alexander crosses the hellespont and visits troy.

having settled these affairs, he returned into macedonia. he then offered to the olympian zeus the sacrifice which had been instituted by archelaüs,100 and had been customary up to that time; and he celebrated the public contest of the olympic games at aegae.101 it is said that he also held a public contest in honour of the muses. at this time it was reported that the statue of orpheus, son of oeagrus the thracian, which was in pieris,102 sweated incessantly.103 various were the explanations of this prodigy given by the soothsayers; but aristander,104 a man of telmissus, a soothsayer, bade alexander take courage; for he said it was evident from this that there would be much labour for the epic and lyric poets, and for the writers of odes, to compose and sing about alexander and his achievements.

(b.c. 334.) at the beginning of the spring he marched towards the hellespont, entrusting the affairs of macedonia and greece to antipater. he led not much above 3730,000 infantry together with light-armed troops and archers, and more than 5,000 cavalry.105 his march was past the lake cercinitis,106 towards amphipolis and the mouths of the river strymon. having crossed this river he passed by the pangaean mountain,107 along the road leading to abdera and maronea, grecian cities built on the coast. thence he arrived at the river hebrus,108 and easily crossed it. thence he proceeded through paetica to the river melas, having crossed which he arrived at sestus, in twenty days altogether from the time of his starting from home. when he came to elaeus he offered sacrifice to protesilaus upon the tomb of that hero, both for other reasons and because protesilaus seemed to have been the first of the greeks who took part with agamemnon in the expedition to ilium to disembark in asia. the design of this sacrifice was, that his disembarking in asia might be more fortunate than that of protesilaus had been.109 he then committed to parmenio the duty of conveying the cavalry and the greater part of the infantry from sestus to abydus; and they were transported in 160 triremes, besides many trading vessels.110 the prevailing account is, that alexander started from elaeus and put into the port of achaeans,111 that with his own hand he steered the general’s ship 38across, and that when he was about the middle of the channel of the hellespont he sacrificed a bull to poseidon and the nereids, and poured forth a libation to them into the sea from a golden goblet. they say also that he was the first man to step out of the ship in full armour on the land of asia,112 and that he erected altars to zeus, the protector of people landing, to athena, and to heracles, at the place in europe whence he started, and at the place in asia where he disembarked. it is also said that he went up to ilium and offered sacrifice to the trojan athena; that he set up his own panoply in the temple as a votive offering, and in exchange for it took away some of the consecrated arms which had been preserved from the time of the trojan war. these arms were said to have been carried in front of him into the battles by the shield-bearing guards. a report also prevails that he offered sacrifice to priam upon the altar of zeus the household god, deprecating the wrath of priam against the progeny of neoptolemus, from whom alexander himself derived his origin.