Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
It is related that once at a great banquet, when sitting over their wine, Kallisthenes was asked to speak in praise of the Macedonians, and that he at once poured forth such a fluent and splendid eulogy that all the company rose, vehemently applauding, and threw their garlands to him. At this Alexander remarked that, as Euripides says, "On noble subjects, all men can speak well."
He is said to have been a teacher of Pythagoras, which shows that he belongs to an uncertain period. He was not a Philosopher; his speculations belonged to those cosmogonical dreams which precede true philosophy, and begin again when philosophy goes to sleep, as we see in the speculations of the present day. Kallisthenes is mentioned in Plutarch's Life of Alexander, c. 55.
Kallisthenes endeavoured to soothe his grief, by kind and gentle consolation, but Anaxarchus, a man who had always pursued an original method of his own in philosophical speculations, and who was thought to be overbearing and harsh-tempered by his friends, as soon as he entered the room exclaimed, "This is that Great Alexander, upon whom the eyes of the world are fixed: there he lies like a slave, fearing what men will say of him, although he ought rather to dictate to them what they should think right, as becomes the master of the world, and not to be influenced by their foolish opinions.
XXXIII. Upon this occasion, after addressing the Thessalians and other Greek troops at considerable length, as they confidently shouted to him to lead them against the barbarians, we are told by Kallisthenes that he shifted his lance into his left hand, and raising his right hand to heaven, prayed to the gods that, if he really were the son of Zeus, they would assist and encourage the Greeks.
LV. The breach thus formed was widened by Hephæstion, who declared that Kallisthenes had agreed with him to kneel before Alexander, and then had broken his compact; and this story was believed by Alexander.
Some writers tell us that Kallisthenes was hanged by the orders of Alexander; others that he was thrown into chains and died of sickness. Chares informs us that he was kept in confinement for seven months, in order that he might be tried in the presence of Aristotle himself, but that during the time when Alexander was wounded in India, he died of excessive corpulence, covered with vermin.
We are told by Charon of Mitylene that once when at table, Alexander, after drinking, passed the cup to one of his friends; and that he after receiving it, rose, stood by the hearth, and after drinking knelt before Alexander: after which he kissed him and resumed his seat. All the guests did this in turn until the cup came to Kallisthenes.
It is related that once at table, when the conversation turned upon the seasons, and upon the climate of Asia, Kallisthenes argued that it was colder in the country where they were than in Greece; and when Anaxarchus vehemently contradicted this, he said, "Why, you must admit that this country is the colder of the two; for in Greece you used to wear only one cloak all through the winter, whereas here you sit down to dinner wrapped in three Persian rugs."
LIV. This is the account which Strœbus, Kallisthenes's reader, is said by Hermippus to have given to Aristotle about the quarrel between Kallisthenes and Alexander; and he added that Kallisthenes was well aware that he was out of favour with the king, and twice or thrice when setting out to wait on him would repeat the line from the Iliad, "Patroklus, too, hath died, a better man than thou."
Yet the historian Kallisthenes tells us that the Persians never made a treaty to this effect, but that they acted thus in consequence of the terror which Kimon had inspired by his victory; and that they removed so far from Greece, that Perikles with fifty ships, and Ephialtes with only thirty, sailed far beyond the Chelidonian Islands and never met with any Persian vessels.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking