38 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019
therefore not legitimate. He simply could have
meant that any child born of this new marriage
to his niece would be more legitimate than Alex-
ander. His exact meaning is difficult to ascertain,
as is Philip’s reasoning for supporting Attalus’s
very public insult of his current heir.Murder at the Feast
Philip did mend fences, and Alexander and his
mother returned to Macedonia. Philip planned
a wedding extravaganza celebrating the mar-
riage of Olympias’s daughter, Cleopatra, to
her uncle and Olympias’s brother, the king of
Molossia. The union was meant to reassure
Olympias and her family and convince the
Greek world generally that Philip’s planned
military invasion of Persia could proceed with-
out more domestic upset.
At this moment of apparent reconciliation,
Philip was suddenly assassinated by a youngMacedonian noble and former lover, Pausanias.
Previous Macedonian kings had been killed by
family members, leading many to suspect that
Olympias had arranged the murder to protect her
son’s claim on the throne. Some believed Alexan-
der was in on the plot, to avenge the earlier insult
and to ensure that he, rather than his father, led
the upcoming invasion.
Many others would have liked to see Philip
dead, likely hoping that the invasion and Macedo-
nian dominance of the Greek peninsula would not
endure. It will never be known if Pausanias had
help, and if so, whose. Alexander quickly elim-
inated all Macedonian threats and defeated all
Greek attempts to overthrow Macedonian domi-
nance. He had Attalus killed, and Olympias—
with or without Alexander’s knowledge—had
Philip’s new wife and baby killed.
In 334 Alexander led a combined Greek and
Macedonian force to Asia, leaving the generalSORCERY IN THE BEDCHAMBER
OLYMPIAS AND HER SON LIVED ON IN THE LEGENDS KNOWN AS THE ALEXANDER ROMANCE,
Sorcery and Seduction
Nectanebo arrives in the court of Macedonia and is attracted
to the beautiful queen, Olympias. She, in turn, is fascinated by
his accounts of sorcery. According to the Greek version of the
Romance, Nectanebo tells her that the god Ammon-Zeus will
appear in her bedchamber in various manifestations, including
that of a serpent, and then impregnate her. The man who has
sexual relations with her is Nectanebo himself.Greece and Egypt
Based on a second-century a.d. Greek text written by a
Hellenized Egyptian in Alexandria, versions of the Alexander
romance spread through European and Middle Eastern
cultures. Differing from the account by Plutarch—who
describes how Olympias is impregnated by Zeus—the
Alexander romance recounts how she is tricked and seduced
by an Egyptian pharaoh and sorcerer, Nectanebo.
NECTANEBO CONVERSES WITH OLYMPIAS IN HER BEDCHAMBER IN A DETAIL FROM AN EARLY 15TH-
CENTURY MINIATURE. BRITISH LIBRARY, LONDONOLYMPIAS LISTENS TO THE EGYPTIAN PHARAOH NECTANEBO. A DETAIL FROM A MID-15TH-
CENTURY MINIATURE IN HISTOIRE D’ALEXANDRE LE GRAND. BRITISH LIBRARY, LONDON
CORDON PRESS BRIDGEMAN/ACI