“Is the king ill?” they asked with one voice. “Seriously so,” said Philip, “if what I hear be true.”
“And have you prescribed for him?”
“He has not called me in; nor would he see me, if I were to present myself. He has ceased to believe in physicians; soothsayers, prophets, quacks of every kind, have his confidence. Gladly would I go to him, though indeed a physician carries his life in his hand, if he seeks to cure our king or his friend. Poor Glaucias did his best for Hephaestion. But what can be expected when a patient in a fever eats a fowl and drinks a gallon of wine? Æsculapius himself could not have saved his life. And then poor Glaucias is crucified because Hephaestion dies. And, mark my words, the king will go the same way, unless he changes his manners. What with his own folly and the folly of his friends, there is no chance for him. You saw what he drank at the funeral banquet. Well, he had the sense to feel that he had had enough, and was going home, when Medius must induce him to sup with him, and he drinks as much more. Then comes a day of heavy sleep and then another supper, at which, I am told, he tried to drain the great cup of Hercules, and fell back senseless on his couch. The next morning he could not rise; and to-day, too, he has kept his bed. But he saw his generals in the afternoon and talked to them about his plans. I understood from Perdiccas that he seemed weak, but was as clear in mind as ever. And now, my friends, I should recommend you not to leave Babylon till this matter is settled one way or another. If Alexander should die—which the gods forbid—there is no knowing what may happen; and there is a proverb which I, and I dare say you, have often found to be true, that the absent always have the worst of it.”
In obedience to this suggestion the two friends remained in Babylon, waiting anxiously for the development of events. On the second day after the conversation with Philip, recorded above, Charidemus met the admiral Nearchus,[78] as he was returning from an interview with the king. “How is he?” he asked. “I can hardly say,” replied the admiral. “To look at him, one would say that things were going very badly with him. But his energy is enormous. He had a long talk with me about the fleet. He knew everything; he foresaw everything. Sometimes his voice was so low that I could hardly hear him speak, but he never hesitated for a name or a fact. I believe that he knows the crew and the armament, and the stores of every ship in the fleet. And he seems to count on going. We are to start on the day after to-morrow. But it seems impossible.”
Three days more passed in the same way. The councils of war were still held, and the king showed the same lively interest in all preparations, and still talked as if he were intending to take a part himself in the expedition. Then came a change for the worse. It could no longer be doubted that the end was near, and the dying man was asked to whom he bequeathed his kingdom. “To the strongest,” he answered, and a faint smile played upon his lips as he said it. Afterwards an attendant heard him muttering to himself, “They will give me fine funeral games.”[79] The following day the generals came as usual; he knew them, but could not speak.
And now, human aid being despaired of, a final effort was made to get help from other powers. The desperately sick were sometimes brought into the temple of Serapis, the pleasure of the god having been first ascertained by a deputation of friends who spent the night in the temple. Accordingly seven of the chief officers of the army inquired of the deity whether he would that Alexander should be brought into the shrine. “Let him remain where he is,” was the answer given in some mysterious way; and the king was left to die in peace.
One thing, however, still remained to be done. The news of the king’s dangerous illness had spread through the army, and the men came thronging in tumultuous crowds about the gates of the palace. It was, too, impossible to quiet them. They would see him; they would know for themselves how he fared; if he was to be concealed, how could they be sure that some foul play was not being practised. The murmurs were too loud and angry, and the murmurers too powerful to be disregarded with impunity. The officers and a certain number of the soldiers, selected by their comrades, were to be admitted within the gates and into the sick chamber itself. It was a strange and pathetic sight. The dying king sat propped up with pillows on his couch. He had not, indeed, worn and wasted as were his features, the aspect of death. The fever had given a brilliance to his eyes and a flush to his cheek that seemed full of life. And he knew his visitors. He had a truly royal memory for faces, and there was not one among the long lines of veterans, weeping most of them with all the abandonment of grief which southern nations permit themselves, whom he did not recognize. Speak he could not, though now and then his lips were seen to move, as though there were something that he was eager to say. When Charondas passed him he seemed to be specially moved. He bent his head slightly—for he could not beckon with his hands, long since become powerless—as if he would speak with him. The Theban bent down and listened intently. He could never afterwards feel sure whether he had heard a sound or guessed the word from the movements of the lips, but he always retained an absolute conviction that the king uttered, or at least formed in his breath, the word “Dionysus.” He had walked all his days in fear of the anger of the god. Now it had fallen upon him to the uttermost. Thebes was avenged by Babylon.
That evening the great conqueror died.