and albeit he held Macedon as in his own right all the time of his reign, yet was he not the true and next heir thereof; for Amyntas the son of his brother Perdiccas (of whom he had the protection during his infancy) had the right. This Amyntas he married to his daughter Cyna, who had by him a daughter called Eurydice, who was married to Philip's base son Aridæus, her uncle by the mother's side; both which Olympias, Philip's first wife, and mother to Alexander the Great, put to death; Aridæus by extreme torments, Eurydice she strangled.

Philip had by this Olympias the daughter of Neoptolemus king of the Molossians, (of the race of Achilles,) Alexander the Great and Cleopatra. Cleopatra was married to her uncle Alexander king of Epirus, and was after her brother Alexander's death slain at Sardis by the commandment of Antigonus.

By Audata, an Illyrian, his second wife, he had Cyna, married as is shewed before.

By Nicasipolis, the sister of Jason, tyrant of Pheres, he had Thessalonica, whom Cassander, after he had taken Pidna, married; but she was afterward by her father-in-law Antipater put to death.

By Cleopatra, the niece of Attalus, he had Caranus, whom others call Philip; him Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, caused to be roasted to death in a copper pan. Others lay this murder on Alexander himself. By the same Cleopatra he had likewise a daughter called Europa, whom Olympias also murdered at the mother's breast.

By Phila and Meda he had no issue.

He had also two concubines, Arsinoe, whom, after he had gotten with child, he married to an obscure man, called Lagus, who bare Ptolomy king of Egypt, called the son of Lagus, but esteemed the son of Philip; by Philinna, his second concubine, a public dancer, he had Aridæus, of whom we shall have much occasion to speak hereafter.

Athen. 1. 13. c. 2. Just. 1. 3.

CHAP. II.

Of Alexander the Great.

SECT. I.

A brief rehearsal of Alexander's doings before he invaded Asia. ALEXANDER, afterward called the Great, succeeded unto Philip his father; being a prince no less valiant by nature, than by education well instructed, and enriched in all sorts of learning and good arts. He began his reign over the Macedonians four hundred and seventeen years after Rome built, and after his own birth twenty years. The strange dreams of Philip his father, and that one of the gods, in the shape of a snake, begat him on Olympias his mother, I omit as foolish tales; but that the temple of Diana (a work the most magnificent of the world) was burnt upon the day of his birth, and that so strange an accident was accompanied with the news of three several victories obtained by the Macedonians, it was very remarkable, and might with the reason of those times be interpreted for ominous, and foreshewing the great things by Alexander afterward performed. Upon the change of the king, the neighbour-nations, whom Philip had oppressed, began to consult about the recovery of their former liberty, and to adventure it by force of arms. Alexander's young years gave them hope of prevailing, and his suspected scverity increased courage in those who could better resolve to die than to live slavishly. But Alexander gave no time to those swelling humours, which might speedily have endangered the health of his estate. For after revenge taken upon the conspirators against his father, whom he slew upon his tomb, and the celebration of his funerals, he first fastened unto him his own nation, by freeing them from all exactions and bodily slavery, other than their service in his wars, and used such kingly austerity towards those that contemned his young years, and such clemency to the rest that persuaded themselves of the cruelty of his disposition, as all affections being pacified at home, he made a present

journey into Peloponnesus, and so well exercised his spirits among them, as, by the counsel of the states of Greece, he was, according to the great desire of his heart, elected captain-general against the Persians, upon which war Philip his father had not only resolved, (who had obtained the same title of general-commander,) but had transported, under the leading of Parmenio and Attalus, a part of his army, to recover some places on Asia side for the safe descent of the rest.

This enterprise against the Persian occupied all Alexander's affections, those fair marks of riches, honour, and large dominion he now shot at both sleeping and waking; all other thoughts and imaginations were either grievous or hateful. But a contrary wind ariseth; for he receiveth advertisement that the Athenians, Thebans, and Lacedæmonians had united themselves against him, and, by assistance from the Persian, hoped for the recovery of their former freedom. Hereto they were persuaded by Demosthenes, himself being thereto persuaded by the gold of Persia; the device he used was more subtle than profitable, for he caused it to be bruited that Alexander was slain in a battle against the Triballes, and brought into the assembly a companion whom he had corrupted to affirm, that himself was present, and wounded in the battle. There is indeed a certain doctrine of policy (as policy is nowadays defined by falsehood and knavery) that devised rumours and lies, if they serve the turn but for a day or two, are greatly available. It is true that common people are sometimes mocked by them, as soldiers are by false alarms in the wars; but in all that I have observed, I have found the success as ridiculous as the invention. For as those that find themselves at one time abused by such like bruits, do at other times neglect their duties when they are upon true reports, and in occasions perilous, summoned to assemble; so do all men in general condemn the venters of such trumpery, and for them fear upon necessary occasions to entertain the truth itself. This labour unlooked for, and loss of time, was not only very grievous to Alexander, but by turning his sword from

the ignoble and effeminate Persians, against which he had directed it, towards the manly and famous Grecians, of whose assistance he thought himself assured, his present undertaking was greatly disordered. But he that cannot endure to strive against the wind shall hardly attain the port which he purposeth to recover; and it no less becometh the worthiest men to oppose misfortunes, than it doth the weakest children to bewail them.

He therefore made such expedition towards these revolters, as that himself, with the army that followed him, brought them the first news of his preparation. Hereupon all stagger, and the Athenians, as they were the first that moved, so were they the first that fainted, seeking by their ambassadors to pacify the king, and to be received again into his grace. Alexander was not long in resolving; for the Persians persuaded him to pardon the Grecians. Wise men are not easily drawn from great purposes by such occasions as may easily be taken off, neither hath any king ever brought to effect any great affair who hath entangled himself in many enterprises at once, not tending to one and the same certain end.

And having now quieted his borderers towards the south, he resolved to assure those nations which lay on the northside of Macedon, to wit, the Thracians, Triballes, Peones, Getes, Agrians, and other savage people, which had greatly vexed with incursions, not only other of his predecessors, but even Philip his father; with all which, after divers overthrows given them, he made peace, or else brought them into subjection. Notwithstanding this good success, he could not yet find the way out of Europe. There is nothing more natural to man than liberty; the Greeks had enjoyed it overlong, and lost it too late to forget it; they therefore shake off the yoke once again. The Thebans, who had in their citadel a garrison of a thousand Macedons, attempt to force it; Alexander hasteth to their succour, and presents himself with thirty thousand foot, all old soldiers, and three thousand horse, before the city, and gave the inhabitants some days to resolve, being even heartsick

with the desire of passing into Asia. So unwilling indeed he was to draw blood of the Grecians, by whom he hoped to serve himself elsewhere, that he offered the Thebans remission, if they would only deliver into his hands Phoenix and Prothytes, the stirrers up of the rebellion. But they, opposing the mounting fortune of Alexander, (which bare all resistance before it, like the breaking in of the ocean-sea,) instead of such an answer as men besieged and abandoned should have made, demanded Philotas and Antipater to be delivered unto them, as if Thebes alone, then laid in the balance of fortune with the kingdom of Macedon and many other provinces, could either have evened the scale or swayed it. Therefore in the end they perished in their obstinacy. For while the Thebans oppose the army assailant, they are charged at the back by the Macedonian garrison, their city taken and rased to the ground, six thousand slain, and thirty thousand sold for slaves, at the price of four hundred and forty talents. This the king did, to the terror of the other Grecian cities.

Many arguments were used by Cleadas, one of the prisoners, to persuade Alexander to forbear the destruction of Thebes. He prayed the king to believe that they were rather misled by giving hasty credit to false reports, than any way malicious; for, being persuaded of Alexander's death, they rebelled but against his successor. He also besought the king to remember, that his father Philip had his education in that city, yea, that his ancestor Hercules was born therein; but all persuasions were fruitless; the times wherein offences are committed do greatly aggravate them. Yet, for the honour he bare to learning, he pardoned all of the race of Pindarus the poet, and spared and set at liberty Timoclea, the sister of Theagenes, who died in defence of the liberty of Greece against his father Philip. This noble woman being taken by a Thracian, and by him ravished, he threatened to take her life, unless she would confess her treasure; she led the Thracian to a well, and told him that she had therein cast it; and when the Thracian stooped to