Peter Green, in the second chapter of
Alexander of Macedon 356 - 323 B.C., names some of the prodigious events that attended the conception and birth of Alexander the Great:
- The temple of Artemis burned, according to tradition, on the night on which Alexander the Great was born. The Persian Magi foretold great disaster for the Persian Empire.
- Alexander's mother dreamed on the night before her wedding, that she was penetrated by a thunderbolt. Fire spread out in all directions.
- Alexander's father Philip looked inside his wife's bedroom and saw her in the embrace of a snake. This was interpreted to be the god Zeus-Ammon, who was considered by some to have been Alexander's father.