2.5
But who could have made Aridaeus Cf.Moralia, 791 e. great, whom, differing no whit from a child, only that his swaddlingclothes were royal purple, Meleager set on the throne of Alexander? And indeed it was well that he did so, that for a few days it might be observed how it is that men rule by right of virtue and how by gift of Fortune. For in succession to a real competitor for sovereignty Meleager introduced a mere actor, or rather, did a mute figure wearing a crown parade across the stage, as it were, of the inhabited world. Even a woman can carry a burden if a man impose it upon her.Aristophanes, Knights, 1056; see Rogers’s note ad loc. Conversely, however, one might affirm that it lies within the strength of even a woman or a child to take up and impose the gifts of power and wealth and sovereignty. The eunuch Bagoas Cf. Arrian, Anabasis, ii. 14. 5; Aelian, Varia Historia, vi. 8; Diodorus, xvii. 5. took up the kingship of Persia and bestowed it upon Oarses and Darius. Cf. 326 f, supra. But the ability to sustain and administer great authority when one has once received it, and not to be crushed or turned from ones purpose by the weight and the magnitude of one’s activities, is the mark of a man who possesses virtue, sense, and intelligence. This virtue Alexander possessed, whom some accuse of drunkenness and a passion for wine I Rut he was truly a great man, for in his conduct of affairs he was sober, nor was he made drunk nor led to revelling by authority and power; but others, when they get but a small portion, or even a taste, of power are unable to control themselves: Bad men, when gorged with wealth, or chancing on Some honours in the State, caper and prance When luck, unhoped for, to their house has come.From a much longer fragment of Euripides’ Erechtheus; Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 471, Euripides, no. 362, 29-31. Cleitus, Cf. Diodorus, xviii. 15. 9. 72. when he had scuttled three or four Greek triremes at Amorgos, caused himself to be proclaimed Poseidon and carried a trident. Demetrius, to whom Fortune added the little that she was able to subtract from Alexander’s power, allowed himself to be called The Heaven-descended, Avatar, he that desceds from Heaven (in thunder and lightning), a common title of Zeus; cf. Life of Demetrius, chaps. x., xi. (893 d, e). and the subject states did not send ambassadors to him, but Sacred Deputies, and his replies they spoke of as Oracles. Lysimacho, who obtained possession of the regions adjoining Thrace, the mere outskirts of the kingdom of Alexander, as it were, reached such a pitch of arrogance and boldness as to say, The Byzantines now come to me when I am touching Heaven with my spear. But Pasiades of Byzantium, who was present, said, Let us be off, lest he make a hole in the sky with his spear-point!
