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  unfavourable to them. Therefore these rallies of Macedonian soldiers were

  not a consequence of constitutional rights but a show of force, rebellions

  in which the soldiers temporarily got the upper hand.3

  Once the constitutional theory started being questioned as based more

  on a priori imaginings of how an ancient society evolved rather than on

  sources regarding the history of Macedonia, a different interpretation

  emerged in historiography. According to some historians, Macedonian

  monarchs had absolutist aspirations, which they tried to realise insofar as

  they were able to overcome opposition from powerful Macedonian barons.

  The barons were to make up a royal council which, if there were

  controversies within the royal family, would resolve the matter of royal

  3 Arr., An. , 4.11.6. Lock 1977; Errington 1978; Anson 1991; Virgilio 2003, pp. 35-

  37. On the word nomos see Ostwald 1969, pp. 20-54.

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  Chapter III

  succession.4 Unfortunately, there is also no evidence in the sources that

  such a permanent royal council ever existed. There was of course a

  meeting of Macedonian leaders to decide Alexander’s successor after his

  death at Babylon but the exceptionality of this event does not allow us to

  presume that such a royal council was a regular institution. Likewise it is

  very dangerous to draw general conclusions, as some constitutionalists do,

  from the way Macedonian soldiers behaved during Alexander’s expedition

  and worse still to imply that soldiers also behaved in such a way before

  Alexander’s time. Soldiers who spent over a dozen years on a campaign

  beyond there homeland mostly in each others company developed a type

  of solidarity that is characteristic for mercenaries. As had already been

  observed more than once among mercenaries in Greece, at times when

  there was a conflict of interests and the future seemed uncertain, a kind of

  military democracy emerged to usurp power for the sake of a common

  cause. That was what happened in the Macedonian army towards the end

  of Alexander’s reign and at the start of the Hellenistic age, but there is no

  evidence that such a system functioned in Macedonia before the Asian

  expedition. 5

  To recapitulate: both perennial succession crises in

  Macedonia and the lack of evidence of a universally accepted system of

  succession allow us to assume that no such system existed.6 The effective

  rejection of claims made by pretenders was effectively a kind of ‘rites of

  passage’ for new rulers who had to prove they were worthy of the position

  of power they held. That too was Alexander’s situation after Philip’s death.

  After being acclaimed king the first step Alexander had to take was to

  avenge his father’s death. Alas Pausanias was already dead, so the most

  Alexander could do was have his corpse strung up. Meanwhile a search

  was started for accomplices. An unnamed individual was immediately

  sentenced to be pounded to death. The exceptional cruelty of the sentence

  and the context in which this fragmentary piece of information appears

  indicates that the victim must have been considered in some way

  responsible for Philip’s death. 7 Alexander’s position continued to be

  uncertain. Plutarch even writes that ‘All Macedonia was festering with

  revolt and looking towards Amyntas and the children of Aeropus’. Insofar

  as the sons of Aeropus, i.e. the princes from Lyncestis, could not seize

  power on their own, there can be no doubt they were important members

  4 Errington 1978; Greenwalt 1989, pp. 19-20, 31, 34-36. The alleged royal council:

  Hammond 1979, pp. 158-160.

  5 Borza 1990, pp. 231-242.

  6 Borza 1990, pp. 234, 243-245; Ogden 1999, pp. 3-4.

  7 Just., 9.7; POxy 1798 = FGrH 148 F1. Perhaps Diod., 17.2.1 and Plu., Alex. , 10.7

  allude to this event too.

  The New King

  87

  of an aristocratic opposition to the faction supporting Alexander. The

  existence of a large aristocratic opposition to the new ruler is confirmed by

  the defection of some high-ranking Macedonians to the court of the Great

  King and their later emergence in his army. Amyntas IV, in turn, had lived

  in the shadow of his uncle Philip when the latter was king though – by the

  Macedonian court’s standards – his fate was not the worst. Philip had

  indeed stripped him of any meaningful power but he had spared him his

  life, sent him on diplomatic missions and even gave him his daughter

  Cynane as a wife. Thus after Philip’s death Amyntas became the natural

  focus for those who were dissatisfied with Alexander’s ascension to the

  throne. Much later Philotas would be accused of helping Amyntas, which

  – regardless of the veracity of the charge – confirms the significance of

  this particular Argead in 336. Alexander’s situation was unexpectedly

  weakened even more with the return from Epirus of a vengeful Olympias.

  One of her victims was the newly born child of Philip and Cleopatra (a

  daughter by the name of Europa), killed in the mother’s arms, though

  probably not baked alive as Pausanias relates on the basis of some

  sensationalist source. The distraught Cleopatra committed suicide, perhaps

  forced to take her life by Olympias. Some modern historians try to justify

  Olympias on the grounds that infant deaths were of little meaning to

  people in those times and that dynastic murders within the Argead family

  were very frequent. Thus, they argue, Olympias had not actually broken

  any social norms. Ancient sources, however, view it differently. His

  mother’s actions angered Alexander for they stirred up an unnecessary

  conflict with Cleopatra’s uncle Attalus, who was still very popular in the

  army, and potentially also with Attalus’s father-in-law, Parmenion.

  Olympias had allegedly also burned the body of Philip’s murderer,

  Pausanias, ceremonially adorned with a gold wreath, on a pyre and then

  burying the remains. Even if these claims are no more than spiteful

  rumours, the deaths of Cleopatra and Europa happened for real. In order to

  cover up this very bad impression Alexander could do no more than allow

  the bodies of Cleopatra and Europa to be buried in Philip’s grave.

  Meantime Attalus, who was in Asia Minor, decided not to rebel against

  Alexander, although he did exchange correspondence with Demosthenes,

  who was urging him to do so.8

  8 Plu., mor. , 327c; Arr., An. , 1.17.9; Arr., Succ. , fr. 1.22; Curt., 3.11.8, 6.9.17, 6.10.24; Paus., 8.7.7; Plu., Alex. , 10.7, 20.1; Diod., 17.2.3, 17.3.2, 17.48.2;

  Polyaen., 8.60.1; Just., 9.7, 12.6. Wilcken 1967, pp. 62-63; Badian 1963; Bosworth

  1971, pp. 102-103; Bosworth 1988, pp. 25-26; Errington 1978, pp. 94-95; Burstein

  1982, pp. 159-161; Ellis 1982; Lane Fox 1973, pp. 38-39; Prandi 1998; Baynham

  1998, p. 147. Apology of Olympias: Carney 1993; Carney 2006, pp. 43-48.

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  Chapter III

  Alexander did not allow his real or perceived political rivals live long,

  though there is no reason to assume as E. Badian does that immediately

  after his ascension a great purge was started in which all potential enemies

  were eliminated. This certainly did no
t happen straight away as is best

  testified by the case of Attalus, who if only for his quarrel with Alexander

  at Cleopatra’s wedding should have been the new king’s first victim. And

  yet Attalus was still alive at the start of 335 during Memnon’s counter-

  offensive against the Macedonian expeditionary corps in Asia Minor. The

  first to be killed were the two princes from Lyncestis, Arrhabaeus and

  Heromenes, charged with being involved in the conspiracy to murder

  Philip. Their brother Alexander of Lyncestis saved his life by prudently

  declaring his support to king Alexander immediately after Philip’s death.

  Besides, he was the son-in-law of Antipater, the most powerful member of

  Alexander’s circle, which may have been another reason why Alexander

  refrained from the Macedonian custom of sentencing to death all the

  members of a family accused of conspiracy against the monarch. It was for

  such a conspiracy that Alexander’s rival to throne Amyntas IV was killed.

  This must have happened before the summer of 335, for then Alexander

  could offer the hand of Amyntas’ now widowed wife, Cynane, to his ally

  Langarus, king of the Agrianians. In face of such vigorous measures taken

  by Alexander to secure his position, Attalus tried to save his own skin by

  showing himself to be totally loyal to the new monarch and submitting to

  him the letters he had received from Demosthenes. But all this was to no

  avail for Alexander had decide to eliminate the man who had dared insult

  him verbally and then raise his hand in anger at him during Cleopatra’s

  wedding. The king sent a unit of soldiers to Asia Minor headed by his

  trusted officer Hecataeus. This unit joined the army commanded by

  Attalus and Parmenion and then killed the first of these two commanders.

  There can be no doubt that the murder of a popular general in the middle

  of his camp could not have been carried out without the active cooperation

  of the other Macedonian commander, Parmenion, who put his allegiance

  to the increasingly more powerful monarch above loyalty to his son-in-law.

  We do not know when exactly Attalus was killed, but it most probably

  happened in the second half of 335. In any case Alexander saw to it that

  before his expedition to the East no member of Cleopatra and Attalus’s

  family remained alive. Scholars believe that Parmenion made a secret deal

  with Alexander by which in return for Attalus’s head Parmenion was

  guaranteed a position of power and influence under the new king. This

  may largely explain why by the start of the Asian expedition so many

  The New King

  89

  posts in the Macedonian army were held by Parmenion’s relatives and

  protégés.9

  On the symbolic level the most important undertaking in the first days

  of Alexander’s reign was to organise a funeral befitting his tragically

  killed father. Indeed Diodorus, Justin and a fragment of an anonymous

  history of Alexander found on an Oxyrhynchus papyrus all mention that

  one of the first actions of the new monarch was to have his servants

  arrange the burial of Philip’s body.10 Although there is no mention of it in

  the sources, it is generally assumed that Philip’s body was burnt on a pyre

  and next his charred bones were deposited at the Argeads’ traditional

  burial site. Archaeologists have serendipitously located this very

  necropolis of the Macedonian kings situated in Aegae, today’s village of

  Vergina. Already in 1855 the French archaeologist L. Heuzey discovered

  the significance of the area’s most prominent feature, the so-called Great

  Tumulus. The Great Tumulus is an artificial mound with a 110 m diameter

  and 12 m high that Antigonus Gonatas had erected to protect royal

  Macedonian graves from total plunder; indeed, already in 274/273 they

  had been broken into by Celts from an Aegae garrison that Pyrrhus had

  founded. In 1976 excavations at the Great Tumulus carried out under the

  direction of Manolis Andronikos revealed three graves. Only one of them,

  Tomb I, had already been robbed in ancient times. In keeping with

  Macedonian custom, these do no bear any inscriptions, but the lavishness

  and high artistic quality of the items found within undisturbed graves leave

  no doubt that they were those of Argead family members from the second

  half of the 4th century.11

  Up to this point the opinions of all historians concur. The controversy

  begins with attempts to associate the charred remains found in specific

  tombs with specific historical figures. Naturally, the controversy primarily

  concerns Tombs II and III, which were found intact. The mere fact that an

  ancient royal tomb was uncovered that had not been robbed is extremely

  rare in archaeology, but here we can talk of an even greater find in that the

  Vergina graves are those of the Argeads from a period when this dynasty

  greatly influenced the world. The remains of the most famous of the

  Argeads, Alexander the Great, are not to be found there – he was buried in

  Egypt – therefore scholars have concentrated on finding the last resting

  9 Diod., 17.2; Curt., 6.9.17; Arr., An. , 1.5.4; Arr., Succ. , fr. 1.22; Just., 11.2, 11.5, 12.6.14. Badian 1964, p. 193; Burstein 1982, pp. 159-161; Ellis 1982; Will 1986,

  pp. 31-32; Heckel 1986, pp. 299-300; Bosworth 1988, pp. 26-28; O’Brien 1992, p.

  44; Prandi 1998.

  10 Diod., 17.2.2; Just., 11.2.1; POxy 1798 = FGrH 148 F1.

  11 Andronicos 1984, pp. 17-62.

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  Chapter III

  place of his father. The less problematic of the two tombs is No. III, where

  a teenage king was buried. This was in all probability Alexander IV, the

  son of Alexander the Great and his Iranian wife, Rhoxane, who was born

  in 323 and murdered in 310/09. The matter looks quite different with

  Tomb II. It comprises two chambers: thee main chamber contains the

  remains of a man who had died at approximately the age of forty+ and

  then there is also an antechamber containing the remains of a woman at a

  younger age. Only two Argeads could possibly be associated with the

  man’s body: Philip II or his son Arrhidaeus (Philip III), who was murdered

  in 317 and formally buried in spring the following year. Already in 1978

  M. Andronikos announced that this was Philip II’s resting place and this –

  despite reservations expressed by some non-Greek scholars from the start

  – was generally accepted as a fact and continues to be the official stance of

  Greek academics to this day. If this could be confirmed beyond a

  reasonable doubt, Andronikos’s find would be one of the most astounding

  archaeological achievements of all time. The Greek archaeologist has

  based his claim on several premises: the age of the man being estimated at

  around 46 rather than 40 (which was the age of Arrhidaeus when he was

  killed); the apparently hasty manner in which the tomb was built; the fact

  that one leg of the skeleton is slightly shorter than the other, which could

  be explained by the wound Philip had received and the discomfort it later

  caused him when wearing standard length grieves as well as the discovery

  of five ivory heads which could represent Philip, Olympias and Alexander.<
br />
  Finally attention is drawn to the style of the mural paintings in the

  chambers, which is more appropriate to the years 336-335 than to 316.

  Encouraged by Andronikos’s hypotheses pathologists from the universities

  of Manchester and Bristol, equally familiar with research into ancient

  Egyptian mummies as with modern forensic science, conducted detailed

  examinations of the bone fragments and established that buried in grave II

  was a man aged from 35 to 55 and a woman who had died at an age

  anywhere between 20 and 30. Fragments of the man’s skull allowed for a

  simulated reconstruction of his face. And in this reconstruction the experts

  even noticed a deformation in one of the eye sockets, which was

  interpreted as resulting from damage caused by an arrow. The socket also

  includes protrusions which the experts interpreted as a consequence of the

  healing process and the specific work of the muscles after the loss of an

  eye – perhaps the eye Philip lost at the siege of Methone.12

  12 Andronicos 1978; Andronicos 1984, pp. 97-232; Green 1982; Lane Fox 1980,

  pp. 77-95; Bernhardt 1992, pp. 72-73; Prag, Musgrave, Neave 1984; Musgrave

  1991; Hammond 1994, pp. 179-182; Drougou 1996; Prag, Neave 1997, pp. 53-84;

  Worthington 2008, pp. 234-241.

  The New King

  91

  These arguments do not satisfy everyone. The age at death of those

  found in Tomb II, calculated insofar as contemporary science would allow,

  could apply equally well to the ages of Philip II (c. 46) and Cleopatra (c.

  20) as to the ages of Philip III (c. 40) and his wife, Adea-Eurydice. Using

  the ivory heads found in Tomb II as an argument is also not valid because

  the identification of only 5 out of 20 is reasonably certain. Even more

  dubious are the arguments concerning the wall paintings; certain elements

  in them, especially lion hunting scenes, had not appeared in Greek art

  since the archaic period and only reappeared after Alexander’s expedition

  to Asia and intensive contact with Oriental monumental art. Some scholars

 

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