that vast region, but built, near one of the mouths of the wide river Nile, a city to which he gave his own name. That city, Alexandria, is still one of the largest cities on the continent of Africa.
It became necessary for Alexander to lead his army farther eastward into Asia. After his great successes he began to indulge his appetites, in eating and drinking and in other harmful ways. Once, in a fit of drunken anger, he killed his best friend. This made him ashamed and sad when he came to himself and realized what he had done.
Because of his many victories Alexander is called “the Great.” When he was only twenty-six, he had conquered all the important nations in the world of his day. It was because he had now nothing to strive after that he gave way to evil passions. He is said to have “wept because there were no more worlds to conquer.” He became ill and died as a result of his excesses, leaving no child or relative to rule over the great kingdoms he had acquired.
Although Alexander the Great had conquered the world, he could not govern himself. Hundreds of years before his day, Solomon, the wise, rich king, wrote in his Proverbs:
“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”
FOUR FAMILIAR SAYINGS OF JULIUS CÆSAR
JULIUS CÆSAR was born at Rome more than two thousand years ago, about one hundred years before Christ. His family belonged to a noble clan of the patricians. The people of Rome were divided into three classes. Of these the patricians were highest in rank and fewest in number. There were many more in the middle class, which at that time was largely made up of free men who could vote and hold office. The lowest class and by far the largest number were the slaves.
More than half of the Roman slaves were white, many having blonde hair and blue eyes. These had been brought as captives from the northern countries and sold in Rome. Some of the slaves, especially those who came from the Greek lands in the East, were more refined than the ignorant, brutal Roman masters for whom they had to do the hardest and dirtiest kinds of work. Worse than this, the Roman law allowed cruel masters to whip, torture, and even kill these educated men and women.