Valerius Maximus
Edited and Translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey
The Loeb Classical Library
Book I. 1. ext. 5 Of Religion (From epitomes of Julius Paris and Januarius Nepotianus.)
Paris. When Miletus was taken by Alexander, Milesian Ceres met soldiers who had broken into her temple and were about to plunder it with a flame and blindfolded them.*
Nepotianus. Alexander the Great took Miletus. When his soldiers entered among others the temple of Ceres, they were blinded, lest they should see secrets known only to women.
*334: Lactant. Inst. 2.7.19
Book I. 4. ext. 1 Of Augury.
Paris. When King Alexander wanted to build a city in Egypt, his architect Dinocrates having no chalk handy, marked out the outline of the future city with barley groats, on which a vast number of birds emerged from the lake nearby and devoured the groats. This was interpreted by the Egyptian priests as signifying that the city would have enough food for a great influx of population.
Book I. 7.. ext. 2 Of Dreams.
How well was Alexander king of Macedon warned in a vision during sleep, to take better care of his life, had Fortune also chosen to furnish him with prudence to guard against the danger! For he learned of Cassander’s fatal hand in a dream before he felt it by death. He thought he was being murdered by that man, though he had never seen him. Then, when after some time had gone by Cassander came before him, the semblance of that nighttime terror was plain. But when he was told that it was Antipater’s son, he quoted a Greek verse which makes light of the reliability of dreams and dismissed suspicion of the poison already prepared against his person, by which he is believed to have died at Cassander’s hand.*
*The dream is mentioned nowhere else.
Book I. 8 ext. 9 Of Wonders.
By the same oracle (Apollo at Delphi) Philip king of Macedon was warned to guard his life from the violence of a four-horse chariot. He gave orders that all chariots in his realm be unyoked, and he always avoided that place in Boeotia which is called Chariot.* Yet he did not escape the kind of peril foretold. For Pausanias had a chariot engraved on the hilt of the sword with which he killed the king.
*Cic. Defato 5. Aelian Var. hist. 3.45, who gives the oracle as that of Trophonius in Boeotia. Philip was assassinated in 336.
Book I. 8. ext. 10 Of Wonders.
Such obstinate fatality in the father’s case made a similar showing in the son’s, Alexander’s. For when Callanus the Indian was about to throw himself voluntarily on a burning pyre, Alexander asked him whether he had any commission, anything he wanted to say. “I shall see you anon,” was the answer. And sure enough Alexander’s swift death followed hard upon Callanus’ voluntary departure from life.*
*Cic. Div. 1.47 etc.
Book III. 3. ext. 1 Of Fortitude.
By the ancient custom of Macedonia boys of the highest birth attended king Alexander when he offered sacrifice. One of these stood in front of him with a censer in his hands, and a hot coal dropped onto his arm. It so burned him that the smell of his scorched body reached the nostrils of the bystanders, but he suppressed his pain in silence and held his arm still lest he should either disturb Alexander’s sacrifice by shaking the censer or put a religious scruple upon it by uttering a groan. The more pleased the king was by the boy’s fortitude, the more he wanted to make a surer trial of his constancy, for he deliberately took longer over the sacrifice; but by so doing he did not drive him from his resolution. If Darius had set eyes upon this marvel, he would have known that there was no vanquishing soldiers of a race whose tender age he had seen to be made of stuff so stout.*
*Not found elsewhere.
Book III. 3. ext. 4 Of Fortitude.
His fortitude was emulated by Anaxarchus. Tortured by the tyrant of Cyprus, Nicocreon, no violence could stop him from torturing the tyrant in his turn with lashings of the most wounding insults. At last Nicocreon threatened to cut off his tongue, to which Anaxarchus replied: “Womanish young man, this part of my body at least will not be in your power,” and straight away he cut off his tongue with his teeth, chewed it up, and spat it into the other’s mouth, which was open in fury. That tongue had held the ears of many lost in admiration, above all king Alexander’s, as it wisely and eloquently expounded the state of the earth, the condition of the sea, the movement of the stars, in fine the nature of the entire universe. But it perished almost more gloriously than it flourished, because by so brave an end it validated the illustrious performance of what it professed and not only adorned Anaxarchus’ life but rendered his death more renowned.*
*Cic. Tus. 2.52, Diog. Laert. 9.59 etc. Nicocreon died in 311/10.
Book III. 8. ext. 6 Of Resolution.
What follows is illustrious by reason both of admiration for the thing itself and the celebrity of the doer. Alexander, king of the Macedonians, having beaten down the preeminent power of Darius in a famous battle, was in Cilicia. Overheated by the weather and the stress of travel, he plunged his body into the Cydnus, which flows through Tarsus, remarkable for the limpidity of its stream. Then suddenly from drinking too much his muscles were numbed with cramps and his limbs dulled in paralysis; and to the utmost consternation of the whole army he was carried into the town, which was close to the camp. There he lay sick in Tarsus and the prospect of imminent victory faltered at his distemper. So doctors were summoned and with sedulous deliberation looked about for remedies to cure him. Among these they fixed on one potion, which Philippus, a doctor, mixed with his own hands and offered to Alexander, whose friend and companion he was. At that moment a letter arrived from Parmenion with a warning that the king should beware of Philippus’ treachery as having been bribed by Darius. When Alexander read the letter, he drank the medicine without any hesitation and then handed it to Philippus to read. For so resolute a confidence in his friend he received a most fitting reward from the immortal gods, who would not let the saving antidote be thwarted by false information.*
*Plut. Alex. 19, Justin 11.8 etc.
Book IV. 3. ext. 3b Of Abstinence and Continence.
Phryne with her beauty made no impression on his (Xenocrates) resolute abstinence. What of king Alexander? Could he shake him with riches? One might think that he too tempted a statue and equally in vain. He had sent emissaries to Xenocrates with a number of talents. They were conducted into the Academy and were received with his customary – that is, with a modest – show and very scanty supplies. When they asked him the next day to whom he would like the money counted out, he replied, “Why did you not understand from yesterday’s dinner that I have no need of it?” So the king wanted to buy the philosopher’s friendship, but the philosopher did not want to sell it to the king.*
*Cic. Tusc. 5.91 etc.
Book IV. 3. ext. 4a Of Abstinence and Continence.
Alexander had won the surname “undefeated” but he could not defeat the continence of Diogenes the Cynic. Alexander approached him as he sat in the sun and asked him if there was anything he wanted, to name it. Just as he was, sitting on a step, a man of mean title but robust resolution, he answered, “Other things later, meanwhile I would thank you not to stand between me and the sun.” In these words I suppose this sense was embedded: “Alexander tries to shift Diogenes with riches; he will sooner shift Darius with arms.”*
*Cic. Tusc. 5.92 etc.
Book IV. 7. ext. 2a Of Friendship.
That this is so king Alexander realized. Having possessed himself of Darius’ camp, in which were all those close to him, he went to console them, his favourite Hephaestion bearing him company. At his coming the mother of Darius revived, raised her prostrate head from the ground and saluted Hephaestion with homage in the Persian fashion, taking him for Alexander because in stature and appearance he had the advantage. Advised of her mistake, she cast about in the utmost trepidation for words of apology. “You have no need,” said Alexander. Which of the two are we to congratulate first? Him who had the will to say this or him who had the good fortune to hear it? The magnanimous monarch, who had already embraced the entire globe by his victories or expectation, in so few words shared himself with his companion. Oh gift of famous utterance, honourable to the giver as to the receiver!
Book V. 1. ext. 1a Of Humanity and Mercy.
Led by the commemoration of a Roman example into Macedonia, I must needs celebrate the character of Alexander. As his valour in war earned him infinite glory, so did his clemency earn him surpassing love. As he traversed all nations in his indefatigable career, he was caught in a snowstorm of a certain locality and himself sitting on a raised seat near a fire observed a Macedonian soldier, worn out by old age, numbed by the excessive cold. Making his assessment not of the fortune but of the age of them both, he came down and with the hands with which he had crushed Darius’ power he placed the body doubled up with cold on his own seat, remarking that what was a capital offense among the Persians, to have sat on the royal throne, would be salutary to him. So it is not surprising that men found it pleasant to serve for so many years under a commander who set more store by the survival of a common soldier than by his own high dignity.*
*327: cf. Curt. 8.4.15
Book V. 6. ext. 5 Of Piety towards Parents and Brothers and Country.
This piety was full of youthful enthusiasm. But Aristotle barely guarded the last remnants of his life with aged and wrinkled limbs in the fullness of lettered inactivity, yet he kept so effective a watch over the welfare of his country that when she was leveled with the ground by hostile arms he raised her up as he lay in an Athenian bed, and that by the hands of the Macedonians, by which she had been hurled down. So that city demolished and overthrown is not so notorious a work of Alexander as its restitution is of Aristotle.*
*Stagira was destroyed in 348 by Philip II and restored by him or Alexander at Aristotle’s instance: Plut. Alex. 7
Book VI. 2 ext. 1 Freely Spoken or Freely Done.
A woman of alien race inserts herself among these great men. Wrongfully condemned by king Philip when he was in liquor, she cried out that she appealed the judgment. When he asked whom she appealed to, “to Philip,” she said, “but to Philip sober.” She dissipated the fumes of wine as he yawned, and by her ready courage forced the drunkard to come to his senses and, after a more careful examination of the case, to render a juster verdict. Thus she extorted the equity which she could not get by asking, borrowing recourse from freedom rather than from innocence.*
*Cf. Plut. Moral. 178F-179A, Stob. 3.13.49
Book VI. 4 ext. 3 Impressive Sayings or Doings.
Alexander, as great in arms as Socrates in wisdom, delivered himself of the following well-known utterance. After Darius had tried his mettle in a couple of battles and therefore promised him part of his kingdom as far as the Taurus mountain, also his daughter in marriage and a million talents, Parmenio said that if he were Alexander he would accept the offer. “And so should I accept it,” retorted Alexander, “if I were Parmenio.” A saying in line with his two victories and worthy to be vouchsafed a third, as happened.*
*Cf. Plut. Moral. 178F-179A, Stob. 3.13.49.
Book VI. 4. ext. 4 Impressive Sayings or Doings.
That utterance befitted a proud soul and a prosperous state of affairs. But this with which the Lacedaemonian envoys before Alexander’s father testified to the sad plight of their bravery was more glorious than enviable. To his terms saddling their community with intolerable burdens they answered that if he persisted in demanding something worse than death, they would prefer death.*
*338 (?) Cic. Tus. 5.42 etc.
Book VII. 2. ext 10 Things Wisely Spoken or Done.
Come then, what a commendable letter that was of Philip’s in which he reproved Alexander for trying to attract the good will of certain Macedonians by giving them money! “My son, whatever line of reasoning gave you this idle expectation to make you think that people whose love you forced with money would be loyal to you?”* As a father he wrote this from affection, as Philip from experience – Philip, who bought more of Greece than he conquered.
*Cic. Off. 2.53
Book VII. 2. ext. 11a Things Wisely Spoken or Done.
When Aristotle sent his auditor Callisthenes to Alexander, he counselled him to talk with the king either as seldom or as agreeably as possible, to the end evidently that his silence should be the safer or his conversation the more acceptable in the royal ears. But Callisthenes used to scold Alexander as a Macedonian for liking the Persian mode of salutation and in all good will persisted in trying to bring him back against his inclination to Macedonian ways. Told to take leave of his life, he regretted too late his neglect of salutary advice.*
*Diog. Laert. 5.4f. Alexander put him to death in 327; cf. M 9.3.ext.1
Book VII. 2. ext. 13 Things Wisely Spoken or Done.
Demades too had a wise saying. When the Athenians were unwilling to decree divine honours to Alexander, “Take care,” he said, “that in guarding the heavens you don’t lose the earth.”*
*Cf. Aelian Var. hist. 5.12