C8 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [bOOK I. 



would be Diogenes.** (But Seneca, in his comparison, gives 

 the preference to Diogenes, saying that Diogenes had more 

 things to refuse than it was in the disposition of Alexander 

 to confer.) i For his skill in natural science, observe his cus- 

 tomary saying, that he felt his mortality chiefly in two 

 things — sleep and lust.^ This expression, pointing as it does 

 to the indigence and redundance of nature manifested by 

 these two harbingers of death, savours more of an Aristotle 

 and a Democritus than of an Alexander. In poesy, regard 

 him rallying in his wounds one of his flatterers, who was 

 wont to ascribe unto him Divine honour. " Look," said he, 

 "this is the blood of a man — not such liquor as Homer 

 speaks of, which ran from Yenus's hand when it was pierced 

 by Diomedes."^ In logic, observe, in addition to his power 

 of detecting fallacies and confuting or retorting arguments, 

 his rebuke to Cassander, who ventured to confute the ar- 

 raigners of Antipater, his father, Alexander having inciden- 

 tally asked, " Do you think these men would come so far to 

 complain, except they had just cause T' Cassander replied, 

 "That was the very thing which had given them courage, since 

 they hoped that the length of the journey would entirely clear 

 them of calumnious motives." "See," said Alexander, "tlie 

 subtilty of Aristotle, taking the matter pro and con.'' Ne- 

 vertheless he did not shrink to turn the same art to his own 

 advantage which he reprehended in others; for, bearing a 

 secret grudge to Calisthenes, upon that rhetorician having 

 drawn down great applause by delivering, as was usual at 

 banquets, a spontaneous discourse in praise of the Macedonian 

 nation, Alexander remarked, that it was easy to be eloquent 

 upon a good topic, and requested him to change his note, and 

 let the company hear what he could say against them. Calis- 

 tlienes obeyed the request with such sharpness and vivacity, 

 that Alexander interrupted him, saying, " That a perverted 

 mind, as well as a choice topic, would breed eloquence." As 

 regards rhetoric, consider his rebuke of Antipater, an im- 

 perious and tyrannous governor, when one of Antipater'a 

 friends ventured to extol his moderation to Alexander, say- 

 ing that he had not fallen into the Peryian pride of wearing 

 the purple, but still retained the Macedonian habit. " But 



i Seneca de Benef. v. 5. * Vid. Seneca, Ep. Mor. vi. 7.; 



1 Iliad, iv. 340. 



