LEXANDER was
born the sixth of Hecatombaeon, which month the Macedonians call Lous, the
same day that the temple of Diana at Ephesus was burnt; which Hegesias of
Magnesia makes the occasion of a conceit, frigid enough to have stopped the
conflagration. The temple, he says, took fire and was burnt while its mistress
was absent, assisting at the birth of Alexander. And all the Eastern
soothsayers who happened to be then at Ephesus, looking upon the ruin of this
temple to be the forerunner of some other calamity, ran about the town,
beating their faces, and crying, that this day had brought forth something
that would prove fatal and destructive to all Asia.
Just after Philip had taken Potidaea, he received these three messages at one
time, that Parmenio had overthrown the Illyrians in a great battle, that his
race-horse had won the course at the Olympic games, and that his wife had
given birth to Alexander; with which being naturally well pleased, as an
addition to his satisfaction, he was assured by the diviners that a son, whose
birth was accompanied with three such successes, could not fail of being
invincible.
Plutarch: ALEXANDER
LEXANDER was born the sixth of Hecatombaeon, which month the Macedonians call Lous, the same day that the temple of Diana at Ephesus was burnt; which Hegesias of Magnesia makes the occasion of a conceit, frigid enough to have stopped the conflagration. The temple, he says, took fire and was burnt while its mistress was absent, assisting at the birth of Alexander. And all the Eastern soothsayers who happened to be then at Ephesus, looking upon the ruin of this temple to be the forerunner of some other calamity, ran about the town, beating their faces, and crying, that this day had brought forth something that would prove fatal and destructive to all Asia.
