Most “great men,” Fielding held, had done more harm than good to mankind; so Alexander was called “the Great” because, after “he had with fire and sword overrun a vast empire, had destroyed the lives of an immense number of innocent wretches, had scattered ruin and desolation like a whirlwind, we are told, as an act of his clemency, that he did not cut the throat of an old woman and ravish her daughters.”