threw her most valuable jewels into it.  While the Thracian was stooping over the well trying to see down to the bottom, she came behind, pushed him in, and threw large stones upon him until he died.  The Thracians seized her, and took her to Alexander, where she proved herself a woman of courage by her noble and fearless carriage, as she walked in the midst of her savage captors.  The king enquired who she was, to which she replied she was the sister of Theagenes, who fought against Philip to protect the liberty of Greece, and who fell leading on the Thebans at Chaeronea.  Alexander, struck by her answer, and admiring her exploit, gave orders that she and her children should be set at liberty.

XIII.  Alexander came to terms with the Athenians, although they had expressed the warmest sympathy for the Thebans, omitting the performance of the festival of Demeter, out of respect for their misfortunes, and giving a kindly welcome to all the fugitives who reached Athens.  Either he had had his fill of anger, like a sated lion, or possibly he wished to perform some signal act of mercy by way of contrast to his savage treatment of Thebes.  Be this as it may, he not only informed the Athenians that he had no grounds of quarrel with them, but even went so far as to advise them to watch the course of events with care, since, if anything should happen to him, they might again become the ruling state in Greece.  In after times, Alexander often grieved over his harsh treatment of the Thebans, and the recollection of what he had done made him much less severe to others.  Indeed, he always referred his unfortunate drunken quarrel with Kleitus, and the refusal of the Macedonian soldiers to invade India, by which they rendered the glory of his great expedition incomplete, to the anger of Dionysius,[406] who desired to avenge the fate of his favourite city.  Moreover, of the Thebans who survived the ruin of their city, no one ever asked any favour of Alexander without its being granted.  This was the manner in which Alexander dealt with Thebes.

XIV.  The Greeks after this assembled at Corinth and agreed to invade Persia with Alexander for their leader.  Many of their chief statesmen and philosophers paid him visits of congratulation, and he hoped that Diogenes of Sinope, who was at that time living at Corinth, would do so.  As he, however, paid no attention whatever to Alexander and remained quietly in the suburb called Kraneium, Alexander himself went to visit him.  He found him lying at full length, basking in the sun.  At the approach of so many people, he sat up, and looked at Alexander.  Alexander greeted him, and enquired whether he could do anything for him.  “Yes,” answered Diogenes, “you can stand a little on one side, and not keep the sun off me.”  This answer is said to have so greatly surprised Alexander, and to have filled him with such a feeling of admiration for the greatness of mind of a man who could treat him with such insolent superiority, that when he went away, while all around were jeering and scoffing he said, “Say what you will; if I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.”