Babylon [Media?], which immediately submitted to him, and in Ecbatana
[?] was much surprised at the sight of the place where fire issues in a
continuous stream, like a spring of water, out of a cleft in the earth,
and the stream of naphtha, which not far from this spot flows out so
abundantly as to form a large lake. This naphtha, in other respects
resembling bitumen, is so subject to take fire that, before it touches
the flame, it will kindle at the very light that surrounds it, and often
inflames the intermediate air also. The barbarians, to show the power
and nature of it, sprinkled the street that led to the king's lodgings
with little drops of it, and, when it was almost night, stood at the
farther end with torches, which being applied to the moistened places,
the first taking fire, instantly, as quick as a man could think of it,
it caught from one end to another in such manner that the whole street
was one continued flame. Among those who used to wait upon the king, and
find occasion to amuse him, when he anointed and washed himself, there
was one Athenophanus, an Athenian, who desired him to make an experiment
of the naphtha upon Stephanus, who stood by in the bathing place, a
youth with a ridiculously ugly face, whose talent was singing well.
'For,' said he, 'if it take hold of him, and is not put out, it must
undeniably be allowed to be of the most invincible strength.' The youth,
as it happened, readily consented to undergo the trial, and as soon as
he was anointed and rubbed with it, his whole body was broke out into
such a flame, and was so seized by the fire, that Alexander was in the
greatest perplexity and alarm for him, and not without reason; for
nothing could have prevented him from being consumed by it if, by good
chance, there had not been people at hand with a great many vessels of
water for the service of the bath, with all which they had much ado to
extinguish the fire; and his body was so burned all over that he was
not cured of it a good while after. And thus it was not without some
plausibility that they endeavor to reconcile the fable to truth, who say