2.13
In short, if Solon’s statesmanship also was due to Fortune, and if Miltiades’ generalship, and Aristeides’ Cf.Moralia, 97 c. justice were but the result of Fortune, then surely there is no work of Virtue in these men, but it is a name only, talk based on appearance, pervading their lives to no purpose, a figment of the sophists and legislators. But if every one of these men and of others like them became poor or rich, weak or strong, ugly or handsome, lived to a ripe old age or met an untimely death through Fortune, or if each one of them proved himself a great general, a great lawgiver, or great in government and statesmanship through Virtue and Reason, then consider Alexander and compare him with them all. Solon Cf.Moralia, 828 f; Life of Solon, chaps. xv., xvi. (86 d, 87 d); Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, 10. 1. brought about a cancellation of debts in Athens which he called the Relief from Burdens (Seisachtheia); but Alexander himself paid the debts which his men owed to their creditors. Cf. 339 c, supra, and the note. Pericles collected tribute from the Greeks and with the money adorned the Acropolis with temples; but Alexander captured the riches of barbarians and sent them to Greece with orders that ten thousand talents£2,000,000 or $10,000,000. be used to construct temples for the gods. Cf. Diodorus, xviii. 4. 4. Brasidas’s Cf. Thucydides, ii. 25. 2. dash along the shore to Methonê through the armed host of the enemy amid showers of missiles made him renowned in Greece; but that daring leap of Alexander in the country of the Oxydrachae,The Mallians: Cf. 327 b, supra. incredible to them that hear of it and fearful to them that saw it, when he hurled himself down from the walls into the midst of the enemy, who received him with spears and arrows and naked swords-with what may one compare it, save with the levin bolt that breaks and flashes in the midst of a hurricane, like the apparition of Phoebus that darted down to earth, Cf. perhaps Homer, Il. xv. 237; iv. 75-80. gleaming round about with flaming armour. The enemy at first were amazed and affrighted and retired with trembling fear; but a moment later, when they saw that he was but one man attacking many, they made a stand against him.
