346 BC - the 3rd year of the 107 Olympiad.
Macedon under king Philipos is flourishing. Its army is the strongest in Europe and the king is eyeing even the rich and powerfull Persian empire. One day the armies of Macedon might even challenge the great eastern empire with the thousand horsemen and archers.
Philipos has been constantly rising and strenghening his realm. He invented the macedonian phalanx with its extremely long sarisses and he has strenghthened them with highly specialised troops such as the Hetairoi heavy cavalry (modelled after the thessalian cavalry of Alexander of Pherrae) and the hypaspistai. Overall things are going well for the kingdom. The Chalkidike peninsula with the Pangaion mines have been conquered despite bitter Athenian opposition led by the orator Demosthenes. Various alliances have been made with many Illyrian and thracian tribes. Epirus in the west has marriage alliance with Macedon since Olympias of the Molossoi is the wife of Philipos and mother of his probable heir Alexander. Unfortunately his other son from another wife Philipos Aridaios is a retard and incapable of ruling.
Philipos since the 3rd sacred war is the strongest ruler in the Aimos peninsula and this is evident in the gifts he receives from various sources. Recently he received a magnificent war horse valued 13 talents. The beast is a majestic one, probably of Nissaian breed , large, jet black and very spirited. None of the stable hands is able to tame it much to Philipos dismay.
Young (10 years old) Alexandros is watching the scene with amazement and is formulating his own solution to the problem. He asks for his father permission to try taming the horse. His father reluctanly after much pleading gives in and lets the boy try. The young boy is convinced that the horse is afraid of its shadow and tries to turn it in another dirrection. The horse calm down somewhat, much to everyone surprise, and Alexandros tries to mount it . Then diaster strucks. Something startles the horse and it neights suddenly. Alexandros is thrown from the back and hits violently his head. The boy doesn't move.
Alexander doen't wake up immediately which is of grave concern for Philipos's physicians. They fear for serious brain swelling and Philipos the court physician suggested trepaning. The operation was eventually a success and the boy lived but the whole experience had a detrimental value in his health. He became very slow of speech and he was generally very frail and sickly afterwards. Philipos surprisingly even though he was sadenned by the event, was not devastated. He told Parmenion "I started as a captive in Thebes and yet Macedonia flourished, I can still bed women, I can have other sons eventualy".
Alexander was now viewed as important as Philipos Aridaios in the eyes of his father and both of them along with Olympias and Aridaios's mother were sent in comfortable exile at Olynthous. Pella was not a place suitable for them.