2.13
There indeed Fortune made manifest great and splendid results of her kindliness toward Alexander, when she cast him into an insignificant foreign town and shut him in and fenced him round about! And when his men wTere earnestly trying to bring help from without and were attempting to scale the wails, Fortune, by breaking and shattering their ladders, took away their foothold and hurled them from the walls. And of the three327 b, supra, and Life of Alexander, chap. lxiii. (700 c) mention only two; but Plutarch here seems to follow the authority used by Arrian, Anabasis, vi. 10, who gives the number as three; Cf. also 344 d, infra. men who alone were quick enough to grasp the wall and, throwing themselves down inside, to take their stand beside the king, Fortune straightway snatched up one and made away with him before he could strike a blow; and a second, pierced through by many arrows, was only so far from death that he could see and perceive his king’s danger. But the charges and shouting of the Macedonians were unavailing for they had no machines nor siege engines with them; but in their zeal they tried to hack the walls with their swords, and were forced to break them off with their bare hands, and all but bite their way through.
