FOOTNOTES
[35] Droysen[d] rejects these reports with the utmost contempt; perhaps forgetting what Herodotus (IX, 24) relates of the mourning for Masistius, in which the Persians shaved themselves, and the horses, and the beasts of burden: a precedent, which at least proves that there is nothing absurd or incredible in Plutarch’s account; if it does not render it certain that the same marks of grief were a necessary part of the general mourning ordered by Alexander.
[36] That Alexander’s return to Babylon took place early in 323, may now be considered as sufficiently certain.
[37] [Niebuhr[f] compares this period with Napoleon’s stay in Dresden before he made his fatal march to Moscow. He was similarly surrounded by embassies in crowds.]
[38] [Here again, Droysen’s[d] picture of Alexander’s dejection: “With Hephæstion his youth had sunk into the grave: and, though scarcely beyond the threshold of manhood, he began fast to grow old,” seems violently overcharged.]
[39] [Niebuhr[f] thinks that Alexander could hardly have been poisoned as the poisons of that day always acted within twenty-four hours. This is, however, by no means certain. Aratus, the hero of the Achæan League, died of slow poisoning, according to the high authority of Polybius.]
