Page:The Anabasis of Alexander.djvu/225

Rh and Asia, saying that the Palus Maeotis> issuing from the furthest recess of the Euxine Sea, and this river Tanais, which discharges itself into the Maeotis, separate Asia and Europe, just in the same way as the sea near Gadeira and the Nomad Libyans opposite Gadeira separates Libya and Europe. Libya also is said by these men to be divided from the rest of Asia by the river Nile. In this place (viz. at the river Tanais), some of the Macedonians, being engaged in foraging, were cut to pieces by the barbarians. The perpetrators of this deed escaped to a mountain, which was very rugged and precipitous on all sides. In number they were about 30,000. Alexander took the lightest men in his army and marched against these. Then the Macedonians made many ineffectual assaults upon the mountain. At first they were beaten back by the missiles of the barbarians, and many of them were wounded, includiag Alexander himself, who was shot right through the leg with an arrow, and the fibula of his leg was broken. Notwithstanding this, he captured the place, and some of the barbarians were cut to pieces there by the