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.
The current of popular emotion was even more plainly revealed when the time came to deliver the oration, at the Attic feast of the dead, to commemorate the citizens fallen at the battle of Chæronea. The honor fell to Demosthenes, the one man whose implacable hatred to the Macedonian dynasty and all its works was known to everyone. Attempts were made in Athens to reform the terms of military service by arranging that all citizens should be called out to defend their country, and at the same time money was spent in putting the fortifications of the city in a state to resist an army composed of skilled troops and provided with the siege artillery of the time.
But care had been taken not to invite attack while Athens was yet unprepared. At the marriage feast of Ægæ appeared an Athenian deputation bringing a golden wreath to Philip and a copy of a decree, passed formally by the city, by which it undertook to surrender anyone in its jurisdiction who should dare to plot against the king. When the news of the assassination reached Athens, Demosthenes appeared in the council in festal garb, and solemnly thanked the gods for the deliverance done at Ægæ. He considered that Athens had nothing to fear from the silly youth who now was ruling over Macedon.
But Alexander showed that the great orator had not taken his enemy’s measure. By the rapidity of his actions, he checked all attempts to revolt. Suddenly appearing at the head of his army in Thessaly, he received from the Thessalian allied cities the position of commander-in-chief, as his father had done before him, and moving rapidly south, he reached Thermopylæ, where he summoned the Amphiktyons, and meeting no opposition, was declared by them guardian of the temple at Delphi. Marching farther south to Thebes, he prevented, by his presence with an overwhelming force, any anti-Macedonian movement; and when the Athenians sent a delegation to greet him, he was tactful enough not to ask for further guaranties of good behavior on the part of the city they represented.
The Hellenic league, which included all the Greek states south of Thermopylæ and all the islands which had once owned the supremacy of Athens, met again at Corinth and renewed with Alexander the same agreement that had previously been made with his father, a treaty of offensive and defensive alliance, and the chief command by land and sea was assigned to the new king, as his father’s successor. After this triumphal and peaceful progress, Alexander returned home, where his barbarian neighbors were giving trouble by revolts against his authority.
In order to bring himself in contact with the Greek opposition to Alexander, Attalus, one of the two commanders of the Macedonian army in Asia, had entered into relations with Demosthenes, only a short time after Alexander’s succession. As Cleopatra’s uncle he took a leading part in engineering a conspiracy intended to supplant Alexander by Amyntas, the young son of Perdikkas, the elder brother of Philip, who by the traditional usage of the Macedonian monarchy was entitled to succeed Philip. The success of Alexander in Greece convinced Attalus of the futility of his schemes, and he therefore tried to make advances to the young ruler. But Alexander was not to be placated, and, as a deviser of conspiracies in his own interest, he showed that he had nothing to learn from the practised hands of the Macedonian nobles.
It would have been extremely unwise for Alexander to have shown himself openly an enemy of Attalus, who enjoyed much popularity in the army. Accordingly he made a show of friendship by graciously accepting the advances of Attalus, and at the same time he despatched an associate, Hekatæus, on whom he could rely, with directions to assassinate him. The treacherous deed was made the easier, because Parmenio, joint-commander with Attalus in Asia Minor, facilitated the plans of the assassination, despite the fact that Attalus was married to his daughter. The tribal interests of a half-barbarous people had full sway among the Macedonians, so Parmenio, who had throughout his life been conscientiously loyal to the Macedonian monarchy, did not scruple to sacrifice his daughter’s husband, when it appeared that his son-in-law was plotting to supplant the regularly accepted monarch of his people.
Alexander’s difficulties were being quickly dissolved by crime and bloodshed. The Macedonians had none of the political experiences common to the free Greek communities, and assassination was regarded both as an ordinary expedient for removing opponents, and as the logical method of rounding off a policy that was complicated. With Attalus removed, Alexander could proceed, without further hesitation, to strengthen his position at home. Amyntas, the young pretender, was executed, and with him all of the relatives of Attalus and Cleopatra. In this Borgia-like program of eliminating possible claimants to the throne, only the stepbrother of Alexander, a half-witted lad, Amidæus, was spared. Later Alexander’s mother, Olympias, forced her rival, the queen-widow Cleopatra, to commit suicide.
With this orgy of crime, the reign of Alexander was ushered in, and one reads with astonishment to-day the thin and specious apologies which would excuse the young ruler, the real instigator of these atrocities. As a matter of fact he early acquired the habit of assassination; unfortunately he never unlearned it. Whatever may be argued in behalf of his people, who were uncivilized, nothing can extenuate this early exercise in crime of the pupil of Aristotle. When we survey his record of one year we perceive that hatred of his deeds must have been the test of patriotism and good citizenship among the Greek communities, who might well see in him the typical tyrant of their political theories.
Alexander’s violent preparations for a peaceful reign were successful. During his lifetime the tranquillity of Macedonia was not disturbed. Greece had been brought by the display of military supremacy to a position of servitude; all that needed to be done before he took up his father’s program for the invasion of Asia, was to bring the western tribes on his northern frontier to reason, and to force home upon them the realization of the power of Macedon.
In the spring of 335, Alexander left Amphipolis, and by a rapid march of ten days reached Mount Hæmus in the thick of a population which had never recognized the supremacy of Macedon. They tried to defend themselves in their mountain passes, but Alexander soon forced his way through, and on the top of the highest mountain, celebrated his victory by setting up a thank offering to Dionysus. He then gave his attention to various mountain tribes with whom his father had had trouble, who had never before been subjugated, but who now met a decisive defeat at his hands. An island on the Danube, where the tribesmen had placed for security their wives and children and property, proved, however, impregnable. The young king showed himself from the first a master of strategy, for although he could not capture the island, he executed rapid movements along the river, beating the Getæ who were defending the passages, and when the Triballi had come to terms, he marched up the Danube, and then, crossing the eastern passes of the Hæmus range, returned to Pæonia.
Alexander’s absence in the north in this untiring campaign against barbarian tribes, whose homes and habits were hardly known to the civilized states of Greece, was taken advantage of by his enemies. While he was fighting on the Danube, the King of Illyria, Kleitos, whose people had given trouble to Philip and whose father had fallen in battle with the Macedonians, rose in revolt. Several tribes farther north on the Adriatic coast joined with the Illyrians in this anti-Macedonian movement. Without a moment’s hesitation, Alexander turned to deal with his new enemies, and in order to do effective work, penetrated far into the mountainous region of Illyria. The Macedonian army soon found itself in a hazardous position, surrounded on all sides by hostile tribes. By skilful strategy, Alexander withdrew his troops from the danger that threatened them, while they were besieging Pelion in the face of superior numbers, and when he found that the Illyrians were following him, he quickly turned on them, administered a decisive blow, and forced Kleitos to seek a refuge in the territory of the Taulantines, one of the tribes which had been co-operating with the Illyrians in their resistance to his army.
In the meantime, the presence of a Macedonian force in Asia Minor had awakened the Persians to the danger confronting them of an invasion from Greece. Its full meaning was hardly appreciated, and the new situation was interpreted as only another example of the type of attack so frequently made by the Greek communities ever since the time when the Persian invasion of Greece had been successfully blocked. It had always been found possible to avoid a serious attack from Greece on the Persian Empire by playing off one Greek state against another. This well-tried expedient was now used again. Letters were sent from the King of Persia to the states of Greece urging them to rise against Macedon, and offering large sums of money to subsidize the revolt. Sparta alone responded to the invitation; Athens and the other states, which had just renewed a formal alliance with Macedon, seemed to realize the hopelessness of an anti-Macedonian movement, and refused to accept the offer of Persian money. All that the representatives of the great king could accomplish in this direction was to leave in the hands of Demosthenes the sum of three hundred talents, with the understanding that he could use his own discretion in employing it to the best advantage in the interests of Persia.
The action of the great Athenian orator in accepting the Persian gold has been severely criticised and warmly defended. It must be remembered that to him Alexander appeared only as the destroyer of Greek liberty and not as the protagonist of Greek culture, a position which can be understood only as the result of his conquests in the East. There was no reason why an Athenian patriot should have been willing to destroy the Persian Empire at the cost of the enslavement of his own city.
The perils and difficulties of the Illyrian campaign were magnified by the rumors which reached the Greek cities. It was even reported that Alexander had been slain and his army destroyed. This report was soon followed by an uprising in Thebes against the Macedonians. The leaders of the Macedonian faction were murdered and the Macedonian garrison in the citadel closely besieged. The democratic constitution was then restored and Theban officials were elected according to the old constitutional forms. At this juncture, Demosthenes used some of the Persian treasure to purchase arms, which he sent to Thebes to aid its citizens in their contest for the restoration of their independence.
While the Thebans were most active, the rest of Greece was not slow in showing its antipathy to Macedonian control. Athens prepared itself to do battle for Greek autonomy; the isthmus of Corinth was occupied by an army raised from among the Arcadian cities, with Mantineia at their head. And the people of Elis and Ætolia showed that they would be ready to aid the Thebans.
But before any common plan of resistance could be prepared, Alexander and his army had passed the frontiers of Bœotia after a remarkably rapid forced march, undertaken as soon as the news of the defection of the Thebans had reached him in Illyria. It took him but fourteen days in all to cover the distance from the scene of operations in Illyria to the gates of Thebes. He was willing to come to terms with the Thebans, offering them easy conditions provided they would admit his troops into the city; but the mass of the inhabitants preferred to cast in their lot with those who were in favor of resistance.
The exiled citizens of Thebes knew they would receive short shrift at the hands of the son of the man who had driven them from their native city. The chances of successful resistance were overestimated, but Thebes had formerly led a forlorn hope in its contest with the Spartans; and, as the unexpected had happened before, the Thebans, who were preparing to withstand the Macedonians can hardly be blamed for recalling the glorious memories of the battle of Leuktra. But they were now dealing with a new, vigorous army, not with a Spartan force spoiled by routine. As no help could be looked for from the outside, the situation was altogether different. The result proved that the Thebans of Alexander’s day had inherited indeed the valor, but not the intelligence, of the generation of Epaminondas and Pelopidas.
The Macedonian garrison still held out in the Kadmeia, the citadel which lay in the southern part of the city, near the gate of Elektra, through which passed the road to Athens. Its walls were an integral part of the fortifications of the city. The object of the Thebans was therefore to cut off all communication from the Kadmeia by building about it inclosing lines. This operation Alexander aimed to prevent, and with Perdikkas at the head of a contingent of Macedonian mountaineers, he succeeded in breaking through the Theban line of defense, and finally forced his adversaries back to the walls of the city. They were closely pursued in this retreat, and, as they entered the gate in disorder, the Macedonians were able to force their way into the city at the same time. Another division of the Macedonians found little difficulty in entering the Kadmeia, and from this point of vantage they quickly descended into the city. The Thebans made an attempt to rally in the market place, but the rout was soon general. After the city was overrun by the Macedonians and their allies, it was noted that the people of the smaller Bœotian towns signalized themselves by their acts of cruelty done on the now defenseless Thebans, from whose tyranny they had suffered in the past. Six thousand men, it is said, perished in the taking of Thebes, while the Macedonian loss did not exceed 500. (September, 335 B.C.)
Alexander called together his allies to settle the fate of the conquered. The decision was a horrible example of rancorous hatred, for he allowed the smaller cities of Bœotia, smarting, as we have seen, under the sense of long grievances, to work their will on their once powerful neighbor. The town was to be razed to the ground, only the house of Pindar being spared. The sole part of the fortifications of the town to be retained was the Kadmeia, which remained as a military post with its Macedonian garrison. The Theban territory was to be divided among the allies, and all the captive Thebans, men, women, and children, with but a few exceptions, were to be sold as slaves. Those Thebans who escaped from the city were to be outlawed, and no Greek city would be permitted to receive them. The only positive items in this ruthless decree were the provisions for restoring Orchemenos and Platæa, places which Thebes had once treated with the severity now meted out to her.
Such a catastrophe, as the result of a defeat or a siege, had never before been witnessed in Greece, and the impression produced was one of unmitigated terror. It was not simply the misfortunes of the existing Theban community, or the material loss from the annihilation of property. Thebes had the closest associations with the heroic age of Greece, its name was interwoven with the stories of gods and heroes. Kadmus had founded it; within its limits Dionysus and Herakles had been born. The city which had shattered the power of Sparta was left desolate, and the plow passed over the ground where it had once stood. It seemed according to a contemporary as if Zeus had torn the moon from the heavens.
The impression made throughout Greece by this barbarous deed was universal; no one dared to think of resistance to Alexander. There was a general desire among the various cities to place themselves in a favorable position with the conqueror. The Arcadians condemned to death those who had advised that aid should be given to the Thebans; in other places the partisans of Macedonia were received back from exile, and haste was made to acquaint Alexander of the general desire to meet his wishes.
The Athenians were celebrating their most solemn religious festival, the Eleusinian Mysteries, when the taking of Thebes was announced. There was widespread consternation, because it was assumed that the next move of Alexander would be made against Athens in order to punish its citizens for their anti-Macedonian sentiments. The celebration of the festival was abandoned; the inhabitants of the open country took refuge within the city walls, in anticipation of the ravaging of their lands, and the fortifications surrounding the city were fully prepared for defense. In spite of the plain dangers involved in showing sympathy for the defeated Thebans, fugitives from that city were received with an open-handed hospitality, and their needs cared for without stint. But at the same time an opening for maintaining amicable relations with the victor was preserved, by sending a formal embassy to Alexander to congratulate him on his return from Illyria and for his quick victory over the rebels in Thebes.
The true situation of affairs in Athens was an open secret. Alexander knew the part played by the Athenians in preparing for the Theban revolt; he knew, too, that they had been on the point of actively and openly co-operating with the Thebans, and that the plan had been frustrated only by the rapidity with which he had moved on the city. Yet the young ruler showed himself unexpectedly placable in his treatment of Athens. There is no reason to attribute his attitude to mere generosity of sentiment in favor of the city because of its glorious past. There were more practical reasons; the siege of Athens could hardly be successful except through command of the sea, and any attempt of this kind would most likely have been frustrated or at least rendered doubtful by the intervention of the Persian fleet.
Instead of advancing into Attica, Alexander stopped to parley, and agreed to abstain from hostilities on condition that the Athenians should promptly expel the Theban fugitives, and also should surrender to him the men who had been lately responsible for the anti-Macedonian direction of the government. It is to the credit of the Athenians that the first condition was without a negative rejected; and as to the second there were many of the anti-democratic faction who would have been glad to get rid of their opponents by agreeing to this indirect demand of the Macedonian king that the government of the city should be handed over to his partisans. Phokion, one of the distinguished and revered members of the oligarchic group, was willing to accept the condition unreservedly; but Demosthenes and Demades, another popular leader, successfully urged the assembly of the people to vote against it, and even Phokion agreed to head an embassy to acquaint Alexander with the decision of the Athenian citizens. The king showed himself ready to compromise, for the success of his schemes against Asia depended largely on the good will of Athens and its fleet. It was finally arranged that the Athenian anti-Macedonian military leader Charidemos should be banished, a proposal to which it was all the easier for the Athenians to accede, because he was not a native Athenian. This officer and several others withdrew to Asia and took service under Darius.