give him the salutation, saying lie would meet him at Babylon and there salute him. At the time indeed this remark was treated with neglect; but afterwards, when Alexander had died at Babylon, it came to the recollection of those who had heard it, and they thought forsooth that it was a divine intimation of Alexander's approaching end.
CHAPTER XIX.
Embassies from Greece.—Fleet Prepared for Invading Arabia.
As he was entering Babylon, he was met -by embassies from the Greeks; but for what purpose each embassy was sent has not been recorded.[1] To me indeed it seems probable that most of them came to crown and eulogize him on account of his victories, especially the Indian ones, as well as to say that the Greeks rejoiced at his safe return from India. It is said that he greeted these men with the right hand, and after paying them suitable honour sent them back. He also gave the ambassadors permission to take with them all the statues of men and images of gods and the other votive offerings which Xerxes had carried off from Greece to Babylon, Pasargadae, Susa, or any other place in Asia. In this way it is said that the brazen statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton,[2] as well as the monument of the Celcaean Artemis, were carried back to Athens.[3]
Aristobulus says that he found at Babylon the fleet with Nearchus, which had sailed from the Persian Sea up the river Euphrates; and another which had been conveyed
- ↑ Diodorus (xvii. 113) says that embassies came from the Carthaginians, Liby-Phoenicians, Greeks, Macedonians, Illyrians, Thracians, and Gauls.
- ↑ Cf. Arrian, iii. 16 supra.
- ↑ The name Athens is said to have been derived from the worship of Athena. See Euripides (Ion, 8): Πόλις τῆς χρυσολόγχου Παλλάδος κεκλημένη. Attica is ἀττική or ἀκτικὴ γῆ, the "promontory land."
