Alexander : a history of the origin and growth of the art of war from ...

646 PROPHECIES OF DEATH.even by report. Their horizon did not extend beyond Italy.In fact, Rome had not conquered Italy until two generationslater than this.Alexander had always been anxious to discover the topographyof the Caspian Sea, and now sent a number of shipwrights,under Heraclides, into Hyrcania, to build vessels andlaunch them on the Caspian, ready for this use when heshould be prepared to make an expedition thither.After crossing the Tigris, Alexander was met by someChaldsean philosophers who entreated him not to enter Babylon,as they foresaw evil to come to him if he did so ; or, ifhe must, at least not to enter the city by the western gate.Alexander imagined some ulterior purpose in the request ofthe Chaldaeans. He was proposing to rebuild the temple ofBelus, whose revenues the Chaldseans were now appropriating,and he thought these soothsayers desired to prevent hisdoing what would be a manifest loss to themselves, though hecould not fathom their immediate motive. He however so farheeded their counsel as to endeavor to enter the city from theeast, but the shoals and marshes on this side of the city preventedhis so doing. In addition to this one, there had beensundry other prophecies concerning the death of Alexanderwhich do not particularly concern us.In Babylon Alexander found the fleet under Nearchuswhich had sailed up the Euphrates to meet him, and anotherfleet from Phoenicia, consisting of two quinquiremes, threequadriremes, twelves triremes, and thirty triacontors, whichhad been taken by wagons, in parts, overland to Thapsacus,had there been joined, and thence floated down the Euphrates.The cypresses of Babylon were devoted to the building ofmore ships; and a harbor was excavated in Babylon largeenough to contain one thousand vessels of war, and a dockyardbuilt beside it. Recruits were got from Phoenicia and