Alexander was wont to say, "Were I not Alexander, I would be Diogenes."
Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all. Alexander the Great
Unus Pell?o juveni non sufficit orbis; / ?stuat infelix angusto limite mundi=--One world is not enough for the youth of Pella; the unhappy man frets at the narrow limits of the world.
"Stand out of the sun."= _Diogenes to Alexander the Great, and which made Alexander remark, "If I were not Alexander I would be Diogenes."_
Sufficit huic tumulus, cui non suffecerit orbis=--A tomb now suffices for him for whom the world did not suffice.
Pro virtute felix temeritas=--Instead of valour successful rashness.
(1) Alexander the Great was a great general. (2) Great generals are forewarned. (3) Forewarned is forearmed. (4) Four is an even number. (5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. (6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms.
(1) Alexander the Great was a great general. (2) Great generals are forewarned. (3) Forewarned is forearmed. (4) Four is an even number. (5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. (6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, all horses are black.
Magnus Alexander corpore parvus erat=--The great<b> Alexander was small in stature.
When Darius offered him ten thousand talents, and to divide Asia equally with him, "I would accept it," said Parmenio, "were I Alexander." "And so truly would I," said Alexander, "if I were Parmenio." But he answered Darius that the earth could not bear two suns, nor Asia two kings.
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take--and sometimes tea.
Thou great First Cause, least understood.
"And the king--Ptolemy son of Lagos,--of the south,"--Egypt,--"shall be strong,--but one of his princes shall be strong above him,"--Seleucus king of Syria,--"and his dominion shall be a great dominion,"--Appian says that he was the most powerful of Alexander's successors.
Ajax the great . . . Himself a host.
I have marched in many a battle host, but I have also planted seeds and reaped the harvest with my own hands. And I have learned there is greater honor in a field well plowed than in a field steeped in blood.
Few sons attain the praise Of their great sires, and most their sires disgrace.
Being nimble and light-footed, his father encouraged him to run in the Olympic race. "Yes," said he, "if there were any kings there to run with me."
I conclude, therefore, that no principality is secure without having its own forces; on the contrary, it is entirely dependent on good fortune, not having the valour which in adversity would defend it. And it has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men that nothing can be so uncertain or unstable as fame or power not founded on its own strength. And one's own forces are those which are composed either of subjects, citizens, or dependents; all others are mercenaries or auxiliaries. And the way to make ready one's own forces will be easily found if the rules suggested by me shall be reflected upon, and if one will consider how Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, and many republics and princes have armed and organized themselves, to which rules I entirely commit myself.
Is there no bright reversion in the sky For those who greatly think, or bravely die?
"There shall stand up yet,"--after Cyrus, under whom all this still is,--"three kings in Persia,"--Cambyses, Smyrdis, Darius;--"and the fourth,"--Xerxes, who shall then come,--"shall be far richer than they all, and far stronger, and shall stir up all his people against the Greeks, and a mighty king shall stand up,"--Alexander,--"that shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will. And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided in four parts toward the four winds of heaven,"--see also vii. 6 vii. 8--"but not to his posterity, and his successors shall not equal his power, for his kingdom shall be plucked up, even for others beside these,"--his four principal successors.
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; Still by himself abused or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled,-- The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.
Judicious drank, and greatly daring din'd.
Philip of Macedon, not the father of Alexander the Great, but he who was conquered by Titus Quintius, had not much territory compared to the greatness of the Romans and of Greece who attacked him, yet being a warlike man who knew how to attract the people and secure the nobles, he sustained the war against his enemies for many years, and if in the end he lost the dominion of some cities, nevertheless he retained the kingdom.
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns As the rapt seraph that adores and burns: To Him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all!
The example of Alexander's chastity has not made so many continent as that of his drunkenness has made intemperate. It is not shameful to be less virtuous than he, and it seems excusable to be no more vicious. We do not think ourselves wholly partakers in the vices of ordinary men, when we see that we share those of the great, not considering that in such matters the great are but ordinary men. We hold on to them by the same end by which they hold on to the people, for at whatsoever height they be, they are yet united at some point to the lowest of mankind. They are not suspended in the air, abstracted from our society. No, doubly no; if they are greater than we, it is because their heads are higher; but their feet are as low as ours. There all are on the same level, resting on the same earth, and by the lower extremity are as low as we are, as the meanest men, as children, and the brutes.
Modern society is hypnotized by socialism. It is prevented by socialism from seeing the mortal danger it is in. And one of the greatest dangers of all is that you have lost all sense of danger, you cannot even see where it’s coming from as it moves swiftly towards you. [“Solzhenitsyn’s Warning,” The Washington Post , April 4, 1976, p. C5.]
E'en copious Dryden wanted or forgot The last and greatest art,--the art to blot.
Religion blushing, veils her sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires. Nor public flame nor private dares to shine; Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine! Lo! thy dread empire Chaos is restor'd, Light dies before thy uncreating word; Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness buries all.
But to exercise the intellect the prince should read histories, and study there the actions of illustrious men, to see how they have borne themselves in war, to examine the causes of their victories and defeat, so as to avoid the latter and imitate the former; and above all do as an illustrious man did, who took as an exemplar one who had been praised and famous before him, and whose achievements and deeds he always kept in his mind, as it is said Alexander the Great imitated Achilles, Caesar Alexander, Scipio Cyrus. And whoever reads the life of Cyrus, written by Xenophon, will recognize afterwards in the life of Scipio how that imitation was his glory, and how in chastity, affability, humanity, and liberality Scipio conformed to those things which have been written of Cyrus by Xenophon. A wise prince ought to observe some such rules, and never in peaceful times stand idle, but increase his resources with industry in such a way that they may be available to him in adversity, so that if fortune chances it may find him prepared to resist her blows.
Seeing, on the other side, some Cossacks (les Cosaques) and the wide- spreading steppes in the midst of which lay the holy city of Moscow (Moscou, la ville sainte), the capital of a realm such as the Scythia into which Alexander the Great had marched--Napoleon unexpectedly, and contrary alike to strategic and diplomatic considerations, ordered an advance, and the next day his army began to cross the Niemen.
Has it been found that bodies of men act with more rectitude or greater disinterestedness than individuals? The contrary of this has been inferred by all accurate observers of the conduct of mankind; and the inference is founded upon obvious reasons. Regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is to be divided among a number than when it is to fall singly upon one. A spirit of faction, which is apt to mingle its poison in the deliberations of all bodies of men, will often hurry the persons of whom they are composed into improprieties and excesses, for which they would blush in a private capacity.
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, And greatly falling with a falling state. While Cato gives his little senate laws, What bosom beats not in his country's cause?
I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great work on Smells, a text-book on that subject. As its name imports (smeer, fat; berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford a place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out, without being taken home to Holland for that purpose. It was a collection of furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds; and when the works were in full operation certainly gave forth no very pleasant savor. But all this is quite different with a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a voyage of four years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil, does not, perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boiling out; and in the state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless. The truth is, that living or dead, if but decently treated, whales as a species are by no means creatures of ill odor; nor can whalemen be recognised, as the people of the middle ages affected to detect a Jew in the company, by the nose. Nor indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant, when, as a general thing, he enjoys such high health; taking abundance of exercise; always out of doors; though, it is true, seldom in the open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale's flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with jewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian town to do honour to Alexander the Great?
Heroes as great have died, and yet shall fall.
On his return from Italy he finds the government in Paris in a process of dissolution in which all those who are in it are inevitably wiped out and destroyed. And by chance an escape from this dangerous position presents itself in the form of an aimless and senseless expedition to Africa. Again so-called chance accompanies him. Impregnable Malta surrenders without a shot; his most reckless schemes are crowned with success. The enemy's fleet, which subsequently did not let a single boat pass, allows his entire army to elude it. In Africa a whole series of outrages are committed against the almost unarmed inhabitants. And the men who commit these crimes, especially their leader, assure themselves that this is admirable, this is glory--it resembles Caesar and Alexander the Great and is therefore good.
And what he greatly thought, he nobly dar'd.
The day shall come, that great avenging day Which Troy's proud glories in the dust shall lay, When Priam's powers and Priam's self shall fall, And one prodigious ruin swallow all.
Whenever Alexander heard Philip had taken any town of importance, or won any signal victory, instead of rejoicing at it altogether, he would tell his companions that his father would anticipate everything, and leave him and them no opportunities of performing great and illustrious actions.
Considering the difficulties which men have had to hold to a newly acquired state, some might wonder how, seeing that Alexander the Great became the master of Asia in a few years, and died whilst it was scarcely settled (whence it might appear reasonable that the whole empire would have rebelled), nevertheless his successors maintained themselves, and had to meet no other difficulty than that which arose among themselves from their own ambitions.
When he was wounded with an arrow in the ankle, and many ran to him that were wont to call him a god, he said smiling, "That is blood, as you see, and not, as Homer saith, 'such humour as distils from blessed gods.'"
ERMANARIC (fl. 350-376), king of the East Goths, belonged to the Amali family, and was the son of Achiulf. His name occurs as Ermanaricus (Jordanes), Aírmanareiks (Gothic), _Eormenríc_ (A. Sax.), Jörmunrek (Norse), Ermenrîch (M.H. German). Ermanaric built up for himself a vast kingdom, which eventually extended from the Danube to the Baltic and from the Don to the Theiss. He drove the Vandals out of Dacia, compelled the allegiance of the neighbouring tribes of West Goths, procured the submission of the Herules, of many Slav and Finnish tribes, and even of the Esthonians on the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia. In his later days the west Goths threw off his yoke, and, on the invasion of the Huns, rather than witness the downfall of his kingdom he is said by Ammianus Marcellinus to have committed suicide. His fate early became the centre of popular tradition, which found its way into the narrative of Jordanes or Jornandes (_De rebus geticis_, chap. 24), who compared him to Alexander the Great and certainly exaggerated the extent of his kingdom. He is there said to have caused a certain Sunilda or Sanielh to be torn asunder by wild horses on account of her husband's traitorous conduct. Her brothers Sarus and Ammius sought to avenge her. They succeeded in wounding, not in killing the Gothic king, whose death supervened in his one hundred and tenth year from the joint effects of his wound and fear of the Hunnish invasion. This is evidently a paraphrase of popular story which sought to supply plausible reasons for Ermanaric's end. In German legend Ermanaric became the typical cruel tyrant, and references to his crimes abound in German epic and in Anglo-Saxon poetry. He is made to replace Odoacer as the enemy of Dietrich of Bern, his nephew, and his history is related in the Norse _Vilkina_ or _Thidrekssagà_, which chiefly embodies German tradition. His evil genius, Sifka, Sibicho or Bicci, brings about the death of his three sons. The Harlungs, Imbrecke and Fritile,[1] are his nephews, whom he has strangled for the sake of their treasure, the Brîsingo meni. Sonhild or Svanhild becomes the wife of Ermanaric, and the motive for her murder is replaced by an accusation of adultery between Svanhild and her stepson. The story was already connected with the Nibelungen when it found its way to the Scandinavian north by way of Germany. In the _Völsunga Saga_ Svanhild is the daughter of Sigurd and Gudrun. She is given in marriage to the Gothic king Jörmunrek (Ermanaric), who sends his son Randver as proxy wooer in company of Bicci, the evil counsellor. Randver is persuaded by Bicci to take his father's bride for himself. Randver is hanged and Svanhild trampled to death by horses in the gate of the castle. Gudrun eggs on Sörli and Hamdir or Hamtheow, her two sons by her third husband, Jonakr the Hun, to avenge their sister. On the way they slay their half-brother Erp, whom they suspect of lukewarmness in the cause; arrived in the hall of Ermanaric they make a great slaughter of the Goths, and hew off the hands and feet of Ermanaric, but they themselves are slain with stones. The tale is told with variations by Saxo Grammaticus (_Historia Danica_, ed. Müller, p. 408, &c.), and in the Icelandic poems, the _Lay of Hamtheow_, _Gudrun's Chain of Woe_, and in the prose _Edda_. Entry: ERMANARIC
ARISTANDER, of Telmessus in Lycia, was the favourite soothsayer of Alexander the Great, who consulted him on all occasions. After the death of the monarch, when his body had lain unburied for thirty days, Aristander procured its burial by foretelling that the country in which it was interred would be the most prosperous in the world. He is frequently mentioned by the historians who wrote about Alexander, and was probably the author of a work on prodigies, which is referred to by Pliny (_Nat. Hist_. xvii. 38) and Lucian. Entry: ARISTANDER
ATHLETE (Gr. [Greek: athletes]; Lat. _athleta_), in Greek and Roman antiquities, one who contended for a prize ([Greek: athlon]) in the games; now a general term for any one excelling in physical strength. Originally denoting one who took part in musical, equestrian, gymnastic, or any other competitions, the name became restricted to the competitors in gymnastic contests, and, later, to the class of professional athletes. Whereas in earlier times competitors, who were often persons of good birth and position, entered the lists for glory, without any idea of material gain, the professional class, which arose as early as the 5th century B.C., was chiefly recruited from the lower orders, with whom the better classes were unwilling to associate, and took up athletics entirely as a means of livelihood. Ancient philosophers, moralists and physicians were almost unanimous in condemning the profession of athletics as injurious not only to the mind but also to the body. The attack made upon it by Euripides in the fragment of the _Autolycus_ is well known. The training for the contests was very rigorous. The matter of diet was of great importance; this was prescribed by the _aleiptes_, whose duty it also was to anoint the athlete's body. At one time the principal food consisted of fresh cheese, dried figs and wheaten bread. Afterwards meat was introduced, generally beef, or pork; but the bread and meat were taken separately, the former at breakfast, the latter at dinner. Except in wine, the quantity was unlimited, and the capacity of some of the heavy-weights must have been, if such stories as those about Milo are true, enormous. In addition to the ordinary gymnastic exercises of the palaestra, the athletes were instructed in carrying heavy loads, lifting weights, bending iron rods, striking at a suspended leather sack filled with sand or flour, taming bulls, &c. Boxers had to practise delving the ground, to strengthen their upper limbs. The competitions open to athletes were running, leaping, throwing the discus, wrestling, boxing and the pancratium, or combination of boxing and wrestling. Victory in this last was the highest achievement of an athlete, and was reserved only for men of extraordinary strength. The competitors were naked, having their bodies salved with oil. Boxers wore the _caestus_, a strap of leather round the wrists and forearms, with a piece of metal in the fist, which was sometimes employed with great barbarity. An athlete could begin his career as a boy in the contests set apart for boys. He could appear again as a youth against his equals, and though always unsuccessful, could go on competing till the age of thirty-five, when he was debarred, it being assumed that after this period of life he could not improve. The most celebrated of the Greek athletes whose names have been handed down are Milo of Crotona, Hipposthenes, Polydamas, Promachus and Glaucus. Cyrene, famous in the time of Pindar for its athletes, appears to have still maintained its reputation to at least the time of Alexander the Great; for in the British Museum are to be seen six prize vases carried off from the games at Athens by natives of that district. These vases, found in the tombs, probably, of the winners, are made of clay, and painted on one side with a representation of the contest in which they were won, and on the other side with a figure of Pallas Athena, with an inscription telling where they were gained, and in some cases adding the name of the eponymous magistrate of Athens, from which the exact year can be determined. Entry: ATHLETE
Irak in general is an alluvial plain, formed by the deposits of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, with a few scattered reaches of sand appearing here and there. The mass of solid matter which the rivers deposit is very considerable. The maximum proportion for the Euphrates in the month of January is 1/80 and at other times 1/200; for the Tigris the maximum is 1/100. In general, the northern plains of the interior have a slight but well-defined southerly inclination, with local depressions. The territory undulates in the central districts, and then sinks away into mere marshes and lakes. The clay, of a deep blue colour, abounds with marine shells, and shows a strong efflorescence of natron and sea-salt. When the soil is parched the appearance of the mirage (_serab_) is very common. As extensive inundations in spring are caused by both the rivers, especially the Tigris, great changes must have taken place in this part of the country in the course of thousands of years. It has been asserted that in former times the alluvial area at the mouth of the river increased 1 m. in the space of thirty years; and from this it has been assumed that about the 6th century B.C. the Persian Gulf must have stretched from 45 to 55 m. farther inland than at present. The actual rate of increase at the present time is about 72 ft. per annum. While we may be unable to determine accurately the former physical configuration of southern Babylonia, it is at least certain that in Babylonian times the Euphrates and Tigris reached the sea as independent rivers, and Ritter estimates that in the time of Alexander the Great the embouchures were still separated by a good day's journey. Although they cannot now be traced, great alterations have probably taken place also in the upper portions of the rivers as well as in the country near their mouths. The names of a large number of canals occur in the old Babylonian inscriptions, as in the works of the Arabian geographers, but while some of these have been traced it has not been possible hitherto to identify the greater number of them with actually existing canals or remains of canals. To the west of the Euphrates, on the edge of the Syrian desert from Hit downward to the neighbourhood of Basra and beyond, ran the Sa'ade, now for the most part dry, a very ancient canal, extended or enlarged at different periods. Lower down near Mussaib, the Hindieh canal, at least equal in volume to the present main stream, branches off and after traversing and irrigating an extensive territory rejoins the river at Samawa. Between the Euphrates and the Tigris, there was a large number of great canals, especially in the region northward of Babylon between that city and the northern edge of the alluvial plain, of which the most famous were the 'Isa, the Sarsar, the Malk ("Royal"), the canal of Kutha, the Sura and the Arakhat (Shatt-en-Nil). Of these only one at present carries water, namely, the Nahr 'Isa, which, leaving the Euphrates at Sakhlawieh (Sakh lawiya), terminates in extensive marshes near Bagdad; but this is now no longer navigable. Southward of Babylon the Daghara canal, which leaves the Euphrates a little below Hillah and empties into the Affech marshes, and the Shatt-el-Kehr, which, leaving that stream a little above Diwanieh, makes a great curve through the interior of the Jezireh, finally losing itself in the Hosainieh (Hosainiya) marshes near the mouth of the Shatt-el-Haï, are the only navigable or partly navigable canals of the Euphrates in the Jezireh. The Tigris canals are not so numerous as those of the Euphrates and were not so famous in history, but eastward of that river the great Nahrawan channel still exists in part, while the Tigris is connected with the Euphrates by a navigable stream, the Shatt-el-Haï, which leaves the former river at Kut-el-'Amara and enters the Euphrates at Nasrieh. Everywhere the country is intersected with ancient canals, some still deep dry beds, other so silted up that their course is represented only by parallel lines of hillocks. Some of these, of great antiquity, like the Shatt-en-Nil, which can be traced through its whole course from Babylon, through or past Nippur, Udnun (Bismya) Gishban (Gis-ukh), Erech and Larsa, to the Hosainieh marshes, were equally as important as the Euphrates itself; and indeed it may be said that in ancient times that stream after reaching the alluvial plain was divided into a large number of channels, partly natural partly artificial, no single one of which, but all together, constituted the Euphrates. By the restoration of these old canals, traces of which are met with at every step, the country might be again raised to that condition of high civilization which it enjoyed not only in antiquity but even as late as the time of the caliphs. The classical writers are unanimous in their admiration of Babylonia, and it is certain that nowhere else in the ancient world was the application of canals to the exigencies of agriculture worked out so successfully as here. The most luxuriant vegetation was diffused over the whole country and three crops were obtainable in the year. In the matter of civilization indeed no country of the ancient world surpassed. Babylonia. How densely peopled this country once was may be gathered from the fact that about 794 B.C., 89 fortified towns and 820 smaller places in the Chaldaean region were captured during one military expedition. And even in the times of the caliphs there stood on the royal canal and its branches, north of Babylon, 360 villages, contributing in gold 225,000 dirhems to the state treasury besides the tax in kind. To-day the whole region from the swamps about Basra northward is dotted with ruin mounds, and at places the plain itself is strewn for miles with fragments of glass and pottery, evidence of earlier occupation, while, as stated, lines of canals of all possible sizes, from the great triple canals with four rows of parallel hillocks, down to the small canals for purposes of irrigation, intersect the country in every direction. Entry: IRAK