Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/224

 216 ALEXANDER. dren I hope the gods will recompense, will doubtless thank you for your humanity to me. Tell him, there- fore, in token of my acknowledgment, I give him this right hand," with which words he took hold of Polystra- tus's hand and died. When Alexander came up to them, he showed manifest tokens of sorrow, and taking off his own cloak, threw it upon the body to cover it. And sometime afterwards, when Bessus was taken, he ordered him to be torn in pieces in this manner. They fastened him to a couple of trees which were bound down so as to meet, and then being let loose, with a great force re- turned to their places, each of them carrying that part of the body along with it that was tied to it. Darius's body was laid in state, and sent to his mother with pomp suita- ble to his quality. His brother Exathres, Alexander received into the number of his intimate friends. And now with the flower of his army he marched into Hyrcania, where he saw a large bay of an open sea, ap- parently not much less than the Euxine, with water, how- ever, sweeter than that of other seas, but could learn nothing of certainty concerning it, further than that in all probability it seemed to him to be an arm issuing from the lake of Mseotis. However, the naturalists were bet- ter informed of the truth, and had given an account of it many years before Alexander's expedition ; that of four gulfs which out of the main sea enter into the conti- nent, this, known indifferently as the Caspian and as the Hyrcanian sea, is the most northern. Here the barbari- ans, unexpectedly meeting with those who led Bucepha- las, took them prisoners, and carried the horse away with them, at which Alexander was so much vexed, that he sent an herald to let them know he would put them all to the sword, men, women, .and children, without mercy, if they did not restore him. But on their doing so, and at the same time surrendering their cities into his hands,