rumour that alexander was poisoned.

i am aware that many other particulars have been related by historians concerning alexander’s death, and especially that poison was sent for him by antipater, from the effects of which he died.971 it is also asserted that the poison was procured for antipater by aristotle, who was now afraid of alexander on account of callisthenes.972 it is said to have been conveyed by cassander, the son of antipater,973 some recording that he conveyed it in the hoof of a mule, and that his younger brother iollas gave it to the king.974 for this man was the royal cup-bearer, 422and he happened to have received some affront from alexander a short time before his death. others have stated that medius, being a lover of iollas, took part in the deed; for he it was who induced the king to hold the revel. they say that alexander was seized with an acute paroxysm of pain over the wine-cup, on feeling which he retired from the drinking bout.975 one writer has not even been ashamed to record that when alexander perceived be 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. these statements i have recorded rather that i may not seem to be ignorant that they have been made, than because i consider them worthy of credence or even of narration.