As a boy, Alexander learned the lexicon of war from his father, and the discipline of the brain from Aristotle. He read the Iliad and the Tale of Troy, until he knew much of them by heart. He was tutored by a kinsman on his mothers side. He was taught that mountain folds like the Macedonians, had to climb mountains. And each morning after his run, he offered sacrifice before breakfast. The Great God was Zeus of his nation.
The kinsmen were training Alexander to be a king. But the boy always clung to his books. It was a lonely life although companions studied with him. One of these the son of Philip of Macedon, it was believed by another woman, his name Ptolemy.
Alexander had blue eyes and red-gold curls and his mother’s delicate skin which reddened rather than darkened to a brown under the sun. The people of Macedon were mountain people but in the valleys, they raised barley, grapes and cattle.
Alexander, because of the influence of his mother’s kinsmen, had read the works of the Greek writers of that time. Had read Herodotus, Demosthenes, Homer, Aristotle and even had Aristotle for a tutor, for he came to teach young Alexander and his companions.