Alexander Becomes King of Macedon
In the summer of 336 BCE, Philip II celebrated his daughter Cleopatra's wedding to Alexander of Epirus at the old Macedonian capital of Aegae. As he entered the theater preceded by statues of the twelve Olympians, his bodyguard Pausanias stabbed him to death. Pausanias had personal grievances — he had been sexually assaulted by associates of Philip's new father-in-law Attalus and had received no satisfaction from Philip. Whether Olympias, Alexander's ambitious mother, or the Persian king had used his grievances has been debated since antiquity. Pausanias was killed while fleeing, preventing interrogation. Alexander moved with remarkable speed. He was proclaimed king by the Macedonian army. Within days he had arrested or eliminated court rivals. He secured the loyalty of key generals — Antipater, Parmenion, Antigonus — and marched immediately south, appearing before the stunned Greek cities before they could organize resistance. The Greeks, hearing Philip was dead, assumed freedom was at hand. Thebes revolted. Alexander descended on Thebes, razed the city to the ground (sparing only temples and the house of the poet Pindar), and sold 30,000 survivors into slavery. This exemplary punishment shocked Greece into submission. Alexander then marched north, secured the Danube frontier, returned to deal with another Greek revolt, and began preparing his Persian invasion. At twenty-two he led the most formidable Macedonian army ever assembled across the Hellespont.
- Year: 336 BCE
- Category: Political
