When Alexander came up, he showed great grief at the sight, and
covered the body with his own cloak. He afterwards captured Bessus and
tore him asunder, by bending down the tops of trees and tying
different parts of his body to each, and then letting them spring up
again so that each tore off the limb to which it was attached.
Alexander now had the corpse of Darius adorned as became a prince, and
sent it to his mother, while he received his brother Exathres into the
number of his intimate friends.
XLIV. He himself, with a few picked troops, now invaded Hyrkania,
where he discovered an arm of the sea, which appeared to be as large
as the Euxine, or Black Sea, but not so salt. He was unable to obtain
any certain information about it, but conjectured it to be a branch of
the Maeotic lake.[416] Yet geographers, many years before Alexander,
knew well that this, which is entitled the Hyrkanian or Caspian Sea,
is the northernmost of four gulfs proceeding from the exterior ocean.
Here some of the natives surprised the grooms in charge of his horse
Boukephalus, and captured the animal. Alexander was much distressed at
this, and sent a herald to make proclamation that unless his horse
were restored to him, he would massacre the whole tribe with their
wives and children. When, however, they brought back his horse, and
offered to place their chief cities in his hands as a pledge for their
good behaviour, he treated them all with kindness, and paid a ransom
for the horse to those who had captured it.
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