as an
unpardonable liberty; but Ptolemy said, "If it is not kingly to take a
flout, neither is it kingly to give one." And Alexander was more savage
than usual in his behaviour to Callisthenes and Clitus. So Porus, when
he was taken captive, begged Alexander to use him as a king. And on his
inquiring, "What, nothing more?" he replied "No. For everything is
included in being used as a king." So they call the king of the gods
Milichius,[692] while they call Ares Maimactes;[693] and punishment and
torture they assign to the Erinnyes and to demons, not to the gods or
Olympus.

Sec. X. As then a certain person passed the following remark on Philip when
he had razed Olynthus to the ground, "He certainly could not build such
another city," so we may say to anger, "You can root up, and destroy,
and throw down, but to raise up and save and spare and tolerate is the
work of mildness and moderation, the work of a Camillus, a Metellus, an
Aristides, a Socrates; but to sting and bite is to resemble the ant and
horse-fly. For, indeed, when I consider revenge, I find its angry method
to be for the most part ineffectual, since it spends itself in biting
the lips and gnashing the teeth, and in vain attacks, and in railings
coupled with foolish threats, and eventually resembles children running
races, who from feebleness ridiculously tumble down before they reach
the goal they are hastening to. So that speech of the Rhodian to a
lictor of the Roman praetor who was shouting and talking insolently was
not inapt, "It is no matter to me what you say, but what your master
thinks."[694] And Sophocles, when he had introduced Neoptolemus and
Eurypylus as armed for the battle, gives them this high
commendation,[695]

"They rushed into the midst of armed warriors,"

Some barbarians indeed poison their steel, but bravery has no need of
gall, being dipped in reason, but rage and fury are not invincible but
rotten. And so the Lacedaemonians by their pipes turn away the anger of
their warriors, and sacrifice to the Muses before commencing battle,
that reason may abide with them, and when they have routed a foe do not
follow up the victory,[696] but relax their rage, which like small
daggers they can easily take back. But anger kills myriads before it is
glutted with revenge, as happened in the case of Cyrus and Pelopidas the
Theban. But Agathocles bore mildly the revilings of those he was
besieging, and when one of them cried out, "Potter, how a