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hi,Divine manifestations in the form of dreams, portents, omens etc, associated with the birth and upbringing of children was not uncommon in the ancient world. The purpose of this thread is to discuss at what stage in the life of Alexander did such stories first commene.It would seem, with a relatively high infant mortality rate in the ancient world, a parent would have to think twice before proclaiming 'divine conception' as the child need not only survive birth, but reach maturity for such an investment of glorification to pay dividends. Reaching maturity of course, guaranteed little more than potential that the person associated with such stories would amount to something.I,m of the opinion, such stories can only have come about after the person in question had actually achieved something worthy of such stories. Of course I may be wrong and Alexander's early years may have been exactly as they are reported in the sources.
just my thoughts.cheers!

Hi Smitty,What an engaging thread title!A very difficult topic, to which I suspect there are no hard and fast answers. Most of the stories of divine portents associated with Alexander's birth, as reported by Plutarch, I am very sceptical about. But I would not be surprised if Olympias had said some things to Alexander at opportune times during his boyhood - which could be put down to any mother's desire to protect/extol/whatever her son.It is additionally difficult, of course, when the subject in question is *known* to be descended from Heracles and Achilles!All the bestMarcus

But Plutarch 3 says that "According to Eratosthenes, Olympias, when she sent Alexander on his way to lead his great expedition to the East, confided to him and to him alone the secret of his conception and urged him to show himself worthy of his divine parentage."So. . . if she didn't tell him till he left for Asia, then the story wouldn't have been known till Alexander himself made it available. (Surely, it had to be Alexander at this point, and not Olympias, who "leaked" the news.) My thoughts are that the story probably became known sometime around or after the visit to Siwa and was leaked via Callisthenes.ATBAmyntoros

Well, yes ... but is it true? :-)What we really need is a letter from Olympias, saying "Dear Al, I haven't told anyone this before, but it's time to let you know something rather special ... Love Mummy."Chances of that happening? Oxyrrhynxus, anyone? :-)ATBMarcus

Oxyrhyncus Chronicle [6] In the 111th Olympiad [336 B.C.] Cleomantis of Cleitor won the stadion race, and the archons at Athens were Pythodelus, Euaenetus, Ctesicles and Nicocrates. . . . In the second year Alexander the king of the Macedonians crossed over to Asia and defeated the generals of Dareius the king of the Persians in a battle by the river Granicus. In the third year Alexander met Dareius in battle at Issus in Cilicia, and again defeated him. He killed many thousands of the Persians and their allies, and captured many prisoners and a great quantity of booty. In the same year Aexander wrote to his mother, Olympias, thanking her for relating the truth about his paternity and asking her to send him clean underwear and socks. . . Sorry GÇô couldnGÇÖt resist!

I hope he'd asked for those essentials a bit earlier in the campaign!