ABSTRACT
Alexander the Great, Aristotle’s pupil, built up the widest flung empire the world has seen, stretching from Adriatic to Ganges, until Britain built her Commonwealth and the United States linked two oceans. The master was uninterested. Although we do not know the full contents of the tractates Aristotle presented to Alexander, Aristotle seems to have regarded this Empire as barbaric in culture, inferior in spiritual value, mechanical in its principles of administration, not to be compared in significance with Sparta and Athens. It must be confessed that Aristotle had his excuses. His kinsman, Kallisthenes, whom he recommended to Alexander, fell under suspicion of sedition, perhaps owing to a frankness excessive in the presence of leaders who were persuaded that they were demigods. Suspicion was enough. He was promptly put in an iron cage and forgotten there for so long that he became neglected in his person, lousy and verminous. In this unappetizing condition he was turned out of his cage by Alexander’s orders and thrown to the pet lions who habitually accompanied that monarch to solace him on his travels.
