, brave, virtuous,
and free was the way to be godlike. It was in his favour that the direct
line of Persian kings had failed, and that there had been wars and
factions all through the last reign. The present king was Codomanus, a
grand-nephew of that Artaxerxes against whom Cyrus had led the ten
thousand. He had come to the throne in 336, the same year as Alexander,
and was known as Darius, the royal name he had taken. Alexander made his
father's counsellor, Antipater, governor of Macedon in his absence, and
took leave of his mother and his home in the spring of 334.

[Picture: Bacchanals]

CHAP. XXVIII.--THE EXPEDITION TO PERSIA. B.C. 334.

[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]

Alexander passed the Hellespont in the April of 334, steering his own
vessel, and was the first to leap on shore. The first thing he did was
to go over the plain of Troy and all the scenes described in the _Iliad_,
and then to offer sacrifices at the mound said to be the tomb of
Achilles, while his chief friend Hephaestion paid the same honours to
Patroclus.

The best general in the Persian army was a Rhodian named Memnon, who
wanted to starve out Alexander by burning and destroying all before him;
but the satrap Arsaces would not consent to this, and chose to collect
his forces, and give battle to the Greeks on the banks of the river
Granicus, a stream rising in Mount Ida and falling into the Euxine.
Alexander led the right wing, with a white plume in his helmet, so that
all might know him; Parmenio led the left; and it was a grand victory,
though not without much hard fighting, hand to hand. Alexander was once
in great danger, but was saved by Clitus, the son of his nurse Lanika.
The Persians broke and dispersed so entirely that no army was left in
Asia Minor, and the satrap Arsaces killed himself in despair.

[Picture: Alexander the Great]

Alexander forbade his troops to plunder the country, telling them that it
was his own, and that the people were as much his subjects as they were;
and all the difference he made was changing the Persian governors for
Greek ones. Sardis and Ephesus fell into his hands without a blow; and
to assist in rebuilding the great temple of Diana, he granted all the
tribute hitherto paid to the Great King. When he came to Caria, Ada, who
was reigning there as queen, adopted him as her son, and wanted him to
take all her best co