official and pious world of Hellas should the priests of Ammon greet him as the son of their god. This, however, they were bound to do on his arrival at the temple, since to omit this formality would have been to refuse allegiance to the new Pharaoh who had just been recognized in Egypt; for every Pharaoh from time immemorial was officially a son of Ammon. It was the peculiarity of Siwah that the ruler greeted there as the son of Ammon was presented authoritatively to the Greek world as the son of Zeus. The march across the desert to Ammonium was accomplished only with supernatural assistance, according to the official report; and deliberate mystery shrouded the interview of Alexander with the god. It is with no impropriety, as we shall see presently, that Tennyson brings his fine poem on the great king to a climactic close with an allusion to the occurrence:-- "High things were spoken there, unhanded down; Only they saw thee from the secret shrine Returning with hot cheek and kindled eyes." One thing, however, was stressed in the official version of what happened: the desired greeting was given publicly to Alexander by the eldest of the priests. And its import was enhanced by the arrival of messengers to say that oracles to the same effect had been given simultaneously by the Sibyl of Erythræ and Apollo at Branchidæ, where a long silence of over one hundred and fifty years was interrupted thereby. As to the private interview Alexander wrote to his mother that "secret things were divulged to him which he could communicate only to her personally." I shall revert to the significance of the visit to Siwah presently. Meanwhile, it will suffice to note that it was quite in character with the methods already adopted by Alexander that he should seek in this bizarre way to impress upon the imagination of men a new idea; to disclose by a sensational action of this kind an important change of policy. And it is paralleled by several incidents in his later career.