Alexander the Great

by Anthony Everitt

  Olympias, no slouch when it came to complaining, wrote to warn Alexander against him. And Philotas was heartily disliked by his colleagues. His father was worried enough by the poor impression he was making to remark: “Son, don’t make so much of yourself.”

  Philotas had a mistress called Antigone. A beautiful young woman, she came from Pydna, a Greek port on the Thermaic Gulf. Sailing to Samothrace for the Mysteries, she was captured by the Persian fleet. After Issus she found herself in the Great King’s baggage train at Damascus. There she fell into the hands of Parmenion, who passed her on to Philotas. She may or may not have been a slave, but appears to have been of low birth. She had little choice but to make her living as a high-class prostitute or hetaira.

  By the time of the Egyptian campaign, Philotas and Antigone had become a settled couple. When he was drunk, he enjoyed engaging in indiscreet pillow talk. He complained of Alexander’s claim to be the son of Zeus-Ammon. In his opinion, the king was a mere boy and his successes in the field were thanks to Philotas and to Philip. Antigone gossiped about these remarks, which eventually reached the ears of Craterus, Philotas’s political enemy and rival. He brought her privately to Alexander, who told her to maintain the relationship with her patron and send in regular reports. He tended to discount carping among his subordinates and took no further action.

  Alexander may never have been very close to Philotas, who appears to have taken Philip’s part during the Pixodarus marriage fiasco. That was a long time ago, but Alexander saved up his resentments. However, he drew a line between inactive boastfulness and active disloyalty. He valued his cavalry commander highly for his military skills and had no wish needlessly to offend Parmenion. Best let sleeping, if tactless, dogs lie.

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  FACED WITH THE POTENTIALLY damning evidence of Nicomachus and Cebalinus, the king knew that, according to Macedonian custom, he would be expected to act consultatively and democratically. He called a meeting of his senior officers, except for Philotas, and arranged for Nicomachus to repeat his account. He then asked for advice.

  Craterus twisted the knife: “The enemies we are about to pursue are still numerous enough. Protect yourself against the enemies within. Eliminate them and I have nothing to fear from foreigners.”

  The commanders could find no plausible explanation for Philotas’s failure to warn the king. The pretense that Alexander had had no time to talk with him was a direct lie. If he had not believed Cebalinus, he should have rejected his charges and sent him away. Instead he had let the affair drag on, with the implication that the claims were credible.

  The meeting agreed unanimously that there was enough evidence to justify interrogation under torture. We do not know enough about the Macedonian legal system to judge whether torture was regularly used when investigating serious crime, but in ancient Greece its use was usually restricted to slaves; by contrast, the honor of a citizen compelled him to speak the truth. However, because no one objected to the decision, it seems probable that the king in his judicial capacity was entitled to authorize torture.

  Great care was taken with the arrest of Philotas. He was invited to dinner with the king and other guests and, to give an impression of normality, a route march was announced for the following day. Cavalry units were posted at all entrances to the camp with orders to block the roads. This was to make sure that no hint of what was about to happen reached the ears of Parmenion. He may have been innocent of any crime, but whether he was or not was immaterial. The old general would be furious at the news of his son’s downfall. He was popular with the men and could be counted on to make trouble on Philotas’s behalf.

  In the middle of the night, when all lights were out, some of Alexander’s most trusted officers—Hephaestion, Craterus, Coenus, and Erigyius, along with Perdiccas and Leonnatus from the bodyguard— gathered secretly in the royal tent. Small military detachments arrested all those who had been named, and a force of three hundred men surrounded Philotas’s tent. The commander was in a deep slumber and was only half awake when he was arrested and shackled. A cloak was placed over his head so that he would not be recognized by any insomniac soldier.

  The following morning Alexander ordered a general assembly in arms. About six thousand soldiers as well as assorted camp followers gathered outside the royal tent. Philotas was concealed from view by a column of soldiers, but Dimnus’s corpse was placed on open display.

  According to Macedonian law, the king acted as prosecutor in a capital trial, and Macedonian soldiers (or citizens if at home) were the jury. They stood on their rights and would not necessarily come to the desired decision. A sensitive case such as this needed careful handling.

  Alexander marched out with his entourage to the assembly, looking gloomy and upset. He stood staring at the ground for a while, then pulled himself together and spoke. He announced the discovery of an extensive criminal conspiracy headed by (of all people, his listeners must have thought) his aged deputy Parmenion. He named Philotas and others as among the plotters and pointed to the dead Dimnus.

  Nicomachus, Cebalinus, and Metron were then summoned and repeated their accounts. Although there was evidence of a conspiracy, it did not implicate Philotas and Parmenion as among its members. After an initial outburst, what the three young men said was received in silence.

  Alexander resumed his address. He quoted from an intercepted letter sent by Parmenion to his two sons. The text read: “First of all take care of yourselves, and then of your people—that is how we shall accomplish our purpose.” The king explained that anyone in the know would understand the passage, but it would be meaningless to other readers if they came across it.

  Some people in the audience criticized the accused man, including Coenus (despite the family connection). He picked up a stone to throw at Philotas, but the king stayed his hand. At this point Alexander left the meeting, without explanation. So far, Philotas appears not to have been tortured, but he was in poor shape. Dazed and fainting, he wept. However, after wiping his eyes he spoke strongly in his defense.

  He made two main points: first, neither he nor his father had been named by Dimnus and there was no evidence of their involvement in a plot. Secondly, his inaction after listening to Cebalinus was justifiable. He explained: “Unfortunately for me, I thought that what was coming to my ears was a tiff between lover and boyfriend. I doubted Nicomachus’ reliability because he did not bring the information in person but induced his brother to bring it.” He would have looked a fool, he thought, if he had taken the matter any further.

  Philotas was then led away. Perhaps he had displayed some of his old arrogant manner, for a veteran officer who had risen from the ranks infuriated the assembly with tales of Philotas’s extravagance and boastfulness. The general mood hardened against him. However, the prosecution case was thin. It had not established the existence of a large conspiracy involving the two generals.

  With uncanny timing, Alexander returned and promptly adjourned the session to the following day. He convened another meeting of his advisers, who agreed that Philotas should be executed by stoning, the traditional Macedonian form of capital punishment. However, first of all there had to be a conviction.

  Clearly what was needed was a confession. Hephaestion, Craterus, and Coenus volunteered to question Philotas under torture. The king withdrew into the inner section of his quarters and waited on events (although some say he listened in behind a tapestry).

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  PHILOTAS WAS SHOWN THE instruments used to inflict pain. He immediately confessed to everything. “Why hurt me? I planned the crime and I wanted it to succeed.” However, Craterus insisted that any admissions had to be given under torture. We are told that Philotas was subjected to “fire and beatings.” Bloody and broken, he agreed to give a detailed confession, provided that the torture was halted and the instruments removed.

  The story began wi
th a certain Hegelochus, a relative of Attalus, whose niece and ward was King Philip’s last wife. He was close to Parmenion and while the army was in Egypt complained bitterly about the visit to the Siwah oasis. Like many other Macedonians, he was furious that Alexander now claimed he was the son of Zeus Ammon, thus casting doubt over Philip’s paternity. He asked the old general to join a plot to kill the king.

  Parmenion had no objection to the project in principle, he said, but believed that the timing was wrong. According to Philotas,

  with Darius still alive, Parmenion thought the plan premature, since killing Alexander would benefit the enemy, not themselves, whereas with Darius removed the reward of killing the king that would fall to his assassins would be Asia and all of the East. The plan was approved and pledges given and accepted on it.

  Philotas pleaded guilty to this grand conspiracy. Its implementation was now an urgent task, for Parmenion was old and likely to be retired soon from active service. However, he insisted that he had no knowledge at all of Dimnus’s activities. His onetime comrades showed him the instruments again and he conceded on that point too.

  Alexander now had a complete case to offer his Macedonian jurors, whom he reconvened on the following day. Philotas was carried to the assembly on a chair, for he was unable to walk. His confession was read out aloud. A mysterious incident followed, when he unexpectedly inculpated a high-ranking individual who was present and had not been previously named. Then Philotas and all the other conspirators were stoned to death. (Demetrius, the bodyguard, loudly protested his innocence and may have been spared for the time being, in which case he was done away with later when the fuss had died down.)

  Far away in Ecbatana, Parmenion knew nothing of the catastrophe that had overtaken his one remaining son. The king realized that “it would be too dangerous to let him survive.” He suborned Polydamas, a trusted and long-standing associate of the general, and dispatched him to the Median capital. Polydamas rode for eleven days on a racing camel through desert lands. Arriving secretly at night, he delivered instructions for the assassination. Parmenion’s second-in-command, Cleander, orchestrated the murder on the following day. Delighted to greet the new arrival, the old man was unsuspectingly struck down in his walled Persian garden while reading a forged letter from his son.

  It was an ungenerous reward for a lifetime’s service to the Macedonian crown, but Parmenion knew that he played in a rough game. He would not have registered surprise at his fate, had he been given time to do so.

  Alexander decided the moment was propitious to settle some unfinished business. Once the guilty men had been put to death, he brought forward before the assembly the hapless Alexander of Lyncestis, imprisoned since before Issus for treasonable correspondence with the Great King and possible involvement in Philip’s assassination. He was suddenly brought forward in front of the assembly and required to defend himself. Three years of imprisonment in the baggage train had taken its toll. Curtius writes: “Although he had had all of three years to rehearse his defense, he was faltering and nervous, deploying few of the arguments which he had stored up in his mind, until finally his very thought processes, not just his memory, failed him.” Without more ado, the Lyncestian was put to death.

  After the body had been removed, Alexander had the four sons of Andromenes put on trial. The eldest, Amyntas, had the calamitous misfortune to have been a close friend of Philotas. Also, as a boy he had been educated alongside Amyntas, son of King Perdiccas, whom Alexander executed in 336 as a potential rival to the throne. However, the brothers had a proven record of loyalty and were liked by the troops. The youngest, Polemon, was in his teens. He was panicked by the Philotas affair and ran away from the camp.

  The other siblings stayed to face prosecution. Amyntas convinced a truculent assembly of his innocence and the trio was acquitted. Amyntas promised to bring back Polemon and, when he had done so, the boy too was exonerated. The outcome showed that Macedonian justice could be fair-handed and generous. A suspicious mind, though, may wonder whether it was the king’s intention to calm the feverish atmosphere and bring a melancholy sequence of trials and deaths to a happy conclusion.

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  THE ACCOUNT GIVEN ABOVE is a great lie, or at least dust thrown in the face. So say modern scholars who propose that, ever since inheriting the throne, Alexander had wanted to discredit Parmenion and his sons and rid himself of them. They were a constant reminder that his army was not truly his, but was the creation of his father. A helpful fate had disposed of Nicanor and Hector, and now at last after years of waiting the opportunity had arrived to put an end to this talented but independent-minded family. A scheme was hatched by a malevolent monarch and his cynical courtiers.

  Is there any truth in this theory? And, more generally, how much of the narrative that has come down to us can be trusted?

  To be clear, we are speaking of two conspiracies. The first was the amateurish group Dimnus joined. Curtius’s account is the fullest: it is internally coherent and there is every reason to regard it as broadly historical. Apart from Demetrius the bodyguard, none of the named plotters were people of note; rather, they were probably discontented young men. We may speculate that their motives were in some way a reaction to Alexander’s pro-Persian policy and his intention to continue the war.

  The only point of interest was Philotas’s opportunistic refusal to let its intended victim know what was planned, despite the fact that an attempt was said to be imminent. His explanation was weak. Even if he did not believe Cebalinus, the least he should have done was to investigate his claims. It is hard to resist the conclusion that his silence was malicious.

  It is clear that Parmenion had no connection with Dimnus and his friends (pace his son’s forced admission after two bouts of torture). If Philotas had been involved, it beggars belief that Cebalinus would have asked him to warn the king.

  So far as the second, grander conspiracy is concerned, there is hardly a case to answer. At the beginning of his agony Philotas appealed to Craterus: “Just tell me what you want me to say.” The detailed confession, in which a broken man asserted a long-standing plan to kill the king and tarred his father with premeditated treason, is most likely to have been devised by his tormentors. No doubt Alexander had already decided to eliminate Parmenion and needed some justification for his extrajudicial murder.

  The only concrete piece of evidence that Parmenion conspired against Alexander is the dim tale Philotas told about Hegelochus, but that allegation could not be tested. Parmenion was absent and Hegelochus had conveniently died at Gaugamela.

  Apart from this whisper, the slate is clean. Ancient histories cite the king as often rejecting Parmenion’s advice. From this scholars deduce a propaganda campaign against him, which reflected the king’s desire to remove him (and his sons). As we have seen, the charge is weakened by the fact that on a number of other occasions Alexander accepted his deputy’s recommendations.

  Parmenion had been Philip’s man and married his daughter to Attalus, Alexander’s great enemy. However, after the king’s assassination, he quickly lined up behind Alexander and, as we have seen, put his son-in-law to death when asked to do so.

  A great deal is known about Parmenion’s activities during the Persian campaign as well as those of Philotas and Nicanor. They took leading roles in all Alexander’s battles and made a major contribution to his victories. Why should the king seek to discard his best and most reliable commanders? And had he wanted to do so, Alexander’s purge at the beginning of the reign showed that he was ruthless enough to have demoted or dismissed them at any stage. With his unbroken record of military victories, he could have ridden out a storm of protest. However, he kept Parmenion and his sons on in their posts. By the time of his death Parmenion was on the verge of retirement and two of his three sons were dead. Why bother to get rid of Philotas?

  If there is a scintilla of truth in the cha
rges, it may be attributed to the culture at the Macedonian court. Although an intelligent monarch could usually get his way, his noblemen insisted on treating him merely as a first among equals. They drank deep, led adventurous private lives, and spoke their minds. Philip was not literal-minded and had no objection to their candor, always providing they fought hard on the battlefield. Alexander had inherited that attitude. Only when talk turned into treason was he ready to intervene.

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  WE ARE NOW READY to sum up what we know or can reasonably guess of the facts.

  Alexander was a hugely successful war leader, admired both by his officers and the rank and file. He had inherited his best generals from his father. He demanded a great deal from them, both under his direct command and as independent generals when he divided up his army into smaller units. And do their best they did. They fought well and served their master without stint.

  As the distinguished Greek historian Polybius observed: “While we should perhaps give Alexander, as commander-in-chief, the credit for much, despite his extreme youth, we should assign no less to his co-operators and friends, who defeated the enemy in many marvelous battles, [and] exposed themselves often to extraordinary toil, danger, and hardship.”

  However, many were out of sympathy with his newfangled and un-Macedonian policies. They objected to his downgrading of King Philip, to his eccentric decision to claim Zeus Ammon as his father, to his promotion of Persians, to the growing luxury of his court, and to the continuance of the war. They did not keep their thoughts to themselves.

  Mostly talk remained talk, but Dimnus and his friends were determined to act. Philotas felt much the same way as they did about the king and, when he was told what was afoot, he decided to keep his mouth shut. This can only have been because he was content for the plot to proceed undisturbed.