onia to conduct the negotiations, Olympias and
her friends again exasperated Alexander against his father by pointing
out to him that Philip, by arranging this splendid marriage for
Arrhidaeus, and treating him as a person of such great importance, was
endeavouring to accustom the Macedonians to regard him as the heir to
the throne. Alexander yielded to these representations so far as to
send Thessalus, the tragic actor, on a special mission to Pixodarus in
Karia, to assure him that he ought to disregard Arrhidaeus, who was
illegitimate, and foolish to boot, and that it was to Alexander that
he ought to offer the hand of his daughter.

Pixodarus was much more eager to accept this proposal than the former,
but Philip one day hearing that Alexander was alone in his chamber,
went thither with Philotas, the son of Parmenio, an intimate friend,
and bitterly reproached him, pointing out how unworthy it was of his
high birth and glorious position to stoop to marry the daughter of a
mere Karian,[405] and of a barbarian who was a subject of the King of
Persia.

Upon this he wrote to the Corinthians to send him Thessalus in chains,
and also banished out of his kingdom Harpalus, Nearchus, Erigyius, and
Ptolemaeus, all of whom Alexander afterwards brought back and promoted
to great honours.

Shortly after this, Pausanias was grossly insulted by the contrivance
of Attalus and Kleopatra, and, as he could not obtain amends for what
he suffered, assassinated Philip. We are told that most men laid the
blame of this murder upon Queen Olympias, who found the young man
smarting from the outrage which had been committed upon him, and urged
him to avenge himself, while some accused Alexander himself. It is
said that when Pausanias came to him and complained of his treatment,
Alexander answered him by quoting the line from the Medea of
Euripides, in which she declares that she will be revenged upon

"The guardian, and the bridegroom, and the bride,"

alluding to Attalus, Philip, and Kleopatra.

However this may be, it is certain that he sought out and punished all
who were concerned in the plot, and he expressed his sorrow on
discovering that during his own absence from the kingdom, Kleopatra
had been cruelly tortured and put to death by his mother Olympias.

XI. At the age of twenty he succeeded to the throne of Macedonia, a
perilous and unenviable inheritance: for the neighbouring barbarian
tribes chafed at being held in bondag