Chapter Text
Alexander the Great didn't spring fully formed into history, nor did his Kingdom materialize out of thin air one day as is depicted in certain types of media.
He came from a long line of Kings, hailing back to the great Greek demi God Heracles on his father's side and the great warrior King Achilles of Trojan War fame on his mother's side.
To fully understand him, therefore, I believe it necessary to go back in time and describe, in brief, how his ancestors came to create Macedonia, and to do so we will need to travel to the Greek Kingdom of Argos in the 8th century BC.
The first ancestor that is of importance in our understanding of Alexander's family heritage is Temenus, a descendant of of Heracles and through him, a descendant of the Kings of Argos.
Centuries prior to his birth (roughly 740 BC), his family had been driven off the throne by an usurper, Eurystheus, King of Tiryns, who was aided in this conquest by the Goddess Hera whose hatred for Heracles and his bloodline was well known.
His ancestors invaded Argos to try and reclaim their inheritance, spending a year in war but were eventually driven off again and forced to seek refuge in the city of Athens.
In all, the descendants of Heracles, known to history as the Heracleidae, attempted four separate invasions of the Kingdom of Argos before Temenus's birth and with each invasion they were defeated and driven out of the country.
Telemnus was the eldest of three brothers, the other two being Cresphontes and Aristodemus, and together the siblings journeyed from their estate in Athens to the Holy Temple of Delphi where they hoped to consult the Oracle of the God Apollo.
Here they asked the Oracle, just like their ancestors had done, how best they could take back what was rightfully theirs.
The Oracle, speaking in her legendary rhyming way, instructed them that they needed to build a fleet at Naupactus and set sail, and this they did, though it soon turned into a disaster when Aristodemus was struck down by lightning for, it is said, killing a Prophet of Apollo over some annoyance or perceived wrong.
Temenus again went to Delphi and asked the Oracle how to make amends, to which she told him a sacrifice was needed and so the Prince gave one, not realizing that the sacrifice wasn't referring to an animal offering, but something that would only manifest years later.
On his way back to his brother Temenus met and befriended Oxylus, an exiled Prince from the Kingdom of Eleia in the Greek province of Aetolia. Oxylus accidentally killed his brother Thelemus by unknown means and so their father the King, not wanting to lose both sons but needing to punish him, gorged out one of his eyes, exiled him and made him a wanderer.
Oyxlus, a great warrior, agreed to join Temenus and his brothers in their quest in return for riches and the chance to earn glory for himself.
This time all went well and the two remaining brothers took their vast fleet into the Peloponnesian peninsula ready for war.
In this war the two brothers and their men came up against Tisamenus, the High King of the region and ruler of Argos and Mycenae.
The resulting war, unfortunately not covered in great detail in surviving sources, saw Tisamenus killed in battle and the Peloponnesian peninsula coming under the control of the Heracleidae, with Temenus gaining the throne of Argos while his brother took the crown of Messene. His two nephews, the son sof Aristodemus, Procles and Eurysthenes, were given the region of Lacedemonia and here they founded the Kingdom of Sparta.
Sometime after becoming King of Argos Temenus married, his wife's name not having come down in the surviving sources, and had four children. Three sons, Cisus, Karanos, and Phalces, and one daughter Hyrnetho, who, it is said, he loved above all his other offspring, which, as one may guess, caused much friction in the royal family.
When she grew to adulthood Hyrnetho married her distant cousin Deiphontes, a descendant of Heracles and his last wife Deianira, and he became just like a son to the elderly King, so close in fact that Temenus decided to ignore the line of succession, which would see Cisus receive the throne upon his death, and declare Deiphontes and Hynetho as his heirs.
This decision, of course, threw Cisus into a rage and he convinced Karanos and Phalces to join him in his anger, arguing that they, not Deiphontes or Hynetho, deserved to rule in Argos as the rightful elders in the bloodline succession.
The three brothers gathered an army and attacked their father, killing Temenus in battle but unable to press the advantage and take Argos proper, beaten back.
In this chaos the royal forces, appalled that sons would rise against their parent, let alone murder them, chose Deiphontes and Hynetho as their new monarchs, who went on to rule for several years, struggling in a brutal civil war against the brothers.
A few years later, after much blood and loss of life, Cisus led his siblings to the capital under a white flag in order to reach some sort of peace deal, both sides growing weary.
Meeting the King and Queen in the throne room Cisus laid out his claims to the throne. He did this in no diplomatic or civil manner, as one would expect, but pointed out to Hynetho how she and Deiphontes stool their father's crown from him, that Deiphontes was a poor partner and she should leave her husband and make amends with the brothers by marrying someone of their liking.
This sort of talk soon grew into a heated argument. Hynetho defended Deiphontes, stating he was an excellent husband and King.
Swords were drawn, and by the end of it all the Queen lay dead on the palace floor, stabbed by Phalces. All sources agree it was an accident, perhaps he went for Deiphontes but missed. Whatever the case upon the death of Hynetho the brothers fled Argos.
Deiphontes, grief stricken, soon relinquished the throne and took his wife's body to his hometown of Epidaurus where he built a sanctuary in her memory and lived out the remainder of his life.
When word reached Cisus that his brother in law stepped down from power he wasted no time swooping in and taking the crown, becoming the next King without incident. His reign began sometime in 680 BC.
The three brothers got along well but Cisus did not share power and so Karanos, knowing he would never be King in Argos, began desiring a Kingdom of his own three years later. To this end he made the trip to Delphi to consult Apollo on the best course of action to take.
The God's Oracle said to him that, " "You should find your kingdom there, where you will find plenty of game and domestic animals."
In all of Greece the most fertile land lay in the North and so Karanos, along with a sizable entourage, migrated up into the highlands where the Prince hoped to establish himself.
The natives of the regions, hardy and accustomed to defending themselves, didn't take too kindly to such an invasion, and Karanos spent a few years subduing these tribes, eventually taking the plains of Emathia and building the city of Aegae, which became the first capital of his new Kingdom, which he named Macedonia.
Karanos ruled as King for thirty years, building Macedonia into a strong and stable realm, transforming the highland tribes from a scattered collection of villages into a thriving Kingdom. He died of old age in 645 BC and was succeeded on the throne by his son Koenus.
Unfortunately, with the succession of Koenus the sources regarding the early Macedonian Kings is scant, most being little more than names and dates, but what we do know is that Karanos' line through Koenus did continue to rule, leading us to the next King who comes into history as a figure with some sort of personality and not just a name.
His name was Alcetas and came to the Macedonian throne roughly around 535 BC, at a time when Macedonia, and all of Greece for that matter, was feeling the pressure of the growing power of the Persian Empire.
Alcetas, a peace loving man who abhorred going to war if he could manage it and it was through diplomatic means that he was able to keep Macedonia independent of Persia, if barely.
Alectas died in 512 BC, being succeeded by his son Amyntas, who is even better documented than his father or ancestors, for it was under his reign that Persia finally sank its claws into the highland Kingdom.
A year after becoming King Amyntas received the Persian General Bagabazu at his court. Bagabazu, a cousin of the Persian King, Darius I, was a well renowned man and it was clear to all that he came not as a simple guest but to demand tribute and subjection.
Amyntas, as peace loving as his father was, if not as strong willed, invited the General to dine with him and his family, including his young son, the first Prince in Macedonian history to carry the name Alexander.
At this dinner Bagabazu ordered that women be brought to him and his men, though there were none save for the wives of the nobility present. The General did not care and demanded them and Amyntas, terrified at the thought of what a 'no' could do, consented, ordering the women to sit next to the Persians, who began to fondle them in front of the King and their husbands.
Alexander, disgusted by both this act of disrespect and by his father's cowardice, feigned illness and retreated to the upper floors of the palace where he called seven friends together and formed a plan.
All seven men were beardless and feminine in appearance and the Prince quickly dressed them up in women's clothing, giving each a dagger.
Taking them downstairs Alexander offered these 'wives' to Bagabazu and his men as tribute. The Persians happily accepted and wasted no time in attempting sexual assault on these would be victims.
No sooner had their hands touched their thighs than the Macedonians drew their blades, slashing the throats of Bagabazu and his men.
Alexander, ignoring his father's pleas, had the bodies disposed off and when more envoys came in the form of another Persian General, Bubares, the son of Bagabazu, the Prince took a risk and attempted to pay the man off with a large sum of money and his younger sister, Gygaea's, hand in marriage.
Surprisingly Bubares accepted this offer, returning to Darius and reporting that his father and his men must have went AWOL. As far as the Persians were concerned, Bagabazu and his men simply disappeared and were never heard of again.
Bubares and Gygaea went on to have one son named Amyntas after her father, who would later be given the governorship of the large city of Alabanda in what is now modern day Turkey by Darius's son and successor, Xerxes. Like many historical figures, however, this is the extent of what we know about the first Alexander's nephew.
King Amyntas would rule as a Persian vassal until 497 BC when he passed away and was succeeded by Alexander as Alexander I.
Despite his bravado in youth, the first Alexander came to an understanding with the Persians, realizing it was in the best interests of his people to work with them instead of against them, and he became, as the later Greek historian said, a man of Xerxes, taking his orders and doing his bidding. One of his main tasks under the Persian King was as a peacemaker during the negotiations following the crushing Persian defeat by the Greek States in the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC, which Alexander excelled.
Yet, for all his outward loyalty, the Macedonian King never forgot he was Greek, helping Greece in secret by giving advice, weapons, and money whenever he could, aiding in the resistance against Persian dominance. Some of this cunning and intelligence would pass down to his great great great grandson and namesake.
Following the death of Alexander I in 454 BC, the line of Alexander the Great left the throne for a time as Alexander's father, Philip, descended not from Alexander I's eldest son, but his fourth, Amyntas, and it was only through a combination of luck and determination that Philip became King at all.
Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, was born in the Macedonian capital of Pella, in 382 BC, the youngest son of King Amyntas III and his Queen, Eurydice.
Philip's father, Amyntas, came to the throne through a series of wars and feuds that saw the destruction of several lines of the Macedonian royal family and almost his own, but due to luck and determination to survive he managed to claw his way to the throne.
Philip, as mentioned, was the third and youngest son of his parents, the eldest being his father's heir, Alexander, and the middle child being Perdiccas. All three sons would eventually find their way to the throne, but only Philip would hold it for any length of time.
The relationship between Philip's parents was, to put it mildly, rocky. Eurydice openly slept with a noble of Amyntas's court, a man called Ptolemy of Aloros and the King, as he had other wives, seems not to have cared much but, had he known the schemes Ptolemy was working on in his mind, he may have taken more of an interest.
Amyntas died at the age of fifty in 370 BC and Alexander succeeded as Alexander II, and almost immediately Ptolemy began his plans in earnest.
Talking Eurydice into siding with him the Macedonian laid down the groundwork for the assassination of Alexander and his brothers in order that he may claim the throne, despite having no known blood link to the Argead dynasty himself. Alexander was duly murdered and his brothers would have been next had not been for their adopted brother, an Athenian born warrior named Iphicrates, who stepped in and prevented the slaughter.
The Athenian kept the boys safe from harm until Perdiccas could claim the throne in 365 BC and killed Ptolemy, sending a shockwave throughout the Macedonian court as several leading families supported the nobleman's regime.
To build alliances with other States, particularly those more powerful than Macedonia, Perdiccas reached out to the Persian Empire, seeking to make an ally out of the current King Artaxerxes II.
Macedonia, in practical terms, didn't have much to offer Persia. It had long ago thrown off its vassal status and was now a free Kingdom again, something Perdiccas wasn't interested in reversing, but Artaxerxes saw in it an opportunity to have an ally inside Greece, one he could use, perhaps, to launch an invasion one day like his predecessors did before him. One that would succeed this time.
The two sides came to an agreement whereby Macedonia and Persia would be trading allies and it was sealed by the marriage of Philip with one of Artaxerxes' daughters, Princess Nahid, by a concubine. The wedding took place in 363 BC.
By the following year Nahid gave birth to Philip's first child, a son they named Philip but who was known throughout his life as Arrhidaeus.
Arrhidaeus was born with mental disabilities that didn't fully become apparent until later on in his early childhood. His speech was slurred and he was developmentally delayed, but, thankfully, this never a problem for his parents, who loved him all the same. It did, however, mean he was not a suitable heir to the throne should anything happen to his uncle or father.
In 362 BC Nahid gave birth again, this time to a daughter they named Cynane who would grow up to be a formidable political force in Macedonia. Both siblings would be close to their younger brother Alexander.
In 361 BC, Nahid became pregnant yet again and gave birth to her last child, another daughter named Thessalonike who would, like her elder sister, become a powerful figure in court politics, rising to become Queen of Macedonia when her husband, Cassender, a future friend and General of Alexander, took the throne a few decades after the former's death.
Sadly, following Thessalonike's birth Nahid died due to complications, leaving Philip a widower with three children to raise on his own.
To make matters worse, Perdiccas died less than a year after Nahid, falling in battle against the Illyrian people, a collection of highland tribes in what is now modern day Albania and Kosovo due to his arrogant confidence he could beat such 'savage' people, leaving his son, Amyntas, who was still but a boy, his heir.
Not desiring a possible Civil War or someone to use the young Prince as a puppet, the Macedonian nobles decided to bypass the laws of succession and elect Philip King.
Taking his young nephew into his household the new Macedonian monarch set about establishing himself militarily, leading several successful campaigns against the Illyrians and Thracians, increasing the pay for his soldiers, enforcing stricter training which saw the soldiers improve drastically, and creating a system of meritocracy and abolishing, for the most part, the old system whereby sons of nobles automatically moved up while common men did not unless extremely gifted.
And to top it all off he met a new romantic interest. In 359 BC, while attending a religious festival on the island of Samothrace, Philip met Olympias, a woman from the Molossian tribe of Epirus, a Greek people descended from Molossus, the grandson of the great Greek hero Achilles, and the two fell madly in love, becoming man and wife soon after.