Alexander the False Prophet (11)

It was Alexander who was sent in first; he now wore his hair long, had falling ringlets, dressed in a parti-coloured tunic of white and purple, with a white cloak over it, and carried a falchion like that of Perseus, from whom he claimed descent on his mother’s side. And although those miserable Paphlagonians knew that both his parents were obscure, humble folk, they believed the oracle when it said: “Here in your sight is a scion of Perseus, dear unto Phoebus; This is divine Alexander, who shareth the blood of the Healer!”

Podaleirius, the Healer, it would appear, was so passionate and amorous that his ardour carried him all the way from Tricca to Paphlagonia in quest of Alexander’s mother![*] An oracle by now had turned up which purported to be a prior prediction by the Sibyl:

On the shores of the Euxine sea, in the neighbourhood of Sinope,

There shall be born, by a Tower, in the days of the Romans, a prophet;

After the foremost unit and three times ten, he will shew forth

Five more units besides, and a score told three times over,

Matching, with places four, the name of a valiant defender![*]