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THE SYLLABUS Topic A – Alexander the Great

This topic focuses on the life and career of Alexander the Great as seen through the eyes of his biographers.

Candidates will be expected to have a knowledge of the main events of his life, success and relationships,
with a focus on his impact and his legacy.

This topic will develop candidates’ historical analysis skills, requiring them to offer critical evaluation of the
life of Alexander the Great and the character, career and success of Alexander in context.

Candidates will study a selection of biographical works and other sources on Alexander the Great with
particular reference to his:

• family, childhood and upbringing

• campaigns and travels
• military achievements and the reasons for them
• rule of his empire and Persian influences on Alexander
• relationships with others
• attitude towards religion and mythology
• personal and imperial legacy.

Content

Candidates should be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of: Alexander’s family, childhood
and upbringing

• his relationship with, and the influence of, his mother and father
• the effect on Alexander of the relationship between his parents
• the influence of his teachers, especially Aristotle
• his ambitions and attitudes as a young man, as shown by the taming of Bucephalus
• the assassination of his father.

The purpose of Alexander’s campaigns and travels

• the attack on Persia

• his travels to Egypt, especially Siwah
• the march east beyond the Persian Empire
• the crossing of the Gedrosian desert
• his desire to push further east
• his return to Babylon after the Indian campaign.

The reality of Alexander’s military achievements and the reasons for them

• the military achievement of being victorious in every battle

• the battles of Granicus, Issus, Gaugamela, Hydaspes
• the sieges of Tyre, Gaza, the Sogdian Rock and Aornus
• the significance of his strategic and tactical skill
• the role of his personal bravery and leadership
• the role of others in his military achievements
• his army.
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Alexander’s rule of his empire and Persian influences on Alexander

• administration of Macedonia – Antipater as regent

• the League of Corinth
• keeping the structure and administrators of the Persian Empire
• respecting local customs in areas he conquered
• adoption of Persian dress and customs
• his Policy of Fusion
• the intermarriage of Macedonians and Persians, including his own marriages
• the effect of these policies on his men.

Alexander’s relationships with others

Alexander’s relationship with and treatment of:

• Friends:
– his lifelong friendship with Hephaestion
– his reliance on his friends, such as Ptolemy and Seleucus
– the murder of Cleitus
– the executions of Callisthenes, Philotas and Parmenio

• His men:
– the change in his relationship with his men from ‘first among equals’ to Persian style monarchy
– opposition to his policies

• Enemies:
– respect for enemies such as Darius III and Porus
– harsh treatment of opponents such as Thebes and Tyre.

Alexander’s attitude towards religion and mythology and his personal reputation

• his belief in his own divinity

• the use of oracles and omens
• his supposed descent from Heracles, Perseus and Achilles
• his attempts to outdo heroes of the past
• pothos events
• his portrayal on coins
• his use of Lysippos as ‘court sculptor’.

Alexander’s personal and imperial legacy

• the reasons for the title ‘the Great’

• the legacy of his military successes
• his influence on later leaders
• his portrayal in art, such as his sarcophagus and the House of the Faun mosaic
• the collapse of his empire
• the establishment of the Hellenistic kingdoms
• the spread of Greek culture throughout the Eastern Mediterranean.
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Sources for study:

Literary sources
Arrian The Campaigns of Alexander Books 2, 3, 7
Plutarch Life of Alexander

Teachers are free to use any complete translation of the literary sources. The literary sources are available in
Penguin Classics editions and may also be found in several paperback collections.

Visual and material sources

Images of Alexander

• mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii (Museo Archeologico Nazionali, Naples)
• the Alexander sarcophagus (Archaeology Museums, Istanbul)
• Marble copy of head of Alexander from a statue by Lysippos

Images of Alexander on coins

• silver decadrachm of Alexander c.324 BCE

• silver tetradrachm (Lysimachus) showing Alexander with horns, Zeus Ammon and Athena

Candidates will be expected to understand the nature of the visual and material sources, and the problems
in their use as evidence.
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PHILIP OF MACEDONIA - Notes taken from Livius.org

According to the Greek historian

Theopompus of Chios, Europe had
never seen a man like king Philip of
Macedonia, and he called his history
of the mid-fourth century BCE the
Philippic History. Theopompus had a
point. Not even his better-known son
Alexander has done so much to
change the course of Greek history.
Philip reorganized his kingdom, gave
it access to the sea, expanded its
power so that it could defeat the
Achaemenid Empire, and subdued
the Greek city-states, which never
regained their independence again.
To achieve this, he modernized the
Macedonian economy, improved the
army, and concluded several marital
alliances. The result was a
superpower with one weakness: it
was as strong as its king. When
Philip's son Alexander died, the
institutions were too weak, and
Macedonia never recovered.

When Philip was born in 382,

Macedonia was not a very strong power. The historian Arrian of Nicomedia says that the Macedonians were
"wandering about without resources, many of them clothed in sheepskins and pasturing small flocks in the
mountains, defending them with difficulty against the Illyrians, Triballians and neighbouring Thracians". This
is exaggerated, but it is true that king Amyntas III, Philip's father, found it difficult to defend his country
against its neighbors, and more or less had to lease his own kingdom from the Illyrians.

In 370, Amyntas died and was succeeded by Philip's elder brother Alexander II, who was forced to send his
brother as a hostage to the Illyrians, and later, as a hostage to Thebes. Philip would use this time wisely and
study the Theban systems of warfare. Meanwhile, king Alexander II had been assassinated by and succeeded
his brother Perdiccas III, who was one year older than Philip, but still too young to be king. Ptolemaeus was
his regent. In 365, when Perdiccas was old enough, he became king, and immediately killed Ptolemaeus.
Philip returned to Macedonia, which was still a weak kingdom.

Yet, the seeds of change had been sown. Alexander had reorganized the Macedonian phalanx; Philip arrived
with new military and political knowledge, and Perdiccas knew how to play the diplomatic game. He was
forced by the Athenians to cooperate with them in an attempt to conquer the city of Amphipolis, and
indeed, Perdiccas did fight together with the Athenian commander Timotheus, but once Amphipolis had
been captured, he kept it for himself and broke off the alliance with Athens.

Amphipolis was important. It controlled the river Strymon, which passed along strategically important
forests with high trees, necessary for anyone who wanted to build a ship. The city also controlled the road
from Macedonia to Thrace. And, the most important thing: there were gold mines. As long as Macedonia
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had Amphipolis, it had the resources to build up an army and it could blackmail any sea power. Immediately,
Perdiccas invited the Athenian Callistratus to reform the Macedonian economy and toll system. However,
the king was not to see the results of his work, because in the last weeks of 360, his army was defeated by
the Illyrian king Bardylis. Perdiccas and 4,000 others died in action.

Perdiccas left a very young son, Amyntas, and Philip became regent. Immediately, Athens opened secret
negotiations and offered to support him when he established his throne, and asked him to give up
Amphipolis. Philip replied to this overture by removing the garrison from Amphipolis, which was now
independent again. At the same time, he paid the Thracians and Paeonians, which gave him the rest he
needed. This temporizing diplomacy paid off. In 359, he recruited and trained a new army, and in the spring
of 358 he was ready to strike. The Paeonians were subdued and would never be independent again. In the
summer, Bardylis had to face the new Macedonian army, and saw how his own men were massacred. The
mines of Damastion were from now on Macedonian.

To recap on this, Anthony Everitt writes as follows :

“Philip was appointed regent to his nephew, Perdiccas’s infant son. Immediately he gave a master class of
coolness under fire and tactical brilliance. Realizing that he could not defeat all his enemies at once, he
placed them in a line and dealt with them one at a time. He married the daughter of Bardylis, the Illyrian
king, bribed the Paeonians not to invade his kingdom, and suborned the Thracians not merely to abandon
the Macedonian pretender, but to put him to death.

Philip then tricked the Athenians into holding back their expeditionary force by promising to hand over to
them a prosperous coastal port, then ambushed their now isolated claimant and had him killed. The
energetic regent soon persuaded the Macedonian assembly to advance him to the kingship. He was not
cruel, but he was ruthless, and undeviatingly so, when his own survival was at stake. Learning from
Archelaus and other royal ancestors that safety called for bloody hands, he eliminated his three
stepbrothers, although he only caught up with two of them some years later. Seeing no threat from the
infant king, he did not touch him and brought him up at court: a rare case of a royal child surviving.

Philip had not the slightest intention of keeping any of his promises. After a year had passed, he invaded
Paeonia, inflicted a terminal defeat, and annexed it. Turning almost at once to Illyria, he won a stunning
victory. His father-in-law, Bardylis, now over ninety years old, met his death in the field and seven thousand
enemy soldiers also lost their lives. Perdiccas was avenged. More to the point, Philip had wrested back
control of Upper Macedonia. His kingdom was united again.

He now ruled over a large and settled territory. Like his recent predecessors, he faced the challenge of
transforming his role from that of the Homeric leader of an unruly war band to that of a head of
government.”
Immediately, Philip (who had probably accepted money from the king of Persia but needed no
encouragement anyhow) captured Amphipolis. The inhabitants were treated kindly, although Philip ordered
several people to be exiled and placed a garrison in the city. He now promised to give up his new conquest if
the Athenians would give him Pydna, an important port. The Athenians listened to the offer, but Philip
understood that they were not capable of fighting two wars at the same time, and he decided to keep both
cities. From now on, everyone in Greece understood that for the first time in history, the Macedonians were
united, possessed money and an army, and were led by a capable leader.

In the same year 357, Philip married Olympias, the daughter of the king of the Molossians, a nation living
between the Greeks, Macedonians, and Illyrians. He also married a Macedonian princess named Phila of
Elymiotis (a district in the west) and Audata of Illyria. The three marriages secured Macedonia's western
border. When the winter came, Olympias was pregnant, and Philip, now king for three years, could already
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look back upon a very successful reign. The Thracian frontier was safe now that he had conquered
Amphipolis; in the north, the Paeonians had been subdued; in the northwest, the Illyrians were decisively
defeated; in the west, the Molossians were his allies; he had obtained mines and had given Macedonia its
first access to the sea, Pydna. But this was only the beginning.

Philip had not wasted his time when he was a hostage in Thebes. He realized the base of power was a strong
army, and set about organizing a force on a scale that had not been seen in the area for decades. By 358 BC
he could field 10 000 infantry and 600 cavalry. By the time he fought at Chaeronea in 338 BC he had 30 000
infantry and 2 000 cavalry.

The cavalry was the elite of the army. Many were from
the nobility, and were personal friends of the King, and
served him with devotion, but Philip also allowed new
men, who had been given lands and titles in conquered
territory to join the cavalry. The cavalry was known as
The Companions.

His infantry was organized into phalanges, and armed

with the sarissa, a pike some 5.5 metres in length, with a
sword for closer fighting. They carried a small shield
made of bronze, supported with a leather strap round
their necks. The sarissa allowed a greater striking reach
not only for those in the front row of the phalanx, but
even in the fifth row. It was weighted at the back to
balance it and allow the men to hold it steady. The men
were highly trained, and the sarissa proved a formidable
weapon. An attacking army had to launch itself against a
bristling hedge of spears, enough to daunt even the
bravest warrior, and an effective deterrent against a
cavalry attack.
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Even more significant was the use of new battle tactics. Philip introduced a new concept, training his men to
lock their shields, so they could march into battle obliquely, so the enemy could
not engage the whole army at one time.

Philip seized
rich gold mines
and trading ports, such as those at Mt Pangeas and Pydna, establishing a strong economy and steadily
unifying Macedonia. He encouraged agriculture and trade, planned new towns, establishing drainage and
irrigation works, and building a fleet.

The wealth generated by all this made it possible for Macedonia to mint both gold and silver coins.

As a military leader, Philip was quite exceptional, establishing the concept of leadership in his son Alexander.
Philip led from the front in battle, and marched with his army. He reduced the size of his baggage train, as
his men carried their own weapons and rations. His army was fast, light and mobile. He also introduced the
concept of total defeat.

In the past, the victor kept the battlefield, while the defeated side retired. Philip pursued and killed as many
of the retreating enemy as was possible. He was brave and confident, an inspiration to his men. He was
often wounded, losing an eye at the siege of Medone in 354 BC, when he was struck by an arrow.

Philip, Athens, and the Peace of Philocrates

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Because of the Atheniansʹ vested interest in Chalcidice, their tense relations with Philip dated back to the
beginning of his reign. In 359, Philip had induced Athens to withdraw its support from his rival, Argaeus, by
promising to restore Amphipolis to its authority. The Athenians quickly learned, however, that their trust in
Philipʹs promises had been misplaced. Philip needed Amphipolitan land to reward his supporters; moreover,
its strategic location near the mouth of the Strymon River made the city too significant to turn over to
Athens. Two years later, in 357, Philip himself occupied Amphipolis after a brief siege. The rapidity with
which Philipʹs new siege engines broke through Amphipolisʹ defences gave the Greeks a vivid demonstration
of the effectiveness of his new engineering corps.

Relations worsened a year later when Philip also captured Athensʹ principal remaining Macedonian allies,
Pydna and Methone, as well as Potidaea. In so doing, he eliminated the main centres of Athenian influence
in the Chalcidice and on the coasts of the Gulf of Therma. Though many Athenians wanted to fight Philip,
and in fact the city declared war, circumstances prevented Athens from mounting serious military operations
in the north Aegean.

Athensʹ slow recovery from the economic devastation caused by the Peloponnesian War restrained the
ambitions of all fourth‐century Athenian politicians. Financial resources had to be carefully husbanded. Early
in the 350s this meant that Athens ignored Philipʹs actions in northern Greece to focus its efforts on coping
with the threat to the Second Athenian League caused by the outbreak of the Social War in 357. Athenian
foreign policy was further constrained by an important political innovation of the 350s.

Until this time, surpluses from the annual government budgets had been channelled into a fund normally
devoted to military expenditures. Eubulus (c. 405‐c. 335 BC), however, the leading politician of this era,
persuaded the Athenians to pass a law assigning all surplus instead to what is known as the Theoric Fund; he
himself served as one of the commissioners of the Fund. Some of this Fund was to be used for projects such
as repairing roads and fortifications. The rest was earmarked for distribution to Athenian citizens at religious
festivals; the Fund received its name from the ʺtheatrical ʺ performances that played a key role in these
celebrations. By mitigating the poverty of Athensʹ neediest citizens, this arrangement reduced tensions
between rich and poor. For good reason, the orator Demades called it ʺthe glue of the democracy ʺ. The
Theoric Fund also, of course, encouraged a pacifist foreign policy. Before, the poorer classes might expect to
benefit from war, during which they would be paid to row in the fleet, whereas those who had more were
sometimes inclined to protect what they had by voting against military involvements. After the
establishment of the Theoric Fund, however, this changed, since the outbreak of war would require that
funds be redirected to military operations, and the level of the populaces‘ benefits would be reduced.
Eubulusʹ keen interest in finances had dramatic results. Under his stewardship, Athenian revenues rose from
130 talents to 400, enabling Athens to construct new triremes and improve the docks and fortifications.
Work at the neglected silver mines at Laurium was renewed and new inducements lured additional metics to
Attica. (A metic was a resident of Athens who did not qualify for citizenship, and so played no part in the
democratic system of government). The wealth of individual citizens grew with that of the state. This
situation makes it easy to understand why for most of the decade the Athenians confined their response to
Philipʹs actions to desultory raids into Macedonian territory that were little more than nuisances. Only the
threat of possible direct military intervention by Philip in central Greece induced them to take stronger
action.

With a Macedonian invasion of Attica seemingly imminent, the Athenians dispatched a large expeditionary
force in 352 to occupy Thermopylae, to block the Macedonian advance. The motion was made by a close
associate of Eubulus. In such a crisis, concern for Athensʹ security clearly overrode any scruples Eubulus and
his supporters may have had about dipping into the Theoric Fund. Otherwise, however, Athens failed utterly
to hinder the Macedonian kingʹs growing influence in northern and central Greece
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Athensʹ actions in the early 340s were similarly ineffective. When Olynthus, increasingly suspicious of Philipʹs
growing power, abandoned its alliance with the Macedonian king and sought to make peace with Athens,
Philip turned on his former ally. Athensʹ response to Olynthusʹ desperate appeals for help were too little, and
too late. The Athenians could only watch in dismay when, in 348, Philip captured the city, razed it, and
carried off its citizens to become slaves in Macedon. Worse, he dismantled the Chalcidic League, Macedonʹs
only potential Greek rival in the north Aegean. Athensʹ restraint in the face of Philipʹs growing power was
prudent. Nevertheless, its inability to regain Amphipolis or to aid its erstwhile allies was humiliating. Not
surprisingly, proponents of a more aggressive Athenian policy toward Macedon became more insistent in
their demands.

The most prominent of these politicians was Demosthenes. (Image on the left)
The most famous orator of the Greek world, Demosthenes acquired such a
reputation for eloquence that the Roman statesman Cicero named his
speeches against Mark Antony ʺPhilippicsʺ after the orations in which
Demosthenes had sought to rouse the Athenians against Philip. Demosthenes
had entered politics initially as a supporter of Eubulus. By 351, however, he had
become disenchanted with Eubulusʹ policies and consequently began to forge a
new political identity for himself. In the famous First Philippic, Demosthenes
revealed his new views by vigorously attacking Philip and berating the
Athenians for their sluggish response to the danger he posed to Athens.
Simultaneously, he urged the Athenians to vote for the establishment and
support of a strong naval force to conduct the desired war. Demosthenes
continued to advocate resistance to Philip in subsequent years. Still, even he
recognized that the fall of Olynthus, combined with Philipʹs triumph in the
Sacred War and the defection of the vital Athenian naval base of Euboea, made peace imperative if Athens
was to avoid total disaster.

The Athenian politician Philocrates negotiated peace with Philip in the summer of 346. The process of
negotiating the treaty and securing its approval by the Athenian assembly was both complex and
contentious. Because the Peace of Philocrates quickly collapsed amidst bitter dispute over the responsibility
for its negotiation, much remains unclear about the details of the diplomacy that produced it. The terms of
the treaty, however, allow no doubt about its meaning. Faced with the unpalatable alternatives of
continuing the war with Macedon or accepting the humiliating terms offered by Philip, Athens chose the
latter.

Athens
 publicly renounced its long-cherished claim to Amphipolis
 accepted the exclusion of its Phocian and Thracian allies from the protection of the treaty
 and agreed that the city and the remnants of the Second Athenian League would become
permanent allies of Philip and his descendants.

Athensʹ impotence in the face of growing Macedonian power and influence in Greece was now revealed for
all to see. But the defiance of Athens did not end there, and Alexander would have to deal with this later.

Philip was a sensible diplomat and this is seen in his creation of the League of Corinth. This was set up in 338
and clearly intended by Philip to control Greece. Following his success at Chaeronea, Philip forced the Greek
states to join the League.

The Roman author Marcus Junianus Justinus - in English better known as Justin - gives a description of the
first meeting in his Excerpt of the History of Philip by Pompeius Trogus.
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‘After he had settled matters in Greece, Philip ordered that envoys should be summoned to Corinth from all
the states with a view to consolidating the settlement. He there propounded a covenant of peace for the
whole of Greece, giving each state the share that it deserved, and he created a council of representatives to
serve as a sort of common senate.
Only the Spartans refused to have anything to do with the king or with the covenant; they considered that a
settlement imposed by the victor instead of being agreed on by the states concerned meant enslavement,
not peace.

Next, the military contributions were fixed that the individual states were to make, whether to assist the
king against attack or for making war under his command. But everyone realized that these arrangements
were directed against the Persian empire.’
The text of the treaty has partly been preserved. The first line runs like this:

I swear by Zeus, Earth, Sun, Poseidon, Athena, Ares, and all the gods and goddesses.
I will abide by the peace;
I will not break the agreements with Philip the Macedonian; nor will I take up arms with hostile intent
against any one of those who abide by the oaths, either by land or by sea.

The provisions of the treaty were:

 the constitutions of the member states would remain unchanged;

 violence between the member states was no longer
permitted;
 in case of the overthrow of a government, a congress of
representatives was to meet at Corinth;
 the league's army was to be commanded by Philip;
 the league's member states would send a number of
soldiers to the league's army in proportion to their size.

In 334, Alexander took units of the Corinthian League with him

when he invaded the Achaemenid Empire. The soldiers were sent
back after the death of the Persian king Darius III Codomannus.
Later, in the summer of 324, Alexander issued the Decree on the
Exiles, in which he ordered the Greek cities to take back the people
they had expelled. This was a violation of the first provision of the
treaty.

Philip’s tomb was found in 1976 at Vergina, and it was possible to

reconstruct his face, showing clearly what he must have looked
like. The reconstruction of his face clearly shows the huge wound on his face, which destroyed his right eye
and left him scarred. Philip II lost his eye at the siege of Methone, 354 BC when he was hit from above by a
falling arrow.

Philip was known as a ‘great warrior and a great hunter, a generous giver and a great drinker’ (Lane Fox). He
passed these characteristics to his son Alexander – but was he also a great father? Perhaps not.

And from here, the best way to look at Philip is through the life of his son, Alexander.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT

The Birth of Alexander

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The future king of Asia was really only half-Macedonian - a fact that would cause many in King Philip's inner
circle to oppose his son's ascension to the throne. While his “father” was pure Macedonian, his mother,
Olympias, was of royal blood from the province of Epirus, southwest of Macedon. Epirus was an old feudal
kingdom, and like many of its neighbouring kingdoms, the imperial family traced its ancestry to one of the
Olympian gods - a temple to Zeus was located in its capital city. The family of Olympias, the Molossians,
maintained that they were related to Achilles, who, according to Homer's Iliad, was the tragic hero of the
Trojan War. Her ancestors were descended from Molassas, the son of Andromache and Neoptolemus - a son
of Achilles - who had slain King Priam of Troy at the Altar of Zeus Herkeios. This claim made Alexander to be
a descendant of heroes, something his mother never discouraged.

ALEXANDER BELIEVED IN BOTH THE LABOURS OF HIS FOREFATHER HERACLES AND THE EXPLOITS OF HIS
MOTHER'S ANCESTOR ACHILLES.

There are a number of versions of the unexplained

events surrounding the young king's birth (supposedly)
on July 20, 356 BCE. According to one legend, on the
day of Alexander's birth, the Greek goddess of the
hunt Artemis was away attending his birth when her
temple at Ephesos - one of the seven wonders of the
ancient world - burned to the ground. Another says
that on the night Alexander was born, Philip II was
away in battle when he received three separate pieces
of news: his loyal commander Parmenio had defeated
the Illyrians, his race horse was victorious at the
Olympic games (he was reportedly the happiest at
hearing this), and his wife Olympias had given birth to a son.

However, the one story that bolstered Alexander's belief in his own divinity was revealed to him before he
left Macedon for Asia. His mother pulled him aside and recounted a series of events occurring the night
before her wedding. Supposedly, Olympias was asleep in her bedchamber when a clap of thunder awakened
her. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning (evidently this was the god Zeus) shot into her room and struck her in her
womb - miraculously without harming her - a flash of light immediately followed. Concerning this version of
Alexander's birth, the historian Plutarch wrote in his Greek Lives, “…when Alexander was setting out on his
eastern campaign, Olympias accompanied him during the procession, told him in private the secret of his
birth, and urged him to entertain ambitions worthy of his parentage.”

King Philip, who claimed to be a descendant of Zeus's son Heracles (Hercules in Roman mythology), also had
a revelation about his son. According to Plutarch, after they were married, “Philip dreamt that he was
pressing a seal on his wife's womb, and that the emblem on the seal was the figure of a lion.” Although there
are some who dismiss Philip's dream, it was interpreted by Aristander of Telemessus as meaning that
Olympias was already pregnant and that the son she carried would be both bold and lion-like. As Alexander
would find out years later, the temple priests at Siwa would confirm his suspicions about his divine
parentage: Zeus, not Philip, was his real father.

Alexander’s ‘Terrible Mother’

Olympias was possibly the fourth of Philip’s wives, and there were probably two more after her. Philip, as
King, married for political reasons, it appears seven times, so there were doubtless other royal children, and
the difficulties associated with multiple marriages. Much of what we know about Olympias may be more
myth than fact. She was probably about 17 when she married Philip, though betrothed to him since she was
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about 10. As a child born into a royal family, the complications of rivalry among royal wives will have been
known to her, but she appears to have been exceptional in her manipulation of others, and her boundless
ambition for Alexander and his younger sister Cleopatra. She was described as very beautiful, with red hair,
and a fiery temperament. It seems that initially Philip was infatuated with her, but finding her sleeping with
a snake by her side, he lost interest and spurned her, to her fury. There seems to be no reliable historical
source on this though – it is part of the legend. Certainly Olympias was a devotee of Dionysus, and snakes –
mostly pythons - did feature in the rituals.

Alexander was not the first son of Philip. He had an older half-brother, Arrhidaeus, possibly only months
older, but it became clear as Arrhidaeus grew up that he was mentally limited. Nor was there a rule that the
oldest son inherited, so Olympias could put all her energies into ensuring that Alexander became the
acknowledged heir. Alexander would also have had to cope with the fact that his father Philip had male
lovers as well as the many wives and concubines. At this time, it was perfectly acceptable, but there is no
doubt that this caused complications.

The first years of any child’s life were spent with his/her mother, so it is not surprising that Alexander’s first
teacher was Leonidas of Epirus, who was probably a relative of Olympias. It is likely that he taught
Alexander to read and write, but also would have ensured that Alexander learnt to ride, that he was taught
archery and a basic understanding of the rituals of court life. Leonidas was a disciplinarian, and this would
have been expected by Philip.

Lysimachus of Acarnania also tutored Alexander and there were certainly lessons in mathematics,
astronomy, music and above all the study of the great epics of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Later
Lysimachus would go on campaign with Alexander, so the relationship appears to have been strong. Philip
took an interest in the early physical and military training of his son, and ensured his archery, sword training
and the use of the javelin played a major part of his education. Alexander was clearly athletic, and very fast,
but when asked why he did not enter the race for boys at Olympia, answered that as the son of a king, it was
beneath him to compete with his inferiors.

There is also a story that when Alexander was about ten, ambassadors arrived from Persia, and while they
were waiting for Philip, Alexander acted as host. He proved very well informed, asking intelligent questions
about the route taken by the ambassadors from Persia, and moving on to perceptive questions and
comments about the fighting capacity of the Persians. The ambassadors were impressed!

The story of Bucephalus from Livius.org

Plutarch on Alexander and Bucephalus

One of the most famous stories about Alexander the Great is the anecdote of his taming of Bucephalus.
There may be some truth in the account we read in section 6 of the Life of Alexander by the Greek author
Plutarch of Chaeronea - except for the concluding remark, of course.

Alexander and Bucephalus

[6.1] Philonicus the Thessalian brought the horse Bucephalus to Philip, offering to sell him for thirteen
talents. But when they went into the field to try him, they found him so very vicious and unmanageable, that
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he reared up when they endeavoured to mount him, and would not so much as endure the voice of any of
Philip's attendants.

[6.2] Upon which, as they were leading him away as wholly useless and untractable, Alexander, who stood
by, said, "What an excellent horse do they lose for want of address and boldness to manage him!"

[6.3] Philip at first took no notice of what he said; but when he heard him repeat the same thing several
times, and saw he was much vexed to see the horse sent away, "Do you reproach," said he to him, "those
who are older than yourself, as if you knew more, and were better able to manage him than they?"

[6.4] "I could manage this horse," replied he, "better than others do."

"And if you do not," said Philip, "what will you forfeit for your rashness?"

"I will pay," answered Alexander, "the whole price of the horse." (A huge sum, enough to buy a Ferrari today
MS)

[6.5] At this the whole company fell a-laughing; and as

soon as the wager was settled amongst them, he
immediately ran to the horse, and taking hold of the
bridle, turned him directly towards the sun, having, it
seems, observed that he was disturbed at and afraid of
the motion of his own shadow;

[6.6] then letting him go forward a little, still keeping the

reins in his hands, and stroking him gently when he found
him begin to grow eager and fiery, he let fall his upper
garment softly, and with one nimble leap securely
mounted him,

[6.7] and when he was seated, by little and little drew in

the bridle, and curbed him without either striking or
spurring him.

[6.8] Presently, when he found him free from all rebelliousness, and only impatient for the course, he let him
go at full speed, inciting him now with a commanding voice, and urging him also with his heel. Philip and his
friends looked on at first in silence and anxiety for the result, till seeing him turn at the end of his career, and
come back rejoicing and triumphing for what he had performed, they all burst out into acclamations of
applause; and his father shedding tears, it is said, for joy, kissed him as he came down from his horse, and in
his transport said, "O my son, look thee out a kingdom equal to and worthy of thyself, for Macedonia is too
little for thee."

ALEXANDER AND ARISTOTLE

Plutarch wrote the following :-

14

7 And since Philip saw that his son's nature was unyielding and that he
resisted compulsion, but was easily led by reasoning into the path of duty, he
himself tried to persuade rather than to command him; and because he would
not wholly entrust the direction and training of the boy to the ordinary
teachers of poetry and the formal studies, feeling that it was a matter of too
great importance, and, in the words of Sophocles, "A task for many bits and
rudder-sweeps as well," he sent for the most famous and learned of
philosophers, Aristotle, and paid him a noble and appropriate tuition-fee. The
city of Stageira, that is, of which Aristotle was a native, and which he had
himself destroyed, he peopled again, and restored to it those of its citizens
who were in exile or slavery.

As a place where master and pupil

could labour and study, he assigned
them the precinct of the nymphs near
Mieza, where to this day the visitor is
shown the stone seats and shady walks
of Aristotle. It would appear,
moreover, that Alexander not only
received from his master his ethical
and political doctrines, but also
participated in those secret and more
profound teachings which philosophers
designate by the special terms
"acroamatic" and "epoptic,"and do not
impart to many. For after he had
already crossed into Asia, and when he
learned that certain treatises on these
recondite matters had been published
in books by Aristotle, he wrote him a letter on behalf of philosophy, and put it in plain language. And this is a
copy of the letter. "Alexander, to Aristotle, greeting. Thou hast not done well to publish thy acroamatic
doctrines; for in what shall I surpass other men if those doctrines wherein I have been trained are to be all
men's common property? But I had rather excel in my acquaintance with the best things than in my power.
Farewell." Accordingly, in defending himself, Aristotle encourages this ambition of Alexander by saying that
the doctrines of which he spoke were both published and not published; for in truth his treatise on
metaphysics is of no use for those who would either teach or learn the science, but is written as a
memorandum for those already trained therein.

8 Moreover, in my opinion Alexander's love of the art of healing was inculcated in him by Aristotle pre-
eminently. For he was not only fond of the theory of medicine, but actually came to the aid of his friends
when they were sick, and prescribed for them certain treatments and regimens, as one can gather from his
letters. He was also by nature a lover of learning and a lover of reading. And since he thought and called the
Iliad a viaticum of the military art, he took with him Aristotle's recension of the poem, called the Iliad of the
Casket, and always kept it lying with his dagger under his pillow, as Onesicritus informs us; and when he
could find no other books in the interior of Asia, he ordered Harpalus to send him some. So Harpalus sent
him the books of Philistus, a great many of the tragedies of Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus, and the
dithyrambic poems of Telestes and Philoxenus. Aristotle he admired at the first, and loved him, as he himself
used to say, more than he did his father, for that the one had given him life, but the other had taught him a
noble life; later, however, he held him in more or less of suspicion, not to the extent of doing him any harm,
but his kindly attentions lacked their former ardour and affection towards him, and this was proof of
estrangement. However, that eager yearning for philosophy which was imbedded in his nature and that ever
15

grew with his growth, did not subside from his soul, as is testified by the honour in which he held
Anaxarchus, by his gift of fifty talents to Xenocrates, and by the attentions which he so lavishly bestowed
upon Dandamis and Calanus.

The following notes are based on the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy

http://www.iep.utm.edu/Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy

Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, making contributions to logic, metaphysics,
mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance and theatre. He was a
student of Plato who in turn studied under Socrates. He was more empirically-minded than Plato or Socrates
(ie he believed that the best way of learning was through experience, so one learnt about bravery by being
brave) and is famous for rejecting Plato's theory of forms.

As a prolific writer and polymath, Aristotle radically transformed most, if not all, areas of knowledge he
touched. It is no wonder that Aquinas referred to him simply as "The Philosopher." In his lifetime, Aristotle
wrote as many as 200 treatises, of which only 31 survive. Unfortunately for us, these works are in the form
of lecture notes and draft manuscripts never intended for general readership, so they do not demonstrate
his reputed polished prose style which attracted many great followers, including the Roman Cicero. Aristotle
was the first to classify areas of human knowledge into distinct disciplines such as mathematics, biology, and
ethics. Some of these classifications are still used today. Aristotle was the founder of the Lyceum, a school of
learning based in Athens, Greece; and he was an inspiration for the Peripatetics, his followers from the
Lyceum.

Aristotle was born in 384 BCE at Stagirus, a now extinct Greek colony and seaport on the coast of Thrace. His
father Nichomachus was court physician to King Amyntas of Macedonia, and from this began Aristotle's long
association with the Macedonian Court, which considerably influenced his life. While he was still a boy his
father died. At age 17 his guardian, Proxenus, sent him to Athens, the intellectual centre of the world, to
complete his education. He joined the Academy and studied under Plato, attending his lectures for a period
of twenty years. In the later years of his association with Plato and the Academy he began to lecture on his
own account, especially on the subject of rhetoric. At the death of Plato in 347, the pre-eminent ability of
Aristotle would seem to have designated him to succeed to the leadership of the Academy. But his
divergence from Plato's teaching was too great to make this possible, and Plato's nephew Speusippus was
chosen instead. At the invitation of his friend Hermeas, ruler of Atarneus and Assos in Mysia, Aristotle left for
his court. He stayed three years and, while there, married Pythias, the niece of the King. In later life he was
married a second time to a woman named Herpyllis, who bore him a son, Nichomachus. At the end of three
years Hermeas was overtaken by the Persians, and Aristotle went to Mytilene.

At the invitation of Philip of Macedonia he became the tutor of his 13 year old son Alexander; he did this for
the next five years. Both Philip and Alexander appear to have paid Aristotle high honour, and there were
stories that Aristotle was supplied by the Macedonian court, not only with funds for teaching, but also with
thousands of slaves to collect specimens for his studies in natural science. These stories are probably false
and certainly exaggerated.

Upon the death of Philip, Alexander succeeded to the kingship and prepared for his subsequent conquests.
Aristotle's work being finished, he returned to Athens, which he had not visited since the death of Plato. He
found the Platonic school flourishing under Xenocrates, and Platonism the dominant philosophy of Athens.
He thus set up his own school at a place called the Lyceum. When teaching at the Lyceum, Aristotle had a
habit of walking about as he discoursed. It was in connection with this that his followers became known in
later years as the peripatetics, meaning "to walk about." For the next thirteen years he devoted his energies
to his teaching and composing his philosophical treatises. He is said to have given two kinds of lectures: the
more detailed discussions in the morning for an inner circle of advanced students, and the popular
16

discourses in the evening for the general body of lovers of knowledge. At the sudden death of Alexander in
323 BCE., the pro-Macedonian government in Athens was overthrown, and a general reaction occurred
against anything Macedonian. A charge of impiety was trumped up against him. To escape prosecution he
fled to Chalcis in Euboea so that (Aristotle says) "The Athenians might not have another opportunity of
sinning against philosophy as they had already done in the person of Socrates."

In the first year of his residence at Chalcis he complained of a stomach illness and died in 322 BCE.

Aristotle’s ideas on education.

Education should be guided by legislation to make it correspond with the results of psychological analysis,
and follow the gradual development of the bodily and mental faculties. Children should during their earliest
years be carefully protected from all injurious associations, and be introduced to such amusements as will
prepare them for the serious duties of life. Their literary education should begin in their seventh year, and
continue to their twenty-first year. This period is divided into two courses of training, one from age seven to
puberty, and the other from puberty to age twenty-one. Such education should not be left to private
enterprise, but should be undertaken by the state. There are four main branches of education: reading and
writing, gymnastics, music, and painting. (Aristotle was not keen on mathematics at all! MS) They should
not be studied to achieve a specific aim, but in the liberal spirit which creates true freemen. Thus, for
example, gymnastics should not be pursued by itself exclusively, or it will result in a harsh savage type of
character. Painting must not be studied merely to prevent people from being cheated in pictures, but to
make them attend to physical beauty. Music must not be studied merely for amusement, but for the moral
influence which it exerts on the feelings. Indeed all true education is, as Plato saw, a training of our
sympathies so that we may love and hate in a right manner.

(It is believed that Alexander played the kithara, and was very good – rather too
good as far as Philip was concerned! The kithara was considered a ‘common’
instrument, and gentlemen played the lyre, not the kithara – a bit like playing
rock guitar and not classical guitar!)

What would Aristotle have taught Alexander?

Aristotle was a Polymath (a person of wide-ranging knowledge and intellect) long

before the term "Renaissance man" was coined. His writings included physics,
biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics
and government. The curriculum Alexander was taught must have been chosen from these subjects.
(Metaphysics is defined as the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including
abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space. It seems unlikely that
this would have been a major interest for Alexander.)

Alexander loved the stories of heroes, and he carried a copy of the Iliad wherever he went. The Iliad is an
epic poem, written by Homer, and tells the story of the tenth year of the Trojan Wars and the siege of Troy.
Alexander is likely to have thrilled to the tales of battle and doomed heroes. This is seen in his later life,
when he so often treated a defeated enemy such as Darius with an unusual measure of respect.

Alexander would have studied ethics. Aristotle taught that every person wanted happiness, but that it was a
mistake to look for this in pleasure, wealth and respect, as did most people, (then and now!) Happiness and
harmony are a virtue, that come from behaviour that is consistent with the nature of man, and to Aristotle,
this assumed that man is reasonable in his behaviour. Happiness involved control over the passions, finding
a balance in all things. For him, humans were born with potential, and provided they were given the use of
reason and the right upbringing and education, could be ethically good. Aristotle paid attention to detail
17

here - courage for instance is only really worthy of the name when done from a love of honour and duty:
munificence and generosity again becomes vulgarity when it is not exercised from a love of what is right and
beautiful, but for displaying wealth. The truly good person is at the same time a person of perfect insight,
and a person of perfect insight is also perfectly good.

Logic was important, and Aristotle would have spent much time on this. A logical person would question
what he saw. For example, first what a thing is, then how great it is, next of what kind it is. Logic would
consider only a form which could express both truth and falsehood, so the famous syllogism (a form of
reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn) becomes :-

All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Alexander was innately logical, and it is to be expected that he enjoyed the challenges of logic. He would
learn that, as long as the original concept was correct, the conclusion would also be correct.

The concept of friendship was involved in the lessons on ethics. Aristotle taught that friendship is an
indispensable aid in framing for ourselves the higher moral life; if not itself a virtue, it is at least associated
with virtue, and it proves itself of service in almost all conditions of our existence. The true friend is in fact a
second self, and the true moral value of friendship lies in the fact that the friend presents to us a mirror of
good actions, and so intensifies our consciousness and our appreciation of life. Alexander’s closest life-long
friend, Hephaestion, studied with him, and it is likely that Aristotle would have approved of this friendship.
Alexander said later, ‘My treasure lies in my friends’.

Politics would have been an essential part of Alexander’s education. Aristotle believed that politics was not
a separate science from ethics, but as the completion, and almost a verification of it. The moral ideal in
political administration is only a different aspect of that which also applies to individual happiness. Humans
are by nature social beings, and the possession of rational speech (logos) in itself leads us to social union.
The state is a development from the family through the village community, an offshoot of the family.
Formed originally for the satisfaction of natural wants, it exists afterwards for moral ends and for the
promotion of the higher life. The state in fact is no mere local union for the prevention of wrong-doing, and
the convenience of exchange. It is also no mere institution for the protection of goods and property. It is a
genuine moral organization for advancing the development of humans.

The family, which is chronologically prior to the state, involves a series of relations between husband and
wife, parent and child, master and slave. Aristotle regarded the slave as a piece of live property having no
existence except in relation to his master. Slavery is a natural institution because there is a ruling and a
subject class among people related to each other, as soul to body; however, we must distinguish between
those who are slaves by nature, and those who have become slaves merely by war and conquest. Household
management involves the acquisition of riches, but must be distinguished from money-making for its own
sake. Wealth is everything whose value can be measured by money; but it is the use, rather than the
possession of commodities, which constitutes riches. Alexander would have listened carefully to this. His
own family was seriously dysfunctional! Today we are horrified at the concept of slavery, but it was very
common in most of the ancient civilisations. Even Socrates believed it was acceptable – though preferably
not Greek slaves …

What of religion? This was an age of gods, a polytheistic religion. The question that Aristotle's scientific,
rational view of the world provoked was this: in a mechanistic universe governed by rules, what place was
there for old-fashioned, whimsical gods? His answer was simple. It was the rules of nature themselves that
were the very essence of all that is divine in the universe: "For God is to us a law, impartial, admitting not to
correction or change, and better I think and surer than those which are engraved upon tablets," he said.
Alexander respected the gods of his age, and sacrificed to them on every important occasion. He was
18

acclaimed as a son of Zeus, a claim which his mother Olympias enjoyed, but there is no evidence Alexander
believed this, though it was convenient, when he conquered Egypt, to agree that he was indeed a son of
Zeus-Ammon.

Aristotle was fascinated by the natural world, investigating plant and animal life, dissecting and preserving
animals for study. It is said that he had the ancient equivalent of a laboratory to do this, and that Philip
provided a trained slave to work for him. Certainly Alexander would have enjoyed this, and when he set off
on his military campaigns, he took with him ‘an entourage of scientists to record and analyse this
information, from botany, biology, zoology and meteorology, to topography. His desire to learn, and to have
information recorded as scientifically as possible, probably stemmed from Aristotle's teachings and
enthusiasm.’ ( Worthington)

In legend, rather than fact, Alexander is said to have been an expert performer on the Kithara. This was an
instrument rather like a lyre, but it was the lyre that was the instrument of a noble – perhaps this was a sign
of Alexander rebelling against his conservative father! Music was an essential part of his life, and his court
musicians travelled with him. He would have been encouraged by Aristotle in his love of music.

Aristotle taught Alexander for only three years. His teachings were imprinted on the mind of Alexander, who
said later :- “I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.”

NOW do the following exercise. November 2018 Paper 11

Read the passage below, and answer the questions which follow:

He gave Aristotle and his pupil the temple of the Nymphs near Mieza as a place where they could study and
converse, and to this day they show you the stone seats and shady walks which Aristotle used. It seems clear
too that Alexander was instructed by his teacher not only in the principles of ethics and politics, but also in
those secret and more esoteric studies which philosophers do not impart to the general run of students, but
only by word of mouth to a select circle of the initiated. Some years later, after Alexander had crossed into
Asia, he learned that Aristotle had published some treatises dealing with these esoteric matters, and he
wrote to him in blunt language and took him to task for the sake of the prestige of philosophy. This was the
text of his letter:

Alexander to Aristotle, greetings. You have not done well to write down and publish those doctrines you
taught me by word of mouth. What advantage shall I have over other men if these theories in which I have
been trained are to be made common property? I would rather excel the rest of mankind in my knowledge
of what is best than in the extent of my power. Farewell.

Aristotle wished to encourage this ambition of his pupil’s and so when he replied to justify his action, he
pointed out that these so-called oral doctrines were in a sense both published and not published. For
example it is true that his treatise on metaphysics is written in a style which makes it useless for those who
wish to study or teach the subject from the beginning: the book serves simply as a memorandum for those
who have already been taught its general principles.

(Plutarch, Alexander 7)

(i) From which school and from which city did Aristotle come to Mieza? [2]
(ii) Name two other teachers of Alexander. [2]
(iii) In which year had Alexander ‘crossed into Asia’ (line 7)? [1]
(iv) What was the name of Aristotle’s nephew, who was also Alexander’s historian? [1]
(v) Briefly describe how and why Aristotle’s nephew died. [4] [10 marks]
19

ALEXANDER AND HEPHAISTION

Hephaistion was the closest friend Alexander had. It is not certain when they met, but Hephaistion certainly
joined Alexander at Mieza with other young noblemen.

Arrian on Alexander the Great and Hephaestion

In the meantime, here's a summary of what Arrian, probably the premier ancient source on Alexander's
campaigns, says about that relationship. Arrian does refer to him as Alexander’s eremonos or lover – but
only once. It seems that as an adult, Hephaistion was trusted with important duties, especially in
administration and organization of the forces in Persia – but there is nothing to indicate he was especially
gifted as a military leader or counsellor. He was that rare thing – a devoted and faithful friend.

ARRIAN (THE CAMPAIGNS OF ALEXANDER - 2ND CENTURY AD)

Arrian's first mention of Hephaestion comes in Book I of his account, when Alexander and his army visit the
ruins of Troy. There, Arrian writes that Alexander traded armour at the Temple of Athena, then proceeded to
honour the tombs of those who fought at Troy.

"One account says that Hephaestion laid a wreath on the tomb of Patroclus; another that Alexander laid one
on the tomb of Achilles, calling him a lucky man, in that he had Homer to proclaim his deeds and preserve
his memory" (Penguin Classics edition, pg. 67).

Arrian glosses over the interpretation that Alexander's purpose in honoring the tomb(s) of Achilles and
Patroclus was to signify his relationship with Hephaestion. One could certainly infer that Alexander meant to
do so, but Arrian's version emphasizes Alexander's desire to be remembered after death over his feelings for
his boyhood companion.

The next significant mention of Hephaestion comes after the Battle of Issus, when Alexander visits the
captured royal family of Persia. One version of the story says that Alexander visited them alongside
Hephaestion, who wore similar clothing as him. When the Queen, who had never met Alexander, bowed to
the taller Hephaestion, Alexander could have been enraged. Instead, he comforted her:

‘...but Alexander merely remarked that her error was of no account, for Hephaestion, too, was an Alexander
- 'a protector of men' (123).

Typically, this story is meant to attest to the closeness of Alexander and Hephaestion. Yet, in Arrian's version,
Alexander's response to the Queen's mistake is about the meaning of his name, not anything intimate
between he and his friend. Additionally, Arrian seems to think this story was invented after the fact. But
even if that's the case, he writes, it is still likely in line with Alexander's character.

It is near the book's end, at Hephaestion's death, where we learn the most about Alexander's feelings for
Hephaestion. Alexander rushes back to the palace after hearing news of his friend's illness, but he is too late.

"The accounts of Alexander's grief at this loss are many and various. All writers have agreed that it was great,
but personal prejudice, for or against both Hephaestion and Alexander himself, have coloured the accounts
of how he expressed it" (pg. 371).

Arrian explains that some writers found Alexander's extreme despair a noble trait, one worthy of his legend.
Others, however, saw his behaviour as embarrassing for a great king.
20

"We are told, for instance, that he (Alexander) flung himself on the body of his friend and lay there nearly all
day long in tears, and refused to be parted from him until he was dragged away by force by his Companions;
and again, that he lay stretched upon the corpse all day and the whole night too...for two whole days after
Hephaestion's death Alexander tasted no food and paid no attention in any way to his bodily needs, but lay
on his bed now crying lamentably, now in the silence of grief" (371-373).

But Alexander's despair does not end there. He allegedly took many actions while trying to cope with
Hephaestion's death. Arrian ascribes varying degrees of credibility to these stories, which include:

 Alexander had Hephaestion's doctor, Glaucias, hanged for letting him die
 He cut his hair short, which Arrian believes was connected to his emulation of Achilles (another
connection between his relationship to Hephaestion and to Achilles/Patroclus)
 He personally drove the funeral carriage for a short time (to Arrian, this story is "quite incredible",
meaning either quite unlikely or extraordinary, not sure which one).
 He had the shrine of Asclepius (Greek god of medicine) burned to the ground which, to Arrian,
seemed "uncharacteristic" of Alexander

When Alexander was visited by Greeks who worshipped Asclepius, he remarked that the god "has not
treated me kindly; for he did not save the friend I valued as my own life."

"Most authorities" claim Alexander sent an envoy to the Oracle of Ammon in Egypt to ask for Hephaestion to
be declared a god; however, the Oracle denied this request, replying that Hephaestion would instead be
honoured as a hero. But Alexander also :-

 declared a time of mourning in the East and he had a funeral pyre constructed in Babylon at a cost of
at least 10,000 talents. (Many scholars believe that a single talent would be about US$1 400 000 in
modern terms)
 Alexander made no new appointments to the Companion Cavalry and changed the name of his
finest fighting force to "Hephaestion's Regiment" and had them carry an image of Hephaestion in
front before battle
 He sent a letter to the governor of Egypt ordering massive shrines be built in Hephaestion's honor in
Alexandris and on the island of Pharos
 He organized the most spectacular series of Games of his career, in which 3,000 men from Greece
and elsewhere competed in everything from literature to sports

Alexander himself then died a few months later. Reflecting on the timing of his death, Arrian again falls back
on his comparison to Achilles.

"Even in Alexander's case, Hephaestion's death had been no small calamity, and I believe he would have
rather been the first to go than live to suffer that pain, like Achilles, who surely would rather have died
before Patroclus than to have lived to avenge his death" (377).

Arrian also returns to the matter of Alexander's orders to Egypt. In his letter to the governor, Cleomenes,
Alexander promises to pardon him of his past crimes if he successfully builds and maintains the shrines to
Hephaestion. Arrian finds such a promise, from a great king to a former criminal, to be "shocking, yet he
does mention that the contents of the letter demonstrate Alexander's "love for Hephaestion, a love which
persisted even beyond the grave" (389).

So how do we summarize Arrian's take on their relationship?

21

Arrian never directly says Alexander and Hephaestion were lovers. On the surface, it appears he treats them
as very loyal, committed friends. However, his tendency to compare Alexander to Achilles and Hephaestion
to Patroclus is a sign that Arrian suspected they had an even more intimate relationship. By the time Arrian
was writing, the Greeks and Romans believed Achilles and Patroclus had been lovers (whether or not Homer
meant to imply this is another question).

Arrian is not interested in exploring the intimate details of Alexander's relationship with Hephaestion. A
military man, he is content to let the facts speak for themselves on such a personal matter. However, even
he cannot ignore the romantic character of Alexander's grief after Hephaestion's death, nor the king's
statement that he valued his friend's life equally to his own. For that reason, and many others, Arrian draws
again on the theme of Alexander as a "new Achilles". He is content to let his readers decipher the rest.

Alexander aged 16 – 20

When Alexander was 16 Philip again went to war, against the Byzantines. He left his son as regent, based at
Pella, putting enormous trust in him. The wild Thracian Meadi took advantage of his absence to launch an
attack – but they had not reckoned with Alexander. He at once headed north to their mountainous range,
rich in iron, and subdued the rebellion. He then established a settlement, and was brash enough to call it a
city and named it Alexandropolis. Philip was amused and impressed, but was believed to have said that he
would need to watch his son!

But there can be no doubt of the trust Philip placed in the 18 year-old Alexander, when he allowed him to
lead the cavalry at the battle of Chaeronea.

THE FIRST BATTLE – CHAERONEA 338 BC

In August 338 BC, Philip II of Macedon (c. 382-336 BC) won a major battle near the central Greek city of
Chaeronea against a coalition of Greek city-states, namely Athens and Thebes. The Latin historian Justin
wrote, “This day put an end to the glorious sovereignty and ancient liberty of all Greece.” This may be an
exaggeration, but certainly the battle was decisive. Athens, led by Demosthenes, was especially hostile to
the upstart Macedonian king, and had referred to him as ‘an insolent upstart, drunk on his own conceit’!

When the battle began, the infantry engaged first, some 30 000 men on each side, with equal numbers of
cavalry, about 2 000 each. The Macedonian infantry were led by the phalanxes of sarissa. These highly
trained men carried a long spear, up to six metres in length, so the enemy advanced into a bristling and
almost impenetrable shield of spears.

Philip was himself a great general. Realising that the Greek force actually held the better position he
ordered his men to retreat as if defeated. The Athenians did not seem to notice how orderly the retreat
was, and attacked in some confusion, opening a gap. Then the Macedonians advanced once more, and
Alexander’s cavalry seized the opportunity and attacked through the gap.

Alexander now found himself facing the most famous force of the time – the Sacred Band of Thebes. In an
age where men saw honour in battle and formed close relationships, this was a group of 150 pairs of lovers.
Each pair consisted of an older man, the erastes or lover, and a younger man, eromenos, or beloved. They
believed in a glorious death rather than a dishonourable life, and at Chaeronea, they proved this, fighting to
the bitter end. Undocumented theories infer that when Alexander realized he had destroyed the Sacred
Band, he was deeply distressed. Plutarch records that Philip II, on encountering the corpses "heaped one
upon another", understanding who they were, wept and exclaimed,
22

‘Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything unseemly.’ Plutarch, Pelopidas
18[18]

More than a thousand Athenians fell in the battle and no less than two
thousand were captured. A statue was erected in memory of the Sacred
Band, known as the Lion of Chaeronea. It fell into disrepair and was
rediscovered in 1818, and repaired. Excavations in the late 19 th century
uncovered 254 skeletons, buried in pairs, and it is documented that
Philip forced the defeated Thebans to pay for the cost of burying their
dead, so it is more than likely that these skeletons are the remains of
the Sacred Band.

Alexander was now about eighteen years old, and had already been
portrayed on Macedonian coins. Philip now gave him even more
"visibility" by erecting a group of statues, in which he himself was
shown as a charioteer, Alexander standing next to him. Much of
this has been destroyed, but the body and head of Alexander
remains and is in the Glyptothek Museum in Munich in Germany. It
is known as the "Rondanini Alexander".

This is an interesting point, showing that Philip saw Alexander as his

heir, and not only felt proud of him, but was prepared to honour
him too. It would be only two years later that Philip was assassinated and Alexander succeeded him. And
there was some tension – Alexander is understood to have said that Philip was leaving nothing for him to
conquer. While this may simply have been the statement of a young man wanting to make his own way in
the world, there were darker events beginning
to show.

Incidental Information

The soldiers of individual Greek city states

generally provided their own weapons and
23

armour, using a spear and sword, and a round shield called a hoplon, made of layers of bronze, wood and
leather, with a personalized emblem. Like the Macedonians, they fought in a phalanx, or group about eight
men deep, and varying in length.

Each man wore a helmet of bronze with a crest of horsehair, and had armour consisting of a chest plate and
greaves, which looked rather like hockey pads! Macedonian armour was much lighter, as the sarissa was so
heavy they could not carry heavy armour. Their shields were smaller and offered less protection, but they
were so closely packed in battle that their shields over-locked and gave them some protection.

ALEXANDER AND PHILIP CLASH

It could well be that Philip now did what many fathers do – he looked at his brilliant son, and saw him as a
rival. The situation was even more complicated by the very poor relationship between Olympias and Philip.
And they were worried about their son’s apparent disinterest in sex. Alexander is known to have said that
he almost resented both sleep and sex – because they reminded him of the fact that he was but a mortal!!
Then there were issues over a new wife for Philip.

THE MARRIAGE OF PHILIP AND CLEOPATRA

(Do not get confused here – NOT the famous Cleopatra of Shakespeare’s plays, and definitely not Philip’s
daughter Cleopatra, the Greeks did NOT do incest –at least not father marrying daughter …. the gods did
though!)

Cleopatra, also known as Eurydice, was the seventh and last of Philip’s wife. Her family had served Philip
loyally, and her uncle Attalus was a member of Philip’s inner circle. She is believed to have been very young
and very beautiful – and her family was Macedonian, unlike the family of Olympias, who came from Epirus.

The marriage took place in 337, and at

once Attalus became more important,
gaining prestige from this. At the
wedding, everyone was extremely drunk –
this was common in Macedonia.
Alexander and Olympias were obliged to
be present, but as you can imagine, this
was not the happiest occasion for either of
them.

Attalus was openly hostile to both

Olympias and Alexander – this as rather
foolish of him! He was more drunk than
most, and he raised his cup and invited
guests to pray for a legitimate heir - a
reference to Olympias' foreign blood and a direct insult to both Olympias and Alexander. Alexander
responded by throwing a cup and shouting at Attalus. This is entirely understandable!!

Philip, who also had had a lot to drink, drew his sword to attack Alexander but tripped and fell. Alexander
shouted 'the man who is preparing to cross from Europe into Asia cannot cross from couch to couch'. Philip
was so angry that he seized a spear and threw it at his son – fortunately he was so drunk his aim was way
off! Alexander then fled with his mother; she stayed in Epirus with her brother, Alexander went to stay with
the Illyrians. Alexander and his father were eventually reconciled, but some suggest distrust continued
between them.
24

Olympias, still in Epirus, attempted to convince her brother to avenge the insult to her honour. But thanks to
Philip's cunning diplomacy, Olympias was convinced by her brother Alexander of Epirus to return to
Macedonia. In return, Alexander was promised the hand of Cleopatra, the daughter of Philip and Olympias.
They were married in 336 BC. This is all very confusing – too many Alexanders and Cleopatras!! SO this poor
young Cleopatra is forced to marry her uncle, the brother of her mother …. But at least Philip and Alexander
were on speaking terms again, as things were about to become even more tricky.

But before we move on, do this gobbet question. November 2017, Paper 12

1 Read the passage below, and answer the questions which follow:

But before long the domestic strife that resulted from Philip’s various marriages and love-affairs caused the
quarrels which took place in the women’s apartments to infect the whole kingdom, and led to bitter clashes
and accusations between father and son. This breach was widened by Olympias, a woman of a jealous and
vindictive temper, who incited Alexander to oppose his father. Their quarrel was brought to a head on the
occasion of the wedding of Cleopatra, a girl with whom Philip had fallen in love and whom he had decided to
marry, although she was far too young for him. Cleopatra’s uncle Attalus, who had drunk too much at the
banquet, called upon the Macedonians to pray to the gods that the union of Philip and Cleopatra might bring
forth a legitimate heir to the throne. Alexander flew into a rage at these words, shouted at him, ‘Villain, do
you take me for a bastard, then?’ and hurled a drinking-cup at his head. At this Philip lurched to his feet, and
drew his sword against his son, but fortunately for them both he was so overcome with drink and with rage
that he tripped and fell headlong. Alexander jeered at him and cried out, ‘Here is the man who was making
ready to cross from Europe to Asia, and who cannot even cross from one table to another without losing his
balance.’ After this drunken brawl Alexander took Olympias away and settled her in Epirus, while he himself
went to live in Illyria. (Plutarch, Alexander 9)

(i) In which year did the wedding of Philip and Cleopatra take place? [1]
(ii) Apart from being Cleopatra’s uncle, who was Attalus? [2]
(iii) Why would a son of Philip and Cleopatra be considered as a ‘legitimate heir to the throne’?[2]
(iv) How might a son of Philip and Cleopatra have affected Alexander’s position? [2]
(v) Why did Alexander take Olympias to Epirus? [2]
(vi) What happened to Cleopatra after the death of Philip? [1]
(vii) ‘Like father, like son.’ Using this passage as a starting point, explain how far you agree with this
assessment of the personalities of Alexander and Philip. [15]
[Total: 25]

PHILIP IS ASSASSINATED!

Philip II m Olympias
ruled 359-336 BC. Princess from Epirus.
Descended from Achilles.

m
Alexander III (The Great) Cleopatra Her uncle, Alexander
ruled 336-323 BC. king of Epirus, Brother
of Olympias.
25

m
Key: m = married

Barsine Parysatis Roxane

Eldest daughter of Eldest daughter of Bactrian princess.
the Persian king Artaxerxes III, a Married 327 BC.
Darius. Persian king.
Married 324 BC. Married 324 BC.

The Macedonian royal family

People involved

Philip Arrhidaeus Son of Philip II, half-brother of Alexander.

Cleopatra Macedonian noblewoman, niece of Attalus, last wife of Philip II.
Attalus Macedonian nobleman and military commander, friend of Philip and uncle of
Cleopatra.
Pausanias of Orestis Young Macedonian, bodyguard, lover and murderer of Philip II.
Pausanias Young Macedonian, Philip II became attracted to him.
Pixodarus Ruler of Caria (a state in Asia Minor controlled by Persia).
Lyncestis brothers Heromenes, Arrhabeous and Alexander. Implicated in a plot to kill Philip II. All three
found guilty, only first two executed.
Achilles Mythical king of Epirus, hero of the Trojan war.

The murder

Philip II was killed in the summer of 336 BC at Aegae (a city in Macedonia) while celebrating the wedding of
his daughter Cleopatra to Alexander King of Epirus. As he entered the theatre attended by Alexander his son
and Alexander of Epirus, Philip was stabbed and mortally wounded in the chest by Pausanias of Orestis.
Pausanias tried to escape but his foot caught in a vine. A group of bodyguards (friends of Alexander) reached
Pausanias, killing him with javelins. This account is given by the historian Diodorus and supported by
Plutarch.

Why Pausanias of Orestis killed the king

More confusion – there are two hot young men called Pausanias, so we identify one as Pausanias of Orestis.
P of O was one of Philip’s many lovers – you need to understand that this was perfectly acceptable at the
time. It was frowned upon if a man had sex with only men or only women, but of course this applied only to
men – women were not allowed to be bisexual, though doubtless some were, and wives were kept secluded.
Philip was the king, and had many lovers of both sexes.
But now another Pausanias came onto the scene – you would think with a new and gorgeous young wife
Philip was busy, but no … Pausnias of Orestis was very jealous, and began harassing the other Pausanias.
This Pausanias could not cope with the humiliation, and went to Attalus, uncle of Philip’s new young wife,
and asked for support which seems not to have been given, so Pausanias committed suicide. Attalus
decided to avenge Pausanias' death. He invited Pausanias of Orestis to dinner, plied him with alcohol then
handed Pausanias to his grooms to be beaten up. The grooms did far more than beat him – Pausanias of
Orestes was gang-raped.
26

He went at once to Philip to complain about this. Philip was angry but reluctant to punish Attalus, because
Attalus was:

 a very influential Macedonian nobleman

 a skilled military commander who had been appointed to lead the forces into Asia
 and the uncle of Philip's new wife Cleopatra.

Philip attempted to appease Pausanias by plying him with generous gifts and by promoting him to a position
of honour among the bodyguards. Pausanias was not appeased. His resentment was fuelled when, in the
course of a discussion with the philosopher Hermocrates, he asked how a person could become famous,
Hermocrates replied, 'by killing the man who has done the greatest deeds'. (You could think about other
people who have done this.)

Was Alexander involved in the assassination??

 Pausanias was subsequently killed by Alexander's friends. This suggests Alexander and his friends did
not want Pausanias captured alive in case he revealed their involvement. Under normal
circumstances Pausanias should have been captured alive and given a slow and painful death. It is
possible, however, that the men acted quickly and without thinking, shocked by the death of their
king.
 An investigation carried out immediately after the death of Philip found the Lyncestis brothers guilty
of plotting to kill Philip. Alexander punished Heromenes and Arrhabaeus. The third brother,
Alexander Lyncestis, was pardoned despite evidence against him - he was the first to salute
Alexander as the new king! If Alexander were truly angered and distressed by the death of his father,
he would have wanted to punish all those who were guilty. On the other hand, Alexander was a
megalomaniac in the making - Alexander Lyncestis' salute would have appealed to his ego.
 According to Plutarch, Olympias was responsible as she encouraged Pausanias' resentment of Philip.
 Alexander encouraged Pausanias. Soon after Pausanias had been beaten up by Attalus, Alexander
apparently quoted a verse from Euripides' tragic play Medea to Pausanias, in which Medea
threatened to punish everyone who offended her. By quoting this verse, Alexander was allegedly
suggesting Philip deserved to be punished.

Alexander's and Olympias' innocence?

Evidence pointing to Olympias' and
Alexander's involvement is
circumstantial. No hard evidence
against either of them.
The historian Tarn suggests was Antipater who
presented Alexander as the new king to the people
after Philip's death. If Antipater approved of
Alexander, it is likely Alexander was not involved in
his father's murder. (It is possible that Antipater was
aware of the plot to kill Philip and approved of it.)
27

Activity : The murder of Philip

1. a. Who killed Philip?
b. When and where?
c. During which occasion?
2. Give two reasons why Pausanias killed Philip.
3. Give two reasons why Olympias and Alexander may have wanted Philip dead.
4. What events indicate that Alexander may have been involved in the murder of Philip?

NOW do the following exercise. Read the passage below and then answer the questions that follow.

When Pausanias on the orders of Attalus and Cleopatra was assaulted and failed to obtain satisfaction from
Philip, he killed the King. Olympias was held chiefly responsible, since it was believed that she encouraged
the young man’s resentment and spurred him on, but Alexander was also to some extent regarded as guilty.
For it was said that when Pausanias met him after suffering the outrage and bitterly complained about it,
Alexander quoted the verse from Euripides’ Medea, where Medea threatens ‘the bride and groom, and the
father of the bride’. However, Alexander searched out those responsible for the plot and punished them.

(Plutarch, Alexander 10)

(i) In which year did this happen? [1]

(ii) Explain what event Philip was celebrating when he was killed. [3]
(iii) Exactly where did this take place? [2]
(iv) Explain who Attalus and Cleopatra were. [4]
(v) What position did Pausanias hold? [2](vi) Explain the relevance of Euripides’ Medea to this situation.
(LOOK IT UP!!! [3])
[15 marks}

AND this one from November 2015 – you have enough knowledge now to tackle it.

Read the passage below, and answer the questions which follow:

The king and his friends went down to the plain to watch the horse’s trials, and came to the conclusion that
he was wild and quite unmanageable, for he would allow no one to mount him, nor would he endure the
shouts of Philip’s grooms, but reared up against anyone who approached him. The king became angry at
being offered such a vicious animal unbroken, and ordered it to be led away. But Alexander, who was
standing close
by, remarked, ‘What a horse they are losing, and all because they don’t know how to handle him, or dare not
try!’ Philip kept quiet at first, but when he heard Alexander repeat these words several times and saw that
he was upset, he asked him, ‘Are you finding fault with your elders because you think you know more than
they do, or can manage a horse better?’ ‘At least I could manage this one better’, retorted Alexander. ‘And if
you
cannot,’ said his father, ‘what penalty will you pay for being so impertinent?’ ‘I will pay the price of the
horse’, answered the boy.

(Plutarch, Alexander 6)

(i) What was the name of the horse tamed by Alexander? [1]
28

(ii) How did the bystanders react to Alexander’s boast? [1]

(iii) Briefly describe how Alexander tamed the horse. [4]
(iv) How did Alexander react when the horse died? [3]
(v) Who was the tutor Philip provided for Alexander? [1]
(vi) Using this passage as a starting point, discuss what sort of relationship Alexander had with his father.
[15]
[25 marks]

Alexander and his "Terrible Mother" by Elizabeth D. Carney

W. W. Tarn famously doubted that Alexander "ever cared for any woman except his terrible mother." More
than a generation later Peter Walcott made Olympias, Alexander's mother, the prime suspect in an article
entitled "Plato's Mother and Other Terrible Women." In the years since Tarn passed this judgment, scholars
have rejected virtually every other aspect of his interpretation of Alexander's life and reign, but I suspect
that many would still agree with his take on Olympias and her relationship with her son. This is so despite an
important ambiguity in Tarn's assessment: did he mean that Olympias was a terrible person or a terrible
mother?

My own view is that Olympias, her son Alexander, and her husband Philip Il were all, in various ways,
"terrible." (One might make a similar judgment about a number of their associates and enemies. Murder and
violence were commonplace at the Macedonian court and had been for generations.) On the other hand, I
do not believe that Olympias was a terrible mother. In fact, in the context of ancient Macedonia and Hellenic
culture more generally, I think she was a good one. Her son achieved supreme excellence by the standards
of his society and it is difficult not to connect both his achievements and some of his character traits that,
even in his own world, seemed negative to the character and values of both his parents.

My concern in this essay is to consider the relationship between Alexander and his mother. This is a
particularly daunting task because, though some documentary evidence survives that is relevant to any
discussion of their dealings with each other, most of what we know on this topic comes from anecdotes
preserved in much later — and usually misogynistic — literary sources, which often seem to use stories
about Olympias as a way of venting resentment against Macedonian power. These same sources may also
bear traces of the propaganda wars that mirrored and supported the actual wars of the Successors, battles in
which, in the early stages, Olympias was a participant.

Olympias, a daughter of a former Molossian king, was betrothed and then married to Philip Il of Macedonia
by her uncle Arybbas, the current ruler of the Molossians. Olympias' dynasty, the Aeacids, claimed descent
from Achilles, just as the Argeads took Heracles as their ancestor. Like the Argeads, her dynasty had
Hellenized and functioned as patrons of major Greek writers, but Molossia was a more remote region than
Macedonia, though similar in some respects to its more prosperous neighbor. Like Philip's other marriages,
that to Olympias was clearly a political alliance, in this case between two northern rulers with some common
interests. By the time Olympias married Philip, around 357, he had already taken at least three and probably
four other wives. Philip would acquire two additional wives much later in his reign.

Thus, Olympias was involved in a polygamous marriage and Alexander grew up in court with many women
and royal children. Arguably, Olympias was more distinguished by birth than Philip's other wives, but the fact
that she bore Philip a son, Alexander, in 356 was a more important element in Olympias' position than her
high birth. (Soon after Alexander's birth, she also bore Philip a daughter, Cleopatra.) Despite his many wives,
Philip had only one other son, Arrhidaeus (usually called Philip Arrhidaeus since he later took his father's
name). Though Alexander and Arrhidaeus were close in age and so might have seemed equally likely
successors, Arrhidaeus suffered from a sort of mental disability. It is likely that by the time Alexander had
29

reached his early teens (and possibly sooner), Philip had begun to treat him as his presumptive heir and
Olympias had therefore acquired greater prestige than his other wives. Macedonian monarchy at this time,
however, there was no formal position as chief wife (in fact, no title for royal women of any sort) nor was
there anything like the institutionalized role of Prince of Wales for the king's presumed heir. Thus, though
Alexander and his mother became dominant at court, their situation was, by definition, uncertain and both
were highly vulnerable to changes in court factions or in Philip's preferences. He could always marry again
and produce another male heir whom he might then prefer.

In Alexander's early years, Olympias played an important role in his life for a number of reasons. In the
Hellenicthe care of both girls and boys until they were 7 or so. Alexander did have a wet nurse, Lanice, a
member of the Macedonian elite. (Mother of Cleitus ‘the Black’) Though Alexander developed and
maintained close ties to Lanice's family, nothing suggests that this detracted from his relationship with his
mother. Almost certainly, he was closer to Olympias than to Philip. For one thing, his father was frequently
absent on campaign, Olympias would have been a constant presence in a way that Philip was not. As a
consequence, Alexander probably spent more time with his mother, even after his early childhood, than
might youths whose fathers were less absent.

In the period before his

teens, Alexander may
have spent more time
with his mother's kin and
supporters than with his
father. Whether they
lived in a physically
separate structure or
simply had a suite of
rooms in the palace, so
Olympias, Alexander, and
Cleopatra formed a family
sub-unit at court, but one
with a number of
supporters and with many
Molossian connections.

Olympias' brother joined

the Argead court at some point and remained there until Philip helped to put him on the Molossian throne.
Alexander's chief tutor was a kinsman of Olympias named Leonidas, a choice surely meant to honour
Olympias and her family; possibly the choice of Leonidas also reflected Olympias' influence on Philip.
Leonidas favoured an education heavy on austerity and military training; he supposedly checked to make
sure that Olympias was not smuggling forbidden luxuries to her son. Another early tutor, Lysimachus of
Acarnania, was quite possibly also chosen through the influence of Olympias and her family. Lysimachus
stressed Alexander's Aeacid descent rather than the Heraclid line of Philip: he called himself "Phoenix,"
Alexander "Achilles," and Philip "Peleus", thus turning Philip himself into an honorary Aeacid. In a patriarchal
and patrilineal world like that of fourth-century Greece, Alexander's identification of himself as an Aeacid
(and the tendency of the sources to stress this identification) is striking. Arrian (1.11.8) has Alexander say
that he was descended from the genos (clan) of Neoptolemus.

Philip's toleration, one might almost say encouragement, of this distinctive non-Macedonian identity of
Alexander's, an identity clearly tied to Olympias' oikos (house), is not unique to his treatment of Alexander.
We know that he apparently allowed his Illyrian wife Audata to bring up their daughter Cynnane in a fashion
very much at odds with Macedonian expectations about women; Cynnane was trained to fight as a warrior
30

(indeed she apparently fought in at least one battle during her father's reign) and would train her daughter
in turn. Exactly why Philip seems to have invited these alternate identities in the children of his wives by
non-Macedonian women is not clear, but it did give them a sense of themselves that was not exclusively
grounded in court politics and the current succession pecking order.
Alexander's lineage meant more to him than simple prestige or high birth. While his emulation of heroes
certainly included his father's supposed ancestor Heracles, it was his mother's mythical forebear who
proved the more compelling model for his behaviour. Though Macedonian society and monarchy was
generally more Homeric in its value system and institutions — for instance, hetairoi (Companions)
accompanied Macedonian kings as they did Homeric ones — than the cultures of southern Greece,
Olympias' focus on her ancestry was certainly the origin of Alexander's tendency to explain himself through
Achilles. Aristotle doubtless influenced this aspect of Alexander's life as well, but Olympias and his tutors
were the first to focus on it.

Hellenic culture, beginning at least with Homer, was notoriously competitive: an agon (contest, trial) existed
for virtually every kind of human endeavour and only through victory in an agon could areté be achieved and
time assigned. In effect, one could not simply be good; one had to be better than others. These agonistic
values were responsible for both remarkable achievements and for destructive behaviour and devaluation of
cooperative behaviour and compromise. Achilles epitomized the areté ideal: he was supreme in warfare,
brave, young, unyielding, and comparatively uninterested in common goals and activities. Of course, Achilles
was famously fated to face a choice of a short and glorious life or a long and inglorious one and naturally
chose the former. While, as I have suggested, Olympias and tutors chosen from her family's sphere of
influence were probably the first to instil the image of Achilles and the values of Homer in Alexander, the
inculcation of these values would surely have met with approval from Philip. Rather than being the warped
standards of a woman who could "realize her own thwarted ambitions only vicariously through her offspring,
these were cultural norms, if carried to an extreme degree of success in the case of Alexander and Philip.
Indeed, father and son competed with each other in many ways: "emulation and resentment" characterized
the relationship between father and son, even after Philip's death.

A story attributed to Theophrastus asserts that Olympias and Philip also shared a similar point of view about
another parental concern, Alexander's sexuality. According to Theophrastus, Alexander was not interested in
matters sexual, and his parents, fearing he might be womanish, arranged a sexual relationship with a
beautiful hetaira, Callixeina. Theophrastus actually pictures Olympias nagging Alexander to have sex. The
tale, however entertaining, does not inspire much confidence in its truth. Apart from the three wives
Alexander ultimately took and the two sons he sired, it is certain that he had at least one non-obligatory
sexual relationship with a man (Bagoas) and one with a woman (Barsine) , and probably many more,
including a long-term emotional tie to Hephaestion. He may well have been more interested in power than
sex, but he was hardly a "mama's boy" in any clinical sense. Whatever the truth of Theophrastus' account, it
does represent Olympias and Philip acting in agreement and concert as parents and that appears to have
been true, at least up until the period after the battle of Chaeroneia in 338.

Despite the larger world Alexander began to enter as he began his teens (studies under Aristotle away from
the court at Mieza, time as regent during his father's absence, his prominent role in the great victory of a
fundamental fact of his life kept him tied to his mother (and to a much lesser degree, his full sister). His
mother's status, even her safety, derived from his existence and from his position as heir presumptive.
Generally, royal women had more influence as kings' mothers than they had as kings' wives; this was
particularly true in a situation where a king could have many wives but, of course, only one mother. Not
surprisingly, royal mothers acted as succession advocates for their sons. (Full sisters tended to function as
part of the succession unit as well; the kind of marriage a sister might make would be determined, in good
part, by her brother's success.) Philip's mother, for instance, took dramatic public action to safeguard the
throne for her remaining sons.
31

In the competitive situation created by royal polygamy, a king's son inescapably grew closer to his mother
than to his father because the former was his succession advocate since, as we have seen, her status derived
from her son's success whereas his father had or could have more sons and might prefer one of them. A
king's preference could change; an aging monarch might begin to find a younger son more preferable to one
of adult or nearly adult years; the more youthful son postponed thoughts of debility and death (a famous
example of this would be Lysimachus' rejection of his adult son Agathocles in favour of his younger son
Ptolemy). Plutarch tells a story (surely fictional) in which Alexander complains to Philip because he was
producing children by many women and Philip orders him, by means of this contest for royal power, to
prove he was worthy to rule because of himself, not just Philip. While dubious at best from a historical point
of view, the anecdote provides a fairly accurate picture of how Argeads gained and then retained their hold
on the throne and it recognizes an essential truth about relations between royal fathers and sons. A king's
son always had reason to distrust his father, even when he seemed currently on good terms, but he could
count on his mother since her self-interest and his own were, at least until he became the king, more or less
identical. Almost certainly, the situation that bred political closeness between mother and son also
generated emotional closeness. The royal Macedonian court was a frightening place; having someone you
could always count on was critical and doubtless inspired affection.

Still, though retaining a certain amount of paranoia was healthy for royal wives and children (after all, there
usually was someone out to get them!), the comparative uncertainty about their position that may have
characterized the early years of Olympias' marriage and Alexander's childhood had, probably about the time
Alexander neared or reached his teens, surely dwindled. Arrhidaeus' mental limits were now obvious and
Philip had surely signalled his intention to have Alexander succeed him by his very public choice of Aristotle
as Alexander's tutor, by entrusting the kingdom to Alexander when he was only 16, and by Alexander's
command of the cavalry at Chaeroneia and his diplomatic role in the negotiations after the great victory.

Despite claims to the contrary, we know nothing about relations between Philip and Olympias at any period
before 338: perhaps they were always distant or hostile, perhaps first they were passionate and later
antagonistic, perhaps not. People were pragmatic, not romantic, about marriage in the ancient world — it
was to produce children — and particularly so about royal marriages since their origins were so often
political. The fact that a marriage was polygamous would only intensify this situation. Whatever their
personal feelings, public relations between Philip and Olympias, so far as we can tell, remained good. The
Macedonian and Hellenic world was patriarchal and, of course, a double standard applied: quite apart from
other wives, Philip had many lovers, female and male, possibly including Olympias' own brother. This need
not mean that Alexander's family life, in his teens, was particularly stressful because of tension between his
parents. There is no evidence that
Olympias was ever sexually jealous and
if she ever were, nearly twenty years of
marriage to Philip would surely have
muted such feelings. There is good
evidence that she was, however, quite
jealous of her son's position.

But, until soon after Chaeroneia, she

had no obvious reason for concern
there. Indeed, the monument that Philip
apparently commissioned soon after the
battle to commemorate his victory, the
Philippeum, also commemorated the
comfortable dynastic status quo: inside
the building were statues that appeared
to be made of gold and ivory, thus
32

imitating images of the gods, of Philip, his father Amyntas Ill, his mother Eurydice, Alexander, and Olympias.
Philip planned to place this structure at Olympia, within the sacred precincts, a dynastic statement aimed at
a Panhellenic audience. Olympias and Alexander could hardly have asked for a clearer validation of their
status or one directed at a larger audience. Ironically, within months of Philip's decision to have the
Philippeum constructed, the dynastic unity and stability it projected had shattered. (The image is an artist’s
impression)

Had a situation not occurred which jeopardized Alexander's succession to the throne, it is possible that the
mother—son relationship would not have remained as important during Alexander's later life. Certainly,
events transpired that inevitably tied his fate and hers together and inspired in both tremendous uncertainty
and anger. The sudden and unexpected fall from favour that both experienced colored all their future
political dealings and surely inclined both to suspicion and to vengeance. Roughly eight years of what passed
for security at the Argead court had lulled them into a kind of calm that neither would again manage to
entertain.

Trouble for Alexander and Olympias began as a consequence of Philip's decision to marry yet again, this time
to a young Macedonian woman, Cleopatra, the ward of her uncle Attalus. Philip's decision to marry yet again
(this was his seventh marriage) seems unremarkable in itself: many Macedonians contracted marriages, in
the period just before the beginning of the invasion of the Persian empire, in hope of leaving sons behind;
Philip himself had only one viable son, a son who may have been going to accompany his father on campaign
and Argead kings rarely died in bed so there was clear need for more dynastic backup; Attalus, though we
know nothing about his career before this period, was certainly prominent in the last years of Philip's reign
and so this marriage, like the earlier ones, was some sort of political alliance as well. It was not, however, the
marriage itself that caused the trouble. Philip had married at least one woman, perhaps two, after his
marriage to Olympias, with no obvious upset and no child from a new marriage could possibly jeopardize the
more or less adult Alexander's position in the succession for many years. Alexander attended the symposium
connected to Philip's wedding, a sign that he considered his father's latest marriage innocuous. It was not
the marriage itself but events at the symposium that precipitated dynastic meltdown.

After the men had been drinking for a while (if Cleopatra, Olympias, or any royal women were present, their
presence is not mentioned by any ancient author) and Attalus and Philip and probably Alexander too were
quite drunk, the guardian of the bride, Attalus, called upon the Macedonians to beg the gods that from the
marriage of Philip and Cleopatra might come a genuine or legitimate successor to the kingdom or rule.
(Plutarch) Justin tells a different story, one that has Alexander start the argument because he was
concerned that a son born from this marriage would be a rival. For a variety of reasons, Justin's account has
generally been considered less credible than the other tradition. Whatever the literal intent of Attalus' insult
(some believed it attacked Olympias' and thus Alexander's Molossian ethnicity, some Olympias' sexual
fidelity, and I think it was, in effect, comparative — a son by Cleopatra, in Attalus' view, would be more
genuine or legitimate than Alexander), it was, however drunken, an assertion of self-interest. Not
surprisingly, we hear that Alexander threw a wine cup at Attalus. What is surprising is not Attalus' bravado,
but Philip's reaction. According to Plutarch, Philip not only did not support his son but actually attempted to
attack him with his sword and was foiled only by his own drunkenness or the efforts of his friends. Even if he
did not actually draw his sword on Alexander, Philip apparently allowed this public questioning of
Alexander's ability to inherit. Alexander left the symposium and the kingdom, in company with his mother.
Alexander left Olympias with her brother, now king of Molossia, but he himself went on to stay among the
Illyrians, traditional enemies of Macedonia but also kinfolk.

Alexander and Olympias went into self-imposed exile (Philip did not send them into exile) because of Attalus'
insult and what it implied about Philip's intentions. Whatever Attalus had intended by using the term
gnesios, it was a term that dishonoured Olympias and her clan. Justin claims that Olympias wanted her
brother the king to go to war with Philip; naturally that did not happen, but Attalus had treated their lineage
33

with contempt; not only Olympias but the Aeacid dynasty had been publicly humiliated. Not surprisingly,
particularly because of the imminence of Philip's departure for Asia, a public reconciliation was patched
together. Alexander and his mother returned to Macedonia. Plutarch alone tells a story that suggests that,
despite the formal rapprochement, Alexander and Olympias remained extremely anxious about Alexander's
ability to succeed: supposedly, on the advice of Olympias and other friends, Alexander tried to substitute
himself for his brother Arrhidaeus as groom in a projected marriage with the daughter of a critical ruler in
Asia Minor, Pixodarus. Apparently Alexander, Olympias, and the rest understood the marriage as a sign that
his brother was now the favoured choice to succeed Philip. Philip found out what Alexander had done, he
was furious and sent several of Alexander's friends into exile. If this incident is historical, Alexander and
Olympias were still acting as a succession unit but in this case, as opposed to Attalus' insult, their judgment
seems questionable. The insult, with its public destruction of the time of mother and son, in effect, required
that they depart so that Philip would then have to publicly restore their time. In the Pixodarus incident, even
if their reading of the significance of the projected marriage were correct, they actually made matters worse;
more likely they caused a problem where none had really existed. It is hard not to conclude that the earlier
episode had so shaken their confidence in Alexander's position that they overreacted.

Whatever the truth of the Pixodarus affair, Philip certainly did do something dramatic to symbolize the
reconciliation and assuage damaged Aeacid pride: he arranged a marriage between his daughter by
Olympias, Cleopatra, and Olympias' brother, the king of Molossia. Moreover, he turned the wedding into an
international event and festival, obviously intending to showcase the newly restored harmony of the royal
family as well as the wealth and power of Macedonia on the eve of the great Asian expedition.
Unfortunately for Philip, his assassin saw this ancient media event as the perfect occasion for the murder of
the king. The identity of Philip's assassin — Pausanias, a bodyguard and former lover of the king — is known
but, since Pausanias was killed very soon after the assassination, we can only speculate as to whether he
acted alone (he did have strong personal motivation) or in concert with others at court. Regicide was
common in Macedonia but, with one exception, it had previously involved other members of the dynasty.
Inevitably, suspicion fell on Alexander and Olympias, particularly because of their recent troubles with Philip.
Olympias and Alexander both later demonstrated their willingness to commit murder and Philip had, after
all, threatened his son, either directly or indirectly. Even though the baby Cleopatra, Philip's bride, had so
recently given birth to was probably female and thus Alexander faced no immediate threat to his succession,
his succession did appear to be years in the future. The death of Philip meant that Alexander got to lead the
expedition; we do not even know if Philip had planned to take him. More generally, killing Philip would have
ended the chronic insecurity of their position. Obviously Alexander and Olympias were capable of murder
and had clear motivation. Philip had many enemies and Pausanias may have acted alone. We cannot rule
Alexander and Olympias out but neither is there enough evidence to assume that they were guilty. What is
impossible to believe is that either instigated the assassination.

The less than two-year period between Philip's murder and Alexander's departure for Asia was a transitional
one for the relationship of Alexander and Olympias. In Macedonia typically instability followed the death of a
king. Alexander had to prove himself against the Illyrians and possible Greek defectors from the alliance
Philip had constructed and he did just that and was recognized as the new hegemon. He had to blame the
assassination on someone, so he found appropriate Macedonian candidates, people whose absence
happened to be convenient from his own point of view, and eliminated them. In addition to dealing with
these threats to the stability of the kingdom and projected expedition, Alexander chose to deal with
someone he clearly considered an enemy, Attalus. At the time of Philip's murder, Attalus was in Asia along
with Parmenion, helping to command the preliminary force Philip had sent to Asia. Alexander had him
eliminated, apparently with the collusion of Parmenion. Since Attalus had questioned Alexander's worthiness
to rule, his death can hardly have come as a surprise.

Cleopatra, Philip's last bride, and her baby were killed as well. Only one of the major narratives of
Alexander's reign mentions the deaths of mother and child; two categorically different accounts from two
34

late and dubious sources are extant. Clearly, the murder was not a public act. Both accounts assert that
Olympias had Cleopatra murdered and this seems quite likely: just as Olympias and Alexander had
functioned as a succession unit, so had Attalus and his niece. Death, like virtually everything else in the Greek
world was gendered; men were supposed to die in public, the victims of sharp weapons, while women died
in private, within the world of women and might most nobly (assuming they were of high birth) hang
themselves. So Alexander arranged the death of their male enemy and Olympias the death of their female
enemy. Their house, their clan, had been insulted and they paid the insult back. Plutarch, who does not
directly mention the death of Cleopatra (let alone her child), does say that Alexander was angry with his
mother because, during his absence, she had treated Cleopatra savagely. It is difficult to know what to make
of this passage: is Plutarch euphemistically referring to Cleopatra's murder? If so, why the euphemism? Is it
plausible that Alexander did not know that Olympias was going to do this? Even if Plutarch thought that
Alexander was sincere in his approval, apparently others did not; in this same passage Plutarch includes a
reference to sources that have Alexander quote a line from the Medea (289) that implies Alexander was
encouraging Pausanias to bring about the deaths of Cleopatra, Philip, and Attalus. Justin, having mentioned
only Olympias in his narrative of the murder, has Alexander, after the killing of Cleitus, regret various
murders including that of Cleopatra and his "brothers". The great likelihood is that mother and son planned
the elimination of their enemies together. Granted the dominance of Judeo-Christian ethics in modern
culture, vengeance has a bad name. In the Greek world, where the axiom was that one should help one's
friends and harm one's enemies, something close to the reverse applied. Moreover, for members of the
Macedonian elite, eliminating enemies was a practical matter, not simply an issue of emotional satisfaction.
If they were dead, they couldn't plot against you. Both Cleopatra and her baby could have formed a faction
or been used by a faction to jeopardize Alexander's hold on the throne, not just in 336, but even years later.

By the time of Alexander's departure for Asia, he was secure on the throne and no longer needed his
mother's advocacy as he had before. Inevitably their relationship grew more complex: Alexander was now an
adult, less in need of political support, and pursuing his own policies. Distance doubtless complicated this
situation. Mother and son never saw each other again and their experiences, during the years of his reign,
were quite different. It is unlikely, however, that either Alexander or his mother entertained the notion that
Olympias would go east with her son. Macedonian monarchs did not generally take their wives with them
and both mother and son probably thought that Olympias would be more useful on the Greek peninsula
than traveling with her son's court. It was a position that entailed a greater possibility for the exercise of
power, but also greater vulnerability.

Both power and vulnerability were a possibility because of the arrangement Alexander left behind him.
Clearly Antipater had some sort of general administrative and military responsibility for Macedonia and the
Greek peninsula, but even early on Olympias had some sort of public responsibility, possibly deriving from a
role in dynastic ritual. In any case, though there is evidence for no previous enmity, Antipater and Olympias
now began to squabble and complain about each other in letters to Alexander. In the early years of his reign
Alexander needed Antipater to send reinforcements and deal with real and potential revolts. Apparently
because she was losing out in the struggle for authority with Antipater, Olympias left Macedonia for her
homeland of Molossia. Olympias' brother the king had died on campaign and it would appear that she and
her daughter ruled Molossia together for some time. By the later years of Alexander's reign, Antipater's
influence was waning and Olympias' increasing. Plutarch says (apparently in terms of the last year or two of
Alexander's reign) that mother and daughter formed a faction together, Olympias taking Molossia and her
daughter Macedonia. Plutarch has Alexander essentially ignoring the situation, other than joking about it,
apparently indifferent to what came of it. Of course, Alexander called Antipater to Babylon, planning to
replace him with Craterus, but Antipater, at the time of Alexander's death, had not budged. It would appear
that Olympias had lost the first battle but won the war with Antipater (or would have, had Alexander lived).

In some respects, Olympias and Alexander's relationship during this period was conventional. He sent his
mother (and sister) plunder, and Olympias made rich dedications with it at Delphi. She made offerings at
35

Athens to Hygieia, probably on her son's behalf. There are, however, a number of indications that Olympias'
relationship with her son was not only emotional but political. Olympias and her daughter both received
grain shipments in times of grain scarcity, in effect functioning as heads of state, possibly in concert with
Alexander. At times, Olympias acted as though she had some official position and contemporaries
sometimes spoke about her as though she did. Our sources refer to frequent correspondence between
Olympias and Alexander and periodically quote from or paraphrase their letters. The authenticity of this
epistolary exchange is uncertain and has typically been addressed on a case-by-case basis. In any event,
aside from references to the Olympias—Antipater feud, our sources indicate that Olympias fairly frequently
warned her son against people she considered a threat and more generally against policies she felt
threatened his interests. Like some of Alexander's male courtiers, Olympias was clearly jealous and
competitive; doubtless Alexander was familiar with this point of view. According to Plutarch, Alexander did
not permit his mother to interfere in campaigns or public affairs and she complained about this. Plutarch's
judgment is problematic on several grounds, not least of which is the fact that Olympias clearly did involve
herself in public affairs. Moreover, it is difficult to know how Alexander (or his mother) might have defined
interference.

Whereas many people take Plutarch at his word and assume that Alexander never paid attention to his
mother's political advice, they do often believe that she did influence her son in terms of his claims to be the
son of Zeus. What little ancient evidence survives is ambiguous. Plutarch cites two traditions: Eratosthenes
for the notion that Olympias told Alexander that he was the son of a god before he left Macedonia, but
others have Olympias denying that she had any role and joking that he was slandering her to Hera. This claim
of divine sonship, apparently first asserted publicly in Egypt after his visit to the oracle of Zeus Ammon,
moved him in the direction of what would become divine monarchy. Argeads (and other elite families and
dynasties in the Greek world) had always claimed descent from the gods, but asserting that one's father was
a god was another matter, particularly since such an assertion meant denying that Philip Il was his father.
Indeed, divine sonship was clearly unpopular with many Macedonians for exactly this reason. Even if we
assume that Olympias, after 338, loathed Philip, we should not assume that she would have been the one to
advocate divine sonship, especially early in her son's reign. The insult of Attalus was still fresh in everyone's
mind and any woman had to avoid any implication that she had slept with anyone other than her husband.
Olympias was the one who first inspired the heroic values her son embraced, the sort of world view that
might make divine parentage imaginable, but the specific notion was probably Alexander's, not hers. Curtius
alone asserts that Alexander planned to deify his mother after her death; this could be true but it could also
be an anachronistic Roman understanding of the situation. Whatever the specifics, it does seem likely that
the Homeric values of Olympias and Alexander contributed to an understanding of Alexander as divinized.

Did Olympias generally have influence with Alexander? Her influence was certainly not automatic, as the
situation with Antipater demonstrates. She always had access to the king and it is likely that Alexander,
though clearly recognizing that she pursued her own self-interest as well as his own, must have valued her as
an independent source of information (as indicated by the report that he generally kept the content of her
letters secret), one whose interests were close to his own though hardly identical with them. Even Plutarch
conceded that she had more influence than Antipater, in the end, and events tend to bear that out. Our
tradition heavily depends on Plutarch, who is demonstrably hostile to Olympias, pictures Alexander as a fond
and dutiful son, but one who at times found his mother overbearing. Some of this may be Plutarch or that
Alexander needed to play to Greek convention and deny that Olympias or any other royal woman had a role
in public affairs, but some of it could be real.

For Olympias, as for everyone else, the death of her son was entirely unexpected, almost unimaginable. His
death meant that Olympias was vulnerable in a way she could never have been during her son's reign and
her actions suggest that she was well aware of her danger. She claimed that Antipater and his sons had
poisoned Alexander. Doubtless she believed it: they had motive and opportunity and she hated them. She
was not the only one who found it hard to believe that the invincible and still young Alexander had died of
36

natural causes. To the degree she was able, Olympias attempted to punish the clan of Antipater for the
betrayal of which she believed they were guilty. Olympias clearly saw herself as the custodian of her son's
memory. In the end she risked and lost her life as part of what would ultimately prove a disastrous military
attempt to insure the throne for Alexander's son, Alexander IV. Just as during Alexander's life Olympias had
spent her time in fierce pursuit of her son's and her own self-interest, after his death her pursuit of her
grandson's and her own self-interest brought about her own.

Making judgments about the nature of other people's relationships is always an act of imagination to some
degree, and making such a determination about a relationship more than 2,000 years in the past, one that
existed in a radically different culture, is far more speculative, particularly in the absence of evidence
deriving directly from the two parties. The Alexander Romance paints a highly sentimental picture of an
idealized and loving relationship between Alexander and Olympias; in effect, it implies that Tarn was right,
that Olympias really was the only woman he loved. Perhaps that is the truth. What is more certain is that she
was the only woman he could trust.

NOW do the following.

Read the passage below, and answer the questions which follow:

But before long the domestic strife that resulted from Philip’s various marriages and love-affairs caused the
quarrels which took place in the women’s apartments to infect the whole kingdom, and led to bitter clashes
and accusations between father and son. This breach was widened by Olympias, a woman of a jealous and
vindictive temper, who incited Alexander to oppose his father. Their quarrel was brought to a head on the
occasion of the wedding of Cleopatra, a girl with whom Philip had fallen in love and whom he had decided to
marry, although she was far too young for him. Cleopatra’s uncle Attalus, who had drunk too much at the
banquet, called upon the Macedonians to pray to the gods that the union of Philip and Cleopatra might bring
forth a legitimate heir to the throne. Alexander flew into a rage at these words, shouted at him, ‘Villain, do
you take me for a bastard, then?’ and hurled a drinking-cup at his head. At this Philip lurched to his feet, and
drew his sword against his son, but fortunately for them both he was so overcome with drink and with rage
that he tripped and fell headlong. Alexander jeered at him and cried out, ‘Here is the man who was making
ready to cross from Europe to Asia, and who cannot even cross from one table to another without losing his
balance.’

(Plutarch, Life of Alexander 9)

(i) Where did Olympias come from? [1]

(ii) Which god did Olympias claim was Alexander’s father? [1]
(iii) Name two of the heroes from whom Alexander claimed to be descended. [2]
(iv) What did Alexander and Olympias do immediately after this incident? [2]
(v) Briefly describe how Philip died. [4]
(vi) Using this passage as a starting point, explain how far you agree that Alexander had a better relationship
with his mother than with his father. [15]
[25]

AND NOW do the following essay, for 25 marks.

Who do you think was the most influential person on Alexander as he was growing up? In your answer, you
should discuss at least three people. [25]
37

Did Alexander have the Oedipus complex?

What Is the Oedipus Complex?

Also called the oedipal complex, the Oedipus complex is a term used in the psychosexual stages of
development theory by Sigmund Freud. The concept, first proposed by Freud in 1899 and not formally used
until 1910, refers to a male child’s attraction to their parent of the opposite sex (mother) and jealousy of
their parent of the same sex (father).

According to the controversial concept, children view the same-sex parent as a rival. Specifically, a boy feels
the need to compete with his father for the attention of his mother, or a girl will compete with her mother
for the attention of her father. The latter concept was termed the “Electra complex,” by a former student
and collaborator of Freud, Carl Jung.

The controversy centres on the theory that a child has sexual feelings towards a parent. Freud believed that
though these feelings or desires are repressed or unconscious, they still have a significant influence on a
child’s development.

Oedipus complex origins

The complex is named after Oedipus Rex — a character in Sophocles’ tragic play. In the story, Oedipus Rex
unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother.

According to Freud’s theory, the psychosexual development in childhood happens in stages. Each stage
represents the fixation of libido on a different part of the body. Freud believed that as you grow physically,
certain parts of your body become sources of pleasure, frustration, or both. Today, these body parts are
commonly referred to as erogenous zones when talking about sexual pleasure.

According to Freud, the stages of psychosexual development include:

Oral. This stage happens between infancy and 18 months. It involves fixation on the mouth, and the pleasure
of sucking, licking, chewing, and biting.
Anal. This stage occurs between 18 months and 3 years of age. It focuses on the pleasure of bowel
elimination and developing healthy toilet training habits.
Phallic. This stage runs from age 3 to 5. It’s believed to be the most important stage in psychosexual
development in which boys and girls develop healthy substitutes for their attraction to the opposite-sex
parent.
Latency. This stage occurs between 5 and 12 years of age or puberty, during which a child develops healthy
dormant feelings for the opposite sex.
Genital. This stage occurs from age 12, or puberty, to adulthood. The maturation of healthy sexual interests
happens during this time as all of the other stages are integrated into the mind. This allows for healthy
sexual feelings and behaviour.
According to Freud, the first five years of life are important in the formation and development of our adult
personalities. During this time, he believed we develop our ability to control and direct our sexual desires
into socially acceptable behaviours.
38

Based on his theory, the Oedipus complex plays a significant role in the phallic stage, which happens
between approximately 3 and 6 years of age. In this stage, the child’s libido is focused on the genitalia.

Oedipus complex symptoms

The symptoms and signs of the Oedipus complex aren’t as overtly sexual — if at all — as one might imagine
based on this controversial theory. The signs of Oedipus complex can be very subtle and include behaviour
that wouldn’t make a parent think twice.

The following are some examples that could be a sign of the complex:

a boy who acts possessive of his mother and tells the father not to touch her
a child who insists on sleeping between parents
a girl who declares she wants to marry her father when she grows up
a child who hopes the parent of the opposite sex goes out of town so that they can take their place

Oedipus and Electra complex

The Electra complex is referred to as the female counterpart of the Oedipus complex. Unlike the Oedipus
complex, which refers to both males and females, this psychoanalytic term refers only to females. It involves
a daughter’s adoration for her father and her jealously toward her mother. There’s also a “penis envy”
element to the complex, in which the daughter blames the mother for depriving her of a penis.

The Electra complex was defined by Carl Jung, one of the pioneers of psychoanalysis and former collaborator
of Freud’s. It was named after the Greek myth of Electra. In the myth, Electra persuades her brother to
avenge her father’s murder by helping her kill her mother and her lover.

Freud’s Oedipus complex resolution

According to Freud, a child must overcome conflicts at each of the sexual stages to be able to develop
healthy sexual desires and behaviours. When the Oedipus complex is not successfully resolved during the
phallic stage, an unhealthy fixation can develop and remain. This leads to boys becoming fixated on their
mothers and girls becoming fixated on their fathers, causing them to choose romantic partners that
resemble their opposite-sex parent as adults.

The Oedipus complex is one of the most discussed and

criticized issues in psychology. Experts have, and will likely
continue to have, differing views and opinions on the
complex and whether or not it exists and to what degree.

The story of Oedipus

The son of Laius and Jocasta, King and Queen of Thebes,

Oedipus is the unfortunate main protagonist of “one of the
best-known of all legends” in Ancient Greek – or any other
– mythology. Left, while still a baby, to die in the
mountains by his father – who had been warned that his
son would kill him and marry his wife – Oedipus was
eventually adopted by the childless King Polybus and
39

Queen Merope of Corinth. After accidentally finding about the gruesome prophecy himself, in fear and
disgust the young Oedipus fled Corinth and – guided by cruel destiny – wound up crossing paths with his real
father at a narrow crossroad; after a brief argument with Laius’ charioteer over who had the right to go first,
Oedipus killed both of them. Wandering aimlessly, he subsequently reached the city of Thebes where he
encountered the monstrous gate-guarding Sphinx; after he answered her riddle, the Sphinx went mad and
hurled herself to her death. As a reward for rescuing the city from this vicious beast, Oedipus was afterward
offered the vacant throne of Thebes and the hand in marriage of the ex-king’s widow, who he did not know,
his very own mother. Jocasta bore her son four children – Polynices, Eteocles, Antigone, and Ismene –
before a belated investigation into the death of Laius led Oedipus into discovering the dreadful truth of his
marriage. Upon realization, Jocasta hanged herself, and Oedipus gouged his eyes with two pins snatched
from her regal dress.

What did the Sphinx ask in her riddle?

The Sphinx asked Oedipus the same question she had

asked the unfortunate ones before him: “What walks
on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon, and
three at night?” No one had ever answered the
question correctly before. But Oedipus thought
carefully and eventually solved the riddle: “Man –
who crawls on all fours as a baby, then on two legs as
an adult, and then with a walking stick when in old
age.” The Sphinx, unable to bear the fact that her
riddle had been answered correctly, hurled herself off
the rock she was sitting on and to her death.

The Aftermath

After Oedipus' death, his sons Polynices and Eteocles

decided to share the throne of Thebes, but when
Eteocles refused to give the throne once his time was
over, Polynices left Thebes and returned with an
army. The attack of the Seven Against Thebes
resulted in both brothers dying on the battlefield; the
conditions of their burial became a cause for the famous conflict between Antigone and once-again Theban
king, Creon.

Alexander as King

Alexander's relationship with the Greeks

Alexander was determined to maintain firm control of the Greek states and used every possible means to
achieve this. He asserted his authority over the League of Corinth, punished rebels severely, and rewarded
those who were loyal.

Alexander and the League of Corinth

Members of the League of Corinth were forced to accept Alexander as their Hegemon and Strategos. The
League was important to Alexander because it gave him control over the Greek states of the mainland and
many of the islands, plus control of the Athenian fleet AND of the Greek armies, including the Thessalian
cavalry.
40

The League also allowed Alexander to maintain peace in Greece, as member states were forbidden to fight
each other, and he could now lead the allied troops against Persia under the pretext of a religious war of
revenge.
How successful was Alexander in managing member states?

Greek states joined the League reluctantly, so in the early years of Alexander’s rule there were several
rebellions against Macedonian rule. When he left for the east, Alexander, anticipating opposition, appointed
Antipater to the position of Regent of Macedonia and Deputy Hegemon of the League, in charge of 12 000
Macedonian infantry and 1 500 cavalry. All rebellions were therefore suppressed. A number of Greeks joined
the enemy as mercenaries fighting against Alexander and his allied army Despite severe punishment of the
mercenaries, they continued to fight him.

The first of the Greek rebellions 335 BC

As soon as the Greek states heard of Philips death, they prepared to rebel against Macedonia. Alexander
was in the north when he heard about the rebellions of the Greeks. Quick action was necessary, but he was
determined to avoid fighting if possible -like his father, he wanted to befriend the Greeks.

Thessaly

To get to the Greek states of the south, Alexander had to go through Thessaly. To avoid confrontation,
instead of taking the usual route through the Vale of Tempe (where the famous Thessalian cavalry were
waiting to do battle), he followed a narrow path up the slopes of Mt Ossa and found his way into the city.
The Thessalians had no choice but to welcome him. They recognised him as their Archon (political leader)
and placed their famous cavalry at his disposal. This incident highlights Alexander’s ingenuity. He was a
master strategist who often conquered by surprising the enemy.

Neighbouring tribes

As soon as the neighbouring states (e.g. Thebes,

Athens) heard about the surrender of Thessaly, they
too submitted. Corinthian League members held a
synhedrion and declared him their hegemon
strategos autocrator.

Second rebellion of the Greek states

In 336 BC, new king of Persia, Darius llI, decided to

reclaim his authority over the Greek states. He sent
agents to Greece with much gold to encourage
Greeks to rebel against Macedonia. A rumour
started that Alexander had been killed in the north

Theban rebellion Spring 335 BC

Thebes decided it was a good time to rise against Macedonia. Athens, under Demosthenes, promised help to
the Thebans and so did an allied Peloponnesian army Demosthenes and Sparta accepted Persian money.
Thebes invited political exiles back and the Theban assembly voted to fight Macedonia. Thebans thought
Alexander was dead - only when he encamped outside their gates did they believe he was still alive!
Alexander issued a proclamation offering Thebans an amnesty, demanding only the surrender of the two
41

rebel leaders. But the Thebans replied by demanding the surrender of Philotas and Antipater and invited
anyone to join them and the king of Persia in 'freeing Greece from the tyrants'. Alexander was furious and
ordered an attack.

Initially the Thebans held their own in fierce fighting outside the walls. Eventually the Macedonian phalanx
pushed into the city. The fight turned into a massacre – 6 000 Thebans were killed. Alexander quite properly
treated the revolt as an infringement of the Common Peace of the Corinthian League. He handed over the
decision about the fate of Thebes to representatives of the allies who were there helping him. Their decision
was that the city of Thebes be razed to the ground, its territory divided up among the allies and survivors
sold as slaves – 30 000 Thebans were enslaved.

Why did Alexander punish Thebes so severely?

The destruction of Thebes was a calculated decision. Alexander entrusted the fate of Thebes to her bitter
enemies, keen to settle old scores. J. R. Hamilton refers to 'a calculated act of terrorism on the part of
Alexander'. Alexander used Thebes to teach other Greek states a lesson. This was an important step in the
relationship of Alexander and the Greek states.

 By destroying Thebes, Alexander removed the possibility of reaching understanding with the Greek
states. They had no choice but to accept him as leader.
 One after another the Greek states hastened to apologise to Alexander. The Athenian assembly sent
an embassy to congratulate Alexander on his safe return from the northern campaigns and on
defeating the Thebans.

BUT some were spared at Thebes – priests were exempted, as were all known allies of Macedonia. All
descendants of the poet Pindar were spared, and his house was not destroyed. Pindar had written poems in
praise of the kings of Macedonia 150 years previously. For Alexander, this was the only justification needed
Alexander then returned to Macedonia to begin preparations for conquest of the Persian Empire.

These events highlight Alexander’s relationship with the Greek states, his determination (prepared to do
anything to achieve his ambitions), his military ingenuity and skill and his energy and speed of movement.

NOW do the following exercise. Answer in paragraphs for each question.

(a) In 335 BC Alexander besieged the city of Thebes. Give an account of the siege. (10)
(b) How did Alexander treat the inhabitants of Thebes after he captured the city? (5)
(c) What does this episode tell us about the character of Alexander? (1o)

Alexander and Athens

Athens received more favourable

treatment from Alexander,
probably because he was anxious
to have a friend among the Greeks
and because, in the early days, he
needed the Athenian fleet.
Evidence for this includes the
following. After the Theban revolt,
Athens was not punished (only one
of the rebel leaders was exiled),
even though Athens promised
42

support for Thebes. Alexander left Macedonian garrisons in a number of Greek states to protect his
interests, but not in Athens. After the battle of Granicus in 334 BC, Alexander sent 300 suits of captured
armour to Athens as an offering to Athena.
When Alexander discovered the statue of the Tyrant slayer (taken by the Persian king in an early invasion) in
Susa in 331 BC, he sent it back to Athens as a gift, knowing it had national value. And yet - Alexander was
determined to punish Athens over the mercenaries issue and use this incident as a lesson for all Greeks.

The issue of the Greek mercenaries 334 BC

In 334 BC Alexander fought the Persian satraps for the first time, at the battle of Granicus. Approximately
6000 Greek mercenaries under the leadership of Memnon, a Greek commander, joined the Persians against
Alexander. When Alexander won the battle, the 2 000 surviving mercenaries were sent in chains to hard
labour in Macedonia. Alexander had the right to punish the mercenaries, as they had contravened the
resolutions of the Corinthian League. Their punishment, however, was severe, as he intended this to be a
lesson for all Greeks and to intimidate them into submission.

In the spring of 333 BC when Alexander was at Gordium, an embassy came to him from Athens requesting
the release of the Granicus mercenaries. Alexander refused. Why? The presence of the Persians in the
Aegean Sea and the eastern Mediterranean was very strong, and Darius was giving money to finance Greek
rebellions. Alexander therefore kept the prisoners as a reminder to other Greeks of what would happen to
them if they betrayed him.

In the spring of 331 BC (when Alexander returned to Tyre after taking over Egypt), Athenian embassies came
to him for a second time requesting the release of the mercenaries. Alexander this time agreed to release
them. Why? He had recently received news of the rebellion of king Agis, so he decided to release the
Granicus mercenaries as a strong 'bribe' for the Athenians to persuade them not to join the rebels. His
anger at the Greeks remained however, and his treatment of captured Greek mercenaries was not
consistent.

The mercenaries issue is important because it highlights Alexander's determination to maintain a firm
hold over the Greek states and the fact that he was prepared to go to any lengths to achieve this.

Greek rebellions 333-332 BC

While Alexander was fighting in Asia Minor, he received news of two Greek rebellions against Macedonian
rule.

Thrace 333 BC - Information regarding this rebellion is rather confusing.

According to A. B. Bosworth According to J. R. Hamilton

Memnon, general of Thrace, encouraged people of Thrace to
rebel against Macedonian rule.
When the rebels got out of control, Memnon changed his
mind and asked Antipater to help him suppress the
revolution.
Antipater responded to Memnon's call by coming to Thrace.
At the same time, King Agis of Sparta rebelled.
Antipater was forced to conclude a quick treaty with Memnon
Memnon collaborated with the king of
Sparta to rebel against Macedonia on
two fronts at the same time.
Antipater, realising the seriousness of the
situation, negotiated a quick treaty with
Memnon which allowed him to remain
general of Thrace. Area Memnon ruled
was increased.
This was an attractive offer, so Memnon
43

so Antipater could move south to deal with the rebels there. decided to remain loyal to Macedonia.
Antipater and Memnon agreed that Memnon would remain
general of Thrace and his territory was actually increased in
size.
The King Agis rebellion 333-337 BC

King Agis, king of Sparta, saw the Thracian rebellion as an opportunity to overthrow Macedonia. He sent
messengers to other Greek states encouraging them to join him in an allied rebellion.

First rebellion

Athenians voted to stay out of the rebellion, partly because they disliked Sparta. The rebel allies grouped
together. Many of the troops were battle-hardened, experienced mercenaries from Asia. 20 000 infantry and
2000 cavalry joined forces. The first rebellion was fought in Corinth against the Macedonian general
Corrhagus. He was defeated.

Second rebellion - King Agis takes over the Greek islands

Agis hired 8000 mercenaries who had escaped from the battle of lssus. Darius helped by sending money and
ships. Agis took over islands of the Aegean, compelling the people to fight with him against Antipater.

Battle of Megalopolis

Antipater gathered a force of approximately 40 000 Greeks and Macedonians and moved south to fight King
Agis' allies at Megalopolis. He won the fierce battle. Agis was defeated and killed, despite fighting very
bravely.

Aftermath of the rebellions

With Agis defeated, rebellion in the Peloponnese collapsed. The Spartans and their allies approached
Antipater for a truce. Antipater referred the matter to the Corinthian League. (Correct procedure as
Megalopolis was an ally of Macedonia and a member of Corinthian League.) The Synhedrion of the League
decided allied rebels had to pay reparations to Megalopolis. Sparta, the prime instigator of the rebellion, was
not a member of the League - not knowing how to deal with Sparta, the League sent an embassy to
Alexander for advice. Spartans sent their own embassy to negotiate with Alexander. While the Spartan
embassy was in the east, Antipater took 50 Spartan hostages. Alexander's decision was to force Sparta into
joining the Corinthian League. Spartan hostages were freed.

The Greek rebellions highlight the determination of the Greeks to overthrow Macedonian rule, the
superiority of the Macedonian army and Alexander's keenness to maintain the Corinthian League

Exiles Decree 324 BC

While encamped in Susa, Alexander announced to his assembled troops he intended to order the Greek
States to recall anybody exiled for political reasons. (Those exiled for criminal reasons or for sacrilege were
not to be recalled.)

Alexander’s intentions were well publicised - Nicanor was sent to Greece to announce Alexander's decree at
the Olympic Games in Olympia, 324 BC. The 20 000 people gathered there cheered when they heard the
announcement.
44

In his message, Alexander claimed no responsibility for the banishment of the exiles. He promised to help
restore them to their homes. (This suggests Alexander was only restoring people who were exiled before his
accession. Thebans, for example, were not permitted to return home.)

The policy had been planned for a number of months before it was announced. It is unusual in the sense that
Alexander had not concerned himself with the Greek States for some time - after the King Agis rebellion,
they had settled into submission or co-operation. With this decree, Alexander was clearly adopting a more
authoritarian approach. There was no debate in the Corinthian synhedrion nor any diplomatic consultation.
Alexander simply instructed the Greek States; they had no choice but to obey. The Decree was an
infringement of the Corinthian League that forbade interference in the internal affairs of member states.
Alexander violated the autonomy of the Greek States by issuing a command that impinged on their
economic and political stability. The Decree was an indication he intended to be more directly involved in
government of the Greek States.

The Decree created a number of problems

 Alexander did little to repatriate the exiles. Although he wrote to Antipater instructing him to
compel the cities to receive back their exiles, he did nothing else to ensure their safe return home.
 Greek cities were forced to accept an influx of potentially hostile citizens.
 Greek governments had to deal with the problem of confiscated properties.

The Exiles Decree highlights Alexander’s relationship with the Greek States (was determined to maintain
control of them) and gives an insight into his political leadership style (authoritarian).

Summary of Alexander's relationship with the Greeks

Alexander was well aware of the continuing Greek hostility towards Macedonian rule -he, therefore did not
relax his firm control. Alexander was prepared to use every possible method to maintain firm control of the
Greek states, e.g. intimidation and bribery. Alexander wished to keep control of the Greek states, partly
because he needed them for military reasons, and partly because it strengthened his position politically.
After the King Agis rebellion, Alexander was not as actively involved with the Greek states. His involvement
increased when he had to return home. But he would not be home for very long! He would spend the rest
of his life in Asia, fighting the Persians.

Odd stories about Alexander

Alexander and Diogenes

Diogenes was a revered philosopher

of the time. He scorned society, and
it is claimed he lived in a barrel,
never bathed, and was doing in
public things we usually do in
private …. I will leave that to your
imagination. It seems however, that
Alexander was keen to meet him,
and Plutarch describes the meeting
as follows:

Alexander and Diogenes

45

[14.1] Soon after, the Greeks, being assembled at the Isthmus, declared their resolution of joining with
Alexander in the war against the Persians, and proclaimed him their general.

[14.2-3] While he stayed here, many public ministers and philosophers came from all parts to visit him and
congratulated him on his election, but contrary to his expectation, Diogenes of Sinope, who then was living
at Corinth, thought so little of him, that instead of coming to compliment him, he never so much as stirred
out of the suburb called the Cranium, where Alexander found him lying along in the sun.

[14.4] When he saw so much company near him, he raised himself a little, and vouchsafed to look upon
Alexander; and when he kindly asked him whether he wanted anything, "Yes," said he, "I would have you
stand from between me and the sun." (Ie you are blocking out the sun, so move!!)

[14.5] Alexander was so struck at this answer, and surprised at the greatness of the man, who had taken so
little notice of him, that as he went away, he told his followers, who were laughing at the moroseness of the
philosopher, that if he were not Alexander, he would choose to be Diogenes.

Alexander and his visit to Delphi (from notes by Kate Bulo)

 
Situated on Mount Parnassus, the ancient city of Delphi was the
most important religious centre in ancient Greece. According to
the myth, in the search for the centre of the world, Zeus released
one eagle from the west and another from the east. The place
where they would cross paths would indicate the heart of the
world. They met at Delphi and to commemorate the event, a
stone known as omphalos (navel) was placed on the spot. The
omphalos, seen on the left, is now in the museum at Delphi.

The story of how the city became home to the most significant
sanctuary begins with Gaia, the goddess of Earth. In Delphi, she
had placed her priestess guarded by her son, the serpent Python.
Then Apollo came, killed Python, and brought his own priestess to
the site. People were thrilled to find out the dangerous
creature was gone, and in honour of their rescuer, they built a
temple and placed the omphalos inside the building.

From then on, people from

everywhere would come to Delphi to
hear the prophecies of Pythia, the
most famous oracle from the ancient
world. Delphi was considered so holy
that while people could live there, it
was forbidden for a child to be born
there, and certainly it was preferable
that nobody died there either. At this
point, Delphi was an independent city-
state and tended not to get involved
in foreign politics. With Pythia as a
resident, it was inevitable. Many
powerful leaders came to see the
Oracle to hear what the future held
for them. However, they would not
46

always be given clear answers. For instance, before attacking Persia, King Croesus of Lydia came to Delphi to
hear if the gods were on his side. The Oracle’s response was: “If you do, you will destroy a great empire.”
And so, King Croesus departed, believing his empire would destroy the Persians; however, it was the other
way around.

The Pythia, the priestess, was not selected or chosen – it seems that if the Pythia died, another mysteriously
replaced her. A supplicant could not usually speak directly to the Pythia, but had to go through the priests –
and of course, offer gifts. It is believed the Pythia went into a trance, then answered, often in very obscure
terms. SO here is some science for you! There is a volcanic vent at Delphi, and Plutarch talks of the Pythia
inhaling sweet fumes .. She was inhaling
narcotic fumes, that caused her to hallucinate
into a trance like state. Excess simulants are
known to induce psychotic symptoms
including hallucinations similar to the
experience of schizophrenics. Given the
trancelike state and the hallucinations, it is
possible that the fumes were something akin
to methylenedioxy or methylamphetamine. 

During the winter, the Oracle of Delphi could

not be asked for any kind of prophecy,
because from November to February, the god
Apollo was not to be found there, he lived in
another land of giants. However, Alexander
the Great decided to invade Persia in November and came to Delphi to see the Oracle before departing.
After politely asking to speak to her several times, he was always firmly denied. His army of 40,000 warriors
refused to follow him without first consulting the Oracle.

And so, by using force, he entered the temple and dragged the Oracle from her chambers to the holy altar,
demanding an answer. Once Alexander heard her say, ”You are invincible, my son,” he let go of the Oracle
saying: “Now I have my answer.”

Although Delphi is mostly known as the home of the Oracle, the city itself had much to offer. Every four
years, in honour of Apollo,
the Pythian Games were
held, where, in addition to
the athletic disciplines, the
contestants sang hymns to
Apollo. The city also had an
amphitheatre, gymnasium,
and other sanctuaries
dedicated to gods and
goddesses such as Artemis,
Dionysus, and Poseidon.

Delphi remained an
important cultural city, into
the times of the Roman
Empire and was especially
appreciated by Emperor
Hadrian. Its inhabitants
47

were slowly leaving the city when Christianity replaced the pagan beliefs. What had once been the most
sacred city was now neglected, and in 385 CE, Emperor Theodosius closed the site.

In the Middle Ages, the site was once again populated; however, now it was known as the village of Kastrí.
Then, in the 1880s, due to archaeological excavations, the village was relocated and the remains of the city
were redesignated their original name. The artifacts discovered on the site, some of them dating to 1600 BC,
are on display at the Delphi Archaeological Museum

During World War II, the Nazis visited the site and did their own excavation; however, what they were
looking for and whether they found it remains a mystery. Due to its cultural and historical importance, this
ancient city was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The image below shows the theatre – drama
was so important in Ancient Greece that a theatre was essential at such a holy site.
48

By now you should have a

picture of Alexander in your
mind – he was not tall, but
was clearly very fit and very
strong. He was an interesting
combination of intellect and
physicality. He loved to fight
and was to prove one of the
greatest generals in all time.
He was a devoted and loyal
friend, but could also turn on
his friends very quickly if he
felt they had betrayed him.
What did he look like?? His
hair was fair, though not ash-
blond, and curly, worn long to his shoulders. He was clean-shaven, a fashion he started, much to the
disapproval of Philip. Plutarch describes him as having a ruddy complexion, and that he was known to have
a fragrant body odour. Some accounts say he had heterechromia iridium – VERY fancy words for different
coloured eyes, one brown and one blue, but this is very unlikely.

Dutch photographer and digital designer Bas Uterwijk has used artificial intelligence to create a ‘photograph’
of Alexander the Great… or what he could have looked like. Uterwijk who has a background in computer
graphics, 3D animation, and special effects, has used his talent to generate hyper-realistic portraits of
famous historical figures. He does not show Alexander with different coloured eyes, and only one epic, The
Romance of Alexander, even mentions this, while better writers such as Arrian would surely have mentioned
such an unusual thing.

The artist accompanied the face of Alexander the Great (below) with a quote by the great warrior himself:

“I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”
49

Alexander the Great: Hunting for a New Past

By Professor Paul Cartledge

Historical debate veers between admiring and denigrating Alexander the

Great, but Professor Paul Cartledge puts him in his proper historical
context.
Many-sided hero

It seems there have been many Alexander the Greats - as many as there
have been serious students of him as man, hero and/or god. There are two
main reasons for this multiplicity and plasticity. First, and more poetically,
the great leader's achievements - both in his lifetime and posthumously (the
Alexander myth or legend) - are simply staggering. Second, the original
narrative sources that survive for Alexander are mostly either very non-
contemporary (eg Plutarch's biography of c.100 AD, and Arrian's narrative
history of a little later in the second century AD), or very skewed by
partisanship - pro or con, or both.
50

In the past there have been those who saw him as essentially reasonable and gentlemanly, or dynamic and
titanic, or Homerically heroic. But the recent trend has been decidedly negative, emphasising variously his
conquering bloodlust, his megalomania, or alleged alcoholism.

Here I hope not to err on the side of gratuitous mudslinging, in my search for clues to the mainsprings of
Alexander's character. But I do lay stress on his grand passion for hunting game - human as well as animal,
and the bigger and more dangerous the better. Such macho feats offered him the chance to enhance his
standing in the eyes of his subjects, as well as to ensure an impressive reputation into posterity.

Image of the hunt

Head of Alexander the Great, from tomb of Philip II  

One of the earliest clues to this aspect of his character is an image - thought
to be probably of Alexander - painted in fresco above the front entrance to
what we usually call the 'Tomb of Philip' (whether or not we believe it to be
actually the tomb of Alexander's father, King Philip II). This monumental tomb
was erected at the ancient Macedonian ceremonial capital of Aegae (modern
Vergina), at some time within the last third or so of the fourth century BC.

The fresco depicts hunting scenes, and it is natural to identify the central
figure as a young Alexander engaged, with his father, in what we know to
have been one of Alexander's favourite pastimes. Except that to call it a 'pastime' may give a misleading
impression, since hunting in Macedon - as in some other ancient societies, such as Sparta - was actually an
important culturally coded marker of social and political status.

Testing manhood
In Macedon, you did not become fully a man until you had passed the key manhood test of hunting and
killing, without a net, one of the ferocious wild boar that roamed the heights of upper (western) Macedonia.
Only then could you recline - as opposed to sit - when participating in the daily ritual of the symposium. This
was the regular evening drinking party, at which and through which the Macedonian elite celebrated
together and mutually confirmed their elevated social and political status.

Another kind of hunting - the killing of an enemy in battle - entitled a Macedonian to wear a special kind of
belt, as a visual reminder of his attainment. Alexander had passed both those tests triumphantly by the age
of 16 (in 340 BC), when his father thought him already sufficiently mature to act as regent of Macedon.

Campaigner and hunter

In 336 Alexander became king not only of Macedon, but also of most of mainland Greece. He inherited the
mantle of his late father, as leader of a pan-Hellenic expedition of holy revenge and liberation against the
once mighty Persian empire. During the 11 years of his almost non-stop campaigning in Asia (334-323),
periods of rest and recreation were infrequent as he strove to achieve his ambitious aims, to the undoubted
chagrin of his officers and troops; but one of his favourite means of relaxation was hunting.

As his biographer Plutarch put it, 'When he had time on his hands, he would get up and sacrifice to the
gods ... then he would go on to
spend the day hunting ...'. For
example, in a safari park near
Maracanda (Samarkand in
Uzbekistan) in the early 320s, a
51

bag of no fewer than 4,000 wild game, including lions, is reported. That was the reward for the capture of
the fearsome Sogdian Rock.
To illustrate this, at the Pella Archaeological Museum in Macedonia there is a beautiful pebble mosaic, which
is thought to depict Alexander in pursuit of danger and excitement - a mosaic that originally adorned a floor
in a luxurious Hellenistic-period house, the so-called House of Dionysus. According to the favoured
interpretation, this may well be modelled on a bronze statue-group in the round executed by Alexander's
court sculptor, Lysippus, and shows his leading companion, Craterus, famously supporting Alexander as he
hunted lions in a game park in Syria.

Sometimes, though, it was not only wild game that was the object of Alexander's hot-headed attention.
More than once, a leading Macedonian made the mistake of intercepting the major quarry and robbing
Alexander of the pleasure and pride of making the kill. In one of these incidents, the offender was a member
of Alexander's own royal retinue,
one Dimnus, who received
humiliating punishment for his
supposed presumptuousness. It has
been said that there was a direct
connection between this
punishment and Dimnus's alleged
plotting against Alexander's life in
327 BC.

Public image
Alexander the Great in battle on his
horse, Bucephalas  

Throughout his life Alexander was exceptionally preoccupied with his image, both literally and
metaphorically. One of his non-Greek protégés appreciated this very well and had himself buried in a stone
coffin, now in the Archaeological Museum, Istanbul, adorned with images showing Alexander hunting either
a human or animal prey.

The strikingly well-preserved artefact is known as the 'Alexander Sarcophagus', for the good reason that on
one long side a figure unambiguously meant to be Alexander is depicted on horseback, in vigorous and
deadly combat against a Persian. The horse in question was Bucephalas (the name means Ox-Head), a
magnificent - and prodigiously expensive - Thessalian stallion, probably named for the shape of the white
blaze on his muzzle. It was alleged that only Alexander had been able to break the horse in, and he became
so attached to the animal over the next two decades or so that he actually named a city - Bucephala - after
him, in an area now part of modern Pakistan (site unidentified).

The scenes on the short sides of the Alexander Sarcophagus depict the hunting of lions and panthers.
Traditionally, the coffin has been attributed to Abdalonymus, king of Sidon, and the sources record that
Abdalonymus received his appointment from Alexander through the good offices of another of Alexander's
most devoted companions, his friend from boyhood and alter-ego, Hephaestion. But an alternative
interpretation attributes the sarcophagus rather to the much more important Mazaeus.

This man was a noble Persian, whom Alexander appointed to govern Babylon after he had transferred his
allegiance from the defeated Persian great king Darius III, following the decisive battle of Gaugamela (331
BC). Whichever interpretation is correct, the relatives and friends of the dead occupant knew well how best
to honour a close lifetime association with the Nimrod of ancient Greece, the mighty hunter Alexander.
52

The Alexander Romance

Alexander himself died at Babylon in June 323 BC, at the age of only 32. The circumstances of his death are
almost as unclear as those of his father, though it probably smacks too much of the historical novel to
suggest that Alexander was assassinated, possibly by poison. Rather, he is most likely to have caught a
deadly fever, probably malarial, after years of pushing himself beyond reasonable limits.

His passing was greeted very differently in different parts of his vastly enlarged empire. The traditional
enemies of Macedon in Greece were thrilled to bits, whereas those Greeks and non-Greeks who had gladly
worshipped him as a living god felt genuinely bereft. Whatever is thought of his lifetime achievements, there
is no questioning the impact of his posthumous fame.

Thanks above all to the literary text known as the Alexander Romance, created originally at the great
leader's most famous foundation - the city of Alexandria, in Egypt - Alexander has featured internationally as
a hero, a quasi-holy man, a Christian saint, a new Achilles, a philosopher, a scientist, a prophet, and a
visionary. The more earthy musings of the hero of Shakespeare's Hamlet, in the graveyard scene, are just
one chauvinistic illustration of the fact that Alexander has featured in the literature of some 80 countries,
stretching from our own Britannic islands (as Arrian, called them) to the Malay peninsula - by way of
Kazakhstan.

That is another way of saying that Alexander is probably the most famous of the few individuals in human
history whose bright light has shot across the firmament to mark the end of one era and the beginning of
another.

One of our best sources on Alexander, Arrian, focused on one particular quality of Alexander, his  pothos or
overmastering desire to achieve or experience the humanly - and divinely - unprecedented. Alexander's hunt
for what was in the end unattainable by him in his lifetime provides us with the chance, and the motive, to
conduct a new hunt to try to capture the daunting immensity of his achievement.
Alexander the Great Timeline

 356 Born at Pella, Macedonia, to King Philip II and Olympias

 336 Acceded to throne of Macedon
 336 In same year, is recognised as leader of Greek-Macedonian expedition against Persia
 334 Wins the Battle of the Granicus River
 333 Wins the Battle of Issus
 332 Accomplishes siege of Tyre
 331 Wins Battle of Gaugamela
 328 Manslaughter of 'Black' Cleitus at Samarkand
 326 Wins the Battle of the River Hydaspes
 326 In same year, troops mutiny at the River Hyphasis
 324 Troops mutiny at Opis
 323 Dies at Babylon

A psychoanalytic study of Alexander the Great

K R Thomas

The purpose of this paper was to demonstrate how Freudian concepts such as the Oedipus complex,
castration anxiety, fear of loss of love, the psychosexual stages of development, and the tripartite structure
of personality can be used to understand the life and achievements of Alexander the Great. To accomplish
53

this purpose, specific incidents, myths, and relationships in Alexander's life were analyzed from a Freudian
psychoanalytic perspective. Green (1991), in his recent biography of Alexander, has questioned the merit of
using Freudian concepts to understand Alexander's character. In fact, he stated specifically: If he (Alexander)
had any kind of Oedipus complex it came in a poor second to the burning dynastic ambition which Olympias
so sedulously fostered in him; those who insist on his psychological motivation would do better to take Adler
as their mentor than Freud. Later, in the concluding section of his book, discounted Freudian interpretations
of Alexander's distaste for sex, the rumours of his homosexual liaisons, his partiality for middle-aged or
elderly ladies, and the systematic domination of his early years by Olympias as little more than the projected
fears and desires of the interpreters.

An Adlerian power-complex paradigm was suggested as the preferable theoretical framework to use.
Green's argument was based primarily on an exchange, reported originally by Plutarch, which took place
between Alexander and Philip prior to Alexander's tutorship with Aristotle. Purportedly, Philip enjoined his
son to study hard and pay close attention to all Aristotle said "so that you may not do a great many things of
the sort that I am sorry I have done." At this point, Alexander "somewhat pertly" took Philip to task "because
he was having children by other women besides his wife." Philip's reply was: "Well then, if you have many
competitors for the kingdom, prove yourself honourable and good, so that you may obtain the kingdom not
because of me, but because of yourself."

interpreted this exchange as confirming that Alexander was more interested in his succession to the throne
(power) than in any sexual relationships Philip might be having with any women other than Olympias. That
is, Alexander's concern in this exchange was not about Philip's marital infidelity per se, but rather about the
prospect of potential competitors (other children) for the throne. Significantly, by emphasizing the manifest
content of the exchange, Green ignored a myriad of other possible fears and wishes on Alexander's part,
including the fear of castration, the wish to have sex (like his father) with Olympias and other women, the
wish to challenge his father's authority and superiority, the fear of loss of love, and the wish (given Philip's
homosexual exploits with other boys) to have sex with Philip. Moreover, one could easily explain what Green
has described as "the burning dynastic ambition which Olympias so sedulously fostered in him", and
Alexander's so called "power-complex" in terms which are perfectly consistent with drive/structure theory.
In other words, Green's arguments against the possibility of a Freudian solution to the puzzle of Alexander's
character are less than compelling. By contrast, as demonstrated in this paper, a plethora of historical data
exist to suggest that much of Alexander's personality structure and behaviour can be explained by his
unresolved Oedipus complex, the ambition and self-confidence instilled in him by Olympias, the anal-sadistic
and narcissistic organization of his character, his unconscious wish to please his mother, and his being
lapped (from birth) in the myth of the hero. Although it is risky, at best, to attempt to analyze an individual
without the benefit of clinical data, and even more risky to base such an analysis on fragmentary and often
contradictory data assimilated long ago.
54

Was Alexander a narcissist? (Notes from Wikipedia)

Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder characterized by a life-long pattern of exaggerated

feelings of self-importance, an excessive craving for admiration, and a diminished ability to empathize with
other's feelings.  These personality traits are often overcompensation for a fragile ego, an intolerance of
criticism, and a weak sense of self. Narcissistic personality disorder differs from  self-confidence which is
associated with a strong sense of self.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition describes NPD as possessing at least
five of the following nine criteria.

 A grandiose sense of self-importance

 Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
 Believing that they are "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate
with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
 Requiring excessive admiration
 A sense of entitlement (unreasonable expectations of especially favourable treatment or
automatic compliance with their expectations)
 Being interpersonally exploitative (taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends)
 Lacking empathy (unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others)
 Often being envious of others or believing that others are envious of them
 Showing arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes
Narcissistic personality disorder usually develops either in youth or in early adulthood. It is common for
children and youths to display personality traits that resemble NPD, but such occurrences are usually
transient, and register below the clinical criteria for a formal diagnosis of NPD. True symptoms of NPD are
pervasive, apparent in varied social situations, and are rigidly consistent over time. Severe symptoms of NPD
can significantly impair the person's mental capabilities to develop meaningful human relationships, such as
friendship, kinship, and marriage. Generally, the symptoms of NPD also impair the person's psychological
abilities to function socially, either at work or at school, or within important societal settings. The DSM-5
indicates that, in order to qualify as symptomatic of NPD, the person's manifested personality traits must
substantially differ from social norms.
Associated features
People with NPD exaggerate their skills, accomplishments, and their degree of intimacy with people they
consider high-status. Such a sense of personal superiority may cause them to monopolize conversations, or
to become impatient and disdainful when other persons talk about themselves. This attitude connects to an
overall worse functioning in areas of life like work and intimate romantic relationships.
Narcissistic injury and narcissistic scar are terms used by Sigmund Freud in the 1920s. Narcissistic
wound and narcissistic blow are other, almost interchangeable, terms. When wounded in the ego, either by
a real or a perceived criticism, the narcissist's displays of anger can be disproportionate to the nature of the
criticism suffered; but typically, the actions and responses of the NPD person are deliberate and
calculated. Despite occasional flare-ups of personal insecurity, the inflated self-concept of the NPD person is
primarily stable.
To the extent that people are pathologically narcissistic, the person with NPD can be a self-absorbed  control
freak who passes blame by psychological projection and is intolerant of contradictory views and opinions; is
apathetic towards the emotional, mental, and psychological needs of other people; and is indifferent to the
negative effects of their behaviours, whilst insisting that people should see them as an ideal person.  To
55

protect their fragile self-concept, narcissists use psychosocial strategies, such as the tendency to devalue and
derogate and to insult and blame other people, usually with anger and hostility towards people's responses
to the narcissist's anti-social conduct. Narcissistic personalities are more likely to respond with anger or
aggressiveness when presented with rejection. Because they are sensitive to perceived criticism or defeat,
people with NPD are prone to feelings of shame, humiliation, and worthlessness over minor incidents of
daily life and imagined, personal slights, and usually mask such feelings from people, either by way of
feigned humility, or by responding with outbursts of rage and defiance, or by seeking revenge.  The merging
of the inflated self-concept and the actual self is evident in the grandiosity component of narcissistic
personality disorder; also inherent to that psychological process are the defence mechanisms of  idealization
and devaluation and of denial.
The DSM-5 indicates that: "Many highly successful individuals display personality traits that might be
considered narcissistic. Only when these traits are inflexible, maladaptive, and persisting, and cause
significant functional impairment or subjective distress, do they constitute narcissistic personality
disorder." Given the high-function sociability associated with narcissism, some people with NPD might not
view such a diagnosis as a functional impairment to their lives. Although overconfidence tends to make
people with NPD very ambitious, such a mindset does not necessarily lead to professional high achievement
and success, because they refuse to take risks, in order to avoid failure or the appearance of failure.
Moreover, the psychological inability to tolerate disagreement, contradiction, and criticism, make it difficult
for persons with NPD to work cooperatively or to maintain long-term, professional relationships with
superiors and colleagues.
Some narcissists may have a limited or minimal capability to experience emotions. The 20 th century saw
examples of narcissism in Hitler, Stalin and Mao Zedong. The 21 st century, with to date, a sad lack of great
leaders, has its fair share. Their potential to destroy lives is almost without limit, and they need to be held
back, and this happens all too seldom …

NOW you need to look carefully at the following images, as you are expected to KNOW about them, and
refer to them in your answers.

The Alexander Mosaic

A Roman floor mosaic originally
from the House of the
Faun in Pompeii (it is an alleged
imitation of a Philoxenus of
Eretria or Apelles' painting, 4th
century BC) that dates from c. 100
BC. It is typically dated in the
second half of the century
between 120 and 100 B.C.  It
depicts the Battle of Issus, fought
between the armies of Alexander
the Great and Darius III of Persia.
56

The Alexander Sarcophagus

The Alexander Sarcophagus is considered as the most important artifact in the İstanbul Archaeological
Museums. It was found in the Royal Necropolis in Sidon in 1887. Though it is called the Alexander
Sarcophagus, in fact, it does not belong to Alexander the Great. It is thought to be the sarcophagus of
Abdalonymus, the king of Sidon. .

On the front side of the sarcophagus, Alexander is shown on his horse. Since Alexander claimed descent
from Heracles, he is depicted with the skin of the Nemean Lion on his head. Additionally, next to his ear, a
ram horn, the symbol of the Egyptian god Amun is seen. Because of this depiction on the sarcophagus, it was
named after Alexander. In fact, Alexander the Great died in Babylon and his body was transferred to
Alexandria. It is known that his sarcophagus was an anthropoid one.
57

On one of the long sides of the sarcophagus, there is a scene of battle between Persians and Greeks. Greek
and Persian soldiers can easily be distinguished thanks to their outfits. Greeks have short tunics or cloaks,
whereas Persian soldiers, who had to cover all parts of their bodies excluding their faces and fingers, wear
trousers, more than one long-sleeved shirts and tiaras covering their heads. The scene of battle is thought to
represent the Battle of Issus, won by Alexander the Great in 333 BC and opened the doors of Phoenicia and
Syria. As a result of this battle, the fate of Abdalonymus, who is thought to be the owner of the sarcophagus,
changed and he became the king of Sidon after a while.

Two hunting scenes are depicted on the second long side of the sarcophagus. It is known that hunting with
horses and carriages was usual for Near Eastern civilizations and that Alexander the Great participated in
such events in Phoenicia.
It is accepted that Alexander’s aim was to establish a Greek-Persian empire through uniting Eastern and
Hellenistic cultures after conquering Iran. Towards the end of his life, he married a Persian princess, started
to wear Persian clothes and accepted Persian dynastic customs. The Persians and Greeks who friendly hunt
on one side of the sarcophagus should be considered within this perspective. It is known that after defeating
Darius III in Issus, Alexander the Great passed through the Amanus Mountains and entered Syria following
the Mediterranean shores. The people of Sidon, who disliked the Persian administration, opened the doors
of the rich cities to the Macedon army and asked Alexander the Great to choose a king for them. Alexander,
who had no time to choose a king for Sidon, gave this job to Hephaestion. He found Abdalonymus, who was
a distant relative of the royal dynasty of Sidon but who had a quiet life in the country until chosen as the
king. The name of Abdalonymus means “servant of gods” in Persian and the Alexander the Great and
Hephaestion depictions were therefore added to the sarcophagus ordered by him.
58

When the carvings are analyzed, it is understood that those who made this sarcophagus were masters of the
Eastern art of decoration. The upper row of the acroter consists of eagles, partially with no remains other
than pieces of wings, and women heads. In the Ancient Syria, it was believed that eagles were birds carrying
the souls of dead people to heaven. Nine smaller women heads that line up at the bottoms of each of two
sides bring the mother goddess worshipped since the prehistoric periods of Anatolia and Mesopotamia to
mind. Upper acroters of the both pediments are decorated with Persian griffins and herbal figures. At each
of the corners of the pediment, a lion is placed as sarcophagus protectors. Those lions with thin necks and
small bodies, which resemble dogs, are elements belonging to the Ionian art.

Both the body and the cover of the sarcophagus is made of the same kind of marble. The carvings on the
sarcophagus are so fine that it is thought that this artifact should have been made in Sidon since it would
have been too dangerous to transfer such a work from Greece to Lebanon. There is no information about its
sculptor. Painters of the sarcophagus should have been masters of their job as well. It seems that the eyes,
eyelashes, lips and clothes were dyed in purple, yellow, blue, red and violet, and that the figures were
slightly varnished.

www.istanbularkeoloji.gov.tr

Lysippos and Alexander

Lysippos, (c. 370–c. 300 BCE, Sicyon, Greece), Greek

sculptor, head of the school at Árgos and Sicyon in
the time of Philip of Macedon and especially active
during the reign of Philip’s son Alexander the
Great (336–323 BCE). Lysippus was famous for the
new and slender proportions of his figures and for
their lifelike naturalism

During his lifetime, Lysippos was personal sculptor to

Alexander the Great; indeed, he was the only artist
whom the conqueror saw fit to represent him. An
epigram by Posidippus, previously only known from
59

the Anthology of Planudes, but also found on the recently discovered Milan Papyrus, takes as its inspiration
a bronze portrait of Alexander:

Lysippus, sculptor of Sicyon, bold hand,

cunning craftsman, fire is in the glance of the bronze,
which you made in the form of Alexander.
In no way can one blame the Persians:
cattle may be forgiven for flying before a lion.

And similarly, an epigram by Asclepiades:

Lysippos modelled Alexander's daring and his whole form.

How great is the power of this bronze! The brazen king
seems to be gazing at Zeus and about to say:
"I set Earth under my feet; thyself, Zeus, possess Olympus."

Lysippos has been credited with the stock representation of an inspired, godlike Alexander with tousled hair
and lips parted, looking upward in what came to be known as the 'Lysippean gaze'. One fine example, an
early Imperial Roman copy found at Tivoli, is conserved at the Louvre.
60

Silver decadrachm of Alexander the Great – weight 39,660 gm

In 326 BC Alexander the Great's conquest of the world had taken him as far east as India, where he fought a
successful battle at the River Hydaspes with the Indian king Porus. It is generally accepted that this coin is
from a series issued by the victorious Alexander, perhaps after his return to Babylon in 324 BC, although
there is no firm evidence for its place of production, and Alexander's name is absent from these coins and
their accompanying issues. If they were issued by Alexander then they are remarkable historical documents.
On the front of the coin is depicted a figure on horseback, presumably Alexander, attacking a figure riding an
elephant, perhaps intended to represent Porus, or a generic Indian warrior. On the back is a standing figure
wearing a Macedonian cloak, a Persian head-dress and Greek armour. He is almost certainly intended to
represent Alexander the Great, but carries in his hand a thunderbolt, a clear sign of divinity. If Alexander was
the issuer of these coins, it is undeniable that he is making claims to divinity in his own lifetime.

Lysimachus of Thrace

King of Macedon with Pyrrhus of Epirus

Preceded by: Demetrius I of Macedon
Succeeded by: Ptolemy Keraunos

Lysimachus (Λυσίμαχος) (c. 360 BC–281 BC) was a Thessalian Greek officer and "successor" (diadochus) of
Alexander the Great, later a king (306 BC) in Thrace and Asia Minor.

Son of Agathocles, he was a citizen of Pella in Macedonia. During Alexander's Persian campaigns he was one
of his immediate bodyguard and distinguished himself in India. After Alexander’s death (323 BC) he was
appointed to the government of Thrace and the Chersonese. For a long time he was chiefly occupied with
fighting against the Odrysian king Seuthes III.

In 315 BC he joined Cassander, Ptolemy and Seleucus against Antigonus, who, however, diverted his
attention by stirring up Thracian and Scythian tribes against him. In 309 BC, he founded Lysimachia in a
commanding situation on the neck connecting the Chersonese with the mainland. He followed the example
of Antigonus in taking the title of king. In 302 when the second affiance between Cassander, Ptolemy and
Seleucus was made, Lysimachus, reinforced by troops from Cassander, entered Asia Minor, where he met
with little resistance. On the approach of Antigonus he retired into winter quarters near Heraclea, marrying
its widowed queen Amastris, a Persian princess. Seleucus joined him in 301 BC, and at the battle of Ipsus
Antigonus was defeated and slain. His dominions were divided among the victors, Lysimachus receiving the
greater part of Asia Minor.

This Lysimachus was a Macedonian by birth and one of Alexander's body-guards, whom Alexander once in
anger shut up in a chamber with a lion, and afterwards found that he had overpowered the brute.
Henceforth he always treated him with respect, and honored him as much as the noblest Macedonians.
After the death of Alexander, Lysimachus ruled such of the Thracians, who are neighbors of the
Macedonians, as had been under the sway of Alexander and before him of Philip. These would comprise but
a small part of Thrace. If race be compared with race no nation of men except the Celts are more numerous
than the Thracians taken all together, and for this reason no one before the Romans reduced the whole
Thracian population. Pausanias

Feeling that Seleucus was becoming dangerously great, Lysimachus now allied himself with Ptolemy,
marrying his daughter Arsinoe II of Egypt. Amastris, who had divorced herself from him, returned to
Heraclea. When Antigonus’s son Demetrius I of Macedon renewed hostilities (297 BC), during his absence in
Greece, Lysimachus seized his towns in Asia Minor, but in 294 BC concluded a peace whereby Demetrius was
61

recognized as ruler of Macedonia. He tried to carry his power beyond the Danube, but was defeated and
taken prisoner by the Getae king Dromichaetes (Dromihete), who, however, set him free on amicable terms.
Demetrius subsequently threatened Thrace, but had to retire in consequence of a rising in Boeotia, and an
attack from Pyrrhus of Epirus.

In 288 BC Lysimachus and Pyrrhus in turn invaded Macedonia, and drove Demetrius out of the country.
Pyrrhus was at first allowed to remain in possession of Macedonia with the title of king, but in 285 BC he was
expelled by Lysimachus.

Domestic troubles embittered the last years of Lysimachus’s life. Amastris had been murdered by her two
sons; Lysimachus treacherously put them to death. On his return Arsinoe asked the gift of Heraclea, and he
granted her request, though he had promised to free the city. In 284 BC Arsinoe, desirous of gaining the
succession for her sons in preference to Agathocles (the eldest son of Lysimachus), intrigued against him
with the help of her brother Ptolemy Ceraunus; they accused him of conspiring with Seleucus to seize the
throne, and he was put to death.

This atrocious deed of Lysimachus aroused great indignation. Many of the cities of Asia revolted, and his
most trusted friends deserted him. The widow of Agathocles fled to Seleucus, who at once invaded the
territory of Lysimachus in Asia. In 281 BC, Lysimachus crossed the Hellespont into Lydia, and at the decisive
Battle of Corupedium was killed. After some days his body, watched by a faithful dog, was found on the field,
and given up to his son Alexander, by whom it was interred at Lysimachia.

The next part of the story is incredible, but Hieronymus the Cardian relates that he destroyed the tombs and
cast out the bones of the dead. But this Hieronymus has a reputation generally of being biased against all the
kings except Antigonus, and of being unfairly partial towards him. As to the treatment of the Epeirot graves,
it is perfectly plain that it was malice that made him record that a Macedonian desecrated the tombs of the
dead. Besides, Lysimachus was surely aware that they were the ancestors not of Pyrrhus only but also of
Alexander. In fact Alexander was an Epeirot and an Aeacid on his mother's side, and the subsequent alliance
between Pyrrhus and Lysimachus proves that even as enemies they were not irreconcilable. Possibly
Hieronymus had grievances against Lysimachus, especially his destroying the city of the Cardians and
founding Lysimachea in its stead on the isthmus of the Thracian Chersonesus. Pausanias

Initially, Lysimachus
was slow to mint to
coinage in his own
name. But early in
the third century,
after his conquests in
Asia Minor, he began
to produce stunning
silver and gold coins
with identical types.
62

On the front of the coins was placed a portrait of Alexander adorned with the ram's horn of the Egyptian god
Amun.

On the reverse was a seated figure of the goddess Athena, and a Greek legend which translates 'Of King
Lysimachus'.

The BIG point of this coin is that it shows

Alexander as a god – the ram’s horns are very
significant, as is the fact that it is backed with the
image of Athena, tying Alexander to the gods.