Calanus

was an Indian philosopher who followed Alexander the Great in his expedition to the Indies. Being tormented with the colic after passing eighty-three years in health, he petitioned the conqueror to cause a funeral pile to be erected whereon he might finish his days according to the custom of his country. That prince, who loved and esteemed him, reluctantly yielding to his entreaties, ordered his army to range itself in order of battle round the funeral pile. Calanus, crowned with flowers, and magnificently habited, ascended the pile with a tranquil and composed countenance, saying as he went up, that “having lost his health, and seen Alexander, life had nothing more to interest him.” He bore the action of the fire without discovering any signs of uneasiness or pain and, on being asked if he had nothing to say to Alexander “No,”returned the philosopher, “I reckon soon to receive him at Babylon.” The hero dying three months afterwards in that city, the brachman was thought to have been a prophet; a circumstance which added not a little of the | marvellous to his history. Calanus’s death took place in the fourth year of the 113th Olympiad, or 325 B. C. ¹