BOOK I, J LEABMIKG PROMOTES VALOUR. 61 



ages, and conditions ; and his reign, like liis life, was long and 

 unruffled by storms. Lucins Commodus, thougli not so per- 

 fect as his brother, succeeded many of the emperors in vii-tue. 

 Marcus, formed by nature to be the model of every excel - 

 lence, was so faultless, that Silenus, when he took his seat 

 at the banquet of the gods, found nothing to carp at in him 

 but his patience in humouring his wife.s Thus, in the suc- 

 cession of these six princes, we may witness the happy 

 fruits of learning in sovereignty painted in the great table 

 of the world. 



Nor has learning a less influence on military genius than 

 on merit employed in the state, as may be observed in the 

 lives of Alexander the Great and Julius Ctesar, a few ex- 

 amples of which it will not be impertinent here to notice. 



Alexander was bred under Aristotle,^ certainly a great 

 philosopher, who dedicated several of his treatises to him. 

 He was accompanied by Calisthenes and sevei'al other 

 learned persons both in his travels and conquests. The 

 value tins great monarch set upon learning appears in the 

 envy he expressed of Achilles's great fortune in having so 

 good a trumpet of his actions and prowess as Homer's verses ; 

 in the judgment he gave concerning what object Avas most 

 worthy to be inclosed in the cabinet of Darius found among 

 his spoils, which decided the question in favour of Homer's 

 works; in his reprehensory letter to Aristotle, when chiding 

 his master for laying bare the mysteries of i)hilosophy, he 

 gave him to understand that himself esteemed it more glo- 

 rious to excel others in learning and knowledge than in 

 power and empire. As to his own erudition, evidences of 

 its perfection shine forth in all his speeches and "svriting, of 

 which, though only small fragments have come down to us, 

 yet even these are richly impressed with the footsteps of the 

 moral sciences. For example, take his words to Diogenes, 

 and judge if they do not inclose the very kernel of one of 

 the greatest questions in moral philosophy, viz., whether the 

 enjoyment or the contempt of earthly things leads to the 

 greatest happiness ; for upon seeing Diogenes contented with 

 so little, he turned round to his courtiei-s, who were deriding 

 the cynic's condition, and said, " If I were not Alexander, I 



« Julian. Caesares. 



* For these auecdotep epe Plutarch's life of Alex. 



