t, the Tyrians
were overpowered, and their city taken on that very day.

Afterwards, while Alexander was besieging Gaza, the largest city in
Syria, a clod of earth was dropped upon his shoulder by a bird, which
afterwards alighted upon one of the military engines, and became
entangled in the network of ropes by which it was worked. This portent
also was truly explained by Aristander; for the place was taken, and
Alexander was wounded in the shoulder.

He sent many of the spoils to Olympias, Kleopatra, and others of his
friends, and sent his tutor Leonidas five hundred talents weight of
frankincense, and a hundred talents of myrrh, to remind him of what he
had said when a child. Leonidas once, when sacrificing, reproved
Alexander for taking incense by handfuls to throw upon the victim when
it was burning on the altar. "When," he said, "you have conquered the
country from which incense comes, Alexander, then you may make such
rich offerings as these; but at present you must use what we have
sparingly." Alexander now wrote to him, "We have sent you abundance of
frankincense and myrrh, that you may no longer treat the gods so
stingily."

XXVI. When a certain casket was brought to him, which appeared to be
the most valuable of all the treasures taken from Darius, he asked his
friends what they thought he ought to keep in it as his own most
precious possession. After they had suggested various different
things, he said that he intended to keep his copy of the Iliad in it.
This fact is mentioned by many historians; and if the legend which is
current among the people of Alexandria; on the authority of
Herakleides, be true, the poems of Homer were far from idle or useless
companions to him, even when on a campaign. The story goes that after
conquering Egypt, he desired to found a great and populous Grecian
city, to be called after his own name, and that after he had fixed
upon an excellent site, where in the opinion of the best architects, a
city surpassing anything previously existing could be built, he
dreamed that a man with long hair and venerable aspect appeared to
him, and recited the following verses:

"Hard by, an island in the stormy main
Lies close to Egypt, Pharos is its name."

As soon as he woke, he proceeded to Pharos, which then was an island
near the Canopic mouth of the Nile, though at the present day so much
earth has been deposited by the river that it is joined to the
mainland. When he saw the