2.5
Yet some may say, it is possible for women and children to confer dignity, riches, and empire upon others. Thus the eunuch Bagoas took the diadem of Persia, and set it upon the head of Oarses and Darius. But for a man to take upon him the burden of a vast dominion, and so to manage his ponderous affairs as not to suffer himself to sink and be overwhelmed under the immense weight of wakeful cares and incessant labor, that is the character which signalizes a person endued with virtue, understanding, and wisdom. All these royal qualities Alexander had, whom some accuse of’being given to wine. But he was a really great man, who was always sober in action and never drunk with the pride of his conquests and vast power; while others intoxicated with the smallest part of his prosperity have ceased to be masters of themselves. For, as the poet sings,— The vainer sort, that view their heaps of gold, Or else advanced at court high places hold, Grow wanton with those unexpected showers That Fortune on their happy greatness pours. From the Erechtheus of Euripides.
2.5
Thus Clitus, having sunk some three or four of the Grecians galleys near the island Amorgus, called himself Neptune and carried a trident. So Demetrius, to whom Fortune vouchsafed a small portion of Alexander’s power, assumed the title of Kataibates (as if descended from heaven), to whom the several cities sent their ambassadors, by the name of God-consulters, and his determinations were called oracles. Lysimachus, having made himself master of some part of the skirts of Alexander’s empire, viz., the region about Thrace, swelled to such excess of pride and vain-glory as to break forth into this ranting expression: Now the Byzantines make their addresses to me, because I touch heaven with my spear. At which words, Pasiades of Byzantium being then present said, Let us be gone, lest he pierce heaven with the point of his lance.
