Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. III. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1931 (printing).

Learning that he was being maligned by a certain man, he said, It is kingly to be ill spoken of for doing good. [*](An oft- repeated aphorism; cf. for example, Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, chap. xli. (688 E); Pro Nobilitate, 19 (Bernardakis ed. vii. p. 268); Diogenes Laertius, vi. 3; Epictetus, Discourses, iv. 6; Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, vii. 36; Dio Chrysostom, Oration xlvii., last sentence.)

As he was dying, he said, looking towards his companions, I see that my funeral rites will be imposing. [*](Cf. Arrian, Anabasis, vii. 26. 3; Diodorus, xvii. 117. 4; Quintus Curtius, Hist. Alexandri, x. 5. 5; Justinus, Historiae Phillippicae, xii. 15.)