Before and After Alexander

by Richard A. Billows

  It was at this low point in Amyntas’ career, then, that Philip was born, the third of Amyntas’ sons by Eurydice, but probably his fourth or fifth son overall. Amyntas in fact survived the Olynthian threat that confronted him at the time of Philip’s birth by appealing to the Spartans. In 386 a general or common peace had been agreed to throughout the Greek world, under pressure from the Persian king Artaxerxes II and overseen by the Spartans. By this so-called King’s Peace, all Greek city-states were to be mutually free and autonomous, and the Spartans saw to the enforcement of this condition. In 383, the Olynthians as leaders of the alliance of city-states in the Chalcidice generally known as the Olynthian League were pressuring as yet unaffiliated cities in the region to join. Two of these cities, Acanthus and Apollonia, sent embassies to Sparta protesting this Olynthian pressure, and calling on the Spartans to enforce their right to freedom and autonomy by forcing the Olynthians to leave them in peace. The Acanthian envoy, according to Xenophon, illustrated Olynthian ambitions and the danger to the King’s Peace (and Spartan predominance in Greece), by describing how the Olynthians had virtually driven Amyntas from his kingdom and seized control of Macedonia, and alleging that Sparta’s perennial rivals the Athenians and Thebans were preparing to ally with the Olynthians. The Spartans decided to act, and in 382 war ensued between the Spartans and the Olynthian League.

  This war was a godsend to Amyntas, who sent an embassy of his own to Sparta, according to Diodorus (15.19.3), further urging the Spartans to action. To prosecute the war, the Spartans sent a large infantry force to the Chalcidice, and allied with Amyntas and his friend Derdas in order to obtain cavalry. Derdas’ cavalry, in particular, gave an excellent account of themselves and, though the war proved more difficult than at first anticipated, the Spartans did in the end win: in 379 the Olynthians were forced to capitulate. They had to disband their alliance system, and Amyntas gained back his lost territories. Of course, freedom from the threat posed by the Olynthian League might have been off set by uncomfortable pressure from the new power in the region, the Spartans. But Amyntas was spared this by a new development in southern Greece.

  Between 379 and 377 the Athenians, encouraged by their allies the Thebans, founded a new alliance system aimed at forcing the Spartans to stop meddling in the affairs of other Greeks, that is, to reduce Spartan predominance in Greece. This Second Athenian Confederacy, together with the Thebans, was soon at war with the Spartans. As a result the Spartans spent the 370s campaigning on land in Boeotia against the Thebans, and at sea against the Athenians, leaving them unable and unwilling to interfere further in the north. However, Amyntas was not to be left entirely in peace. The renewal of Athenian naval power led to renewed Athenian demand for Macedonian timber for ship-building, and renewed Athenian pressure to control the ports on Macedonia’s coast, in particular Methone and Pydna. Thus the demise of one threat to Amyntas led to the rise of another.

  Amyntas responded in the only way he could: he abandoned his alliance with the Spartans and instead negotiated a treaty with the Athenians, seeking at least to control the Athenian threat by making concessions. Macedonian interest in Amphipolis—the crucial former Athenian colony at the mouth of the River Strymon—was ended, and in 371, at a general Greek peace conference, Amyntas went so far as to recognize formally the Athenians’ claim to that city. Amyntas adopted the great Athenian general Iphicrates, a man whose strong connections in Thrace could help Amyntas in that quarter, as well as in his native Athens. The adoption was purely pro forma, but it illustrated Amyntas’ need to placate the Athenians. So too did the sending of a large consignment of ship-building timber to the Athenian statesman Timotheos in the late 370s. Diodorus also reports that, abandoning his long-time alliance with the Aleuadae of Thessalian Larissa, Amyntas agreed to a treaty with the rising new power in Thessaly, Jason of Pherae, in this same period of the late 370s (Diodorus 15.60.2). It is likely also in this period of the mid to late 370s that Amyntas formed a marriage alliance with another important Macedonian baron, Ptolemy of Aloros, who received as his bride Amyntas’ daughter Eurynoe. The need to shore up his support within Macedonia was still strong.

  In late 370, finally, Amyntas died, apparently of natural causes, since no source alleges any violence, and his oldest son Alexander succeeded peacefully to his power, initially at least. Philip was about thirteen years old at this time. Amyntas was probably no more than sixty when he died, by no means an old man, given that his sons were (all six of them, it seems) under twenty. His reign had been a study in survival over weakness. Threatened several times with expulsion from his power, he had clung to his position as ruler thanks to the support of powerful but potentially threatening Macedonian barons such as Derdas and Ptolemy, to tribute payments sent regularly to keep the Illyrians away, and to alliances from a position of weakness with outside powers such as the Olynthians, the Spartans, the Athenians, and the Thessalian Aleuadae and Jason. Amyntas was clearly a clever and versatile man, and when necessary a persuasive one, but he was never able to muster the strength to begin to rebuild the improvements within Macedonia begun under Archelaus, let alone to advance Macedonia from its long-time role as a second- or third-rate power dominated by its neighbors.

  2. YOUNG PHILIP

  This chapter is entitled “Philip’s Childhood,” yet it may have been noticed that so far very little has been said in it directly about Philip himself: there has been much contextual discussion of the reign of Philip’s father and of conditions within Macedonia in particular and in the broader Greek world, but no description or anecdotes about Philip’s own life and experiences growing up. This reflects, it must be said, the state of our sources, unlike in the case of Philip’s son Alexander, of whose childhood ancient writers preserved a considerable amount of descriptive material. Philip’s experience growing up in Amyntas’ Macedonia was, on the one hand, one of privilege as a son of Macedonia’s ruler, but on the other, one of chronic weakness and insecurity as Amyntas clung to power only by a series of agreements with stronger outside powers. But though we have hardly any direct testimony regarding Philip’s childhood, we can say in a general way what it will have been like. In all probability, Philip was born in exile, but the family was soon able to return to Macedonia, and it was in the new capital of Pella, built under Archelaus, that he grew up during the 370s. As the son of Macedonia’s ruler, however precarious that rule may have been, Philip certainly experienced luxury, receiving the best that was to be had in Macedonia by way of upbringing and education.

  It was standard in ancient Greece for children to spend the first seven or so years of their lives in the charge of their mothers, and in the case of the wealthy and high-born also of nurse-maids and other servants. The real education of boy children began at about the age of seven, and involved their introduction into the world and concerns of men. In ancient Macedonia, that meant—for upper-class boys at any rate—a training in horse riding, hunting, and fighting; for upper-class Macedonians were hunters and cavalry warriors before all else. The hunting culture of the Macedonians is abundantly attested in literary and artistic media (see ill. 4), with the most dangerous animals being the most prized game, because to kill a dangerous animal was to show off one’s manly courage (andreia). So, for example, a Macedonian man had to prove himself by killing a wild boar without the use of a hunting net before he was permitted to recline on a couch at the traditional male dining and drinking parties. In the fourth century BCE, deer and boar were plentiful in Macedonia, and frequently hunted; but bear, panther, and lion were also to be found. The European lion (Panthera leo europaea) did not die out in the Balkan region until the first century BCE; lions and lion hunting are frequently shown in ancient Greek paintings and mosaics (see ill. 4). To hunt and kill a lion was of course the ultimate test of manliness. The great popularity of hunting at the Macedonian court is well attested in the time of Philip and his son Alexander, and it is clear that Philip grew up learning to hunt. The most notable depiction of this is perhaps from
the royal tomb at Aegae that may actually be the tomb of Philip himself (though more probably of his son Arrhidaeus, also known as Philip III), on the facade of which is a magnificent painting depicting a hunt in which deer, a boar, a lion, and a bear are shown.

  4. Lion hunt mosaic from Pella, Macedonia (in Pella Museum)

  Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

  More important even than hunting was warfare, and the core of a young Macedonian noble’s upbringing was learning to ride and to fight from horse-back. Upper-class Macedonian youths were taught to ride from a young age, and learned also the skills of using the sword and the spear. Weapons drill included, in Macedonia, participation in special warrior dances, during which the dancers would twirl their weapons and engage in mock fighting. These armed dances of the Macedonians, mostly in honor of gods such as Heracles and Athena Promachos (Athena the “front-fighter”), patron deities of the Macedonian elites, are well attested: it was in fact at a performance of such dancing that Philip’s oldest brother Alexander was to be assassinated. As to horse-riding skills, ancient Greek horses were smaller than modern horses, and were ridden bareback (see ill. 5), using the thighs to grip the horse and maintain a seat on it. Thrusting with the spear or hacking with the sword required excellent grip and balance on the horse: a Macedonian rider needed strong legs, especially thighs. This training in hunting and fighting, then, was physically demanding and promoted a high degree of fitness and strength. Trained in this way, Philip enjoyed excellent health throughout his life, engaging constantly in extremely physically demanding pursuits and campaigns, and overcoming several life-threatening wounds.

  5. Macedonian cavalryman (Antigonus the One-Eyed?) from the Alexander Sarcophagus (Istanbul Archaeological Museum)

  (Wikimedia Commons photo by Marsyas)

  Besides riding, hunting, and fighting, the upper-class Macedonian lifestyle revolved around the symposium, the male dining and drinking party. Upper-class Macedonian men were notoriously heavy drinkers (in the eyes of southern Greeks, that is), and like his son Alexander, Philip was no exception to this, as various stories tell us. Macedonian youths would first be introduced to the manners and customs of the symposium in their early teens, when they would act as servers and pourers (when slaves were not performing these tasks), and otherwise sit and observe. As we have seen, only when they had proved themselves in the hunting field did Macedonian youths graduate to full participants in the symposium. Since the symposium involved a great deal of singing, with the singer accompanying himself on the lyre, and conversation on many topics, including literature and philosophy (at the more high-class symposia at least), the young Macedonian noble was necessarily taught music—how to sing and play the lyre—and learned some of the classic songs of Greek culture by such greats as Alcaeus, Ibycus, Simonides, Anacreon, and others. And at the top level of society Philip inhabited, as a member of the ruling family, a basic education not just in literacy, but in the great literature of the Greek city-states—Homer, Hesiod, the great Athenian dramatists, history, philosophy, and rhetoric—will certainly have been provided. Philip famously hired the great philosopher Aristotle to educate his own son Alexander. As the younger son of a much less powerful and wealthy ruler, Philip himself was likely not educated at quite such a high level; but as an adult and a ruler we find that he was not just a well-informed man and a good speaker, but a patron of the arts welcoming philosophers, historians, dramatists, actors, and other notable cultural figures at his court, so it should not be doubted that he received a top-quality education.

  All of this training and education did not happen in isolation: princes of the ruling family were normally provided with entourages of boys of their own age, drawn from the Macedonian hetairos class and called syntrophoi (literally, those reared along with one). We know of this practice specifically from the boyhood of Alexander, whose syntrophoi included various notable Macedonian nobles such as Ptolemy son of Lagos, Harpalus son of Machatas, Marsyas son of Philip, and most famously Hephaestion. These syntrophoi were educated alongside Alexander, also enjoying the teaching of Aristotle as a result. Just so Philip himself will have had his entourage of syntrophoi while growing up, providing him not only with companions, but crucially with a network of contacts within the Macedonian nobility. We can in fact guess at the identity of one of these syntrophoi: an exact coeval of Philip, born in 383/2, was Antigonus son of Philip, known to history as Antigonus the One-Eyed, founder (after Alexander’s premature death) of the Antigonid dynasty of Macedonian kings. Like Philip, Antigonus grew up in Pella, and he is reported to have been a companion of Philip throughout Philip’s career. Just as Antigonus’ much younger half-brother Marsyas was later a syntrophos of Alexander, so is Antigonus likely to have been of Philip. For all of his father’s difficulties, then, Philip evidently enjoyed a comfortable and excellent childhood and education.

  Only one ancient source preserves an anecdote about the childhood of Philip, and unfortunately it only illustrates the historian’s problem in treating Philip’s youth. In a speech to the Athenian people about an embassy he had served on to Philip as king in 347, the orator Aeschines told how he had reminded the Macedonian king of the various benefits he, his family, and Macedonia in general had received from the Athenian people. Among these benefits, he says, was an occasion when the Athenian general Iphicrates saved the family of Philip from a rival Argead and would-be ruler of Macedonia named Pausanias. Amyntas and his oldest son Alexander II had recently died, Aeschines tells us, and Pausanias took this opportunity to try to return from exile to seize power, with most Macedonians supporting him. Taking advantage of the disorder in the region, the Athenians sent out Iphicrates with a small force to try to seize control of their former colony Amphipolis. When he arrived in the area, Philip’s mother Eurydice sent for him to plead for his help. This is how Aeschines painted the scene:

  Then, I said, your mother Eurydice sent for him (Iphicrates) and, as all those present say, she placed your brother Perdiccas in Iphicrates’ arms, and set you—a small child still—on his knees, and said, “Amyntas the father of these little boys, when alive, made you his son and treated the city of the Athenians kindly, so it is proper for you both privately to treat these boys as a brother, and publicly to be our friend.” And she went on to make a strong entreaty both for your sakes and for her own, concerning the rule (of Macedonia) and concerning your safety in general. And hearing this, Iphicrates drove Pausanias out of Macedonia and saved the rulership for you. (Aeschines On the Embassy 28–29)

  A very affecting scene, to be sure; but this anecdote cannot be true as it stands, despite the fact that Aeschines was a contemporary witness and alleges that he spoke these words to Philip himself. Quite simply, Amyntas died in 370, and Alexander II was assassinated in 369/8. That would place this scene most likely in the middle of 368. Philip, born about 383, was no small child then, but a youth of fourteen or fifteen, and his brother Perdiccas was at least a year older, sixteen or seventeen years old. Aeschines uses the word paidion to refer to the boys, meaning a child under seven years of age, according to the Greek Lexicon of Liddell and Scott. But Perdiccas and Philip were in fact not paidia at this time but teenagers, and the mind boggles at the image of Iphicrates with a sixteen-year-old youth in his arms, and another fourteen-year-old on his knees. In the homoerotic and pederastic culture of classical Greece, and classical Athens in particular, Eurydice’s reported action would have been tantamount to offering her sons for Iphicrates’ sexual enjoyment. In point of fact, at the time of Pausanias’ attempt to seize power, Philip was not present in Macedonia at all: he had been handed over by his brother Alexander to the Theban general Pelopidas as a hostage in 369, as we shall see below, and was living in Thebes.

  One wonders what Philip made of these words, if Aeschines really spoke to him as he told the Athenians that he had. He must have been inwardly laughing at the claims made here, and at the fool that Aeschines was making of himself. We are left to wonder what to make of this story
. Is any of it true? Iphicrates likely did in fact intervene to help Eurydice against Pausanias, but not in the manner or for the reasons Aeschines alleged. And if a man like Aeschines could so misstate things when speaking to Philip himself, and to a contemporary audience of Athenian citizens, what does that say about the rest of our sources? If the reader has been irritated at the frequency of conditionals, of such constructions as “may have” or “could have,” and use of the terms “perhaps” or “maybe” in this chapter, and at the lack of information about Philip himself, I trust that he or she will now understand.

  3. THE REIGNS OF ALEXANDER II AND PERDICCAS III

  Amyntas’ death, and the succession of his son Alexander II, came at a time of profound change in the power relations within the Greek world. In 371, the Athenians and Spartans, exhausted by war, had summoned a general peace conference in an attempt to arrange a “common peace” after the model of the King’s Peace of 386: a peace for all Greek states at once, guaranteeing all of them freedom and autonomy. The peace was agreed upon, but then came the process of swearing to abide by it. The Spartan king Agesilaus presided; the representative from Thebes, Epaminondas, attempted to swear on behalf of the Boeotian federation set up under Theban leadership (not to say under Theban pressure) during the 370s. Agesilaus refused to permit this: as in 386, he demanded that the Boeotian federation be disbanded, making each Boeotian community free and autonomous, and insisted that each Boeotian community must swear to the peace separately. Epaminondas (unlike the Theban representative in 386) refused this demand and left the conference without swearing. This meant a continuation of war between the Spartans and the Thebans, a war for which the Spartans were ready: an army some ten thousand strong, including around fifteen hundred Spartiates, was waiting in central Greece under the other Spartan king Cleombrotus. As soon as they had news of the outcome of the peace conference, Cleombrotus and his men invaded Boeotia from the north and marched to attack Thebes.