Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/248

238 the case was heard over again, and decided in the appellant's favor.

Another episode, which bade fair to have very serious results, happened the year before he died. He had recently divorced his



wife Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, and was celebrating his marriage to a new wife, Cleopatra. At the wedding banquet, where the wine flowed very freely, her uncle Attains made some insulting remarks about the young prince Alexander, who at once rose in his place at the table and threw a goblet at his head. This enraged the king, who sprang from his seat, drew his sword, and rushed at his son to kill him. But, in his rage and intoxication, Philip slipped and fell to the ground. Then Alexander, rather unfilially, shouted out: "See now, men of Macedon, this man, who is preparing to cross from Europe to Asia, can not step from one couch to another without falling!"

When Alexander came to the throne, a year later, the improvement in manners was but temporary. At first, indeed, the young king, with his companions in arms, devoted all their energies to affairs of state and war. Two years after he came to the throne he crossed the Hellespont, and with a small but picked army routed the vast, unwieldy hosts of the Great King. In a few campaigns he conquered Asia Minor, and even led his victorious forces into India. But with success came intemperance, and his brief and glorious career closed in disgrace.

In the garb of Dionysos, accompanied by a band of drunken roisterers, he entered Carmania in triumph. At Samarcand, inflamed by wine, he killed with his own hand his friend Clitus, who had saved his life at the battle of the Granicus. At Persepolis, in a drunken frenzy, urged by dissolute companions, he set fire to the famous palace of the Great Kings, and although,