According to Vitruvius, this famous architect, having provided himself with recommendatory letters to the principal personages of Alexander's court, set out from his native country with the hope of gaining, through their means, the favor of the monarch. The courtiers made him promises which they neglected to perform, and framed various excuses to prevent his access to the sovereign; he therefore determined upon the following expedient:--Being of a gigantic and well proportioned stature, he stripped himself, anointed his body with oil, bound his head with poplar leaves, and throwing a lion's skin across his shoulders, with a club in his hand, presented himself to Alexander, in the place where he held his public audience. Alexander, astonished at his Herculean figure, desired him to approach, demanding, at the same time, his name:--"I am," said he, "a Macedonian architect, and am come to submit to you designs worthy of the fame you have acquired. I have modelled Mount Athos in the form of a giant, holding in his right hand a city, and his left a shell, from which are discharged into the sea all the rivers collected from the mountain." It was impossible to imagine a scheme more agreeable to Alexander, who asked seriously whether there would be sufficient country round this city to maintain its inhabitants. Dinocrates answered in the negative, and that it would be necessary to supply it by sea. Athos consequently remained a mountain; but Alexander was so pleased with the novelty of the idea, and the genius of Dinocrates, that he at once took him into his service. The design of Dinocrates may be found in Fischer's History of Architecture. According to Pliny, Dinocrates planned and built the city of Alexandria. POPE'S IDEA OF FORMING MOUNT ATHOS INTO A STATUE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.