This massive decree was not connected with the dismissal of the satraps' mercenaries; many of them were not Greeks, very few were exiles, and none who ran free ever tried to return home on the strength of it. It belongs,

rather, with the news of Harpalus. Some 20,000 vagrant Greeks, many exiled by Antipater's agents, were indeed better sent home before Harpalus could bribe them; the Decree, too, would scare Athens, his destination. For forty-one years, Athenians had enjoyed land and houses on Samos whose owners had been exiled from the island. Now, Alexander was talking openly of 'giving Samos to the Samians', and only diplomacy would deter him. The exiles had left the island before Philip's reign, so the Athenians could plead a special case. However, any support for Harpalus would ruin it. They might of course try to fight for the island, but most of Greece welcomed the new Decree and Alexander reasoned that Athens would not risk or afford a war alone. Events would prove he had judged the risk acutely. So, as he approached the palace of Susa in early summer, he felt safe enough to consider the harmony of his own ruling class, and after the confusion give scope to a creative design. Before he could reveal his plans, India, for the last time in his life, drew attention to herself.

Calanus, the Hindu Gymnosophist, had followed the army the whole way from the Punjab. He had never felt ill before, but the Persian climate had weakened him, and at the age of seventy-three he told Alexander that he preferred to die rather than be an invalid. Alexander argued with him, but the fakir insisted on a funeral pyre being built, a job which was entrusted to Ptolemy. At the head of a long procession, Calanus was borne in a litter to his deathbed, 'crowned with garlands in the Indian style and singing hymns in the Indian language'. Gold cups and blankets were strewn on the pyre to welcome him, but he gave them away to his followers: he climbed on to the pyre and reclined in full view of the army. Alexander 'did not like to see this happening to a friend', and the rest of the audience 'were amazed that he did not flinch at all in the flames'. Bugles sounded, as the pyre began to blaze; the army raised their war-cry and the elephants trumpeted shrilly as if for battle. 'Bodies you can move from one place to another,' Calanus was said to have written to Alexander, 'but souls you cannot compel, any more than you can force bricks and stones to talk.'

The sequel was conveniently forgotten: in Calanus's honour, Alexander held games and a musical festival and a 'drinking match in unmixed wine', said his master of ceremonies. because the Indians were so fond of it. The money prizes were huge, but of the drinkers, thirty-five died immediately from a chill, while another six lingered briefly on in their tents. The winner downed three gallons, but even he died after four days.

This monstrous debauch, willingly supported by the drinkers, is a valuable reminder of life in Alexander's entourage: it was almost a prefiguration of the tragedies of the coming year.

One unfortunate festival did not deter Alexander from an even grander sequel. Since the desert, the amusements of court life had been rightly and properly increased; on entering Susa, word went round that there were to be midsummer weddings. In the absence of Macedonian noblewomen, the officers had not enjoyed such a family occasion for the past ten years, and details of the brides must have been eagerly awaited. When the announcement was made, there was cause for astonishment: the bridegrooms were Alexander himself and the Macedonian court Companions and the brides were well-born Iranian ladies.

Of all Alexander's many festivals, this was to be far the most remarkable. The man who had finally removed most of the Iranian males in his government was now to marry the females to more than ninety of his officers; the pomp would befit the palatial setting of Susa,

Ninety two bridal suites [wrote his master of ceremonies] were made ready in one and the same place; a hall was built with a hundred bedrooms and in each of them, the bed was decorated with wedding finery, to the cost of half a talent of silver: Alexander's own bed had legs of gold. All his personal friends were invited to the wedding reception and seated opposite himself and the other bridegrooms; the rest of the soldiers and sailors and foreign ambassadors were entertained in the courtyard outside. The hall was done up regardless of expense and equipped with sumptuous drapes and linen sheets and purple and scarlet rugs embroidered with gold. To hold up the tent, columns were built to a height of thirty feet, gilded and silvered and spangled with precious stones. Round the circuit of the whole hall, nearly half a mile in circumference, expensive curtains were hung, on gilt and silver curtain-rods; their material was woven with animal figures and gold thread. The banquets, as usual, were announced by the sound of the trumpet: the wedding was celebrated for five successive days. Entertainers, both foreign and Greek, gave of their services; conspicuous among them were the conjurers from India and celebrities from Syracuse, Tarentum and Lesbos. There were songs and recitations, and players of the lute, the flute and lyre; actors of Dionysus's company pleased the king with lavish presents, while tragedies and comedies were performed by his favourite Greek stars.

The bill for the wedding would not have disgraced a Shah, but flattery helped the accounts to balance, for 'the crowns which envoys sent him were worth some 15,000 talents'. The weddings themselves were well considered, and were celebrated in the Persian fashion: 'Chairs were set out for the bridegrooms and after the drinking, the brides came in and each sat down next to their husbands, who took them by the hand and kissed them, Alexander being the first to do so. Never did he show more courtesy and consideration to his subjects and companions.' The matches had been arranged in proper precedence. Alexander took two new wives besides Roxane, the first the elder daughter of Darius, the second the youngest daughter of the previous king Artaxerxes III; Darius's daughter was made to change her maiden name, a common Macedonian practice, and take that of Stateira, the same as Darius's wife whom Alexander had respected as his captive until her death in childbirth. Politically, it was a sound decision to marry into the two royal houses of Persia at once and to continue a family name, but politics was also combined with sentiment; Hephaistion was married to Darius's younger daughter, sister of Alexander's new wife, 'because Alexander wanted Hephaistion's children to be his own nephews and nieces'. It is one rare and timely insight into the bond between the two men.

Other relationships were no less paradoxical. Many brides were probably mere girls, in accordance with Greek and Iranian practice, but they served a most intricate design. Ptolemy became brother-in-law of Eumenes, the Greek secretary whom he was soon to detest; both Eumenes and Nearchus, by marrying daughters of Alexander's first mistress Barsine, became the king's step-sons-in-law; these daughters were themselves half Greek and thus very suited to the purpose. Seleucus, commander of the Shield Bearers, married the daughter of Spitamenes, Alexander's rebel enemy, a union with far-reaching consequences. But these marital ironies did nothing to detract from Alexander's intention. After a time of grave uncertainty in his empire, he wished to attach the Greeks and the Macedonian nobility, from whom his governors were now mostly drawn, to the children of the native aristocracy they had finally supplanted. Just as the Persian courtiers had once married the Medes and Babylonians, so too the Macedonians would marry the daughters of loyal Persians for the sake of politics; it was at Susa that he had left Darius's family to learn Greek while he marched to Iran and India and his return visit satisfied him that they were fit to be married into his future. After two centuries of discord between Persia and Greece, this deliberate fusion was unprecedented. The weddings were celebrated publicly and arranged with Alexander's typical mixture of forethought and showmanship, and were also extended to the common soldiery. In the absence of Macedonian women, the troops had taken Asian mistresses during the campaign, and inquiry revealed that even after the march through Makran, these numbered 10,000.