In Persis the health of Kalanos, the Indian gymnosophist, who, at Alexander’s request, had abjured the ascetic life and followed him from India, began to fail, and, as he chose rather to die than suffer the infirmities of age, he announced that it was his intention to burn himself. The king attempted to dissuade him, but finding that he was inexorably bent on self-destruction, ordered a funeral pyre to be prepared for him, and all the arrangements connected with his cremation to be superintended by Ptolemy. On the day appointed the devotee ascended the pyre and perished in its flames, exhibiting throughout a serene fortitude and self-possession which greatly astonished the Macedonians who attended in throngs to witness this strange spectacle. Strabo makes Pasargadai to be the scene of this incident, but Diodôros, Sousa, and with more probability, since we know that Nearchos was an eye-witness of the burning. Alexander reached Sousa in the beginning of the year 324 B.C., and remained there for a considerable time, regulating the affairs of his new dominions. One of his great objects was to fuse together as far as was practicable his European with his Asiatic subjects; and to this end he assigned to some eighty of his generals Asiatic wives, giving with each an ample dowry. He took himself a second wife, Barsinê, called sometimes Stateira, the eldest daughter of Darius, and, it is said, also a third, Parysatis, the daughter of Ochos, one of the predecessors of Darius. About 10,000 Macedonians followed the example of their superiors, and all who did so received presents from their royal master. Carrying out this object in another form, he enrolled a large number of Asiatics among his European troops. These new schemes were so bitterly resented by the better class of his Macedonian veterans that they rose against him in a mutiny which he had no little difficulty in quelling. About 10,000 of these veterans were dismissed, and they returned to Europe under the command of Krateros. Towards the close of the year he went to Ekbatana, and there he lost his chief favourite Hêphaistiôn, who succumbed to an attack of fever. His grief at this bereavement knew no bounds, and showed itself in acts which seem copied from those wherewith Achilles demonstrated his passionate sense of the loss of his beloved Patroklos. From Ekbatana he marched back towards Babylon, and was met on the way by ambassadors from all parts of the known world, who came to do homage to the greatest of all kings and conquerors, and also by a deputation of Chaldaean priests who warned him of danger if at that time he should enter Babylon. He entered it nevertheless, though with gloomy forebodings, early in the spring of 323 B.C. As this city was the best point of communication between the eastern and western parts of his dominions, he had selected it to be the capital of his vast empire, and accordingly took measures immediately on his return for the improvement