Alexander commenced his triumphant march in the year 336 B. C., and not having a sufficient cause for his foreign invasions (Persia and Media excepted), may be justly looked upon, at this day, as the human Juggernaut of Antiquity! The Prophet DANIEL, two centuries before the period of which this event treats, stigmatized this vaunted hero, when comparing him with the Kings of Media and Persia,--the latter to the horns of the Ram, while the former is likened unto the brute Goat of the mountains. "And the rough goat is the King of Grecia." [Daniel viii. 21.] It is not necessary to trace the progress of Alexander in Asia, only so far as it may have had an influence upon the fate and fall of Tyrus. After the Passage of the Granicus, and in the next year, the great victory at Issus, whereby the Persian kingdom was shaken, the lesser nations begun to contemplate the increasing power of Alexander with alarm, and to reflect upon the best means of averting impending ruin. The only alternative from battle was to become tributary, or to obtain the special favour of the Invader. Sidon made application, through ambassadors, to Alexander for his protection, and was thus saved from destruction by anticipating the conflict through a tributary surrender:--and which voluntary act satisfied the Macedonian, who stipulated, however, that he should place a new King upon the throne. This was agreed to, and Byblos and Aradnus joined in the humiliating surrender. In compliment to his favourite,--Hephæstion,--the Conqueror allowed him to appoint whom he pleased for King of Sidon. Hephæstion, thereupon, selected a poor man of the Capital by the name of Strato, and instantly raised him to the dignity of Sidonian Sovereign. The mendicant was a remote branch of the Royal House, but had been unjustly degraded by the reigning Monarch. When the new-raised King had his first interview with Alexander, his grateful remark was--"I pray that Apollo will enable you, Alexander, to bear prosperity with the same fortitude, with which I have struggled with adversity!" The Macedonian highly applauded the philosophical point of the remark, and secured him in his new possession. As no great gift can be without a referential motive, either to the past, or for the future,--the donation by Hephæstion, where no past service had deserved it (and there were nearer branches of the Royal House than Strato), must have had, therefore, some deep meaning. It is only long after historic events are passed and analyzed, that they can be calmly or correctly judged; and in tracing Alexander's approach to the celebrated "Daughter of Sidon," this donation of a throne,--and to the party receiving it,--was in direct flattery to Tyrus; as in like manner, at a subsequent period, Marcus Antonius presented provinces to Egypt to secure the sun-clad and voluptuous Cleopatra!