A Deity.
Did Alexander believe himself descended from Jupiter Ammon? No. On one occasion being wounded he said “This, my friends, is real blood flowing not Ichor,”
“Such as immortal gods are wont to shed.”
Yet if the reply of the gymnosophist be admitted as true, Alexander was not a mortal. The Gymnosophists, or wise men of India, were entertained at the court of Alexander, and among the questions proposed to them by the young lord of the world was, how a man might become a god: to this the sage replied “By doing that which was impossible for men to do.” The deeds done by Alexander in his brief thirty-two years seem beyond the merely human: and it is certain that he was honored as a deity in the latter years of his life. He had his friend and biographer, Callisthenes, tortured and put to death because he had derisively laughed while the servile court prostrated before the “present Deity”, and had refused to follow their example.
“Man, vain man dressed in a little brief authority does cut such capers before high heaven as make the angels mourn.” The awful punishments inflicted upon Thebes, Tyre, Gaza; the maniacal madness that satiated itself in the life-blood of Clitus—a warrior, comrade, and friend, a soldier who at Granicus had thrust his own body between Alexander and the down-plunging slaughtering sword and so receiving in his own flesh the blow, had saved the life of the man who should later slay him; the deadly ingratitude which could forget the lifelong services of Parmenio, his father’s ablest general, his own boyhood’s adviser, admirer, and friend, and, in a fit of jealous rage, condemn to death Philotas, son of Parmenio, and Parmenio; the hate-exultation which, triumphant at last, had the feet of Batis, late satrap of Gaza and a bravely fallen foe, bored thro’ and thereby tied to his chariot; then Alexander, descendant of Achilles, drove three times thro’ the streets of Gaza, dragging his living victim—naked, torn, bleeding, broken, dying—thro’ the town in which so late he has reigned as Persian satrap: surely at capers such as these well might the angels mourn.
Yet these atrocities are well nigh balanced by acts of heroism, repentant generosity, benignity, magnanimity: and it is an open question whether any other of the race of mortals, having the world of his time absolutely in his own hands, would have acted as wisely as Alexander.
The eunuch escaping from the Macedonian camp and bearing to Darius the news of his wife Statira’s death, extolled the forbearance and chivalrous courtesy of Alexander toward the Persian captives and admiringly cried out “Alexander is as gentle after victory as he is terrible on the field.” And Darius, so late King of Persia, tallest and handsomest man of his time, husband of Statira, most bewitchingly beautiful woman of Asia; but now alas! an uncrowned king, loser of Arbela, a fugitive, bereft of sons, daughters, wife—nevertheless on hearing of Alexander’s generous conduct towards the royal captives exclaimed in tears, “Ye gods of my family, and of my kingdom, if it be possible, I beseech you to restore the declining affairs of Persia, that I may leave them in as flourishing a condition as I found them, and have it in my power to make a grateful return to Alexander for the kindness which in my adversity he had shown to those who are dearest to me. But if, indeed, the fatal time be come, which is to give a period to the Persian monarchy, if our ruin be a debt which must be paid to the divine jealousy, and the vicissitude of things, then, I beseech you, grant that no man but Alexander may sit upon the throne of Cyrus.” And when slowly bleeding to death from wounds inflicted by his base betrayer, Bessus, satrap of a province into which Darius had fled for safety—the dying monarch begged of Polystratus, a chance attendant, for a little water: and on receiving it he said that it had become the last extremity of his ill fortune to receive benefits and not be able to return them. “But Alexander,” said he, “whose kindness to my mother, my wife and my children I hope the gods will recompense, will doubtless thank you for your humanity to me. Tell him, therefore, in token of my acknowledgment, I give him this right hand,” with these words he took hold of Polystratus’ hand and died.
The man who could inspire such sentiments of grateful admiration into the heart of his dying enemy was more than mortal.
Plutarch tells us that Alexander, coming up at that moment, gazed with painful emotion upon the dead form of Darius. And taking the cloak from off his own shoulders he covered with it the prostrate form of his late foe, and gazing down upon the fierce dead comely face—he wept.