Philip of Macedon married Olympias, the daughter of the king of Epirus,
who traced his descent up to Achilles. She was beautiful, but fierce and
high-spirited; and the first time Philip saw her she was keeping the
feast of Bacchus, and was dancing fearlessly among great serpents, which
twisted about among the maidens' vine-wreathed staves, their baskets of
figs, and even the ivy crowns on their heads. Her wild beauty charmed
him, and he asked her in marriage as soon as he had gained the throne.
The son of this marriage, Alexander, was born at Pella in 356. On the
same day a great battle was won by Parmenio, Philip's chief general, and
the king's horses won the prize at the Olympic games. Philip was so
prosperous that he declared he must sacrifice to the gods, or they would
be jealous, and cast him down in the midst of his happiness. That same
night the wonder of the world, the temple of Diana at Ephesus, was burnt
down by a madman named Erostratus, who thought the deed would make him
for ever famous. It was built up again more splendidly than ever, and
the image was saved.
[Picture: Diana of Ephesus] The chief physician at Philip's court was
Aristotle, a Macedonian of Stagyra, who had studied under Plato, and was
one of the greatest and best of philosophers; and Philip wrote to him at
once that he rejoiced not only in having a son, but in his having been
born when he could have Aristotle for a tutor. For seven years, however,
the boy was under the care of a noble lady named Lanika, whom he loved
all his life, and then was placed with a master, who taught him to repeat
the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ from end to end. He delighted in them so much
that he always carried a copy about with him, and constantly dreamt of
equalling his great forefather Achilles.
When he was about thirteen, a magnificent black horse called Bucephalus,
or Bull-head, because it had a white mark like a bull's face on its
forehead, was brought to Philip; but it was so strong and restive that
nobody could manage it, and Philip was sending it away, when Alexander
begged leave to try to tame it. First he turned its head to the sun,
having perceived that its antics were caused by fear of its own shadow;
then stroking and caressing it as he held the reins, he gently dropped
his fluttering mantle and leaped on its back, sitting firm through all
its leaps and bounds, but using neither whip nor spur nor angry voice,
till at last the creature was brought to perfect obedience. This gentle
courage and firmness so delighted Philip that he embraced the boy with
tears of joy, and gave him the horse, which, as long as it lived, loved
and served him like no one else. Philip also said that such a boy might
be treated as a man, and therefore put him under Aristotle three years
earlier than it was usual to begin philosophy; and again he was an apt
and loving scholar, learning great wisdom in dealing with men and things,
and, in truth, learning everything but how to control his temper.
At the battle of Chaeronea, Alexander was old enough to command the
division which fought against the Thebans, and entirely overthrew them;
so that when peace was made, Sparta was the only city that refused to own
the superior might of Macedon, and the Council of the States chose Philip
as commander of the Greeks in the grand expedition he was going to
undertake against Persia.
But Philip had eastern vices. He was tired of Olympias' pride and
wilfulness, and took another wife, whom he raised to the position of
queen; and at the banquet a half-tipsy kinsman of this woman insulted
Alexander, who threw a cup at the man. Philip started up to chastise his
son, but, between rage and wine, fell down, while Alexander said, "See, a
man preparing to cross from Europe to Asia cannot step safely from one
couch to another!"
Then he took his mother to her native home, and stayed away till his
father sent for him, but kept him in a kind of disgrace, until at the
wedding feast of Alexander's sister Cleopatra with the king of Epirus,
just as Philip came forward in a white garment, a man darted forward and
thrust a sword through his body, then fled so fast that he would have
escaped if his foot had not been caught in some vine stocks, so that the
guards cut him to pieces.
Alexander was proclaimed king, at only twenty years old; and Demosthenes
was so delighted at the death of the enemy of Athens, that he wreathed
his head with a garland in token of joy, little guessing that Philip's
murder had only placed a far greater man on the throne. The first thing
Alexander did was to go to Corinth, and get himself chosen in his
father's stead captain-general of the Greeks. Only the Spartans refused,
saying it was their custom to lead, and not to follow; while the
Athenians pretended to submit, meaning to take the first opportunity of
breaking off the yoke. Before Alexander could march, however, to Persia,
he had to leave all safe behind him; so he turned northwards to subdue
the wild tribes in Thrace. He was gone four months, and the Greeks heard
nothing of him, so that the Thebans thought he must be lost, and
proclaimed that they were free from the power of Macedon.
Their punishment was terrible. Alexander came back in haste, fought them
in their own town, hunted them from street to street, killed or made
slaves of all who had not been friends of his father, pulled down all the
houses, and divided the lands between the other Boeotian cities. This
was for the sake of making an example of terror; but he afterwards
regretted this act, and, as Bacchus was the special god of Thebes, he
thought himself punished by the fits of rage that seized him after any
excess in wine. The other Greeks, all but the Spartans, again sent
envoys to meet Alexander at Corinth, and granted him all the men, stores,
and money he asked for. The only person who did not bow down to him was
Diogenes, a philosopher who so exaggerated Stoicism that he was called
the "Mad Socrates." His sect were called Cynics, from Cyon, a dog,
because they lived like dogs, seldom washing, and sleeping in any hole.
Diogenes' lair was a huge earthenware tub, that belonged to the temple of
the mother of the gods, Cybele; and here Alexander went to see him, and
found him basking in the sun before it, but not choosing to take any
notice of the princely youth who addressed him--"I am Alexander the
King."
"And I am Diogenes the Cynic," was the answer, in a tone as if he thought
himself quite as good as the king. Alexander, however, talked much with
him, and ended by asking if he could do anything for him.
"Only stand out of my sunshine," was the answer; and as the young king
went away he said, "If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes;"
meaning, perhaps, that if he were not to master all earthly things, he
would rather despise them. Twelve years later, Diogenes, then past
ninety, was found dead in his tub, having supped the night before upon
the raw leg of an ox; and, strangely enough, it was the very night that
Alexander died.
[Picture: Alexander] Alexander was going on with his preparations for
conquering the East. He had 12,000 foot soldiers from Macedon, trained
to fight in the terrible phalanx, and 5000 horsemen; also his own
bodyguard of young nobles, bred up with him at Pella; 7000 men from the
Greek states, and 5000 who had been used, like the 10,000 of Xenophon, to
hire themselves out to the Persians, and thus knew the languages,
manners, roads, and ways of fighting in the East; but altogether he had
only 34,500 men with which to attack the empire which stretched from the
AEgean to Scythia, from the Euxine to the African deserts. Such was his
liberality in gifts before he went away, that when he was asked what he
had left for himself, he answered, "My hopes;" and his hope was not
merely to conquer that great world, but to tame it, bring it into order,
and teach the men there the wisdom and free spirit of the Greek world;
for he had learnt from Aristotle that to make men true, brave, virtuous,
and free was the way to be godlike. It was in his favour that the direct
line of Persian kings had failed, and that there had been wars and
factions all through the last reign. The present king was Codomanus, a
grand-nephew of that Artaxerxes against whom Cyrus had led the ten
thousand. He had come to the throne in 336, the same year as Alexander,
and was known as Darius, the royal name he had taken. Alexander made his
father's counsellor, Antipater, governor of Macedon in his absence, and
took leave of his mother and his home in the spring of 334.
[Picture: Bacchanals]