Rhetorum praeceptor

Just to show you, I should like to tell you the tale of a Sidonian merchant's idea which disbelief made ineffectual and profitless to the man who heard it. Alexander was then ruler of the Persians, having deposed Darius after the battle of Arbela, and postmen had to run to every quarter of the realm carrying Alexander’s orders. The journey from Persia to Egypt was long, since one had to make a detour about the mountains, then to go through Babylonia to Arabia, and then to traverse a wide expanse of desert before reaching Egypt at last, after spending in this way, even if one travelled light, twenty very long days on the road. Well, this annoyed Alexander, because he had heard that the Egyptians were showing signs of disaffection, and he was unable to be expeditious in transmitting his decisions concerning them to his governors. At that juncture the Sidonian merchant said: “I give you my word, King Alexander, to show you a short route from Persia to Egypt. If a man went over these mountains—and he could do it in three

days—he is in Egypt in no time!” And it was so! Alexander, however, put no faith in it, but thought that the merchant was a liar.[*](The Sidonian merchant was exaggerating, but there was truth in his tale. From Persepolis, by crossing the mountains to the head of the Persian Gulf one could pick up a traderoute that led from Alexandria on the Tigris (Charax) to Petra (see Pliny 6, 145), whence one could get to Rhinocolura, and so to Egypt. This would have been much shorter than the normal (Susa, Babylon, Damascus) route, but it might not have been any quicker. ) So true is it that amazing promises seem untrustworthy to most people.

But you must not make the same mistake. Experience will convince you that nothing can prevent you from arriving as a public speaker, in a single day, and not a full day at that, by flying across the mountains from Persia to Egypt!

I wish first of all to paint you a picture in words, like Cebes of old, and show you both the roads; for there are two that lead to Lady Rhetoric, of whom you seem to me exceedingly enamoured. So let her be sitting upon a high place, very fair of face and form, holding in her right hand the Horn of Plenty, which runs over with all manner of fruits. Beside her imagine, pray, that you see Wealth standing, all golden and lovely. Let Fame, too, and Power stand by; and let Compliments, resembling tiny Cupids, swarm all about her on the wing in great numbers from every side. If you have ever seen the Nile represented in a painting, lying on the back of a crocodile or a hippopotamus, such as are frequent in his stream, while tiny infants play beside him—the Egyptians call them cubits— the Compliments that surround Rhetoric are like these.[*](Evidently there were many copies of this picture about, and they were not all exactly alike. The Vatican has a treatment of the theme in sculpture, in which Nile rests upon a sphinx, and has about him sixteen ‘ cubits,” symbolizing the desired yearly rise of his stream. )

Now you, her lover, approach, desiring, of course,

to get upon the summit with all speed in order to marry her when you get there, and to possess all that she has—the Wealth, the Fame, the Compliments; for by law everything accrues to the husband.