ow, by the blood and wounds of the
Macedonians, you have become so great a man that you pretend to be the
child of Ammon, and disown your father Philip."

LI. Alexander, stung to the quick by these words, said, "Villain, do
you suppose that you will be allowed to spread these calumnies against
me, rendering the Macedonians disaffected, and yet go unpunished?"
"Too much are we punished," answered Kleitus, "when we see such a
reward as this given us for all our hard service, but we congratulate
those of us who are dead, because they died before they saw
Macedonians beaten with Median rods, and begging Persian attendants to
procure them an audience of their king." When Kleitus spoke his mind
thus boldly, Alexander's intimate friends answered with bitter
reproaches, but the older men endeavoured to pacify them. Alexander
now turning to Xenodochus of Kardia and Astenius of Kolophon, asked,
"Do not the Greeks seem to you to treat the Macedonians as if they
were beasts, and they themselves were more than mortal men? "Kleitus,
however, would not hold his peace, but went on to say that if
Alexander could not bear to hear men speak their mind, he had better
not invite free-born people to his table, and ought to confine himself
to the society of barbarians and slaves who would pay respect to his
Persian girdle and striped[418] tunic. At this speech Alexander could
no longer restrain his passion, but seized an apple from the table,
hurled it at Kleitus, and began to feel for his dagger. Aristophanes,
one of his body-guard, had already secreted it, and the rest now
pressed round him imploring him to be quiet. He however leaped to his
feet, and, as if in a great emergency, ehouted in the Macedonian
tongue to the foot-guards to turn out. He bade the trumpeter sound an
alarm, and as the man hesitated and refused, struck him with his fist.
This man afterwards gained great credit for his conduct, as it was
thought that by it he had saved the whole camp from being thrown into
an uproar. As Kleitus would not retract what he had said, his friends
seized him and forced him out of the room. But he re-entered by
another door, and in an offensive and insolent tone began to recite
the passage from the Andromache of Euripides, which begins,

"Ah me! in Greece an evil custom reigns," &c.

Upon this Alexander snatched a lance from one of his guards, and ran
Kleitus through the body with it, just as he was drawing aside the
curtain and prepa