Bessus

, a governor of Bactriana, who, after the battle of Arbela, seized Darius his sovereign and put him to death. After this murder, he a umed the title of king, and was some time after brought before Alexander, who gave him to Oxatres the brother of Darius. The prince ordered his hands and ears to be cut off, and his body to be exposed on a cro , and shot at by the soldiers. Justin , bk. 12 , ch. 5 .— Curtius , bks. 6 & 7.――A parricide who discovered the murder he had committed, upon observing a nest of swallows, which, as he observed, reproached him with his crime. Plutarch.