Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

38 THE HISTORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
which he went,' they turned back from following
him. Then Alexander also turned back and deli-
vered the mare to one of his servants, saying,
"Take good care of her,"" for she belongeth to me,
"and she will be with me on my travels." Then
his father Philip went down and embraced him,
and set him upon the throne, and spake unto him,
saying [p. 19], "The kingdom should by right be
"thine, O my son, and thou art he of whom the
Philip ap- "queen and the wise men spake when they said^
and"e'r king! "that thou shouldst reign over all the earth;" and
he delivered to him the key of the palace.
Capture of So Alexander took his army and set out for the
east. Now the first beginning of [his] kingdom
was Alexandria, and he besieged and captured it.
And he made prayer to God, the most High, and
fixed his belief upon Him, and he acknowledged
that there was no other god besides Him, and that
The Christ- He was the Creator of the universe, and the God
ian charac-
ter of Alexander.
' Literally, "saw his journeying".
^ According to Plutarch {Life ofAlexander , § VI.) Bucephalus
was offered to Philip by Philonicus the Thessalian for thirteen
talents (about £ 3168. 15. o) but Pliny says {Hist. Nat.., VIII,
49) that he cost sixteen talents (about £ 3900. o. o). Colonel
Tweedie notices the fact that in modern times the "Lion of
the East" despatched two military expeditions, and spent
about £ 6,000,000 sterling, to obtain possession of the
famous horse Laili. See The Arabian Horse, p. VI.
3 The allusion here is to the words of the Pythia in
Delphi who, in answer to Philip's question as to who should
succeed him, said that he should rule the world who could
ride Bucephalus.