Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/192

 184 ALEXANDER. in the account which he gave Antipater of the battle, though indeed he owns he was wounded in the thigh with a sword, though not dangerously, yet he takes no notice who it was that wounded him. Nothing was wanting to complete this victory, in which he overthrew above an hundred and ten thousand of his enemies, but the taking the person of Darius, who escaped very narrowly by flight. However, having taken his chariot and his bow, he returned from pursu- ing him, and found his own men busy in pillaging the barbarians' camp, which (though to disburden them- selves, they had left most of their baggage at Damascus) was exceedingly rich. But Darius's tent, which was fall of splendid furniture, and quantities of gold and silver, they reserved for Alexander himself, who after he had put off his arms, went to bathe himself, saying, " Let us now cleanse ourselves from the toils of war in the bath of Darius." "Not so," replied one of his followers, "but in Alexander's rather ; for the property of the conquered is, and should be called the conqueror's." Here, when he beheld the bathing vessels, the water-pots, the pans, and the ointment boxes, all of gold, curiously wrought, and smelt the fragrant odors with which the whole place was exquisitely perfumed, and from thence passed into a pavilion of great size and height, where the couches and tables and preparations for an entertainment were per- fectly magnificent, he turned to those about him and said, " This, it seems, is royalty." But as he was going to supper, word was brought him that Darius's mother and wife and two unmarried daugh- ters, being taken among the rest of the prisoners, upon the sight of his chariot and bow were all in mourning and sorrow, imagining him to be dead. After a little pause, more livelily affected with their affliction than with his own success, he sent Leonnatus to them, to let