Alexander was first given over to the care of a nurse. He loved her dearly as long as he lived, and her son Clytus was always one of his best friends and most faithful comrades.
As soon as he was old enough, Alexander began to learn Homer‘s Iliad and Odyssey by heart; and he loved to hear about the principal heroes, and especially about his own ancestor, Achilles.
He admired these poems so much that he carried a copy of them with him wherever he went, and always slept with it under his pillow. Both the Iliad and the Odyssey were kept in a box of the finest gold, because Alexander thought nothing was too good for them.
Cf. Alexander, by Plutarch, W. Smith: Alexander the Great, Who is a Macedonian?
From: H. A. Guerber, The Story of the Greeks; edited for this online publication, by ELLOPOS BLOG
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