[1] This is Fortune’s discourse, who declares that Alexander is her own characteristic handiwork, and hers alone. But some rejoinder must be made on behalf of philosophy, or rather on Alexander’s behalf, who would be vexed and indignant if he should be thought to have received as a pure gift, even at the hands of Fortune, the supremacy which he won at the price of much blood and of wounds that followed one after another; and against irresistible forces and innumerable tribes, against impassable rivers and mountain fastnesses whose summit no arrow could reach, furthered by wise counsels, steadfast purpose, manly courage, and a prudent heart.

[2] I think that if Fortune should try to inscribe her name on his successes, he would say to her, Slander not my virtues, nor take away my fair fame by detraction. Darius was your handiwork: he who was a slave and courier of the king, ² him did you make the mighty lord of Persia; and Sardar Lapalus, upon whose head you placed the royal diadem, though he spent his days in carding purple wool. ³ But I, through my victory at Arbela, ⁴ went up to Susa, and Cilicia ⁵ opened the way for me into the broad land of Egypt; but to Cilicia I came by way of the Granicus, ⁶ which I crossed, using as a bridge the dead bodies of Mithridates and Spithridates. Adorn yourself, proud Fortune, and vaunt your dominion over kings that never felt a wound nor shed a drop of blood. For they have been Fortune’s favourites, men such as Ochus ⁷ was and Artaxerses, whom at the very hour of their birth you placed upon the throne of Cyrus. But my body bears many a token of an opposing Fortune and no ally of mine. First, among the Illyrians, ⁸ my head was wounded by a stone and my neck by a cudgel. Then at the Granicus ⁹ my head was cut open by an enemy’s dagger, at Issus ¹⁰ my thigh was pierced by the sword. Next at Gaza ¹¹ my ankle was wounded by an arrow, my shoulder was dislocated, and I whirled heavily round and round. Then at Maracandaf ¹² the bone of my leg was split open by an arrow. There awaited me towards the last also the buffetings I received among the Indians and the violence of famines. ¹³ Among the Aspasians ¹⁴ my shoulder was wounded by an arrow, and among the Gandridae ¹⁵ my leg. Among the Mallians, ¹⁶ the shaft of an arrow sank deep into my breast and buried its steel; and I was struck in the neck by a cudgel, when the scaling-ladders which we had moved up to the walls were battered down; and Fortune cooped me up alone, favouring ignoble barbarians and not illustrious adversaries with such an exploit. But if Ptolemy ¹⁷ had not held his shield above me, and Limnaeus ¹⁸ taking his stand before me had not fallen, a target for ten thousand shafts, and if my Macedonians had not overthrown the wall with spirit and main force, then that nameless village in a foreign land must needs have become the tomb of Alexander.

[3] Moreover, there were the trials of the campaign itself: storms, droughts, deep rivers, the heights of the Birdless Rock, ¹⁹ the monstrous shapes of savage beasts, an uncivilized manner of life, the constant succession of petty kings and their repeated treachery. Then there were also the difficulties before his expedition: ²⁰ Greece was still gasping over Philip’s wars; Thebes, staggering to her feet after her fall, was shaking the dust of Chaeroneia from her arms, and Athens was stretching forth a helping hand to join with Thebes. All Macedonia was festering with revolt and looking toward Amyntas and the children of Aëropus ²¹ ; the Illyrians were again rebelling, and trouble with the Scythians was impending for their Macedonian neighbours, who were in the throes of political change; Persian gold flowed freely through the hands of the popular leaders everywhere, and helped to rouse the Peloponnesus; Philip’s treasuries were bare of money, and in addition there was owing a loan of two hundred talents ²² (as Onesicritus records). In such poverty ²³ and in circumstances fraught with such uncertainty, a stripling, scarcely older than a boy, had the daring to hope for Babylon and Susa; nay more, to conceive the project of dominion over all the world, relying only on the thirty thousand foot and four thousand cavalry which were his; for, according to Aristobulus, that was the full extent of their number. But King Ptolemy puts them at thirty thousand foot and five thousand horse, Anaximenes at forty-three thousand foot, fifty-five hundred horse. And the great and glorious war-chest which Fortune had ready for him was only seventy talents, ²⁴ as Aristobulus ²⁵ says, though Duris ²⁶ says it was provision for only thirty days.

[4] Was, then, Alexander ill-advised and precipitate in setting forth with such humble resources to acquire so vast an empire? By no means. For who has ever put forth with greater or fairer equipment than he: greatness of soul, keen intelligence, selfrestraint, and manly courage, with which Philosophy herself provided him for his campaign? Yes, the equipment that he had from Aristotle his teacher when he crossed over into Asia was more than what he had from his father Philip. But although we believe those who record that Alexander once said that the Iliad ²⁷ and the Odyssey accompanied him as equipment for his campaigns, since we hold Homer in reverence, yet are we to contemn anyone who asserts that the works of Homer accompanied him as a consolation after toil and as a pastime for sweet hours of leisure, but that his true equipment was philosophic teaching, and treatises on Fearlessness and Courage, and Self-restraint also, and Greatness of Soul? For of course it is obvious that Alexander wrote nothing on the subject of either syllogisms or axioms, nor did he have the opportunity of sharing the walks in the Lyceum, ²⁸ or of discussing propositions in the Academy. For it is by these criteria that those define philosophy who regard it as a theoretical rather than a practical pursuit. And yet even Pythagoras wrote nothing at all, nor did Socrates, nor Arcesilaus, nor Carneades, who were all most notable among philosophers. Nor were these philosophers continuously occupied with such tremendous wars, nor with spreading civilization among foreign princes, nor in establishing Grecian cities among savage nations, nor did they go on and on, instructing lawless and ignorant tribes in the principles of law and peace; but, even though they had leisure, they relinquished the writing of philosophy to sophists. Whence, then, comes our belief that they were true philosophers? Surely from what they said, or from the manner of life which they led, or from the principles which they taught. By these criteria let Alexander also be judged! For from his words, from his deeds, and from the instruction which he imparted, it will be seen that he was indeed a philosopher.

[5] And first, if you will, consider a matter entirely contrary to the general belief, and compare Alexander’s pupils with those of Plato and Socrates. Plato and Socrates taught pupils of splendid natural endowment who spoke the same language; so that, even if the pupils understood nothing else, at least they understood the Greek tongue. And even so, Plato and Socrates did not win over many. But their pupils, such as Critias and Alcibiades and Cleitophon, ²⁹ were prone to spew the good word forth, as a horse the curbing bit, and turned them to other ways.

But if you examine the results of Alexander’s instruction, you will see that he educated the Hyrcanians ³⁰ to respect the marriage bond, and taught the Arachosians to till the soil, and persuaded the Sogdians to support their parents, not to kill them, and the Persians ³¹ to revere their mothers and not to take them in wedlock. O wondrous power of Philosophic Instruction, that brought the Indians to worship Greek gods, and the Scythians to bury their dead, not to devour them! We admire Carneades’ power, which made Cleitomachus, ³² formerly called Hasdrubal, and a Carthaginian by birth, adopt Greek ways. We admire the character of Zeno, which persuaded Diogenes ³³ the Babylonian to be a philosopher. But when Alexander was civilizing Asia, Homer was commonly read, and the children of the Persians, of the Susianians, and of the Gedrosians learned to chant, the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides. ³⁴ And although Socrates, when tried on the charge of introducing foreign deities, ³⁵ lost his cause to the informers who infested Athens, yet through Alexander Bactria and the Caucasus learned to revere the gods of the Greeks. Plato wrote a book on the One Ideal Constitution, but because of its forbidding character he could not persuade anyone to adopt it; but Alexander established more than seventy cities among savage tribes, and sowed all Asia with Grecian magistracies, and thus overcame its uncivilized and brutish manner of living. Although few of us read Plato’s Laws, yet hundreds of thousands have made use of Alexander’s laws, and continue to use them. Those who were vanquished by Alexander are happier than those who escaped his hand; for these had no one to put an end to the wretchedness of their existence, while the victor compelled those others to lead a happy life. Therefore it is even more just to apply Themistocles’ saying ³⁶ to the nations conquered by Alexander. For, when Themistocles in exile had obtained great gifts from Artaxerxes, and had received three cities to pay him tribute, one to supply his bread, another his wine, and a third his meat, he exclaimed, My children, we should be ruined now, had we not been ruined before. Thus Alexander’s new subjects would not have been civilized, had they not been vanquished; Egypt would not have its Alexandria, nor Mesopotamia its Seleuceia, nor Sogdiana its Prophthasia, nor India its Bucephalia, nor the Caucasus a Greek city ³⁷ hard by; for by the founding of cities in these places savagery was extinguished and the worse element, gaining familiarity with the better, changed under its influence. If, then, philosophers take the greatest pride in civilizing and rendering adaptable the intractable and untutored elements in human character, and if Alexander has been shown to have changed the savage natures of countless tribes, it is with good reason that he should be regarded as a very great philosopher.

[6] Moreover, the much-admired Republic ³⁸ of Zeno, the founder of the Stoic sect, may be summed up in this one main principle: that all the inhabitants of this world of ours should not live differentiated by their respective rules of justice into separate cities and communities, but that we should consider all men to be of one community and one polity, and that we should have a common life and an order common to us all, even as a herd that feeds together and shares the pasturage of a common field. This Zeno wrote, giving shape to a dream or, as it were, shadowy picture of a well-ordered and philosophic commonwealth; but it was Alexander who gave effect to the idea. For Alexander did not follow Aristotle’s ³⁹ advice to treat the Greeks as if he were their leader, and other peoples as if he were their master; to have regard for the Greeks as for friends and kindred, but to conduct himself toward other peoples as though they were plants or animals; for to do so would have been to cumber his leadership with numerous battles and banishments and festering seditions. But, as he believed that he carne as a heaven-sent governor to all, and as a mediator for the whole world, those whom he could not persuade to unite with him, he conquered by force of arms, and he brought together into one body all men everywhere, uniting and mixing in one great loving-cup, as it were, men’s lives, their characters, their marriages, their very habits of life. ⁴⁰ He bade them all consider as their fatherland the whole inhabited earth, as their stronghold and protection his camp, as akin to them all good men, and as foreigners only the wicked; they should not distinguish between Grecian and foreigner by Grecian cloak and targe, or scimitar and jacket; but the distinguishing mark of the Grecian should be seen in virtue, and that of the foreigner in iniquity; clothing and food, marriage and manner of life they should regard as common to all, being blended into one by ties of blood and children.

[7] Now Demaratus the Corinthian, one of Philip’s intimate friends, ⁴¹ when he had seen Alexander in Susa, exclaimed with tears of joy ⁴² that all the Greeks who had died before that hour had been deprived of a great joy, since they had not seen Alexander seated on the throne of Darius. But I swear that for my part I feel no envy because of this spectacle toward them that saw it, for it was but the handiwork of Fortune, and the lot of other kings as well. But methinks I would gladly have been a witness of that fair and holy marriage-rite, when he brought together in one golden-canopied tent an hundred Persian brides and an hundred Macedonian and Greek bridegrooms, united at a common hearth and board. ⁴³ He himself, crowned with garlands, was the first to raise the marriage hymn as though he were singing a song of truest friendship over the union of the two greatest and most mighty peoples; for he, of one maid the bridegroom, and at the same time of all the brides the escort, as a father and sponsor united them in the bonds of wedlock. Indeed at this sight I should have cried out for joy, O dullard Xerxes, stupid fool that spent so much fruitless toil to bridge the Hellespont! This is the way that wise kings join Asia with Europe; it is not by beams nor rafts, nor by lifeless and unfeeling bonds, but by the ties of lawful love and chaste nuptials and mutual joy in children that they join the nations together.

[8] Considering carefully this order of affairs, Alexander did not favour the Median raiment, but preferred the Persian, for it was much more simple than the Median. Since he deprecated the unusual and theatrical varieties of foreign adornment, such as the tiara and the full-sleeved jacket and trousers, he wore a composite dress adapted from both Persian and Macedonian fashion, ⁴⁴ as Eratosthenes ⁴⁵ has recorded. As a philosopher what he wore was a matter of indifference, but as sovereign of both nations and benevolent king he strove to acquire the goodwill of the conquered by showing respect for their apparel, so that they might continue constant in loving the Macedonians as rulers, and might not feel hate toward them as enemies. Conversely it were the mark of an unwise and vainglorious mind to admire greatly a cloak of uniform colour and to be displeased by a tunic with a purple border, or again to disdain those things and to be struck with admiration for these, holding stubbornly, in the manner of an unreasoning child, to the raiment in which the custom of his country, like a nurse, had attired him. When men hunt wild animals, they put on the skins of deer, and when they go to catch birds, they dress in tunics adorned with plumes and feathers; they are careful not to be seen by bulls when they have on red garments, nor by elephants when dressed in white; ⁴⁶ for these animals are provoked and made savage by the sight of these particular colours. But if a great king, in taming and mollifying headstrong and warring nations, just as in dealing with animals, succeeded in soothing and stilling them by wearing a garb familiar to them and by following their wonted manner of life, thereby conciliating their rough natures and smoothing their sullen brows, can men impeach him? Must they not rather wonder at his wisdom, since by but a slight alteration of his apparel he made himself the popular leader of all Asia, conquering their bodies by his arms, but winning over their souls by his apparel? And yet men marvel at the disciple of Socrates, Aristippus, ⁴⁷ that whether he wore a threadbare cloak or a fine Milesian robe he retained his gentility in either; but they impeach Alexander because, although paying due respect to his own national dress, he did not disdain that of his conquered subjects in establishing the beginnings of a vast empire. For he did not overrun Asia like a robber nor was he minded to tear and rend it, as if it were booty and plunder bestowed by unexpected good fortune, after the manner in which Hannibal later descended upon Italy, or as earlier the Treres ⁴⁸ descended upon Ionia and the Scythians ⁴⁹ upon Media. But Alexander desired to render all upon earth subject to one law of reason and one form of government and to reveal all men as one people, and to this purpose he made himself conform. But if the deity that sent down Alexander’s soul into this world of ours had not recalled him quickly, one law would govern all mankind, and they all would look toward one rule of justice as though toward a common source of light. But as it is, that part of the world which has not looked upon Alexander has remained without sunlight.

[9] Therefore, in the first place, the very plan and design of Alexander’s expedition commends the man as a philosopher in his purpose not to win for himself luxury and extravagant living, but to win for all men concord and peace and community of interests.

And, in the second place, let us examine his sayings too, since it is by their utterances ⁵⁰ that the souls of other kings and potentates also best reveal their characters. The elder Antigonus remarked to a certain sophist who put in his hands a treatise on justice, You are a fool to say anything about justice when you see me smiting other peoples cities. The despot Dionysius remarked that one should trick children with dice, but men with oaths. ⁵¹ Upon the tomb of Sardanapalus ⁵² is written. Who would not own that by these several sayings are revealed Sardanapalus’s love of pleasure, Dionysius’s impiety, and Antigonus’s injustice and greed? But if you subtract from Alexander’s sayings his crown, his relationship with Ammon, and his noble birth, they will appear to you as the utterances of a Socrates or a Plato or a Pythagoras. Let us, then, pay no heed to the proud boasts which the poets inscribed upon his portraits and statues, studying, as they were, to portray, not Alexander’s moderation, but his power: And another man makes Alexander say, I am the son of Zeus. ⁵⁴ These expressions, then, as I have said, the poets addressed to Alexander in flattery of his good fortune.

But of the genuine sayings of Alexander we might first review those of his youth. Since he was the swiftest of foot of all the young men of his age, ⁵⁵ his comrades urged him to enter the Olympic games. He asked if the competitors were kings, and when his friends replied that they were not, he said that the contest was unfair, for it was one in which a victory would be over commoners, but a defeat would be the defeat of a king.

When the thigh of his father Philip had been pierced by a spear in battle with the Triballians, and Philip, although he escaped with his life, was vexed with his lameness, Alexander said, Be of good cheer, father, and go on your way rejoicing, that at each step you may recall your valour. ⁵⁶ Are not these the words of a truly philosophic spirit which, because of its rapture for noble things, already revolts against mere physical encumbrances? How, then, think you, did he glory in his own wounds, remembering by each part of his body affected a nation overcome, a victory won, the capture of cities, the surrender of kings? He did not cover over nor hide his scars, but bore them with him openly as symbolic representations, graven on his body, of virtue and manly courage.

[10] And in the same spirit if ever there chanced to be in hours of ease or at a banquet a comparison of the verses of Homer, each man choosing his favourite line, Alexander always judged this verse to be the greatest of all: This praise, which at the time it was written another had received, Alexander conceived to be a law for himself, so that he said of Homer that in this same verse he had honoured the manly courage of Agamemnon and prophesied that of Alexander. Accordingly when he had crossed the Hellespont, he went to see the site of Troy, ⁵⁸ imagining to himself the heroic deeds enacted there; and when one of the natives of the country promised to give him the lyre of Paris, if he wished it, Alexander said, Of his lyre I have no need; for I already possess Achilles’ lyre to the accompaniment of which, as he rested from his labours,

he sang the famed deeds of heroes. ⁵⁹

But the lyre of Paris gave forth an altogether weak and womanish strain to accompany his love songs. Thus it is the mark of a truly philosophic soul to be in love with wisdom and to admire wise men most of all, and this was more characteristic of Alexander than of any other king. His attitude toward Aristotle has already been stated ⁶⁰ ; and it is recorded by several authors that he considered the musician Anaxarchus the most valuable of all his friends, that he gave ten thousand gold pieces to Pyrrhon ⁶¹ of Elis the first time he met him, that he sent to Xenocrates, ⁶² the friend of Plato, fifty talents as a gift, and that he made Onesicritus, ⁶³ the pupil of Diogenes the Cynic, chief pilot of his fleet.

But when he came to talk with Diogenes g himself in Corinth, he was so awed and astounded with the life and the worth of the man that often, when remembrance of the philosopher came to him, he would say, If I were not Alexander,I should be Diogenes, that is to say: If I did not actively practise philosophy, I should apply myself to its theoretical pursuit. He did not say, If I were not a king, I should be Diogenes, nor If I were not rich and an Argead; for he did not rank Fortune above Wisdom, nor a crown and royal purple above the philosopher’s wallet and threadbare gown. But he said, If I were not Alexander, I should be Diogenes; that is to say: If it were not my purpose to combine foreign things with things Greek, to traverse and civilize every continent, to search out the uttermost parts of land and sea, to push the bounds of Macedonia to the farthest Ocean, and to disseminate and shower the blessings of Greek justice and peace over every nation, I should not be content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power, but I should emulate the frugality of Diogenes. But as things are, forgive me, Diogenes, that I imitate Heracles, and emulate Perseus, and follow in the footsteps of Dionysus, ⁶⁴ the divine author and progenitor of my family, ⁶⁵ and desire that victorious Greeks should dance again in India and revive the memory of the Bacchic revels among the savage mountain tribes beyond the Caucasus. Even there it is said that there are certain holy men, a law unto themselves, who follow a rigid gymnosophy ⁶⁶ and give all their time to God; they are more frugal than Diogenes since they have no need of a wallet. For they do not store up food, since they have it ever fresh and green from the earth; the flowing rivers give them drink and they have fallen leaves and grassy earth to lie upon. Because of me even those faraway sages shall come to know of Diogenes, and he of them. And I also, like Diogenes, must alter the standard of coinage ⁶⁷ and stamp foreign states with the impress of Greek government.

[11] Very well. Do Alexander’s actions, then, reveal the caprice of Fortune, the violence of war, the might of conquest, or do they rather reveal the great courage and justice, the great restraint and mildness together with the decorous behaviour and intelligence, of one who did all things with sober and sane judgement? For, by Heaven, it is impossible for me to distinguish his several actions and say that this betokens his courage, this his humanity, this his selfcontrol, but everything he did seems the combined product of all the virtues; for he confirms the truth of that principle of the Stoics which declares that every act which the wise man performs is an activity in accord with every virtue; and although, as it appears, one particular virtue performs the chief role in every act, yet it but heartens on the other virtues and directs them toward the goal. Certainly one may observe that in Alexander the warlike is also humane, the mild also manly, the liberal provident, the irascible placable, the amatory temperate, his relaxation not idle, and his labours not without recreation. Who but he combined festivals with wars, campaigns with revels, Bacchic rites and weddings and nuptial songs with sieges and battle-fields? Who was ever more hostile to wrongdoers or kinder to the unfortunate? Who more stern to his opponents or more indulgent to petitioners? It occurs to me to introduce here an incident touching Porus. ⁶⁸ For when Porus was brought as a captive before Alexander, the conqueror asked how he should treat him. Like a king, Alexander, said Porus. When Alexander asked again if there were nothing else, No, said he, for everything is included in that word. And it naturally occurs to me also to exclaim over each of Alexander’s deeds, Like a philosopher! For in this is included everything. He became enamoured of Roxanê, ⁶⁹ the daughter of Oxyartes, as she danced among the captive maidens; yet he did not offer any violence to her, but made her his wife. Like a philosopher! When he saw Darius ⁷⁰ pierced through by javelins, he did not offer sacrifice nor raise the paean of victory to indicate that the long war had come to an end; but he took off his own cloak and threw it over the corpse as though to conceal the divine retribution that waits upon the lot of kings. Like a philosopher! Once when he was reading a confidential letter from his mother, and Hephaestion, ⁷¹ who, as it happened, was sitting beside him, was quite openly reading it too, Alexander did not stop him, but merely placed his own signet-ring on Hephaestion’s lips, sealing them to silence with a friend’s confidence. Like a philosopher! For if these actions be not those of a philosopher, what others are?

[12] But let us compare the actions of men who are admitted to be philosophers. Socrates forbore when Alcibiades ⁷² spent the night with him. But when Philoxenus, ⁷³ the governor of the coast-lands of Asia Minor, wrote to Alexander that there was in Ionia a youth, the like of whom for bloom and beauty did not exist, and inquired in his letter whether he should send the boy on to him. Alexander wrote bitterly in reply, Vilest of men, what deed of this sort have you ever been privy to in my past that now you would flatter me with the offer of such pleasures? We admire Xenocrates ⁷⁴ because he would not accept the gift of fifty talents which Alexander sent him. But shall we not admire the giving of it? Or do we think that he who does not welcome a gift and he who bestows it are not at one in their contempt for money? Because of philosophy Xenocrates had no need of wealth and because of philosophy Alexander had need of wealth that he might lavish it upon such men. How many times has Alexander said this when forcing an attack amid a shower of missiles? ⁷⁵ And yet we believe that all men are endowed with the capacity to form right judgements. For Nature of herself is prone to lead men toward the Good. But philosophers differ from common persons in having their powers of judgement strong and firm to face danger, since the common man is not fortified by conceptions such as these: Best is one omen ⁷⁶ and Death is the end for all men; ⁷⁷ but crises destroy all his calculations in the face of danger, and the fantastic imaginings of perils close at hand dispel his powers of judgement. For not only does fear, as Thucydides ⁷⁸ says, drive out memory, but it also drives out every purpose and ambition and impulse, unless philosophy has drawn her cords about them.

[1] This is the oration of Fortune, asserting and challenging Alexander to be her masterpiece, and hers alone. In contradiction to which it behooves us to say something on the behalf of philosophy, or rather in the defence of Alexander himself, who cannot choose but spurn away the very thought of having received his empire as a gift at the hands of Fortune, knowing that it was so dearly bought with the price of his lost blood and many wounds, and that in gaining it, and all this in opposition to armies almost irresistible, numberless nations, rivers before impassable, and rocks impenetrable; choosing, however, for his chiefest guides and counsellors prudence, endurance, fortitude, and steadiness of mind.

[2] And now, methinks, I hear him speaking thus to Fortune, when she signalizes herself with his successes:—

Envy not my virtue, nor go about to detract from my honor. Darius was a fabric of thy own rearing, who of a servant and the king’s courier was by thee advanced to be monarch of all Persia. The same was Sardanapalus, who from a comber of purple wool was raised by thee to wear the royal diadem. But I, subduing as I marched, from Arbela forced my passage even to Susa itself. Cilicia opened me a broad way into Egypt; and the Granicus, o’er which I passed without resistance, trampling under foot the slain carcasses of Mithridates and Spithridates, opened the way into Cilicia. Pamper up thyself, and boast thy kings that never felt a wound nor ever saw a finger bleed; for they were fortunate, it is true,—thy Ochi and thy Artaxerxes, —who were no sooner born but they were by thee established in the throne of Cyrus. But my body carries many marks of Fortune’s unkindness, who rather fought against me as an enemy than assisted me as her friend. First, among the Illyrians I was wounded in the head with a stone, and received a blow in the neck with an iron mace. Then, near the Granicus my head was a second time gashed with a barbarian scimitar; at Issus I was run through the thigh with a sword; at Gaza I was shot in the ankle with a dart; and not long after, falling heavy from my saddle, I forced my shoulder out of joint. Among the Maracadartae my shinbone was split with an arrow. The wounds I received in India and my strenuous acts of daring courage will declare the rest. Then among the Assacani I was shot through the shoulder with another arrow. Encountering the Gandridae, my thigh was wounded; and one of the Mallotes drew his bow with that force, that the welldirected arrow made way through my iron armor to lodge itself in my breast; besides the blow in my neck, when the scaling-ladders brake that were set to the walls, and Fortune left me alone, to gratify with the fall of so great a person not a renowned or illustrious enemy, but ignoble and worthless barbarians. So that had not Ptolemy covered me with his shield, and Limnaeus, after he had received a thousand wounds directed at my body, fallen dead before me; or if the Macedonians, breathing nothing but courage and their prince’s rescue, had not opened a timely breach, that barbarous and nameless village might have proved Alexander’s tomb.

[3] Take the whole expedition together, and what was it but a patient endurance of cold winters and parching droughts; depths of rivers, rocks inaccessible to the winged fowl, amazing sights of strange wild beasts, savage diet, and lastly revolts and treasons of far-controlling potentates. As to what before the expedition befell me, it is well known that all Greece lay gasping and panting under the fatal effects of the Philippic wars. But then the Thebans, raising themselves upon their feet again after so desperate a fall, shook from their arms the dust of Chaeronea; with them also joined the Athenians, reaching forth their helping hands. The treacherous Macedonians, studying nothing but revenge, cast their eyes upon the sons of Aeropus; the Illyrians brake out into an open war; and the Scythians hung in equal balance, seeing their neighbors meditating new revolutions; while Persian gold, liberally scattered among the popular leaders of every city, put all Peloponnesus into motion.

King Philip’s treasuries were at that time empty, and besides he was in debt, as Onesicritus relates, two hundred talents. In the midst of so much pressing want and such menacing troubles, a youth but new past the age of childhood durst aspire to the conquest of Babylon and Susa, or rather project in his thoughts supreme dominion over all mankind; and all this, trusting only to the strength of thirty thousand foot and four thousand horse. For so many there were, by the account which Aristobulus gives; by the relation of King Ptolemy, there were five thousand horse; from both which Anaximenes varying musters up the foot to three and forty thousand, and the horse to five thousand five hundred. Now the glorious and magnificent sum which Fortune had raised up to supply the necessities of so great an expedition was no more than seventy talents, according to Aristobulus; or, as Duris records it, only thirty days’ provision.

[4] You will say therefore that Alexander was too rash and daringly inconsiderate, with such a slender support to rush upon so vast an opposition. By no means: for who was ever better fitted than he for splendid enterprises; with all the choicest and most excelling precepts of magnanimity, consideration, wisdom, and virtuous fortitude, with which a philosophical education largely supplied him for his expedition? So that we may properly affirm that he invaded Persia with greater assistance from Aristotle than from his father Philip. As for those who write how Alexander was wont to say that the Iliad and Odyssey had always followed him in his wars, in honor to Homer I believe them. Nevertheless, if any one affirm that the Iliad and Odyssey were admitted of his train merely as the recreation of his wearied thoughts or pastime of his leisure hours, but that philosophical learning, and commentaries concerning contempt of fear, fortitude, temperance, and nobleness of spirit, were the real cabinet provision which he carried along for his personal use, we contemn their assertion. For he was not a person that ever wrote concerning arguments or syllogisms; none of those who observed walks in the Lyceum, or held disputes in the Academy; for they who thus circumscribe philosophy believe it to consist in discoursing, not in action. And yet we find that neither Pythagoras nor Socrates, Arcesilaus nor Carneades, was ever celebrated for his writings, though they were the most approved and esteemed among all the philosophers. Yet no such busy wars as these employed their time in civilizing wild and barbarous kings, in building Grecian cities among rude and unpolished nations, nor in settling government and peace among people that lived without humanity or control of law. They only lived at ease, and surrendered the business and trouble of writing to the more contentious Sophists. Whence then came it to pass that they were believed to be philosophers? It was either from their sayings, from the lives they led, or from the precepts which they taught. Upon these grounds let us take a prospect of Alexander, and we shall soon find him, by what he said, by what he acted, and by the lessons he taught, to be a great philosopher.

[5] And first, if you please, consider that which seems the farthest distant of all from the common received opinion, and compare the disciples of Alexander with the pupils of Plato and Socrates. The latter instructed persons ingenuous, such as speak the same speech, well understanding (if nothing else) the Grecian language. But there were many with whom their precepts did not prevail; for men like Critias, Alcibiades, and Cleitophon shook off their doctrine like a bridle, and followed the conduct of their own inclinations.

On the other side, take a view of Alexander’s discipline, and you shall see how he taught the Hyrcanians the conveniency of wedlock, introduced husbandry among the Arachosians, persuaded the Sogdians to preserve and cherish—not to kill—their aged parents; the Persians to reverence and honor—not to marry—their mothers. Most admirable philosophy! which induced the Indians to worship the Grecian Deities, and wrought upon the Scythians to bury their deceased friends, not to feed upon their carcasses. We admire the power of Carneades’s eloquence, for forcing the Carthaginian Clitomachus, called Asdrubal before, to embrace the Grecian customs. No less we wonder at the prevailing reason of Zeno, by whom the Babylonian Diogenes was charmed into the love of philosophy. Yet no sooner had Alexander subdued Asia, than Homer became an author in high esteem, and the Persian, Susian, and Gedrosian youth sang the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles. Among the Athenians, Socrates, introducing foreign Deities, was condemned to death at the prosecution of his accusers. But Alexander engaged both Bactria and Caucasus to worship the Grecian Gods, which they had never known before. Lastly, Plato, though he proposed but one single form of a commonwealth, could never persuade any people to make use of it, by reason of the austerity of his government. But Alexander, building above seventy cities among the barbarous nations, and as it were sowing the Grecian customs and constitutions all over Asia, quite weaned them from their former wild and savage manner of living. The laws of Plato here and there a single person may peradventure study, but myriads of people have made and still make use of Alexander’s. And they whom Alexander vanquished were more greatly blessed than they who fled his conquests. For these had none to deliver them from their ancient state of misery; the others the victor compelled to better fortune. True therefore was that expression of Themistocles, when he was a fugitive from his native country, and the king entertained him with sumptuous presents, assigning him three stipendiary cities to supply his table, one with bread, a second with wine, a third with all manner of costly viands; Ah! young men, said he, had we not been undone, we had surely been undone. It may, however, be more justly averred of those whom Alexander subdued, had they not been vanquished, they had never been civilized. Egypt had not vaunted her Alexandria, nor Mesopotamia her Seleucia; Sogdiana had not gloried in her Propthasia, nor the Indians boasted their Bucephalia, nor Caucasus its neighboring Grecian city; by the founding of all which barbarism was extinguished and custom changed the worse into better.

If then philosophers assume to themselves their highest applause for cultivating the most fierce and rugged conditions of men, certainly Alexander is to be acknowledged the chiefest of philosophers, who changed the wild and brutish customs of so many various nations, reducing them to order and government.

[6] It is true indeed that the so much admired commonwealth of Zeno, first author of the Stoic sect, aims singly at this, that neither in cities nor in towns we should live under laws distinct one from another, but that we should look upon all men in general to be our fellow-countrymen and citizens, observing one manner of living and one kind of order, like a flock feeding together with equal right in one common pasture. This Zeno wrote, fancying to himself, as in a dream, a certain scheme of civil order, and the image of a philosophical commonwealth. But Alexander made good his words by his deeds; for he did not, as Aristotle advised him, rule the Grecians like a moderate prince and insult over the barbarians like an absolute tyrant; nor did he take particular care of the first as his friends and domestics, and scorn the latter as mere brutes and vegetables; which would have filled his empire with fugitive incendiaries and perfidious tumults. But believing himself sent from Heaven as the common moderator and arbiter of all nations, and subduing those by force whom he could not associate to himself by fair offers, he labored thus, that he might bring all regions, far and near, under the same dominion. And then, as in a festival goblet, mixing lives, manners, customs, wedlock, all together, he ordained that every one should take the whole habitable world for his country, of which his camp and army should be the chief metropolis and garrison; that his friends and kindred should be the good and virtuous, and that the vicious only should be accounted foreigners. Nor would he that Greeks and barbarians should be distinguished by long garments, targets, scimitars, or turbans; but that the Grecians should be known by their virtue and courage, and the barbarians by their vices and their cowardice; and that their habit, their diet, their marriage and custom of converse, should be everywhere the same, engaged and blended together by the ties of blood and pledges of offspring.

[7] Therefore it was that Demaratus the Corinthian, an acquaintance and friend of Philip, when he beheld Alexander in Susa, bursting into tears of more than ordinary joy, bewailed the deceased Greeks, who, as he said, had been bereaved of the greatest blessing on earth, for that they had not seen Alexander sitting upon the throne of Darius. Though most assuredly, for my part, I do not envy the beholders this show, which was only a thing of chance and a happiness of more ordinary kings. But I would gladly have been a spectator of those majestic and sacred nuptials, when, after he had betrothed together a hundred Persian brides and a hundred Macedonian and Greek bridegrooms, he placed them all at one common table within the compass of one pavilion embroidered with gold, as being all of the same family; and then, crowned with a nuptial garland, and being himself the first to sing an epithalamium in honor of the conjunction between two of the greatest and most potent nations in the world, of only one the bridegroom, of all the brideman, father, and moderator, he caused the several couples to be severally married. Had I but beheld this sight, ecstasied with pleasure I should have then cried out: Barbarous and stupid Xerxes, how vain was all thy toil to cover the Hellespont with a floating bridge! Thus rather wise and prudent princes join Asia to Europe. They join and fasten nations together not with boards or planks, or surging brigandines, not with inanimate and insensible bonds, but by the ties of legitimate love, chaste nuptials, and the infallible gage of progeny.

[8] But then, when he considered the Eastern garments, Alexander preferred the Persian before the Median habit, though much the meaner and more frugal garb. Therefore rejecting the gaudy and scenical ornament of barbarian gallantry, such as were the tiara and candys, together with the upper breeches, according to the report of Eratosthenes, he ordered a mixture of the Macedonian and Persian modes to be observed in all the garments which he wore. As a philosopher, he contented himself with mediocrity; but as the common chieftain of both and as a mild and affable prince, he was willing to gain the affection of the vanquished by the esteem which he showed to the mode of the country; that so they might continue the more steadfast and loyal to the Macedonians, not hating them as their enemies, but loving them as their princes and rulers. This behavior was contrary to that of persons insipid and puffed up with prosperity, who wedded to their own humors admire the single colored robe but cannot endure the tunic bordered with purple, or else are well pleased with the latter and hate the former, like young children, in love with the mode in which, as another nurse, their country’s custom first apparelled them. And yet we see that they who hunt wild beasts clothe themselves with their hairy skins; and fowlers make use of feathered jerkins; nor are others less wary how they show themselves to wild bulls in scarlet or to elephants in white; for those creatures are provoked and enraged at the sight of these colors. If then this potent monarch, designing to reclaim and civilize stubborn and warlike nations, took the same course to soften and allay their inbred fury which others take with wild beasts, and at length brought them to be tame and tractable by making use of their familiar habits and by submitting to their customary course of life, thereby removing animosity from their breasts and sour looks from their countenances, shall we blame his management; or rather must we not admire the wisdom of him who by so slight a change of apparel ruled all Asia, subduing their bodies with his arms and vanquishing their minds with his habit? It is a strange thing; we applaud Socratic Aristippus, because, being sometimes clad in a poor threadbare cloak, sometimes in a Milesian robe, he kept a decency in both; but they censure Alexander, because he gave some respect to the garb and mode of those whom he had vanquished, as well as to that of his native country; not considering that he was laying the foundation of vast achievements. It was not his design to ransack Asia like a robber, or to despoil and ruin it, as the prey and rapine of unexpected good fortune, as afterwards Hannibal pillaged Italy, and before him the Treres ravaged Ionia and the Scythians harassed Media,—but to subdue all the kingdoms of the earth under one form of government, and to make one nation of all mankind. So that if the same Deity which hither sent the soul of Alexander had not too soon recalled it, one law had overlooked all the world, and one form of justice had been as it were the common light of one universal government; while now that part of the earth which Alexander never saw remains without a sun.

[9] Thus, in the first place, the very scope and aim of Alexander’s expedition speaks him a philosopher, as one that sought not to gain for himself luxurious splendor or riches, but to establish concord, peace, and mutual community among all men.

Next, let us consider his sayings, seeing that the souls of other kings and potentates betray their conditions and inclinations by their expressions. Antigonus the Aged, having heard a certain poet sing before him a short treatise concerning justice, said, Thou art a fool to mention justice to me, when thou seest me thundering down the cities belonging to other people about their ears. Dionysius the Tyrant was wont to say that children were to be cheated with dice, but men with oaths. Upon the monument of Sardanapalus this inscription is to be seen:— What now can a man say of these apophthems, but that the first denotes injustice and immoderate desire of sovereignty; the next impiety; and the third sensuality? But as for the sayings of Alexander, set aside his diadem, his claimed descent from Ammon, and the nobility of his Macedonian extraction, and you would believe them to have been the sayings of Socrates, Plato, or Pythagoras. For we omit the swelling hyperboles of flattery which poets have inscribed under his images and statues, studying rather to extol the power of Alexander than his moderation and temperance; as, for example,— and that other,—

But these, as I said, were only the flashes of poetic adulation magnifying his good success. Let us therefore come to such sentences as were really uttered by Alexander himself, beginning first with the early blossoms of his childhood.

It is well known that for swiftness in running he exceeded all that were of his years; for which reason some of his most familiar play-fellows would have persuaded him to show himself at the Olympic games. He asked them whether there were any kings to contend with him. And when they replied that there were none, he said, The contest then is unequal, for I can conquer only private men, while they may conquer a king.

His father, King Philip, being run through the thigh in a battle against the Triballi, and, though he escaped the danger, being not a little troubled at the deformity of his limping; Be of good cheer, father, said he, and show yourself in public, that you may be reminded of your bravery at every step.

Are not these the products of a mind truly philosophical, which by an inspired inclination to what is noble already contemns the disfigurings of the body? Nor can we otherwise believe but that he himself gloried in his own wounds, which every time he beheld then called to his remembrance the conquered nation and the victory, what cities he had taken, what kings had surrendered themselves; never striving to conceal or cover those indelible characters and scars of honor, which he always carried about him as the engraven testimonies of his virtue and fortitude.

[10] Then again, if any dispute arose or judgment were to be given upon any of Homer’s verses, either in the schools or at meals, this that follows he always preferred above the rest,— believing that the praise which another by precedency of time had anticipated was to be a law also to himself, and saying that Homer in the same verse had extolled the fortitude of Agamemnon and prophesied of Alexander’s. Crossing therefore the Hellespont, he viewed the city of Troy, revolving in his mind the heroic acts of antiquity. At this time one of the chief citizens proffering to him Paris’s harp, if he pleased to accept it; I need it not, said he, for Ihave that with which Achilles pleased himself already, but as for Paris, his soft and effeminate harmony was devoted only to the pleasures of amorous courtship. Now it is part of a true philosopher’s soul to love wisdom and chiefly to admire wise men; and this was Alexander’s praise beyond all other princes. His high esteem for his master Aristotle we have already mentioned. No less honor did he give to Anaxarchus the musician, whom he favored as one of his choicest friends. To Pyrrhon the Elean, the first time he saw him, he gave a thousand crowns in gold. To Xenocrates, the companion of Plato, he sent an honorary present of fifty talents. Lastly, it is recorded by several that he made Onesicratus, the disciple of Diogenes the Cynic, chief of his pilots. But when he came to discourse with Diogenes himself at Corinth, he was struck in such a manner with wonder and astonishment at the course of life and sententious learning of the person, that frequently calling him to mind he was wont to say, Were I ot Alexander, I would be Diogenes. That is, I would have devoted myself to the study of words, had I not been a philosopher in deeds. He did not say, Were I not a king, I would be Diogenes; nor, Were I not opulent an Argeades. For he did not prefer fortune before w sdom, nor the purple robe or regal diadem before the beggr’s wallet and threadbare mantle; but he said, Were I not Alexander, I would be Diogenes. That is,—

Had I not designed to intermix barbarians and Greeks and to civilize the earth as I marched forward, and had I not proposed to search the limits of sea and land, and so, extending Macedon to the land-bounding ocean, to have sown Greece in every region all along and to have diffused justice and peace over all nations, I would not have sat yawning upon the throne of slothful and voluptuous power, but would have labored to imitate the frugalty of Diogenes. But now pardon us, Diogenes. We follow the example of Hercules, we emulate Perseus, and tread in the footsteps of Bacchus, our divine ancestor and founder of our race; once more we purpose to settle the victorious Greeks in India, and once more to put those savage mountaineers beyond Caucasus in mind of their ancient Bacchanalian revels. There, by report, live certain people professing a rigid and austere philosophy, and more frugal than Diogenes, as going altogether naked; pious men, governed by their own constitutions and devoted wholly to God. They have no occasion for scrip or wallet, for they never lay up provision, having always fresh and new gathered from the earth. The rivers afford them drink, and at night they rest upon the grass and the leaves that fall from the trees. By our means shall they know Diogenes, and Diogenes them. But it behooves us also, as it were, to make a new coin, and to stamp a new face of Grecian civility upon the barbarian metal.

[11] Tell me now; can such generous acts of Alexander as these be thought to speak the spontaneous favors of Fortune, only an impetuous torrent of success and strength of hand? Do they not rather demonstrate much of fortitude and justice, much of mildness and temperance, in one who managed all things with decorum and consideration, with a sober and intelligent judgment? Not that I (believe me) go about to distinguish between the several acts of Alexander, and to ascribe this to fortitude, that to humanity, another to temperance; but I take every act to be an act of all the virtues mixed together. This is conformable to that Stoic sentence, What a wise man does he does by the impulse of all the virtues together; only one particular virtue seems to head every action, and calling the rest to her assistance drives on to the end proposed. Therefore we may behold in Alexander a warlike humanity, a meek fortitude, a liberality poised with good husbandry, anger easily appeased, chaste amours, a busy relaxation of mind, and labor not wanting recreation. Who ever like him mixed festivals with combats, revels and jollity with expeditions, nuptials and bacchanals with sieges and difficult attempts? To those that offended against the law who more severe To the unfortunate who more pitiful? To those that made resistance who more terrible? To suppliants who more merciful? This gives me an occasion to insert here the saying of Porus. For he being brought a captive before Alexander, and by him being asked how he expected to be treated, Royally, said he, O Alexander. And beiig further asked whether he desired no more, he replied, Nothing; for all things are comprehended in that word royally. And for my part, I know not how to give a greater applause to the actions of Alexander, than by adding the word philosophically, for in that word all other things are included. Being ravished with the beauty of Roxana, the daughter of Oxyarthes, dancing among the captive ladies, he never assailed her with injurious lust, but married her philosophically. Beholding Darius stuck to the heart with several arrows, he did not presently sacrifice to the Gods or sing triumphal songs to celebrate the end of so long a war, but unclasping his own cloak from his shoulders he threw it over the dead corpse philosophically, as it were to cover the shame of royal calamity. Another time, as he was perusing a private letter sent him by his mother, he observed Hephaestion, who was sitting by him, to read it along with him, little understanding what he did. For which unwary act Alexander forbore to reprove him; only clapping his signet to his mouth, he thus kindly admonished him that his lips were then sealed up to silence by the friendly confidence which he reposed in him,—all this philosophically. And indeed if these were not acts done philosophically, where shall we find them?

[12] Let us compare with his some few acts of those who are by all allowed to be philosophers. Socrates yielded to the lustful embraces of Alcibiades. Alexander, when Philoxenus, governor of the sea-coasts, wrote to him concerning an Ionian lad that had not his equal for youthful beauty, and desired to know whether he should e sent to him or not, returned him this nipping answer: Vilest of men, when wast thou ever privy to any desires of mine, that thou shouldst think to flatter me with such abhorred allurements? We admire the abstinency of Xenocrates for refusing the gift of fifty talents which Alexander sent him; but do we take no notice of the munificence of the giver? Or is the bountiful person not to be thought as much a contemner of money as he that refuses it? Xenocrates needed not riches, by reason of his philosophy; but Alexander wanted wealth, by reason of the same philosophy, that he might be more liberal to such persons.... How often has Alexander borne witness to this in the midst of a thousand dangers? It is true, we believe that it is in the power of all men to judge rightly of things; for nature guides us of herself to virtue and bravery. But herein philosophers excel all others, that they have by education acquired a fixed and solid judgment to encounter whatever dangers they meet with. For most men have no such maxims to defend them as this in Homer,— And that other of Demosthenes,— But sudden apparitions of imminent danger many times break our resolutions; and the fancy troubled with the imagination of approaching peril chases away true judgment from her seat. For fear not only astonishes the memory, according to the saying of Thucydides, ⁶ but it dissipates all manner of consideration, sense of honor, and resolution; while philosophy binds and keeps them together.. .. ⁷