2.1
Yesterday we forgot, it seems, to remark that the age of Alexander had the good fortune to produce both many artistic achievements and many men of great talent. Perhaps, however, this was not part of Alexander’s good fortune, but rather that of the artists, to have obtained as witness and spectator of their achievements the man who was both best able to judge of their success and to reward them most liberally. At any rate, it is said that, when Archestratus, a poet of a later age, who, though an accomplished writer, was passing his days in poverty and neglect, someone remarked to him, If you had been born in Alexander’s time, for every verse he would have given you a Cyprus or a Phoenicia. And I think that the foremost of the artists of that age became so, not because they lived in Alexander’s day, but through what Alexander did for them. For a good climate and a lightness of the surrounding air produces a bountiful harvest; and likewise the favour, esteem, and benignity shown by a king evokes a rich increase in the arts and in men of talent. And, conversely, through jealousy and parsimony or emulous rivalry on the part of monarchs all artistic production is quenched and perishes.
