As Alexander perceived that, among his most intimate friends, Hephaestion encouraged him and furthered his designs, while Kraterus steadfastly adhered to the Macedonian customs, he made use of the latter in all transactions with Asiatics, and of the former when dealing with Greeks and Macedonians.  He loved Hephaestion, and respected Kraterus above all the rest of his friends, and was wont to say that Hephaestion loved Alexander, but that Kraterus loved the king.  His favour caused constant jealousies between them, so that once in India they actually drew their swords and fought with one another.  Their friends began to take part in the quarrel on either side, when Alexander rode up, and bitterly reproached Hephaestion before them all, saying that he must be a fool and a madman if he did not see, that without Alexander’s favour he would be nobody.  Privately also he sharply rebuked Kraterus; and calling them both before him, made them be friends again, swearing by Zeus Ammon, and all the gods, that they were the two men whom he loved best in the world; but that if he heard of any more quarrelling between them he would put them both to death, or at least him who began the quarrel.  In consequence of this, it is said that there never again, even in sport, was any dispute between them.

XLVIII.  Philotas, the son of Parmenio, was a man of much importance among the Macedonians; for he was courageous and hardy, and the most liberal man, and the most devoted to his friends in all the army except Alexander himself.  We are told of him that once a friend of his came to him to borrow money, and he at once commanded one of his servants to let him have it.  His purse-bearer answered that he had no money, upon which Philotas exclaimed, “What!  Have I no plate or furniture upon which you can raise money for my friend?”

His lofty carriage, his immense wealth, and the splendour in which he lived, caused him to appear too great for a private station, while his pride and vulgar ostentation made him generally disliked.  His own father, Parmenio, once said to him:  “My son, I pray you show a little more humility.”  He had long been an object of suspicion to Alexander, who was kept constantly informed about him by the following means:—­After the battle of Issus, when the baggage of Darius was captured at Damascus, there was taken among the captives a beautiful Greek girl, named Antigone.  She fell to the lot of Philotas, and became his mistress; and the young man, who was much enamoured of her, used to boast to her over his wine that all the conquests of the Macedonians were really due to the prowess of his father and himself, and that Alexander was merely a foolish boy, who owed his crown and his empire to their exertions.  Antigone repeated these expressions to one of her friends, who, as was natural, did not keep them secret, so that at last they reached the ears of Kraterus.  Kraterus privately introduced the woman to Alexander; and he, after he had heard her repeat what she had been told, ordered her to take secret note of the confidential expressions of Philotas, and to report them, from time to time, to himself.