6
All this is not idle fancy, on which the painter has been lavishing needless pains; he is hinting that Alexander has also another love, in War; though he loves Roxana, he does not forget his armour. And, by the way, there was some extra nuptial virtue in the picture itself, outside the realm of fancy; for it did Aétion’s wooing for him. He departed with a wedding of his own as a sort of pendant to that of Alexander; bis groom’sman was the King; and the price of his marriage-piece was a marriage.
7
Herodotus, then (to return to him), thought that the Olympic festival would serve a second purpose very well—that of revealing to the Greeks a wonderful historian who had related their victories as he had done. As for me—and in Heaven’s name do not suppose me so beside myself as to intend any comparison between my works and his; I desire his favour too much for that—but one experience I have in common with him. On my first visit to Macedonia, my thoughts too were busy with my best policy. My darling wish was to be known to you all, and to exhibit my writings to as many Macedonians as might be; I decided that it would be too great an undertaking at such a time of year to go round in person visiting city by city; but if I seized the occasion of this your meeting, appeared before you all, and delivered my discourse, my aspirations, I thought, might be realized that way.
