Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/238

 230 ALEXANDER. Alexander, after he had drunk, reached the cup to one of his friends, who, on receiving it, rose up towards the domestic altar, and when he had drunk, first adored, and then kissed Alexander, and afterwards laid himself down at the table with the rest. Which they all did one after another, till it came to Callisthenes's turn, who took the cup and drank, while the king who was engaged in conversation with Hephtestion was not observing, and then came and offered to kiss him. But Demetrius, sur- named Phidon, interposed, saying, "Sir, by no means let him kiss you, for he only of us all has refused to adore you ; " upon which the king declined it, and all the con- cern Callisthenes showed was, that he said aloud, "Then I go away with a kiss less than the rest." The displeas- ure he incurred by this action procured credit for He- phtestion's declaration that he had broken his word to him in not paying the king the same veneration that others did, as he had faithfully promised to do. And to finish his disgrace, a number of such men as Lysimachus and Hagnon now came in with their asseverations that the sophist went about everywhere boasting of his resist- ance to arbitrary power, and that the young men all ran after him, and honored him as the only man among so many thousands who had the courage to preserve his liberty. Therefore when Hermolaus's conspiracy came to be discovered, the charges which his enemies brought against him were the more easily believed, particularly that when the young man asked him what he should do to be the most illustrious person on earth, he told him the readiest way was to kill him who was already so; and that to incite him to commit the deed, he bade him not be awed by the golden couch, but remember Alexander was a man equally infirm and vulnerable as another. However, none of Hermolaus's accomplices, in the utmost extremity, made any mention of Callisthenes's being engaged in the design.