what he might report to mankind in his history of the king. There are some writers also who have said that on one occasion Philotas forsooth asked him, what man he thought to be held in especial honour by the people of Athens J and that he replied:—"Harmodius and Aristogeiton; because they slew one of the two despots, and put an end to the despotism."[1] Philotas again asked:—"If it happened now that a man should kill a despot, to which of the Grecian States would you wish him to flee for - preservation? " Callisthenes again replied:—" If not among others, at any rate among the Athenians an exile would find preservation; for they waged war on behalf of the sons of Heracles against Burystheus, who at that time was ruling as a despot over Greece."[2] How he resisted Alexander in regard to the ceremony of prostration, the following is the most received account.[3] An arrangement was made between Alexander and the Sophists in conjunction with the most illustrious of the Persians and Medes who were in attendance upon him, that this topic should be mentioned at a wine-party. Anaxarchus commenced the discussion[4] by saying that he considered Alexander much more worthy of being deemed a god than either Dionysus or Heracles, not only on account of the very numerous and mighty exploits
- ↑ Hipparchus was slain B.C. 514, and Hippias was expelled from Athens B.C. 510. See Thucydides, vi. 53-59.
- ↑ Eurystheus was king over Argos and Mycenae alone.
- ↑ When Conon the famous Athenian visited Babylon, he would not see Artaxerxes, from repugnance to the ceremony of prostration, which was required from all who approached the Great King. We are also informed by Plutarch (Artaxerxes, 22), that Pelopidas declined to perform this ceremony, so degrading in the eyes of the Greeks. His colleague, Ismenias, however, dropped his ring in front of the king, and then stooped to pick it up, thus going through the act of prostration. Cf. Aelian (Varia Historia, i. 21). Xenophon said to his soldiers:—οὐδἐνα γὰρ ἄνθρωπον δεσπότην ἀλλὰ τοὺς θεοὺς προσκυνεῖτε γἀρ. (Anab., iii. 13).
- ↑ Curtius (viii. 18) says that the speech proposing to honour Alexander as a god was made by Cleon, a Sicilian Greek.
