Alexander

Then for the first time the Macedonians got a taste of gold and silver and women and barbaric luxury of life, and now that they had struck the trail, they were like dogs in their eagerness to pursue and track down the wealth of the Persians. However, Alexander determined first to make himself master of the sea-coasts. As for Cyprus, then, its kings came at once and put the island in his hands, together with Phoenicia, with the exception of Tyre.

But Tyre he besieged for seven months,[*](January—August, 332 B.C.) with moles, and engines-of-war, and two hundred triremes by sea. During this siege he had a dream in which he saw Heracles stretching out his hand to him from the wall and calling him. And many of the Tyrians dreamed that Apollo told them he was going away to Alexander, since he was displeased at what was going on in the city.

Whereupon, as if the god had been a common deserter caught in the act of going over to the enemy, they encircled his colossal figure with cords and nailed it down to its pedestal, calling him an Alexandrist.

In another dream, too, Alexander thought he saw a satyr who mocked him at a distance, and eluded his grasp when he tried to catch him, but finally, after much coaxing and chasing, surrendered. The seers, dividing the word satyros into two parts, said to him, plausibly enough, Tyre is to be thine. And a spring is pointed out, near which Alexander dreamed he saw the satyr.