Alexander

Pherecydes, the son of Babys, and a native of Syros according to Alexander in his Successions of Philosophers, was a pupil of Pittacus.

And from him he received the name of Plato on account of his robust figure, in place of his original name which was Aristocles, after his grandfather, as Alexander informs us in his Successions of Philosophers.

At first he used to study philosophy in the Academy, and afterwards in the garden at Colonus (as Alexander states in his Successions of Philosophers), as a follower of Heraclitus.

as the body of the Persian Empire was divided among the successors of Alexander.

the Olynthians by Philip, the Thebans by Alexander, and the Brutians, made public slaves by the Romans:

Arrian is justly commended for censuring the vengeance retorted upon the Persians by Alexander, at a time, when those, who had committed the original aggressions on the Greeks, had long been laid in their graves.

Timotheus, at any rate, if, just as he knew how to render some martial strain, he had also understood a melody that could make the soul just and prudent and temperate and humane — driving it not toward arms alone, but toward peace and concord and the honouring of the gods and care for men — would have been worth everything to Alexander, to attend him and play for him, and not only when he sacrificed,

They say that once, when the flute-player Timotheus first gave a performance before King Alexander, he played in the king's own manner, with great skill and musicianship — no soft melody, nor a relaxed one, nor any of the kind that lead to ease and indolence, but, I believe, the very strain that is called the orthian, the air sacred to Athena.

And Alexander at once sprang up to his arms, like a man possessed:

Alexander, Gaius, and Pompey — what are they beside Diogenes, Heraclitus, and Socrates?

Go on now, and tell me of Alexander and Philip and Demetrius of Phalerum.

and set before your eyes whole dramas and scenes of the same kind, all that you have known from your own experience or from the older histories — as the whole court of Hadrian, the whole court of Antoninus, the whole court of Philip, of Alexander, of Croesus;

He who but lately was the lord, and that not without dispute, of an obscure corner, is sad on reaching the end of the earth at having to return through a world that is his own.

After Darius and the Indians, Alexander is poor.

Bring forward the example of Alexander of Macedon, who ran Clitus, dearest and most faithful to him, through amid the feasting, and, when he understood the crime, wished to die, certainly ought to have.

If you dare send an arrow at Menelaos you will win honor and thanks [ kharis] from all the Trojans, and especially from prince Alexander - he would be the first to requite you very handsomely if he could see Menelaos mount his funeral pyre, slain by an arrow from your hand.

"Menelaos," said he, "has two good friends among the goddesses, Hera of Argos, and Athena of Alalkomene, but they only sit still and look on, while Aphrodite keeps ever by Alexander's side to defend him in any danger;

He it was that made the ships for Alexander, which were the beginning of all mischief, and brought evil alike both on the Trojans and on Alexander himself;

And if anyone is going to go there, let him seek out at Corydalla Alexander, a bishop from among the monks;

And hearing it, we shall at all events, if nothing else, do at least what Alexander did, and keep one of our ears uncorrupted in reserve for the one slandered.

So that you may not yourself say to us what Diogenes said to Alexander, that the distance from you to here is the same as from here to you.

And Alexander the Macedonian, having overthrown this Darius, begins to reign in the years above set out.

then to the rape of Helen by Alexander, four years;

The philosophers of the Indians say to Alexander the Macedonian:

Thus it was that at the age of twenty years Alexander received the kingdom, which was exposed to great jealousies, dire hatreds, and dangers on every hand.

As for the lineage of Alexander, on his father’s side he was a descendant of Heracles through Caranus, and on his mother’s side a descendant of Aeacus through Neoptolemus;

While Philip was making an expedition against Byzantium, Alexander, though only sixteen years of age, was left behind as regent in Macedonia and keeper of the royal seal, and during this time he subdued the rebellious Maedi, and after taking their city, drove out the Barbarians, settled there a mixed population, and named the city Alexandropolis.

The Athenians made friendship and alliance with Alexander the tyrant of Pherae, who was an enemy to the Thebans, and who had promised to furnish them with flesh at half an obol a pound.

When Alexander, the tyrant of Pherae, broke his faith and cast him into prison, he reviled him;

Memnon, one of King Darius’s generals against Alexander, when a mercenary soldier excessively and impudently reviled Alexander, struck him with his spear, adding, I pay you to fight against Alexander, not to reproach him.

For the man who now shouts, Down with Alexander!

And the wretched Lacedaemonians, who barely touched these acts at their beginning in connection with the seizure of the temple, they who once claimed the right to lead the Greeks, are now about to be sent to Alexander to serve as hostages, and to make an exhibition of their misfortunes —destined, themselves and their country, to suffer whatever may please him;

This they accomplished on the 25th of Elaphebolion, before Demosthenes set out on the second embassy, the embassy for the ratification of the oaths (for this orator of ours, this man who shouts Down with Alexander!

whilst Alexander himself became an easy prey to an Agnon, Bagoas, Agesias, and Demetrius, who tricked him up like a barbarian statue, and paid the mortal the adoration due to a God.

For even Alexander himself, being reminded of his mortality by two things especially, the necessity of sleep and the use of women, began to stagger in the opinion they had made him conceive of his godhead.

as Crisson, who had the honor to run with Alexander, let him designedly win the race, which the king being told of afterwards was highly disgusted at him.

1 Alexander, king of the Macedonians, used to boast that he had been surpassed by no one in benefits.

1 To Alexander of Macedon, when as conqueror of the East he was lifting his thoughts above the human, the Corinthians sent envoys to offer their congratulations and presented him with the citizenship of their city.

1 Alexander was giving someone a city, that madman who could conceive nothing in his mind but the vast.

For he who grieves at another's adversities grieves also at another's prosperities, as Theophrastus, deploring the death of his companion Callisthenes, is vexed at the prosperous affairs of Alexander, and so says that Callisthenes fell in with a man of the highest power and the highest fortune, but ignorant of how it befitted him to use prosperity.

As we see King Alexander, who, when he had slain Clitus his friend, scarcely held his hands from himself;

\" Xenocrates, when envoys from Alexander had brought him fifty talents — which was the greatest sum of money in those times, especially at Athens — led the envoys to supper in the Academy;

and only just now he spoke of the man who taunts me with the friendship of Alexander.

Is Aeschines Alexander’s hireling, or Alexander’s friend?

If you, Aeschines, can name any human being, Greek or barbarian, on whom yonder sun shines, who has escaped all injury from the domination, first of Philip, and today of Alexander, so be it:

ulterior et in orientem vergens victoriis Magni Alexandri lustrata est, usque in Arabicum sinum.

And now that well-known pretext of forcing nations into a higher state of civilization against their will, the pretext once monopolized by the Greeks and by Alexander the Great, is considered by all theologians, especially those of Spain, to be unjust and unholy.

For a great part of that sea near Morocco, which is in dispute, had already been navigated long before, and the sea as far east as the Arabian gulf has been made famous by the victories of Alexander the Great, as both Pliny and Mela tell us.

So Alexander of Antioch came to him, being a close friend of Antony, whereupon Mithridates, after explaining who he was, and attributing to Monaeses the favour now to be shown, asked Alexander if he saw a range of lofty hills on beyond.

but if Antony proceeds by way of the plains, let him know that the fate of Crassus awaits him.

And that which led him to war against all mankind, as it had led Alexander before him, and Cyrus of old, was an insatiable love of power and a mad desire to be first and greatest;

So utterly unsociable a thing, it seems, is empire, and so full of ill-will and distrust, that the oldest and greatest of the successors of Alexander could make it a thing to glory in that he was not afraid of his son, but allowed him near his person lance in hand.

For instance, they were the first people in the world to give Demetrius and Antigonus the title of King, although both had up to that time shrunk from using the word, and although this was the only royal prerogative still left to the descendants of Philip and Alexander which it was thought that others could not assume or share;

Antigonus himself was tarrying in Phrygia, and hearing there that Ptolemy had crossed over from Cyprus and was ravaging Syria and reducing or turning from their allegiance its cities, he sent against him his son Demetrius, who was only twenty-two years of age, and was then for the first time engaging with sole command in an expedition where great interests were at stake.

I will give you, from the very bosom of Aristotle, King Alexander, who ran Cleitus, most dear to him and reared along with him, through amid the feast—with his own hand, indeed—because he flattered too little and passed too slowly from a free Macedonian into Persian servitude.

They say that Alexander, when Xenophantus played, put his hand to his arms.

This I praise the more in Alexander because no one was so liable to anger;

And that which one of the practically wise or good, man or woman, has chosen before others, as Athene chose Odysseus, Theseus Helen, the goddesses Alexander Paris, and Homer Achilles.

For instance, in the Alexander Paris it is said that Paris was high-minded, because he despised the companionship of the common herd and dwelt on Ida by himself;

For instance, Alexander Paris had a right to carry off Helen, for the choice of a husband had been given her by her father.

For these have dared to deify men, recording Alexander the Macedonian as a thirteenth god, whom Babylon convicted as a corpse.

and Alexander wished to seem the son of Ammon and to be fashioned by the statue-makers with horns, eager to outrage the fair face of man with a horn.

and how, after writing that Alexander had sent envoys to him but that he had refused to see them, he was found behaving exactly like Alexander’s filibusters.

Again, there was Alexander of Thessaly.

When Mardonius came to Athens, he sent to Salamis a certain Murychides, a man from Hellespont, bearing the same offer as Alexander the Macedonian had ferried across to the Athenians.

I cannot say for certain why it was that when Alexander the Macedonian came to Athens the Lacedaemonians insisted that the Athenians should not join the side of the Persian, yet now took no account of that;

When Alexander returned and told him what he had heard from the Athenians, Mardonius set forth from Thessaly and led his army with all zeal against Athens;

The thing to do, my friend, is not to use the name of Olympias and Alexander in the hope of harming some citizen.

it is only here that you hate Olympias so that you can ruin Euxenippus by alleging that he flatters her and the Macedonians.

Yet when you were prosecuted by Alexander of Oeon, you asked for ten advocates from the tribe Aegeis, and I was one of them, chosen by yourself.