The
quarrel at Philip's wedding, Plutarch
But the disorders of his family, chiefly caused by his new marriages
and attachments (the troubles that began in the women's chambers spreading,
so to say, to the whole kingdom), raised various complaints and differences
between them, which the violence of Olympias, a woman of a jealous and
implacable temper, made wider, by exasperating Alexander against his father.
Among the rest, this accident contributed most to their falling out. At
the wedding of Cleopatra, whom Philip fell in love with and married, she
being much too young for him, her uncle Attalus in his drink desired the
Macedonians would implore the gods to give them a lawful successor to the
kingdom by his niece.
This so irritated Alexander, that throwing one of the cups at his head,
"You villain," said he, "what, I then a bastard?" Then Philip, taking Attalus's
part, rose up and would have run his son through; but by good fortune for
them both, either his over-hasty rage, or the wine he had drunk, made his
foot slip, so that he fell down on the floor. At which Alexander reproach
fully insulted over him: "See there," said he, "the man who makes preparations
to pass out of Europe into Asia, overturned in passing from one seat to
another." After this debauch, he and his mother Olympias withdrew from
Philip's company, and when he had placed her in Epirus, he himself retired
into Illyria.
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