On a time when he was offering incense to the gods with lavish hand, and often taking up handfuls of the frankincense, Leonidas, who had been his attendant in boyhood, happening to be present, said, ‘My boy, you may offer incense thus lavishly when you have made yourself master of the land that bears it.’ And so, when Alexander had become master of it, he sent a letter to Leonidas : ‘I have sent to you a half-ton of frankincense and cassia, so that you may never again count any petty cost in dealing with the gods, since you know that we are now masters of the land that bears these fragrant things.’ 1
1 Cf. Plutarch's Life of Alexander, chap. xxv. (679 C); Pliny, Natural History, xii. 32 (62).
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 3.
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