CHAPTER XXIX.
Alexander in Phrygia.
Thence he went into Phrygia, passing by the lake called Ascania[1] in which salt is naturally concreted. The natives use this salt, and do not need the sea at all for this article. On the fifth day of his march, he arrived at Celaenae,[2] in which city there was a fortified rock, precipitous on all sides. This citadel was occupied by the viceroy of Phrygia with a garrison of 1,000 Carians and 100 Grecian mercenaries. These men despatched ambassadors to Alexander, promising to surrender the place to him, if succour did not reach them by a day which had been agreed upon with them, naming the day.[3] This arrangement seemed to Alexander more advantageous than to besiege the fortified rock, which was inaccessible on all sides to attack. At Celaenae he left a garrison of 1,500 soldiers. Remaining here ten days, he appointed Antigonus, son of Philip,[4] viceroy of Phrygia, placed Balacrus, son of Amyntas[5] as general over the Grecian allies in place of Antigonus, and then directed his march to Gordium.[6] He sent an order to Parmenio to meet
- ↑ This lake is mentioned by Herodotus (vii. 30), as being near the city of Anava. It is now called Burdur.
- ↑ Here Cyrus the Younger reviewed his Grecian forces and found them to be 11,000 hoplites and 2,000 peltasts. Here that prince had a palace and park, in which rose the river Maeander, close to the source of the Marsyas. See Xenophon (Anab., i. 2); compare Curtius (iii. 1).
- ↑ Curtius (iii. 1) says they made a truce with Alexander for sixty days.
- ↑ Antigonus, called the One-eyed, was father of Demetrius Poliorcetes. On the division of Alexander's empire he received Phrygia, Lycis, and Pamphylia. He eventually acquired the whole of Asia Minor; but was defeated and slain at the battle of Ipsus by the allied forces of Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus (B.C. 301). When he was slain he was in his eighty-first year.
- ↑ Balacrus was left by Alexander to command in Egypt. See Arrian (iii. 5).
- ↑ The capital of the old Phrygian kings. It was rebullt in the time of Augustus, and called Juliopolis.
