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Such was that difficulty, and such the fatigue they endured, that 

 he was compelled to permit them to halt two whole days on the 

 opposite banks to recover themselves ; during which period a lunar 

 eclipse, a phenomenon at all times esteemed by the Asiatics highly 

 inauspicious, struck the Greeks with such terror, that they hesitated 

 to proceed farther on an expedition to which earth and heaven 

 seemed to be alike adverse, and in which they appeared to be hur- 

 ried, by a spirit of unsatiated and indomitable ambition, equally 

 beyond the limits of reason and the bounds of nature*. The pious 

 policy of Alexander, however, on this as well as many other im- 

 portant occasions, failed not, by means of the flattering tribe of 

 Egyptian soothsayers that attended his army, to convert this omen, 

 as well as he had many preceding ones of a presumed malignant 

 import, into an omen of triumphant success, and a means of exciting 

 a general enthusiasm to an immediate battle ; those-venerable seers 

 declaring, that, by this sign, it was evident that the glory of the 

 Persian sovereign was eclipsed by that of the Macedonian ; and that 

 the lustre of the Persian crown would soon be extinguished for ever. 

 This flattering interpretation of the omen being widely circulated 

 through the army, revived their courage and inflamed their ardour. 

 Alexander took advantage of this favourable change in their senti- 

 ments, and broke up his camp at midnight to go in quest of the 

 enemy. Under these impressions, they continued their march 

 through Assyria, and being at length arrived within a short distance 

 of the Persian lines, he there halted, that he might grant his men 

 that repose Avhich they needed after their march, and lead them in 

 full vigour and spirits against an army, formidable for its numbers 

 and valiant from desperation. 



* Curtius, lib. iv. cap. 23, 24. 



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