Alexander I of Macedon

Alexander I ( _el. Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μακεδών) was ruler of Macedon from 498 BC to 454 BC. He was the son of Amyntas I king of Macedon and Eurydice.

According to Herodotus he was unfriendly to Persia, and had the envoys of Darius I killed when they arrived at the court of his father during the Ionian Revolt. However, he was forced to submit to Persia during the invasion of Greece by Darius' son Xerxes I, and he acted as a representative of the Persian governor Mardonius during peace negotiations after the Persian defeat at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC. Despite his cooperation with Persia, he frequently gave supplies and advice to the Greeks, and warned them of Mardonius' plans before the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. After the defeat in Plataea the Persian army, under the command of Artabazus tried to retreat all the way back to Asia Minor. Most of the 43,000 survivors were attacked and killed by the forces of Alexander at the estuary of the Strymon river. Alexander eventually regained Macedons independence after the end of the Persian Wars.

Although Macedon was considered a semi-barbaric state by some Greeks (especially those whose colonies near by were threatened by its expansion), Alexander claimed descent from Argive Greeks and Heracles. After a court of Elean hellanodikai determined his claim to be true, he was permitted to participate in the Olympic Games [Herodotus [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126&layout=&loc=5.22 5.22] ] [Justin- [http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/justin/texte7.html#2 7.2.14] ] possibly in 504 BC [A History of Macedonia. Volume 2 [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8299%28198123%2935%3A3%3C262%3AAHOMV2%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage Review: John Cole] ] an honor reserved only for Greeks. He modeled his court after Athens and was a patron of the poets Pindar and Bacchylides , who both of them dedicated poems to Alexander [Thucydides and Pindar: Historical Narrative and the World of Epinikian Poetry [http://books.google.com/books?id=UM-JMDlso7EC&pg=PA180&dq=Pindar+Alexander+son+of+Amyntas&sig=ZtewR7QQub3XfJAPYxNnSPC-jLU Page 180] By Simon Hornblower ISBN 0199249199] .

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*cite encyclopedia | last = Smith | first = William | authorlink = William Smith (lexicographer) | title = Alexander I | editor = William Smith | encyclopedia = Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology | volume = 1 | pages = 118 | publisher = Little, Brown and Company | location = Boston | year = 1867 | url = http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moa;cc=moa;idno=acl3129.0001.001;size=l;frm=frameset;seq=133