And yet not one of the accomplices of Hermolaüs, even in the last extremity, denounced Callisthenes. Nay, even Alexander himself, in the letters which he wrote at once to Craterus, Attalus, and Alcetas, says that the youths confessed under torture that they had made this attempt of themselves, and that no one else was privy to it. But in a letter written later to Antipater, wherein he accuses Callisthenes also of the crime, he says:

The youths were stoned to death by the Macedonians, but the sophist I will punish, together with those who sent him to me and those who harbour in their cities men who conspire against my life; and in these words, at least, he directly reveals a hostility to Aristotle, in whose house Callisthenes, on account of his relationship, had been reared, being a son of Hero, who was a niece of Aristotle.

As to the death of Callisthenes, some say that he was hanged by Alexander’s orders, others that he was bound hand and foot and died of sickness, and Chares says that after his arrest he was kept in fetters seven months, that he might be tried before a full council when Aristotle was present, but that about the time when Alexander was wounded in India, he died from obesity and the disease of lice.Cf.Arrian, iv. 14, 3 f., where other accounts still are mentioned.

This, however, belongs to a later time.The spring of 327 B.C. Meanwhile Demaratus the Corinthian, who was now well on in years, was eagerly desirous of going up to Alexander; and when he had seen him, he said that those Greeks were deprived of a great pleasure who had died before seeing Alexander seated on the throne of Dareius.Cf. chapter xxxvii. 4. However, he did not long enjoy the king’s good will towards him, but died from debility. His obsequies were magnificent, and the army raised in his memory a mound of great circumference and eighty cubits in height. His ashes were carried down to the sea-board on a four-horse chariot splendidly adorned.

Alexander was now about to cross the mountains into India,In the late spring of 327 B.C. and since he saw that his army was by this time cumbered with much booty and hard to move, at break of day, after the baggage-waggons had been loaded, he burned first those which belonged to himself and his companions, and then gave orders to set fire to those of the Macedonians. And the planning of the thing turned out to be a larger and more formidable matter than its execution.

For it gave annoyance to a few only of the soldiers, while the most of them, with rapturous shouts and war-cries, shared their necessaries with those who were in need of them, and what was superfluous they burned and destroyed with their own hands, thus filling Alexander with zeal and eagerness. Besides, he was already greatly feared, and inexorable in the chastisement of a transgressor. For instance, when a certain Menander, one of his companions, who had been put in command of a garrison, refused to remain there, he put him to death; and Orsodates, a Barbarian who had revolted from him, he shot down with his own hand.

When a sheep yeaned a lamb which had upon its head what looked like a tiara in form and colour, with testicles on either side of it, Alexander was filled with loathing at the portent, and had himself purified by the Babylonians, whom he was accustomed to take along with him for such purposes; and in conversation with his friends he said that he was not disturbed for his own sake, but for theirs, fearing lest after his death Heaven might devolve his power upon an ignoble and impotent man. However, a better portent occurred and put an end to his dejection.

The Macedonian, namely, who was set over those in charge of the royal equipage, Proxenus by name, as he was digging a place for the king’s tent along the river Oxus, uncovered a spring of liquid which was oily and fatty; but when the top of it was drawn off, there flowed at once a pure and clear oil, which appeared to differ from olive oil neither in odour nor in flavour, and in smoothness and lustre was altogether the same, and that too though the country produced no olive trees.

It is said, indeed, that the Oxus itself also has a very soft water, which gives sleekness to the skin of those who bathe in it. However, that Alexander was marvellously pleased is clear from what he writes to Antipater, where he speaks of this as one of the greatest omens vouchsafed to him from Heaven. The seers, however, held that the omen foreshadowed an expedition which would be glorious, but difficult and toilsome; for oil, they said, was given to men by Heaven as an aid to toil.