Now arrived the special envoys whom he had despatched to Ammon to inquire how it was lawful for him to honour Hephaestion. They told him that Ammon said it was lawful to offer sacrifice to him as to a hero. Rejoicing at the response of the oracle, he paid respect to him as a hero from that time. He also despatched a letter to Cleomenes, who was a bad man and had committed many acts of injustice in Egypt.[959] For my own part I do not blame him for his friendship to Hephaestion and for his recollection of him even when dead; but I do blame him for many other acts. For the letter commanded Cleomenes to prepare chapels for the hero Hephaestion in the Egyptian Alexandria, one in the city itself and another in the island of Pharos, where the tower is situated.[960] The chapels were to be exceedingly large and to be built at lavish expense. The letter also directed that Cleomenes should take care that Hephaestion’s name should be attached to them; and moreover that his name should be engraved on all the legal documents with which the merchants entered into bargains with each other.[961] These things I cannot blame, except that he made so much ado about matters of trifling moment. But the following I must blame severely: “If I find,” said the letter, “the temples and chapels of the hero Hephaestion in Egypt well completed, I will not only pardon you any crimes you may have committed in the past, but in the future you shall suffer no unpleasant treatment from me, however great may be the crimes you have committed.” I cannot commend this message sent from a great king to a man who was ruling a large country and many people, especially as the man was a wicked one.[962] CHAPTER XXIV. ANOTHER OMEN OF ALEXANDER’S DEATH. But Alexander’s own end was now near. Aristobulus says that the following occurrence was a prognostication of what was about to happen. He was distributing the army which came with Peucestas from Persia, and that which came with Philoxenus and Menander from the sea,[963] among the Macedonian lines, and becoming thirsty he retired from his seat and thus left the royal throne empty. On each side of the throne were couches with silver feet, upon which his personal Companions were sitting. A certain man of obscure condition (some say that he was even one of the men kept under guard without being in chains), seeing the throne and the couches empty, and the eunuchs standing round the throne (for the Companions also rose up from their seats with the king when he retired), walked through the line of eunuchs, ascended the throne, and sat down upon it.[964] According to a Persian law, they did not make him rise from the throne; but rent their garments and beat their breasts and faces as if on account of a great evil.