Page:Ali Baba, or, The forty thieves (4).pdf/21

21 ALEXANDER AND DARIUS.

When Alexander the Great, king of Ma- cedon, invaded Persia, Darius, who was king thereof, opposed him with a very great army, consisting according to the low- est account, of 200,000 men. The man- ener of his coming on, was rather like a mas- sker than a warrior, and like one that took more care to set out his riches, than to pro. vide for his own safety, persuading himself, as it seemed, to beat Alexander with pomp and sumptuous pageants. For before the army was carried the holy fire, which the Persians worshipped, attended by their priests, and after them 365 young men, ac- cording to the number of the days of the year, covered with scarlet, then the chariot of Jupiter drawn by white horses, their ri- ders clothed in the same colour, with rods of gold in their hands, and after it the horse bf the sun : next after these followed ten sumptuous chariots inlaid and garnished