It was about February or March 333 B. C., when Alexander reached Gordium; where he appears to have halted for some time, giving to the troops who had been with him in Pisidia a repose doubtless needful. While at Gordium, he performed the memorable exploit familiarly known as the cutting of the Gordian knot. There was preserved in the citadel an ancient waggon of rude structure, said by the legend to have once belonged to the peasant Gordius and his son Midas—the primitive rustic kings of Phrygia, designated as such by the gods, and chosen by the people. The cord (composed of fibres from the bark of the cornel tree), attaching the yoke of this waggon to the pole, was so twisted and entangled as to form a knot of singular complexity, which no one had ever been able to untie. An oracle had pronounced, that to the person who should untie it the empire of Asia was destined. When Alexander went up to see this ancient relic, the surrounding multitude, Phrygian as well as Macedonian, were full of expectation that the conqueror of the Granikus and of Halikarnassus would overcome the difficulties of the knot, and acquire the promised empire. But Alexander, on inspecting the knot, was as much perplexed as others had been before him, until at length, in a fit of impatience, he drew his sword and severed the cord in two. By every one this was accepted as a solution of the problem, thus making good his title to the empire of Asia; a belief which the gods ratified by a storm of thunder and lightning during the ensuing night.[237] [237] Arrian, ii. 3; Curtius, iii. 2, 17; Plutarch, Alex. 18; Justin, xi. 7. At Gordium, Alexander was visited by envoys from Athens, entreating the liberation of the Athenian prisoners taken at the Granikus, who were now at work chained in the Macedonian mines. But he refused this prayer until a more convenient season. Aware that the Greeks were held attached to him only by their fears, and that, if opportunity occurred, a large fraction of them would take part with the Persians, he did not think it prudent to relax his hold upon their conduct.[238] [238] Arrian, i. 29, 8.