Wednesday, May 21, 2025
A Book Lover
Plutarch, Life of Alexander 8.2-3 (tr. Ian Scott-Kilvert):
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[2] He was also devoted by nature to all kinds of learning and was a lover of books. He regarded the Iliad as a handbook on the art of war and took with him on his campaigns a text annotated by Aristotle, which became known as ‘the casket copy’, and which he always kept under his pillow together with his dagger. [3] When his campaigns had taken him far into the interior of Asia and he could find no other books, he ordered his treasurer, Harpalus, to send him some. Harpalus sent him the histories of Philistus, many of the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and the dithyrambic poems of Telestes and Philoxenus.The translation omits ὡς Ὀνησίκριτος ἱστόρηκε ("as Onesicritus has recorded") at the end of section 2. Also "his treasurer" doesn't appear in the Greek of section 3.
[2] ἦν δὲ καὶ φύσει φιλόλογος καὶ φιλαναγνώστης. καὶ τὴν μὲν Ἰλιάδα τῆς πολεμικῆς ἀρετῆς ἐφόδιον καὶ νομίζων καὶ ὀνομάζων, ἔλαβε μὲν Ἀριστοτέλους διορθώσαντος ἣν ἐκ τοῦ νάρθηκος καλοῦσιν, εἶχε δὲ ἀεὶ μετὰ τοῦ ἐγχειριδίου κειμένην ὑπὸ τὸ προσκεφάλαιον, ὡς Ὀνησίκριτος ἱστόρηκε· [3] τῶν δὲ ἀλλων βιβλίων οὐκ εὐπορῶν ἐν τοῖς ἄνω τόποις Ἅρπαλον ἐκέλευσε πέμψαι. κἀκεῖνος ἔπεμψεν αὐτῷ τάς τε Φιλίστου βίβλους καὶ τῶν Εὐριπίδου καὶ Σοφοκλέους καὶ Αἰσχύλου τραγῳδιῶν συχνάς, καὶ Τελέστου καὶ Φιλοξένου διθυράμβους.