“Wearily, a Macedonian officer strayed to look for water by the roadside; searching, he came upon a mud-daubed wagon, abandoned by its team. He looked inside, and there lay a corpse, bound in the golden chains which signified a Persian king … Darius III, last of the Achaemenid kings, had been stabbed and deserted by his own courtiers. Only in legend was he left enough breath to greet his discoverer and command Alexander’s nobility. … The assassins had fled too far to be caught.

“Left with his enemy’s dead body, Alexander behaved remarkably. He stripped off his own cloak and wrapped it round the corpse. Darius was to be taken to Persepolis for a proper burial.”

- Alexander the Great, Robin Lane Fox