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Back at the court of Alexander, things grew fractious. Now that he was King of Persia, Alexander was beginning to adopt Persian customs — including the practice of prostration before the king.
To many of Alexander's Greek and Macedonian followers, this gesture seemed not only servile, but blasphemous — an honor reserved solely for the gods.
At a banquet, Cleitus – ever the straight-talker – confronted the king. Both men were deeply drunk.
What is this, Alexander? You dress in foreign finery. You consult with eunuchs and Magi.
If a Macedonian wants an audience with you, he has to beg it from some pompous Persian courtier, and then prostrate himself like a slave! Have you forsaken your own kinsmen?
Shut your wretched mouth, Cleitus. If it weren't for me, you'd be fending off Thracian goat thieves from some hillside hovel.
No. If it weren't for your father, you'd have no army, no victories, no glory. Without your father, you would be nothing. And if he could see you now, he would be ashamed.
Alexander wrenched a spear from a nearby guard, hurled it across the room, and struck Cleitus dead.
Alexander looked upon the lifeless face of the man he had once called friend; the man who had saved his life at the Granicus. And Alexander wept.
All through the night, all through the following day, his grief tortured him.
A procession of friends and comrades, courtiers and flatterers, philosophers and wise men came to him, trying to soothe his guilty soul.
But what roused him from his melancholy was a force greater, deeper than any grief: his yearning.
India awaited — a chance not just for conquest, but to follow in the footsteps of the god Dionysus, to witness marvels unseen by any Greek, to reach the Outer Sea that girdled the earth itself.