Book 1, Chapter Three: The Taming of Bucephalus, Pages 39 and 40

The chapter opens with a 20th century black and white illustration by Andre Castaigne, of a preteen Alexander bravely calming down a rearing Bucephalus. The author’s voice returns explicitly in the comic (though, transcript reader, you have seen me already).

Author’s Voice:
Now, my friends.
Long ago in our time,
not so long ago in his…

We cut to a close-up of an ancient Greek lumberjack landing a powerful chop with a double-bitted axe against the trunk of a fir tree. We’ve jumped backwards in time, to Alexander’s homeland, sometime in the early 340s BCE.

An early autumn sunlight tinges the dense greenery of Macedon a shimmering yellow, as her people assume their daily responsibilities
of creating timber for fine ships,
and sending them from the mountain forests down to the coastal city of Pella, in carts drawn by mules
which pass by a painter’s studio, who displays his portfolio of charmingly painted vases and vessels on the sidewalk outside his studio, and he has placed a bouquet of anemones and wildflowers in the vases shaped like ducks and boars, his favourite.

The painter is at work now, putting the finishing touches on a terracota figurine of the god Hermes, to whom the painter has given a lamb to hold, a hat of golden yellow, a robust complexion and cape of brilliant red and yellow stars.  This afternoon he is going to the marketplace, and he will place this figurine at the feet of the outdoor bronze Hermes statue amongst the other offerings: wildflowers and incense burners and other more figurines of people and animals, some of which he had painted and some he hadn’t.