e statue of Xerxes which had been thrown
down and was being carelessly trampled upon by the soldiers as they
pressed into the royal palace, stopped, and addressed it as though it
were alive. "Shall we," said he, "leave thee lying there, because of
thy invasion of Greece, or shall we set thee up again because of thy
magnificence and greatness of soul?" He then stood musing for a long
time, till at length he roused himself from his reverie and went his
way. Being desirous of giving his soldiers some rest, as it was now
winter, he remained in that country for four months. It is related
that when he first took his seat upon the royal throne of Persia,
under the golden canopy, Demaratus, an old friend and companion of
Alexander, burst into tears, and exclaimed that the Greeks who had
died before that day had lost the greatest of pleasures, because they
had not seen Alexander seated on the throne of Darius.

XXXVIII. After this, while he was engaged in preparing to march in
pursuit of Darius, he chanced to be present at a banquet where his
friends had brought their mistresses. Of these ladies the chief was
the celebrated Thais, who afterwards became the mistress of King
Ptolemy of Egypt, and who was of Attic parentage.

She at first amused Alexander by her conversation, then adroitly
flattered him, and at last, after he had been drinking for some time,
began to speak in a lofty strain of patriotism which scarcely became
such a person. She declared, that she was fully repaid for all the
hardships which she had undergone while travelling through Asia with
the army, now that she was able to revel in the palace of the haughty
Kings of Persia; but that it would be yet sweeter to her to burn the
house of Xerxes, who burned her native Athens, and to apply the torch
with her own hand in the presence of Alexander, that it might be told
among men that a woman who followed Alexander's camp had taken a more
noble revenge upon the Persians for the wrongs of Greece, than all the
admirals and generals of former times had been able to do. This speech
of hers was enthusiastically applauded, and all Alexander's friends
pressed him to execute the design. Alexander leaped from his seat, and
led the way, with a garland upon his head and a torch in his hand. The
rest of the revellers followed, and surrounded the palace, while the
remainder of the Macedonians, hearing what was going on, brought them
torches. They did so the more readily because th