Alexander

Persis was difficult of access, owing to the roughness of the country, and was guarded by the noblest of the Persians (for Dareius had taken to flight); but Alexander found a guide to conduct him thither by a circuit of no great extent. The man spoke two languages, since his father was a Lycian and his mother a Persian; and it was he, they say, whom the Pythian priestess had in mind when she prophesied, Alexander being yet a boy, that a lycus, or wolf, would be Alexander’s guide on his march against the Persians.[*](Arrian (Anab. iii. 18, 1f.) speaks only of a forced march through the mountains.)

In this country, then, as it turned out, there was a great slaughter of the prisoners taken; for Alexander himself writes that he gave orders to have the inhabitants butchered, thinking that this would be to his advantage; and they say that as much coined money was found there[*](In Persepolis.) as at Susa, and that it took ten thousand pairs of mules and five thousand camels to carry away the other furniture and wealth there.