worthy of belief[1]:—that Alexander himself wished to leave behind for the builders the marks for the boundaries of the fortification, but that there was nothing at hand with which to make a furrow in the ground. One of the builders[2] hit upon the plan of collecting in vessels the barley which the soldiers were carrying, and throwing it upon the ground where the king led the way; and thus the circle of the fortification which he was making[3] for the city was completely marked out. The soothsayers, and especially Aristander the Telmissian, who was said already to have given many other true predictions, pondering this, told Alexander that the city would become prosperous in every respect, but especially in regard to the fruits of the earth.
At this time Hegelochus[4] sailed to Egypt and informed Alexander that the Tenedians had revolted from the Persians and attached themselves to him; because they had gone over to the Persians against their own wish. He also said that the democracy of Chios were introducing Alexander's adherents in spite of those who held the city, being established in it by Autophradates and Pharnabazus. The latter commander had been caught there and kept as a prisoner, as was also the despot Aristonicus, a Methymnaean,[5] who sailed into the harbour of Chios with five piratical vessels, fitted with one and a half banks of oars, not knowing that the harbour was in the hands of Alexander's adherents, but being misled by those who kept the bars of the harbour, because forsooth the fleet of Pharnabazus was moored in it. All
- ↑ Cf. Strabo (xvii. 1); Plutarch (Alex., 26); Diodorus (xvii. 52); Curtius (iv. 33); Ammianus (xxii. 16).
- ↑ We find from Valerius Maximus (i. 4) and Ammianus, I.c., that his name was Dinocrates.
- ↑ Krüger substitutes ὲπενόει for ὲποίει, comparing iv. 1, 3, and 4, 1 infra.
- ↑ See Arrian, ii. 2 supra.
- ↑ Methymna was, next to Mitylene, the most important city in Lesbos.
