Yes, said Alexander with a laugh, an empty one; but I will pledge thy health with one which is full of pure wine. Again, a common Macedonian was driving a mule laden with some of the royal gold, and when the beast gave out, took the load on his own shoulders and tried to carry it. The king, then, seeing the man in great distress and learning the facts of the case, said, as the man was about to lay his burden down, Don’t give out, but finish your journey by taking this load to your own tent.

Furthermore, he was generally more displeased with those who would not take his gifts than with those who asked for them. And so he wrote to Phocion in a letter that he would not treat him as a friend in future if he rejected his favours. Again, to Serapion, one of the youths who played at ball with him, he used to give nothing because he asked for nothing. Accordingly, whenever Serapion had the ball, he would throw it to others, until the king said: Won’t you give it to me? No, said Serapion, because you don’t ask for it, whereat the king burst out laughing and made him many presents.

With Proteas, however, a clever wag and boon companion, he appeared to be angry; but when the man’s friends begged his forgiveness, as did Proteas himself with tears, the king said that he was his friend again, whereat Proteas said: In that case, O King, give me something to prove it first. Accordingly, the king ordered that five talents should be given him. What lofty airs his friends and bodyguards were wont to display over the wealth bestowed by him, is plain from a letter which Olympias wrote to him.

She says: I beg thee to find other ways of conferring favours on those thou lovest and holdest in honour; as it is, thou makest them all the equals of kings and providest them with an abundance of friends, whilst thyself thou strippest bare. Olympias often wrote him in like vein, but Alexander kept her writings secret, except once when Hephaestion, as was his wont, read with him a letter which had been opened; the king did not prevent him, but took the ring from his own finger and applied its seal to the lips of Hephaestion.

Again, though the son of Mazaeus, the most influential man at the court of Dareius, already had a province, Alexander gave him a second and a larger one. He, however, declined it saying: O King, formerly there was one Dareius, but now thou hast made many Alexanders. To Parmenio, moreover, Alexander gave the house of Bagoas at Susa, in which it is said there was found apparel worth a thousand talents. Again, he wrote to Antipater bidding him keep guards about his person, since plots were being laid against him.

To his mother, also, he sent many presents, but would not suffer her to meddle in affairs nor interfere in his campaigns; and when she chided him for this, he bore her harshness patiently. Once, however, after reading a long letter which Antipater had written in denunciation of her, he said Antipater knew not that one tear of a mother effaced ten thousand letters.

He saw that his favourites had grown altogether luxurious, and were vulgar in the extravagance of their ways of living. For instance, Hagnon the Teian used to wear silver nails in his boots; Leonnatus had dust for his gymnastic exercises brought to him on many camels from Egypt; Philotas had hunting-nets a hundred furlongs long; when they took their exercise and their baths, more of them actually used myrrh than olive oil, and they had in their train rubbers and chamberlains. Alexander therefore chided them in gentle and reasonable fashion.

He was amazed, he said, that after they had undergone so many and so great contests they did not remember that those who conquer by toil sleep more sweetly than those who are conquered by their toil, and did not see, from a comparison of their own lives with those of the Persians, that it is a very servile thing to be luxurious, but a very royal thing to toil. And yet, said he, how can a man take care of his own horse or furbish up his spear and helmet, if he is unaccustomed to using his hands on his own dear person?

Know ye not, said he, that the end and object of conquest is to avoid doing the same thing as the conquered? Accordingly, he exerted himself yet more strenuously in military and hunting expeditions, suffering distress and risking his life , so that a Spartan ambassador who came up with him as he was bringing down a great lion, said: Nobly, indeed, Alexander, hast thou struggled with the lion to see which should be king.