Alexander the Great

by Anthony Everitt

  —

  IT WAS PROBABLY AT this point that Attalus, who had caused all the trouble, was dispatched to share command with Parmenion in the east. To put him out of the way showed a sensitivity to Alexander’s feelings.

  Before his departure (we do not know how long before, but presumably not very long), he intervened in one of Philip’s complicated amours. A handsome Royal Page named Pausanias was the king’s eromenos. He was supplanted by another lad, also inconveniently called Pausanias. The spurned youth was so distressed that he made a scene, accusing his successful rival of being a hermaphrodite and ready to accept the advances of anyone who was interested. By “hermaphrodite,” he implied that the rival allowed himself to be penetrated by his partner—the one thing no respectable boy would ever permit, even in a society that accepted homosexual relations.

  The accusations struck home and the second Pausanias committed suicide in spectacular fashion. A few days later, when Philip was on campaign and fighting in a battle, he stepped in front of him and received on his body all the blows aimed at the king.

  We are not told of Philip’s reaction, but the boy had been a friend of Attalus, who was greatly vexed by his death. Never a man to manage his feelings, he invited the first Pausanias to dinner and got him drunk. He and his other guests raped him and he was then handed to his stable boys, who subjected him to the same ordeal.

  When Pausanias came round, he realized what had been done to him and went to the king to lay a complaint. Philip was sympathetic, but felt he could not afford to offend Attalus, the new queen’s uncle and one of his military commanders. He tried to buy Pausanias off with presents and a promotion among the Royal Pages, who acted as the king’s bodyguards.

  Pausanias refused to be mollified and nursed his wrath.

  * * *

  —

  WITH THE CROWN PRINCE’S return, we may guess that the atmosphere in the palace at Pella was icy.

  This was exemplified by a curious incident. The king was still busy negotiating marriages. As part of advance planning for the invasion of Persia, he was in touch with Pixodarus, the provincial governor, or satrap, of Caria (in western Anatolia), who was preparing to abandon the Great King and take Macedonia’s side in the forthcoming war. To cement their alliance, the satrap proposed that his daughter marry Philip’s son Arrhidaeus, by his Thessalian wife, Philinna. Although he was the king’s eldest male child, Arrhidaeus suffered from some kind of mental illness, or perhaps epilepsy. He was unable to play a full part in political life, but, like his sister, he could still be a useful power pawn.

  Alexander got wind of the scheme and, acting completely out of character, panicked. Prompted by his mother and friends, he felt sure that the planned marriage signified that his father intended to disinherit him in favor of his half-brother. The suspicion was irrational, for Philip was not the kind of man to hand over his hard-won gains to an incompetent.

  Nevertheless, Alexander was determined to head off the threat. He asked a well-known tragic actor, Thessalus, who had won top drama prizes at Athens, to go to Pixodarus as his envoy and throw in a spanner. (Because performers traveled from festival to festival around the Mediterranean, governments often hired them as emissaries or agents.) Thessalus informed the satrap that the proposed bridegroom was weak-minded (a fact the Macedonian king had evidently kept to himself) and suggested that instead he mark down his daughter for Alexander.

  Philip soon learned what had happened and lost his temper. He stormed into Alexander’s room, taking with him one of the young man’s friends, Philotas, son of his favorite general, Parmenion. It is a reasonable guess that this youth had been the one who informed the king of what was going on. If so, we can be sure that Alexander stored the betrayal in the back of his mind for future action.

  According to Plutarch, Philip gave his son a piece of his mind, but was careful to avoid another irrevocable split. He simply “reproached him for behaving so ignobly and so unworthily of his position as to wish to marry the daughter of a mere Carian, who was no more than the slave of a barbarian king.”

  Presumably Alexander would be needed on campaign. The king would want to keep him under his eye and it seems most unlikely that he would be appointed as regent of Macedonia again.

  Thessalus did not fare so well. He was put in chains and sent back to Macedonia to await punishment. The prince’s group of youthful followers were banished from court. They included Ptolemy, son of Lagus, but rumored to have been sired by the king; Harpalus, probably the nephew of Phila, one of Philip’s seven wives; and Nearchus, a Cretan by birth who lived in Amphipolis in the Chalcidice. Alexander was fiercely loyal to these early supporters, and in later years promoted them and overlooked their peccadilloes. For the moment, though, they vanished from view, leaving their charismatic chief alone in a bleak world.

  Ostensibly peaceful relations resumed, but Philip looked to shore up his dynasty by reaching out yet again to matrimony. He decided to marry off Cynane, his daughter by Audata, his Illyrian queen. She was a remarkable young woman, well known for her “unfeminine” enthusiasm for military affairs. She accompanied her father on an Illyrian campaign and, despite her mother’s origin, killed with her own hand an Illyrian queen on the battlefield.

  Her husband was to be her first cousin Amyntas, son of King Perdiccas. As we have seen, he had been supplanted as king during his infancy but was living unharmed at the Macedonian court. We do not have a window into Philip’s soul, but it looks as if he was preparing (once again) for a day when Alexander was no longer available, for whatever reason, to succeed him.

  Amyntas may not have had the ambition for kingship, but he was an adult and in his right mind. Above all, the blood royal flowed through his veins.

  With all these marriages, it is decidedly odd that Philip showed no interest in finding a wife for his son. Perhaps in truth he had given up on him.

  * * *

  —

  THE WEDDING OF THE KING of Epirus to Philip’s daughter Cleopatra was to be the most splendid event. The object was to display the king as a civilized, generous, and friendly Hellene, who deserved his new role as hegemon.

  The venue was the kingdom’s old capital, Aegae, where Macedonia’s kings were interred. A monumental palace, built during Philip’s reign, was a landmark visible for miles. Two or three stories were organized around a large, columned courtyard. The building was sumptuously decorated with mosaic floors and frescoed walls. The external walls were covered with a lustrous marble stucco. A large gallery overlooked an open-air theater; this was constructed from banked earth and only the stage and the front row were made of stone. An altar dedicated to Dionysus, god of theater, stood in the middle of the orchestra, a circular space between the audience and the players, from which a chorus commented on the action.

  The guest list was international. Anybody who was anybody in the Greek world was expected to be present. Philip’s guest-friends were summoned and members of his court were expected to bring along as many foreign acquaintances as they could. Musical contests, athletic games, and lavish banquets were programmed. Crowds flocked to Aegae. Representatives of important city-states presented the king with golden wreaths. Athens was among the donors despite its traditional hostility to Macedonia; after handing over its wreath, the city’s herald announced a new law that if anyone plotted against King Philip and fled to Athens for refuge, he would be “delivered up.”

  At the wedding banquet a hugely popular Athenian actor, Neoptolemus, gave a recital. He was “matchless in the power of his voice,” and many years ago had trained the young orator Demosthenes how to speak long sentences in a single breath. One of the pieces he performed was a melancholy ode on the vanity of human wishes. He was referring to the disaster that struck the Persian invaders of Greece in 490 and 480, and the king was delighted. But superstitious listeners feared it was a bad omen for the future.

  Your thou
ghts reach higher than the air.

  …

  But there is one who’ll catch the swift,

  Who goes away obscured in gloom,

  And sudden, unseen, overtakes

  And robs us of our distant hopes—

  Death, human beings’ source of many woes.

  At last late drinkers went to bed. Games were scheduled for the following day. While it was still dark, a multitude of spectators poured into the theater where performances and contests were to be held, and soon every space in the theater and presumably on the gallery above was taken.

  Outside, a splendid ceremonial procession was formed. Statues of the twelve Olympian gods on their thrones were carried into the theater. According to the historian Diodorus, these were “worked with great artistry and decorated with a dazzling show of wealth to strike awe in the beholder.” Joining them was a thirteenth statue of Philip. It was set down with the others as if he, too, were divine. The Philippeum will have come to many people’s minds. Evidently the king was determined to set himself apart from and above ordinary mortals.

  Then Philip himself arrived. Unusually, he ordered the Royal Pages to walk behind him at a distance. Contradicting the impression of arrogance created by the statues, he wished to be seen as someone guarded by the goodwill of all Hellenes. He had no need of spearmen. He told some friends in the procession to go on ahead. Wearing a white cloak, he walked along a narrow passageway into the theater, a vulnerable figure with only the two Alexanders at his side, his son and his new son-in-law.

  * * *

  —

  THE EMBITTERED PAUSANIAS WAS among the pages on duty that morning. He had continued to feed his rage. The absent Attalus was beyond reach in Asia, but if he could not punish the man who had wronged him, he could at least strike down the one who had failed to avenge him. Carrying a Celtic dagger under his cloak, the young man took up a position at the entrance to the theater. As he was a member of the court, his presence attracted no particular attention.

  The young man darted forward without warning as the king emerged onto the orchestra and plunged the dagger inbetween his ribs. Shock and awe among the packed spectators. Philip died at once, his white cloak stained with blood. He was forty-six. His murderer rushed out by another exit from the theater.

  Some of the bodyguard ran to the king to try and help him; others, who may have been among Alexander’s entourage, chased after Pausanias. Three of them were close friends and contemporaries of the crown prince. They were Perdiccas, an aristocrat from Upper Macedonia who may have been of Argead descent, and Leonnatus, who was related to Queen Eurydice, Philip’s mother, and had been brought up with Alexander; so too, probably, was another follower, Attalus (no connection with Philip’s general).

  Pausanias had posted horses at the city gate for his getaway and enjoyed a good start. He would have reached them if his boot hadn’t been trapped in a vine root. Perdiccas and the guards caught up with him and speared him to death.

  All was confusion.

  * * *

  —

  MACEDONIA DID NOT HAVE robust institutions that could cope with sudden vacuums of power. For a short time, perhaps a day or so, there might be no certain authority. It looked as if Macedonia was reverting to type with palace coups and lethal purges in the royal family. The distinguished guests decided to wait on events at Aegae.

  Antipater realized there was not a moment to lose. The army was in an uneasy frame of mind: they were upset by Philip’s death, and were worried by the prospect of a long foreign campaign under an inexperienced leader. Alexander was not a particularly popular figure; with his foreign mother, perhaps he was not a true Macedonian. His quarrel with Philip had isolated him, and many leading personalities had set their faces against him.

  However, he had long been groomed, at least implicitly, as his father’s successor. The wily old general immediately presented the prince, wearing a breastplate, to an army assembly, which seems to have had the power to elect or confirm a new king. It at once acclaimed him. Diodorus writes that Alexander rose to the challenge and

  established his authority far more firmly than anyone thought possible, for he was quite young and so not universally respected. First, he promptly won over the Macedonians by tactful statements. The king was changed only in name and the state would be run on principles no less effective than those of his father’s administration. Then he addressed himself to the embassies which were present and good-naturedly asked the Greeks to remain as loyal to him as they had been to his father.

  One of his first regnal acts was to deal with Attalus, whose charge of illegitimacy still affronted him. The tricky general, not unnaturally alarmed for his safety after Philip’s demise, had begun plotting with the Athenians. He then changed his mind and betrayed them to Alexander as proof of his undying loyalty. The king was not deceived and sent a hetairos, or Companion, with a small band of men to the advance force in Asia with instructions either to bring him back alive or put him to death there. In the event Attalus was executed in situ. Parmenion had little choice but to allow this to happen despite the fact that his fellow commander was his son-in-law. His complaisance came at a price for Alexander, in that many of the key commands in the army were held by Parmenion’s sons, brothers, or other relatives. This was tolerable, though, for they were capable and obedient officers.

  The removal of Attalus was not enough to make Alexander secure. Philip had been something of a confidence trickster and his legacy was dispersing like the morning mist. Both at home and abroad, the situation suddenly deteriorated. According to Plutarch,

  Greece was still gasping over Philip’s wars. Thebes was staggering to her feet after her fall and shaking the dust of Chaeronea from her arms. Athens was stretching out a helping hand to join with Thebes. All Macedonia was festering with revolt and looking toward Amyntas and the sons of Aeropus. The Illyrians were again rebelling, and trouble with the Scythians was impending for their Macedonian neighbors. Persian gold flowed freely through the hands of popular leaders everywhere.

  The Amyntas to whom Plutarch refers was the son of Perdiccas, who had an irreproachable if theoretical claim to the throne. The sons of Aeropus were Arrhabaeus and his two brothers from Lyncestis who were close to Amyntas and whose father had quarreled with Philip.

  Alexander acted at once to stifle domestic opposition. In particular, he sensed conspirators in the background who were implicated in the assassination. Two of Aeropus’s sons were immediately put to death, so far as we can tell without trial. At some unknown date in 336 or 335 the supposed pretender, Amyntas, was also killed. The brother left alive was Alexander Lyncestes, husband of one of Antipater’s four daughters. Recognizing the danger he was in as soon as Philip was struck down, he ran to his namesake’s side and was among the first to rally to his cause. He was armed and he guarded the prince as he left the theater and made his way to the palace next door.

  This demonstration of instant loyalty, combined (no doubt) with his wife’s family connection, saved his life. We do not know how he reacted to his brothers’ fate, but he made sure not to complain in public. It was enough to be high in favor, for now.

  * * *

  —

  BUT WERE THESE MEN guilty as accused?

  One of Alexander’s first tasks was to arrange his father’s funeral. He was interred in a two-room tomb at Aegae. In the main chamber was a fresco of the rape of Persephone, queen of the Underworld. It was here that Philip lay for more than two millennia until benignly disturbed by twentieth-century archaeologists.

  It is suggestive that Alexander had the Lyncestian brothers ceremonially executed at the burial place, convinced (we have to presume) of their culpability. We may recall that Achilles sacrificed twelve Trojans at the funeral pyre of his lover Patroclus; perhaps Homer’s royal student had this bloodstained precedent in mind.

  However, no certain ev
idence has ever been adduced and the new king may simply have been eliminating a possible competitor for the throne whether or not he really wanted the job. Perhaps Amyntas did not. For many years he had lived a quiet life at court and never caused any trouble. But ambition for the throne, latent during Philip’s reign, may now have been ignited. We simply do not know, and perhaps the new king did not either. From his point of view, though, security came first.

  Pausanias had a powerful enough motive to have acted alone, and could have done so. But gossip swirled around Aegae and implicated very senior personalities. If anyone were to ask who benefited from Philip’s demise (in other words, were we to apply the Roman orator Cicero’s famous test, Cui bono?), the answer was obvious. The clear winners were Alexander himself, a crown prince without a future whose only role would have been forever to follow a few steps behind his father, and his ferocious mother, Olympias, who would do anything to advance his interests.

  Contemporaries guessed at their involvement and there is some evidence to confirm it, although not necessarily trustworthy. The Argead dynasty’s history is peppered with regicides, and both mother and son were known to be ambitious and decisive. We are told that Pausanias went to Alexander and complained about his treatment. Alexander gave him an enigmatic reply. He simply quoted a line from Euripides’ tragedy Medea, which refers to the accusation that the witch from Colchis was planning the murders of her faithless lover, Jason; his wife-to-be; and her father:

  The father, bride and bridegroom all at once.

  By this Alexander was understood to have meant Attalus, his daughter Cleopatra, and Philip. He was signaling his tacit encouragement of Pausanias should he decide to resort to violence.

  The fact that the murderer was killed by his pursuers rather than captured alive for questioning aroused suspicion. The captors were all known to be close associates of Alexander. Perhaps they had acted to stop Pausanias from revealing the names of conspirators.