Often in the course of the torchlight ceremonies
and the gambols of the mysteries his thigh was
bared purposely and showed golden. No doubt
gilded leather had been put about it, which gleamed
in the light of the cressets. There was once a
discussion between two of our learned idiots in
regard to him, whether he had the soul of Pythagoras, on account of the golden thigh, or some other
soul akin to it. As Pythagoras had a golden thigh (Plutarch, Numa, 65; Aelian, Var. Hist., 2, 26), a believer in metempsychosis might think that Alexander was a reincarnation of Pythagoras, They referred this question to
Alexander himself, and King Glycon resolved their
doubt with an oracle:
 Nay, Pythagoras’ soul now waneth and other times waxeth; His, with prophecy gifted, from God’s mind taketh its issue,; Sent by the Father to aid good men in the stress of the conflict; Then it to God will return, by God’s own thunderbolt smitten.