Alexander, the eldest son of Amyntas, King of Macedon, desirous of distinction in Greece, proposed himself as a competitor in some of the Olympic games; but the Greeks rejected him at first with scorn as a Barbarian[118]. However, he brought proofs of his descent from an Argive family, and was thereupon admitted by the Hellanodicæ[119] to an equal participation with other Greeks in those sacred games. He obtained a victory in one of the races, and dedicated a golden statue in the temple of Olympia. The title of the Macedonians to appear as Greeks at the Olympic games, was asserted by the successors of Alexander in person or by proxy, and Philip received the news that his horses had won the prize in the race at Olympus, on the very day when the tidings reached him of the birth of Alexander the Great. In truth, the kings of Macedon had been for many generations eager to civilise their people, by introducing among them some of the refinements of Greece, when they could snatch an interval of peace from the wars they were continually forced to wage against their rude neighbours to the north. They had employed the sculptors and painters of Athens and Sicyon; and the forced residence of Philip with the Thebans during the civil wars in Macedon, had rendered _him_ at least intimate with the literature and philosophy of Greece. In choosing Aristotle for one of the tutors of his son, Philip probably had a view to improving his taste, as well as cultivating those higher qualities, which, though they may exist without it, derive from it a grace and a spirit which double their value. The same feeling which led “the stern Emathian conqueror” to spare The house of Pindarus, when temple and tow’r Went to the ground, made him the friend of Apelles and the patron of Lysippus and Pyrgoteles[120]. I am not certain whether it was to Alexander or to his father, though probably to the latter, that Pamphilus the Macedonian, a disciple of Eupompus, owed the protection which enabled him to re-establish the school of Sicyon, with such enlargement as suited the time. In the public course of instruction he procured painting to be ranked in the first degree of liberal sciences[121]; and, consequently, all youths of honourable birth were understood to learn at least the elements of drawing as part of their education[122].