SECOND LETTER FROM DARIUS. 141 instead of plunging into farther peril," — " So would I (replied Alexander) if I were Parmenio ; but since I am Alexander, I must return a different answer." His answer to Darius was to this effect : — "I want neither your monev nor your cession. All your money and ten'itory are already mine, and you are ten- dering to me a part in place of the whole. If I choose to marry your daughter, I shall marry her — whether you give her to me or not. Come hither to me, if you wish to obtain from me any act of friendship." I Alexander might spare the submissive and the prostrate ; but he could not brook an equal or a competitor, and his language towards them was that of brutal insolence. Of course this was the last message sent by Darius, who now saw, if he had not before seen, that he had no chance open except by the renewal of war. Being thus entire master of Syria, Phenicia, and Palestine, and having accepted the voluntary submission of the Jews, Alex- ander marched forward to conquer Egypt. He had determined, before he undertook any farther expedition into the interior of the Persian empire, to make himself master of all the coast-lands which kept open the communications of the Persians with Greece, so as to secure his rear against any serious hostility. His great fear was, of Grecian soldiers or cities raised against him by Persian gold ; - and Egypt was the last remaining pos- session of the Persians, which gave them the means of acting upon Greece. Those means were indeed now prodigiously cur- tailed by the feeble condition of the Persian fleet in the ^gean, unable to contend with the increasing fleet of the Macedonian admirals Hegelochus and Amphoterus, now numbering 1 60 sail.3 During the summer of 332 b. c, while Alexander was prosecut- ing the siege of Tyre, these admirals recovered all the impor- tant acquisitions — Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos — which had been made by Memnon for the Persian interests. The inhabi- 1 Arrian, ii. 25, 5 ; Curtius, iv. 5. The answer is more insolent in the naked simplicity of Arrian, than in the pomp of Curtius. Plutarch ( Alexand. 29) both abridges and softens it. Diodorus also gives the answer differently (xvii. 54) — and represents the embassy as coming somewhat later in time, after Alexander's return front Egypt.
- Arnan, ii. 17, 4. "" Curtiuf iv. 5, 14.
