Everyone knows the story of the tyrannicide who having been arrested before he had finished his task was put to torture by Hippias24 in order that he might be forced to reveal his accomplices; whereupon he named the friends of the tyrant who were gathered around him, the very ones to whom, as he knew, the safety of the tyrant was especially dear. After Hippias had ordered them to be slain one by one, as they were named, he asked whether there was still any other. “No,” said the man, “you alone remain; for I have left no one else who cares anything about you.” The result of his anger was that the tyrant lent his might to the tyrant-slayer and slew his own protectors with his own sword. How much more courageous was Alexander! After reading a letter from his mother warning him to beware of poison from his physician Philip, he took the draught and drank it without alarm. In the case of his own friend he trusted himself25 more. He deserved to find him innocent, deserved to prove him so! I applaud this all the more in Alexander because no man was so prone to anger; but the rarer self-control is among kings, the more praiseworthy it becomes. The great Gaius Caesar also showed this, he who, victorious in civil war, used his victory most mercifully; having apprehended some packets of letters written to Gnaeus Pompeius by those who were believed to belong either to the opposing side or to the neutral party, he burned them. Although he was in the habit, within bounds, of indulging in anger, yet he preferred being unable to do so; he thought that the most gracious form of pardon was not to know what the offense of each person had been.