The commandments of Homer, whom Aristotle never ceases to cite in his philosophical works, went over into the flesh and blood of Alexander, and in him Achilles, the youthful hero of the Iliad, became in a real sense incarnate. Next after Homer, Alexander rated and knew the Attic tragedians, the continuators and improvers of Homer, according to Aristotle, who, therefore, bases his _Poetics_ largely upon tragedy, as being the highest form of dramatic art. There can be no question of the influence of Aristotle in determining the literary interest and taste of Alexander. It seems also clear that the young prince came at least to know, and probably to share, his teacher's curiosity as to natural history; for he afterwards sent specimens back from Asia for Aristotle's botanical and zoölogical collections. This being the case, it seems incredible that he should have received from him no instruction in politics; that Aristotle, the pupil of Plato, who had himself gone to Sicily to educate the young Dionysius II for his high place, should have failed to communicate to the future ruler of Macedon and of Greece the ideas which he had formed as to the best kind of government. We can imagine the thousand opportunities which their three years of close association in the country seat at Mieza offered for the discussion of politics: how Aristotle explained that virtue or merit or political capacity, or however the elusive Greek word _arete_ be translated, gave the best claim to leadership, and that the best of all forms of government was that in which the man of the highest virtue ruled; "that," to use his own words,[61] "wherever there is, as it happens, a whole family or an individual so superior in virtue to all the rest that the virtue of this individual or family exceeds that of all others in the state, in that case it is but just that this family should enjoy a regal or supreme position and that this individual should be king. For ... this is not only in accordance with the principle of justice usually alleged by the founders of polities, whether aristocracies, oligarchies, or democracies, in all of which the claim to rule is dependent on superiority, although the superiority is not the same; but it accords also with the theory we laid down before. For assuredly it is not proper to put to death or outlaw or even ostracize this preëminent individual or to require him to become a subject in his turn.... The only alternative is that they should yield him obedience, and that he should be supreme, not on the principle of alternation, but absolutely.... It will be a wrong," he urged,[62] "to treat him as worthy of mere equality, when he is so vastly superior in virtue and political capacity, for any person so exceptional may well be compared to a deity upon the earth." Again and again, in season and out of season, often doubtless to the annoyance of the impatient young prince, who feared lest his father's victories should leave him nothing to do,