On hearing this, Alexander ordered
the two leaders to fight in single combat: and he himself armed the
one called Alexander, while Philotas armed the representative of
Darius. The whole army looked on, thinking that the result would be
ominous of their own success or failure. After a severe fight, the one
called Alexander conquered, and was rewarded with twelve villages and
the right of wearing the Persian garb. This we are told by
Eratosthenes the historian.
The decisive battle with Darius was fought at Gaugamela, not at
Arbela, as most writers tell us. It is said that this word signifies
"the house of the camel," and that one of the ancient Kings of Persia,
whose life had been saved by the swiftness with which a camel bore him
away from his enemies, lodged the animal there for the rest of its
life, and assigned to it the revenues of several villages for its
maintenance.
During the month Boedromion, at the beginning of the celebration of the
Eleusinian mysteries, there was an eclipse, of the moon: and on the
eleventh day after the eclipse the two armies came within sight of one
another. Darius kept his troops under arms, and inspected their ranks
by torch-light, while Alexander allowed the Macedonians to take their
rest, but himself with the soothsayer Aristander performed some
mystical ceremonies in front of his tent, and offered sacrifice to
Phoebus.
When Parmenio and the elder officers of Alexander saw the entire plain
between Mount Niphates and the confines of Gordyene covered with the
watch fires of the Persians, and heard the vague, confused murmur of
their army like the distant roar of the sea, they were astonished, and
said to one another that it would indeed be a prodigious effort to
fight such a mass of enemies by daylight in a pitched battle.
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