Plutarch on the birth of Alexander

Although Alexander the Great was the son of king Philip of Macedonia and queen Olympias, he claimed to be the son of a god. As a consequence, stories about his miraculous procreation were needed. In section 2-3 of his Life of Alexander, the Greek author Plutarch of Chaeronea shows us what was invented.

The translation was made by Mr. Evelyn and belongs to the Dryden series.

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[3.1] Philip, after this vision, sent Chaeron of Megalopolis to consult the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, by which he was commanded to perform sacrifice, and henceforth pay particular honor, above all other gods, to Ammon;note

[3.2] and was told he should one day lose that eye with which he presumed to peep through that chink of the door, when he saw the god, under the form of a serpent, in the company of his wife.note

[3.3] Eratosthenes says that Olympias, when she attended Alexander on his way to the army in his first expedition, told him the secret of his birth, and bade him behave himself with courage suitable to his divine extraction.

[3.4] Others again affirm that she wholly disclaimed any pretensions of the kind, and was wont to say, "When will Alexander leave off slandering me to Hera?"note

[3.5] Alexander was born the sixth of Hecatombaeon,note which month the Macedonians call Lous, the same day that the temple of Artemis of Ephesus was burnt:note 

[3.6] which Hegesias of Magnesia makes the occasion of a conceit, frigid enough to have stopped the conflagration. The temple, he says, took fire and was burnt while its mistress was absent, assisting at the birth of Alexander. 

[3.7] And all the Eastern soothsayers who happened to be then at Ephesus, looking upon the ruin of this temple to be the forerunner of some other calamity, ran about the town, beating their faces, and crying that this day had brought forth something that would prove fatal and destructive to all Asia.

[3.8] Just after Philip had taken Potidaea, he received these three messages at one time, that Parmenion had overthrown the Illyrians in a great battle, that his race-horse had won the course at the Olympic games, and that his wife had given birth to Alexander;

[3.9] with which being naturally well pleased, as an addition to his satisfaction, he was assured by the diviners that a son, whose birth was accompanied with three such successes, could not fail of being invincible.