Alexander means more to me than anyone.”
They had just under four years with Aristotle. When Alexander was sixteen Philip, committed to a long elaborate siege in eastern Thrace, appointed his son Regent of Macedon.
It is of course evident that he had already been at war. No record of it remains; but the trust committed to himwas no sinecure. Though the experienced Antipater was left as his adviser, Philip cannot by this time have supposed he would not act on his own initiative if he thought fit. The border tribes, the still unsubdued Illyrians in particular, were a constant threat; so were the Athenians, who without declaration of war were using terrorist methods, seizing a Macedonian ship and selling the crew as slaves, capturing an envoy and demanding ransom; arresting in Athens a merchant shopping for Olympias, torturing him, on Demosthenes’ orders, till he confessed to spying, and putting him to death. More urgently, there were the west Thracians, previously subdued, but, if they rose, a threat to Philip’s communication line, now extended almost to the Hellespont.
Plutarch’s note on this period is brief. Alexander, “not to sit idle, reduced the rebellious Maedi, and putting a colony of several peoples in their place called it after himself, Alexandropolis.” The idea that he was seeking pastime is dispelled by a look at the map. Maedian country was in the wilds of today’s Bulgarian frontier; raiders from there would descend into the cultivated Strymon valley, which intersected Philip’s supply route. A successful revolt, triggering others, might have involved him in a major military disaster.
Alexander’s first “colony” was doubtless a mere hill village. His father had founded his Thracian Philipopolis; only later days reveal the triumph the boy must have felt in this act of emulation. More significant is the fact that at sixteen he could call upon the standing army of Macedon, be followed unquestioningly into barbarian fastnesses and obeyed in a hard mountain campaign. It would be interesting to know where and how they had previously got to trust him.
After this he served under his father (Antipater now acting Regent), and was sent with the rank of general tosubdue some rebel cities in south Thrace. At about this time he saved, as he claimed later, his father’s life. It was probably during Philip’s arduous siege of Perinthus, when he may have needed to hire extra troops. Even as Great King of Persia, Alexander still recalled it with resentment. Philip, he said,
when a riot had broken out between Macedonian soldiers and Greek mercenaries, overcome by a wound he had got in the fracas, had fallen down and could do no more than sham dead; he himself had protected his body with his shield and killed with his own hand the men who were rushing at him. Which his father had never been man enough to admit, being unwilling to owe his son his life.
Unfortunately that is all we know of it.
Alexander’s formal education was over, and Philip paid his school fee. It was a city. Aristotle’s ruined birthplace, Stagira, was refounded, rebuilt, and repopulated, the people probably being bought out from slavery. This makes Alexander’s education the most expensive on record. It was formative. He remembered always that the only self deserving of self-love is what would now be called the super-ego; the “intellectual soul” which must be trained to rule, like a king, over all lesser and baser appetites; to spurn the limits of mortality; to covet as riches only honour, nobility and glory. Leaving this spell behind him, the eminent apprentice of the dead sorcerer went home, to be taken aback by the subsequent thunder and lightning.
It is evident from Philip’s confidence in his son that they were still getting on well together, as they normally did while in the field and well away from Olympias. Alexander now returned to resume his regency while Philip went onbesieging the fortress ports, Perinthus and
They had just under four years with Aristotle. When Alexander was sixteen Philip, committed to a long elaborate siege in eastern Thrace, appointed his son Regent of Macedon.
It is of course evident that he had already been at war. No record of it remains; but the trust committed to himwas no sinecure. Though the experienced Antipater was left as his adviser, Philip cannot by this time have supposed he would not act on his own initiative if he thought fit. The border tribes, the still unsubdued Illyrians in particular, were a constant threat; so were the Athenians, who without declaration of war were using terrorist methods, seizing a Macedonian ship and selling the crew as slaves, capturing an envoy and demanding ransom; arresting in Athens a merchant shopping for Olympias, torturing him, on Demosthenes’ orders, till he confessed to spying, and putting him to death. More urgently, there were the west Thracians, previously subdued, but, if they rose, a threat to Philip’s communication line, now extended almost to the Hellespont.
Plutarch’s note on this period is brief. Alexander, “not to sit idle, reduced the rebellious Maedi, and putting a colony of several peoples in their place called it after himself, Alexandropolis.” The idea that he was seeking pastime is dispelled by a look at the map. Maedian country was in the wilds of today’s Bulgarian frontier; raiders from there would descend into the cultivated Strymon valley, which intersected Philip’s supply route. A successful revolt, triggering others, might have involved him in a major military disaster.
Alexander’s first “colony” was doubtless a mere hill village. His father had founded his Thracian Philipopolis; only later days reveal the triumph the boy must have felt in this act of emulation. More significant is the fact that at sixteen he could call upon the standing army of Macedon, be followed unquestioningly into barbarian fastnesses and obeyed in a hard mountain campaign. It would be interesting to know where and how they had previously got to trust him.
After this he served under his father (Antipater now acting Regent), and was sent with the rank of general tosubdue some rebel cities in south Thrace. At about this time he saved, as he claimed later, his father’s life. It was probably during Philip’s arduous siege of Perinthus, when he may have needed to hire extra troops. Even as Great King of Persia, Alexander still recalled it with resentment. Philip, he said,
when a riot had broken out between Macedonian soldiers and Greek mercenaries, overcome by a wound he had got in the fracas, had fallen down and could do no more than sham dead; he himself had protected his body with his shield and killed with his own hand the men who were rushing at him. Which his father had never been man enough to admit, being unwilling to owe his son his life.
Unfortunately that is all we know of it.
Alexander’s formal education was over, and Philip paid his school fee. It was a city. Aristotle’s ruined birthplace, Stagira, was refounded, rebuilt, and repopulated, the people probably being bought out from slavery. This makes Alexander’s education the most expensive on record. It was formative. He remembered always that the only self deserving of self-love is what would now be called the super-ego; the “intellectual soul” which must be trained to rule, like a king, over all lesser and baser appetites; to spurn the limits of mortality; to covet as riches only honour, nobility and glory. Leaving this spell behind him, the eminent apprentice of the dead sorcerer went home, to be taken aback by the subsequent thunder and lightning.
It is evident from Philip’s confidence in his son that they were still getting on well together, as they normally did while in the field and well away from Olympias. Alexander now returned to resume his regency while Philip went onbesieging the fortress ports, Perinthus and
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