These should be regarded as examples to be avoided; the following, on the other hand, are to be imitated, being instances of restrained and gentle men, who lacked neither the provocation to anger nor the power of requital. What indeed would have been easier than for Antigonus to order the execution of the two common soldiers, who, while they leaned against the royal tent, expressed — as men will do with equally great danger and delight — their ill opinion of their king? Antigonus heard everything, only a canvas intervening between the speakers and the listener; this he gently shook and said, “Move a little farther off, for the king might hear you.” Again, one night, when he overheard some of his soldiers invoking all kinds of curses upon the king for having led them into such a road and inextricable mud, he went up to those who were struggling most, and when he had got them out, without revealing who their helper was, he said, “Now curse Antigonus, by whose fault you have fallen upon this mishap, but bless him who has led you out of this swamp.” He also bore the abuse of his enemies as calmly as that of his countrymen. And so, when he was besieging some Greeks in a small fort, and they, confident in their position, showed open contempt for the enemy, and cracking many jokes upon the ugliness of Antigonus scoffed now at his diminutive stature, now at his flattened nose, he merely said, “If I have a Silenus in my camp, I am fortunate and hope for good luck.” When he had subdued these wags by hunger, he disposed of his captives as follows: those who were fit for military service he assigned to regiments; the rest he put up at auction, saying that he would not have done so had it not seemed good for men who had such an evil tongue to find a master.