Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/213

 ALEXANDER. 205 charge. So affectionate was Alexander to all kind of vir- tue, and so desirous to preserve the memory of laudable actions. From hence he marched through the province of Baby- lon, which immediately submitted to him, and in Ecba- tana * was much surprised at the sight of the place where fire issues in a continuous stream, like a spring of water, out of a cleft in the earth, and the stream of naphtha, which, not far from this spot, flows out so abundantly as to form a sort of lake. This naphtha, in other respects resembling bitumen, is so subject to take fire, that before it touches the flame, it will kindle at the very light that surrounds it, and often inflame the intermediate air also. The barbarians, to show the power and nature of it, sprinkled the street that led to the king's lodgings with little drops of it, and when it was almost night, stood at the further end with torches, which being applied to the moistened places, the first at once taking fire, instantly, as quick as a man could think of it, it caught from one end to another, in such a manner that the whole street was one continued flame. Among those who used to wait on the king and find occasion to amuse him when he anointed and washed himself, there was one Athen- ophanes, an Athenian, who desired him to make an experi- ment of the naphtha upon Stephanus, who stood by in the bathing place, a youth with a ridiculously ugly face, whose talent was singing well, " For," said he, * if it take hold of him and is not put out, it must undeniably be allowed to be of the most invincible strength." The youth, as it happened, readily consented to undergo the bly be omitted. Nothing is known Darius had retreated to it. A spot of any Ecbatana in the province corresponding to the description is of Babylon, and Ecbatana, the mentioned in the neighborhood of capital of Media, was not reached Arbela.
 * " In Ecbatana," should proba- by Alexander till long after this,