CHAPTER XCI.
FIRST PERIOD OF THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT — SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF THEBES.
My last preceding volume ended with the assassination of Philip of Macedon, and the accession of his son Alexander the Great, then twenty years of age.
It demonstrates the altered complexion of Grecian history, that we are now obliged to seek for marking events in the succession to the Macedonian crown, or in the ordinances of Macedonian kings. In fact, the Hellenic world has ceased to be autonomous. In Sicily, indeed, the free and constitutional march, revived by Timoleon, is still destined to continue for a few years longer; but all the Grecian cities south of Mount Olympus have descended into dependents of Macedonia. Such dependence, established as a fact by the battle of Chæroneia and by the subsequent victorious march of Philip over Peloponnesus, was acknowledged in form by the vote of the Grecian synod at Corinth. While even the Athenians had been compelled to concur in submission, Sparta alone, braving all consequences, continued inflexible in her refusal. The adherence of Thebes was not trusted to the word of the Thebans, but ensured by the Macedonian garrison established in her citadel, called the Kadmeia. Each Hellenic city, small and great,—maritime, inland, and insular—(with the single exception of Sparta), was thus enrolled as a separate unit in the list of subject-allies attached to the imperial headship of Philip.
Under these circumstances, the history of conquered Greece loses its separate course, and becomes merged in that of conquering Macedonia. Nevertheless, there are particular reasons which constrain the historian of Greece to carry on the two together for a few years longer. First, conquered Greece exercised a powerful action on her conqueror—“Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit”. The Macedonians, though speaking a language of their own, had neither language for communicating with others, nor literature, nor philosophy, except Grecian and derived from Greeks. Philip, while causing himself to be chosen chief of Hellas, was himself not only partially hellenized, but an eager candidate for Hellenic admiration. He demanded the headship under the declared pretence of satisfying the old antipathy against Persia. Next, the conquests of Alexander, though essentially Macedonian, operated indirectly as the initiatory step of a series of events, diffusing Hellenic language (with some tinge of Hellenic literature) over a large breadth of Asia,—opening that territory to the better observation, in some degree even to the superintendence, of intelligent Greeks—and thus producing consequences important in many ways to the history of mankind. Lastly, the generation of free Greeks upon whom the battle of Chæroneia fell, were not disposed to lie quiet if any opportunity occurred for shaking off their Macedonian masters. The present volume will record the unavailing efforts made for this purpose, in which Demosthenes and most of the other leaders perished.
Alexander (born in July 356 B. C.), like his father Philip, was not a Greek, but a Macedonian and Epirot, partially imbued with Grecian sentiment and intelligence. It is true that his ancestors, some centuries before, had been emigrants from Argos; but the kings of Macedonia had long lost all trace of any such peculiarity as might originally have distinguished them from their subjects. The basis of Philip’s character was Macedonian, not Greek: it was the self-will of a barbarian prince, not the ingenium civile, or sense of reciprocal obligation and right in society with others, which marked more or less even the most powerful members of a Grecian city, whether oligarchical or democratical. If this was true of Philip, it was still more true of Alexander, who inherited the violent temperament and headstrong will of his furious Epirotic mother Olympias.
A kinsman of Olympias, named Leonidas, and an Akarnanian named Lysimachus, are mentioned as the chief tutors to whom Alexander’s childhood was entrusted.[1] Of course the Iliad of Homer was among the first things which he learnt as a boy. Throughout most of his life, he retained a passionate interest in this poem, a copy of which, said to have been corrected by Aristotle, he carried with him in his military campaigns. We are not told, nor is it probable, that he felt any similar attachment for the less warlike Odyssey. Even as a child, he learnt to identify himself in sympathy with Achilles,—his ancestor by the mother’s side, according to the Æakid pedigree. The tutor Lysimachus won his heart by calling himself Phœnix—Alexander, Achilles—and Philip, by the name of Peleus. Of Alexander’s boyish poetical recitations, one anecdote remains, both curious and of unquestionable authenticity. He was ten years old, when the Athenian legation, including both Æschines and Demosthenes, came to Pella to treat about peace. While Philip entertained them at table, in his usual agreeable and convivial manner, the boy Alexander recited for their amusement certain passages of poetry which he had learnt—and delivered, in response with another boy, a dialogue out of one of the Grecian dramas.[2]
At the age of thirteen, Alexander was placed under the instruction of Aristotle, whom Philip expressly invited for the purpose, and whose father Nikomachus had been both friend and physician of Philip’s father Amyntas. What course of study Alexander was made to go through, we unfortunately cannot state. He enjoyed the teaching of Aristotle for at least three years, and we are told that he devoted himself to it with ardor, contracting a strong attachment to his preceptor. His powers of addressing an audience, though not so well attested as those of his father, were always found sufficient for his purpose: moreover, he retained, even in the midst of his fatiguing Asiatic campaigns, an interest in Greek literature and poetry.
At what precise moment, during the lifetime of his father, Alexander first took part in active service, we do not know. It is said that once, when quite a youth, he received some Persian envoys during the absence of his father; and that he surprised them by the maturity of his demeanor, as well as by the political bearing and pertinence of his questions.[3] Though only sixteen years of age, in 340 B. C., he was left at home as regent while Philip was engaged in the sieges of Byzantium and Perinthus. He put down a revolt of the neighboring Thracian tribe called Mædi, took one of their towns, and founded it anew under the title of Alexandria; the earliest town which bore that name, afterwards applied to so many other towns planted by him. In the march of Philip into Greece (338 B. C.), Alexander took part, commanded one of the wings at the battle of Chæroneia, and is said to have first gained the advantage on his side over the Theban sacred band.[4]
Yet notwithstanding such marks of confidence and coöperation, other incidents occurred producing bitter animosity between the father and the son. By his wife Olympias, Philip had as offspring Alexander and Kleopatra: by a Thessalian mistress named Philinna, he had a son named Aridæus (afterwards called Philip Aridæus:) he had also daughters named Kynna (or Kynanê) and Thessalonikê. Olympias, a woman of sanguinary and implacable disposition, had rendered herself so odious to him, that he repudiated her, and married a new wife named Kleopatra. I have recounted in the preceding volume[5] the indignation felt by Alexander at this proceeding, and the violent altercation which occurred during the conviviality of the marriage banquet; where Philip actually snatched his sword, threatened his son’s life, and was only prevented from executing the threat by falling down through intoxication. After this quarrel, Alexander retired from Macedonia, conducting his mother to her brother Alexander king of Epirus. A son was born to Philip by Kleopatra. Her brother or uncle Attalus acquired high favor. Her kinsmen and partisans generally were also promoted, while Ptolemy, Nearchus, and other persons attached to Alexander, were banished.[6]
The prospects of Alexander were thus full of uncertainty and peril, up to the very day of Philip’s assassination. The succession to the Macedonian crown, though transmitted in the same family, was by no means assured as to individual members; moreover, in the regal house of Macedonia[7] (as among the kings called Diadochi, who acquired dominion after the death of Alexander the Great), violent feuds and standing mistrust between father, sons, and brethren, were ordinary phænomena, to which the family of the Antigonids formed an honorable exception. Between Alexander and Olympias on the one side, and Kleopatra with her son and Attalus on the other, a murderous contest was sure to arise. Kleopatra was at this time in the ascendent; Olympias was violent and mischievous; and Philip was only forty-seven years of age. Hence the future threatened nothing but aggravated dissension and difficulties for Alexander. Moreover his strong will and imperious temper, eminently suitable for supreme command, disqualified him from playing a subordinate part, even to his own father. The prudence of Philip, when about to depart on his Asiatic expedition, induced him to attempt to heal these family dissensions by giving his daughter Kleopatra in marriage to her uncle Alexander of Epirus, brother of Olympias. It was during the splendid marriage festival, then celebrated at Ægæ, that he was assassinated—Olympias, Kleopatra, and Alexander, being all present, while Attalus was in Asia, commanding the Macedonian division sent forward in advance, jointly with Parmenio. Had Philip escaped this catastrophe, he would doubtless have carried on the war in Asia Minor with quite as much energy and skill as it was afterwards prosecuted by Alexander: though we may doubt whether the father would have stretched out to those ulterior undertakings which, gigantic and far-reaching as they were, fell short of the insatiable ambition of the son. But successful as Philip might have been in Asia, he would hardly have escaped gloomy family feuds; with Alexander as a mutinous son, under the instigations of Olympias,—and with Kleopatra on the other side, feeling that her own safety depended upon the removal of regal or quasi-regal competitors.