XXXIX.  His liberality and love of making presents increased with his conquests:  and his gifts were always bestowed in so gracious a manner as to double their value.  I will now mention a few instances of this.  Ariston, the leader of the Paeonians, having slain an enemy, brought his head and showed it to Alexander, saying, “O king, in my country such a present as this is always rewarded with a gold cup.”  Alexander smiled, and said, “Yes, with an empty cup:  but I pledge you in this gold cup, full of good wine, and give you the cup besides.”  One of the common Macedonian soldiers was driving a mule laden with gold belonging to Alexander; but as the animal became too weary to carry it, he unloaded it, and carried the gold himself.  When Alexander saw him toiling under his burden, and learned his story, he said, “Be not weary yet, but carry it a little way farther, as far as your own tent; for I give it to you.”  He seemed to be more vexed with those who did not ask him for presents than with those who did so.  He wrote a letter to Phokion, in which he declared that he would not any longer remain his friend, if Phokion refused all his presents.  Serapion, a boy who served the ball to the players at tennis, had been given nothing by Alexander because he had never asked for anything.  One day when Serapion was throwing the ball to the players as usual, he omitted to do so to the king, and when Alexander asked why he did not give him the ball, answered “You do not ask me for it.”  At this, Alexander laughed and gave him many presents.  Once he appeared to be seriously angry with one Proteus, a professed jester.  The man’s friends interceded for him, and he himself begged for pardon with tears in his eyes, until Alexander said that he forgave him.  “My king,” said he “will you not give me something by way of earnest, to assure me that I am in your favour.”  Upon this the king at once ordered him to be given five talents.  The amount of money which he bestowed upon his friends and his body guard appears from a letter which his mother Olympias wrote to him, in which she said, “It is right to benefit your friends and to show your esteem for them; but you are making them all as great as kings, so that they get many friends, and leave you alone without any.”  Olympias often wrote to him to this effect, but he kept all her letters secret, except one which Hephaestion, who was accustomed to read Alexander’s letters, opened and read.  Alexander did not prevent him, but took his own ring from his finger, and pressed the seal upon Hephaestion’s mouth.  The son of Mazaeus, who had been the chief man in the kingdom under Darius, was governor of a province, and Alexander added another larger one to it.  The young nobleman refused to accept the gift, and said, “My king, formerly there was only one Darius, but you now have made many Alexanders.”