But thou dost beg it.
Ateas, king of the Scythians, having taken Ismenias the musician
prisoner, commanded him to play during one of his royal banquets. And
when all the rest admired and applauded his harmony, Ateas swore that
the neighing of a horse was more delightful to his ears. So great a
stranger was he to the habitations of the Muses; as one whose soul
lodged always in his stables, fitter however to hear asses bray than
horses neigh. Therefore, among such kings, what progress or advancement
of noble sciences or esteem for learning can be expected? And surely
no more can be expected from such as would themselves be rivals,
who therefore persecute real artists with all the hatred and envy
imaginable. In the number of these was Dionysius before mentioned, who
condemned Philoxenus the poet to labor in the quarries, because, being
by the tyrant commanded only to correct a tragedy by him written, he
struck out every line from the beginning to the end. Nay, I must needs
say that Philip, who became a student not till his latter years, in
these things descended beneath himself. For it being once his chance to
enter into a dispute about sounds with a musician whom he thought he
had foiled in his art, the person modestly and with a smile replied,
May never so great a misfortune befall thee, O King, as to understand
these things better than I do.
2. But Alexander, well considering of what persons and things it became
him to be the hearer and spectator, and with whom to contend and
exercise his strength, made it his business to excel all others in the
art of war, and according to Aeschylus, to be
A mighty warrior, terrible to his foes.
For having learned this art from his ancestors, the Aeacidae and
Hercules, he gave to other arts their due honor and esteem without
the least emulation; embracing and favoring what was in them noble
and elegant, but never suffering himself to be carried away with the
pleasure of being a practitioner in any. In his time flourished the
two tragedians, Thessalus and Athenodorus, who contending for the
prize, the Cyprian kings supplied the charges of the theatre, and
the judges were to be the most renowned captains of the age. But at
length Athenodorus being adjudged the victor; I could have wished,
said Alexander, rather to have lost a part of my kingdom than to
have seen Thessalus vanquished. Yet he neither interceded with the
judges nor anywhere disapproved or blamed the judgment; believing it
became him to be superior to all others, only to submit to justice.
To the comedian Lyco of Scarphe, who had inserted into one of his
scenes certain verses in the nature of a begging petition, he gave
ten talents, laughing heartily at the conceit. Aristonicus was in the
number of the most famous musicians of those times. This man being
slain in battle, strenuously fighting to assist and save his friend,
Alexander commanded his statue to be made in brass and set up in the
temple of Pythian Apollo, holding his harp in one hand and his spear
upright in the other, not only in memory of the person, but in honor
of music itself, as exciting to fortitude and inspiring those who are
rightly and generously bred to it with a kind of supernatural courage
and bravery.
Even Alexander himself, when Antigenides played before him in the
Harmatian mood, was so transported and warmed for battle by the charms
of lofty airs, that leaping from his seat all in his clattering armor
he began to lay about him and attack those who stood next him, thereby
verifying to the Spartans what was commonly sung among themselves,—
The masculine touches of the well-tuned lyre
Unsheathe the sword and warlike rage inspire.[205]
Furthermore, there were also Apelles the painter and Lysippus the
statuary both living under the reign of Alexander. The first of which
painted him grasping Jupiter’s thunderbolt in his hand, so artfully
and in such lively colors, that it was said of the two Alexanders that
Philip’s was invincible, but Apelles’s inimitable. Lysippus, when he
had finished the first statue of Alexander looking up with his face to
the sky (as Alexander was wont to look, with his neck slightly bent),
not improperly added to the pedestal the following lines:—
The statue seems to look to Jove and say,
Take thou Olympus; me let Earth obey!
For which Alexander gave to Lysippus the sole patent for making all his
statues; because he alone expressed in brass the vigor of his mind,
and in his lineaments represented the lustre of his virtue; while
others, who strove to imitate the turning of his neck and softness and
brightness of his eyes, failed to observe the manliness and lion-like
fierceness of his countenance.
Among the great artists of that time was Stasicrates, who never studied
elegance nor what was sweet and alluring to the eye, but only bold and
lofty workmanship and design, becoming the munificence of royal bounty.
He attended upon Alexander, and found fault with all the paintings,
sculptures, and cast figures that were made of his person, as the works
of mean and slothful artificers. “But I,” said he, “will undertake
to fix the likeness of thy body on matter incorruptible, such as has
eternal foundations and a ponderosity steadfast and immovable. For the
mountain Athos in Thrace, where it rises largest and most conspicuous,
having a just symmetry of breadth and height, with members, limbs, and
distances answerable to the shape of human body, may be so wrought
and formed as to be, not only in imagination and fancy but really,
the effigy and statue of Alexander; with his feet reaching to the
seas, grasping in his left hand a fair and populous city, and with his
right pouring forth an ever-flowing river into the ocean from a bowl,
as a perpetual drink-offering. But as for gold, brass, ivory, wood,
stained figures, and little wax images, toys which may be bought or
stolen, I despise them all.” When Alexander heard this discourse, he
admired and praised the spirit and confidence of the artist; “But,”
said he, “let Athos alone; for it is sufficient that it is the monument
of the vanquished folly and presuming pride of one king already. Our
portraiture the snowy Caucasus, and towering Emodon, Tanais, and the
Caspian Sea shall draw. They shall remain eternal monuments of our
renown.”
3. But grant that so vast an undertaking should have been brought to
perfection; is there any person living, do ye think, that would have
believed such a figure, such a form, and so great a design, to be the
spontaneous and accidental production of fantastic Nature? Certainly,
not one. What may we think of the statue representing him grasping
thunder, and that other with his spear in his hand? Is it possible
that a Colossus of a statue should ever be made by Fortune without the
help of art; nay, though she should profusely afford all the materials
imaginable of gold, brass, ivory, or any other substance whatever?
Much more, is it probable that so great a personage, and indeed the
greatest of all who have ever lived, should be the workmanship of
Fortune without the assistance of virtue? And all this, perhaps,
because she has made him the potent master of arms, horses, money, and
wealthy cities?—which he who knows not how to use shall rather find
to be destructive and dangerous than aids to advance his power and
magnificence, as affording proofs of his weakness and pusillanimity.
Noble therefore was the saying of Antisthenes, that we ought to wish an
enemy all things beneficial to mankind except fortitude; for so these
blessings will belong not to their possessors but to the conqueror.
Therefore it was, they say, that Nature provided for the hart, one of
the most timorous of creatures, such large and branchy horns, to teach
us that strength and weapons nothing avail where conduct and courage
are wanting. In like manner, Fortune frequently bestowing wealth and
empire upon princes simple and faint-hearted, who blemish their dignity
by misgovernment, honors and more firmly establishes virtue, as being
that which alone makes a man most truly beautiful and majestic. For
indeed, according to Epicharmus,
’Tis the mind only sees, the mind
That hears; the rest are deaf and blind.
For as for the senses, they seem only to have their proper
opportunities to act.
But that the mind alone is that which gives both assistance and
ornament, the mind that overcomes, that excels, and acts the kingly
part, while those other blind, deaf, and inanimate things do but
hinder, depress, and disgrace the possessors void of virtue, is easily
made manifest by experience. For Semiramis, but a woman, set forth
great navies, raised mighty armies, built Babylon, covered the Red Sea
with her fleets and subdued the Ethiopians and Arabians. On the other
side, Sardanapalus possessing the same power and dominion, though born
a man, spent his time at home combing purple wool, lying among his
harlots in a lascivious posture upon his back, with his heels higher
than his head. After his decease, they made for him a statue of stone,
resembling a woman dancing, who seemed to snap with her fingers as she
held them over her head, with this inscription,—
Eat, drink, indulge thy lust; all other things are nothing.
Whence it came to pass that Crates, seeing the golden statue of Phryne
the courtesan standing in the temple of Delphi, cried out, There
stands a trophy of the Grecian luxury. But had he viewed the life or
rather burial (for I find but little difference) of Sardanapalus,
would he have imagined that statue to have been a trophy of Fortune’s
indulgences? Shall we suffer the fortune of Alexander to be sullied by
the touch of Sardanapalus, or endure that the latter should challenge
the majesty and prowess of the former? For what did Sardanapalus enjoy
through her favor, more than other princes receive at her hands—arms,
horses, weapons, money, and guards of the body? Let Fortune, with
all these assistances, make Aridaeus famous, if she can; let her, if
she can, advance the renown of Ochus, Amasis, Oarses, Tigranes the
Armenian, or Nicomedes the Bithynian. Of which last two, the one,
casting his diadem at Pompey’s feet, ignominiously surrendered up his
kingdom a prey to the victor; and as for Nicomedes, he, after he had
shaved his head and put on the cap of liberty, acknowledged himself no
more than a freed vassal of the Roman people.
4. Rather let us therefore affirm that Fortune makes her favorites
little, poor-spirited, and pusillanimous cowards. But it is not just
to ascribe vice to misfortune, fortitude and wisdom to prosperity.
Fortune indeed was herself made great by Alexander’s reign; for in him
she appeared illustrious, invincible, magnanimous, merciful, and just.
Insomuch that after his decease Leosthenes likened this vast bulk of
power—wandering as in a mist, and sometimes violently rushing one part
against the other—to the giant Cyclops, who after he had lost his eye
went feeling and groping about with his hands before him, not knowing
where to lay them. So strangely did that vast pile of dominion roll
and tumble about in the dark of confusion, when shattered into anarchy
by the loss of its supreme head. Or rather, as dead bodies, when the
soul takes her flight, no longer grow together, no longer act together,
but are broken up and dissolved, and are finally dissipated; thus
Alexander’s empire, wanting his enlivening conduct, panted, gasped,
and boiled with fever, struggling with Perdiccas, Meleager, Seleucus,
and Antigonus,—as with vital spirits still remaining hot, and with
irregular and intermittent pulses,—till at length, totally corrupted
and putrefied, it produced a sort of degenerate kings and faint-hearted
princes, like so many worms. This he himself seemed to prophesy,
reproving Hephaestion for quarrelling with Craterus: What power, said
he, or signal achievement couldst thou pretend to, should any one
deprive thee of thy Alexander? The same will I be bold to say to the
Fortune of that time: Where would have been thy grandeur, where thy
glory, where thy vast empire, thy invincibility, should any one have
bereaved thee of thy Alexander?—that is, should any one have deprived
thee of thy skill and dexterity in war, thy magnificence in expense,
thy moderation in the midst of so much affluence, thy prowess in the
field, thy meekness to the vanquished? Frame, if thou canst, another
piece like him, that missing all his noble qualities shall neither be
magnificently liberal nor foremost in battle, that shall not regard nor
esteem his friends, that shall not be compassionate to his captives,
that shall not moderate his pleasures, that shall not be watchful
to take all opportunities, whom victory shall make inexorable and
prosperity insolent; and try if thou canst make him another Alexander.
What ruler ever obtained renown by folly and improbity? Separate virtue
from the fortunate, and he everywhere appears little;—among those
that deserve his bounty, for his close-handed illiberality; among the
laborious, for his effeminacy; among the Gods, for his superstition;
among the good, for his envious conditions; among men, for his
cowardice; among women, for his inordinate lust. For as unskilful
workmen, erecting small figures upon huge pedestals, betray the
slightness of their own understandings; so Fortune, when she brings a
person of a poor and narrow soul upon the stage of weighty and glorious
actions, does but expose and disgrace him, as a person whom the vanity
of his own ill conduct has rendered worthless.
5. So that true grandeur does not consist in the possession but in
the use of noble means. For new-born infants frequently inherit their
father’s kingdoms and empires. Such an one was Charillus, whom Lycurgus
carried in his swaddling-bands to the public table, and resigning his
own authority proclaimed king of Lacedaemon. Yet was not the infant
thereby the more famous, but he who surrendered to the infant his
paternal right, scorning fraud and usurpation. But who could make
Aridaeus great, whom Meleager seated in Alexander’s throne, differing
from a child only in having his swaddling-clothes of purple? Prudently
done, that so in a few days it might appear how men govern by virtue,
and how by fortune. For after the true prince who swayed the empire,
he brought in a mere player; or rather he exposed the diadem of the
habitable world upon the brainless head of a mere mute on the stage.
Women may bear the burden of a crown,
When a renowned commander puts it on.[206]
Yet some may say, it is possible for women and children to confer
dignity, riches, and empire upon others. Thus the eunuch Bagoas took
the diadem of Persia, and set it upon the head of Oarses and Darius.
But for a man to take upon him the burden of a vast dominion, and so
to manage his ponderous affairs as not to suffer himself to sink and
be overwhelmed under the immense weight of wakeful cares and incessant
labor, that is the character which signalizes a person endued with
virtue, understanding, and wisdom. All these royal qualities Alexander
had, whom some accuse of being given to wine. But he was a really
great man, who was always sober in action and never drunk with the
pride of his conquests and vast power; while others intoxicated with
the smallest part of his prosperity have ceased to be masters of
themselves. For, as the poet sings,—
The vainer sort, that view their heaps of gold,
Or else advanced at court high places hold,
Grow wanton with those unexpected showers
That Fortune on their happy greatness pours.[207]
Thus Clitus, having sunk some three or four of the Grecians galleys
near the island Amorgus, called himself Neptune and carried a
trident. So Demetrius, to whom Fortune vouchsafed a small portion of
Alexander’s power, assumed the title of Kataibates (as if descended
from heaven), to whom the several cities sent their ambassadors, by the
name of God-consulters, and his determinations were called oracles.
Lysimachus, having made himself master of some part of the skirts of
Alexander’s empire, viz., the region about Thrace, swelled to such
excess of pride and vain-glory as to break forth into this ranting
expression: Now the Byzantines make their addresses to me, because I
touch heaven with my spear. At which words, Pasiades of Byzantium being
then present said, Let us be gone, lest he pierce heaven with the point
of his lance.
What shall we, in the next place, think of those who presumed, as
imitators of Alexander, to have high thoughts of themselves? Clearchus,
having made himself tyrant of Heraclea, carried a sceptre like that of
Jupiter’s in his hand, and named one of his sons Thunderbolt. Dionysius
the Younger called himself the son of Apollo in this inscription:—
The son of Doris, but from Phoebus sprung.
His father put to death above ten thousand of his subjects, betrayed
his brother out of envy to his enemies, and not enduring to expect the
natural death of his mother, at that time very aged, caused her to be
strangled, writing in one of his tragedies,—
For tyranny is the mother of injustice.
Yet after all this, he named one of his daughters Virtue, another
Temperance, and a third Justice. Others there were that assumed the
titles of benefactors, others of glorious conquerors, others of
preservers, and others usurped the title of great and magnificent.
But should we go about to recount their promiscuous marriages like
horses, their continual herding among impudent and lawless women, their
contaminations of boys, their drumming among effeminate eunuchs, their
perpetual gaming, their piping in theatres, their nocturnal revels, and
days consumed in riot, it would be a task too tedious to undertake.
6. As for Alexander, he breakfasted by break of day, always sitting;
and supped at the shutting in of the evening; he drank when he had
sacrificed to the Gods. With his friend Medius he played for diversion
when he was sick with a fever. He also played upon the road as he
marched, learning between whiles to throw a dart and leap from his
chariot. He married Roxana merely for love; but Statira, the daughter
of Darius, upon the account of state-policy, for such a conjunction of
both nations strengthened his conquest. As to the other Persian women,
he excelled them in chastity and continence as far as he surpassed
the men in valor. He never desired the sight of any virgin that was
unwilling; and those he saw, he regarded less than if he had not seen
them; mild and affable to all others, proud and lofty only to fair
youth. As for the wife of Darius, a woman most beautiful, he never
would endure to hear a word spoken in commendation of her features.
When she was dead, he graced her funeral with such a regal pomp, and
bewailed her death so piteously, that his kindness cast discredit upon
his chastity, and his very courtesy incurred the obloquy of injustice.
Indeed, Darius himself had been moved with suspicion at first, when he
thought of the power and the youth of the conqueror; for he was one
of those who thought Alexander to be only the darling of Fortune. But
when he understood the truth, “Well,” said he, “I do not yet perceive
the condition of the Persians so deplorable, since the world can never
tax us now with imbecility or effeminacy, whose fate it was to be
vanquished by such a person. Therefore my prayers shall be to the Gods
for his prosperity, and that he may be still victorious in war; to the
end that in well-doing I may surpass Alexander. For my emulation and
ambition lead me in point of honor to show myself more cordial and
friendly than he. If then the Fates have otherwise determined as to me
and mine, O Jupiter preserver of the Persians, and you, O Deities, to
whom the care of kings belongs, hear your suppliant, and suffer none
but Alexander to sit upon the throne of Cyrus.” This was the manner in
which Darius adopted Alexander, after he had called the Gods to witness
the act.
7. So true it is that virtue is the victor still. But now, if you
please, let us ascribe to Fortune Arbela and Cilicia, and those other
acts of main force and violence; say that Fortune thundered down the
walls of Tyre, and that Fortune opened the way into Egypt. Believe
that by Fortune Halicarnassus fell, Miletus was taken, Mazaeus left
Euphrates unguarded, and the Babylonian fields were strewed with
the carcasses of the slain. Yet was not his prudence the gift of
Fortune, nor his temperance. Neither did Fortune, as it were empaling
his inclinations, preserve him impregnable against his pleasures or
invulnerable against the assaults of his fervent desires. These were
the weapons with which he overthrew Darius. Fortune’s advantages, if
so they may be called, were only the fury of armed men and horses,
battles, slaughters, and flights of routed adversaries. But the great
and most undoubted victory which Darius lost was this, that he was
forced to yield to virtue, magnanimity, prowess, and justice, while he
beheld with admiration his conqueror, who was not to be overcome by
pleasure or by labor, nor to be matched in liberality.
True it is, that among the throngs of shields and spears, in the midst
of warlike shouts and the clashing of weapons, Tarrias the son of
Dinomenes, Antigenes the Pellenian, and Philotas the son of Parmenio
were invincible; but in respect of their inordinate debauchery, their
love of women, their insatiable covetousness, they were nothing
superior to the meanest of their captives. For the last of these vices
Tarrias was particularly noted; and when Alexander set the Macedonians
out of debt and paid off all their creditors, Tarrias pretended among
the rest to owe a great sum of money, and brought a suborned person
to demand the sum as due to him; but being discovered, he would have
laid violent hands upon himself, had not Alexander forgiven him and
ordered him the money, remembering that at the battle of Perinthus
fought by Philip, being shot into the eye with a dart, he would not
suffer the head of it to be pulled out till the field was clear of
the enemy. Antigenes, when the sick and maimed soldiers were to be
sent back into Macedon, made suit to be registered down in the number,
pretending himself utterly disabled in the wars; which very much
troubled Alexander, who was well acquainted with his valor and knew
that he wore the scars about him of many a bloody field. But the fraud
being detected, that was concealed under some little present infirmity,
Alexander asked him the reason of his design; and he answered, he did
it for the love of Telesippe, that he might accompany her to the sea,
not being able to endure a separation from her. Presently the King
demanded to whom the wench belonged, and who was to be dealt with in
regard to her. To which he replied, she was free from any tie. Well,
then, said the King, let us persuade her to stay, if promises or gifts
will prevail. So ready was he to pardon the dotages of love in others,
so rigorous to himself. But Philotas the son of Parmenio exercised his
incontinency after a more offensive manner. Antigona was a Pellaean
virgin among the captives taken about Damascus, a prisoner before to
Autophradates, who took her going by sea into Samothrace. The beauty
of this damsel was such as kept Philotas constant to her embraces.
Nay, she had so softened and mellowed this man of steel, I know not
how, that he was not master of himself in his enjoyments, but told her
the very secrets of his breast; among other things he said: What had
Philip been, but for Parmenio? And what would Alexander now be, but
for Philotas? What would become of Ammon and the dragons, should we be
once provoked? These words Antigona prattled to one of her companions,
and she told them to Craterus. Craterus brings Antigona privately to
Alexander, who forbore to offer her the least incivility, but by her
means piercing into Philotas’s breast, he detected the whole. Yet for
seven years after he never discovered so much as the least sign of
jealousy, either in his wine or in his anger; nor did he ever disclose
it to any friend, even to Hephaestion, from whom he never concealed
the most inward of his counsels and designs. For it is said that once,
when Alexander had just opened a private letter from his mother and was
quietly reading it, Hephaestion looked over his shoulder and began to
read it likewise; but Alexander forbore to reprove him, and only took
off his signet and clapped it to Hephaestion’s mouth.
8. These recitals may suffice, without being tedious, to show that
he exercised his authority according to all the most illustrious and
royal methods of government. To which grandeur if he arrived by the
assistance of Fortune, he is to be acknowledged the greater, because
he made so glorious a use of her. So that the more any man extols his
fortune, the more he advances his virtue, which made him worthy of such
fortune.
But now I shall return to the beginnings of his advancement and the
early dawnings of his power, and endeavor to discover what was there
the great work of Fortune, which rendered Alexander so great by her
assistance. First then, how came it to pass that some neighing barb did
not seat him in the throne of Cyrus, free from wounds, without loss of
blood, without a toilsome expedition, as formerly it happened to Darius
Hystaspes? Or that some one flattered by a woman, as Darius by Atossa,
did not deliver up his diadem to him, as the other did to Xerxes, so
that the empire of Persia came home to him, even to his own doors? Or
why did not some eunuch aid him, as Bagoas did the son of Parysatis,
who, only throwing off the habit of a messenger, immediately put on the
royal turban? Or why was he not elected on a sudden and unexpectedly by
lot to the empire of the world, as at Athens the lawgivers and rulers
are wont to be chosen? Would you know how men come to be kings by
Fortune’s help? At Argos the whole race of the Heraclidae happened to
be extinct, to whom the sceptre of that kingdom belonged. Upon which
consulting the oracle, answer was made to them that an eagle should
direct them. Within a few days the eagle appeared towering aloft, but
stooping he at length lighted upon Aegon’s house; thereupon Aegon was
chosen king. Another time in Paphos, the king that there reigned being
an unjust and wicked tyrant, Alexander resolved to dethrone him, and
therefore sought out for another, the race of the Kinyradae seeming
to be at an end. They told him there was one yet in being, a poor man
and of no account, who lived miserable in a certain garden. Thereupon
messengers were sent, who found the poor man watering some few small
beds of pot-herbs. The miserable creature was strangely surprised to
see so many soldiers about him, but go he must; and so being brought
before Alexander in his rags and tatters, he caused him presently to be
proclaimed king and clad in purple; which done, he was admitted into
the number of those who were called the king’s companions. The name of
this person was Alynomus. Thus Fortune creates kings suddenly, easily
changing the habits and altering the names of those that never expected
or hoped for any such thing.
9. All this while, what favors did Fortune shower upon Alexander
but what he merited, what he sweat for, what he bled for? What came
gratis? What without the price of great achievements and illustrious
actions? He quenched his thirst in rivers mixed with blood; he marched
over bridges of slain carcasses; he grazed the fields to satisfy his
present hunger; he dug his way to nations covered with snow and cities
lying under ground; he made the hostile sea submit to his fleets;
and, marching over the thirsty and barren sands of the Gedrosians and
Arachosians, he discovered green at sea before he saw it at land. So
that if I might use the same liberty of speech for Alexander to Fortune
as to a man, I would thus expostulate with her:—
“Insulting Fortune, when and where didst thou make an easy way
for Alexander’s vast performances? What impregnable rock was ever
surrendered to him without a bloody assault, by thy favor? What city
didst thou ever deliver unguarded into his hands? Or what unarmed
battalion of men? What faint-hearted prince, what negligent captain, or
sleepy sentinels did he ever surprise? When didst thou ever befriend
him with so much as a fordable river, a mild winter, or an easy summer?
Get thee to Antiochus the son of Seleucus, to Artaxerxes the brother of
Cyrus. Get thee to Ptolemy Philadelphus. Their fathers proclaimed them
kings in their own lifetime; they won battles which no mothers wept
for; they spent their days in festivals, admiring the pomp of shows and
theatres; and still more happy, they prolonged their reigns till scarce
their feeble hands could wield their sceptres. But if nothing else,
behold the body of Alexander wounded by the enemy, mangled, battered,
bruised, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet,