Therefore, just as
portrait painters pay most attention to those peculiarities of the
face and eyes, in which the likeness consists, and care but little for
the rest of the figure, so it is my duty to dwell especially upon
those actions which reveal the workings of my heroes' minds, and from
these to construct the portraits of their respective lives, leaving
their battles and their great deeds to be recorded by others.
II. All are agreed that Alexander was descended on his father's side
from Herakles through Karanus, and on his mother's from AEakus through
Neoptolemus.
We are told that Philip and Olympias first met during their initiation
into the sacred mysteries at Samothrace, and that he, while yet a boy,
fell in love with the orphan girl, and persuaded her brother Arymbas
to consent to their marriage. The bride, before she consorted with her
husband, dreamed that she had been struck by a thunderbolt, from which
a sheet of flame sprang out in every direction, and then suddenly died
away. Philip himself some time after his marriage dreamed that he set
a seal upon his wife's body, on which was engraved the figure of a
lion. When he consulted the soothsayers as to what this meant, most of
them declared the meaning to be, that his wife required more careful
watching; but Aristander of Telmessus declared that she must be
pregnant, because men do not seal up what is empty, and that she would
bear a son of a spirited and lion-like disposition.
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