10. BABYLON

AS HE CROSSED THE TIGRIS RIVER WITH HIS ARMY
ON THE WAY TO BABYLON, ALEXANDER WAS MET
BY THE CHALDEAN SOOTHSAYERS WHO DREW HIM
ASIDE FROM HIS FRIENDS AND BEGGED HIM, FOR
HIS OWN SAKE, NOT TO CONTINUE THE MARCH
TO THE CITY.
—ARRIAN

The monsoon rains had returned to India in the months it took Alexander and his army to descend the Indus and conquer the land. Craterus had already left with many of the Macedonian veterans and elephants to return to Persepolis along a northern route. Now after ten years in Asia, the king himself was anxious to begin the journey back to Persia, but the fleet under Nearchus was not able to leave the Indus River port of Patala for the long voyage to Mesopotamia until the winds were once again favorable. The impatient king therefore bade good-bye to his old friend with careful instructions to explore the northern shore of the great ocean and look for rendezvous points along the coast where Alexander’s army would have dug freshwater wells for the sailors and where his own men would receive much needed food supplies from the ships. It was to be a carefully coordinated land-sea journey with both components dependent on the other for survival.

Alexander knew the march ahead through the Gedrosian desert would be extremely difficult for his army, but he was determined nonetheless to lead his men through one of the most desolate landscapes on earth. Some scholars, ancient and modern, have suggested that the king wanted to punish his soldiers for forcing him to turn back from the conquest of the Ganges valley. By this line of reasoning, Alexander was deliberately trying to kill off his army in the wilderness that lay ahead. This was certainly not his intention. Alexander could be petty and vindictive, but it is unreasonable to suggest that he wanted to eliminate the very force that made it possible for him to create and control his empire. The answer to the mystery of the Gedrosian desert journey is plainly stated by the historian Arrian and is perfectly consistent with what we know of Alexander from other episodes in his life. First, as a practical matter, he wanted to keep in close contact with the fleet as it moved west through the Indian Ocean. The exploration of the coast and the opening of a trade route between India and Persia was an essential part of his future plans. But second, and perhaps even more important, Alexander wanted to lead his army across the Gedrosian desert because no one had ever done it before. There were stories that the Babylonian queen Semiramis had once brought an army back this way from India, but only twenty of her men survived the journey. The first Great King Cyrus had reportedly tried the same route, with only seven of his soldiers living to tell the tale. The historical accuracy of these tales is doubtful, but the challenge they would have stirred in the imagination of Alexander was real enough. If he could bring his army back from India through the wastelands of Gedrosia, it would be a story of glory that would live forever. To Alexander, that was reason enough.

More than fifty thousand Macedonian and allied soldiers left the Indus River in late summer accompanied by a vast train of camp followers, including most of the women and children who trailed after the army wherever it went. The land and climate were pleasant enough at first as they moved west along the shore and over low mountains into the territory of the Arabitae. Alexander sent parties to dig wells for the fleet on the shore and took time to launch a series of surprise attacks on natives in the area who had not yet submitted to his authority. After two weeks he arrived in a well-watered valley near the coast that was the home of the Oreitae, who fled at his approach. Their chief village of Rhambacia was a promising site for a trading post and colony, so Alexander left Hephaestion behind to establish it as another Alexandria—the last such city he would found in the East.

The king discovered the natives hiding in the hills to the west of their home waiting to attack the Macedonians. But when Alexander brought forward just a small force to meet them, they immediately deserted their posts and sent their leaders forward to surrender on their behalf. He accepted their submission and assured the natives that they would be allowed to live in peace in their own land under the rule of a Macedonian satrap and garrison. The king also left behind his companion Leonnatus to await the arrival of the fleet and clean up any remaining resistance in the area. By this point, Hephaestion had caught up with the army as the men left the mild valley of the Oreitae and began the trek west into the desert.

Gedrosia, straddling the border of modern Iran and Pakistan, was the poorest and least hospitable of all the provinces of the Persian Empire. It consisted of little more than an arid wilderness of salt flats surrounded by mountains too dry to support agriculture. Only the Phoenician traders traveling in the army’s wake seemed impressed by what the desert had to offer. There were unusually tall myrrh trees in scattered locations that yielded priceless gum, which the merchants loaded onto their pack animals. They also gathered ginger grass, though most of it was crushed by the feet of the passing army, leaving a delightful fragrance wafting over the countryside. The soldiers were able to dine well at first on rabbits that snared themselves in the plentiful thornbushes as they fled from the army, but soon even these were left behind. The few natives who lived in Gedrosia clustered along the seashore and lived a life as primitive as anything the Macedonians had ever seen. They were called the Ichthyophagi, or Fish Eaters, because their only nourishment came from whatever small fish they were able to collect offshore and dry in the sun. These natives let their hair grow into long mats and never trimmed their nails. Their clothing was made of fish scales and their primitive houses of shells and skins stretched over whale ribs. The Fish Eaters were so destitute that Alexander didn’t even bother to plunder their villages for supplies.

But as there was still no sign of Nearchus and the fleet along the coast, Alexander began to despair. There was not enough food for the army without the supplies brought by sea. After the grain supply was gone, men began to eat their pack animals. The king sent messengers on racing camels to the nearby satrapies with orders to dispatch provisions to him as quickly as possible, but the distances were too great for these calls to be easily answered. When the water ran out, the soldiers were totally dependent on whatever oases they could find in the desert, though these were few and far between. Once a waterhole was discovered, the first men there would rush in and drink all they could scoop into their hands, becoming sick from overdrinking and fouling the water for the rest of the army. Thereafter Alexander made a rule that every camp would be at least two miles from a water source and access strictly limited.

As days turned into weeks, men began to fall by the wayside by the hundreds, then thousands, from sickness, heatstroke, and thirst. Many simply gave up and refused to rise from their bedrolls. Those who pulled themselves together after the army departed would try to follow in the tracks of their companions, but most of these were lost in the desert just like men fallen overboard into the sea.

One night the army made camp in a dry riverbed with a welcome trickle of water running through the sand. But as darkness fell, a wall of water suddenly coursed down the stream from a thunderstorm in the distant hills. The flash flood caught the soldiers by surprise, but most were able to escape, though many with only their weapons at hand and the clothes on their backs. The civilians were not so fortunate. Most of the women and children who had dragged themselves on this hellish trek through the wilderness had no time to flee and were drowned in the very water they so desperately craved.

Toward the end of the march, when officers and men alike had all but given up hope of escaping the desert alive, some scouts found a small spring with only enough water to fill a single helmet. The patrol was so thankful that they had found even this that they brought it before Alexander, who was as thirsty as anyone. As wretched as his own state was, however, he knew his men were suffering even more. Therefore, just as he had done in the desert crossing in Bactria four years earlier, Alexander refused to drink when his army could not. He took the helmet of precious water and poured it on the ground in full view of his army. To the parched men, for their king to share in their suffering in this way meant more than the water soaking into the sand. They were so heartened, says Arrian, it was as if they had each drunk every drop that he poured on the ground.

Alexander then turned back to the sea in one final attempt to find water and rendezvous with the fleet. The ships were nowhere to be seen, but the army was able to dig wells along the shore for their own needs and travel for a week with adequate water supplies. At last the king realized in shame that his fleet must have been lost somewhere along the trackless shore of the southern sea. He had failed Nearchus and condemned his whole navy to death. The army that had followed him through the desert for two months was little better off. Perhaps half his soldiers had perished in the sands of Gedrosia and almost all the civilians had been lost. He then led the men in a final push north away from the sea more than a hundred miles to the provincial capital at the shabby frontier town of Paura on the road to Persepolis. The emaciated and exhausted Macedonians who stumbled through the gates of the city must have been a frightening sight to the natives, who nevertheless welcomed them in peace and provided them with food, water, and much needed rest.

The final leg of the journey from Paura to Persepolis was almost five hundred miles long, but the countryside, while still arid, promised a steady supply of food and water for Alexander’s remaining troops. Several ancient authors report that the king was so relieved after his march through the Gedrosian desert that he led his army along the road as in a Dionysian parade with pipes playing and soldiers bedecked with garlands. Alexander also held festivals and contests to celebrate their crossing, including a singing and dancing competition won by the Persian eunuch Bagoas, who had been one of the king’s lovers since they had departed from Persepolis several years earlier. After the contest, Bagoas in full costume marched through the theater and sat down at Alexander’s side, to the delight of the army. The men shouted and called loudly on the king to kiss the winner, which he gladly did.

Alexander was now back on the edges of civilization and could turn his mind to matters other than mere survival. It had been five years since the Macedonians had left the heartland of Persia for the campaign in the eastern provinces. Many of the governors and officials Alexander had left behind doubted he would ever return—most, in fact, hoped he would not. Reports began to reach the king that his appointees had taken advantage of his long absence to set themselves up as virtually independent rulers in their satrapies, indulging in extravagant lifestyles and enforcing their will with private militias. Alexander spent the next few months purging his empire of corrupt officials—natives, Greeks, and Macedonians alike—including his old friend Harpalus. This unregenerate shyster had been given charge of the treasury and squandered countless talents of gold on exquisite luxuries and expensive women. He imported rare delicacies from distant lands for his table and bought celebrated Athenian courtesans for his bed. When news reached him that a very angry Alexander was on his way back to Persia, he panicked and fled to Athens with six thousand mercenaries and all the money he could load onto a fast ship. Demosthenes and his anti-Macedonian allies in the Athenian assembly were at first reluctant to risk the wrath of Alexander by granting refuge to Harpalus, but a generous bribe convinced them it was worth the consequences. But when one of Alexander’s admirals showed up beneath the Acropolis to demand his extradition, the Athenians had Harpalus arrested, though they did keep his money. He soon escaped and made his way to Crete, where he was murdered by Macedonian agents.

While Harpalus was still in flight to the Aegean, Alexander and his army made their way through the land of Carmania near the Straits of Hormuz at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Here Craterus arrived at last with his veterans and elephants safely in tow after the march along the northern route from India through Kandahar and eastern Persia. It was also near the straits that a small party of filthy, sunburned men arrived at the edge of Alexander’s camp with long hair and clothes covered in brine. No one recognized them at first, though they carried themselves like Macedonian officers. The leader then spoke in a raspy voice and declared that he was Admiral Nearchus, just arrived from India, and asked to be led to Alexander himself to tell his tale.

The story of the voyage of Nearchus is one of the best-preserved travel accounts from ancient times, largely because the log of the expedition was copied almost word for word by the historian Arrian. Nearchus and his fleet left the Indus River port of Patala in September, several weeks after Alexander had departed by land. The monsoon rains were still falling, but the admiral was eager to catch up with the army and decided to risk travel in spite of the unfavorable conditions. After the usual sacrifices to the gods, the fleet sailed down the delta for several days until they at last reached the open sea at the mouth of the Indus. From here they turned west and followed the coast along the land of the Arabitae until they arrived at an island called Crocala. It was the habit of Nearchus to sail as close to the shore as possible, anchoring at protected bays or nearby islands at night to avoid the risks of making camp on the mainland. The next day they found a well-protected harbor near an island called Bibacta. Nearchus was so struck by the tranquil setting that he named the spot Alexander’s Haven. A strong monsoon wind was still blowing in from the ocean, forcing the fleet to delay their departure. As the unfavorable winds continued unabated, Nearchus realized he would have to wait out the weather at Bibacta and so built a fort on the island surrounded by stone walls to guard against raids by the natives. The trade winds that would carry them across the Indian Ocean were late that year, forcing the fleet to tarry almost a month at the island. Nearchus must have been frantic at this point, realizing that such a delay would put him well behind the march of the army. Still, there was nothing he could do until the weather changed. The sailors themselves were more sanguine and enjoyed the weeks on their tropical island hunting for mussels, oysters, and other shellfish, though they did complain that the fresh water tasted brackish.

As soon as the winds shifted from west to east, Nearchus weighed anchor and sailed along the coast to a desert island called Domai, where his men searched in vain for water. This was the primary concern of the admiral throughout the voyage and the main reason he was so dependent on the well-digging parties of Alexander that had preceded him. However, it seems that only in rare instances was Nearchus able to find the wells that the army had dug, leaving him on his own to supply water for his thirsty sailors. This problem was solved at Domai and elsewhere by sending armed patrols inland, sometimes many miles, to collect fresh water in large jars and skins for transport back to the ships.

At one point during the next few days, Nearchus sailed so close to the coast that his ships were barely able to squeeze between the beach and the rocks just offshore, forcing the men to strike the oars against solid ground on both sides. But the fleet passed this dangerous spot and found a safe haven in a small bay named in the local language Woman’s Harbor for a queen who had once ruled there. Dodging large waves and shifting tides, the fleet advanced briefly along a more hospitable shore lined with a thick forest to the mouth of the Arabis River. This marked the end of the lands ruled by the Arabitae and the beginning of the territory of the Oreitae, who had earlier fled in panic from Alexander’s army.

The seas were rough as they continued up the coast, forcing Nearchus to anchor well offshore to protect his vessels from being dashed against the rocks. Three ships nonetheless were lost in the waves as the sailors struggled to keep the fleet away from the breakers. The men became so seasick in the constant swell that after a few days the admiral took the risk of building a fortified camp on a mainland beach to allow his men a night’s rest on steady ground. At this point Nearchus was delighted to find Alexander’s companion Leonnatus, whom the king had left behind to await the fleet and secure the area. Things had not gone well in the land of the Oreitae since Alexander’s departure, forcing Leonnatus to kill several thousand local warriors in a battle that also took the life of the satrap Apollophanes. But the general had been faithful to his charge of preparing for the fleet and had stockpiled enough food to supply the sailors for at least ten days. Nearchus also took the opportunity to repair some of the damaged vessels and rid himself of the more troublesome sailors, leaving them with Leonnatus and replacing them with men from Leonnatus’s command.

The shore became more mountainous as the fleet moved west up the coast of Gedrosia while the land grew ever more arid. Water was a pressing concern, forcing even longer journeys into the interior to dig wells. At a welcome stream called the Tomerus, the fleet for the first time met the primitive Fish Eaters, whom the army had encountered along the same coast. Nearchus described them as more warlike than did Alexander, perhaps because of their recent experience with the Macedonian land force. A people who had rarely had contact with the outside world for generations were suddenly forced to deal with a second invasion by a large foreign force in as many months. Six hundred angry natives were waiting to attack the sailors when they came ashore, but Nearchus could see that their wooden spears would be a threat only at close range. He therefore sent his best swimmers among the light-armed troops over the side into the shallow surf and ordered them to advance together with weapons drawn into battle. With a loud cry to Ares, the men swept forward against the natives protected by a volley of arrows from the ships. The half-naked Fish Eaters were terrified and fled inland to the wilderness to escape. The few that were captured were a source of fascination to the Macedonians. Nearchus noted, as had Alexander, that they let their nails grow long, but observed that this was not out of a lack of hygiene but rather that they might use their nails as other people would iron tools, since they lacked the skill to forge metal blades.

The coast of Gedrosia was the southernmost point reached by any of Alexander’s men, so Nearchus, observant sailor that he was, commented on the unusual stars visible in the sky over the ocean. The fleet was so far south that the familiar northern constellations they had all grown up with dipped below the horizon and new stars appeared.

But astronomical observations did little to distract Nearchus from his increasingly perilous situation. The coast was ever more rocky and inhospitable with water increasingly difficult to find. Day after day the thirsty sailors traveled west along a barren coast relieved only by the occasional appearance of a Fish Eater village. These natives had little to steal, but the fleet did manage to haul off a few scraggly sheep. As there was no grass in this land for grazing, the animals were fed on dried fish, giving the mutton a distinctly maritime taste, according to the Macedonians. Most of the villages were deserted before the fleet could pull ashore, but at one small harbor Nearchus found an experienced native sailor to guide them along the remainder of the Gedrosian coast. Near the harbor was also a welcome source of fresh water to restock their supplies.

The coast from this point onward was marginally better, with more reliable water sources and natives who, according to Nearchus, did not quite live like animals. There were date palms cultivated by the local inhabitants and gardens that yielded flowers woven into wreaths by villagers. The local fishermen paddled their boats like canoes rather than using oars mounted on pins like Greeks. The natives wanted to avoid conflict with the Macedonians and brought them all the food they could spare, including cooked fish and cakes made from dates. Nearchus nonetheless took the town by force and stripped the poor villagers of whatever food he could find hidden in their homes. Unfortunately for the sailors, the villagers had only fish-meal flour along with a small amount of wheat and barley used for special occasions.

Setting out to sea once again, the fleet was surprised one morning by a spout of water blown up from a pod of whales off their bow. Similar animals in the Mediterranean were small, but these cetaceans were enormous by comparison. Ever superstitious, the Egyptian, Greek, and Phoenician sailors who made up the majority of the crews were terrified at the sight of these creatures so close to the ships. They dropped their oars and huddled together, wondering what the gods had in store for them. Nearchus, however, went along the deck encouraging the men to remain firm and—in a move that must have struck the frightened sailors as sheer madness—ordered the helmsmen to turn their bows toward the whales in attack formation. He set a fast rowing pace for the oarsmen directly toward the sea creatures with trumpets blaring and battle cries raised above the waves. The puzzled whales merely slipped beneath the water and swam away from the noisy intruders, but the Macedonians counted their battle with the monsters of the deep as a great victory.

Farther along the coast the fleet came to an island called Nosala several miles offshore that their local guide said was sacred to the sun god. No one dared to land there, he reported, and those few who had were swept onto its shores and never returned. The island was supposedly the home of a sea goddess who welcomed castaway sailors into her bed for a night of passion, then turned them into fish the next morning. This sounded to Nearchus like a tale out of Homer’s Odyssey, but the next day when one of his ships manned by an Egyptian crew went missing near the island, the admiral decided to investigate for himself. He rowed near the shore and called out the names of the sailors, but no one answered. He then forced his crew to land on the island and went ashore himself, searching in vain for his missing men. Whether lost in the waves or turned into fish by a goddess, they were never seen again. Nearchus returned to the fleet safely and set sail ever westward up the coast.

After traveling almost five hundred miles along the shore of the Indian Ocean, the fleet finally passed the barren land of Gedrosia and was now entering the Straits of Hormuz opposite the Arabian peninsula. One morning they sighted a distant headland off their port bow only a day’s sail away, marking the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Nearchus knew he had now fulfilled his commission to explore the unknown coast for Alexander. He also knew the king must be beside himself with worry after months with no word from the fleet. He therefore brought his ships ashore at the straits and ordered his sailors to build a stockade while he took a handful of men inland in search of the army. Almost immediately they came across a man wandering by himself wearing a Greek cloak and speaking the same language Nearchus had grown up with on Crete. The surprised vagabond said he was a soldier of Alexander who had become separated from the army a few days earlier. The main camp of the Macedonians, he reported, was only a few days away, with the king in residence there. Nearchus was thrilled at this piece of good fortune and set out with his men through the desert.

When he finally arrived at the camp and convinced the guards that he was indeed the admiral the king had been searching for, Nearchus was brought before Alexander. The king was so delighted to see his old friend that he broke into tears and could not speak for several minutes. Nearchus and his companions were so gaunt and tattered that Alexander assumed the whole fleet had been lost except for these few survivors. His guilt at failing to meet the ships and supply them properly threatened to overwhelm him until Nearchus understood the cause of his grief and explained that the fleet was safely harbored just a few days away. Alexander then wept again, this time from joy, and declared that the deliverance of the fleet made up for the horrible losses he had suffered on his own trek through the Gedrosian desert. After sacrifices of thanksgiving, Alexander ordered Nearchus to remain behind while one of his lieutenants led the ships on the remainder of the voyage up the Persian Gulf. But Nearchus begged the king to let him finish what he had begun and sail all the way to Susa with the fleet. Alexander granted his request and sent him on his way with plenty of supplies, grateful that he had such a man to serve under him.

Almost six years after leaving Persia and a full decade since he left Europe, Alexander at last returned to the heartland of his empire just as winter was descending on the hills around Persepolis. His trek through Hyrcania, Parthia, Bactria, Sogdiana, India, Gedrosia, and Carmania had covered thousands of miles over blistering deserts, towering mountains, and steaming jungles. No other army in history had made such an extended campaign nor had any previous expedition discovered and recorded so much new information about distant lands and peoples. When Alexander had left Persepolis, he was twenty-six years old. Now he was in his early thirties, a proven general and ruler of the largest empire the world had ever known—greater even than that of his Persian predecessors. There were still many lands left to conquer, but his first task was to establish firm control over the realms he governed. The lax administration of the provinces during his long absence had to come to an end as the king returned to his throne.

Alexander’s first stop was Pasargadae to visit again the tomb of the first Great King, Cyrus, a man for whom he had gained a new respect, having fought against many of the same barbarians as this previous ruler in the distant east. As he stooped down and entered the small chamber, he was appalled to see that it had been looted. Everything except the royal couch and sarcophagus itself had been stolen. The lid of the great stone coffin had been pried off and the preserved body of Cyrus thrown carelessly on the floor. The robbers had even tried to break the sarcophagus into sections to take it out the entrance, but had failed and left the pieces scattered about inside. Alexander was livid. He seized the whole family of Magi priests he had charged to care for the tomb and put them to torture to reveal the culprits, but to no avail. He immediately set his old friend Aristobulus the task of restoring the monument to its original condition. This gross insult to the memory of Cyrus was an affront to his own honor as Great King.

From Pasargadae, Alexander rode the few miles to the city of Persepolis in a very bad mood. There had been much rebuilding during his absence, but the charred ruins of the palace still loomed over the town. Again the king deeply regretted that he had burned down the royal halls of Darius and Xerxes. Parmenion had been right that it was foolish to destroy his own property and stir up ill will among the Persians. In his renewed frustration, he struck out at the local satrap Orxines and accused him of treason. This governor had welcomed the king on his return just a few days before at Pasargadae with splendid gifts for his whole entourage. After bestowing fabulous presents on all of Alexander’s friends, he conspicuously omitted any gift to the eunuch Bagoas, a man highly regarded by the king for both his practical advice and skill in the arts of love. When quietly admonished by one of Alexander’s companions concerning this lapse in protocol, Orxines replied that he gave gifts only to the king’s friends, not to his whores. After word of this comment reached Bagoas, the eunuch and experienced palace courtier quickly carried out his revenge. He whispered in Alexander’s ear that it was in fact Orxines who was behind the looting of Cyrus’ tomb as well as many other crimes. The king was in the mood to blame someone for the poor administration of the province, so it seemed logical to fault the satrap—who was undoubtedly guilty of many genuine indiscretions during his term. The Persian was led out into the courtyard at Persepolis and hanged, much to the delight of Bagoas. In his place Alexander appointed his bodyguard Peucestas, who had saved his life when he held his shield above Alexander inside the walls at the Indian city of the Malli. Peucestas was as solid a Macedonian as they came, with absolute loyalty to the king. He had also made a great impression on Alexander as one of the few officers who had openly embraced his policy of accommodating himself to the new political order. He had learned the Persian language fluently and dressed in local clothing when appropriate, exactly as the king had hoped his administrators would do. He was well liked by the Persians for these efforts and held great promise as a mediator between the Macedonian elite and the still-powerful natives of the region.

As Alexander made his way from Persepolis to Susa in Mesopotamia, he was brimming with plans for future conquests. Most men would have been content to consolidate their rule and enjoy the fruits of such a vast empire, but Alexander could not cease from dreaming of new horizons. As Arrian says, he always searched for something more, in competition with himself in lieu of another rival. The reports of Nearchus concerning the nearby coast of Arabia served to strengthen the desire he had long nursed to extend his control of the seas from the Indus River around the peninsula of Arabia to Egypt. The Greek mariner Scylax of Caria had made the long ocean journey from India to Egypt two centuries before for the first Great King Darius, so Alexander knew his plan was possible. He also wanted to conquer the coastal kingdoms of Arabia at the same time. The interior of the enormous peninsula offered little more than sand, but the tribes bordering the more hospitable lands along the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea had long been known as lucrative sources of pearls, cinnamon, frankincense, and myrrh, which were transported by caravan through the deserts to Palestine and Syria. Why not eliminate the middlemen and bring these riches under his direct control?

As if this wasn’t enough, Alexander conceived a longing to retrace the Phoenician voyage he had read of in Herodotus and circumnavigate Africa itself, sailing from the Tigris around Arabia and down the eastern coast, following the shore of the continent until he at last arrived at the Pillars of Hercules at the western entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. He had no idea of the immense distances involved in such a trip, though the fact that it took the Phoenicians three years to complete the journey should have been warning enough. He became so excited by the possibility of the maritime conquest of Arabia and a voyage around Africa that he ordered sailors and pilots assembled and a fleet of galleys constructed on the Euphrates in preparation for the expedition.

But the king’s plans did not end there. He had nursed a grudge against Carthage for aiding Tyre ever since his siege of that doomed city. He also knew that the next logical step of expansion west into the Mediterranean beyond Cyrene would bring him into conflict with this powerful mercantile kingdom of North Africa. He decided that it was both expedient and necessary to crush Carthage and seize control of the whole African coast, as well as the islands and cities it governed. He also knew of the rising power of a small town on the Tiber River in central Italy. These natives, known as Romans, had beaten back Gaulish invaders earlier in the century and were now beginning to spread their power, by war and diplomacy, throughout the Italic peninsula. They might become useful subjects—they had a reputation as fine fighters—but they could not be allowed to expand their influence independently in such a key region of the Mediterranean. The Greek colonies of southern Italy and Sicily would have to be brought into the fold as well, along with the Samnites and other Italic peoples. Spain with its rich mines of silver and gold lay just beyond and would form a natural boundary for the western edge of his empire—unless he sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic, adding even Britain and Ireland to his kingdom.

Once he was finished in the west, he longed to return east and complete the conquest of Scythia as he had planned during his wars in Sogdiana. North through the Black Sea the Macedonian fleet would sail, then the army would march east across the steppes to the banks of the Oxus and Jaxartes with the help of their allies among the Scythian kings. At the same time he commissioned a fleet of open-decked Greek galleys in Hyrcania to explore the Caspian Sea with orders to discover whether it connected to the great ocean encircling the world. When these northern adventures were complete, the kingdoms of the Ganges valley in India were still waiting, in spite of however many battle elephants they might dare to muster. Alexander scoffed at the idea that the Medes and Persians had called themselves kings of Asia, having left so much of the continent unconquered. He, however, would create the first true universal empire encompassing Europe, Africa, and Asia and stretching from Spain and the unknown shores of Africa to Scythia and the great eastern sea, perhaps even to China. It was a stunning vision of world domination. If the gods granted him enough time, he just might be able to make it come true.

When Alexander arrived at Susa, he summoned the satrap Abulites and demanded to know why he had not sent him supplies in the Gedrosian desert as requested. The Persian governor had no ready response for this lapse nor for the poor administration of his province during the king’s long absence. He tried to mollify Alexander by offering him an enormous bribe in gold coins, but the king simply set the money before his horses. When the animals ignored the treasure, Alexander asked him what good such money was in place of the provisions they had needed in the desert. He then threw Abulites into prison and executed him. Then he personally ran through one of the satrap’s grown sons, Oxathres, with a spear.

At this point, the Indian wise man Calanus who had accompanied Alexander from the Punjab suddenly fell ill with an acute intestinal disorder and decided to put an end to his own life. He was more than seventy years old and had lived all that time in ascetic simplicity and had avoided sickness. Rather than suffer the torments of a wasting disease in a foreign land, he told the king he was planning to burn himself alive while he still had his wits about him. Alexander, who had grown quite fond of the old philosopher, argued with him and tried to dissuade him from such a drastic step, but Calanus would not be moved. So the king at last agreed and ordered his friend Ptolemy to construct a massive funeral pyre for Calanus.

On the morning of the grand immolation, Calanus was carried to the pyre in a litter as he could no longer walk long distances. The teacher cheerfully dismounted and stood at the foot of the wooden structure, saying his good-byes and giving away to his Macedonian friends all the rich gifts that Alexander had presented him. He cut a lock of his hair and threw it on the logs, then slowly climbed the pyre and lay down on top. While the whole army watched, Calanus began chanting hymns to the Indian gods in his native tongue just as the fire was lit. The king led the men in a rousing shout as if they were charging the enemy, while horns blared and elephants trumpeted battle cries. All this while, as the inferno engulfed him, Calanus did not move a muscle, but remained motionless until he was consumed by the flames. Afterward some of the soldiers commented that the aged guru must have been mad to undergo such torment, while others thought he was overly prideful about his ability to bear pain. But most—Alexander surely among them—marveled at his courage and disregard for death.

The king followed the funeral of Calanus with a mass wedding that winter at Susa. This was yet another attempt by Alexander to integrate the Macedonian and native factions under his command, though on a grander scale than anything he had previously attempted. The king himself took two Persian brides, Stateira, the daughter of Darius, and Parysatis, the daughter of the former Great King Artaxerxes. He bestowed another daughter of Darius, Drypetis, on his best friend, Hephaestion, so that their future children might be cousins of his children. Craterus received a sister of Alexander’s first wife, Roxane, while Perdiccas, Ptolemy, Nearchus, Seleucus, and dozens of other companions were given brides from the native aristocracy of Persia, Media, and Bactria. The ceremony itself was deliberately Persian rather than Macedonian in style, with chairs for the bridegrooms placed near one another. After toasts were drunk to everyone’s good health, the brides entered and sat down beside their intended husbands. Each couple held hands as the groom kissed his new wife—or in Alexander’s case, wives—then led them home to bed. The king had granted all the women fine dowries to make the unions even more appealing to his Macedonian officers.

It was a great show and a noble effort on Alexander’s part, but as with most of his programs to bring together the quarrelsome members of his court, it was a miserable failure. None of the Macedonians was enthusiastic about taking native brides. Foreign women were fine for amusement, but Alexander’s officers wanted respectable wives from their homeland. Few of the marriages consummated at Susa would endure. The king had better luck with the rank-and-file soldiers. Many had willingly taken on native women as they marched across Asia and fathered children in the camps. Alexander now formally recognized these unions and gave each of the couples splendid wedding presents. He also paid off the debts his soldiers had accumulated over the last few years from moneylenders, wine merchants, and prostitutes—no questions asked—even though it was a huge drain on the treasury. The men were suspicious at first when they were asked to write down how much they owed, fearing it was some sort of trap. But when they realized the king was sincere and not even recording their names as he handed over the money, they were immensely grateful.

The mood turned sour, however, when the thirty thousand Persian boys he had been training as Macedonian soldiers for the last few years arrived at Susa ready to take their promised place in the new imperial army. These youths had been tutored in the Greek language and schooled in Macedonian fighting techniques and military management until they were the equals of any lads from the hills around Mount Olympus. They performed their drills before the king and his officers in expert fashion, dressed and equipped as traditional Macedonian soldiers, delighting Alexander but sending a shiver through the rest of the army. These Successors, as the king ominously called the boy troop, were to become in time officers of Alexander’s international force to rule the empire and expand the king’s power to new lands. The Macedonians were filled with resentment and fear at the thought of being replaced by these native youths, whom they contemptuously called the “war dancers.” What was the point of conquering the world if they were to lose their rightful place to foreign children?

The crisis came to a head when Alexander decided that now was the moment to decommission many of his veterans and send them home. He had traveled north from Susa up the Tigris to the town of Opis to supervise the removal of dams the Persians had constructed on the river to hinder any naval force invading Mesopotamia from the south. These dams made shipping on the Tigris difficult and were, as Alexander said, marks of an empire lacking military supremacy. He summoned his Macedonian troops to him at Opis and announced that he was sending away all who were unfit for further service due to age or injuries. They would be amply rewarded for their past service, while those that remained would become so rich that they would be the envy of all in Macedonia. The king had assumed his news would be greeted with joy by those leaving and staying alike, but his words met with stony silence. The soldiers who had fought so long with him were brokenhearted at being dismissed, even though they had long wanted to go home. Those who were selected to remain could only wonder when he would decide to be rid of them as well. Alexander’s integration of foreign forces into the army, his adopting Persian ways, his forced marriages—all of this was at last too much for the common soldiers. Instead of applause for the king, shouts arose from the troops calling on him to send them all home since he didn’t need them anymore. Let him fight alongside his new father, Ammon, some cried.

Alexander grew furious at this insubordination and leapt off the platform where he had been standing. He ordered his guards to arrest the dozen or so most prominent agitators and haul them off for immediate execution. Then he climbed back on the stage and began one of the most impassioned speeches of his life to the stunned soldiers before him. He chastised them for their gross ingratitude after all he had done for them. He reminded them that they were nothing before his father, Philip, accepted them into his army, only goatherds clothed in animal skins fighting off wolves and Illyrian bandits. Under his father they had spread Macedonian power throughout Greece and the Balkans. Then under his own banner they had invaded Asia and taken the Mediterranean from Troy to Cyrene, adding the Aegean coast, Syria, Phoenicia, and Egypt to their empire. From there it was on to Persia itself, followed by Bactria, Sogdiana, and India. They had become rich men while he kept no luxuries for himself. He had eaten the same food and shared the same labors as the lowliest infantryman. Did they have wounds to show him? He would strip and show them his injuries as well. There were scars on every part of his body just as on theirs. He had toiled with them through everything. He had paid their debts and legitimized the children they had fathered with camp followers. If any man among them had died along the way, he was honored with a splendid funeral and his family back home in Macedonia spared from future taxes. Therefore, he shouted, all of you get out of my sight. Every one of you go home to Macedonia whether you are old and infirm or not. I don’t need you anymore. Just be sure to tell your families back home that you deserted your king, handing over him and the empire you won to the care of the very barbarians you defeated.

Alexander then stomped off the platform and retired to his tent for three days, refusing to see anyone. This was the same trick he had used at the Hyphasis River in India to prompt his army to march down the Ganges. It had failed miserably then, but Alexandernow knew the measure of his men. To drive home his point, he called in his Persian followers and began to divide up command of the army among them. By this time, all the Macedonians were beside themselves and had gathered outside his headquarters, having thrown down their weapons, begging him to see them. They declared they would stay there day and night until the king admitted them. At last Alexander emerged and saw his repentant soldiers before him. One of their number, an old Macedonian cavalryman named Callines, came forward to speak for the men. He urged the king to reconsider sending them all home and take pity on them for their rash words earlier. They could not bear to see him embracing Persians while they stood by shunned. Alexander then took Callines in his arms and kissed him to the wild applause of the crowd as tears rolled down their faces. The king wept as well and welcomed all of them to come and receive his blessing with a kiss. All was forgiven. Only those who were truly unable to fight any longer were sent home to Macedonia and these went willingly, with plenty of gold and silver in their saddlebags. His faithful comrade Craterus would accompany them home as a sign of the honor he held them in. Alexander asked only that they leave their camp wives and children with him rather than take them home. In Macedonia, these foreign wives and offspring would stir resentment among their kin. He would see to their care and raise their sons as true Macedonian soldiers, proud heirs of the fathers who had sired them. There must have been many tears as the native wives and children said their good-byes, but the soldiers knew that the king was probably right. Better to start again with the old wife or a new young bride in Macedonia rather than bring a wild Bactrian or Indian woman and her children home to meet the family.

Back in Macedonia, Craterus was also to handle a delicate situation that had arisen between Alexander’s mother, Olympias, and his aging regent, Antipater. These two headstrong personalities had never liked each other but were forced to endure one another’s company while the king was away on his eastern conquests. Both had sent a constant stream of letters to Alexander all the way from the Hellespont to the Indus and back accusing the other of every imaginable impropriety. Antipater claimed that Olympias was a willful, sharp-tempered shrew, forever interfering in the affairs of government. Olympias shot back that Antipater had forgotten who appointed him and that he was behaving more like a king than a governor. Alexander had listened to this verbal war for the last decade from a blissful distance, but now it was time to settle the troublesome affair once and for all. Antipater had been a loyal and useful servant during the expedition to Asia, but he was still a threat. With Parmenion’s faction eliminated, only Antipater and his well-entrenched family back in Macedonia could endanger Alexander’s control of the homeland. The king could not easily repudiate his own mother, as much as he might like to at times, so he chose to remove Antipater from power. He sent orders to his regent to turn the governance of Greece and Macedonia over to Craterus once he arrived and make his way to Babylon along with a new draft of Macedonian troops. There he would be greatly honored for his service and enjoy a blissful retirement amid the gardens of the city. When Antipater received the letter, he knew it was his death warrant.

Rather than surrender to fate, Antipater sent his son, Alexander’s boyhood friend Cassander, to Babylon to negotiate with the king and buy time. This meeting went exceedingly poorly when Cassander was led before the king and laughed at a group of Persians bowing their faces to the ground. Alexander jumped up from his throne, grabbed Cassander by the hair, and smashed his head against a wall. Antipater’s son recovered soon enough, but years later back in Greece the sight of a painting or statue of Alexander would still send him into a fainting spell. Even with Cassander fearful, it remains that Antipater’s other son, Iolaus, was cupbearer to the king—a trusted position in which the holder of that office could easily slip a lethal potion into the royal wine bowl. Antipater may well have decided that if negotiations failed, he would have Alexander poisoned before the king could kill him.

To escape the heat of the approaching summer, Alexander did what all the Persian kings before him had done and retreated to the royal capital of Ecbatana in the cool mountains of Media far above the Mesopotamian plain. There he held splendid athletic and musical competitions during the day for his men and epic drinking parties at night for his companions. Three thousand actors and artists arrived from Greece for the festivities, which went on for days at a time. Alexander’s closest friend, Hephaestion, was more interested in the evening revelries than the contests, but the king attended most of the contests himself with genuine enjoyment. After one party, Hephaestion fell ill with a fever and was sternly warned by his personal physician, Glaucias, not to indulge himself further at the risk of his health. Hephaestion grudgingly agreed while the doctor stayed by his bed for seven days, but as soon as Glaucias was confident that Hephaestion would recover and had departed for the theater himself, Alexander’s friend jumped out of bed and ran to the dining room. There he ate a whole boiled chicken and drank an entire container of chilled wine at one sitting. He collapsed almost at once and was rushed back to bed. Alexander quickly received word that Hephaestion was gravely ill and ran from the stadium to his companion’s side, but by the time he arrived his dearest love was dead.

The ancient sources relate different versions of what happened next, but all agree that Alexander was beside himself with grief. He immediately had Hephaestion’s doctor crucified, blaming him for not caring for his patient properly. He then ordered all the manes and tails of the horses and mules shorn as a token of mourning after a custom practiced by Thracians and Persians alike. He commanded that all music in the city cease and the temple to Asclepius, the god of healing, in Ecbatana be burned to the ground. For the next day he lay prostrate, weeping, on the body of his friend, neither eating nor drinking until his companions finally had to carry him away. At last, like his hero Achilles lamenting for his own Patroclus, slain by Hector before the walls of Troy, Alexander cut his hair and drove the body of Hephaestion himself in the funeral procession.

Alexander sent to the oracle at Siwa in Egypt to ask if Hephaestion might be honored as a god, but this was too much even for the compliant priests of Zeus-Ammon to endorse. They did, however, consent that his friend might be honored as a divine hero with his own cult. The king settled for this, at least at first, and ordered that shrines be constructed in Egypt and elsewhere for Hephaestion. His friend’s post as military commander was left vacant in his honor and extravagant funeral games were planned. The king’s surviving companions tried to outdo each other in showing respect to Hephaestion, dedicating themselves and their arms to his memory while commissioning ivory and gold statues of the deceased. A few bold friends tried to comfort Alexander with the suggestion that he had others, such as Craterus, who cared for him as much as Hephaestion had. He responded that Craterus loved him as king, but Hephaestion had loved him for himself. His boyhood friend had even stood up to Alexander’s mother—who was always jealous of the close relationship between the pair—and warned her in a letter to cease from trying to stir up enmity between them, for Alexander meant more to him than anything in the world.

The king commanded a tomb be built for Hephaestion that rivaled any previous memorial in cost and lavishness. It was to be in the shape of a Babylonian ziggurat with a base more than six hundred feet square and ascending levels almost two hundred feet in height. The best artists were imported for its decoration, which included carvings of warring archers, wild animal hunts, and eagles with outspread wings. On the monument were the golden prows of ships, lions and bulls in Persian fashion, and hollow sculptures of Sirens, in each of which a living person could stand and sing songs of lamentation for his dead friend. Even for those of Alexander’s supporters who had liked Hephaestion, this was all too much—though they did not dare to share their thoughts with the king. Aristotle had taught both Alexander and Hephaestion as young men that friendship was one of the greatest goods in the world, but that moderation in all things was the goal of a worthy man. To all who watched the funeral preparations for Hephaestion, it was clear that Alexander had gone too far. Such ostentatious grief for a friend, even with the best of intentions, was an affront to the gods. And as they all knew, the gods would have their revenge.

Alexander’s mourning for Hephaestion continued for weeks into the winter until everyone in the court realized they had to find a way to bring him out of his depression. Fortunately an opportunity for military action—the one thing guaranteed to appeal to the king—presented itself at this moment in the form of a rebellious tribe known as the Cossaeans who lived in the mountains southwest of Ecbatana. Like their neighbors the Uxians, whom Alexander had faced years before, these highland warriors had never submitted to the Persians but had demanded payment from the royal treasury for passage across their land. When approached by Macedonian envoys demanding their surrender, the Cossaeans refused. For Alexander, this was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Much to the relief of his companions, the king rose from his despair with a renewed spirit and determination to teach these mountain tribesmen a lesson. In the past the Cossaeans had retreated deep into the hills of their homeland when confronted by an army, only to reappear and renew their raids when the threat was past. But now Alexander, aided by Ptolemy, surrounded their lands and isolated their villages, then launched a series of devastating attacks against the Cossaeans throughout the snow-covered mountains for forty days. Alexander declared that those slain were offerings to the spirit of Hephaestion, just as Achilles had sacrificed Trojan youths to the dead Patroclus. The few who survived the Macedonian assaults were captured and enslaved, so that soon their leaders sued for peace. They agreed to become subjects of Alexander and submit to his authority thereafter.

As spring was beginning and the Zagros Mountains were blooming with wildflowers, Alexander at last began the march from Ecbatana to Babylon. Along the way envoys arrived from distant lands to offer their congratulations on his many conquests and to express their sincere hopes that he would form ties of friendship with them. At the very least, they wanted to gauge his intentions and prepare themselves for any conflict to come. There were ambassadors from Africa west of Cyrene bearing a crown of submission and Ethiopians from the lands south of Egypt. The Carthaginians also came, with more reason to worry than most. The tribes of Italy were there as well—Bruttians, Lucanians, and Etruscans—including envoys from Rome, according to some Greek sources, though later Roman records omitted any reference to homage they might have offered Alexander. The Celts sent ambassadors, just as they had done during the king’s first campaign along the Danube twelve long years before. Iberians arrived from distant Spain, as did Scythians from the lands to the north of the Black Sea. Some of these peoples Alexander had met before, but others were new to the Macedonians. The king welcomed them all with good cheer and warm assurances of friendship, along with promises of peace that could be broken later if he deemed it expedient.

As Alexander at last drew near to the walls of Babylon, he was met by a group of Chaldean priests, who begged him not to enter the gates of their city. They had received an oracle, they claimed, from the great god Bel-Marduk warning the king that he should avoid Babylon at all costs. Alexander respected the Chaldeans, indeed he had taken a party of them with him on his march to the East, but he was also suspicious of their motives. He knew from reports that his command to restore the temple of Bel-Marduk had been ignored during his trek to India and that the priests were quiet happy with this situation. The enormous amount of money set aside for the restoration still remained in the temple treasury, available for use and abuse by the Chaldeans. If the king entered Babylon and forced them to start construction, their riches would rapidly dwindle. At first Alexander tried to laugh off the prophesy, quoting a line from the Greek playwright Euripides that the best prophet is one who guesses well, but he was still a man of his times and superstitious enough to be cautious when it came even to questionable warnings from the gods. When the Chaldeans saw that their plan wasn’t working, they quickly changed tactics and urged the king at least not to enter the city facing the west and the setting sun, the universal symbol of death in the ancient world. This was a clever ploy to keep Alexander out of Babylon altogether as the priests knew their city was surrounded by a huge marsh, making entry from another direction difficult. The king therefore sent some of his men into the city while he led the rest around through the swamps to approach the town from the opposite side. If the Chaldeans thought they would keep Alexander out so easily, they were sadly mistaken. A few days later he walked through the gates of Babylon and took up residence at the royal palace.

But once inside the city, the ill omens from the gods only increased. When one of his friends was sacrificing on behalf of the king, the animal was discovered to have a malformed liver, always an ominous sign. One day ravens fought with one another above Alexander’s head and some fell dead at his feet. Then the largest and most handsome lion in his private zoo was attacked by a tame donkey and kicked to death. A few days later Alexander briefly left the city to sail along the river, guiding the lead boat himself after the pilot became lost. He was sailing past the flooded tombs of some ancient Assyrian kings when suddenly the wind snatched the cap from his head along with the crown he had jauntily placed on top of it. The diadem caught on a sturdy reed that grew out of an old tomb so that one of the sailors jumped in to rescue it. The man snatched the treasure from the plant, but found he couldn’t swim while holding it above the water. He therefore put the crown on his head, swam back to the boat, and handed it to the king. Alexander was grateful and gave him a rich reward, but he also ordered him punished for daring to place the diadem on his own head. Some sources say the man was flogged, while others say he was decapitated. Whatever the punishment, the king evidently saw the incident as a warning that he was in danger of losing his crown permanently.

But the most disturbing episode came one day when Alexander had returned to the city and was playing ball with his friends. Spring had arrived with a vengeance and the weather was unbearably hot, so the king had taken off his robes and laid them on the back of his nearby throne. When he returned from exercise, he saw a man sitting on his royal chair wearing his cloak and crown. The intruder seemed strangely dumbfounded and responded to questions only after a round of intense torture. His name was Dionysius and he hailed from the Greek city of Messenia, near Sparta. He said he was an escaped prisoner and had long been bound in chains, but a god had come and freed him, bidding him to put on the king’s attire and sit silently on the throne. As Alexander may have known, the episode bore an uncanny resemblance to a local Babylonian custom in which a condemned criminal acted as a substitute king to draw down the wrath of heaven on himself and spare the real king misfortune. Alexander was uncertain whether the incident was a stroke of good fortune or not, but he played his part and had the scapegoat prisoner executed, hoping that the sacrifice of this one man would satisfy the gods.

As May turned to June, Alexander busied himself with plans for his upcoming expedition to Arabia. Hundreds of ships were given their final fittings and the crews drilled with races along the Euphrates River. Scouts reported that there was fresh water along the Arabian coast, as well as offshore islands along the Persian Gulf convenient for anchorage. It would be a grand expedition down the gulf and through the straits, then around the southern shore of the peninsula, seizing the lands of frankincense and myrrh, then up the Red Sea to Egypt. The king could not wait to begin.

Alexander spent his days organizing the details of the voyage, but the nights were replete with banquets and drinking parties in true Macedonian style. One evening the king gave a feast for his admiral Nearchus, then was heading home to bed when he ran into his friend Medius from Thessaly, who invited him to a late soiree with a few companions. Alexander joined them till the wee hours, but was up early the next morning to perform the customary sacrifices. The next evening he was back at the house of Medius for a celebration in honor of Hercules. There he topped off the night by drinking a whole beaker of unmixed wine in a single gulp, after which he shrieked as if hit by a blow and was led back to his bed by his friends. The next morning he was suffering from a fever, though he still was scrupulous about the required sacrifices to the gods even though he had to be carried to the altar on a litter. He issued orders to the fleet concerning the departure for the Arabian expedition a few days hence and commanded the infantry to be ready a day before the sailing. He was then borne to the river and rowed across to a favorite garden to bathe and rest. The next day he was still incapacitated, but carried out the sacrifices and ate only sparingly. He told his officers to meet him the next day for a conference, but spent the whole night with a high fever. He rose the next morning to perform the sacrifices, then bathed and talked with Nearchus about the departure of the fleet. The following day he carried out his duties to the gods, though he was growing ever weaker. He still believed he would rise again soon to sail with his ships to Arabia, though his companions were now becoming deeply concerned. He was so stricken with fever that he took to resting in the cool bath house instead of his room at the palace. For the next few days he carried on his routine of sacrifices, military meetings, bathing, and resting, all while his generals began to gather around him.

Word had spread to the army that the king was gravely ill. Some even suggested, as they had in India, that he had already died and his demise was being covered up by his senior officers. To put an end to these rumors, Alexander ordered the soldiers admitted to his presence to see for themselves that he was still alive, though by that point he was struggling even to speak. The men filed past his bed in silence and tears, each receiving a nod or at least a smile from their commander and king. No one could believe that the great Alexander, who had outwitted death on the battlefield at every turn, would die in his bed in Babylon. Some of his companions wanted to carry him to a nearby temple in hope that the gods would spare his life, but others thought it best not to move him. His fever raged on, the pain increased, and soon even Alexander—just short of his thirty-third birthday—knew that the end was near. He took off his royal signet ring and gave it to his friend Perdiccas so that he might act temporarily as regent, but the ultimate succession was unclear. His Bactrian bride Roxane was pregnant, he hoped with a boy, though the child would not be of age for many years to come even if the Macedonians would accept a half-barbarian ruler on the throne. The situation promised chaos for the empire unless the king made clear his wishes. At last, his companions approached his bedside and implored him to name his successor: To whom do you leave your kingdom?

They leaned close to hear his words. With great effort Alexander answered in a whisper: To the strongest.

With that, the king of the world closed his eyes and breathed his last.