XVIII.  After this he put down a revolt among the Pisidians, and conquered the whole of Phrygia.  On his arrival at Gordium, which is said to have been the capital of King Midas of old, he was shown the celebrated chariot there, tied up with a knot of cornel-tree bark.  Here he was told the legend, which all the natives believed, that whoever untied that knot was destined to become lord of all the world.  Most historians say that as the knot was tied with a strap whose ends could not be found, and was very complicated and intricate, Alexander, despairing of untying it, drew his sword and cut through the knot, thus making many ends appear.  But Aristobulus tells us that he easily undid it by pulling out of the pole the pin to which the strap was fastened, and then drawing off the yoke itself from the pole.

He now prevailed upon the people of Paphlagonia and Kappadokia to join him, and also was encouraged in his design of proceeding farther into the interior by receiving intelligence of the death of Memnon, the general to whom Darius had entrusted the defence of the sea coast, who had already caused him much trouble, and had offered a most stubborn resistance to him.  Darius, too, came from Susa, confident in the numbers of his army, for he was at the head of six hundred thousand men, and greatly encouraged by a dream upon which the Magi had put rather a strained interpretation in order to please him.  He dreamed that he saw the Macedonian phalanx begirt with flame, and that Alexander, dressed in a courier’s cloak like that which he himself had worn before he became king, was acting as his servant.  Afterwards, Alexander went into the temple of Belus, and disappeared.  By this vision the gods probably meant to foretell that the deeds of the Macedonians would be brilliant and glorious, and that Alexander after conquering Asia, just as Darius had conquered it when from a mere courier he rose to be a king, would die young and famous.

XIX.  Darius was also much encouraged by the long inaction of Alexander in Kilikia.  This was caused by an illness, which some say arose from the hardships which he had undergone, and others tell us was the result of bathing in the icy waters of the Kydnus.  No physician dared to attend him, for they all thought that he was past the reach of medicine, and dreaded the anger of the Macedonians if they proved unsuccessful.  At last Philip, an Akarnanian, seeing that he was dangerously ill, determined to run the risk, as he was his true friend, and thought it his duty to share all his dangers.  He compounded a draught for him, and persuaded him to drink it, by telling him that it would give him strength and enable him to take the field.  At this time Parmenio sent him a letter from the camp, bidding him beware of Philip, who had been bribed to poison him by Darius with rich presents, and the offer of his own daughter in marriage.  Alexander read the letter, and showed it to no one, but placed it under his pillow.  At the appointed