”’The men of Lower Macedonia worshipped Greek gods; the royal family claimed descent from Heracles.”’ But the highlanders were much addicted to Thracian deities, Sabazius, the Clodones and Mimallones, whose wild orgiastic cult-practices closely resembled those portrayed by Euripides in the Bacchae. “

*”The sovereigns of Lower Macedonia were equally determined to annex these ‘out-kingdoms*, whether by conquest, political persuasion, or dynastic inter-marriage. ”’Lyncestis was ruled by descendants of the Bacchiad dynasty, who had moved on to Macedonia after their expulsion from Corinth in 657 B.C’”.15 Excavations at Trebenishte have revealed a wealth of gold masks and tomb furniture of the period between 650 and 600;16 these were powerful princes in the true Homeric tradition, like the kings of Cyprus. ”’The Molossian dynasty of Epirus, on the marches of Orestis and Elimiotis, claimed descent from Achilles, through his grandson Pyrrhus – a fact destined to have immeasurable influence on the young Alexander, whose mother Olympias was of Molossian stock.’” “

*””’The Argeads themselves, as we have seen, headed their pedigree with Heracles, and could thus (since Heracles was the son of Zeus) style themselves ‘Zeus-born’ like any Mycenaean dynast: both Zeus and Heracles appear regularly on Philip’s coinage”’.”

page 5

*”Alexander I had, of course, pointed the way, and not merely in the field of territorial expansion. He worked hard to ”’GET Macedonia ACCEPTED as a member of the Hellenic FAMILY”’..”

page 8-9

*”For the first time he [Philip] began to understand how Macedonia’s OUTDATED institutions, so despised ”’by the REST of Greece’”, might prove a source of strenght when dealing with such opponents.”

page 16

*” Like that other feudally organized horse-breeding state, Thessaly, Macedonia possessed a fine heavy cavalry arm.”

page 17

*” Lyncestis had more or less seceded from Macedonian control;”

page 22

*”In less than four years he had transformed Macedonia from a backward and primitive kingdom ”’to one of the most powerful states in the Greek world”'”

Page 32

*”Aristotle found support for his thesis in facts drawn from geopolitics or ‘natural law’. ”’Greek superiority had to be proved demonstrably innate”’, a gift of nature. In one celebrated fragment ”’he counsels Alexader to be ‘a hegemon[leader] of Greeks and a despot to the barbarians, to look after the former as after friends and relatives, and to deal with the latter as with beasts or plants”'”

Page 58

*””’Besides, he [Alexander] had the whole body of Greek civilized opinion behind him”’. ”’Euripides held that it was proper (eikos) for ‘barbarians; to be subject to Greeks. Plato and Isocrates both thought of all non-Hellenes as natural enemies who could be enslaved or exterminated at will”’. Aristotle himself regarded a war against barbarians as essentially just

Page 59

*”In particular with the grim struggle for the succession still fresh in their minds, they urged – very reasonably – that before leaving Macedonia he should marry and beget an heir. However, the king rejected this motion out of hand, a decision which was to cause untold bloodshed and political chaos after his death. It would be shameful, he told them, for the captain – ”’general of the Hellenes”’, with Philip’s invincible army at his command, to idle his time away on matrimonial dalliance….”

”Page 152”

*”What he wanted was the ”’most trust-worthy Greek oracle”’ within marching-range. He may have felt himself specially favoured by the gods; ”’but for him they were Greek gods,”’ ”’and would only speak through a suitably Hellenized mouthpiece’””

*”There was also the question of this new city and he hoped to found at the mouth of the Nile; ”’No Greek would dream of attempting such a task without endorsement from an oracle”’“

”Page 273”