When this incident reached the ears of Alexander, as everything that happened in the camp was sure to do, the king smiled.
"I suppose you would serve me in the same fashion if I should be unfortunate enough to make such a jest," he said.
"The king does not mock brave men," Leonidas replied.
Alexander laid his hand on the Spartan's shoulder. "I am Alexander," he said, "but I envy Chares and Clearchus. I wish I had such a friend as they have."
"Thou hast many," the Spartan replied. "Wrong them not; but thou hast small need of mortal friends since the Gods are with thee."
"That is true," Alexander said simply. He knew that nine-tenths of the army believed indeed that the Gods had taken him under their protection. He seemed to them, in fact, to be himself almost like one of the immortals in the beauty of his face and form, his perfect courage, and his unerring judgment. While the graybeards at home, the philosophers and statesmen, were predicting failure for him and demonstrating by precedent and logic that his success was impossible, he had succeeded. Already he had wrested from the Great King the colonies of Greece that for centuries had groaned under Persian oppression, and while he had not yet stood face to face with the mighty power that he had attacked, he had confounded the prophets of evil and proved their wisdom to be no better than folly. When his captains looked into his face, ruddy with youth and strength, his smooth brow, unmarked by a line of care, and felt the charm of his glance, remembering what he had done, it was impossible for them to think that he was only a man like themselves.
So when it became known, after the preparations for the southward march in search of the Great King had been completed, that Alexander had determined to attempt the loosening of the knot that King Gordius had bound, there were few of his followers who doubted that he would accomplish it. For ages this knot had defied all attempts to guess its secret. The farmer, Gordius, driving his oxen into the city, found himself suddenly raised to the throne. Tradition told how he had tied the neap of his cart to the porphyry shaft in the midst of the temple and how it had been declared that whoso should unbind it should become lord of all Asia. In the reign of King Midas, his son, friend of the great God Dionysus, whose touch had changed the sands of the Pactolus to gold, many had essayed the task and had failed. In subsequent years a long line of ambitious princes and scheming kings had made the attempt, seeking to propitiate the God with rich gifts, but none had succeeded. More lately, few had tried the knot, for the Great King watched the shrine, and those who were bold enough to tempt Fortune there soon found themselves summoned to his court, where they were taught how unwise it was for the weak to aspire to the dominions of the strong.
It was knowledge of all this that led the soldiers to regard Alexander's trial of the knot as no less important than a great battle. If the knot should yield to him, there would no longer be any doubt of what the Gods intended.
Parmenio, with the caution born of age, shook his head when the king told him of his project.
"What will you gain?" he asked. "The army already has complete confidence in you, and if you fail, some of it will be lost."