The Nature of Alexander

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You know that the more magnificent the prospect, the lesser the certainty, and also the greater the passion.

SIGMUND FREUD

The carriage … appeared more magnificent when seen than when described. Because of its wide fame it drew together many spectators; for from every city it came to, the people came out to meet it, and followed beside it when it went away, never wearied of their pleasure in the sight.

Diodorus, Book XVII, 28

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ON A HOT JUNE day in Babylon, in 323 BC, Alexander died. Wailing spread through the city; his body-squires wandered about in tears; the Persians shaved their heads in mourning; the temples quenched their fires. His generals plunged into a dazed and chaotic power struggle. In one of its episodes they fought about his bier, where he may have been still alive in a terminal coma, for the freshness and lifelike colour of his corpse, left some time untended, were much wondered at. At length the embalmers came, approaching him with awe; and “after praying that it might be right and lawful for mortals to handle the body of a god” began their work.

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