TRANSLATED BY ADRIANA HUNTER

I, Alexander of Macedonia, son of Philip, king of kings, conqueror of the Greeks, came into this world on the night of a great fire.

The temple of Artemis was alight. Ocher and yellow flames, forests of sparks and twisting wreaths of smoke, spilled into the sky. Thick clouds settled on villages in which every soul had taken refuge indoors, terrified by the fury of the divine huntress.

By the time of my first memory I can already run to the top of the hill. My mother, who dresses me as a girl, takes me to play among the ruins. There are fragments of burned stone scattered in the grass, and wild flowers exhale their bitter fragrance. Wearing a white tunic and sandals with golden straps and with my hair in braids, I stumble up a collapsed flight of steps, hide behind a fallen column, and laugh when the slaves walk past without seeing me. My mother watches me. She tells me of a great temple wiped out by fire, and warns that fire alone is indestructible.

As an adolescent I went back to that hill where the ruins, in turn, had disappeared. A new temple had been built with painted columns, and frescoes along the pediment and arches. My father tells me that Artemis and Apollo were twins. Artemis was born first, already clothed and armed, and she helped her mother bring Apollo into the world. Horrified by the suffering of childbirth, she made a vow of chastity. My father chose to dedicate the new temple to Apollo because, he claimed, my birth had brought an end to the inconsistent world of the moon, of poetic virgins and wandering bacchantes. With me came the era of the sun, of conquerors and lovers devoted to the rages of war.