CHAPTER II.

FOUNDATION OF ALEXANDRIA.—EVENTS IN THE AEGEAN.

The following story is told, which seems to me not unworthy of

belief[353]:—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[354] 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[355] 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[356] 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,[357] 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 the

pirates were there massacred by the Chians; and Hegelochus brought to

Alexander, as prisoners Aristonicus, Apollonides the Chian, Phisinus,

Megareus, and all the others who had taken part in the revolt of Chios

to the Persians, and who at that time were holding the government of

the island by force. He also announced that he had deprived Chares[358]

of the possession of Mitylene, that he had brought over the other

cities in Lesbos by a voluntary agreement, and that he had sent

Amphoterus to Cos with sixty ships, for the Coans themselves invited

him to their island. He said that he himself had sailed to Cos and

found it already in the hands of Amphoterus. Hegelochus brought all the

prisoners with him except Pharnabazus, who had eluded his guards at

Cos and got away by stealth. Alexander sent the despots who had been

brought from the cities back to their fellow-citizens, to be treated as

they pleased; but Apollonides and his Chian partisans he sent under a

strict guard to Elephantinē, an Egyptian city.[359]