King Phillip II the Macedon, father of Alexander the Great

11 November       King Phillip II the Macedon,  father of Alexander the Great

Archaelogist Manolis Andronikos after discovering the Vergina Tomb 3 days earlier, finally breaks through the unpillaged tomb of King Phillip II the Macedon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergina

20 miles away from my town Thessaloniki  

http://en.protothema.gr/thessaloniki-the-glorious-heart-of-northern-greece/

King Philip II was a powerful fourth-century B.C. military ruler from the Greek kingdom of Macedonia

founded and initially ruled by the Royal Argean Dynasty from Peloponnisos with the capital Aigai-Vergina where King Phillip had his Palace

 Using the combination of warfare, diplomacy, and marriage alliances, Philip II took control of all the Balkan Peninsula

The golden reliquary containing bones of Philip II and a gold crown representing the gold oak twig with golden acorns. It has 313 leaves and 68 acorns. The oak is the sacred tree of Zeus

Gold-and-ivory 'ceremonial' shield with male and female device on the outer side, from the Tomb of Philip at Vergina, third quarter of 4th century BC, Thessaloniki, Archaeological Museum.

detail from the internal of the shield of Philip IIhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_II_of_Macedon

The researchers examined the bones and fragments and found that they belonged to the Macedonian King Philip II, Alexander the Great's father. http://books.google.gr/books?id=0Av7u5Df1bQC&pg=PA88&dq=logistical+range+of+philip%27s+army&hl=el&sa=X&ei=dg1nVK6XG8PgywOproC4DQ&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=logistical%20range%20of%20philip's%20army&f=false

Iron cuirass with gold detail from the Tomb of Philip at Vergina, 4th century BC, Thessaloniki, Archaeological Museum.

The tomb also had the bones of a woman warrior. As per the team of Greek researchers working on the project, the bones might belong to the daughter of the Skythian King Athea.

Gold 'gorytos' (quiver-and-bow-case) with repousse representation of the capture of a city, from the Tomb of Philip second half of 4th century BC, Thessaloniki, Archaeological Museum.

Archaelogist Manolis Andronikos finally breaks through the unpillaged tomb of King Phillip II the Macedon

"I got the small hoe for the excavation which I carried with me since 1952, I bent the pit and began to dig with stubbornness and anguish the soil below the key of the vault while my partners were gathered all around me"(...) (Manolis Andronikos, "The Chronicles of Vergina")

"I kept digging and soon I was sure. The stone of the west wall was in place, undisturbed, solid. (...) - The grave was unpillaged! It was closed! I was profoundly happy. So I found the first Macedonian unpillaged tomb"

That moment I was not interested in doing anything else. That night -as all the next- was impossible to sleep more than two or three hours. Around 12 midnight, I took the car and went to make sure if the guards were in place. It was the same at 2 and 5 am. Certainly, meditated, in the sarcophagus to be hiding a nice surprise.

The only difficulty we encountered was that while lifting the cover, saw clearly any content and should be able to keep calm and carry on our work, mole that our eyes were dazzled by what we saw and the heart we go to break with emotion.

Within the sarcophagus was a golden urn. Top on the cover of a prestigious embossed star with sixteen rays, and in the center of a rosetteWith a lot more attention and emotion I lifted the lid on the star by grasping the two corners of the front panel. We expected to see in it the burnt bones of the dead.

But what we saw in the opening cut us once again breathless, dazzled our eyes and our flooded awe really into the shrine were burnt bones. But the most unexpected thing was a golden wreath of oak leaves and fruit that was folded and placed on the bones  

I had never imagined such a marvellous image. Can I bring in my consciousness crystal clear response I tried as I said to myself: "If you have a suspicion, that the tomb belongs to Philip, it is true-and the golden urn came to reinforce the correctness of this suspected outbreak you held in your hands the shrine with the bones. It is incredible and such a marvellous thought, that seems completely unrealistic. "I do not think I've ever tried in my life such a fuss, nor will ever try it once again. "(Manolis Andronikos, "The Chronicles of Vergina")

21 July     Alexander The Great  was born in Pella in 356 B.C.

Alexander III the Makedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great was born on the sixth day of the ancient Greek month of Hekatombaion,  although the exact date is not known, in Pella, the capital of the Greek Kingdom of Macedon.   

He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his fourth wife, Olympias, the daughter of Neoptolemus I, king of Epirus. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his principal wife for some time, likely a result of giving birth to Alexander.

His father Philip II, being in Samothrace, when he was quite young, fell in love there with Olympias, in company with whom he was initiated in the religious ceremonies of the country, and her father and mother being both dead, soon after, with the consent of her brother, Arymbas, he married her.Several legends surround Alexander's birth and childhood. 

The night before the consummation of their marriage, she dreamed that a thunderbolt fell upon her body, which kindled a great fire, whose divided flames dispersed themselves all about, and then were extinguished. And Philip, some time after he was married, dreamt that he sealed up his wife's body with a seal, whose impression, as be fancied, was the figure of a lion. Some of the diviners interpreted this as a warning to Philip to look narrowly to his wife; but Aristander of Telmessus, considering how unusual it was to seal up anything that was empty, assured him the meaning of his dream was that the queen was with child of a boy, who would one day prove as stout and courageous as a lion.

Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of these dreams: that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb; or that Alexander's father was Zeus. Ancient commentators were divided about whether the ambitious Olympias promulgated the story of Alexander's divine parentage, variously claiming that she had told Alexander, or that she dismissed the suggestion as impious.

On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, and that his horses had won at the Olympic Games. It was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down.

Antipater of Sidon, who compiled the list of the Seven Wonders, describes the finished temple:

I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of thehigh pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, "Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand"

This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, attending the birth of Alexander.Such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception.

Just after Philip had taken Potidaea, he received these three messages at one time, that Parmenion had overthrown the Illyrians in a great battle, that his race-horse had won the course at the Olympic games, and that his wife had given birth to Alexander; with which being naturally well pleased, as an addition to his satisfaction, he was assured by the diviners that a son, whose birth was accompanied with three such successes, could not fail of being invincible.

http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/eight-surprising-facts-about-alexander-the-great

Eratosthenes says that Olympias, when she attended Alexander on his way to the army in his first expedition, told him the secret of his birth, and bade him behave himself with courage suitable to his divine extraction. Others again affirm that she wholly disclaimed any pretensions of the kind, and was wont to say, 'When will Alexander leave off slandering me to Hera?' -  joke may be authentic.

There are others who believe that such a personality should have been born under the Leo sign, me too, and there are some astrologers who tried to investigate it

http://astro-n.page.tl/Alexander-The-Great-in-Astrology.htm