Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/287

 ALKXANDKR SEIZED WITH FEVEK. 255 gence called by the Greeks KOmus or Revelry. Plaving slept oif hi? intoxication during the next day, he in the evening again snipped with Medius, and spent a second night in the like un- measured indulgence.^ It appears that he already had the seeds of fever upon him, which was so fatally aggravated by this intem- perance that he was too ill to return to his palace. He took the bath, and slept in the house of Medius ; on the next morning, he was unable to rise. After having been carried out on a couch to celebrate sacrifice (which was his daily habit), he was obliged to lie in bed all day. Nevertheless he summoned the generals to his presence, prescribing all the details of the impending expedi- tion, and ordering that the land-foi"ce should begin its march on the fourth day following, while the fleet, with himself aboard, would sail on the fifth day. In the evening, he was carried on a couch across the Euphrates into a garden on the other side, where he bathed and rested for the night. The fever still con- tinued, so that in the morning, after bathing and being carried out to perform the sacrifices, he remained on his couch all day, talk- ing and playing at dice with Medius ; in the evening, he bathed, sacrificed again, and ate a light supper, but endured a bad night with increased fever. The next two days passed in the same manner, the fever becoming worse and worse ; nevertheless Al- exander still summoned Nearchus to his bedside, discussed with him many points about his maritime projects, and repeated his order that the fleet should be ready by the third day. On the en- suing morning the fever was violent ; Alexander reposed all day in a bathing-house in the garden, yet still calling in the generals to direct the filling up of vacancies among the oflicers, and order- ing that the armament should be ready to move. Throughout the ' Arrian, vii. 24, 25. Diodorus states (xvii. 117) that Alexander, on this convivial night, swallowed the contents of a large goblet called the cup of Herakles, and felt very ill after it; a statement repeated by various other writers of antiquity, and which I see no reason for discrediting, though some modern critics treat it with contempt. The royal Ephemerides, or Court Journal, attested only the general fact of his long potations and the long sleep which followed them : see Athenseus, x. p. 434. To drink to intoxication at a funeral, was required as a token of respect- ful sympathy towards the deceased — see the last words of the Indian Kalanus before he ascended the funeral pile — Plutarch, Alexander, 69.