Although he cautioned all to abstain from intercourse with boys on the ground that it was impious,
for his own part this pattern of propriety made a
clever arrangement. He commanded the cities in
Pontus and Paphlagonia to send choir-boys for three



 

years’ service, to sing hymns to the god in his
household; they were required to examine, select,
and send the noblest, youngest, and most handsome.
These he kept under ward and treated like bought
slaves, sleeping with them and affronting them in
every way. He made it a rule, too, not to greet
anyone over eighteen years with his lips, or to
embrace and kiss him; he kissed only the young,
extending his hand to the others to be kissed by
them. They were called “those within the kiss.”
 
He duped the simpletons in this way from first
to last, ruining women right and left as well as
living with favourites. Indeed, it was a great thing
that everyone coveted if he simply cast his eyes
upon a man’s wife; if, however, he deemed her
worthy of a kiss, each husband thought that good
fortune would flood his house. Many women even
boasted that they had had children by Alexander,
and their husbands bore witness that they spoke the
truth!
 
I want to include in my tale a dialogue between
Glycon and one Sacerdos, a man of Tius, whose
intelligence you will be able to appraise from his
questions. I read the conversation in an inscription
in letters of gold, at Tius, in the house of Sacerdos.
“Tell me, Master Glycon,’ said he, “who are
you?” “I am the latter-day Asclepius,’ he
replied. “A different person from the one of
former times? What do vou mean?” “It is not
permitted you to hear that.” “How many years
will you tarry among us delivering oracles?”
“One thousand and three.” “Then where shall
you go?” “To Bactra and that region, for the
barbarians too must profit by my presence among

 

men.” ‘What of the other prophetic shrines, the
one in Didymi, the one in Clarus, and the one in
Delphi—do they still have your father Apollo as the
source of their oracles, or are the predictions now
given out there false?’”’ “This too you must not
wish to know; it is not permitted.” “What about
myself—what shall I be after my present life?”’
“A camel, then a horse, then a wise man and
prophet just as great as Alexander.”
That was Glycon’s conversation with Sacerdos;
and in conclusion he uttered an oracle in verse,
knowing that Sacerdos was a follower of Lepidus: See p. 211, note1. 

 Put not in Lepidus faith, for a pitiful doom is
in waiting. 

That was because he greatly feared Epicurus, as I
have said before, seeing in him an opponent and
critic of his trickery.
 
Indeed, he seriously imperilled one of the Epicureans who ventured to expose him in the presence
of a great crowd. The man went up to him and
said in a loud voice: “Come now, Alexander! You
prevailed upon such-and-such a Paphlagonian to
put his servants on trial for their lives before the
governor of Galatia on the charge that they had
murdered his son, a student at Alexandria, But the
young man is living, and has come back alive after
the execution of the servants, whom you gave over
to the wild beasts.” What had happened was this.
The young man cruised up the Nile as far as Clysma, Probably Suez; the ancient canal from the Nile to the Red Sea ended there. 
and as a vessel was just putting to sea, was induced
to join others in a voyage to India. Then because



 

he was overdue, those ill-starred servants concluded
that the young man either had lost his life during
his cruise upon the Nile or had been made away
with by brigands, who were numerous at the time;
and they returned with the report of his disappearance. Then followed the oracle and their condemnation, after which the young man presented himself,
telling of his travels.
 
When he told this tale, Alexander, indignant at
the exposure and unable to bear the truth of the
reproach, told the bystanders to stone him, or else
they themselves would be accurst and would bear
the name of Epicureans. They had begun to throw
stones when a man named Demostratus who happened
to be in the city, one of the most prominent men
in Pontus, I suspect that the Greek phrase is really a title, but cannot prove it; the use of πρῶτος without the article seems to make the phrase mean “One of the First Citizens.” flung his arms about the fellow and
saved him from death. But he had come very
near to being overwhelmed with stones, and quite
properly! Why did he have to be the only man of
sense among all those lunatics and suffer from the
idiocy of the Paphlagonians?