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Alexander Marches to Miletus.
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offering to surrender those cities; and to them he sent Parmenio, giving him 2,500 infantry from the Grecian auxiliaries, an equal number of Macedonians, and about 200 of the Cavalry Companions. He also sent Lysimachus, son of Agathocles,[1] with an equal force to the Aeolic cities,[2] and to as many of the Ionic cities[3] as were still under the Persians. He was ordered to break up the oligarchies everywhere, to set up the democratical form of government, to restore their own laws to each of the cities, and to remit the tribute which they were accustomed to pay to the foreigners. But Alexander himself remained behind at Ephesus, where he offered a sacrifice to Artemis and conducted a procession in her honour with the whole of his army fully armed and marshalled for battle.[4]

On the following day he took the rest of his infantry, the archers, the Agrianians, the Thracian cavalry, the royal squadron of the Companions, and three other squadrons in addition, and set out for Miletus. At his first assault he captured that which was called the outer city; for the garrison had evacuated it. There he encamped and resolved to blockade the inner city; for Hegesistratus, to whom the king Darius had entrusted the command of the garrison in Miletus, kept on sending


  1. Lysimachus was of mean origin, his father having been a serf in Sicily. He was one of Alexander's confidential body-guards, and on the death of the great king obtained Thrace as his portion of the dismembered empire. In conjunction with Seleuous he won the battle of Ipsus, by which he obtained a great part of Asia Minor. He ultimately acquired all the European dominions of Alexander in addition to Asia Minor; but in his eightieth year he was defeated and slain by Seleuous at the battle of Corus, B.C. 281. Sintenis was the first to substitute Lysimachus for Antimachus, the reading of the MSS. Cf. vi. 28 infra.
  2. Eleven in number. See Herodotus, i. 149-151.
  3. Thirteen in number, of which Miletus and Ephesus were the chief in importance.
  4. For the celebrated interview of Alexander with Apelles at Ephesus, see Aelian (Varla Historia, ii. 3).