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Alexander the Great dropped a hint to his sycophantic entourage.
In 336 BC, the young Alexander, son of Philip II of Macedon, was just beginning his astonishing rise to be King of all Greece and Asia. Like all great men, he was surrounded by tittering hangers-on; one wonders if they quite got the hint he gave them here.
When Julius Caesar entered the Senate that day, a note warning him of treachery was clutched in his hand — unread.
On March 15th, 44 BC, Julius Caesar, the most powerful man in Rome, was due in the Senate to receive yet more honours from the Republic. But last night his wife Calpurnia had dreamt she held his murdered body in her arms, and her fears had frankly unsettled him. Brutus told him that he must not look weak, and steered him out of the door.
Plutarch argues that it when it comes to strong speech, less is always more.
Plutarch has been discussing at length (the incongruity has to be passed over) the annoyance of people who talk too much. The insatiable prattlers, he says, should consider how we admire men of few words; and he gave some examples, from the Spartans, who rebuffed Philip of Macedon, to the god Apollo, who would rather be obscure than wordy.
Demosthenes was about sixteen when he decided he wanted to be a lawyer, but he was the most unpromising advocate imaginable.
Demosthenes (384-322 BC), the Athenian, is a household name for his eloquence, but brilliance came by labour. When he began his legal career, his weak and stuttering voice, poor breath control, gawky gestures and muddled sentences caused much amusement among seasoned advocates. Then one day he bumped into an actor named Satyrus, who had him repeat a few lines from Euripides.
Plutarch tells us how Alexander the Great came to bond with Bucephalus, the mighty stallion that bore him to so many victories.
Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, probably written early in the second century, compares the characters of various great men of classical Greece and Rome. Among them is Alexander the Great, the young King of Macedon who in the latter part of the fourth century BC conquered cities and peoples from Egypt to India. His horse was Bucephalus, a mighty stallion that took some conquering too.
The surprisingly sensitive Roman commander was hoping to impress a girl with his angling skills.
After Julius Caesar was murdered in 44 BC, his nephew Octavian joined forces with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) to avenge him at the Battle of Philippi. Rome’s possessions were divided among the three victors, and Mark Antony was granted Egypt, at that time ruled by Cleopatra VII Philopator.
The ancient Greek King knew victory had cost his army more than it could afford to lose.
In 279 BC, forty-two years after his illustrious predecessor Alexander the Great died, Pyrrhus, King of Epirus and Macedonia, halted the advance of the Roman Republic at Asculum (Ascoli Satriano) in Apulia, southern Italy. The cost to his army was so great that he famously declared that another such victory would utterly ruin him - a ‘Pyrrhic victory’ indeed.