never made, but that the story arose and was
propagated from generation to generation among the Jews, through the
influence of their desire to magnify the importance and influence of
their worship, and that Josephus incorporated the account into his
history without sufficiently verifying the facts.

However it may be in regard to Jerusalem, Alexander was delayed at
Gaza, which, as may be seen upon the map, is on the shore of the
Mediterranean Sea. It was a place of considerable commerce and wealth,
and was, at this time, under the command of a governor whom Darius had
stationed there. His name was Betis. Betis refused to surrender the
place. Alexander stopped to besiege it, and the siege delayed him two
months. He was very much exasperated at this, both against Betis and
against the city.

His unreasonable anger was very much increased by a wound which he
received. He was near a mound which his soldiers had been constructing
near the city, to place engines upon for an attack upon the walls,
when an arrow shot from one of the engines upon the walls struck him
in the breast. It penetrated his armor, and wounded him deeply in the
shoulder. The wound was very painful for some time, and the suffering
which he endured from it only added fuel to the flame of his anger
against the city.

At last breaches were made in the walls, and the place was taken by
storm. Alexander treated the wretched captives with extreme cruelty.
He cut the garrison to pieces, and sold the inhabitants to slavery. As
for Betis, he dealt with him in a manner almost too horrible to be
described. The reader will recollect that Achilles, at the siege of
Troy, after killing Hector, dragged his dead body around the walls of
the city. Alexander, growing more cruel as he became more accustomed
to war and bloodshed, had been intending to imitate this example so
soon as he could find an enemy worthy of such a fate. He now
determined to carry his plan into execution with Betis. He ordered him
into his presence. A few years before, he would have rewarded him for
his fidelity in his master's service; but now, grown selfish, hard
hearted, and revengeful, he looked upon him with a countenance full of
vindictive exultation, and said,

"You are not going to die the simple death that you desire. You have
got the worst torments that revenge can invent to suffer."

Betis did not reply, but looked upon Alexander with a calm, and
composed, and unsubdued air, which ince