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137Now of this Alexander the seventh ancestor[108] was that Perdiccas who first became despot of the Macedonians, and that in the manner which here follows:—From Argos there fled to the Illyrians three brothers of the descendents of Temenos, Gauanes, Aëropos, and Perdiccas; and passing over from the Illyrians into the upper parts of Macedonia they came to the city of Lebaia. There they became farm-servants for pay in the household of the king, one pasturing horses, the second oxen, and the youngest of them, namely Perdiccas, the smaller kinds of cattle; for[109] in ancient times even those who were rulers over men[110] were poor in money, and not the common people only; and the wife of the king cooked for them their food herself. And whenever she baked, the loaf of the boy their servant, namely Perdiccas, became double as large as by nature it should be. When this happened constantly in the same manner, she told it to her husband, and he when he heard it conceived forthwith that this was a portent and tended to something great. He summoned the farm-servants therefore, and gave notice to them to depart out of his land; and they said that it was right that before they went forth they should receive the wages which were due. Now it chanced that the sun was shining into the house down through the opening which received the smoke, and the king when he heard about the wages said, being infatuated by a divine power: "I pay you then this for wages, and it is such as ye deserve," pointing to the sunlight. So then Gauanes and Aëropos the elder brothers stood struck with amazement when they heard this, but the boy, who happened to have in his hand a knife, said these words: "We accept, O king, that which thou dost give;" and he traced a line with his knife round the sunlight on the floor of the house, and having traced the line round he thrice drew of the sunlight into his bosom, and after that he departed both himself and his fellows.
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Notes
[108] Counting Alexander himself as one.
[109] {esan gar}: this is the reading of the best MSS.: others have {esan de}. Stein (reading {esan gar}) places this clause after the next, "The wife of the king herself baked their bread, for in ancient times, etc." This transposition is unnecessary; for it would be easy to understand it as a comment on the statement that three members of the royal house of Argos became farm-servants.
[110] {ai turannides ton anthropon}.