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THE DEATH OF PHILIP OF MACEDON Amalia Skilton ho caused the assassination of Philip II, King of Macedon from c. 355 to 336 BC? Was it his wife Olympias, his son Alexander, or some other person or group? The answer is critical, for it shapes the modern world’s understanding of Alexander the Great more than does any other issue. Did Alexander exploit conflicts between Macedonians, arranging his father’s death in order to become King, or was he innocent of the crime, creating compromise between ethnic and political factions in Macedon? This paper will answer the question of Philip’s murder with attention to both ancient authors’ claims and their sources, as well as to the arguments of modern writers. It will ultimately lay the blame for Philip’s assassination on the shoulders of Amyntas, Philip’s nephew and the son of King Perdikkas II.1 However, it will disregard neither the motives of the assassin himself, Pausanias, nor the possible complicity of other groups in the crime. Historical Context Despite its prominence in the Hellenistic era, Macedon was considered at best a backwater by Ionians and more southerly Greeks for most of the classical period. At worst, it was a land of barbarians: Alexandros I, an early king, had to submit a pedigree
Amalia Skilton is a Senior at Tempe Preparatory Academy in Tempe, Arizona, where she wrote this independent study paper for Mr. Edward Denny during the 2007/2008 academic year.

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before being allowed to compete in the Olympic Games, an event limited strictly to “Hellenes.”2 Even proof of the Hellenic ancestry of Macedonian kings, however, was not enough to establish the nation as Greek. The test of that was native fluency in one of the Greek dialects of the southern peninsula—a test, according to a pair of ancient historians, which at least some Macedonians could not pass.3 Late in the fifth century BC, a comedy called “The Macedonians” was produced in Athens; fragments of the play indicate that most of its humor came from puns on Macedonian mispronunciations of Greek words.4 Despite such disrespect, Greek condescension to Macedonians declined almost continuously after the days of Alexandros I. By the fifth century, the Macedonian court at Pella was similar enough to Athens that Plato considered settling there and Euripides actually did.5 The Kings’ subjects, however, had changed less. Alexander could claim to his mutinous troops in India that his father Philip had found the men’s own fathers and grandfathers “vagabonds and destitute,” pasturing sheep on mountainsides and dressed only in hides.6 Even once they had given up such clothing, Macedonian tribal nobility, and even the more distant relatives of the royal house, were famously conservative in both their customs and their politics. This may perhaps provide some explanation for the often-anachronistic character of the structure of the Macedonian state. Unlike the majority of Greek states, the Macedonians were ruled by a King, who was required only to be a man descended from the royal house of the Temenids, supposedly scions of Herakles.7 Unlike the majority of monarchies then and now, however, the King of the Macedonians was elected. Although in theory any royal man was eligible, Kings greatly preferred to be succeeded by their sons, rather than other relatives.8 Because of the danger inherent in life in a small mountain kingdom usually besieged by various Balkan tribes, it was necessary for the King to have the greatest number of sons possible in order to ensure that he would end the day with at least an heir and an alternate. This imperative made polygamy (not, as Greek writers would assert, “concubinage”) a necessity.9 Furthermore, the presence of a great number of hostile tribes close on the kingdom’s borders made polygamy doubly

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convenient. Not only could the King use multiple marriages to ensure his succession by a member of his own line, he could also contract unions with the daughters of neighboring Kings and chieftains in order to bind them to his alliance. Unsurprisingly, Kings made extensive use of this diplomatic tool. Philip II, by no means the most married King of Macedon, had at least seven and possibly eight wives in his lifetime.10 The great numbers of wives acquired by Macedonian monarchs, and the great advantages attached to them, were not without their problems. Of course, the most prominent of these was that of pecking order. While there was no formal rule to the effect, wives who had borne sons always outranked those with only daughters, who in turn surpassed those women unlucky enough to bear the King no children of either sex.11 At the top of the pyramid was the Queen Mother, who exerted considerable influence both within the palace and outside its walls.12 On the Queen Mother’s death, however, a power vacuum would appear. While the position might remain vacant for a time, it was rarely empty for long. After all, the King had to designate an heir—and therefore a Queen-Mother-to-be.13 At least formally speaking, the Kings of Macedon were elected by the acclamation of their army. Qualifications for office were few. The King-elect, if he was not a son of the previous King, would at least be a close relative to him.14 How close a relative was not specified; nor was there any requirement for the King’s age, and infant Kings were elected on several occasions.15 Most commonly, however, there was only one real candidate for the kingship. This was the holder of the office of crown prince, a station nowhere formally defined, but everywhere recognized. Kings took various routes to designate their heirs, the most common of which was to give one of their sons at least nominal command of a part of the army.16 Not every King, however, died with a designated heir; as a consequence, some successions were extraordinarily messy. For example, after the death of Perdikkas III intestate, with no crown prince declared, the Assembly elected as King his infant son Amyntas IV and appointed Perdikkas’ adult brother Philip regent to the baby King. After two years, they then changed their minds,

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deposed the child ruler, and elected Philip King in his stead.17 By contrast, the designation as crown prince of Alexander III (the Great) was among the most clear-cut in Macedonian history. Not only had Alexander successfully commanded an entire wing of cavalry at the battle of Chaironeia,18 Philip had also entrusted him with the regency of Macedon19 while the King went on campaign in 340—a year in which Alexander was only 16! The powers of the Assembly of Macedones, however, were not limited to the election and deposition of Kings. They also had the ability (shortly to become central to this paper) to conduct trials for treason, and to sentence anyone convicted to immediate death.20 Besides this, they also seem to have conducted other trials for various crimes against the state, voted on particularly important questions of foreign policy, and decided whether or not to go to war.21 Despite the Assembly’s senatorial role, its members were anything but affable. They were deeply conservative, fiercely loyal to the King, and willing themselves to carry out the sentences they imposed. In a memorable (though certainly not unique) incident during the reign of Alexander, the Macedones had no sooner convicted a defendant for treason than they immediately executed him en masse with their javelins.22 Historiography While source criticism is important to historiography on any subject, it is particularly relevant to the history of ancient Macedon. This is due to the unfortunate fact that only two primary sources, both extremely short, have survived from the period. The first of these is a single paragraph from Aristotle’s Politics. It very briefly describes the assassination of Philip, then dismisses it as motivated by solely personal reasons.23 The other’s contents are equally far from useful, for historians’ second primary source is a Babylonian astronomical record which indicates only the date of Alexander’s death and the fact that it occurred during a cloudy week.

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The absence of primary sources for modern scholars, however, does not reflect any lack of them in ancient times. Various friends of Alexander wrote extensive histories of both Philip’s and Alexander’s campaigns, which supplemented a detailed and widely-read chronicle of Alexander’s reign by his court historian, Kallisthenes.24 These primary sources provided fertile material for the generations of historians that followed. One of these secondary sources survives, the Anabasis Alexandri (“Alexander’s March”) of Arrian, a Roman who wrote his history in Greek and based it entirely on the memoirs (now lost) of Alexander’s companions Ptolemaios and Aristoboulos.25 Although Ptolemaios and Aristoboulos were personal friends and generals of Alexander and accompanied the King on campaign, they wrote after his death and hence without a fear of repercussions that might obscure unflattering facts. Beyond Arrian, all surviving sources are tertiary. The most widely used26 was the history of Philip and Alexander composed by Kleitarchos, a resident of Alexandria who was nearly contemporary to the events he describes, and who based his work on the court diary of Kallisthenes. Even those ancient authors who cite Kleitarchos, however, condemn him for sensationalism and carelessness with the truth.27 Other sources included a history of Philip by Theopompos, an Ionian Greek who lived at Philip’s court in Pella in the 340s but did not accompany him on campaign, and the work of Marsyas Macedon, which chronicled the entire history of Macedon from Perdikkas I (c. 700) to Alexander’s exit from Egypt in 311. Both of these are only partly trustworthy: Theopompos because of a pro-southern bias mentioned in antiquity, Marsyas because of the Macedonian jingoism fragments of his work display.28 The most significant difference between Arrian and the other authors does not, however, come from any discrepancy between the memoirs of Alexander’s generals and the accounts of other contemporaries. Instead, the element of sensationalism divides the two camps. Arrian introduces stories from sources other than Ptolemaios and Aristoboulos with the phrase “they say,” and often expresses his own doubts about the truth of a story which seems unlikely. Although he does take the precarious step of repeating speeches in direct discourse, supposedly verbatim,29

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his historical method is otherwise strict. The same is not remotely true of any of the other four main sources: Diodoros, Plutarch, Justin, and Curtius. Except for Plutarch, none takes the trouble to cite sources with any regularity, and all have a keen interest in outlandish anecdotes. Plutarch, for example, claims that when the Macedonian forces landed at Troy at the beginning of the Persian campaign, Alexander ordered a day of rest specifically so that he and his companions could run a race around the tomb of Achilles—a story which Arrian does not repeat.30 The Assassination In the summer of 336 BC, Philip arranged a wedding between his brother-in-law Alexandros of Molossia, the King of Epirus, and his daughter Kleopatra (“Kleopatra-P”).31 His timing was excellent. Philip had already sent an advance force into Asia Minor with the intent of invading the Persian Empire later that year.32 With this prospect before him, it was critical that the northern and western borders of the Macedonian homeland be as secure as possible. Alexandros’ kingdom was his western frontier, and his most dangerous; Philip had spent much of his reign fighting off Thracian tribes on the borders near Epirus. He had not, however, anticipated needing to secure an alliance with Alexandros at precisely this time, for he had made an even more solid alliance with Epirus 20 years earlier by marrying Alexandros’ sister Olympias, the future mother of Alexander III. That alliance, however, had in 337 suffered a major blow for which no one but Philip was responsible. Contravening both his own practice and that of almost all other Macedonian monarchs, Philip had in the previous year married a young Macedonian girl named Kleopatra (“Kleopatra-E”), the daughter of his general Attalos.33 While this marriage in itself was politically benign, his next action caused an explosion on Olympias’ part. Because her son Alexander had received the command of the cavalry at Chaironeia, Olympias had assumed that he was now designated as crown prince, and herself as Queen-Mother-to-be.34 Her assumption was brought crashing

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down when Philip, after impregnating his new bride, renamed Kleopatra-E “Eurydike,” a dynastic name which traditionally was borne by the Queen Mother alone.35 Philip then added insult to injury by naming the new Eurydike’s son “Karanos,” the name of the mythological founder of his dynasty.36 In Olympias’ view, she and Alexander, the rightful Queen-Mother-to-be and crown prince, had just been replaced in those roles by a teenaged girl and an infant. She furiously fled back to her homeland of Epirus, cursing Philip all the while. Alexander, for his part, conveniently decided to go on campaign against the Illyrians in an extremely remote part of the nation.37 Later relenting, Alexander returned to the capital for his sister Kleopatra’s wedding. Olympias refused. Philip must then have been quite relieved to have the opportunity to re-cement his alliance with Epirus. So glad was he, in fact, that he decided to make it an occasion to invite into Aigai, his ceremonial capital, all the Hellenes who were now his subjects.38 The festival was not limited to the wedding; rather, it was planned to span several days of religious ceremonies, athletics, and artistic competition.39 Only the first day of the festival, however, ever occurred. After the day of the wedding, Philip had planned a sunrise assembly for the festival guests to watch a procession of the statues of the 12 Olympian gods. One by one the 12 statues were carried through the theater at Aigai; then a 13th image entered—one depicting Philip himself.40 Philip no sooner declared his immortality than discovered his mortality. Dismissing most of his entourage into the audience, he entered the theater after his statue. He was alone. Although a corps of Royal Bodyguards usually attended Philip, he had dismissed them just before stepping into the theater that day;41 the Greeks, he must have suspected, would view such a show of arms as a symbol of tyranny. As he walked out before the assembled crowd, a young man, Pausanias of Orestis, jumped from the audience and stabbed him in the heart, then escaped on foot.42 Once free from the paralysis of shock, three of the King’s Bodyguards—Leonnatos, Perdikkas, and a man named Attalos—gave chase to Pausanias.43 By luck, the assassin tripped in his haste to get away, and the three Bodyguards caught and killed him before asking any questions.44

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Not long afterwards, the Assembly of Macedones convened and elected Alexander as King. Nervous about the security of his crown, Alexander began his reign with a series of treason trials officially unconnected to Philip’s death. Three brothers, the sons of the noble Aeropus, were tried for treason: Heromenes, Arrhabaios, and Alexandros of Lynkos, members of a collateral branch of the royal house.45 Heromenes and Arrhabaios were convicted and executed. Since Alexandros of Lynkos had been the first to salute Alexander as King in the Assembly of Macedones, he was allowed to go free.46 Suspicion also rested on Amyntas, the former infant King who was Alexander’s cousin, and on the generals Attalos (not the same as the bodyguard Attalos) and Parmenion, a pair of unpopular figures who were with the Macedonian advance force in Asia and therefore conveniently unable to respond to charges against them. The fortunes of the two differed widely. Parmenion became one of Alexander’s closest advisers; Attalos was assassinated by Hekataios, an operative of Alexander.47 Amyntas was less lucky. Though Alexander did not try him in 336, Amyntas was found guilty of and executed for treason in 334.48 Had the Assembly of Macedones tried the case of Pausanias himself, they might have had some sympathy for the assassin. Historians of the period unanimously agree on the cause of Pausanias’ grudge against the King. As part of Philip’s drive for Hellenization, the King cultivated a select group of pages who began as his sexual “favorites” and rose to become his advisers and members of his military élite.49 Pausanias, as a youth, was the most prominent favorite, but eventually found himself replaced by another young man of the same name.50 Resenting his namesake, the older Pausanias made the younger one so miserable that he essentially committed suicide in the line of battle.51 In retaliation, Attalos the general, who had been a friend of the younger Pausanias, invited the older one to a banquet. Macedonian banquets being what they were, Pausanias became extremely drunk, and Attalos and his guests took the opportunity to assault him sexually.52 Pausanias afterwards sought revenge on Attalos from Philip, who tried to compensate him first with payment and second with a promotion.53 Needless to say, Pausanias was not satisfied.

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Aside from his personal wound, Pausanias also had a political reason to hold a grudge against Philip. The assassin came from Orestis, a small and mountainous region in western Macedon that Philip had only recently brought under his control.54 Like other newly Hellenized Macedonians, Pausanias disliked Philip’s ambitions of conquest and resented the powerful and expansionist clique formed by the King and his advisers Attalos and Parmenion. The resources gained by the conquest of southern Greek and Balkan states, Pausanias and others believed, should have been used to enrich noble Macedonians rather than finance even more expeditions even farther afield, against Byzantium and the Persian Empire in Asia Minor.55 Combined with the abuse he had received from Attalos, this political motive might have given Pausanias a likely enough reason to kill the King. The Culprits The argument that Pausanias acted alone misses one fundamental point. Pausanias was a member of Philip’s military élite, the Royal Bodyguards, and was known as one of the king’s most loyal retainers.56 As an individual, he was likely to acquire power, prestige, and booty on Philip’s Persian expedition, even if he opposed it ideologically. Furthermore, the Persian expedition would also have given Pausanias an excellent opportunity to take revenge for his abuse directly on Attalos, rather than by proxy, on Philip. If Pausanias’ motive was political, he chose the wrong time; if it was personal, he chose the wrong target. Considering these contradictions, then, one is inclined to agree with the basic conclusion almost unanimously reached by both ancient and modern historians: Pausanias received some external suggestion, if not external help. The question is not whether a conspiracy existed, but whom that conspiracy involved.

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Far more suspicion for the murder rested on Olympias, wife of Philip, than it did on even Attalos and Amyntas. While Arrian and Plutarch mention mistrust of her only briefly,57 the historian Justin spends a great deal of time (and a great proportion of his rather short work) on Olympias’ involvement in the events immediately after the assassination. Her putative crimes are numerous and, except for in Justin’s work, unattested. They are as follows.58 As soon as Olympias got wind of the murder, she immediately returned from Epirus to Macedonia for Philip’s funeral. Rather than mourning her husband, however, she set about glorifying his assassin. On the day of Philip’s funeral, she openly set a golden crown on the head of Pausanias’ crucified body. When Philip’s corpse was ready for cremation, she ordered Pausanias’ remains to be burned with his—an act which elevated the relatively lowborn assassin to royal status. Further magnifying Pausanias’ name, Olympias then erected a royal burial mound for him and ordered sacrifices to the dead man’s spirit conducted there every year. Then, somehow acquiring the sword Pausanias had used to assassinate the King, she consecrated the weapon to Apollo, using her maiden name. This narrative is entertaining but patently absurd, for Olympias is very unlikely even to have attended Philip’s funeral. At the time of Philip’s death, she was sequestered in Epirus, several days’ journey from the Macedonian ceremonial capital at Aigai, the place where her husband had died. In order for Olympias to reach Aigai by the time of the funeral, two very unlikely events would need to occur simultaneously. First, Alexander would need to leave Philip un-cremated for at least a week. This would have opposed both religious tradition59 and common sense, for Philip died in July,60 during the height of a Mediterranean summer. After six or seven days, his corpse would have been unfit for public cremation. Second, even if Alexander did delay the funeral, Olympias would need both to hear of Philip’s death at the moment it happened and to rush to Aigai with all possible speed. In an age where running

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messengers were the fastest form of communication, it is virtually impossible that she could have both heard of the assassination in time to return and arrived in Macedon before the funeral. If Olympias had been the mastermind behind Pausanias’ grim deed, however, she would have needed no messenger to inform her of Philip’s death. Admittedly, Pausanias did choose a time of assassination that was remarkably convenient for the Queen. Philip had married her, and had needed to remain married to her, only for the sake of safeguarding his border with Epirus and his relationship with its royal house.61 Now that Olympias and Philip’s daughter Kleopatra had married the king of Epirus, Alexandros of Molossia, Philip no longer needed to deal gently with his hottempered wife. In essence, Olympias had become redundant. The marriage of Alexandros and Kleopatra-P, however, was not the only injury Philip had recently done to his Queen. Olympias was far more disgruntled about Philip’s marriage to Kleopatra-Eurydike, and the significance of that woman’s new name,62 than she was about the union between her daughter and Alexandros of Molossia. Her daughter’s marriage intrinsically threatened neither her own status as Queen-Mother-to-be nor her son Alexander’s ability to succeed his father. Philip’s marriage to Kleopatra-E, and the girl’s production of a possible heir, threatened both. These arguments persuade at first glance, but the evidence does not bear them out. Olympias had fled Macedon as soon as Philip announced his marriage to Kleopatra-E. Since 338, she had lived only at the court of her brother in Epirus, never returning to the Macedonian court at Pella.63 For her to conspire with or influence Pausanias from such a distance would have been impossible. Furthermore, Pausanias may not have even developed his own primary grudge against the King until a few months64 before the assassination, after his abuse by Attalos. But even if Olympias could have conspired with the assassin, she likely would not have. All of Olympias’ interests in Macedon rested upon the prospect of Alexander’s succession to the throne. Despite the rise of Kleopatra-E and the birth of Karanos, there was no real threat to her son’s succession, and therefore no reason for the queen

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to arrange her husband’s assassination. Regardless of the names Karanos and Eurydike bore, Alexander was still recognized as crown prince by both the court at Pella and the Macedonians at large. When Alexander had been 16, Philip had entrusted him with the regency of Macedon, making his son functionally King for most of a year.65 When the prince was 18, he had assumed a high military rank by leading the Companion Cavalry, the most important wing of the Macedonian army, against the Theban Sacred Band (a hitherto undefeated force) in the battle of Chaironeia.66 Even after Alexander’s brief exile from court, Philip had shown that he still trusted his son by announcing that Alexander would lead the Macedonian cavalry charges in his coming expedition against Asia Minor.67 Alexander was also wildly popular among the Macedonians themselves. At the battle of Chaironeia, Plutarch says, he became so dear to the men of the army that the Macedonians “would fondly call Alexander their King and Philip their general.”68 Since the soldiers of the Macedonian army made up the bulk of the Assembly of Macedones,69 their support almost unconditionally assured Alexander of election to the throne. The only emblem of kingship he lacked was the crown. Olympias would have realized that an assassination she engineered would not strengthen Alexander—rather, the mayhem afterwards would weaken him in the vitally important early stages of his reign. Alexander As with Olympias, the ancient sources are eager to lay blame for the assassination on Alexander. Also as with Olympias, they give a number of sensational stories to back their argument. The first is an amusing but ridiculous tale from Plutarch concerning Alexander’s reaction to Philip’s marriage to Kleopatra-E.70 At the banquet following Philip’s wedding, the bride’s uncle, Attalos, made an inapposite toast for future “legitimate heirs” to the throne of Macedon. Alexander took this badly, and some witty repartee supposedly occurred:

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At this, Alexander, in a rage, replied: “Do I seem a bastard to you, you wretch?” Rising, Philip drew his sword against his son, but, in a stroke of good luck for both, he fell down, overcome by his rage as well as the wine. Then Alexander, scorning him, said: “Gentlemen, here is the man who is making ready to cross from Europe to Asia, and who loses his balance crossing from couch to couch.”

Intelligent enough to make clever remarks while sodden drunk, Alexander was also intelligent enough to flee Macedon for Illyria immediately after the banquet.71 On his return, Plutarch again reports, Alexander was skulking around the palace grounds one day when Pausanias confronted him in hope of getting from the prince the redress for his abuse which he could not from the King. The prince allegedly sympathized with Pausanias, then, ever the wit, quoted a line from Euripides’ tragedy Medea to him: “The giver of the bride, the bridegroom, and the bride.”72 Through this literary allusion, Plutarch claims, Alexander incited Pausanias to attempt a triple murder of Attalos, Philip and Kleopatra-E. Like the propaganda against Olympias, these anecdotes are amusing; like that propaganda, they are also untrue. Plutarch’s story of the brawl at the wedding-banquet is clearly meant to depict Alexander as the perfectly Hellenized heir, able to make mordant remarks at any occasion, and Philip as a drunken barbarian unable to restrain himself from trying to kill his own offspring. The anecdote of Alexander’s incitement of Pausanias is equally ridiculous, though for different reasons. While in this instance the direct speech might be credible, considering the quotation, the incident clearly could never have been recorded. Alexander would surely not have told any historian of the incident, and Pausanias was killed immediately after committing his crime and before answering any questions. Still, the tensions which Plutarch’s stories express deserve some attention. Alexander may have been nervous about his own prospects of succession, and was certainly sympathetic with Olympias about the marriage of Philip and Kleopatra-E. However, two strong pieces of evidence oppose any collusion between Pausanias and Alexander. First, Alexander was to be an extremely important figure in Philip’s campaign against Persia,73 and would

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have expected to acquire significant wealth, power, and political support on that campaign. This would have enabled him to launch his own campaign against Persia from a much more solid Macedonian base than he later did. Because of the assassination of Philip and his own political inexperience at the time, Alexander was instead forced to waste the first three years of his reign putting down minor rebellions in Greece and at the borders of Macedon.74 He would certainly have preferred to be improving his lot on campaign. Secondly, Alexander was extremely religious, and rather superstitious, throughout his life. The famous story of the Gordian Knot attests to his respect for prophecy,75 and he had a reverence for divinities, even foreign ones,76 which few other Hellenes matched. Parricide would therefore have been to him the ultimate crime; those who murdered their parents, he would have believed, would be pursued throughout their lives by the devouring monsters known as the Furies.77 Even if Alexander’s ambition surpassed his religious principles, though, he would have recognized a plot to assassinate Philip as distinctly against his interests. The Sons of Aeropos The ancient sources explicitly accuse only Olympias and Alexander of complicity in Philip’s assassination. Suspicion also rested, however, on figures outside the immediate royal family. The triad of the sons of Aeropos attracted by far the most speculation, and all three were eventually executed for treason. Their names were Heromenes, Arrhabaios, and Alexandros (called Alexandros Lynkestis or Alexandros of Lynkos), and they belonged to a collateral branch of the Temenid royal house. As such, though the men were not directly in line for the throne, they stood a relatively good chance of establishing a new dynasty—but only if both Philip and Alexander were killed. Here comes into play an interesting detail in the history of Philip’s murder. When the three Royal Bodyguards had captured Pausanias, they found two horses,78 not one, waiting for his escape. Since one man can

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hardly ride two horses, Pausanias must have expected to escape from the theater at Aigai with someone else by his side. A single assassination does not require a double escape; as such, Pausanias and his co-conspirator must have planned a double assassination. The obvious target of the second killer would be Alexander—and with Alexander dead, the sons of Aeropos might have relatively easily established their dynasty. Any King, however, would need to secure the election of the Assembly of Macedones. At this point, the conspiracy of the sons of Aeropos meets with significant trouble. The membership of the Assembly of Macedones came entirely from military men,79 and mostly from the Macedonian lowlands.80 Not only was the trio’s homeland of Lynkos located in Upper Macedon, outside the area from which the Assembly drew most of its members, none of the three seems to have been part of the leadership of the Macedonian army.81 Their unpopularity with the Assembly became quickly apparent in the treason trials of the three. Heromenes and Arrhabaios were killed on the spot, and Alexandros was let free only because he had been particularly loud in expressing his support for Alexander during the election.82 With the Assembly of Macedones set so firmly against them, they could not reasonably have expected election. Attalos Although Attalos was never tried for treason, Alexander expressed suspicion about the man in the days immediately following Philip’s death. Although the general was in Asia at the time of Philip’s death, his departure came late enough that he could reasonably have incited Pausanias to his crime.83 If Attalos did so, it surely was not in the context of any offer of gain to Pausanias. After all, Attalos had abused him horrifically only a short time before, and could hardly expect his cooperation. He might, however, employ the same sort of psychology which Pausanias himself had reportedly used on the unlucky page who shared his name. By pointing out to Pausanias, a politically and physically victimized

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and traumatized man, the extent of Philip’s power and the nonexistence of the King’s concern for him, Attalos might indirectly have incited the assassination. Perhaps this was the reason to kill Attalos which Alexander had in mind. It is more likely, though, that Alexander had simply wanted to punish the man who had made Pausanias unbalanced enough to kill the King. At any rate, though Attalos may have intended harm to Philip, the Assembly of Macedones would surely not have elected him King in absentia.84 Additionally, if the story of Attalos’ abuse of Pausanias was widely enough circulated at the time of Philip’s death to survive to the present day, the Assembly of Macedones would have known the story well, and been reluctant to elect as King the man whom it demonized. Amyntas Perdikka (Amyntas IV) Attalos and the sons of Aeropos were members of collateral branches of the Temenid royal house. Amyntas, the son of Perdikkas III, was full-fledged royalty. In fact, he had actually reigned as the infant King Amyntas IV during the year 357.85 The Assembly of Macedones had first elected him as a baby and appointed Philip as his regent, then deposed Amyntas in order to make Philip II King proper. Amyntas had also grown even closer to the royal family when he married Kynna (or Kynnane), the daughter of Philip and his wife Audata.86 A cousin of Alexander, son-in-law and nephew of Philip, and former King himself, Amyntas was almost certainly second in line for the throne. He could make a credible attempt at kingship with Alexander alive, and would be certain to rule, whether as King or as regent for a child, if the crown prince died. Amyntas himself also had at least some of the qualifications of the crown prince. For example, he had led diplomatic embassies to Athens.87 He had also already made a foreign alliance by marrying Kynna, whose mother had been born to an Illyrian royal family. Slightly older than Alexander,88 Amyntas was also at the optimal age for kingship. The Assembly of Macedones, with both Philip and Alexander dead, would find him by far the best

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candidate for the throne. He might even have made a credible run with Alexander alive—presumably the reason that Alexander executed him on a charge of treason in 334. Amyntas also had an asset which the rather blunt Alexander lacked: that is, experience in the conniving ways of court politics. Alone of the figures discussed here, suspicion against Amyntas did not emerge until after his execution on an unrelated charge of treason. Rather, the younger courtier Philotas revealed Amyntas’ supposed intentions during his own trial for conspiracy in a plot to assassinate Alexander.89 Some thoughts may have stirred, however, when in 334 a close associate of Amyntas escaped from Macedon, himself under suspicion of treason, and joined the Persian court.90 The actions of this man, Amyntas the son of Antiochos (Amyntas Antiochou), raise a new question about Philip’s death and Amyntas’ intentions. Amyntas Persias? From the time of Alexandros I forward, Persia and Macedon had had a volatile relationship. Persia had subjugated Macedon, at the time a fragmented nation filled with warring tribes, in the early fifth century.91 After the defeat of Persia by the allied Hellenes in the Second Persian War, however, Macedon had become sovereign again, though not yet anti-Persian. As its Hellenization progressed, however, it had turned more and more against the Persians. By the time of Philip and Alexander, Macedonians shared the same views as did southern Greece: by daring to rule the Greek-speaking cities of Ionia, Persia had lost its right to exist. Hellenes observed the politics of the Achaemenid dynasty there with disgust.92 For them, no foreign-policy goal was more important than the reconquista of the Hellenic parts of the Persian Empire. Not all Macedonians, however, shared the view of the southern Greeks. Realizing the enormous wealth and expanse of the Persian Empire, they speculated that it would be more profitable to compromise with Persia than to make war on it for ideology’s

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sake.93 Since, at the time of Philip and Alexander, the Persian border was less than two weeks’ journey from central Macedon,94 the pro-Persian Macedonians also had a strong incentive to make peace with Persia in order to make money from trade with it. Amyntas and a Persian agent (as Persia was quite eager to plant spies95) could have struck a bargain advantageous for both. Once Amyntas arranged the murders and was elected King, he would call off Philip’s planned invasion of Persia. In return might come personal gain, a trade agreement, or a Persian campaign against the tribes of Illyria, who were a persistent scourge on the eastern border of Macedon. Regardless of the conditions of the deal, Persia would gain tremendously. Its emperor, Darius III, would no longer need to concern himself with defending his long western frontier, the cities on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Nor would he need to worry about Greek threats to Ionia, nor to the rich northern region of Asia Minor. Amyntas, as hegemon of all the Greek states and most of the Balkans, would drive only for monetary, not political, gains from the East. Implications What does the death of a single monarch mean to the world as a whole? When that monarch’s son led the single largest military conquest in history, the King’s own end is vitally significant. Even Plutarch, by far Alexander’s most admiring biographer, assumed that the prince had arranged his father’s murder. If Alexander was innocent, then, his image changes dramatically. He is no longer a Machiavellian figure intent on ruling as soon as possible, but a young politician, self-interested but not malicious, forced by circumstance to take his father’s throne far earlier than he had anticipated. More important for the rest of history, though, is the difference between the conquest and leadership of a guilty Alexander and those of a King whose hands were relatively clean. The extent and speed of the empire’s spread are surprising when regarded as the work of a practiced and ambitious politician; when considered as the achievement of a man new to royal power, and

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barely beyond adolescence, they become nearly incredible. The question of Philip’s death, then, is valuable for the questions which it poses about Alexander’s strategy, and perhaps about the formation of imperial strategy in general: without a ruthless and amoral ambition, without even thorough experience in high-stakes politics, how did a young prince from a backwater-turned-worldpower make himself ruler of half the world?

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N.B.: Ancient authors are cited in the style customary to writing on the classics. Abbreviations of names and titles are those used by the Oxford Classical Dictionary. Chapter and section numbers follow those of the Loeb editions, where applicable. Quotations which appear in the text are the author’s translations. With the exception of the very well-known names of Philip II and Alexander III the Great, this paper does not Latinize Greek place or personal names. “Alexander” refers only to Alexander III; any other man of the same name will be called “Alexandros.” 2 Eugene N. Borza, In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedonia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990) p. 111 3 Plu, Alex. 51.6 and Curt. 6.9.34-6, 6.10.23 4 A.P. Dascakalis, The Hellenism of the Ancient Macedonians (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1965) p. 63 5 Ibid., p. 36 6 Arr. vii.9.2 7 Nicholas Geoffrey Lampiere Hammond, The Macedonian State: Its Origins, Institutions, and History (London: Oxford University Press, 1989) p. 18 8 Nicholas Geoffrey Lampiere Hammond, “The End of Philip,” in Philip of Macedon, eds. Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos and Louisa D. Loukopoulos (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1991) p. 172 9 Hammond, Macedonian State, p. 31 10 Athenae, Deip. 557D, quoted in Adrian Tronson, “Satyrus and the Wives of Philip II,” in Journal of Hellenic Studies vol. 104 (1984) p. 119. See also Nicholas Geoffrey Lampiere Hammond, Philip of Macedon (London: Duckworth, 1991) p. 172 11 J.R. Ellis, Philip II and Macedonian Imperialism (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976) p. 213 12 Hammond, Macedonian State, p. 31 13 Ibid., p. 33. See also Arr. iii.6.5 14 Hammond, “The End of Philip,” p. 172
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One example, that of Amyntas IV, is discussed below. See also Borza, p. 243 16 Hammond, Philip of Macedon, p. 170 17 Just. 7.5.9 18 Plu. Alex. 9.2, Diod. 16.86.1 19 Plu. Alex. 9.1 20 Hammond, Macedonian State, p. 61 21 Ibid., p. 60ff 22 Arr. 3b.26.3 23 Arist. Pol. 5.1311a 24 A.B. Bosworth, From Arrian To Alexander: Studies in Historical Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986) p. 2 25 Arr. pref 26 Bosworth Arrian to Alexander, p. 3 27 Curt. 9.5.1 and Plu. Alex. 46.1 28 Nicholas Geoffrey Lampiere Hammond, “The Sources of Justin on Macedonia to the Death of Philip,” in The Classical Quarterly vol. 41, no. 2 (1991) p. 501 29 The best example is Arr. i.13.3-7 30 Plu. Alex. 15.8 31 Diod. 16.90.5 32 Just. 9.5.8 and Diod. 16.91.2 33 Just. 9.5.9 34 Hammond, Philip of Macedon p. 174 35 Ibid., p. 174. For the name “Eurydike” see also Arr. 3.6.5 36 George Cawkwell, Philip of Macedon (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1978) p. 178n 37 Plu., Alex. 9.5 and Just. 9.7.5 38 Diod. 16.91.5-6 and Arr. i.1.1-2 39 Diod. 16.92.1 40 Diod. 16.92.5 41 Just 9.6.3, Diod. 16.93.1 42 Diod. 16.93.3 and Just. 9.6.4 43 Diod. 16.94.4 44 Ibid. 45 Arr. i.2 5.1 46 Ibid., i.25.2 47 Diod. 17.5.2 48 Curt. 6.10.24ff. See also J.R. Ellis, “Amyntas Perdikka, Philip II, and Alexander the Great,” in The Journal of Hellenic Studies vol. 91 (1971) p. 20 49 Hammond, Macedonian State, p. 56 50 Diod. 16.93.3
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Diod. 16.93.4-5 Whether the perpetrators of the abuse were Attalos and his friends themselves or Attalos’ stable-men is uncertain. Arist. Pol. 5.1311b says it was Attalos himself, Diod. 16.93.7 that it was his grooms. 53 Just. 9.6.7 and Diod. 16.93.9 54 Just. 9.6.4-8 55 Ellis, “Amyntas Perdikka,” pp. 20-21 56 Just. 9.6.4 and Diod. 16.93.3 57 Arr. 3.6.5 and Plu. Alex. 10.8 58 The following narrative is from Just. 9.7.2-14. After Alexander’s death, Olympias and Alexander’s lieutenant engaged in an extended propaganda war. Justin’s work is an “epitome” (i.e., summary) of a 44-volume history of Philip’s reign, the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus. Other historians omit these stories, presumably due to their obvious falsehood. 59 Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1985) p. 192 60 Diod. 16.94.3 and 368n 61 See above n. 31 62 See above n. 36 63 Plu. Alex. 9.6 64 The time of Attalos’ abuse of Pausanias is uncertain. Diod. 16.93.3-4 says it was in Pausanias’ youth, so some years earlier; Arist. 5.1311b implies it happened fairly soon before the assassination. 65 See above n. 19 66 See above n. 26 67 Hammond, “End of Philip,” p. 171 68 The quote is from Plu. Alex. 9.3. See also Diod. 16.86ff 69 Hammond, Macedonian State, p. 62 70 Plu. Alex. 9.4-6 71 Plu. Alex. 9.3 72 Plu. Alex. 10.9. The quote is Eur. Med. 289 73 See n. 67 above 74 Arr. i.1.2 75 Arr. 2.3.1-2, Curt. 3.1.14 76 For several good examples see Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great (London: Penguin Books, 1971) p. 201. Alexander was particularly enthusiastic about the Egyptian god Amen-Ra, whom he regarded as an equal to Zeus. 77 Burkert, p. 198

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Just. 9.7.9. Hammond Macedonian State, p. 63 80 Ibid., p. 90 81 Arr. i.25.2 implies that Alexandros Lynkestis entered military command when he was appointed to a command in Thrace in about 334. 82 Arr. i.25.3 and Curt. 6.1.6 83 Diod. 17.2.4 says that Attalos entered Asia sometime after Parmenion, who left Macedon in 336, shortly before Philip’s death. 84 While the Assembly of Macedones did once acclaim an unborn child as King, it was not their practice to elect Kings in absentia. Hammond Macedonian State, p. 87 85 Ellis “Amyntas Perdikka” establishes very clearly from evidence in Diodorus and Justin that Amyntas did rule as a child. 86 Phot. Bib. 92.22 87 Hammond, “The End of Philip,” p. 172 88 Ellis “Amyntas Perdikka” indicates that Amyntas was born in 364/3. 89 Curt. 6.9.28, 6.10.24 90 Ellis, “Amyntas Perdikka,” p. 18 91 Borza, p. 104 92 Ibid., p. 249 93 Ellis, Imperialism, p. 278 94 Borza, p. 106 95 Ibid., p. 110
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Annotated Bibliography Primary Sources Aristotle, “Politics,” in Aristotle, trans. H. Rackham, vol. 21, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1932 While source criticism is important to any study of history, it is particularly critical to the work of ancient historians. The single greatest reason for historiography’s importance in classics is the often severe lack of true, and especially unbiased, primary sources which scholars face. The history of Alexander and Philip’s reigns provides one of the clearest and most frustrating examples of this phenomenon. Although dozens of accounts of Alexander’s life were written by his close friends and generals, all but one of these primary sources have

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Amalia Skilton been lost. The only remaining real primary source in Greek on Alexander’s life is the brief account Aristotle gives of the assassination. The philosopher states only that Pausanias’ murder was purely personal, and leaves the matter at that. (In fact, the entire account is only a short digression within a mostly unrelated work on political science.) Unfortunately, because Aristotle was Alexander’s tutor and confidant, and a close friend of Philip as well, I could not credit the main idea of this account, especially when it was clearly contradicted by numerous and more unbiased sources. However, Aristotle also confirms the story of Pausanias’ abuse by Attalos. This confirmation, especially from a primary source wary of speaking ill of the Macedonian court, illustrated to me how widespread the knowledge of Attalos’ actions must have been. In turn, this posed new questions to me about Pausanias’ long-term reaction to the incident, about the massive extent of Philip’s willful blindness to the crime, and (most important) about the shock at the king’s negligence the Macedonian court must have felt. Aristotle was ultimately most important, then, in my analysis of others’ willingness to collude with the unbalanced Pausanias. Even though Aristotle’s report led me to a conclusion opposite his, the account in the “Politics” revealed more to me about the atmosphere at the palace of Pella than any other ancient work. Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, trans. P.A. Brunt, vols. 1 and 2, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976 Arrian is the saving grace of historiography on Alexander and Philip’s lives. Although Arrian himself died roughly 400 years after Alexander, the Greek text he wrote can almost be considered a primary source. Arrian’s goal, as the historian himself states in the prologue to his work, was to consolidate the most trustworthy accounts of Alexander’s life into one text. His specific sources were the memoirs of Ptolemaios and Aristoboulos, two high-ranking generals who were close friends of Alexander, but wrote long after his death, and therefore without fear of the ruler’s disapproval. (I would not credit Arrian if my essay dealt with either of these men. Both are unanimously reported to have been in exile at the time of Philip’s death.) It should be noted, however, that Arrian does sometimes include incidents reported by less credible sources. He designates these with the phrase “they say that” and usually offers a competing story or some other criticism of the account.

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Yet Arrian’s generally strong and credible work is not without significant flaws. Like many of the later authors, Arrian admires Alexander to an extent that sometimes obscures the history he is writing. He inserts high-flown speeches in direct discourse, supposedly verbatim, but without any acknowledgement of his sources. I doubt very strongly that either Aristoboulos or Ptolemaios recorded speeches, especially impromptu speeches on the battlefield, with this level of detail. As such, though Arrian can mainly be trusted, his work cannot be the alpha and omega of what is true and untrue about the Macedonian conquerors. I have used Arrian’s work mainly to evaluate the treason trial of Alexandros Lynkestis, which took place during Alexander’s campaign in Asia. Since this event allegedly involved a plot to assassinate Alexander, the trials understandably reawakened the Macedonians’ interest in Philip’s death. I thus learned from Arrian the story of the trial of the brothers from Lynkos (Alexandros, Heromenes, and Arrhabaios), which gave me a stronger sense of the dynamic between the young and paranoid Alexander and the Macedonians. Arrian was also important to my analysis of the system of female hierarchy in the Macedonian court. Without his explanation of the power Olympias derived from her status as Queen Mother, I would have needed to base my exploration of this part of court politics on somewhat tenuous archaeological evidence reported in Hammond’s The Macedonian State and extremely tenuous similar evidence from Hatzopoulos’ study of the so-called “tomb of Philip” (recently discredited and therefore not cited here). As it stands, his comments on the issue illuminate an otherwise fairly dark, but critically important, corner of the Macedonian court. Curtius, Quintus Rufus, History of Alexander, trans J.C. Rolfe, vols. 1 and 2, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1946 Curtius’ account was composed in Latin, just less than 400 years after Alexander’s death. It is by far the bestknown and most reliable Alexander history belonging to the “vulgate” (Latin) tradition. Though most of Curtius’ work has been preserved, books 1 and 2, covering the years 356-334, have been entirely lost. Yet, despite the absence of a direct account of Philip’s reign, the work remains valuable to the study of Macedonian history before the campaigns in Asia.

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Curtius often serves to confirm stories that appear in less reliable authors, such as Justin and Diodorus. However, he also contributes some new information, and the piece most important to my essay is the convicted Philotas’ accusation of Amyntas’ complicity in Philip’s death. Unfortunately, the substantial bias against Alexander and the Macedonians which Curtius exhibits limits the usefulness of his work. Like the other authors of the vulgate tradition, Curtius appears to have used as sources some works written very soon after the death of Alexander, during a protracted feud for power fought among Alexander’s family and generals. In particular, his extremely negative portrayal of Olympias seems to have drawn on propagandistic “histories” written by supporters of Kassandros, a general who struggled with the Queen Mother for control of Macedon. Several of Alexander’s generals also exhibit dramatic character changes in this work, suggesting an extensive use of explicitly biased sources. Curtius does not explicitly reference these sources, but does refer to Kleitarchos (an Alexandrian source denigrated since antiquity), Kallisthenes, and certain memoirs (including the credible work of Ptolemaios). While Curtius’ choice of sources seems to have affected Alexander himself little, these larger problems mean that the whole of the History of Alexander must remain in question. Because I have great doubts about the credibility of any part of Curtius’ work, I have cited it only once in this essay. However, this citation is important enough to warrant substantial discussion. In his narrative of the trial of Philotas (an incident attested in several other sources), Curtius uniquely includes substantial information given by the convicted man in his own defense. Among Philotas’ complaints is that Alexander is inconsistent: Alexander did nothing to Amyntas when that man murdered Philip, he says, but is putting him to death for merely planning a regicide. Despite significant uncertainty about Curtius’ trustworthiness, I have chosen to credit this episode. My reasoning is twofold. First, Philotas’ accusation comes in the midst of a veritable laundry list of grievances against Alexander by the Macedonians at large. Many of these (such as the men’s complaint that Alexander had abandoned the Macedonian dialect) are well attested in other, credible sources. It is unlikely that Curtius would surround a fabricated accusation with ones widely known to be real. Second, by the time of Philotas’ trial, Amyntas Perdikka had been dead for at

THE CONCORD REVIEW least two years, and was quickly fading from the Macedonians’ memory. In fact, Curtius mentions his name nowhere else in his entire work. It is again very unlikely that the historian would merely choose an increasingly obscure figure’s name to fill a blank space left in Philotas’ complaint. However, even if Curtius’ report of the speech of Philotas is false, I would argue that Amyntas remains by far the most likely organizer of Philip’s assassination. Simply put, no royal man but Amyntas or Alexander had a credible hope of election to the throne, and Alexander, if only for political reasons, would never have supported the assassination at the time when it came. These arguments do not in any way rely on Curtius’ report. Diodorus Siculus, Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes, trans. C.H. Oldfather, vols. 8 and 9, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1989 Diodorus was an ambitious scholar who aimed to compose a true “world history,” beginning with the world’s creation and extending up to his own time. Most of his very lengthy, Greeklanguage work has been lost. The sections dealing with Philip’s life and Alexander’s early reign have been well preserved, but the surviving text is somewhat limited in both its usefulness and its credibility. Diodorus’ project, the building of what he calls “the library of history,” apparently lent itself neither to in-depth research nor to particularly critical reading and citing of sources. Instead, the history seems to have been written mainly to entertain the casual reader, who is assumed already to know the most important facts of each narrative. Historically speaking, this is in some ways advantageous, for it lends Diodorus’ work a level of detail not found in most others. Hammond has treated the sources of Diodorus on Philip, which are numerous, in an article cited below. Most of them are by authors whose biographies are too scanty to afford an opportunity to evaluate bias or discursive purpose. However, Diodorus’ two most important sources on Alexander’s youth and reign do come from authors of whom modern scholars have substantial knowledge. The earlier author of this pair is Kallisthenes, Alexander’s court historian, who began recording the young king’s reign in an official diary when Alexander was crowned. Kallisthenes’ record, however, was cut short by his execution in 327 on charges of treason. Other official historians continued the diary; though these were different, the source as a whole is known as “Kallisthenes.” Not surprisingly,

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Amalia Skilton it is biased in Alexander’s favor. The later of Diodorus’ two major sources was Kleitarchos, a historian who lived and wrote in Alexandria within a generation of the conqueror’s death. His narrative’s main sources were Kallisthenes and Ptolemaios, but Kleitarchos did not hesitate to insert less credible narratives, whether from other memoirs or from rumor. The Roman orator Cicero, among others, condemned Kleitarchos in antiquity for his carelessness with the truth. Diodorus does not shy away from occasional flights of fancy. However, except for passages which appear only in other Kleitarchos-based works, I have mainly given him credit. He is invaluable to my analysis (and to the modern world’s knowledge) of the precise story of Philip’s assassination, which he relates in specific but probable detail; of the abuse of Pausanias by Attalos and his associates, which he tells and explores from the perspectives of both abuser and abused; and of the treason trials which Alexander conducted immediately following the assassination. His work is the most important source of my essay in terms of both simple narrative and deeper analysis. Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, trans. J.C. Yardley, Oxford: Clarendon, 1997 It is difficult to characterize Justin’s work as a history in its own right, or even as Justin’s at all. Rather, this brief Latin account, compiled in the fourth century AD, is a synopsis of a much longer history of Philip and Alexander’s reigns, written by the historian Pompeius Trogus in about the first century BC. Because of the narrow focus of Trogus’ work, Justin provides a high and very valuable level of detail about events in Philip’s reign. Unlike some historians, Justin is interested not only in military and macro-political events, but also in the smaller political conflicts and compromises which occurred within Philip’s court. This broader view means that Justin’s work includes several incidents at the Macedonian court, apart from the assassination, which otherwise have not been recorded. The sources of Justin appear more numerous and eclectic than those used by any other history of Philip and Alexander. His work draws most from the memoirs, Kleitarchos, and Kallisthenes. According to Hammond (“Sources of Justin,” cited below), Justin also made use of some more obscure sources, which are now lost. The most notable of these are Marsyas Macedon and Theopompos, a pair of historians, both

THE CONCORD REVIEW near contemporaries of Philip, who contributed valuable work. Marsyas Macedon, resident at the court of Pella, wrote a complete history of Macedon stretching from its earliest historical kings, in about 700, to Alexander’s exit from Egypt in 331. Marsyas’ work was known in antiquity as representing Macedonian national myth as much as authoritative history. Yet, though Marsyas was writing for fellow Macedonians who expected positive reports on their nation, he was also writing for a relatively educated noble audience that at least partly understood the need for objectivity in historical writing. Those sections of Justin known to come from Marsyas can therefore be credited without much hesitation. Theopompos, an expatriate from southern Greece, wrote a more narrowly-focused history of Philip’s reign while resident at the court of Pella in the 340s. This work, the author of which did not accompany his subject on campaign, had a goal opposite Marsyas’.Possibly hoping to encourage southern Greek resistance to Philip’s ascendancy, Theopompos’ history depicted the Macedonians as crude and Philip himself as a near-barbarian. Ancient authors note this bias; one, the Roman historian Polybius, says that Theopompos was full of “bitter feeling and lack of restraint.” Yet Theopompos, according to fragments quoted in Hammond’s article, did have substantial respect for Philip as a politician, if not as a man. It is likely best to think of him as an author like Plutarch: one who often disapproves of his subject, and may exaggerate his flaws, but also one who gives recognition for military and political brilliance where that recognition is due. As such, I have mainly credited Theopompos’ contributions to Justin, but have preferred to cite other sources where Philip himself is involved. The third contributor to Justin whom Hammond identifies is Satyrus, a biographer of whom some fragments are still extant. Some of these fragments are scandalous and patently false. Some of them are merely silly and without historical value. Writing in Alexandria in the second or third century BC, Satyrus’ work seems to be based partly on propaganda disseminated during the wars of Alexander’s generals and partly on a prurient and fertile imagination. Unfortunately, Justin includes substantial material from Satyrus, particularly about Olympias (whom, he reports, engaged in such merry capers as roasting Kleopatra-E’s infant alive and deifying Pausanias after her husband’s assassination). I have credited none of this material.

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Justin’s account of Philip’s assassination is brief, but was extremely useful to me. Unlike other authors, Justin focuses distinctly on Philip and the politics of his last days, rather than on the panicked and often irrational actions Alexander took early in his reign. Though working with his motley account required a great deal of work with historiographical articles and commentaries, I found that Justin’s history uniquely opened my eyes to the politics of Philip’s court. My familiarity with his work allowed me to analyze the motivations of Macedonian politicians, and to evaluate the outcomes of the assassination for each of them, in a far more informed and careful way than would otherwise have been possible. Had I not used this history as a source, it would have been necessary for me to base almost all of my analysis on the generalities, many of them collected from uncertain fragments and tentative archaeological evidence, which Hammond’s book The Macedonian State offers. Instead, I was able to consider the assassination and its effects as Alexander might have, with a fuller if incomplete knowledge of Macedon’s politics and their peculiarities. Photius, The Bibliotheca: A Selection, trans. Nigel Guy Wilson, London: Duckworth, 1994 Photius’ work is not a history, and Photius himself is not a historian. Rather, the Bibliotheca (also called the Myrobiblion) could more accurately be called an extended series of book reviews, most of them describing histories of the classical and Hellenistic eras. Writing in Greek in the ninth century AD, Photius gives brief synopses and criticism of several books of Arrian which have now been lost. The information these reports convey is often not attested in other works, and includes the life of Kynnane, wife of Amyntas, and significant information about the origins of Philip’s wives. I have extended credit to Photius’ narrative equal to that which I lend Arrian. In fact, Photius, who expresses his discomfort with Arrian’s fulsome praise of Alexander, may be a less biased source than the original author. Additionally, Photius’ comments on preserved texts and sections of Arrian accurately represent these sections. Under these circumstances, I find no reason to treat Photius differently from preserved sections of original Arrian. This was the only text which I was not able to access in the original language. The Greek text of Photius’ work is neither in print nor popular with libraries.

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Plutarch, “Life of Alexander,” in Parallel Lives, trans. Bernadotte Perrin, vol. 7, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1919 Plutarch, a Roman citizen who wrote in Greek during the first century BC, has been the focus both of much criticism and of much praise from historians of Philip and Alexander. His biography of Alexander belongs to a series of 23 pairs of short lives, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman figure. Most similar to Diodorus in his methods, Plutarch attempted to synthesize the disparate sources that emerged from the fragmentation of Alexander’s empire into a coherent whole. Some of his accounts are credited, but most are not. Many, much more than in Arrian, begin with the phrase “they say that,” one which signals at least uncertainty, if not myth. Unfortunately, myth is to some extent Plutarch’s genre. The explicit purpose of the Parallel Lives is to give moral examples and counterexamples, a goal which clearly underlies much of Plutarch’s portrait of Alexander. Though the historian exhibits no precise bias for or against Alexander, this discursive goal leads him to paint the leader’s life in more stark terms than are usually appropriate. More an essayist than a historian, Plutarch contributes little unique information to what is known about Philip and Alexander. The narrative of his work is little different from that of Arrian’s. He includes speeches of his own, but there are no new incidents or digressions on incidents of the type that occur in Diodorus and Curtius. Where his narrative departs from Arrian’s, the break is usually due to Plutarch’s desire to include an anecdote or near legend that other historians have omitted. For example, Plutarch alone contains the stories of the Gordian Knot, of Alexander’s ironic gift of incense to his stingy childhood tutor Leonidas, of the King’s preoccupation with the Iliad and habit of sleeping with it beneath his pillow, and of the Macedonian nobles’ decision, upon landing at Troy, to pause for a day in order to view supposed artifacts of the Trojan War and stage Homeric games around the socalled tomb of Achilles. While these anecdotes contribute to Plutarch’s purpose as a writer, they detract from his history and make it more difficult to credit him even when his account seems factual. Knowing Plutarch’s willingness to fabricate insignificant parts of his work, one grows reluctant to believe him in significant matters.

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However, Plutarch’s contribution to the histories of Alexander and Philip has not been wholly fanciful. In fact, the principal goal of my essay is to lay low a fanciful story of Plutarch which has been accepted as fact by a surprising number of historians and an even more surprising number of textbooks: namely, that Alexander encouraged Pausanias to assassinate Philip. This story, to which no other author gives serious consideration, is simply a rhetorical tool which the biographer uses to illustrate what he believes is his subject’s character. Anticipating his need to compare the leader with Julius Caesar, Plutarch casts Alexander into a stiff mold which his character does not fit. Throughout the narrative, Plutarch uses and abuses history to make Alexander into a general of almost inconceivable genius, a man with an almost perfectly noble spirit, but one tormented by a thousand vices: ruthlessness, alcohol, egotism, his mother’s ambition, his country’s barbarism, his father’s hostility. This psychological drama does not have a place in history. I have not cited passages in Plutarch that are more than factual, and have preferred Justin more and Arrian most when they are available. I have conceived of this work less as a source for my essay than as an object to be disassembled by analysis. Plutarch, “Life of Demosthenes,” in Parallel Lives, trans. Bernadotte Perrin, vol. 7, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1919 This biography, also Plutarch’s work, focuses on the life of the Athenian statesman and orator Demosthenes, a contemporary of Philip who was the principal leader of southern Greek opposition to the Macedonian Hegemony that began at the battle of Chaironeia. While its historical method is broadly similar to that which Plutarch uses in the “Life of Alexander,” this biography also draws on material contained in Demosthenes’ own speeches. Because of these most immediate of primary sources, this life could be a highly valuable and authoritative source were it not for Plutarch’s clear and sometimes vitriolic bias against the orator. The man was unpopular in his time, becoming a frequent target of satire; Plutarch, however, makes him despicable, a coward who survives by luck and low cunning alone. I used this biography principally as a tool to gain the Athenian (and, more generally, southern Greek) perspective on Macedon’s expansion in the late 340s and early 330s.

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However, considering the influence of non-Macedonian historians on other sources which make more direct reference to Philip and Alexander and lack the pejorative ad hominem focus of this work, I have preferred to cite Diodorus and Justin in Plutarch’s place. I consider this work valuable to my essay only insofar as it helped me to develop a clearer picture of the reasons for and manifestations of the antipathy southern Greeks, particularly Athenians, felt for Macedon and its people. Secondary Sources Badian, Ernst, “The Death of Philip II,” Phoenix vol. 17, no. 4 (Winter 1963) pp. 244-250 Badian assesses the impact of Philip’s death on Athens and on Alexander’s early reign, primarily using the major Greek authors on Macedon. He also provides a detailed analysis of the possible roles of Philip’s generals Attalos, Parmenion, and Antipater in the assassination, important to both the historical context articulated in this paper and to its evaluation of the court triangulations surrounding the assassination. This work was helpful to me mostly because of its extensive bibliography and density of citations for major events surrounding the assassination. Combining Badian’s sources with those presented in Hammond’s article “The End of Philip” (below), I was able to construct a preliminary guide for my own research. Borza, Eugene N., In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedon Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990 Focused mainly on the early history of Macedon (i.e., before about 420 BC), Borza’s work is an excellent source, informed by fragmentary works and archaeology as well as the conventional authors, on the period of Persian dominance of Macedon. Unlike Hammond’s book, The Macedonian State, Borza’s work does not attempt to describe or analyze the political structure of Macedon per se. Rather, Borza collects literary and non-literary sources to form a coherent picture of Macedon during the period before Greek historians began to notice the nation and Macedonians’ own works began to survive. I have used Borza partly to confirm Hammond’s sometimes hasty generalizations, but more frequently as a source of background knowledge about Macedon’s foreign relations and policy in various eras, and about the workings of the court and dynasty before Philip’s time.

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Bosworth, A.B., from Arrian to Alexander: Studies in Historical Interpretation Oxford: Clarendon, 1988 It is difficult to categorize Bosworth’s work, which some have considered a commentary and others have seen as a stand-alone secondary source. Although the monograph is organized into independent chapters rather than according to the sequence of sections in Arrian, much of Bosworth’s material is concerned with cross-referencing Arrian’s account with other sources and speculating on the precise provenance of Arrian’s own narrative. As such, I would ultimately characterize Bosworth’s book as a specialized reference work in Alexandrian historiography. In line with this purpose, Bosworth also includes a number of useful and detailed maps, showing events both within Macedon and on the Asian campaigns. The book has been useful to me partly for these maps, but primarily because of the broader understanding of Arrian and his historical method which it has allowed me to gain. Bosworth, A.B., A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander, vol. 1, commentary on Books I-III, Oxford: Clarendon, 1980 Bosworth’s dedicated commentary on Arrian seems to have provided the basis for the later work From Arrian to Alexander (above). It contains many of the same crossreferences, historiographical annotations, and speculations on sourcing, as well as almost identical maps. The two works differ mainly in their organization (the earlier is explicitly a commentary, the later something of a bibliographical essay) and in the depth to which they analyze the foundational sources of Arrian’s work and of the memoirs and diaries themselves. I have used this work as a guide to my own narrative concerning the historical events Arrian describes, and the monograph above as a source of authority when I have been uncertain whether to credit a source. Bosworth, A.B., “Philip II and Upper Macedonia,” In The Classical Quarterly vol. 21, no. 1 (May 1971) pp. 93-105 Bosworth, author of several commentaries on the Alexander histories, here combines his source-focused method with some archaeological evidence to the question of Philip’s military relations with the nobles of upper Macedon. His work is therefore important to this paper’s evaluation of the conflict between regional factions of Macedonians, including in the

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Assembly of Macedones. This article contributed particularly to my discussion of the possible communal grudge held against Philip by a variety of western and lower Macedonians, including the brothers from Lynkos along with Pausanias himself. Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1985 Burkert’s work is the definitive reference for nearly every aspect of classical Greek religious practice. It therefore casts light on Alexander’s religion, and hence on his attitude toward parricide, from a wider perspective than the similar contributions of Lane Fox’s biography (below). Like Hammond’s biography of Philip, Burkert’s work draws on valuable non-textual evidence, such as vases and archaeological artifacts, which I would not otherwise have been able to incorporate into my research. I am thankful for the contribution Burkert’s book made to my explicit evaluation of the psychology and moral background tht affected the decisions of Alexander and Pausanias, and also to my implicit understanding of the beliefs and ethical judgments about murder that their Macedonian, Persian, and southern Greek contemporaries would have held. Cawkwell, George, Philip of Macedon Boston: Faber and Faber, 1978 Although Cawkwell’s biography of Philip is complete and includes some unique archaeological evidence, its level of detail decreases sharply after the battle of Chaironeia. Its presentation of the circumstances surrounding Philip’s death is both incomplete and flawed in its method, which is uncritical of sources and eager to credit defamatory Vulgate authors. Cawkwell’s viewpoint of Alexander and Philip represents precisely the un-historical stance that this essay attempts to discredit. I have cited the book only once, as an illustration of the palpable fiction that some authors on the Macedonians have promoted as history. Dascalakis, A.P., The Hellenism of the Ancient Macedonians Thessalonike: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1965 Although this work’s goal is clearly more political than historical, it provides a reasonable discussion of the cultural and political institutions of the Macedonian state. Dascakalis is by far most important for his extended discussion of the

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Macedonian language and its relationship to other Hellenic dialects. This discussion, using epigraphical evidence and sources from historical linguistics, allowed me to lend greater credibility to Curtius’ account of Philotas’ speech about the “patrius sermo” (“traditional language”), and therefore of the evidence against Amyntas embedded within that speech. Ellis, J.R., “Amyntas Perdikka, Philip II and Alexander the Great,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 91 (1971) pp. 15-24 This work establishes from Diodorus, Justin, archaeological sources, Athenian authors, and some otherwise minor evidence both the relative ages of Alexander and Amyntas and the fact that Amyntas ruled as an infant. It also makes an argument for Amyntas Perdikka’s blood relationship to the explicit traitor Amyntas Antiochou. Ellis’ article is the source for the naming system used in this paper (e.g., “Kleopatra-E,” et cetera). However, Ellis, whose concern is mostly with finessing the chronology of Philip’s early reign, is not concerned with Philip’s death and is not by any light the source of this paper’s conclusion. I have used his work mainly to solve problems of chronology and to confirm tentative parts of family trees. Ellis, J.R., Philip II and Macedonian Imperialism London: Thames and Hudson, 1976 Per its title, Ellis’ book deals mostly with Philip’s aggressively expansionist foreign policy and little with the internal politics of his nation. It is valuable to this paper mostly for its detailed descriptions of both Philip’s planned campaign in Persia and the Persians’ anticipation of its consequences. These have helped to inform my arguments about Alexander and Pausanias’ possible success in Asia, as well as to formulate the questions I ask about possible collusion between Macedonian opponents of Philip and agents of the Persian emperor Darius. Fox, Robin Lane, Alexander the Great London: Penguin Books, 1973 The list of biographies of Alexander is exceptionally long. Fox’s work is set apart by two qualities. First, it makes some criticism of unreliable sources. Second, it devotes far more space to Philip’s death and Alexander’s early reign than do comparable works. However, Fox’s biography is

THE CONCORD REVIEW almost completely based on textual histories rather than on non-textual historical evidence. As such, while I found its bibliography helpful in choosing secondary sources and commentaries, I have preferred to cite primary sources when narrating and evaluating historical events. Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lampiere, “The End of Philip,” in Philip of Macedon, eds. Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos and Louisa D. Loukopoulos, Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1991 This article succinctly presents the most likely engineers of Philip’s murder through a synthesis of sources concerning royal genealogy, court politics, and Philip’s intentions on Persia. It is written for a popular audience and has no notes, but it served as a useful jumping-off point for me when I was beginning my research. Using Hammond’s bibliography and suggestions for further reading, I was able to create an outline for my own research which guided me through the process with relative efficiency. Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lampiere, The Macedonian State: Origins, Institutions, and History Oxford: Clarendon, 1989 This text is invaluable to any analysis of court-focused or military politics in Macedon between 800 and 150 BC. Providing a detailed and well-sourced summary of the most important processes of the Macedonian state, Hammond’s work synthesizes evidence from almost every imaginable sphere of history. Using archaeological, linguistic, epigraphical, and sometimes even geological evidence about the people, culture, and landscape of Macedon and its surroundings, the author paints an unparalleled portrait of how the nation’s political system truly operated. I am tremendously grateful to Hammond’s work, glad for the breadth as well as the depth of its analysis. I have used the book to gather together scattered sources on Macedon’s political structure, as well as to delve into particular historical incidents which illustrate the workings of that nation’s institution in more depth. Hammond’s work has been most valuable to my analysis of the possible votes of the Assembly of Macedones and of the station of the Queen Mother, but there is almost no part of this essay which the text’s influence has not reached.

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Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lampiere, Philip of Macedon London: Duckworth, 1994 This book is considered the definitive work on Philip II. The author pays intense and rewarding attention to the details and sources of the ancient authors. However, the book’s discussion of Philip’s death provides little information that its author’s more specific article on the subject (above) does not. I have therefore cited Hammond’s article (above) far more often than this text when discussing the assassination itself. When Hammond contributes evidence from sources other than textual histories to our understanding of Philip, however, I have often cited his work. Having access to this epigraphical, anthropological, and archaeological evidence broadened the scope of my knowledge and allowed my essay to proceed from sources which include the experience and perspectives of (for example) women, or peasant Macedonians. Using Hammond’s work and other secondary sources, I became able to use evidence produced by and about these groups, who were only marginally involved in the production of textual history (if they were involved at all). This would not have been possible without the use of secondary materials, and particularly not without Hammond’s exhaustive biography. Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lampiere, “The Sources of Diodorus XVI,” The Classical Quarterly vol. 31, no. 2 (April 1937) pp. 79-91 “Sources of Diodorus” is Hammond’s first work of source criticism. It summarizes evidence for the existence of a number of sources and attempts to identify the specific sources of some key passages, including parts of the narrative of Philip’s death. This work was critical to my evaluation of which parts of which author to credit, and particularly to my choice to believe Diodorus and Justin even where they conflicted with earlier material in Plutarch. Hammond’s work is also the source of the material in this bibliography summarizing Diodorus’ use of particular sources, and recognizing each source for its particular strengths and weaknesses. Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lampiere, “The Sources of Justin on Macedonia to the Death of Philip,” in The Classical Quarterly vol. 41, no. 2 (1991) pp. 496-508

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Hammond’s article on Justin partially extrapolates from the source criticism in his analogous paper on Diodorus and partially introduces new theories. While Hammond’s theories do discredit significant parts of Justin as material from the scandalous biographer Satyrus, it greatly improves the credibility of those sections which he shows to originate with the more serious and critical historians Marsyas Macedon and Theopompos. I have used this article in almost precisely the same way for Justin’s work as I have the one cited above for Diodorus’ text. Heckel, Waldemar, A Commentary on Justin’s Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus vol. 1, commentary on Books 11-12, Oxford: Clarendon, 1987 Heckel provides a commentary on Justin’s work which includes cross-references to Arrian, Plutarch, Diodorus, and other authors. This book also includes a dedicated but vague appendix on Philip’s death. The work has been highly valuable to me because of its cross-references, which made it vastly easier to check Justin’s account, the credibility of which is spotty, against both more and less trustworthy authors. Without Heckel’s commentary, I would not have been able to engage in the level of source criticism and historiographical analysis which I did. Toynbee, Arnold, Some Problems of Greek History London: Oxford, 1969 One of the most wide-ranging works on classical history, Some Problems addresses approximately 25 minor controversies in the field. One essay in the collection is dedicated to the hypothetical conquests of a longer-lived Philip II. In this section, Toynbee briefly considers and rejects most of the leading suspects in the assassination, but his primary focus is on Philip’s actual and potential military and political accomplishments. I have used Toynbee’s citation-dense work on Philip to establish the general shape of my research and reading on events in that King’s family and during his reign before the chain of events leading to his assassination began.

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Tronson, Adrian, “Satyrus and the Wives of Philip II,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 104 (1984) pp. 116-126 Tronson’s article synthesizes evidence from a fragment of biography in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists with other fragmentary and complete histories to present a complete picture of Philip’s marriages and children. Because this evidence is otherwise rather widely dispersed, this article serves as a useful reference for the relationships between Macedonian royals. I have used this article both to gain access to the fragment (in Greek and English with commentary) and to undergird my analysis of Philip’s many marriages and the peculiar institution of Macedonian polygamy.

Bibliography: Amalia Skilton Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lampiere, Philip of Macedon London: Duckworth, 1994 This book is considered the definitive work on Philip II