Dio Chrysostom, On Kingship 2.1

It is said that Alexander, while still a lad, was once conversing with Philip his father about Homer in a very manly and lofty strain, their conversation being in effect a discussion of kingship as well. 

For Alexander was already to be found with his father on his campaigns, although Philip tried to discourage him in this. Alexander, however, could not hold himself in, for it was with the lad as with young dogs of fine breed that cannot brook being left behind when their masters go hunting, but follow along, often breaking their tethers to do so. 

It is true that sometimes, because of their youth and enthusiasm, they spoil the sport by barking and starting the game too soon, but sometimes too they bring down the game themselves by bounding ahead. This, in fact, happened to Alexander at the very beginning, so that they say he brought about the battle and victory of Chaeronea​ when his father shrank from taking the risk. 

Now it was on this occasion, when they were at Dium in Pieria on their way home from the campaign and were sacrifi­cing to the Muses and celebrating the Olympic festival,​ which is said to be an ancient institution in that country, that Philip in the course of their conversation put this question to Alexander: "Why, my son, have you become so infatuated with Homer that you devote yourself to him alone of all the poets? You really ought not to neglect the others, for the men are wise." 

And Alexander replied: "My reason, father, is that not all poetry, any more than every style of dress, is appropriate to a king, as it seems to me. Now consider the poems of other men; some I consider to be suitable indeed for the banquet, or for love, or for the eulogy of victorious athletes or horses, or as dirges for the dead, and some as designed to excite laughter or ridicule, like the works of the comic writers and those of the Parian poet.​ 

"And perhaps some of them might be called popular also, in that they give advice and admonition to the masses and to private citizens, as, for instance, the works of Phocylides and Theognis do. What is there in them by which a man could profit, who, like you or me,

aspires to be

The master, over all to domineer. 

"The poetry of Homer, however, I look upon as alone truly noble and lofty and suited to a king, worthy of the attention of a real man, particularly if he expects to rule over all the peoples of the earth—or at any rate over most of them, and those the most prominent—if he is to be, in the strict sense of the term, what Homer calls a 'shepherd of the people.'​ 

"Or would it not be absurd for a king to refuse to use any horse but the best and yet, when it is a question of poets, to read the poorer ones as though he had nothing else to do? On my word, father, I not only cannot endure to hear any other poet recited but Homer, but even object to any other meter than Homer's heroic hexameter."