They say women forget the pain of childbirth. Well, they are in nature's hand. No hand took mine. I was a body of pain in an earth and sky of darknes… - Mary Renault

Now for the first time he realized how important it had been not to admit any alternative to the hard, decent, orthodox choice which need not be regarded as a choice at all; how important not to be different.

There are always men who take their own measure against greatness, and hate it not for what it is, but for what they are. They can envy even the dead. So much Alexander saw. He did not understand, since it was not in him, the power such men have to rouse in others the sleeping envy they once had a decent shame of; to turn respect for excellence into hate. Nor did Kallisthenes understand it in himself. Vanity begets it, vanity covers it up.

He had to do them, to show he was the best.