Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/202

 194 ALEXANDER. any of the company went astray in the night, they never ceased croaking and making a noise, till by that means they had brought them into the right way again. Hav- ing passed through the wilderness, they came to the place; where the high-priest* at the first salutation bade Alex- ander welcome from his father Aramon. And being asked by him whether any of his father's murderers had escaped punishment, he charged hiin to speak with more respect, since his was not a mortal father. Then Alexan- der, changing his expression, desired to know of him if any of those who murdered Philip were yet unpunished, and further concerning dominion, whether the empire of the world was reserved for him ? This, the god answered, he should obtain, and that Philip's death was fully re- venged, which gave him so much satisfaction, that he made splendid offerings to Jupiter, and gave the priests very rich presents. This is what most authors write con- cerning the oracles. But Alexander, in a letter to his mother, tells her there were some secret answers, which at his return he would communicate to her only. Others say that the priest, desirous as a piece of courtesy to ad- dress him in Greek, " Paidion," f by a slip in pronun- ciation ended with the s instead of the n, and said, " Paidios,"-j- which mistake Alexander was well enough pleased with, and it went for current that the oracle had called him so. Among the sayings of one Psammon, a philosopher, whom he heard in Egypt, he most approved of this, that all men are governed by God, because in every thing, that which is chief and commands, is divine. But what word in English naturally implies as it were, in his mouth by the a power of prediction possessed by direct act of a divinity, the individual himself; whereas f O Paidion, O my, son, O Pai the Greek propheles, which would Dios, O Son of Jupiter, not be used in our sense, means
 * Literally the Prophet, but the merely an utterer of words placed,