Alexander

This man, indeed, had said to him at a former interview that of all mountains the Thracian Athos could most readily be given the form and shape of a man; if; therefore, Alexander should so order, he would make out of Mount Athos a most enduring and most conspicuous statue of the king, which in its left hand should hold a city of ten thousand inhabitants, and with its right should pour forth a river running with generous current into the sea. This project, it is true, Alexander had declined; but now he was busy devising and contriving with his artists projects far more strange and expensive than this.

As he was on his way to enter Babylon, Nearchus (who had joined him again after sailing through the ocean into the Euphrates) told the king that certain Chaldaeans had met him and advised that Alexander should keep away from Babylon.[*](According to Arrian (Anab. vii. 16, 5), the Chaldaeans besought Alexander in person to suspend his march to Babylon. It was in the spring of 323 B.C.) Alexander paid no heed to this, but continued on his march; and when he was arrived at the walls, he saw many ravens flying about and clawing one another, and some of them fell dead at his feet.

Again, being informed that Apollodorus the commandant of Babylon had sacrificed to learn Alexander’s fate, Alexander called Pythagoras the seer. Pythagoras did not deny the fact, whereupon Alexander asked him what was the character of the sacrifice. And when the seer told that the victim’s liver had no lobe, Ah me! said Alexander, a forcible omen! and did Pythagoras no harm. He was sorry, too, that he had not obeyed Nearchus, and passed most of his time outside of Babylon, either living in his tent, or sailing about on the Euphrates.

And he was troubled by many omens. For instance, the largest and handsomest lion in his menagerie was attacked by a tame ass and kicked to death. Again, he once took off his clothes for exercise and was playing at ball, and when it was time to dress again, the young men who were playing with him beheld a man seated on the king’s throne, in silence, wearing the royal diadem and robes.

When the man was asked who he was, he was speechless for a long time; but at last he came to his senses and said that his name was Dionysius, and that he was a native of Messenia; in consequence of some charge brought against him, he said, he had been brought thither from the sea-board, and for a long time had been in chains; but just now the god Serapis had come to him and loosed his chains and brought him to this spot, bidding him put on the robe and diadem and sit on the throne and hold his peace. [*](Other predictions of Alexander’s death are given in Arrian (Anab. vii. 18, 22, and 24).)

On hearing of this, Alexander put the man out of the way, as the seers directed; but he began to be low-spirited, and was distrustful now of the favour of Heaven and suspicious of his friends. He was particularly afraid of Antipater and of his sons, one of whom, Iolas, was his chief cupbearer; the other, Cassander, had only recently come to Babylon, and when he saw some Barbarians doing obeisance to Alexander, since he had been reared as a Greek and had never seen such a sight as this before, he laughed boisterously.