greater than his fortune. By
his energy he challenged the most glorious successes that fortune
could bestow, equalled them by his worth, surpassed them by his
virtues, and stood alone in peerless glory, so that none might dare
even hope for such virtue or pray for such fortune. The life of this
Alexander is marked by so many lofty deeds and glorious acts, be it of
prowess in the battle or statecraft in the council chamber, that you
may marvel at them till you are weary. It is the story of all these
great achievements that my friend Clemens, most learned and sweetest
of poets, has attempted to glorify in the exquisite strains of his
verse.

Now among the most remarkable acts recorded of Alexander is this.
Desiring that his likeness should be handed down to posterity with as
little variation as possible, he refused to permit it to be profaned
by a multitude of artists, and issued a proclamation to all the world
over which he ruled that no one should rashly counterfeit the king's
likeness in bronze or with the painter's colours, or with the
sculptor's chisel. Only Polycletus might portray him in bronze, only
Apelles depict him in colour, only Pyrgoteles carve his form with the
engraver's chisel. If any other than these three, each supreme in his
peculiar art, should be discovered to have set his hand to reproduce
the sacred image of the king, he should be punished as severely as
though he had committed sacrilege. This order struck such fear into
all men that Alexander alone of mankind was always like his portraits,
and that every statue, painting, or bronze revealed the same fierce
martial vigour, the same great and glorious genius, the same fresh and
youthful beauty, the same fair forehead with its back-streaming hair.
And would that philosophy could issue a like proclamation that should
have equal weight, forbidding unauthorized persons to reproduce her
likeness; then the study and contemplation of wisdom in all her
aspects would be in the hands of a few good craftsmen who had been
carefully trained, and unlettered fellows of base life and little
learning would ape the philosopher no longer (though their imitation
does not go beyond the professor's gown), and the queen of all
studies, whose aim is no less excellence of speech than excellence of
life, would no longer be profaned by evil speech and evil living: and,
mark you, profanation of either kind is far from hard. What is more
readily come by than madness of speech