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not exult over such enemies. His view of Athens, however, was to remain that of a man who respects the treasures of a great museum despite its philistine curators.
    Philip’s peace terms were conveyed to Athens by his aristocratic captive, whom he had freed and asked to supper. The despairing city had awaited only a barbaric horde swarming through Attica to the sack, Demosthenes having assured them that the Macedonian aim was “not slavery but annihilation.” All Philip in fact required was that his hegemony be recognized. He did not propose even to cross the border, and the prisoners could go home unransomed.
    While he waited the dead were burned. This labour,carried out on pyres whose only fuel was wood, must have called for strong stomachs in the soldiers of the ancient world. Athenian casualties numbered more than a thousand. (Our age of firearms has forgotten the total defencelessness of the retreating hoplite once he had turned his back, and, his heavy shield discarded to help his flight, could only run before the pursuing spears.) The ashes were collected; to ask for the remains of one’s dead was the formal acknowledgment that the victor “possessed the field.” The Athenians asked; of course accepting Philip’s terms, which must have stunned them. He sent them the ashes in a ceremonial cortège, under the escort of Alexander.
    He was eighteen. He would not pass that way again. He was obsequiously received. Statues on the Acropolis were decreed for his father and him, the head of the latter still surviving. It would seem he visited Plato’s Academy, and took Hephaestion; to whom its principal, Xenocrates, perhaps competing with Aristotle, wrote his own book of letters.
    Philip marched unopposed into the Peloponnese in a show of strength. At Corinth he called a council, attended by envoys of all the southern states but Sparta; they voted him Supreme Commander of the Greek forces “for defence” against the Persians. He returned at once to Macedon to prepare his expedition.
    Everything indicates that he and Alexander were now on friendlier terms than at any other time of their lives. Though it is likely that Philip’s death had already been determined and its authors awaited only opportunity, it might have happened as a parting of father and son, violent in circumstance like many in that age, but without the violence of inner conflict which marked the son for life. Fate decreed otherwise. Philip fell in love, and prepared for another wedding.
    This time, the girl belonged to a noble Macedonian family. She was the niece and ward, her father being evidently dead, of that same Attalus who had avenged upon Pausanias the suicide of the King’s young friend. Whether his rise to power preceded the betrothal or followed it, the sources do not make clear; but his rank was high, and this marriage must have been seen in Macedon as more significant than those of former legal concubines. Some historians have inferred that Philip had already resolved to divorce Olympias. Against this stands a massive piece of evidence. Alexander went to the wedding feast.
    The outcome proves that it was not from fear of Philip. Olympias, in view of her rage at the event, must surely have opposed his giving it his countenance. He may have thought it would convey to others that her status was not in doubt, that it was a gesture he could afford. Or he may have done it in simple goodwill to his father, with whom he had served harmoniously through a long campaign, in an atmosphere of male camaraderie away from palace intrigues.
    It was of course an ordeal. An adolescent so sexually fastidious, and with the homosexual preference which marked this phase of his life, would hardly attend for fun a drunken Macedonian wedding with the prospect of seeing his father put to bed, amid the usual bawdy jokes, beside a girl younger than himself. The added thought of his mother must have made him very tense indeed. However, for reasons sufficient to himself,