der was rejoined by Nearchus,
who had arrived with his fleet at Harmozia (ORMUZ); but who
subsequently prosecuted his voyage to the head of the Persian Gulf.

Upon reaching Susa (B.C. 325) Alexander allowed his soldiers to repose
from their fatigues, and amused them with a series of brilliant
festivities. It was here that he adopted various measures with the
view of consolidating his empire. One of the most important was to
form the Greeks and Persians into one people by means of
intermarriages. He himself celebrated his nuptials with Statira the
eldest daughter of Darius, and bestowed the hand of her sister,
Drypetis, on Hephaestion. Other marriages were made between
Alexander's officers and Asiatic women, to the number, it is said, of
about a hundred; whilst no fewer than 10,000 of the common soldiers
followed their example and took native wives. As another means of
amalgamating the Europeans and Asiatics, he caused numbers of the
latter to be admitted into the army, and to be armed and trained in the
Macedonian fashion. But these innovations were regarded with a jealous
eye by most of the Macedonian veterans; and this feeling was increased
by the conduct of Alexander himself, who assumed every day more and
more of the state and manners of an eastern despot. Their long-stifled
dissatisfaction broke out into open mutiny and rebellion at a review
which took place at Opis on the Tigris. But the mutiny was quelled by
the decisive conduct of Alexander. He immediately ordered thirteen of
the ringleaders to be seized and executed, and then, addressing the
remainder, pointed out to them how, by his own and his father's
exertions, they had been raised from the condition of scattered
herdsmen to be the masters of Greece and the lords of Asia; and that,
whilst he had abandoned to them the richest and most valuable fruits of
his conquest, he had reserved nothing but the diadem for himself, as
the mark of his superior labours and more imminent perils. He then
secluded himself for two whole days, during which his Macedonian guard
was exchanged for a Persian one, whilst nobles of the same nation were
appointed to the most confidential posts about his person. Overcome by
these marks of alienation on the part of their sovereign, the
Macedonians now supplicated with tears to be restored to favour. A
solemn reconciliation was effected, and 10,000 veterans were dismissed
to their homes under the conduct of Craterus. That gen