Fire from Heaven: Analysis of Major Characters
"Fire from Heaven: Analysis of Major Characters" explores the complex relationships and personalities surrounding Alexander III of Macedon, also known as Alexander the Great. The narrative begins with Alexander's childhood, highlighting his small stature yet fiery spirit, inherited from his mother, Olympias. His father, Philip II, is portrayed as a formidable king, whose military acumen and cultural appreciation contrast with his rough persona, providing a backdrop for Alexander's development. Olympias, a turbulent and obsessive figure, practices witchcraft and deeply influences Alexander's perception of his own identity, suggesting he may be divinely descended.
The analysis extends to pivotal figures in Alexander's life, including Hephaistion, his loyal companion and lover, and Ptolemy, his half-brother and sworn blood brother. Key mentors like Aristotle shape Alexander's education, emphasizing both scientific rigor and ethical considerations, while generals such as Antipatros navigate the political landscape of Macedon during a time of transition. Each character plays a vital role in developing the themes of loyalty, ambition, and the impact of familial relationships on Alexander's journey toward greatness. This character-driven exploration offers insight into the forces that shaped one of history's most renowned figures.
Fire from Heaven: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Mary Renault
First published: 1969
Genre: Novel
Locale: Macedon, the Greek peninsula, and Athens
Plot: Historical
Time: 351–336 b.c.e.
Alexander III of Macedon, later known as Alexander the Great, the son of Philip II and Olympias of Epirus. Nearly five years old at the beginning of the novel, he is twenty at the time of his father's assassination, when this narrative closes. (The story continues in The Persian Boy (1972), which covers the period of Alexander's conquests in the east.) Physically smaller than his fellow Macedonians, he combines the fiery spirit of his mother with his father's canniness on the battlefield. From early childhood, he is repelled by his father's coarseness, seeing him as something of a Polyphemus (Philip's injured eye contributes to this perception). His hardy constitution, physical courage, athletic self-discipline, and lightning reflexes provide the perfect instruments for his keen and sensitive personality. Like Achilles in Homer's Iliad, Alexander is capable of affection and loyalty—as seen particularly in his relationship with his lover Hephaistion—but he is also wary of intrigue and increasingly distrustful of his obsessive mother, Olympias. He is obsessed with the idea, suggested to him by his mother, that he is the son not of Philip but of some god, perhaps Zeus himself, Dionysus, or the demigod Herakles.
Philip II, the king of Macedon, Alexander's battle-scarred father. Black-bearded and blind in one eye from a wound received in the battle of Methone, he has the roughness of the mountain warlords from whom he is descended, tempered by military and diplomatic genius and a genuine love of Athenian culture. Philip and his son share only a few occasions of personal closeness, but Philip is at pains to provide Alexander with the best available teachers (including Aristotle), and he recognizes his son's abilities in war, giving him a key role in the Battle of Chaironea, which establishes Macedonian control over Greece and sets the stage for his planned conquest of the Ionian coast. All of this is cut short by his assassination at the age of forty-six, the last event of the novel.
Olympias of Epirus, Alexander's mother, only twenty-one years old at the beginning of the novel. Strange, turbulent, uncanny, and obsessive, she practices witchcraft, snake-handling, and the particularly violent Bacchic maenadism of her native Epirus. Although usually motivated by hatred, she is highly possessive of Alexander and insanely jealous of Philip's many infidelities and politically motivated marriages. Her control over Alexander slips as the boy grows into a man, but Alexander accompanies her into self-imposed exile after the Battle of Chaironea, when Philip marries Eurydike, the daughter of Attalos. The rift eventually is smoothed over, and an uneasy truce is made until Philip's assassination. Because one of Olympias' driving forces is the wish to see Alexander as king of Macedon, she is a beneficiary of and likely participant in the plot to kill Philip, but the details of her complicity are unclear.
Hephaistion (heh-FI-stee-ehn), the son of Amyntor, Alexander's older companion and lover. This novel follows the tradition that casts their relationship in the mold of Greek aristocratic pederasty, an idealized love in which physical sex is combined with genuine solicitude of the older partner toward the younger and modest acquiescence on the part of the younger recipient of these attentions. Hephaistion and Alexander take their cues from Plato's Symposium and a now-lost play of Aeschylus, the Myrmidons, which represents the Homeric Achilles as the sexual partner of his older companion Patroclus. Like Patroclus, Hephaistion is of lower rank and lacks the conspicuous talents of young Alexander, but he is his only true confidant.
Ptolemy (TOL-eh-mee), known as the son of Lagos although actually a bastard son of Philip and thus Alexander's half brother. Some dozen years older than Alexander and a member of the Companion Cavalry, he becomes Alexander's sworn blood brother.
Antipatros (an-TIHP-ah-trohs), one of Philip's key generals, a Macedonian of ancient stock. Appointed adviser to young Alexander, who is made regent during Philip's campaign in Thrace, he is startled by his charge's independence. He is deeply loyal to Philip's interests but described as loving the king before the man.
Aristotle of Stagira, the son of the physician Nikomachos. A scientist, philosopher, and tutor of Alexander and his official circle of Companions, he establishes his school in Mieza, where Alexander receives his higher education. The school emphasizes the scientific and ethical aspects of the curriculum. Alexander is portrayed as not ready to accept Aristotle's low opinion of “barbarians.”
Lysimachus of Akarnania (li-SIHM-eh-kehs), an old friend and palace retainer of Philip, one of Alexander's earliest mentors. A book lover, he cultivates Alexander's well-known love of Homer and The Iliad, in appreciation of which Alexander nicknames him Phoinix, after Achilles'companion and tutor in that epic.