Page:The Anabasis of Alexander.djvu/244

222 proper attention to his person. He then paid to Dionysus the sacrifice due to him, since he was not at all unwilling to attribute the fatality rather to the avenging wrath of the deity than to his own depravity. I think Alexander deserves great praise for this, that he did not obstinately persevere in evil, or still worse become a defender and advocate of the wrong which had been done, but confessed that he had committed a crime, being a man and not a god. There are some who say that Anaxarchus the Sophist was summoned into Alexander's presence to give him consolation. Finding him lying down and groaning, he laughed at him, and said that he did not know that the wise men of old for this reason made Justice an assessor of Zeus, because whatever was done by him was justly done ; and therefore also that which was done by the Great King ought to be deemed just, in the first place by the king himself, and then by the rest of men. They say that Alexander was then greatly consoled by these remarks. But I assert that Anaxarchus did Alexander a great injury and one still greater than that by which he was then oppressed, if he really thought this to be the opinion of a wise man, that forsooth it is proper for a king to come to hasty conclusions and act unjustly, and that whatever is done by a king must be deemed just, no