Introduction: Who 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. However, it will disregard neither the motives of the assassin himself, Pausanias, nor the possible complicity of other groups in the crime.
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 before being allowed to compete in the Olympic Games, an event limited strictly to “Hellenes.” 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
The Death of Philip of Macedon
Skilton, Amalia
The Concord Review, Vol.19:3 (2009)
Introduction: Who 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. However, it will disregard neither the motives of the assassin himself, Pausanias, nor the possible complicity of other groups in the crime.
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 before being allowed to compete in the Olympic Games, an event limited strictly to “Hellenes.” 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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