ABSTRACT
A number of different sorts of motives lead people to behave otherwise than as their direct impulses would dictate. Of these, religion and morality have received the most attention, but there are others quite as powerful. There is the desire to please superiors, the desire for popularity with equals or inferiors, the desire for notoriety, and the desire to please some one special person. Of each of these many important examples could be given from history. But there is also another motive, which is common and very powerful: namely the wish to resemble some favourite character. Alexander the Great has influenced many important men. In the mind of Julius Caesar he caused despair because Alexander's conquests were completed at an age when Caesar's had scarcely begun. Julian the Apostate, when he was fighting the Persians, won a victory and had the opportunity of an advantageous peace. He refused the Persian offer because Alexander at the same stage had refused a similar offer. Alexander had gone on with the war and been victorious; Julian went on with it and was defeated. When Napoleon went to Egypt, he conceived himself as at the first stage in the conquest of the East: the lure of India drew him on, and he saw himself as Alexander's successor. After Nelson had brought his Egyptian adventure to grief, he was compelled to choose other models, such as Caesar and Charlemagne. He never ceased to dramatise himself in some historic role until in his downfall he was driven to the part of Hannibal. Plutarch's Lives had a profound influence upon Napoleon, as upon many previous prominent men, in providing patterns of behaviour, by following which a man could hope to achieve glory.
