Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/53

 INTRODUCTION. xlv

From Mucedon, his Empire did extend Unto the utmoft bounds o' th' orient : All this he did, yea, and much more, 'tis true, But jet withal, Calijihenes he flew." *

This passage, the quotation from Seneca included, is taken directly from Raleigh, whose words are as fol- lows : —

" Alexander stood behind a partition, and heard all that was spoken, waiting but an opportunity to be revenged on Callisthe- nes, who being a man of free speech, honest, learned, and a lover of the king's honour, was yet soon after tormented to death, not for that he had betrayed the king to others, but because he never would condescend to betray the king to himself, as all his detestable flatterers did. For in a conspiracy against the king, made by one Hermolaus and others, (which they confessed,) he caused Callisthenes, without confession, accusation, or trial, to be torn asunder, upon the rack. This deed, unworthy of a king, Seneca thus censureth : [He gives the Latin, and thus translates it] ' This is the eternal crime of Alexander, which no virtue nor felicity of his in war shall ever be able to redeem. For as often as any man shall say. He slew man}' thousand Persians ; it shall be replied, He did so, and he slew Callisthenes : when it shall be said, -He slew Darius ; it shall be replied. And Callis- thenes : when it shall be said. He won all as far as to the very ocean, thereon also he adventured with unusual navies, and extended his empire from a corner of Thrace to the utmost bounds of the orient ; it shall be said withal. But he killed Callisthenes. Let him have outgone all the ancient examples of captains and kings, none of all his acts makes so much to his glory, as Callisthenes to his reproach.'"!


 * See paj^es 284-5-

t " History of the World." Oxford : 1829. Bk. iv. ch. 2. sec. 19.

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