DEATH OF ALEXANDER. Prematurely cut off in the midst of many
great projects Alexander died at Babylon before he had completed
his thirty-third year (B.C. 323). There was a suspicion that he
had been poisoned. His temper had become so unbridled, his
passion so ferocious, that his generals and even his intimate
friends lived in continual dread. Clitus, one of the latter, he
in a moment of fury had stabbed to the heart. Callisthenes, the
intermedium between himself and Aristotle, he had caused to be
hanged, or, as was positively asserted by some who knew the
facts, had had him put upon the rack and then crucified. It may
have been in self-defense that the conspirators resolved on his
assassination. But surely it was a calumny to associate the name
of Aristotle with this transaction. He would have rather borne
the worst that Alexander could inflict, than have joined in the
perpetration of so great a crime.

A scene of confusion and bloodshed lasting many years ensued, nor
did it cease even after the Macedonian generals had divided the
empire. Among its vicissitudes one incident mainly claims our
attention. Ptolemy, who was a son of King Philip by Arsinoe, a
beautiful concubine, and who in his boyhood had been driven into
exile with Alexander, when they incurred their father's
displeasure, who had been Alexander's comrade in many of his
battles and all his campaigns, became governor and eventually
king of Egypt.

FOUNDATION OF ALEXANDER. At the siege of Rhodes, Ptolemy had been
of such signal service to its citizens that in gratitude they
paid divine honors to him, and saluted him with the title of