The desert did not welcome them.
It watched.
The year was 331 BCE, and Alexander, son of Philip, bearer of a lion’s will, rode westward — not for conquest, but for something older than kingship. The Oracle of Amun called to him, deep in the shifting sands of Egypt’s Western Desert. He had conquered cities. Now he sought the gods’ favor.
They said that even Heracles had walked this path. And so, Alexander rode into the sun-drenched nothingness, through a sea of gold.
The caravan faltered. Water ran low. The sun punished without mercy. His guides lost their way. And then — the old stories begin to shimmer. Two ravens, or perhaps serpents with voices of men, appeared above the dunes. Silently, they led the way. Some swore the birds circled like omens; others, that Alexander heard whispers in a tongue not of this world, guiding him forward.
And so they reached Siwa.
A mirage made real — an oasis of palm trees, salt lakes, and wind-bleached stone. At its heart stood the Temple of Amun, ancient even then, worn by sun and prayer. The priests — distant, serene — received him as though his coming had been long foretold.
He entered alone.
Within those walls, beneath crumbling carvings and curling incense, Alexander spoke to the god. What words passed between mortal and oracle are lost. Plutarch would later write that he asked about his true father. The oracle answered:
“Do not speak of mortals.”
Others claimed the oracle named him “Son of Zeus”. But when he emerged from the sanctuary, the desert light seemed changed — as if even the air knew something sacred had been uttered.
One of his companions dared ask what the god had said.
Alexander, with a gaze distant as a star, replied only:
“You shall not reveal the secrets of the gods.”
He left Siwa not as a man, but as something more — a king with divine blood, a legend stitched into the fabric of myth.
The sands had spoken.
And the world would never see him the same again.