Note 394 — Chapter LXIV · —Alexander’s interview with the Indian gymnosophists

“He (Alexander) caused ten Indian philosophers, whom the Greeks called gymnosophists, and who were naked as apes, to be seized. He proposes to them questions worthy of the gallant Mercury of Visé, promising them with all seriousness that the one who answered worst would be hanged the first, after which the others would follow in their order. This is like Nabuchodonosor, who absolutely wished to slay the Magians if they did not divine one of his dreams which he had forgotten, or the Calif of The Thousand and One Nights who was to strangle his wife when she came to the end of her stories. But it is Plutarch who tells this silly story; we must respect it; he was a Greek” (Voltaire, Dict. Phil. s.v. Alexandre). See also Note Hh, Indian Gymnosophists.