In this banquet at Marakanda, when wine, according to the Macedonian habit, had been abundantly drunk, and when Alexander, Kleitus, and most of the other guests were already nearly intoxicated, enthusiasts or flatterers heaped immoderate eulogies upon the king’s past achievements.[500] They exalted him above all the most venerated legendary heroes; they proclaimed that his superhuman deeds proved his divine paternity, and that he had earned an apotheosis like Herakles, which nothing but envy could withhold from him during his life. Alexander himself joined in these boasts, and even took credit for the later victories of the reign of his father, whose abilities and glory he depreciated. To the old Macedonian officers, such an insult cast on the memory of Philip was deeply offensive. But among them all, none had been more indignant than Kleitus, with the growing insolence of Alexander—his assumed filiation from Zeus Ammon, which put aside Philip as unworthy—his preference for Persian attendants, who granted or refused admittance to his person—his extending to Macedonian soldiers the contemptuous treatment habitually endured by Asiatics, and even allowing them to be scourged by Persian hands and Persian rods.[501] The pride of a Macedonian general in the stupendous successes of the last five years, was effaced by his mortification when he saw that they tended only to merge his countrymen amidst a crowd of servile Asiatics, and to inflame the prince with high-flown aspirations transmitted from Xerxes or Ochus. But whatever might be the internal thoughts of Macedonian officers, they held their peace before Alexander, whose formidable character and exorbitant self-estimation would tolerate no criticism. [500] Arrian, iv. 8, 7. [501] Plutarch, Alexand. 51. Nothing can be more touching than the words put by Plutarch into the mouth of Kleitus—Ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ νῦν χαίρομεν, Ἀλέξανδρε, τοιαῦτα τέλη τῶν πόνων κομιζόμενοι, μακαρίζομεν δὲ τοὺς ἤδη τεθνηκότας πρὶν ἐπιδεῖν Μηδικαῖς ῥάβδοις ξαινομένους Μακεδόνας, καὶ Περσῶν δεομένους ἵνα τῷ βασιλεῖ προσέλθωμεν.