Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

I 20 THE HISTORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
duo- a trench in the ground with an earth embank-
ment round about, he pitched [his] camp and turned
from the host; then he took counsel with his coun-
sellors and with the wise men his friends, and they
advised him to make brazen and iron images of
elephants. And they made for him twenty and
four thousand exact images' of elephants, for when
Alexander came into the country he brought with
him from their various provinces a great number
of smiths skilled in the art of metal work, and
The Greeks thcrc were in his army fifty thousand workers in
phants of metal." And when the elephants were finished the
soldiers filled them inside with wood and set it on
fire, and when the images had become blazing hot the
Greeks brought out the chariots and set the images
before them, and they dressed [images of men and
placed them] inside them as if they had been men in
very truth ; then the trumpets were blown and the drums
were beaten, and they advanced to do battle. And
when the soldiers of Porus, king of India, heard the
sound of the trumpet they marched out to battle, and
The battle. the two armics met; and Alexander^ made his well-
trained soldiers to advance, and they brought nigh to
' This number is also given in the Syriac version (ed.
Budge, p. 90), but it is lacking in the Greek, which has
ocroug Sv eixev dvbpidvTa(; x'^'^^^vq Kai tujv cTTpaTiujTtJuv
xd KaTaqppdYlLiaTa arr\aac, rpoTraia, toutoui; exeXeucev Trupoj-
9rjvai K. T. X. See Meusel, p. 771.
^ There is no authority in the Greek for this number.
J Read (Dhfi^Mln'i^Cfl