The Anabasis of Alexander/Book III/Chapter III

by Arrian

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CHAPTER III.

Alexander Visits the Temple of Ammon.

After these transactions, Alexander was seized by an ardent desire to visit Ammon^[1] in Libya, partly in order to consult the god, because the oracle of Ammon was said to be exact in its information, and Perseus and Heracles were said to have consulted it, the former when he was despatched by Polydectes^[2] against the Gorgons, and the latter, when he visited Antaeus^[3] in Libya and Busiris^[4] in Egypt. Alexander was also partly urged by a desire of emulating Perseus and Heracles, from both of whom he traced his descent.^[5] He also deduced his pedigree from Ammon, just as the legends traced that of Heracles and Perseus to Zeus. Accordingly he made the expedition to Ammon with the design of learning his own origin more certainly, or at least that he might be able to say that he had learned it. According to Aristobulus, he advanced along the sea-shore to Paraetonium through a country which was a desert, but not destitute of water, a distance of about 1,600 stades.^[6] Thence he turned into the interior, where the oracle of Ammon was located. The route is desert, and most of it is sand and destitute of water. But there was a copious supply of rain for Alexander, a thing which was attributed to the influence of the deity; as was also the following occurrence. Whenever a south wind blows in that district, it heaps up the sand upon the route far and wide, rendering the tracks of the road invisible, so that it is impossible to discover where one ought to direct one's course in the sand, just as if one were at sea; for there are no landmarks along the road, neither mountain anywhere, nor tree, nor permanent hill standing erect, by which travellers might be able to form a conjecture of the right course, as sailors do by the stars.^[7] 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.^[8]

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1. The temple of Jupiter Ammon was in the oasis of Siwah, to the west of Egypt. Its ruins were discovered by Browne in 1792. This oasis is about 6 miles long and 3 broad. The people called Libyans occupied the whole of North Africa excluding Egypt. In Hebrew they are called Lubim (sunburnt). See 2 Chron. xii. 3; xvi. 8; Dan. xi. 43; Nah. iii. 9. Cf. Herodotus, ii. 32; iv. 168-199.
2. King of the island Seriphus. Cf. Herodotus, ii. 91.
3. The gigantic son of Poseidon and Ge.
4. King of Egypt, who was said to have sacrificed all foreigners that visited the land.
5. Perseus was the grandfather of Alemena, the mother of Hercules.
6. About 183 miles. This city lay at the extreme west of Egypt, in Marmarica.
7. "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.
8. 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.