f the figure, so it is my duty to dwell especially upon
those actions which reveal the workings of my heroes' minds, and from
these to construct the portraits of their respective lives, leaving
their battles and their great deeds to be recorded by others.

II. All are agreed that Alexander was descended on his father's side
from Herakles through Karanus, and on his mother's from AEakus through
Neoptolemus.

We are told that Philip and Olympias first met during their initiation
into the sacred mysteries at Samothrace, and that he, while yet a boy,
fell in love with the orphan girl, and persuaded her brother Arymbas
to consent to their marriage. The bride, before she consorted with her
husband, dreamed that she had been struck by a thunderbolt, from which
a sheet of flame sprang out in every direction, and then suddenly died
away. Philip himself some time after his marriage dreamed that he set
a seal upon his wife's body, on which was engraved the figure of a
lion. When he consulted the soothsayers as to what this meant, most of
them declared the meaning to be, that his wife required more careful
watching; but Aristander of Telmessus declared that she must be
pregnant, because men do not seal up what is empty, and that she would
bear a son of a spirited and lion-like disposition. Once Philip found
his wife asleep, with a large tame snake stretched beside her; and
this, it is said, quite put an end to his passion for her, and made
him avoid her society, either because he feared the magic arts of his
wife, or else from a religious scruple, because his place was more
worthily filled. Another version of this story is that the women of
Macedonia have been from very ancient times subject to the Orphic and
Bacchic frenzy (whence they were called Clodones and Mimallones), and
perform the same rites as do the Edonians and the Thracian women about
Mount Haemus, from which the word "threskeuein" has come to mean "to
be over-superstitious." Olympias, it is said, celebrated these rites
with exceeding fervour, and in imitation of the Orientals, and to
introduce into the festal procession large tame serpents,[394] which
struck terror into the men as they glided through the ivy wreaths and
mystic baskets which the women carried on their heads.

III. We are told that Philip after this portent sent Chairon of
Megalopolis to Delphi, to consult the god there, and that he delivered
an oracular response bidding him sacrifice to Zeus Ammon, a