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And in the same spirit if ever there chanced to be in hours of ease or at a banquet a comparison of the verses of Homer, each man choosing his favourite line, Alexander always judged this verse to be the greatest of all: Both things is he: both a goodly king and a warrior mighty. Iliad, iii. 179; Cf. Xenophon, Memorabilia, iii. 2. 2. This praise, which at the time it was written another had received, Alexander conceived to be a law for himself, so that he said of Homer that in this same verse he had honoured the manly courage of Agamemnon and prophesied that of Alexander. Accordingly when he had crossed the Hellespont, he went to see the site of Troy, Cf.Life of Alexander, chap. xv. (672 b); Aelian, Varia Historia, ix. 38. imagining to himself the heroic deeds enacted there; and when one of the natives of the country promised to give him the lyre of Paris, if he wished it, Alexander said, Of his lyre I have no need; for I already possess Achilles’ lyre to the accompaniment of which, as he rested from his labours, he sang the famed deeds of heroes.Homer, Il. ix. 189. But the lyre of Paris gave forth an altogether weak and womanish strain to accompany his love songs. Thus it is the mark of a truly philosophic soul to be in love with wisdom and to admire wise men most of all, and this was more characteristic of Alexander than of any other king. His attitude toward Aristotle has already been stated327 f, supra; Cf.Life of Alexander, chaps. vii., viii. (668 a-f).; and it is recorded by several authors that he considered the musician Anaxarchus the most valuable of all his friends, that he gave ten thousand gold pieces to Pyrrhon Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, i. 282. of Elis the first time he met him, that he sent to Xenocrates, Cf. 333 b, supra, and Moralia, 181 e. the friend of Plato, fifty talents as a gift, and that he made Onesicritus, Cf.Life of Alexander, chap. xiv. (671 d); Diogenes Laertius, vi. 32; Valerius Maximus, iv. 3. 4; Juvenal, xiv. 311-314. Cf. also Moralia, 782 a-b. the pupil of Diogenes the Cynic, chief pilot of his fleet.
