The birth of Alexander

[2.2] His father Philip, being in Samothrace, when he was quite young, fell in love there with Olympias, in company with whom he was initiated in the religious ceremonies of the country, and her father and mother being both dead, soon after, with the consent of her brother, Arymbas, he married her.

[2.3] The night before the consummation of their marriage, she dreamed that a thunderbolt fell upon her body, which kindled a great fire, whose divided flames dispersed themselves all about, and then were extinguished. 

[2.4] And Philip, some time after he was married, dreamt that he sealed up his wife's body with a seal, whose impression, as be fancied, was the figure of a lion.

[2.5] Some of the diviners interpreted this as a warning to Philip to look narrowly to his wife; but Aristander of Telmessus,^note[Telmessus, modern Gurice near Bodrum, was a town in Caria, famous for its oracle and seers. Aristander accompanied Alexander and was present when Alexandria was founded.] considering how unusual it was to seal up anything that was empty, assured him the meaning of his dream was that the queen was with child of a boy, who would one day prove as stout and courageous as a lion.

[2.6] Once, moreover, a serpent was found lying by Olympias as she slept,^note[The symbolism is not really understood. Snake cults were known on the Balkans (e.g., Glykon), but this time, an Egyptian god was believed to be the father, not a god from the Balkans. To make things more complex, the Roman historian Livy tells the same story about the Roman general Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (more...).] which more than anything else, it is said, abated Philip's passion for her; and whether he feared her as an enchantress, or thought she had commerce with some god, and so looked on himself as excluded, he was ever after less fond of her conversation.

[2.7] Others say, that the women of this country having always been extremely addicted to the enthusiastic Orphic rites, and the wild worship of Bacchus [...], imitated in many things the practices of the Edonian and Thracian women about Mount Haemus^note[Mount Haemus is the ancient name for the Balkan range. These cults were Thracian in origin.] [...];

[2.9] and that Olympias, zealously, affecting these fanatical and enthusiastic inspirations, to perform them with more barbaric dread, was wont in the dances proper to these ceremonies to have great tame serpents about her, which sometimes creeping out of the ivy in the mystic fans, sometimes winding themselves about the sacred spears, and the women's chaplets, made a spectacle which men could not look upon without terror.