cedon nine days, a number corresponding with that of the dancing
goddesses. Alexander made very magnificent preparations for the
celebration on this occasion. He had a tent made, under which, it is
said, a hundred tables could be spread; and here he entertained, day
after day, an enormous company of princes, potentates, and generals.
He offered sacrifices to such of the gods as he supposed it would
please the soldiers to imagine that they had propitiated. Connected
with these sacrifices and feastings, there were athletic and military
spectacles and shows--races and wrestlings--and mock contests, with
blunted spears. All these things encouraged and quickened the ardor
and animation of the soldiers. It aroused their ambition to
distinguish themselves by their exploits, and gave them an increased
and stimulated desire for honor and fame. Thus inspirited by new
desires for human praise, and trusting in the sympathy and protection
of powers which were all that they conceived of as divine, the army
prepared to set forth from their native land, bidding it a long, and,
as it proved to most of them, a final farewell.

By following the course of Alexander's expedition upon the map at the
commencement of chapter iii., it will be seen that his route lay first
along the northern coasts of the Aegean Sea. He was to pass from Europe
into Asia by crossing the Hellespont between Sestos and Abydos. He
sent a fleet of a hundred and fifty galleys, of three banks of oars
each, over the Aegean Sea, to land at Sestos, and be ready to transport
his army across the straits. The army, in the mean time, marched by
land. They had to cross the rivers which flow into the Aegean Sea on
the northern side; but as these rivers were in Macedon, and no
opposition was encountered upon the banks of them, there was no
serious difficulty in effecting the passage. When they reached Sestos,
they found the fleet ready there, awaiting their arrival.

It is very strikingly characteristic of the mingling of poetic
sentiment and enthusiasm with calm and calculating business
efficiency, which shone conspicuously so often in Alexander's career,
that when he arrived at Sestos, and found that the ships were there,
and the army safe, and that there was no enemy to oppose his landing
on the Asiatic shore, he left Parmenio to conduct the transportation
of the troops across the water, while he himself went away in a single
galley on an excursion of sentiment and romantic a