Alexander at the Dead Body of Darius.
5. The wife of Darius had died a prisoner, but Sisygambis still remained with her grandchildren at Babylon. Only once does Alexander seem to have hurt her feelings, and this was through ignorance of Persian customs. He showed her some robes of his sister's own weaving and embroidery, and offered to have her grand-daughters instructed in the same art, at which she wept, since Persian ladies deemed such employments work fit only for slaves and captives, and Alexander was obliged to explain how honorably the loom and needle were esteemed by his own countrywomen.
6. Alexander was much attached to his own mother, Olympias, and portions of his letters to her have come down to our time. She was a proud and violent woman, who often interfered with Antipater, governor of Macedon, and caused him to send many complaints to the king: "Ah!" said Alexander, "Antipater does not know that one tear of a mother will blot out ten thousand of his letters."
7. Alexander had indeed an open and affectionate heart, but he was fast becoming too much uplifted by his successes. On Darius's death, he took the state as well as the title of a king of Persia, wore the tiara and robes, and claimed from the Macedonians the same servile tokens of homage as were paid by the eastern nations, thus causing perpetual heart-burnings among them, since they could neither endure to see their king exalted so much further above them, nor to be placed on the same level with the barbarians whom they despised.
8. Their jealousies troubled Alexander from the time he assumed the tiara of Persia. He found it impossible to raise the condition of the Persians, and treat them with favor, without offending the Macedonians, and his temper did not always endure these provocations. The worst action of his life was the sentencing to death, on a false accusation, the wise old General Parmenio, and his son; and in a fit of passion at a riotous banquet, he slew, with his own hand, his friend Clitus, his nurse's son, who had saved his life at the battle of Granicus. It was the deed of a moment of drunken violence, and he bitterly lamented it, shutting himself up for several days without allowing any one to approach him, and paying all honors to the memory of his murdered friend.
9. His pride and vain-glory went so far, that he declared that the oracle of Jupiter Ammon had announced that he was the son of Jupiter, and sent to Greece to desire to be enrolled among the gods in his life-time. Some of the Greeks were shocked at his profanity, others laughed at him; but all the Spartans said was, "If Alexander will be a god, let him."
10. The next four years were the most laborious of Alexander's life. He pursued the murderers of Darius into Bactria and Sogdiana, avenged his death, and reduced the numerous hill-forts as far as the frontier of Scythia. Fierce insurrections broke out among the wild tribes of Sogdiana, which it required all his activity and judgment to quell, and more than once provoked him into cruelty, though in general, conqueror as he was, he was no spoiler, but wherever he went founded cities, and tried to teach the Persians the civilized arts of Greece.
11. In 326 he set out for India, as the region was called round the river Indus. Here the inhabitants were warlike, and Porus, king of a portion of the country, made a brave resistance, but was at length defeated and taken prisoner. On being brought before Alexander he said he had nothing to ask, save to be treated as a king. "That I shall do for my own sake," said Alexander, and accordingly not only set him at liberty, but enlarged his territory.
12. All these Indian nations brought a tribute of elephants, which the Macedonians now for the first time learned to employ in war. Alexander wished to proceed into Hindostan, a country hitherto entirely unknown, but his soldiers grew so discontented at the prospect of being led so much farther from home, into the utmost parts of the earth, that he was obliged to give up his attempt, and very unwillingly turned back from the banks of the Sutlej.