"Nothing," says Quintus Curtius,[125]
"is so effectual as superstition for keeping the vulgar under. Be they
ever so unruly and inconstant, if once their minds are possessed with
the vain visions of religion, they are all obedience to the soothsayer,
whatever becomes of the general." The answer of the Egyptian astrologers
being circulated among the soldiers, restored their confidence and their
courage.
On another occasion Alexander, just before he passed the river
Granicus, observing the circumstance of time, which was the month
Desius, reckoned unfortunate to the Macedonians from all antiquity, it
made the soldiers melancholy; he immediately ordered this dangerous
month to be called by the name of that which preceded it, well knowing
what power and influence vain religious scruples have over little and
ignorant minds. He sent private orders to Aristander his chief
soothsayer, just offering up a sacrifice for a happy passage, to write
on the liver of the victim with a liquor prepared for that purpose, that
the gods had "granted the victory to Alexander.
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