The Secret of Secrets of Aristotle

you may decide as worthy concerning this, signify to us in your writings."

Aristotle to Alexander.

"If you can kill them, the power is in your hand; yet for this, because of the kingdom, you cannot kill the earth. But you can imitate the air, water, and even the disposition of the cities of that land. You will fulfill your proposal. If, however, you wish to dominate over them with goodness, hear them with benignity. If you do this, I hold the confidence that, with God's help, they will all be subjected to your pleasure by the precept and love which they will have for you. You will dominate them with peaceable triumph." Alexander, therefore, having received his epistle, fulfilled his counsel diligently, and they were more obedient to his empire than all other nations.

Prologue of John, who translated the book.

John, who translated this book, son of Patricius, a most skilled and faithful interpreter of languages, says: "I did not leave a place, nor a temple, in which philosophers have been accustomed to compose and deposit their works, and the secrets which I have not visited; nor have I not sought out any man most skilled whom I believed to have some knowledge of physical writings, until I came to the Oracle of the Sun which Esculapides the Persian constructed. In it I found a certain solitary man, abstinent and most skilled in philosophy, to whom I humbled myself as much as I could. I served him diligently and prayed devoutly that he might show me the secret writings of that oracle. He willingly handed them over, among which I found the desired work for the sake of which I had gone to that place, and I labored for a very long time. Having obtained it, I returned to my own [lands] with joy. Thence, rendering multifold thanks to the Creator, and at the petition of the most illustrious king, I labored, and studied, and translated it first from Greek into Roman, then into Arabic; for in the beginning, I found it thus in the codex itself. I translated the book of the most skilled Aristotle, in which he responds to the petition of King Alexander in this form."