Alexander of Macedon, conqueror of empires, traveled beyond the known world and arrived at a place called Afriki — a kingdom in the far south. He had come, as he came everywhere, hunting gold.
The local king received him with unsettling courtesy. Alexander was seated, and a platter was brought in. On the platter was food — bread, meat, fruit — but every item was made of gold. Alexander stared.
"Do you expect me to eat gold?"
The king replied evenly: "If you wanted food, you could have eaten in your own country. You came here only for gold. So I serve you what you came for."
The Trial of the Buried Treasure
While Alexander was still chewing on that rebuke, a case came before the king's court. A man had bought a field from a neighbor and, while plowing, had found a treasure buried in it. He was now trying to return the treasure to the seller. The seller refused. "I sold you the field and everything in it. The treasure is yours."
The king considered. Then he ruled: the buyer had a son. The seller had a daughter. The treasure would serve as the daughter's dowry, and the two young people would marry. The wealth would stay in both families, and no one would be robbed.
Alexander could not contain himself. "In my country," he admitted, "the king would have confiscated the treasure and executed both men."
Why the Sun Still Shines on Macedonia
The local king looked at him coldly. "Does the sun still shine in your country? Does the rain still fall?"
"Yes," said Alexander.
"Then the sun shines and the rain falls for the sake of the animals in your kingdom — not for the sake of the human beings."
This exempla, collected in Gaster's 1924 anthology from the Ma'aseh Book, reads Alexander's empire as a system that had forfeited its right to human dignity. The sun still warms Macedonia, but not for its people. Only because innocent creatures live there too.