Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

When Taxiles, king of the Indians, met Alexander, he charged him not to fight or make war, but, if he were inferior, to accept favours, and, if he were superior, to bestow them. To this Alexander replied that this was the very issue between them, to determine which could outdo the other in bestowing favours. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, chap. lix. (698 B).)

When he was told concerning the Birdless Rock, [*](Cf. Cunningham, Ancient Geography of India, i. pp. 58 ff.) as it is called, in India, that the place was extremely difficult to capture, but that the man who held it was a coward, he said, In that case it is easy to capture. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s, Life of Alexander, chap. lviii. (697 E); Arrian, Anabasis, iv. 28; Diodorus, xvii. 85; Quintus Curtius, Hist. Alexandri, viii. 11.)