Alexander erected permanent altars, in honor of Zeus, Athênê, and
Hêraklês; both on the point of Europe which his army had quitted, and
on that of Asia where it had landed.[155]
[155] Arrian, i. 11; Plutarch, Alexand. 15; Justin, xi. 5. The
ceremony of running round the column of Achilles still subsisted
in the time of Plutarch—ἀλειψάμενος λίπα καὶ μετὰ τῶν ἑταίρων
συναναδραμὼν γυμνὸς, ~ὥσπερ ἔθος ἔστιν~, etc. Philostratus,
five centuries after Alexander, conveys a vivid picture of the
numerous legendary and religious associations connected with the
plain of Troy and with the tomb of Protesilaus at Elæus, and of
the many rites and ceremonies performed there even in his time
(Philostrat. Heroica, xix. 14, 15. p. 742, ed. Olearius—δρόμοις
δ᾽ ἐῤῥυθμισμένοις συνηλάλαζον, ἀνακαλοῦντες τὸν Ἀχιλλέα, etc.,
and the pages preceding and following).
Dikæarchus (Fragm. 19, ed. Didot. ap. Athenæum, xiii. p. 603)
had treated in a special work about the sacrifices offered to
Athênê at Ilium (Περὶ τῆς ἐν Ἰλίῳ θυσίας) by Alexander, and
by many others before him; by Xerxes (Herodot. vii. 43), who
offered up 1000 oxen—by Mindarus (Xenoph. Hellen. i. 1, 4), etc.
In describing the proceedings of Alexander at Ilium, Dikæarchus
appears he have dwelt much on the warm sympathy which that prince
exhibited for the affection between Achilles and Patroklus: which
sympathy Dikæarchus illustrated by characterizing Alexander as
φιλόπαις ἐκμανῶς, and by recounting his public admiration for the
eunuch Bagôas: compare Curtius, x. i. 25—about Bagôas.
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