MURDEROUS FIX'DS IN REGAL FAMILIES. 5 moled, while Ptolemy, Nearchus, and other persons attached to Alexander, were banished.* The prospects of Alexander were thus full of uncertainty and peril, up to the very day of Philip's assassination. The succes- sion to the Macedonian crown, though transmitted in the same family, was by no means assured as to individual members ; moreover, in the regal house of Macedonia- (as among the kings called Diadochi, who acquired dominion after the death of Alex- ander the Great,) violent feuds and standing mistrust between father, sons, and brethren, were ordinary phajnomena, to which the family of the Antigonids formed an honorable exception. Between Alexander and Olympias on the one side, and Kleo- patra with her son and Attains on the other, a murderous contest was sure to arise. Kleopatra was at this time in the ascendent ; Olympias was violent and mischievous ; and Philip was only forty-seven yeai's of age. Hence the future threatened nothing ' Plutarch, Alex. 10. Anian, iii. 6, 8.
- See the third chapter of Plutarch's life of Demetrius Poliorketes ; which
presents a vivid description of the feelings prevalent between members of regal families in those ages. Demetrius, coming home from the chase with his hunting javelins in his hand, goes up to his father Antigonus, salutes him, and sits down by his side without disarming. This is extolled as an unparalleled proof of the confidence and affection subsisting between the father and the son. In the families of all the other Diadochi (sa's Plu- tarch) murders of sons, mothers, and wives, were frequent — murders of brothers were even common, assumed to be precautions necessary for secu- rity. OvTuc upa nuvTTi Svokuvoivtjtov tj iipxv xo.^ fisarbv u—iaTLag Kat dvavoiac, <^ote uyu.?i./i€Gdai tov ueyiarov ruiv 'A?ie^uv6pov 6ia66xuv nal npealSvTaTov, on pj (jiolSelrat tov vibv, uXka npoauTai ttjv ?i6yxvv exovtq TOV aufiOToc TTAijaiov. Oil firjv ukXil koI fiovog, u( eItteIv, 6 ol k o g ovtoc fTTf TT/.Eiarag SiaSoxuc tQv tolovtuv kukuv £Ka&upevae, fxaXXov 6e el^ftovot: tCiv Att' 'AvTLyuvov ^i?UTrnng uvel2,ev viov. Kl tie u.7<.2.aL axE^bv UTZ a c a L iiaioxaX TiOyjiCiv [ilv exovgl Trah^.uv, roZ/lwv 6e fir/TEpuv <p6vov(; Kiii yvvaiKuv to fiiv ytlp u6E7tipovg uvaipsiv, iJOTVEp o'l yeuuirpat tu alT?/uara Aafi^uvovaiv, ovtu avvExt^psiTo no iv 6v t i voui^ousvov at r tj /[i a K at (iaaiXtKov vrnp u.a(l)a?^Eiac. Compare Tacitus, Histor. v. 8, about the family feuds of the kings of Ju- daea ; and Xenopli. Hieron. iii. 8. In noticing the Antigonid family as a favorable exception, we must con- fine our assertion to the first century of that family. The bloody tragedy of Perseus and Demetrius shortly preceded the ruin of the emjiire. 1«
