pursuits was temporary; he had every intention of entering the law and politics once circumstances permitted. If he was out of sympathy with the more aggressive, military aspirations of his peers, he did share with them an unquenchable thirst for personal fame. This found its classic expression in Homer’s Iliad, in which Glaucus says to Diomedes that he still hears his father’s urgings ringing in his ears: Always be the best, my boy, the bravest, and hold your head high above the others. It was a text that had inspired Alexander the Great and, once Homer appeared on their curriculum, many
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