among their gods the one who was also revered by the Greeks, Zeus-Amnion, and repaired to the Oasis that he might be adopted by the deity.  As a son of the god, he became a legitimate Pharaoh, an Egyptian like themselves, and on returning to Memphis he no longer hesitated to adopt the pschent crown with the accompanying ancient rites.  He returned to Asia early in the year 331, and crossed the Euphrates.  Darius had attempted to wrest Asia Minor from his grasp, but Antigonus, the governor of Phrygia, had dispersed the troops despatched for this purpose in 332, and Alexander was able to push forward fearlessly into those regions beyond the Euphrates, where the Ten Thousand had pursued their victorious march before him.  He crossed the Tigris about the 20th of September, and a week later fell in with his rival in the very heart of Assyria, not far from, the village of Gaugamela, where he took up a position which had been previously studied, and was particularly suited for the evolutions of cavalry.

[Illustration:  382.jpg THE BATTLE OF ARBELA, FROM THE MOSAIC OF HERCULANUM]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.

At the Granicus and near Issus, the Greek element had played an important part among the forces which contested the field; on this occasion, however, the great king was accompanied by merely two or three thousand mercenaries, while, on the other hand, the whole of Asia seemed to have roused herself for a last effort, and brought forward her most valiant troops to oppose the disciplined ranks of the Macedonians.  Persians, Susians, Medes, Armenians, Iranians from Bactriana, Sakae, and Indians were all in readiness to do their best, and were accompanied by every instrument of military warfare employed in Oriental tactics; chariots armed with scythes, the last descendants of the chariotry which had dominated all the battle-fields from the time of the XVIIIth Theban dynasty down to the latest Sargonids, and, employed side by side with these relics of a bygone day, were Indian elephants, now for the first time brought into use against European battalions.  These picked troops sold their lives dearly, but the perfection of the Macedonian arms, and, above all, the superiority of the tactics employed by their generals, carried the day; the evening of the 30th of September found Darius in flight, and the Achaemenian empire crushed by the furious charges of Alexander’s squadrons.  Babylon fell into their hands a few days later, followed by Susa, and in the spring of 330, Ecbatana; and shortly after Darius met his end on the way to Media, assassinated by the last of his generals.