86

150

would be the most feasible and intelligent road of escape for
a runaway in those days? It would not be
to the south; for that would take him to the heart
of Persia or to Babylon. It would not be to west,
for so he would have had to traverse the
entire empire. It could not be to the north;
for that way there was only the Caspian Sea
and the impassible Caucausus. But just to the
east was the frontier. To the east, then, he
must have gone; since in fact he did get
home. For the ideas of his being liberated or
ransomed are too preposterous to be entertained.
He must have gone east. And by what
route? No doubt by the very road that
Alexander two centuries later found to be