ROM hence he
marched into Parthia, where not having much to do, he first put on the
barbaric dress, perhaps with the view of making the work of civilizing them
the easier, as nothing gains more upon men than a conformity to their fashions
and customs. Or it may have been as a first trial, whether the Macedonians
might be brought to adore him, as the Persians did their kings, by accustoming
them by little and little to bear with the alteration of his rule and course
of life in other things. However, he followed not the Median fashion, which
was altogether foreign and uncouth, and adopted neither the trousers nor the
sleeved vest, nor the tiara for the head, but taking a middle way between the
Persian mode and the Macedonian, so contrived his habit that it was not so
flaunting as the one, and yet more pompous and magnificent than the other. At
first he wore this habit only when he conversed with the barbarians, or within
doors, among his intimate friends and companions, but afterwards he appeared
in it abroad, when he rode out, and at public audiences, a sight which the
Macedonians beheld with grief; but they so respected his other virtues and
good qualities, that they felt it reasonable in some things to gratify his
fancies and his passion of glory, in pursuit of which he hazarded himself so
far, that, besides his other adventures, he had but lately been wounded in the
leg by an arrow, which had so shattered the shank-bone that splinters were
taken out. And on another occasion he received a violent blow with a stone
upon the nape of the neck, which dimmed his sight for a good while afterwards.
And yet all this could not hinder him from exposing himself freely to any
dangers, insomuch that he passed the river Orexartes, which he took to be the
Tanais, and putting the Scythians to flight, followed them above a hundred
furlongs, though suffering all the time from a diarrhea.
Plutarch: ALEXANDER
