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eurydice gave birth to a boy towards the end of spring, not long before the date fixed for the wedding of Cleopatra and Alexander of Epirus. The new arrival made the already difficult relations between the Prince and his father even more strained.
The misunderstandings and the disagreements increased, aggravated by Philip’s decision to keep his son’s closest friends at a safe distance from the court, in particular Hephaestion, Perdiccas, Ptolemy and Seleucus.
Philotas, who at that moment was in Asia, had been rather cold with Alexander following his return. He even started spending time with his cousin Amyntas, who had been heir to the throne before Alexander’s birth.
All of these facts, together with his lost sense of familiarity with court life and an acute feeling of isolation, created in Alexander a dangerous sense of insecurity which in its turn pushed him towards clumsy initiatives and unjustifiable behaviour.
When he learned that Philip had put forward his mentally deficient half-brother Arrhidaeaus as husband of the daughter of the Satrap of Caria, he simply didn’t know what to think. In the end, after much thought and having decided that the King’s manoeuvre was in some way linked to the expedition to Asia, he sent a messenger to Pixodarus offering to marry the girl himself. The King heard of Alexander’s initiative from his informers, however, and flew into a tremendous rage. The proposed matrimonial alliance a
project which was already tottering had
to be abandoned.
Eumenes gave Alexander the bad news.
‘But why on earth did you do such a thing?’ he asked him. ‘Why didn’t you speak to me … why didn’t you tell me about your ideas? I would have told you that…”
‘What, exactly, would you have told me?’ Alexander snapped, worried and resentful. ‘All you ever do is follow my father’s orders! You never speak to me, you keep me in the dark about everything!’
‘You’re out of your mind,’ Eumenes replied. ‘But how can you ever imagine that Philip would waste his heir to the throne by marrying him off to the daughter of a servant of his sworn enemy, the King of the Persians?’
‘I no longer know if I am Philip’s heir. He has never told me, he tells me nothing. All his time is taken up with his new wife and his newborn son. And you … you have all abandoned me too. You’re all afraid of spending time with me because you think that when it comes to it I will no longer be the King’s heir! Look around you: how many children does my father have? Someone might decide to support Amyntas after
all, he was heir before my birth, and recently Philotas has been spending much more time with him than with me. And didn’t Attalus suggest that his daughter would give birth to the legitimate heir to the throne? Well, now they have a boy.’
Eumenes said nothing. He watched Alexander pacing the room with his long strides, and waited for him to calm down. When he saw the Prince stop in front of the window and stand there looking out, he spoke: ‘You have to face your father, even if he would like to strangle you right now.’
‘Don’t you see? You’re on his side!’
‘Stop it! Stop treating me like this! I have always been loyal to your family. I have always sought to keep the peace among you because I believe your father is a great man, the greatest Europe has known in the last hundred years, and also because I love you, you stubborn specimen! Come on then, tell me just one thing I’ve ever done to harm you, just one letdown I have inflicted upon you in all the years we have known each other! Speak now … come on, I’m waiting.’
ALEXANDER
could not reply. He wrung his hands and did not turn to face Eumenes so as not to show the tears welling up in his eyes. And with the tears he felt the anger rising, and he was aware that his father’s anger still frightened him, just as it had done when he was a boy.
‘You must face him. Now. Now that he is furious for this thing you have done. Show him that you are not afraid, that you are a man, that you are worthy of sitting on his throne one day. Admit to your error and apologize. This is what true courage is.’
‘All right,’ Alexander accepted. ‘But remember that Philip has already tried to attack me with his sword drawn once before.’ ‘He was drunk.’
‘And what sort of state is he in now?’
‘You are unfair. He has achieved the impossible for you. Do you have any idea how much he has invested in you? Do you know? I know because I keep the books and I look after his archives.’
‘I don’t want to know.’
‘At least a hundred talents, an incredible sum: one quarter of the treasure of the city of Athens when it was at the height of its splendour.’
‘I don’t want to know!’
‘He lost an eye in battle and will limp for the rest of his days. He has built the greatest empire the world has ever seen west of the Straits he
did that for you and now he’s offering you Asia. But you have chosen to obstruct his plans, you resent the few pleasures that a man of his age can still hope to enjoy in life. Go to him, Alexander, and speak to him, before he comes to you.’
‘Very well! I will go to him!’ and he left, slamming the door behind him.
Eumenes came running after him along the corridor: ‘Wait! Wait I say!’
‘What is it now?’
‘Let me speak to him first.’
Alexander let him past and watched him shaking his head as he rushed off towards the eastern wing of the palace.
Eumenes knocked and entered without waiting for a
response.
‘What’s wrong?’ Philip asked, his face thunderous.
‘Alexander wants to speak to you.’
‘What?’
‘Sire, your son is sorry for his actions, but try to understand him he
feels alone and isolated. He no longer feels close to you, he feels he no longer has your affection. Can you not forgive him? After all, he is little more than a boy. He believed you had abandoned him and fear got the upper hand.’
Eumenes had been expecting an explosion of uncontrollable wrath, but he was amazed to see the King perfectly calm. He was almost shocked by this.
‘Are you well, Sire?’
‘I am fine … I am fine. Show him in.’
Eumenes went out and there was Alexander waiting, his face
pale.
‘Your father is under great strain,’ he said. ‘He is perhaps even more alone than you are. Remember this.’
The Prince crossed the threshold.
‘Why did you do it?’ Philip asked.
‘I…”
‘Why?’ he shouted.
‘Because I felt I had been excluded from your decisions, from your plans, because I was alone, without anyone to help me, to guide me, give me advice. I felt I had to affirm my own dignity, my own self.’
‘By offering to marry the daughter of a servant of the King
of Persia?’
Eumenes’ very words, Alexander thought to himself.
‘But why not speak to me?’ Philip continued in a calmer tone of voice. ‘Why not speak with your father?’
‘But you had already chosen Arrhidaeaus over me my
halfwit half-brother.’
‘Exactly!’ shouted Philip, banging his fist on the table. ‘Don’t you think that means something? Is this how Aristotle taught you to reason?’
Alexander stood there in silence and the King stood up and started limping up and down the room.
‘Is the damage I have done so severe?’ asked the Prince after a while.
‘No,’ replied Philip. ‘Even though a matrimonial alliance with a Persian satrap would be extremely useful to me just now when I am planning to move into Asia. But there is a solution to every problem.’
‘I am sorry. It will not happen again. I will wait for you to let me know what my place will be at Cleopatra’s wedding.’
‘Your place? A place befitting the heir to the throne, my son. Go to Eumenes, he has everything in hand and has organized the ceremony down to the tiniest detail.’
Alexander’s face turned deep red at those words and he found himself wanting to embrace his father as he did when Philip used to come and visit him at Mieza. But he wasn’t able to overcome his diffidence and the embarrassment he now felt in his father’s presence since the fateful day on which their relations had taken their turn for the worse. Nevertheless, he looked at his father with a pained expression, almost pleading, and Philip understood. He said, ‘Now clear off and let me get
‘Come,’ Eumenes invited him. ‘You must see what your friend is capable of. This wedding will be my masterpiece. The King has dispensed with masters of ceremony and chamberlains and has entrusted me with all the organization. And now,’ he said as he opened a door and gestured for Alexander to enter, just look at this!’
The Prince found himself inside one of the two rooms of the royal armouries which had been almost completely emptied to make room for a large table on trestles on top of which there was a scale model of the royal palace in Aegae, with the sanctuaries and the theatre.
The roofs had been taken off the rooms, exposing the interiors with coloured terracotta figures representing the various personages who were to take part in the grand ceremonies.
Eumenes walked forward and picked up a pointer from the table. ‘Here,’ he explained, indicating a large open room on a colonnaded portico, ‘the wedding will take place here and then the great procession, an extraordinary event, something that has never been seen before.
‘After the ceremony, while the bride is led by her maids to the nuptial chamber for the ritual bath and the dressing of her hair, the procession will take place. The statues of the twelve gods of Olympus will come first, these statues you see here, carried by the ministrants on their shoulders, and among them will be the statue of your father, symbolic of his devotion to the gods and his function as tutelary leader of all Greeks.
‘Then, in the centre, will be the King himself, wearing a white cloak, with a crown of golden oak leaves on his head. A little ahead, on his right, will be your place as heir to the throne, and to the left Alexander of Epirus. You will all proceed towards the theatre. Here it is.
‘The guests and the foreign delegations will take their places at dawn and will be entertained up until the arrival of the procession by shows and recitals by famous actors who have been summoned specially from Athens, from Sycion, and from Corinth, including Thessalus, who I’m told is the actor you admire most.’
Alexander rearranged the white cloak on his shoulders and exchanged a quick glance with his uncle. They were both walking slightly ahead of Philip, who was accompanied by his bodyguards. The King of Macedon was dressed in a red tunic, its hem embroidered in gold ovals and palmettes, and over this a rich white cloak, his ivory staff in his right hand, the crown of
golden oak leaves on his head. He looked exactly like the small statue Eumenes had shown Alexander in the scale model inside the weapons room.
The royal shoemakers had prepared a pair of tragic actor buskins for him shoes
with very thick soles that were hidden by the hem of his gown and went some way towards correcting his limp and increasing his height.
Eumenes had taken up position on a high wooden structure erected on the highest part of the bowl of the theatre and he signalled to the master of ceremonies using coloured flags to coordinate the impressive procession.
He looked to his right over the large semicircle, teeming with more people than he ever thought possible, and then, down at the bottom of the access road, he could make out the front of the procession with the statues of the gods. These were wonderfully made by the greatest craftsmen and wore real clothes and real crowns of gold, flanked by their sacred animals, the eagle of Zeus, the owl of Athena, the peacock of Hera, all reproduced with impressive realism almost
as though they might take to the air at any moment.
Behind came the priests decked in their sacred bands, censers in hands, and then a chorus of beautiful young boys as naked as little cupids, singing nuptial songs to the accompaniment of their flutes and drums.
Next came the King preceded by his son and his brother-son-in-law. Bringing up the rear were the seven royal bodyguards in parade dress.
Eumenes gave the signal, the master of ceremonies nodded to the heralds to sound their instruments, and the procession got under way.
It was a splendid sight, which the sun and the extraordinarily clear day made even more spectacular. The beginning of the procession was entering the theatre now and one by one the statues of the gods passed through the semicircle of the orchestra before being positioned in rows in front of the stage.
As each part of the procession passed under the entrance archway alongside the stage, Eumenes would lose sight of it until it reappeared in the sun inside the theatre.
The priests passed in a cloud of incense and then the young boys dancing and singing their hymns to love for the bride: Eumenes saw them disappear under the arch and re-emerge on the other side among exclamations of wonder from the audience.
Now Alexander of Macedon and Alexander of Epirus passed by and the King came nearer. As planned, Philip gave orders to his bodyguards not to follow him under the arch because he did not want to present himself to the Greeks flanked by his guard
like a tyrant.
Eumenes saw the two young men reappear inside the theatre to rapturous applause, just at the moment when the King disappeared into the shadow of the archway on the other side. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the bodyguards pull back and he took a quick look at them, but immediately found himself looking more carefully: there was one missing!
At that very instant Philip emerged into the sun inside the theatre and Eumenes, having realized what was about to happen, started shouting at the top of his voice, but the roar of the public acclamation was too strong. It all happened in a flash: the missing bodyguard suddenly appeared out of the darkness, a short dagger in his hand, jumped on the King and plunged the weapon into his side, right up to the hilt, and then began to run
