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forsooth, was not aware of the debts! He is no fool in other matters, but in his dealings with his slave it appears he at once became a mere idiot, knowing of some of the debts, while others, he says, he did not know of those, I take it, which he did not want to know of. Such a contention, gentlemen, is not a defense, but an admission that he has no sound defense to offer. If he states that he was not aware of the debts, it is plain that he cannot at the same time plead that he told me all about them; and it is palpably unjust to require me to discharge debts of the existence of which the vendor never informed me.

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If, however, you did not inform me of the total amount of the debts simply because you did not know it yourself, and I entered into the contract under the belief that what I had heard from you was the full sum of them, which of us ought in fairness to be liable for them— I, who purchased the property after their contraction, or you, who originally received the sum borrowed? In my opinion it should be you; but if we differ on this point, let the law be our arbiter. The law was not made either by infatuated lovers or by men engaged in conspiracy against their neighbors' property, but by the most publicspirited of statesmen, Solon. Solon, knowing that sales of property are common in the city, enacted a law-and one universally admitted to be just-to the effect that fines and expenditures incurred by slaves should be discharged by the master for whom they work. And this is only reasonable; for if a slave effect a good stroke of business or establish a flourishing industry, it is his master who reaps the benefit of it. You, however, pass over the law in silence, and are eloquent about the iniquity of breaking contracts. Whereas Solon held that a law was more valid than a temporary ordinance, however just that ordinance might be, you demand that a fraudulent contract should outweigh all law and all justice alike.

Now, I am no professional perfume seller, neither have I learnt any other trade. I simply till the land which my father gave me. It was solely by this man's craft that I was entrapped into the sale. Which is more probable on the face of things, Athenogenes that I was coveting your business (a business of which I had no sort of experience), or that you and your mistress were plotting to get my money? I certainly think the design was on your side.

ALEXANDER AT HIS BEST AND WORST.

BY PLUTARCH.

[PLUTARCH: A Greek writer of biographies and miscellaneous works; born about A.D. 50. He came of a wealthy and distinguished family and received a careful philosophical training at Athens under the Peripatetic philosopher Ammonius. After this he made several journeys, and stayed a considerable time in Rome, where he enjoyed friendly intercourse with persons of distinction, and conducted the education of the future Emperor Hadrian. He died about A.D. 120 in his native town, in which he held the office of archon and priest of the Pythian Apollo. His fame as an author is founded upon the celebrated "Parallel Lives," consisting of the biographies of forty-six Greeks and Romans, divided into pairs. Each pair contains the life of a Greek and a Roman, and generally ends with a comparison of the two. Plutarch's other writings, more than sixty short treatises on a great variety of subjects, are grouped under the title of "Morals."]

THE BATTLE OF ARBELA AND AFTERWARD.

His oldest generals, and especially Parmenio, when they beheld all the plain between Niphates and the Gordyæan mountains shining with the lights and fires which were made by the barbarians, and heard the uncertain and confused sounds of voices out of their camp, like the distant roaring of a vast ocean, were so amazed at the thoughts of such a multitude, that after some conference among themselves, they concluded it an enterprise too difficult and hazardous for them to engage so numerous an enemy in the day, and therefore, meeting the king as he came from sacrificing, besought him to attack Darius by night, that the darkness might conceal the danger of the ensuing battle. To this he gave them the celebrated answer, "I will not steal a victory": which, though some at the time thought a boyish and inconsiderate speech, as if he played with danger, others regarded as an evidence that he confided in his present condition, and acted on a true judgment of the future; not wishing to leave Darius, in case he were worsted, the pretext of trying his fortune again, which he might suppose himself to have if he could impute his overthrow to the disadvantage of the night, as he did before to the mountains, the narrow passages, and the sea. For while he had such numerous forces and large dominions still remaining, it was not any want of men or arms that could induce him to give up the war, but

only the loss of all courage and hope upon the conviction of an undeniable and manifest defeat.

After they were gone from him with this answer, he laid himself down in his tent and slept the rest of the night more soundly than was usual with him, to the astonishment of the commanders, who came to him early in the morning, and were fain themselves to give order that the soldiers should breakfast. But at last, time not giving them leave to wait any longer, Parmenio went to his bedside, and called him twice or thrice by his name till he waked him, and then asked him how it was possible, when he was to fight the most important battle of all, he could sleep as soundly as if he were already victorious. "And are we not so indeed," replied Alexander, smiling, "since we are at last relieved from the trouble of wandering in pursuit of Darius through a wide and wasted country, hoping in vain that he would fight us?"

And not only before the battle, but in the height of the danger, he showed himself great, and manifested the self-possession of a just foresight and confidence. For the battle for some time fluctuated and was dubious. The left wing, where Parmenio commanded, was so impetuously charged by the Bactrian horse that it was disordered and forced to give ground, at the same time that Mazæus had sent a detachment round about to fall upon those who guarded the baggage, which so disturbed Parmenio, that he sent messengers to acquaint Alexander that the camp and baggage would be all lost unless he immediately relieved the rear by a considerable reënforcement drawn out of the front. This message being brought him just as he was giving the signal to those about him for the onset, he bade them tell Parmenio that he must have surely lost the use of his reason, and had forgotten, in his alarm, that soldiers if victorious became masters of their enemies' baggage; and if defeated, instead of taking care of their wealth or their slaves, have nothing more to do but to fight gallantly and die with honor.

He made the longest address that day to the Thessalians and other Greeks, who answered him with loud shouts, desiring him to lead them on against the barbarians, upon which he shifted his javelin into his left hand, and with his right lifted up towards heaven, besought the gods, as Callisthenes tells us, that if he was of a truth the son of Jupiter, they would be pleased to assist and strengthen the Grecians. At the same time the

augur Aristander, who had a white mantle about him, and a crown of gold on his head, rode by and showed them an eagle that soared just over Alexander and directed his flight towards the enemy; which so animated the beholders, that after mutual encouragements and exhortations, the horse charged at full speed, and were followed in a mass by the whole phalanx of the foot. But before they could well come to blows with the first ranks, the barbarians shrank back, and were hotly pursued by Alexander, who drove those that fled before him into the middle of the battle, where Darius himself was in person, whom he saw from a distance over the foremost ranks, conspicuous in the midst of his life guard, a tall and fine-looking man, drawn in a lofty chariot, defended by an abundance of the best horse, who stood close in order about it ready to receive the enemy. But Alexander's approach was so terrible, forcing those who gave back upon those who yet maintained their ground, that he beat down and dispersed them almost all. Only a few of the bravest and valiantest opposed the pursuit, who were slain in their king's presence, falling in heaps upon one another, and in the very pangs of death striving to catch hold of the horses.

Darius now seeing all was lost, that those who were placed in front to defend him were broken and beaten back upon him, that he could not turn or disengage his chariot without great difficulty, the wheels being clogged and entangled among the dead bodies, which lay in such heaps as not only stopped, but almost covered the horses, and made them rear and grow so unruly that the frightened charioteer could govern them no longer, in this extremity was glad to quit his chariot and his arms, and mounting, it is said, upon a mare that had been taken from her foal, betook himself to flight. But he had not escaped so either, if Parmenio had not sent fresh messengers to Alexander, to desire him to return and assist him against a considerable body of the enemy which yet stood together and would not give ground. For, indeed, Parmenio is on all hands. accused of having been sluggish and unserviceable in this battle, whether age had impaired his courage, or that, as Callisthenes says, he secretly disliked and envied Alexander's growing greatAlexander, though he was not a little vexed to be so recalled and hindered from pursuing his victory, yet concealed the true reason from his men, and causing a retreat to be sounded, as if it were too late to continue the execution any longer, marched back towards the place of danger, and by the

ness.

way met with the news of the enemy's total overthrow and flight.

This battle being thus over, seemed to put a period to the Persian empire; and Alexander, who was now proclaimed king of Asia, returned thanks to the gods in magnificent sacrifices, and rewarded his friends and followers with great sums of money, and places, and governments of provinces. And eager to gain honor with the Grecians, he wrote to them that he would have all tyrannies abolished, that they might live free according to their own laws, and specially to the Plateans, that their city should be rebuilt, because their ancestors had permitted their countrymen of old to make their territory the seat of the war, when they fought with the barbarians for their common liberty. He sent also part of the spoils into Italy, to the Crotoniats, to honor the zeal and courage of their citizen Phayllus, the wrestler, who, in the Median war, when the other Grecian colonies in Italy disowned Greece, that he might have a share in the danger, joined the fleet at Salamis, with a vessel set forth at his own charge. So affectionate was Alexander to all kind of virtue, and so desirous to preserve the memory of laudable actions.

In this place [Susa] he took up his winter quarters, and stayed four months to refresh his soldiers. It is related that the first time he sat on the royal throne of Persia under the canopy of gold, Demaratus the Corinthian, who was much attached to him and had been one of his father's friends, wept, in an old man's manner, and deplored the misfortune of those Greeks. whom death had deprived of the satisfaction of seeing Alexander seated on the throne of Darius.

From hence designing to march against Darius, before he set out, he diverted himself with his officers at an entertainment of drinking and other pastimes, and indulged so far as to let every one's mistress sit by and drink with them. The most celebrated of them was Thais, an Athenian, mistress of Ptolemy, who was afterwards king of Egypt. She, partly as a sort of well-turned compliment to Alexander, partly out of sport, as the drinking went on, at last was carried so far as to utter a saying, not misbecoming her native country's character, though somewhat too lofty for her own condition. She said it was indeed some recompense for the toils she had undergone in following the camp all over Asia, that she was that day treated in, and could insult over, the stately palace of the Persian monarchs. But, she added, it would please her much better if,

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