He found, when he came back to Persia, that the governors he had left in the cities had thought that he was sure to perish in India, and had plundered shamefully, so that he had to punish severely both Greeks and Persians; but then, to make the two nations friends, he held an immense wedding feast at Susa, when eighty Greek bridegrooms married eighty Persian brides. Alexander himself and his friend Hephæstion had the two daughters of Darius, and the other ladies were daughters of satraps. The wedding was thus
conducted: in one great hall eighty double seats were placed, and here the bridegrooms sat down to feast, till the brides entered, in jewelled turbans, wide linen drawers, silken tunics, and broad belts. Alexander rose, took his princess by the hand, and led her to his seat, and all the rest followed his example—each led his lady to his seat, kissed her, and placed her beside him, then cut a loaf of bread in two, poured out wine, and ate and drank with her.
Hephæstion died soon after, at Ecbatana, of a fever he had not taken care of in time. Alexander caused his corpse to be brought to Babylon, and burnt on a funeral pile; while he himself was in an agony of grief, and sent to ask the oracle of Ammon whether his friend might not be worshipped as a hero-god. He himself had already demanded divine honours from the Greeks. The Athenians obeyed, but secretly mocked;
and the Spartans grimly answered, “If Alexander will be a god, let him.”
Alexander was at Babylon, newly fortifying it, and preparing it to be the capital of his mighty empire. He held his court seated on the golden throne of the Persian Shahs, with a golden pine over it, the leaves of emeralds and the fruit of carbuncles; and here he received embassies from every known people in Europe and Asia, and stood at the highest point of glory that man has ever reached, not knowing how near the end was.
Ever since Cyrus had taken Babylon by turning the Euphrates out of its course, the ground had been ill drained, swampy, and unhealthy; and before setting out on further conquests, Alexander wished to put all this in order again, and went about in a boat on the canals to give directions. His broad-brimmed hat was blown off, and lodged among the weeping willows round some old Assyrian’s tomb; and though it was brought back at once, the Greeks thought its having been on a tomb an evil omen, but the real harm was in the heat of the sun on his bare head, which he had shorn in mourning for Hephæstion.
He meant to go on an expedition to Arabia, and offered a great sacrifice, but at night fever came on. The Greeks at home, who hated him, said it was from drinking a huge cup of wine at one draught; but this is almost certain not to be true, since his doctors have left a daily journal of his illness, and make no mention
of any such excess. He daily grew worse, worn out by his toils and his wounds, and soon he sank into a lethargy, in which he hardly spoke. Once he said something about his empire passing to the strongest, and of great strife at his funeral games, and at last, when his breath was almost gone, he held out his signet ring to Perdiccas, the only one of his old friends who was near him. He was only thirty-three years old, and had made his mighty conquests in twelve years, when he thus died in 323. The poor old Persian queen, Sisygambis, so grieved for him that she refused all food, sat weeping in a corner, and died a few days after him.
