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THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE COURTIER particularly those first ancients, like Theseus and Hercules. And do not imagine that Procrustes and Sciron, Cacus, Diomed, Antaeus, Geryon, were other than cruel and impious tyrants, against whom these lofty-minded 'heroes waged perpetual and deadly war.*"* Therefore, for having delivered the world from such intolerable monsters (for only thus ought tyrants to be called), temples were raised and sacrifices offered to Hercules, and divine honours paid to him ; since the extirpation of tyrants is a benefit so profitable to the world that he who confers it de- serves much greater reward than any befitting to a mortal.*"' "And of those whom you named, do you not think that by his victories Alexander did good to the peoples whom he conquered, having taught so many good customs to those barbarous tribes which he overcame, that out of wild beasts he made them men? He built so many fine cities in lands that were ill-inhabited, and introduced right living there, and as it were united Asia and Europe by the bond of friendship and holy laws, that those who were conquered by him were happier than the others. For to some he taught marriage, to others agriculture, to others religion, others he taught not to kill but to support their fathers when grown old, others to abstain from union with their mothers, and a thousand other things that could be told in proof of the benefit which his victories conferred upon the world. 38.—" But leaving the ancients aside, what more noble and glo- rious enterprise and more profitable could there be than for Christians to devote their power to subjugating the infidels?*^ Do you not think that this war, if it succeeded prosperously and were the means of turning so many thousand men from the false sect of Mahomet to the light of Christian truth, would be as profitable to the vanquished as to the victors? And truly, as Themistocles once said to his family, being banished from his native land and received by the King of Persia and caressed and honoured with countless and very rich gifts: 'My friends, we should have been undone but for our undoing;'*"' so with reason might the Turks and Moors then say the same, because in their loss would lie their salvation. " Therefore I hope that we shall yet see this happiness, if God grant life enough for Monseigneur d'Angouleme to attain the 275