Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/289

 DEATH OF ALEXANDER." 257 The death of Alexander, thus suddenly cut off by a fe- ver in the plenitude of health, vigor, and aspirations, was an event impressive as well as important, in the highest possible de- gree, to his contemporaries far and near. When the first report of it was brought to Athens, the orator Demades exclaimed : — " It cannot be true : if Alexander were dead, the whole habitable world would have smelt of his carcass." i This coarse but em- secretary Eumenes, and anotlier Greek named Diodotus (Athenaj. x. p. 434) : see Arrian, vii. 25, 26 ; Plutarch, Alex. 76. It is surprising that throughout all tiie course of tliis malady, no mention is made of any physician as having been consulted. No advice was asked ; if we except the application to the temple of Serapis, during the last day of Alexander's life. A few months before, Alexander had hanged or cruci- fied the physician who attended Hepha^stion in liis last illness. Hence it seems probable that he either despised or mistrusted medical advice, and would not permit any to be invoked. His views must have been much altered since his dangerous fever at Tarsus, and the successful treatment of it by the Akarnanian physician Philippus. Tbougii the fever (see some remarks from Littre attached to Didot's Fragm. Script. Alex. Magn. p. 124) which caused Alexander's deatli is here a plain fact satisfactorily made out, yet a different story was circulated some time afterwards, and gained partial credit (Plutarch De Invidi^i, p. 538), that he had been poisoned. Tiie poison was said to have been pro- vided by Aristotle, — sent over to Asia by Antipater through his son Kas- sander, — and administered by lollas (another son of Antipater), Alexander's cupbearer f Arrian, vii. 27, 2; Curtius, x. 10, 17; Diodor. xvii. 118; Justin, xii. 13). It is quite natural that fever and intemperanee (which latter moreover was frequent with Alexander) should not be regarded as causes sufficiently marked and impressive to explain a decease at once so unex- pected and so momentous. There seems ground for supposing, however that the report was intentionally fomented, if not originally broached, by the party- enemies of Antipater and Kassander — especially by the rancor- ous Olympias. The violent enmity afterwards displayed by Kassander against Olympias, and all the family of Alexander helped to encourage the report. In the life of Hyperides in Plutarch, (Vit. X. Oratt. p. 849) it is stated, that he proposed at Athens public honors to lollas for having given the poison to Alexander. If there is any truth in this, it might be a strata- gem for casting discredit on Antipater (father of lollas), against whom tiio Athenians entered into the Lamian war, immediately after the death of Alexander. 1 Plutarch, Phokion, 22; Demetrius Phaler. De Elocution, s. 3J0. 06 Te&vt]Kev 'A?i.E^avSpoc, (i uvSpe^ ^A-&7ivaloi — wfe yap uv tj olkovjiIvt) Toi teKpov. 22*