Editing Anaxarchus (section)

==Life==
Anaxarchus was born at [[Abdera, Thrace|Abdera]] in [[Thrace]]. He was the companion and friend of [[Alexander the Great]] in his Asiatic campaigns. His relationship with Alexander, however, was ambiguous, owing to contradictory sources.<ref name=Vass>{{cite book|surname=Vassallo|first=Christian|title=Presocratics and Papyrological Tradition: A Philosophical Reappraisal of the Sources. Proceedings of the International Workshop held at the University of Trier (22-24 September 2016)|url=|date=2019|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=9783110666106|page=473}}</ref> Some paint Anarxchus as a flatterer, among them [[Plutarch]], who tells a story that at [[Bactra]], in 327 BC in a debate with [[Callisthenes]], Anaxarchus advised all to worship Alexander as a god even during his lifetime. In contrast, others paint Anaxarchus as scathingly ironic towards the monarch.<ref name=Vass/> According to [[Diogenes Laertius]], in response to Alexander's claim to have been the son of [[Zeus]]-[[Amun|Ammon]], Anaxarchus pointed to his bleeding wound and remarked, "See the blood of a mortal, not [[ichor]], such as flows from the veins of the immortal gods."<ref name="laertius60">Diogenes Laertius, ''Lives'', ix. 60</ref>

When Alexander was trying to show that he was divine so that the Greeks would perform proskynesis to him, Anaxarchus said that Alexander could "more justly be considered a god than Dionysus or Heracles" (Arrian, 104)

Diogenes Laertius says that Anaxarchus earned the enmity of [[Nicocreon]], the tyrant of [[Cyprus]], with an inappropriate joke against tyrants in a banquet in [[Tyre, Lebanon|Tyre]] in 331 BC.<ref name=Vass/> Later, when Anaxarchus was forced to land in Cyprus against his will, Nicocreon ordered him to be pounded to death in a mortar. The philosopher endured this torture with fortitude, taunting the king with, "just pound the bag of Anaxarchus, you do not pound Anaxarchus". When Nicocreon threatened to cut out his tongue, Anaxarchus himself bit it out and spat it in his face.<ref name=Vass/><ref name="laertius58">Diogenes Laertius, ''Lives'', ix. 58</ref>