sailors do by the stars.[1] Consequently, Alexander's army lost the way, and even the guides were in doubt about the course to take. Ptolemy, son of Lagus, says that two serpents went in front of the army, uttering a voice, and Alexander ordered the guides to follow them, trusting in the divine portent. He says too that they showed the way to the oracle and back again. But Aristobulus, whose account is generally admitted as correct, says that two ravens flew in front of the army, and that these acted as Alexander's guides. I am able to assert with confidence that some divine assistance was afforded him, for probability also coincides with the supposition; but the discrepancies in the details of the various narratives have deprived the story of certainty.[2]
- ↑ "For some distance onward the engineers had erected a line of telegraph poles to guide us, but after they ceased the desert was absolutely trackless. Our guides were the stars—had the night been overcast the enterprise would have been impossible—and we were steered by a naval officer, Lieutenant Rawson, who had doubtless studied on previous nights the relation of these celestial beacons to the course of our march. The centre of the line was the point of direction; therefore he rode between the centre battalions (75th and 79th) of the Highland Brigade. Frequently in the course of the night, after duly ascertaining what dark figure I was addressing, I represented to him that his particular star was clouded over; but he always replied that he had another in view, a second string to his bow, which he showed me, and that he was convinced he had not deviated in the least from the proper direction. And he was right, his guidance was marvellously correct; for his reward, poor fellow, he was shot down in the assault, mortally wounded. Here we were adrift, but for the stars, in a region where no token existed on the surface by which to mark the course—any more than on the ocean without a compass—and the distance to be traversed was many miles."—Sir Edward Hamley: " The Second Division at Tel-el-Kebir," Nineteenth Century, December, 1882.
- ↑ Strabo (xvii. 1) quotes from Callisthenes, whose work on Alexander is lost. He agrees with Aristobulus about the two ravens. Callisthenes is also quoted by Plutarch (Alex., 27) in regard to this prodigy. Curtius (iv. 30) says that there were several ravens; and Diodorus (xvii. 49) speaks of ravens.
