Plutarch's Lives Volume III. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 810 pages of information about Plutarch's Lives Volume III..

Plutarch's Lives Volume III. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 810 pages of information about Plutarch's Lives Volume III..

Peukestas once was bitten by a bear, while hunting.  He wrote and told his friends of his mishap, but kept it secret from Alexander.  He, when he heard of it, wrote to Peukestas, blaming him for having concealed his hurt.  “But now,” he writes, “let me know how you are, and tell me if those who were hunting the bear with you deserted you, that I may punish them.”  When Hephaestion was absent on some business, he wrote to him to say that Kraterus had been struck in the thighs with Perdikkas’s spear, while they were amusing themselves by baiting an ichneumon.

When Peukestas recovered from some illness, he wrote to the physician Alexippus, congratulating him on the cure which he had effected.  When Kraterus was ill, Alexander had a dream about him, in consequence of which he offered sacrifice to certain gods, and bade him also sacrifice to them:  and when Pausanias the physician wished to give Kraterus a draught of hellebore, Alexander wrote to him, advising him to take the drug, but expressing the greatest anxiety about the result.

He imprisoned Ephialtes and Kissus, who were the first to bring him the news that Harpalus had absconded, because he thought that they wrongfully accused him.

When he was on the point of sending home all his invalided and superannuated soldiers, Eurylochus of AEgae was found to have placed his name upon the list, although he was in perfect health.  When questioned, he confessed that he was in love with a lady named Telesippa, who was returning to the sea-coast, and that he had acted thus in order to be able to follow her.  Alexander on hearing this, enquired who this lady was.  Being told that she was a free-born Greek courtezan, he answered, “I sympathise with your affection, Eurylochus; but since Telesippa is a free-born woman, let us try if we cannot, either by presents or arguments, persuade her to remain with us.”

XLII.  It is wonderful how many letters and about what trifling matters he found time to write to his friends.  For instance, he sent a letter to Kilikia ordering search to be made for a slave boy belonging to Seleukus, who had run away, and praising Peukestas because he had captured Nikon, the runaway slave of Kraterus.  He wrote also to Megabazus about a slave who had taken sanctuary in a temple, ordering him to catch him when outside of the temple, if possible, but not to lay hands on him within its precincts.

We are told that when he was sitting as judge to hear men tried for their lives, he was wont to close one ear with his hand, while the prosecutor was speaking, in order that he might keep it unbiassed and impartial to listen to what the accused had to say in his defence.  But later in his life, so many persons were accused before him, and so many of them truly, that his temper became soured and he inclined to believe them to be all alike guilty.  And he was especially transported with rage, and made completely pitiless if any one spoke ill of him, for he valued his reputation more than his life or his crown.

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Plutarch's Lives Volume III. from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.