Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/231

 ALEXANDER. 223 sent into Media, and put also Parmenio, his father, to death, who had done brave service under Philip, and was the only man, of his older friends and counsellors, who had encouraged Alexander to invade Asia. Of three sons whom he had had in the army, he had already lost two, and now was himself put to death with the third. These actions rendered Alexander an object of terror to many of his friends, and chiefly to Antipater, who, to strengthen himself, sent messengers privately to treat for an alliance with the iEtolians, who stood in fear of Alex- ander, because they had destroyed the town of the (Eniada? ; on being informed of which, Alexander had said the children of the (Eniadaa need not revenge their fathers' quarrel, for he would himself take care to punish the iEtolians. Not long after this happened the deplorable end of Clitus, which to those who barely hear the matter-of-fact, may seem more inhuman than that of Philotas ; but if we consider the story with its circumstance of time, and weigh the cause, we shall find it to have occurred rather through a sort of mischance of the king's, whose anger and over-drinking offered an occasion to the evil genius of Clitus. The king had a present of Grecian fruit brought him from the sea-coast, which was so fresh and beautiful, that he was surprised at it, and called Clitus to him to see it, and to give him a share of it. Clitus was then sacrificing, but he immediately left off and came, followed by three sheep, on whom the drink-offering had been already poured preparatory to sacrificing them. Alexander, being informed of this, told his diviners, Aris- tander and Cleomantis the Lacedaemonian, and asked them what it meant ; on whose assuring him, it was an ill omen, he commanded them in all haste to offer sacrifices for Clitns's safety, forasmuch as three days before he him-