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142 A Short History of The World the phalanx com- pleted the vic- tory. Darius led the retreat. He made no further attempt to re- sist the invader but fled north- ward into the country of the Medes. Alexan- der marched on to Babylon, still prosperous and important, and then to Susa and Persepolis. There after a drunken festival he burnt down the palace of Darius, the king of kings. Thence Alex- ander presently made a military parade of central Asia, going to the utmost bounds of the Persian empire. At first he turned northward. Darius was pursued ; and he was overtaken at dawn dying in his chariot, having been murdered by his own people. He was still living when the foremost Greeks reached him. Alexander came up to find him dead. Alexander skirted the Caspian Sea, he went up into the mountains of western Turkestan, he came down by Herat (which he founded) and Cabul and the Khyber Pass into India. He fought a great battle on the Indus with an Indian King Poms, and here the Macedonian troops met elephants for the first time and defeated them. Finally he built himself ships, sailed down to the mouth of the Indus, and marched back by the coast of Baluchistan, reaching Susa again in 324 B.C. after an absence of six years. He THE APOLLO BELVEDERE {/« the I'aiican Museuiri)