ity which he reserved for himself, he sent as a present
to his mother.

This battle presently made a great change of affairs to Alexander's
advantage. For Sardis itself, the chief seat of the barbarians' power
in the maritime provinces, and many other considerable places, were
surrendered to him; only Halicarnassus and Miletus stood out, which he
took by force, together with the territory about them. After which
he was a little unsettled in his opinion how to proceed. Sometimes he
thought it best to find out Darius as soon as he could, and put all
to the hazard of a battle; at another time he looked upon it as a more
prudent course to make an entire reduction of the sea-coast, and not
to seek the enemy till he had first exercised his power here and made
himself secure of the resources of these provinces. While he was thus
deliberating what to do, it happened that a spring of water near the
city of Xanthus in Lycia, of its own accord swelled over its banks,
and threw up a copper plate upon the margin, in which was engraven in
ancient characters, that the time would come, when the Persian empire
should be destroyed by the Greeks. Encouraged by this incident, he
proceeded to reduce the maritime parts of Cilicia and Phoenicia, and
passed his army along the sea-coasts of Pamphylia with such expedition
that many historians have described and extolled it with a height of
admiration, as if it were no less than a miracle, and an extraordinary
effect of divine favor, that the waves which usually come rolling in
violently from the main, and hardly ever leave so much as a narrow beach
under the steep, broken cliffs at any time uncovered, should on a sudden
retire to afford him passage. Menander, in one of his comedies, alludes
to this marvel when he says,

Was Alexander ever favored more?
Each man I wish for meets me at the door,
And should I ask for passage through the sea,
The sea, I doubt not, would retire for me.

Then he subdued the Pisidians who made head against him, and conquered
the Phrygians, at whose chief city Gordium, which is said to be the seat
of the ancient Midas, he saw the famous chariot fastened with cords
made of the rind of the cornel-tree, about which the inhabitants had a
tradition, that for him who should untie it, was reserved the empire
of the world. Most authors tell the story of Alexander, finding himself
unable to untie the knot, the ends of which were secretly twisted round