rt of this time
Aristotle kept up correspondence with Alexander, who is said[3] to have
placed at his disposal thousands of men, who were busily employed in
collecting objects and in making observations for the completion of the
philosopher's zoological researches. Alexander is, moreover, said to
have given the philosopher eight hundred talents for the same purpose.

In spite of these marks of friendship and respect, Alexander, who was
fast becoming intoxicated with success, and corrupted by Asiatic
influences, gradually cooled in his attachment towards Aristotle. This
may have been hastened by several causes, and among others by the
freedom of speech and republican opinions of Callisthenes, a kinsman and
disciple of Aristotle, who had been, by the latter's influence,
appointed to attend on Alexander. Callisthenes proved so unpopular, that
the king seems to have availed himself readily of the first plausible
pretext for putting him to death, and to have threatened his former
friend and teacher with a similar punishment. The latter, for his part,
probably had a deep feeling of resentment towards the destroyer of his
kinsman.

Meanwhile the Athenians knew nothing of these altered relations between
Aristotle and Alexander, but continued to regard the philosopher as
thoroughly imbued with kingly notions (in spite of his writings being
quite to the contrary); so that he was an object of suspicion and
dislike to the Athenian patriots. Nevertheless, as long as Alexander was
alive, Aristotle was safe from molestation. As soon, however, as
Alexander's death became known, the anti-Macedonian feeling of the
Athenians burst forth, and found a victim in the philosopher. A charge
of impiety was brought against him. It was alleged that he had paid
divine honours to his wife Pythias and to his friend Hermias. Now, for
the latter, a eunuch, who from the rank of a slave had raised himself to
the position of despot over a free Grecian community, so far from
coupling his name (as Aristotle had done in his hymn) with the greatest
personages of Hellenic mythology, the Athenian public felt that no
contempt was too bitter. To escape the storm the philosopher retired to
Chalcis, in Eub[oe]a, then under garrison by Antipater, the Governor of
Macedonia, remarking in a letter, written afterwards, that he did so in
order that the Athenians might not have the opportunity of sinning a
second time against philosophy (the allusion being, of course, to