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member of the family, which would account for the fact that he was so
willingly selected to be handed over to alien powers as a hostage when it
became a political necessity. When his father was still alive Philip was
given to the Illyrians to ensure Macedonian tributes were paid on time and
then in 367/366, together with 30 other Macedonians, he was next handed
over to the Thebans. Though we know very little about the young
Macedonian prince’s stay in Thebes, historians stress its significance of
this episode in the life of Philip – the future king and military innovator.
According to a legend preserved in a work by Diodorus Philip lived in the
house of the father of the Theban leader Epaminondas and together with
the latter was taught Pythagorean philosophy. This must be an apocryphal
tale as by then Epaminondas would have been around fifty and most
certainly engaged in warfare and power politics rather than learning
Pythagorean doctrine. Much later anecdotal Greek sources present Philip
as a rather uneducated man who was hardly likely to have studied
philosophy. We can only presume that from his stay in Thebes Philip
gained respect for the Boeotian army and the innovative tactics employed
by their generals as well as personal contacts with the elites of Thebes,
which was then the most powerful state in Greece.41
After his return to Macedonia, Philip received from his brother
Perdiccas III a province to govern, and it was then that he began to form
his own military units. Philip did not take part in his brother’s battle
against Bardylis, and when Perdiccas was killed, Philip along with his
nephew Amyntas, became the obvious candidate to the Macedonian
throne. Various ancient sources provide two versions of what happened
next. One states that on account of the crisis the Macedonians immediately
39 Diod., 16.2.4-5; Polyaen., 4.10.1. Pająkowski 2000, pp. 148-155.
40 Borza 1990, p. 200.
41 Diod., 16.2.2; Plu., Pel. , 26.4-8; Plu., mor. , 334c-d ; Just., 7.5.1-2; Scholia in Aeschin., 3.112; Suda, s.v. K£ranoj. Ogden 1999, pp. 12-13; Carney 2000, p. 41;
Hammond 1994, pp. 8-10; Corvisier 2002, pp. 69-73.
Childhood, Family, Macedonia
17
handed the throne to an already experienced, probably twenty-three-year-
old Philip rather than the still infant Amyntas. The other claims that the
child was made king while his uncle ruled in his name as a regent. For
historians studying Macedonia’s political situation after Perdiccas’ death
the notion of putting an infant on the throne seems absurd, thus opinions
that Philip immediately succeeded his bother as ruler prevail, being at the
same time a guardian of the heir Amyntas.42 Philip’s early ascension to the
throne is also confirmed by an inscription of Olveni in Lyncestis.
However, another inscription (of Lebadeia in Boeotia) seems to confirm
that the royal title was also held by Amyntas. If these contemporary
inscriptions refer indeed to Amyntas IV and Philip II, they prove beyond
doubt that both were rulers of Macedonia. In such a case Philip may have
been a regent for his nephew and received the royal title two years after
Perdiccas’ death. This is the version of his biographer Satyrus, who states
that Philip reigned for 22 years, whereas he died 24 years after his brother
Perdiccas. If we take into account not only the political aspects of the
Macedonian monarchy but also the religious ones, the thesis that Philip II
and Amyntas IV reigned simultaneously becomes more plausible. Whilst
Philip had de facto political and military control, Amyntas was left with
religious functions that were his by right of inheritance. With time Philip’s
position in Macedonia became so strong that for the rest of his life
Amyntas IV was never in a position to have his uncle cede him some of
the authority that was his by right. One can assume that Philip never
considered Amyntas to be a serious political rival and for this reason did
not kill him, though the murdering of relatives with rival claims to the
throne was quite common in the Argead family.43
The Illyrian victory over the Macedonians in 359 put both Philip and
his country in such a difficult position that its very existence as an
independent state became uncertain, for apart from Bardylis’ victory new
threats appeared from the Paionians, Thracians, Athenians as well as a
number of claimants to the throne from other branches of the Argead clan.
The way in which Philip II pulled Macedonia out of this crisis proved to
be characteristic of his entire reign: he was able to correctly prioritise
foreign policy issues; he usually preferred to use diplomacy but was able
to decisively use military force when the former proved unreliable or
42 Just., 7.5.9-7.6.2; Satyr., F25 ap. Ath., 13.5; Diod., 16.1.3, 16.2.1. Cawkwell
1978, pp. 27-28; Griffith 1979, pp. 208-209, 702-704; Borza 1990, p. 200; Anson
2009.
43 Philip’s inscription: Hatzopoulos 1995; Amyntas’ inscription: IG, vii.3055;
Satyr., F25 ap. Ath., 13.5. Goukowsky 1991; Tronson 1984, p. 126 ; Hammond
1994, pp. 23-24; Corvisier 2002, pp. 74-76; Schorn 2004, pp. 423-424.
18
Chapter I
ceased serving its purpose and he was also skilled in using bribery to
achieve his political goals. First Philip had to deal with all the pretenders
to the Macedonian throne: Argaios (who was supported by Athens),
Pausanias (who was backed by Cotys the king of the Odrysians),
Archelaus, Arrhidaeus and Menelaus. By withdrawing Macedonian troops
from Amphipolis, Philip avoided a conflict with Athens, which had always
wanted control of this city. It was with money that Philip managed to stave
off the danger of another Paionian invasion and persuade the son of Cotys,
who had in the meantime been murdered, to get rid of Pausanias. The
invasion force of 3,000 Athenian mercenaries in support of Argaios came
later than had been planned and though initially they managed to capture
Aegae, ultimately they were defeated. The Athenians were forced to hand
over their pretender to Philip, but they were allowed to keep Amphipolis.
The Macedonian army was reorganized in the first year of Philip’s reign,
and in 358 he was already deploying it in serious military operations
beyond Lower Macedonia’s borders. At the start of that year, he made use
of the Paionian king’s death and subjugated their state. Next, having
rejected peace proposals, he launched an offensive against Bardylis. In a
pitched battle at Lyncestis the Illyrians lost 7,000 soldiers and had to cede
all the territories in Upper Macedonia they had previously captured from
the Kingdom of Macedonia. Peace was secured through the marriage of
Philip to the Illyrian princess Audata.44 The hold over Upper Macedonia
was, on the other hand, made safer thanks to his marriage to Phila, who
was most probably a member of the royal family of Elimeia. These were
the first of a series of matrimonial unions which, in the short-term rather
than the long-term, worked to Philip’s political advantage. They are
presented as such in more or less chronological order by his biographer
Satyrus: ‘Philip always married a new wife with each new war he
undertook. In the twenty-two years of his reign at any rate he married
Audata of Illyria, and had by her a daughter, Cynane; he also married
Phila, a sister of Derdas and Machatas. Wishing to put in a claim to the
Thessalian nation as his own besides others, he begot children by two
women of Thessaly, one of whom was Nicesipolis of Pherae, who bore to
him a daughter called Thessalonice, while the other was Philinna of
Larissa, by whom he became the father of Arrhidaeus. He acquired also
the kingdom of the Molossians by marrying Olympias, by whom he had
Alexander and Cleopatra. And when he subjugated Thrace, Cothelas the
Thracian king came over to his side, bringing with him his daughter
44 This paragraph mostly after: Hammond 1994, pp. 23-28.
Childhood, Family, Macedonia
19
Medea and a large dowry. By marrying her he thus brought home a second
wife after Olympias.’45
Having successfully protected Macedonia against all the dangers that
immediately followed Perdiccas’ death, Philip started Macedonia’s
gradual expansion to become a powerful Balkan empire. His pretext to
intervene in Thessaly in 358 was the disputes between successive tyrants
of the city of Pherae near the Gulf of Pagasae. The city’s tyrants were
trying to unite the country, which was traditionally ruled by an inland
aristocracy, by force. Philip sided with the aristocrats and married a
woman called Philina, who was most probably a member of the Aleuads,
the largest aristocratic family in Thessaly. He returned to Thessaly in the
years 354-352 when the Pheraean tyrants, in alliance with the brilliant
Phocian leader Onomarchus, tried once again to take over the country.
This was when Philip faced his most critical test as a military and political
leader. The Macedonians were defeated twice in battle, but Philip gained
the support of the Thessalian League, which appointed him lifelong archon
and thus also gave him command of its troops. The office of archon
(president) had in fact been created by the Thessalian League quite
recently, in 369, to reorganise and consolidate its military forces against a
contemporary tyrant of Pherae. Philip now had at his disposal the united
forces of Macedonia and Thessaly including some 20,000 infantry and
3,000 cavalry with which at the Battle of the Crocus Field in 352 he finally
defeated Onomarchus’ army, including approximately the same number of
infantry but only 500 cavalrymen. With this victory Philip was able to
force the tyrants out of Pherae and become the unquestioned ruler of
Thessaly. Perhaps he also received the title of tagos, which had been held
by an earlier ruler of Thessaly, Jason of Pherae, whose relative Nicesipolis
Philip married. The reaching of an understanding between Philip and the
Thessalian aristocracy was facilitated by the fact that both Macedonia and
Thessaly were still relatively primitive civilizations with value systems
more reminiscent of the Homeric era than the Greek polis of the second
half of the 4th century. A characteristic feature of their culture was the
binding of ritualised friendship ( xenia) between the elites of different
states by exchanging gifts and appropriate favours to the aristocracies. The
most famous example of this tradition is related in Book 6 of The Iliad
where Diomedes and Glaucus, from opposing sides, meet on the battlefield
outside Troy but do not fight when they realise they are bound by the ties
of xenia between their families. In the Archaic period, when the state was
45 Satyr., F25 ap. Ath., 13.5, perhaps after Theopompus. Schorn 2004, pp. 421-430.
Carney 2000, pp. 51-81 relates the long scholarly discussion on this passage.
20
Chapter I
still a relatively new and weak entity, aristocrats from various Greek poleis
and even from beyond Greece world were bound together by xenia, which
meant there was greater solidarity within their social group than political
loyalty towards their particular countries. Such was the world of the
charismatic leader of the Athenian aristocrats Alcibiades at the time of the
Peloponnesian War, but by the 4th century identification with one’s polis
became a stronger force dictating the political actions of the social elites
rather than their ritualised friendships, which were now strictly relegated
to their private lives. Yet this was not the case with Thessaly, which was
still ruled by great aristocratic families, whose representatives now
showered Philip with gifts and with whom he was now bonded by two of
his seven marriages. On account of the country’s strategic location, the
subjugation of Thessaly and its subsequent loyalty throughout Philip and
Alexander’s reigns was the foundation stone of the empires of both of
these two great Argeads. By controlling Thessaly they not only had control
of the road between central Greece and Macedonia, but also the ability to
raise a very large army, especially an unmatched cavalry of 3,000-6,000
riders, whose contributions to the victories at Issus and Gaugamela cannot
be overrated.46
The threat from the Illyrians brought Macedonia closer to the
Molossian kingdom in Epirus. This tribal state was, like Macedonia itself,
situated on the borderlands of the Greek world. It was ruled by the Aiacid
dynasty, which traced its origins to Neoptolemus the son of Achilles. After
Neoptolemus’ death the Molossian throne was taken over by his brother
Arybbas. In 357 Arybbas sealed his alliance with Philip II of Macedonia
by giving him as wife his niece Olympias, who in her childhood may have
also been called Myrtale or Polyxena. Plutarch cites from an unknown
source a story in which Philip becomes enamoured of her during their first
encounter while she was performing initiations in the Cabiric mysteries at
Samothrace. Regardless of the historical veracity of this romantic tale, this
is widely regarded to have been a political marriage. Soon afterwards the
weak Molossian kingdom became a de facto vassal state of Macedonia.
Most probably in 342 Philip II installed Olympias’ brother Alexander on
that kingdom’s throne. Alexander had spent several years at the
Macedonian court, where he gained the trust of his powerful brother-in-
law. According to some sources, he had also become an object of Philip’s
46 Cawkwell 1978, pp. 58-62; Griffith 1979, pp. 220-223; Buckler 1989, pp. 48,
58-84; Rhodes 1994, pp. 585-586; Sprawski 2000; Sprawski 2004; Hammond
1994, pp. 45-49; Corvisier 2002, pp. 205-222. On xenia see: Herman 1987 and
Mitchell 2002. Thessalian cavalry: Lendon 2005, pp. 98-102.
Childhood, Family, Macedonia
21
homosexual desires. The hapless Arybbas and his sons had to seek refuge
in Athens.47
Of equal importance was Macedonia’s expansion to the northeast. Here
the first city Philip conquered was Amphipolis, an important colony
founded by the Athenians in 437/436 on the river Strymon not far from its
estuary into the Aegean. After 424 it broke away from Athens but
continued to be much
desired territory and was repeatedly but each time
unsuccessfully besieged by the Athenians. Unlike the Athenians, who in
preceding years had in vain tried to make Amphipolis surrender by
imposing a blockade, Philip captured the city in 357 after an aggressive
siege during which the walls were demolished with battering rams.
Amphipolis was permanently incorporated into the Macedonian kingdom.
That same year Philip II also took Pydna. This city was allied to Athens,
but at the time the Athenians were engaged in war with rebellious
members of the Second Maritime League. The next city he took over in
357 was Crenides in Thrace together with its adjacent gold mines. This
was done in response to a request made by the Greek inhabitants
themselves, who preferred the Macedonian ruler to the Odrysian king
Cersobleptes. Under Philip II’s rule Crenides maintained its Greek
character and system of government, like Amphipolis, but it did change its
name to Philippi, which was the first instance in the Greek world of a city
being named after its founder. Exploitation of the mineral resources of
Thrace gave Philip the incredibly vast by ancient Greek standards annual
revenue of 1,000 talents and went a long way to cover the costs of his
constant wars. By 355 Philip gained full control of the Thermaic Gulf.
Methone was the last city Philip captured on this seaboard, during the
siege of which he lost his right eye, struck by an arrow fired from the
beleaguered city. The struggle to subjugate Thrace lasted intermittently
almost throughout Philip’s reign as a result of which a large part of that
country was indirectly ruled by the Macedonian king perhaps on the
principles of the Persian satrapy system. However, the most important
stage in the conquest of territories to the east of Macedonia was the
conflict with the Chalcidian League. In the 4th century Greek cities on the
Chalcidice Peninsula formed a federal state with common citizenship, law,
coinage and a powerful army. When he was still weak Philip II won the
league’s favour by ceding it Potidaea. But in 349 he waged war, the
47 Diod., 16.72.1, 19.51; Plu., Alex. , 2; Plu., Pyrrh., 1; Satyr., ap. Ath., 13.5; Paus., 1.11.1; Just., 7.6.10, 8.6, 9.7, 17.3.14; Tod, GHI, 173. Griffith 1979, pp. 305-308,