X. Yet when Pixodarus, the satrap of Karia, hoping to connect himself with Philip, and so to obtain him as an ally, offered his eldest daughter in marriage to Arrhidaeus, Philip’s natural son, and sent Aristokrites to Macedonia to conduct the negotiations, Olympias and her friends again exasperated Alexander against his father by pointing out to him that Philip, by arranging this splendid marriage for Arrhidaeus, and treating him as a person of such great importance, was endeavouring to accustom the Macedonians to regard him as the heir to the throne.  Alexander yielded to these representations so far as to send Thessalus, the tragic actor, on a special mission to Pixodarus in Karia, to assure him that he ought to disregard Arrhidaeus, who was illegitimate, and foolish to boot, and that it was to Alexander that he ought to offer the hand of his daughter.

Pixodarus was much more eager to accept this proposal than the former, but Philip one day hearing that Alexander was alone in his chamber, went thither with Philotas, the son of Parmenio, an intimate friend, and bitterly reproached him, pointing out how unworthy it was of his high birth and glorious position to stoop to marry the daughter of a mere Karian,[405] and of a barbarian who was a subject of the King of Persia.

Upon this he wrote to the Corinthians to send him Thessalus in chains, and also banished out of his kingdom Harpalus, Nearchus, Erigyius, and Ptolemaeus, all of whom Alexander afterwards brought back and promoted to great honours.

Shortly after this, Pausanias was grossly insulted by the contrivance of Attalus and Kleopatra, and, as he could not obtain amends for what he suffered, assassinated Philip.  We are told that most men laid the blame of this murder upon Queen Olympias, who found the young man smarting from the outrage which had been committed upon him, and urged him to avenge himself, while some accused Alexander himself.  It is said that when Pausanias came to him and complained of his treatment, Alexander answered him by quoting the line from the Medea of Euripides, in which she declares that she will be revenged upon

     “The guardian, and the bridegroom, and the bride,”

alluding to Attalus, Philip, and Kleopatra.

However this may be, it is certain that he sought out and punished all who were concerned in the plot, and he expressed his sorrow on discovering that during his own absence from the kingdom, Kleopatra had been cruelly tortured and put to death by his mother Olympias.

XI.  At the age of twenty he succeeded to the throne of Macedonia, a perilous and unenviable inheritance:  for the neighbouring barbarian tribes chafed at being held in bondage, and longed for the rule of their own native kings; while Philip, although he had conquered Greece by force of arms, yet had not had time to settle its government and accustom it to its new position.  He had overthrown all constituted authority in that