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What lofty airs his friends and bodyguards were wont to display over the wealth bestowed by him, is plain from a letter which Olympias wrote to him. She says: "I beg thee to find other ways of conferring favours on those thou lovest and holdest in honour; as it is, thou makest them all the equals of kings and providest them with an abundance of friends, whilst thyself thou strippest bare." 8 Olympias often wrote him in like vein, but Alexander kept her writings secret, except once when Hephaestion, as was his wont, read with him a letter which had been opened; the king did not prevent him, but took the ring p343 from his own finger and applied its seal to the lips of Hephaestion...
'Thy mother the most terrible' to which the king yelled: Punishable by death; take your tongue down Hephaestion''
To his mother, also, he sent many presents, but would not suffer her to meddle in affairs nor interfere in his campaigns; and when she chided him for this, he bore her harshness patiently. 13 Once, however, after reading a long letter which Antipater had written in denunciation of her, he said Antipater knew not that one tear of a mother effaced ten thousand letters such these. Then the king tore the letters into hundred pieces.
Alexander then ordered Antipater to be punished for denuncing his mother.
Bold: threat to hephestion over a joke about olympias...đČ
