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C h a p t e r 1
The Blood of Heroes
Predi cti ve Precoci ty
When Ludwig van Beethoven was eleven years old, he composed some
piano pieces too difcult to play with his small hands. His music teacher
was said to have remarked, Why, you cant play that, Ludwig. To
which the boy replied, I will when I am bigger.
History is full of the notable quotes and feats of precocious geniuses.
The common thread of such stories is that they foreshadow the great
deeds to come. Of course young Beethoven knew that someday he
would be able to play the most difcult works for piano; after all, he was
Beethoven!
Many such stories were told about Alexander the Great. Most can be
found in the rst ten chapters of Plutarchs biography. Plutarch relays
them to suggest Alexanders future invincibility; his vehement nature
(barely controlled by his self-discipline); his self-possession; his con-
dence; and his wit. The adult Alexander was famous for all of these. It
would be a mistake, however, to forget some salient facts about his back-
ground and upbringing as we read through Plutarchs delightful litany of
youthful triumphs.
Alexander was a prince, with the blood of some of Greeces greatest
heroes (real and mythical) owing through his veins from both sides of
his family tree. Moreover, this young prince did not grow up among
barbarians, as some ancient writers have intimated, but at a wealthy,
sophisticated royal court lled with great painters, writers, diplomats,
and soldiers. He also received the nest education possible. Unless we
keep these facts in mind we can never understand how Alexander, the
Macedonian prince, eventually became the king of Asia and a god.
The Blood of Heroes
Alexanders mother, Olympias, was a princess of the royal house of
Molossia in Epirus (northwestern Greece). Molossos, after whom the
royal house was named, was supposedly the son of Andromache and
Neoptolemus. It was Neoptolemus who had slain King Priam at the
altar of Zeus Herkeios (of the Household) during the sack of Troy. He
also happened to be the son of Achilles. On his mothers side, Alexander
was thus a blood descendant of the awed hero of the Iliad and his sav-
age son. To Alexander, the signicance of his descent from the heroes of
Greeces epic past was not a matter of passive identication with ancient
history; the past was alive, and Alexander was part of a living epic cycle.
Alexanders father, Philip II of Macedon, had fallen in love with
Olympias when both were initiated into the mysteries of the Kabeiri
(earth gods) on the island of Samothrace. Later on, Olympias was known
to be devoted to ectastic Dionysian cults. During their ceremonies she
entered into states of possession, and to the festival processions in honor
of the god she introduced large, hand-tamed snakes that terried the
male spectators.
Strong-willed, intelligent, and ruthlessly committed to Alexanders
interests as she saw them, Olympias apparently never read the chapter in
the textbook of Greek culture that forbade women to meddle in politics.
She also passed along to Alexander her unshakable belief in his special
connection to the gods and his unique destiny. Alexander may have been
the only man in Macedon who was not afraid of his formidable, some
have said terrible, mother.
Olympias probably married Philip in 357. We are told that before
Alexanders birth she dreamed that she had heard a crash of thunder and
that her womb had been struck by a thunderbolt. There followed a
4 Al exander, Son of Phi l i p, and the Greeks
blinding ash of light. A great sheet of ame blazed up from it, spread-
ing far and wide before it disappeared.
Philip, too, had a prophetic dream. He saw himself sealing up his
wifes womb; on the seal was engraved the gure of a lion. Interpreting
this dream, Aristander of Telmessus, who later served as Alexanders seer
during his campaigns, declared that Olympias must be pregnant, since
men did not seal up what was empty, and that she would bear a son
whose nature would be bold and lion-like.
That bold and lion-like son probably was born on July 20, 356, the
very day when the great Temple of Artemis at Ephesos, one of the seven
wonders of the ancient world, burned to the ground. Hegesias of Mag-
nesia claimed that the conagration was no wonder: Artemis was away
from her shrine attending the birth of Alexander.
Philip received the news of his sons birth just after he had captured
the important city of Potidaea. In fact, three happy messages were
brought to Philip that day: that his one and only general, Parmenio, had
defeated the Illyrians in a great battle; that his racehorse had been victo-
rious at the Olympic games; and that Alexander had been born. Philips
soothsayers predicted that a son whose birth coincided with three victo-
ries would be invincible.
The soothsayers were right; but of course, they also knew that the
blood of some nearly invincible heroes owed through the infants veins.
Olympias did nothing to discourage Alexanders belief in his descent
from heroes and divinities. When she sent Alexander off to lead his
great expedition, we are told that she disclosed to him the secret of his
conception and exhorted him to show himself worthy of his parent-
age. (Unfortunately, Alexander never revealed what his mother had
told him.)
Even as a young boy, according to Plutarch, Alexander revealed his
ambitious nature. He was a ne runner, and when friends asked him
whether he would be willing to compete at Olympia, he replied that he
wouldif I have kings to run against me. He also astonished some vis-
iting Persian ambassadors by questioning them about the distances they
had traveled, the nature of the journey into the interior of Persia, the
kings character and experience in war, and the nations military strength.
His close interrogation of these ambassadors was later seen as particu-
larly signicant.
The Bl ood of Heroes 5
Indeed, even before he reached puberty, Alexander had already
planned his career. Whenever he heard that his father had captured
some famous city or won an overwhelming victory, he was annoyed and
complained to his friends, Boys, my father will forestall me in every-
thing. There will be nothing great or spectacular for you and me to show
the world.
The Tami ng of Bucephalas
Alexanders precocity and ambition are perhaps best illustrated by the
delightful story of the horse named BucephalasOxhead, for the
shape of the mark on his forehead. The big black horse had been
brought to Philip by Philoneicus the Thessalian, who had offered to sell
him for the huge sum of thirteen talents. When Philip and his friends
went down to watch Bucephalas being put through his paces, however,
they found him quite wild and unmanageable. He allowed no one to
mount him; nor would the horse endure the shouts of Philips grooms.
He reared up against anyone who approached him. Angry at having
been offered a vicious, unbroken animal, Philip ordered Bucephalas to
be led away.
Alexander intervened with a wager: if he could not mount and ride
Bucephalas, he would pay his purchase price. Philips friends laughed at
the bet. But Alexander had noticed what no one else had seen: that Bu-
cephalas was spooked by his own shadow. Alexander therefore turned
Bucephalas toward the sun, so that his shadow would fall behind him;
then, running alongside and stroking him gently, Alexander sprang
lightly onto his back. When he saw that Bucephalas had been freed of his
fears and wanted to show his speed, Alexander gave him his head and
urged him forward at a gallop. As Philip and his friends held their col-
lective breath, Alexander reached the end of his gallop, turned under full
control, and rode back in triumph. Philips friends broke into applause.
Philip himself, we are told, wept for joy, and said, My boy, you must
nd a kingdom big enough for your ambitions. Macedonia is too small
for you.
Philip was right, of course. But the real signicance of this event was
not what it revealed of Alexanders ambition; what really set the young
6 Al exander, Son of Phi l i p, and the Greeks
prince apart were his keen powers of observation and his ability to draw
the correct inferences from what he saw. As a young man, Alexander ap-
plied those powers to combat; he was able to observe and then act upon
datafeatures of topography, for instancewhose implications no one
else could understand as clearly or as quickly.
An Educati on Fi t for a Pri nce
In charge of the nurses, pedagogues, and teachers expected to educate
the tamer of Bucephalas was a certain Leonidas, a relative of Olympias,
known as a strict disciplinarian. Alexanders pedagogue (or minder, usu-
ally a slave) was an Acarnanian named Lysimachus, who pleased his
charge by calling Philip Peleus, nicknaming Alexander Achilles, and
styling himself Phoenix, the name of Achilles old tutor.
Once when Alexander was making sacrice to the gods and was pre-
paring to throw incense on the altar re with both hands, Leonidas
stopped him: only when Alexander had conquered the spice-bearing re-
gions could he be so lavish with his incense. Later, after he had conquered
The Bl ood of Heroes 7
The grove of Mieza, in Macedon, where Aristotle taught Alexander the Great when
he was about fourteen years old. Authors collection
those regions, Alexander sent Leonidas 500 talents worth of frankin-
cense and 100 talents worth of myrrh, explaining that he had sent this
abundance so that Leonidas might stop dealing parsimoniously with the
gods.
This ending has always appealed to those who have endured a strict
teacher. We should attend, however, to the anecdotes opening scene,
which provides the real insight into the character of Alexander. Even be-
fore he needed their favor to conquer the world, Alexander was extraor-
dinarily pious and generous to the gods.
When Alexander was fourteen years old, Philip brought the great
philosopher Aristotle to Pella as Alexanders tutor. In what was probably
a consecrated precinct of the Nymphs near the beautiful grove of Mieza,
Aristotle tutored the young prince in ethics, politics, and eristics (formal
disputation).
Aristotle also annotated a copy of Homers Iliad for Alexander. He
took it with him on his campaigns to the East; it was one of the very few
material possessions he ever seems to have cherished. During his cam-
paigns he slept with it under his pillow, along with a dagger.
The inuence of the Iliad upon Alexander cannot be overestimated.
To begin with, it supplied a model of a war of revenge against Asia. And
Alexander seems to have been deeply moved by the heroic example of
his kinsman Achilles: when he visited the site of Troy in the spring of
334, he honored Achilles and the other Greek heroes buried there with
sacrices, and proclaimed Achilles happy in life, since he had, while he
was alive, a faithful friend, and after death, a great herald of his fame.
It was Achilles acceptance of the inevitability of his own death, how-
ever, that most inspired Alexander. According to Homer, both Thetis
(Achilles mother) and Achilles knew that once he had avenged Patro-
klos by killing Hektor, his own death would be near. But in avenging his
friend he would win the only kind of immortality available to mortals:
excellent glory.
Alexander too seems to have been willing to accept death, at a time of
the gods choosing, in exchange for the everlasting glory that came from
achieving great deeds of arms. That acceptance explains best the pattern
of Alexanders actions throughout his life. Like Achilles, to gain all,
Alexander was willing to risk all. In combat, that was his great advantage
8 Al exander, Son of Phi l i p, and the Greeks
over those who wanted to live longerand therefore were destined to
live shorter and less glorious lives.
Homer may have given Alexander some ideas about how to ght as
well; Alexander reportedly regarded the Iliad as a handbook of war-
fare. Since there are no completely convincing examples in the epics of
the massed hoplite warfare typical of Greek practice during the fourth
century, we can only assume that what Alexander meant by his remark
was that, like Achilles, he should ght glorious duels with his enemies
out in front of his supporters. This is exactly what he did. And we know
that Alexander justied some of his more controversial actions, such as
marrying barbarian women, with references to the Iliad.
As for Aristotle himself, what inuence he had on Alexanders think-
ing otherwise is debatable. According to some sources, he advised
Alexander to treat the conquered peoples of his empire like plants or an-
imals. There is really no good reason to doubt this story; the general
sense of the advice is completely consistent with known Aristotelian the-
ories about the natural and desirable submission of slaves to masters, and
of the conquered to their conquerors. Fortunately for the conquered
peoples of Asia, Alexander ignored his teachers counsel, preferring to
treat at least some of them as human beings.
From between the lines of Plutarchs predictive account of Alexan-
ders early years, then, a picture of the young prince comes into focus: a
competitive and ambitious young man, pushed and pulled between
equally strong-minded parents, blessed with keen intelligence, pious in
a traditional fashion, sensitive and well educated, but with an independ-
ent streak, and, most important, red by a passionate engagement with
Greeces heroic past. Much of that past had been dened by violent en-
counters with Greeces powerful neighbor to the east, Persia.
The Bl ood of Heroes 9