--AEneid, iii. 589.]

the excellence of his knowledge and capacity; the duration and grandeur
of his glory, pure, clean, without spot or envy, and that long after his
death it was a religious belief that his very medals brought good fortune
to all who carried them about them; and that more kings and princes have
written his actions than other historians have written the actions of any
other king or prince whatever; and that to this very day the Mohammedans,
who despise all other histories, admit of and honour his alone, by a
special privilege: whoever, I say, will seriously consider these
particulars, will confess that, all these things put together, I had
reason to prefer him before Caesar himself, who alone could make me
doubtful in my choice: and it cannot be denied that there was more of his
own in his exploits, and more of fortune in those of Alexander. They
were in many things equal, and peradventure Caesar had some greater
qualities they were two fires, or two torrents, overrunning the world by
several ways;

"Ac velut immissi diversis partibus ignes
Arentem in silvam, et virgulta sonantia lauro
Aut ubi decursu rapido de montibus altis
Dant sonitum spumosi amnes, et in aequora currunt,
Quisque suum populatus iter:"

["And as fires applied in several parts to a dry wood and crackling
shrubs of laurel, or as with impetuous fall from the steep
mountains, foaming torrents pour down to the ocean, each clearing a
destructive course."--AEneid, xii. 521.]

but though Caesar's ambition had been more moderate, it would still be so
unhappy, having the ruin of his country and universal mischief to the
world for its abominable object, that, all things raked together and put
into the balance, I must needs incline to Alexander's side.

The third and in my opinion the most excellent, is Epaminondas. Of glory
he has not near so much as the other two (which, for that matter, is but
a part of the substance of the thing): of valour and resolution, not of
that sort which is pushed on by ambition, but of that which wisdom and
reason can plant in a regular soul, he had all that could be imagined.
Of this virtue of his, he has, in my idea, given as ample proof as
Alexander himself or Caesar: for although his warlike exploits were
neither so frequent nor so full, they were yet, if duly considered in all
their circumstances, as important,