HISTORY OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE

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Divinity of Alexander 

Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, 3.4.5.

There (at Siwah) Alexander surveyed the site with wonder and also made his inquiry to the god; he received the answer his heart/soul (thumos), as he said, and turned back towards Egypt.

Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, 4.9.9.

For the tale goes that Alexander even desired that people make proskynesis to him, from the idea that Ammon was his father rather than Philip, and since he now emulated the ways of the Persians and Medes, both by the change of his clothes and the altered arrangements of his general way of life. It is said that he had no lack of zealous flatterers who yielded to him in this

Plutarch, Alexander, 54.

Chares of Mitylene says that on one occasion at a banquet Alexander, after he had drunk passed the cup to one of his friends, who took it and rose so as to face the shrine of the household; next he drank in his turn, then made proskynesis to Alexander kissed him and then resumed his place on the couch. All the guests did the same in succession until the cup came to Callisthenes. The king was talking to Hephaeston and paying no attention to Callisthenes, and the philosopher, after he had drunk came forward to kiss him. At this Demetrius whose surname was Pheido called out, "Sire, do not kiss him: he is the only one who has not made proskynesis to you." Alexander therefore refused to kiss him, and Callisthenes exclaimed in a loud voice, "Very well, then, I shall go off the poorer by a kiss!"

Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, 7.8.1-11.

When he arrived at Opis, he collected the Macedonians and announced that he intended to discharge from the army those who were useless for military service either from age or from being maimed in the limbs; and he said he would send them back to their own abodes. He also promised to give those who went back as much extra reward as would make them special objects of envy to those at home and arouse in the other Macedonians the wish to share similar dangers and labours. Alexander said this, no doubt, for the purpose of pleasing the Macedonians; but on the contrary they were, not without reason, offended by the speech which he delivered, thinking that now they were despised by him and deemed to be quite useless for military service. Indeed, throughout the whole of this expedition they had been offended at many other things; for his adoption of the Persian dress, thereby exhibiting his contempt for their culture and his ignoring their opinion often caused them grief, as did also his dressing the foreign soldiers called Epigoni in the Macedonian style, and the mixing of the alien horsemen among the ranks of the Companions. Therefore they could not remain silent and control themselves, but urged him to dismiss all of them from his army; and they advised him to prosecute the war in company with his father, deriding Ammon by this remark.

Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, 7.11.9.

(Once the mutiny had been suppressed) He prayed for other blessings, and especially that harmony and community of rule might exist between the Macedonians and Persians. The common account is, that those who took part in this banquet were 9,000 in number, that all of them poured out one libation, and after it sang a song of thanksgiving.