122 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



His literary 

 tastes. 



His mental 

 cultivation. 



Rapidity of 

 his education 



mand respect, and by his tact and judgment preserve it. Such quali- 

 fications he found in Aristotle, and the good effects seem to have 

 speedily shown themselves. From a rude and intemperate barbarian 

 his nature expanded and exhibited itself in an attachment to philosophy, 

 a desire of mental cultivation, and a fondness for study. So com- 

 pletely did he acquire higher and more civilized tastes, that being at 

 the extremity of Asia, in a letter to Harpalus he desires that the 

 works of Philistus the historian, the tragedies of ^schylus, Sophocles, 

 and Euripides, and the dithyrambs of Telestes and Philoxenus, should 

 be sent to him. Homer was his constant travelling companion. A 

 copy, corrected by Aristotle, was deposited by the side of his dagger, 

 under the pillow of the couch on which he slept ; l and, on the occa- 

 sion of a magnificent casket being found among the spoils of Darius's 

 camp, when a discussion arose as to how it should be employed, the 

 king declared that it should be appropriated to the use of containing 

 this copy. 2 But his education had not been confined to the lighter 

 species of literature ; on the contrary, he appears to have been intro- 

 duced to the gravest and most abstruse parts of philosophy, to which 

 the term of acroamatic was specifically applied. We shall, in the 

 sequel, examine more fully what exact notion is to be attached to this 

 term : 8 in the meantime it will be sufficient to observe that it included 

 the highest branches of the science of that day. In a letter, then, 

 preserved by Plutarch and Aulus Gellius, 4 Alexander complains that 

 his preceptor had published those of his works to which this phrase 

 was applied. " How," he asks, " now that this is the case, will he 

 be able to maintain his superiority to others in mental accomplish- 

 ments a superiority which he valued more than the distinction he 

 had won by his conquests?" Gellius likewise gives us Aristotle's 

 answer, in which he excuses himself by saying, " that although the 

 works in question were published, they would be useless to all who 

 had not previously enjoyed the benefit of his oral instructions." What- 

 ever may be our opinion as to the genuineness of these letters, which 

 Gellius says he took from the book of the philosopher Andronicus (a 

 contemporary of Cicero's, to whom we shall on a future occasion again 

 revert), it is quite clear that if they are forgeries, they were forged in 

 accordance with a general belief of the time, that there was no depart- 

 ment of knowledge, however recondite, to which Aristotle had not 

 taken pains to introduce his pupil. 



But the most extraordinary feature in the education of Alexander is 

 the short space of time which it occupied. From the time of Aristotle's 

 arrival in Macedonia to the expedition of his pupil into Asia there 

 elapsed eight years ('. e.,) from Olymp. cix. 2. to Olymp. cxi. 2.) 

 But of this only a part, less than the half, can have been devoted to 



1 Plutarch, Vit. sec. 7, 8. 



2 Plutarch, Vit. sec. 26 ; Strabo, xiii. ; Plin. Nat. Hist. v. 30. 



3 See below, p. 159. 



4 Plutarch, Vit. Alex. sec. 7 ; Gellius, Noc. Att. xx. 5. 



