AlexanderThe Suda or Souda is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas or Souidas. Wikipedia
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The son of Philip and Olympias, who was king of the Macedonians from age 18 and died at 33 years of age.[1]
This man was very beautiful in body and very devoted to hard work and very acute, very courageous in judgement and very ambitious and very adventurous and very concerned for the divine; also very restrained as regards the pleasures of the body, but very keen on what judgement commended; very clever at discerning what was necessary, even when it was yet unclear, very successful in inferring from observations what was likely to follow, and very skilled at marshalling and equipping an army.[2]
And he was very suited for every good. In addition he was moderate and god-fearing. For once, after he had become so angry with the Thebans that he enslaved its inhabitants and razed the city [itself] to its foundations, he did not make light of reverence to the gods concerning the capture of the city; no, he took especial care that there should not be an involuntary sin concerning the shrines and the [religious] precincts as a whole.[3]
[Note] that the grandiloquence of Alexander did not seem more like a kind of arrogance than confidence in danger.[4]
Alexander fell in love with Roxane, the daughter of Oxyartos the Bactrian, whom those serving with Alexander say was the most beautiful of the Asian women after the wife of Dareios. And [they say that] when he had seen her Alexander fell in love with her; and [that] although he was in love with her he did want to violate her as if she were a war captive, but did not think her unworthy to take in marriage. And I myself rather approve this action of Alexander and do not censure it. And then this wife of Dareios, who was called the most beautiful of the women in Asia, either he did make an amorous approach to her or he controlled himself, although he was young and at the very height of good fortune, when men do outrageous things. He respected her and spared her, showing much restraint, and at the same time ambition for good repute which was not misplaced. And there is a story going around, that Dareios' eunuch who guarded his wife ran back to him. And Dareios, when he saw him, first asked whether his daughters were alive and his sons and his wife and his mother. He learned they were alive, and that they were called queens, and about the care being taken of them and how his wife was behaving sensibly. At these things Dareios raised his hands to heaven and prayed thus: "O Zeus, king, to whom it was given to order the affairs of kings among men, guard my rule over the Persians and the Medes as you see fit. But if I myself cannot be king of Asia any more, then give my rule to no one but Alexander". Thus even enemies are not indifferent to virtuous deeds. Thus says Arrian.[5]
Nearchos tells that [Alexander] was pained by some of his friends, who were carrying him while he was ill, for running a personal risk in advance of his army; for these things were not for a general, but for a soldier. And it seems to me that Alexander was irritated with these words, because he knew they were true and that he had laid himself open to censure. And yet his eagerness in battle and love of glory made him like men overcome by any other form of pleasure, and he was not strong enough to keep away from dangers.[6]
[Note] that Alexander the Macedonian led a most marvelous life. His handling of conflicts lent a guaranteed trustworthiness to what he said. For you cannot find a man in this whole orb of the world having the advantage in such great achievements. For he spent time with the best men, and in written accounts is found not inferior to those who are praised to the skies; and in matters of war he accomplished things that were more marvelous than believable. And having gone to war against Dareios, he prevailed victorious over him. And that man begged him to come to a reconciliation, and even gave him his daughter Roxane in a covenant of marriage. Having subdued all races he lost his mind and succumbed to the pleasures of the body, putting on Persian dress and being attended by myriad youths, and using 300 concubines, so that he changed the entire Macedonian royal way of life into Persian ways and annulled those of his own people. Later, arriving in India, he was caught by queen Kandake in the clothes of a private individual and she said to him: "Alexander, king: you took the world and you are overcome by a woman?" And he made peace with her and kept her country from harm.[7]
[Note] that the same [Alexander] encountered men who had been captured long ago by the Persians in Greece and had had their hands cut off, and he showed them kindness with great gifts and cheered them. Arriving at the lake in Alexandria he threw away his diadem, and with so much water crashing down only scarcely swam safe across to land. And he was given poison by his own general Kas[s]andros and was convulsed; and thus, at [a time of] such great successes, ended his life.[8]
Hippocrates
the fourth, son of Draco,[1] physician, also from Cos, of the same family; he treated Roxane,[2] and died at the hands of Cassander, the son of Antipater.[3] He also wrote medical works.
Krateros
The Macedonian, who was very large to look at and not far from royal bulk, and stood out by the splendour of his apparel,[1] and in all his dress was attired in the manner of Alexander, except for the diadem, and [was] to his associates the sort of man, with [his] reasonableness and with the addition of solemnity, to seem extremely amicable and plausible by the attractiveness of his words, when they compared [him] with the small size of Antipatros's body and his mean nature,[2] and additionally his aloofness and his savagery towards his subjects. [Thus] they revered Krateros in the manner of a king, and conferring praises upon him -- appropriately, given that he was the most daring of commanders and had the greatest understanding of military deeds -- they held him unquestionably second in esteem after Alexander. So on this point there was even a movement in the whole army, which openly revered Krateros like a king. Every one of them thought it wrong that both men had been appointed to an equal division, and they were totally unwilling to obey Antipatros. And Eumenes,[3] during the war, finding the prostrate body of Krateros with breath still in it, is said to have leapt down from his horse and bewailed him, calling to witness Krateros's courage and understanding and the extreme kindliness of his disposition and the unaffectedness of his friendship towards himself, inasmuch as he had no love of wealth and was a companion to upright justice. 'This man is indeed "strongest",'[4] [he said,] 'whose deeds of virtue find a concord of praises even among his opponents.'[5] And he tended his body with honour and with fitting magnificence. While, therefore, these things, too, bring good repute to Krateros, he is also believed to have been most wise and most gentle and most reliable in sharing friendship, since in fact he acquired comradeship by nature and practised it
alpha,963 A story comes from the Macedonians, which says that an eagle wandering along and stretching out its wings warded off from him both the untempered ray of the sun by hovering over him and, when it rained, the abundant rain."
Ptolemy
Aelian tells the story of Ptolemy I Soter, 367/366-283/282 BCE, founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. When his mother Arsinoe gave birth to the child, his father Lagus thought it was not his and exposed it on a bronze shield. The eagle intervened, as did the wolf with Romulus and Remus
Antipatros
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Son of Iolaos, from the city of Palioura in Macedonia, general of Philip [II], then of Alexander [the Great], and successor to the kingship; a pupil of Aristotle. He left a compilation of letters in 2 books and a history, The Illyrian Deeds of Perdikkas. And he served as guardian to the son of Alexander known as Herakles.[1] He alone of the Successors he did not choose to call Alexander a god, judging this impious. He lived 77 years and left a son and successor, Kassandros,[2] the man who killed Alexander's mother, Olympias.[3]
[It is said] that when the Athenians surrendered Athens to Antipatros the Macedonian, the demagogues, having urged the Athenians to revolt, were afraid that they would lay the blame upon them and fled. The Athenians condemned them to death in their absence. Among them were Demosthenes the orator and Hyper[e]ides and Himeraios, [Antigonos] having proposed the motion for death. For he had become in no respect more moderate in his opinion, since there cannot even be any change in a nature conjoined with wickedness. The injunction of law, as it does not completely hold [that nature] in check, is overcome by it, as is the force opposing it in its various inclinations. Neither by fear is over-confidence deflected, nor is a constraining shame sufficient to persuade it into subjection to the law.[4]