Aelian - Varia Historia
Book I.25
Alexander son of Philip (if anyone thinks he was the son of Zeus, it makes no difference to me) added the formula of greeting to his letters, they say, only when writing to the Athenian general Phocion. Such was the impression Phocion had made on the Macedonian. But Alexander also gave him a hundred talents of silver, and named four cities with the request that he should choose one of them according to his preference, in order to be able to enjoy revenues from it. The cities were Cios, Elaea, Mylasa, and Patara.This was generous and high-minded on Alexander’s part; but Phocion was even more high-minded, since he accepted neither the money nor the city. However, as it was not his wish to show open contempt for Alexander, he honored him in the following way: he asked Alexander to release for him the prisoners held in the citadel at Sardis. Echecratides the sophist, Athenodoros of Imbros, Demaratus and Sparton – these two were brothers from Rhodes.
Book 2.3
Alexander looked at Apelles’ portrait of him in Ephesus and did not give it the praise which its artistry deserved. When his horse was brought along it whinnied at the horse in the picture as if it too were real, and Apelles said, “Your majesty, the horse certainly seems to have much better taste in art than you do.”
Book 2.19
When Alexander had defeated Darius and taken over the Persian empire he was very proud of his achievement. Feeling himself raised to the level of divinity by the good fortune which had now overtaken him, he sent an introduction to the Greeks to vote him divine honors. This was ridiculous; he could not acquire on demand from the rest of mankind what nature had not endowed him with. The cities passed various decrees, and the Spartans resolved as follows: “Since Alexander wishes to be a god, let him be a god.” In laconic fashion and in accordance with their own tradition the Spartans deflated Alexander’s madness.
Book 2.25
They say that the sixth of Thargelion brought much good fortune not only to Athens but to many other cities. It was for instance the date of Socrates’ birth; the Persians were defeated on that day; on it the Athenians sacrifice to the goddess Agrotera three hundred goats, acting in accordance with Miltiades’ vow. The sixth day at the beginning of the month is also said to be the date of the battle of Plataea, when the Greeks were victorious. The previous defeat of the Persians, which I have mentioned, was at Artemisium. The Hellenic victory at Mycale is also accepted as having been the gift of that day and no other, assuming that the victories of Plataea and Mycale were on the same day. Alexander of Macedon, son of Philip, is also reported to have crushed the many myriads of barbarians on the sixth of the month; that was when Alexander defeated Darius And it is believed that Alexander himself was born and departed this life on the same day.
Book 2.41
When Calanus the Brahmin, an Indian sage, set fire to himself, Alexander of Macedon arranged a competition for music, horse racing and athletics. As a favour to the Indians he included among the contests just mentioned one that was traditional among them, in honour of Calanus. This was a drinking contest, and the prize for the winner was a talent; the runner-up won thirty minae, and the third prize was ten. The person who celebrated victory was Promachus.
Book 3.6
Crates of Thebes gave many proofs of his lofty spirit. In particular he had contempt for what the masses admired, including money and one’s native city. Everyone knows that he turned his property over to the Thebans, but another fact about him is not generally known. It is that he left Thebes after it had been rebuilt, saying “I have no need of a city which a second Alexander will raze to the ground.”
Book 3.15
The Argives and Tirynthians were also ridiculed in comedy for their addiction to wine. As to the Thracians, it is now a well-established commonplace that they are great drinkers. The Illyrians do not escape the same criticism; but they have been accused of something else in addition – it is permissible at their dinners for each of the guests, if he so wishes, to toast the women, even if the woman in question is no relation.
Book 3.17
I would also class as political the activity of Persaeus, who was tutor to Antigonus, and of Aristotle, who clearly lived as a philosopher with the young Alexander son of Philip. Lysis the disciple of Pythagoras was tutor to Epaminondas. So if anyone says that philosophers are inactive, his comment is naïve and stupid. I would grasp with alacrity the leisure they enjoy and their love of tranquility.
Book 3.23
Alexander’s achievements – at the Granicus, at Issus, the battle of Arbela, the defeat of Darius, Persia enslaved by Macedon – were splendid. So too was the conquest of all the rest of Asia, with the Indians also becoming subjects of Alexander. So again were his exploits at Tyre and against the Oxydracae, and elsewhere. I do not need to describe within a narrow compass such great military talent. Let most of it be put down to Fortune who favoured Alexander, if one wishes to be captious. But Alexander was great because he was not defeated by Fortune and did not give up in the ace of her persistent attentions to him.
The following behaviour of Alexander was not good. On the fifth of the month of Dius he was drinking with Eumaeus, they say; then on the sixth he slept because of the amount he had drunk. During that day he was conscious only long enough to get up and discuss with his generals the following day’s march, saying that it would start early. On the seventh he banqueted with Perdiccas and drank again; on the eight he slept. On the fifteenth of the same month he drank once more, and on the following day did what he would normally do after a party. He had dinner on the twenty-seventh with Bagoas – the distance from the palace to Bagoas’ house was ten stades – and on the twenty-eighth he slept. One of two alternatives follows: either Alexander damaged himself with wine by drinking so often within the month, or the authors of these stories are telling lies. From them one can infer that such writers, who include Eumenes of Cardia (FGrH 117 F 2a), tell similar tales on other occasions.
Book 3.29
Diogenes of Sinope regularly said of himself that he suffered and endured to the full the curses of tragedy, for he was a “wanderer without a home, deprived of his native land, a beggar, ill-dressed, living from one day to the next.” Yet he took no less pride in these facts than Alexander in his rule over the world, at the time when he had captured India and returned to Babylon.
Book 3.32
When he was a boy, not yet an adolescent, Alexander the son of Philip learned to play the cithara. The teacher told him to touch a string in tune and in accordance with the melody. “What difference will it make if I touch that one?” he asked, pointing to another. The teacher replied that it made no difference to a man destined to be king; it was otherwise for anyone who would practise the art of the cithara. But the man, not being uneducated, was afraid that he might suffer the fate of Linus. Linus was teaching the child Heracles the cithara, and when he handled the instrument clumsily, Linus was annoyed with him. Heracles was angry, attacked Linus with his plectrum and killed him.
Book 3.45
They say Philip received an oracle in Boeotia at the shrine of Trophonius, to the effect that he must be on his guard against a chariot. The tradition has it that he was in fear of the oracle and never got up into his chariot. After this the story circulates in two versions. Some say that the sword of Pausanias, with which he killed Philip, had a chariot carved in ivory on the handle; the other version that he was assassinated after walking around the lake at Thebes known as Harma . The first story is popular, the second is not found everywhere.
Book 3.47
The good name which caused Phocion to be nicknamed “the honest” was of no advantage, nor the seventy-five years he had lived without harming anyone in the least; when he was found to have betrayed the Piraeus to Antipater, the Athenians condemned him to death.
Book 4.5
Benefits were remembered, and thanks for them given, by Theseus to Heracles. Aidoneus king of the Molossians put Theseus in chains when he came with Pirithous to kidnap the king’s wife. Theseus did not want to marry the woman himself but did this a favour to Pirithous. Heracles came to the country of the Molossians and rescued Theseus, in return for which the latter set up an altar to him.
Book 4.19
Philip of Macedon was said to be not merely a good soldier and powerful speaker but to have the highest respect for education. He provided resources unstintingly for Aristotle and so became responsible for any other facets of his wide learning, and in particular for his knowledge of zoology. The son of Nicomachus produced his History of Animals as the fruit of Philip’s wealth. He also honoured Plato and Theophrastus.
Book 4.29
I cannot persuade myself not to laugh at Alexander the son of Philip, if it is true that when he heard there were an infinite number of worlds – Democritus says this in his writings – he was pained at the thought of not even being the master of the one we all know. Need one say how much Democritus would have laughed at him, laughter being his stock-in-trade?
Book 5.6
It is right to praise the death of Calanus; one might even say, to marvel at it. This is how it happened. Calanus the Indian sage said goodbye to Alexander, the Macedonians and his life, wishing to free himself from the bonds of his body. The pyre was set up in the finest suburb of Babylon. The wood was dry, carefully selected for its fragrance, consisting of cedar, citron, cypress, myrtle, and laurel. Having taken his customary exercise – this was to run – he mounted the middle of the pyre and stood there, his hair covered with a crown of reeds. The sun shone down upon him, and he knelt in respect for it. This was the cue for the Macedonians to light the pyre. When this was done the flames took hold of him, but he stood there unflinching and did not fall over until he expired. Then, they say, even Alexander was astounded and said that Calanus had defeated more powerful enemies than he had himself. For Alexander had won his struggles against Porus, Taxila, and Darius, but Calanus against pain and death.
Book 5.10
The Athenians always prepared their naval forces painstakingly. Over the years they were sometimes successful, sometimes defeated. They lost two hundred triremes in Egypt, crews and all, in Cyprus one hundred and fifty; in Sicily two hundred and forty; and two thousand in the Hellespont. They lost forty thousand hoplites in Sicily, and one thousand at Chaeronea.
Book 5.12
I cannot suppress a liking for this act of the Athenians. Demades addressed the Athenian assembly and put forward a motion that Alexander be the thirteenth god. The public found this an intolerable show of impiety and imposed a penalty of a hundred talents on Demades because he had included Alexander, a mortal, among the Olympians.