Alexander the Great and the Plot of the Pages: When Children Conspired to Kill a King

Alexander the Great and the Plot of the Pages: When Children Conspired to Kill a King

Date: 327 BCE

Story:
Alexander’s growing paranoia took a deadly turn with the discovery of a supposed plot among royal pages—young noble boys being trained at court.
Led by a youth named Hermolaus, the boys were allegedly enraged over being whipped for disobedience.
They plotted to kill Alexander while he slept.
The plan was foiled, perhaps by betrayal or accident.
Alexander had the boys tortured, and the confessions fed his suspicion.
The executions were brutal, public, and included hanging and stoning.
Even Callisthenes, the royal historian, was implicated—perhaps unfairly.
Whether the plot was real or fabricated, it became a tool for purging dissent.
Alexander’s court became a den of whispers.
The man who once inspired loyalty by vision now commanded it through fear.
The conspiracy of children revealed how even youth weren’t spared from the reach of the king’s wrath.

Key Characters:

Alexander the Great
Hermolaus
Callisthenes
Pages of the royal court

Reference:
Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander
Plutarch, Life of Alexander
Curtius Rufus, Histories of Alexander the Great