46 
MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 
unbridled tongue might shorten his days.” The 
prophecy was literally fulfilled. Callisthenes, for- 
getting the advice of Arrian, that the attendant of a 
prince ought never to be wanting in due deference 
to his will, rudely and outrageously opposed Alex- 
ander's resolution of exacting the same marks of 
homage and prostration from the Greeks which were 
paid to him by the Persians. It is also said he had 
joined a conspiracy against the life of his sovereign ; 
having taken great offence that Hermolaus, a noble 
youth who had studied philosophy under him, should 
have been severely punished with stripes, for having 
dared at a hunting-match to throw the first dart at 
a wild boar in the royal presence. The conspira- 
tors, it is added, were all stoned to death ; the plot 
being discovered by one of their own number. 
The punishment and fate of Callisthenes, whether 
his treachery was real or imaginary, is related more 
variously than almost any historical event of such pub- 
lic notoriety ; some asserting that he perished in a 
dungeon, after being mutilated of his ears, nose, and 
limbs ; and others that he was carried about in an 
iron cage, a miserable spectacle, covered with filth 
and vermin, and at last devoured by a hungry lion. 
Whatever might have been the manner of his death, 
most writers concur in opinion, that he met with 
the just reward of his rashness and arrogance. This 
transaction is alleged to have much estranged the 
affections of Alexander from his favourite preceptor. 
The assertion, however, is not accompanied with 
