The marvelous successes of A. now began to dazzle his own judgment, and to inflame his passions. He became a slave to debauchery, and his caprices were as cruel as they were ungrateful. In a fit of drunkenness, and at the instigation of Thais, an Athenian courtesan, he set fire to Pel-sepolis, the wonder of the world, and reduced it to a heap of ashes ; then, ashamed of the deed, he set out with his cavalry to pursue Darius. Learning that Bessus, the satrap of Bactriana, held the king a prisoner, he hastened his march, in the hope of saving him, but he found him mortally wounded oq the frontiers of that country (330 n.c.). He mourned over his unfortunate enemy, and caused his body to be buried with all the usual rites observed in Persia ; but he pursued Bessus, who himself aspired to the throne, through Hyrcania, Iran, Bactriana, over the Oxus to Sogdiana (now Bokhara), whose satrap, Spitamenes, surrendered Bessus to him. Having discovered a conspiracy in which the son of Parmenio was implicated, he put both father and son to death, though Parmenio himself was innocent of all knowledge of the affair. This cruel injustice excited universal displeasure. In 320 he penetrated to the furthest known limits of northern Asia, and overthrew the Scythians on the banks of the Jaxartes. In the following year, he subdued the whole of Sogdiana, and married Roxana, whom he had taken prisoner. She was the daughter of Oxyartes, one of the enemy's captains, and was said to be the handsomest of the virgins of Asia. A new con spiracy broke out against A., at the head of which were Herniolaus and Callisthenes, pupil of Aristotle, which occasioned the death of many of the culprits ; while Callisthe nes himself was mutilated, and carried about in an iron cage through the army, till some one put an end to his sufferings by poison.
In the year 327 n.c., A. proceeded to the conquest of India, then known only byname. Tie crossed the Indus near to the modern Attock, and pursued his way under the guid ance of a native prince to the Hydaspes (modern Jeluni), where he was opposed by Porus, another native prince, whom lie overthrew after a bloody contest. Thence he marched as lord of the country through that part of India which is now called the Punjab, estab lishing Greek colonies. lie then wished to advance to the Ganges, but the general mur muring of his troops obliged him, at the Hyphasis (modern Sutledge), to commence his retreat, which was accomplished under circumstances of extreme danger. When he had again reached the Hydaspes, he built a fleet, and sent one division of his army in it down the river, while the other followed along the banks, fighting its way through successive Indian armies. At length, having reached the ocean, he ordered Nearchus, the com mander of the fleet, to sail thence to the Persian gulf, while he himself struck inland with one division of his army, in order to return home through Gedrosia (now BeloochiS tan). Here he had to traverse immense deserts, where a great part of his army perished for want of food and water, and were buried in the sand. The other division marched
through Arachosia and Drangiana (Afghanistan)under Craterus, but they united again in Carmania. Of all the troops, however, which had set out with A., only about a fourth part arrived with him in Persia (325 n.c.). At Susa he married Stateira, the daughter of Darius, and he bestowed presents on those Macedonians (about 10,000 in number) who had married Persian women, his design being to unite the two nations as closely as pos sible. He also distributed liberal rewards among his soldiers. At Opis on the Tigris he declared it to be his intention to send home the invalids richly rewarded ; and this he accomplished, but not till he had with some difficulty repressed the mutiny which broke out on the occasion. Soon afterwards he was deprived, by death, of his favorite FIeph testion, on which occasion his grief was unbounded, and he interred the deceased with kingly honors. As he was returning from Ecbatana to Babylon, it is said that the Magi foretold that the latter city would prove fatal to him ; but A. despised their warnings, and, in spite of the advice of his friends, marched to Babylon, before reaching which, however, he was met by ambassadors from all parts of the world—Libya, Italy, Carthage, Greece, the Scythians, Celts, and Iberians. Here he again occupied himself with gigan tic plans for the future, both of conquest and civilization, when he was suddenly taken ill after a banquet, and (lied eleven days afterwards, on the 11th or 13th of May or June, 323 B.C., in the 32d year of his age, having reigned 12 years and 8 months. His body was deposited in a golden coffin at Alexandria, by Ptolemseus, and divine honors were paid to him, not only in Egypt, but in other countries. A. had appointed no heir to his immense dominions ; but to the question of his friends : " Who should inherit them ?" he replied : "The most worthy." After many disturbances, his generals recognized as kings the weak-minded Aridteus—a son of Philip by Philinna, the dancer—and A.'s posthu mous son by Roxana, while they shared the provinces among themselves, under the name of satraps. Perdiccas, to whom A. had, on his death-bed, delivered his ring, became guardian of the kings during their minority.
It is but right to observe that A. did something more than shed blood during his life. He diffused the language and civilization of Greece wherever victory led him, and planted Greek kingdoms in Asia, which continued to exist for some centuries. At the very time of his death, he was engaged in devising plans for the drainage of the unhealthy marshes around Babylon, and a better irrigation-, of the exten-sive plains. It is even supposed that the fever which he caught there, rather than his famous drink ing-bout, was the real cause of his death. To A. the ancient world owed a vast increase of its knowledge in geography, natural history, etc. He taught Europeans the road to India, and gave them the first glimpses of that magnificence and splendor which has dazzled and captivated their imagination for 2000 years.