g reassured them at
once by the easy and good-natured manner with which he passed over the
mistake, saying it was no mistake at all. "It is true," said he, "that
I am Alexander, but then he is Alexander too."

The wife of Darius was young and very beautiful, and they had a little
son who was with them in the camp. It seems almost unaccountable that
Darius should have brought such a helpless and defenseless charge with
him into camps and fields of battle. But the truth was that he had no
idea of even a battle with Alexander, and as to defeat, he did not
contemplate the remotest possibility of it. He regarded Alexander as a
mere boy--energetic and daring it is true, and at the head of a
desperate band of adventurers; but he considered his whole force as
altogether too insignificant to make any stand against such a vast
military power as he was bringing against him. He presumed that he
would retreat as fast as possible before the Persian army came near
him. The idea of such a boy coming down at break of day, from narrow
defiles of the mountains, upon his vast encampment covering all the
plains, and in twelve hours putting the whole mighty mass to flight,
was what never entered his imagination at all. The exploit was,
indeed, a very extraordinary one. Alexander's forces may have
consisted of forty or fifty thousand men, and, if we may believe their
story, there were over a hundred thousand Persians left dead upon the
field. Many of these were, however, killed by the dreadful confusion
and violence of the retreat as vast bodies of horsemen, pressing
through the defiles, rode over and trampled down the foot soldiers who
were toiling in awful confusion along the way, having fled before the
horsemen left the field.

Alexander had heard that Darius had left the greater part of his royal
treasures in Damascus, and he sent Parmenio there to seize them. This
expedition was successful. An enormous amount of gold and silver fell
into Alexander's hands. The plate was coined into money, and many of
the treasures were sent to Greece.

Darius got together a small remnant of his army and continued his
flight. He did not stop until he had crossed the Euphrates. He then
sent an embassador to Alexander to make propositions for peace. He
remonstrated with him, in the communication which he made, for coming
thus to invade his dominions, and urged him to withdraw and be
satisfied with his own kingdom. He offered him any sum he might name
as