QUEEN OLYMPIAS - HER PART IN THE OLYMPICS

Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.,) was born in Pella, Macedonia which is now northern Greece. He was the son of Queen Olympias and King Philip II. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, was Alexander’s teacher, and took Achilles of Homer’s Iliad as his hero. At 16, he commanded forces in military actions against the hill tribes.

When his father divorced his mother Olympias, Alexander quarreled with his father. Philip was assassinated while preparing for war with Persia. Alexander was suspected of inspiring the crime, but there was no proof and he became Alexander III. At age 20 he conquered the hill tribes and Greek city-states and backed by the powerful Macedonian army struck north trough the Balkans to the Danube River and south to Thebes. All of Thebes was destroyed except the temples and the home of the poet Pindar, whose odes Alexander admired. The city-states had been united by his father Philip and Alexander inherited a strong disciplined army as captain-general and welded his men into a strong lean-mean fighting machine. He broke the power of the Oriental monarchs and spread the Greek culture with 30,000 men and small groups of cavalry. His phalanx, an oblong mass of men protected by shields and long spears was an impregnable moving fortress.

This brilliant strategist was also an able administrator. From current news we learn Greece is having problems and wonder if history would have been different if his father had not divorced Queen Olympias all those years ago. Wars never seem to accomplish much but we can say that Greece gave us the Olympics. Today we have the way of peace explained to us through the writings in our Bible’s New Testament as the Apostle Paul, explains in Ephesians chapter 4:32, “And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.” Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, recorded in chapters 5 through 8 of Matthew says it all so well and Chapter 7:20 tells us how we have a way of knowing where we fit in: “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”