Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/59

ALEXANDER AND THE GALLIC ENVOYS. 27 ?;xploits, that they came with demands to be admitted to his friendship. They were distinguished both for tall stature and for boastful language. Alexander readily exchanged with them assurances of alliance. Entertaining them at a feast, he asked, in the course of conversation, what it was that they were most afraid of, among human contingencies ? They replied, that they feared no man, nor any danger, except only, lest the heaven should fall upon them. Their ansAver disappointed Alexander, who had expected that they would name him, as the person of whom they were most afraid ; so prodigious was his conceit of his own exploits. He observed to his friends that these Gauls were swaggerers. Yet if we attend to the sentiment rather than the language, we shall see that such an epithet applies with equal or greater propriety to Alexander himself. The anecdote is chiefly interesting as it proves at how early an age the exorbi- tant self-esteem, which we shall hereafter find him manifesting, began. That after the battle of Issus he should fancy himself superhuman, we can hardly be astonished ; but he was as yet only in the first year of his reign, and had accomplished nothing beyond his march into Thrace and his victory over the Triballi. After arranging these matters, he marched in a south-westerly direction into the territory of the Agrianes and the other Paeon- ians, between the rivers Strymon and Axius in the highest por- tion of their course. Here he was met by a body of Agrirines under their prince Langarus, who had already contracted a per- sonal friendship for him at Pella before Philip's death. News came that the Illyrian Kleitus, son of Bardylis, who had been subdued by Philip, had revolted at Pelion (a strong post south of lake Lychnidus, on the west side of the chain of Skardus and Pindus, near the place where that chain is broken by the cleft called the Klissura of Tzangon or DevoP) — and that the west- ern lUyrians, called Taulantii, under their prince Glaukias, were on the march to assist him. Accordingly Alexander proceeded thither forthwith, leaving Langarus to deal with the Illyrian tribe Autariatse, who had threatened to oppose his progress. He ' For the situation of Ptlion, compare Livy, xxxi. 33, 34, and the remarks of Colonel Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. iii. rh. 28. p 310-324.