Pythagoras answered that the victim's liver wanted one lobe. "Indeed!"
exclaimed Alexander, "that is a terrible omen." He did Pythagoras no
hurt, but regretted that he had not listened to the warning of
Nearchus, and spent most of his time in his camp outside the walls of
Babylon, or in boats on the river Euphrates. Many unfavourable omens
now depressed his spirit. A tame ass attacked and kicked to death the
finest and largest lion that he kept; and one day, as he stripped to
play at tennis, the young man with whom he played, when it was time to
dress again, saw a man sitting on the king's throne, wearing his
diadem and royal robe. For a long time this man refused to speak, but
at length said that he was a citizen of Messene, named Dionysius, who
had been brought to Babylon and imprisoned on some charge or other,
and that now the god Serapis had appeared to him, loosed his chains,
and had brought him thither, where he had bidden him to put on the
king's diadem and robe, seat himself on his throne, and remain silent.
LXXIV. When Alexander heard this, he caused the man to be put to
death, according to the advice of his soothsayers; but he himself was
much cast down, and feared that the gods had forsaken him: he also
grew suspicious of his friends. Above all he feared Antipater and his
sons, one of whom, Iolas, was his chief cup-bearer, while the other,
Kassander, had but recently arrived from Greece, and as he had been
trained in the Greek fashion, and had never seen any Oriental customs
before, he burst into a loud, insolent laugh, when he saw some of the
natives doing homage to Alexander.
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