This visit isn't in the histories, but it is possible. It's a bit dull.

The Temple

On an autumn morning at the gates to the sacred precinct of Apollo set on the steep, chilly and misty mountain slope of Delphi, half a dozen priests and acolytes waited to greet the Macedonian prince Alexander.

Beside the eighteen year old prince was his friend Hephaestion, and seven battle-hardened bodyguards detached themselves from a large group of Macedonian soldiers to follow the two young men through the open wooden gates. To their right was a great bronze bull, to their left a bronze Trojan horse with glass eyes. Stretching upwards before them, lining the sloping paved way, were statues of Greek heroes, painted and frozen in the moment of their greatest glory.

Yet all the statues had all been stripped of their golden crowns, silver fillets and wreaths of golden leaves by the Phocians in the third Sacred War. King Philip of Macedon had ended the third and fourth Sacred Wars and restored Delphi's neutrality, for the second time earlier this year by forcing the Amphissians to withdraw from Delphi's territory. He had ended the third war against the Phocians by threatening them with his well-disciplined and invincible army, a threat which he had finally unleashed against the rest of the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea three months ago.

Philip had destroyed the flower of Thebes' and Athens' armies at Chaeronea and the whole of Greece was now his for the taking. Yet he did not want war with the Greek city states. He wanted to lead their armies into Asia and test Greek might against the vast Persian Empire by liberating the Greek cities of Asia Minor from Persian rule. He wanted to eliminate Persia's threat to Macedon and to the rest of Greece, as much as he wanted to eliminate the threat of the Greek city states such as Athens, and most especially Thebes, to Macedon. To appease Greek pride, he also said he wanted to avenge past Persian wrongs against the Greeks from a hundred and more years ago.

While Philip wintered at Corinth and negotiated with the city states to have himself declared overlord of Greece, with the right to request troops and to enforce the peace, Alexander had sailed across the Gulf of Corinth to visit Delphi. Ostensibly, Alexander had come to check on the depredations caused by the Phocians to the riches of Apollo's sanctuary, and while he was here, he wanted to consult the god on behalf of his father's Persian ambitions.

Alexander and Hephaestion walked respectfully past the images of the heroes up the sloping paved way, wrapped against the autumn chill of the mountains in heavy cloaks of fine, soft wool woven on royal looms and embroidered by their mothers and sisters. Behind them walked the seven bodyguards, weaponless in the sacred precinct apart from small daggers at their waists, alert for any hostile intent against Philip's son.

They walked past the treasure houses of the great cities, all still empty. Gold and silver, jewels, weapons of war, shields and helmets, had once been piled high in these treasuries, offerings of thanksgiving for past victories, but they had all been looted by the Phocians.

Alexander stopped by the treasure house of Athens. Even the gold rosettes on the oak door had been prised out, leaving empty holes.

"Some day, Hephaestion," he said quietly, gazing up at Athena's stone owls perched on the roof of the treasury, "we will fill these treasuries full of Persian gold. We will avenge the atrocities committed by the Persians against Athens and the rest of Greece, and replenish the gifts to the gods a hundredfold."

His brown eyes alight with living dreams, Alexander met Hephaestion's bright blue eyes, warm with devotion and shining with heroic hopes for a glorious future, and for an instant the world of Homer's heroes and the dusty plains of Troy in Asia Minor were alive around them. They could almost smell the heat and dust and the sweat of the chariot horses before the mighty stone walls of Troy.

Alexander smiled and they moved onwards, up the stepped way towards the great temple of Pythian Apollo, visible above them higher up the mountain slope. They raised their eyes to the right where a column stood, entwined by a great gilded serpent and surmounted by a gold tripod and bowl, gleaming dully in the damp air. The Phocians had not dared to rob the offering of the Greeks for their great victory against the Persian invasion at Plataea a hundred and forty years before.

Ahead of them rose a great statue of the god, Apollo Sitalkas - god of beauty, prophecy, youth and poetry, invincible with his bow, and slayer of the dark serpent of the elder gods that had terrorised the valley below. Alexander and Hephaestion paused and made a brief reverence to the bright god of sunlight with his golden arrows before turning past the blood-blackened altar to greet the high priests who stood on the pavement before the temple steps. On the ground before them was Alexander's gift to the god, a chest full of gold.

The high priests bowed respectfully to the prince, careful of offence to Philip's son and emissary. Gold spoke any language though, and they were grateful that Philip was a respecter of the gods and had made himself their champion to win the good opinion of all the Greeks. They hoped his son, hero of Chaeronea and the idol of his father's army, was at least a modest man before the immortal gods, and that he would have his father's diplomatic good sense.

Alexander inclined his head to the priests and greeted them politely in perfect Greek. The priests, relieved that Aristotle's tutoring had had an obvious effect on the Macedonian prince, replied courteously, welcoming Alexander.

"I thank you for the opportunity to show my reverence to the lord Apollo," Alexander replied. "He has gifted me with great pleasure in music and poetry, and I welcome the chance to express my gratitude at his most sacred shrine."

The priests bowed and invited Alexander into the god's house. Alexander looked up above the six columns standing tall at the front of the temple to the sculptures on the eastern pediment which showed Apollo confronting the great serpent. Alexander stepped up between the columns under the temple's portico, where he raised his eyes to the shields hanging beneath the roof. There were Persian shields there, and his eyes met Hephaestion's in acknowledgement as he dropped his gaze and entered the cool dark temple.

Slowly Alexander and Hephaestion walked side by side along the length of the interior, the sound of their boots echoing on the dark and damp walls of the temple. Soft-footed, the bodyguards spread out behind them, their eyes adjusting to the shadows in which isolated pools of torchlight gleamed like gold. Faded paintings could be seen on the walls beneath the torches: a serpent devouring men and women, coiling around warriors, smashing buildings, and being pierced by the god's fatal arrows.

Before them stood the image of the god, great golden sconces attached to the walls behind the statue on the top of which oil-fed flames flickered. The god himself was an ancient wooden statue, the grain of the wood drying out and splitting, smoke-stained and indistinct in the shadows. The larger than life-sized image stood on a low dais, incense burning on bronze tripods to either side of him. The blue smoke curled about his faded vermilion lips, closed and smiling without humour. He wore a stiff kilt of beaten gold, and a great jewel-encrusted collar of gold rested across his breast and shoulders.

Apollo stared out at the visitors, the white paint of his eyes still bright around the lapis lazuli irises, the bright depths of which intimated at hidden life as the god stood with hand held up to the visitors in a gesture of command. In his other hand he held a horn bow, its tip resting on his foot.

Alexander halted and bowed before the god's image, touching his lips and then his breast in reverence. Hephaestion likewise made obeisance before the god, and the chief priest stepped before them to address the god as their intermediary.

He spread his hands in prayer. "Lord Apollo, son of the almighty Zeus, masterful slayer of the Python, these worshippers approach you in supplication. Hear their prayer, for Alexander, son of Philip, descendant of your father Zeus, is the scion of a mighty king, conqueror of cities and destroyer of armies. He comes before you, Lord, bearing gifts worthy of a king. Look graciously on his prayer, O mighty Lord, as one warrior to another. We praise you, Lord of the nine Muses,…"

The priest launched into a ritualistic prayer of praise, and the other priests intoned the responses. When the prayer was finished, one of the priests stepped before Alexander, holding a golden box. He raised the lid and Alexander took a handful of incense. He stepped before the image of the god and emptied the incense into one of the burners, took another handful and dropped it into the second burner.

"Lord Apollo," he said quietly, "be gracious to me this day, and Macedon will fill your sanctuary with gifts of such magnificence that its fame will be heard throughout the world." The burning incense billowed upwards in clouds of blue smoke, wafting in homage across the face of the impenetrable and smiling god.

The god did not show displeasure at this gift, so the priests invited Alexander to step up onto the dais. The chief priest preceded them through a low, dark doorway behind the statue into the room where the priestess of Apollo awaited them.