ABSTRACT
Alexander seems to have taken the advice to heart, he detoured to the north and approached the city from the east. The fleet for the Arabian expedition was slowly being assembled. The ships that had sailed under Nearchus from the Persian Gulf up the Euphrates had joined the king, and others from the Mediterranean coast had begun to arrive. While Alexander was in Babylon embassies came to him from widely different geographical areas including the Greek mainland, Thrace, Illyria, Scythia, Carthage, Spain and even Rome. The Exiles Decree was already causing enough damage, and the proskynesis attempt proved the reaction to worshipping a living god. The Exiles Decree died with Alexander, as did any acknowledgement of his divinity. Only one state, Tegea in the Peloponnese, received back its exiles. Alexander's body was embalmed, and considerable time was spent building a magnificent funeral wagon to transport it back to Aegae, burial place of the Macedonian kings.
