Alexander: Child of a Dream by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

foreign delegations or those of the Greek cities of the peninsula. In these images Alexander was always represented according to the accepted canons of Greek art as an ephebe, a young military recruit, with the finest features, his golden locks ruffled by the wind.
The young Prince was becoming more handsome by the day. His natural body temperature was higher than normal, which meant that his face was never marked with the sorts of skin problems typical of adolescence. His complexion was smooth, full and free of imperfections with a rosy tint on his cheeks and on his chest. His hair was thick, soft and wavy, his eyes large and expressive and he had a curious way of tilting his head slightly towards his right shoulder which lent a peculiar intensity to his gaze, as though he were scrutinizing others into the depths of their souls.
     
One day Philip called him to his study, an austere room the walls of which were covered in shelves, some carrying chancellery documents, others carrying the literary works the King enjoyed reading.
Alexander appeared immediately, leaving Peritas outside; the puppy followed him everywhere and even slept in his room.
‘This is a most important year, my son. This is the year in which you will become a man.’ Philip ran his finger across Alexander’s upper lip: ‘Yes … there’s some fluff appearing here and I have a present for you.’
He picked up a small boxwood case, inlaid with the Argeads’ sixteen-point star, and handed it to Alexander. The Prince opened it and there was a bronze razor, sharpened to perfection, together with a hone for keeping it so.
‘Thank you. But I don’t think you called me here just for this.’
‘No. Indeed,’ replied Philip.
‘Why then?’
‘You will soon be leaving Pella.’
‘Are you sending me away?’
‘In a certain sense.’
‘Where am I to go?’
‘To Mieza.’
‘That’s nearby. Little more than a day’s journey. Why?’
‘You will spend the next three years there to complete your education. There are too many distractions here at Pella: court life, the women, the banquets. At Mieza, instead, I have prepared a beautiful place a
garden through which runs a stream of the clearest water, a wood of cypresses and bay trees, rose bushes …”
‘Father,’ Alexander interrupted, ‘what’s wrong with you?’
Philip was startled. The? Nothing. Why?’
‘You’re talking of roses, of woods … it’s like listening to a bear recite the poetry of Alcaeus.’
‘My son, what I am trying to tell you is that I have prepared the most beautiful and welcoming place I possibly can for you. There you will continue with your schooling and your formation as a man.’
‘You have seen me ride, fight, hunt lions. I know how to draw, I know my geometry, I speak Macedonian and Greek…’
‘These things are not enough, my boy. Do you know what the Greeks call me, after my having won their accursed sacred war, after my having secured their peace and prosperity? They call me Philip the Barbarian. And do you know what this means? It means that they will never accept me as their guide and leader because they feel only contempt for me, even though they are afraid of me.
‘Behind us we have limitless plains peopled by barbarous and fierce nomadic tribes. In front of us are the cities of the Greeks shining
and reflected in the sea, where man has reached the highest levels of excellence in the arts, in science, in poetry, in engineering, in politics. We are like someone who sits at the campfire on a winter’s night our
face is lit up and our chest is warmed by the fire, but our back is exposed to the dark and the cold.
‘For this reason I have fought to keep Macedon safe within firmly defined borders, and I will do all that is in my power to make sure my son appears to the Greeks as a Greek in
his thinking, in his habits, even in his physical image. You will have the most refined and complete education that any man alive today could possibly have. You will be able to