benefit your friends
and to show your esteem for them; but you are making them all as great
as kings, so that they get many friends, and leave you alone without
any." Olympias often wrote to him to this effect, but he kept all her
letters secret, except one which Hephaestion, who was accustomed to
read Alexander's letters, opened and read. Alexander did not prevent
him, but took his own ring from his finger, and pressed the seal upon
Hephaestion's mouth. The son of Mazaeus, who had been the chief man in
the kingdom under Darius, was governor of a province, and Alexander
added another larger one to it. The young nobleman refused to accept
the gift, and said, "My king, formerly there was only one Darius, but
you now have made many Alexanders."

He presented Parmenio with the house of Bagoas, in which it is said
that property worth a thousand talents was found which had belonged to
the people of Susa. He also sent word to Antipater, warning him to
keep a guard always about his person, as a plot had been formed
against his life. He sent many presents to his mother, but forbade her
to interfere with the management of the kingdom. When she stormed at
this decision of his, he patiently endured her anger; and once when
Antipater wrote a long letter to him full of abuse of Olympias, he
observed, after reading it, that Antipater did not know that one tear
of his mother's eye would outweigh ten thousand such letters.

XL. Alexander now observed that his friends were living in great
luxury and extravagance; as for instance, Hagnon of Teos had his shoes
fastened with silver nails; Leonnatus took about with him many camels,
laden with dust,[415] from Egypt, to sprinkle his body with when he
wrestled; Philotas had more than twelve miles of nets for hunting; and
that all of them used richly perfumed unguents to anoint themselves
with instead of plain oil, and were attended by a host of bathmen and
chamberlains. He gently reproved them for this, saying that he was
surprised that men who had fought so often and in such great battles,
did not remember that the victors always sleep more sweetly than the
vanquished, and that they did not perceive, when they imitated the
luxury of the Persians, that indulgence is for slaves, but labour for
princes. "How," he asked, "can a man attend to his horse, or clean
his own lance and helmet, if he disdains to rub his own precious body
with his hands? And do you not know, that our career of conquest w