Note 259 — THE AGE OF BRONZE.
Reading edition
{543}[Arrian (Alexand. Anabasis, vii. i, 4, ed. 1849, p. 165) says that Alexander would never have rested content with what he had acquired; "that if he had annexed Europe to Asia, and the British Isles to Europe, he would have sought out some no-man's-land to conquer." So insatiable was his ambition, that when the courtly philosopher Anaxarchus explained to him the theory of the plurality of worlds he bemoaned himself because as yet he was not master of one. "Heu me, inquit, miserum, quod ne uno quidem adhuc potitus sum."—Valerius Maximus, De Dictis, etc., lib. viii. cap. xiv. ex. 2. See, too, Juvenal, x. 168, 169. Burton (Anatomy of Melancholy, 1893, i. 64) denies that this was spoken like a prince, but, as wise Seneca censures him [on another occasion, however], 'twas vox iniquissima et stultissima, "'twas spoken like a bedlam fool."]