with their naval force, accompanied by the Sidonian triremes; so that about eighty Phoenician ships joined him. About the same time triremes also came to him from Rhodes, both the one called Peripolus,[1] and with it nine others. From Soli and Mallus also came three, and from Lycia ten; from Macedonia also a ship with fifty oars, in which sailed Proteas, son of Andronicus.[2] Not long after, too, the kings of Cyprus put into Sidon with about one hundred and twenty ships, when they heard of the defeat of Darius at Issus, and were terrified, because the whole of Phoenicia was already in the possession of Alexander. To all of these Alexander granted indemnity for their previous conduct, because they seemed to have joined the Persian fleet rather by necessity than by their own choice. While the engines of war were being constructed for him, and the ships were being fitted up for a naval attack on the city and for the trial of a sea-battle, he took some squadrons of cavalry, the Agrianians and archers, and made an expedition into the range of mountains called Anti-Libanus.[3] Having subdued some of the mountaineers by force, and drawn others over to him by terms of capitulation, he returned to Sidon in ten days.[4] Here he found Cleander, son of Polemocrates, just arrived from Peloponnesus, having 4,000 Grecian mercenaries with him.[5]
- ↑ This was a state vessel, or guardship, similar to the Paralus and Salaminia at Athens. See Alciphron, Bk. I. Epistle 11, with Bergler's note.
- ↑ See Arrian, ii. 2 supra.
- ↑ Curtius (iv. 11) says that about thirty of the Macedonians collecting timber in Lebanon were killed by a party of wild Arabs, and that a few were also captured by them. Lebanon is a Hebrew word meaning white, like Alpes. It was so called on account of its white cllffs, just as Britain is called by Aristotle, Albion, the Celtic for white.
- ↑ Plutarch (Life of Alexander, 24) gives us, on the authority of Chares, some details of daring valour on the part of Alexander in this expedition.
- ↑ Cleander was put to death by Alexander for oppression in exercising his duties as governor of Media. See Arrian, vi. 27 infra.
