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Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

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236 THE HISTORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.<br />

him concerning- the mountain and about those who<br />

dwelt therein, and about the great sea, and about<br />

the rivers and streams which no man was able<br />

to cross.<br />

Then the Two-horned spake unto the sages<br />

who were with him, saying, "I wish to make here<br />

"a sign unto men which shall be for me a me-<br />

"morial for ever;" and they said unto him, "Do<br />

"that which God Almighty, the Most High, hath<br />

"put in thy heart to do." <strong>Alexander</strong> said unto<br />

them, "I will place here a gate of brass and iron<br />

"which shall serve as a wall and a fortress against<br />

"the nations [p. 135] who are in the country which<br />

"is behind this high mountain." Now by his under-<br />

' This refers to the Pass of Derbend, apparently the Sar-<br />

matic Gates of Ptolemy, and the Claustra Caspiorum of Ta-<br />

citus, and to the ancient wall which runs from the castle<br />

of Derbend along the ridges of the Caucasus called Sadd<br />

i-hkandar, or the "Rampart of <strong>Alexander</strong>". The Arabic geo-<br />

graphers call it 1 ^^yy^ i-l)ij "Gate of Gates "j see Yakut,<br />

tom. i. p. rv; Abu'1-Fida, p. n. According to Mas'udi,<br />

tom. ii. p. 2, this gate was built in a defile in the moun-<br />

tains by Chosroes Anushirwan at a spot halfway between<br />

the mountains and the Sea of Khazar; he also built a wall<br />

running into the sea and up along the mountains for a dis-<br />

tance of forty parassangs until it came out at a place called<br />

Tabarestan. At every three miles along its route was an<br />

iron gate with a guard of soldiers, and the whole work form-<br />

ed an impassable barrier to the Khazars, Alani, Turks, Sa-<br />

rirs, and other nations of infidels. Further on (p. 73) he<br />

says that this barrier was more necessary than ever in his<br />

own time to protect the nations from the barbarities of the<br />

invaders.

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