Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/203

ALEXANDER. 195 he pronounced himself upon this subject, was even more like a philosopher, for he said, God was the common father of us all, but more particularly of the best of us. To the barbarians he carried himself very haughtily, as if he were fully persuaded of his divine birth and parentage ; but to the Grecians more moderately, and with less affec- tation of divinity, except it were once in writing to the Athenians about Samos, when he tells them that he should not himself have bestowed upon them that free and glorious city ; " You received it," he says, " from the bounty of him who at that time was called my lord and father," meaning Philip. However, afterwards being wounded with an arrow, and feeling much pain, he turned to those about him, and told them, " This, my friends, is real flowing blood, not Ichor, ' Such as immortal gods are wont to shed.' " And another time, when it thundered so much that every- body was afraid, and Anaxarchus, the sophist, asked him if he who was Jupiter' 1 - son could do any thing like this, " Nay," said Alexander, laughing, " I have no desire to be formidable to my friends, as you woidd have me, who despised my table for being furnished with fish, and not with the heads of governors of provinces." For in fact it is related as true, that Anaxarchus seeing a present of small fishes, which the king sent to Hephrestion, had used this expression, in a sort of irony, and disparagement of those who undergo vast labors and encounter great hazards in pursuit of magnificent objects, which after all bring them little more pleasure or enjoyment than what others have. From what I have said upon this subject, it is apparent that Alexander in himself was not foolishly affected, or had the vanity to think himself really a god, but merely used his claims to divinity as a means of maintaining among other people the sense of his superi- ority.