'There had been many designs upon his life. At the city of Babylon a plot was laid to slay him by secret poison, and when knowledge of this came to him and he learned that the most fulsome among all his courtiers, the infamous Antipater, was ring-leader in it, his mighty heart broke. He determined to flee from this hotbed of treachery, strike out into the unknown, and found a new kingdom where the barbarian jealousy of Europe against Asia should not be. The plot gave him an opportunity. The poisoned food was privily destroyed, but the king feigned to have eaten of it and to be dying. His common soldiers, loyal to him still but understanding the true greatness of his mind no more than the generals, were admitted to the presence for a last view of their commander, who simulated approaching death before them. 'Then came the end. One plot had been met by another. Secretly, the King's place on the royal couch was filled by a youth like to him in form and feature even as his own beloved Hephaistion had been, who had died of a sickness two days before. The body of the dead youth was shrouded with a pall, and it may be that your historians record the truth, that no man ever saw the face of Alexander after his death. The King himself lay hidden in the innermost apartments of the palace, while the news of his death was noised abroad. There was, as he had anticipated, small difficulty in withdrawing secretly from the city. When asked who should succeed him he had answered, "The best among you," well knowing that among those he left behind there was none worthy to rule a satrapy, much less the empire; and he had truly foreseen that in the confusion of the fight for pre-eminence which would break out as soon as his death was announced, he might depart without knowledge or suspicion. 'With a small faithful band the King left that polluted court of Babylon and journeyed swiftly eastward. He had resolved to go beyond the uttermost limits of his former campaigns, that no tidings of him might reach back to the cities of Persia and give rise to fresh plottings and strife, yet even so his passing was not wholly unknown. The wild races which dwell to the west of us recognised him as the great Grecian conqueror, and paid him divine honour, so that to this day they call by the name of Alexander all things noble and great. So much we know from our scouts, who have at rare intervals visited those regions.