This is attested by many credible authors, and if what those of Alexandria
tell us, relying upon the authority of Heraclides, be true, Homer was neither
an idle nor an unprofitable companion to him in his expedition. For when
he was master of Egypt, designing to settle a colony of Grecians there,
he resolved to build a large and populous city, and give it his own name.
In order to which, after he had measured and staked out the ground with
the advice of the best architects, he chanced one night in his sleep to
see a wonderful vision; a grey-headed old man, of a venerable aspect, appeared
to stand by him, and pronounce these verses:-
"An island lies, where loud the billows roar, Pharos they call
it, on the Egyptian shore."
Alexander upon this immediately rose up and went to Pharos, which,
at that time, was an island lying a little above the Canobic mouth of the
river Nile, though it has now been joined to the mainland by a mole. As
soon as he saw the commodious situation of the place, it being a long neck
of land, stretching like an isthmus between large lagoons and shallow waters
on one side and the sea on the other, the latter at the end of it making
a spacious harbour, he said, Homer, besides his other excellences, was
a very good architect, and ordered the plan of a city to be drawn out answerable
to the place. To do which, for want of chalk, the soil being black, they
laid out their lines with flour, taking in a pretty large compass of ground
in a semi-circular figure, and drawing into the inside of the circumference
equal straight lines from each end, thus giving it something of the form
of a cloak or cape; while he was pleasing himself with his design, on a
sudden an infinite number of great birds of several kinds, rising like
a black cloud out of the river and the lake, devoured every morsel of the
flour that had been used in setting out the lines; at which omen even Alexander
himself was troubled, till the augurs restored his confidence again by
telling him it was a sign the city he was about to build would not only
abound in all things within itself, but also be the nurse and feeder of
many nations. He commanded the workmen to proceed, while he went to visit
the temple of Ammon.
This was a long and painful, and, in two respects, a dangerous journey;
first, if they should lose their provision of water, as for several days
none could be obtained; and, secondly, if a violent south wind should rise
upon them, while they were travelling through the wide extent of deep sands,
as it is said to have done when Cambyses led his army that way, blowing
the sand together in heaps, and raising, as it were, the whole desert like
a sea upon them, till fifty thousand were swallowed up and destroyed by
it. All these difficulties were weighed and represented to him; but Alexander
was not easily to be diverted from anything he was bent upon. For fortune
having hitherto seconded him in his designs, made him resolute and firm
in his opinions, and the boldness of his temper raised a sort of passion
in him for surmounting difficulties; as if it were not enough to be always
victorious in the field, unless places and seasons and nature herself submitted
to him. In this journey, the relief and assistance the gods afforded him
in his distresses were more remarkable, and obtained greater belief than
the oracles he received afterwards, which, however, were valued and credited
the more on account of those occurrences. For first, plentiful rains that
fell preserved them from any fear of perishing by drought, and, allaying
the extreme dryness of the sand, which now became moist and firm to travel
on, cleared and purified the air. Besides this, when they were out of their
way, and were wandering up and down, because the marks which were wont
to direct the guides were disordered and lost, they were set right again
by some ravens, which flew before them when on their march, and waited
for them when they lingered and fell behind; and the greatest miracle,
as Callisthenes tells us, was that if any of the company went astray in
the night, they never ceased croaking and making a noise till by that means
they had brought them into the right way again. Having passed through the
wilderness, they came to the place where the high priest, at the first
salutation, bade Alexander welcome from his father Ammon. And being asked
by him whether any of his father's murderers had escaped punishment, he
charged him to speak with more respect, since his was not a mortal father.
Then Alexander, changing his expression, desired to know of him if any
of those who murdered Philip were yet unpunished, and further concerning
dominion, whether the empire of the world was reserved for him? This, the
god answered, he should obtain, and that Philip's death was fully revenged,
which gave him so much satisfaction that he made splendid offerings to
Jupiter, and gave the priests very rich presents. This is what most authors
write concerning the oracles. But Alexander, in a letter to his mother,
tells her there were some secret answers, which at his return he would
communicate to her only. Others say that the priest, desirous as a piece
of courtesy to address him in Greek, "O Paidion," by a slip in
pronunciation ended with the s instead of the n, and said "O Paidios,"
which mistake Alexander was well enough pleased with, and it went for current
that the oracle had called him so.
Among the sayings of one Psammon, a philosopher, whom he heard in Egypt,
he most approved of this, that all men are governed by God, because in
everything, that which is chief and commands is divine. But what he pronounced
himself upon this subject was even more like a philosopher, for he said
God was the common father of us all, but more particularly of the best
of us. To the barbarians he carried himself very haughtily, as if he were
fully persuaded of his divine birth and parentage; but to the Grecians
more moderately, and with less affectation of divinity, except it were
once in writing to the Athenians about Samos, when he tells them that he
should not himself have bestowed upon them that free and glorious city;
"You received it," he says, "from the bounty of him who
at that time was called my lord and father," meaning Philip. However,
afterwards being wounded with an arrow, and feeling much pain, he turned
to those about him, and told them, "This, my friends, is real flowing
blood, not Ichor-
"Such as immortal gods are wont to shed." And another time,
when it thundered so much that everybody was afraid, and Anaxarchus, the
sophist, asked him if he who was Jupiter's son could do anything like this,
"Nay," said Alexander, laughing, "I have no desire to be
formidable to my friends, as you would have me, who despised my table for
being furnished with fish, and not with the heads of governors of provinces."
For in fact it is related as true, that Anaxarchus, seeing a present of
small fishes, which the king sent to Hephaestion, had used this expression,
in a sort of irony, and disparagement of those who undergo vast labours
and encounter great hazards in pursuit of magnificent objects which after
all bring them little more pleasure or enjoyment than what others have.
From what I have said upon this subject, it is apparent that Alexander
in himself was not foolishly affected, or had the vanity to think himself
really a god, but merely used his claims to divinity as a means of maintaining
among other people the sense of his superiority.
Alexander
in Egypt, Plutarch