It is the life of Alexander the king, and of Caesar, who overthrew
 Pompey, that I am writing in this book, and the multitude of the deeds
 to be treated is so great that I shall make no other preface than to
 entreat my readers, in case I do not tell of all the famous actions of
 these men, nor even speak exhaustively at all in each particular case,
 but in epitome for the most part, not to complain.

For it is not Histories that I am writing, but Lives; and in the most
 illustrious deeds there is not always a manifestation of virtue or vice,
 nay, a slight thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater
 revelation of character than battles where thousands fall, or the
 greatest armaments, or sieges of cities.

Accordingly, just as painters get the likenesses in their portraits from
 the face and the expression of the eyes, wherein the character shows
 itself, but make very little account of the other parts of the body, so
 I must be permitted to devote myself rather to the signs of the soul in
 men, and by means of these to portray the life of each, leaving to
 others the description of their great contests.

As for the lineage of Alexander, on his father’s side he was a descendant
 of Heracles through Caranus, and on his mother’s side a descendant of
 Aeacus through Neoptolemus; this is accepted without any question. And
 we are told that Philip, after being initiated into the mysteries of
 Samothrace at the same time with Olympias, he himself being still a
 youth and she an orphan child, fell in love with her and betrothed
 himself to her at once with the consent of her brother, Arymbas.

Well, then, the night before that on which the marriage was consummated,
 the bride dreamed that there was a peal of thunder and that a
 thunder-bolt fell upon her womb, and that thereby much fire was kindled,
 which broke into flames that travelled all about, and then was
 extinguished. At a later time, too, after the marriage, Philip dreamed
 that he was putting a seal upon his wife’s womb; and the device of the
 seal, as he thought, was the figure of a lion.

The other seers, now, were led by the vision to suspect that Philip
 needed to put a closer watch upon his marriage relations; but Aristander
 of Telmessus said that the woman was pregnant, since no seal was put
 upon what was empty, and pregnant of a son whose nature would be bold
 and lion-like.

Moreover, a serpent was once seen lying stretched out by the side of
 Olympias as she slept, and we are told that this, more than anything
 else, dulled the ardour of Philip’s attentions to his wife, so that he
 no longer came often to sleep by her side, either because he feared that
 some spells and enchantments might be practised upon him by her, or
 because he shrank from her embraces in the conviction that she was the
 partner of a superior being.

But concerning these matters there is another story to this effect: all
 the women of these parts were addicted to the Orphic rites and the
 orgies of Dionysus from very ancient times (being called Klodones and
 Mimallones ), and imitated in many ways
 the practices of the Edonian women and the Thracian women about Mount
 Haemus, from whom, as it would seem, the word threskeuein 
 came to be applied to
 the celebration of extravagant and superstitious ceremonies.

Now Olympias, who affected these divine possessions more zealously than
 other women, and carried out these divine inspirations in wilder
 fashion, used to provide the revelling companies with great tame
 serpents, which would often lift their heads from out the ivy and the
 mystic winnowing-baskets, or coil themselves about the wands and garlands
 of the women, thus terrifying the men.

However, after his vision, as we are told, Philip sent Chaeron of
 Megalopolis to Delphi, by whom an oracle was brought him from Apollo,
 who bade him sacrifice to Ammon and hold that god in greatest reverence,
 but told him he was to lose that one of his eyes which he had applied to
 the chink in the door when he espied the god, in the form of a serpent,
 sharing the couch of his wife.

Moreover, Olympias, as Eratosthenes says, when she sent Alexander forth
 upon his great expedition, told him, and him alone, the secret of his
 begetting, and bade him have purposes worthy of his birth. Others, on
 the contrary, say that she repudiated the idea, and said: Alexander
 must cease slandering me to Hera.

Be that as it may, Alexander was born early in the month Hecatombaeon,
 the
 Macedonian name for which is Loüs, on the sixth day of the month, and on
 this day the temple of Ephesian Artemis was burnt. It was apropos of
 this that Hegesias the Magnesian made an utterance frigid enough to have
 extinguished that great conflagration. He said, namely, it was no wonder
 that the temple of Artemis was burned down, since the goddess was busy
 bringing Alexander into the world.

But all the Magi who were then at Ephesus, looking upon the temple’s
 disaster as a sign of further disaster, ran about beating their faces
 and crying aloud that woe and great calamity for Asia had that day been
 born.

To Philip, however, who had just taken Potidaea, there came three
 messages at the same time: the first that Parmenio had conquered the Illyrians in a great battle,
 the second that his race-horse had won a victory at the Olympic games,
 while a third announced the birth of Alexander. These things delighted
 him, of course, and the seers raised his spirits still higher by
 declaring that the son whose birth coincided with three victories would
 be always victorious.

The outward appearance of Alexander is best represented by the statues of
 him which Lysippus made, and it was by this artist alone that Alexander
 himself thought it fit that he should be modelled. For those
 peculiarities which many of his successors and friends afterwards tried
 to imitate, namely, the poise of the neck, which was bent slightly to
 the left, and the melting glance of his eyes, this artist has accurately
 observed.

Apelles, however, in painting him as wielder of the thunderbolt, did not
 reproduce his complexion, but made it too dark and swarthy. Whereas he
 was of a fair colour, as they say, and his fairness passed into
 ruddiness on his breast particularly, and in his face. Moreover, that a
 very pleasant odour exhaled from his skin and that there was a fragrance
 about his mouth and all his flesh, so that his garments were filled with
 it, this we have read in the Memoirs of Aristoxenus.

Now, the cause of this, perhaps, was the temperament of his body, which
 was a very warm and fiery one; for fragrance is generated, as
 Theophrastus thinks, where moist humours are acted upon by heat.
 Wherefore the dry and parched regions of the world produce the most and
 best spices; for the sun draws away the moisture which, like material of
 corruption, abounds in vegetable bodies.

And in Alexander’s case, it was the heat of his body, as it would seem,
 which made him prone to drink, and choleric. But while he was still a
 boy his self-restraint showed itself in the fact that, although he was
 impetuous and violent in other matters, the pleasures of the body had
 little hold upon him, and he indulged in them with great moderation,
 while his ambition kept his spirit serious and lofty in advance of his
 years.

For it was neither every kind of fame nor fame from every source that he
 courted, as Philip did, who plumed himself like a sophist on the power
 of his oratory, and took care to have the victories of his chariots at
 Olympia engraved upon his coins; nay, when those about him inquired
 whether he would be willing to contend in the foot-race at the Olympic
 games, since he was swift of foot, Yes, said he, if I could
 have kings as my contestants.

And in general, too, Alexander appears to have been averse to the whole
 race of athletes; at any rate, though he instituted very many contests,
 not only for tragic poets and players on the flute and players on the
 lyre, but also for rhapsodists, as well as for hunting of every sort and
 for fighting with staves, he took no interest in offering prizes either
 for boxing or for the pancratium.

He once entertained the envoys from the Persian king who came during
 Philip’s absence, and associated with them freely. He won upon them by
 his friendliness, and by asking no childish or trivial questions, but by
 enquiring about the length of the roads and the character of the journey
 into the interior, about the king himself, what sort of a warrior he
 was, and what the prowess and might of the Persians. The envoys were
 therefore astonished and regarded the much-talked-of ability of Philip
 as nothing compared with his son’s eager disposition to do great things.

At all events, as often as tidings were brought that Philip had either
 taken a famous city or been victorious in some celebrated battle,
 Alexander was not very glad to hear them, but would say to his comrades:
 Boys, my father will anticipate everything; and for me he will
 leave no great or brilliant achievement to be displayed to the world
 with your aid.

For since he did not covet pleasure, nor even wealth, but excellence and
 fame, he considered that the more he should receive from his father the
 fewer would be the successes won by himself. Therefore, considering that
 increase in prosperity meant the squandering upon his father of
 opportunities for achievement, he preferred to receive from him a realm
 which afforded, not wealth nor luxury and enjoyment, but struggles and
 wars and ambitions.

In the work of caring for him, then, many persons, as was natural, were
 appointed to be his nurturers, tutors, and teachers, but over them all
 stood Leonidas, a man of stern temperament and a kinsman of Olympias.
 Although he did not himself shun the title of tutor, since the office
 afforded an honourable and brilliant occupation, yet by other people,
 owing to his dignity and his relationship, he was called Alexander’s
 foster-father and preceptor.

The man, however, who assumed the character and the title of tutor was
 Lysimachus, a native of Acarnania, who had no general refinement, but
 because he called himself Phoenix, Alexander
 Achilles, and Philip Peleus, was highly regarded and held a second
 place.

Once upon a time Philoneicus the Thessalian brought Bucephalas, offering
 to sell him to Philip for thirteen talents, and they went down into the plain to try the horse,
 who appeared to be savage and altogether intractable, neither allowing
 any one to mount him, nor heeding the voice of any of Philip’s
 attendants, but rearing up against all of them.

Then Philip was vexed and ordered the horse to be led away, believing him
 to be altogether wild and unbroken; but Alexander, who was near by,
 said: What a horse they are losing, because, for lack of skill and
 courage, they cannot manage him! At first, then, Philip held his
 peace; but as Alexander many times let fall such words and showed great
 distress, he said: Dost thou find fault with thine elders in the
 belief that thou knowest more than they do or art better able to
 manage a horse?

This horse, at any rate, said Alexander, I could manage better
 than others have. 
 And if thou shouldst not, what penalty wilt thou undergo for thy
 rashness? 
 Indeed, said Alexander, I will forfeit the price of the
 horse. There was laughter at this, and then an agreement between
 father and son as to the forfeiture, and at once Alexander ran to the
 horse, took hold of his bridle-rein, and turned him towards the sun; for
 he had noticed, as it would seem, that the horse was greatly disturbed
 by the sight of his own shadow falling in front of him and dancing
 about.

And after he had calmed the horse a little in this way, and had stroked
 him with his hand, when he saw that he was full of spirit and courage,
 he quietly cast aside his mantle and with a light spring safely bestrode
 him. Then, with a little pressure of the reins on the bit, and without
 striking him or tearing his mouth, he held him in hand but when he saw that the horse was rid of the fear that had
 beset him, and was impatient for the course, he gave him his head, and
 at last urged him on with sterner tone and thrust of foot.

Philip and his company were speechless with anxiety at first; but when
 Alexander made the turn in proper fashion and came back towards them
 proud and exultant, all the rest broke into loud cries, but his father,
 as we are told, actually shed tears of joy, and when Alexander had
 dismounted, kissed him, saying: My son, seek thee out a kingdom equal
 to thyself; Macedonia has not room for thee.

And since Philip saw that his son’s nature was unyielding and that he
 resisted compulsion, but was easily led by reasoning into the path of
 duty, he himself tried to persuade rather than to command him; and
 because he would not wholly entrust the direction and training of the
 boy to the ordinary teachers of poetry and the formal studies, feeling
 that it was a matter of too great importance, and, in the words of
 Sophocles, 
 
 A task for many bits and rudder-sweeps as well,

he sent for the most famous and learned of philosophers, Aristotle, and
 paid him a noble and appropriate tuition-fee. The city of Stageira, that
 is, of which Aristotle was a native, and which he had himself destroyed,
 he peopled again, and restored to it those of its citizens who were in
 exile or slavery.

Well, then, as a place where master and pupil could labour and study, he
 assigned them the precinct of the nymphs near Mieza, where to this day
 the visitor is shown the stone seats and shady walks of Aristotle. It
 would appear, moreover, that Alexander not only received from his master
 his ethical and political doctrines, but also participated in those
 secret and more profound teachings which philosophers designate by the
 special terms acroamatic and epoptic, 
 and do not impart to many.

For after he had already crossed into Asia, and when he learned that
 certain treatises on these recondite matters had been published in books
 by Aristotle, he wrote him a letter on behalf of philosophy, and put it
 in plain language. And this is a copy of the letter. Alexander, to
 Aristotle, greeting. Thou hast not done well to publish thy
 acroamatic doctrines; for in what shall I surpass other men if those
 doctrines wherein I have been trained are to be all men’s common
 property? But I had rather excel in my acquaintance with the best
 things than in my power. Farewell.

Accordingly, in defending himself, Aristotle encourages this ambition of
 Alexander by saying that the doctrines of which he spoke were both
 published and not published; for in truth his treatise on metaphysics is
 of no use for those who would either teach or learn the science, but is
 written as a memorandum for those already trained therein.

Moreover, in my opinion Alexander’s love of the art of healing was
 inculcated in him by Aristotle preeminently. For he was not only fond of
 the theory of medicine, but actually came to the aid of his friends when
 they were sick, and prescribed for them certain treatments and regimens,
 as one can gather from his letters. He was also by nature a lover of
 learning and a lover of reading.

And since he thought and called the Iliad a viaticum of
 the military art, he took with him Aristotle’s recension of the poem,
 called the Iliad of the Casket, and always kept it lying with his dagger under his pillow, as
 Onesicritus informs us; and when he could find no other books in the
 interior of Asia, he ordered Harpalus to send him some.

So Harpalus sent him the books of Philistus, a great many of the
 tragedies of Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus, and the dithyrambic
 poems of Telestus and Philoxenus. Aristotle he admired at the first, and
 loved him, as he himself used to say, more than he did his father, for
 that the one had given him life, but the other had taught him a noble
 life; later, however, he held him in more or less of suspicion, not to
 the extent of doing him any harm, but his kindly attentions lacked their
 former ardour and affection towards him, and this was proof of
 estrangement.

However, that eager yearning for philosophy which was imbedded in his
 nature and which ever grew with his growth, did not subside from his
 soul, as is testified by the honour in which he held Anaxarchus, by his
 gift of fifty talents to Xenocrates, and by the attentions which he so
 lavishly bestowed upon Dandamis and Calanus.

While Philip was making an expedition against Byzantium, Alexander,
 though only sixteen years of age, was left behind as regent in Macedonia
 and keeper of the royal seal, and during this time he subdued the
 rebellious Maedi, and after taking their city, drove out the Barbarians,
 settled there a mixed population, and named the city Alexandropolis.

He was also present at Chaeroneia and took part in the battle against the
 Greeks, and he is said to have been the first to break the ranks
 of the Sacred Band of the Thebans. And even down to our day there was
 shown an ancient oak by the Cephisus, called Alexander’s oak, near which
 at that time he pitched his tent; and the general sepulchre of the
 Macedonians is not far away.

In consequence of these exploits, then, as was natural, Philip was
 excessively fond of his son, so that he even rejoiced to hear the
 Macedonians call Alexander their king, but Philip their general.
 However, the disorders in his household, due to the fact that his
 marriages and amours carried into the kingdom the infection, as it were,
 which reigned in the women’s apartments, produced many grounds of
 offence and great quarrels between father and son, and these the bad
 temper of Olympias, who was a jealous and sullen woman, made still
 greater, since she spurred Alexander on.

The most open quarrel was brought on by Attalus at the marriage of
 Cleopatra, a maiden whom Philip was taking to wife, having fallen in
 love with the girl when he was past the age for it. 
 Attalus, now, was the girl’s uncle, and being in his cups, he called
 upon the Macedonians to ask of the gods that from Philip and Cleopatra
 there might be born a legitimate successor to the kingdom. At this
 Alexander was exasperated, and with the words, But what of me, base
 wretch? Dost thou take me for a bastard? threw a cup at him.

Then Philip rose up against him with drawn sword, but, fortunately for
 both, his anger and his wine made him trip and fall. Then Alexander,
 mocking over him, said: Look now, men! here is one who was preparing
 to cross from Europe into Asia; and he is upset in trying to cross
 from couch to couch. After this drunken broil Alexander took
 Olympias and established her in Epirus, while he himself tarried in
 Illyria.

Meanwhile Demaratus the Corinthian, who was a guest-friend of the house
 and a man of frank speech, came to see Philip. After the first greetings
 and welcomes were over, Philip asked him how the Greeks were agreeing
 with one another, and Demaratus replied: It is surely very fitting,
 Philip, that thou shouldst be concerned about Greece, when thou hast
 filled thine own house with such great dissension and
 calamities. Thus brought to his senses, Philip sent and fetched
 Alexander home, having persuaded him to come through the agency of
 Demaratus.

But when Pixodarus, the satrap of Caria, trying by means of a tie of
 relationship to steal into a military alliance with Philip, wished to
 give his eldest daughter in marriage to Arrhidaeus the son of Philip,
 and sent Aristocritus to Macedonia on this errand, once more slanderous
 stories kept coming to Alexander from his friends and his mother, who
 said that Philip, by means of a brilliant marriage and a great
 connexion, was trying to settle the kingdom upon Arrhidaeus. Greatly
 disturbed by these stories,

Alexander sent Thessalus, the tragic actor, to Caria, to argue with
 Pixodarus that he ought to ignore the bastard brother, who was also a
 fool, and make Alexander his connexion by marriage. And this plan was
 vastly more pleasing to Pixodarus than the former. But Philip, becoming
 aware of this, went to Alexander’s chamber, taking with him one of
 Alexander’s friends and companions, Philotas the son of Parmenio,

and upbraided his son severely, and bitterly reviled him as ignoble and
 unworthy of his high estate, in that he desired to become the son-in-law
 of a man who was a Carian and a slave to a barbarian king. And as for
 Thessalus, Philip wrote to the Corinthians that they should send him
 back to Macedonia in chains. Moreover, of the other companions of
 Alexander, he banished from Macedonia Harpalus and Nearchus, as well as
 Erigyius and Ptolemy, men whom Alexander afterwards recalled and had in
 the highest honours.

And so when Pausanias, who had been outrageously dealt with at the
 instance of Attalus and Cleopatra and could get no justice at Philip’s
 hands, slew Philip, most of the blame devolved upon Olympias, on the
 ground that she had added her exhortations to the young man’s anger and
 incited him to the deed; but a certain amount of accusation attached
 itself to Alexander also. For it is said that when Pausanias, after the
 outrage that he had suffered, met Alexander, and bewailed his fate,
 Alexander recited to him the iambic verse of the Medeia 
 :— 
 The giver of the bride, the bridegroom, and the bride. 
 However, he did seek out the participants in the plot and
 punished them, and was angry with Olympias for her savage treatment of
 Cleopatra during his absence.

Thus it was that at the age of twenty years Alexander received the
 kingdom, which was exposed to great jealousies, dire hatreds, and
 dangers on every hand. For the neighbouring tribes of Barbarians would
 not tolerate their servitude, and longed for their hereditary kingdoms;
 and as for Greece, although Philip had conquered her in the field, he
 had not had time enough to make her tame under his yoke, but had merely
 disturbed and changed the condition of affairs there, and then left them
 in a great surge and commotion, owing to the strangeness of the
 situation.

The Macedonian counsellors of Alexander had fears of the crisis, and
 thought he should give up the Greek states altogether and use no more
 compulsion there, and that he should call the revolting Barbarians back
 to their allegiance by mild measures and try to arrest the first
 symptoms of their revolutions; but he himself set out from opposite
 principles to win security and safety for his realm by boldness and a
 lofty spirit, assured that, were he seen to abate his dignity even but a
 little, all his enemies would set upon him.

Accordingly, he put a speedy stop to the disturbances and wars among the
 Barbarians by overrunning their territories with an army as far as to
 the river Danube, where he fought a great battle with Syrmus, the king
 of the Triballi, and defeated him; and on learning that the Thebans had
 revolted and that the Athenians were in sympathy with them, he
 immediately led his forces through the pass of Thermopylae, declaring
 that since Demosthenes had called him a boy while he was among the
 Illyrians and Triballians, and a stripling when he had reached Thessaly,
 he wished to show him that before the walls of Athens he was a man.

Arrived before Thebes, and wishing to give her still a chance to repent of what she had
 done, he merely demanded the surrender of Phoenix and Prothytes, and
 proclaimed an amnesty for those who came over to his side. But the
 Thebans made a counter-demand that he should surrender to them Philotas
 and Antipater, and made a counter-proclamation that all who wished to
 help in setting Greece free should range themselves with them; and so
 Alexander set his Macedonians to the work of war.

On the part of the Thebans, then, the struggle was carried on with a
 spirit and valour beyond their powers, since they were arrayed against
 an enemy who was many times more numerous than they; but when the
 Macedonian garrison also, leaving the citadel of the Cadmeia, fell upon
 them in the rear, most of them were surrounded, and fell in the battle
 itself and their city was taken, plundered, and razed to the ground.
 This was done, in the main, because Alexander expected that the Greeks
 would be terrified by so great a disaster and cower down in quiet, but
 apart from this, he also plumed himself on gratifying the complaints of
 his allies; for the Phocians and Plataeans had denounced the Thebans.

So after separating out the priests, all who were guest-friends of the
 Macedonians, the descendants of Pindar, and those who
 had voted against the revolt, he sold the rest into slavery, and they
 proved to be more than thirty thousand; those who had been slain were
 more than six thousand.

Among the many and grievous calamities which thus possessed the city,
 some Thracians broke into the house of Timocleia, a woman of high repute
 and chastity, and while the rest were plundering her property, their
 leader shamefully violated her, and then asked her if she had gold or
 silver concealed anywhere.

She admitted that she had, and after leading him by himself into the
 garden and showing him a well, told him that when the city was taken she
 had with her own hands cast in there her most valuable possessions.
 Then, as the Thracian was bending over and inspecting the place, she
 came behind him and pushed him in, cast many stones upon him, and killed
 him.

And when the Thracians led her, with hands bound, to Alexander, she
 showed by her mien and gait that she was a person of great dignity and
 lofty spirit, so calmly and fearlessly did she follow her conductors;
 and when the king asked her who she was, she replied that she was a
 sister of Theagenes, who drew up the forces which fought Philip in
 behalf of the liberty of the Greeks, and fell in command at Chaeroneia.
 Amazed, therefore, at her reply and at what she had done, Alexander bade
 her depart in freedom with her children.

Furthermore, he was reconciled with the Athenians, although they showed
 exceeding sorrow at the misfortunes of Thebes; for although they had
 begun the festival of the mysteries, they gave it up in consequence of
 their grief; and upon the Thebans who sought refuge
 in their city they bestowed every kindness.

But notwithstanding this, whether his rage was now sated, as a lion’s
 might be, or whether he wished to offset a deed of the most sullen
 savagery with one that was merciful, he not only remitted all his
 charges against the city, but even bade it give good heed to its
 affairs, since, if anything should happen to him, it would have the rule
 over Greece. In later times, moreover, as we are told, the calamity of
 the Thebans often gave him remorse, and made him milder towards many
 people.

And certainly the murder of Cleitus, which he committed in his cups, and the cowardly refusal of his
 Macedonians to follow him against the Indians, whereby they as it were robbed his
 expedition and his glory of their consummation, he was wont to attribute
 to the vengeful wrath of Dionysus. And there was not a
 Theban of those that survived who afterwards came to him with any
 request and did not get what he wanted from him. Thus much concerning
 Thebes.

And now a general assembly of the Greeks was held at the Isthmus, where a vote was
 passed to make an expedition against Persia with Alexander, and he was
 proclaimed their leader. Thereupon many statesmen and philosophers came
 to him with their congratulations, and he expected that Diogenes of
 Sinope also, who was tarrying in Corinth, would do likewise.

But since that philosopher took not the slightest notice of Alexander,
 and continued to enjoy his leisure in the suburb Craneion, Alexander
 went in person to see him; and he found him lying in the sun. Diogenes
 raised himself up a little when he saw so many persons coming towards
 him, and fixed his eyes upon Alexander. And when that monarch addressed
 him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, Yes, said
 Diogenes, stand a little out of my sun.

It is said that Alexander was so struck by this, and admired so much the
 haughtiness and grandeur of the man who had nothing but scorn for him,
 that he said to his followers, who were laughing and jesting about the
 philosopher as they went away, But verily, if I were not Alexander, I
 would be Diogenes.

And now, wishing to consult the god concerning the expedition against
 Asia, he went to Delphi; and since he chanced to come on one of the
 inauspicious days, when it is not lawful to deliver oracles, in the
 first place he sent a summons to the prophetess. And when she refused to
 perform her office and cited the law in her excuse, he went up himself
 and tried to drag her to the temple, whereupon, as if overcome by his
 ardour, she said: Thou art invincible, my son! On hearing this,
 Alexander said he desired no further prophecy, but had from her the
 oracle which he wanted.

Moreover, when he set out upon his expedition, it appears that there were many signs from heaven, and,
 among them, the image of Orpheus at Leibethra (it was made of
 cypress-wood) sweated profusely at about that time. Most people feared
 the sign, but Aristander bade Alexander be of good cheer, assured that
 he was to perform deeds worthy of song and story, which would cost poets
 and musicians much toil and sweat to celebrate.

As to the number of his forces, those who put it at the smallest figure
 mention thirty thousand foot and four thousand horse; those who put it
 at the highest, forty-three thousand foot and five thousand horse. To provision these forces, Aristobulus says he had
 not more than seventy talents; Duris speaks of maintenance for only
 thirty days; and Onesicritus says he owed two hundred talents besides.

But although he set out with such meagre and narrow resources, he would
 not set foot upon his ship until he had enquired into the circumstances
 of his companions and allotted to one a farm, to another a village, and
 to another the revenue from some hamlet or harbour. And when at last
 nearly all of the crown property had been expended or allotted,
 Perdiccas said to him: But for thyself, O king, what art thou
 leaving? And when the king answered, My hopes, 
 In these, then, said Perdiccas, we also will share who make
 the expedition with thee.

Then he declined the possessions which had been allotted to him, and some
 of the other friends of Alexander did likewise. But upon those who
 wanted and would accept his favours Alexander bestowed them readily, and
 most of what he possessed in Macedonia was used up in these
 distributions. Such was the ardour and such the equipment with which he
 crossed the Hellespont.

Then, going up to Ilium, he sacrificed to Athena and poured libations to
 the heroes. Furthermore, the gravestone of Achilles he anointed with
 oil, ran a race by it with his companions, naked, as is the custom, and
 then crowned it with garlands, pronouncing the hero happy in having,
 while he lived, a faithful friend, and after death, a great herald of
 his fame.

As he was going about and viewing the sights of the city, someone asked
 him if he wished to see the lyre of Paris. For that lyre, said
 Alexander, I care very little; but I would gladly see that of
 Achilles, to which he used to sing the glorious deeds of brave
 men.

Meanwhile the generals of Dareius had assembled a large force and set it
 in array at the crossing of the river Granicus, so that it was
 practically necessary to fight, as it were at the gates of Asia, for
 entrance and dominion there. But most of the Macedonian officers were
 afraid of the depth of the river, and of the roughness and unevenness of
 the farther banks, up which they would have to climb while fighting.
 Some, too, thought they ought to observe carefully the customary
 practice in regard to the month

(for in the month of Daesius the kings of Macedonia were not wont to take
 the field with an army). This objection Alexander removed by bidding
 them call the month a second Artemisius; and when Parmenio, on the
 ground that it was too late in the day, objected to their risking the
 passage, he declared that the Hellespont would blush for shame, if,
 after having crossed that strait, he should be afraid of the Granicus,
 and plunged into the stream with thirteen troops of horsemen.

And since he was charging against hostile missiles and precipitous
 positions covered with infantry and cavalry, and through a stream that
 swept men off their feet and surged about them, he seemed to be acting
 like a frenzied and foolish commander rather than a wise one. However,
 he persisted in his attempt to cross, gained the opposite banks with
 difficulty and much ado, though they were moist and slippery with mud,
 and was at once compelled to fight pell-mell and engage his assailants
 man by man, before his troops who were crossing could form into any
 order.

For the enemy pressed upon them with loud shouts, and matching horse with
 horse, plied their lances, and their swords when their lances were
 shattered. Many rushed upon Alexander, for he was conspicuous by his
 buckler and by his helmet’s crest, on either side of which was fixed a
 plume of wonderful size and whiteness. But although a javelin pierced
 the joint of his breastplate, he was not wounded; and when Rhoesaces and
 Spithridates, two Persian commanders, made at him together, he avoided
 the one, and smote Rhoesaces, who wore a breastplate, with his spear;
 and when this weapon snapped in two with the blow, he took to his sword.

Then, while he was thus engaged with Rhoesaces, Spithridates rode up from
 one side, raised himself up on his horse, and with all his might came
 down with a barbarian battle-axe upon Alexander’s head. Alexander’s
 crest was broken off together with one of its plumes, and his helmet
 could barely and with difficulty resist the blow, so that the edge of
 the battle-axe touched the topmost hair of his head. But while
 Spithridates was raising his arm again for another stroke, Cleitus,
 Black Cleitus, got the start of him and ran him through the
 body with his spear. At the same time Rhoesaces also fell, smitten by
 Alexander’s sword.

While Alexander’s cavalry were making such a dangerous and furious fight,
 the Macedonian phalanx crossed the river and the infantry forces on both
 sides engaged. The enemy, however, did not resist vigorously, nor for a
 long time, but fled in a rout, all except the Greek mercenaries. These
 made a stand at a certain eminence, and asked that Alexander should
 promise them quarter.

But he, influenced by anger more than by reason, charged foremost upon
 them and lost his horse, which was smitten through the ribs with a sword
 (it was not Bucephalas, but another); and most of the Macedonians who
 were slain or wounded fought or fell there, since they came to close
 quarters with men who knew how to fight and were desperate. Of the
 Barbarians, we are told, twenty thousand footmen fell, and twenty-five
 hundred horsemen. But on Alexander’s side, Aristobulus says there
 were thirty-four dead in all, of whom nine were footmen.

Of these, then, Alexander ordered statues to be set up in bronze, and
 Lysippus wrought them. Moreover, desiring to make the Greeks partners in
 his victory, he sent to the Athenians in particular three hundred of the
 captured shields, and upon the rest of the spoils in general he ordered
 a most ambitious inscription to be wrought: Alexander the son of
 Philip and all the Greeks except the Lacedaemonians from the
 Barbarians who dwell in Asia. But the drinking vessels and the
 purple robes and whatever things of this nature he took from the
 Persians, all these, except a few, he sent to his mother.

This contest at once made a great change in the situation to Alexander’s
 advantage, so that he received the submission even of Sardis, the
 bulwark of the barbarian dominion on the sea-coast, and added the rest
 of the country to his conquests. Halicarnassus alone withstood him, and
 Miletus, which cities he took by storm 
 and subdued all the territories about them. Then he was in doubt as to
 his future course.

Many times he was eager to encounter Dareius and put the whole issue to
 hazard, and many times he would make up his mind to practice himself
 first, as it were, and strengthen himself by acquiring the regions along
 the sea with their resources, and then to go up against that monarch.
 Now, there is in Lycia, near the city of Xanthus, a spring, which at
 this time, as we are told, was of its own motion upheaved from its
 depths, and overflowed, and cast forth a bronze tablet bearing the
 prints of ancient letters, in which it was made known that the empire of
 the Persians would one day be destroyed by the Greeks and come to an
 end.

Encouraged by this prophecy, Alexander hastened to clear up the seacoast
 as far as Cilicia and Phoenicia. His rapid passage along the coasts of
 Pamphylia has afforded many historians material for bombastic and
 terrifying description. They imply that by some great and heaven-sent
 good fortune the sea retired to make way for Alexander, although at
 other times it always came rolling in with violence from the main, and
 scarcely ever revealed to sight the small rocks which lie close up under
 the precipitous and riven sides of the mountain.

And Menander, in one of his comedies, evidently refers jestingly to this marvel:— 
 How Alexander-like, indeed, this is; and if I seek some one, 
 Spontaneous he’ll present himself; and if I clearly must 
 Pass through some place by sea, this will lie open to my
 steps. 
 Alexander himself; however, made no such prodigy out of it in
 his letters, but says that he marched by way of the so-called Ladder,
 and passed through it, setting out from Phaselis.

This was the reason for his spending several days in that city, during
 which he noticed that a statue of Theodectas, a deceased citizen of
 Phaselis, had been erected in the marketplace. Once, therefore, after
 supper and in his cups, he led a band of revellers to the statue and
 crowned it with many of their garlands, thus in pleasantry returning no
 ungraceful honour for the past association with the man which he owed to
 Aristotle and philosophy.

After this, he overpowered such of the Pisidians as had offered him
 resistance, and subdued Phrygia; and after he had taken the city of
 Gordium, reputed to have been the home of the ancient Midas,
 he saw the much-talked-of waggon bound fast to its yoke with bark of the
 cornel-tree, and heard a story confidently told about it by the
 Barbarians, to the effect that whosoever loosed the fastening was
 destined to become king of the whole world.

Well, then, most writers say
 that since the fastenings had their ends concealed, and were intertwined
 many times in crooked coils, Alexander was at a loss how to proceed, and
 finally loosened the knot by cutting it through with his sword, and that
 when it was thus smitten many ends were to be seen. But Aristobulus says
 that he undid it very easily, by simply taking out the so-called
 hestor, or pin, of the waggon-pole, by which the
 yoke-fastening was held together, and then drawing away the yoke.

Setting out from there, he subdued Paphlagonia and Cappadocia, and on
 hearing of the death of Memnon, one of the commanders of Dareius on the
 sea-board, who was thought likely to give Alexander abundant trouble and
 infinite annoyance, he was all the more encouraged for his expedition
 into the interior.

Moreover, Dareius was already coming down to the coast from Susa, exalted
 in spirit by the magnitude of his forces (for he was leading an army of
 six hundred thousand men), and also encouraged by a certain dream, which
 the Magi interpreted in a way to please him rather than as the
 probabilities demanded. For he dreamed that the Macedonian phalanx was
 all on fire, and that Alexander, attired in a robe which he himself
 formerly used to wear when he was a royal courier, was waiting upon him,
 after which service he passed into the temple of Belus and disappeared.

By this means, as it would seem, it was suggested to Dareius from Heaven
 that the exploits of the Macedonians would be conspicuous and brilliant,
 that Alexander would be master of Asia, just as Dareius became its
 master when he was made king instead of royal courier, and would
 speedily end his life with glory.

Dareius was still more encouraged by Alexander’s long delay in Cilicia,
 which he attributed to cowardice. The delay was due, however, to a
 sickness, which assailed him in consequence of fatigues, according to
 some, but according to others, because he took a
 bath in the river Cydnus, whose waters were icy cold.

Be that as it may, none of the other physicians had the courage to
 administer remedies, but thinking that the danger was too great to be
 overcome by any remedy whatever, they were afraid of the charges which
 would be made against them by the Macedonians in consequence of their
 failure; but Philip the Acarnanian, who saw that the king was in an evil
 plight, put confidence in his friendship, and thinking it a shameful
 thing not to share his peril by exhausting the resources of art in
 trying to help him even at great risk, prepared a medicine and persuaded
 him to drink it boldly, if he was anxious to regain his strength for the
 war.

Meanwhile, however, Parmenio sent a letter to Alexander from the camp,
 urging him to he on his guard against Philip, for the reason that he had
 been persuaded by Dareius with the promise of large gifts and a marriage
 with his daughter, to kill Alexander. Alexander read the letter and
 placed it under his pillow, without showing it to any one of his
 friends. When the time appointed was at hand, and Philip came in with
 the king’s companions, carrying the medicine in a cup, Alexander handed
 him the letter, while he himself took the medicine from him with
 readiness and no sign of suspicion.

It was an amazing sight, then, and one well worthy of the stage,—the one
 reading the letter, the other drinking the medicine, and then both
 together turning their eyes upon one another, but not with the same
 expression; for Alexander, by his glad and open countenance, showed his
 good will towards Philip and his trust in him, while Philip was beside
 himself at the calumny, now lifting up his hands towards heaven and
 calling upon the gods to witness his innocence, and now falling upon the
 couch on which Alexander lay and beseeching him to be of good courage
 and obey his physician.

For at first the medicine mastered the patient, and as it were drove back
 and buried deep his bodily powers, so that his voice failed, he fell
 into a swoon, and became almost wholly unconscious. However, he was
 speedily restored to his senses by Philip, and when he had recovered
 strength he showed himself to the Macedonians, who refused to be
 comforted until they had seen Alexander.

Now, there was in the army of Dareius a certain Macedonian who had fled
 from his country, Amyntas by name, and he was well acquainted with the
 nature of Alexander. This man, when he saw that Dareius was eager to
 attack Alexander within the narrow passes of the mountains, begged him
 to remain where he was, that he might fight a decisive battle with his
 vast forces against inferior numbers in plains that were broad and
 spacious.

And when Dareius replied that he was afraid the enemy would run away
 before he could get at them, and Alexander thus escape him,
 Indeed, said Amyntas, on this point, O king, thou mayest
 be without fear; for he will march against thee, nay, at this very
 moment, probably, he is on the march. Dareius would not listen
 to these words of Amyntas, but broke camp and marched into Cilicia, and
 at the same time Alexander marched into Syria against him.

But having missed one another in the night, they both turned back again,
 Alexander rejoicing in his good fortune, and eager to meet his enemy in
 the passes, while Dareius was as eager to extricate his forces from the
 passes and regain his former camping-ground. For he already saw that he
 had done wrong to throw himself into places which were rendered unfit
 for cavalry by sea and mountains and a river running through the middle
 (the Pinarus), which were broken up in many parts, and favoured the
 small numbers of his enemy.

And not only was the place for the battle a gift of Fortune to Alexander,
 but his generalship was better than the provisions of Fortune for his
 victory. For since he was so vastly inferior in numbers to the
 Barbarians, he gave them no opportunity to encircle him, but, leading
 his right wing in person, extended it past the enemy’s left, got on
 their flank, and routed the Barbarians who were opposed to him, fighting
 among the foremost, so that he got a sword-wound in the thigh. Chares
 says this wound was given him by Dareius, with whom he had a
 hand-to-hand combat,

but Alexander, in a letter to Antipater about the battle, did not say who
 it was that gave him the wound; he wrote that he had been wounded in the
 thigh with a dagger, but that no serious harm resulted from the wound.
 Although he won a brilliant victory and destroyed more than a hundred
 and ten thousand of his enemies, he did not capture Dareius, who got a
 start of four or five furlongs in his flight; but he did take the king’s
 chariot, and his bow, before he came back from the pursuit.

He found his Macedonians carrying off the wealth from the camp of the
 Barbarians, and the wealth was of surpassing abundance, although its
 owners had come to the battle in light marching order and had left most
 of their baggage in Damascus; he found, too, that his men had picked out
 for him the tent of Dareius, which was full to overflowing with gorgeous
 servitors and furniture, and many treasures.

Straightway, then, Alexander put off his armour and went to the bath,
 saying: Let us go and wash off the sweat of the battle in the bath of
 Dareius. 
 No, indeed, said one of his companions, but rather in that of
 Alexander; for the property of the conquered must belong to the
 conqueror, and be called his.

And when he saw the basins and pitchers and tubs and caskets, all of
 gold, and curiously wrought, while the apartment was marvellously
 fragrant with spices and unguents, and when he passed from this into a
 tent which was worthy of admiration for its size and height, and for the
 adornment of the couch and tables and banquet prepared for him, he
 turned his eyes upon his companions and said: This, as it would seem,
 is to be a king.

As he was betaking himself to supper, someone told him that among the
 prisoners were the mother, wife, and two unmarried daughters of Dareius,
 and that at sight of his chariot and bow they beat their breasts and
 lamented, believing that he was dead. Accordingly, after a considerable
 pause, more affected by their affliction than by his own success, he
 sent Leonnatus, with orders to tell them that Dareius was not dead, and
 that they need have no fear of Alexander;

for it was Dareius upon whom he was waging war for supremacy, but they
 should have everything which they used to think their due when Dareius
 was undisputed king. If this message was thought by the women to be mild
 and kindly, still more did the actions of Alexander prove to be humane.
 For he gave them permission to bury whom they pleased of the Persians,
 and to use for this purpose raiment and adornment from the spoils, and
 he abated not one jot of their honourable maintenance, nay, they enjoyed
 even larger allowances than before.

But the most honourable and most princely favour which these noble and
 chaste women received from him in their captivity was that they neither
 heard, nor suspected, nor awaited anything that could disgrace them, but
 lived, as though guarded in sacred and inviolable virgins’ chambers
 instead of in an enemy’s camp, apart from the speech and sight of men.
 And yet it is said that the wife of Dareius was far the most comely of
 all royal women, just as Dareius himself also was handsomest and tallest
 of men, and the daughters resembled their parents.

But Alexander, as it would seem, considering the mastery of himself a
 more kingly thing than the conquest of his enemies, neither laid hands
 upon these women, nor did he know any other before marriage, except
 Barsiné. This woman, Memnon’s widow, was taken prisoner at Damascus. And
 since she had received a Greek education, and was of an agreeable
 disposition, and since her father, Artabazus, was son of a king’s
 daughter, Alexander determined (at Parmenio’s instigation, as
 Aristobulus says) to attach himself to a woman of such high birth and
 beauty.

But as for the other captive women, seeing that they were surpassingly
 stately and beautiful, he merely said jestingly that Persian women were
 torments to the eyes. 
 And displaying in rivalry with their fair looks the beauty of his own
 sobriety and self-control, he passed them by as though they were
 lifeless images for display.

Moreover, when Philoxenus, the commander of his forces on the sea-board,
 wrote that there was with him a certain Theodorus, of Tarentum, who had
 two boys of surpassing beauty to sell, and enquired whether Alexander
 would buy them, Alexander was incensed, and cried out many times to his
 friends, asking them what shameful thing Philoxenus had ever seen in him
 that he should spend his time in making such disgraceful proposals. And
 on Philoxenus himself he heaped much reproach in a letter, bidding him
 send Theodorus to perdition, merchandize and all.

He severely rebuked Hagnon also for writing to him that he wanted to buy
 Crobylus, whose beauty was famous in Corinth, as a present for him.
 Furthermore, on learning that Damon and Timotheus, two Macedonian
 soldiers under Parmenio’s command, had ruined the wives of certain
 mercenaries, he wrote to Parmenio ordering him, in case the men were
 convicted, to punish them and put them to death as wild beasts born for
 the destruction of mankind.

In this letter he also wrote expressly concerning himself: As for me,
 indeed, it will be found not only that I have not seen the wife of
 Dareius or desired to see her, but that I have not even allowed
 people to speak to me of her beauty. And he used to say that
 sleep and sexual intercourse, more than any thing else, made him
 conscious that he was mortal, implying that both weariness and pleasure
 arise from one and the same natural weakness.

He had also the most complete mastery over his appetite, and showed this
 both in many other ways, and especially by what he said to Ada, whom he
 honoured with the title of Mother and made queen of Caria. When, namely, in the kindness of her heart, she
 used to send him day by day many viands and sweetmeats, and finally
 offered him bakers and cooks reputed to be very skilful, he said he
 wanted none of them,

for he had better cooks which had been given him by
 his tutor, Leonidas; for his breakfast, namely, a night march, and for
 his supper, a light breakfast. And this same Leonidas, he said,
 used to come and open my chests of bedding and clothing, to see
 that my mother did not hide there for me some luxury or
 superfluity.

To the use of wine also he was less addicted than was generally believed.
 The belief arose from the time which he would spend over each cup, more
 in talking than in drinking, always holding some long discourse, and
 this too when he had abundant leisure. For in the stress of affairs he
 was not to be detained, as other commanders were, either by wine, or
 sleep, or any sport, or amour, or spectacle.

This is proved by his life, which though altogether brief, he filled to
 overflowing with the greatest exploits. In his times of leisure,
 however, after rising and sacrificing to the gods, he immediately took
 breakfast sitting; then, he would spend the day in hunting, or
 administering justice, or arranging his military affairs, or reading. If
 he were making a march which was not very urgent, he would practise, as
 he went along, either archery or mounting and dismounting from a chariot
 that was under way.

Often, too, for diversion, he would hunt foxes or birds, as may be
 gathered from his journals. After he had taken quarters for the night,
 and while he was enjoying bath or anointing, he would enquire of his
 chief cooks and bakers whether the arrangements for his supper were duly
 made. When it was late and already dark, he would begin his supper,
 reclining on a couch, and marvellous was his care and circumspection at
 table, in order that everything might be served impartially and without
 stint; but over the wine, as I have said, he would sit long, for
 conversation’s sake.

And although in other ways he was of all princes most agreeable in his
 intercourse, and endowed with every grace, at this time his boastfulness
 would make him unpleasant and very like a common soldier. Not only was
 he himself carried away into blustering, but he suffered himself to be
 ridden by his flatterers. These were a great annoyance to the finer
 spirits in the company, who desired neither to vie with the flatterers,
 nor yet to fall behind them in praising Alexander. The one course they
 thought disgraceful, the other had its perils.

After the drinking was over, he would take a bath and sleep, frequently
 until midday; and sometimes he would actually spend the entire day in
 sleep. In the matter of delicacies, too, he himself, at all events, was
 master of his appetite, so that often, when the rarest fruits or fish
 were brought to him from the sea-coast, he would distribute them to each
 of his companions until he was the only one for whom nothing remained.

His suppers, however, were always magnificent, and the outlay upon them
 increased with his successes until it reached the sum of ten thousand
 drachmas. There it stood, and that was the prescribed limit of
 expenditure for those who entertained Alexander.

After the battle at Issus, he sent to Damascus and
 seized the money and baggage of the Persians together with their wives
 and children. And most of all did the Thessalian horsemen enrich
 themselves, for they had shown themselves surpassingly brave in the
 battle, and Alexander sent them on this expedition purposely, wishing to
 have them enrich themselves. But the rest of the army also was filled
 with wealth.

Then for the first time the Macedonians got a taste of gold and silver
 and women and barbaric luxury of life, and now that they had struck the
 trail, they were like dogs in their eagerness to pursue and track down
 the wealth of the Persians. However, Alexander determined first to make
 himself master of the sea-coasts. As for Cyprus, then, its kings came at
 once and put the island in his hands, together with Phoenicia, with the
 exception of Tyre.

But Tyre he besieged for seven months, 
 with moles, and engines-of-war, and two hundred triremes by sea. During
 this siege he had a dream in which he saw Heracles stretching out his
 hand to him from the wall and calling him. And many of the Tyrians
 dreamed that Apollo told them he was going away to Alexander, since he
 was displeased at what was going on in the city.

Whereupon, as if the god had been a common deserter caught in the act of
 going over to the enemy, they encircled his colossal figure with cords
 and nailed it down to its pedestal, calling him an Alexandrist.

In another dream, too, Alexander thought he saw a satyr who mocked him at
 a distance, and eluded his grasp when he tried to catch him, but
 finally, after much coaxing and chasing, surrendered. The seers,
 dividing the word satyros into two parts, said to him, plausibly
 enough, Tyre is to be thine. And a spring is pointed out, near
 which Alexander dreamed he saw the satyr.

While the siege of the city was in progress, he made an expedition
 against the Arabians who dwelt in the neighbourhood of Mount
 Antilibanus. On this expedition he risked his life to save his tutor,
 Lysimachus, who insisted on following him, declaring himself to be
 neither older nor weaker than Phoenix. But when the force drew near the
 mountains, they abandoned their horses and proceeded on foot, and most
 of them got far on in advance.

Alexander himself, however, would not consent to abandon the worn and
 weary Lysimachus, since evening was already coming on and the enemy were
 near, but sought to encourage him and carry him along. Before he was
 aware of it, therefore, he was separated from his army with a few
 followers, and had to spend a night of darkness and intense cold in a
 region that was rough and difficult.

In this plight, he saw far off a number of scattered fires which the
 enemy were burning. So, since he was confident in his own agility, and
 was ever wont to cheer the Macedonians in their perplexities by sharing
 their toils, he ran to the nearest camp-fire. Two Barbarians who were
 sitting at the fire he despatched with his dagger, and snatching up a
 fire-brand, brought it to his own party. These kindled a great fire and
 at once frightened some of the enemy into flight, routed others who came
 up against them, and spent the night without further peril. Such, then,
 is the account we have from Chares.

The siege of the city had the following issue. While Alexander was giving
 the greater part of his forces a rest from the many struggles which they
 had undergone, and was leading up only a few men to attack the walls, in
 order that the enemy might have no respite, Aristander the seer made a
 sacrifice, and after taking the omens, declared very confidently to the
 bystanders that the city would certainly be captured during that month.

His words produced laughter and jesting, since it was then the last day
 of the month, and the king, seeing that he was perplexed, and being
 always eager to support his prophecies, gave orders to reckon that day,
 not as the thirtieth of the month, but as the twenty-eighth; and then,
 after the trumpet had sounded the signal, he attacked the walls with
 greater vigour than he had at first intended. The assault became fierce,
 and even those troops which had been left in camp could not restrain
 themselves, but ran in throngs to help the assailants, and the Tyrians
 gave up the fight. So Alexander took the city on that day.

After this, as he was giving siege to Gaza, the principal city of Syria, a clod of earth, which
 had been dropped from on high by a bird, struck him on the shoulder. The
 bird alighted on one of the battering-engines, and was at once caught in
 the network of sinews which were used to give a twist to the ropes.

And the omen was fulfilled as Aristander predicted; for though Alexander
 was wounded in the shoulder, he took the city. Moreover, as he was
 dispatching great quantities of the spoils home to Olympias and
 Cleopatra and his friends, he sent also to Leonidas his tutor five
 hundred talents’ weight of frankincense and a hundred of myrrh, in
 remembrance of the hope with which that teacher had inspired his
 boyhood.

It would seem, namely, that Leonidas, as Alexander was one day
 sacrificing and taking incense with both hands to throw upon the
 altar-fire, said to him:— Alexander, when thou hast conquered the
 spice-bearing regions thou canst be thus lavish with thine incense;
 now, however, use sparingly what thou hast. Accordingly,
 Alexander now wrote him: I have sent thee myrrh and frankincense in
 abundance, that thou mayest stop dealing parsimoniously with the
 gods.

When a small coffer was brought to him, which those in charge of the
 baggage and wealth of Dareius thought the most precious thing there, he
 asked his friends what valuable object they thought would most fittingly
 be deposited in it. And when many answered and there were many opinions,
 Alexander himself said he was going to deposit the Iliad there for safe
 keeping.

This is attested by many trustworthy authorities. And if what the
 Alexandrians tell us on the authority of Heracleides is true, then it
 would seem that Homer was no idle or unprofitable companion for him in
 his expedition. They say, namely, that after his conquest of Egypt he
 wished to found a large and populous Greek city which should bear his
 name, and by the advice of his architects was on the point of measuring
 off and enclosing a certain site for it.

Then, in the night, as he lay asleep, he saw a wonderful vision. A man
 with very hoary locks and of a venerable aspect appeared to stand by his
 side and recite these verses:— 
 Now, there is an island in the much-dashing sea, In front of
 Egypt; Pharos is what men call it. 
 
 Accordingly, he rose up at once and went to Pharos, which at
 that time was still an island, a little above the Canobic mouth of the
 Nile, but now it has been joined to the mainland by a causeway.

And when he saw a site of surpassing natural advantages (for it is a
 strip of land like enough to a broad isthmus extending between a great
 lagoon and a stretch of sea which terminates in a large harbour), he
 said he saw now that Homer was not only admirable in other ways, but
 also a very wise architect, and ordered the plan of the city to be drawn
 in conformity with this site.

There was no chalk at hand, so they took barley-meal and
 marked out with it on the dark soil a rounded area, to whose inner arc
 straight lines extended so as to produce the figure of a chlamys, or
 military cloak, the lines beginning from the skirts (as one may say),
 and narrowing the breadth of the area uniformly. The king
 was delighted with the design; but suddenly birds from the river and the
 lagoon, infinite in number and of every sort and size, settled down upon
 the place like clouds and devoured every particle of the barley-meal, so
 that even Alexander was greatly disturbed at the omen.

However, the seers exhorted him to be of good cheer, since the city here
 founded by him would have most abundant and helpful resources and be a
 nursing mother for men of every nation, and so he ordered those in
 charge of the work to proceed with it, while he himself set out for the
 temple of Ammon. The journey thither was long, full of toils and
 hardships, and had two perils. One is the dearth of water, which leaves
 the traveller destitute of it for many days; the other arises when a
 fierce south wind smites men travelling in sand of boundless depth, as
 is said to have been the case with the army of Cambyses, long ago; the
 wind raised great billows of sand all over the plain and buried up fifty
 thousand men, to their utter destruction.

Almost all of Alexander’s followers took all these things into
 consideration, but it was difficult to turn him aside from any course so
 ever when he had once set out upon it. For Fortune, by yielding to his
 onsets, was making his purpose obstinate, and the high spirit which he
 carried into his undertakings rendered his ambition finally invincible,
 so that it subdued not only enemies, but even times and places.

At all events, during the journey which he made at this time, the
 assistance rendered him by Heaven in his perplexities met with more
 credence than the oracles which he afterwards received, nay, in a way,
 the oracles obtained credence in consequence of such assistance. For, to
 begin with, much rain from heaven and persistent showers removed all
 fear of thirst, quenched the dryness of the sand, so that it became
 moist and compact, and made the air purer and good to breathe.

Again, when the marks for the guides became confused, and the travellers
 were separated and wandered about in ignorance of the route, ravens
 appeared and assumed direction of their march, flying swiftly on in front of them when they
 followed, and waiting for them when they marched slowly and lagged
 behind.

Moreover, what was most astonishing of all, Callisthenes tells us that
 the birds by their cries called back those who straggled away in the
 night, and cawed until they had set them in the track of the march. When
 Alexander had passed through the desert and was come to the place of the
 oracle, the prophet of Ammon gave him salutation from the god as from a
 father; whereupon Alexander asked him whether any of the murderers of
 his father had escaped him.

To this the prophet answered by bidding him be guarded in his speech,
 since his was not a mortal father. Alexander therefore changed the form
 of his question, and asked whether the murderers of Philip had all been
 punished; and then, regarding his own empire, he asked whether it was
 given to him to become lord and master of all mankind. The god gave
 answer that this was given to him, and that Philip was fully avenged.
 Then Alexander made splendid offerings to the god and gave his priests
 large gifts of money.

This is what most writers state regarding the oracular responses; but
 Alexander himself, in a letter to his mother, says that he received
 certain secret responses, which he would tell to her, and to her alone,
 on his return. And some say that the prophet, wishing to show his
 friendliness by addressing him with O paidion, or O my
 son , in his foreign pronunciation ended the words with
 s instead of n, and said, O paidios, and that
 Alexander was pleased at the slip in pronunciation, and a story became
 current that the god had addressed him with O pai Dios, or
 O son of Zeus .

We are told, also, that he listened to the teachings of Psammon the
 philosopher in Egypt, and accepted most readily this utterance of his,
 namely, that all mankind are under the kingship of God, since in every
 case that which gets the mastery and rules is divine. Still more
 philosophical, however, was his own opinion and utterance on this head,
 namely that although God was indeed a common father of all mankind,
 still, He made peculiarly His own the noblest and best of them.

In general, he bore himself haughtily towards the Barbarians, and like
 one fully persuaded of his divine birth and parentage, but with the
 Greeks it was within limits and somewhat rarely that he assumed his own
 divinity. However, in writing to the Athenians concerning Samos, he
 said: I cannot have given you that free and illustrious city; for ye
 received it from him who was then your master and was called my
 father, meaning Philip.

At a later time, however, when he had been hit by an arrow and was
 suffering great pain, he said: This, my
 friends, that flows here, is blood, and not ‘Ichor, such as flows
 from the veins of the blessed gods.’ 
 
 Once, too, there
 came a great peal of thunder, and all were terrified at it; whereupon
 Anaxarchus the sophist who was present said to Alexander: Couldst
 thou, the son of Zeus, thunder like that? At this, Alexander
 laughed and said: Nay, I do not wish to cause fear in my friends, as
 thou wouldst have me do, thou who despisest my suppers because, as
 thou sayest, thou seest the tables furnished with fish, and not with
 satraps’ heads.

For, in fact, we are told that Anaxarchus, on seeing a present of small
 fish which the king had sent to Hephaestion, had uttered the speech
 above mentioned, as though he were disparaging and ridiculing those who
 undergo great toils and dangers in the pursuit of eminence and power,
 since in the way of enjoyments and pleasures they have little or nothing
 more than other men. From what has been said, then, it is clear that
 Alexander himself was not foolishly affected or puffed up by the belief
 in his divinity, but used it for the subjugation of others.

When he had returned from Egypt into Phoenicia, he
 honoured the gods with sacrifices and solemn processions, and held
 contests of dithyrambic choruses and tragedies which were made
 brilliant, not only by their furnishings, but also by the competitors
 who exhibited them. For the kings of Cyprus were the choregi, or
 exhibitors, just like, at Athens, those chosen by lot from the tribes,
 and they competed against each other with amazing ambition. Most eager
 of all was the contention between Nicocreon of Salamis and Pasicrates of
 Soli.

For the lot assigned to these exhibitors the most celebrated actors, to
 Pasicrates Athenodorus, and to Nicocreon Thessalus, in whose success
 Alexander himself was interested. He did not reveal this interest,
 however, until, by the votes of the judges, Athenodorus had been
 proclaimed victor. But then, as it would appear, on leaving the theatre,
 he said that he approved the decision of the judges, but would gladly
 have given up a part of his kingdom rather than to have seen Thessalus
 vanquished.

And yet, when Athenodorus, who had been fined by the Athenians for not
 keeping his engagement in the dramatic contest of their Dionysiac
 festival, asked the king to write a letter to them in his behalf, though
 he would not do this, he sent them the amount of the fine from his own
 purse. Furthermore, when Lycon of Scarpheia, who was acting successfully
 before Alexander, inserted into the comedy a verse containing a request
 for ten talents, Alexander laughed and gave them to him.

When Dareius sent to him a letter and friends, begging him to
 accept ten thousand talents as ransom for the captives, to hold all the
 territory this side of the Euphrates, to take one of his daughters in
 marriage, and on these terms to be his ally and friend, Alexander
 imparted the matter to his companions. If I were Alexander, said
 Parmenio, I would accept these terms. 
 And so indeed would I, said Alexander, were I Parmenio. 
 But to Dareius he wrote: Come to me, and thou shalt receive every
 courtesy; but otherwise I shall march at once against thee.

Soon, however, he repented him of this answer, when the wife of Dareius
 died in childbirth, and it was evident that he was distressed at this
 loss of opportunity to show great kindness. Accordingly, he gave the
 woman a sumptuous burial. One of the eunuchs of the bed-chamber who had
 been captured with the women, Teireos by name, ran away from the camp,
 made his way on horseback to Dareius, and told him of the death of his
 wife.

Then the king, beating upon his head and bursting into lamentation, said:
 Alas for the evil genius of the Persians, if the sister and wife
 of their king must not only become a captive in her life, but also
 in her death be deprived of royal burial. 
 Nay, O King, answered the chamberlain, as regards her burial,
 and her receiving every fitting honour, thou hast no charge to make
 against the evil genius of the Persians.

For neither did my mistress Stateira, while she lived, or thy mother
 or thy children, lack any of their former great blessings except the
 light of thy countenance, which Lord Oromazdes will cause to shine
 again with lustre; nor after her death was she deprived of any
 funeral adornment, nay, she was honoured with the tears of enemies.
 For Alexander is as gentle after victory as he is terrible in
 battle.

When Dareius heard this, his agitation and grief swept him into absurd
 suspicions, and leading the eunuch away into a more secluded part of his
 tent, he said: If thou also, together with the fortune of the
 Persians, dost not side with the Macedonians, and if I, Dareius, am
 still thy lord and master, tell me, as thou reverest the great light
 of Mithras and the right hand of thy king, is it not the least of
 Stateira’s misfortunes that I am now lamenting? While she was alive
 did I not suffer more pitiful evils? And would not my wretched
 fortune have been more compatible with my honour if I had met with
 an angry and savage enemy? For what intercourse that is proper can a
 young man have with an enemy’s wife when it leads to such marks of
 honour?

While the king was still speaking, Teireos threw himself down at his feet
 and besought him to hold his peace, and neither to wrong Alexander, nor
 shame his dead sister and wife, nor rob himself of the greatest
 consolation for his disasters, namely, the belief that he had been
 conquered by a man who was superior to human nature; nay, he should even
 admire Alexander for having shown greater self-restraint in dealing with
 Persian women than valour against Persian men.

Then, while the eunuch was confirming his testimony with the most solemn
 oaths, and discoursing on the general self-mastery and magnanimity of
 Alexander, Dareius went out to his companions, and lifting his hands
 towards heaven, prayed: O ye gods of my race and kingdom, above all
 things else grant that I may leave the fortune of Persia
 reestablished in the prosperity wherein I found it, in order that my
 victory may enable me to requite Alexander for the favours which I
 received at his hands when I had lost my dearest possessions;

but if, then, a fated time has now come, due to divine jealousy and
 the vicissitudes of things, and the sway of the Persians must cease,
 grant that no other man may sit upon the throne of Cyrus but
 Alexander. That these things were thus done and said is the
 testimony of most historians.

But to return to Alexander, when he had subdued all the country on this
 side of the Euphrates, he marched against Dareius, who was coming down to meet him with a million men. On
 this march one of his companions told him, as a matter worth laughing
 at, that the camp-followers, in sport, had divided themselves into two
 bands, and set a general and commander over each of them, one of whom
 they called Alexander, and the other Dareius;

and that they had begun by pelting one another with clods of earth, then
 had fought with their fists, and finally, heated with the desire of
 battle, had taken to stones and sticks, being now many and hard to
 quell. When he heard this, Alexander ordered the leaders themselves to
 fight in single combat; to the one called Alexander he himself gave
 armour, and to the one called Dareius, Philotas. The army were
 spectators of the combat, counting the issue as in some measure an omen
 of the future. After a strenuous battle, the one called Alexander was
 victorious, and received as a reward twelve villages and the right to
 wear Persian dress. This, at any rate, is what we are told by
 Eratosthenes.

Now, the great battle against Dareius was not fought at Arbela, as most
 writers state, but at Gaugamela. The word
 signifies, we are told, camel’s house, since one of the ancient
 kings of the country, after escaping from his enemies on a swift camel,
 gave the animal a home here, assigning certain villages and revenues for
 its maintenance.

It so happened that in the month Boëdromion the moon suffered an eclipse,
 about the beginning of the Mysteries at Athens, and
 on the eleventh night after the eclipse, the armies being now in sight
 of one another, Dareius kept his forces under arms, and held a review of
 them by torch-light; but Alexander, while his Macedonians slept, himself
 passed the night in front of his tent with his seer Aristander,
 celebrating certain mysterious sacred rites and sacrificing to the god
 Fear.

Meanwhile the older of his companions, and particularly Parmenio, when
 they saw the plain between the Niphates and the Gordyaean mountains all
 lighted up with the barbarian tires, while an indistinguishably mingled
 and tumultuous sound of voices arose from their camp as if from a vast
 ocean,

were astonished at their multitude and argued with one another that it
 was a great and grievous task to repel such a tide of war by engaging in
 broad day-light. They therefore waited upon the king when he had
 finished his sacrifices, and tried to persuade him to attack the enemy
 by night, and so to cover up with darkness the most fearful aspect of
 the coming struggle.

But he gave them the celebrated answer, I will not steal my
 victory ; whereupon some thought that he had made a vainglorious
 reply, and was jesting in the presence of so great a peril. Others,
 however, thought that he had confidence in the present situation and
 estimated the future correctly, not offering Dareius in case of defeat
 an excuse to pluck up courage again for another attempt, by laying the
 blame this time upon darkness and night, as he had before upon
 mountains, defiles, and sea.

For Dareius would not give up the war for lack of arms or men when he
 could draw from so great a host and so vast a territory, but only when
 he had lost courage and hope, under the conviction brought by a
 downright defeat in broad day-light.

After the men were gone, Alexander lay down in his tent, and is said to
 have passed the rest of the night in a deeper sleep than usual, so that
 when his officers came to him in the early morning they were amazed, and
 on their own authority issued orders that the soldiers should first take
 breakfast. Then, since the occasion was urgent, Parmenio entered the
 tent, and standing by his couch called Alexander twice or thrice by
 name; and when he had thus roused him, he asked him how he could
 possibly sleep as if he were victorious, instead of being about to fight
 the greatest of all his battles.

Then Alexander said with a smile: What, pray? Dost thou not think that
 we are already victorious, now that we are relieved from wandering
 about in a vast and desolated country in pursuit of a Dareius who
 avoids a battle? And not only before the battle, but also in the
 very thick of the struggle did he show himself great, and firm in his
 confident calculations.

For in the battle the left wing under Parmenio was thrown back and in
 distress, when the Bactrian cavalry fell upon the Macedonians with great
 impetuosity and violence, and when Mazaeus sent horsemen round outside
 the line of battle to attack those who were guarding the Macedonian
 baggage. Therefore, too, Parmenio, much disturbed by both occurrences,
 sent messengers to Alexander telling him that camp and baggage were
 gone, unless he speedily sent strong reinforcements from front to rear.

Now, it chanced that at that instant Alexander was about to give the
 signal for the onset to those under his command; but when he heard
 Parmenio’s message, he declared that Parmenio was beside himself and had
 lost the use of his reason, and had forgotten in his distress that
 victors add the baggage of the enemy to their own, and that those who
 are vanquished must not think about their wealth or their slaves, but
 only how they may fight gloriously and die with honour.

After sending this message to Parmenio, he put on his helmet, but the
 rest of his armour he had on as he came from his tent, namely, a vest of
 Sicilian make girt about him, and over this a breastplate of two-ply
 linen from the spoils taken at Issus. His helmet was of iron, but
 gleamed like polished silver, a work of Theophilus; and there was fitted
 to this a gorget, likewise of iron, set with precious stones.

He had a sword, too, of astonishing temper and lightness, a gift from the
 king of the Citieans, and he had trained himself to use a sword for the
 most part in his battles. He wore a belt also, which was too elaborate
 for the rest of his armour; for it was a work of Helicon the ancient,
 and a mark of honour from the city of Rhodes, which had given it to him;
 this also he was wont to wear in his battles.

As long, then, as he was riding about and marshalling some part of his
 phalanx, or exhorting or instructing or reviewing his men, he spared
 Bucephalas, who was now past his prime, and used another horse; but
 whenever he was going into action, Bucephalas would be led up, and he
 would mount him and at once begin the attack.

On this occasion, he made a very long speech to the Thessalians and the
 other Greeks, and when he saw
 that they encouraged him with shouts to lead them against the
 Barbarians, he shifted his lance into his left hand, and with his right
 appealed to the gods, as Callisthenes tells us, praying them, if he was
 really sprung from Zeus, to defend and strengthen the Greeks.

Aristander the seer, too, wearing a white mantle and having a crown of
 gold upon his head, rode along the ranks pointing out to them an eagle
 which soared above the head of Alexander and directed his flight
 straight against the enemy, at which sight great courage filled the
 beholders, and after mutual encouragement and exhortation the cavalry
 charged at full speed upon the enemy and the phalanx rolled on after
 them like a flood.

But before the foremost ranks were engaged the Barbarians gave way, and
 were hotly pursued, Alexander driving the conquered foe towards the
 centre of their array, where Dareius was. For from afar
 he was seen by Alexander through the deep ranks of the royal squadron of
 horse drawn up in front of him, towering conspicuous, a fine-looking man
 and tall, standing on a lofty chariot, fenced about by a numerous and
 brilliant array of horsemen, who were densely massed around his chariot
 and drawn up to receive the enemy.

But when they saw Alexander close at hand and terrible, and driving those
 who fled before him upon those who held their ground, they were smitten
 with fear and scattered, for the most part. The bravest and noblest of
 them, however, slain in front of their king and falling in heaps upon
 one another, obstructed the Macedonians in their pursuit, weaving and
 twining themselves in their last agonies about riders and horses.

But Dareius, now that all the terrors of the struggle were before his
 eyes, and now that the forces drawn up to protect him were crowded back
 upon him, since it was not an easy matter to turn his chariot about and
 drive it away, seeing that the wheels were obstructed and entangled in
 the great numbers of the fallen, while the horses, surrounded and hidden
 away by the multitude of dead bodies, were rearing up and frightening
 the charioteer, forsook his chariot and his armour, mounted a mare
 which, as they say, had newly foaled, and took to flight.

However, it is thought that he would not then have made his escape, had
 not fresh horsemen come from Parmenio summoning Alexander to
 his aid, on the ground that a large force of the enemy still held
 together there and would not give ground. For there is general complaint
 that in that battle Parmenio was sluggish and inefficient, either
 because old age was now impairing somewhat his courage, or because he
 was made envious and resentful by the arrogance and pomp, to use the
 words of Callisthenes, of Alexander’s power.

At the time, then, although he was annoyed by the summons, the king did
 not tell his soldiers the truth about it, but on the ground that it was
 dark and he would therefore remit further slaughter, sounded a recall;
 and as he rode towards the endangered portion of his army, he heard by
 the way that the enemy had been utterly defeated and was in flight.

The battle having had this issue, the empire of the Persians was thought
 to be utterly dissolved, and Alexander, proclaimed king of Asia, made
 magnificent sacrifices to the gods and rewarded his friends with wealth,
 estates, and provinces. And being desirous of honour among the Greeks,
 he wrote them that all their tyrannies were abolished and they might
 live under their own laws; moreover, he wrote the Plataeans specially
 that he would rebuild their city, because their ancestors had furnished
 their territory to the Greeks for the struggle in behalf of their
 freedom.

He sent also to the people of Croton in Italy a portion of the spoils,
 honouring the zeal and valour of their athlete Phäyllus, who, in the
 Median wars, when the rest of the Greeks in Italy refused to help their
 brother Greeks, fitted out a ship at his own cost and sailed with it to
 Salamis, that he might have some share in the peril there. So considerate
 was Alexander towards every form of valour, and such a friend and
 guardian of noble deeds.

As he traversed all Babylonia, which at once submitted to him, he was
 most of all amazed at the chasm from which fire continually streamed
 forth as from a spring, and at the stream of naphtha, so abundant as to
 form a lake, not far from the chasm. This naphtha is in other ways like
 asphaltum, but is so sensitive to fire that, before the flame touches
 it, it is kindled by the very radiance about the flame and often sets
 fire also to the intervening air.

To show its nature and power, the Barbarians sprinkled the street leading
 to Alexander’s quarters with small quantities of the liquid; then,
 standing at the farther end of the street, they applied their torches to
 the moistened spots; for it was now getting dark. The first spots at
 once caught fire, and without an appreciable interval of time, but with
 the speed of thought, the flame darted to the other end, and the street
 was one continuous fire.

Now, there was a certain Athenophanes, an Athenian, one of those who were
 accustomed to minister to the person of the king when he bathed and
 anointed himself, and to furnish suitable diversion for his thoughts.
 This man, one time when there was standing by Alexander in the bath-room
 a youth who had a ridiculously plain countenance, but was a graceful
 singer (his name was Stephanus), said, Wilt thou, O King, that we
 make a trial of the liquid upon Stephanus? For if it should lay hold
 of him and not be extinguished, I would certainly say that its power
 was invincible and terrible.

The youth also, strangely enough, offered himself for the experiment, and
 as soon as he touched the liquid and began to anoint himself with it,
 his body broke out into so great a flame and was so wholly possessed by
 fire that Alexander fell into extreme perplexity and fear; and had it
 not been by chance that many were standing by holding vessels of water
 for the bath, the youth would have been consumed before aid reached him.

Even as it was, they had great difficulty in putting out the fire, for it
 covered the boy’s whole body, and after they had done so, he was in a
 sorry plight. It is natural, then, that some who wish to bring fable
 into conformity with truth should say that this naphtha is the drug
 which Medeia used, when, in the tragedies, she anoints the crown and the
 robe. For it was not from these objects themselves, they say, nor of its
 own accord, that the fire shot up, but a flame was placed near them,
 which was then so swiftly drawn into conjunction with them that the
 senses could not take cognisance of it.

For the rays and emanations of fire which come from a distance impart to
 some bodies merely light and warmth; but in those which are dry and
 porous, or which have sufficiently rich moisture, they collect
 themselves together, break into fierce flame, and transform the
 material. There has been much discussion about the origin of 
 or whether rather the liquid
 substance that feeds the flame flows out from a soil which is rich and
 productive of fire.

For the soil of Babylonia is very fiery, so that grains of barley often
 leap out of the ground and bound away, as if its inflammation made the
 ground throb; and the inhabitants, during the hot season, sleep on skins
 filled with water.

Harpalus, moreover, when he was left as overseer of the country and was
 eager to adorn the royal gardens and walks with Hellenic plants,
 succeeded with all except ivy; this the soil would not support, but
 always killed it. The plant could not endure the temper of the soil, for
 the soil was fiery, while the plant was fond of coolness. However, if
 such digressions are kept within bounds, perhaps my impatient readers
 will find less fault with them.

On making himself master of Susa, Alexander came into possession of forty
 thousand talents of coined money in the palace, and of untold furniture
 and wealth besides. Among this they say was found five thousand talents’
 weight of purple from Hermione, which, although it had been stored there
 for a hundred and ninety years, still kept its colours fresh and lively.

The reason for this, they say, is that honey was used in the purple dyes,
 and white olive oil in the white dyes; for these substances, after the
 like space of time, are seen to have a brilliancy that is pure and
 lustrous. Moreover, Deinon says that the Persian kings had water also
 brought from the Nile and the Danube and stored up among their
 treasures, as a sort of confirmation of the greatness of their empire
 and the universality of their sway.

Persis was difficult of access, owing to the roughness of the country,
 and was guarded by the noblest of the Persians (for Dareius had taken to
 flight); but Alexander found a guide to conduct him thither by a circuit
 of no great extent. The man spoke two languages, since his father was a
 Lycian and his mother a Persian; and it was he, they say, whom the
 Pythian priestess had in mind when she prophesied, Alexander being yet a
 boy, that a lycus, or wolf , would be Alexander’s
 guide on his march against the Persians.

In this country, then, as it turned out, there was a great slaughter of
 the prisoners taken; for Alexander himself writes that he gave orders to
 have the inhabitants butchered, thinking that this would be to his
 advantage; and they say that as much coined money was found there 
 as at Susa, and that it took ten thousand pairs of mules and five
 thousand camels to carry away the other furniture and wealth there.

On beholding a great statue of Xerxes which had been carelessly
 overthrown by a throng that forced its way into the palace, Alexander
 stopped before it, and accosting it as if it had been alive, said:
 Shall I pass on and leave thee lying there, because of thine
 expedition against the Hellenes, or, because of thy magnanimity and
 virtue in other ways, shall I set thee up again? But finally,
 after communing with himself a long time in silence, he passed on.
 Wishing to refresh his soldiers (for it was winter time), he spent four
 months in that place.

And it is said that when he took his seat for the first time under the
 golden canopy on the royal throne, Demaratus the Corinthian, a
 well-meaning man and a friend of Alexander’s, as he had been of
 Alexander’s father, burst into tears, as old men will, and declared that
 those Hellenes were deprived of great pleasure who had died before
 seeing Alexander seated on the throne of Dareius.

After this, as he was about to march forth against Dareius, it chanced
 that he consented to take part in a merry drinking bout of his
 companions, at which women also came to meet their lovers and shared in
 their wine and revelry. The most famous among these women was Thaïs, an
 Athenian, the mistress of Ptolemy, who was afterwards king. She, partly
 in graceful praise of Alexander, and partly to make sport for him, as
 the drinking went on, was moved to utter a speech which befitted the
 character of her native country, but was too lofty for one of her kind.

She said, namely, that for all her hardships in wandering over Asia she
 was being requited that day by thus revelling luxuriously in the
 splendid palace of the Persians; but it would be a still greater
 pleasure to go in revel rout and set fire to the house of the Xerxes who
 burned Athens, she herself kindling the fire under the eyes of
 Alexander, in order that a tradition might prevail among men that the
 women in the train of Alexander inflicted a greater punishment upon the
 Persians in behalf of Hellas than all her famous commanders by sea and
 land.

As soon as she had thus spoken, tumultuous applause arose, and the
 companions of the king eagerly urged him on, so that he yielded to their
 desires, and leaping to his feet, with a garland on his head and a torch
 in his hand, led them the way.

The company followed with shouts and revelry and surrounded the palace,
 while the rest of the Macedonians who learned about it ran thither with
 torches and were full of joy. For they hoped that the burning and
 destruction of the palace was the act of one who had fixed his thoughts
 on home, and did not intend to dwell among Barbarians. This is the way
 the deed was done, according to some writers; but others say it was
 premeditated. However, it is
 agreed that Alexander speedily repented and gave orders to put out the
 fire.

Alexander was naturally munificent, and became still more so as his
 wealth increased. His gifts, too, were accompanied by a kindly spirit,
 with which alone, to tell the truth, a giver confers a favour. I will
 mention a few instances. Ariston, the captain of the Paeonians, having
 slain an enemy, brought his head and showed it to Alexander, saying:
 In my country, O King, such a gift as this is rewarded with a
 golden beaker.

Yes, said Alexander with a laugh, an empty one; but I will
 pledge thy health with one which is full of pure wine. Again, a
 common Macedonian was driving a mule laden with some of the royal gold,
 and when the beast gave out, took the load on his own shoulders and
 tried to carry it. The king, then, seeing the man in great distress and
 learning the facts of the case, said, as the man was about to lay his
 burden down, Don’t give out, but finish your journey by taking this
 load to your own tent.

Furthermore, he was generally more displeased with those who would not
 take his gifts than with those who asked for them. And so he wrote to
 Phocion in a letter that he would not treat him as a friend in future if
 he rejected his favours. Again, to Serapion, one of the youths who
 played at ball with him, he used to give nothing because he asked for
 nothing. Accordingly, whenever Serapion had the ball, he would throw it
 to others, until the king said: Won’t you give it to me? 
 No, said Serapion, because you don’t ask for it, whereat
 the king burst out laughing and made him many presents.

With Proteas, however, a clever wag and boon companion, he appeared to be
 angry; but when the man’s friends begged his forgiveness, as did Proteas
 himself with tears, the king said that he was his friend again, whereat
 Proteas said: In that case, O King, give me something to prove it
 first. Accordingly, the king ordered that five talents should be
 given him. What lofty airs his friends and bodyguards were wont to
 display over the wealth bestowed by him, is plain from a letter which
 Olympias wrote to him.

She says: I beg thee to find other ways of conferring favours on those
 thou lovest and holdest in honour; as it is, thou makest them all
 the equals of kings and providest them with an abundance of friends,
 whilst thyself thou strippest bare. Olympias often wrote him in
 like vein, but Alexander kept her writings secret, except once when
 Hephaestion, as was his wont, read with him a letter which had been
 opened; the king did not prevent him, but took the ring from his own
 finger and applied its seal to the lips of Hephaestion.

Again, though the son of Mazaeus, the most influential man at the court
 of Dareius, already had a province, Alexander gave him a second and a
 larger one. He, however, declined it saying: O King, formerly there
 was one Dareius, but now thou hast made many Alexanders. To
 Parmenio, moreover, Alexander gave the house of Bagoas at Susa, in which
 it is said there was found apparel worth a thousand talents. Again, he
 wrote to Antipater bidding him keep guards about his person, since plots
 were being laid against him.

To his mother, also, he sent many presents, but would not suffer her to
 meddle in affairs nor interfere in his campaigns; and when she chided
 him for this, he bore her harshness patiently. Once, however, after
 reading a long letter which Antipater had written in denunciation of
 her, he said Antipater knew not that one tear of a mother effaced ten
 thousand letters.

He saw that his favourites had grown altogether luxurious, and were
 vulgar in the extravagance of their ways of living. For instance, Hagnon
 the Teian used to wear silver nails in his boots; Leonnatus had dust for
 his gymnastic exercises brought to him on many camels from Egypt;
 Philotas had hunting-nets a hundred furlongs long; when they took their
 exercise and their baths, more of them actually used myrrh than olive
 oil, and they had in their train rubbers and chamberlains. Alexander
 therefore chided them in gentle and reasonable fashion.

He was amazed, he said, that after they had undergone so many and so
 great contests they did not remember that those who conquer by toil
 sleep more sweetly than those who are conquered by their toil, and did
 not see, from a comparison of their own lives with those of the
 Persians, that it is a very servile thing to be luxurious, but a very
 royal thing to toil. And yet, said he, how can a man take care
 of his own horse or furbish up his spear and helmet, if he is
 unaccustomed to using his hands on his own dear person?

Know ye not, said he, that the end and object of conquest is to
 avoid doing the same thing as the conquered? Accordingly, he
 exerted himself yet more strenuously in military and hunting
 expeditions, suffering distress and risking his life , so that a Spartan
 ambassador who came up with him as he was bringing down a great lion,
 said: Nobly, indeed, Alexander, hast thou struggled with the lion to
 see which should be king.

This hunting-scene Craterus dedicated at Delphi, with bronze figures of
 the lion, the dogs, the king engaged with the lion, and himself coming
 to his assistance; some of the figures were moulded by Lysippus, and
 some by Leochares.

Alexander, then, in exercising himself and at the same time inciting
 others to deeds of valour, was wont to court danger; but his friends,
 whose wealth and magnificence now gave them a desire to live in luxury
 and idleness, were impatient of his long wanderings and military
 expeditions, and gradually went so far as to abuse him and speak ill of
 him. He, however, was very mildly disposed at first toward this
 treatment of himself and used to say that it was the lot of a king to
 confer favours and be ill-spoken of therefor.

And yet in the most trifling attentions which he paid his familiar
 friends there were marks of great good-will and esteem. I will instance
 a few of these. He found fault with Peucestas by letter because, after
 being bitten by a bear, he wrote about it to the rest of his friends but
 did not tell him. Now, however, said he, write me how you are,
 and tell me whether any of your fellow-huntsmen left you in the
 lurch, that I may punish them.

To Hephaestion, who was absent on some business, he wrote that while they
 were diverting themselves with hunting an ichneumon, Craterus
 encountered the lance of Perdiccas and was wounded in the thighs. After
 Peucestas had safely recovered from an illness, Alexander wrote to the
 physician, Alexippus, expressing his thanks. While Craterus was sick,
 Alexander had a vision in his sleep, whereupon he offered certain
 sacrifices himself for the recovery of his friend, and bade him also
 sacrifice.

He wrote also to Pausanias, the physician, who wished to administer
 hellebore to Craterus, partly expressing distress, and partly advising
 him how to use the medicine. Those who first brought word to him that
 Harpalus had absconded, namely, Ephialtes and Cissus, he put in fetters,
 on the ground that they were falsely accusing the man.

When he was sending home his aged and infirm soldiers, Eurylochus of
 Aegae got himself enrolled among the sick, and then, when it was
 discovered that he had nothing the matter with him, confessed that he
 was in love with Telesippa, and was bent on following along with her on
 her journey to the sea-board. Alexander asked of what parentage the girl
 was, and on hearing that she was a free-born courtesan, said: I will
 help you, O Eurylochus, in your amour; but see to it that we try to
 persuade Telesippa either by arguments or by gifts, since she is
 free-born.

And it is astonishing that he had time to write so many letters for his
 friends. For instance, he wrote one giving orders to seek out a slave of
 Seleucus who had run away into Cilicia; and one in commendation of
 Peucestas for arresting Nicon, a servant of Craterus; and one to
 Megabyzus about an attendant who had taken refuge in a sanctuary,
 bidding him, if possible, entice the slave outside the sanctuary and
 then arrest him, but not to lay hands upon him in the sanctuary.

It is said, too, that at first, when he was trying capital cases, he
 would put his hand over one of his ears while the accuser was speaking,
 that he might keep it free and unprejudiced for the accused. But
 afterwards the multitude of accusations which he heard rendered him
 harsh, and led him to believe the false because so many were true. And
 particularly when he was maligned he lost discretion and was cruel and
 inexorable, since he loved his reputation more than his life or his
 kingdom.

Now, however, he marched out against Dareius, 
 expecting to fight another battle; but when he heard that Dareius had
 been seized by Bessus, he sent his Thessalians home, after distributing
 among them a largess of two thousand talents over and above their pay.
 In consequence of the pursuit of Dareius, which was long and arduous
 (for in eleven days he rode thirty-three hundred furlongs), most of his
 horsemen gave out, and chiefly for lack of water.

At this point some Macedonians met him who were carrying water from the
 river in skins upon their mules. And when they beheld Alexander, it
 being now midday, in a wretched plight from thirst, they quickly filled
 a helmet and brought it to him. To his enquiry for whom they were
 carrying the water, they replied: For our own sons; but if thou
 livest, we can get other sons, even if we lose these.

On hearing this he took the helmet into his hands, but when he looked
 around and saw the horsemen about him all stretching out their heads and
 gazing at the water, he handed it back without drinking any, but with
 praises for the men who had brought it; For, said he, if I
 should drink of it alone, these horsemen of mine will be out of
 heart.

But when they beheld his self-control and loftiness of spirit, they
 shouted out to him to lead them forward boldly, and began to goad their
 horses on, declaring that they would not regard themselves as weary, or
 thirsty, or as mortals at all, so long as they had such a king.

So, then, all were alike ready and willing; but only sixty, they say,
 were with Alexander when he burst into the camp of the enemy. There,
 indeed, they rode over much gold and silver that was thrown away, passed
 by many waggons full of women and children which were coursing hither
 and thither without their drivers, and pursued those who were foremost
 in flight, thinking that Dareius was among them. But at last they found
 him lying in a waggon, his body all full of javelins, at the point of
 death.

Nevertheless, he asked for something to drink, and when he had drunk some
 cold water which Polystratus gave him, he said to him: My man, this
 is the extremity of all my ill-fortune, that I receive good at thy
 hands and am not able to return it; but Alexander will requite thee
 for thy good offices, and the gods will reward Alexander for his
 kindness to my mother, wife, and children; to him, through thee, I
 give this right hand. With these words he took the hand of
 Polystratus and then expired.

When Alexander came up, he was manifestly distressed by what had
 happened, and unfastening his own cloak threw it upon the body and
 covered it. And when, at a later time, he found Bessus,
 he had him rent asunder. Two straight trees were bent together and a
 part of his body fastened to each; then when each was released and
 sprang vigorously back, the part of the body that was attached to it
 followed after. Now, however, he sent the body of Dareius, laid out in
 royal state, to his mother, and admitted
 his brother, Exathres, into the number of his companions.

He himself however, with the flower of his army, marched on into
 Hyrcania. Here he saw a gulf of the open sea which appeared to be as
 large as the Euxine, but was sweeter than the Mediterranean. He could
 get no clear information about it, but conjectured that in all
 probability it was a stagnant overflow from the Palus Maeotis.

And yet naturalists were well aware of the truth, and many years before
 Alexander’s expedition they had set forth that this was the most
 northerly of four gulfs which stretch inland from the outer sea, and was
 called indifferently the Hyrcanian or Caspian Sea. Here some Barbarians
 unexpectedly fell in with those who were leading Alexander’s horse,
 Bucephalas, and captured him.

Alexander was angry beyond measure, and sent a herald threatening to put
 them all to the sword, together with their wives and children, if they
 did not send him back his horse. But when they came with the horse and
 also put their cities into his hands, he treated them all kindly, and
 gave a ransom for his horse to those who had captured him.

From thence he marched into Parthia, where, during
 a respite from fighting, he first put on the barbaric dress, either from
 a desire to adapt himself to the native customs, believing that
 community of race and custom goes far towards softening the hearts of
 men; or else this was an attempt to introduce the obeisance 
 among the Macedonians, by accustoming them little by little to put up
 with changes and alterations in his mode of life.

However, he did not adopt the famous Median fashion of dress, which was
 altogether barbaric and strange, nor did he assume trousers, or sleeved
 vest, or tiara, but carefully devised a fashion which was midway between
 the Persian and the Median, more modest than the one and more stately
 than the other. At first he wore this only in intercourse with the
 Barbarians and with his companions at home, then people generally saw
 him riding forth or giving audience in this attire.

The sight was offensive to the Macedonians, but they admired his other
 high qualities and thought they ought to yield to him in some things
 which made for his pleasure or his fame. For, in addition to all his
 other hardships, he had recently been shot by an arrow in the leg below
 the knee, so that splinters of the larger bone came out; and at another
 time he was smitten in the neck with a stone so severely that his
 eye-sight was clouded and remained so for some time.

Nevertheless, he did not cease exposing himself to dangers without stint,
 nay, he actually crossed the river Orexartes (which he himself supposed
 to be the Tanaïs), put the Scythians to rout, and pursued them for a
 hundred furlongs, although he was suffering all the while from
 diarrhoea.

Here the queen of the Amazons came to see him, as most writers say, among
 whom are Cleitarchus, Polycleitus, Onesicritus, Antigenes, and Ister;
 but Aristobulus, Chares the royal usher, Ptolemy, Anticleides, Philo the
 Theban, and Philip of Theangela, besides Hecataeus of Eretria, Philip
 the Chalcidian, and Duris of Samos, say that this is a fiction.

And it would seem that Alexander’s testimony is in favour of their
 statement. For in a letter to Antipater which gives all the details
 minutely he says that the Scythian king offered him his daughter in
 marriage, but he makes no mention of the Amazon. And the story is told
 that many years afterwards Onesicritus was reading aloud to Lysimachus,
 who was now king, the fourth book of his history, in which was the tale
 of the Amazon, at which Lysimachus smiled gently and said: And where
 was I at the time? However, our, belief or disbelief of this
 story will neither increase nor diminish our admiration for Alexander.

Fearing that his Macedonians might tire of the rest of his expedition, he
 left the greater part of them in quarters, and while he had the best of
 them with him in Hyrcania, twenty thousand foot and three thousand
 horse, he addressed them, saying that at present they were seen by the
 Barbarians as in a dream, but that if they should merely throw Asia into
 confusion and then leave it they would be attacked by them as if they
 were women.

However, he said, he allowed those who wished it to go away, calling them
 to witness that while he was winning the inhabited world for the
 Macedonians he had been left behind with his friends and those who were
 willing to continue the expedition. This is almost word for word what he
 wrote in his letter to Antipater, and he adds that after he had thus
 spoken all his hearers cried out to him to lead them to whatever part of
 the world he wished. After these had met his test of their loyalty, it
 was no longer a hard matter for the main body to be led along too, nay,
 they readily followed after.

Under these circumstances, too, he adapted his own mode of life still
 more to the customs of the country, and tried to bring these into closer
 agreement with Macedonian customs, thinking that by a mixture and
 community of practice which produced good will, rather than by force,
 his authority would be kept secure while he was far away. For this
 reason, too, he chose out thirty thousand boys and gave orders that they
 should learn the Greek language and be trained to use Macedonian
 weapons, appointing many instructors for this work.

His marriage to Roxana, whom he saw in her youthful beauty taking part in
 a dance at a banquet, was a love affair, and yet it was thought to
 harmonize well with the matters which he had in hand. For the Barbarians
 were encouraged by the partnership into which the marriage brought them,
 and they were beyond measure fond of Alexander, because, most temperate
 of all men that he was in these matters, he would not consent to
 approach even the only woman who ever mastered his affections, without
 the sanction of law.

Moreover, when he saw that among his chiefest friends Hephaestion
 approved his course and joined him in changing his mode of life, while
 Craterus clung fast to his native ways, he employed the former in his
 business with the Barbarians, the latter in that with the Greeks and
 Macedonians. And in general he showed most affection for Hephaestion,
 but most esteem for Craterus, thinking, and constantly saying, that
 Hephaestion was a friend of Alexander, but Craterus a friend of the
 king.

For this reason, too, the men cherished a secret grudge against one
 another and often came into open collision. And once, on the Indian
 expedition, they actually drew their swords and closed with one another,
 and as the friends of each were coming to his aid, Alexander rode up and
 abused Hephaestion publicly, calling him a fool and a madman for not
 knowing that without Alexander’s favour he was nothing; and in private
 he also sharply reproved Craterus.

Then he brought them together and reconciled them, taking an oath by
 Ammon and the rest of the gods that he loved them most of all men; but
 that if he heard of their quarrelling again, he would kill them both, or
 at least the one who began the quarrel. Wherefore after this they
 neither did nor said anything to harm one another, not even in jest.

Now, Philotas, the son of Parmenio, had a high position among the
 Macedonians; for he was held to be valiant and able to endure hardship,
 and, after Alexander himself, no one was so fond of giving and so fond
 of his comrades. At any rate, we are told that when one of his intimates
 asked him for some money, he ordered his steward to give it him, and
 when the steward said he had none to give, What meanest thou? 
 cried Philotas, hast thou not even plate or clothing?

However, he displayed a pride of spirit, an abundance of wealth, and a
 care of the person and mode of life which were too offensive for a
 private man, and at this time particularly his imitation of majesty and
 loftiness was not successful at all, but clumsy, spurious, and devoid of
 grace, so that he incurred suspicion and envy, and even Parmenio once
 said to him: My son, pray be less of a personage.

Moreover, for a very long time accusations against him had been brought
 to Alexander himself. For when Dareius had been defeated in Cilicia and
 the wealth of Damascus was taken, among the many prisoners brought into
 the camp there was found a young woman, born in Pydna, and comely to
 look upon; her name was Antigone.

This woman Philotas got; and as a young man will often talk freely in
 vaunting and martial strain to his mistress and in his cups, he used to
 tell her that the greatest achievements were performed by himself and
 his father, and would call Alexander a stripling who through their
 efforts enjoyed the title of ruler.

These words the woman would report to one of her acquaintances, and he,
 as was natural, to somebody else, until the story came round to
 Craterus, who took the girl and brought her secretly to Alexander. He,
 on hearing her story, ordered her to continue her meetings with Philotas
 and to come and report to him whatever she learned from her lover.

Now, Philotas was ignorant of the plot thus laid against him, and in his
 frequent interviews with Antigone would utter many angry and boastful
 speeches and many improper words against the king.

But Alexander, although strong testimony against Philotas came to his
 ears, endured in silence and restrained himself either because he had
 confidence in Parmenio’s good will towards him, or because he feared the
 reputation and power of father and son. Meanwhile, however, a Macedonian
 named Limnus, from Chalaestra, conspired against Alexander’s life, and invited Nicomachus, one of the young men, whose
 lover he was, to take part with him in the undertaking.

Nicomachus would not accept the invitation, but told his brother
 Cebalinus of the attempt, and he, going to Philotas, ordered him to
 conduct them into the presence of Alexander, on the ground that there
 were matters of great importance about which they must see him. But
 Philotas, for whatever reason (and the reason is not known), would not
 conduct them in, alleging that the king was engaged on other matters of
 more importance. And he refused their request twice.

They now became suspicious of Philotas and applied to someone else, by
 whom they were brought before Alexander. In the first place they told
 him about the plot of Limnus, and then threw out veiled insinuations
 against Philotas, on the ground that he had neglected their petitions on
 two occasions. This greatly incensed Alexander; and when he found that
 Limnus had defended himself against arrest and had therefore been killed
 by the man sent to fetch him, he was still more disturbed in mind,
 thinking that the proof of the plot had escaped him.

And since he felt bitter towards Philotas he drew to himself those who
 had long hated the man, and they now said openly that the king took
 things too easily when he supposed that Limnus, a man of Chalaestra, had
 set his hand to a deed of so great daring on his own account; nay, they
 said, he was only an assistant, or rather an instrument sent forth by a
 higher power, and enquiry into the plot should be made in those quarters
 where there was most interest in having it concealed.

After the king had once given ear to such speeches and suspicions, the
 enemies of Philotas brought up countless accusations against him.
 Consequently he was arrested and put to the question, the companions of
 the king standing by at the torture, while Alexander himself listened
 behind a stretch of tapestry. Here, as we are told, on hearing Philotas
 beset Hephaestion with abject and pitiful cries and supplications, he
 said: So faint-hearted as thou art, Philotas, and so unmanly, couldst
 thou have set hand to so great an undertaking?

After Philotas had been put to death, Alexander sent at once into Media
 and dispatched Parmenio also, a man whose achievements with Philip had
 been many, and who was the only one of Alexander’s older friends, or the
 principal one, to urge his crossing into Asia, and who, of the three
 sons that were his, had seen two killed on the expedition before this,
 and was now put to death along with the third.

These actions made Alexander an object of fear to many of his friends,
 and particularly to Antipater, who sent secretly to the Aetolians and
 entered into an alliance with them. For the Aetolians also were in fear
 of Alexander, because they had destroyed the city of the Oeniadae, and
 because Alexander, on learning of it, had said that it would not be the
 sons of the Oeneadae, but he himself who would punish the Aetolians.

Not long afterwards came the affair of Cleitus, which those who simply learn the immediate circumstances will
 think more savage than that of Philotas; if we take into consideration,
 however, alike the cause and the time, we find that it did not happen of
 set purpose, but through some misfortune of the king, whose anger and
 intoxication furnished occasion for the evil genius of Cleitus.

It happened on this wise. Some people came bringing Greek fruit to the king from the sea-board. He
 admired its perfection and beauty and called Cleitus, wishing to show it
 to him and share it with him. It chanced that Cleitus was sacrificing,
 but he gave up the sacrifice and came; and three of the sheep on which
 libations had already been poured came following after him.

When the king learned of this circumstance, he imparted it to his
 soothsayers, Aristander and Cleomantis the Lacedaemonian. Then, on their
 telling him that the omen was bad, he ordered them to sacrifice in all
 haste for the safety of Cleitus. For he himself, two days before this,
 had seen a strange vision in his sleep; he thought he saw Cleitus
 sitting with the sons of Parmenio in black robes, and all were dead.

However, Cleitus did not finish his sacrifice, but came at once to the
 supper of the king, who had sacrificed to the Dioscuri. After boisterous
 drinking was under way, verses were sung which had been composed by a
 certain Pranichus, or, as some say, Pierio, to shame and ridicule the
 generals who had lately been defeated by the Barbarians.

The older guests were annoyed at this and railed at both the poet and the
 singer, but Alexander and those about him listened with delight and bade
 the singer go on. Then Cleitus, who was already drunk and naturally of a
 harsh temper and wilful, was more than ever vexed, and insisted that it
 was not well done, when among Barbarians and enemies, to insult
 Macedonians who were far better men than those who laughed at them, even
 though they had met with misfortune.

And when Alexander declared that Cleitus was pleading his own cause when
 he gave cowardice the name of misfortune, Cleitus sprang to his feet and
 said: It was this cowardice of mine, however, that saved thy life,
 god-born as thou art, when thou wast already turning thy back upon
 the spear of Spithridates; and it is by the blood of Macedonians, and
 by these wounds, that thou art become so great as to disown Philip
 and make thyself son to Ammon.

Thoroughly incensed, then, Alexander said: Base fellow, dost thou
 think to speak thus of me at all times, and to raise faction among
 Macedonians, with impunity? 
 Nay, said Cleitus, not even now do we enjoy impunity, since
 such are the rewards we get for our toils; and we pronounce those
 happy who are already dead, and did not live to see us Macedonians
 thrashed with Median rods, or begging Persians in order to get
 audience with our king.

So spake Cleitus in all boldness, and those about Alexander sprang up to
 confront him and reviled him, while the elder men tried to quell the
 tumult. Then Alexander, turning to Xenodochus of Cardia and Artemius of
 Colophon, said: Do not the Greeks appear to you to walk about among
 Macedonians like demi-gods among wild beasts ?

Cleitus, however, would not yield, but called on Alexander to speak out
 freely what he wished to say, or else not to invite to supper men who
 were free and spoke their minds, but to live with Barbarians and slaves,
 who would do obeisance to his white tunic and Persian girdle. Then
 Alexander, no longer able to restrain his anger, threw one of the apples
 that lay on the table at Cleitus and hit him, and began looking about
 for his sword.

But one of his body-guards, Aristophanes, conveyed it away before he
 could lay hands on it, and the rest surrounded him and begged him to
 desist, whereupon he sprang to his feet and called out in Macedonian
 speech a summons to his corps of guards (and this was a sign of great
 disturbance), and ordered the trumpeter to sound, and smote him with his
 fist because he hesitated and was unwilling to do so. This man, then,
 was afterwards held in high esteem on the ground that it was due to him
 more than to any one else that the camp was not thrown into commotion.
 But Cleitus would not give in, and with much ado his friends pushed him
 out of the banquet-hall.

He tried to come in again, however, by another door, very boldly and
 contemptuously reciting these iambics from the Andromache of Euripides: 
 
 
 Alas! in Hellas what an evil government! 
 And so, at last, Alexander seized a spear from one of his
 guards, met Cleitus as he was drawing aside the curtain before the door,
 and ran him through.

No sooner had Cleitus fallen with a roar and a groan than the king’s
 anger departed from him. And when he was come to himself and beheld his
 friends standing speechless, he drew the spear from the dead body and
 would have dashed it into his own throat, had not his body-guards
 prevented this by seizing his hands and carrying him by force to his
 chamber.

Here he spent the night and the following day in bitter lamentations, and
 at last lay speechless, worn out with his cries and wailing, heaving
 deep groans. Then his friends, alarmed at his silence, forced their way
 in. To what the others said he would pay no attention, but when
 Aristander the seer reminded him of the vision he had seen concerning
 Cleitus, and of the omen, assuring him that all this had long ago been decreed by
 fate, he seemed to be less obdurate.

Therefore they brought in to him Callisthenes the philosopher, who was a
 relative of Aristotle, and Anaxarchus of Abdera. Of these, Callisthenes
 tried by considerate and gentle methods to alleviate the king’s
 suffering, employing insinuation and circumlocution so as to avoid
 giving pain; but Anaxarchus, who had always taken a path of his own in
 philosophy, and had acquired a reputation for despising and slighting
 his associates, shouted out as soon as he came in:

Here is Alexander, to whom the whole world is now looking; but he
 lies on the floor weeping like a slave, in fear of the law and the
 censure of men, unto whom he himself should be a law and a measure
 of justice, since he has conquered the right to rule and mastery,
 instead of submitting like a slave to the mastery of a vain opinion.

Knowest thou not, said he, that Zeus has Justice and Law seated
 beside him, in order that everything that is done by the master of
 the world may be lawful and just? By using some such arguments
 as these Anaxarchus succeeded in lightening the suffering of the king,
 it is true, but rendered his disposition in many ways more vainglorious
 and lawless; he also made himself wonderfully liked by the king, and
 brought the intercourse of Callisthenes with him, which had always been
 unpleasant because of the man’s austerity, into additional disfavour.

It is said that once at supper the conversation turned upon seasons and
 weather, and that Callisthenes, who held with those who maintain that it
 is more cold and wintry there than in Greece, was stoutly opposed by
 Anaxarchus, whereupon he said: You surely must admit that it is
 colder here than there; for there you used to go about in winter in
 a cloak merely, but here you recline at table with three rugs thrown
 over you. Of course this also added to the irritation of
 Anaxarchus.

Moreover, the other sophists and flatterers in the train of Alexander
 were annoyed to see Callisthenes eagerly courted by the young men on
 account of his eloquence, and no less pleasing to the older men on
 account of his mode of life, which was well-ordered, dignified, and
 independent, and confirmed the reason given for his sojourn abroad,
 namely, that he had gone to Alexander from an ardent desire to restore
 his fellow-citizens to their homes and re-people his native city.

And besides being envied on account of his reputation, he also at times
 by his own conduct furnished material for his detractors, rejecting
 invitations for the most part, and when he did go into company, by his
 gravity and silence making it appear that he disapproved or disliked
 what was going on, so that even Alexander said in allusion to him:—
 I hate a wise man even to himself unwise.

It is said, moreover, that once when a large company had been invited to
 the king’s supper, Callisthenes was bidden, when the cup came to him, to
 speak in praise of the Macedonians, and was so successful on the theme
 that the guests rose up to applaud him and threw their garlands at him;
 whereupon Alexander said that, in the language of Euripides, when a man
 has for his words 
 A noble subject, it is easy to speak well;

But show us the power of your eloquence, said he, by a
 denunciation of the Macedonians, that they may become even better by
 learning their faults. And so Callisthenes began his palinode,
 and spoke long and boldly in denunciation of the Macedonians, and after
 showing that faction among the Greeks was the cause of the increase of
 Philip’s power, added: 
 But in a time of sedition, the base man too is in 
 honour.

This gave the Macedonians a stern and bitter hatred of him, and Alexander
 declared that Callisthenes had given a proof, not of his eloquence, but
 of his ill-will towards the Macedonians.

This, then, according to Hermippus, is the story which Stroebus, the
 slave who read aloud for Callisthenes, told to Aristotle, and he says
 that when Callisthenes was aware of the alienation of the king, twice or
 thrice, as he was going away from him, he recited the verse: 
 Dead is also Patroclus, a man far braver than thou 
 art. 
 
 What Aristotle
 said, then, would seem to have been no idle verdict, namely, that
 Callisthenes showed great ability as a speaker, but lacked common sense.

But in the matter of the obeisance, at least, by refusing sturdily and
 like a philosopher to perform the act, and by standing forth alone and
 rehearsing in public the reasons for the indignation which all the
 oldest and best of the Macedonians cherished in secret, he delivered the
 Greeks from a great disgrace, and Alexander from a greater, by leading
 him not to insist upon the obeisance; but he destroyed himself, because
 he was thought to use force rather than persuasion with the king.

Chares of Mitylene says that once at a banquet Alexander, after drinking,
 handed the cup to one of his friends, and he, on receiving it, rose up
 so as to face the household shrine, and when he had drunk, first made
 obeisance to Alexander, then kissed him, and then resumed his place upon
 the couch.

As all the guests were doing this in turn, Callisthenes took the cup, the
 king not paying attention, but conversing with Hephaestion, and after he
 had drunk went towards the king to kiss him; but Demetrius, surnamed
 Pheido, cried: O King, do not accept his kiss, for he alone has not
 done thee obeisance. So Alexander declined the kiss, at which
 Callisthenes exclaimed in a loud voice: Well, then, I’ll go away the
 poorer by a kiss.

The king having been thus alienated, in the first place, Hephaestion
 found credence for his story that Callisthenes had promised him to make
 obeisance to the king and then had been false to his agreement. Again,
 men like Lysimachus and Hagnon persisted in saying that the sophist went
 about with lofty thoughts as if bent on abolishing a tyranny, and that
 the young men flocked to him and followed him about as if he were the
 only freeman among so many tens of thousands.

For this reason also, when the conspiracy of Hermolaüs and his associates
 against Alexander was discovered, it was
 thought that the accusations of his detractors had an air of
 probability. They said, namely, that when Hermolaüs put the question to
 him how he might become a most illustrious man, Callisthenes said: By
 killing the most illustrious; and that in inciting Hermolaüs to
 the deed he bade him have no fear of the golden couch, but remember that
 he was approaching a man who was subject to sickness and wounds.

And yet not one of the accomplices of Hermolaüs, even in the last
 extremity, denounced Callisthenes. Nay, even Alexander himself, in the
 letters which he wrote at once to Craterus, Attalus, and Alcetas, says
 that the youths confessed under torture that they had made this attempt
 of themselves, and that no one else was privy to it. But in a letter
 written later to Antipater, wherein he accuses Callisthenes also of the
 crime, he says:

The youths were stoned to death by the Macedonians, but the
 sophist I will punish, together with those who sent him to me and
 those who harbour in their cities men who conspire against my
 life; and in these words, at least, he directly reveals a
 hostility to Aristotle, in whose house Callisthenes, on account of his
 relationship, had been reared, being a son of Hero, who was a niece of
 Aristotle.

As to the death of Callisthenes, some say that he was hanged by
 Alexander’s orders, others that he was bound hand and foot and died of
 sickness, and Chares says that after his arrest he was kept in fetters
 seven months, that he might be tried before a full council when
 Aristotle was present, but that about the time when Alexander was
 wounded in India, he died from obesity and the disease of lice.

This, however, belongs to a later time. 
 Meanwhile Demaratus the Corinthian, who was now well on in years, was
 eagerly desirous of going up to Alexander; and when he had seen him, he
 said that those Greeks were deprived of a great pleasure who had died
 before seeing Alexander seated on the throne of Dareius. However, he did not long enjoy
 the king’s good will towards him, but died from debility. His obsequies
 were magnificent, and the army raised in his memory a mound of great
 circumference and eighty cubits in height. His ashes were carried down
 to the sea-board on a four-horse chariot splendidly adorned.

Alexander was now about to cross the mountains into India, and since he saw that his army was by this time
 cumbered with much booty and hard to move, at break of day, after the
 baggage-waggons had been loaded, he burned first those which belonged to
 himself and his companions, and then gave orders to set fire to those of
 the Macedonians. And the planning of the thing turned out to be a larger
 and more formidable matter than its execution.

For it gave annoyance to a few only of the soldiers, while the most of
 them, with rapturous shouts and war-cries, shared their necessaries with
 those who were in need of them, and what was superfluous they burned and
 destroyed with their own hands, thus filling Alexander with zeal and
 eagerness. Besides, he was already greatly feared, and inexorable in the
 chastisement of a transgressor. For instance, when a certain Menander,
 one of his companions, who had been put in command of a garrison,
 refused to remain there, he put him to death; and Orsodates, a Barbarian
 who had revolted from him, he shot down with his own hand.

When a sheep yeaned a lamb which had upon its head what looked like a
 tiara in form and colour, with testicles on either side of it, Alexander
 was filled with loathing at the portent, and had himself purified by the
 Babylonians, whom he was accustomed to take along with him for such
 purposes; and in conversation with his friends he said that he was not
 disturbed for his own sake, but for theirs, fearing lest after his death
 Heaven might devolve his power upon an ignoble and impotent man.
 However, a better portent occurred and put an end to his dejection.

The Macedonian, namely, who was set over those in charge of the royal
 equipage, Proxenus by name, as he was digging a place for the king’s
 tent along the river Oxus, uncovered a spring of liquid which was oily
 and fatty; but when the top of it was drawn off, there flowed at once a
 pure and clear oil, which appeared to differ from olive oil neither in
 odour nor in flavour, and in smoothness and lustre was altogether the
 same, and that too though the country produced no olive trees.

It is said, indeed, that the Oxus itself also has a very soft water,
 which gives sleekness to the skin of those who bathe in it. However,
 that Alexander was marvellously pleased is clear from what he writes to
 Antipater, where he speaks of this as one of the greatest omens
 vouchsafed to him from Heaven. The seers, however, held that the omen
 foreshadowed an expedition which would be glorious, but difficult and
 toilsome; for oil, they said, was given to men by Heaven as an aid to
 toil.

And so it proved; for he encountered many perils in the battles which he
 fought, and received very severe wounds; but the greatest losses which
 his army suffered were caused by lack of necessary provisions and
 severity of weather. Still, he was eager to overcome fortune by boldness
 and force by valour, and thought nothing invincible for the courageous,
 and nothing secure for the cowardly.

It is said that when he was besieging the citadel of Sisimithres, which
 was steep and inaccessible, so that his soldiers were disheartened, he
 asked Oxyartes what sort of a man Sisimithres himself was in point of
 spirit. And when Oxyartes replied that he was most cowardly of men,
 Thy words mean, said Alexander, that we can take the
 citadel, since he who commands it is a weak thing.

And indeed he did take the citadel by frightening Sisimithres. Again,
 after attacking another citadel equally precipitous, he was urging on
 the younger Macedonians, and addressing one who bore the name of
 Alexander, said: It behooves thee, at least, to be a brave man, even
 for thy name’s sake. And when the young man, fighting
 gloriously, fell, the king was pained beyond measure.

And at another time, when his Macedonians hesitated to advance upon the
 citadel called Nysa because there was a deep river in front of it,
 Alexander, halting on the bank, cried: Most miserable man that I am,
 why, pray, have I not learned to swim? and at once, carrying his
 shield, he would have tried to cross. And when, after he had put a stop
 to the fighting, ambassadors came from the beleaguered cities to beg for
 terms, they were amazed, to begin with, to see him in full armour and
 without an attendant; and besides, when a cushion was brought him for
 his use, he ordered the eldest of the ambassadors, Acuphis by name, to
 take it for his seat.

Acuphis, accordingly, astonished at his magnanimity and courtesy, asked
 what he wished them to do in order to be his friends. Thy
 countrymen, said Alexander, must make thee their ruler, and
 send me a hundred of their best men. At this Acuphis laughed,
 and said: Nay, O King, I shall rule better if I send to thee the
 worst men rather than the best.

Taxiles, we are told, had a realm in India as large as Egypt, with good
 pasturage, too, and in the highest degree productive of beautiful
 fruits. He was also a wise man in his way, and after he had greeted
 Alexander, said: Why must we war and fight with one another,
 Alexander, if thou art not come to rob us of water or of necessary
 sustenance, the only things for which men of sense are obliged to
 fight obstinately?

As for other wealth and possessions, so-called, if I am thy superior
 therein, I am ready to confer favours; but if thine inferior, I will
 not object to thanking you for favours conferred. At this
 Alexander was delighted, and clasping the king’s hand, said: Canst
 thou think, pray, that after such words of kindness our interview is
 to end without a battle? Nay, thou shalt not get the better of me;
 for I will contend against thee and fight to the last with my
 favours, that thou mayest not surpass me in generosity.

So, after receiving many gifts and giving many more, at last he lavished
 upon him a thousand talents in coined money. This conduct greatly vexed
 Alexander’s friends, but it made many of the Barbarians look upon him
 more kindly. The best fighters among the Indians, however, were
 mercenaries, and they used to go about to the different cities and
 defend them sturdily, and wrought much harm to Alexander’s cause.
 Therefore, after he had made a truce with them in a certain city and
 allowed them to depart, he fell upon them as they marched and slew them
 all.

And this act adheres like a stain to his military career; in all other
 instances he waged war according to usage and like a king. The
 philosophers, too, no less than the mercenaries, gave him trouble, by
 abusing those of the native princes who attached themselves to his
 cause, and by inciting the free peoples to revolt. He therefore took
 many of these also and hanged them.

Of his campaign against Porus he himself has given an account in his
 letters. He says, namely, that the river Hydaspes flowed between the two
 camps, and that Porus stationed his elephants on the opposite bank and
 kept continual watch of the crossing. He himself accordingly, day by day
 caused a great din and tumult to be made in his camp, and thereby
 accustomed the Barbarians not to be alarmed.

Then, on a dark and stormy night, he took a part of his infantry and the
 best of his horsemen, and after proceeding along the river to a distance
 from where the enemy lay, crossed over to a small island. Here rain fell
 in torrents, and many tornadoes and thunder-bolts dashed down upon his
 men; but nevertheless, although he saw that many of them were being
 burned to death by the thunderbolts, he set out from the islet and made
 for the opposite banks.

But the Hydaspes, made violent by the storm and dashing high against its
 bank, made a great breach in it, and a large part of the stream was
 setting in that direction; and the shore between the two currents gave
 his men no sure footing, since it was broken and slippery. And here it
 was that he is said to have cried: O Athenians, can ye possibly
 believe what perils I am undergoing to win glory in your eyes?

This, however, is the story of Onesicritus; Alexander himself says that
 they left their rafts and crossed the breach with their armour on,
 wading breast-high in water, and that after he had crossed he led his
 horsemen twenty furlongs in advance of his infantry, calculating that,
 in case the enemy attacked with their cavalry, he would be far superior
 to them, and in case they moved up their men-at-arms, his infantry would
 join him in good season. And one of these suppositions came to pass.

For after routing a thousand of the enemy’s horsemen and sixty of their
 chariots which engaged him, he captured all the chariots, and slew four
 hundred of the horsemen. And now Porus, thus led to believe that
 Alexander himself had crossed the river, advanced upon him with all his
 forces, except the part he left behind to impede the crossing of the
 remaining Macedonians. But Alexander, fearing the elephants and the
 great numbers of the enemy, himself assaulted their left wing, and
 ordered Coenus to attack their right.

Both wings having been routed, the vanquished troops retired in every
 case upon the elephants in the centre, and were there crowded together
 with them, and from this point on the battle was waged at close
 quarters, and it was not until the eighth hour that the enemy gave up.
 Such then, is the account of the battle which the victor himself has
 given in his letters. Most historians agree that Porus was four cubits
 and a span high, and that the size and majesty of his
 body made his elephant seem as fitting a mount for him as a horse for a
 horseman.

And yet his elephant was of the largest size; and it showed remarkable
 intelligence and solicitude for the king, bravely defending him and
 beating back his assailants while he was still in full vigour, and when
 it perceived that its master was worn out with a multitude of missiles
 and wounds, fearing lest he should fall off it knelt softly on the
 ground, and with its proboscis gently took each spear and drew it out of
 his body.

Porus was taken prisoner, and when Alexander asked him how he would be
 treated, said: Like a king ; and to another question from
 Alexander whether he had anything else to say, replied: All things
 are included in my like a king. Accordingly, Alexander not
 only permitted him to govern his former kingdom, giving him the title of
 satrap, but also added to it the territory of the independent peoples
 whom he subdued, in which there are said to have been fifteen nations,
 five thousand cities of considerable size, and a great multitude of
 villages. He subdued other territory also thrice as large as this and
 appointed Philip, one of his companions, satrap over it.

After the battle with Porus, too, Bucephalas died,—not at once, but some
 time afterwards,—as most writers say, from wounds for which he was under
 treatment, but according to Onesicritus, from old age, having become
 quite worn out; for he was thirty years old when he died. His
 death grieved Alexander mightily, who felt that he had lost nothing less
 than a comrade and friend; he also built a city in his memory on the
 banks of the Hydaspes and called it Bucephalia. It is said, too, that
 when he lost a dog also, named Peritas, which had been reared by him and
 was loved by him, he founded a city and gave it the dog’s name. Sotion
 says he heard this from Potamon the Lesbian.

As for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their
 courage and stayed their further advance into India. For having had all they could do
 to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand infantry and two
 thousand horse, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on
 crossing the river Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was
 thirty-two furlongs, its depth a hundred fathoms, while its banks on the
 further side were covered with multitudes of men-at-arms and horsemen
 and elephants.

For they were told that the kings of the Ganderites and Praesii were
 awaiting them with eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand
 footmen, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand fighting elephants.
 And there was no boasting in these reports. For Androcottus, who reigned
 there not long afterwards, made a present to Seleucus of five hundred
 elephants, and with an army of six hundred thousand men overran and
 subdued all India.

At first, then, Alexander shut himself up in his tent from displeasure
 and wrath and lay there, feeling no gratitude for what he had already
 achieved unless he should cross the Ganges, nay, counting a retreat a
 confession of defeat. But his friends gave him fitting consolation, and
 his soldiers crowded about his door and besought him with loud cries and
 wailing, until at last he relented and began to break camp, resorting to
 many deceitful and fallacious devices for the enhancement of his fame.

For instance, he had armour prepared that was larger than usual, and
 mangers for horses that were higher, and bits that were heavier than
 those in common use, and left them scattered up and down. Moreover, he
 erected altars for the gods, which down to the present time are revered
 by the kings of the Praesii when they cross the river, and on them they
 offer sacrifices in the Hellenic manner. Androcottus, when he was a
 stripling, saw Alexander himself, and we are told that he often said in
 later times that Alexander narrowly missed making himself master of the
 country, since its king was hated and despised on account of his
 baseness and low birth.

From thence, being eager to behold the ocean, and having built many
 passage-boats equipped with oars, and many rafts, he was conveyed down
 the rivers in a leisurely
 course. And yet his voyage was not made without effort nor even without
 war, but he would land and assault the cities on his route and subdue
 everything. However, in attacking the people called Malli, who are said
 to have been the most warlike of the Indians, he came within a little of
 being cut down.

For after dispersing the inhabitants from the walls with missiles, he was
 the first to mount upon the wall by a scaling ladder, and since the
 ladder was broken to pieces and he was exposed to the missiles of the
 Barbarians who stood along the wall below, almost alone as he was, he
 crouched and threw himself into the midst of the enemy, and by good
 fortune alighted on his feet.

Then, as he brandished his arms, the Barbarians thought that a shape of
 gleaming fire played in front of his person. Therefore at first they
 scattered and fled; but when they saw that he was accompanied by only
 two of his guards, they ran upon him, and some tried to wound him by
 thrusting their swords and spears through his armour as he defended
 himself, while one, standing a little further off, shot an arrow at him
 with such accuracy and force that it cut its way through his breastplate
 and fastened itself in his ribs at the breast.

Such was the force of the blow that Alexander recoiled and sank to his
 knees, whereupon his assailant ran at him with drawn scimitar, while
 Peucestas and Limnaeus defended
 him. Both of them were wounded, and Limnaeus was killed; but Peucestas
 held out, and at last Alexander killed the Barbarian. But he himself
 received many wounds, and at last was smitten on the neck with a cudgel,
 and leaned against the wall, his eyes still fixed upon his foes.

At this instant his Macedonians flocked about him, caught him up, already
 unconscious of what was going on about him, and carried him to his tent.
 And straightway a report that he was dead prevailed in the camp; but
 when with much difficulty and pains they had sawn off the shaft of the
 arrow, which was of wood, and had thus succeeded at last in removing the
 king’s breastplate, they came to the excision of the arrowhead, which
 was buried in one of the ribs. We are told, moreover, that it was three
 fingers broad and four long.

Its removal, therefore, threw the king into swoons and brought him to
 death’s door, but nevertheless he recovered. And after he was out of
 danger, though he was still weak and kept himself for a long time under
 regimen and treatment, perceiving from their tumult at his door that his
 Macedonians were yearning to see him, he took his cloak and went out to
 them. And after sacrificing to the gods he went on board ship again and
 dropped down the river, subduing much territory and great cities as he
 went.

He captured ten of the Gymnosophists who had done most to get Sabbas to
 revolt, and had made the most trouble for the Macedonians. These
 philosophers were reputed to be clever and concise in answering
 questions, and Alexander therefore put difficult questions to them,
 declaring that he would put to death him who first made an incorrect
 answer, and then the rest, in an order determined in like manner; and he
 commanded one of them, the oldest, to be judge in the contest.

The first one, accordingly, being asked which, in his opinion, were more
 numerous, the living or the dead, said that the living were, since the
 dead no longer existed. The second, being asked whether the earth or the
 sea produced larger animals, said the earth did, since the sea was but a
 part of the earth. The third, being asked what animal was most cunning,
 said: That which up to this time man has not discovered.

The fourth, when asked why he had induced Sabbas to revolt, replied:
 Because I wished him either to live nobly or to die nobly. 
 The fifth, being asked which, in his opinion, was older, day or night,
 replied: Day, by one day ; and he added, upon the king expressing
 amazement, that hard questions must have hard answers.

Passing on, then, to the sixth, Alexander asked how a man could be most
 loved; If, said the philosopher, he is most powerful, and yet
 does not inspire fear. Of the three remaining, he who was asked
 how one might become a god instead of man, replied: By doing
 something which a man cannot do ; the one who was asked which was
 the stronger, life or death, answered: Life, since it supports so
 many ills.

And the last, asked how long it were well for a man
 to live, answered: Until he does not regard death as better than
 life. So, then, turning to the judge, Alexander bade him give
 his opinion. The judge declared that they had answered one worse than
 another. Well, then, said Alexander, thou shalt die first for
 giving such a verdict. 
 That cannot be, O King, said the judge, unless thou falsely
 saidst that thou wouldst put to death first him who answered
 worst.

These philosophers, then, he dismissed with gifts; but to those who were
 in the highest repute and lived quietly by themselves he sent
 Onesicritus, asking them to pay him a visit. Now, Onesicritus was a
 philosopher of the school of Diogenes the Cynic.

And he tells us that Calanus very harshly and insolently bade him strip
 off his tunic and listen naked to what he had to say, otherwise he would
 not converse with him, not even if he came from Zeus; but he says that
 Dandamis was gentler, and that after hearing fully about Socrates,
 Pythagoras, and Diogenes, he remarked that the men appeared to him to
 have been of good natural parts but to have passed their lives in too
 much awe of the laws.

Others, however, say that the only words uttered by Dandamis were these:
 Why did Alexander make such a long journey hither? Calanus,
 nevertheless, was persuaded by Taxiles to pay a visit to Alexander. His
 real name was Sphines, but because he greeted those whom he met with
 Cale, the Indian word of salutation, the Greeks called him
 Calanus. It was Calanus, as we are told, who laid before Alexander the
 famous illustration of government. It was this.

He threw down upon the ground a dry and shrivelled hide, and set his foot
 upon the outer edge of it; the hide was pressed down in one place, but
 rose up in others. He went all round the hide and showed that this was
 the result wherever he pressed the edge down, and then at last he stood
 in the middle of it, and lo! it was all held down firm and still. The
 similitude was designed to show that Alexander ought to put most
 constraint upon the middle of his empire and not wander far away from
 it.

His descent of the rivers to the sea consumed seven months’ time. And
 after emerging with his fleet into the ocean, 
 he sailed out to an island to which he himself gave the name of
 Scillustis, others that of Psiltucis. Here he landed
 and sacrificed to the gods, and studied the nature of the sea and of all
 the sea-coast that was accessible. Then, after praying that no man after
 him might pass beyond the bounds of his expedition, he turned to go
 back.

His fleet he ordered to go round by sea, keeping India on the right;
 Nearchus was appointed admiral of the fleet, Onesicritus its
 chief-pilot. But he himself proceeded by land through the country of the
 Oreites, where he was reduced to the direst straits and lost a multitude
 of men, so that not even the fourth part of his fighting force was
 brought back from India. And yet his infantry had once numbered a
 hundred and twenty thousand, and his cavalry fifteen thousand.

But grievous diseases, wretched food, parching heats, and, worst of all,
 famine destroyed them, since they traversed an un-tilled country of men
 who dragged out a miserable existence, who possessed but few sheep and
 those of a miserable sort, since the sea-fish which they ate made their
 flesh unsavoury and rank. It was with difficulty, then, that Alexander
 passed through this country in sixty days; but as soon as he reached
 Gedrosia he had all things in abundance, for the nearest satraps and
 princes had provided them.

Accordingly, after refreshing his forces here, he set out and marched for
 seven days through Carmania in a revelling rout. He himself was conveyed
 slowly along by eight horses, while he feasted day and night
 continuously with his companions on a dais built upon a lofty and
 conspicuous scaffolding of oblong shape; and waggons without number
 followed, some with purple and embroidered canopies, others protected
 from the sun by boughs of trees which were kept fresh and green,
 conveying the rest of his friends and commanders, who were all garlanded
 and drinking.

Not a shield was to be seen, not a helmet, not a spear, but along the
 whole march with cups and drinking-horns and flagons the soldiers kept
 dipping wine from huge casks and mixing-bowls and pledging one another,
 some as they marched along, others lying down; while pipes and flutes,
 stringed instruments and song, and revelling cries of women, filled
 every place with abundant music.

Then, upon this disordered and straggling procession there followed also
 the sports of bacchanalian license, as though Bacchus himself were
 present and conducting the revel. 
 Moreover, when he came to the royal palace of Gedrosia, he once more
 gave his army time for rest and held high festival.

We are told, too, that he was once viewing some contests in singing and
 dancing, being well heated with wine, and that his favourite, Bagoas,
 won the prize for song and dance, and then, all in his festal array,
 passed through the theatre and took his seat by Alexander’s side; at
 sight of which the Macedonians clapped their hands and loudly bade the
 king kiss the victor, until at last he threw his arms about him and
 kissed him tenderly.

Here Nearchus came up to meet him, and Alexander was so delighted to hear
 of his voyage that he eagerly desired to sail down the Euphrates himself
 with a large fleet and then, after circumnavigating Arabia and
 Africa, to enter the Mediterranean by way of the pillars of Heracles.
 And vessels of every sort were built for him at Thapsacus, and sailors
 and pilots were assembled from all parts.

But the increasing difficulties of his march back, his wound among the
 Malli, and the losses in his army, which were reported to be heavy, led
 men to doubt his safe return, inclined subject peoples to revolt, and
 bred great injustice, rapacity, and insolence in the generals and
 satraps whom he had appointed. In a word, restlessness and a desire for
 change spread everywhere.

For even against Antipater, Olympias and Cleopatra had raised a faction,
 and had divided his realm between them, Olympias taking Epirus, and
 Cleopatra Macedonia. When he heard of this, Alexander said that his
 mother had made the better choice; for the Macedonians would not submit
 to be reigned over by a woman. For these reasons he sent Nearchus back
 to the sea, determined to fill all the regions along the sea
 with wars, while he himself; marching down from Upper Asia, chastised
 those of his commanders who had done wrong.

One of the sons of Abuletes, Oxyartes, he slew with his own hand, running
 him through with a spear; and when Abuletes failed to furnish him with
 the necessary provisions, but brought him instead three thousand talents
 in coin, Alexander ordered the money to be thrown to his horses. And
 when they would not touch it, Of what use to us, then, he cried,
 is the provision you have made? and threw Abuletes into
 prison.

In Persia, to begin with, he distributed the money among the women, just
 as their kings were accustomed, as often as they came into Persia, to
 give each one of them a gold piece. And for this reason, it is said,
 some of their kings did not come often into Persia, and Ochus not even
 once, being so penurious as to expatriate himself.

In the second place, having discovered that the tomb of Cyrus had been
 rifled, he put to death the perpetrator of the deed, although the
 culprit was a prominent Macedonian native of Pella, by name Polymachus.
 After reading the inscription upon this tomb, he ordered it to be
 repeated below in Greek letters. It ran thus: O man, whosoever thou
 art and whencesoever thou comest, for I know that thou wilt come, I
 am Cyrus, and I won for the Persians their empire. Do not,
 therefore, begrudge me this little earth which covers my body.

These words, then, deeply affected Alexander, who was reminded of the
 uncertainty and mutability of life. In Persia,
 too, Calanus, who had suffered for a little while from intestinal
 disorder, asked that a funeral pyre might be prepared for him. To this he came on
 horseback, and after offering prayers, sprinkling himself; and casting
 some of his hair upon the pyre, he ascended it,greeting the Macedonians
 who were present, and exhorting them to make that day one of pleasure
 and revelry with the king, whom, he declared, he should soon see in
 Babylon.

After thus speaking, he lay down and covered his head, nor did he move as
 the fire approached him, but continued to lie in the same posture as at
 first, and so sacrificed himself acceptably, as the wise men of his
 country had done from of old. The same thing was done many years
 afterwards by another Indian who was in the following of Caesar, at Athens; and the Indian’s Tomb is shown
 there to this day.

But Alexander, after returning from the funeral pyre and assembling many
 of his friends and officers for supper, proposed a contest in drinking
 neat wine, the victor to be crowned. Well, then, the one who drank the
 most, Promachus, got as far as four pitchers; he took
 the prize, a crown of a talent’s worth, but lived only three days
 afterwards. And of the rest, according to Chares, forty-one died of what
 they drank, a violent chill having set in after their debauch.

At Susa he brought to pass the marriage of his companions, took to wife
 himself the daughter of Dareius, Stateira, assigned the noblest women to
 his noblest men, and gave a general wedding feast for those of his
 Macedonians who had already contracted other marriages. At this feast,
 we are told, nine thousand guests reclined at supper, to each of whom a
 golden cup for the libations was given. All the other appointments too,
 were amazingly splendid, and the host paid himself the debts which his
 guests owed, the whole outlay amounting to nine thousand eight hundred
 and seventy talents.

Now Antigenes, the One-eyed, had got himself enrolled as a debtor
 fraudulently and, on producing somebody who affirmed that he had made a
 loan to him at the bank, the money was paid over; then his fraud was
 discovered, and the king, in anger, drove him from his court and
 deprived him of his command. Antigenes, however, was a splendid soldier,
 and while he was still a young man and Philip was besieging Perinthus,
 though a bolt from a catapult smote him in the eye, he would not consent
 to have the bolt taken out nor give up fighting until he had repelled
 the enemy and shut them up within their walls.

Accordingly, he could not endure with any complacency the disgrace that
 now fell upon him, but was evidently going to make away with himself
 from grief and despondency. So the king, fearing this, put away his
 wrath and ordered him to keep the money.

The thirty thousand boys whom he had left behind him under instruction
 and training were
 now so vigorous in their bodies and so comely in their looks, and showed
 besides such admirable dexterity and agility in their exercises, that
 Alexander himself was delighted; his Macedonians, however, were filled
 with dejection and fear, thinking that their king would now pay less
 regard to them.

Therefore when he also sent the weak and maimed among them down to the
 sea-board, they said it was insult and abuse, after using men up in
 every kind of service, now to put them away in disgrace and cast them
 back upon their native cities and their parents, no longer the men they
 were when he took them. Accordingly, they bade him send them all away
 and hold all his Macedonians of no account, since he had these young
 war-dancers, with whom he could go on and conquer the world.

At these words of theirs Alexander was displeased, and heaped much abuse
 upon them in his anger, and drove them away, and committed his watches
 to Persians, and out of these constituted his body-guards and
 attendants. When the Macedonians saw him escorted by these, while they
 themselves were excluded from him and treated with contumely, they were
 humbled; and when they reasoned the matter out they found that they had
 been almost mad with jealousy and rage.

So finally, after coming to their senses, they went to his tent, without
 their arms and wearing their tunics only, and with loud cries and
 lamentations put themselves at his mercy, bidding him deal with them as
 base and thankless men. But Alexander would not see them, although his
 heart was softening. And the men would not desist, but for two days and
 nights persisted in standing thus before his door, weeping and calling
 upon their master.

So on the third day he came forth, and when he saw their piteous and
 humble plight, wept for some time; then, after chiding them gently and
 speaking kindly to them, he dismissed those who were past service with
 magnificent gifts, and wrote to Antipater that at all the public
 contests and in the theatres they should have the foremost seats and
 wear garlands. He also ordained that the orphan children of those who
 had lost their lives in his service should receive their father’s pay.

When he came to Ecbatana in Media and had transacted the business that
 was urgent, he was once more much occupied with theatres and festivals,
 since three thousand artists had come to him from Greece. But during
 this time it chanced that Hephaestion had a fever; and since, young man
 and soldier that he was, he could not submit to a strict regimen, as
 soon as Glaucus, his physician, had gone off to the theatre, he sat down
 to breakfast, ate a boiled fowl, drank a huge cooler of wine, fell sick,
 and in a little while died.

Alexander’s grief at this loss knew no bounds. He immediately
 ordered that the manes and tails of all horses and mules should be shorn
 in token of mourning and took away the battlements of the cities round
 about; he also crucified the wretched physician, and put a stop to the
 sound of flutes and every kind of music in the camp for a long time,
 until an oracular response from Ammon came bidding him honour
 Hephaestion as a hero and sacrifice to him.

Moreover, making war a solace for his grief; he went forth to hunt and
 track down men, as it were, and overwhelmed the nation of the Cossaeans,
 slaughtering them all from the youth upwards. This was called an
 offering to the shade of Hephaestion. Upon a tomb and obsequies for his
 friend, and upon their embellishments, he purposed to expend ten
 thousand talents, and wished that the ingenuity and novelty of the
 construction should surpass the expense. He therefore longed for
 Stasicrates above all other artists, because in his innovations there
 was always promise of great magnificence, boldness, and ostentation.

This man, indeed, had said to him at a former interview that of all
 mountains the Thracian Athos could most readily be given the form and
 shape of a man; if; therefore, Alexander should so order, he would make
 out of Mount Athos a most enduring and most conspicuous statue of the
 king, which in its left hand should hold a city of ten thousand
 inhabitants, and with its right should pour forth a river running with
 generous current into the sea. This project, it is true, Alexander had
 declined; but now he was busy devising and contriving with his artists
 projects far more strange and expensive than this.

As he was on his way to enter Babylon, Nearchus (who had joined him again
 after sailing through the ocean into the Euphrates) told the king that
 certain Chaldaeans had met him and advised that Alexander should keep
 away from Babylon. Alexander paid no heed to this, but
 continued on his march; and when he was arrived at the walls, he saw
 many ravens flying about and clawing one another, and some of them fell
 dead at his feet.

Again, being informed that Apollodorus the commandant of Babylon had
 sacrificed to learn Alexander’s fate, Alexander called Pythagoras the
 seer. Pythagoras did not deny the fact, whereupon Alexander asked him
 what was the character of the sacrifice. And when the seer told that the
 victim’s liver had no lobe, Ah me! said Alexander, a forcible
 omen! and did Pythagoras no harm. He was sorry, too, that he had
 not obeyed Nearchus, and passed most of his time outside of Babylon,
 either living in his tent, or sailing about on the Euphrates.

And he was troubled by many omens. For instance, the largest and
 handsomest lion in his menagerie was attacked by a tame ass and kicked
 to death. Again, he once took off his clothes for exercise and was
 playing at ball, and when it was time to dress again, the young men who
 were playing with him beheld a man seated on the king’s throne, in
 silence, wearing the royal diadem and robes.

When the man was asked who he was, he was speechless for a long time; but
 at last he came to his senses and said that his name was Dionysius, and
 that he was a native of Messenia; in consequence of some charge brought
 against him, he said, he had been brought thither from the sea-board,
 and for a long time had been in chains; but just now the god Serapis had
 come to him and loosed his chains and brought him to this spot, bidding
 him put on the robe and diadem and sit on the throne and hold his peace.

On hearing of this, Alexander put the man out of the way, as the seers
 directed; but he began to be low-spirited, and was distrustful now of
 the favour of Heaven and suspicious of his friends. He was particularly
 afraid of Antipater and of his sons, one of whom, Iolas, was his chief
 cupbearer; the other, Cassander, had only recently come to Babylon, and
 when he saw some Barbarians doing obeisance to Alexander, since he had
 been reared as a Greek and had never seen such a sight as this before,
 he laughed boisterously.

But Alexander was enraged, and clutching him fiercely by the hair with
 both hands dashed his head against the wall. And at another time, when
 Cassander would have said something in opposition to those who were
 bringing charges against Antipater, Alexander interrupted him, saying:
 What meanest thou? Would men come so long a journey if they had
 not been wronged and were making false charges?

And when Cassander declared that this very fact of their coming a long
 distance away from the proofs showed that they were making false
 charges, Alexander burst out laughing and said: These are the famous
 sophisms of Aristotle’s disciples for either side of the question;
 but ye shall rue the day if it appear that ye have done these men
 even a slight wrong.

And in general, as we are told, Cassander’s spirit was deeply penetrated
 and imbued with a dreadful fear of Alexander, so that many years
 afterwards, when he was now king of Macedonia and master of Greece, as
 he was walking about and surveying the statues at Delphi, the sight of
 an image of Alexander smote him suddenly with a shuddering and trembling
 from which he could scarcely recover, and made his head swim.

Alexander, then, since he had now become sensitive to indications of the
 divine will and perturbed and apprehensive in his mind, converted every
 unusual and strange occurrence, were it never so insignificant into a
 prodigy and portent; and sacrificers, purifiers, and diviners filled his
 palace.

So, you see, while it is a dire thing to be incredulous towards
 indications of the divine will and to have contempt for them,
 superstition is likewise a dire thing, which, after the manner of water
 ever seeking the lower levels, filled with folly the Alexander who was
 now become a prey to his fears. Notwithstanding, in consequence of
 oracular responses regarding Hephaestion which were brought him, he laid
 aside his grief and betook himself once more to sacrifices and
 drinking-bouts.

He gave a splendid entertainment to Nearchus, and then, although he had
 taken his customary bath before going to bed, at the request of Medius
 he went to hold high revel with him; and here, after
 drinking all the next day, he began to have a fever. This did not come
 upon him after he had quaffed a bowl of Heracles, nor after he
 had been seized with a sudden pain in the back as though smitten with a
 spear; these particulars certain writers felt obliged to give, and so,
 as it were, invented in tragic fashion a moving finale for a great
 action.

But Aristobulus says that he had a raging fever, and that when he got
 very thirsty he drank wine, whereupon he became delirious, and died on
 the thirtieth day of the month Daesius.

Moreover, in the court Journals there are recorded the following
 particulars regarding his sickness. On the eighteenth
 of the month Daesius he slept in the bathing-room because he had
 a fever. On the following day, after his bath, he removed into his
 bed-chamber, and spent the day at dice with Medius. Then, when it was
 late, he took a bath, performed his sacrifices to the gods, ate a
 little, and had a fever through the night.

On the twentieth, after bathing again, he performed his customary
 sacrifice; and lying in the bathing-room he devoted himself to Nearchus,
 listening to his story of his voyage and of the great sea. The
 twenty-first he spent in the same way and was still more inflamed, and
 during the night he was in a grievous plight, and all the following day
 his fever was very high. So he had his bed removed and lay by the side
 of the great bath, where he conversed with his officers about the vacant
 posts in the army, and how they might be filled with experienced men.

On the twenty-fourth his fever was violent and he had to be carried forth
 to perform his sacrifices; moreover, he ordered his principal officers
 to tarry in the court of the palace, and the commanders of divisions and
 companies to spend the night outside. He was carried to the palace on
 the other side of the river on the twenty-fifth, and got a little sleep,
 but his fever did not abate. And when his commanders came to his
 bedside, he was speechless, as he was also on the twenty-sixth;

therefore the Macedonians made up their minds that he was dead, and came
 with loud shouts to the doors of the palace, and threatened his
 companions until all opposition was broken down; and when the doors had
 been thrown open to them, without cloak or armour, one by one, they all
 filed slowly past his couch. During this day, too, Python and Seleucus
 were sent to the temple of Serapis to enquire whether they should bring
 Alexander thither; and the god gave answer that they should leave him
 where he was. And on the twenty-eighth, towards
 evening, he died.

Most of this account is word for word as written in the Journals. 
 And as for suspicions of poisoning, no one had any immediately, but five
 years afterwards, as we are told, upon information given, Olympias put
 many men to death, and scattered abroad the ashes of Iolas, alleging
 that he had administered the poison.

But those who affirm that Aristotle counselled Antipater to do the deed,
 and that it was entirely through his agency
 that the poison was provided, mention one Hagnothemis as their
 authority, who professed to have heard the story from Antigonus the
 king; and the poison was water, icy cold, from a certain cliff in
 Nonacris; this they gathered up like a delicate dew and stored it in an
 ass’s hoof; for no other vessel would hold the water, but would all be
 eaten through by it, owing to its coldness and pungency.

Most writers, however, think that the story of the poisoning is
 altogether a fabrication; and it is no slight evidence in their favour
 that during the dissensions of Alexander’s commanders, which lasted many
 days, his body, although it lay without special care in places that were
 moist and stifling, showed no sign of such a destructive influence, but
 remained pure and fresh.

Now, Roxana was with child, and on this account was held in honour among
 the Macedonians; but she was jealous of Stateira, and therefore deceived
 her by a forged letter into coming where she was, and when she had got
 her there, slew her, together with her sister, threw their bodies into
 the well, and filled the with earth, Perdiccas being privy to the deed
 and partner in it.

For it was he who was at once in the greatest authority, dragging
 Arrhidaeus around after him to safe-guard, as it were, the royal power.
 Arrhidaeus was Philip’s son by an obscure and common woman named
 Philinna, and was deficient in intellect owing to bodily disease. This,
 however, did not come upon him in the course of nature or of its own
 accord, indeed, it is said that as a boy he displayed an exceedingly
 gifted and noble disposition: but afterwards Olympias gave him drugs
 which injured his body and ruined his mind.