Hi all:
Points well taken, Amyntoros -- Justin was, of course, stating his own opinion. You are also right that a king technically and thus necessarily is
always ruling over his friends.
And thanks to you Callisto for your very knowledgeable reminder that Philip's Makedonian kingdom was not a united monolith. I wonder if Philip's nephew Amyntas, whom Philip was supposed to be keeping the throne warm for, might have been either an accomplice or the intended king or both (having promised sweet rewards to the others)? You could understand it. Note Alexander knocked him off too, eventually, though extra-judicially; maybe some new info came up, or he was unwilling at first because Amyntas was kin.
Philip’s end, as we have it, was brought about by a jilted lover who had been pack-raped by Attalus’ muleteers. Unless we venture onto hotly disputed ground and include Olympias and possibly Alexander in this, we are left to conclude that the fellow acted of his own accord.
Someone had horses waiting for him, so he most definitely did not act on his own accord.
I personally think Olympias
was behind it, with other local conspirators -- who were, again, too tight and resolute for any of them to tip Philip off, or blather to someone who would. I doubt she'd have allied with Persians or Athenians to do it. I also don't think Alexander was in on it, because he didn't have to be, to play his designated role -- take over as king -- and I think we have too much evidence of his religious devotion to allow that he'd take part in what was considered not just a crime but a blasphemy. And he had saved Philip's life before. I know you can ask
qui bono, but the list of people to whom that would apply is pretty long.
Hammond, interestingly, argues that the thirteenth statue which preceded Philip into the stadium that day can really only be made sense of if Philip had asked for, and had conferred upon him by “the Macedones”, divine honours.
It is an interesting argument, but I'd buy it more if they had been allowed to see the statues beforehand, and if one or more of the ancient sources had actually said right out that Philip asked for and received divine honours. I'll grant that there's no way he would have presented the statue if he didn't think Makedones would at least tolerate it. Of course he may have been wrong... they hardly had time to react before there was something much bigger to react to.
But I'm going to throw another possible interpretation at you, based on the idea that Makedonians were very religious, believed that the Gods influenced earthly events, and believed strongly in omens.
The statues are carried in and everyone sees Statue #13 -- just as big and nice as the other 12, and placed centrally, displacing even Zeus. So Philip is saying, not only am I a God, but I'm just as divine as the Olympians and even their King. A shocking sight, to those who are truly religious.
Five minutes later, he who would sit among the Immortals is dead.
How's it going to be interpreted, by those who believe Gods can act in the world? That he's committed hubris, and been suitably and instantly punished, the Gods working through a mortal assassin. How else?
Notice how Alexander, despite his divine conceit, never had any statue of himself placed with those of Gods? I wouldn't have if I were him, either.
So -- the Makedonians had this vivid lesson etched on their minds, not that far back. Might their reluctance to grant divine honours to Alexander -- despite his conquests, which were what fueled the notions of divine status, being so far greater than Philip's -- perhaps been prompted by fear of
losing him?
He goes on to say that this may be the precedent that Alexander followed but was denied. Thus the anger.
You can't make a single event concerning one noble into a longstanding anger against all nobles, though. What other evidence is there that Alexander was lastingly angry at any nobles? Charging Philotas? He had to be talked into it by other nobles!
The nobility’s relations with Alexander are neatly summed up in the words placed into Cleitus’ mouth prior to Alexander running him through. There is a large disconnect described in those words where Clietus – and he will not have been alone – describes a monarch far more high handed and seemingly self important than Philip.
Placed into Kleitos's mouth by whom? No two sources have the same talking points. And we can't assume that Kleitos -- who was likely angry because he was being assigned to a desk job, away from the action, and took it as a slight on his fighting ability -- wasn't speaking only out of his own resentment. Sure there was a verbal donnybrook about the relative worth of the older men's achievements versus the youngest, and Philip's versus Alexander's, the sort of stupid, pointless argument people get into when they're drunk, but my guess is that probably happened fairly often, without bloodshed, to be forgotten, laughed about and/or made up in the morning. Kleitos
was alone in how vehement and insulting he got, else he wouldn't be singled out in all the accounts, and he wouldn't have had his own friends trying to shut him up and drag him out.
Incidentally, elsewhere, Paralus, you've cited almost-regicide Hermolaos as a witness to Alexander's character. This is a youth sworn to protect a king who's attempted to murder him in his sleep but was instead caught, and who is now filled with rage and self-justification and so wants to vilify the king and hurt his reputation as much as humanly possible before being executed. Hardly a credible character witness.
Coenus is given the words to express the views of the rank and file at the Beas. They would go no further and demanded to go home. And this is a victorious army.
But they didn't hate Alexander. They just wanted to go home. When he conceded they were okay with him again.
At Opis, although different factors are at play, the mood is similar. There is huge resentment at the incorporation of Asian troops into both the Macedonian army and the "companionate". Philip didn't ever suffer such because he limited who would become "Macedones" and therefore who made up the national army elite.
This was another understandable sentiment, and it was a dilemma without an answer that was going to please everyone -- because politically, it was best for Alexander to give some of the plum jobs to Persians, to show he trusted them, to incorporate them into the rulership of their own people, etc. This isn't about his character or likeability. It's about the difficulties of empire. If Philip hadn't been assassinated (after wise second thoughts, perhaps, about that thirteenth statue
) and had invaded Persia equally successfully as Alexander -- as he was planning to -- he'd have run into exactly the same dilemma.
Philip had spent his career sharing out the benefits of empire building: the creation of “cities of the Macedones” where veterans had peasant populations installed to farm estates for them and accrue the income from they generated. Coenus’ father was given one such in Chalcidice. This was somewhat different for the veterans in Alexander's army. These veterans were paid and given gratuities but few had seen the largesse that Philip had handed out. Nor did they want that in some “Alexandria in the middle of nowhere”.
Well, the Alexandria-in-the-middle-of-nowhere argument I can see -- c.f. Kleitos above -- but again, that's part of the difficulties of empire, which Philip would have run into also had things gone according to his plans. It's not fair to judge Alexander harshly next to Philip using situations that Philip never had to deal with. And I don't think you can fault Alexander for lack of largesse, when he did things such as pay off every soldier's debts, no questions asked.
We don’t have the amount of material on Philip as we have on Alexander and would it were, as Amyntoros says, that we had Theopompus, Marsayas Macedon, Dyillus or Ephorus.
Indeed!
Even so, in what we do have nowhere do we find anything comparable to the internal criticisms and attacks that we have about Alexander. That may be down to the material but the fact remains that the only real show of anger and dislike for Philip comes from his son and his mother.
And Pausanias. Now what do all three of these people have in common? Intimate or immediate family relationships with the man. Does that look good on him? Not in my book. (Nor Demaratos of Corinth's, by his remark.) Whenever a parent and his offspring don't get along, the first person to look at is the parent, since the relationship started with the child being only a child -- the tone is entirely set by the parent.
And personally, if my father condoned another noble implying that I was a bastard and my mother a whore in public, I'd be ticked too. And if Dad then drew his sword on me, because I called the other noble out for it, I'd be even more ticked. (It was blasphemous to kill your son, too.) If this was typical behaviour from the father --
in vino veritas, perhaps there were many other instances in private -- of course the son would be angry.
Further -- does this event demonstrate an egalitarian-style tolerance of free speech in Philip's court? What was the message it must have given to everyone there? "My own son speaks out of line, I'll kill him -- don't doubt I'll do the same to you." Maybe we hear more internal criticism of Alexander because he was more willing to hear it himself.
Philip was a different character to his son. Not only did take pains not to set himself apart from his nobles or companions, he led the army on foot on several occasions by commanding the phalanx.
You're saying Alexander never fought on foot??? He was heading a cavalry charge off the ships and over the broken walls of Tyre? Rode Boukephalos in that narrow squeeze along the streambed under the wall of Kyropolis? Got his subsequent mount to climb the ladder with him clinging to his back up the wall of the city in Mallia where he was shot? (Alexander, that is, not the horse
) ...those three just off the top of my head.
Why I think we never hear about him fighting in the phalanx: he was too shrimpy. These guys had to carry spears of 13 to 18 feet, depending on who you believe -- so the bigger guys they were, the better. It would make sense to have a height requirement, and my guess is that Philip instituted one. And his diminutive spawn didn't cut the mustard.
Getting back to "rule with" vs. "rule over" friends -- there is one friend whom Alexander was very willing to rule with: Hephaistion. Was Philip ever heard to say, of anyone, "He too is Philip" -- or the like? Or name anyone to such a high position as the chiliarchy to which Alexander appointed Hephaistion after returning from India? In fact, is Philip shown ever to have had anyone who was such a close friend, at all? I can't think of one. If there's any truth in what Justin wrote about his policy re friendships, I can see why not.
Warmly,
Karen
