[973] Cassander was afterwards king of Macedonia and Greece. He put Olympias, Roxana, and her son Alexander Aegus to death, and bribed Polysperchon to put Barsine and her son Hercules to death. He died of dropsy, B.C. 297.
[974] Cf. Pausanias, xviii. 4; Curtius, x. 31; Plutarch (Alex., 77). The ancients called the poison, “the water of Styx”; it was obtained from Nonacris in the north of Arcadia, near which the river Styx took its origin. Justin (xii. 14) says: Cujus veneni tanta vis fuit, ut non aere, non ferro, non testa contineretur, nec aliter ferri nisi in ungula equi potuerit. Pliny (Hist. Nat., xxx. 53) says: Ungulas tantum mularum repertas, neque aliam ullam materiam quae non perroderetur a veneno Stygis aquae, cum id dandum Alexandro magno Antipater mitteret, dignum memoria est, magna Aristotelis infamia excogitatum.
[975] Diodorus (xvii. 117) states that after drinking freely, Alexander swallowed the contents of a large goblet, called the cup of Heracles, and was immediately seized with violent pain. This statement, however, is contradicted by Plutarch. It seems from the last injunction of Calanus, the Indian philosopher, that it was considered the right thing to drink to intoxication at the funeral of a friend. See Plutarch (Alex., 69).
[976] June, 323 B.C.
[977] Ptolemy took the embalmed body of Alexander to Egypt, and placed it in Memphis, but removed it a few years after to Alexandria. See Curtius, x. 31. Cf. Aelian (Varia Historia, xii. 64; xiii. 29).
[978] Cf. Diodorus, xvii. 4; ἡ ὀξύτης τοῦ νεανίσκου.
[979] Cf. Curtius, x. 18: Gloriae laudisque, ut justo major cupido, ita ut juveni et in tantis admittenda rebus.
[980] Plutarch (Alex., 28) attributes the same motive to Alexander in representing himself to be the son of Zeus. Livy (ix. 18) says: Referre in tanto rege piget superbam mutationem vestis et desideratas humi jacentium adulationes, etiam victis Macedonibus graves, nedum victoribus; et foeda supplicia, et inter vinum et epula, caedes amicorum et vanitatem ementiendae stirpis. Consult the whole of the interesting passage in Livy, ix. 17-19. See also Aelian (Varia Historia, ii. 19; v. 12; ix. 37).
[981] Cf. Herodotus, vii. 41; Arrian, iii. 11 supra.
[982] Xenophon (Cyropaedia, vii. 5, 85) says that the Persian Equals-in-Honour, or Peers, spent their time about the Court.