Alexander

This contest at once made a great change in the situation to Alexander’s advantage, so that he received the submission even of Sardis, the bulwark of the barbarian dominion on the sea-coast, and added the rest of the country to his conquests. Halicarnassus alone withstood him, and Miletus, which cities he took by storm[*](The siege and capture of these cities occupied Alexander till the late autumn of 334 B.C.) and subdued all the territories about them. Then he was in doubt as to his future course.

Many times he was eager to encounter Dareius and put the whole issue to hazard, and many times he would make up his mind to practice himself first, as it were, and strengthen himself by acquiring the regions along the sea with their resources, and then to go up against that monarch. Now, there is in Lycia, near the city of Xanthus, a spring, which at this time, as we are told, was of its own motion upheaved from its depths, and overflowed, and cast forth a bronze tablet bearing the prints of ancient letters, in which it was made known that the empire of the Persians would one day be destroyed by the Greeks and come to an end.

Encouraged by this prophecy, Alexander hastened to clear up the seacoast as far as Cilicia and Phoenicia. His rapid passage along the coasts of Pamphylia has afforded many historians material for bombastic and terrifying description. They imply that by some great and heaven-sent good fortune the sea retired to make way for Alexander, although at other times it always came rolling in with violence from the main, and scarcely ever revealed to sight the small rocks which lie close up under the precipitous and riven sides of the mountain.[*](According to Arrian (Anab. i. 26, 1 f.), there is no route along this beach except when the north wind blows. But at that time, after strong south winds, the north winds blew and rendered his passage easy and quick, not without the divine intervention, as both he and his followers interpreted. )

And Menander, in one of his comedies,[*](Kook, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 240.) evidently refers jestingly to this marvel:—

1. How Alexander-like, indeed, this is; and if I seek some one,
2. Spontaneous he’ll present himself; and if I clearly must
3. Pass through some place by sea, this will lie open to my steps.

This was the reason for his spending several days in that city, during which he noticed that a statue of Theodectas, a deceased citizen of Phaselis, had been erected in the marketplace. Once, therefore, after supper and in his cups, he led a band of revellers to the statue and crowned it with many of their garlands, thus in pleasantry returning no ungraceful honour for the past association with the man which he owed to Aristotle and philosophy.

After this, he overpowered such of the Pisidians as had offered him resistance, and subdued Phrygia; and after he had taken the city of Gordium,[*](Early in 333 B.C.) reputed to have been the home of the ancient Midas, he saw the much-talked-of waggon bound fast to its yoke with bark of the cornel-tree, and heard a story confidently told about it by the Barbarians, to the effect that whosoever loosed the fastening was destined to become king of the whole world.

Well, then, most writers say that since the fastenings had their ends concealed, and were intertwined many times in crooked coils, Alexander was at a loss how to proceed, and finally loosened the knot by cutting it through with his sword, and that when it was thus smitten many ends were to be seen. But Aristobulus says that he undid it very easily, by simply taking out the so-called hestor, or pin, of the waggon-pole, by which the yoke-fastening was held together, and then drawing away the yoke.[*](Cf. Arrian, Anab. ii. 3.)

Setting out from there, he subdued Paphlagonia and Cappadocia, and on hearing of the death of Memnon, one of the commanders of Dareius on the sea-board, who was thought likely to give Alexander abundant trouble and infinite annoyance, he was all the more encouraged for his expedition into the interior.