2.13
In short, if Solon proved so wise a ruler by Fortune, if Miltiades led his armies by Fortune, if Aristides was so renowned for his justice by Fortune, then there is nothing that can be called the work of virtue. Then is virtue only an airy fiction, and a word that passes with some show of glory through the life of man, but feigned and magnified by Sophists and lawgivers. But if every one of these whom we have mentioned was wealthy or poor, weak or strong, deformed or beautiful, long or short lived, by Fortune, but made himself a great captain, a great lawgiver, famous for governing kingdoms and commonwealths, by virtue and reason; then in God’s name let us compare Alexander with the best of them. Solon by a law made a great abatement upon the payment of the Athenians’ private debts, which he called his burden-easing law; Alexander discharged the debts of his Macedonians at his own expense. Pericles, laying a tax upon the Greeks, expended the money in building temples to beautify the citadel of Athens; Alexander sent home ten thousand talents out of the spoils of the barbarians, for the building of temples to the Gods all over Greece. Brasidas advanced his fame all over Greece, by breaking through the enemy’s army lying encamped by the seaside near Methone; but when you read of that daringjump of Alexander’s (so astonishing to the hearers, much more to them that beheld it) when he threw himself from the walls of the Oxydracian metropolis among the thickest of the enemy, assailing him on every side with spears, darts, and swords, tell me where you meet with such an example of matchless prowess, or to what you can compare it but to a gleam of lightning violently flashing from a cloud, and impetuously driven by the wind? Such was the appearance of Alexander, as he leaped like an apparition to the earth, glittering in his flaming armor. The enemy, at first amazed and struck with horror, retreated and fell back; till seeing him single they came on again with a redoubled force.
