ALEXANDER’S GRIEF FOR CLITUS.
I think Clitus deserving of severe censure for his insolent behaviour
to his king, while at the same time I pity Alexander for his mishap,
because on that occasion he showed himself the slave of two vices,
anger and drunkenness, by neither of which is it seemly for a prudent
man to be enslaved. But then on the other hand I think his subsequent
behaviour worthy of praise, because directly after he had done the
deed he recognised that it was a horrible one. Some of his biographers
even say that he propped the pike against the wall with the intention
of falling upon it himself, thinking that it was not proper for him to
live who had killed his friend when under the influence of wine. Most
historians do not mention this, but say that he went off to bed and lay
there lamenting, calling Clitus himself by name, and his sister Lanice,
daughter of Dropidas, who had been his nurse. He exclaimed that having
reached man’s estate he had forsooth bestowed on her a noble reward for
her care in rearing him, as she lived to see her own sons die fighting
on his behalf, and the king slaying her brother with his own hand.[543]
He did not cease calling himself the murderer of his friends; and for
three days rigidly abstained from food and drink, and paid no attention
whatever to his personal appearance. Some of the soothsayers revealed
that the avenging wrath of Dionysus had been the cause of his conduct,
because he had omitted the sacrifice to that deity.[544] At last with
great difficulty he was induced by his companions to touch food and to
pay proper attention to His person.[545] He then paid to Dionysus the
sacrifice due to him, since he was not at all unwilling to attribute
the fatality rather to the avenging wrath of the deity than to his own
depravity. I think Alexander deserves great praise for this, that he
did not obstinately persevere in evil, or still worse become a defender
and advocate of the wrong which had been done, but confessed that he
had committed a crime, being a man and not a god. There are some who
say that Anaxarchus the Sophist[546] was summoned into Alexander’s
presence to give him consolation. Finding him lying down and groaning,
he laughed at him, and said that he did not know that the wise men of
old for this reason made Justice an assessor of Zeus, because whatever
was done by him was justly done[547]; and therefore also that which was
done by the Great King ought to be deemed just, in the first place by
the king himself, and then by the rest of men. They say that Alexander
was then greatly consoled by these remarks.[548] But I assert that
Anaxarchus did Alexander a great injury and one still greater than that
by which he was then oppressed, if he really thought this to be the
opinion of a wise man, that forsooth it is proper for a king to come to
hasty conclusions and act unjustly, and that whatever is done by a king
must be deemed just, no matter how it is done. There is also a current
report that Alexander wished men to prostrate themselves before him as
to a god, entertaining the notion that Ammon was his father, rather
than Philip; and that he now showed his admiration of the customs of
the Persians and Medes by changing the style of his dress, and by the
alteration he made in the general etiquette of his court. There were
not wanting those who in regard to these matters gave way to his wishes
with the design of flattering him; among others being Anaxarchus, one
of the philosophers attending his court, and Agis, an Argive who was an
epic poet.[549]