When Alexander saw
him toiling under his burden, and learned his story, he said, "Be not
weary yet, but carry it a little way farther, as far as your own tent;
for I give it to you." He seemed to be more vexed with those who did
not ask him for presents than with those who did so. He wrote a letter
to Phokion, in which he declared that he would not any longer remain
his friend, if Phokion refused all his presents. Serapion, a boy who
served the ball to the players at tennis, had been given nothing by
Alexander because he had never asked for anything. One day when
Serapion was throwing the ball to the players as usual, he omitted to
do so to the king, and when Alexander asked why he did not give him
the ball, answered "You do not ask me for it." At this, Alexander
laughed and gave him many presents. Once he appeared to be seriously
angry with one Proteus, a professed jester. The man's friends
interceded for him, and he himself begged for pardon with tears in his
eyes, until Alexander said that he forgave him. "My king," said he
"will you not give me something by way of earnest, to assure me that I
am in your favour." Upon this the king at once ordered him to be given
five talents. The amount of money which he bestowed upon his friends
and his body guard appears from a letter which his mother Olympias
wrote to him, in which she said, "It is right to benefit your friends
and to show your esteem for them; but you are making them all as great
as kings, so that they get many friends, and leave you alone without
any.
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