e
tomb of Cyrus, the greatest conqueror the world had seen before himself.
In February, B.C. 324, he marched to Susa, where he spent several months
in festivities and in organizing his great government, since he no longer
had armies to oppose. He now surrounded himself with the pomp of the
Persian kings, wore their dress, and affected their habits, much to the
disgust of his Macedonian generals. He had married a beautiful
captive--Roxana, in Bactria, and he now took two additional wives, Statira,
daughter of Darius, and Parysatis, daughter of King Ochus. He also caused
his principal officers to marry the daughters of the old Persian grandees,
and seemed to forget the country from which he came, and which he was
destined never again to see. Here also he gave a donation to his soldiers
of twenty thousand talents--about five hundred dollars to each man. But
even this did not satisfy them, and when new re-enforcements arrived, the
old soldiers mutinied. He disbanded the whole of them in anger, and gave
them leave to return to their homes, but they were filled with shame and
regret, and a reconciliation took place.

(M758) It was while he made a visit to Ecbatana, in the summer of B.C.
324, that his favorite, Hephaestion, died. His sorrow and grief were
unbounded. He cast himself upon the ground, cut his hair close, and
refused food and drink for two days. This was the most violent grief he
ever manifested, and it was sincere. He refused to be comforted, yet
sought for a distraction from his grief in festivals and ostentation of
life.

(M759) In the spring of B.C. 323, he marched to Babylon, where were
assembled envoys from all the nations of the known world to congratulate
him for his prodigious and unprecedented successes, and invoke his
friendship, which fact indicates his wide-spread fame. At Babylon he laid
plans and made preparations for the circumnavigation and conquest of
Arabia, and to found a great maritime city in the interior of the Persian
Gulf. But before setting out, he resolved to celebrate the funeral
obsequies of Hephaestion with unprecedented splendor. The funeral pile was
two hundred feet high, loaded with costly decorations, in which all the
invention of artists was exhausted. It cost twelve thousand talents, or
twelve million dollars of our money. The funeral ceremonies were succeeded
by a general banquet, in which he shared, passing a whole night in
drinking with his friend Medius. This last feast was