LE SYMPOSIUM INTERNATIONAL LE LIVRE. LA ROUMANIE. L ...

414 DAn TUDOR IOnEScU
the external policy of Macedon (as well as the internal politics of this
kingdom) was a tricky business every time when a king died (either of violent
or of natural causes) and another succeeded on the Macedonian throne;
after philip’s death the neighbours of Macedonia rebelled. the young king
Alexander refused the appeasement policy and struck like lightning. the
thessalians initially refused his leadership and tried to block his access in
the thessalian plain. Alexander found the tempe valley (between Mount
olympus and Mount ossa) blocked by the thessalian forces and therefore
outflanked them by cutting stairs in the abrupt seaward slopes of the ossa
Mountain, thus falling in their rear and forcing the thessalians to surrender
without a fight and acknowledging him as overlord 2 .
Alexander didn’t stop there and his troops advanced quickly from
thessaly southwards and occupied thermopylae; frightened embassies
from different city-states flocked to him, offering him surrender to his
policies and his will: thus did cities from Ambracia in Southern epirus,
thebes and the Boetian league, Athens, Argos etc. In Athens (either in 336
BC or in the following year, 335 BC, after the destruction of thebes) took
place the famous encounter between Alexander and the Cynic philosopher
Diogenes of Sinope (plutarch Alex.14.1-3). At Corinthus Alexander
of Macedon became the new leader and generalissimo (hJgemw;n kai;
strathgo;” aujtokravtwr) of the Corinthus league, like his father philip II
was before him. only the Spartans were left out and held themselves outside
the Corinthus league (the lacedaemonians haughtily told to Alexander that
they were accustomed to command and rule over others and not themselves
to be mastered by others). he returned through Delphi (it was then or again
in the following year, 335 BC, when the episode involving pythia took
place, an event narrated by plutarch Alex. 14.4) in Macedonia and spent
the winter of 336/335 BC in training and drilling his army for mountain
Berkeley, los Angeles, oxford, university of California press, 1991, 105-110 ;
SuCeVeAnu, Alexandru, Alexandru cel Mare, Bucureşti, Editura Academiei române,
1993, 57 [vide Diodorus Bibliotheca Historica (Bibl.Hist.)16.93.3-9 for pausanias’ motive
for killing philip; plutarch Vita Alexandri (Alex.) 10 about the possible involvement
of olympias in this affair, involvement considered sure by trogus pompeius-Justinus
Historiae Philippicae (Hist.Phil.) 9.7; Arrian Anabasis Alexandri (An.) 2.14.5 reports the
public accusation made by Alexander himself against the persians for the slaughtering of
his mortal father philip II of Macedon; as a matter of fact, the accusation was intended
against Darius III Codomanus, in the response letter of Alexander to the letter by which
Darius asked for the releasing of his family, captured after Issus by the Macedonians].
2 those stairs hewn in the rocks of Mount ossa were afterwards known as
Alexander’s ladder (vide Green, peter, Alexander of Macedon 356-323 B.C. A Historical
Biography, Berkeley, los Angeles, oxford, California university press, 1991, 116).