When he was about thirteen, a magnificent black horse called Bucephalus, or Bull-head, because it had a white mark like a bull’s face on its forehead, was brought to Philip; but it was so strong and restive that nobody could manage it, and Philip was sending it away, when Alexander begged leave to try to tame it. First he turned its head to the sun, having perceived that its antics were caused by fear of its own shadow; then stroking and caressing it as he held the reins, he gently dropped his fluttering mantle and leaped on its back, sitting firm through all its leaps and bounds, but using neither whip nor spur nor angry voice, till at last the creature was brought to perfect obedience. This gentle courage and firmness so delighted Philip that he embraced the boy with tears of joy, and gave him the horse, which, as long as it lived, loved and served him like no one else. Philip also said that such a boy might be treated as a man, and therefore put him under Aristotle three years earlier than it was usual to begin philosophy; and again he was an apt and loving scholar, learning great wisdom in dealing with men and things, and, in truth, learning everything but how to control his temper. At the battle of Chæronea, Alexander was old enough to command the division which fought against the Thebans, and entirely overthrew them; so that when peace was made, Sparta was the only city that refused to own the superior might of Macedon, and the Council of the States chose Philip as commander of the Greeks in the grand expedition he was going to undertake against Persia. But Philip had eastern vices. He was tired of Olympias’ pride and wilfulness, and took another wife, whom he raised to the position of queen; and at the banquet a half-tipsy kinsman of this woman insulted Alexander, who threw a cup at the man. Philip started up to chastise his son, but, between rage and wine, fell down, while Alexander said, “See, a man preparing to cross from Europe to Asia cannot step safely from one couch to another!” Then he took his mother to her native home, and stayed away till his father sent for him, but kept him in a kind of disgrace, until at the wedding feast of Alexander’s sister Cleopatra with the king of Epirus, just as Philip came forward in a white garment, a man darted forward and thrust a sword through his body, then fled so fast that he would have escaped if his foot had not been caught in some vine stocks, so that the guards cut him to pieces.