an Ancient Coin]

Hephaestion 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 Hephaestion.

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