highest degree on this occasion. To stand stealthily among these dark and somber mountains, with the defiles and passes below filled with the columns of his small but undaunted army, and to look onward a few miles beyond, and see the countless fires of the vast host which had got between him and all hope of retreat to his native land. To feel as he must have done that his fate, and that of all who were with him, depended upon the events of the day that were soon to dawn. To see and feel these things must have made this night one of the most exciting and solemn scenes in the conqueror's life. He had a soul to enjoy its excitement and sublimity. He gloried in it. And if you wish to add to the salinity of the scene, he caused an altar to be erected, and offered a sacrifice, by torchlight, to the deities on whose aid his soldiers imagined themselves, most dependent for success on the morrow. Of course a place was selected where the lights of the torches would not attract the attention of the enemy, and sentinels were stationed at every advantageous point, to watch the Persian camp for the slightest indications of movement or alarm. In the morning at break of day Alexander commenced his march down to the plain. In the evening at sunset all the valleys and defiles among the mountains, around the plain of Isis, were thronged with vast masses of the Persian army, broken, disordered, and in confusion, all pressing forward to escape from the victorious Macedonians.  Darius was among them, though his flight had been so sudden that he had left his mother and his wife and all his family behind. He pressed on in his chariot as far as the road allowed his chariot to go, and then, leaving everything behind, he mounted a horse and rode on for his life. Alexander and his army soon abandoned the pursuit, and returned to take possession of the Persian camp. The tents of King Darius and his household were inconceivably splendid, and were filled with gold and silver vessels, caskets, vases, boxes of perfumes, and every imaginable article of luxury and show. The mother and wife of Darius bewailed their hard fate, with cries and tears, and continued all the evening in an agony of consternation and despair. Alexander, hearing of this, sent Leonidas, his former teacher, a man of years and gravity, to quiet their fears and comfort them, so far as it was possible to comfort them. In addition to their own captivity, they supposed that Darius was killed, and the mother was mourning bitterly for her son, and the wife for her husband. Leonidas, attended by some soldiers, advanced toward the tent where these mourners were dwelling. The attendants at the door ran in, and informed them that a body of Greeks were coming. This threw them into the greatest consternation. They anticipated violence and death, and threw themselves upon the ground in agony. Leonidas waited some time at the door for the attendants to return. At length he entered the tent. This renewed the terrors of the women. They began to entreat him to spare their lives, at least until there should be time for them to see the remains of the son and husband whom they mourned, and to pay the last sad tribute to his memory. Leonidas soon relieved their fears. He told them that he was charged by Alexander to say to them that Darius was alive, having made his escape in safety. As to themselves, Alexander assured them, he said, that they should not be injured, that not only were their persons and lives to be protected, but no change was to be made in their conditional mode of life. They should continue to be treated like queens. He added, moreover, that Alexander wished him to say that he felt no animosity or ill will whatever against Darius. He was but technically his enemy, being only engaged in a generous and honorable contest with him for the Empire of Asia. Saying these things, Leonidas raised the disconsole at ladies from the ground, and they gradually regained some degree of composure. Alexander himself went to pay a visit to the captive princesses the next day. He took with him a Festion. His Festion was Alexander's personal friend. The two young men were of the same age, and though Alexander had the good sense to retain him power, all the old and experienced officers which his father had employed, both in the court and army, he showed that, after all, ambition had not overwhelmed and stifled all the kindlier feelings of the heart by his strong attachment to this young companion. His Festion was his confidant, his associate, his personal friend. He did what very few monarchs have done, either before or since, in securing for himself the pleasures of friendship and of intimate social communion with a heart kindred to his own, without ruining himself by committing to his favorite powers which he was not qualified to wield. Alexander left the wise and experienced Parmenio to manage the camp, while he took the young and handsome Festion to accompany him on his visit to the captive queens. When the two friends entered the tent, the ladies were, for some cause, deceived and mistook a Festion for Alexander, and addressed him accordingly with tokens of higher respect and homage. One of the attendants immediately rectified the mistake, telling them that the other was Alexander. The ladies were at first overwhelmed with confusion and attempted to apologize, but the king reassured them at once, by the easy and good-natured manner with which he passed over the mistake, saying it was no mistake at all. It is true, said he, that I am Alexander, but then he is Alexander too. The wife of Darius was young and very beautiful, and they had a little son who was with them in the camp. It seems almost unaccountable that Darius should have brought such a helpless and defenseless charge with him into camps and fields of battle. But the truth was that he had no idea of even a battle with Alexander, and as to defeat, he did not contemplate the remotest possibility of it. He regarded Alexander as a mere boy, energetic and daring it is true, and at the head of a desperate band of adventurers. But he considered his whole force as altogether too insignificant to make any stand against such a vast military power as he was bringing against him. He presumed that he would retreat, as fast as possible, before the Persian army came near him. The idea of such a boy, coming down at break of day from narrow defiles of the mountains, upon his vast encampment covering all the plains, and in twelve hours put in the whole mighty master-flight, was what never entered his imagination at all. The exploit was indeed a very extraordinary one. Alexander's forces may have consisted of forty or fifty thousand men, and, if you may believe their story, there were over a hundred thousand Persians left dead upon the field. Many of these were, however, killed by the dreadful confusion and violence of the retreat, as fast bodies of horsemen, pressing through the defiles, wrote over and trampled down the foot-soldiers who were toiling an awful confusion along the way, having fled before the horsemen left the field. Alexander had heard that Darius had left the greater part of his royal treasures in Damascus, and he sent Parmenio there to seize them. This expedition was successful. An enormous amount of gold and silver fell into Alexander's hands. The plate was coined into money, and many of the treasures were sent to Greece. Darius got together a small remnant of his army and continued his flight. He did not stop until he had crossed the Euphrates. He then sent an ambassador to Alexander to make propositions for peace. He remonstrated with him in the communication which he made, for coming thus to invade his dominions, and urged him to withdraw and be satisfied with his own kingdom. He offered him any sum he might name as a ransom for his mother, wife, and child, and agreed that if he would deliver them up to him, on payment of the ransom, and apart from his dominions, he would then spore for guard him as an ally and a friend. Alexander, replied by a letter, expressed him brief but very decided language. He said that the Persians had, under the ancestors of Darius, crossed the helispont, invaded Greece, laid waste the country, and destroyed cities and towns, and had thus done them incalculable injury, and that Darius himself had been plotting against his, Alexander's, life, and offering rewards to anyone who would kill him. I am acting then, continued Alexander, only on the defensive. The gods, who always favour the right, have given me the victory. I am now monarch of a large part of Asia, and your sovereign king.  And at any rate, whatever you decide in respect to these proposals, if you wish to communicate with me on any subject hereafter, I shall pay no attention to what you send, unless you address it to me as your king. One circumstance occurred at the close of this great victory, which illustrates the magnanimity of Alexander's character, and helps to explain the very strong personal attachment, which every body within the circle of his influence so obviously felt for him. He found a greater number of envoys and ambassadors from the various states of Greece at the Persian court, and these persons fell into his hands among the other captives. Now the states and cities of Greece, all except Sparta and Thebes, which last city he had destroyed, were combined ostensibly in the confederation by which Alexander was sustained. It seems, however, that there was a secret enmity against him in Greece, and various parties had sent messengers and agents to the Persian court to aid in plots and schemes, to interfere with and defeat Alexander's plans. The Thebians, scattered and disorganized as they were, had sent envoys in this way. Now Alexander, in considering what disposition he should make, of these emissaries from his own land, decided to regard them all as traitors, except the Thebians. All except the Thebians were traitors, he maintained, for acting secretly against him, while ostensibly, and by solemn confidence, they were his friends. The case of the Thebians is very different, said he. I have destroyed their city, and they have a right to consider me their enemy, and to do all they can to oppose my progress, and to regain their own lost existence and their former power. So he gave them their liberty, and sent them away with marks of consideration and honour. As the fast army of the Persian monarch had now been defeated, of course none of the smaller kingdoms or provinces thought of resisting. They yielded one after another, and Alexander appointed governors of his own to rule over them. He advanced in this manner along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, meeting with no obstruction, until he reached the great and powerful city of Teya. Chapter 7 of Alexander the Great This is the LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Lizzie Driver Alexander the Great by Jacob Abbott The Siege of Teya The city of Teya stood on a small island, three or four miles in diameter, on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It was in those days the greatest commercial city in the world, and it exercised a great maritime power by means of its fleets and ships, which traversed every part of the Mediterranean. Teya had been built originally on the mainland, but in some of the wars which it had, to encounter with the kings of Babylon in the east, this old city had been abandoned by the inhabitants, and a new one built upon an island not far from the shore, which could be more easily defended from an enemy. The old city had gone to ruin, and its place was occupied by old walls, fallen towers, stones, columns, arches, and other remains of the ancient magnificence of the place. The island of which the Tyre of Alexander's Day had been built was about half a mile from the shore. The water between was about eighteen feet deep, and formed a harbour for the vessels. The great business of the Tyrians was commerce. They brought and sold merchandise in all the ports of the Mediterranean Sea, and transported it by their merchant vessels to and fro. They had also fleets of war galleys, which they used to protect their interests on the high seas, and in the various ports which their merchant vessels visited. They were thus wealthy and powerful, and yet they lived shut up upon their little island, and were almost entirely independent of the mainland. The city itself, however, though contracted in extent on account of the small dimensions of the island, was very compactly built and strongly fortified, and it contained a vast number of stately and magnificent edifices, which were filled with stores of wealth that had been accumulated by the merchantile enterprise, and thrift of many generations. Extravagant stories are told by the historians and geographers of those days, in respect to the scale on which the structures of Tyre were built. It was said, for instance, that the walls were one hundred and fifty feet high. It is true that the walls rose directly from the surface of the water, and, of course, a considerable part of their elevation was required to bring them up to the level of the surface of the land. And then, in addition to this, they had to be carried up the whole ordinary height of a city wall, to afford the usual protection to the edifices and dwellings within. There might have been some places where the walls themselves, or structures connected with them, were carried up to the elevation above named, though it is scarcely to be supposed that such could have been their ordinary dimensions. At any rate, Tyre was a very wealthy and magnificent and powerful city, intent on its commercial operations, and well furnished with means of protecting them at sea, but feeling little interest and taking little part in the contentions continually arousing among the rival powers which had possession of the land.  It was, of course, a very serious question with Alexander, as his route now lay through Phoenicia, and in the neighbourhood of Tyre, what he should do in respect to such a port. He did not like to leave it behind him and proceed to the eastward. For, in case of any reverses happening to him, the Tyrians would be very likely to act decidedly against him, and their power on the Mediterranean would enable them to act very efficiently against him on all the coasts of Greece and Asia Minor. On the other hand it seemed a desperate undertaking to attack the city. He had none but land forces, and the island was half a mile from the shore. Besides its enormous walls, rising perpendicularly out of the water, it was defended by ships well armed and manned. It was not possible to surround the city and starve it into submission, as the inhabitants had wealth to buy and ships to bring in, any quantity of provisions and stores by sea. Alexander, however, determined not to follow Darius towards the east, and leave such a stronghold as this behind him. The Tyrians wished to avoid a quarrel if it were possible. They sent complimentary messages to Alexander, congratulating him on his conquests. and disavowing all feelings of hostility to him. They also sent him a golden crown, as many of the other states of Asia had done, in token of their yielding a general submission to his authority. Alexander returned very gracious replies, and expressed to them his intention of coming to Tyre for the purpose of offering sacrifices, as he said, to Hercules. The Tyrians knew that wherever Alexander went, he went at the head of his army, and his coming into Tyre at all implied necessarily his taking military possession of it. They thought it might, perhaps, be somewhat difficult to dispossess such a visitor, after he should once get installed in their castles and palaces. So they sent him word that it would not be in their power to receive him in the city itself, but that he could offer the sacrifice which he intended on the mainland, as there was a temple sacred to Hercules among the ruins there. Alexander then called a council of his officers, and stated to them his views. He said that on reflecting fully upon the subject, he had come to the conclusion that it was best to postpone pushing ex-expedition forward into the heart of Persia, until he should have subdued Tyre completely, and made himself master of the Mediterranean Sea. He said also that he should take possession of Egypt, before turning his arms towards the forces that Darius was gathering against him in the east. The generals of the army concurred in this opinion, and Alexander advanced toward Tyre. The Tyrians prepared for their defence. After examining carefully all the circumstances of the case, Alexander conceived the very bold plan of building a broad causeway from the mainland to the island on which the city was founded, out of the ruins of old Tyre, and then marching his army over it to the walls of the city, where he could then plant his engines and make a breach. This would seem to be a very desperate undertaking. It is true that the stones remaining on the site of the old city afforded sufficient materials for the construction of the pier, but then the work must go on against a tremendous opposition, both from the walls of the city itself, and from the Tyrian ships in the harbour. It would seem to be almost impossible to protect the men from these attacks, so as to allow the operations to proceed at all. And the difficulty and danger must increase very rapidly, as the work should approach the walls of the city. But, notwithstanding these objections, Alexander determined to proceed. Tyre must be taken, and this was obviously the only possible mode of taking it. The soldiers advanced to undertake the work with great readiness. Their strong personal attachment to Alexander, their confidence that whatever he should plan an attempt would succeed, the novelty and boldness of this design, of reaching an island by building an isthmus to it from the mainland, these and other similar considerations excited the ardour and enthusiasm of the troops to the highest degree. In constructing works of this kind in the water, the material used is sometimes stone and sometimes earth. So far as earth is employed, it is necessary to resort to some means to prevent its spreading under the water, or being washed away by the dash of the waves at its side. This is usually affected by driving what are called piles, which are long beams of wood pointed at the end, and driven into the earth by means of powerful engines. Alexander sent parties of men into the mountains of Lebanon, where a vast forest of cedars, which were very celebrated in ancient times, and which are often alluded to in the sacred scriptures. They cut down these trees and brought the stems of them to the shore, where they sharpened them at one end and drove them into the sand, in order to protect the sides of their embankment. Others brought stones from the ruins and tumbled them into the sea in the direction where the pier was to be built. It was some time before the work made such progress as to attract much attention from Tyre. At length, however, when the people of the city sought gradually increasing in size and advancing toward them, they concluded that they must engage in earnest in the work of arresting its progress. They accordingly constructed engines on the walls to throw heavy darts and stones over the water to the men upon the pier. They sent secretly to the tribes that inhabited the valleys and ravines among the mountains to attack the parties at work there, and they landed forces from the city at some distance from the pier, and then marched along the shore and attempted to drive away the men that were engaged in carrying stones from the ruins. They also fitted up and manned some galleys of large size, and brought them near to the pier itself, and attacked the men who were at work upon it with stones, darts, arrows, and missiles of every description. But all was of no avail. The work, though impeded, still went on. Alexander built large screens of wood upon the pier, covering them with hides which protected his soldiers from the weapons of the enemy, so that they could carry on their operations safely behind them. By this means the work advanced for some distance further. As it advanced various structures were erected upon it, especially along the sides and at the end toward the city. These structures consisted of great engines for driving piles, and machines for throwing stones and darts, and towers carried up to a great height to enable the men to throw stones and heavy weapons down upon the galleys which might attempt to approach them. At length Viterians determined on attempting to destroy all these wooden works by means of what is called in modern times a fire ship. They took a large galley and filled it with combustibles of every kind. They loaded it first with light dry wood, and they poured pitch and tar and oil over all this wood to make it burn with fiercer flames. They saturated the sails and the cordage in the same manner, and laid trains of combustible materials through all parts of the vessel, so that when fire should be set in one part it would immediately spread everywhere, and set the whole mass in flames at once. They towed this ship on a windy day, near to the enemy's works, and on the side from which the wind was blowing. Then they put it in motion toward the pier at a point where was the greatest collection of engines and machines, and when they had got as near as they dared to go themselves, the men who were on board set the trains on fire, and made their escape in boats. The flames ran all over the vessel with inconceivable rapidity. The vessel itself drifted down upon Alexander's works, notwithstanding the most strenuous exertions of his soldiers to keep it away. The flames and engines and the enormous and complicated machines which had been erected took fire, and the whole mass was soon enveloped in a general conflagration. The men made desperate attempts to defend their work, but all in vain. Some were killed by arrows and darts, some were burned to death, and others in the confusion fell into the sea. Finally the army was obliged to draw back, and to abandon all that was combustible in the vast construction they had reared to the devouring flames. Not long after this the sea itself came to the aid of the Tyrians. There was a storm, and as a consequence of it, a heavy swell rolled in from the offing, which soon undermined and washed away a large part of the pier. The effects of a heavy sea on the most massive and substantial structures, when they are fairly exposed to its impulse, are far greater than will be conceived possible by those who had not witnessed them. The most ponderous stones are removed, the strongest fastenings are torn asunder, and embankments the most compact and solid are undermined and washed away. The storm in this case destroyed in a few hours the work of many months, while the army of Alexander looked on from the shore, witnessing its ravages in dismay. When the storm was over and the first shock of chagrin and disappointment had passed from the minds of the men, Alexander prepared to resume the work with fresh vigor and energy. The men commenced to repairing the pier and widening it, so as to increase its strength and capacity. They dragged whole trees to the edges of it, and sunk them, branches and all, to the bottom, to form a sort of patch on there to prevent the stones from sinking into the slime. They built new towers and engines, covering them with green hides to make them fireproof, and thus they were soon advancing again, and gradually drawing nearer to the city, and in a more threatening and formidable manner than ever. Alexander, finding that his efforts were impeded very much by the ships of the Tyrians, determined on collecting and equipping a fleet of his own. This he did at Sidon, which was a small town a short distance north of Tyre. He embarked on board this fleet himself, and came down with it into the Tyrian seas. With this fleet he had various success. He chained many of the ships together, two and two, at a little distance apart, covering the enclosed space of the platform on which the soldiers could stand to fight. The men also erected engines on these platforms to attack the city. These engines were of various kinds. There was what they called the battering ram, which was a long and very heavy beam of wood, headed with iron or brass. This beam was suspended by a chain in the middle, so that it could be swung back and forth by the soldiers, its head striking against the wall each time, by which means the wall would sometimes be soon battered down. They had also machines for throwing great stones, or beams of wood, by means of the elastic force of strong bars of wood, or of steel, or that of twisted rope. The part of the machine upon which the stone was placed would be drawn back by the united strength of many of the soldiers, and then, as it recovered itself when released, the stone would be thrown off into the air with prodigious velocity and force. Alexander's double galleys answered very well as long as the water was smooth. But sometimes, when they were caught out in a swell, the rolling of the waves would rack and twist them, so as to tear the platforms asunder and sink the men into the sea. The difficulties unexpected and formidable were continually arising. Alexander, however, persevered through them all. The Tyrians, finding themselves pressed more and more, and seeing that the dangers impeding them became more and more formidable every day, at length concluded to send a great number of the women and children away to Carthage, which was a great commercial city in Africa. They were determined not to submit to Alexander, but to carry their resistance to the very last extremity. And as the closing scenes of a siege, especially the places that last taken by storm, are beyond description, they wished to save their wives and daughters and hapless babes from having to witness them. In the meantime, as the siege advanced, the parties became more and more incensed against each other. They treated the captors which they took on either side with greater and greater cruelty, each thinking that they were only retaliating worse injuries from the other. The Macedonians approached nearer and nearer. The resources of the unhappy city were gradually cut off and its strength worn away. The enemies approached nearer and nearer to the walls, until the battering rams bore directly upon them, and breaches began to be made. At length one great breach on the southern side was found to be practicable, as they call it. Alexander began to prepare for the final assault, and the Tyrians saw before them the horrible prospect of being taken by storm. Still they would not submit. Submission would now have done but little good, though it might have saved some from the final horrors of the scene. Alexander had become greatly exasperated by the long resistance which the Tyrians had made. They probably could not now have averted destruction. But they might, perhaps, have perverted its coming upon them in so terrible a shape, as the eruption of thirty thousand frantic and infuriated soldiers through the breaches in their walls, to take their city by storm. The breach by which Alexander proposed to force his entrance was on the southern side. He repaired a number of ships, with platforms raised upon them in such a manner that, on getting near the walls, they could be let down and form a sort of bridge, over which the men could pass to the broken fragments of the wall, and then suspend the breach above. The plan succeeded. The ships advanced to the proposed place of landing. The bridges were let down. The men crowded over them to the foot of the wall. They clambered up through the breach to the battlements above, although the Tyrians thronged the passage and made the most desperate resistance. Hundreds were killed by darts and arrows and falling stones, and their bodies tumbled into the sea. The others, paying no attention to their falling comrades, and drowning the horrid screams of the crashed and the dying with their own frantic shouts of rage and fury, pressed on up the broken wall, till they reached the battlements above. The vast throng then rolled along upon the top of the wall, till they came to the stairways and slopes by which they could descend into the city. And, pouring down through all these avenues, they spread over the streets and satiated the hatred and rage, which had been gathering strength for seven long months, in bursting into houses and killing and destroying all that came in their way. Thus the city was stormed. After the soldiers were weary with the work of slaughtering the wretched inhabitants of the city, they found that many still remained alive. And Alexander tarnished the character for generosity and forbearance for which he had thus far been distinguished by the cruelty with which he treated them. Some were executed, some thrown into the sea, and it is even said that two thousand were crucified along the sea shore. This may mean that their bodies were placed upon crosses after life had been destroyed by some more humane method than crucifixion. At any rate, we find frequent indications from this time, that prosperity and power were beginning to exert their usual and unfavourable influence upon Alexander's character. He became haughty, imperious, and cruel. He lost the modesty and gentleness, which seemed to characterise him in the earlier part of his life, and began to assume the moral character, as well as perform the exploits of a military hero. A good illustration of this is afforded by the answer that he sent to Darius, about the time of the storming of Tyre, and replied to a second communication which he had received, from him proposing terms of peace. Darius offered him a very large sum of money for the ransom of his mother, wife, and child, and agreed to give up to him all the country he had conquered, including the whole territory west of the Euphrates. He also offered him his daughter Statera in marriage. He recommended to him to accept these terms, and be content with the possessions he had already acquired, that he could not expect to succeed, if he should try, in crossing the mighty rivers of the east, which were in the way of his march toward the Persian dominions. Alexander replied that, if he wished to marry his daughter, he could do it without his consent. As to the ransom, he was not in want of money. In respect to Darius's offering to give him up all the west of the Euphrates, it was absurd for a man to speak of giving what was no longer his own, that he had crossed too many seas in his military expeditions, since he left Macedon, to feel any concern about the rivers that he might find in his way, and that he should continue to pursue Darius wherever he might retreat, in search of safety and protection, and he had no fear but that he should find and conquer him at last. It was a harsh and cruel message to send to the unhappy monarch, whom he had already so greatly injured. Parmenio advised him to accept Darius's offer. I would, said he, if I were Alexander. Yes, said Alexander, and so would I, if I were Parmenio. What a reply from a youth of twenty-two, to a venerable general of sixty, who had been so tried and faithful a friend, and so efficient a coajuter, both to his father and to himself for so many years. The siege and storming of Tyre has always been considered one of the greatest of Alexander's exploits. The boldness, the perseverance, the indomitable energy which he himself and all his army manifested, during the seven months of their Herculean toil, attracted the admiration of the world. And yet we find our feelings of sympathy for his character and interest in his fate, somewhat alienated by the indications of pride, imperiousness, and cruelty which began to appear. While he rises in our estimation as a military hero, he begins to sink somewhat as a man. And yet the change was not sudden. He bore during the siege his part in the privations and difficulty which the soldiers had to endure, and the dangers to which they had to be exposed, he was always willing to share. One night he was out with a party upon the mountains. Among his few immediate attendants was Lycemicus, one of his former teachers, who always loved to accompany him at such times. Lycemicus was advanced in life and somewhat in firm, and consequently could not keep up with the rest in the march. Alexander remained with Lycemicus, and ordered the rest to go on. The road at length became so rugged that they had to dismount from their horses and walk. Finally they lost their way, and found themselves obliged to stop for the night. They had no fire. They saw, however, at a distance, some campfire blazing which belonged to the barbarian tribes against whom the expedition was directed. Alexander went to the nearest one. There were two men lying by it, who had been stationed to take care of it. He advanced stealthily to them, and killed them both, probably while they were asleep. He then took a brand from their fire, carried it back to his own encampment, where he made a blazing fire for himself and Lycemicus, and they passed the night in comfort and safety. Each reader must judge for himself. One thing is certain, however, that there are many military heroes, of whom such stories would not be even fabricated. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of Alexander the Great This is Librivox Recording, all Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Recording by Lizzie Driver Alexander the Great by Jacob Abbott Chapter 8 Alexander and Egypt After completing the subjugation of Tyre, Alexander commenced his march for Egypt. His route led him through Judea. The time was about three hundred years before the birth of Christ, and, of course, this passage of the great conqueror through the land of Israel took place between the historical periods of the Old Testament and of the New, so that no account of it is given in the sacred volume. There was a Jewish writer named Josephus, who lived and wrote a few years after Christ, and, of course, more than three hundred years after Alexander. He wrote A History of the Jews, which is a very entertaining book to read, but he liked so much to magnify the importance of the events in the history of his country, and to embellish them with marvellous and supernatural incidents, that his narratives have not always been recede with implicit faith. Josephus says that, as Alexander passed through Palestine, he went to pay a visit to Jerusalem. The circumstances of this visit, according to his account, were these. The city of Tyre, before Alexander besieged it, as it lived entirely by commerce and was surrounded by the sea, had to depend on the neighboring countries for a supply of food. The people were accordingly accustomed to purchase grain in Phoenicia, in Judea, and in Egypt, and transported by their ships to the island. Alexander, in the same manner when besieging the city, found that he must depend on the neighboring countries for supplies of food, and he accordingly sent requisitions for such supplies to several places, and among others to Judea. The Jews, as Josephus says, refused to send any such supplies, saying that it would be inconsistent with fidelity to Darius, and to whose government they were. Alexander took no notice of this reply at the time, being occupied with the siege of Tyre. But, as soon as that city was taken, and he was ready to pass through Judea, he directed his march towards Jerusalem, with the intention of destroying the city. Now the chief magistrate at Jerusalem at this time, the one who had the command of the city, ruling it, of course, under a general responsibility to the Persian government, was the High Priest. His name was Jadus. In the time of Christ, about three hundred years after this, the name of the High Priest, as the reader recollect, was Kieffus. Jadus, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, were very much alarmed. They knew not what to do. The siege and capture of Tyre had impressed them all with a strong sense of Alexander's terrible energy and martial power, and they began to anticipate certain destruction. Jadus caused great sacrifices to be offered to a mighty God, and public and solemn prayers were made, to implore his guidance and protection. The next day after these services, he told the people that they had nothing to fear. God had appeared to him in a dream, and directed him what to do. We are not to resist the conqueror, said he, but to go forth to meet him and welcome him. We are to strew the city with flowers, and adorn it as for a festive celebration. The priests are to be dressed in their pontifical robes and go forth, and the inhabitants are to follow them in a civic procession. In this way we are to go out to meet Alexander as he advances, and all will be well. These directions were followed.  When, however, he saw this procession, and came near enough to distinguish the appearance and dress of the High Priest, he stopped, seemed surprised and pleased, and advanced toward him with an air of the profoundest deference and respect. He seemed to pay him almost religious homage and adoration. Everyone was astonished. Parmenio asked him for an explanation. Alexander made the following extraordinary statement. When I was in Macedon, before setting out on this expedition, while I was revolving the subject in my mind, musing day after day on the means of conquering Asia, one night I had a remarkable dream. In my dream this very priest appeared before me, dressed just as he is now. He exhorted me to banish every fear, to cross the helispont boldly, and to push forward into the heart of Asia. He said that God would march at the head of my army, and give me victory over all the Persians. I recognise this priest as the same person that appeared to me then. He has the same countenance, the same dress, the same stature, the same air. It is through his encouragement and aid that I am here, and I am ready to worship and adore the God whose service he administers. Alexander joined the High Priest in the procession, and they returned to Jerusalem together. There Alexander united with them, and with the Jews of the city in the celebration of religious rites, by offering sacrifices and oblations in the Jewish manner. The writings, which are now printed together in our Bibles as the Old Testament, were in those days written separately on parchment rolls and kept in the temple. The priests produced from the rolls the one containing the prophecies of Daniel, and they read and interpreted some of these prophecies to Alexander, which they considered to have referenced to him, though written many hundred years before. Alexander was, as Josephius relates, very much pleased at the sight of these ancient predictions, and the interpretation put upon them by the priests. He assured the Jews that they should be protected in the exercise of all their rites, and especially in their religious worship. And he also promised them that he would take their brethren who resided in Medea and Babylon under his special charge, when he should come into possession of those places. The Jews of Medea and Babylon were the descendants of captives, which had been carried away from their native land in former wars. Such is the story which Josephus relates. The Greek historians, on the other hand, make no mention of this visit to Jerusalem, and some persons think that it was never made, but that the story arose and was propagated from generation to generation among the Jews, through the influence of their desire to magnify the importance and influence of their worship, and that Josephus incorporated the account into his history, without sufficiently verifying the facts. However, it may be in regard to Jerusalem, Alexander was delayed at Gaza, which, as may be seen upon the map, is on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It was a place of considerable commerce and wealth, and was, at this time, under the command of a governor whom Darius had stationed there. His name was Bettis. Bettis refused to surrender the place. Alexander stopped to besiege it, and the siege delayed him two months. He was very much exasperated at this, both against Bettis and against the city. His unreasonable anger was very much increased by a wound which he received. He was near a mound which his soldiers had been constructed near the city, to place engines upon for an attack upon the walls, when a narrow shot from one of the engines upon the walls struck him in the breast. It penetrated his armour, and wounded him deeply in the shoulder. The wound was very painful for some time, and the suffering which he endured from it only added fuel to the flame of his anger against the city. At last, breaches were made in the walls, and the place was taken by storm. Alexander treated the wretched captives with extreme cruelty. He cut the garrison to pieces, and sold the inhabitants to slavery.  The re-dual recollect that Achilles set the siege of Troy, after killing Hector, dragged his body round the walls of the city. Alexander, growing more cruel as he became more accustomed to war and bloodshed, had been intending to imitate this example, so soon as he could find an enemy worthy of such a fate. He now determined to carry his plan into execution with Bettis. He ordered him into his presence. A few years before, he would have rewarded him for his fidelity in his master's surface, but now, grown selfish, heart-hearted, and revengeful.  You have got the worst torments that revenge can invent to suffer. Bettis did not reply, but looked upon Alexander with a calm and composed, and unsubdued air, which incensed the conqueror more and more. Observe his dumb arrogance, said Alexander, but I will conquer him. I will show him that I can draw groans from him, if nothing else. He then ordered holes to be made through the heels of his unhappy captive, and, passing a rope through them, had the body fastened to a chariot, and dragged about the city till no life remained. Alexander found many rich treasures in Gaza. He sent a large part of them to his mother Olympias, whom he had left in Macedon. Alexander's affection for his mother seems to have been more permanent than almost any other good trait in his character. He found, in addition to other stores of valuable merchandise, a large quantity of frankincense and myrrh. These are gums which were bought from Arabia, and were very costly. They were used chiefly in making offerings and in burning incense to the gods. When Alexander was a young man in Macedon, before his father's death, he was one day present at the offering of sacrifices. And one of his teachers and guardians, named Leonatus, who was standing by, thought he was rather profuse in his consumption of frankincense and myrrh. He was taken it up by handfuls and throwing it upon the fire. Leonatus reproved him for this extravagance, and told him that when he became master of the countries where these costly gums were procured, he might be as prodigal of them as he pleased, but that in the meantime it would be proper for him to be more prudent and economical. Alexander remembered this reproof, and finding vast stores of these expensive gums in Gaza, he sent the whole quantity to Leonatus, telling him that he sent him this abundant supply that he might not have occasion to be so reserved and sparing for the future in his sacrifices to the gods. After this conquest and destruction of Gaza, Alexander continued his march southward to the frontiers of Egypt. He reached these frontiers at the city of Pelusium. The Egyptians had been under the Persian dominion, but they aboard it, and were very ready to submit to Alexander's sway. They sent ambassadors to meet him upon the frontiers. The governors of the cities, as he advanced into the country, finding that it would be useless to resist, and warned by the terrible example of Thebes, Tyre and Gaza, surrendered to him as fast as he summoned them. He went to Memphis. Memphis was a great and powerful city, situated in what was called Lower Egypt on the Nile, just above where the branches which form the mouth of the Nile separate from the mainstream. All that part of Egypt is flat country, having been formed by the deposits brought down by the Nile. Such land is called alluvial. It is always level, and as it consists of successive deposits from the turbid waters of the river, made in the successive inundations, it forms always a very rich soil, deep and inexhaustible, and is of course extremely fertile. Egypt has been celebrated for its unexampled fertility from the earliest times. It weighs with fields of corn and grain, and is adorned with groves of the most luxuriant growth and riches verdure. It is only, however, so far as the land is formed by the deposits of the Nile, that this scene of verdure and beauty extends. On the east it is bounded by ranges of barren and rocky hills, and on the west by vast deserts consisting of moving sands, from which no animal or vegetable life can derive the means of existence. The reason of this sterility seems to be the absence of water. The geological formation of the land is such that it furnishes few springs of water and no streams, and in that climate its seldom or never rains. If there is water, the most barren sands will clothe themselves with some species of vegetation, which in its decay will form a soil that will nourish more and more fully each exceeding generation of plants. But in the absence of water, any surface of earth will soon become a barren sand. The wind will drive away everything imponderable, leaving only the heavy sands to drift in storms, like fields of snow. Among these African deserts, however, there are some fertile spots. They are occasioned by springs which arrive in little dells, and which saturate the ground with moisture for some distance around them. The water from these springs flows for some distance in many cases, in a little stream, before it is finally lost and absorbed in the sands. The whole tract, under the influence of this irrigation, clothes itself with verdure. Trees go up to shade it. It forms a spot whose beauty, absolutely great, is heightened by the contrast, which it presents to the gloomy and desolate desert by which it is surrounded. Such a green spot in the desert is called an oasis. They are the resort and the refuge of the traveller into the pilgrim, who seek shelter and repose upon them in their weary journeys over the trackless wilds. Nor must it be supposed that these islands of fertility and vizure are always small. Some of them are very extensive, and contain a considerable population. There is one called the Great Oasis, which consists of a chain of fertile tracts of about a hundred miles in length. Another, called the Oasis of Siwa, has in modern times a population of 8,000 souls. This last is situated not far from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, at least not very far, perhaps two or three hundred miles. And it was a very celebrated spot in Alexander's Day. The cause of its celebrity was that it was the seat and centre of the worship of a famous deity called Jupiter Amon. This god was said to be the son of Jupiter, though there are all sorts of stories about his origin and early history. He had the form of a ram, and was worshipped by the people of Egypt, and also by the Carthaginians, and by the people of northern Africa generally. His temple was in this Oasis, and it was surrounded by a considerable population, which was supported in a great degree, by the expenditures of the worshippers who came as pilgrims, or otherwise to sacrifice at his shrine. It is said that Alexander, finding that the various objects of human ambition, which he had been so rapidly attaining by his victories and conquests for the past few years, were insufficient to satisfy him, began now to aspire for some supernatural honours. And he accordingly conceived the design of having himself declared to be the son of a god. The heroes of Homer were sons of the gods. Alexander envied them the fame and honour which this distinction gave them in the opinion of mankind. He determined to visit the temple of Jupiter Amon, in the Oasis of Siwa, and to have the declaration of his divine origin made by the priest there. He proceeded accordingly to the mouth of the Nile, where he found a very eligible place. As he believed, for the foundation of a commercial city, and he determined to build it on his return. Thence he marched along the shores of the Mediterranean, toward the west, until he reached a place called Parrotornium, which will be found upon the map. He then left the seashore and marched south, striking at once into the desert when he left the sea. He was accompanied by a small detachment of his army as an escort, and they journeyed eleven days before they reached the Oasis. They had a variety of perilous adventures and crossing the desert. For the first two days the soldiers were excited and pleased, with the novelty and romantic grandeur of the scene. The desert has, in some degree, the sublimity of the ocean. There is the same boundless expanse, the same vast on broken curve of the horizon, the same tracklessness, the same solitude. There is, in addition, a certain profound and awful stillness in repose, which imparts to it a new element of impressiveness and grandeur. Its dread and solemn silence is far more imposing and sublime than the loudest thunders of the seas. The third day the soldiers began to be weary of such a march. They seemed afraid to penetrate any further into such boundless and terrible solitudes. They had been obliged to bring water with them in goatskins, which were carried by camels. The camel is the only beast of burden which can be employed upon the deserts. There is a peculiarity in the anatomical structure of this animal, by which you can take in, at one time, a supply of water for many days. He is formed, in fact, for the desert. In his native state he lives in the Oasis and in the valleys. He eats the hermit which grows among the rocks and hills at alternate, with the great sandy plains in all these countries. In passing from one of his scanty pasturages to another, he has long journeys to make across the sands, where, though we can find food here and there, there is no water. Providence has formed him with a structure adapted to this exigency, and by means of it he becomes extremely useful to man. The soldiers of Alexander did not take a sufficient supply of water, and were reduced at one time to great distress. They were relieved, the stories say, by a rain, though rain is extremely unusual in the deserts. Alexander attributed this supply to the miraculous interposition of heaven. They catch the rain, in such cases, with cloths, and afterwards ring out the water, though in this instance, as the historians of that day say, the soldiers did not wait for this tardy method to supply, but the whole detachment held back their heads and opened their mouths, to catch the drops of rain as they fell. There was another dain to which they were exposed in their march, more terrible even than the scarcity of water. It was that of being overwhelmed in the clouds of sand and dust, which sometimes swept over the desert in gales of wind. These were called sandstorms. The fine sand flew in some cases in driving clouds, which filled the eyes and stopped the breath of the traveller, and finally buried his body under its drifts when he laid down to die. A large army of fifty thousand men, under a former Persian king, had been overwhelmed and destroyed in this way some years before, in some of the Egyptian deserts. Alexander's soldiers had heard of this calamity, and they were threatened sometimes with the same fate. They, however, at length escaped all the dangers of the desert, and began to approach the green and fertile land of the Oasis. The change from the barren and dismal loneliness of the sandy plains to the groves and the villages and the beauty and the vizure of the Oasis, was delightful both to Alexander himself and to all his men. The priests at the great temple of Jupiter Amon received more with marks of great distinction and honour. The most solemn and magnificent ceremonies were performed, with offerings, oblations and sacrifices. The priests, after conferring and secret with the God in the temple, came out with the annunciation that Alexander was indeed his son, and they paid him accordingly almost divine honours. He is supposed to have bribed them to do this by presence and pay. Alexander returned at length to Memphis, and in all his subsequent orders and decrees, he startled himself Alexander King, son of Jupiter Amon. But though Alexander was thus willing to impress his ignorant soldiers with a mysterious veneration for his fictitious divinity, he was not deceived himself on the subject. He sometimes even made his pretensions to the divine character a subject of joke. For instance, they one day bought him in too little fire in the focus. The focus, or fireplace used in Alexander's day, was a small metallic stand on which the fire was built. It was placed wherever convenient in the tent, and the smoke escaped above. They had put upon the focus too little fuel one day when they brought it in. Alexander asked the officer to let him have either some wood or some frankincense. They might consider him, he said, as a God or as a man, whichever they pleased, but he wished to be treated either like one or the other. On his return from the Oasis, Alexander carried forward his plan of building a city at the mouth of the Nile. He drew the plan, it is said, with his own hands. He superintended the constructions, and invited artisans and mechanics from all nations to come and reside in it. They accepted the invitation in great numbers, and the city soon became large and wealthy and powerful. It was intended as a commercial post, and the wisdom and sagacity which Alexander manifested in the selection of the site is shown by the fact that the city rose immediately to the rank of the great seat of trade and commerce for all those shores, and has continued to hold that rank now for twenty centuries. There was an island near the coast, opposite the city, called the island of Pharros. They built a most magnificent lighthouse upon one extremity of this island, which was considered in those days one of the wonders of the world. It was said to be five hundred feet high. This may have been an exaggeration. At any rate, it was celebrated throughout the world in its day, and its existence and its greatness made an impression on the human mind, which has not yet been afaced. Pharros is the name for lighthouse in many languages to the present day. In building the city of Alexandria, Alexander laid aside, for a time, his natural and proper character, and assumed a mode of action in strong contest with the ordinary course of his life. He was, throughout most of his career, a destroyer. He roamed over the world to interrupt commerce, to break in upon and disturb the peaceful pursuits of industry, to batter down city walls, and burn dwellings and kill men. This is the true vocation of a hero and a conqueror. But at the mouth of the Nile, Alexander laid aside this character. He turned his energies to the work of planning means to do good. He constructed a port. He built warehouses. He provided accommodations and protections for merchants and artisans. The nations exchanged their commodities far more easily and extensively in consequence of these facilities, and the means of comfort and enjoyment were multiplied and increased in thousands and thousands of huts in the great cities of Egypt, and in the rural districts along the banks of the Nile. The good too, which he thus commenced, had perpetrated itself. Alexandria has continued to fulfill its beneficent function for two thousand years. It is the only monument of his greatness which remains. Everything else which he accomplished perished when he died. How much better would it have been for the happiness of mankind, as well as for his own true fame and glory, if doing good had been the rule of his life, instead of the exception? End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Alexander the Great This is LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by a Lizzy Driver. Alexander the Great by Jacob Abbott. Chapter 9 The Great Victory All the western part of Asia was now in Alexander's power. He was undisputed master of Asia Minor, Phoenicia, Judea, and Egypt. He returned from Egypt to Tyre, leaving governors to rule in his name in all the conquered provinces. The injuries which had been done to Tyre during the siege and the assault were repaired, and it was again a wealthy, powerful, and prosperous city. Alexander rested and refreshed his army there, and spent some weeks in most splendid festivities and rejoicings. The princes and potentents of all the neighbouring countries assembled to take off his hospitality, to be entertained by the games, the plays, the spectacles, and the feastings, and to unite in swelling his court and doing him honour. In a word he was the general centre for attention for all eyes, and the object of universal homage. All this time, however, he was very far from being satisfied, or feeling that his work was done. Darius, whom he considered his great enemy, was still in the field, unsubdued. He had retreated across the Euphrates, and was employed in assembling a vast collection of forces from all the eastern nations which were under his sway, to meet Alexander in the final contest. Alexander therefore made arrangements at Tyre for the proper government of the various kingdoms and provinces which he had already conquered, and then began to prepare for marching eastward with the main body of his army. During all this time the ladies of Darius's family, who had been taken captive at Issus, had been retained in captivity, and made to accompany Alexander's army in its marches. Alexander refused to accede to any of the plans and propositions which Darius made, and offered for the redemption of his wife and mother, but insisted on retaining them as his prisoners. He, however, treated them with respect and high consideration. He provided them with royal tents of great magnificence, and had them conveyed from place to place when his army moved, with all the royal state to which they had been accustomed when in the court of Darius. It has been generally thought of proof of nobleness of spirit and generosity in Alexander that he treated his captives in this manner. It would seem, however, that true generosity would have prompted the restoration of these unhappy and harmless prisoners, to the husband and father who mourned their separation from him, and their cruel sufferings with bitter grief. It is more probable, therefore, that policy and a regard for his own aggrandisement, rather than compassion for the suffering, led him to honour his captive queens. It was a great glory to him, in a martial point of view, to have such trophies of his victory in his train, and, of course, the more highly he honoured the personages, the more glorious the trophy appeared. Accordingly Alexander did everything in his power to magnify the importance of his royal captives, by the splendour of their retinue, and the pomp and pageantry with which he invested their movements. A short time after leaving Tyre, on the march eastward, Startira, the wife of Darius, was taken suddenly ill and died. The tidings were immediately brought to Alexander, and he repaired without delay to Cisengambus's tent. Cisengambus was the mother of Darius. She was in the greatest agony of grief. She was lying upon the floor of her tent, surrounded by the ladies of her court, and entirely overwhelmed with sorrow. Alexander did all in his power to calm and comfort her. One of the officers of Queen Startira's household made his escape from the camp immediately after his mistress's death, and fled across the country to Darius to carry him the heavy tidings. Darius was overwhelmed with affliction. The officer, however, in father's interviews, gave him such an account of the kind and respectful treatment which the ladies had received from Alexander during all the time of their captivity, as to greatly relieve his mind, and to afford him a high degree of comfort and consolation. He expressed a very strong sense of gratitude to Alexander for his generosity and kindness, and said that if his kingdom of Persia must be conquered, he sincerely wished that it might fall into the hands of such a conqueror as Alexander. By looking at the map at the commencement of the volume, it will be seen that the Tigris and the Euphrates are parallel streams, flowing through the heart of the western part of Asia toward the southeast, and emptying into the Persian Gulf. The country between these two rivers, which was extremely populous and fertile, was called Mesopotamia. Darius had collected an immense army here. The various detachment filled all the planes of Mesopotamia. Alexander turned his course a little northward, intending to pass the River Euphrates, at a famous ancient crossing at Thapsus, which may be seen upon the map. When he arrived at this place he found a small Persian army there. They, however, retired as he approached. Alexander built two bridges across the river, and passed his army safely over. In the meantime Darius, with his enormous host, passed across the Tigris, and moved toward the northward along the eastern side of the river. He had to cross the various branches of the Tigris as he advanced. At one of them called Thelaicus, which may be also seen upon the map, there was a bridge. He took the vast host which Darius had collected five days to pass this bridge. While Darius had been thus advancing to the northward, into the latitude where he knew that Alexander must cross the rivers, Alexander himself and his small but compact and fearless body of Grecian troops were moving eastward, toward the same region to which Darius's line of march was tending. Alexander at length reached the Tigris. He was obliged to forward this stream. The banks were steep and the current was rapid, and the men were in great danger of being swept away. To prevent this danger the ranks as they advanced linked their arms together, so that each man might be sustained by his comrades. They held their shields above their heads to keep them from the water. Alexander waded like the rest though he kept in front, and reached the bank before the others. Standing there he indicated to the advancing column by gesticulation where to land, the noise of the water being too great to allow his voice to be heard. To see him standing there safely landed, and with an expression of confidence and triumph in his attitude and air, awakened fresh energy in the heart of every soldier in the columns which were crossing the stream. Notwithstanding this encouragement however, the passage of the troops and the landing on the bank produced a scene of great confusion. Many of the soldiers tied up a portion of their clothes in bundles, which they held above their heads together with their arms, as they waded along through the swift current of the stream. They however found it impossible to carry these bundles, but had to abandon them at last in order to save themselves, as they staggered along through deep and rapid water, over a concealed bottom of slippery stones. Thousands of these bundles, mingled with spears, darts, and every other sort of weapon that would float, were swept down by the current, to impede and embarrass the men who were passing below. At length however the men themselves succeeded in getting over in safety, though a large quantity of arms and of clothing was lost. There was no enemy upon the bank to oppose them. Darius could not in fact well meet and oppose Alexander in his attempt to cross the river, because he could not determine at what point he would probably make the attempt, in season to concentrate so large an army to oppose him. Alexander's troops, being a comparatively small and compact body, and being accustomed to move with great promptness and celerity, could easily evade any attempt of such an unwieldy mass of forces to oppose his crossing at any particular point upon the stream. At any rate Darius did not make any such attempt, and Alexander had no difficulties to encounter in crossing the Tegress other than the physical obstacles presented by the current of the stream. Darius's plan was therefore not to intercept Alexander on his march, but to choose some great and convenient battlefield, where he could collect his forces, and marshal them advantageously, and so await an attack there. He knew very well that his enemy would seek him out wherever he was, and consequently that he might choose his position. He found such a field and an extensive plain at Gorgomila, not far from the city of Arbila. The spot has received historical immortality, under the name of the plain of Arbila. Darius was several days in concentrating his vast armies upon this plain. He constructed encampments. He levelled the inequalities which would interfere with the movements of his great bodies of cavalry. He guarded the approaches too, as much as possible. There is a little instrument used in war called a caltrop. It consists of a small ball of iron, with several sharp points projecting from it, one or two inches each way. If these instruments are thrown upon the ground at random, one of the points must necessarily be upward, and the horses that tread upon them are leamed and disabled at once. Darius caused caltrops to be scattered in the grass and along the roads, wherever the army of Alexander would be likely to approach his troops on the field of battle. Alexander, having crossed the river, encamped for a day or two on the banks, to rest and refresh and to rearrange his army. While here the soldiers were one night thrown into consternation by an eclipse of the moon. Whenever an eclipse of the moon takes place, it is, of course, when the moon is full, so that the eclipse is always a sudden and among an ignorant people, an unexpected waning of the orb in the height of its splendour. And, as such people know not the cause of the phenomenon, they are often extremely terrified. Alexander's soldiers were thrown into consternation by the eclipse. They considered it a manifestation of the displeasure of heaven, at their presumptuous daring in crossing such rivers, and penetrating to such a distance, to invade the territories of another king. In fact the men were predisposed to fear. Having wandered to a vast distance from home, having passed over such mountains and deserts, and now at last having crossed a deep and dangerous river, and thrown themselves into the immediate vicinity of a foe ten times as numerous as themselves, it was natural that they should feel some misgivings. And when at night, impressed with the sense of solemnity, which night always imparts to strange novel scenes, they looked up to the bright round moon, pleased with the expression of cheerfulness and companionship which beams always in her light, to find a suddenly waning, changing her form, withdrawing her bright beams, and looking down upon them with a lurid and murky light. It was not surprising that they felt an emotion of terror. In fact there is always an element of terror in the emotion excited by looking upon an eclipse, which an instinctive feeling of the heart inspires. It invites a spectacle with a solemn grandeur. It holds a spectator, however cultivated and refined, in silence while he gazes at it. It mingles with a scientific appreciation of the vastness of the movements and magnitudes by which the effect is produced. And while the wand occupies the intellect, the other impresses the soul. The mind that has lost, through its philosophy, the power of feeling this emotion of awe in such scenes, has sunk, not risen. Its possessor has made himself inferior, not superior to the rest of his species, by having paralysed one of his susceptibilities of pleasure. To him an eclipse is only curious and wonderful. To others it is sublime. The soldiers of Alexander are extremely terrified. A great panic spread throughout the encampment. Alexander himself, instead of attempting to allay their fears by reasoning, or treating them as of no importance, immediately gave the subject his most serious attention. He called together the soothsayers, and directed them to consult together, and let him know what this great phenomenon portended. This mere committing of the subject to the attention of the soothsayers had a great effect among all the soldiers of the army. It calmed them. It changed their agitation and terror into a feeling of suspense, in a way to the answer of the soothsayers, which was far less painful and dangerous. And at length when the answer came, it laid their anxiety and fear altogether. The soothsayers said that the sun was on Alexander's side, and the moon on that of the Persians, and that this sudden waning of a light foreshadowed the defeat and destruction which the Persians were about to undergo. The army was satisfied with this decision, and were inspired with new confidence in Ardure. It is often idle to attempt to oppose ignorance and absurdity by such feeble instruments as truth and reason. And the wisest managers of mankind have generally been most successful when their plan has been to counteract one folly by means of the influence of another. Alexander's army consisted of about 50,000 men, with the phalanx in the centre. This army moved along down the eastern bank of the Tegris. The scouts pressing forward as far as possible in every direction in front of the main army, in order to get intelligence of the foe. It is in this way that two great armies feel after each other, as it were, like insects creeping over the ground, exploring the way before them with their antennae. At length, after three days' advance, the scouts came in with intelligence of the enemy. Alexander pressed forward with the detachment of his army to meet them. They proved to be, however, not the main body of Darius's army, but only a single corps of a thousand men in advance of the rest. They retreated as Alexander approached. He, however, succeeded in capturing some horsemen, who gave the information that Darius had assembled his vast forces on the plain of Arbila, and was waiting there in readiness to give his advancing enemy battle. Alexander halted his troops. He formed an encampment, and made arrangements for depositing his baggage there. He refreshed the men, examined and repaired their arms, and made the arrangements for battle. These operations consumed several days. At the end of that time, early one morning, long before day, the camp was in motion, and the columns, armed and equipped for immediate contest, moved forward. They expected to have reached the camp of Darius at daybreak, but the distance was greater than they had supposed. At length, however, the Macedonians in their march came upon the brow of a range of hills, from which they looked down upon numberless and endless lines of infantry and cavalry, and ranges after ranges of tents which filled the plain. Here the army paused, while Alexander examined the field, studying for a long time and with great attention, the numbers and disposition of the enemy. They were four miles distant still, but the murmuring sounds of their voices and movements came to the ears of the Macedonians through the calm or tumble air. Alexander called the leading officers together, and held a consultation on the question, whether to march down and attack the Persians on the plain that night, or to wait till the next day. Parmenia was in favour of a night attack, in order to surprise the enemy by coming upon them at an unexpected time. But Alexander said no. He was sure of victory. He had got his enemies all before him, they were fully in his power. He would, therefore, take no advantage, but would attack them fairly and in open day. Alexander had fifty thousand men. The Persians were variously estimated between five hundred thousand and a million. There is something sublime in the idea of such a pause, made by the Macedonian phallus and its wings, on the slope of the hills, suspending its attack upon ten times its number, to give the mighty mass of their enemies a chance of a fair and equal contest. Alexander made congratulatory addresses to his soldiers, on the occasion of their having now at last before him, what they had so long toiled and laboured to attain. The whole concentrated force of the Persian Empire. They were now going to contend, not for single provinces and kingdoms, as here to for, but for great empire, and the victory which they were about to achieve, which placed them on the summit of human glory. In all that he said on the subject, the unquestionable certainty of his victory was assumed. Alexander completed his arrangements and then retired to rest. He went to sleep. At least he appeared to do so. Early in the morning Parmenia arose, summoned the men to their posts, and arranged everything for the march. He then went to Alexander's tent. Alexander was still asleep. He awoke him and told him that all was ready. Parmenia expressed surprise at his sleeping so quietly, at a time when such vast issues were at stake. You seem as calm, said he, as if you had had the battle and gained the victory. I have done so, said Alexander. I consider the whole work done when we have gained access to Darius and his forces, and find him ready to give us battle. Alexander soon appeared at the head of his troops. Of course this day was one of the most important ones of his life, and one of the historians at the time has preserved an account of his dress as he went into battle. He wore a short tunic, girt close around him, and over it a linen breastplate, strongly quilted. The belt by which the tunic was held was embossed with figures of beautiful workmanship. This belt was appraised to him from some of the people of the conquered countries through which he had passed, and it was very much admired. He had a helmet upon his head of polished steel, with a neck piece, also of steel, ornamented with precious stones. His helmet was surmounted with a white plume. His sword, which was so present to him from the king of Cyprus, was very light and slender, and of the most perfect temper. He carried also a shield and a lance, made in the best possible manner for use, not for display. Thus his dress corresponded with the character his action. It was simple, compact, and whatever a value it possessed consisted in those substantial excellences, which would give the bearer the greatest efficiency on the field of battle. The Persians were accustomed to make use of elephants in their wars. They also had chariots with size placed at their axles, which they were accustomed to drive among their enemies and mow them down. Alexander resorted to none of these contrivances. There was the phalanx, the terrible phalanx, advancing irresistibly, either in one body or in detachments, with columns of infantry and flying troops of horsemen on the wings. Alexander relied simply on the strength, the courage, the energy, and the calm and steady, but resistless ardor of his men, and ranging them in simple combinations, and leading them forward directly to their work. The Macedonians cut their way through the mighty mass of their enemies with irresistible force. The elephants turned and fled. The foot soldiers seized the horses of some of the side-armed chariots and cut the traces. In respect to others, they opened to the right and left and let them pass through, when they were easily captured by the men in the rear. In the meantime the phalanx pressed on, enjoying a great advantage in the level nature of the ground. The Persian troops broken in upon and drove in away wherever they were attacked. In a word, before night the whole mighty mass was scattering everywhere in confusion, except some hundreds of thousands left trampled upon and dead, or else writhing upon the ground and groaning in their dying agonies. Darius himself fled. Alexander pursued him with a troop of horse as far as Arbila, which had been Darius's headquarters, and where he had deposited immense treasures. Darius had gone through and escaped when Alexander arrived at Arbila, but the city and the treasures fell into Alexander's hands. Although Alexander had been so completely victorious over his enemies on the day of battle, and had maintained his ground against them with such invincible power, he was nevertheless a few days afterward, driven entirely off the field and completely away from the region where the battle had been fought. What the living men standing erect in arms, and full of martial vigor could not do, was easily and effectually accomplished by their dead bodies corrupting on the plain. The corpses of three hundred thousand men, and an equal bulk of the bodies of elephants and horses, was too enormous a mass to be buried.  Alexander marched his troops rapidly off the ground, leaving as the direct result of the battle, a wide extent of country depopulated a desolate, with the vast mass of putrification and pestilence reigning in awful silence and solitude in the midst of it. Alexander went to Babylon. The governor of the city prepared to receive him as a conqueror. The people came out in throngs to meet him, and all the avenues of approach were crowded with spectators. All the city walls, too, were covered with men and women assembled to witness the scene. As for Alexander himself, he was filled with pride and pleasure, and thus arriving at the full accomplishment of his earliest and long cherished dreams of glory. The great storehouse of the royal treasures of Persia was at Sousa, a strong city east of Babylon. Sousa was the winter residence of the Persian kings, as Eckbachtner, further north among the mountains, was their summer residence. There was a magnificent place and a very strong citadel at Sousa, and the treasures were kept in the citadel. It is said that in times of peace the Persian monarchs had been accustomed to collect coin, melt it down, and cast the gold in earthen jars. The jars were afterward broken off from the gold, leaving the bullion in the form of the interior of the jars. An immense amount of gold and silver and of other treasures had been thus collected. Alexander was aware of this depository before he advanced to meet Darius, and on the day of battle of Arbila, as soon as the victory was decided, he sent an officer from the very field to summon Sousa to surrender. They obeyed the summons, and Alexander, soon after his great public entrance into Babylon, marched to Sousa, and took possession of the vast stores of wealth accumulated there. The amount was enormous, both in quantity and value, and the seizing of it was a very magnificent act of plunder. In fact it is probable that Alexander's slaughter of the Persian army at Arbila, and the subsequent spoilation of Sousa, constitute, taken together, the most gigantic case of murder and robbery which was ever committed by man. So that, in performing these deeds, the great hero attained at last the glory of having perpetrated the grandest and most imposing of all human crimes. That these deeds were really crimes that can be no doubt, when we consider that Alexander did not pretend to have any other motive in this invasion than love of conquest, which is, in other words, love of violence and plunder. They are only technically shielded from being called crimes, by the fact that the earth has no laws and no tribunals high enough to condemn such enormous burglaries as that of one quarter of the globe, breaking violently and mergersly in upon and robbing the other. Besides the treasures, Alexander found also at Sousa a number of trophies which had been brought by Xerxes from Greece. For Xerxes had invaded Greece some hundred years before Alexander's day, and had brought to Sousa the spoils and the trophies of his victories. Alexander sent them all back to Greece again. From Sousa the conqueror moved on to Persepolis, the great Persian capital. On his march he had to pass through it to file of the mountains. The mountaineers had been accustomed to exact tribute here of all who passed, having a sort of right, derived from ancient usage, to the payment of a toll. They sent to Alexander when they heard that he was approaching, and informed him that he could not pass with his army without paying the customary toll. Alexander sent back word that he would meet them at the pass, and give them their due. They understood this and prepared to defend the pass. Some Persian troops joined them. They built walls and barricades along the narrow passage. They collected great stones on the brinks of precipices, and on the delklivities of the mountains, to roll down upon the heads of their enemies. By these and every other means they attempted to stop Alexander's passage. But he had contrived to send attachments around by circuitous and precipitous paths, which even the mountaineers had deemed impracticable, and thus attack his enemies suddenly and unexpectedly from above their own positions. As usual his plan succeeded. The mountaineers were drawn away, and the conqueror advanced towards the great Persian capital. CHAPTER IX. THE DEATH OF DARIUS. Alexander's march from Susa to Persepolis was less a march than a triumphal progress. He felt the pride in elation so naturally resulting from success very strongly. The moderation and forbearance which had characterised him in his earlier years gradually disappeared as he became great and powerful. He was intoxicated with his success. He became haughty, vain, capricious and cruel. As he approached Persepolis, he conceived the idea that, as this city was the capital and centre of the Persian monarchy, and as such, the point from which it emanated all the Persian hostility to Greece, he owed it some signal retribution. Accordingly, although the inhabitants made no opposition to his entrance, he marched in with the phalanx formed, and gave the soldiers liberty to kill and plunder as they pleased. There was another very striking instance in the capricious recklessness now beginning to appear in Alexander's character, which occurred soon after he had taken possession of Persepolis. He was giving a great banquet to his friends, the officers of the army, and to Persians of distinction among those who had submitted to him. There was, among other women at this banquet, a very beautiful and accomplished female named Thaisis. Alexander made her his favourite and companion, though she was not his wife. Thais did all in her power to captivate and please Alexander during the feast by her vivacity, her wit, her adroit attentions to him, and the display of her charms. And at length, when he himself, as well as the other guests, were excited with wine, she asked him to allow her to have the pleasure of going herself and setting fire, with her own hands, to the great palace of the Persian kings in the city. Thais was a native of Attica in Greece, a kingdom of which Athens was the capital. Xerxes, who had built the great palace of Persepolis, had formally invaded Greece and had burned Athens. And now Thais desired to burn his palace in Persepolis to gratify her revenge by making, of its conflagration, an evening spectacle to entertain the Macedonian party after their supper. Alexander agreed to the proposal, and the whole company moved forward. Taking the torches from the banqueting hall, they sallied forth, alarming the city with their shouts, and with the flashing of the lights they bore. The plan of Thais was carried fully into effect, every half intoxicated guest assisting, but putting fire to the immense pile wherever they could get access to it. They performed the barbarous deed with shouts of vengeance and exultation. There is, however, something very solemn and awful in a great conflagration at night, and very few incendiaries can gaze upon the fury of the lurid and frightful flames which they have caused to ascend, without some misgivings and some remorse. Alexander was sobered by the grand and sublime, but terrible spectacle. He was awed by it. He repented. He ordered the fire to be extinguished, but it was too late. The palace was destroyed, and one new blot, which has never since been afaced, was cast upon Alexander's character and fame. And yet, notwithstanding these increasing proofs of pride and cruelty, which were beginning to be developed, Alexander still preserved some of the early traits of character, which had made him so great a favourite in the commencement of his career. He loved his mother, and lent her presence continually from the treasures which were falling all the time into his possession. She was a woman of a proud, imperious and ungovernable character, and she made Antipater, whom Alexander had left in command in Macedon, infinite trouble. She wanted to exercise the powers of government herself, and was continually urging this. Alexander would not comply with these wishes. But he paid her personally every attention in his power, and bore all her invictives and reproaches, with great patience and good humour. At one time he received a long letter from Antipater, full of complaint against her. But Alexander, after reading it, said that they were heavy charge as it was true, but that a single one of his mother's tears would outweigh ten thousand such accusations. Olympius used to write very frequently to Alexander, and in these letters he would criticise and discuss his proceedings, and make comments upon the characters and actions of his generals. Alexander kept these letters very secret, never showing them to any one. One day, however, when he was reading one of these letters, Hephaestion, the personal friend and companion, who has been already several times mentioned, came up half-playfully, and began to look over his shoulder. Alexander went on, allowing him to read. And then, when the letter was finished, he took the signet ring from his finger, and pressed it upon Hephaestion's lips, a signal for silence and secrecy. Alexander was very kind to Cingambis, the mother of Darius, and also to Darius's children. He would not give these unhappy captives their liberty, but in every other respect he treated them with the greatest possible kindness and consideration. He called to Cingambis' mother, loaded her with presents. Presence it is true, which he had plundered from her son, but to which it was considered in those days that he had acquired a just and perfect title. When he reached Susa he established a Cingambis and the children there in great state. This had been their usual residence in most seasons of the year, when not in Persepolis, so that here they were as it were at home. Ekbetana was, as has already been mentioned, further north among the mountains. After the battle of Arbila, while Alexander marched to Babylon and to Susa, Darius had fled to Ekbetana, and was now there, his family being thus at one of the royal palaces under the command of the conqueror, and he himself independent, but insecure in the other. He had with him about forty thousand men, who still remained faithful to his fallen fortunes. Among these were several thousand Greeks, whom he had collected in Asia Minor and other Grecian countries, and whom he had attached to his service by means of pay. He called to the officers of his army together, and explained to them the determination that he had come to in respect to his future movements. A large party of those, said he, who formerly served as officers of my government, have abandoned me in my adversity and gone over to Alexander's side. They have surrendered to him the towns and citadels and provinces, which I entrusted to their fidelity. You alone remain faithful and true. As for myself, I might yield to the conqueror, and have him assigned to me some province or kingdom to govern as his subordinate, but I will never submit to such a degradation. I can die in the struggle, but it never will I yield.  If you agree with me in this determination, let us act energetically upon it. We have it in our power to terminate the injuries we are suffering, or else to avenge them. The army responded most cordially to this appeal. They were ready, they said, to follow him wherever he should lead. Or this apparent enthusiasm, however, was very delusive and unsubstantial. A general named Bessus, combining with some other officers in the army, convinced the plan of seizing Darius and making him a prisoner, and then taking command of the army himself. If Alexander should pursue him, and be likely to overtake and conquer him, he then thought that, by giving up Darius as a prisoner, he could stipulate for liberty and safety, and perhaps great rewards, both for himself and for those who acted with him. If, on the other hand, they should succeed in increasing their own forces, so as to make head against Alexander and finally to drive him away, then Bessus was to usurp the throne, and dispose of Darius by assassinating him, or imprisoning him for life in some remote and solitary castle. Bessus communicated his plans, very cautiously at first, to the leading officers of the army. The Greek soldiers were not included in the plot. They, however, heard and saw enough to lead them to suspect what was in preparation. They warned Darius, and urged him to rely upon them more than he had done, to make them his bodyguard, and to pitch his tent in their part of the encampment. But Darius declined these proposals. He would not, he said, distrust and abandon his countrymen, who were his natural protectors, and put himself in the hands of strangers. He would not betray and desert his friends, in anticipation of their deserting and betraying him. In the meantime, as Alexander advanced towards Ecopetana, Darius and his forces retreated from it toward the eastward, through the great tract of country lying south of the Caspian Sea. There is a mountainous region here, with a defile traversing it, through which it would be necessary for Darius to pass. This defile was called the Caspian Gates. The name referring to rocks on each side. The marching of an army through a narrow and dangerous defile like this, always caused a detention and delay, and Alexander hastened forward in hopes to overtake Darius before he should reach it. He advanced with such speed that only the strongest and most robust of his army could keep up. Thousands, worn out with exertion and toil, were left behind, and many of the horses sank down by the roadside, exhausted with heat and fatigue. To die. Alexander pressed desperately on with all who were able to follow. It was all in vain, however. It was too late when he arrived at the pass. Darius had gone through with all his army. Alexander stopped to rest his men, and to allow time for those behind to catch up. He then went on for a couple of days, when he encamped, in order to send out foraging parties. That is to say, small detachments. Dispatched to explore the surrounding country, in search of grain and other food for the horses. Food for the horses of an army being too bulky to be transported far, has to be collected day by day from the neighbourhood of the line of march. While halting for these foraging parties to return, a Persian nobleman came into the camp, and informed Alexander that Darius and the forces accompanying him were encamped about two days march in advance. But that Bessus was in command, the conspiracy having been successful, and Darius having been deposed, and made a prisoner. The Greeks, who had a dear to their fidelity, finding that all the army were combined against them, and that they were not strong enough to resist, had abandoned the Persian camp, and had returned to the mountains, where they were awaiting the result. Alexander determined to set forward immediately in pursuit of Bessus, and his prisoner. He did not wait for the return of the foraging parties. He selected the ablest and most active, both the foot soldiers and horsemen, ordered them to take two days' provisions, and then set forth with them that very evening. The party pressed on all that night, and the next day till noon. They halted till evening, and then set forth again. Very early the next morning they arrived at the encampment which the Persian nobleman had described. They found the remains of the campfires, and all the marks usually left upon a spot, which has been used as the bivouac of an army. The army itself, however, was gone. The Bessus were now too much fatigued to go on any further without rest. Alexander remained here accordingly through the day, to give his men and his horses refreshment and repose. That night they set forward again, and the next day till noon they arrived at another encampment of the Persians, which they had left scarcely 24 hours before. The officers of Alexander's army were excited and animated in the highest degree, as they found themselves thus drawing so near to the great object of their pursuit. Any privation and fatigue, any measures, however extraordinary to accomplish their end, they were ready for any excitations. Alexander inquired of the inhabitants of the place, whether they were not some shorter road than the one along which the enemy were moving. There was one cross-road, but it led through a desolate and desert tract of land, destitute of water. In the march of an army, as the men are always heavily loaded with arms and provisions, and water cannot be carried, it is always considered essential to choose routes which will furnish supplies of water by the way. Alexander, however, disregarded this consideration here, and prepared at once to push into the cross-road with a small detachment. He had been now two years advancing from Macedon into the heart of Asia, always in quest of Darius, as his great opponent and enemy. He had conquered his armies, taken his cities, plundered his palaces, and made himself master of his whole realm. Still, so long as Darius himself remained at liberty and in the field, no victories could be considered as complete. To capture Darius himself would be the last and crowning act of his conquest. He had now been pursuing him for eighteen hundred miles, advancing slowly from province to province, and from kingdom to kingdom. During all this time the strength of his flying foe had been wasting away, his armies had been broken up, his courage and hope had gradually failed, while the animation and hope of the pursuer had been gathering fresh and increasing strength from his successes, and are excited to wild enthusiasm now, as the hour for his final consummation of all his desires seemed to be drawing nigh. Guides were ordered to be furnished by the inhabitants, to show the detachment the way across the solitary and desert country. The detachment was to consist of horsemen entirely, that they might advance with the utmost celerity. To get as sufficient a corps as possible, Alexander dismounted five hundred of the cavalry, and gave their horses to five hundred men, officers and others, selected for their strength and courage from among the foot soldiers. All were ambitious of being designated for this service. Besides the honour of being so selected, there was an intense excitement, as usual toward the close of a chase, to arrive at the end. This body of horsemen were ready to set out in the evening. Alexander took the command, and, following the guides, they trotted off in the direction which the guides indicated. They travelled all night, when the day dawned they saw from an elevation to which they had attained. The body of the Persian troops moving at a short distance before them, foot soldiers, chariots and horsemen, pressing on together into great confusion and disorder. As soon as Bess's antece company found that their pursuers were close upon them, they attempted at first to hurry forward, in the vain hope of still affecting their escape. Darius was in a chariot. They urged this chariot on, but it moved heavily. Then they concluded to abandon it, and they called upon Darius to mount a horse and ride off with them, leaving the rest of the army in the baggage to its fate. But Darius refused. He said he would rather trust himself in the hands of Alexander than in those of such traitors as they. Rendered desperate by their situation, and exasperated by this reply, Bessus and his confederates thrust their spears into Darius's body, as he sat in his chariot, and then galloped away. They divided into different parties, each taking a different road. Their objecting doing this was to increase their chances of escape, by confusing Alexander and his plans for pursuing them. Alexander pressed on toward the ground which the enemy were abandoning, and sent off separate attachments after the various divisions of the flying army. In the meantime Darius remained in his chariot, wounded and bleeding. He was worn out and exhausted, both in body and mind, by his complicated sufferings and sorrows. His kingdom lost, his family and captivity, his beloved wife in the grave, where the sorrows and sufferings of separation from her husband had borne her, his cities sacked, his palaces and treasures plundered, and now, he himself, in the last hour of his extremity, abandoned and betrayed by all in whom he had placed his confidence and trust. His heart sunk within him in despair. At such a time the soul turns from traitorous friends to an open foe with something like a feeling of confidence and attachment. Darius's aspiration against Bessus was so intense that his hostility to Alexander became a species of friendship in comparison. He felt that Alexander was a sovereign like himself, and would have some sympathy and fellow-feeling for a sovereign's misfortunes. He thought too of his mother, his wife, and his children, and the kindness with which Alexander had treated them went to his heart. He lay there accordingly, faint and bleeding in his chariot, and looking for the coming of Alexander, as for that of a protector and friend, the only one to whom he could now look for any relief in the extremity of his distress. The Macedonian searched about in various places. Thinking it possible that in the sudden dispersion of the enemy Darius might be left behind. At last the chariot in which he was lying was found. Darius was in it, pierced with spears. The floor of the chariot was covered with blood. They raised him a little and he spoke. He called for water. Men wounded and dying on the field of battle are tormented always with an insatiable and intolerable thirst. The manifestations of which constitute one of the greatest horrors of the scene.  They crawl along the ground to get at the canteens of their dead companions. In hopes to find, remaining in them, some drops to drink.  Darius was suffering this thirst. It bore down and silenced for the time, every other suffering, so that his first cry, when his enemies came around him with shouts of exaltation, was not for his life, not for mercy, not for relief from the pain and anguish of his wounds. He begged them to give him some water. He spoke through an interpreter. The interpreter was a Persian prisoner, whom the Macedonian army had taken some time before, and who had learned the Greek language in the Macedonian camp. Anticipating some occasion for his services, they had brought him with them now, and it was through him that Darius called for water. A Macedonian soldier went immediately to get some. Others hurried away in search of Alexander, to bring him to the spot with a great object of his hostility, and of his long and protracted pursuit was dying. Darius received the drink. He then said that he was extremely glad that they had an interpreter with them, who could understand him, and bear his message to Alexander. He had been afraid that he should have had to die without being able to communicate what he had to say. Tell Alexander, said he then, that I feel under the strongest obligations to him, which I can now never repay, for his kindness to my wife, my mother, and my children. He not only spared their lives, but treated them with the greatest consideration and care, and did all in his power to make them happy. The last feeling in my heart is gratitude to him for these favours. I hope now that he will go on prosperously, and finish his conquests as triumphantly as he has begun them. He would have made one last request, he added, if he had thought it necessary. And that was, that Alexander would pursue the trait of Bessus, and avenge the murder he had committed. But he was sure that Alexander would do this of his own accord, as the punishment of such treachery was an object of common interest for every king. Darius then took polystratus, the Macedonian who had brought in the water, by the hand saying, Give Alexander thy hand, as I now give thee mine. It is the pledge of my gratitude and affection. Darius was too weak to say much more. They gathered around him, endeavouring to sustain his strength, until Alexander should arrive. But it was all in vain. He sank gradually, and soon ceased to breathe. Alexander came up a few minutes after all was over. He was at first shocked at the spectacle before him, and then overwhelmed with grief. He wept bitterly. Some compunctions of conscious may have visited his heart at seeing thus before him the ruin he had made. Darius had never injured him, or done him any wrong. And yet here he lay, hunted to death by a preserving and relentless hostility, for which his conqueror had no excuse, but his innate love of dominion over his fellow men. Alexander spread his own military cloak over the dead body. He immediately made arrangements for having the body embalmed, and then sent it to Susa, for Cisengambus in a very costly coffin, and with a procession of royal magnificence. He sent it to her that she might have the satisfaction of seeing it deposited in the tombs of the Persian kings. What a present! The killer of a son sending the dead body in a splendid coffin, to the mother, as a token of respectful regard. Alexander pressed on to the northward and eastward in pursuit of Bessus, who had soon collected the scattered remains of his army, and was doing his utmost to get into a posture of defence. He did not, however, overtake him till he had crossed the oxus, a large river which will be found upon the map, flowing to the northward and westward into the Caspian sea. He had great difficulty in crossing this river, as it was too deep to be forwarded, and the banks and bottom were so sandy and yielding, that he could not make the foundations of bridges stand. He accordingly made floats and rafts, which were supported by skins made buoyant by inflation, or by being stuffed with straw and hay. After getting his army, which had been in the meantime greatly reinforced and strengthened across this river, he moved on. The generals under Bessus finding all hope of escape failing them, resolved on betraying him as he had betrayed his commander. They sent word to Alexander, that if he would send forward a small force where they should indicate, they would give up Bessus to his hands. Alexander did so, in trusting the command to an officer named Ptolemy. Ptolemy found Bessus in a small walled town where he had fled for refuge, and easily took him prisoner. He sent word back to Alexander, that Bessus was at his disposal, and asked for orders. The answer was, put a rope around his neck and send him to me. When the wretched prisoner was brought into Alexander's presence, Alexander demanded of him how he could have been so base, as to have seized, bound, and at last murdered his kinsmen and benefactor. It is a curious instance in proof of the permanence and stability of the great characteristics of human nature, through all the changes of civilization and lapses of time, that Bessus gave the same answer that wrongdoers almost always give when brought to account for their wrongs. He laid the fault upon its accomplices and friends. It was not his act, it was theirs. Alexander ordered him to be publicly scourged, then he caused his face to be mutilated in a manner customary in those days, when a tyrant wished to stand upon his victim, a perpetual mark of infamy. In this condition, that with a mind in the agony of suspense and fear at the thought of worse tortures which he knew were to come, Alexander sent him as a second present assistant Gambis, to be dealt with at Susa, as her revenge might direct. She inflicted upon him the most extreme tortures, and finally, when satiated with the pleasure of seeing him suffer, the story is that they chose four very elastic trees, growing at a little distance from each other, and bent down the tops of them toward the central point between them. They fastened the exhausted and dying Bessus to these trees, one limb of his body to each, and then, releasing the stems from their confinement, they flew upward, tearing the body asunder, each holding its own deceptive portion, as if in triumph, far over the heads of the multitude assembled to witness a spectacle. End of Chapter 10 Section 11 of Alexander the Great This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Lizzie Driver Alexander the Great by Jacob Abbott Section 11 Deterioration of Character Alexander was now twenty-six years of age. He had accomplished fully the great objects which had been the aim of his ambition. Darius was dead, and he was himself the undisputed master of all Western Asia. His wealth was almost boundless. His power was supreme over what was, in his view, the whole known world. But during the process of rising to this ascendancy, his character was sadly changed. He lost the simplicity, the temperance, the moderation, and the sense of justice which characterised his early years. He adopted the dress and the luxurious manners of the Persians. He lived in the palaces of the Persian kings, imitating all their state and splendour. He became very fond of convivial entertainments and of wine, and often drank to excess. He provided himself with a sorrelio of three hundred and sixty young females, in whose company he spent his time, giving himself up to every form of effeminacy and dissipation. In a word, he was no longer the same man. The decision, the energy of character, the steady pursuit of great ends by prudence, forethought, patient effort, and self-denial, all disappeared. Nothing now seemed to interest him but banquets, carousels, parties of pleasure, and whole days and nights spent in dissipation and vice. This state of things was a great course of modification and chagrin to the officers of his army. Many of them were older than himself, and better able to resist these temptations to luxury, effeminacy, and vice. They therefore remained firm in their original simplicity and integrity, and after some respectful, but in infectious remonstrances, they stood aloof, alienated from their commander in heart, and condemning very strongly among themselves his wickedness and folly. On the other hand, many of the younger officers followed Alexander's example, and became as vain, as irregular, and as fond of vicious indulgence as he. But then, though they joined him in his pleasures, there was no strong bond of union between him and then. The tie which binds mere companions in pleasure together is always very slight and frail. Thus Alexander gradually lost the confidence and affection of his old friends, and gained no new ones. His officers either disapproved his conduct, and were distant and cold, or else joined him in his dissipation and vice, without feeling any real respect for his character, or being bound to him by any principle of fidelity. Parmenio and his son Philotus were, respectfully, striking examples of these two kinds of character. Parmenio was an old general, now considerably advanced in life. He had served, as has already been stated under Philip, Alexander's father, and had acquired great experience and great fame before Alexander succeeded to the throne. During the whole of Alexander's career, Parmenio had been his principal lieutenant general, and he had always placed his greatest reliance upon him in all trying emergencies. He was cool, calm, intrepid, sagacious. He held Alexander back from many rash enterprises, and was the efficient means of his accomplishing most of his plans. It is the custom among all nations to give kings the glory of all that is affected by their generals and officers, and the writers of those days would, of course, in narrating the exploits of the Macedonian army, exaggerate the share which Alexander had in their performances, and underwrite those of Parmenio. But in modern times, many impartial readers, in reviewing calmly these events, think that there is reason to doubt whether Alexander, if he had set out on his great expedition without Parmenio, would have succeeded at all. Philotus was the son of Parmenio, but he was of a very different character. The difference was one which is very often, in all ages of the world, to be observed between those who inherit greatness, and those who acquire it for themselves. We see the same analogy reigning at the present day, when the sons of the wealthy who were born to fortune, substitute pride and arrogance and vicious self-indulgence and waste, for the modesty and prudence and virtue of their sires, by means of which the fortune was acquired. Philotus was proud, boastful, extravagant and addicted, like Alexander his master, to every species of indulgence and dissipation, who was universally hated. His father, out of patience with his haughty heirs, his boastings, and his pomp and parade, advised him one day to make himself less. But Parmenio's prudent advice to his son was thrown away. Philotus spoke of himself as Alexander's great reliance. What would Philip have been or have done, said he, without my father Parmenio, and what would Alexander have been or have done without me? These things were reported to Alexander, and thus the mind of each was filled with suspicion, fear and hatred toward the other. Courts and camps are always the scenes of conspiracy and treason, and Alexander was continually hearing of conspiracies and plots formed against him. The strong sentiment of love and devotion with which he inspired all around him at the commencement of his career was now gone, and his generals and officers were continually planning schemes to depose him from the power which he seemed no longer to have the energy to wield. Or at least, Alexander was continually suspecting that such plans were formed, and he was kept in a continual state of uneasiness and anxiety in discovering and punishing them. At last a conspiracy occurred in which Philotus was implicated. Alexander was informed one day that a plot had been formed to depose and destroy him, that Philotus had been made acquainted with it by a friend of Alexander's, in order that he might make it known to the king. That he had neglected to do so, thus making it probable that he was himself in league with the conspirators. Alexander was informed that the leader and originator of this conspiracy was one of his generals named Dimeless. He immediately sent an officer to Dimeless to summon him into his presence. Dimeless appeared to be struck with consternation at this summons. Instead of obeying it, he drew his sword, thrusted into his own heart, and fell dead upon the ground. Alexander then sent for Philotus, and asked him if it was indeed true that he had been informed of this conspiracy, and had neglected to make it known. Philotus replied that he had been told that such a plot was formed, but that he did not believe it, that such stories were continually invented by the malice of evil-disposed men, and that he had not considered the report which came to his ears as worthy of any attention. He was, however, now convinced, by the terror which Dimeless had manifested, and by his suicide, that all was true. And he asked Alexander's pardon for not having taken immediate measures for communicating promptly the information he had received. Alexander gave him his hand, and said that he was convinced that he was innocent, and had acted as he did from disbelief in the existence of the conspiracy, and not from any guilty participation in it. So Philotus went away to his tent. Alexander, however, did not drop the subject here. He called a council of his ableist and best friends and advisors, consisting of the principal officers of his army, and laid the facts before them. They came to a different conclusion from him in respect to the guilt of Philotus. They believed him implicated in the crime, and demanded his trial. Trial in such a case in those days meant putting the accused to the torture, with a view of forcing him to confess his guilt. Alexander yielded to this proposal. Perhaps he had secretly instigated it. The advisors of kings and conquerors, in such circumstances as this, generally had the sagacity to discover what advice will be agreeable. At all events Alexander followed the advice of his councillors, and made arrangements for arresting Philotus on that very evening. These circumstances occurred at a time when the army was preparing for a march. The various generals lodging in tents pitched for the purpose. Alexander placed extra guards in various parts of the encampment, as if to impress the whole army with a sense of the importance and salinity of the occasion. He then sent officers to the tent of Philotus, late at night, to arrest him. The officers found their unhappy victim asleep. They awoke him, and made known their errand. Philotus arose and obeyed the summons, dejected and distressed, aware apparently that his destruction was impending. The next morning Alexander called together a large assembly, consisting of the principal and most important portions of the army, to the number of several thousands. They came together with an air of impressive salinity, expecting, from the preliminary preparations, that business of a very solemn moment was to come before them, though they knew not what it was. These impressions of awe and salinity were very much increased by the spectacle which first met the eyes of the assembly after they were convened.  The death of dimness had been kept a secret, so that the appearance of his body was an unexpected as well as a shocking sight. When the first feeling of surprise and wonder had a little subsided, Alexander explained the assembly the nature of the conspiracy, and the circumstances connected with the self-execution of one of the guilty participators in it. The spectacle of the body and the statement of the king produced a scene of great and universal excitement in the assembly, and this excitement was raised to the highest pitch by the announcement which Alexander now made, that he had reason to believe that Filatos and his father Parmenio, officers who had enjoyed his highest favour, and in whom he had placed the most unbounded confidence, were the authors and originators of the whole design. He then ordered Filatos to be brought in.  He was in a state of great dejection and despondency. It is true that he was brought forward for trial, but he knew very well that trial meant torture, and that there was no hope for him as to the result. Alexander said that he would leave the accused to be dealt with by the assembly and withdrew. The authorities of the army, who now had the proud and domineering spirit which had so long excited their hatred and envy completely in their power, listened for a time to what Filatos had to say in his own justification. He showed them that there was no evidence whatever against him, and appealed to their sense of justice, not to condemn him on mere vague surmises. In reply they decided to put him to the torture. There was no evidence it was true, and they wished accordingly to supply its place by his own confession, exhorted by pain. Of course his most inverterate and implacable enemies were appointed to conduct the operation. They put Filatos upon the rack. The rack is an instrument of wheels and pulleys, into which the victim is placed, and his limbs and tendons are stretched by it in a manner which produces most excruciating pain. Filatos bore the beginning of his torture with great resolution and fortitude. He made no complaint. He uttered no cry. This was the signal to his executioners to increase the tension and the agony. Of course, in such a trial as this, there was no question of guilt or innocence at issue. The only question was, which could stand out the longest, his enemies in witnessing horrible sufferings, or he himself in enduring them. In this contest the unhappy Filatos was vanquished at last. He begged them to release him from the rack, saying he would confess whatever they required, on condition of being allowed to die in peace. They accordingly released him, and in answer to their questions he confessed that he himself and his father were involved in the plot. He said yes to various other inquiries relating to the circumstances of the conspiracy, and the guilt to various individuals, whom those that managed the torture had suspected, or who at any rate they wished to have condemned. The answers of Filatos to all these questions were written down, and he himself was sentenced to be stoned. The sentence was put in execution without any delay. During all this time Parmenia was in Medea, in command of a very important part of Alexander's army. It was decreed that he must die, but some careful management was necessary to secure his execution while he was at so great a distance, and at the head of so great a force. The affair had to be conducted with great secrecy, as well as dispatch. The plan adopted was as follows. There was a certain man named Polydamus, who was regarded as Parmenia's particular friend. Polydamus was commissioned to go to Medea and see the execution performed. He was selected, because it was supposed that if any enemy, or a stranger had been sent, Parmenia would have received him with suspicion, or at least with caution, and kept himself on guard. They gave Polydamus several letters to Parmenia, as if from his friends, and to one of them they attached the seal of his son Filatos, the more completely to deceive the unhappy father. Polydamus was eleven days on his journey into Medea. He had letters to Cleander, the governor of the province of Medea, which contained the king's warrant for Parmenia's execution. He arrived at the house of Cleander in the night. He delivered his letters, and they together concerted the plans of carrying the execution into effect. After having taken all the precautions necessary, Polydamus went, with many attendants accompanying him to the quarters of Parmenia. The old general, for he was at this time eighty years of age, was walking in his grounds. Polydamus, being admitted, ran up to a costume with great appearance of cordality and friendship. He delivered to him his letters, and Parmenia read them. He seemed much pleased with their contents, especially with the one which had been written in the name of his son. He had no means of detecting the imposter, for it was very customary in those days for letters to be written by secretaries, and to be authenticated solely by the seal. Parmenia was much pleased to get good tidings from Alexander and from his son, and began conversing upon the contents of the letters, when Polydamus, watching his opportunity, drew forth the dagger which he had concealed upon his person, and plunged it into Parmenia's side. He drew it forth immediately, and struck at his throat. The attendants rushed on at this signal, and thrust their swords again and again into the fallen body, until it ceased to breathe. The death of Parmenia and of his son in this violent matter, when, too, there was so little evidence of their guilt, made a very general and very unfavorable impression in respect to Alexander. And not long afterwards another case occurred, in some respects, still more painful, as it invents still more strikingly that the mind of Alexander, which had been in his earlier days filled with such noble and lofty sentiments of justice and generosity, was gradually getting to be under the supreme dominion of selfish and ungovernable passions. It was the case of Clitus. Clitus was a very celebrated general of Alexander's army, and a great favorite with the king. He had, in fact, on one occasion, saved Alexander's life. It was at the Battle of Granicus. Alexander had exposed himself in the thickest of the combat, and was surrounded by enemies. The sword of one of them was actually raised over his head, and would have fallen and killed him on the spot, if Clitus had not rushed forward and cut the man down, just at the instance, just at the instance when he was about striking the blow. Such acts of fidelity and courage a