did not drink up the cup of Herakles at a draught, or
suddenly feel a pain as of a spear piercing his body, as some
historians have thought it necessary to write, in order to give a
dramatic fitness and dignity to the end of so important a personage.
Aristobulus tells us that he became delirious through fever, and drank
wine to quench his thirst, after which he became raving mad, and died
on the thirtieth day of the month Daisius.

LXXVI. In his own diary his last illness is described thus: "On the
eighteenth day of Daisius he slept in the bath-room, because he was
feverish. On the following day after bathing he came into his chamber
and spent the day playing at dice with Medius. After this he bathed
late in the evening, offered sacrifice to the gods, dined, and
suffered from fever during the night. On the twentieth he bathed and
sacrificed as usual, and while reclining in his bath-room he conversed
with Nearchus and his friends, listening to their account of their
voyage, and of the Great Ocean. On the twenty-first he did the same,
but his fever grew much worse, so that he suffered much during the
night, and next day was very ill. On rising from his bed he lay beside
the great plunge-bath, and conversed with his generals about certain
posts which were vacant in his army, bidding them choose suitable
persons to fill them. On the twenty-fourth, although very ill, he rose
and offered sacrifice; and he ordered his chief officers to remain
near him, and the commanders of brigades and regiments to pass the
night at his gate. On the twenty-fifth he was carried over the river
to the other palace, and slept a little, but the fever did not leave
him. When his generals came to see him he was speechless, and remained
so during the twenty-fifth, so that the Macedonians thought that he
was dead. They clamoured at his palace gates, and threatened the
attendants until they forced their way in. When the gates were thrown
open they all filed past his bed one by one, dressed only in their
tunics. On this day Python and Seleukus, who had been to the temple of
Serapis, enquired whether they should bring Alexander thither. The god
answered that they must leave him alone. The eight and twentieth day
of the month, towards evening, Alexander died."

LXXVII. Most of the above is copied, word for word, from Alexander's
household diary. No one had any suspicion of poison at the time; but
it is said that six years after there appeared clear proo