Philip and Olympias: A Novel of Ancient Macedon

by Peter Messmore

  "Their ten-year age difference makes that unlikely, my king," Artabazus responded. "But who knows what will happen as they grow older. Princes and kings usually want younger women, especially when they have the qualities of Barsine."

  The King of Macedon and the former satrap continued their discussions into the night and became fast friends. Philip had, at last, met someone who could drink as much as he and still have enough wits to discuss matters of importance. As the night passed and dawn neared, Philip knew that granting asylum to Artabazus was a good decision.

  When he fell asleep that early morning, his muddled brain was filled with insight about how his army could gain a foothold on the mainland of Asia. It would be a foothold acquired with the help of his newest drinking partner. That would take time, he knew, but the bare outline of a plan of Persian conquest started to evolve. This, of course, awaited his putting the Greek house in order.

  One day after Philip's return, Leonidas and Lysimachus gave Philip a demonstration of the skills that they had taught his son. Young Alexander first displayed his physical skills by riding his pony hands-free. Then he shot a bow and arrow from horseback into a target. On successive passes, he also hurled a javelin into the target's center. Then he dismounted and viciously attacked a small straw soldier with his miniature sword. The undersized boy then recited several lines of poetry and ended his performance by playing the lyre.

  Philip and his court were moved by his son's accomplishments and the king rewarded his two tutors handsomely. Yet, Philip had detected the faint beginning of a gulf between father and son after his return. He wasn't even sure that his judgment was correct, but he felt that something had changed from the time when he used to take his boy riding and hunting into the hills around Pella. If his intuition was right, only Olympias could be behind the change. He motioned for Alexander to come to him, and the lad ran to join his father.

  “Come with me, Alexander. Let’s walk along the lake shore and talk like we used to.”

  Philip picked up his son, swirled him around in a wide circle, then put him down gently. They left the parade yard and started through the palace courtyard, toward the rear steps leading to Lake Loudias. Philip saw Olympias glaring sternly at them as they left.

  “I’m happy you want to be with me, father. I miss you when you are gone so much. We used to have fun, didn’t we.” Alexander hugged his father’s strong leg.

  We did. Do you understand why I must be gone so often?”

  “You are a king and that’s what kings of Macedon do. When I become king, it’s what I will do too. I hope I can be as great a king as you.”

  Philip was pleased. Perhaps his young son did understand his frequent absences. “I want you to know that I think of you every day I’m in the field, son. I love you.” It was the first time Philip had ever told anyone he loved them.

  “I love you also, father.” They were standing at the top of the rear palace stairs, nearing the lake. “But something is bothering me.”

  “What is it?”

  “Mother tells me that I have two fathers: you and Zeus-Ammon. How could that be?” Alexander didn’t divulge the impregnating thunderbolt episode that Olympias had told him. He didn’t think his father would like that.

  Philip was furious, but tried not to show it to Alexander. He took his son’s hand and they started the walk down to the lake in silence. At last, after getting control of his emotions, he answered Alexander. “I am your real father, Alexander.” His voice was stern and authoritative. “Your mother often uses religious stories to help you understand your heritage. They aren’t real—just make-believe. They are like the Macedonian folktales that Leonidas has told you since you were a baby. You must grow out of believing these silly stories if you are ever going to become a great general. The yarns are useful to help you understand the spirit world. But don’t take them so seriously. They will slow your growth into your princeship. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  They were now at the bottom of the stairs and starting their walk around the lake. Loudias gave out a wondrous smell that only a lake can give, as small insects buzzed around their heads.

  “It’s hard, father. But I think I do. I don’t think I should tell mother about what you said. You two would have a fight.”

  “A big fight. Let’s keep this a secret between the two of us. Women think differently than men. You’ll understand that more as you get older. Enough of this. Let’s race around the lake. I bet I can beat you, even with my wounds.”

  Alexander took up the challenge and darted ahead of his father. Philip followed at a slow pace, dodging the mud-clumps that Alexander was kicking up.

  As he jogged, the King of Macedon considered what his son had just told him. He now knew the reason why Alexander seemed so distant. Clearly, his son needed more of his attention. He didn’t know if that was possible, given the serious challenges that were before Macedon.

  Out of breath, Philip yelled to a fast-receding Alexander that he was the winner. Then he sat on a large boulder on the bank and made a decision. He would begin a search for a new tutor for his son, a tutor that would be the last one that Alexander would ever have. Required was a tutor of great repute, a man who would teach Alexander more than music and lyre playing. The prince was going to learn everything there was to know about Greek culture. Unlike his father, who the Athenians called a barbarian, Alexander would not only understand their culture, he would take it in a new direction. He knew of only a few men who met the high standards needed to instruct his son. What he wanted for Alexander required the brilliance and wisdom of Socrates, but he was dead. Perhaps a student of the Socratic or Platonic school should be chosen. A childhood friend, the son of his father's personal physician, came to mind, but he knew that he was still in Athens. He certainly didn't need an Athenian sympathizer teaching the Macedonian crown prince. He didn't know how his friend of twenty years ago had changed or what his political alliances were now.

  There was, of course, the aging Isocrates who would be happy to accept an offer to come to Pella and become the tutor of a future king, but Philip felt him too old. The matter was too important to make a final decision right now. Before he left for the Chalcidice, he would put out feelers to find someone who would come to Pella and take his successor to the next stage of his development and away from his worm-loving, domineering mother.

  CHAPTER 17

  Prince Alexander was seven and Barsine, daughter of Artabazus, was seventeen when they met. The occasion was a state banquet that Philip gave for visiting diplomats representing nations and city-states wanting to maintain peaceable relations with Macedon. Alexander had seen the attractive teenage girl from afar but had never approached her, nor had she him. Now they were seated next to each other, reclining on elegant sofas before the head banquet table. Olympias had arranged for her son to be seated next to the stunning Phrygian adolescent. She hoped that they would become friends, perhaps eventual lovers, as her son grew into manhood.

  Seated next to Olympias were King Philip and Artabazus. Both men had isolated themselves both verbally and physically from the queen as the evening wore on. Olympias, little troubled by the ostracizing, concentrated on her son and Barsine. It was easy for her to hear their conversation, although she didn't let on that she was eavesdropping.

  Barsine seemed interested in Alexander; not in any romantic sense, for he was still just a boy. She was interested in him the same way that Olympias had been interested in Philip. The girl understood that Philip and her father were becoming close friends, even confidants. It was not lost on her, either, that young Alexander was the crown prince, without rival to the Macedonian throne. Only to another woman would Barsine's true motivation have been so apparent. Any man overhearing the Prince and Barsine would have thought that their conversation was merely the casual prattling of children. But Olympias knew otherwise. Barsine was acting the way that she wanted, and the way that she knew she would.

  Disappointingly, Alexander was performing
for the girl, in a way that only he could perform. His only wanted to impress her with all the knowledge he had accumulated in seven years. He took delight in talking about religion and his Zeus-Ammon exalted lineage. He was now delivering a lengthy monologue on how various machines of war worked. Olympias heard a detailed description of the catapult and how its mechanisms operated to launch both rocks and arrows. Each time Barsine tried to bring up anything about Alexander's personality—what he liked, what he didn't like in girls, or how he felt about men and women—the prince shifted the conversation back to his dull diatribe.

  When Olympias could stand no more of her son's behavior, she interrupted. "Alexander, have you noticed Barsine's hair? It's nearly the color of mine. I think that it enhances her natural beauty."

  "It does, mother.” Then he shifted the topic to the manner in which his newest lyre had been constructed.

  Barsine, picking up on Olympias's cue, pursued the conversational point. "I couldn't help but notice your eyes, Alexander. One is brown and one is blue. Your gaze has a compelling effect on people. I'm sure that you will break many women's hearts before you take a queen." It was Barsine's most pointed reference yet about Alexander's future and his relationship with women.

  It caused an embarrassing silence from the crown prince. "I never think of these things. A future king must concern himself with learning all there is to know. Besides, I only care that my eyes will see the enemy well enough to give the Royal Companion Cavalry silent commands. You understand, don't you, that when I'm old enough, I'll lead them in battle.”

  "Barsine, tell me how the Persian army gets their supplies when they are on an extended bivouac. Perhaps you don't know the answer to this; perhaps I need to join Philip and Artabazus, for I know your father knows the answer."

  Olympias and Barsine looked at each other with a knowing look. The boy would not be led. At last, Olympias spoke in a firm and judgmental tone to her overweening son. "Alexander, you shouldn't speak about military matters with women. We expect softer conversation. You still have much to learn about people, especially women. It's clear that Leonidas and Lysimachus have left you ignorant of the social graces. We'll discuss it further when we're alone."

  Olympias rose from the table, bid goodbye to the banquet guests, and retired to her bedchamber for evening devotions.

  Alexander rose soon after his mother's departure and joined his father and Artabazus, leaving Barsine alone on her sofa. He began listening to the two older men. They had just finished discussing the geography of the Hellespont area and how an invading army could gain a foothold on the Asia Minor mainland. Without asking permission, the prince sat on the pebble-mosaic floor squarely between the adults.

  Barsine was piqued with Alexander's behavior. She would wait in vain for the boy to return, but when her solitude became awkward, she rose, bid her father and King Philip goodnight, and left the banquet hall. As she was leaving, she heard Alexander interrupting the king to disagree with him about the best way to ferry large numbers of soldiers across the narrow waters that connected mainland Greece and Asia.

  Several days after the banquet, Philip received word from a source in Athens about an inquiry that he had made. The boyhood friend whom he was considering as an eventual tutor of Alexander had decided to leave the city. The man was moving to the court of Hermias, tyrant of Atarneus and Assos, opposite the island of Lesbos. The source informed the king that he was traveling to Hermias's enclave by land and planned to rest in Macedonia for a few days before continuing his long journey. He wanted an audience with Philip.

  Philip felt as if the gods had anticipated one of his most urgent nonmilitary needs. They had not only helped him find his former friend, but had arranged for him to abandon his foremost enemy. He sent a return message that he would receive the philosopher and renew their friendship. It would give him a chance to ask whether he would tutor the crown prince when he became thirteen, the traditional age at which Macedonian boys left the protection of their mothers. Philip eagerly awaited the arrival of Plato's most able student, Aristotle of Stagirus.

  The king during this time also heard from another Athenian. A message was received from Isocrates of Athens, the aging boule member. Isocrates had, for years, expressed sympathy for Philip's actions in and around Greece. He was a man whom Philip wanted to court and befriend. Philip retired to his private quarters to read and reread the old man's communication. In lucid rhetorical style, filled with references to religion, history, and Hellas' past glories, Isocrates reasoned that the time of the poleis was over. Their existence had been essential when men lived in fortified citadels, immune from outside attack, he argued.

  But as King Philip proved each time he besieged a city and toppled its walls, city-states were anachronistic. Isocrates gave persuasive arguments about the way governments in the future must be organized.

  The future belonged to nations, led by powerful leaders whose support was derived from an informed and democratically elected citizenry, he wrote. Isocrates named Philip as the only one who could assume such leadership. This leadership, he maintained, would not only prove beneficial for the development of Greece, but it was the only way that a unified Hellas could counter what everyone knew was inevitable: a third Persian invasion. The only way to prevent this was to unify and attack the Great King before he stamped out his rebellions and attacked Greece. It was clear from his communication that Isocrates also knew of Aristotle's impending visit to Pella. He urged King Philip to seek his counsel regarding the issues raised in his epistle.

  Finally, the old man lamented that he would never meet Philip, but wrote that he would be content to correspond with him during his remaining years.

  Philip lingered most of the morning on the contents of Isocrates' message. The powerful logic and historical freshness of the Athenian's argument presented more than just a theoretical view of Greece's future. Philip saw in it an opportunity for him to justify, with a veneer of nationalistic respectability, Macedon's plans of conquest. In private moments, he knew that the points that Isocrates had made in his pedantic treatise were never in his original intentions when he became king, for that kind of thinking was a luxury of idle Athenian debaters. His original motivation, both nationally and personally, had been survival. Now he was being presented with a rationale, a more than believable pretense, an excuse for what he knew would become an endless stream of charges from Demosthenes and his supporters. He would be castigated as the personification of evil, a force that would bring Hellas to its knees, weakened by internal strife, ripe for Artaxerxes' picking.

  In late morning, the king called for a scribe and dictated a reply to Isocrates. The scribe sat on the floor and recorded Philip's dictation on a papyrus scroll, imported from the banks of the Nile. He used a reed pen to take the dictation. Macedonian scribes wrote on small dictation scrolls that were later glued together, making a final scroll fifty or sixty cubits long.

  Philip expressed gratitude for Isocrates' support and repeated many of the old Athenian's own arguments. He described his respect for Athens and lamented that he had never been allowed to visit the queen city of Hellas when he had been a Theban hostage. Finally, he asked Isocrates to continue to support him in the boule and ecclesia and to calm Athenian fears that his only goal was to subdue Athens and enslave her citizens. Unashamedly, he accepted the mantle of leadership for a new Greek nation with himself as hegemon, or supreme national leader. He took pains to explain that his desire for the hegemon title was not for personal glory, but to enable Greece to attack Persia as a unified nation.

  While the scribe read back his reply, Philip was pleased with this developing parallel thrust that could project him into true leadership of the Greeks. It didn't cost him any money, no armies were needed, and no one's life was at stake. The barter unit in this exchange was words, mere words. The Athenians, especially Demosthenes, never doubted that they were supreme in the world of words. Yet, as the scribe read back his reply, Philip was convinced that he could compet
e with any Athenian's diatribes and win nearly as much as he could on the battlefield. He would send more messages to more supporters, he decided.

  He smiled as he realized that he had discovered another dimension of his personality, one that he didn't know existed. It didn't matter that the correspondence was not ethically imbued. It only mattered that some of those who read his communications would think that his ideas were deeply held. His self-satisfied speculations ended when the scribe asked if he was finished. He dismissed the scribe, who told the king that Olympias was waiting in the hallway.

  Philip accompanied the scribe to the door, explaining that he wanted Isocrates' letter delivered personally by one of his palace guards. The guard was to leave before day's end and put the scroll only in Isocrates' hands.

  The scribe left and Philip saw Olympias waiting in the hallway, sitting on a small marble bench.

  "Your communications grow longer, Philip. I wish you spoke with me as much as you do to our enemies in Athens."

  Philip ignored his wife's cutting remark, wondering how she knew the object of his morning deliberations. How was she spying on him? Turning his back to her, he walked back into the room motioning for her to follow. Inside, he picked up a fist-sized, sticky ball made of a strange substance that he had brought back from the unsuccessful siege of Heraeon-Teichos. He walked to an open window and threw it into the muddy waters of Lake Loudias, immediately below the throne room balcony.

  "You have as long as it takes that ball to disappear. Either speak quickly or pray to your snake god that there's no wind today."

  Olympias walked to the window, spotted the retreating ball of bitumen, and shot an angry frown at her husband. "My request won't take long. You can just answer yes or no. I have already taken action, should you grant my wish."