II
THE CONQUEST OF GREECE
Alexander’s succession to the throne of Macedon seemed secured by his father Philip’s sincere personal affection for him. His confidence in Alexander’s ability, even in his son’s early youth, was manifested in the assignment to him of the most responsible positions under his father’s directions. Philip saw to it that his son should be carefully educated by placing him under the charge of Aristotle. Good reports must have come of his precocity, because Philip, while he was occupied in the siege of Byzantium, handed over to Alexander, then only sixteen years old, the administration of Macedon. Two years later, at the battle of Chæronea, already mentioned as marking the downfall of Greek freedom, the youth was placed at the head of the division of the army which took the offensive at a critical part of the engagement, and it was through this important command that the questionable honor of striking the decisive blow in the defeat of the allied forces of free Greece was ungrudgingly conceded to him.
Philip, unattractive as his character was in so many ways, stained as he was by savage passions and duplicity, at least performed conscientiously and effectively a father’s part in preparing his son for the high position he was to take in the future. But the domestic situation of the Macedonian royal family was very far from being modeled on that described in the Odyssey as befitting the heroes and the leaders of men. Philip was lawless, and his numerous amours brought him both difficulty and notoriety, for in his irregular relations he did not scruple to disregard the customary conventions of Greek social life. On his return from his campaign for the subjugation of Greece, he became enamored of Cleopatra, a girl belonging to a distinguished Macedonian family, whose uncle, Attalus, had a high place in the government. Cleopatra’s position made it impossible for the King to offer her the place of a royal mistress; accordingly he made her a legitimate wife. Olympias and her son Alexander left Macedon, the queen returning to her home in Epirus, and the crown prince withdrawing to the traditional enemies of the Macedonians, the Illyrians.
Philip, alarmed at the possibility of political combinations dangerous to his throne, came to an agreement with Alexander by which the latter was to return to his father’s court at Pella, and Olympias’ brother, the prince of Epirus, was induced to give up his hostility against his brother-in-law by a promise that he should have in marriage Philip’s daughter, another Cleopatra. This alliance took place with great ceremony in the summer of 336, in the ancient royal town of Ægæ. Immediately after Philip prepared to set out to war with Persia. During the marriage festivities, however, he was assassinated by one of the members of his bodyguard, Pausanias, who in the confusion that followed almost succeeded in making his escape. Personal motives were assigned as grounds for this murder. Pausanias, it appears, had been deeply insulted by Attalus, the uncle of Philip’s young wife Cleopatra, and failing to get redress from the King, had so revenged on him his injured honor. It has been asked why, if this were the case, he did not strike at Attalus rather than Philip. The probability is that Philip’s murder was inspired by a woman’s indignation.
It was suspected immediately after the event that it was a case of “cherchez la femme,” and all indications pointed to the outraged Olympias as the author of the murder. Alexander himself was thought to have been concerned in his father’s death, for his own rights of succession were endangered by the influence of Cleopatra over Philip, an influence no longer merely sentimental, since she had recently given birth to a son. For this infant she would naturally strive to secure the Macedonian crown, and Alexander would be left to play the uncertain rôle of Pretender.
Whatever happened at Ægæ, the fruits of the crime fell into Alexander’s hands. He had been officially proclaimed his father’s heir. Of Philip’s sons he was the only one who had been tested on the battlefield, and he was also the one who had already shown capacity for leading the state in such crises as were bound to result from his father’s murder. Philip’s old companions in arms did not hesitate for a moment as to the proper choice of a ruler. Alexander was immediately recognized as king, and in the selection special weight was attached to the fact that his cause was urged by Antipater, one of Philip’s closest friends and supporters.
In this way the young prince’s road to the succession was made easy; there were no disturbances, and care was also taken that there should be no competitors for the crown in the future, for the young son of Cleopatra was killed. But these grim measures to establish domestic peace did not stop here. There was another line of Macedonian princes, descended from the dethroned family of Lynkestes; there were two members of this house who might, by making awkward claims at unsuitable times, give much trouble. These two, Heromenes and Arrhabæos, were both executed, on the ground that they had acted as accomplices with Pausanias in the conspiracy against Philip. They had a brother Alexander, whose life was spared only because he was a son-in-law of Antipater and had hailed Alexander as the new king immediately after the murder.
By these deeds of violence, Alexander became the acknowledged master of Macedon, but the prospects outside his own country were anything but favorable. In Asia, Attalus was at the head of the Greek cities. As the uncle of Cleopatra he would naturally be a most bitter enemy of Alexander. The uncertain future in Macedon was not lost on those Greeks whose liberties Philip had so recently destroyed, and whose acquiescence in the rule of Macedon was due only to their fear of the conqueror. Now they were ready to throw off the yoke, needing no excuse, but only an opportunity of rising, which the advent to the throne of an untried youth made most hopeful. A revolt broke out in Ambrakia and the Macedonian governor was driven out. Thebes was preparing for a similar outbreak, and there were plain signs of restlessness in Ætolia and in the Peloponnesus.
Athens was the city to which all the opponents of Macedonian rule looked for sympathy and support. The peace party there, who had gained adherents among the Athenians because of the moderation shown by Philip after his decisive victory at Chæronea, now lost ground because patriotic hopes sprung anew to life at the unexpected death of the man who had shattered the traditional system of Greek city autonomy.
Every Greek regarded Macedon as an alien and semibarbarous power, and one can sympathize with their view. Demosthenes was the leader of the patriotic party in Athens, and all attempts to undermine his popularity only put the partisans of Macedonia in a worse light in the eyes of the Athenians. Whenever he was judicially attacked he came out of the trial in triumph. Besides, the personal ascendancy of Demosthenes protected the minor politicians who joined him as opponents of the friends of the Macedonian monarch. Hyperides, who was responsible for a decree calling every Athenian freeman, slave, and ally under arms for the defense of the city against Philip after the defeat of the Greeks, was brought to trial for his action and, despite the eloquence of the pro-Macedonian orator, Aristogeiton, was acquitted.