XIV. (92) But it is necessary for us (since some persons do not believe that there is any perfect virtue in the multitude, but that whatever in such persons appears like virtue only reaches a certain point of increase and growth), to bring forward as corroborative testimonies the lives of some particular good men who are the most undeniable evidences of freedom. (93) Calanus was an Indian by birth, one of the gymnosophists; he, being looked upon as the man who was possessed of the greatest fortitude of all his contemporaries, and that too, not only by his own countrymen, but also by foreigners, which is the rarest of all things, was greatly admired by some kings of hostile countries, because he had combined virtuous actions with praiseworthy language; (94) accordingly, Alexander, the king of the Macedonians, wishing to exhibit to Greece the wisdom that was to be found in the territories of the barbarians, as being a sort of faithful copy and representation of an archetypal model, in the first instance invited Calanus to quit his home, and come and take up his abode with him, by which means he said he would acquire the greatest imaginable glory throughout all Asia and all Europe; (95) and when he could not persuade him by fair means, he said to him, “You shall be compelled to follow me.” And he replied with great felicity of expression and in a noble spirit; “What then shall I be worth, O Alexander, when you exhibit me to the Greeks, after I have been compelled to do what I do not like?” Now is not this speech, or rather is not this idea, full of real freedom? And moreover in his writings also, which are more durable than his expressions, he has erected, as if on a pillar, indelible signs of his indomitably free disposition; (96) and this is proved by the letter which he sent to the king.
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