ABSTRACT
Alexander III with his unprecedented campaign of conquest in the east was to win much more fame than his father Philip, but before ever embarking on that campaign he had already achieved no few successes. He was born in late July 356 amidst a flush of midsummer victories for his absent father: Potidaea fell to Philip's siege, Philip's race horse entry won at Olympia, and Philip's general Parmenio defeated the Illyrian Grabos. At age eighteen under Philip's generalship Alexander led a charge, probably at the head of the Companion Cavalry, against the elite Theban Sacred Band at Chaeronea. This for Alexander was education in the school of Philip. Alexander evidently had taken care to pre-empt a potential coup by eliminating a viable Argead candidate before heading out on the Balkan campaign. News reached Alexander probably when he was just beginning his march back from Illyria that Thebes was in revolt and that the Macedonian garrison was besieged in the Cadmea.
