Biography debauchery of the coarsest kind.* To open a new region of enjoyment to the choicer spirits of the time, and thus save them from the distortion or corruption to which they otherwise seemed doomed, was a highly important service to the cause of civilization. The pleasure and utility resulting from the institution was very generally recognised. Xenocrates, the friend of Aristotle, adopted it. Theophrastus, his successor, left a sum of money in his will to be applied to defraying the expenses of these meetings; and there were in after times similar periodical gatherings of the followers of the Stoic philosophers, Diogenes, Antipater, and Panæ tius. If some of these, or others of similar nature, in the course of time degenerated into mere excuses for sensual indulgence, as Athenæus seems to hint, no argument can be thence derived against their great utility while the spirit of the institution was preserved.

Their public exercises.

Another arrangement made by Aristotle in the management of his instructions appears particularly worthy of notice. In imitation, as some say, of a practice of Xenocrates, he appointed one of his scholars to play the part of a sort of president in his school, holding the office for the space of ten days, after which another took his place. This peculiarity seems to derive illustration from the practice of the universities of Europe in the middle ages, in which, as is well known, it was the custom for individuals on various occasions to maintain certain theses against all who chose to controvert them. A remnant of this practice remains to this day in the Acts (as they are termed) which are kept in the University of Cambridge by candidates for a degree in either of the Faculties. It is an arrangement which results necessarily from the scarcity of books of instruction, and is dropped or degenerates into a mere form when this deficiency is removed. While information on any given subject must be derived entirely or mainly from the mouth of the teacher, as was the case in the time of Aristotle no less than that of Scotus and Aquinas, -the most satisfactory test of the learner's proficiency is his ability to maintain the theory which he has received against all arguments which may be brought against it. We shall probably be right in supposing that this was the duty of the president (apxwv) spoken of by Diogenes. He was, in the language of the XVIth Century, keeping an act. He had for the space of ten days to defend his own theory and to refute the

Athenæus, p. 186.

† ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τῇ σχολῇ νομοθετεῖν, μιμούμενον Ξενοκράτην· ὥστε κατὰ dina nμigas äρxovтa Toni. Diog. Laert. Vit. sec. 4. Itaque mihi semper Peripateticorum Academiæque consuetudo de omnibus rebus in contrarias partes disserendi non ob eam causam solum placuit, quod aliter non posset, quid in quâque re veri simile esset, inveniri; sed etiam quod esset ea maxima dicendi exercitatio: quá princeps usus est Aristoteles, deinde, eum qui secuti sunt.-Cicero, Tusc. Qu. ii. 3. Sin aliquis extiterit aliquando, qui Aristoteleo more de omnibus rebus in utramque partem possit dicere, et in omni causâ duas contrarias orationes, præceptis illius cognitis, explicare; aut hoe Arcesila modo et Carneadi, contra omne quod propositum sit disserat ; quique ad eam rationem adjungat hunc rhetoricum usum moremque dicendi, -is sit verus, is perfectus, is solus orator.-Cicero, De Orat. iii. 21. The passage from Quintilian, (i. 2. 23.) quoted by Menage in his note on Diogenes, (loc. cit.) refers to au essentially different kind of discipline, arising out of other grounds and directed to other ends.

objections (úrópia) which his brother disciples might Aristotle. either entertain or invent, the master in the mean time taking the place of a moderator, occasionally interposing to show where issue must be joined, to prevent either party from drawing illogical conclusions from acknowledged premises, and, probably, after the discussion had been continued for a sufficient time, to point out the ground of the fallacy. This explanation will also serve to account for a phenomenon, which cannot fail to strike a reader on the perusal of any one of Aristotle's writings that have come down to us. The systematic treatment of a subject is continually broken by an apparently needless discussion of objections which may be brought against some particular part. These are stated more or less fully, and are likewise taken off; or it sometimes happens that merely the principle on which the solution must proceed is indicated, and it is left to the ingenuity of the reader to fill up the details. To return to our subject, it is quite obvious that such a discipline as we have described must have had a wonderful effect in sharpening the dialectical talent of the student, and in producing-perhaps at the expense of the more valuable faculty of deep and systematic thought-extraordinary astuteness and agility in argumentation. Indeed, if we make abstraction of the subject-matter of the discussions, we may very well regard the exercise as simply a practical instruction in the art of Disputation, that which formed the staple of the education of the Sophists. And now we may understand how Gellius,* writing in Gellins's the IId Century after Christ, should place this art account among the branches which Aristotle's evening course explained. embraced, although in the sense in which the Sophists taught it, he would have scorned to make any such profession. In what other light could this compiler have viewed the fact, that insulated topics arising out of a subject which they had heard systematically treated by their master in his lectures (aкpoάoes) of the morning, were debated by Aristotle's more advanced scholars, in the presence of the whole body, in the evening, the master being himself present and regulating the whole discussion.

It is evident that in this species of exercise it is not Effect of the faculty of comprehending philosophic truth that this disci plays the most prominent part. As regards the subject- Pline on matter of such debates, nothing which is at all incom- matter of the subjectplete, nothing unsusceptible of rigid definition is avail- philosoable. Consequently the whole of that extensive region, phy. where knowledge exists in a state of growth and gradual consolidation, the domain of half-evolved truths, of observations and theories blended together in varying proportions, of approximately ascertained laws, in the main true, but still apparently irreconcilable with some phenomena, all this fertile soil, out of which every particle of real knowledge has sprung and must spring, will be neglected as barren and unprofitable. Where public discussion is the only test to be applied, an impregnable paradox will be more valued than an imperfectly established truth. And it is not only by diverting

*Noct. Att. xx. 5. See above, p. 105*.

+ See, for instance, the contempt with which he speaks of the Sophistical principle, the one on which Isocrates taught rhetoric. Rhetoric. i. init.

Sapientis hanc censet Arcesilas vim esse maximam, Zenoni assentiens, cavere ne capiatur ; ne fallatur, videre. Cicero, Academ. prior. ii. 21. Who can fail to recognise the disputatious habit of mind which gave birth to this principle? Compare sec. 21. Si ulli rei sapiens assentietur unquam, aliquando etiam opinabitur: nunquam autem opinabitur; nulli igitur rei assentietur.

Biography, the attention of the student away from the profitable fields of knowledge, that a pernicious effect will be produced. He will further be tempted to give, perhaps unconsciously, an artificial roundness to established facts by means of arbitrary definitions. In Nature every thing is shaded off by imperceptible gradations into something entirely different. Who can define the exact line which separates the animal from the vegetable kingdom, or the family of birds from that of animals? Who can say exactly where disinterestedness in the individual character joins on to a well-regulated selflove? or where fanaticism ends and hypocrisy begins? On the phi But the intellect refuses to apprehend what is not clear losopher and distinct. Hence a continual tendency to stretch Nature on the Procrustes-bed of logical definition, where, with more or less gentle truncation or extension, a plausible theory will be formed. If one weak point after another be discovered in this, a new bulwark of hypothesis will be thrown up to protect it, and at last the fort be made impregnable,-but, alas! in the mean time it has become a castle in the air. Should, however, the genius of the disputant lie less in the power of distinguishing and refining, than in that of presenting his views in a broad and striking manner, should his fancy be rich and his feelings strong, above all, should he be one of a nation where eloquence is at once the most common gift and the most envied attainment, he will call in rhetoric to the aid of his cause; and, in this event, as the accessory gradually encroaches and elbows out that interest in whose aid it was originally introduced,— as the handling of the question becomes more important, and the question itself less so,-there will result, not, as in the former case, a scholastic philosophy, but an arena for closet orators, who will abandon the systematic study of philosophy, and varnish up declamations on set subjects. Such results doubtless did not follow in the time of Aristotle and Xenocrates. Under them, unquestionably, the original purpose of this discipline was kept steadily in sight; and it was not suffered to pass from being the test of clear and systematic thought to a mere substitute for it. But the transition must have been to a considerable extent effected when an Arcesilaus or a Carneades could deliver formal dissertations in opposition to any question indifferently, and when Cicero could regard the rhetorical practice as co-ordinate in importance with the Reason of other advantages resulting to the student. In the very excellence and reputation then of this peculiar discipline of the founder of the Peripatetic school, we have a germ adequate to produce a rapid decay of his philosophy, and we have no occasion to look either to external accidents or to the internal nature of his doctrines for a reason of the degeneracy of the Peripatetics after Theophrastus. The importance of this remark will be seen in the sequel.

the degeneracy of

the later

Peripa tetics.

Aristotle's

It was probably in the course of this sojourn at prosperity. Athens, which lasted for the space of thirteen years,

that the greater number of Aristotle's works were produced. His external circumstances were at this time

μηδὲν ἔχειν φιλοσοφεῖν πραγματικῶς, ἀλλὰ θέσεις ληκυθίζειν. Strabo, xiii. p. 124. See the passage cited above, p. 106, note . Compare also Acad. Prior. ii. 18. Quis enim ista tam aperte perspicueque et perversa et falsa secutus esset, nisi tanta in Arcesila, multo etiam major in Carneade, et copia rerum, et dicendi vis fuisset. Yet the eloquent Arcesilaus and Carneades left nothing behind them written. Plutarch, De Fort. Alex. p. 323. ed. Paris.

VOL. X.

pre

most favourable. The Macedonian party was the valent one at Athens, so that he needed be under no fears for his personal quiet; and the countenance and assistance he received from Alexander enabled him to prosecute his investigations without any interruption from the scantiness of pecuniary means. The Conqueror is said in Athenæus to have presented his master with the sum of eight hundred talents (about two hundred thousand pounds sterling) towards the expenses of his History of Animals,* and enormous as this sum is, it is only in proportion to the accounts we have of the vast wealth acquired by the plunder of the Persian treasures.† Pliny also relates that some thousands of men were placed at his disposal for the purpose of procuring zoological specimens, which served as materials for this celebrated treatise. The undertaking, he says, originated in the express desire of Alexander, who took a singular interest in the study of Natural History. For this particular object, indeed, he is said to have received a considerable sum from Philip, so that we must probably regard the assistance afforded him by Alexander (no doubt after conquest had enlarged his means) as having effected the extension and completion of a work begun. at an earlier period, previous to his second visit to Athens.§ Independently too of this princely liberality, the profits of his occupation may have been very great,|| and we have before seen reason to suppose that his private fortune was not inconsiderable. It is likely, therefore, that not only all the means and appliances of knowledge, but the luxuries and refinements of private life, were within his reach, and having as little of the cynic as of the sensualist in his character, there is every probability that he availed himself of them. Indeed, the charges of luxury which his enemies brought against him after his death, absurd as they are in the form in which they were put, appear to indicate a man that could enjoy riches when possessing them, as well as in case of necessity he could endure poverty.

At an

Aristotle.

retires to Chalcis in Euboea.

B. C. 322.

But fortune, proverbially inconstant, was even more Aristotle fickle in the days of Aristotle than our own. earlier period of his life, we have seen the virulence of political partizanship rendering it desirable for him to quit Athens. The same spirit it was which again, in his old age, forced him to seek refuge in a less agreeable but safer spot. The death of Alexander had infused new courage into the anti-Macedonian party at Athens, and a persecution of such as entertained contrary views naturally followed. Against Aristotle, the intimate friend and correspondent of Antipater, (whom Alexander on leaving Greece had left regent,) a prosecution was either instituted or threatened for an alleged offence against religion. The flimsiness of this pretext for

Elian, Var. Hist. iv. 19.

See the beginning of the Hippias Major of Plato for the profits of the sophists, which there is no reason to suppose were greater than those of their more respectable successors. Hippias professes to have made during a short circuit in Sicily more than six hundred pounds, although the celebrated Protagoras was there as a competitor, (sec. 5.) Hyperbolus's instructions in oratory cost him a talent, or two hundred and fifty pounds. (Aristoph. Nub. 874.) But there is no means of deciding whether Aristotle's teaching was or was not gratuitous.

Phavorinus, ap. Diog. Laert. Vit. sec. 5. Elian, Var. Hist. iii. 36. Athenæus, p. 696. Origen c. Celsum, i. p. 51. ed. Spencer. Demochares, cited by Aristocles, (ap. Euseb. Præp. Ev. xv. 2.) P*

Biography. crushing a political opponent-or rather a wise and inoffensive man, whose very impartiality was a tacit censure of the violent party spirit of his time-will appear at first sight of the particulars of the charge. Frivolously Eurymedon the Hierophant, assisted by Demophilus, accused of accused him of the blasphemy of paying divine honours impiety. to mortals. He had composed, it was said, a pæan and offered sacrifices to his father-in-law Hermias, and also honoured the memory of his deceased wife Pythias with libations such as were used in the worship of Ceres. This paan is the Scolium 'Aperà Tоλvμоx¤è, &c., which we have described above, (p. 101,) and although we cannot tell what the circumstance was which gave rise to the latter half of the charge, we may reasonably presume that it as little justified the interpretation given to it as the ode does. That ignorance and bigotry, stimulated by party hatred, should find matter in his writings to confirm a charge of impiety founded on such a basis, was to be expected; and he is related to have said to his friends, in allusion to the fate of Socrates, "Let us leave Athens, and not give the Athenians a second opportunity of committing sacrilege against philosophy." He was too well acquainted with the character of "the many-headed monster" to consider the absurdity of a charge as a sufficient guarantee for security under such circumstances, and he retired with his property to Chalcis in Euboea, where at that time Macedonian influence prevailed. In a letter to Antipater he expresses his regret at leaving his old haunts, but applies a verse from Homer in a way to intimate that the disposition that prevailed there to vexatious and malignant calumnies was incorrigible.† It is not improbable that his new asylum had before this time afforded him an occasional retreat from the noise and bustle of Athens. Now, however, he owed to it a greater obligation. He was out of the reach of his enemies, and enabled to justify himself in the opinion of all whose judgment was valuable by a written defence of his conduct,§ and an exposure of the absurdities which the accusation involved. "Was it likely," he asks, "that if he had contemplated Hermias in the light of a deity, he should have set up a cenotaph to his memory as to that of a dead man? Were funeral rites a natural step to apotheosis?" Arguments like these, reasonable as they are, were not likely to produce much effect upon the minds of his enemies. The person of their victim was beyond their reach; but such means of annoyance as still remained were not neglected. Some mark of honour at Delphi, probably a statue, had been on a former occasion (perhaps the embassy alluded to above) decreed him by a vote of the people. This vote seems to have been at this time rescinded, an insult the more mortifying, if, as appears

His defence.

Insult

passed upon him.

*Apollodorus, ap. Diog. Vit. sec. 10. Lycon the Pythagorean, cited by Aristocles, ap. Euseb. Præp. Ev. xv. 2. grounds a charge of luxury on the number of culinary utensils which were passed at the custom-house in Chalcis.

+ Pseudo-Ammon. Ælian,' Var. Hist. iii. 36 ; (compare xii. 52.) Phavorinus, (ap. Diog. Vit. sec. 9.)

Diog. Vit. Epicuri, sec. 1. Strabo, x. p. 325, ed. Tauchnitz. Athenæus (p. 697) quotes a passage from this work to which he gives the title of ἀπολογία ἀσεβείας, but at the same time mentions a suspicion that it was not genuine. It might very well be written by one of his scholars in his name, and embody his sentiments, just as the Apology of Plato does those of Socrates. This is the more likely, as Aristotle at this time appears to have been in a very weak state of health. It seems to be identical with the Aoyos dixavinds mentioned by Phavorinus, (ap. Diog. Vit. sec. 9.) and to be so called because written in that form, although probably never intended to be recited in court.

In a

likely, it was inflicted on the pretext that he had acted Aristotle. the part of a spy in the Macedonian interest.* letter to Antipater he speaks of this proceeding in a tone of real greatness, perfectly free from the least affectation of indifference. He alleges that it does not occasion him great uneasiness, but that he still feels hurt by it.† It is impossible to find expressions more characteristic of an unaffectedly magnanimous nature, or which better illustrate the description of that disposition given by himself in one of his works.‡

A subject which it is likely occasioned him during the Coolness latter years of his life far greater pain than any thing towards him on the which the fickle public of Athens could think or do, was part of the coolness which had arisen between himself and his Alexander illustrious pupil. It seems to have been closely connected with the conduct of Callisthenes, whom we have mentioned above, (p. 104,) who had accompanied Alexander into Asia by his particular recommendation. This Callisindividual possessed a cultivated mind, a vigorous un- thenes. derstanding, and a bold and fearless integrity, combined with a strong attachment to the homely virtues and energetic character of the Macedonians, and a corresponding hatred and contempt for the Persian manners which had been adopted by Alexander after his successes. Unfortunately no less for those whom it was his desire to reform than for himself, the sterling qualities of his mind were obscured by a singular want of tact and discretion.§ He had no talent for seizing the proper moment to tell an unwelcome truth, and so far from being able to sweeten a reproof by an appearance of interest and affection for the party reproved, he often contrived to give his real zeal the colouring of offended vanity or personal malice. Aristotle is said to have Aristotle's dreaded from the very first that evil would follow from advice to these defects in his character, and to have advised him him. to abstain from frequent interviews with the King, and when he did converse with him, to be careful that his conversation was agreeable and good humoured.|| He probably judged that the character and conduct of Callisthenes would of itself work an effect with a generous disposition like Alexander's, and that its influence could not be increased, and would in all probability be much diminished, by the irritation of personal discussion, producing, almost of necessity, altercation and invective. Callisthenes, however, did not abide by the instructions of his master; and perhaps the ambition of martyrdom contributed almost as much as the love of truth to his neglect of them. The description of Kent, which Shakspeare puts into the mouth of Cornwall,¶ would certainly

* Demochares cited by Aristocles. (Euseb. Præp. Ev. xv. 2.) rig avräv, μńre undèv μsv. Pausanias (vi. 4. 8.) speaks of a + Alian, Var. Hist. xiv. 1. οὕτως ἔχω, ὡς μήτε μοι σφόδρα μέλειν statue at Olympia said to be his: but it had no name, nor was it known who had placed it there.

Nicom. Ethic. iv. p. 1123, col. 1, line 34.

§ Aristotle himself said of him, on hearing of his behaviour at court, that he was λόγῳ μὲν δυνατὸς καὶ μέγας, νοῦν δ' οὐκ εἶχεν. Here mippus ap. Plutarch, Vit. Alex. sec. 54.

Valerius Max. vii. 2.

the

graphy. not do him justice; but it is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that he made it "his occupation to be plain." Disgusted at the ceremony of the salaam, and the other oriental customs, which in the eyes of many were a degradation to the dignity of freeborn Greeks, he did not take the proper course, namely, to withdraw himself from the royal banquets, and thus by his absence enter a practical protest againt their adoption; but, while he did not cease to attend these, he took is dislike every opportunity of testifying his disapprobation of what he saw, and his contempt of the favours which were nan bestowed on such as were less scrupulous than himself. irty. One of these who appears to have particularly excited his dislike was the sophist Anaxarchus, an unprincipled flatterer, who vindicated the worst actions and encouraged the most evil tendencies of his master;* and perhaps a jealousy of this miscreant, and an unwillingness to leave him the undivided empire over Alexander's mind, was one reason which prevented him from adopting what would have been probably the most effectual as well as the most dignified line of conduct. Some anecdotes are related by Plutarch, which exhibit in a very striking manner both the mutual hatred of the philosophers breaking out in defiance of all the decencies of a court, and the rude bluntness of Callisthenes's manners. On one occasion, a discussion arose at supper time, as to the comparative severity of the winters in Macedonia and in the part of the country where they then were. Anaxarchus, in opposition to his rival, strongly maintained the former to be the colder. Callisthenes could not resist the temptation of a sneer at his enemy. "You at least," said he, "should hardly be of that opinion. In Greece you used to get through the cold weather in a scrubby jacket; (ev rpißwvi;) here, I observe, that you cannot sit down to table with less than three thick mantles (dáridaç) on your back."+ Anaxarchus, whose vulgar ostentation of the wealth which his low servilities had procured him was observed and ridiculed by all, could not turn off this sarcasm; but the meanest animal has its sting, and he took care not to miss any opportunity for lowering the credit of Callisthenes with Alexander, a task which the unfortunate wrong-headedness of the other rendered only too easy. On the occasion of another royal banquet, each of the guests, as the cup passed round, drank to the monarch from it, and then, after performing the salaam, received a salute from him,-a ceremony which was con

When Alexander, after having slain his friend Clitus in a fit of drunken passion, threw himself upon the earth, overwhelmed with remorse, deaf to the solicitations of his friends, and obstinately refusing to touch food, Callisthenes and Anaxarchus, the philosophers of that day standing in the place of the priests of this, were sent to offer him spiritual consolations. The latter, wise in his generation, determined to sear the conscience which he could not heal, and entered the tent with an expression of indignation and surprise. "What," he cried, "is this Alexander on whom the eyes of the whole world are bent? is this he lying weeping like a slave, in fear of the reproaches and the conventional laws of men, when he ought to be himself the law and the standard of right and wrong to them? Why did he conquer the world but to rule and command it; surely not to be in bondage to it and its foolish opinions?" "Dost thou not know," he continued, addressing the unhappy prince, "that Justice and Law (Aizni xai eiμn) are represented the assessors of Jupiter, as a sign to all that whatever the mighty do is lawful and just ?"-Plutarch, Vit. Alex. sec. 52.

sidered as an especial mark of royal favour. Callis- Aristotle. thenes, when his turn arrived, omitted the salaam, but advanced towards Alexander, who, being busy in conversation with Hephæstion, did not observe that the expected act of homage had been omitted. A courtier of Anaxarchus's party, however, Demetrius, the son of Pythonax, determined that their enemy should not benefit by this casualty, and accordingly called out, "Do not salute that fellow, Sire, for he alone has refused to salaam you." The King on hearing this, refused Callisthenes the customary compliment; but the latter, far from being mortified, exclaimed contemptuously as he returned to his seat, "Very well, then I am a kiss the poorer!"* Such gratuitous discourtesy as this could hardly fail to alienate the kindness of a young prince, whose mere taste for refinement-leaving entirely out of consideration the intoxication produced by unparalleled success and the flatteries which follow it-must have been revolted by it.† It, however, gained him great credit His popuwith the Macedonian party, who were no less jealous of larity with the favour which the Persian nobles found with the the Greek Conqueror than disgusted with the adoption of the Per- party. sian customs. He was considered as the mouth-piece of the body, and as the representative and vindicator of that manly and plain-speaking spirit of liberty which they regarded as their birthright; and the satisfaction which his vanity received from this importance, combined with a despair of reconquering the first place in Alexander's favour from the hated and despised Anaxarchus, probably determined him to relinquish all attempts at pleasing the monarch, and to adopt a line which might annoy and injure himself but could hardly benefit any one. When an account was brought to Aristotle in Greece of the course pursued by his relation, his sharpsightedness led him at once to divine the result. In a line from the Iliad,§

Ah me! such words, my son, bode speedy death! he prophetically hinted the fate which awaited him. Indeed the latter himself appears not to have been blind to the ruin preparing for him; but this conviction did not produce any alteration in his conduct, or, if any thing, it perhaps induced him to give way to his temper even more than before. At another banquet, the not unusual request was made to him, that he would exhibit his talents by delivering an extemporaneous oration, and the subject chosen was a panegyric upon the Macedonians. He complied, and performed his task so His indis well as to excite universal admiration and enthusiastic cretion. applause on the part of the guests. This circumstance appears to have nettled Alexander, whose affection for his old fellow-pupil had probably quite vanished, and he remarked in disparagement of the feat, in a quotation from Euripides, that on such a subject it was no great matter to be eloquent. "If Callisthenes wished really to give a proof of his abilities," said he, "let him take up the other side of the question, and try what he can do in an invective against the Macedonians, that they may learn their faults and reform them." The orator did not decline the challenge:-his mettle was roused,

*Plutarch, Vit. sec. 54. Arrhian, iv. 12.

+"Do not the Greeks seem to you," said he, on the occasion of Clitus's outrageous behaviour, to two of his friends, "compared with the Macedonians, like demigods among brute beasts?"Plutarch, Vit, sec. 51.

Plutarch. Vit. sec. 53. Arrhian, iv. 12. § ὠκύμορος δή μοι, τέκος, ἔσσεαι, δι' αγορεύεις.

Diog. Laert. Fit, sec. 5.

Biography. and he surpassed his former performance. The Macedonian nation was held up to utter scorn, and especial contempt heaped upon the warlike exploits and consummate diplomacy of Alexander's father Philip. His successes were attributed to accident or low intrigue availing itself of the dissensions which existed at that time in Greece; and the whole was wound up by the Homeric line

His ruin.

of the pages,

Callisthenes.

ἐν δὲ διχοστασίη καὶ ὁ πάγκακος ἔλλαχε τιμῆς.

When civil broils prevail, the vilest soar to fame!

The effect of this course was such as might have been expected. Alexander fell into a furious passion, telling the performer, what was not far from the truth, that his speech was an evidence not of skill, but of malevolence, and the latter, perhaps conscious that he had now struck a blow which would never be forgiven, left the room, repeating as he went out a verse from the Iliad, which seems to be an allusion to the death of Clitus, and an intimation that he expected to be made the second victim to his sovereign's temper.*

A victim he was destined to be, although not in the way in which he appears to have expected. A practice had been introduced by Philip, similar to that which prevailed in the courts of the feudal sovereigns in the Middle Ages, that the sons of the principal nobles should be brought up at court in attendance on the person of the Conspiracy King. Of these pages, esquires, or grooms of the bedchamber, (for their office appears to have included all these duties,†) who attended on Alexander, there was one named Hermolaus, a youth of high spirit and generous disposition, who was much attached to Callisthenes, and took great pleasure in his society and conversation. Hermolaus The philosopher appears to have considered his mind as a friend of a fit depositary for the manly principles of Grecian liberty, which the tenets of Anaxarchus and the corrupt example of the monarch threatened utterly to extinguish, and, in the inculcation of these, to have made use of language and of illustrations, which, considering the circumstances of the case, were certainly dangerous, although in reference to the then prevailing tone of morality we shall scarcely be justified in censuring them. Harmodius and Aristogiton having with the sacrifice of their own lives been fortunate enough to bring about the freedom of their country, had been canonized as political saints, and were held up to all the youth of the free States of Greece for admiration and imitation; and Callisthenes can hardly deserve especial blame for participating in this general idolatry, or for regarding the glory of a tyrannicide as surpassing that of a tyrant, however brilliant the fortunes of the latter might be. Neither can we at all wonder that he should delight in depreciating the "pride, pomp, and circumstance" of greatness in comparison with dignity of character and manly energy, and in exposing the impotence of externals to avert any of" the ills to which flesh is heir." Such topics have been in all ages and ever will be the staple both of philosophy and of the sciolism which is its counterfeit, and the necessity for dwelling upon them must to Callisthenes have appeared the greater in order to counterbalance the habits of feeling which Persian manners and sophistry like that of Anaxarchus were calculated to spread among the Macedonian youth. He is said indeed to have continually professed that the

κάτθανε καὶ Πάτροκλος, ὅπερ σέο πολλὸν ἀμείνων. † Arrhian, iv. c. 13.

Plutarch, Vit. sec. 54,

only motive which induced him to accompany Alexander Aristotle. into Asia was that he might be the means of restoring his countrymen to their fatherland, as true Greeks as they went out, uncorrupted by the manners or the luxury of the barbarians ;* and he seems unquestionably to have succeeded in putting a stop, at least for a time, to the ceremony of the salaam, of all Eastern customs the most galling to Macedonian pride.† In an evil day, however, to Callisthenes, it happened that Hermolaus was out boar-hunting with Alexander, when the animal probably more by the ardour of the chase, and his own charged directly towards the King. The page, influenced youthful spirits, than by any just apprehension for his sovereign's safety, struck the creature a mortal wound before it came up to him. Alexander, the keenest of huntsmen, balked of his expected sport, in the passion of the moment, ordered Hermolaus to be flogged in the Insulted by presence of his brother pages, and deprived him of his Alexander. horse, (apparently the sign of summarily degrading him from his employment.) Such an insult to a Greek could only be washed out in the blood of the aggressor, and Hermolaus found ready sympathy among his compeers. It was agreed among them to assassinate Alexander while asleep, and the execution of the design was fixed Plots his (whom Alexander had made lord-lieutenant of Syria,) for a night on which Antipater, the son of Asclepiodorus, death. was to be the groom in waiting. It so happened that on that night Alexander did not retire to bed at all, but sat at table carousing until the very morning, whether female, to whom in the character of a soothsayer he paid by accident, or in consequence of the advice of a Syrian great respect, is not agreed by the contemporary historians. But this circumstance, whatever was the cause of it, saved the King and led to the detection of the plot. tioned the matter to an individual who was strongly The next day, Epimenes, one of the conspirators, menattached to him. This person spoke of it to Eurylochus, the brother of Epimenes, perhaps considering that his relationship was a sufficient guarantee for secrecy. Eurylochus, however, at once laid an information before Ptolemy Lagides, subsequently the first of the Greek dynasty in Egypt, and then one of the guard of honour in attendance on Alexander. the names of those who he had been told were conHe reported to the King Is detected. cerned in the affair: they were arrested, and on being put to the torture confessed their crime and gave up the names of others who were participators. So far all accounts agree as to the substantial facts of this story, and Aristobulus § both asserted that the pages named of Callisbut here a great discrepancy commences. Ptolemy Inculpation

§ Aristobulus was one of Alexander's generals, and wrote an account of his campaigns. He did not, however, commence this enough therefore after the transaction in question, to allow us to work till his eighty-fourth year, (Lucian, De Macrob.) long suppose that by a slip of the memory he may have confused circumstantial with direct evidence. Moreover as there was nothing which made Alexander so unpopular as the execution of Callis

thenes, (Quintus Curtius, De rebus gestis Alex. viii. c. 3) so there was nothing which his biographers took so much pains to extenuate. See Ste. Croix, p. 360, et seq. Arrhian, (iv. 14. fin. at the same time that he speaks of the opportunities of knowledge possessed by Ptolemy and Aristobulus, and of their general fidelity, yet remarks that their accounts of the details of this affair differ from one another.

thenes.