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the Persian historian, such relations as have been preserved for pos- 

 terity in his page, professedly taken from the ancient archives of the 

 nation concerning the great Escander, as they denominated him. 

 Romantic as they are, they cannot, with propriety, be omitted. 

 It has been already observed, that the three monarchs, whom the 

 Greeks represent as having reigned in the interval between Darius 

 Nothos and Codomannus, are not to be met with in the Persian 

 annals. Their acts are referred to Ardeshir, Homai, and the first 

 Darius ; and indeed with no greater inconsistency than making the 

 reigns of those princes disproportionably long. Codomannus is 

 called by Mirkhond, Darab, the son of Darab ; and, Avith a view, it 

 is presumed, to preserve the lineal succession in the royal family of 

 Persia unbroken, Escander himself is made out to have been the 

 son of Darab, by a daughter of Philip, or Filikous as they term him. 

 With this prince, Darius is represented to have waged, in person, a 

 successful war, to have compelled him to pay a large annual tribute, 

 and afterwards, by way. of cementing more closely the ties of national 

 union, to have demanded of him his daughter, accounted one of 

 the most beautiful women of her age, but whom, shortly after mar- 

 riage, he returned, when pregnant, to the court of Macedon, on the 

 plea, that, with all her beauty, her breath was too disgustingly offen- 

 sive to permit her longer to share his bed. On this absurd story, it 

 may be remarked, in the first place, that we read in the Greek his- 

 torians, of no particular act of hostility that passed between any 

 Persian sovereign and Philip, besides the former throwing succours 

 into the besieged cities of Perinthus and Byzantium; secondly, 

 that it is highly improbable that the GREAT KING would condes- 

 cend to espouse the daughter of the petty subjugated sovereign of 

 Macedon ; and, thirdly, if he had espoused her, that he would 

 insultingly have sent her back on any such frivolous pretence. Be- 

 sides, had this been the case, would the politic Alexander, ambitious 



