The foregoing chapters have amply documented the prowess, or aretē, both real and contrived, of Alexander and the kings, and scrutiny of the Great Altar has reintroduced that of the gods and heroes. Our focus now turns to those heroes, to which we must add – even at the risk of some overcrowding – two more paradigms of aretē: athletes and (in Chapter 6) intellectuals.

As we saw in Chapter 2, anyone who achieves success thanks to his or her own abilities and divine favor, by definition possesses aretē and deserves the respect that goes with it. Being innate, it must be discovered within oneself and then fostered by an arduous regimen of nurture and training. As Pindar remarked:

1. One born to excellence

2. May be whetted and stirred

3. To win huge glory

4. If a god is his helper.

This is why Greek heroes such as Telephos (see Figure 62) and his father Herakles (Figure 63) are basically monoliths. Once past the perils of infancy, they could only battle their way into the privileged space that Fate and the gods allotted them. En route, they had learned how to be extraordinarily effective, using all of their faculties and mobilizing all of their powers to achieve concrete, lasting results. Yet because such high rollers often make mistakes, and the Greeks instinctively structured the world in tragic terms, their images often appear under the sign of tragedy.