re blocking the sunlight."Р РThere was an amazed silence. Slowly, Alexander turned away. A titter broke out from the elegant Greeks. The Macedonian officers, after deciding that Diogenes was not worth the trouble of kicking, were starting to guffaw and nudge one another. Alexander was still silent. To those nearest him he said quietly, "If I were not Alexander, I should be Diogenes." They took it as a paradox.But Alexander meant it. He understood Cynicism as the others could not.He was what Diogenes called himself, a "citizen of the world." Like Diogenes, he admired the heroic figure of Hercules, who labored to help mankind while all others toiled and sweated only for themselves. He knew that of all men then alive in the world only Alexander the conqueror and Diogenes the beggar were free.