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.)

When another man who held a seemingly impregnable rock surrendered himself together with his stronghold to Alexander, Alexander bade him to continue to rule, and gave him additional country to govern, saying that this person seems to me to show sense in trusting himself to a good man rather than to a strong place.

After the capture of the rock his friends were saying that he had surpassed Heracles in his deeds, but he remarked, No, I do not feel that my deeds, with my position as commander, are to be weighed against one word of Heracles. [*](Arrian, Anabasis, v. 26. 5, represents Alexander as boasting over the capture of the rock, which Heracles had failed to capture.)

Learning that in gambling with dice some of his friends did not enter into the game as a sport, he punished them.[*](Alexander himself, when he was ill, spent the whole day in throwing dice with Medius, according to Plutarch, Life of Alexander, chap. lxxvi (706 D).)

Of his foremost and most influential friends he seems to have honoured Crateras most and to have loved Hephaestion best. For, said he, Crateras is fond of the king, but Hephaestion is fond of Alexander. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, chap. xlvii. (691 F), and Diodorus, xvii. 114.)