Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
This is Fortune's argument, when she claims Alexander as her own private achievement and hers alone. But one must speak on behalf of philosophy — or rather on behalf of Alexander, who would be vexed and indignant if it should appear that he received his empire as a free gift even from Fortune, an empire which he purchased at the price of much blood and wound upon wound, lying awake through many sleepless nights, and passing bloody days waging war against irresistible
forces and countless tribes and impassable rivers and cliffs no arrow could reach, arraying against them good counsel, endurance, courage, and self-control. I think he himself would say to Fortune, when she inscribes his successes to her own name: "Do not slander my valor, nor rob me of my glory by claiming it for yourself. Darius was your handiwork — him you made lord of the Persians out of a slave and a royal courier; and so was Sardanapalus,
whom you crowned with the diadem of kingship while he was carding purple wool. But I have gone up in victory to Susa by way of Arbela, and Cilicia opened wide Egypt to me, while the Granicus opened Cilicia — the Granicus, which I crossed by trampling over the corpses of Mithridates and Spithridates. Go adorn yourself and take your dignity from unwounded and bloodless kings — for those were your fortunate favorites, the Ochuses and Artaxerxeses, whom you set upon the throne of Cyrus straight from birth.
But my own body carries many tokens of a Fortune who fought against me, not one who fought beside me. First, among the Illyrians, I was struck on the head with a stone and on the neck with a club; then at the Granicus my head was split open by a barbarian's sword, and at Issus my thigh by a blade; at Gaza an arrow pierced my ankle, and I was thrown from my seat and spun heavily to the ground with a dislocated shoulder; and near Maracanda arrows shattered the
bone of my shin. As for the rest, there were the blows and violent assaults of Indian fury: among the Aspasians an arrow struck my shoulder, among the Gandridae my leg; among the Malli an arrow from a bow drove into my chest and the iron sank deep, and a club-blow landed by my neck, when the scaling-ladders that had been set against the walls broke — and there Fortune shut me in alone,
not with brilliant opponents, but granting so great a feat to obscure barbarians. If Ptolemy had not held his shield over me, if Limnaeus had not fallen before me facing countless missiles, if the Macedonians had not torn down the wall with fury and force, that nameless, barbarous village would have had to become the tomb of Alexander." And indeed, the hardships of the campaign itself were storms, droughts, unfathomable rivers, sheer
heights no bird could reach, monstrous sights of wild beasts, savage ways of life, changes of rulers, repeated betrayals; and before the campaign even began, Greece was still writhing from the wars with Philip, Thebes was shaking the dust of Chaeronea from its armor as it rose again from its fall, and Athens was joining hands with her in outstretched appeal; all Macedonia was seething with treachery, looking toward Amyntas and the sons of Aëropus; the Illyrians were breaking out in revolt,
and the Scythian threat hung over the neighboring peoples who were themselves stirring to rebellion; Persian gold, flowing everywhere through the demagogues in each city, was setting the Peloponnese in motion; and Philip's treasuries were empty of money, with a debt besides, as Onesicritus records, of two hundred talents. In the midst of such poverty and such turmoil of affairs, a mere youth just past the age of boyhood dared to set his hope on Babylon and Susa — or rather
to fix his mind on the empire of all mankind — trusting to thirty thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry, if we are to believe it: for that was their number, as Aristobulus says; though according to King Ptolemy, thirty thousand infantry and five thousand cavalry; and according to Anaximenes, forty-three thousand infantry and five thousand five hundred cavalry. And the splendid, great provision made ready for him by Fortune was seventy
talents, as Aristobulus says; though according to Duris, it was only thirty days' worth of supplies. Was Alexander, then, reckless and rash to set out toward so vast an undertaking from such slender means? Not at all. For who set forth with greater or nobler resources — the greatness of soul, the understanding, the self-mastery, the manly courage with which philosophy equipped him for the campaign — and with more provisions from Aristotle his teacher than from
Philip his father, when he crossed over against the Persians? We believe those writers, and honor Homer for it, who say that Alexander once declared that the Iliad and the Odyssey accompanied him as provisions for the campaign; but if someone should say that the Iliad and the Odyssey followed along merely as consolations for toil and pastimes for pleasant leisure, while the true provisions were in fact the discourse drawn from philosophy and the
treatises on fearlessness and courage, and further on self-mastery and greatness of soul, we look down on this — evidently because he wrote nothing about syllogisms or propositions, held no walks in the Lyceum, and delivered no theses in the Academy: for it is by these marks that those who consider philosophy to be words rather than deeds define it. And yet neither Pythagoras wrote anything, nor Socrates, nor Arcesilaus, nor Carneades — the most esteemed of
philosophers; and those men were not occupied with wars so great, nor with taming barbarian kings, nor with founding Greek cities among savage nations, nor with teaching law to lawless and unruly tribes and bringing them peace — rather, even in their leisure, they left the writing to the sophists. From what, then, were those men believed to practice philosophy? From what they said, or from how they lived, or from what they taught. By these same standards let
Alexander too be judged — for he will be found, in what he said, in what he did, and in what he taught, to be a philosopher. And first, if you wish, consider the most paradoxical point of all: set Alexander's pupils side by side with those of Plato and of Socrates. Those men educated gifted young men who spoke their own tongue, understanding nothing else but the sound of Greek — and yet they failed to persuade many of them; rather men like Critias and Alcibiades and Cleitophon spat out the bit of reasoned argument and turned aside in some other direction.
But if you look at Alexander's education, he taught the Hyrcanians to marry, taught the Arachosians to farm the land, persuaded the Sogdians to support their fathers rather than kill them, and taught the Persians to revere their mothers rather than marry them. O what a marvelous philosophy, through which the Indians worship Greek gods, and the Scythians bury their dead instead of eating them! We marvel at the power of Carneades, that he made Cleitomachus — once called Hasdrubal, and Carthaginian by
birth — into a Greek in speech; we marvel at the disposition of Zeno, that he persuaded Diogenes the Babylonian to take up philosophy. But while Alexander was civilizing Asia, Homer became reading-matter, and the sons of Persians and Susians and Gedrosians sang the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles. And whereas Socrates was convicted on a charge of introducing foreign divinities, at the hands of Athenian informers, because of Alexander Bactria and the Caucasus came to worship the gods of the Greeks.
For Plato, having written a single constitution, persuaded no one to adopt it, because of its severity; but Alexander, having founded more than seventy cities among barbarian peoples and sown Asia throughout with Greek institutions, overcame its untamed and bestial way of life. And while few of us read Plato's Laws, tens of thousands have made use of Alexander's laws and continue to use them: those who were conquered by him proved happier than those who escaped him,
for no one ever put a stop to the wretched lives of the latter, while the victor compelled the former to prosper. And so, what Themistocles said, when he had fled into exile and received great gifts from the [Persian] king, and had been granted three cities to furnish him tribute — one for bread, one for wine, one for meat — "Children, we would have been ruined, had we not been ruined" — this may more justly be said of those who were conquered by Alexander.
They would never have been civilized had they not been conquered: Egypt would not have its Alexandria, nor Mesopotamia its Seleucia, nor Sogdiana its Prophthasia, nor India its Bucephalia, nor would a Greek city dwell beside the Caucasus — cities by whose founding the savagery was quenched and the worse was transformed as it grew accustomed to the better. If, then, philosophers take the greatest pride in civilizing and reshaping the harsh and untutored elements of character,
and Alexander is seen to have transformed countless races and beast-like natures, he might reasonably be considered the greatest of philosophers. And indeed the much-admired constitution of Zeno, founder of the Stoic school, comes down to this single point: that we should not live divided into separate cities and peoples, each group marked off by its own notions of justice, but should regard all people as our fellow-citizens and countrymen, and that there should be one life
and one order, like a single flock grazing together and nurtured by a common law. This Zeno wrote down as a dream or an image of a philosopher's well-ordered constitution, but it was Alexander who gave the actual deed to match the theory. For he did not follow Aristotle's advice to him — to treat the Greeks as a leader and the barbarians as a master, caring for the one as friends and kin and treating the others as though they were animals
or plants — for that would have filled his empire with many wars, exiles, and treacherous uprisings. Instead, believing that he had come as a divinely sent governor and reconciler of the whole world, he brought together by force of arms those whom he could not unite through reason, mixing together, as in a loving-cup, the lives, customs, marriages, and ways of living of peoples from every quarter. He commanded all to consider the inhabited world
their fatherland, the army camp their citadel and garrison, the good their kinsmen, and the wicked their foreigners; he taught that Greek and barbarian should not be distinguished by cloak or shield, by scimitar or caftan, but that the mark of the Greek should be virtue, and of the barbarian, vice; that clothing, tables, marriages, and manner of life should be held in common, blended together through the bonds of blood and of
children. And so Demaratus of Corinth, one of Philip's guest-friends and companions, when he saw Alexander at Susa, was overjoyed and, bursting into tears, said that those Greeks who had died before were deprived of a great joy, in that they never saw Alexander seated on the throne of Darius. "But as for me," he said, "by Zeus, I do not envy those who saw that spectacle, which was, after all, a matter of chance
and common to other kings as well; rather I think I would gladly have been a witness of that beautiful and sacred marriage-procession, when, gathering under one gold-roofed pavilion, at one common hearth and table, a hundred Persian brides and a hundred Macedonian and Greek bridegrooms, he himself, crowned, was first to raise the wedding hymn, chanting it like a song of loving union, joining in fellowship, with the greatest and most powerful families, one
bridegroom himself, yet at the same time the escort and father and matchmaker of them all, coupling them together pair by pair. For I would gladly have said: "O barbarous and senseless Xerxes, who labored so vainly over your bridge across the Hellespont — see how truly wise kings join Asia to Europe, not with timbers nor with rafts nor with lifeless, unfeeling bonds, but by lawful love and chaste marriages and the shared bearing of children, joining races
together." With his eye fixed on this ideal order, Alexander did not adopt the Median dress, but the Persian, which was far plainer than the Median. For, rejecting the extravagant and theatrical elements of barbarian costume — such as the tiara, the caftan, and the trousers — he wore, as Eratosthenes has recorded, a robe blended from Persian and Macedonian fashion, using, as a philosopher would, whatever was indifferent in itself,
but as a common leader and a humane king he was, by the honor he paid to their dress, winning back the goodwill of the conquered peoples, so that they might remain steadfastly loyal, cherishing the Macedonians as rulers rather than hating them as enemies. For it would have been the mark of an unwise and puffed-up mind to admire the plain, undyed cloak while resenting the purple-bordered robe, or, conversely, to despise the one while being dazzled by the other — like a small
child clinging to the wrapping which native custom had put around him, as a nurse would. Men hunting animals put on the hides of deer, and men attempting to catch birds clothe themselves in feathered tunics; men are careful not to be seen by bulls wearing scarlet, nor by elephants in white tunics, for these animals are provoked by such colors and driven into a frenzy. If, then, a great king, in taming and gentling nations that were unruly and combative like wild animals,
soothed and calmed them by adopting their own familiar dress and customs, winning over their sullenness and easing their gloom, do people find fault with this rather than admire the wisdom by which, through a mere change of costume, he won over the goodwill of Asia — subduing their bodies by arms, but winning their souls by his dress? And yet people admire Aristippus the Socratic, because whether wearing a plain cloak or a fine Milesian
mantle, he preserved his dignity through either; but they find fault with Alexander, because, while adorning himself in the dress of his own people, he did not disdain also the dress he had won by the spear — laying, as he was, the foundations of great enterprises. For he did not overrun Asia like a bandit, nor did he intend to snatch and strip it as though it were mere plunder and spoil of unhoped-for good fortune, as later Hannibal did to Italy, and earlier the Treres did to Ionia and the Scythians to Media — rather, wishing to bring all
things upon earth into subjection to one reasoned order and one form of government, and to make all mankind a single people, he shaped himself accordingly. And if the divinity who had sent his soul down here had not swiftly called it back again, one law would have looked upon all mankind, and they would have been governed as by one common light directed toward a single justice. But as it is, that portion of the earth which never saw Alexander has remained without its sun.
Accordingly, in the first place, the very design of his campaign shows the man to be a philosopher, since he intended it not to secure luxury and extravagance for himself, but to provide harmony and peace and fellowship for all mankind with one another. Let us next consider, in the second place, his sayings as well, since it is above all in their sayings that the characters of other kings and rulers, too, reveal their souls. Old Antigonus, when some sophist
offered him a treatise on justice, said: "You are a fool, to talk to me about justice when you see me battering other people's cities." Dionysius the tyrant used to bid his men deceive children with knucklebones and grown men with oaths. And on the monuments of Sardanapalus is inscribed: "These things I have, as many as I ate and as many outrages as I committed." Who would not say that of these sayings one reveals a love of pleasure,
another godlessness, and another injustice and greed? But if you strip away from Alexander's sayings the diadem, and Ammon, and his noble birth, they will appear to you to be the sayings of Socrates, or of Plato, or of Pythagoras. Let us not, that is, examine those boastful phrases which the poets inscribed upon his portraits and statues, aiming not at his moderation but at his power — the
bronze figure gazing up at Zeus seems to be saying: "I set the earth beneath me; you, Zeus, keep Olympus," and "I, Alexander, am the son of Zeus." These, as I said, were addressed to him by poets flattering his fortune; but of Alexander's genuine sayings, one might first go through those of his boyhood — for, being the swiftest runner among the young men of his age, and being urged by his companions to
He asked whether kings compete in the games. When they said they do not, he replied that the contest would be unfair, since if he won he would be beating mere private citizens, but if he lost he would be beaten though a king. When his father Philip had his thigh pierced by a spear among the Triballi, and, having escaped the danger, was distressed at his lameness, Alexander said, "Be of good courage, father, and go forward with a glad face, so that at every step you may be reminded of your courage." Is this not the mark
of a philosophical disposition, one that, through its enthusiasm for noble things, already rises above the body's deficiencies? For how do you suppose he gloried in his own wounds, recalling with each part of his body a nation and a victory, cities captured and kings surrendering — not hiding or concealing his scars, but carrying them about like images engraved with courage and manly virtue? And indeed, whenever
there arose, in the schools of philosophy or at symposia, a comparison of Homer's verses, with one man preferring one line and another man another, he himself judged this line to surpass all others: "both a good king and a mighty spearman" — reasoning that the line which time had already given as praise to another was, for him, laid down as a law, so that one might say Homer, in the same meter, had adorned both Agamemnon's manly courage and Alexander's,
prophesied in advance. So when he crossed the Hellespont he viewed Troy, re-enacting in his mind the heroic deeds; and when one of the local people offered to give him the lyre of Paris, should he wish it, he said, "I have no need of that one's lyre; for I possess Achilles', to whose accompaniment he used to rest, singing \"the glorious deeds of men\" — whereas Paris's lyre played, no doubt, some soft and effeminate harmony to erotic songs." Is it not the mark of a philosophical
soul, then, to love wisdom and to admire wise men above all? This quality belonged to Alexander as to no other king. How he stood toward Aristotle has already been told, and how he considered Anaxarchus the musician the most honored of his friends, and gave ten thousand gold pieces to Pyrrho of Elis on their first meeting, and sent fifty talents as a gift, unasked, to Xenocrates, Plato's companion. And Onesicritus,
the disciple of Diogenes the Cynic, was appointed by him commander of the pilots, as many have recorded. And when he came into conversation with Diogenes himself at Corinth, he was so struck and amazed by the man's life and dignity that he often, in recalling it, would say, "If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes" — that is, "I would have devoted myself to arguments, had I not been pursuing philosophy through deeds."
He did not say, "If I were not a king, I would be Diogenes," nor "If I were not rich and an Argead" — for he did not rank fortune above wisdom, nor the purple robe and diadem above the beggar's wallet and cloak. Rather he said, "If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes" — that is, "If I were not intent on blending barbarian ways with Greek, and on traversing every continent
to civilize it, on finding the limits of land and sea and joining Macedon to the ocean, and on sowing Greece abroad and pouring out justice and peace over every race, I would not be sitting in idle luxury and inactive privilege, but would be emulating the frugality of Diogenes. As it is, forgive me, Diogenes: I imitate Heracles, and I emulate Perseus, and I follow in the footsteps of Dionysus, the god who is the ancestor and forefather of our race, wishing once more
that victorious Greeks might dance together in India, and remind the mountain-dwelling, savage peoples beyond the Caucasus of the revels of Bacchus. There are said to be, even there, certain men versed in a hardy and unadorned wisdom, holy and self-governing men, devoted to god, more frugal even than Diogenes, needing no wallet at all — for they store up no food, always having what is fresh and new from the earth; their drink flows from rivers; leaves of trees
are strewn for them, and grass of the earth to lie upon. Through me, they too shall come to know Diogenes, and Diogenes shall come to know them. I too must adulterate and counterfeit the barbarian coinage with a Greek citizenship." Well then — do his actions display the spontaneous working of chance and the violence and forceful seizure of war, or great courage and great justice, together with great self-control and gentleness, joined with order and understanding, all done with a sober
and clear-headed reasoning governing everything? For it is not possible for me to say, distinguishing among them, by the gods, that this deed belongs to courage, this to humanity, this to self-mastery; rather, every deed of his seems to be a blend of all the virtues together — confirming that Stoic doctrine, that whatever the wise man does, he does in accordance with every virtue; and one virtue, it seems,
takes the leading role in each action, summoning the others and directing them toward the goal. One can see, at any rate, in Alexander, that his warlike quality was humane, his gentleness manly, his generosity prudent, his temper easily reconciled, his passion for love self-controlled, his relaxation not idle, his labor not without comfort. Who else has mingled festivals with wars? Who has mingled revels with campaigns? Who
has mingled sieges and battle-lines with bacchic rites and weddings and marriage-songs? Who has been harsher to wrongdoers, or gentler to the unfortunate? Who has been heavier upon enemies in battle, or more considerate to suppliants? I am reminded to transfer here the saying of Porus. For when he was led before Alexander, and Alexander asked how he wished to be treated, he said, "Like a king, Alexander." And when asked again, "Nothing more?" he said, "Nothing — for everything is contained in
'like a king.'" And I too am moved to exclaim, at every one of Alexander's deeds, "philosophically" — for in that word everything is contained. Falling in love with Roxane, the daughter of Oxyartes, when he saw her dancing among the captive women, he did not violate her but married her: philosophically. Seeing Darius transfixed by javelins, he did not offer sacrifice nor sing a paean of victory, as though the long war had reached its end, but he took off his own cloak and threw it over the corpse, as though to cover up
a royal fortune's act of vengeance: philosophically. And once, when reading a confidential letter from his mother while Hephaestion, as it happened, sat beside him and simply read along, he did not stop him, but pressed his own ring to Hephaestion's lips, sealing his silence with the pledge of friendship: philosophically. If these things are not philosophical, what else could be? Let us set beside them the deeds of acknowledged philosophers. Socrates endured Alcibiades sleeping at his side; but Alexander, when Philoxenus,
the governor of the coastal region, wrote that a boy had appeared in Ionia unmatched in beauty and grace, and asked in his letter whether he should send him on, wrote back sharply: "Basest of men, what have you ever known of me, that you should flatter me with such pleasures?" We admire Xenocrates for not accepting the fifty talents Alexander sent him as a gift — but not the giving? Or do we not think alike
of one who scorns money and one who freely gives it away? Xenocrates had no need of wealth, because of his philosophy; but Alexander needed it, because of his philosophy, in order to have something to give to such men. How many times did Alexander say this while under fire, while hard pressed? And yet we suppose that right judgments exist in all men by nature — for nature itself is a guide toward the good; but philosophers differ from the mass of men in having their
judgments strong and fixed in the face of terrors. Since it is not with such settled preconceptions that men say "one omen is best" and "death is the appointed end for all men" — rather, crises shatter men's reasoning in the face of danger, and the imaginings of nearby perils knock their judgments aside. For "fear," as Thucydides says, not only "strikes memory from the mind," but also
strikes down every purpose and ambition and impulse, unless philosophy has bound them fast with restraints. It has, it seems, escaped us to say — as though only yesterday — that the age of Alexander was fortunate enough to produce many arts and many great natures; or rather, that this was not due to Alexander's fortune but to theirs, in getting as witness and spectator one able to judge achievement best and to reward it most generously. It is said,
at any rate, that long afterward, when Archestratus had become a charming poet but lived in poverty and obscurity, someone said to him, "Ah, if you had lived in Alexander's time, he would have given you Cyprus or Phoenicia for a line of verse." And I think that the foremost craftsmen of that age became so not merely in Alexander's time, but through Alexander. For a fine climate and a light atmosphere produce abundance of crops, but the growth of the arts and of fine natures is called forth by
the goodwill and honor and generosity of a king; and, on the contrary, all such growth is quenched and withers under the envy and pettiness or contentiousness of rulers. Dionysius the tyrant, for instance, they say, on hearing a certain lyre-singer perform to great acclaim, promised him a talent as a gift; but the next day, when the man demanded payment of the promise, Dionysius said,
"Yesterday, while you delighted me with your singing, I in turn delighted you with hopes — so that you received your payment for the pleasure you gave, delighting in it as you gave delight." Alexander of Pherae, the tyrant — though he ought to have borne only that name and not disgraced its meaning — watching a tragic actor, was so overcome with pity that he leapt up from the theater and hurried out faster than a walk, saying it would be a terrible thing
if, after slaughtering so many citizens, he should be seen weeping over the sufferings of Hecuba and Polyxena. This man very nearly had the tragic actor punished by law, for having softened his soul like iron in the fire. And to Archelaus, who seemed rather stingy in his gifts, Timotheus, when singing, would repeatedly insert this little phrase: "but you praise silver born of the earth." And Archelaus answered, not without wit,
"And you ask for it." And Ateas, king of the Scythians, having taken Ismenias the flute-player captive, ordered him to play the flute at a drinking-party. And when the others were amazed and applauded, he himself swore that he found more pleasure in hearing his horse neigh. So far had his ears camped away from the Muses, and he kept his soul in the manger, fit to listen not to horses but to asses. Who, then,
could expect the growth or honor of art, and of such a Muse, under kings like these? Indeed, such men are unwilling even to tolerate rival practitioners of the art, and for this reason, out of envy and ill will, they destroy the truly skilled. Such was, again, Dionysius, who threw the poet Philoxenus into the stone quarries because, ordered to correct one of his tragedies, he simply erased the whole thing from beginning
to end. Philip too, in these matters, was somewhat diminished and made rather juvenile by his own late-acquired learning; hence they say that once, arguing with a lyre-player about the finer points of his playing and seeming to refute him, the man smiled quietly and said, "God forbid, O king, that you should ever fall so low as to know these things better than I." But Alexander, knowing of what things he ought to be a spectator and a listener, and of what things
a competitor and a doer himself, always trained through arms to be formidable, and, in Aeschylus's words, was "a mighty warrior in armor, deadly to his foes." This craft he held as an inheritance from his ancestors, from the Aeacids, from Heracles; but the other arts he honored without emulating them, according to their fame and charm, without being easily seduced by their pleasure into imitating them. There lived in his time tragic actors,
namely Thettalus and his circle, and Athenodorus, who competed against one another; the kings of Cyprus financed the production, and the most eminent of the generals judged it. When Athenodorus won, Alexander said, "I would rather have lost part of my kingdom than have seen Thettalus defeated." But he did not go to the judges nor find fault with the verdict, thinking that in all things one should prevail, but yield to what is just.
Among comic actors there were Lycon of Scarphea and his troupe; when this man, in the course of a comedy, inserted a line asking for money, Alexander laughed and gave him ten talents. Among lyre-singers there was, among others, Aristonicus, who fell fighting gloriously when he came to the rescue in a certain battle. Alexander therefore ordered that a bronze statue of him be made and set up at Delphi, holding a lyre and with a spear thrust forward, honoring not only
the man, but also honoring music as maker of men, as filling with especial fullness those who are genuinely nurtured on it with enthusiasm and impulse. Indeed, he himself, when Antigenides once played the chariot-tune on the flute, was so moved and set ablaze in spirit by the music that he leapt up and laid his hands upon the weapons lying nearby, bearing witness to the Spartans' song, "for excellence in the lyre creeps close beside the sword."
There lived also, in Alexander's time, Apelles the painter and Lysippus the sculptor, of whom the one painted the Thunderbolt-Bearer so vividly and with such blending of color that men said there were two Alexanders: the one, son of Philip, unconquered; the other, son of Apelles, inimitable. And when Lysippus first modeled Alexander, looking upward with his face toward the heavens, just as Alexander himself was accustomed to look, gently turning
his neck, someone inscribed upon it, not implausibly: "The bronze figure, gazing at Zeus, seems about to speak: 'I set the earth beneath me; Zeus, you keep Olympus.'" For this reason Alexander ordered that Lysippus alone should fashion his images. For he alone, it seems, revealed in bronze his character, and displayed together with the outward form his inner virtue; whereas the others, wishing to imitate the turn of
his neck and the melting softness and moistness of his eyes, failed to preserve his manly and lion-like quality. Among the other craftsmen was also Stasicrates, an architect who pursued nothing showy or merely pleasant and persuasive to the eye, but employed a hand capable of grand works and a disposition matching the lavishness of royal patronage. This man came to Alexander and found fault with the paintings
and sculptures and statues being made of him, as the works of timid and ignoble craftsmen. "I," he said, "O king, have resolved to fashion your likeness in imperishable and living matter, possessing eternal roots and an immovable, unshakeable mass. For Thracian Mount Athos, greatest and most conspicuous of all mountains, rises up with proportions of breadth and height and
limbs and joints and intervals matching a human form, so that, worked and shaped, it could be called and be an image of Alexander, its feet touching the sea, one hand embracing and holding a populous inhabited city of ten thousand men, and its right hand pouring out from a bowl an ever-flowing river emptying into the sea. As for gold and bronze and ivory and wood and dyes,
small castings, bought and stolen and melted down — let us cast those aside." Hearing this, Alexander admired the craftsman's boldness of spirit and his daring, and praised him, but said, "Let Athos remain in its place; it is enough that it stand as a monument to one king's arrogance. As for me, the Caucasus will display me, and the Emodian range, and the Tanais, and the Caspian Sea — these shall be the boundary-markers of my works
..."images." But come, in the name of the gods, suppose such a work were actually completed and appeared before us: is there anyone who, on seeing it, would suppose that its shape and arrangement and form had come about by chance and of its own accord? No one, I think. What of the thunderbolt-bearer? What of the figure named for the spear-point it carries? Well then, the mere size of a statue could not, without art, come to be through chance, even when chance pours out and lavishes upon it gold and bronze and ivory and abundant, costly material.
But can a great man—indeed the greatest of all who have ever lived—be produced apart from virtue, through mere fortune, which supplies only arms and money and cities and horses? These, in the hands of one who has not learned how to use them, are a danger, not a strength or an adornment, but a proof of weakness and littleness. Antisthenes put it rightly when he said, "We ought to pray our enemies every good thing except courage; for in that way such goods become the possession not of those who hold them, but of those who conquer them." This, they say, is also why nature has fitted the stag, the most cowardly of creatures, with horns marvelous in size and roughness for its defense—teaching us that strength and weaponry are of no use to those who cannot stand their ground and keep their courage.
So too Fortune, often fastening power and command upon the timid and the foolish, in whom such gifts sit unbecomingly, only serves to set off and confirm that virtue alone constitutes a man's true greatness and beauty. As Epicharmus says, "If mind sees and mind hears, all else is blind and deaf." For while the senses seem to have their own private impressions, it is mind that benefits, mind that adorns, and mind that is the conquering, ruling, kingly element; everything else, blind and deaf and lifeless, only burdens, weighs down, and disgraces its possessors when virtue is absent—as one can see from the facts themselves.
Given the same power and command, Semiramis, though a woman, manned fleets, armed phalanxes, founded Babylons, and sailed round the Red Sea subduing Ethiopians and Arabs; whereas Sardanapalus, born a man, sat at home carding purple wool, seated cross-legged among his concubines. When he died, they set up a stone statue of him mounted as if riding, in barbarian fashion, snapping its fingers above its head, and inscribed upon it: "Eat, drink, make love: all else is nothing." And Crates, on seeing a golden statue of the courtesan Phryne standing at Delphi, cried out that this was a trophy of the licentiousness of the Greeks.
One might likewise say, on viewing the life—or the tomb—of Sardanapalus (for I think there is no difference), that this is a trophy of the good gifts of Fortune. What then? Shall we allow Fortune to lay her hand on Alexander right after Sardanapalus, and to claim a share in his greatness and his power? What more, after all, did she give him than she gave to the rest of the kings who received their portion from her—arms, horses, missiles, money, bodyguards?
Let Fortune make a great Aridaeus out of these, if she can; let her make a great Amasis, or Ochus, or Oarses, or Tigranes the Armenian, or Nicomedes of Bithynia out of these. Of these men, one flung his diadem at the feet of Pompey and shamefully lost his kingdom, which became mere plunder; Nicomedes shaved his head, put on a freedman's cap, and proclaimed himself a freedman of the Romans.
Let us then say that Fortune makes men small, fearful, and mean-spirited; but it is not right to charge either cowardice to misfortune or courage and wisdom to good fortune. Was Fortune "great" simply in that she gave Alexander rule? For in him she was also glorious, unconquered, magnanimous, free of arrogance, and humane. Yet as soon as he was gone, Leosthenes said that his power, left to wander and stumble on its own, resembled the Cyclops after his blinding, groping everywhere with hands reaching toward no fixed goal—so did that vast power roam about, treading on emptiness and reeling from lack of a guiding head.
Rather, it was like a corpse: once the soul has departed, the body no longer holds together or coheres, but comes apart and dissolves, its parts falling away and fleeing from one another. So it was once it had let go of Alexander: his power convulsed, twitched, and inflamed—passing to Perdiccas and Meleager and Seleucus and Antigonus, like hot breaths and pulses still darting through it and pulling it apart in different directions—until at last, withering and wasting away, it seethed around itself with something like maggots, the base kings and commanders who fought over its death throes.
Alexander himself, it seems, said as much when he rebuked Hephaestion for quarreling with Craterus: "What would your power or your achievement amount to," he said, "if someone were to take Alexander away from you?" And I will not hesitate to say the same thing to that Fortune of his day: "What is your greatness, what your glory, where your power, where your invincibility, if someone takes Alexander away from you?" That is to say: if someone takes away his mastery of arms, his generosity with wealth, his self-control amid extravagance,
his boldness in what he contended for, his gentleness in what he mastered—make someone else great, if you can, without his showing generosity with money, without his taking the lead in danger before his armies, without his honoring his friends, without his showing mercy to captives, without his exercising restraint amid pleasures, without his staying vigilant in moments of crisis, without his being easily reconciled after victories, without his showing kindness in his successes. Who is great, holding power, along with folly and depravity?
Take virtue away from the fortunate man, and he is small everywhere: small in gracious acts through pettiness, small in hardships through softness, small before the gods through superstition, small toward good men through envy, small among men through fear, small among women through love of pleasure. For just as inferior craftsmen, by setting large pedestals under small offerings, only expose their own smallness all the more, so too Fortune, when she raises up a petty character
with affairs that carry a certain weight and conspicuousness, only displays and disgraces him the more, as he stumbles and reels from his own lightness. Hence greatness lies not in the possession of good things but in their use, since even infant children inherit their father's kingdom and rule, as did Charillus, whom Lycurgus carried, swaddling-clothes and all, into the public mess and proclaimed king of Sparta in his own stead.
And it was not the infant who was great, but the man who restored to the infant his father's due honor and did not seize it or deprive him of it. Who, on the other hand, could have made Aridaeus great—a man no different from an infant, whom Meleager, all but swaddling him in purple, set upon Alexander's throne, doing well thereby, so that men might see, for a few days at least, how men reign by virtue and how by fortune.
For he brought in an actor to play the part of a ruler in a contest that called for a real contender, or rather he paraded the diadem, mute, through the inhabited world as if upon a stage: "Even a woman might carry the burden, once a man has set it in place." One might indeed say the opposite—that to receive and to be entrusted with power and wealth and rule is within the capacity even of a woman or a child: it was the eunuch Bagoas who lifted up and set the Persian kingship upon Oarses and Darius.
But to take on great power and bear it and manage it, without being crushed or twisted out of shape by the weight and magnitude of affairs, belongs to a man possessed of virtue and intelligence and judgment—such as Alexander had, though some charge him with drunkenness and wine-bibbing. He was great precisely in this: that amid great affairs he remained sober, never intoxicated or driven to frenzy by power and authority, of which
others, partaking even a little and getting no more than a taste, are unable to master themselves: base men, once glutted with money or, falling into some position of civic honor, prance about, unable to bear an unexpected stroke of good fortune. Cleitus, after sinking three or four Greek triremes off Amorgos, was proclaimed a Poseidon and went about carrying a trident. Demetrius, to whom Fortune, tearing off a small piece of Alexander's power, gave a share, was addressed by the title "Descender," and cities sent to him not envoys but sacred deputations, calling his replies oracles.
Lysimachus, having secured the region of Thrace as if it were some remote outpost of his kingdom, reached such a pitch of arrogance and boldness that he said, "Now the Byzantines come to me, now that I touch the sky with my spear." Pasiades of Byzantium, who was present, replied, "Let us withdraw, lest he puncture the sky with his spear-point."
And yet what should one say of these men, who were entitled, because of Alexander, to think somewhat highly of themselves, when even Clearchus, having become tyrant of Heraclea, carried a scepter and named one of his sons Thunderbolt; and Dionysius named himself son of Apollo, inscribing that he had sprung from a Dorian mother through union with Phoebus. His own father, after killing ten thousand or more of his fellow citizens, after betraying his own brother to the enemy out of envy, and, rather than waiting for his aged mother to die a few days later of natural causes, strangling her instead—this same man, writing in a tragedy of his own, "Tyranny is the mother of injustice," nevertheless named one of his daughters Virtue, another Temperance, and another Justice. Some such men proclaimed themselves Benefactors, some Gloriously Victorious, some Saviors, some Great.
As for their successive marriages, indulged in without restraint like stallions among herds of mares spending whole days at it, and their corruptions of boys, and their tambourine-revels among transvestites, and their daytime dicing, and their flute-playing in theaters, and their nights spent at dinner running over into days spent at breakfast—no one could adequately recount it all in words. But Alexander took his morning meal sitting down at dawn, dined toward late evening, and drank only after sacrificing to the gods;
he played dice with Medius while running a fever; he amused himself on the march by learning archery and how to leap down from a chariot in motion. He married Roxane out of love for her alone; but Statira, the daughter of Darius, he married for the sake of the kingdom and its affairs, since the mixing of the two peoples was advantageous. Over the rest of the Persian women he exercised such mastery in self-control as the Persians themselves showed in courage: he never saw one against her will, and those he did see he passed by more readily than those he had never seen.
And though he was humane toward everyone else, toward beautiful women alone he behaved with a kind of proud reserve. Concerning the wife of Darius, who was exceedingly beautiful, he never so much as heard a word spoken in praise of her looks; but when she died, he adorned her body so royally and wept so sympathetically that it seemed almost incredible that his self-control should coexist with such humanity, and that his very kindness should incur a charge of wrongdoing.
For Darius himself was so moved by Alexander's power and by his youth—being himself still one of those who believed that Alexander prevailed through Fortune—that when, after testing the truth from every quarter, he came to know it, he said: "It is not, then, altogether a bad thing for the Persians, nor will anyone say that we, defeated by such a man, are utterly cowardly or unmanly. For my part, I pray the gods for good fortune and success in war,
so that by doing well I might surpass Alexander; yet a certain rivalry and zeal possesses me to appear gentler than he is. And if my cause is lost, O Zeus, ancestral god of the Persians, and you royal gods, may no one else but Alexander ever sit upon the throne of Cyrus." This was, in effect, an adoption of Alexander by Darius, with the gods as witnesses. Thus do men conquer by virtue. Credit Fortune, if you like, with Arbela and
Cilicia and the rest of what came about through force and war. Say Fortune shook Tyre for him, and Fortune opened Egypt to him; say that through Fortune Halicarnassus fell and Miletus was taken, and Mazaeus left the Euphrates undefended, and the Babylonian plain was filled with corpses. But it was not from Fortune that he was self-controlled, nor from Fortune that he was master of himself; nor did Fortune keep his soul unconquerable by pleasure and
invulnerable to desire, shutting it up and standing guard over it. And yet it was precisely these qualities by which he turned Darius himself to flight; all the rest were defeats inflicted by arms and horses, battles and slaughter and the flight of men. But the great and undeniable defeat that Darius suffered, and before which he yielded, was a defeat by virtue and magnanimity and courage and justice, as he marveled at that invincibility amid pleasure, hardship, and acts of grace. For
in shields and long spears and battle-cries and clashes of arms, Tarrias son of Deinomenes, and Antigenes of Pellene, and Philotas son of Parmenion, were likewise unconquered; but against pleasures and women and gold and silver they proved no better than captives. Tarrias, indeed, when Alexander was freeing the Macedonians of their debts and settling with their creditors on behalf of everyone, falsely claimed to owe money himself,
bringing forward a supposed creditor to the pay-table; but when he was found out, he very nearly killed himself—had not Alexander, on learning the truth, released him from the charge and let him keep the money anyway, remembering that when Philip was fighting before Perinthus and was struck in the eye by a missile, Tarrias had not allowed the missile to be removed from his own body until he had first routed the enemy. Antigenes, meanwhile, mixed himself in among those being sent home to Macedonia on account of
sickness and disability, and had himself registered among them, though he had been found to have nothing wrong with him but was merely feigning some ailment—a man of war whose body was covered with wounds, and whose appearance vexed Alexander when he found him out. When Alexander asked the reason, Antigenes confessed that he was in love with Telesippa and could not bear to be left behind when she went off toward the sea, but had to follow her. "And whose woman," said Alexander, "is she, and to whom must one speak about her?"
When Antigenes replied that she was free-born, Alexander said, "Well then, let us persuade her to stay, with promises and gifts." So much more indulgent was he toward any lover other than himself. And indeed Philotas son of Parmenion also had, as nurse to his troubles, a certain lack of self-control. Antigona was a woman of Pella among the captives taken near Damascus; she had earlier been captured by Autophradates while sailing to Samothrace,
and her looks were striking enough; she quite captivated Philotas once he had become involved with her. And that man of iron, softened by her, could not master his reasoning amid his pleasures, but, opening up to her, let slip many of his secrets. "For what, after all, was that Philip, if not Parmenion? And what is this Alexander, if not Philotas? Where is Ammon, and where
the serpents, if we are unwilling?" These words Antigona repeated to one of her women friends, who told Craterus; and Craterus secretly brought Antigona herself before Alexander. He did not touch her body but held back from her; but by secretly keeping her under watch, he thoroughly detected the whole of Philotas's designs through her—and though more than seven years passed, he never once, in his cups,
betrayed this suspicion, drunk though he became; nor, quick-tempered as he was, did he ever reveal it in anger; nor did he reveal it to a friend, though he trusted Hephaestion in everything and shared everything with him. Indeed, it is said that once, when he had opened a secret letter from his mother and was reading it silently to himself, Hephaestion quietly leaned his head over and read it along with him; and Alexander, though he did not bear to stop him, took off his own ring and pressed it to
...the seal on Hephaestion's mouth. But one could go on endlessly listing such things, by which he shows himself disposing of his power in the noblest and most kingly fashion. Indeed, even if he became great through Fortune, he is greater still because he made good use of Fortune; and the more one praises his Fortune, the more one thereby increases his virtue, through which he became worthy of that Fortune.
Yet I now turn to the first stages of his rise and the beginnings of his power, and I examine what work Fortune performed in those events, on account of which they say Alexander became great through Fortune. For how could it not be so — the unwounded man, O Zeus, the bloodless one, the man who never took the field, whom a neighing horse set upon the throne of Cyrus, as it did Darius son of Hystaspes before him? Or a man flattered into kingship by a woman, as Darius made Xerxes king through Atossa? Did the diadem of kingship come to him at his very door, as it came to Oarses through Bagoas, so that, stripping off a courier's garb, he put on the royal robe and the upright tiara? Did he suddenly and unexpectedly obtain the kingship of the inhabited world by lot, as at Athens the lawgivers and magistrates are chosen by lot? Do you want to learn how men become kings through Fortune?
Once the line of the Heraclids failed among the Argives, from whom it was their ancestral custom to be ruled; and when they sought and inquired, the god gave an oracle that he would show them an eagle. A few days later an eagle appeared overhead and, swooping down, settled upon the house of Aegon, and Aegon was chosen king. Again at Paphos, when the reigning king proved unjust and wicked, Alexander drove him out and sought another, since the line of the Cinyradae seemed already to be dying out and failing. They said that one man alone survived, a poor and undistinguished man, living neglected in some garden. Those sent went to him and found him watering the vegetable beds; and he was thrown into confusion when the soldiers seized him and ordered him to come along. Brought before Alexander in a cheap linen garment, he was proclaimed king and received the purple robe, and became one of those called Companions; his name was Abdalonymus. Thus does Fortune make kings — dressing them up anew, rewriting their roles quickly and easily, while men merely wait and hope for it.
But what came to Alexander undeservedly, without sweat, without bloodshed, as a free gift, without his laboring for great things? He drank from rivers mingled with blood and crossed others bridged with corpses; he ate, out of hunger, grass that he had never seen before; and nations and cities buried deep in snowdrifts he dug his way out of beneath the earth; he sailed a sea that fought against him; and journeying over the waterless sands of the Gedrosians and Arachosians, he saw a plant growing in the sea before he ever saw one on land. For if it were possible to address Fortune with free speech on Alexander's behalf, as one would address a man, would she not be told: 'Where and when did you ever clear the way for Alexander's deeds? What rock did he take, thanks to you, without bloodshed? What city did you hand over to him unguarded, or what phalanx unarmed? What lazy king or careless general or sleeping gatekeeper was ever found for him? No — not even a river easy to ford, nor a mild winter, nor a summer without hardship.
'Go instead to Antiochus, son of Seleucus; go to Artaxerxes, brother of Cyrus; go to Ptolemy Philadelphus. Those men their fathers proclaimed kings while still living; those men won battles without shedding a tear; those men spent their time feasting in processions and theaters, and each of them grew old reigning through good fortune. But of Alexander, if nothing else, look at his body, covered with wounds: from the crown of his head to his feet it has been gashed and battered, struck by his enemies with spear and sword and huge stones — at the Granicus his helmet was cut through by a sword down to his hair; at Gaza he was struck by a missile in the shoulder; at Maracanda he was hit by an arrow in the shin, so that a piece of the shinbone was broken off by the blow and flew out; near Hyrcania he was struck by a stone on the neck, from which his eyesight was also dimmed, and for many days he lived in fear of blindness; among the Assacenians an Indian arrow struck his ankle, at which time, smiling, he said to his flatterers, "This is blood, not ichor, such as flows from the blessed gods." At Issus he was wounded in the thigh by a sword, as Chares says, when King Darius himself closed with him hand to hand. Alexander himself, writing plainly and with complete truthfulness to Antipater, says: "It happened that I too was struck in the thigh with a dagger; but nothing untoward resulted from the wound, either at the time or afterward." Among the Mallians, he was struck through his breastplate into the chest by an arrow two cubits long; and, according to Aristobulus's account, another arrow, driven in low, caught him at the neck. And after crossing the Tanais against the Scythians and putting them to flight, he pursued them on horseback for a hundred and fifty stades, all the while afflicted with dysentery.'
'Well done, O Fortune — you increase Alexander and make him great by boring through him from every side, undermining him, laying open every part of his body! Not like Athena, who before Menelaus deflected the arrow into the strongest part of his armor, and by breastplate, belt, and girdle robbed the blow of its force, letting it merely graze the body enough to draw a token flow of blood — no, this Fortune instead lays bare the vital parts to the missiles, drives the blows through the very bones, runs circling around the body, besieges the eyes and the feet, hinders his pursuits, twists away his victories, overturns his hopes.'
To my mind, no king seems to have endured a heavier Fortune, though she has fallen harshly and spitefully upon many; but while she cut down and destroyed the others like a thunderbolt, her hostility toward Alexander became a matter of rivalry, contention, and stubborn resistance, as it was toward Heracles. For what Typhons or monstrous giants did she not raise up as adversaries against him? Or what enemies did she not fortify with vast numbers of arms, or with deep rivers, or with rugged cliffs, or with the ferocity of strange wild beasts? And if Alexander's spirit had not been great, and had it not, springing from great virtue, held out and stood firm against Fortune, he would surely have grown weary and given up amid the endless drawing up of battle lines, the arming, the sieges, the pursuits, the countless revolts, the sudden turnings and uprisings of nations, the insubordination of kings, Bactra, Maracanda, the Sogdians — amid untrustworthy and treacherous peoples, forever cutting down a hydra that kept sprouting new wars.
I shall say something that will seem strange, but it is true: because of Fortune, Alexander very nearly lost his claim to being the son of Ammon. For what son of the gods, other than Heracles, son of Zeus, ever toiled through contests so perilous, so laborious, and so wretched? Yet in Heracles's case it was a single insolent man who ordered him to capture lions, chase off boars, and scare away birds — so that he would have no time to spare for greater tasks, such as punishing Antaeuses and putting a stop to murderous Busirises. But for Alexander, it was virtue that laid on him his royal and divine labor, whose end and purpose was not gold carried about on ten thousand camels, nor Median luxuries and banquets and women, nor Chalybonian wine, nor Hyrcanian fish, but rather to adorn all mankind with a single order, making them subject to a single rule and accustomed to a single way of life.
Alexander had this longing implanted in him from childhood, nurtured and growing along with him; so that when envoys arrived from the Persian king to Philip, who was not at home, Alexander received and entertained them, and asked none of the childish questions others might ask, about the golden vine or the hanging gardens, or how the king was adorned, but was wholly absorbed in the matters most vital to empire, asking in detail how great the strength of the Persians was, where the king took his position and fought in battles — like that Odysseus asking where his martial gear lay and where his horses were — and what were the shortest roads for those journeying inland from the sea; so that the visitors were astonished and said, 'This boy is a great king; ours is merely rich.'
When Philip died, Alexander set out at once to cross over into Asia, and, already committed heart and soul to his hopes and preparations, was eager to lay hold of it; but Fortune stood in his way, turned him back, dragged him backward, and hemmed him in with countless distractions and delays, seizing every occasion to hold him up. First she stirred up against him the barbarian tribes on his borders, contriving wars with the Illyrians and Triballians. Pursuing these as far as Scythia by the Ister, he was drawn away from his higher enterprises, and after running through and accomplishing everything amid great dangers and struggles, he again set out and hastened to make the crossing; but again she threw Thebes at him and cast a Greek war in his path, forcing upon him a grim necessity of defending himself, through slaughter and iron and fire, against men of his own race and kin — a most joyless conclusion.
After this he made the crossing, having, as Phylarchus says, provisions for thirty days, or, as Aristobulus says, seventy talents; and of his possessions and royal revenues at home he distributed the greater part among his Companions. Perdiccas alone, when Alexander offered, took nothing, but asked, 'And what do you leave for yourself, Alexander?' When Alexander answered, 'My hopes,' Perdiccas said, 'Then we too shall share in these; for it is not right for us to take what is yours, but rather to await what will be Darius's.'
What, then, were the hopes with which Alexander crossed into Asia? Not a strength measured by the walls of cities of ten thousand men, nor fleets sailing through mountains, nor whips and fetters, those mad and barbaric instruments for punishing the sea; but, on the outward side, with meager arms, great ambition, rivalry among men of the same age, and competition for glory and virtue among his Companions; while he himself carried within him the great hopes -- piety toward the gods, faithfulness toward friends, frugality, self-control, experience, fearlessness of death, courage, humanity, an agreeable manner in company, a truthful character, steadiness in counsel, swiftness in action, love of glory, and a purpose that carried through to completion in what is noble.
For Homer, neither fittingly nor convincingly, assembled the beauty of Agamemnon out of three separate images, likening him — in eyes and head — to Zeus who delights in thunder, in his girdle to Ares, and in his chest to Poseidon. But as for Alexander's nature, if indeed the god who begot him composed and fitted it together out of many virtues, should we not say that he had the spirit of Cyrus, the self-control of Agesilaus, the intelligence of Themistocles, the experience of Philip, the daring of Brasidas, and the political skill and eloquence of Pericles? And compared with men still more ancient, he was more self-controlled than Agamemnon: for Agamemnon preferred a captive woman over his own wife, while Alexander, even before he was married, abstained from those he had taken captive. He was more magnanimous than Achilles: for Achilles ransomed the corpse of Hector for a small sum of money, while Alexander buried Darius at great expense; and Achilles, reconciled with his friends, took payment in place of his wrath, while Alexander, on the contrary, enriched his enemies even while conquering them. He was more pious than Diomedes: for Diomedes was ready to fight even against the gods, while Alexander believed that he accomplished everything through the gods. He was more dearly missed by his kin than Odysseus: for that man's mother died of grief, while for Alexander even the mother of his enemy died together with him, out of devotion.
In sum, if Solon governed through Fortune, and Miltiades commanded through Fortune, and Aristides was just through Fortune, then Virtue is no achievement at all, but merely a name and a word carrying a certain reputation, that idly runs through the course of life, fashioned by sophists and lawgivers. But if each of these men and their like became poor or rich, or weak or strong, or ill-favored or handsome, or long-lived or short-lived, through Fortune, while each nonetheless made himself great as a general, great as a lawgiver, and great in offices and public affairs through virtue and reason — then come, let me view Alexander, comparing him with all of them.
Solon carried out a cancellation of debts at Athens, calling it the 'shaking-off of burdens'; Alexander instead himself paid off, on behalf of the debtors, the debts owed to their creditors. Pericles, taxing the Greeks, adorned the Acropolis with temples from the money he collected; Alexander, taking the money of the barbarians, sent it to Greece, ordering that temples be built for the gods at a cost of ten thousand talents. What made Brasidas famous throughout Greece was his running past the enemy's camp near Methone while under fire, along the shore; but Alexander's leap among the Oxydracae — that terrifying leap, incredible to those who only hear of it and dreadful to those who witnessed it, when he flung himself from the walls among the enemy, who awaited him with spears, arrows, and bared swords — to what could one liken it but to a bolt of lightning, breaking loose and borne along with the wind, such as once struck down upon the earth, 'a vision of Phoebus, gleaming with flame-like weapons'? At first the enemy, struck with terror and trembling, fled in panic and drew back; then, seeing that it was a single man attacking so many, they turned to resist.
It was there, indeed, that Fortune displayed the great and shining proof of her goodwill toward Alexander — casting him into an obscure and barbarous stronghold, shutting him in, and walling him about; while those who were rushing to his aid from outside in their haste, straining to reach the walls, she tripped up and hurled down by breaking and shattering their scaling ladders. Of the three men alone who had managed to reach the wall and, letting themselves down, to take their stand beside the king, one was instantly snatched away and killed outright, while another, pierced through with many arrows, was so near to death that he could barely still see and feel. Outside, the Macedonians' rushing and shouting came to nothing, for no siege engine and no equipment was at hand; in their haste they could only strike the walls with their swords and try, with bare hands, to tear them apart and all but gnaw through them, forcing their way in.
And so the fortunate king, always guarded and attended by Fortune, was caught like a wild beast in a net, alone and without help — and not even for the sake of taking Susa or Babylon or Bactra, nor of conquering the great Porus; for in famous and great contests, even if they end badly, there is at least no disgrace attached. But Fortune was so contentious and spiteful, so partial to the barbarians and so hostile to Alexander, that, as far as lay in her power, she sought to destroy not only his body and his life, but even his fame, and to ruin his glory.
For it would not have been terrible for Alexander to lie fallen by the Euphrates or the Hydaspes, nor ignoble to die falling into Darius's hands, with the Persians defending their king with horses, swords, and scimitars; nor to have stumbled and fallen, mounting the walls of Babylon, from so great a hope. Such, in the case of Pelopidas and Epaminondas, was a death belonging to virtue, not to misfortune, for men of such stature. But what, then, is the achievement of the Fortune now under examination? To have enveloped and hidden away the king and lord of the inhabited world in the remotest corner, by a barbarian riverside, within the walls of some obscure little town, with dishonorable weapons and makeshift gear such as happened to be at hand...
to perish, struck down and pelted with missiles. Indeed, a blade struck his head clean through the helmet, and someone's arrow-shot cut through his breastplate, and when it had lodged in the bones near his breast and stuck fast, the shaft projected, weighing him down, while the iron head of the point measured four fingers in width and five in length. And, worst of all his sufferings, he still defended himself against those
who came at him face to face, and the man who had shot him and dared to close in with a sword he himself, striking first with his dagger, felled and killed. In the midst of this someone ran up from a mill and dealt him, from behind, a blow on the neck with a pestle, which confounded his senses as he grew faint with darkness. But Valor was there, instilling courage in him and, in those around him, strength and eagerness. For the men of Limnae and
the Ptolemies and the Leonnatuses, and all who had scaled or breached the wall and taken their stand before him, were themselves a wall of valor, offering up their bodies, their faces, and their souls out of goodwill and love for their king. For it is not through Fortune that the companions of good kings die before them of their own free will and face danger in their place, but out of love for Valor, as if drawn by love-charms, they come to their ruler and cling fast to him, like bees to their leader. Who,
then, watching then as a spectator out of danger, would not have said that he was beholding a great contest between Fortune and Valor, and that the barbarian side prevails undeservedly through Fortune, while the Greek side holds its ground beyond its strength through Valor? And if the former should prevail, it will be the work of fortune and a jealous spirit and of nemesis; but if the latter should win, Valor and daring and friendship and
loyalty will carry off the victor's prize. For these alone stood by Alexander's side, while of all his other power and equipment, his fleets and horses and armies, Fortune set the wall between him and them. The Macedonians then routed the barbarians, and when they had fallen, razed their city over them. But it was of no help to Alexander, for he had been struck down along with the arrow, and he had the shaft lodged within his
vitals, and the missile was, for him, both a bond and a nail fastening his breastplate to his body. And when they tried to force it out, as if by the root, from the wound, the iron would not yield, for it had lodged firmly in the solid parts of the chest before the heart; and they did not dare to saw off the projecting part of the shaft, but were afraid that the bone, torn by the wrenching, might cause excessive pain
and that a rupture of blood might occur from deep within. Seeing much helplessness and delay, he himself undertook to cut off the arrow-shaft close to the breastplate with his small sword; but his hand grew weak and had a numb heaviness from the inflammation of the wound. He therefore ordered those who were unwounded to lay hold of it and not be afraid, encouraging them; and he railed at those who wept and were overcome with grief, and called those who did not dare to help him
deserters. And he cried out to his companions, "Let no one be a coward on my account either: I am disbelieved when I say I do not fear death, if you yourselves fear it."