and undeniable. For some of his letters were intercepted, in which he had encouraged Perdiccas to fall upon Macedonia, and to save the Grecians, who, he said, hung only by an old rotten thread, meaning Antipater. Of this he was accused by Dinarchus the Corinthian, and Cassander was so enraged, that he first slew his son in his bosom, and then gave orders to execute him; who might now at last, by his own extreme misfortunes, learn the lesson, that traitors, who make sale of their country, sell themselves first; a truth which Demosthenes had often foretold him, and he would never believe. Thus, Sosius, you have the life of Demosthenes, from such accounts as we have either read or heard concerning him. Alexander on Bucephalas. Ir being my purpose to write the lives of Alexander 1 the king, and among the Romans of Cæsar, by whom Pompey was overthrown, let me at once, with so vast a field before me, forewarn my readers to expect of me no detailed account of all their famous actions, but rather, for the most of them, a mere epitome. Let it be borne in mind that I am writing, not histories, but lives. And the most splendid exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest evidence of virtue or vice in men ; sometimes a trifling matter, an expression or a jest, gives a better insight into characters than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever. And thus as portrait-painters draw their 2 likenesses from the lines and features of the face, in which the character is seen, and take little account of the body, so I may be allowed to devote my attention to the marks and indications of the souls of men, and while I endeavour by these to portray their lives, may be free to leave the great matters and the battles to be treated of by others. It is generally accepted, that on the father's side, Alexander descended from Hercules by Caranus, and from Eacus by Neoptolemus on the mother's side. His father Philip, being in Samothrace, when he was quite young, fell in love there with Olympias, herself a girl without father or mother, in company with whom he was initiated in the ceremonies of the country*, and soon after got the consent of her brother Arymbas, and married her. The young bride, before the night of the consummation of their marriage, dreamt that a thunderbolt fell upon her body, which kindled a great fire, whose divided flames dispersed themselves all about, and then were extinguished. And Philip, some time after he was married, dreamt that he sealed up his wife's body with a seal, bearing the impression, as he fancied, of the figure of a lion. The other diviners interpreted this as a warning to him to look narrowly to his wife; but Aristander of Telmessus, considering how unusual it is to seal up anything that was empty, assured him the meaning of his dream was, that the queen was with child of a boy, who would one day prove as bold and courageous as a lion. Once, moreover, a serpent was seen lying by Olympias as she slept, which more than anything else, it is said, abated Philip's passion for her; and whether he feared her as an enchantress, or thought *The Samothracian or Cabiric Mysteries. |