[553] When Conon the famous Athenian visited Babylon, he would not see Artaxerxes, from repugnance to the ceremony of prostration, which was required from all who approached the Great King. We are also informed by Plutarch (Artaxerxes, 22), that Pelopidas declined to perform this ceremony, so degrading in the eyes of the Greeks. His colleague, Ismenias, however, dropped his ring in front of the king, and then stooped to pick it up, thus going through the act of prostration. Cf. Aelian (Varia Historia, i. 21). Xenophon said to his soldiers:—οὐδένα γὰρ ἄνθρωπον δεσπότην ἀλλὰ τοὺς θεοὺς προσκυνεῖτε. (Anab., iii. 13).
[554] Curtius (viii. 18) says that the speech proposing to honour Alexander as a god was made by Cleon, a Sicilian Greek.
[555] ἀχθομένους. The usual reading is μαχομένους.
[556] Cf. Xenophon (Cyrop., 4, 27):—λέγεται τοὺς συγγενεῖς φιλοῦντας ἀποπέμπεσθαι αὐτὸν νόμῳ Περσικῷ.
[557] πρόσκεινται. Cf. Herodotus, i. 118:—τοῖσι θεῶν τιμὴ αὕτη προσκέεται.
[558] Alexander’s mother Olympias was daughter of Neoptolemus, king of Epirus, who traced his descent from Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, the grandson of Aeacus.
[559] οἱ λόγοι γίγνονται. There is another reading, ὀλίγοι γίγνωνται.
[560] Cf. Herodotus, i. 214, with Dean Blakesley’s note.
[561] Curtius (viii. 20) says, that it was Polysperchon who made sport of the Persian, and incurred the king’s wrath.
[562] Ammianus (xviii. 3) says: “Ignorans profecto vetus Aristotelis sapiens dictum, qui Callisthenem sectatorem et propinquum suum ad regem Alexandrum mittens, ei saepe mandabat, ut quam rarissime et jucunde apud hominem loqueretur, vitae potestatem et necis in acie linguae portantem.”