¶ Both conquerors enjoyed the benefits of excellent education and gave early
evidence of later greatness.
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[2] Alexander received the best possible tutelage under the greatest philosophers of
his age, including Aristotle. Caesar likewise ornamented his native intelligence
and drive for conquest with the best education available in the classical world.
Alexander studied Homer's Iliad (in an edition with Aristotles' annotation) to
learn the art of war –even sleeping with a copy of the poem under his pillow while
campaigning. From his reading the Greek dramatists –Euripides, Sophocles, and
Aeschylus– he took an education in psychology that served him well when he turned
to leading men. The good beginning that Alexander made in philosophy he however
overthrew when out of mistrust he rejected the good counsel of Callisthenes,
listening rather to the flatter Anaxarchus [Alexander, 52-53].
Caesar while campaigning passed every leisure hour between engagements in either
reading or writing. He disciplined himself to be able to dictate letters from on horseback,
and to give directions to two who took notes at the same time
[Caesar, 17]. His commentaries survive as a testament
to the intelligence, focus, and determination of that exceptional man. In
that regard, communication, or more specifically writing, we must give the edge
to the Roman, for Alexander, while he wrote many memorable letters to friends (unfortunately
all since lost), he did not master the art of matching the pen to the sword as did
Caesar. Caesar's dispatches from the front told people at home of his victories
in Spain and Gaul and, by propogating the myth of the conqueror, made straight
the path for Caesar to conquer the City of Rome and the hearts of the Roman people.
Caesar and Alexander equally gave early evidence of their later greatness.
Caesar as a youth defying Sulla and displaying such haughy confidence in dealing
with his pirate captors and Alexander taming Bucephalus and receiving the Persian
ambassadors while he was yet very young are exceptional examples of early signs
of greatness. And while we have no warrant to say that a Caesar or an Alexander
knows in his youth what he will become, we can be pretty sure that he knows he
is different from other men.
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¶ Of the destruction of Caesar at the hands of envious lesser men.
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[5] That Caesar should be envied by the senate and finally destroyed by Cassius,
Brutus, and the rest merely proves that great men will be the target of the
consuming envy of lesser men and, if not able to manage them, be consumed in that
conflagration. Many authors have noted this, among them the translators of the
Authorized (King James) Version of Scripture who note in the preface: "The
highest personages have been calumniated...we shall find many the like examples...
The first Roman emperor [C. Caesar, Plutarch] did never do a more pleasing
deed to the learned, nor more profitable to posterity, for conserving the
record of times in true supputation, than when he corrected the calendar,
and ordered the year according to the course of the sun; and yet this was
imputed to him for novelty, and arrogancy, and procured to him great obloquy."
And so we understand that, "the readiest way to be the most illustrious person
on earth, is to kill him who was already so," [Alexander, 55],
and that those who cannot kill you will, out of envy at least try to tear you down.
To Alexander we must grant the distinction that almost alone among Plutarch's
biographical subjects, he was never seriously hindered in his plans by the envy of
others. Those who would scheme against Alexander were either ineffective or were
quickly found out and dispatched by Alexander. Indeed, Alexander is also of a
minority in Plutarch's Lives as one who succumbed not to violence and force
but to the frailty of our fleshly frame, dying of natural causes while at the
height of his successes.
Here Ends the Comparison of the Lives of Alexander and Caesar.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Plutarch, Life of Alexander.
__________, Life of Caesar.
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