44
Indeed, he seriously imperilled one of the Epicureans who ventured to expose him in the presence of a great crowd. The man went up to him and said in a loud voice: “Come now, Alexander! You prevailed upon such-and-such a Paphlagonian to put his servants on trial for their lives before the governor of Galatia on the charge that they had murdered his son, a student at Alexandria, But the young man is living, and has come back alive after the execution of the servants, whom you gave over to the wild beasts.” What had happened was this. The young man cruised up the Nile as far as Clysma,Probably Suez; the ancient canal from the Nile to the Red Sea ended there. and as a vessel was just putting to sea, was induced to join others in a voyage to India. Then because he was overdue, those ill-starred servants concluded that the young man either had lost his life during his cruise upon the Nile or had been made away with by brigands, who were numerous at the time; and they returned with the report of his disappearance. Then followed the oracle and their condemnation, after which the young man presented himself, telling of his travels.
45
When he told this tale, Alexander, indignant at the exposure and unable to bear the truth of the reproach, told the bystanders to stone him, or else they themselves would be accurst and would bear the name of Epicureans. They had begun to throw stones when a man named Demostratus who happened to be in the city, one of the most prominent men in Pontus,I suspect that the Greek phrase is really a title, but cannot prove it; the use of πρῶτος without the article seems to make the phrase mean “One of the First Citizens.” flung his arms about the fellow and saved him from death. But he had come very near to being overwhelmed with stones, and quite properly! Why did he have to be the only man of sense among all those lunatics and suffer from the idiocy of the Paphlagonians?
