At the banquet of Marakanda, this long suppressed repugnance found an issue, accidental indeed and unpremeditated, but for that very reason all the more violent and unmeasured. The wine, which made Alexander more boastful and his flatterers fulsome to excess, overpowered altogether the reserve of Kleitus. He rebuked the impiety of those who degraded the ancient heroes in order to make a pedestal for Alexander. He protested against the injustice of disparaging the exalted and legitimate fame of Philip; whose achievements he loudly extolled, pronouncing them to be equal, and even superior to those of his son. For the exploits of Alexander, splendid as they were, had been accomplished, not by himself alone, but by that unconquerable Macedonian force which he had found ready made to his hands;[502] whereas those of Philip had been his own—since he had found Macedonia prostrate and disorganized, and had had to create for himself both soldiers, and a military system. The great instruments of Alexander’s victories had been Philip’s old soldiers, whom he now despised—and among them Parmenio, whom he had put to death. [502] Arrian, iv. 8, 8. οὔκουν μόνον γε (Ἀλέξανδρον) καταπρᾶξαι αὐτὰ, ἀλλὰ τὸ γὰρ πολὺ μέρος Μακεδόνων εἶναι τὰ ἔργα, etc. Remarks such as these, poured forth in the coarse language of a half-intoxicated Macedonian veteran, provoked loud contradiction from many, and gave poignant offence to Alexander; who now for the first time heard the open outburst of disapprobation, before concealed and known to him only by surmise. But wrath and contradiction, both from him and from others, only made Kleitus more reckless in the outpouring of his own feelings, now discharged with delight after having been so long pent up. He passed from the old Macedonian soldiers to himself individually. Stretching forth his right hand towards Alexander, he exclaimed—“Recollect that you owe your life to me; this hand preserved you at the Granikus. Listen to the outspoken language of truth, or else abstain from asking freemen to supper, and confine yourself to the society of barbaric slaves.” All these reproaches stung Alexander to the quick. But nothing was so intolerable to him as the respectful sympathy for Parmenio, which brought to his memory one of the blackest deeds of his life—and the reminiscence of his preservation at the Granikus, which lowered him into the position of a debtor towards the very censor under whose reproof he was now smarting. At length wrath and intoxication together drove him into uncontrollable fury. He started from his couch, and felt for his dagger to spring at Kleitus; but the dagger had been put out of reach by one of his attendants. In a loud voice and with the Macedonian word of command, he summoned the body guards and ordered the trumpeter to sound an alarm. But no one obeyed so grave an order, given in his condition of drunkenness. His principal officers, Ptolemy, Perdikkas and others, clung round him, held his