Towards the close of the siege of Tyre, Alexander received and rejected a second proposition from Darius, offering 10,000 talents, with the cession of all the territory westward of the Euphrates, as ransom for his mother and wife, and proposing that Alexander should become his son-in-law as well as his ally. “If I were Alexander (said Parmenio) I should accept such terms, instead of plunging into farther peril.”—“So would I (replied Alexander) if I were Parmenio; but since I am Alexander, I must return a different answer.” His answer to Darius was to this effect—“I want neither your money nor your cession. All your money and territory are already mine, and you are tendering to me a part in place of the whole. If I choose to marry your daughter, I _shall_ marry her—whether you give her to me or not. Come hither to me, if you wish to obtain from me any act of friendship.”[329] Alexander might spare the submissive and the prostrate; but he could not brook an equal or a competitor, and his language towards them was that of brutal insolence. Of course this was the last message sent by Darius, who now saw, if he had not before seen, that he had no chance open except by the renewal of war. [329] Arrian, ii. 25, 5; Curtius, iv. 5. The answer is more insolent in the naked simplicity of Arrian, than in the pomp of Curtius. Plutarch (Alexand. 29) both abridges and softens it. Diodorus also gives the answer differently (xvii. 54)—and represents the embassy as coming somewhat later in time, after Alexander’s return from Egypt.