Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

ALEXANDER ENTERS SOGD.
1 83
pray' and offer thanks unto God, the most High,
for all the benefits which He had done unto me,
and for His Grace and mercy, [p. 104] and I
ornamented that place with gold, and with gems,
and with precious stones of great price.
Then we departed from this place and went He comes to
down into a country which is called Seida (Sogd),^
and the country was vast, and spacious, and thickly
populated;^ and it was told me that a river ran
through it from the west, and that its stream was
very great, and that no man whatsoever was able
to cross over it, and that no man had ever done
so. And I cried out to the glorious God'^ and a mighty
entreated Him to have mercy upon me, and I
asked Him that I might pass over the river with
my army and suffer no injury; and I vowed in
my heart to found a city on it and to build a
shrine therein, where I might return thanks to
God if He should help me to cross over it. Now
when the people of the city had heard the rumour
of us certain of them gfathered too^ether and be-
sought me to come unto them.^ And having
^ In the Syriac version (p. 113), Alexander orders the
priests to offer up sacrifice, and he tarries in the land ten
days.
^ That is, the Sughd of Samarkand ^xi-oJI; see Yakut,
torn. iii. p. riP
3 Read (D'ttW^'Tl ' rt-flh '
"> In the Syriac he cries out to the gods of Macedonia
and to Ammon of Lybia.
5 Exactly the opposite in the Syriac, for they ask him
not to come.