You're right about the progression, Allen. The product of 7, 8 and 9 is 504; the sum of the three numbers is 24; and 504 divided by 24 is 21 - Alexander's age when he subdued Greece. Good sleuthing.
(Alternately, consider that I originally wrote "fourth, fifth and sixth", but decided that I needed a two-syllable ordinal in there for rhythm. "Second" was better than those characters deserved, and the only other possibility was "seventh". In retrospect, I'd change it to "sixth, seventh and eighth" - I think that sounds better - but I'm trying to stop compulsively tweaking my yuk-a-puk posts.)
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