Alexander

It is said, moreover, that once when a large company had been invited to the king’s supper, Callisthenes was bidden, when the cup came to him, to speak in praise of the Macedonians, and was so successful on the theme that the guests rose up to applaud him and threw their garlands at him; whereupon Alexander said that, in the language of Euripides, when a man has for his words

1. A noble subject, it is easy to speak well;

But show us the power of your eloquence, said he, by a denunciation of the Macedonians, that they may become even better by learning their faults. And so Callisthenes began his palinode, and spoke long and boldly in denunciation of the Macedonians, and after showing that faction among the Greeks was the cause of the increase of Philip’s power, added:

1. But in a time of sedition, the base man too is in
2. honour.

This gave the Macedonians a stern and bitter hatred of him, and Alexander declared that Callisthenes had given a proof, not of his eloquence, but of his ill-will towards the Macedonians.

This, then, according to Hermippus, is the story which Stroebus, the slave who read aloud for Callisthenes, told to Aristotle, and he says that when Callisthenes was aware of the alienation of the king, twice or thrice, as he was going away from him, he recited the verse:

1. Dead is also Patroclus, a man far braver than thou
2. art.

But in the matter of the obeisance, at least, by refusing sturdily and like a philosopher to perform the act, and by standing forth alone and rehearsing in public the reasons for the indignation which all the oldest and best of the Macedonians cherished in secret, he delivered the Greeks from a great disgrace, and Alexander from a greater, by leading him not to insist upon the obeisance; but he destroyed himself, because he was thought to use force rather than persuasion with the king.

Chares of Mitylene says that once at a banquet Alexander, after drinking, handed the cup to one of his friends, and he, on receiving it, rose up so as to face the household shrine, and when he had drunk, first made obeisance to Alexander, then kissed him, and then resumed his place upon the couch.

As all the guests were doing this in turn, Callisthenes took the cup, the king not paying attention, but conversing with Hephaestion, and after he had drunk went towards the king to kiss him; but Demetrius, surnamed Pheido, cried: O King, do not accept his kiss, for he alone has not done thee obeisance. So Alexander declined the kiss, at which Callisthenes exclaimed in a loud voice: Well, then, I’ll go away the poorer by a kiss. [*](Cf. Arrian, Anab. iv. 12. )

The king having been thus alienated, in the first place, Hephaestion found credence for his story that Callisthenes had promised him to make obeisance to the king and then had been false to his agreement. Again, men like Lysimachus and Hagnon persisted in saying that the sophist went about with lofty thoughts as if bent on abolishing a tyranny, and that the young men flocked to him and followed him about as if he were the only freeman among so many tens of thousands.

For this reason also, when the conspiracy of Hermolaüs and his associates [*](The conspiracy of the pages (Arrian, Anab. iv. 13).) against Alexander was discovered, it was thought that the accusations of his detractors had an air of probability. They said, namely, that when Hermolaüs put the question to him how he might become a most illustrious man, Callisthenes said: By killing the most illustrious; and that in inciting Hermolaüs to the deed he bade him have no fear of the golden couch, but remember that he was approaching a man who was subject to sickness and wounds.