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Curtius, now no longer an object of terror to the Macedonians*. To 

 its magnificent palace, said by Diodorus to be the noblest edifice in 

 the world -f-, he restored the mother and daughters of Darius, and 

 established them there in splendor, only not imperial. Having per- 

 formed this act of honourable attention to his unfortunate prisoners ; 

 having, also, replenished his treasury from the overflowing abun- 

 dance of that of Susa, and placed a strong garrison in this fortress ; 

 he pursued his march, not without great obstruction, from the nature 

 of the mountainous country through which he passed, and the 

 determined opposition of some noble chieftains, who remained 

 steady in their loyalty to Darius, and guarded the frontiers into 

 Parsis, or Persia, properly so called. The governor of Persepolis, 

 its renowned capital, by no means possessed the unshaken loyalty 

 which had distinguished those on the frontiers ; but invited the 

 approach of Alexander, and threw open its gates to the foes of his 

 master. The massacre of its numerous inhabitants, the plunder of 

 its vast treasures, and the burning of that celebrated palace which a 

 long race of illustrious princes had laboured to adorn with whatever 

 is costly in price and exquisite in science, were the unhappy conse- 

 quence, and fix an everlasting blot on the character of Alexander, 

 in other respects the patron of the arts and the friend of the 

 wretched. Pasargadae, the city built by Cyrus, and rendered sacred 

 by the tomb of that monarch, was next plundered ; and, early in the 

 Before Christ, spring, Alexander again renewed his pursuit of Darius, who, dis- 

 daining to surrender himself to an usurper, was, as he had recently 

 been informed, at Ecbatana, in Media:]:. By forced marches, in 

 fifteen days, he reached that capital, a distance of nearly four 

 thousand stadia, or five hundred miles, where he had the mor- 

 tification to find that Darius had left it, at the head of a considerable 



* Curtius, lib. iv. cap. 2. t Died. Sic. lib. xviii. cap. 06. J Arrian, lib. iii. cap. 19. 



