Plutarch: On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander
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
Many a night did he spend without sleeping,
Many a blood-stained day did he pass amid combats unceasing,
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.
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 name by detraction. Darius was your handiwork: he who was a slave and courier of the king, him did you make the mighty lord of Persia; and Sardanapalus, upon whose head you placed the royal diadem, though he spent his days in carding purple wool. But I, through my victory at Arbela, went up to Susa, and Cilicia opened the way for me into the broad land of Egypt; but to Cilicia I came by way of the Granicus, 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 was and Artaxerxes, 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, my head was wounded by a stone and my neck by a cudgel. Then at the Granicus my head was cut open by an enemy's dagger, at Issus my thigh was pierced by the sword. Next at Gaza my ankle was wounded by an arrow, my shoulder was dislocated, and I whirled heavily round and round. Then at Maracanda 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. Among the Aspasians my shoulder was wounded by an arrow, and among the Gandridae my leg. Among the Mallians, 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 had not held his shield above me, and Limnaeus taking his stand before me had not fallen, a target for ten thousand shafts, and if my Macedonians had n ot overthrown the wall with spirit and main force, then that nameless village in a foreign land must needs have become the tomb of Alexander."
Moreover, there were the trials of the campaign itself: storms, droughts, deep rivers, the heights of the Birdless Rock, 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: 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; 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 (as Onesicritus records). In such poverty 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, as Aristobulus says, though Duris says it was provision for only thirty days.
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, self-restraint, 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 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 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, 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 Arcesilaüs, 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.
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, 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 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 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, formerly called Hasdrubal, and a Carthaginian by birth, adopt Greek ways. We admire the character of Zeno, which persuaded Diogenes 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. And although Socrates, when tried on the charge of introducing foreign deities, 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 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, a nd 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 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.
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The Translator's Notes:
Adapted from Homer, Il. ix.325-326.
Cf. 340C, infra; Life of Alexander, chap. xviii (674D). Aelian, Varia Historia, xii.43, says that he was a slave; and Strabo, XV.3.24, Diodorus, xvii.5, say that he was not of the royal family.
Cf. 336 C, infra.
331 B.C.
The battle of Issus, 333 B.C.
334 B.C.
Artaxerxes III (358-338 B.C.).
This wound is elsewhere unknown to history. For the wounds of Alexander see the excellent tables of Nachstädt, op. cit. pp38-44.
Cf. 341 A-C, infra; Life of Alexander, chap. xvi (673 A); Arrian, Anabasis, i.15.7; Diodorus, xvii.20.
By Darius, according to Chares (341 C, infra; Life of Alexander, chap. xx (675 F)); but this is unknown to Arrian, Diodorus, Curtius, and Justin.
The text is probably corrupt; in Curtius, iv.6, we hear of two wounds, and they are quite different ones. One wound is reported in 341 B, infra; Life of Alexander, chap. xxv (679 B); Arrian, Anabasis, ii.27.2.
Cf. 341 B, infra; Arrian, Anabasis, iii.30.11; Curtius, vii.6.
Cf. Life of Alexander, chap. lxvi (702 A-B); Arrian, Anabasis, vi.24-25.
Cf. Ibid., iv.23.3; Curtius, viii.3.
Nothing is known of this wound.
Cf. 341 C, 343 E ff., infra; Life of Alexander, chap. lxiii (700 B ff.); Arrian, Anabasis, vi.9, 10; Diodorus, xvii.98; Curtius, ix.4.5; Strabo, XV.1.33.
Peucestas in Life of Alexander, and in Arrian, Anabasis. Thayer's Note: and in Curtius as well.
Leonnatus according to Arrian (Anabasis, vi.10.2).
Cf. Moralia, 181 C; Arrian, Anabasis, iv.28; Diodorus, xvii.85. Sir Aurel Stein has identified Aornos with the plateau of Pir-s'ar (On Alexander's Track to the Indus, Macmillan, 1929).
Cf. Life of Alexander, chap. xi (670 B).
Very little is known of this faction. Cf. Diodorus, xiv.37 and 89. Amyntas later joined Darius and met his death soon after the battle of Issus.
£40,000 or $200,000. Thayer's Note: A reminder that this equivalent dates to 1936 (notice the pound at $5); in 2004, the figures would be about $2,400,000 or £1,300,000.
For the varying accounts of the wealth and forces of Alexander cf. 342 D, infra; Life of Alexander, chap. xv (672 A); Arrian, Anabasis, i.11.3; and Alexander's own account, according to Arrian, Anabasis, vii.9.6 ff.
£14,000 or $70,000. In 2004, about $840,000 or £470,000.
Cf. 342 D, infra.
Cf. Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. ii p472.
Cf. Life of Alexander, chaps. viii (p. 668 D) and xxvi (679 C-D); Pliny, Natural History, vii.29.108.
That is, of occupying himself with Peripatetic (Aristotelian) philosophy.
It is interesting to note that dialogues bearing the names of all these pupils have been handed down to us under the name of Plato, although some of them are thought to be spurious.
Wyttenbach in sadness doubts whether these ethnological remarks are the fruit of any research on the part of Plutarch. But they probably derive from a hazy recollection of such passages as Herodotus, i.216 (of the Massagetae). Note, however, that Strabo supports Plutarch on this custom of the Persians (xv.3.20), which is easily explained by the fact that the young king inherited his father's harem as well as his father's stable, and that the father's younger wives furnished the beginning of the son's harem. Cf. also Sophocles, Trachiniae, 1221-1251. For other pleasant customs of the Hyrcanians cf. Moralia, 499 D.
Cf. Diogenes Laertius, iv.67; Athenaeus, 402 C.
Diogenes, from Seleucia in Mesopotamia (Strabo, xvi.1.16; Diogenes Laertius, vi.81), was said to have been a pupil of Chrysippus, and thus was converted to the inheritance of Zeno, Stoicism.
Cf. Life of Alexander, chap. viii (p. 668 E).
Cf. Plato, Apology, 24 B; Xenophon, Memorabilia, i.1.1.
Cf. Moralia, 185 F, and the note there.
Alexandria-in-the-Caucasus: cf. Arrian, Anabasis, iii.284; iv.22.4; v.1.5; Curtius, vii.3.23; Diodorus, xvii.83.1.