The reports of this famous triumph were to influence the course of royal pomp for centuries. In the history of Greek kingship, the return of a triumphant king and the manifestation of a god to his worshippers are ceremonies which come closer together after Alexander's death: the theme of Dionysus was a favourite one not only with Alexander but also with his Macedonians, and its heartfelt celebration after eight weeks' suffering is very understandable. Dionysus too had returned after victories in India, though not through a desert or with a lung-wound which made it more comfortable to process in an eight-horsed chariot; Alexander's rivalry with Dionysus was no idle legend, but a fact which the customs of Hindu India had helped to confirm. His was the only Greek precedent for an Indian triumph and as ancestor of the Macedonian kings and god of the victory which Alexander stressed throughout his career, it was natural to turn to his example for this extraordinary procession. But what began on an impulse after disaster passed to the Ptolemies in Alexandria and so to the generals of Rome, to the triumphs of Marius and Antony, the new Dionysus, and to the emperor Caracalla who claimed in his triumphs to drink from the cups which Alexander had used in India.

Triumph though Alexander might, the fears for the fleet were overbearing. Again, communications were to blame, for as Alexander revelled his way through Kirman and tried to forget his worst suspicions, he could not know that a straggler from the army had already met the sailors down on the coast and that his worries were unfounded. Uninformed, the army still fretted anxiously in Kirman's capital, but not many miles away Nearchus was already blessing his good fortune and drawing up the ships to be repaired behind a double stockade and a stout mud wall. Suddenly, the message arrived in the army's camp; the governor near the coast had hurried inland with news which, he hoped, would earn him a rich reward, 'Nearchus,' he announced, 'is coming on his way from the ships.' Alexander wanted to believe him, but as the days went by and no Nearchus appeared, not even to the many search parties he had sent out, he began to despair, and even ordered the governor to be arrested for spreading a story which had only made the disappointment harsher. 'Both by his expression and his outlook, Alexander showed that he was greatly upset.'

Down by the coast, one search-party had at last been more fortunate. They had met a group of five or six men 'long-haired, dirty, covered in brine, wizened and pale from sleepless nights and other hardships'. They had thought no more, even when the wanderers asked where Alexander was waiting; they rode on by towards the sea presuming the men to be local vagabonds. But as they left, one of the wanderers turned to another and said: 'Nearchus, I expect those men were travelling the same way as us for no other reason than to find us, but we are in such poor shape that they cannot recognize us. Let's tell them who we are.' Nearchus agreed, and no sooner had he spoken than the search-party realized that in their dishevelled questioner they had found the admiral of the fleet.

Messengers ran ahead to Alexander, but in their excitement they could tell him no more than that Nearchus and five others had been found alive

At once he presumed that only these few had survived from the entire expedition, and the news did little to lighten his mood, a despair which the sight of Nearchus, so long-haired and unkempt, did nothing to relieve. Giving his admiral his right hand, he led him aside and wept most bitterly: 'The fact that you, at least,' he said, 'and these others have come back to me is some consolation for the disaster; but how were the rest of the ships destroyed?' 'But, my lord,' Nearchus claimed to have replied, 'your ships are safe and sound and your army too; we have come with the news of their survival.' Alexander wept again, as his admiral told him they were being repaired at the river mouth. Then, in one of the rare insights into his way of thinking, 'he swore both by Zeus of the Greeks and Ammon of the Libyans that he was more pleased at this news than that he was returning, having conquered all Asia; his grief at the supposed loss of his fleet had outweighed all his other good fortune. In his extreme emotion, Zeus Ammon came naturally to the surface of his mind, and for once a friend recorded his words. But this 'conquest of all Asia' was a claim which could do little for the awful truth of Makran.

The governor who had first brought the news was released and a second sacrifice was decreed for the safety of the army, heralding games and a musical festival at which Nearchus was to be guest of honour. Feted by his fellow-officers and showered with ribbons and flowers by the ranks, he took his scat of honour beside the king: ‘I will not allow you,' said Alexander, 'to run such a risk again: someone else shall lead the fleet upshore to Susa.' But Nearchus objected: 'My lord, I will obey you always, as that is my duty, but the difficult and dangerous task was entrusted to me, so please do not take away the easy sequel whose glory is readily won and put it into another's hands.' Alexander complied, and the fleet was left to its brave commander to bring it down the final stage of the monsoon journey from India to the Persian palaces.

So they sat, king and admiral, and watched their festival games in the royal palace of Kirman. Flutes struck up a tune for the choral dance and actors prepared to compete with their plays and recitations. But however spiritedly they performed there were facts which all could see for themselves. The Companion Cavalry had been halved; the ranks of the Foot Companions were far below strength: the Shield Bearers only seemed numerous because so few had been detached into Makran. The highest officers were still alive and so was Alexander, but they had suffered a disgrace which was agonizingly irreversible. They had marched an army into the most murderous desert in Asia and had failed to meet the fleet for supplies as they had intended. Their errors and misfortunes can only be grasped in outline, and complexities remain which will never be understood; the men had followed for eight weeks, when even two days of Makran's desert should have been enough to make them rebel; when the convoy of supplies had failed to arrive at the first point, more prudent generals would surely have left a detachment to warn the fleet and then turned back to the river Hab as soon as their sufferings became apparent. Alexander had gone on and, amazingly, neither men nor officers had mutinied against him. The one truth, perhaps, was that prudence never swayed Alexander when a glorious plan had been laid in detail. Like Achilles, he put prowess before sound counsel and his staff felt the same; it was left to a desert to humble the mood which had helped to conquer Asia.

It was among these bitter truths that the acting stopped in Kirman's palace and the music and dancing died away. Prizes were awarded as usual, none more prominent than those to the Persian Bagoas, the eunuch who had served Darius and had risen as high in the new king's loving favour. Dressed in his garlands of honour, he 'passed through the theatre and took his seat, as a champion of the dance, by Alexander's side; the Macedonians saw and applauded and shouted to the king to kiss the victor, until at last, he threw his arms round Bagoas and kissed him again and again'. In a moment of elation, all had almost been forgotten. Almost, but not quite. The king might kiss his Persian favourite and reward him for a dance which only a man of the East had the skill to perform, but thousands of the men who had fought to punish Persia lay dead and buried in the Gedrosian sand. Alexander the Invincible, the new Dionysus triumphant, had sent his bravest supporters to their death, and if the Persian empire's history had one lesson to teach, it was that the news of royal disaster worked on men's disloyalties, and that failure was always followed by revolt.