Book 7

BOOK VII

1.1. When Alexander had come to Pasargadae and to Persepolis, a longing seized him to sail down the Euphrates and the Tigris to the Persian Sea, and to behold the mouths of these rivers as he had beheld that of the Indus and the sea there.

1.2. Some have recorded this also: that Alexander purposed to sail round the greater part of Arabia, and the land of the Ethiopians, and Libya, and the Numidians beyond Mount Atlas, as far as Gadeira and inward into our own sea; and that, having subdued Libya and Carthage, he would then with justice be called king of all Asia.

1.3. For the kings of the Persians and the Medes, he said, who ruled not even the smallest portion of Asia, had no just claim to call themselves Great Kings. From this point some say that he intended to sail into the Euxine Sea, against the Scythians and to Lake Maeotis; others, that he meant to go to Sicily and the Iapygian promontory, for already the name of the Romans, advancing to greatness, was beginning to stir him.

1.4. For my own part, what Alexander's designs were I cannot affirm with certainty, nor does it concern me to make conjectures; but this much I think I myself can confidently maintain: that he planned nothing small or mean, and that he would never have remained at rest, content with any of the possessions he had already won, not even if he had added Europe to Asia and the islands of the Britons to Europe; but that he would still have sought beyond them for some unknown thing, vying, if with no other, then at least with himself.

1.5. And on this account I praise the sophists of the Indians, certain of whom, it is said, being caught by Alexander in the open air in a meadow where they were accustomed to spend their time, did nothing else at the sight of him and his army than stamp with their feet upon the earth on which they were standing. And when Alexander asked through interpreters what this action of theirs might mean, they answered thus:

1.6. "King Alexander, each man possesses just so much of the earth as this on which we have set our feet; and you, though a man like other men, save that you are meddlesome and reckless, are journeying over so great a part of the earth, far from your own, giving trouble both to yourself and to others. And yet a little while hence you too will die, and will possess just so much of the earth as suffices to bury your body."

2.1. Here Alexander praised both these words and the men who spoke them; yet for all that he did the opposite of what he praised. For he is said also to have marveled at Diogenes of Sinope, when he met him in the Isthmus as he lay in the sun, and, standing over him with his shield-bearers and foot-companions, asked whether he needed anything; and Diogenes answered that he needed nothing else, save that Alexander and his attendants should stand out of his sunlight. So Alexander was not altogether incapable of conceiving the better things; but he was terribly mastered by the love of glory.

2.2. For at Taxila too, when he had come thither and seen those of the Indian sophists who go naked, a longing came upon him that one of these men should join his company, since he admired their endurance. And the eldest of the sophists, whose disciples the others were, Dandamis by name, said that he himself would not come to Alexander, nor would he allow the others to go;

2.3. but he is said to have answered that he too was a son of Zeus, if Alexander indeed was, and that he wanted nothing of what was Alexander's, for he was well content with what he had; and that, moreover, he saw those who followed Alexander wandering over so much land and sea to no good end, with no limit ever set to their many wanderings. He therefore neither desired anything that Alexander had power to give, nor again did he fear lest he should be debarred from anything of which Alexander was master.

2.4. For while he lived, the land of the Indians sufficed him, bearing its fruits in season; and when he died, he would be released from the body, no seemly housemate. And so Alexander did not even attempt to compel him, recognizing that the man was free. But Calanus, one of the sophists of that country, was won over; and Megasthenes has recorded that this very Calanus was reckoned by the sophists themselves to be most lacking in self-mastery, and that they reproached him because, forsaking the happiness that was theirs, he served another master than God. This I have recorded because in a history of Alexander it was fitting

3.1. to speak also of Calanus; for in the land of Persia Calanus fell sick in body, though he had never before been ill; and so he was unwilling to lead the life of an invalid, but said to Alexander that he was content to make an end of himself in this state, before he should come to experience any suffering that would compel him to change his former way of living.

3.2. Alexander long argued against him; but when he saw that he would not yield, and that he would make away with himself in some other manner if no one gave way to him in this, he ordered that a pyre be heaped up for him, as Calanus himself directed, and that Ptolemy son of Lagus, the bodyguard, should have charge of it. Some say that a procession went before him, of horses and men, some armed, others carrying all manner of incense for the pyre; and others say that they bore golden and silver cups and royal apparel.

3.3. For himself a horse was made ready, since by reason of his sickness he was unable to walk; but he could not even mount the horse, and so was carried, lying on a litter, crowned after the Indian custom and singing in the Indian tongue. The Indians say that these were hymns to the gods and praises of the gods.

3.4. And the horse on which he was to have ridden, a royal Nisaean steed, he gave before he ascended the pyre to Lysimachus, one of those who attended on him for the sake of his wisdom; and of the cups and coverlets which Alexander had ordered to be thrown upon the pyre as an adornment for him, he gave some to one and some to another of those about him.

3.5. So then he mounted the pyre and lay down upon it in seemly fashion, in sight of the whole army. To Alexander the spectacle seemed unbecoming, taking place as it did over a friend; but to the rest he afforded wonder, for he stirred no part of his body in the fire.

3.6. And when those whose task it was set fire to the pyre, the trumpets sounded, as Nearchus relates, this too being so ordered by Alexander; and the whole army raised the war-cry, such as it raised when going into battle; and the elephants too joined in with their shrill and warlike note, in honour of Calanus. These things, and the like, men competent enough have recorded concerning Calanus the Indian, things not without their use to mankind, for whoever cares to learn how strong and unconquerable a thing is the human will, when it wishes to accomplish something.

4.1. Meanwhile Alexander sent Atropates back to his own satrapy, passing on to Susa; and Abulites and his son Oxathres, because they had governed the people of Susa ill, he arrested and put to death.

4.2. Indeed many crimes had been committed by those who held the lands won by Alexander's spear, against temples and tombs and the very subjects themselves, because the king's expedition to the Indians had been a long one, and it seemed not to be believed that he would return safe from so many nations and so many elephants, perishing somewhere beyond the Indus and the Hydaspes and the Acesines and the Hyphasis.

4.3. And the misfortunes that had befallen him among the Gadrosians stirred up still more those who held satrapies in that quarter to despise the thought of his returning home. Nevertheless Alexander himself is said to have become at that time more ready to believe those who brought accusations, as though they were in every case credible, and to punish severely even those convicted of small offences, since he thought they would have committed great ones too in the same spirit.

4.4. He also celebrated marriages at Susa, both his own and those of his Companions. He himself married Barsine, the eldest of the daughters of Darius, and, as Aristobulus says, another besides her, Parysatis the youngest of the daughters of Ochus. He had already taken to wife Roxane too, the daughter of Oxyartes the Bactrian.

4.5. To Hephaestion he gave Drypetis, also a daughter of Darius and a sister of his own wife; for he wished the children of Hephaestion to be cousins to his own. To Craterus he gave Amastrine, daughter of Oxyathres the brother of Darius; to Perdiccas, the daughter of Atropates the satrap of Media.

4.6. To Ptolemy the bodyguard and to Eumenes the royal secretary he gave the daughters of Artabazus, to the one Artacama, to the other Artonis; to Nearchus the daughter of Barsine and Mentor; to Seleucus the daughter of Spitamenes the Bactrian; and in like manner to the other Companions the most distinguished daughters of the Persians and the Medes, to the number of eighty. The marriages were celebrated after the Persian fashion.

4.7. Thrones were set in a row for the bridegrooms, and after the drinking the brides came in, and each seated herself beside her own husband; and the bridegrooms greeted them by the hand and kissed them; and the king began first, for the marriages of all took place in the same manner. And this, if anything, was thought to be a deed both democratic and friendly to his Companions on Alexander's part.

4.8. Then each man took his bride and led her away; and Alexander gave dowries to all of them. And as for all the other Macedonians who had married some of the Asian women, Alexander ordered that their names too be registered, and they proved to be more than ten thousand; and to these also gifts were given by Alexander on the occasion of their marriages.

5.1. And it seemed to him a fitting time to discharge the debts of the army, of all who were in debt; and he ordered each man to register how much he owed, on the understanding that they would receive it. At first only a few registered their names, fearing that this was a test set on foot by Alexander, to discover for whom the soldiers' pay did not suffice and whose manner of living was extravagant.

5.2. But when it was reported to him that the greater part did not register themselves, but concealed it if any had a bond outstanding, he blamed the soldiers' want of trust; for, he said, neither ought the king to do anything but speak the truth to his subjects, nor ought any of the subjects to suppose that the king did anything but speak the truth.

5.3. So he set tables in the camp, and gold upon them, and men to take charge of the giving to each; and he ordered that the debts be paid off to whoever produced a bond, without their registering their names any longer. And so they came to believe that Alexander spoke the truth; and it was a greater favour to them that they should not be made known than that they should cease to be in debt. This gift to the army is said to have amounted to twenty thousand talents.

5.4. He gave other gifts also to others, according as each was honoured for his rank, or for his valour, if anyone had become conspicuous in dangers. And he crowned with golden crowns those who excelled in deeds of bravery: first Peucestas, who had covered him with his shield; then Leonnatus,

5.5. who had also covered him with his shield, and for his dangers among the Indians and for the victory won at Ora, in that, drawing up his force against those of the Oreitae who were stirring up revolt, and against the dwellers near them, with the troops left to him, he both prevailed in the battle and was thought to have ordered well the other matters in Ora.

5.6. Besides these he crowned Nearchus for the voyage round from the land of the Indians along the great sea; for he too had now arrived at Susa. And besides these, Onesicritus the pilot of the royal ship; and further, Hephaestion and the other bodyguards.

6.1. There came to him also the satraps from the newly-founded cities and from the rest of the conquered land, bringing youths now coming of age, to the number of thirty thousand, all of the same age, whom Alexander called the Epigoni; equipped with Macedonian arms and trained for war in the Macedonian manner.

6.2. The coming of these is said to have grieved the Macedonians, as though Alexander were contriving every means whereby he might no longer have the same need of Macedonians. For indeed the Median dress of Alexander was no small grief to the Macedonians to behold, and the marriages celebrated in the Persian fashion were not to the liking of most of them, nor of some even of those who had married, although they had been greatly honoured by being made equal to the king.

6.3. Peucestas too, the satrap of the Persians, who went Persian in dress and speech, grieved them, because Alexander rejoiced in his adoption of barbarian ways; and the horsemen of the Bactrians and Sogdians and Arachotians, and of the Zarangians and Areians and Parthyaeans, and those of the Persians called the Euacae, who were enrolled into the Companion cavalry—all of them, that is, who appeared to surpass in rank and bodily beauty or in some other excellence—and a fifth cavalry-regiment added to these, not wholly of barbarians,

6.4. but, since the whole cavalry had been increased, certain of the barbarians were enrolled into it; and into the royal squadron were enrolled Cophes son of Artabazus, and Hydarnes and Artiboles the sons of Mazaeus, and Sisines and Phradasmenes the sons of Phrataphernes the satrap of Parthyaea and Hyrcania,

6.5. and Itanes son of Oxyartes and brother of Roxane the wife of Alexander, and Aegobares and his brother Mithrobaeus; and Hystaspes the Bactrian was set over them as commander; and to these were given Macedonian spears in place of the barbarian javelins. All these things grieved the Macedonians, as though Alexander were in every way going barbarian in his mind, and were holding both the Macedonian customs and the Macedonians themselves in no honour.

7.1. Alexander ordered Hephaestion to lead the greater part of the foot-army as far as the Persian Sea; while he himself, when his fleet had sailed up to him into the land of Susiana, embarked on the ships with the shield-bearers and the royal squadron, and taking on board not many of the Companion cavalry, sailed down the river Eulaeus toward the sea.

7.2. And when he was already near the mouth that opens into the sea, he left behind there the greater number of his ships, those that were in poor condition, and himself with the fastest-sailing vessels coasted along from the river Eulaeus by the sea toward the mouths of the Tigris; while his other ships were brought back up the Eulaeus to the canal which is cut from the Tigris into the Eulaeus, and by this they were conveyed across into the Tigris.

7.3. For of these rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, which enclose between them the middle of Assyria—whence too it is called Mesopotamia by the natives—the Tigris, flowing much lower than the Euphrates, receives many canals from the Euphrates into itself, and, taking up many other rivers besides and being swollen by them, falls into the Persian Sea, great and nowhere fordable up to its mouth, since none of its water is used up upon the country.

7.4. For the land here is higher than the water, and this river does not pour itself out by canals nor into any other river, but rather receives them; and it nowhere provides means for watering the country from itself.

7.5. The Euphrates, on the other hand, flows high and on a level everywhere with the land, and many canals have been made from it, some perennial, from which the dwellers on either side draw water, others made for the occasion, whenever they are short of water, for the irrigation of the country; for this land is not much rained on from heaven. And so the Euphrates, ending at last in no great body of water and in marshes, there comes to a stop.

7.6. Alexander, having coasted along by the sea over the whole stretch of the shore of the Persian Gulf that lies between the river Eulaeus and the Tigris, sailed up the Tigris to the camp where Hephaestion had encamped with the whole force. From there he sailed again to Opis, a city situated on the Tigris.

7.7. In sailing up he removed the weirs along the river and made the stream level throughout; these had been made by the Persians to prevent anyone from sailing up from the sea into their country and gaining the mastery with a naval force. These devices had been contrived because the Persians were no seamen; and so the continuous weirs that had been made rendered the voyage up the Tigris impossible. But Alexander said that such contrivances were not the part of men who were masters by arms; and so he did not reckon this safeguard as his own, since by his deed he showed it to be of no account, breaking through without difficulty what the Persians had taken such pains to make.

8.1. When he had come to Opis, he gathered the Macedonians together and announced that he was discharging from the army those who by reason of age or bodily disability were now useless for war, and was sending them home to their own people; and that he would give to them [as they departed] such gifts as would both make them more enviable to those at home and stir up the other Macedonians to be willing to share the same dangers and toils.

8.2. Alexander, indeed, said these things as though to please the Macedonians; but they, taking it that they were now despised by Alexander and judged altogether useless for war, were not unreasonably grieved at the words spoken by Alexander, being grieved as they were throughout this whole campaign by many other things also; for many times before this they had been distressed both by the Persian dress, which tended to this very end, and by the equipping of the barbarian Epigoni in the Macedonian manner, and by the mingling of foreign horsemen into the ranks of the Companions.

8.3. They could not, therefore, keep silent and endure, but bade him discharge them all from the army, and himself campaign with his father—taunting Ammon, this is to say, in their words. When Alexander heard this—for he was at that time more quick-tempered, and from the barbarian flattery no longer so gentle toward the Macedonians as of old—he leaped down from the platform with the officers about him, and ordered the most conspicuous of those who had stirred up the multitude to be seized, pointing out with his own hand to the shield-bearers whom they were to seize; and these proved to be about thirteen in number. These he ordered to be led away to execution. And when the rest, struck with dismay, fell silent, he went up again upon the platform and spoke as follows.

9.1. "It is not in order to check your impulse homeward, O Macedonians, that this speech of mine shall be made—for, so far as I am concerned, you may go wherever you wish—but that you may know what manner of men we have shown ourselves toward you, and what manner of men you yourselves have become, as you depart.

9.2. And first I shall begin my speech with Philip my father, as is fitting. For Philip took you over when you were wandering and helpless, most of you clad in skins and pasturing a few sheep upon the mountains, fighting ill in their defence against the Illyrians and Triballians and the neighbouring Thracians; and he gave you cloaks to wear in place of skins, and brought you down from the mountains to the plains, and made you a match in battle for the barbarians on your borders, so that you should no longer be saved by trusting in the strength of fastnesses rather than in your own valour; and he made you dwellers in cities, and adorned you with good laws and customs.

9.3. And over those very barbarians, by whom you and your possessions were formerly carried off as plunder, he made you masters, instead of slaves and subjects; and he added the greater part of Thrace to Macedonia, and, seizing the most advantageous of the places by the sea, he opened up the country to commerce, and made possible the working of the mines without fear; and he made you rulers of the Thessalians,

9.4. of whom you had long been dead with dread; and, humbling the nation of the Phocians, he made the entrance into Greece broad and easy for you, instead of narrow and difficult; and the Athenians and Thebans, who were always lying in wait for Macedonia, he so humbled—we ourselves now sharing in these labours with him—that, instead of your paying tribute to the Athenians and being subject to the Thebans, those peoples in their turn now sought their safety from us.

9.5. And passing into the Peloponnese, he set in order the affairs there as well; and being appointed commander-in-chief with full powers of all the rest of Greece for the expedition against the Persians, he attached this glory not so much to himself as to the common body of the Macedonians.

9.6. These were the benefits conferred upon you by my father—great, indeed, considered in themselves, but small when set against our own. For I, who took over from my father a few golden and silver cups, and not even sixty talents in the treasuries, and debts owed by Philip to the amount of five hundred talents, and who, borrowing upon these a further eight hundred myself, set out from a country that did not even feed you yourselves well, straightway opened up to you the passage of the Hellespont, though the Persians were then masters of the sea;

9.7. and prevailing with my cavalry over the satraps of Darius, I added to your dominion all Ionia and all Aeolis and both the Phrygias and the Lydians, and took Miletus by siege; and all the rest, which came over of its own accord, I took and gave to you to enjoy;

9.8. and the good things from Egypt and Cyrene, all that I won without a battle, come to you; and Hollow Syria and Palestine and the land between the rivers are your possession; and Babylon and Bactra and Susa are yours, and the wealth of the Lydians and the treasures of the Persians and the good things of the Indians and the outer sea are yours. You are satraps, you are generals, you are captains.

9.9. For what is left over for me myself from these toils, save this purple and this diadem? I have gotten nothing for my own private self, nor can anyone point to any treasures of mine save these—your possessions, or what is kept in store for your sake. For I have nothing of my own for which I should keep them, since I eat the same food as you, and choose the same sleep; and yet I do not think I eat even the same food as the daintier among you. And I know that I keep watch before you, that you may be able to sleep.

10.1. But these things I won while you toiled and suffered, myself leading you, without toil or suffering. And who among you knows that he has toiled more for me than I for him? Come now, let any of you who has wounds strip and show them, and I will show mine in turn;

10.2. for in my case there is no part of my body—of the front parts, at least—that has been left unwounded, nor is there any weapon, of those wielded by the hand or those that are hurled, of which I do not bear the marks upon myself; but I have been wounded with the sword in close combat, and shot with arrows, and struck from an engine; and, smitten in many places with stones and clubs, on your behalf and for your glory and your wealth, I lead you victorious through every land and sea and all rivers and mountains and all plains.

10.3. I have made the same marriages as you, and the children of many of you will be kinsmen to my own children. And further, to him who was in debt, without inquiring closely for what reason it was incurred—seeing that you draw such pay, and seize so much when plunder is taken from a siege—I have paid off these debts. And golden crowns belong to most of you, as memorials, immortal, both of your valour and of the honour you have from me.

10.4. And whoever died, glorious was his death and conspicuous his tomb, and bronze statues of most of them stand at home, and their parents are held in honour, freed from all public service and from every tax; for not one of you ever died in flight while I led you.

10.5. And now I was about to send back those of you who are unfit for war, the envied of those at home; but since you all wish to depart, depart, all of you; and when you have gone home announce that your king Alexander, who conquered the Persians and the Medes and the Bactrians and the Sacae,

10.6. and subdued the Uxians and the Arachotians and the Drangians, and gained possession of the Parthyaeans too and the Chorasmians and the Hyrcanians as far as the Caspian Sea, and crossed the Caucasus beyond the Caspian Gates, and passed over the river Oxus and the Tanais, and further the river Indus, which none save Dionysus had crossed, and the Hydaspes and the Acesines and the Hydraotes,

10.7. and who would have crossed the Hyphasis too, had you not shrunk back, and who reached the great sea by both the mouths of the Indus, and who went through the desert of Gadrosia, where no man had ever before come with an army, and who took Carmania too in passing and the land of the Oreitae, while his fleet had now sailed round from the land of the Indians to the Persian Sea—announce that, having brought him back to Susa, you went off and left him, handing him over to be guarded by the conquered barbarians. These things, when announced, will perhaps be glorious to you in the sight of men, and surely holy in the sight of the gods. Depart."

11.1. Having said this, he leaped down swiftly from the platform and, passing into the palace, neither tended his body nor was seen by any of the Companions; nor even on the morrow was he seen. But on the third day he called in the chosen men of the Persians and distributed among them the commands of the divisions, and ordained that those whom he declared his kinsmen should alone have the right to kiss him.

11.2. The Macedonians, when they had heard his words on the spot, remained at first thunderstruck, in silence there beside the platform; nor did any follow the king as he departed save those who were about him, the Companions and the bodyguards; but the multitude neither had anything to do or say if they stayed, nor were they willing to go away.

11.3. But when the affairs of the Persians and the Medes were announced to them—the commands given to Persians, and the barbarian army enrolled into companies, and Macedonian names: a certain Persian squadron called the Royal Squadron, and Persian foot-companions, and a Persian battalion of Silver Shields, and the Companion cavalry, and another royal squadron of this—they could no longer master themselves,

11.4. but ran together to the palace, and there cast down their arms before the doors, as suppliant offerings to the king, and themselves stood before the doors crying out and begging to be admitted within; and saying that they were willing to give up the authors of the disturbance of that time and those who had begun the outcry; and that they would not depart from the doors either by day or by night, unless Alexander should have some pity on them.

11.5. When this was announced to him, he came out in haste; and seeing them in their humbled condition, and hearing the many of them crying out with lamentation, tears poured forth from him too. And he came forward as though to say something, while they stood there entreating.

11.6. And one of them, conspicuous both for his age and for his command in the Companion cavalry, Callines by name, spoke thus: "O king, what grieves the Macedonians is that you have already made some of the Persians your kinsmen, and that Persians are called kinsmen of Alexander and kiss you, but no Macedonian has yet tasted of this honour."

11.7. Thereupon Alexander broke in and said, "But I make all of you my kinsmen, and from this time forth I shall so call you." When he had said this, Callines came forward and kissed him, and so did any other who wished to kiss him. And so, taking up their arms, with shouts and paeans they went off to the camp.

11.8. Alexander upon this offered sacrifice to the gods to whom it was his custom to sacrifice, and held a public feast, himself sitting and all sitting—about him the Macedonians, and in the row next to these the Persians, and after these such of the other nations as were honoured for rank or some other excellence; and from the same bowl he himself and those about him drew and poured the same libations, the Greek seers and the Magians beginning the rites.

11.9. And he prayed for other blessings, and for concord and partnership in the empire between the Macedonians and the Persians. The account holds that those who shared in the feast were nine thousand, and that all of these poured one libation and over it sang the paean.

12.1. Thereupon those of the Macedonians who by reason of age or some other infirmity were unfit for war now departed of their own accord; and these proved to be about ten thousand. To them Alexander gave not only the pay due up to the present time, but also that which would accrue for the journey home.

12.2. And he gave a talent to each over and above his pay; and if any had children by the Asian women, he ordered them to leave the children with him, and not to carry into Macedonia a cause of discord—foreign children, born of barbarian women—among the children and mothers left at home; but he himself would see to it that they were reared in the Macedonian fashion, both in other respects and in their training for war, and that when they came to be men he would himself lead them to Macedonia and hand them over to their fathers.

12.3. These promises he made to them as they departed, vague and uncertain as they were; and as the surest proof of his affection and longing toward them he thought fit to give this: that the man most faithful to him, and whom he held equal to his own head, Craterus, he sent along with them as guardian and leader of the expedition. And so, having embraced them all, himself weeping and they weeping too, he parted from them.

12.4. He ordered Craterus to lead them, and, when he had brought them home, to take command of Macedonia and Thrace and the Thessalians, and of the freedom of the Greeks; and he ordered Antipater to bring as replacements for those sent home Macedonians in the prime of life. He sent Polyperchon also along with Craterus, as second in command after Craterus, so that, if anything should befall Craterus on the way—since he was sending him home in poor bodily health—those who went might not lack a general.

12.5. There went about, in whispers, among those who busied themselves with the king's affairs—who, the more a thing is concealed, the more ambitiously they expound it, and who turn the credible toward the worse, whither both likelihood and their own malice lead them, rather than toward the truth—a rumour of this sort: that Alexander, already overcome by his mother's slanders against Antipater, wished to remove Antipater from Macedonia.

12.6. And perhaps the recalling of Antipater did not tend to his dishonour, but rather to prevent any unpleasantness arising from their quarrel between them toward one another, which not even Alexander himself could heal. For they did not cease writing to Alexander, the one concerning the willfulness of Olympias and her sharpness and meddlesomeness, least seemly in the mother of Alexander—so that a saying of this kind too was reported of Alexander, in regard to what was announced to him concerning his mother, that his mother exacted from him a heavy rent for the ten months;

12.7. and she, on her part, wrote that Antipater was overweening in his pretensions and in his other state, and no longer even mindful of him who had set him up, but claimed for himself the first place among the other Macedonians and Greeks. And these things seemed to prevail more with Alexander, all that tended toward the slander of Antipater, inasmuch as they were the more to be feared in a kingdom. Yet no manifest act or word of Alexander was reported from which one might infer that Antipater was not as much in his favour as before ... ... Hephaestion. By this argument, it is said, Hephaestion, cowering, was reconciled

13.1. with Eumenes, unwillingly with one unwilling. On this march Alexander is said to have seen also the plain set apart for the royal mares, the plain itself called Nisaean, and the mares said to be called Nisaean, as Herodotus relates; and that there had once been about a hundred and fifty thousand of these horses, but that at this time Alexander found not much more than fifty thousand; for the greater part of them had been plundered by robbers.

13.2. Here they say that Atropates the satrap of Media gave him a hundred women, declaring them to be of the Amazons, equipped in the gear of horsemen-men, save that they carried axes instead of spears and crescent-shields instead of round shields; and some say too that they had the right breast smaller, which they kept bare in their battles.

13.3. These Alexander dismissed from the army, lest any outrage should be done to them by the Macedonians or barbarians; and he bade them announce to their queen that he himself would come to her to beget children. But these things neither Aristobulus nor Ptolemy nor any other competent witness on such matters has recorded.

13.4. Nor does it seem to me that the race of the Amazons was preserved at that time, nor even before Alexander; otherwise Xenophon would have made mention of them, since he mentions the Phasiani and the Colchians and all the other barbarian peoples whom the Greeks encountered, setting out from Trapezus or before they came down to Trapezus, where they would surely have met the Amazons too, if the Amazons were still in existence.

13.5. Yet that this race of women never existed at all seems to me not credible, celebrated as it has been by so many and so great writers. For an account holds that Heracles was sent against them, and that he brought a certain girdle of their queen Hippolyte into Greece; and that the Athenians with Theseus were the first to defeat in battle and turn back these women when they invaded Europe; and the battle of the Athenians and the Amazons has been painted by Micon no less than that of the Athenians and the Persians.

13.6. And Herodotus has often written concerning these women; and all who among the Athenians adorned in their speeches those who had fallen in war made especial mention of the exploit of the Athenians against the Amazons. But if Atropates did indeed show Alexander certain women skilled in horsemanship, I think he showed him some other barbarian women trained to ride, equipped in what is called the array of the Amazons.

14.1. At Ecbatana Alexander offered sacrifice, as was his custom on occasions of good fortune, and held a contest both gymnastic and musical; and drinking-parties were held by him among his Companions. And in the course of these Hephaestion fell sick in body; it was now the seventh day of his illness, and they say that the stadium was full—for there was a gymnastic contest of boys on that day; and when it was announced to Alexander that Hephaestion was in a bad way, he came to him in haste, but found him no longer living.

14.2. Here different writers have recorded different things concerning Alexander's grief; that his grief was great, all have recorded this; but as to what was done over it, different writers say different things, according as each was disposed by goodwill toward Hephaestion or by envy, or even toward Alexander himself.

14.3. Of those who have recorded his reckless deeds, some seem to me to have thought that whatever Alexander did or said in excess of grief over the man dearest of all to him tended to his honour, others rather to his shame, as not becoming either a king or Alexander: some say that he lay flung upon the body of his Companion for the greater part of that day, lamenting and unwilling to be torn away, until at last he was carried off by force by the Companions;

14.4. others, that he lay flung upon the body for the whole day and the whole night; others again, that he hanged the physician Glaucias—and this either for having ill administered a drug, or, as others say, because he looked on while Hephaestion drank his fill of wine. And that Alexander cut off his hair over the corpse I think not improbable, both for other reasons and in emulation of Achilles, with whom from boyhood he had a rivalry. Others say also that he himself at times drove the chariot on which the body was carried—

14.5. which seems to me in no way credible. Others say that he ordered the precinct of Asclepius at Ecbatana to be razed to the ground—a barbarian act this, and in no way suited to Alexander, but rather to the recklessness of Xerxes toward the divine, and to the fetters which they say Xerxes let down into the Hellespont, fancying that he was punishing the Hellespont.

14.6. But this too does not seem to me to have been recorded altogether outside likelihood: that as Alexander was marching toward Babylon, many embassies from Greece met him on the way, and that among these were envoys of the Epidaurians; and that these obtained from Alexander what they asked, and that Alexander gave them an offering to carry to Asclepius, adding the words: "Although Asclepius has not dealt fairly with me, in not saving for me the Companion whom I held equal to my own head." And that he ordered offerings always to be made to Hephaestion as to a hero—this is recorded by most writers;

14.7. but some say that he sent also to the shrine of Ammon to ask the god whether he permitted sacrifice to be made to Hephaestion as to a god; and that the god did not permit it.

14.8. But these things are agreed by all: that for two days from the death of Hephaestion Alexander tasted no food, nor tended his body with any other care, but lay either lamenting or in mournful silence; and that he ordered a pyre to be prepared for him in Babylon at the cost of ten thousand talents—some have recorded even more;

14.9. and that a public mourning was proclaimed throughout the whole barbarian country; and that many of Alexander's Companions, to do honour to him, dedicated themselves and their arms to the dead Hephaestion; and that Eumenes first began this device—Eumenes, whom we said a little before had been at variance with Hephaestion; and that he did this so that Alexander might not think that he rejoiced at Hephaestion's death.

14.10. Accordingly Alexander did not appoint any other in Hephaestion's place as chiliarch over the Companion cavalry, so that the name of Hephaestion might not perish from the division, but the chiliarchy was called Hephaestion's, and its standard, made by Hephaestion, led it. He purposed also to hold a contest both gymnastic and musical, far more splendid than any of those before it, both in the number of the competitors and in the expense bestowed upon it; for he made ready three thousand competitors in all. And these, a little later, are said to have competed at Alexander's own funeral.

15.1. The time of his mourning was long, and he himself was now beginning to recall himself from it, and his Companions were the more successful in such matters. Thereupon he made an expedition against the Cossaeans, a warlike people bordering on the Uxians.

15.2. The Cossaeans are mountaineers, and dwell in strong places among villages; whenever a force approaches, they withdraw in a body to the heights of the mountains, or escape as each best can, casting into difficulty those who attack them with a force; and when these have withdrawn, they turn again to robbery, and from this make their living.

15.3. But Alexander destroyed their nation, though he campaigned in winter. Yet neither the winter nor the difficulties of the country proved a hindrance to him, neither to himself nor to Ptolemy son of Lagus, who led a part of the army against them. So nothing in war was impossible to Alexander, whatever he set his hand to.

15.4. As he was coming down to Babylon, embassies of the Libyans met him, praising and crowning him on his kingship of Asia; and from Italy the Bruttii and the Lucanians and the Tyrrhenians sent embassies on the same errand. The Carthaginians too are said to have sent an embassy then, and envoys to have come from the Ethiopians and from the Scythians of Europe, and Celts and Iberians, to ask for friendship; whose names and equipment were then for the first time seen by Greeks and Macedonians.

15.5. They say too that some of them entrusted to Alexander the settlement of their disputes with one another; and that it was then above all that Alexander appeared both to himself and to those about him master of all land and sea. Aristus and Asclepiades, of those who recorded the deeds of Alexander, say that the Romans also sent an embassy; and that Alexander, when he met the embassy, prophesied something concerning the future power of the Romans, observing both the orderliness of the men and their love of toil and their free spirit, and inquiring at the same time about their form of government.

15.6. And this I have recorded as neither certain nor altogether incredible; save that no Roman has made any mention of this embassy as having been sent to Alexander, nor have those who wrote of Alexander's deeds, with whom I am rather in agreement, Ptolemy son of Lagus and Aristobulus; nor was it fitting to the Roman polity, free as it then was in the highest degree, to send an embassy to a foreign king, especially so far from their own land, when neither fear compelled them nor hope of advantage, while they were held, if any people ever were, by hatred of the very race and name of tyranny.

16.1. After this he sent Heracleides son of Argaeus into Hyrcania, taking shipwrights with him, with orders to cut timber from the Hyrcanian mountains and build ships of war, both undecked and decked, after the Greek fashion.

16.2. For a longing seized him to learn about this sea also, the one called Caspian and Hyrcanian, with what sea it joins—whether with that of the Euxine Sea, or whether the great sea, coming round from the east toward the Indians, pours up into the Hyrcanian gulf, just as he had discovered the Persian Sea, called the Red Sea, to be a gulf of the great sea.

16.3. For the sources of the Caspian Sea had not yet been discovered, although not a few nations dwell around it and navigable rivers fall into it: from Bactra the Oxus, the greatest of the Asian rivers, except those of the Indians, empties into this sea; and through the Scythians the Iaxartes; and the prevailing account holds that the Araxes too, flowing from Armenia, falls into it. These are the greatest;

16.4. but there are many others besides, both falling into these and themselves emptying on their own account into this sea, some of them known to those of Alexander's company who passed through those nations, others belonging to the parts beyond the gulf, as is likely, by the Nomad Scythians, which are altogether unknown.

16.5. When Alexander had crossed the river Tigris with his army, marching toward Babylon, there met him certain learned men of the Chaldaeans, who, drawing him aside from the Companions, begged him to hold back his advance upon Babylon. For an oracle, they said, had been given to them from the god Belus, that his entrance into Babylon at that time would not be for his good. He answered them with a verse of the poet Euripides;

16.6. and the verse runs thus in Euripides: "The best of seers is he who guesses well." "But do you, O king," said the Chaldaeans, "neither yourself look toward the setting sun, nor lead your army advancing in that direction, but rather go round toward the east."

16.7. But this too did not turn out easy for him, by reason of the difficulty of the ground; rather the divine power was leading him by that way by which, when he had passed, he was destined now to die. And perhaps too it was better for him to be taken away at the height of his glory and of men's longing for him, before any human misfortune should befall him, for the sake of which Solon, as is likely, counselled Croesus to look to the end of a long life, and to call no man happy before then.

16.8. For indeed to Alexander himself the death of Hephaestion had become no small misfortune, before which I think Alexander himself would rather have departed than have lived to experience it—no less, I think, than Achilles would have chosen to die before Patroclus rather than to become the avenger of his death.

17.1. He had, moreover, a certain suspicion of the Chaldaeans, that it was not so much by way of prophecy as for their own advantage that they sought to hinder Alexander's advance into Babylon at that time. For the temple of Belus was in the middle of the city of the Babylonians, greatest in size and built of baked brick fitted together with bitumen.

17.2. This temple, like the other sanctuaries of the Babylonians, Xerxes had razed when he returned back from Greece; but Alexander had it in mind to rebuild it—some say upon the former foundations, and for this reason he ordered the Babylonians to carry away the rubbish; others, that he meant to make it even larger than it had been of old.

17.3. But since, after he had withdrawn, those to whom this work had been entrusted set about it slackly, he purposed to do the work with the whole army. For there had been set apart for the god Belus much land by the Assyrian kings, and much gold;

17.4. and from this the temple had of old been kept in repair and the sacrifices offered to the god, but at that time the Chaldaeans enjoyed what belonged to the god, there being nothing on which the surplus was spent. For these reasons they were suspected by Alexander of being unwilling that he should enter within Babylon, lest in a short time the temple should be completed and they be deprived of the profits from these revenues.

17.5. Nevertheless, as regards the circuit to be made in entering the city, Aristobulus says that he was willing to be persuaded by them; and that on the first day he encamped beside the river Euphrates, and on the next, keeping the river on his right, he marched along it, intending to pass round the part of the city turned toward the west, so as there to turn round and lead his army toward the east;

17.6. but that he was unable, by reason of the difficulty of the ground, so to march with his army, because the approach from the west of the city, if he had there turned toward the east, was marshy and full of shallows. And so, both willing and unwilling, he disobeyed the god.

18.1. For indeed Aristobulus has recorded an account of this sort. Apollodorus of Amphipolis, one of Alexander's Companions, general of the army which Alexander had left with Mazaeus the satrap of Babylon, when he joined Alexander on his return from the Indians, and saw him bitterly punishing the satraps who had been set in charge of one province and another, wrote to his brother Peithagoras—for Peithagoras was a seer skilled in divination from entrails—bidding him divine also concerning his own safety.

18.2. Peithagoras wrote back, inquiring whom in particular he feared that he wished to use the divination. And he wrote again that it was the king himself and Hephaestion. Peithagoras therefore sacrificed first concerning Hephaestion; and when, in the liver of the victim, the lobe was wanting, he wrote it down and, having sealed the letter, sent it to Apollodorus from Babylon to Ecbatana, signifying that he need have no fear of Hephaestion, for he would shortly be out of their way.

18.3. And this letter, Aristobulus says, Apollodorus received one day before Hephaestion died. Peithagoras sacrificed again concerning Alexander, and again, in the case of Alexander, the liver of the victim was without a lobe. And Peithagoras wrote the same things to Apollodorus concerning Alexander too. Apollodorus did not keep silent, but told Alexander what had been written to him, thinking thus rather to show his goodwill to the king, if he advised him to be on his guard lest some danger befall him at that time.

18.4. And he says that Alexander praised Apollodorus, and, when he came to Babylon, asked Peithagoras what sign it was that had befallen him when he wrote these things to his brother. And he said that the liver of the victim had come to him without a lobe; and when Alexander asked what the sign meant, he said that it was a grave one. And Alexander was so far from being angry with Peithagoras that he held him in still greater regard, because he had told him the truth without deceit.

18.5. These things Aristobulus says he himself learned from Peithagoras; and he says that Peithagoras divined also for Perdiccas, and at a later time for Antigonus; and that, the same sign befalling both, Perdiccas died when he campaigned against Ptolemy, and Antigonus in the battle against Seleucus and Lysimachus that was fought at Ipsus.

18.6. Moreover, concerning Calanus the Indian sophist too an account of this kind has been recorded: that when he was going to the pyre to die, then he greeted the other Companions, but would not approach Alexander to greet him, but said that he would greet him when he met him in Babylon. And this saying was at the time neglected, but afterwards, when Alexander died in Babylon, it came to the memory of those who had heard it, that it had been spoken in divine prophecy of Alexander's death.

19.1. When he had come to Babylon, embassies from the Greeks met him; concerning what each were sent to treat is not recorded, but it seems to me that most of them were to crown him and to praise him for his victories, both the others and especially those over the Indians, and to declare their joy that he had returned safe from the Indians. And these, it is said, he received graciously, and, having honoured them as was fitting, sent them back.

19.2. And whatever statues or images or any other dedications Xerxes had carried off from Greece to Babylon or to Pasargadae or to Susa or anywhere else in Asia, these he gave to the envoys to take away; and thus, it is said, the bronze statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton were brought back to Athens, and the seat of Artemis of Celceae.

19.3. He found at Babylon also, as Aristobulus says, the fleet—that part which had sailed up the river Euphrates from the Persian Sea, all that had been with Nearchus, and that part which had been brought up from Phoenicia: two quinqueremes of the Phoenician ships, three quadriremes, twelve triremes, and about thirty thirty-oared galleys; which, having been taken apart, were conveyed to the river Euphrates from Phoenicia to the city of Thapsacus, and there put together again and sailed down to Babylon. He says too that another fleet was being built for him, by cutting the cypress-trees in Babylonia;

19.4. for of these trees alone there was abundance in the land of the Assyrians, but of the others, all that are needed for shipbuilding, this land had a scarcity. And as crews for the ships and the other services there had come to him from Phoenicia and the rest of the coast a multitude of purple-fishers and of all others who labour on the sea; and he made near Babylon an artificial harbour, large enough to be a mooring for a thousand ships of war, and ship-sheds upon the harbour.

19.5. And Miccalus of Clazomenae was sent with five hundred talents to Phoenicia and Syria, to win over some by pay and to buy others—all who were men of the sea. For he purposed to settle the coast by the Persian Gulf and the islands there; for it seemed to him that this country might become no less prosperous than Phoenicia.

19.6. His naval preparation was directed against the greater part of the Arabs; the pretext being that they alone of the barbarians of that region had neither sent an embassy nor done anything else fitting or honourable toward him; but the truth, as it seems to me, was that Alexander was insatiable of ever acquiring something.

20.1. An account holds that he heard that the Arabs honour only two gods, Uranus and Dionysus—Uranus because he is himself visible and holds the stars within himself, among them the sun, from which the greatest and most manifest benefit comes to all human affairs; and Dionysus on account of the fame of his expedition to the Indians. He therefore thought it not unworthy that he himself should be reckoned a third god by the Arabs, having displayed deeds no meaner than those of Dionysus, if indeed, having conquered the Arabs, he should permit them, as he had the Indians, to govern themselves by their own customs.

20.2. The prosperity of the land also stirred him, for he heard that from the marshes there came to them cassia, and from the trees myrrh and frankincense, and from the bushes cinnamon was cut, and that the meadows produced spikenard of themselves; and as for the size of the country, that the seaboard of Arabia was reported to him to be no less than that of India, and that many islands lay off it, and that there were harbours everywhere in the country, such as to afford both moorings for the fleet and sites for cities to be founded, and that these would become prosperous.

20.3. Two islands out at sea off the mouth of the Euphrates were reported to him: the first not far from the mouths of the Euphrates, distant about a hundred and twenty stades from the shore and the mouth of the river, the smaller of the two and overgrown with all manner of timber; and there was in it a temple of Artemis, and the inhabitants of it spent their lives about the temple;

20.4. and it was pastured by wild goats and deer, and these were let go free as sacred to Artemis, nor was it lawful to hunt them, save when someone, wishing to sacrifice to the goddess, hunted on this account only; for on this account it was not unlawful.

20.5. And this island Aristobulus says Alexander ordered to be called Icarus, after the island of Icarus in the Aegean Sea, into which the account holds that Icarus son of Daedalus fell when the wax melted by which his wings were fastened, because he did not, according to his father's instructions, keep close to the earth as he flew, but, flying aloft in his folly, gave the sun occasion to warm and loosen the wax; and that Icarus from himself left his name to the island and the sea, the one being called Icarus and the other the Icarian.

20.6. The other island was said to be distant from the mouth of the Euphrates about a day's and a night's voyage for a ship running before the wind; Tylus was its name; and it was large, and the greater part of it neither rough nor wooded, but such as to bear cultivated fruits and all things in season.

20.7. These things were reported to Alexander partly by Archias, who, being sent out with a thirty-oared galley to reconnoitre the coasting voyage toward the Arabs, came as far as the island of Tylus, but did not venture to cross further on; and Androsthenes, sent with another thirty-oared galley, coasted along part of the peninsula of the Arabs; but the farthest of those sent out advanced Hieron the Solian, the pilot, who also received a thirty-oared galley from Alexander.

20.8. For he had been ordered to sail round the whole Arabian peninsula as far as the Arabian gulf toward Egypt, the one by Heroonpolis; yet he did not venture to go further on, though he coasted along the land of the Arabs for a great distance; but he turned back to Alexander and reported that the size of the peninsula was a marvel, and not much less than the land of the Indians, and that a headland ran out far into the great sea—

20.9. the very headland which those with Nearchus, sailing from India, before they bent round into the Persian Gulf, saw stretching out not far off, and came near to crossing over to it, as Onesicritus the pilot thought best; but Nearchus says that he himself prevented this, so that, having sailed round the Persian Gulf, he might be able to report to Alexander on what matters he had been sent out by him.

20.10. For he had not been sent to sail the great sea, but to learn about the country lying along the sea and the men who dwell in it, and the moorings in it and the waters and the customs of the men, and whether any was good to bear fruits or any bad; and this too proved a cause of the army's being saved for Alexander, for they would not have been saved had they sailed across the desert parts of Arabia, the very thing on account of which Hieron also is said to have turned back. While the triremes were being built for him, and the

21.1. harbour at Babylon was being dug, he sailed out from Babylon down the Euphrates toward the river called the Pallacopas. This is distant from Babylon about eight hundred stades, and is a canal from the Euphrates, not a river rising from any springs.

21.2. For the river Euphrates, flowing from the Armenian mountains, in winter season runs within its banks, since its water is then not great; but as spring comes on, and most of all about the solstices that the sun turns in summer, it comes down great and overflows over its banks into the land of Assyria;

21.3. for then the snows on the Armenian mountains, melting away, increase its water greatly. And since its current is high and on the surface, it overflows into the country, unless one opens it out at the Pallacopas and turns it off into the marshes and the lakes, which, beginning from this canal, extend as far as the land adjoining that of the Arabs, and thence into wide shallows, and from there discharge into the sea by many and hidden mouths.

21.4. When the snow has melted, about the setting of the Pleiades, the Euphrates runs small, and yet none the less the greater part of it discharges by the Pallacopas into the lakes. So that, if anyone did not block up the Pallacopas again, so that the water, turned off along the banks, might flow in its proper channel, it would drain the Euphrates into itself, so that the land of Assyria would not even be watered from it.

21.5. But the outlets of the Euphrates into the Pallacopas were being blocked up by the satrap of Babylonia with much labour, although they were opened up without difficulty, because the soil there is muddy, and most of it clay, such that, receiving the water of the river, it did not afford an easy means of turning it back; and indeed, for a third month, more than ten thousand men of the Assyrians were occupied in this labour. These things, when reported, induced Alexander to do some service to the land of Assyria.

21.6. Where, then, the current of the Euphrates was turned into the Pallacopas, there he resolved firmly to close up the outlet; but when he had advanced about thirty stades, the ground appeared somewhat rocky, of such a kind that, if cut through and joined to the old canal at the Pallacopas, it would, by reason of the hardness of the soil, neither allow the water to spread abroad, nor make the turning back of it difficult at the appointed season.

21.7. For these reasons he sailed to the Pallacopas and down it into the lakes toward the land of the Arabs. There, seeing a fair spot, he built and walled a city, and settled in it some of the Greek mercenaries, all who were willing and all who by reason of age or disability were unfit for war. And he himself, as having now refuted the divination of the Chaldaeans,

22.1. in that he had suffered nothing unpleasant in Babylon, as they had divined, but had got out of Babylon before suffering anything, sailed back again confidently along the marshes, keeping Babylon on his left. Here a part of his fleet went astray among the narrows for want of a guide, until he himself sent the man to lead them and brought them back to the channel. And an account of this kind is told.

22.2. The tombs of the Assyrian kings were, for the most part, built among the lakes and in the marshes. As Alexander was sailing along the marshes—for an account holds that he was himself steering the trireme—a great wind fell upon his broad-brimmed hat and the diadem bound to it; and the hat, being the heavier, fell into the water, but the diadem, carried off by the blast, was caught on a reed; and the reed was one of those growing on the tomb of one of the kings of old.

22.3. This of itself, then, was a sign of what was to come; and so too was this, that one of the sailors swam toward the diadem, and, taking it off the reed, did not carry it in his hands, since while swimming it would have been wetted, but put it round his own head and so carried it across.

22.4. And most of those who have recorded the deeds of Alexander say that Alexander gave him a talent for his zeal, but ordered his head to be cut off, the seers explaining the matter thus, that he should not suffer that head to remain safe which had worn the royal diadem. But Aristobulus says that he received the talent, but that he received blows for putting the diadem round his head.

22.5. Aristobulus, then, says that it was one of the Phoenician sailors who brought the diadem to Alexander, but there are some who say it was Seleucus; and that this signified to Alexander his death and to Seleucus the great kingship. For that Seleucus became the greatest king of those who succeeded to the empire after Alexander, and most kingly in mind, and ruled over the most land after Alexander himself, does not seem to me to admit of dispute.

23.1. When he had returned to Babylon, he found Peucestas come from the Persians, bringing an army of Persians to the number of twenty thousand; and he brought also not a few of the Cossaeans and Tapurians, because these too were reported to be the most warlike of the peoples bordering on Persia. There came to him also Philoxenus bringing an army from Caria, and Menander from Lydia bringing others, and Menidas bringing the horsemen who had been assigned to him.

23.2. And embassies also came at this time from Greece, and the envoys of these, themselves crowned, approached Alexander and crowned him with golden crowns, as though they had come as sacred deputies to do honour to a god. But for him the end was now not far off.

23.3. Thereupon, having praised the Persians for their zeal, in that they obeyed Peucestas in all things, and Peucestas himself for the orderly command of them, he enrolled them into the Macedonian divisions: a Macedonian to be decadarch, leader of the file of ten, and after him a Macedonian double-pay man, and a ten-stater man, so named from his pay, which was less than that of the double-pay man but more than that of the soldiers not in honour;

23.4. and after these twelve Persians, and last of the file a Macedonian, a ten-stater man too; so that in the file there were four Macedonians, some pre-eminent in pay, and one in the command of the file, and twelve Persians; the Macedonians armed with their native arms, and of the Persians some archers, others carrying javelins.

23.5. During this time he often made trial of his fleet, and there were many contests among his triremes and the quadriremes upon the river, and matches both of the rowers and of the pilots, and crowns for the victors.

23.6. There came also from Ammon the sacred deputies whom he had sent to ask in what way it was lawful for him to honour Hephaestion; and they said that Ammon declared it lawful to sacrifice to him as to a hero. And he rejoiced in the oracle, and from that time honoured him as a hero. And to Cleomenes, a bad man, who had committed many crimes in Egypt, he sent a letter. And this letter, for the sake of his affection toward Hephaestion even in death and his memory of him, I myself do not blame; but for the sake of many other things I blame it.

23.7. For the letter ran that a shrine should be built to Hephaestion in Egyptian Alexandria, both in the city itself and on the island of Pharos, where the lighthouse is, on the island, greatest in size and most splendid in costliness; and that it should prevail that it be called after Hephaestion, and that in the contracts which the merchants make with one another the name of Hephaestion should be written.

23.8. These things I cannot blame, save only that he busied himself greatly over matters not great. But these other things I blame altogether. For "if I find," the letter said, "the temples in Egypt well built and the shrines of Hephaestion, then, even if you have committed some offence before, I will release you from it, and for the future, however great an offence you commit, you shall suffer nothing unpleasant from me." This, sent by a great king to a man ruling over much land and many men, and moreover to a bad man, I cannot praise.

24.1. But now the end was already near for Alexander himself. And Aristobulus says that a certain sign of this kind preceded the things that were to come. He was enrolling into the Macedonian divisions the army that had come with Peucestas from the Persians and from the sea with Philoxenus and Menander; and, becoming thirsty, he withdrew from his place, leaving the royal throne empty.

24.2. There were couches with silver feet on either side of the throne, on which the Companions about him were seated. Now one of certain neglected men—or, as some say, one of those in unfettered custody—seeing the throne empty and the couches, and the eunuchs standing about the throne (for the Companions too had risen with the king as he withdrew), passed through the eunuchs, went up to the throne, and sat down.

24.3. And they did not raise him up from the throne, in accordance with some Persian custom, but, rending their garments, beat their breasts and their faces as over some great evil. When this was announced to Alexander, he ordered the man who had sat down to be put to the torture, wishing to know whether he had done this as part of some plot laid against him. But the man said nothing else save that it had come into his mind so to act; whereby the seers all the more interpreted that it had befallen for no good to him.

24.4. Not many days after this, having sacrificed to the gods both the customary sacrifices for good fortune and certain others prescribed by divination, he feasted with his friends and drank far into the night. He is said also to have given to the army victims and wine by companies and hundreds. And from the drinking-party he wished, some have recorded, to withdraw to his bedchamber; but Medius met him, of the Companions at that time the most persuasive, and begged him to come and revel at his house; for the revel, he said, would be a pleasant one.

25.1. And the Royal Journals run thus: that he drank and reveled at Medius' house; then, rising up and bathing, he slept, and again dined at Medius' house, and again drank far into the night; and, withdrawing from the drinking, he bathed; and after bathing he ate a little and slept there, because he was already feverish.

25.2. He was carried out on a litter to the sacrifices, and offered sacrifice as was his custom each day, and, having laid the offerings upon the altar, lay down in the men's hall until darkness. In the meantime he gave orders to the officers concerning the march and the voyage, those going by land to make ready for the fourth day, and those sailing with him to be ready to sail on the fifth.

25.3. From there he was carried on the litter to the river, and, going on board a boat, sailed across the river to the park, and there again bathed and rested. On the next day he bathed again and offered the customary sacrifice; and going into the chamber he lay down, conversing with Medius; and he gave orders to the officers to meet him at dawn. Having done these things he dined a little;

25.4. and being carried again into the chamber he now had fever continuously through the whole night. On the next day he bathed, and after bathing sacrificed. And he ordered Nearchus and the other officers concerning the voyage, how it should be on the third day. On the next day he bathed again and offered the appointed sacrifices, and, having laid the offerings on the altar, he no longer ceased to be feverish. But even so he called in the officers and gave orders concerning the setting forth, that all might be ready for him; and he bathed in the evening, and after bathing was now in a bad way.

25.5. On the next day he was moved to the house beside the swimming-bath, and offered the appointed sacrifices; and, though ill, he yet called in the most important of the officers and again gave orders concerning the voyage. On the day following he was with difficulty carried out to the sacrifices and sacrificed; and none the less still gave orders to the officers concerning the voyage.

25.6. On the next day, though now in a bad way, he yet sacrificed the appointed sacrifices. And he gave orders that the generals should remain in the court, and the chiliarchs and pentacosiarchs before the doors. But, being now altogether in a wretched state, he was carried across from the park to the palace. When the officers came in, he knew them, but spoke nothing more, but was speechless; and through that night and day he was in a bad fever, and through the next night and day.

26.1. Thus it is recorded in the Royal Journals; and besides these things, that the soldiers longed to see him—some that they might see him while he yet lived, others because it was already announced that he was dead, and they suspected, as I think, that his death was being concealed by the bodyguards; but the greater part, out of grief and longing for the king, forced their way in to see Alexander. And they say that he was speechless as the army passed by, yet greeted each man, raising his head with difficulty and signing to them with his eyes.

26.2. The Royal Journals say that Peithon and Attalus and Demophon and Peucestas, and besides them Cleomenes and Menidas and Seleucus, slept in the temple of Sarapis, asking the god whether it were better and more profitable for Alexander to be carried into the temple of the god and there, as a suppliant, to be tended by the god; and that there came a certain utterance from the god, that he should not be carried into the temple, but that it would be better for him to remain where he was.

26.3. The Companions reported this, and Alexander not long afterward died, as though this after all were now the better thing. Not far from these things is what Aristobulus and Ptolemy have recorded. Some have recorded these things also: that the Companions asked him to whom he left the kingdom, and that he answered, "To the strongest"; and others, that he added to this saying that he saw there would be a great funeral contest held over him.

27.1. I know that many other things besides have been recorded concerning Alexander's death: that poison was sent to Alexander by Antipater, and that he died of the poison; and that Aristotle devised the poison for Antipater, already fearing Alexander on account of Callisthenes, and that Cassander son of Antipater brought it; and some have recorded this too, that he brought it in a mule's hoof. And that Iollas, the younger brother of Cassander, gave it to him;

27.2. for Iollas was the royal cup-bearer, and had been somewhat aggrieved by Alexander a little before his death; and others say that Medius too had a share in the deed, being a lover of Iollas; for he it was who had been the proposer of the revel to Alexander; and that a sharp pain came upon him at the cup, and that because of the pain he withdrew from the drinking.

27.3. One writer has not even been ashamed to record that Alexander, perceiving that he was not to live, went to cast himself into the river Euphrates, so that, vanishing from among men, he might leave behind for those who came after a more credible report that his birth had come to him from a god and that his departure too was to the gods; but that Roxane his wife did not fail to notice him going out, and, when she stayed him, he groaned and said that she had grudged him after all the glory of being held in every way a god. And these things let it be recorded by me rather that I may not seem to be ignorant that they are told, than as credible for the telling.

28.1. Now Alexander died in the hundred and fourteenth Olympiad, in the archonship of Hegesias at Athens; and he lived thirty-two years and over the third he had reached eight months, as Aristobulus says; and he reigned twelve years and these eight months. In body he was most fair and most enduring of toil and most keen; in mind most courageous and most ambitious of honour and most fond of danger, and most careful of the divine;

28.2. of bodily pleasures most master of himself, but of those of the mind most insatiable of praise alone; most skilful at discerning what was needed while it was still hidden, and most successful at inferring the probable from what was apparent; most expert in marshalling an army and arming and ordering it; and at raising the spirit of his soldiers and filling them with good hopes, and dispelling fear in dangers by his own fearlessness—in all these things most noble.

28.3. And so all that he did openly, he did with the greatest boldness; and whatever he could seize from the enemy by forestalling them, before anyone even feared it would come to be, he was most skilful at securing in advance; and most firm in keeping what had been agreed or covenanted, and most secure against being caught by those who would deceive him; and of money, toward his own pleasures most sparing, but toward beneficence to those near him most lavish.

29.1. But if any offence was committed by Alexander through quickness of temper or under the influence of anger, or if he was led to anything too overweening in going barbarian, I myself do not reckon it a great matter, if one will reflect, not unfairly, on the youth of Alexander, and on the unbroken continuance of his good fortune, and on those who consort with kings to please them, not for their best good, and who will ever be with them for their hurt. Yet to repent of his offences I know belongs to Alexander alone of the kings of old, through nobility of nature.

29.2. But the many, even if they have recognized that they have offended, fancy that, by pleading on their own behalf, as though the deed were well done, they will conceal the fault—judging ill. For the only cure of a fault, as it seems to me, is for the offender both to confess that he has offended and to be manifestly repentant of it; since thus to those who have suffered something unpleasant the sufferings appear not altogether grievous, if the doer of them allows that he did not do well, and there is left to the doer himself a good hope for the future, that he may never commit anything like it again, if he is seen to be grieved at his former offences.

29.3. And that he referred his birth to a god—not even this seems to me a great fault in him, if indeed it was not perhaps a device toward his subjects, for the sake of majesty. For he seems to me no less famous a king than Minos or Aeacus or Rhadamanthys, whose birth, referred by the men of old to Zeus, is reckoned no insolence in any of them; nor than Theseus son of Poseidon, nor Ion son of Apollo.

29.4. And his Persian dress too seems to me a device, both toward the barbarians, that the king might not appear altogether foreign to them, and toward the Macedonians, that he might have some refuge from the sharpness and insolence of the Macedonians. For which reason too he seems to me to have mingled into their ranks the Persian apple-bearers, and into the royal squadrons the men of equal honour. And his drinking-parties, as Aristobulus says, were not prolonged for the sake of the wine—for Alexander did not drink much wine—but out of friendliness toward his Companions.

30.1. Whoever reproaches Alexander, let him not reproach him by bringing forward only those things that are worthy of reproach, but let him gather together into one place all the deeds of Alexander, and then let him consider who he is himself, and with what fortune he is endowed, that he reproaches one who became so great a man, and who came to such a height of human good fortune, becoming most indisputably king of both continents, and reaching out to every land by his name—he reproaching, who is himself smaller, and who labours at small things, and not even these in good order.

30.2. For I think that there was at that time neither nation of men nor city nor any single man to whom the name of Alexander had not come. And so it seems to me that not without the divine was such a man born, like to no other man. And these things, they say, oracles signified at the death of Alexander, and apparitions came to different men, and dreams appeared to different men, and the honour paid him to this day among men, and the memory of him, more than human; and even now, after so long a time, other oracles have been given concerning the honour of him to the nation of the Macedonians.

30.3. And though I myself have blamed certain things in this history of Alexander's deeds, yet of Alexander himself I am not ashamed to be an admirer; but those deeds I blamed for the sake of my own truthfulness, and at the same time for the benefit of mankind. And it was for this that I myself, not without God, set out upon this history.