Factions
ERE his
admiral, Nearchus, came to him and delighted him so with the narrative of his
voyage, that he resolved himself to sail out of the mouth of Euphrates with a
great fleet, with which he designed to go round by Arabia and Africa, and so
by Hercules's Pillars into the Mediterranean; in order for which, he directed
all sorts of vessels to be built at Thapsacus, and made great provision
everywhere of seamen and pilots. But the tidings of the difficulties he had
gone through in his Indian expedition, the danger of his person among the
Mallians, the reported loss of a considerable part of his forces, and a
general doubt as to his own safety, had begun to give occasion for revolt
among many of the conquered nations, and for acts of great injustice, avarice,
and insolence on the part of the satraps and commanders in the provinces, so
that there seemed to be an universal fluctuation and disposition to change.
Even at home, Olympias and Cleopatra had raised a faction against Antipater,
and divided his government between them, Olympias seizing upon Epirus, and
Cleopatra upon Macedonia. When Alexander was told of it, he said his mother
had made the best choice, for the Macedonians would never endure to be ruled
by a woman. Upon this he dispatched Nearchus again to his fleet, to carry the
war into the maritime provinces, and as he marched that way himself, he
punished those commanders who had behaved ill, particularly Oxyartes, one of
the sons of Abuletes, whom he killed with his own hand, thrusting him through
the body with his spear. And when Abuletes, instead of the necessary
provisions which he ought to have furnished, brought him three thousand
talents in coined money, he ordered it to be thrown to his horses, and when
they would not touch it, "What good," he said, "will this provision do us?"
and sent him away to prison.
Next chapter: From the
funeral pile 
Plutarch: ALEXANDER
