Alexander the Great

CHAPTER 3 “THE BULL IS WREATHED”

Every four years, Olympia, a small town in Elis in the northern Peloponnese, became an international, or at least a Panhellenic, city. Wars were suspended and, under the protection of a general truce, anyone who could prove he was a Greek was welcome to attend the Olympic Games. Crowds poured in to watch the athletic races and matches or, indeed, to take part as competitors. Unmarried women could be spectators, but married women were barred on pain of death.

Arts and sports festivals always had a religious origin and purpose in the Hellenic world, and Olympia was no exception. The town stood between a river and rising ground; a stadium, gymnasium, baths, and the athletes’ sleeping quarters provided essential facilities for the games, but at Olympia’s heart was a large sacred enclosure called the Altis. Here two temples stood, dedicated to the king and queen of heaven, Zeus and his consort, Hera. It was in honor of Zeus that the games were held (Hera had her own separate festival, at which unmarried women competed). Along the northern edge of the enclosure was a line of treasuries, looking like tiny temples, where grateful city-states housed valuable gifts to their divine patron.

It was in this enclosure that Philip, victor of Chaeronea, had the nerve to commission a remarkable building. Called the Philippeum after the king, it was a round structure, made of burnt brick. It was circled by marble columns. These carried the roof whose beams were held together by a large bronze poppy. Inside stood a life-size group of statues made from gilded marble by the fashionable Athenian sculptor Leochares. They depicted the senior members of the Macedonian royal family: Philip, Olympias, and Alexander were accompanied by the king’s parents, Amyntas IV and his murderous spouse, Eurydice. Other wives and brothers were deemed superfluous and were omitted.

What are we to make of this? The first and most obvious point is that all was harmony in the palace at Pella. Olympias was confirmed as number one wife and Alexander as the much-loved crown prince.

Second, the Philippeum appears to give notice that the Macedonian royals were edging toward “hero” or semi-divine status. In ancient Greece, the boundary between gods and humans was porous. Remarkable men were recognized to have something sacred about them. To quote the great first-century-B.C. Roman orator, Cicero, ordinary people might confer “the deification of renown and gratitude upon distinguished benefactors to whom they paid their respects and sacrificed at their shrines.”

A few outstanding legendary personalities might actually be transformed into full-on gods. One notable example was the strongman Heracles, from whom Philip proudly claimed ancestry. He was born a mortal but endowed with immortality.

However, in historical times, full apotheosis was unheard of, and Philip did not aspire so high. Ever the creative experimenter, he was among the first monarchs of a large realm or empire to found a ruler cult. From the fourth century onward this became a popular means by which a king could win consent to, even approval of, his rule. Through religious spectacle he could dramatize his subjects’ loyalty. Philip must have hoped that his newly acquired divine status would differentiate him from the quarrelsome politicians of the Greek city-states. It would give him authority without entangling him in their savage internecine politics.

For the average Hellene, though, unused as he was to this innovative political idea, the Philippeum was an instance of overweening pride that leads a man to ignore the divinely fixed limits of human action. Alexander’s opinion is unknown, but as with all his father’s projects, we can safely assume that he gave it some serious thought.

—

AT A BANQUET ON the evening after the Battle of Chaeronea, Philip drank too much and behaved badly. He toured the battlefield and jeered at the corpses. He went on to insult his prisoners of war. One of them, a brave (or at least cocky) Athenian politician called Demades, made a witty allusion to the Greek commander-in-chief during the siege of Troy and the notorious lame troublemaker serving in his army: “King, when fate has cast you in the role of Agamemnon, aren’t you ashamed to play the part of Thersites?”

Philip pulled himself together and as an apparent token of apology freed the Athenian captives without ransom. He even gave them clothes to wear when going home. In fact, he knew very well that he needed to conciliate Athens. Its massive fortifications made the city impregnable. Its fleets ruled the waves. Despite the decision at Chaeronea, Athens was still a force to be reckoned with. Alexander and Antipater, who had advised him during his regency, were sent to Athens to hand over the dead and negotiate a peace. A nervous city commissioned an equestrian statue of the king and gave the two Macedonians honorary citizenship.

The king artfully avoided triumphalism, refusing to hold victory sacrifices, to wear garlands, or to use perfumes. He let it be known that he did not want to be addressed as King, preferring the less autocratic title of General. He was “careful to manage Greek affairs rather than rule openly.” According to the Greek historian Polybius, “By his kindness and moderation he brought all the Athenians and their city under his control, not letting emotion push him on to further success.”

Philip ensured that no Macedonian soldiers should set foot in Attica and raised no objection to an epitaph in honor of the Athenian fallen, carved in marble and erected on the battlefield. It read:

STRIVING TO SAVE THE SACRED LAND OF GREECE

WE DIED ON THE FAMOUS PLAINS OF THE BOEOTIANS.

Negotiations were conducted with an enemy who had been defeated, not conquered, and Philip made no attempt to interfere with the Athenian democracy. Hostile politicians, such as the great orator Demosthenes, were not pursued.

There was, of course, a price to be paid for friendliness. Athens had to accept the loss of her interests in the Chersonese and the winding up of her maritime league, although she was allowed to keep some of her overseas possessions (Delos, for example, and some other islands). The city’s lifeline to the Black Sea and Scythian grain supplies remained intact, but was vulnerable, for Philip was now in a position to close the Hellespont whenever he wanted. The Athenians would think twice before annoying him again.

Many Greeks were quite pleased with the new Macedonian ascendancy. Not only had their leaders been showered with golden philips, but also the king guaranteed their security without interfering in their domestic affairs. There were to be no punitive garrisons (except for unreconciled Thebes and a couple of other places). The constant quarreling between hot-tempered ministates would now be a thing of the past. In the Peloponnese, Sparta was still furious at having lost its status as a superpower (at Leuctra) and, in its efforts to regain that stature, was a constant threat to its neighbors. In the autumn of 338 Philip toured the region, announcing, to great acclaim, that he would seek redress of grievances against Sparta. When Sparta refused to cooperate, he simply confiscated its frontier lands and gave them to the complainants. The once all-powerful Hellenic superpower was too weak to react militarily.

Philip’s generosity was not disinterested. He wanted to see a formal “common peace” incorporating all the Greek states, not only the recent belligerents. Naturally, it would be agreed and implemented under his guidance. So in addition to bilateral accords, he summoned a general peace congress at Corinth in late 338. A treaty was negotiated, or perhaps dictated, which established a supranational political institution, the League of Corinth. Each member had a seat on a governing council, and a league leader was to be elected.

All the delegates swore a solemn oath:

I swear by Zeus, by Ge [the earth], by Helios, by Poseidon, by Athena, by Ares and by all gods and goddesses I shall abide by the treaty and shall not break its terms, nor shall I bear arms against any of those who abide by their oaths…nor shall I overthrow the kingdom of Philip nor the constitutions that were in existence in each city, when they swore the oaths concerning the peace….I shall make war upon the one who transgresses the common peace, in accordance with whatever is resolved by the common council and whatever the hegemon, or leader, orders and I shall not desert the cause.

This is a telling document. Practical, clear, and decisive, it bears all the hallmarks of Philip’s authorship. It forbade constitutional change; a democracy was to remain a democracy, an oligarchy an oligarchy, a monarchy a monarchy. This was a policy designed to encourage cooperation and loyalty. All the oath-givers swore to take military action against transgressors, but it was implicit that the Macedonian army was the one to be feared and to keep order. The league council had executive powers, but was most unlikely to test the patience of the Macedonian king. He was happy to risk opposition, in the reasonable belief that most Greeks favored peace and would give him a majority of votes at meetings. The identity of the “leader” was left unstated, but hardly needed to be spelled out. Philip was elected as hegemon, and the isles of Greece looked forward to a long period of tranquillity.

In Athens the oath was inscribed on a marble stele, but, to remind Philip that the city was not altogether a pushover, it passed a law against tyranny, also displayed on two inscriptions surmounted by a personification of Democracy about to crown the People of Athens. It decreed that “if anyone revolts against the people for the purpose of setting up a tyranny…whoever kills him shall be free from prosecution.”

Philip had no intention of governing Greece directly; that would have been too much trouble for no reward. His military superiority guaranteed good behavior, and the pretense of self-government smoothed over the bitter truth of defeat. If the Greeks kept their heads down, he would not interfere in their affairs. The league was a clever invention to assert his power with the minimum effort and expense. Another telling lesson in statecraft for the crown prince.

Some months later, in 337, the king summoned a second congress at Corinth. This time he had a new project to announce. He was at last taking the advice of old Isocrates. His plan was nothing less than to invade the Persian empire. It seems that the supreme leader, the hegemon, had the right to convene a Panhellenic army and to lead it on campaign as supreme commander (strategos autokrator). He required military contributions from member states, calculated according to the size of their populations.

How long had the king been mulling over this ambitious scheme? And what exactly were his war aims? These are important questions and very hard to answer. Philip guarded his secrets. To exact revenge for the humiliations of Macedonia when it was a province of the Persian empire may have been a dreamy adolescent’s fantasy, especially after he had digested Xenophon’s Anabasis. Every young Greek boy—everyone who aspired to acceptance as a genuine Hellene—recalled with rage the expeditions of Darius and Xerxes. It was time for Philip to get his own back.

Are we to take the rhetoric of revenge seriously? It incorporated a large quantum of propaganda, which veiled true motives such as greed, ambition, and a growing sense of Persian weakness. That said, the memory of past wrongs has often enough infused the language of political debate with true feeling.

We can be sure that the adult Philip did not regard a crusade as a practical proposition until he had transformed Macedonia from a gory backwater into a great power. Perhaps Isocrates’ pamphlet of 346 marks a turning point, but even so years would pass before the idea of a Hellenic crusade became a settled policy. The Macedonian army could not possibly leave for Asia until Greece had been made safe—until Chaeronea had been fought and the League of Corinth created.

—

THE CONDITIONS WERE NOW right for an invasion and there was a good practical reason for moving fast. Philip seldom had much cash in hand. His bribery and corruption budget was heavily oversubscribed and his large professional army consumed money. If his empire did not continue expanding, it would have no alternative but to contract.

We have no precise idea what the Macedonian war aims were to be, but Isocrates has left helpful clues. His pamphlet discusses the available options as offered by an intelligent and well-informed contemporary. A minimum objective would be to free the chain of Greek city-states along the Asian littoral. The catch was that, although their liberation would be easy, they would be difficult to defend. The infuriated Persians would do all they could to regain what they had lost. There would be endless trouble.

Philip was not so frivolous as to suppose he could overthrow the vast Persian empire, but there was a halfway option at which the Macedonians could tilt. This was the conquest of Asia Minor up to a defensible frontier in Cilicia and the Taurus Mountains. Isocrates recommended that permanent Hellenic settlements be founded to create buffers between the newly acquired Greek lands and the remainder of the Persian empire. This may well have been the king’s intention.

Before taking any important decisions, the Greeks were careful to discover the will of the gods. One way of doing this was to consult the oracle at Delphi.The Greeks were afraid of their regiment of gods and goddesses, who lived in human shape and, like humans, could be fierce and unpredictable. The main purpose of religion was to please them. An oracle was a divine institution where the pious could ask for guidance about the future. The most famous was the one at Delphi, and leading men of the age often asked for its opinion before taking any major step, such as declaring war. It was administered by priests, but the prophecies were announced by the Pythia, a local peasant woman of blameless life. Entranced, she uttered frenzied cries, which officials translated into comprehensible verse. Apollo spoke through her.

The oracle was well-informed about current affairs and its advice was often astute, although it had a reputation for giving dangerously ambiguous responses. It appears occasionally to have taken bribes. However, the Greeks were a religious people and there is little reason to suppose that the priests at Delphi were regularly guilty of conscious deceit or fakery.

Philip sent a delegation to ask the Pythia whether he would conquer the Great King. She prophesied:

The bull is wreathed. All is done. There is also the one who will smite him.

The king was puzzled, but took the view that this was a favorable response, signifying the sacrificial slaughter of the Persians. He gave the go-ahead for the invasion.

The expedition was set to take place in the spring of 335 and, in the meantime, an advance force was dispatched to cross the Hellespont and enter Anatolia. It was to be led by his father’s foremost general, Parmenion. Philip said of him: “The Athenians elect ten generals every year, but in many years I have only found one general—Parmenion.” The veteran commander was joined by Amyntas, son of Arrhabaeus, one of three princeling brothers from Lyncestis in up-country Macedonia, and, later, by Attalus, a leading Macedonian close to the king. They were probably friends of that other Amyntas, son of King Perdiccas, who (readers will recall) had been supplanted as monarch by Philip on the grounds that he was a child and not competent to rule.

—

THEN SOMETHING WENT TERRIBLY WRONG. Philip, now in his mid-forties, fell in love. His new object of desire was a pretty young noblewoman called Cleopatra (also Eurydice), whom he chose to be a new wife, the first for some years. Apparently, he forced Olympias, his chief queen, to share the palace with her. Relations at court became strained. Olympias took mortal offense and incited Alexander to oppose his father.

During a celebratory banquet on the wedding day, matters came to a head. It was an occasion in the Greek style: guests lay on couches and food was served to them. After the meal, large quantities of alcohol were consumed. Cleopatra’s uncle, Philip’s general Attalus, who had not yet left for the east, was present. He became very drunk and shouted out: “Now, for sure, we’ll have legitimate kings, not just bastards.” By this he meant either that Olympias was promiscuous or, perhaps, that Alexander was born of a foreign mother and so not fully Macedonian.

In any event, the crown prince was enraged. He jumped up from his couch, yelled back, “Cretin, do you take me for a bastard, then?” and hurled a drinking cup at Attalus’s head.

The king, also drunk, heard the exchange and lost control of himself. He lurched to his feet and drew his sword against his son. But he was so overcome with wine and fury that he tripped and fell flat on his face. Alexander jeered at him: “Look at the man who was preparing to cross from Europe to Asia, and who can’t even keep his balance when crossing from one couch to another.”

He stormed off, collected his mother, and galloped out of the country. He left Olympias at her native Epirus, where her brother Alexander was king. He then rode north to Paeonia, ancient foe of Macedonia, where he may have stayed with King Langarus of the Agrianians, a Paeonian tribe.

One ancient source claims that Philip now announced, “Alexander is not my son,” and divorced Olympias for alleged adultery. Whether or not the story was true, the unity of the royal family was irretrievably broken.

—

HOW CAN THINGS HAVE arrived at such a disastrous pass, and so suddenly? Philip, usually a wily and astute politician, had managed to destroy harmony in his family at a single stroke. It was now next to impossible for him to leave for Persia while his embittered son was at large and doubtless plotting against him.

According to Plutarch, the king’s motives were purely personal. His love for Cleopatra trumped all other concerns. But this does not sound like the Philip we knew, who was used to slaking his lust whenever he felt like it and whose polygamy was regulated by raison d’état. We may allow him to have been attracted by his new wife, but there must have been some weightier rationale for his behavior.

One possibility is that the marriage was an insurance policy. We have seen how dangerous warfare was for Macedonian kings. They were expected to be in the thick of the battle, as Philip’s tally of wounds goes to show. Both father and son could well lose their lives in the impending clash of arms, as Philip’s elder brother, Perdiccas, had done. The union with Cleopatra was intended to produce an additional male heir. Although it would be many years before the infant was old enough to rule, he could at least represent the Argead dynasty and be a focus for loyalty. As it happened, Cleopatra gave birth to a girl, called Europa.

The incident at the banquet suggests that relations between Alexander and the king were cooling. Attalus was unlikely to have made his provocative remark unless he believed that Philip would appreciate it. Inaccurate gossip had it that the crown prince deserved the credit for victory at Chaeronea. Philip claimed to be delighted when people spoke jokingly of Alexander as their king and himself as their general. But it was the kind of remark that could have rankled. History is strewn with quarrels between rulers and their underemployed offspring, suddenly grown-up and eager for action.

It has even been argued that Philip believed that Alexander and the impossible Olympias were plotting his overthrow. It is true that a monarch’s heir was often a magnet for a regime’s critics, but in this case there is no evidence, not even the whisper of a rumor.

The simplest explanation for the quarrel may be the best one: namely, two male lions cannot coexist in a single pride. Alexander was energetic, glamorous, and talented, with a mind and temper of his own. It stands to reason that he would clash with his father, who was unaccustomed to competition in his own home. Very probably, irresponsible courtiers such as Attalus pursued their own interests by egging one or the other of them on.

As we know, Alexander liked to compare himself with Achilles, and never more so than now. His father stood for Agamemnon, the Greek commander-in-chief, with whom Homer has Achilles quarrel over a pretty young female captive. Metaphorically, the Macedonian prince now sulked in his tent much as his Homeric hero had done long ago, and literally, outside the walls of Troy.

Philip recognized that he was at a dead end. Obviously he could not launch his Persian expedition with so much confusion and hostility at home. He can have had little doubt that his son was inflaming the surprised and delighted Illyrians.

He did not know how to fill the breach. Fortunately, a man trusted on both sides made an appearance and tendered his good offices. This was Demaratus, the wealthy Corinthian who had bought Bucephalas for Alexander. It was the best present the boy had ever received in his childhood, and years later horse and owner were still inseparable.

Demaratus was pro-Macedonian and an old friend of the king. According to the Athenian orator Demosthenes, he was among those leading Greeks who sold their native cities for Philip’s money. Demosthenes said: “These men flung away national prosperity for private and selfish gain; they cajoled and corrupted all the citizens within their grasp, until they had reduced them to slavery.” Demaratus would doubtless have responded, not without reason, that he was a political realist who had to make the best of the Macedonian hegemony.

He paid a visit to Pella, and after formal greetings had been exchanged the king asked him whether the Greek states were in harmony with one another. The Corinthian was privileged to speak freely, and took the opportunity do so. He replied, with heavy sarcasm: “Good for you to ask how well the Greeks are getting on together, Philip, when you are getting on so well with your close relatives.”

This sobered the king. He understood that he would have to make peace with his son—and Demaratus was the obvious go-between. Alexander was as difficult to tame as his horse and it took some time to persuade him to come back home. We do not know the terms the two men agreed upon, but his position as Philip’s heir was confirmed. Presumably he was given guarantees of his personal safety. He gathered round him a number of trusty friends.

Olympias was very probably reluctant to move back to Pella and remained in Epirus. But therein lay a danger. Who knew what mischief she would get up to if unsupervised? The ever creative mind of the king devised a plan that would control his wife (or former wife) on the one hand, and on the other create the opportunity for a magnificent ceremony that would embody and dramatize the triumphant unity of the Macedonian state and its royal family.

He gave his daughter by Olympias, called Cleopatra (not to be confused with the king’s new wife), in marriage to the king of Epirus, Alexander. Personal relations in Philip’s vicinity were complicated. This was the handsome Alexander who himself had had an affair with Philip and was Olympias’s brother; so Cleopatra was his niece. Consanguinity was no bar when political necessity called, and the wedding was fixed for October 336 in the old capital and religious center of Aegae.

The only disadvantage was that it would be difficult to avoid inviting the mother of the bride.

—

IT WAS PROBABLY AT this point that Attalus, who had caused all the trouble, was dispatched to share command with Parmenion in the east. To put him out of the way showed a sensitivity to Alexander’s feelings.

Before his departure (we do not know how long before, but presumably not very long), he intervened in one of Philip’s complicated amours. A handsome Royal Page named Pausanias was the king’s eromenos. He was supplanted by another lad, also inconveniently called Pausanias. The spurned youth was so distressed that he made a scene, accusing his successful rival of being a hermaphrodite and ready to accept the advances of anyone who was interested. By “hermaphrodite,” he implied that the rival allowed himself to be penetrated by his partner—the one thing no respectable boy would ever permit, even in a society that accepted homosexual relations.

The accusations struck home and the second Pausanias committed suicide in spectacular fashion. A few days later, when Philip was on campaign and fighting in a battle, he stepped in front of him and received on his body all the blows aimed at the king.

We are not told of Philip’s reaction, but the boy had been a friend of Attalus, who was greatly vexed by his death. Never a man to manage his feelings, he invited the first Pausanias to dinner and got him drunk. He and his other guests raped him and he was then handed to his stable boys, who subjected him to the same ordeal.

When Pausanias came round, he realized what had been done to him and went to the king to lay a complaint. Philip was sympathetic, but felt he could not afford to offend Attalus, the new queen’s uncle and one of his military commanders. He tried to buy Pausanias off with presents and a promotion among the Royal Pages, who acted as the king’s bodyguards.

Pausanias refused to be mollified and nursed his wrath.

—

WITH THE CROWN PRINCE’S return, we may guess that the atmosphere in the palace at Pella was icy.

This was exemplified by a curious incident. The king was still busy negotiating marriages. As part of advance planning for the invasion of Persia, he was in touch with Pixodarus, the provincial governor, or satrap, of Caria (in western Anatolia), who was preparing to abandon the Great King and take Macedonia’s side in the forthcoming war. To cement their alliance, the satrap proposed that his daughter marry Philip’s son Arrhidaeus, by his Thessalian wife, Philinna. Although he was the king’s eldest male child, Arrhidaeus suffered from some kind of mental illness, or perhaps epilepsy. He was unable to play a full part in political life, but, like his sister, he could still be a useful power pawn.

Alexander got wind of the scheme and, acting completely out of character, panicked. Prompted by his mother and friends, he felt sure that the planned marriage signified that his father intended to disinherit him in favor of his half-brother. The suspicion was irrational, for Philip was not the kind of man to hand over his hard-won gains to an incompetent.

Nevertheless, Alexander was determined to head off the threat. He asked a well-known tragic actor, Thessalus, who had won top drama prizes at Athens, to go to Pixodarus as his envoy and throw in a spanner. (Because performers traveled from festival to festival around the Mediterranean, governments often hired them as emissaries or agents.) Thessalus informed the satrap that the proposed bridegroom was weak-minded (a fact the Macedonian king had evidently kept to himself) and suggested that instead he mark down his daughter for Alexander.

Philip soon learned what had happened and lost his temper. He stormed into Alexander’s room, taking with him one of the young man’s friends, Philotas, son of his favorite general, Parmenion. It is a reasonable guess that this youth had been the one who informed the king of what was going on. If so, we can be sure that Alexander stored the betrayal in the back of his mind for future action.

According to Plutarch, Philip gave his son a piece of his mind, but was careful to avoid another irrevocable split. He simply “reproached him for behaving so ignobly and so unworthily of his position as to wish to marry the daughter of a mere Carian, who was no more than the slave of a barbarian king.”

Presumably Alexander would be needed on campaign. The king would want to keep him under his eye and it seems most unlikely that he would be appointed as regent of Macedonia again.

Thessalus did not fare so well. He was put in chains and sent back to Macedonia to await punishment. The prince’s group of youthful followers were banished from court. They included Ptolemy, son of Lagus, but rumored to have been sired by the king; Harpalus, probably the nephew of Phila, one of Philip’s seven wives; and Nearchus, a Cretan by birth who lived in Amphipolis in the Chalcidice. Alexander was fiercely loyal to these early supporters, and in later years promoted them and overlooked their peccadilloes. For the moment, though, they vanished from view, leaving their charismatic chief alone in a bleak world.

Ostensibly peaceful relations resumed, but Philip looked to shore up his dynasty by reaching out yet again to matrimony. He decided to marry off Cynane, his daughter by Audata, his Illyrian queen. She was a remarkable young woman, well known for her “unfeminine” enthusiasm for military affairs. She accompanied her father on an Illyrian campaign and, despite her mother’s origin, killed with her own hand an Illyrian queen on the battlefield.

Her husband was to be her first cousin Amyntas, son of King Perdiccas. As we have seen, he had been supplanted as king during his infancy but was living unharmed at the Macedonian court. We do not have a window into Philip’s soul, but it looks as if he was preparing (once again) for a day when Alexander was no longer available, for whatever reason, to succeed him.

Amyntas may not have had the ambition for kingship, but he was an adult and in his right mind. Above all, the blood royal flowed through his veins.

With all these marriages, it is decidedly odd that Philip showed no interest in finding a wife for his son. Perhaps in truth he had given up on him.

—

THE WEDDING OF THE KING of Epirus to Philip’s daughter Cleopatra was to be the most splendid event. The object was to display the king as a civilized, generous, and friendly Hellene, who deserved his new role as hegemon.

The venue was the kingdom’s old capital, Aegae, where Macedonia’s kings were interred. A monumental palace, built during Philip’s reign, was a landmark visible for miles. Two or three stories were organized around a large, columned courtyard. The building was sumptuously decorated with mosaic floors and frescoed walls. The external walls were covered with a lustrous marble stucco. A large gallery overlooked an open-air theater; this was constructed from banked earth and only the stage and the front row were made of stone. An altar dedicated to Dionysus, god of theater, stood in the middle of the orchestra, a circular space between the audience and the players, from which a chorus commented on the action.

The guest list was international. Anybody who was anybody in the Greek world was expected to be present. Philip’s guest-friends were summoned and members of his court were expected to bring along as many foreign acquaintances as they could. Musical contests, athletic games, and lavish banquets were programmed. Crowds flocked to Aegae. Representatives of important city-states presented the king with golden wreaths. Athens was among the donors despite its traditional hostility to Macedonia; after handing over its wreath, the city’s herald announced a new law that if anyone plotted against King Philip and fled to Athens for refuge, he would be “delivered up.”

At the wedding banquet a hugely popular Athenian actor, Neoptolemus, gave a recital. He was “matchless in the power of his voice,” and many years ago had trained the young orator Demosthenes how to speak long sentences in a single breath. One of the pieces he performed was a melancholy ode on the vanity of human wishes. He was referring to the disaster that struck the Persian invaders of Greece in 490 and 480, and the king was delighted. But superstitious listeners feared it was a bad omen for the future.

Your thoughts reach higher than the air.

…

But there is one who’ll catch the swift,

Who goes away obscured in gloom,

And sudden, unseen, overtakes

And robs us of our distant hopes—

Death, human beings’ source of many woes.

At last late drinkers went to bed. Games were scheduled for the following day. While it was still dark, a multitude of spectators poured into the theater where performances and contests were to be held, and soon every space in the theater and presumably on the gallery above was taken.

Outside, a splendid ceremonial procession was formed. Statues of the twelve Olympian gods on their thrones were carried into the theater. According to the historian Diodorus, these were “worked with great artistry and decorated with a dazzling show of wealth to strike awe in the beholder.” Joining them was a thirteenth statue of Philip. It was set down with the others as if he, too, were divine. The Philippeum will have come to many people’s minds. Evidently the king was determined to set himself apart from and above ordinary mortals.

Then Philip himself arrived. Unusually, he ordered the Royal Pages to walk behind him at a distance. Contradicting the impression of arrogance created by the statues, he wished to be seen as someone guarded by the goodwill of all Hellenes. He had no need of spearmen. He told some friends in the procession to go on ahead. Wearing a white cloak, he walked along a narrow passageway into the theater, a vulnerable figure with only the two Alexanders at his side, his son and his new son-in-law.

—

THE EMBITTERED PAUSANIAS WAS among the pages on duty that morning. He had continued to feed his rage. The absent Attalus was beyond reach in Asia, but if he could not punish the man who had wronged him, he could at least strike down the one who had failed to avenge him. Carrying a Celtic dagger under his cloak, the young man took up a position at the entrance to the theater. As he was a member of the court, his presence attracted no particular attention.

The young man darted forward without warning as the king emerged onto the orchestra and plunged the dagger inbetween his ribs. Shock and awe among the packed spectators. Philip died at once, his white cloak stained with blood. He was forty-six. His murderer rushed out by another exit from the theater.

Some of the bodyguard ran to the king to try and help him; others, who may have been among Alexander’s entourage, chased after Pausanias. Three of them were close friends and contemporaries of the crown prince. They were Perdiccas, an aristocrat from Upper Macedonia who may have been of Argead descent, and Leonnatus, who was related to Queen Eurydice, Philip’s mother, and had been brought up with Alexander; so too, probably, was another follower, Attalus (no connection with Philip’s general).

Pausanias had posted horses at the city gate for his getaway and enjoyed a good start. He would have reached them if his boot hadn’t been trapped in a vine root. Perdiccas and the guards caught up with him and speared him to death.

All was confusion.

—

MACEDONIA DID NOT HAVE robust institutions that could cope with sudden vacuums of power. For a short time, perhaps a day or so, there might be no certain authority. It looked as if Macedonia was reverting to type with palace coups and lethal purges in the royal family. The distinguished guests decided to wait on events at Aegae.

Antipater realized there was not a moment to lose. The army was in an uneasy frame of mind: they were upset by Philip’s death, and were worried by the prospect of a long foreign campaign under an inexperienced leader. Alexander was not a particularly popular figure; with his foreign mother, perhaps he was not a true Macedonian. His quarrel with Philip had isolated him, and many leading personalities had set their faces against him.

However, he had long been groomed, at least implicitly, as his father’s successor. The wily old general immediately presented the prince, wearing a breastplate, to an army assembly, which seems to have had the power to elect or confirm a new king. It at once acclaimed him. Diodorus writes that Alexander rose to the challenge and

established his authority far more firmly than anyone thought possible, for he was quite young and so not universally respected. First, he promptly won over the Macedonians by tactful statements. The king was changed only in name and the state would be run on principles no less effective than those of his father’s administration. Then he addressed himself to the embassies which were present and good-naturedly asked the Greeks to remain as loyal to him as they had been to his father.

One of his first regnal acts was to deal with Attalus, whose charge of illegitimacy still affronted him. The tricky general, not unnaturally alarmed for his safety after Philip’s demise, had begun plotting with the Athenians. He then changed his mind and betrayed them to Alexander as proof of his undying loyalty. The king was not deceived and sent a hetairos, or Companion, with a small band of men to the advance force in Asia with instructions either to bring him back alive or put him to death there. In the event Attalus was executed in situ. Parmenion had little choice but to allow this to happen despite the fact that his fellow commander was his son-in-law. His complaisance came at a price for Alexander, in that many of the key commands in the army were held by Parmenion’s sons, brothers, or other relatives. This was tolerable, though, for they were capable and obedient officers.

The removal of Attalus was not enough to make Alexander secure. Philip had been something of a confidence trickster and his legacy was dispersing like the morning mist. Both at home and abroad, the situation suddenly deteriorated. According to Plutarch,

Greece was still gasping over Philip’s wars. Thebes was staggering to her feet after her fall and shaking the dust of Chaeronea from her arms. Athens was stretching out a helping hand to join with Thebes. All Macedonia was festering with revolt and looking toward Amyntas and the sons of Aeropus. The Illyrians were again rebelling, and trouble with the Scythians was impending for their Macedonian neighbors. Persian gold flowed freely through the hands of popular leaders everywhere.

The Amyntas to whom Plutarch refers was the son of Perdiccas, who had an irreproachable if theoretical claim to the throne. The sons of Aeropus were Arrhabaeus and his two brothers from Lyncestis who were close to Amyntas and whose father had quarreled with Philip.

Alexander acted at once to stifle domestic opposition. In particular, he sensed conspirators in the background who were implicated in the assassination. Two of Aeropus’s sons were immediately put to death, so far as we can tell without trial. At some unknown date in 336 or 335 the supposed pretender, Amyntas, was also killed. The brother left alive was Alexander Lyncestes, husband of one of Antipater’s four daughters. Recognizing the danger he was in as soon as Philip was struck down, he ran to his namesake’s side and was among the first to rally to his cause. He was armed and he guarded the prince as he left the theater and made his way to the palace next door.

This demonstration of instant loyalty, combined (no doubt) with his wife’s family connection, saved his life. We do not know how he reacted to his brothers’ fate, but he made sure not to complain in public. It was enough to be high in favor, for now.

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BUT WERE THESE MEN guilty as accused?

One of Alexander’s first tasks was to arrange his father’s funeral. He was interred in a two-room tomb at Aegae. In the main chamber was a fresco of the rape of Persephone, queen of the Underworld. It was here that Philip lay for more than two millennia until benignly disturbed by twentieth-century archaeologists.

It is suggestive that Alexander had the Lyncestian brothers ceremonially executed at the burial place, convinced (we have to presume) of their culpability. We may recall that Achilles sacrificed twelve Trojans at the funeral pyre of his lover Patroclus; perhaps Homer’s royal student had this bloodstained precedent in mind.

However, no certain evidence has ever been adduced and the new king may simply have been eliminating a possible competitor for the throne whether or not he really wanted the job. Perhaps Amyntas did not. For many years he had lived a quiet life at court and never caused any trouble. But ambition for the throne, latent during Philip’s reign, may now have been ignited. We simply do not know, and perhaps the new king did not either. From his point of view, though, security came first.

Pausanias had a powerful enough motive to have acted alone, and could have done so. But gossip swirled around Aegae and implicated very senior personalities. If anyone were to ask who benefited from Philip’s demise (in other words, were we to apply the Roman orator Cicero’s famous test, Cui bono?), the answer was obvious. The clear winners were Alexander himself, a crown prince without a future whose only role would have been forever to follow a few steps behind his father, and his ferocious mother, Olympias, who would do anything to advance his interests.

Contemporaries guessed at their involvement and there is some evidence to confirm it, although not necessarily trustworthy. The Argead dynasty’s history is peppered with regicides, and both mother and son were known to be ambitious and decisive. We are told that Pausanias went to Alexander and complained about his treatment. Alexander gave him an enigmatic reply. He simply quoted a line from Euripides’ tragedy Medea, which refers to the accusation that the witch from Colchis was planning the murders of her faithless lover, Jason; his wife-to-be; and her father:

The father, bride and bridegroom all at once.

By this Alexander was understood to have meant Attalus, his daughter Cleopatra, and Philip. He was signaling his tacit encouragement of Pausanias should he decide to resort to violence.

The fact that the murderer was killed by his pursuers rather than captured alive for questioning aroused suspicion. The captors were all known to be close associates of Alexander. Perhaps they had acted to stop Pausanias from revealing the names of conspirators.

Olympias made no attempt to disguise her joy at her husband’s demise. It was alleged that she arranged for the getaway horses. En route to the king’s funeral she is reported to have placed a golden wreath on Pausanias’s corpse, which was hanging on a cross. A few days later she had the body taken down and cremated. The queen then turned her attention to Philip’s widow, whom she made watch her baby daughter being grilled to death on a brazier. After that she forced the hapless young woman to hang herself. Alexander was furious at this cruel behavior, which reinforced the Macedonian reputation for barbarousness. However, he was too close to his mother, too much in her thrall, to punish her. We may suppose that it was he who found a place in Philip’s tomb for the two tragic corpses.

It is perfectly possible that Olympias and Alexander encouraged or even commissioned Pausanias to kill the king. Alternatively, they may have been accessories to the deed, catching wind of his intentions, but not informing Philip.

It is also conceivable that they had no idea of what Pausanias had in mind and were taken by surprise like everybody else. After all, it seems improbable that two such politically aware personalities would choose an international festival attended by many VIPs as the moment for an outrage that would seriously damage the Macedonian “brand” and that risked throwing the realm into terminal crisis.

In summary, we know too little to convict, and there are other equally plausible scenarios.

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THE GREAT KING, for example (or one of his satraps), had every motive to remove the man who was planning to destroy him.

Palace plots were not exclusive to Macedonia and the Persian succession had always been a problem. The current ruler was Darius III, who had recently emerged from a short but turbulent crisis.

According to Herodotus, the Persians, like other Middle Eastern peoples, valued eunuchs highly for their fidelity. The mercenary soldier and writer Xenophon agreed. He observed that the founder of the Achaemenid empire, Cyrus, had recognized that a ruler is at greatest personal risk “when at meals or at wine, in the bath, or in bed and asleep.” He needed servants who were trustworthy. The advantage of eunuchs was that, being unable to procreate, they usually had no family members to promote and as a group were despised by society at large: consequently they were completely dependent on their masters.

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THERE WERE EXCEPTIONS TO the rule, though, as the career of the chiliarch, or grand vizier, Bagoas went to show. “A eunuch in physical fact but a militant rogue in disposition,” as Diodorus nicely put it, he poisoned his employer, Artaxerxes III Ochus, and replaced him with his son Arses. He put to death the new king’s brothers, doubtless to avoid any challenges to the regime and to isolate his protégé. Arses unwisely put it about that he was displeased with Bagoas for his outrageous behavior and intended to punish him. The vizier struck first, murdering Arses and his family. Having now disposed of most of the dynasty, he was hard put to find a replacement, eventually in 336 choosing a member of the royal house’s cadet branch called Codomannus. Codomannus took the regnal name of Darius III.

A man of considerable courage, Darius once accepted a challenge to single combat during a campaign against a fierce Iranian tribe. He killed his opponent. He was also no dupe: he took care to give Bagoas a dose of his own medicine. When offered a poisoned cup, the Great King passed it to the eunuch, who had no alternative but to drink and die.

The threat from Macedonia was imminent and will have been at the top of Darius’s agenda. He could well have attempted to eliminate Philip, just as he later tried to suborn Greek soldiers and a senior Macedonian to kill Alexander. That said, we will be hard pressed to imagine a plausible intermediary or link between Persepolis and Pella, between the Great King and a maddened youth.

Guilt might also attach to Athens, with its long tradition of anti-Macedonian politicians, headed by the orator Demosthenes. He seems to have heard of the assassination suspiciously early, which has led some to suppose that he was an accessory before the fact; more likely, he had a fast messenger in his pay. He was happy to collaborate with the young monarch’s enemy, Attalus, although nothing came of this. He also willingly accepted large bribes from the Great King. According to Plutarch, Demosthenes was “overwhelmed by Persian gold.” He gave himself “prodigious airs” and had a shrine dedicated to the killer. He persuaded the boule, or state council, to offer a thanksgiving sacrifice, as if for good news. In his speeches, he gave Alexander the insulting nickname of Margites after the stupid hero of a mock epic on the Trojan War.

Once more, although many Athenians hated the Macedonian monarch and might well have plotted to put an end to him, there is no supporting evidence. Terrorism was not the Athenian style. In any case, a noisy democracy was not well suited to keep a secret, and we do not even hear of rumors.

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PHILIP II OF MACEDONIA was a very great man indeed. He transformed his country from a barbaric backwater into the leading power in Greece. He was hard to resist, for access to gold and silver mines and a deep reservoir of human capital enabled him to recruit and pay a large standing army. The Hellenic city-states did not have the resources to counter the threat he posed.

The king had an acute sense of timing. Ruthlessness went alongside a sense of humor. He was not naturally cruel, but was violent when occasion called for it. He endured great pain without complaint. On the battlefield he led from the front, as his many scars testified. But he preferred to get his way through the diplomatic tools of bribery and marriages. Military conflict was a last resort, with the standout exception of the invasion of Persia.

Is it going too far, though, to argue that Philip’s death was not quite so untimely as has been claimed? A case can be made that he was past his best. His mishandling of his wife and the crown prince, the provocative marriage to Cleopatra, the hubristic monument at Olympia, the Philippeum, the even more hubristic statues carried into the theater at Aegae all suggest a coarsening of his political instincts and a surprising insensitivity.

Nevertheless, Alexander’s inheritance was his father’s towering achievement. Thanks to Philip, Hellas had become, in effect, an adjunct of Macedonia, and his army was a finely tuned instrument of war. The new king was a lucky man.

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HOWEVER, THE BEGINNING OF his reign echoed that of Philip. Suddenly, Macedonia looked as if it were falling apart again with a callow youth at the helm. The opportunity for old enemies was too good to lose. As before, the neighboring tribal kingdoms in the north rose in arms and the subdued Greeks threw off the Macedonian yoke.

No one gave the boy a chance.