After Cassander's death in 297, the whole dinasty was annihilated in a short period of time. King Philip IV, the oldest son of Cassander died in 297 after only a few months on the macedonian throne. Thessalonice, the wife of Cassander and the regent of two sons, was brutally killed in 295 by her son Antipater. Alexander V, the youngest of the brothers, avenged his mother by killing his brother Antipater, but was killed in turn by Demetrios the Besieger of Cities, son of Antigonus. The entire family of Cassander was exterminated from the world already in 294, only three years after Cassanders death. Thus, I'm of the opinion that the bone remains found in the two golden larnaxes in the main chamber and the antechamber of Tomb II belongs to King Cassander and Thessalonice, respectively. Tomb III, the Prince's Tomb was build by the mother Tessalonice for their young son Philip IV, King of Macedonia. For the sake of completeness, I want also to make a comment on the Tomb I, the Persephone´s Tomb. I'm convinced that the Tomb I was build on order by Antipater for burial of the killed King Philip II. However, in the days of persistent civil war and the apparent risk for looting and destuction by the attacking hellenes, probably the golden larnax with the remains of Philip II was removed and buried on a remote place, safe and unreacheble for the enemies of Macedonia. At the moment when Olympias come to the throne in Pella, she commited a slaughter and it was said that among the victims was Iollas accounted as a dead man whish bones was turned up from his grave. It is probabal that the remains of Iollas and his pregnant wife, unknown for us, were collected by Cassander and buried in the Tomb I, which was on access for re-use. All three Tombs at Vergina seems to contain the remains of members of two royal families, the two sons of Antipater, and daughter of Philip II, Thessalonice and their son Philip IV. In my opinion, the tumulus over the Royal Tombs at Vergina was build on order by Lysimachus, the King of Thrace, sometime before he died in 281. Antipater gave his daughter Nicaea, who had once been promised to Perdiccas, married to Lysimachus, the governor of Thrace. Lysimachus as a family relative and close military allied of Cassander maybe is the person who gave the order to build the tumulus over the Royal Tombs at Vergina at the monent when he got access to Pella as ruler of one part of divided Macedonia.
marcus wrote:antipater wrote:In an article writen by Angela M.H. Schuster (
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/macedon/)
it was stated that the bone remains found in the golden larnax in Tomb II does not pertain to Philip II of Macedon. It was said that the "eye bone injury" of the right eyesocket, was in reality a "shrinkage of the bone mass" due to the cremation process. Thus, the reconstracted Face of Philip II, based on damage to the skull, is faulty and incorrect. The reconstracted Face of Philip II with exeptions of the faulty eye damage may in reality represent the Face of King Cassander.
It must be as tedious for you as it is for me, but ...
irrespective of whether the bones in the larnax are those of Philip II - and we only have the opinions of some academics against those of others, with no absolute *
proof* either way ... if the bones are
not those of Philip, it
does not follow that they are those of Cassander - and certainly stating so without any proof is of
no use to anyone, and will continue to gain you nothing but argument from people on this forum (or anywhere else, for that matter).
ATB
