Philip and Olympias: A Novel of Ancient Macedon

by Peter Messmore

  "I'm glad that you have returned safely," Myrtle said smugly. "Is your shoulder wound serious?"

  Philip stood transfixed at the door, still holding his bag of gold. He was unable to speak. His eyes were riveted to the disgusting snakes. Finally, words came. "What aberration is this? Are the gods punishing you for some misdeed? Have you lost your sanity?"

  Myrtle smiled and lowered her head. "These snakes are part of my ritual. It's a tradition in Epirus that predates even our worship of the Olympian gods. In recent times, we have combined the worship of Dionysus and Orpheus with our veneration of Epirus's mountain snakes. Don't concern yourself, Philip. Every snake you see here is harmless. I keep the poisonous ones separate."

  The king, still aghast, walked to the foot of the bed, a safe distance from the nearest snake. "I want these serpents removed immediately. There will be no snakes in my palace, certainly not in my queen's bed chambers!"

  "If you force the snakes’ removal, you will also force my removal as your queen. You gave me permission to be the religious head of state in Macedon. What you see is part of my worship ceremony. I've practiced these rituals for ten years. They are sacred to me. If I leave, I'll take with me the son lying within my belly. I await your command."

  Philip fell silent again. This woman's manner of announcing that she was pregnant confounded and angered him. He had come for only a quick romp. Now he had been put on the defensive, a position that he spent much of his life avoiding. "Are you with child?"

  "It's beyond doubt. Your physicians confirm it. The child will be the son that you crave. The snake worship that so disgusts you is the phallic power that is generating a male child. Don't condemn my ceremony; you'll be magnified by its power."

  Philip considered the queen's words. He knew nothing of her primitive religious practices, but he allowed that she might be right. But sex with her tonight was another matter. As he mounted her, all he would be thinking about would be one of the poisonous worms biting him on the ass. His desire irrevocably dissipated, he turned to leave the room.

  "I'm pleased with your pregnancy. I'll withhold decision about the snakes until after you deliver. If the child is male, you may keep them and I'll acknowledge the power of your worship. If the child is a girl, I no longer need you. You, the child, and your serpents will be sent packing back to Epirus's mountains.

  Take these nuggets," he said as he threw the bag to her. "When the Asyla mine goes to full production, you'll get a bag for every month of your pregnancy. Teach my son the value of gold while he grows in you." He turned and walked toward the door. "Sleep well. I'm going to my concubine. She worships only my worm." The king kicked the door hard, causing it to be opened by a slave. He left without looking back.

  Myrtle remained in the same position that she had been in since Philip's entrance. Tilting her head back against the large, beautifully carved headboard, she stared at the bed's canopied ceiling. Philip's reaction had been just as she had planned. It would be easy now to avoid him for the next seven months. She knew that he would consult a seer to help him interpret what he had just seen. Her priests had been told what to tell him and they would do their duties. It was rumored that Philip was leaving soon for Pydna, giving her more time to plan ways of avoiding his sexual demands. She was sure that it would take him months to get over her well-planned serpentine scene. She still wanted sex with her husband, but not during her pregnancy. Her firstborn was her life’s culmination. After the birth of her son, she would reach out to Philip. He would respond. Men of his type always did.

  She picked up a snake longer than Philip's forearm, gently fondled it, and placed it between her legs. The snake's head burrowed into her warm vagina, only to be pulled out again and again. Its middle body and tail undulated simultaneously over and around her clitoris, while she quickened her hand control of the serpent. After several of these repetitive actions, the Queen of Macedon achieved orgasm and lurched to one side of her bed. She returned the snake to its headboard cage, and then embraced sleep. She was tranquil, comforted externally by her snakes and internally by her unborn son; life was as good as it could get.

  King Philip spent only seven days in Pella. During that time, he met with the ambassador from Athens who informed him that his polis expected him to give them Amphipolis to them as promised.

  "Conditions have changed both in Athens and here," the king told the ambassador. "You are in no position to maintain the stability of the Northern Aegean. Athens's defeat at Chios and the current state of siege by rebels on Samos are glaring examples of this. Inform the boule that Amphipolis is mine after you leave Pella today."

  "You understand that this means that we are now at war," the ambassador responded glumly.

  “That’s clear," said Philip. "For generations Greeks have used Macedon. You have used our resources, our food, and our people. I've now established buffer states around us; the piecemeal usurping of our national energy is over. Relate that to Demosthenes when you tell him about Amphipolis."

  "We have misjudged you, Philip. That will not happen again. Greece will brand you the aggressor. You're alone and vulnerable."

  "Vulnerability comes when my army starts losing battles, ambassador. Let Athens understand that while the speeches are being made in your ecclesia. I want no direct confrontation with your city, but it will come if I'm given no alternative. Perhaps you don't know that even when I was seriously wounded at Amphipolis, I gave orders to release all Athenian citizens. Since my time as a Theban hostage, I've respected your city. But Athens should think hard before she does something foolish. Understand that a new power in the north has emerged. Greece will never be the same. Return to your city and teach your effete debaters that stern lesson."

  Philip dismissed the ambassador then called for Parmenio to join him. He had not seen his old friend during the months that he had been in Thrace. The men grabbed each other's arms in greeting and then shared several obscene jokes about boys, eunuchs and aggressive women.

  “You tell those raunchy jokes better than anyone in Macedonia,” Philip said. “I’ll remember them when I’m with our men in the field. It brings me closer to them.”

  “I do that,” Parmenio responded. “They love it. It takes their minds away from the lonely life away from their families. I enjoy doing it. How is your shoulder wound?”

  “It’s nearly healed. I feel pain when I move the arm above my head, but it’s almost back to normal.” I don’t understand why it hurts so much on foggy mornings and rainy days. Some things are known only to the gods.”

  “My wounds act the same way. You will learn to live with yours, as I have.”

  The discussion became serious when Parmenio told the king of unrest among the Illyrians. "After we defeated Bardylis two years ago, an obscure Illyrian tribal leader, a bear named Grabos, started expanding his fledgling army. They now have their forces on our borders. Commanders of our forts and civilians living there have told me that they're threatened. We expect attacks any time."

  Without hesitation, Philip responded to Parmenio's bad news. "Take a force of our best foot and royal companions to the border. Root them out! I'll not have our western buffer crumble now that I've just established one to the east. Leave as soon as you can, and keep me informed."

  "It will be done. Are you aware that the Chalcidians have been in contact with Grabos? Something to do with them cooperating in silver mining in Damastion, northeast of Lychnitis."

  "I was not. My attention has been on Amphipolis and my recovery. But I'll act quickly on this. Before I leave for Pydna, I'll send representatives to the leaders of the Chalcidian League at Olynthus. We must have friendly relations with them. I hope to get this by reestablishing the old Chalcidian League. Already we have agreed to the same coinage standard. I'm certain that they will be impressed by our lenient treatment of Amphipolis's citizens. If Athens does declare war, that news will be welcomed in Olynthus. Athens has ravaged the peninsula for a century. The enemy of Athens is the friend of Olynthus.
”

  "Yes, I see your plan. Speed is imperative for both of us now. I leave you to prepare the army. When I hunt down the Illyrian bear, another great victory will be yours." The two men embraced, and Philip taught his friend the painful beard-pulling game that he and his brother used to play.

  Left alone in his throne room, the king ruminated on his problems. Parmenio would settle matters in the west; he didn't doubt that. Today he would send representatives to Olynthus to court their alliance. Myrtle was growing his son and was occupied with her worms. He had nearly forgiven her for her revolting bedroom snake-behavior a week ago. His wound was nearly healed, and he was regaining his strength. He would leave soon to take Pydna before the Athenians had finished their speeches. Matters, although serious, appeared to be in hand. He decided to go hunting. He needed male-time with some of his trusted royal companions in the hills around Pella. It always cleared his mind. The gods were still with him.

  Taking the pro-Athenian city of Pydna, south of Pella near the Thermaic Gulf, was far easier than the long and costly siege of Amphipolis. Philip bribed three native Pydnans and several Macedonian merchants to aid his siege from inside. When each was told the story of the twelve gold laden donkeys on the hill outside Amphipolis, their cooperation was assured. The king didn't tell them that their payment was to be made by extension of credit, after the fall of the city. For all Macedonian gold reserves were exhausted until early spring. What they didn't know would not hurt him, providing they were eventually paid.

  Not even half a month passed between the time Philip informed the departing Athenian ambassador that he was not ceding Amphipolis to them and when he entered a vanquished Pydna. As before, all Athenian citizens, merchants, and soldiers were released without ransom and returned to their homes. Upon returning to Attica, many prisoners told of Philip's amicability and jovial personality. The Athenians had never encountered such an adversary before.

  After Pydna came Potidaea, in Chalcidice. To take the stalwart ally of Athens, Philip first began stormy negotiations with members of the Chalcidian League. Athens's formation of an anti-Macedonian group of states in and around the Northern Aegean was a serious final threat to the league's cities. Each of them reluctantly accepted Philip's proposed blocking action. They allowed him to besiege Potidaea, the longtime Athenian puppet city at the neck of a tine in the trident-shaped Chalcidian peninsula. Although near the Thermaic Gulf, the city was without a seaport and was vulnerable to land attack.

  Despite winter nearly being over, the brisk Etesian winds still blew from north to south. Any rescue by Athens's navy was a near impossibility. Philip pledged to each member of the league that when Potidaea fell and Athens's influence had been eliminated, all lands would be returned to the Chalcidian League. Not one of them was aware that he had made the same promise to Athens before he took Amphipolis. But their fear of Athens's domination was so great that it may not have mattered.

  The king established his massive 15,000-man army and its siege engineers around encirclement of luckless Potidaea. It was only a matter of time.

  Potidaea's siege was a classic example of military patience to avoid excessive loss of life. Spring had come and gone, and summer now graced the harsh, rocky peninsula that was Chalcidice. There had been a time, just before Athens had been immobilized by her war to bring back three seceding allies from her alliance, that Philip would have feared being caught besieging Potidaea during warmer months. Winds in the Mediterranean were now blowing from south to north. Had Athens not been occupied elsewhere, she would have posed a mortal threat to the Macedonian army surrounding her client city. But rebellions in Athens' former colonies along the Ionian coast allowed the king simply to wait until Potidaea was near starvation. Then his siege engines would topple its walls, just as he had done at Amphipolis. All estimates called for that happening in less than a month.

  On a bright, sunny day that was becoming too hot for the king's comfort, he sat in his command tent discussing technical wall-undermining details with his engineers. Antipater approached the king and informed him that a rider had just arrived from Pella. The king left the engineers and went to his tent to open three dispatches. The first informed him that his entry in the Olympic horse races had been victorious over Greek challengers. The Olympic gold wreath had been placed on his diminutive jockey's head and it awaited Philip when he returned to Pella. Before reading the two other dispatches, the king called in a scribe-courier. He dictated a message that was to be taken to the mint at Philippi. The message commanded the mint director to create three wax models of a new silver coin commemorating Philip's Olympic victory. He ordered that his head in profile, wearing the Olympic gold wreath, should grace the coin's obverse side. The coin's reverse side was to depict a jockey astride Philip's mighty steed, galloping to victory.

  The second Pella dispatch informed him of a great victory by Parmenio over the Illyrian Grabos in the mountains of western Macedonia. Grabos had been killed, many prisoners taken, and a huge tribute exacted from the survivors. His treasury was empty no more. This prompted a second communication from the king to Parmenio. His friend was instructed to send the prisoners who would not join the Macedonian army to the Asyla mines, now operating at full production near Philippi.

  The third message was from Myrtle’s scribe. It read: ‘A son was born of me on 20 Hekatombaion. Your successor is of good health and strong lungs. One eye is blue, like mine. The other is brown, like yours. His fair skin and large head recall my ancestor, Hercules. The lion of your dream is loosed upon the earth.’

  Philip read the message several times before dictating a reply. “Name my son Alexander, III. The power of your snakes is acknowledged. Your new name will be Olympias, in honor of my horse's victory in the Olympic races. I'll greet my son when Potidaea falls.”

  Philip then left his tent and informed his officers of the three messages' contents.

  "The gods are with you, Philip," Antipater shouted. "There will be a great celebration tonight. Potidaea is nearly subdued; the fates smile on our conquests."

  The king, at first pleased with the message's contents, frowned and said, "Such good fortune in triple quantities is a fearsome thing, Antipater. I'll pray tonight that the gods grant me some small setback to counter this good news. The gods never give so much to mortal man that they don't later take away."

  The superstition that the king expressed was well known in the Greek world. There was no laughter when he expressed his concern. Instead, camp priests were brought to help him ask for a small reversal that would make him eligible to benefit from the tripartite good tidings that were delivered to him that summer day.

  Reconstructed Head of King Philip (from the Vergina tomb skull) King Philip’s reconstructed head courtesy of the Department of Medical Illustration, University of Manchester, England

  Queen Olympias in her youth.

  Medallion photograph from the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

  The Sixteen-Pointed Starburst of Macedon.

  Alexander at the battle of Issus, after the events in Philip and Olympias. Picture taken by the author at the National Museum, Naples, Italy.

  Hephaistion, lover and companion of Alexander, J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, Ca., USA.

  The author before the bones of King Philip, National Museum, Thessaloniki, Greece

  CHAPTER 14

  Potidaea fell in late summer. King Philip left Attalus at the ruins to stamp out any lingering resistance, arrange for the city's male citizens to be enslaved and taken to the mines of Asyla. As he had done in Amphipolis and Pydna, the king commanded that all Athenian citizens were to be freed. Philip also kept his promise to the Chalcidian League when he directed Attalus to return all seized Potidaean land to league members.

  He then left for a brief trip to his new Thracian city, Philippi. The king was eager to view the mining and minting operations that now promised to give him the economic power base that he so desperately needed.

  When he arrived in Ph
ilippi, his Athenian mining engineer had prepared an exhibit that the king would long remember. Entering a small, crudely built house near the mint, he was directed to a large table that had hundreds of gold, silver and bronze coins neatly arranged on its top.

  "Here are your new issues," said the engineer as he pointed out each one's characteristics. "The gold ones are called Philips, as you commanded. They're based on the Attic standard. These silver sigloi, based on the Thracian standard, also bear your image as Zeus on the obverse. Its reverse has a twin team of horses being driven by a jockey. The bronze coins, mostly of small denominations, will be used by common people in everyday commerce and trading."

  Philip picked up a gold Philip. Its weight attested to its purity as he tossed it in the air several times. He allowed the coin to land in his open palm as he studied his likeness. Although stylized, it was a good resemblance. "After a year of minting, how many pieces will leave here for Pella?" he asked.

  The engineer smiled, anticipating the question. "By this time next year, we'll be at full production. Nearly 300,000 coins a year."

  "I want to see how they're stamped," the king said. "Is that going on now?"

  "Yes, come with me.”

  The two men walked a short distance to a collection of sideless shacks. Twenty slaves were busy striking hundreds of gold Philips. The engineer escorted Philip into the hot and smelly workshop and described the coin stamping process.

  "After we've heated the metal, it's cast into blanks that will be used for the striking. Each blank has been carefully weighed, so there is only minimal variation from one coin to the next. This is important, because the new coins won't be accepted unless people trust that all Philips have the same amount of gold. Next, the blanks are heated and then placed—one at a time—in one of these dies. The dies you see here are made of specially hardened bronze. Soon we'll begin making them out of iron. You see here how the lower die is permanently attached to a large anvil. The lower die will produce the obverse side of the coin when struck. See how the slave holds the upper die in his hand. It's placed over the gold blank and hit with a weighted hammer. The top die produces the reverse side of the Philip. Just the right strike creates a new Philip."