ABSTRACT
The assassination of Philip II in October 336,1 placed in jeopardy not only the settlement of Greece effected in 337 and the war with Persia, inaugurated by Parmenion and Attalus in the spring of 336, but the security of the Macedonian kingdom itself. If not, in fact, symptomatic of political dissatisfaction at home,2 Philip's death was the signal for rebellion, an irresistible invitation to test the stability of the kingdom and the mettle of its new king. For the neighbours of Macedon, Alexander was an unknown quantity, despite Plutarch's portrait of the precocious youth who had interrogated Persian envoys on points of strategy and logistics, campaigned against the Maedi at sixteen, and commanded the Macedonian right at Chaeronea two years later (Alex. 5.1-3; 9.1-2). Demosthenes soon learned to regret calling him a child and Margites,'3 but he was not alone in undervaluing Alexander; at home as well as abroad there were those who despised him (Diod. 17.2.2). The brush-fires of rebellion foreboded greater conflagration (see Plate 17 and above p. 35).
