6
All this is not needless triviality and a waste of labour. Aëtion is calling attention to Alexander’s other love—War—, implying that in his love of Roxana he did not forget his armour. A further point about the picture itself is that it had a real matrimonial significance of quite a different sort—it courted Proxenides’ daughter for Aëtion! So as a by-product of his Alexander’s Wedding he came away with a wife himself and the King for best-man. His reward for his marriage of the imagination was a real-life marriage of his own.
7
Herodotus then (to return to him) thought the Olympic festival a suitable shop-window for showing the Greeks such a wonderful historian of the Greek victories as himself. As for me—and in the name of the God of Friendship do not think me mad or that I am comparing my works to his, bless him—I declare that my case and his are alike. When I first came to live in Macedonia, I wondered what should be policy. My dearest wish was to become known to you all and to show off my works to as many in Macedonia as I could; but to go round visiting each city in person at that time of the year seemed an arduous undertaking, whereas I thought that if I took the occasion of this present festival of your nation and made my appearance and gave my lecture then, my prayers must surely be answered.
