irty-two, this helpless baby, less than a year old, and who had never
seen his father of the mighty name, held the sovereignty that Alexander
the Great had established.

It was a vast possession. It stretched from Greece to India, from Egypt
to Siberia; it was such as only a genius could have conquered and only a
genius could rule. With Alexander dead and only a baby as its lord it
was already in danger. But Roxana the Queen said, boldly, "My boy shall
be King," and all the "Companions of Alexander," as his generals and
ministers were called, echoed her words: "The boy shall be King!" And so
it came to pass that at the great display in Babylon the little son of
Alexander was honored and sainted and adored as the successor of his
imperial father.

But Alexander the Great had died too soon. He had wonderful plans as to
what he would do if he had lived, but none at all as to what was to be
done if he should happen to die. He did die--suddenly--in the year 323
B.C. And thereupon each one of his leading generals, or "Companions,"
declared that _he_ was the man to step into Alexander's shoes, and have
the charge of the empire and the care of the young King until the boy
should come of age.

So they began to quarrel among themselves and to make things very
uncomfortable for the Queen Roxana in the splendid palace at Babylon,
until finally little Alexander's grandmother, the Princess Olympias,
declared that _she_ would take charge of the King and his empire. This
made the generals angry with Olympias, who was a very determined and a
very vindictive old lady, and things became more mixed up than ever. But
the Princess Olympias had considerable power, and she managed to get
possession of little King Alexander and his mother, and to have them
brought, under a strong body-guard, from province to province and from
camp to camp from one end of the empire to the other, until they reached
her home in western Greece.

Gradually the quarrelling generals who were fighting for the possession
of Alexander's empire were reduced, by victory or death, to five. And of
these five the most ambitious and determined was Cassander, the regent
of Macedon. He hated Alexander the Great; he hated the son of Alexander;
for the father had slighted him when living, and the son, by living,
stood in his way. He had determined to be the head of the empire, and he
did not rest until he had forced his rivals, the fighting generals, into
a bitter quarrel for