6.4
but that he should keep his enemies from getting any knowledge that would work him harm, and, besides this, that he should hurl his soldiers upon Craterus before they knew with whom they were fighting, and conceal from them the name of the opposing general, seems to me to have been an exploit peculiar to this commander. He gave out word, then, that Neoptolemus was once more coming against him, with Pigres, and that they had a force of Paphlagonian and Cappadocian cavalry. One night he was planning to decamp and then fell asleep and had a strange vision.
6.5
He dreamed, namely, that he saw two Alexanders ready to give each other battle, each at the head of a phalanx; then Athena came to help the one, and Demeter the other, and after a fierce struggle the one who had Athena for a helper was beaten, and Demeter, culling ears of grain, wove them into a wreath for the victor.
6.6
At once, then, he conjectured that the vision was in his favour, since he was fighting for a country that was most fertile and had at that time an abundance of fine young grain in the ear; for the land had everywhere been sown and bespoke a time of peace, now that its plains were covered with a luxuriant growth; and he was all the more strengthened in his belief when he learned that the enemy’s watchword was Athena and Alexander. Accordingly, he too gave out a watchword, namely, Demeter and Alexander, and ordered all his men to crown themselves and wreathe their arms with ears of grain.
6.7
But though he often felt an impulse to speak out and tell his principal officers who it was against whom their struggle was to be, and not to keep hidden away in his own breast alone a secret so important, nevertheless he abode by his first resolution and made his judgment surety for the peril.
