To the literary Greeks who accompanied Alexander, this change in his temper must have been especially palpable and full of serious consequence; since it was chiefly manifested, not at periods of active military duty, but at his hours of leisure, when he recreated himself by their conversation and discourses. Several of these Greeks—Anaxarchus, Kleon, the poet Agis of Argos—accommodated themselves to the change, and wound up their flatteries to the pitch required. Kallisthenes could not do so. He was a man of sedate character, of simple, severe, and almost unsocial habits—to whose sobriety the long Macedonian potations were distasteful. Aristotle said of him, that he was a great and powerful speaker, but that he had no judgment; according to other reports, he was a vain and arrogant man, who boasted that Alexander’s reputation and immortality were dependent on the composition and tone of his history.[518] Of personal vanity,—a common quality among literary Greeks,—Kallisthenes probably had his full share. But there is no ground for believing that his character had altered. Whatever his vanity may have been, it had given no offence to Alexander during the earlier years, nor would it have given offence now, had not Alexander himself become a different man.
On occasion of the demonstration led up by Anaxarchus at the banquet, Kallisthenes had been invited by Hephæstion to join in the worship intended to be proposed towards Alexander; and Hephæstion afterwards alleged, that he had promised to comply.[519] But his actual conduct affords reasonable ground for believing that he made no such promise; for he not only thought it his duty to refuse the act of worship, but also to state publicly his reasons for disapproving it; the more so, as he perceived that most of the Macedonians present felt like himself. He contended that the distinction between gods and men was one which could not be confounded without impiety and wrong. Alexander had amply earned,—as a man, a general, and a king,—the highest honors compatible with humanity; but to exalt him into a god would be both an injury to him, and an offence to the gods. Anaxarchus (he said) was the last person from whom such a proposition ought to come, because he was one of those whose only title to Alexander’s society was founded upon his capacity to give instructive and wholesome counsel.[520]
Kallisthenes here spoke out, what numbers of his hearers felt. The speech was not only approved, but so warmly applauded by the Macedonians present, especially the older officers,—that Alexander thought it prudent to forbid all farther discussion upon this delicate subject. Presently the Persians present, according to Asiatic custom, approached him and performed their prostration; after which Alexander pledged, in successive goblets of wine, those Greeks and Macedonians with whom he had held previous concert. To each of them the goblet was handed, and each, after drinking to answer the pledge, approached the king, made his prostration, and then received a salute. Lastly, Alexander sent the pledge to Kallisthenes, who, after drinking like the rest, approached him, for the purpose of receiving the salute, but without any prostration. Of this omission Alexander was expressly informed by one of the Companions; upon which he declined to admit Kallisthenes to a salute. The latter retired, observing, “Then I shall go away, worse off than others as far as the salute goes.”[521]
Kallisthenes was imprudent, and even blamable, in making this last observation, which without any necessity or advantage, aggravated the offence already given to Alexander. He was more imprudent still, if we look simply to his own personal safety in standing forward publicly to protest against the suggestion for rendering divine honors to that prince, and in thus creating the main offence which even in itself was inexpiable. But here the occasion was one serious and important, so as to convert the imprudence into an act of genuine moral courage. The question was, not about obeying an order given by Alexander, for no order had been given—but about accepting or rejecting a motion made by Anaxarchus; which Alexander, by a shabby, preconcerted manœuvre, affected to leave to the free decision of the assembly, in full confidence that no one would be found intrepid enough to oppose it. If one Greek sophist made a proposition, in itself servile and disgraceful, another sophist could do himself nothing but honor by entering public protest against it; more especially since this was done (as we may see by the report in Arrian) in terms no way insulting, but full of respectful admiration, towards Alexander personally. The perfect success of the speech is in itself a proof of the propriety of its tone;[522] for the Macedonian officers would feel indifference, if not contempt towards a rhetor like Kallisthenes, while towards Alexander they had the greatest deference short of actual worship. There are few occasions on which the free spirit of Greek letters and Greek citizenship, in their protest against exorbitant individual insolence, appears more conspicuous and estimable than in the speech of Kallisthenes.[523] Arrian disapproves the purpose of Alexander, and strongly blames the motion of Anaxarchus; nevertheless, such is his anxiety to find some excuse for Alexander, that he also blames Kallisthenes for unseasonable frankness, folly, and insolence, in offering opposition. He might have said with some truth, that Kallisthenes would have done well to withdraw earlier (if indeed he could have withdrawn without offence) from the camp of Alexander, in which no lettered Greek could now associate without abnegating his freedom of speech and sentiment, and emulating the servility of Anaxarchus. But being present, as Kallisthenes was, in the hall at Baktra when the proposition of Anaxarchus was made, and when silence would have been assent—his protest against it was both seasonable and dignified; and all the more dignified for being fraught with danger to himself.
Kallisthenes knew that danger well, and was quickly enabled to recognize it in the altered demeanor of Alexander towards him. He was, from that day, a marked man in two senses: first, to Alexander himself, as well as to the rival sophists and all promoters of the intended deification,—for hatred, and for getting up some accusatory pretence such as might serve to ruin him; next, to the more free-spirited Macedonians, indignant witnesses of Alexander’s increased insolence, and admirers of the courageous Greek who had protested against the motion of Anaxarchus. By such men he was doubtless much extolled; which praises aggravated his danger, as they were sure to be reported to Alexander. The pretext for his ruin was not long wanting.
Among those who admired and sought the conversation of Kallisthenes, was Hermolaus, one of the royal pages—the band, selected from noble Macedonian families, who did duty about the person of the king. It had happened that this young man, one of Alexander’s companions in the chase, on seeing a wild boar rushing up to attack the king, darted his javelin, and slew the animal. Alexander, angry to be anticipated in killing the boar, ordered Hermolaus to be scourged before all the other pages, and deprived him of his horse.[524] Thus humiliated and outraged—for an act not merely innocent, but the omission of which, if Alexander had sustained any injury from the boar, might have been held punishable—Hermolaus became resolutely bent on revenge.[525] He enlisted in the project his intimate friend Sostratus, with several others among the pages, and it was agreed among them to kill Alexander in his chamber, on the first night when they were all on guard together. The appointed night arrived, without any divulgation of their secret; yet the scheme was frustrated by the accident, that Alexander continued till daybreak drinking with his officers, and never retired to bed. On the morrow, one of the conspirators, becoming alarmed or repentant, divulged the scheme to his friend Charikles, with the names of those concerned. Eurylochus, brother to Charikles, apprised by him of what he had heard, immediately informed Ptolemy, through whom it was conveyed to Alexander. By Alexander’s order, the persons indicated were arrested and put to the torture;[526] under which they confessed that they had themselves conspired to kill him, but named no other accomplices, and even denied that any one else was privy to the scheme. In this denial they persisted, though extreme suffering was applied to extort the revelation of new names. They were then brought up and arraigned as conspirators before the assembled Macedonian soldiers. There their confession was repeated. It is even said that Hermolaus, in repeating it, boasted of the enterprise as legitimate and glorious; denouncing the tyranny and cruelty of Alexander us having become insupportable to a freeman. Whether such boast was actually made or not, the persons brought up were pronounced guilty, and stoned to death forthwith by the soldiers.[527]
The pages thus executed were young men of good Macedonian families, for whose condemnation accordingly, Alexander had thought it necessary to invoke—what he was sure of obtaining against any one—the sentence of the soldiers. To satisfy his hatred against Kallisthenes—not a Macedonian, but only a Greek citizen, one of the surviving remnants of the subverted city of Olynthus—no such formality was required.[528] As yet, there was not a shadow of proof to implicate this philosopher; for obnoxious as his name was known to be, Hermolaus and his companions had, with exemplary fortitude, declined to purchase the chance of respite from extreme torture by pronouncing it. Their confessions,—all extorted by suffering, unless confirmed by other evidence, of which we do not know whether any was taken—were hardly of the least value, even against themselves; but against Kallisthenes, they had no bearing whatever; nay, they tended indirectly, not to convict, but to absolve him. In his case, therefore, as in that of Philotas before, it was necessary to pick up matter of suspicious tendency from his reported remarks and conversations. He was alleged[529] to have addressed dangerous and inflammatory language to the pages, holding up Alexander to odium, instigating them to conspiracy, and pointing out Athens as a place of refuge; he was moreover well known to have been often in conversation with Hermolaus. For a man of the violent temper and omnipotent authority of Alexander, such indications were quite sufficient as grounds of action against one whom he hated.
On this occasion, we have the state of Alexander’s mind disclosed by himself, in one of the references to his letters given by Plutarch. Writing to Kraterus and to others immediately afterwards, Alexander distinctly stated that the pages throughout all their torture had deposed against no one but themselves. Nevertheless, in another letter, addressed to Antipater in Macedonia, he used these expressions—“The pages were stoned to death by the Macedonians; but I myself shall punish the sophist, as well as those who sent him out here, and those who harbor in their cities conspirators against me.”[530] The sophist Kallisthenes had been sent out by Aristotle, who is here designated; and probably the Athenians after him. Fortunately for Aristotle, he was not at Baktra, but at Athens. That he could have had any concern in the conspiracy of the pages, was impossible. In this savage outburst of menace against his absent preceptor, Alexander discloses the real state of feeling which prompted him to the destruction of Kallisthenes; hatred towards that spirit of citizenship and free speech, which Kallisthenes not only cherished, in common with Aristotle and most other literary Greeks, but had courageously manifested in his protest against the motion for worshipping a mortal.
Kallisthenes was first put to the torture and then hanged.[531] His tragical fate excited a profound sentiment of sympathy and indignation among the philosophers of antiquity.[532]
The halts of Alexander were formidable to friends and companions; his marches, to the unconquered natives whom he chose to treat as enemies. On the return of Kraterus from Sogdiana, Alexander began his march from Baktra (Balkh) southward to the mountain range Paropamisus or Caucasus (Hindoo-Koosh); leaving however at Baktra Amyntas, with a large force of 10,000 foot and 3500 horse, to keep these intractable territories in subjugation.[533] His march over the mountains occupied ten days; he then visited his newly-founded city Alexandria in the Paropamisadæ. At or near the river Kophen (Kabool river), he was joined by Taxiles, a powerful Indian prince, who brought as a present twenty-five elephants, and whose alliance was very valuable to him. He then divided his army, sending one division under Hephæstion and Perdikkas, towards the territory called Peukelaôtis (apparently that immediately north of the confluence of the Kabool river with the Indus); and conducting the remainder himself in an easterly direction, over the mountainous regions between the Hindoo-Koosh and the right bank of the Indus. Hephæstion was ordered, after subduing all enemies in his way, to prepare a bridge ready for passing the Indus by the time when Alexander should arrive. Astes, prince of Peukelaôtis, was taken and slain in the city where he had shut himself up; but the reduction of it cost Hephæstion a siege of thirty days.[534]