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[395]
1
And now perhaps it may not seem unreasonable to some, that such an inveterate
hatred might increase so much [on both sides], as to proceed further, and
overcome nature; but it may justly deserve consideration, whether it be
to be laid to the charge of the young men, that they gave such an occasion
to their father's anger, and led him to do what he did, and by going on
long in the same way put things past remedy, and brought him to use them
so unmercifully; or whether it be to be laid to the father's charge, that
he was so hard-hearted, and so very tender in the desire of government,
and of other things that would tend to his glory, that tae would take no
one into a partnership with him, that so whatsoever he would have done
himself might continue immovable; or, indeed, whether fortune have not
greater power than all prudent reasonings; whence we are persuaded that
human actions are thereby determined beforehand by an inevitable necessity,
and we call her Fate, because there is nothing which is not done by her;
wherefore I suppose it will be sufficient to compare this notion with that
other, which attribute somewhat to ourselves, and renders men not unaccountable
for the different conducts of their lives, which notion is no other than
the philosophical determination of our ancient law. Accordingly, of the
two other causes of this sad event, any body may lay the blame on the young
men, who acted by youthful vanity, and pride of their royal birth, that
they should bear to hear the calumnies that were raised against their father,
while certainly they were not equitable judges of the actions of his life,
but ill-natured in suspecting, and intemperate in speaking of it, and on
both accounts easily caught by those that observed them, and revealed them
to gain favor; yet cannot their father be thought worthy excuse, as to
that horrid impiety which he was guilty of about them, while he ventured,
without any certain evidence of their treacherous designs against him,
and without any proofs that they had made preparations for such attempt,
to kill his own sons, who were of very comely bodies, and the great darlings
of other men, and no way deficient in their conduct, whether it were in
hunting, or in warlike exercises, or in speaking upon occasional topics
of discourse; for in all these they were skillful, and especially Alexander,
who was the eldest; for certainly it had been sufficient, even though he
had condemned them, to have kept them alive in bonds, or to let them live
at a distance from his dominions in banishment, while he was surrounded
by the Roman forces, which were a strong security to him, whose help would
prevent his suffering any thing by a sudden onset, or by open force; but
for him to kill them on the sudden, in order to gratify a passion that
governed him, was a demonstration of insufferable impiety. He also was
guilty of so great a crime in his older age; nor will the delays that he
made, and the length of time in which the thing was done, plead at all
for his excuse; for when a man is on a sudden amazed, and in commotion
of mind, and then commits a wicked action, although this be a heavy crime,
yet is it a thing that frequently happens; but to do it upon deliberation,
and after frequent attempts, and as frequent puttings-off, to undertake
it at last, and accomplish it, was the action of a murderous mind, and
such as was not easily moved from that which is evil. And this temper he
showed in what he did afterward, when he did not spare those that seemed
to be the best beloved of his friends that were left, wherein, though the
justice of the punishment caused those that perished to be the less pitied,
yet was the barbarity of the man here equal, in that he did not abstain
from their slaughter also. But of those persons we shall have occasion
to discourse more hereafter.
1 The reader is here to note, that this eighth section is entirely wanting in the old Latin version, as Spanheim truly observes; nor is there any other reason for it, I suppose, than the great difficulty of an exact translation.
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