Open Road Media
Featuring: Queen Olympias; King Philip; Alexander
385 pages ISBN: 1480432873 EAN: 9781480432871 Kindle: B00DCGJ6Z4 Paperback / e-Book (reprint) Add to Wish List
While this book was originally published in 1969, the
subject matter makes it timeless. Alexander the Great is a
little boy at the start, riding a horse, handling a house-
snake, learning from his half-brother Ptolemy. King Philip
of Macedonia is a jealous, warlike ruler - he has to be -
and his son must grow up fighting.
FIRE FROM HEAVEN recalls the days when the gods might send
blessings or curses to mortals, might lie with mortal women
and give them sons, or send the Furies to drive sinners
mad. Macedonian Greeks considered everyone else
barbarians, and Persian envoys are described as wearing
trousers, the notorious sign of a barbarian. For their
part the envoys consider the kingdom to be small and
provincial; the king drills soldiers himself! "Gold is the
mother of armies," Philip tells his son when he gets around
to discussing wars and diplomacy. Philip has captured gold
mines and invented the sarissa, or extra-long spear, which
held by a massed troop provided the hedgehog defence.
Aged seven Alexander is sent to begin training, running,
carrying weights and ordered by Leonidas the Spartan to
speak better Greek than the Macedonian barrack-room talk.
Meanwhile his mother is outraged by the succession of girls
that Philip enjoys. Through their eyes we see life in
Greek times; theatre, clothing, food and drink, music on
kithara and lyre, with incessant references to the gods, to
the fall of Troy and the labours of Hercules. The jigsaw
of kingdoms and alliances, armies paid by looting and
melting down temple treasures, weapons of war in a culture
where manhood is reached by killing a boar and a man.
As a young man, Alexander meets and tames the spirited
black horse Boukephalos or Oxhead, in accordance with the
writings of the first horsemaster Xenophon. Aristotle
teaches him science and statecraft. As Philip marches out
to war Alexander is left to manage the lines of
communication, promised a cavalry regiment as soon as he is
old enough. The lad knows all the soldiers well, their
strengths and failings, and cannot be manipulated for
promotion. FIRE FROM HEAVEN ends with the death of King
Philip, and there is a taster of the second book, 'The
Persian Boy' as well as notes from the respected author
Mary Renault and photos of her. This reissued series will
now bring to a new readership one of the greatest stories
of the ancient world.
Alexander’s beauty, strength, and defiance were apparent
from birth, but his boyhood honed those gifts into the
makings of a king. His mother, Olympias, and his father,
King Philip of Macedon, fought each other for their son’s
loyalty, teaching Alexander politics and vengeance from the
cradle. His love for the youth Hephaistion taught him trust,
while Aristotle’s tutoring provoked his mind and Homer’s
Iliad fueled his aspirations. Killing his first man in
battle at the age of twelve, he became regent at sixteen and
commander of Macedon’s cavalry at eighteen, so that by the
time his father was murdered, Alexander’s skills had grown
to match his fiery ambition.
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