Alexander the Great

by Robin Lane Fox

  At the age of twenty, with his young friends in exile, Alexander had shown how he needed more practised support for his inheritance, and at once in the theatre at Aigai it had become clear where it might be found. As his father lay dead, first to declare for him was his namesake Alexander, a prince of highland Lyncestis, who put on his breastplate and followed his chosen king into the palace: here was more than the first sign of highland loyalty, for this Alexander was son-in-law of the elderly Antipater, one of Philip's two most respected officers and enough of a baron to create the new king. Such immediate homage was itself suspicious, and the Lyncestian's link by marriage foundered on other doubts; the sequence of events cannot be dated, but soon after Alexander had been welcomed his two brothers were killed on a charge of sharing in Philip's murder.

  Round Lyncestian Alexander, not for the last time, the ties of two Macedonian families seem to have conflicted, until he had to choose between his brothers and his marriage; possibly, his homage was swift because he knew of his brothers' plottings, and yet his link with Antipater's family sufficed to keep him straight. All three brothers were sons of a man with the Lyncestian name of Aeropus, and nearly two years earlier an Aeropus is known to have clashed with Philip and been sent into exile for the trivial offence, it was said, of dallying with a flute-girl instead of appearing on parade. Possibly, two of his sons had sworn revenge for their father but failed to enlist a brother who had married away from them. Instead they may have joined in Pausanias's plot where they perhaps were the men who had waited with his horses: perhaps, but enemies' accusations are never proof of guilt, and the two Lyncestian brothers may have been rivals rather than murderers. To Alexander's supporters the distinction was hardly important; a faint trail of friends and relations suggests that their arrests were as justified as past Macedonian history made them seem.

  When Philip died, wrote a biographer four hundred years after the event, 'Macedonia was scarred and looking to the sons of Aeropus together with Amyntas', and Amyntas's past suggests this informed guess may be correct. Amyntas, former child-heir to the kingdom, had recently been married by Philip to a wife who was half Illyrian. This may have helped to link him with the north-western tribe of Lyncestians and like Alexander he could point to a grandmother of Lyncestian blood. Only two more facts can be ascribed to him, both of them tantalizing; at some date, possibly in his early youth, he had probably travelled in central Greece and visited the famous cave of Trophonius, where he would have gone through an elaborate ceremonial before braving the descent to question its oracle and offering a gift, as an inscription suggests, on his own behalf. Remarkably, he was recorded as 'king of the Macedonians', possibly because he had retained his title when Philip supplanted him, possibly because his visit had occurred when Philip was still his regent. He reappears as Macedonian representative for a disputed frontier town, also in Boeotia; this honour was shared by another Macedonian who defected to Persia at Alexander's accession. This coincidence is probably irrelevant to their loyalties in 336 as their joint honour was granted at least two, maybe ten, years earlier. But another dedication from the shrine of the

  same frontier town names a Greek contemporary, most probably a general from Thessaly who is known to have fought in Philip's advance force before he too defected to Persia. It is unsound to use these local inscriptions to link the two defectors with 'king' Amyntas. Maybe his friends were the two Lyncestian brothers who championed him, perhaps, as a king more suited to their tribe. But the defectors may have been dislodged differently, perhaps by the next coup, directed against the advance force in which one, maybe two, served. However, another Lyncestian defected too, perhaps the son of one of the suspect brothers. The links, therefore, between Amyntas, the Lyncestians and defection remain unclear, though these Macedonians' willingness to fight against their countrymen is proof of the affair's gravity.

  Against Amyntas, Alexander took the traditional action, but it is not known exactly when he took it; Philip's death cannot be dated to any one summer month, although July is a sound guess, and Alexander's accession is only known to have been settled before October. Throughout those three months his baronial enemies may well have been turbulent; as quickly as possible he had the two Lyncestians executed; and, presumably soon afterwards, he had his rival Amyntas killed too, although his death cannot be dated more closely than within ten months of Philip's murder. There may have been a chase, there must have been drama, and these three deaths were only one side to the story.

  Even without this 'king' Amyntas, Alexander was still exposed on two different fronts and required to appeal to three separate groups; the army and commoners in Macedonia, the palace nobles, and the advance force of some ten thousand men away in Asia. The main lines of opposition all now met in the three high commanders cut off in Asia, a convenience if Alexander acted swiftly in their absence. One was the baron Attalus, whose interest in palace intrigue was directed through his niece Eurydice and her infant son. Another was also an Amyntas, probably son of one of the offending Lyncestians; the third was Parmenion, over sixty years old and the most respected general in the kingdom. 'The Athenians elect ten generals every year,' Philip was once rumoured to have said, 'but I have only ever found one: Parmenion.' With Antipater already on his side, Alexander only needed one of the other two marshals, and as there could be no dealings with Attalus, committed to the family of Philip's second wife and loathed for his past remarks that Alexander was no longer a proper heir, he would have to turn hopefully to Parmenion. But two family ties were pulling the elderly general away from Alexander's ambitions; his daughter was married to Attalus, and his son Philotas was known for his friendship with 'king' Amyntas, one reason perhaps why he 38 had stood at the edge, not the centre, of Alexander's young circle of friends.

  Alexander had one advantage, and he used it decisively: unlike his main enemies, he was at home in Macedonia with the court and the troops. Before Attalus could upset him, he gave orders for the execution of his stepbrother, Eurydice's infant son; he spared the women and the halfwitted Arrhidaeus, because nobody would ever rule through them, and thereupon he presented himself to the army as the one determined heir. The government, he told them, was changing only in name and Philip's example would remain in all things; there would, however, be a brief cut in taxation, and so his father's army accepted him despite their doubts. He was secure at home, and could organize Philip's funeral to please Philip's men. Philip would lie in state behind the bronze studded doors and pillared facade of a Macedonian mausoleum near the ancient palace of Aigai, home of the royal dynasty. By tradition, his funeral games would include armed duels among warriors and perhaps the killing of the nobles accused as his murderers; then, the army would be purified by ancient ritual, being led by Alexander between two halves of a dog's corpse. The ritual would bind them to him, and if 'king' Amyntas had not yet been seized it was becoming plain that his hopes were unfounded. One of Philip's most practised diplomats was also put to death, perhaps for their sake; the army were indifferent to the family murders which marked the start of every reign.

  From Asia, the outlook seemed far less fair than before. Attalus had lost his niece's baby, the only prince in his family; the elder statesmen were in peril, Olympias was returning and the troops had been wooed away by Alexander's promises. Attalus was popular with his own men, and cut off in Asia, he could only wait. It is uncertain how many months he waited, but soon, said his enemies, he received a letter from Athens, suggesting a common rebellion; he turned the letter in to Alexander, too glib a proof of his innocence, and Alexander seized his chance. Persuading a party of his newly won soldiery that Attalus was dangerous, he gave them a Greek friend as leader and ordered them to go cast and arrest him, or kill him if he struggled. This Greek, Hecataeus, was a crucial supporter; later a friend of Antipater, he may have been the elderly marshal's first contribution to Alexander's reign. He led the way to the Hellespont where he ruled as local tyrant, crossed into Asia, and when Attalus struggled, put him
to death. The one man who still mattered watched the coup with most welcome indifference; Parmenion allowed his son-in-law Attalus to go to his death, preferring the cause of his own three sons who were trapped at a court secured against him. Others fled to the Persian high command, but a Greek, a Lyncestian and a senior Macedonian were no loss beside the gain of Parmenion.

  With the death of Attalus, the first phase of Alexander's accession ended. His mother and his close friends could return, and with the highland tribes, he could compromise through his new clique of courtiers; the Lyncestians saw their Alexander favoured: the Orestids could look to a link with Epirote Olympias and the honour of three Orestid nobles as Alexander's intimate Companions; from Eordaea came two boyhood friends and future bodyguards; Elimea saw her nobility rise with Attalus's fall and an Elimiot, perhaps, favoured as one of Alexander's returning friends: the elderly king of the Tymphiots pledged support, helped by young Tymphiot nobles whom Parmenion would soon befriend. Each hill kingdom had its representative for the future, and over them all Parmenion and Antipater were wielding the same influence as before. And yet, on considering their king, there were those in the army who doubted him.

  It is hard not to form a picture of Alexander; Alexander marching through the Libyan desert to put his mysterious questions to the oracle at Siwah, Alexander receiving the captive Persian queen and her daughters, or Alexander drunk, spearing an insolent Companion in a moment of blind passion. It is harder to be certain what he looked like, for the only descriptions are posthumous, and cither designed to suit a view of his character or else derived from his many statues and portraits. Officially, Alexander liked to control these, and as an adult he would only sit to be painted by Apelles, sculpted by Lysippus or carved on gems by Pyrgoteles; some originals survive, and others can be recovered from copies, but all are stylized when they are not official, and as Napoleon once remarked 'certes, Alexandre n'a jamais pose devant Apelles'. There is none which shows him warts and all.

  There are features, however, which are either too unusual or too commonplace to be artists' fictions. His skin was white on his body, a weathered red on his face; unlike his father and all previous Macedonian kings, he kept his beard clean-shaven, a fashion which enemies called effeminate but which was common among Philip's courtiers and became a precedent for all Alexander's successors. His hair stood up off his brow and fell into a central parting; it framed his face, and grew long and low on his neck, a style which was in sharp contrast to the close-cropped haircut of athletes and soldiers and was already insulted in antiquity as a sign of moral laxity. In Pella's mosaic of a lion hunt he is shown with fair hair and dark eyes and in an early copy of a contemporary painting made for a Roman owner, his dark brown eyes are suitably Latin, while his dark brown hair shows a lighter streak which was more true to life. There is nothing to challenge their evidence although legend later claimed that his left eye was black, his right one blue-green, a double colouring which was meant to suggest a magical power of bewitchment. The liquid intensity of his gaze was famous and undisputed, not least because he believed in it himself; Lysippus the sculptor caught it best, and his Successors would imitate it, not only in their own bearing but also in their portraits of Alexander which exaggerated the eyes and showed them gazing upwards to suggest his acknowledged divinity; with this famous gaze went the turning of the neck and head to one side, stressed in art but also in life, and again, an example for his Successors; it is wrong to explain this as due to a wound, for official artists would not then have emphasized it. As for his body, a pupil of Aristotle said that he was particularly sweet-smelling, so much so that his clothes were scented; this may be a compliment to his divinity, for sweet scent was the mark of a god, but more probably, the comment referred to his suspect liking for ointments and sweet spices.

  Like his father, he was a very handsome young man. His nose, as statues and paintings stress, was straight; his forehead was prominent and his chin short but jutting; his mouth revealed emotion, and the lips were often shown curling. But art could not convey his general manner, and for his subjects that was more important. He walked and spoke fast, and so therefore, did his Successors; by contemporaries, he was believed to be lion-like in appearance and often in temper, and for a young man of streaming hair and penetrating gaze the comparison was apt, the more so as he had been born under the sign of Leo and was best known from the portraits on his coins, which showed him in the lionskin cap of his ancestor Heracles, a headdress he may have worn in everyday life. Later, the comparison was overdone, and his hair would be said to be tawny and even his teeth to be sharp like a lion cub's.

  The problem, however, is his height, for no painting betrays it, any more than a Van Dyck reveals the smallness of Charles I. Certainly, he was smaller than Hephaistion, the man he loved, and he may well have been smaller than almost anyone else; when he sat on the throne of the Persian king, he required a table, not a stool, for his feet, and although the throne was designed to be high, this suggests a definite shortness of leg. His only measurement is given in the fictitious Romance of Alexander, where he is said to have been three cubits, or four feet six inches high; this surely cannot be correct, nor can it confirm his historical smallness, although legend liked to play on the theme that the world's great conqueror was reduced to a mere three cubits of earth. Only in German myth was Alexander remembered as king of the dwarfs, and it would perhaps be rash to explain his ambition on the assumption that he was unusually small. Physically, however, Alexander had inherited all of his father's toughness against wounds and climate.

  To his Macedonians this new king would have seemed, above all else, young. His long hair, fresh clean-shaven skin and nervous energy belonged to the very essence of youth, and there was little enough in his past to imply that audacity would now be tempered with discretion. Two years before, he had galloped at the head of the cavalry charge which had defeated the army of Philip's Greek enemies, and after the battle he had gone as one of three envoys to Athens, the city which so affected his later politics in Greece. He had served with his father on a march to the Danube and two years before that, at the age of sixteen, he had held the seal of the kingdom while his father was away at Byzantium. Most notably, he had led an army to victory against a turbulent Thracian tribe and founded his first city, Alexandropolis, to commemorate this dashing success. There was decided promise in such behaviour, but more than promise was needed if Philip's inheritance was to be held together.

  The tribes of Illyria threatened to north and west; to the east, Philip's many new cities could hardly suffice to hold down Thrace along the banks of the Danube and the shore of the distant Black Sea. The advance army, split by a quarrel, had begun to be hard pressed in Asia; to the south, there were few Greek states who did not see the death of their allied leader as the start of a new independence. Troubles within Macedonia had been settled with such speed and ruthlessness that the highlands had not, after all, deserted and Philip's two most respected generals had ignored their families to pledge support. But Olympias was back, and never peaceable. It may be significant that Alexander's two most trusted Macedonians, Perdiccas and Craterus, came from Orestis, the hill kingdom once closest, politically, to Olympias's own. There is reason to suppose that his intimate friend and future historian, Ptolemy, was born in Orestis too. If so, Alexander's personal clique may have drawn heavily on friendships derived from his mother, and after his mother's possible role in Philip's murder, these allegiances might not be to every courtier's taste. The deeper question of the new king's abilities remained, and an answer could only be gleaned from memories of his earlier years; men would be looking backwards, and in search of Alexander, it is time to turn in that direction too.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Born in an age when biography had not developed, Alexander is fortunate in the lack of detail for his early years. If children find childhood a time of boredom, the same is seldom true of their biographers, for nowadays, childhood is seen as a source of so much that follows
and there may be lasting significance in the experiences of youth. In antiquity there was no psychological theory, and not until Augustine would a man write memoirs which treated the child as father of the man. Life's perspective was reversed, and youth was mostly described through a series of anecdotes which falsely mirrored the feats of the adult future; proven kings or bishops were remembered as kings or bishops when young, and so it was said of the boy Alexander, future conqueror of Persia, that he had once astonished Persian ambassadors to his father's court by precocious questions about their roads and resources. Such stories are no less suspect for being fashionable. At least three of Alexander's historians had grown up with him, and one wrote a book on his upbringing; another may have been connected with his first literary teacher, but none of their works survives, and Alexander's youth is left mostly to romance and fancy, to three famous figures, his mother, his horse and his tutor who have inspired a world of legend of their own.

  Alexander was born son of Philip and Olympias in 356 B.C., at a time when his father's expansion to north, south and east was already proving diplomatic and extremely profitable. Three different dates are given for the day of his birth; accurate records for birthdays are a modem addition to history, and indeed it had once seemed strange to the Greeks that the Persians should celebrate their birthdays at all, but in Alexander's case, the disagreement was not only due to ignorance. Of the three dates mid-July, on or near 20 July, is the most plausible; one of his officers later vouched for a date in October, but this may be a confusion with his official birthday, which came to be celebrated, as in Persia, on the date of his accession. The third date, 6 July, reflects a different fashion, for the day was sacred to Artemis, goddess of childbirth and hence especially auspicious. In the same spirit, it could be said that Alexander's birth coincided with the fire that destroyed the goddess's great temple at Ephesus, because she was away supervising Alexander's arrival and had left her temple to chance, a fact which caused her Oriental priests to prophesy the birth of disaster for Asia's peoples.