Alexander's Last Days: Chronological Source Rearrangement (without the poison narrative and the romances)
Posted: Mon May 20, 2024 6:40 am
Inspired by Alexias, I made a chronological source rearrangement of Alexander's last days without the poison narrative and the romances. However, this is not a reconstruction like I did in this thread: https://www.pothos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7309. Here I quote the sources explicitly so there is no harmonization/alteration of the source text. Sometimes I added comments in square brackets to clarify the context. And sometimes I removed out-of-the-context passages. Those are replaced with the ellipsis symbol "...".
Alexander's Last Days: Chronological Source Rearrangement (without the poison narrative and the romances)
Day 0: [17. month Daesius] [May 31, 323 B.C.]
Justin [Trogus]: Returning, therefore, to Babylon, and allowing himself several days for rest, he renewed, in his usual manner, the entertainments which had been for some time discontinued, resigning himself wholly to mirth, and joining in his cups the night to the day. As he was returning, on one occasion, from a banquet [with Nearchus], Medius, a Thessalian, proposing to renew their revelling, invited him and his attendants to his house.
Diodorus [Cleitarchus?]: They [soothsayers] bade him sacrifice to the gods on a grand scale and with all speed, but he was then called away by Medius, the Thessalian, one of his Friends, to take part in a comus.
Arrian: A few days after this, after offering to the gods the customary sacrifices for good success, and certain others also for the purpose of divination, he was feasting with his friends [Medius], and was drinking far into the night. He is also said to have distributed the sacrificial victims as well as a quantity of wine to the army throughout the companies and centuries. There are some who have recorded that he wished to retire after the drinking party [with Nearchus] to his bed-chamber; but Medius, at that time the most influential of the Companions, met him and begged him to join a party of revellers at his residence, saying that the revel would be a pleasant one.
Plutarch: He gave a splendid entertainment to Nearchus, and then, although he had taken his customary bath before going to bed, at the request of Medius he went to hold high revel with him; ...
Diodorus [Cleitarchus?]: There [at the house of Medius] he drank much unmixed wine in commemoration of the death of Heracles, and finally, filling a huge beaker [bowl of Heracles], downed it at a gulp [the whole sentence is interpolated from the next day (Day 1) to make Alexander appear that he became ill from this large cup of unmixed wine]. Instantly he shrieked aloud as if smitten by a violent blow and was conducted by his Friends, who led him by the hand back to his apartments. His chamberlains put him to bed and attended him closely, but the pain increased and the physicians were summoned. No one was able to do anything helpful and Alexander continued in great discomfort and acute suffering.
Justin [Trogus]: Taking up a cup, he suddenly uttered a groan while he was drinking, as if he had been stabbed with a dagger, and being carried half dead from the table, he was excruciated with such torture that he called for a sword to put an end to it, and felt pain at the touch of his attendants as if he were all over wounds.
Arrian: They [historians] say that Alexander was seized with an acute paroxysm of pain over the wine-cup, on feeling which he retired from the drinking bout.
Arrian [Royal Diary]: The Royal Diary gives the following account, to the effect that he revelled and drank at the dwelling of Medius; then rose up [εξανασταντα could also mean "went to stool" (diarrhea?)], took a bath, and slept; ...
Day 1: [18. month Daesius] [June 1, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: ... then again supped at the house of Medius and again drank till far into the night.
Athenaeus [Nicobulê]: ... when Alexander was dining with Medeius of Thessaly he pledged the health of everyone at the dinner, there being Tarentum in all, and accepted the same number of toasts from all; ...
Athenaeus [Ephippus]: Alexander, for example, once called for a six-quart cup [bowl of Heracles] and after a drink proposed the health of Proteas. He took the cup, and when he had sung the king's praises he drank, to the applause of everybody. A little while afterwards Proteas demanded the same cup, and again drinking, pledged the king. Alexander took it and pulled at it bravely, but could not hollowed out; on the contrary, he sank back on his cushion and let the cup drop from his hands. As a result, he fell ill and died [10 days later], because, as Ephippus says Dionysus was angry at him for besieging his native city, Thebes.
Diodorus [Cleitarchus?]: There [at the house of Medius] he drank much unmixed wine in commemoration of the death of Heracles, and finally, filling a huge beaker [bowl of Heracles], downed it at a gulp. [The source is probably from Cleitarchus who is famously unreliable. The veracity of this whole narration is criticized by Plutarch (see below).]
Plutarch: ... after drinking all the next day, he began to have a fever. This did not come upon him after he had quaffed a "bowl of Heracles," nor after he had been seized with a sudden pain in the back as though smitten with a spear; these particulars certain writers [e.g. Cleitarchus?, see Diodorus above] felt obliged to give, and so, as it were, invented in tragic fashion a moving finale for a great action.
Athenaeus [Nicobulê]: ... he then left the party and soon after went to sleep.
Arrian [Royal Diary]: After retiring from the drinking party he took a bath; after which he took a little food and slept there, because he already felt feverish.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: On the eighteenth of the month Daesius he slept in the bathing-room because he had a fever.
Interpolated Day 2 [only in Arrian's Royal Diary]: [19. month Daesius] [June 2, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: He was carried out upon a couch to the sacrifices, in order that he might offer them according to his daily custom. After performing the sacred rites he lay down in the banqueting hall [men's quarters] until dusk. In the meantime he gave instructions to the officers about the expedition and voyage, ordering those who were going on foot to be ready on the fourth day, and those who were going to sail with him to be ready to sail on the fifth day. From this place he was carried upon the couch to the river, where he embarked in a boat and sailed across the river to the park. There he again took a bath and went to rest. [See Day 5.]
Day 2: [19. month Daesius] [June 2, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: On the following day he took another bath and offered the customary sacrifices. He then entered a tester bed, lay down, and chatted with Medius. He also ordered his officers to meet him at daybreak. Having done this he ate a little supper and was again conveyed into the tester bed. The fever now raged the whole night without intermission.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: On the following day, after his bath, he removed into his bed-chamber, and spent the day at dice with Medius. Then, when it was late, he took a bath, performed his sacrifices to the gods, ate a little, and had a fever through the night.
Day 3: [20. month Daesius] [June 3, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: The next day he took a bath; after which he offered sacrifice, and gave orders to Nearchus and the other officers that the voyage should begin on the third day.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: On the twentieth, after bathing again, he performed his customary sacrifice; and lying in the bathing-room he devoted himself to Nearchus, listening to his story of his voyage and of the great sea.
Day 4: [21. month Daesius] [June 4, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: The next day he bathed again and offered the prescribed sacrifices. After performing the sacred rites, he did not yet cease to suffer from the fever. Notwithstanding this, he summoned the officers and gave them instructions to have all things ready for the starting of the fleet. In the evening he took a bath, after which he was very ill.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: The twenty-first he spent in the same way and was still more inflamed, and during the night he was in a grievous plight, ...
Day 5: [22. month Daesius] [June 5, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: The next day he was transferred to the house [men's quarters] near the swimming-bath, where he offered the prescribed sacrifices. Though he was now very dangerously ill, he summoned the most responsible of his officers and gave them fresh instructions about the voyage.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: ... all the following day his fever was very high. So he had his bed removed and lay by the side [men's quarters] of the great bath, where he conversed with his officers about the vacant posts in the army, and how they might be filled with experienced men.
Arrian [Royal Diary]: He was carried out upon a couch to the sacrifices, in order that he might offer them according to his daily custom. After performing the sacred rites he lay down in the banqueting hall [men's quarters] until dusk. In the meantime he gave instructions to the officers about the expedition and voyage, ordering those who were going on foot to be ready on the fourth day, and those who were going to sail with him to be ready to sail on the fifth day. From this place he was carried upon the couch to the river, where he embarked in a boat and sailed across the river to the park. There he again took a bath and went to rest. [This is from the Arrian's interpolated Day 2 but it probably belongs here.]
Day 6: [23. month Daesius] [June 6, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: On the following day he was with difficulty carried out to the sacrifices, which he offered; and none the less gave other orders to the officers about the voyage.
Plutarch: [It seems Plutarch's Royal Diary is silent about this day]
Day 7: [24. month Daesius] [June 7, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: The next day, though he was now very ill, he offered the prescribed sacrifices. He now [probably after sunset] gave orders that the generals should remain in attendance in the hall [of the palace], and that the colonels and captains should remain before the gates.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: On the twenty-fourth his fever was violent and he had to be carried forth to perform his sacrifices; moreover, he ordered his principal officers to tarry in the court of the palace, and the commanders of divisions and companies to spend the night outside.
Arrian: One writer has not even been ashamed to record that when Alexander perceived he was unlikely to survive, he was going out to throw himself into the river Euphrates, so that he might disappear from men's sight, and leave among the men of after-times a more firmly-rooted opinion that he owed his birth to a god, and had departed to the gods. But as he was going out he did not escape the notice of his wife Roxana, who restrained him from carrying out his design. Whereupon he uttered lamentations, saying that she forsooth envied him the complete glory of being thought the offspring of the god.
Day 8: [25. month Daesius] [June 8, 323 B.C.]
Curtius: Some have believed that the provinces were distributed by Alexander in his will, but we have learned that the report of such action was false, although handed down by some authorities.
Justin [Trogus]: On the fourth day [on Day 8 because for Justin's source Day 5 is the beginning of the illness (first time bed-ridden)], Alexander, finding that death was inevitable, observed that “he perceived the approach of the fate of his family, for the most of the Aeacidae had died under thirty years of age.” He then pacified the soldiers, who were making a tumult, from suspecting that the king was the victim of a conspiracy, and, after being carried to the highest part of the city [northern palace], admitted them to his presence, and gave them his right hand to kiss. While they all wept, he not only did not shed a tear, but showed not the least token of sorrow; so that he even comforted some who grieved immoderately, and gave others messages to their parents; and his soul was as undaunted at meeting death, as it had formerly been at meeting an enemy. When the soldiers were gone, he asked his friends that stood about him, “whether they thought they should find a king like him?” All continuing silent, he said that, “although he did not know that, he knew, and could foretel, and almost saw with his eyes, how much blood Macedonia would shed in the disputes that would follow his death, and with what slaughters, and what quantities of gore, she would perform his obsequies.” At last he ordered his body to be buried in the temple of Jupiter Ammon. When his friends saw him dying, they asked him “whom he would appoint as the successor to his throne?” He replied, “The most worthy.” Such was his nobleness of spirit, that though he left a son named Hercules, a brother called Aridaeus, and his wife Roxane with child, yet, forgetting his relations, he named only “the most worthy” as his successor; as though it were unlawful for any but a brave man to succeed a brave man, or for the power of so great an empire to be left to any but approved governors. But as if, by this reply, he had sounded the signal for battle among his friends, or had thrown the apple of discord amongst them, they all rose in emulation against each other, and tried to gain the favour of the army by secretly paying court to the common soldiers. [There are probably some interpolations in this whole account.]
Curtius: When the king saw them [the troops] he said: "After I am gone will you find a king worthy of such men?" (...) adding instructions that they should order his body to be taken to Ammon. When they asked to whom he left his kingdom, he replied, to him who was the best man, but that he already foresaw that because of that contest great funeral games were in preparation for him. Again, when Perdiccas asked when he wished divine honours to be paid to him, he said that he wished it at the time when they themselves were happy. These were the king's last words, ... [Curtius' original account is a garbled mix of two similar processions from Day 8 and Day 10].
Arrian: Some authors, however, have related that his Companions asked him to whom he left his kingdom; and that he replied: "To the best." Others say, that in addition to this remark, he told them that he saw there would be a great funeral contest held in his honour.
Diodorus [Cleitarchus?]: His Friends asked: "To whom do you leave the kingdom?" and he replied: "To the strongest." He added, and these were his last words, that all of his leading Friends would stage a vast contest in honour of his funeral.
Curtius: Then Aristonus began to speak, saying that Alexander, when he was asked to whom he left his kingdom, wished the best man to be chosen; ...
Plutarch [Aristobulus]: But Aristobulus says that he had a raging fever, and that when he got very thirsty he drank wine, whereupon he became delirious [speechless] ...
Arrian [Royal Diary]: But being now altogether in a dangerous state, he was conveyed from the park [northern palace] into the [southern] palace. When his officers entered the room, he knew them indeed, but could no longer utter a word, being speechless.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: He was carried to the palace on the other side of the river on the twenty-fifth, and got a little sleep, but his fever did not abate. And when his commanders came to his bedside, he was speechless ...
Day 9: [26. month Daesius] [June 9, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: During the ensuing night [8./9. June] and day [9. June] and the next night [9./10. June]... [he was in a very high fever].
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: ... he was also [speechless] on the twenty-sixth [9. June]; ...
Day 10: [27. month Daesius] [June 10, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: ... and the next night [9./10. June] and day [10. June] he was in a very high fever. Such is the account given in the Royal Diary. In addition to this, it states that the soldiers were very desirous of seeing him; some, in order to see him once more while still alive; others, because there was a report that he was already dead, imagined that his death was being concealed by the confidential body-guards, as I for my part suppose. Most of them through grief and affection for their king forced their way in to see him. It is said that when his soldiers passed by him he was unable to speak; yet he greeted each of them with his right hand, raising his head with difficulty and making a sign with his eyes.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: ... therefore [on the next day] the Macedonians made up their minds that he was dead, and came with loud shouts to the doors of the palace, and threatened his companions until all opposition was broken down; and when the doors had been thrown open to them, without cloak or armour, one by one, they all filed slowly past his couch.
Curtius [Cleitarchus?]: Meanwhile the troops, overcome by anxiety and longing to see him, although their leaders warned them not to burden the king in his illness, extorted permission to be admitted to his presence. As they gazed at him, their rising tears gave the impression no longer of an army looking upon its king, but of one attending his funeral; yet the grief of those who stood about his couch was still greater. (...) Incredible to tell and to hear of, he continued to hold his body in the same attitude in which he had composed himself when he was about to admit the soldiers, until he had been saluted by the whole army for that last time. And having dismissed the common throng, as if he had discharged every debt to life, he threw back his exhausted frame, and after bidding his friends to seat themselves (...) he drew his ring from his finger and handed it to Perdiccas, (...) and shortly afterwards [actually the next day] he died. [Curtius' original account is a garbled mix of two similar processions from Day 8 and Day 10].
Justin [Trogus]: On the sixth day from the commencement of his illness [on Day 10 because for Justin's source Day 5 is the beginning of the illness (first time bed-ridden)], being unable to speak, he took his ring from his finger, and gave it to Perdiccas, an act which tranquillized the growing dissension among his friends; for though Perdiccas was not expressly named his successor, he seemed intended to be so in Alexander’s judgment.
Diodorus [Cleitarchus?]: When he, at length, despaired of life, he took off his ring and handed it to Perdiccas.
Curtius [Cleitarchus?]: Then Aristonus began to speak, saying that Alexander (...) had himself judged that Perdiccas, to whom he had handed his ring, was the best man. For he was not the only one who sat by Alexander when he was dying, but, the king, looking about, had chosen him from his throng of friends to give it to. Therefore it was Alexander's wish that the supreme power should be bestowed upon Perdiccas. And there was no doubt that Aristonus' opinion was the truth.
Curtius [Cleitarchus?]: Then Perdiccas [after Alexander's death on Day 11], having put in view of the public the royal throne, on which were the diadem and the robe of Alexander together with his arms, placed on the same throne the ring which had been handed to him the day before [on Day 10] by the king.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: During this day, too, Python and Seleucus were sent to the temple of Serapis to enquire whether they should bring Alexander thither; [then they slept there during the night] ...
Day 11: [28. month Daesius] [June 11, 323 B.C.]
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: ... and [in the temple] the god gave answer [to Python and Seleucus] that they should leave him [Alexander] where he was. And on the twenty-eighth, towards evening, he died.
Arrian [Royal Diary]: The Royal Diary also says that Peithon, Attains, Demophon, and Peucestas, as well as Cleomenes, Menidas, and Seleucus, slept in the temple of Serapis, and asked the god whether it would be better and more desirable for Alexander to be carried into his temple, in order as a suppliant to be cured by him. A voice issued from the god saying that he was not to be carried into the temple, but that it would be better for him to remain where he was. This answer was reported by the Companions; and soon after [towards evening] Alexander died, as if forsooth this were now the better thing. Neither Aristobulus nor Ptolemy has given an account differing much from the preceding.
Plutarch [Aristobulus]: But Aristobulus says that he (...) died on the thirtieth day [in the macedonian calendar "the thirtieth day" means the last day, so it's actually the 29. day in the macedonian calendar and the 28. day in the macedonian calendar amended by Alexander's order] of the month Daesius.
Diodorus [Cleitarchus?]: This was how he died after a reign of twelve years and seven months.
Alexander's Last Days: Chronological Source Rearrangement (without the poison narrative and the romances)
Day 0: [17. month Daesius] [May 31, 323 B.C.]
Justin [Trogus]: Returning, therefore, to Babylon, and allowing himself several days for rest, he renewed, in his usual manner, the entertainments which had been for some time discontinued, resigning himself wholly to mirth, and joining in his cups the night to the day. As he was returning, on one occasion, from a banquet [with Nearchus], Medius, a Thessalian, proposing to renew their revelling, invited him and his attendants to his house.
Diodorus [Cleitarchus?]: They [soothsayers] bade him sacrifice to the gods on a grand scale and with all speed, but he was then called away by Medius, the Thessalian, one of his Friends, to take part in a comus.
Arrian: A few days after this, after offering to the gods the customary sacrifices for good success, and certain others also for the purpose of divination, he was feasting with his friends [Medius], and was drinking far into the night. He is also said to have distributed the sacrificial victims as well as a quantity of wine to the army throughout the companies and centuries. There are some who have recorded that he wished to retire after the drinking party [with Nearchus] to his bed-chamber; but Medius, at that time the most influential of the Companions, met him and begged him to join a party of revellers at his residence, saying that the revel would be a pleasant one.
Plutarch: He gave a splendid entertainment to Nearchus, and then, although he had taken his customary bath before going to bed, at the request of Medius he went to hold high revel with him; ...
Diodorus [Cleitarchus?]: There [at the house of Medius] he drank much unmixed wine in commemoration of the death of Heracles, and finally, filling a huge beaker [bowl of Heracles], downed it at a gulp [the whole sentence is interpolated from the next day (Day 1) to make Alexander appear that he became ill from this large cup of unmixed wine]. Instantly he shrieked aloud as if smitten by a violent blow and was conducted by his Friends, who led him by the hand back to his apartments. His chamberlains put him to bed and attended him closely, but the pain increased and the physicians were summoned. No one was able to do anything helpful and Alexander continued in great discomfort and acute suffering.
Justin [Trogus]: Taking up a cup, he suddenly uttered a groan while he was drinking, as if he had been stabbed with a dagger, and being carried half dead from the table, he was excruciated with such torture that he called for a sword to put an end to it, and felt pain at the touch of his attendants as if he were all over wounds.
Arrian: They [historians] say that Alexander was seized with an acute paroxysm of pain over the wine-cup, on feeling which he retired from the drinking bout.
Arrian [Royal Diary]: The Royal Diary gives the following account, to the effect that he revelled and drank at the dwelling of Medius; then rose up [εξανασταντα could also mean "went to stool" (diarrhea?)], took a bath, and slept; ...
Day 1: [18. month Daesius] [June 1, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: ... then again supped at the house of Medius and again drank till far into the night.
Athenaeus [Nicobulê]: ... when Alexander was dining with Medeius of Thessaly he pledged the health of everyone at the dinner, there being Tarentum in all, and accepted the same number of toasts from all; ...
Athenaeus [Ephippus]: Alexander, for example, once called for a six-quart cup [bowl of Heracles] and after a drink proposed the health of Proteas. He took the cup, and when he had sung the king's praises he drank, to the applause of everybody. A little while afterwards Proteas demanded the same cup, and again drinking, pledged the king. Alexander took it and pulled at it bravely, but could not hollowed out; on the contrary, he sank back on his cushion and let the cup drop from his hands. As a result, he fell ill and died [10 days later], because, as Ephippus says Dionysus was angry at him for besieging his native city, Thebes.
Diodorus [Cleitarchus?]: There [at the house of Medius] he drank much unmixed wine in commemoration of the death of Heracles, and finally, filling a huge beaker [bowl of Heracles], downed it at a gulp. [The source is probably from Cleitarchus who is famously unreliable. The veracity of this whole narration is criticized by Plutarch (see below).]
Plutarch: ... after drinking all the next day, he began to have a fever. This did not come upon him after he had quaffed a "bowl of Heracles," nor after he had been seized with a sudden pain in the back as though smitten with a spear; these particulars certain writers [e.g. Cleitarchus?, see Diodorus above] felt obliged to give, and so, as it were, invented in tragic fashion a moving finale for a great action.
Athenaeus [Nicobulê]: ... he then left the party and soon after went to sleep.
Arrian [Royal Diary]: After retiring from the drinking party he took a bath; after which he took a little food and slept there, because he already felt feverish.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: On the eighteenth of the month Daesius he slept in the bathing-room because he had a fever.
Interpolated Day 2 [only in Arrian's Royal Diary]: [19. month Daesius] [June 2, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: He was carried out upon a couch to the sacrifices, in order that he might offer them according to his daily custom. After performing the sacred rites he lay down in the banqueting hall [men's quarters] until dusk. In the meantime he gave instructions to the officers about the expedition and voyage, ordering those who were going on foot to be ready on the fourth day, and those who were going to sail with him to be ready to sail on the fifth day. From this place he was carried upon the couch to the river, where he embarked in a boat and sailed across the river to the park. There he again took a bath and went to rest. [See Day 5.]
Day 2: [19. month Daesius] [June 2, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: On the following day he took another bath and offered the customary sacrifices. He then entered a tester bed, lay down, and chatted with Medius. He also ordered his officers to meet him at daybreak. Having done this he ate a little supper and was again conveyed into the tester bed. The fever now raged the whole night without intermission.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: On the following day, after his bath, he removed into his bed-chamber, and spent the day at dice with Medius. Then, when it was late, he took a bath, performed his sacrifices to the gods, ate a little, and had a fever through the night.
Day 3: [20. month Daesius] [June 3, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: The next day he took a bath; after which he offered sacrifice, and gave orders to Nearchus and the other officers that the voyage should begin on the third day.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: On the twentieth, after bathing again, he performed his customary sacrifice; and lying in the bathing-room he devoted himself to Nearchus, listening to his story of his voyage and of the great sea.
Day 4: [21. month Daesius] [June 4, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: The next day he bathed again and offered the prescribed sacrifices. After performing the sacred rites, he did not yet cease to suffer from the fever. Notwithstanding this, he summoned the officers and gave them instructions to have all things ready for the starting of the fleet. In the evening he took a bath, after which he was very ill.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: The twenty-first he spent in the same way and was still more inflamed, and during the night he was in a grievous plight, ...
Day 5: [22. month Daesius] [June 5, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: The next day he was transferred to the house [men's quarters] near the swimming-bath, where he offered the prescribed sacrifices. Though he was now very dangerously ill, he summoned the most responsible of his officers and gave them fresh instructions about the voyage.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: ... all the following day his fever was very high. So he had his bed removed and lay by the side [men's quarters] of the great bath, where he conversed with his officers about the vacant posts in the army, and how they might be filled with experienced men.
Arrian [Royal Diary]: He was carried out upon a couch to the sacrifices, in order that he might offer them according to his daily custom. After performing the sacred rites he lay down in the banqueting hall [men's quarters] until dusk. In the meantime he gave instructions to the officers about the expedition and voyage, ordering those who were going on foot to be ready on the fourth day, and those who were going to sail with him to be ready to sail on the fifth day. From this place he was carried upon the couch to the river, where he embarked in a boat and sailed across the river to the park. There he again took a bath and went to rest. [This is from the Arrian's interpolated Day 2 but it probably belongs here.]
Day 6: [23. month Daesius] [June 6, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: On the following day he was with difficulty carried out to the sacrifices, which he offered; and none the less gave other orders to the officers about the voyage.
Plutarch: [It seems Plutarch's Royal Diary is silent about this day]
Day 7: [24. month Daesius] [June 7, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: The next day, though he was now very ill, he offered the prescribed sacrifices. He now [probably after sunset] gave orders that the generals should remain in attendance in the hall [of the palace], and that the colonels and captains should remain before the gates.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: On the twenty-fourth his fever was violent and he had to be carried forth to perform his sacrifices; moreover, he ordered his principal officers to tarry in the court of the palace, and the commanders of divisions and companies to spend the night outside.
Arrian: One writer has not even been ashamed to record that when Alexander perceived he was unlikely to survive, he was going out to throw himself into the river Euphrates, so that he might disappear from men's sight, and leave among the men of after-times a more firmly-rooted opinion that he owed his birth to a god, and had departed to the gods. But as he was going out he did not escape the notice of his wife Roxana, who restrained him from carrying out his design. Whereupon he uttered lamentations, saying that she forsooth envied him the complete glory of being thought the offspring of the god.
Day 8: [25. month Daesius] [June 8, 323 B.C.]
Curtius: Some have believed that the provinces were distributed by Alexander in his will, but we have learned that the report of such action was false, although handed down by some authorities.
Justin [Trogus]: On the fourth day [on Day 8 because for Justin's source Day 5 is the beginning of the illness (first time bed-ridden)], Alexander, finding that death was inevitable, observed that “he perceived the approach of the fate of his family, for the most of the Aeacidae had died under thirty years of age.” He then pacified the soldiers, who were making a tumult, from suspecting that the king was the victim of a conspiracy, and, after being carried to the highest part of the city [northern palace], admitted them to his presence, and gave them his right hand to kiss. While they all wept, he not only did not shed a tear, but showed not the least token of sorrow; so that he even comforted some who grieved immoderately, and gave others messages to their parents; and his soul was as undaunted at meeting death, as it had formerly been at meeting an enemy. When the soldiers were gone, he asked his friends that stood about him, “whether they thought they should find a king like him?” All continuing silent, he said that, “although he did not know that, he knew, and could foretel, and almost saw with his eyes, how much blood Macedonia would shed in the disputes that would follow his death, and with what slaughters, and what quantities of gore, she would perform his obsequies.” At last he ordered his body to be buried in the temple of Jupiter Ammon. When his friends saw him dying, they asked him “whom he would appoint as the successor to his throne?” He replied, “The most worthy.” Such was his nobleness of spirit, that though he left a son named Hercules, a brother called Aridaeus, and his wife Roxane with child, yet, forgetting his relations, he named only “the most worthy” as his successor; as though it were unlawful for any but a brave man to succeed a brave man, or for the power of so great an empire to be left to any but approved governors. But as if, by this reply, he had sounded the signal for battle among his friends, or had thrown the apple of discord amongst them, they all rose in emulation against each other, and tried to gain the favour of the army by secretly paying court to the common soldiers. [There are probably some interpolations in this whole account.]
Curtius: When the king saw them [the troops] he said: "After I am gone will you find a king worthy of such men?" (...) adding instructions that they should order his body to be taken to Ammon. When they asked to whom he left his kingdom, he replied, to him who was the best man, but that he already foresaw that because of that contest great funeral games were in preparation for him. Again, when Perdiccas asked when he wished divine honours to be paid to him, he said that he wished it at the time when they themselves were happy. These were the king's last words, ... [Curtius' original account is a garbled mix of two similar processions from Day 8 and Day 10].
Arrian: Some authors, however, have related that his Companions asked him to whom he left his kingdom; and that he replied: "To the best." Others say, that in addition to this remark, he told them that he saw there would be a great funeral contest held in his honour.
Diodorus [Cleitarchus?]: His Friends asked: "To whom do you leave the kingdom?" and he replied: "To the strongest." He added, and these were his last words, that all of his leading Friends would stage a vast contest in honour of his funeral.
Curtius: Then Aristonus began to speak, saying that Alexander, when he was asked to whom he left his kingdom, wished the best man to be chosen; ...
Plutarch [Aristobulus]: But Aristobulus says that he had a raging fever, and that when he got very thirsty he drank wine, whereupon he became delirious [speechless] ...
Arrian [Royal Diary]: But being now altogether in a dangerous state, he was conveyed from the park [northern palace] into the [southern] palace. When his officers entered the room, he knew them indeed, but could no longer utter a word, being speechless.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: He was carried to the palace on the other side of the river on the twenty-fifth, and got a little sleep, but his fever did not abate. And when his commanders came to his bedside, he was speechless ...
Day 9: [26. month Daesius] [June 9, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: During the ensuing night [8./9. June] and day [9. June] and the next night [9./10. June]... [he was in a very high fever].
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: ... he was also [speechless] on the twenty-sixth [9. June]; ...
Day 10: [27. month Daesius] [June 10, 323 B.C.]
Arrian [Royal Diary]: ... and the next night [9./10. June] and day [10. June] he was in a very high fever. Such is the account given in the Royal Diary. In addition to this, it states that the soldiers were very desirous of seeing him; some, in order to see him once more while still alive; others, because there was a report that he was already dead, imagined that his death was being concealed by the confidential body-guards, as I for my part suppose. Most of them through grief and affection for their king forced their way in to see him. It is said that when his soldiers passed by him he was unable to speak; yet he greeted each of them with his right hand, raising his head with difficulty and making a sign with his eyes.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: ... therefore [on the next day] the Macedonians made up their minds that he was dead, and came with loud shouts to the doors of the palace, and threatened his companions until all opposition was broken down; and when the doors had been thrown open to them, without cloak or armour, one by one, they all filed slowly past his couch.
Curtius [Cleitarchus?]: Meanwhile the troops, overcome by anxiety and longing to see him, although their leaders warned them not to burden the king in his illness, extorted permission to be admitted to his presence. As they gazed at him, their rising tears gave the impression no longer of an army looking upon its king, but of one attending his funeral; yet the grief of those who stood about his couch was still greater. (...) Incredible to tell and to hear of, he continued to hold his body in the same attitude in which he had composed himself when he was about to admit the soldiers, until he had been saluted by the whole army for that last time. And having dismissed the common throng, as if he had discharged every debt to life, he threw back his exhausted frame, and after bidding his friends to seat themselves (...) he drew his ring from his finger and handed it to Perdiccas, (...) and shortly afterwards [actually the next day] he died. [Curtius' original account is a garbled mix of two similar processions from Day 8 and Day 10].
Justin [Trogus]: On the sixth day from the commencement of his illness [on Day 10 because for Justin's source Day 5 is the beginning of the illness (first time bed-ridden)], being unable to speak, he took his ring from his finger, and gave it to Perdiccas, an act which tranquillized the growing dissension among his friends; for though Perdiccas was not expressly named his successor, he seemed intended to be so in Alexander’s judgment.
Diodorus [Cleitarchus?]: When he, at length, despaired of life, he took off his ring and handed it to Perdiccas.
Curtius [Cleitarchus?]: Then Aristonus began to speak, saying that Alexander (...) had himself judged that Perdiccas, to whom he had handed his ring, was the best man. For he was not the only one who sat by Alexander when he was dying, but, the king, looking about, had chosen him from his throng of friends to give it to. Therefore it was Alexander's wish that the supreme power should be bestowed upon Perdiccas. And there was no doubt that Aristonus' opinion was the truth.
Curtius [Cleitarchus?]: Then Perdiccas [after Alexander's death on Day 11], having put in view of the public the royal throne, on which were the diadem and the robe of Alexander together with his arms, placed on the same throne the ring which had been handed to him the day before [on Day 10] by the king.
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: During this day, too, Python and Seleucus were sent to the temple of Serapis to enquire whether they should bring Alexander thither; [then they slept there during the night] ...
Day 11: [28. month Daesius] [June 11, 323 B.C.]
Plutarch [Royal Diary]: ... and [in the temple] the god gave answer [to Python and Seleucus] that they should leave him [Alexander] where he was. And on the twenty-eighth, towards evening, he died.
Arrian [Royal Diary]: The Royal Diary also says that Peithon, Attains, Demophon, and Peucestas, as well as Cleomenes, Menidas, and Seleucus, slept in the temple of Serapis, and asked the god whether it would be better and more desirable for Alexander to be carried into his temple, in order as a suppliant to be cured by him. A voice issued from the god saying that he was not to be carried into the temple, but that it would be better for him to remain where he was. This answer was reported by the Companions; and soon after [towards evening] Alexander died, as if forsooth this were now the better thing. Neither Aristobulus nor Ptolemy has given an account differing much from the preceding.
Plutarch [Aristobulus]: But Aristobulus says that he (...) died on the thirtieth day [in the macedonian calendar "the thirtieth day" means the last day, so it's actually the 29. day in the macedonian calendar and the 28. day in the macedonian calendar amended by Alexander's order] of the month Daesius.
Diodorus [Cleitarchus?]: This was how he died after a reign of twelve years and seven months.
