On this occasion, we have the state of Alexander’s mind disclosed by himself, in one of the references to his letters given by Plutarch. Writing to Kraterus and to others immediately afterwards, Alexander distinctly stated that the pages throughout all their torture had deposed against no one but themselves. Nevertheless, in another letter, addressed to Antipater in Macedonia, he used these expressions—“The pages were stoned to death by the Macedonians; but I myself shall punish the sophist, as well as those who sent him out here, and those who harbor in their cities conspirators against me.”[530] The sophist Kallisthenes had been sent out by Aristotle, who is here designated; and probably the Athenians after him. Fortunately for Aristotle, he was not at Baktra, but at Athens. That he could have had any concern in the conspiracy of the pages, was impossible. In this savage outburst of menace against his absent preceptor, Alexander discloses the real state of feeling which prompted him to the destruction of Kallisthenes; hatred towards that spirit of citizenship and free speech, which Kallisthenes not only cherished, in common with Aristotle and most other literary Greeks, but had courageously manifested in his protest against the motion for worshipping a mortal. [530] Plutarch, Alex. 55. Καίτοι τῶν περὶ Ἑρμόλαον οὐδεὶς οὐδὲ διὰ τῆς ἐσχάτης ἀνάγκης Καλλισθένους κατεῖπεν. Ἀλλὰ καὶ Ἀλέξανδρος ~αὐτὸς εὐθὺς γράφων~ Κρατερῷ καὶ Ἀττάλῳ καὶ Ἀλκέτᾳ φησὶ τοὺς παῖδας βασανιζομένους ὁμολογεῖν, ὡς αὐτοὶ ταῦτα πράξειαν, ~ἄλλος δὲ οὐδεὶς συνειδείη~. Ὕστερον δὲ γράφων πρὸς Ἀντίπατρον, καὶ τὸν Καλλισθένην συνεπαιτιασάμενος, Οἱ μὲν παῖδές, φησιν, ὑπὸ τῶν Μακεδόνων κατελεύσθησαν, ~τὸν δὲ σοφιστὴν ἐγὼ κολάσω~, καὶ ~τοὺς ἐκπέμψαντας αὐτὸν~, καὶ τοὺς ὑποδεχομένους ταῖς πόλεσι τοὺς ἐμοὶ ἐπιβουλεύοντας ... ἄντικρυς ἔν γε τούτοις ἀποκαλυπτόμενος πρὸς Ἀριστοτέλην, etc. About the hostile dispositions of Alexander towards Aristotle, see Dio Chrysostom, Orat. 64. de Fortunâ, p. 598. Kraterus was at this time absent in Sogdiana, engaged in finishing the suppression of the resistance (Arrian, iv. 22, 1). To him, therefore, Alexander would naturally write. This statement, from the pen of Alexander himself, distinctly contradicts and refutes (as I have before observed) the affirmation of Ptolemy and Aristobulus as given by Arrian (iv. 14, 1)—that the pages deposed against Kallisthenes. Kallisthenes was first put to the torture and then hanged.[531] His tragical fate excited a profound sentiment of sympathy and indignation among the philosophers of antiquity.[532] [531] Arrian, iv. 14, 5. Curtius also says—“Callisthenes quoque tortus interiit, initi consilii in caput regis innoxius, sed haudquaquam aulæ et assentantium accommodatus ingenio (viii. 8, 21).” Compare Plutarch, Alex. 55.