HIST229x

“Was Alexander Great?”

Who is buried in Philip’s tomb? A Thought Exercise

Before we follow Alexander across the Hellespont into Asia in search of the Persian

King Darius, it is important to recount what happened in Macedon just after Philip’s death. This review is important because the events which followed the shocking murder of Philip II of Macedon in the theatre of Aegae bear directly on the answer to one of the most controversial archaeological questions of the 20th century: namely, who is buried in the astonishing tomb discovered by the Greek archaeologist

Manolis Andronikos in Vergina (ancient Aegae) Macedon in November of 1977?1

The variety and beauty of the finely wrought armor, the small ivory portrait heads, and the exquisite gold crowns which Andronikos found in the tomb in 1977 brought to his mind the splendid gold masks and weapons discovered by the famous

German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the shaft graves of Mycenae almost one hundred years before. Indeed, Andronikos’ altogether sensational finds aroused great interest both among archaeologists and the general public.2

Above all however, the two small funerary boxes made of gold (larnakes), which Andronikos discovered in the main chamber and ante-chamber of the tomb in

Vergina captured the imaginations of both professional and amateur archaeologists.

Each of the boxes had the characteristic radiate star of the Macedonian royal house carved on its top. Inside the smaller gold box were the bones of a young woman. The larger larnax held the bones of a man who had died when he was perhaps in his mid-forties. Whose bones were inside these extraordinary gold boxes in the tomb that Andronikos dated to the mid-to-late fourth century B.C.E.?

Was the occupant of the main chamber of the tomb none other than Philip II of Macedon himself, the father of Alexander the Great? Or was it perhaps Philip’s son, Alexander’s half brother, Philip Arrhidaeus, who died in 317.? And who was the woman interred in the ante-chamber?

Archaeologists, historians, and art historians have argued the case either for

Philip II or Philip Arrhidaeus as the occupant of the main chamber in lengthy and learned articles and books ever since Andronikos’ discovery, and there is no sign that the scholarly controversy is abating.3 The identification of the woman interred in the smaller gold box has proved to be equally controversial. Andronikos himself originally guessed that the woman was Kleopatra, Philip’s last wife, but admitted that his guess was problematic in part because of the absence of jewelry in the antechamber.4 Other scholars, noting artifacts which showed that the woman buried in the ante-chamber was a warrior of some kind, have hypothesized that the woman was the daughter of a Scythian King, Atheas, who had been given to Philip in marriage.5 When the experts themselves disagree about such issues, the best procedure is to go back to the discovery and excavation of the tomb itself.

The excavation

The unplundered tomb Andronikos discovered in Vergina, now definitely identified as ancient Aegae, the capital of the Temenid Kings of Macedon, actually lay under the so-called Great Tumulus. The Great Tumulus was essentially a man-made mound of dirt fill, measuring 110 meters in diameter, with an elevation of about 12.5 meters. During the final days of the 1977 excavation season, after removing

18,000 cubic meters of earth from the Great Tumulus, Andronikos and his team noticed an older, smaller tumulus hidden under the southwest perimeter of the

Great Tumulus.6

Digging deeper, Andronikos in fact discovered three structures next to one another. Two tombs were beneath the surface. The one above the surface was totally destroyed. Andronikos associated the structure which apparently had been destroyed in antiquity with the looting of the royal Macedonian tombs by Galatian mercenaries left at Aegae in 274/3. These Galatian mercenaries had been left as garrison troops by Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, who had invaded Macedonia, defeated

Antigonas Gonatas, the then King of Macedon, (320-239), and captured many towns.7

The smaller of the two remaining tombs (3.5 x 2.09 meters) also had been plundered, but the frescoes on the upper parts of three of its walls were intact, and, to Andronikos’ eye, were of excellent quality. On the long, north wall was a depiction of “The Abduction of Persephone by Pluto”. Andronikos attributed this fresco to

Nikomachos, one of the greatest Greek painters of the 4th century B.C.E.8

When Andronikos and his fellow excavators began to clear the wall of the neighboring structure (the third structure in the area of the southwest perimeter) they came upon a deposit of sherds, ashes, and burnt bones of small animals. The sherds, according to Andronikos, belonged to pots made before 320.9 Andronikos’ dating of these pottery sherds to the period before 320 was crucial to his attribution of the tomb to the burial of Philip II rather than that of Philip Arrhidaeus.10 On the façade of the tomb the excavators discovered a painted scene of a boar, and perhaps a lion hunt. Andronikos associated this painting with the fourth- century painter of a now-lost painting of Alexander’s victory at the battle of the

Issos River.11 That lost fourth-century painting subsequently served as the artistic model and inspiration for the creation of the famous Alexander Mosaic (currently housed in the Archaeological Museum, Naples). The mosaic itself was executed by an unknown artist of c. 120-100 B.C.E. We will take a closer look at the Alexander

Mosaic in our chapter about the battle of the Issos River.

Realizing that it would be impossible to clear away all the earth from the entrance to the tomb before the end of the excavation season, Andronikos decided to enter the tomb from the top part of the door, acting upon the assumption that this barrel-vaulted tomb had been looted and that the door would be open. But it was not open, and thus Andronikos was delighted to learn that the tomb had not been looted.

Andronikos therefore decided to enter the tomb through the keystone of the vault, as ancient tomb robbers frequently did. When the earth atop the vault was removed in the rear part of the roof, Andronikos discovered a mud-brick structure, which had collapsed under the weight of the dirt fill. In the pile of fill and debris

Andronikos discovered two iron swords, the point of a sarissa (the long pike of the

Macedonian infantryman) and many fragments of iron harnesses, all of which showed signs of burning. Andronikos speculated that the harnesses had been placed in a funerary pyre, and these remains brought to his mind the famous Homeric scene of Patroklos’ burial, where Achilles slung the bodies of four fine horses on the funeral pyre of his dear friend.12

The contents of the tomb

Having removed the keystone of the vault on 8 November 1977, Andronikos then entered what turned out to be the main (larger, 4.46 x 4.46 m) chamber of the unplundered tomb. The coating of the walls of the main chamber appeared to be unfinished, as if it had been hurriedly applied. In the main chamber Andronikos then found essentially two groups of objects: bronze vessels and weapons in one corner and silver vessels in the other. On the floor there also was a pile of decomposed materials with interspersed sheets of gold and, directly below the opening, a rectangular marble slab, which covered a marble sarcophagus.13

Among the bronze vessels and weapons, Andronikos found many sarissae and javelin points of iron, as well as two greaves. There was also some sort of ceremonial shield and an iron helmet. The helmet had the typical crest of a

Macedonian helmet and had a figure of Athena in relief on its front. There was a cuirass (metal breastplate) and a sword between the cuirass and the helmet, as well as a diadem of gold and silver and what appeared to be a scepter.14

Since Andronikos dated all of these finds to the period between 350 and 325, and only one Macedonian king died in Macedonia during this period, Andronikos immediately concluded that, if the deceased had been a king - and he had no doubt but that this was a royal tomb - the occupant of the tomb must be none other than

Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great! Andronikos had found the tomb of one of the greatest kings in the entire history of the ancient world – a king who had raised Macedonia from the rank of a petty kingdom to that of the greatest and most glorious monarchy in the world.15

When Andronikos then removed the cover of the sarcophagus in the main chamber of the tomb he found a gold larnax measuring 40 cm. in length by 33.5 cm. in width, by 17 cm. in height (not counting its clawed feet). The gold larnax weighed c. 10.8 kilograms. On its cover there was a radiate star, the symbol of the Temenid royal house. Inside the larnax were cremated bones beneath a gold wreath of acorns and oak leaves.16

On top of some of the bones (and also underneath them) were the remains of some kind of purple cloth with which the bones apparently had been wrapped. In front of the sarcophagus Andronikos also discovered gold and ivory figures which had served as part of the decoration of some piece of wooden furniture. Among the ivory figures were the portraits of Philip II, Alexander the Great himself, and

Olympias referred to above (as well as several unidentified members of the royal family).17

The plastering of the antechamber of the tomb, which was white on the lower part and a Pompeian red color on the upper, had been finished. The remains of feathers of large birds were piled up on top of a second sarcophagus. A gold wreath of myrtle leaves and flowers was found on the floor next to the sarcophagus in this chamber.18 A rare gold quiver, known as a gorytus, similar to ones found in the tombs of the Scythians in southern Russia, was also found. Beside the quiver was discovered another pair of greaves, the left one 3.5 cm shorter than the right.19 Within the sarcophagus there was another, slightly smaller larnax, also with a star on its top. Inside there also were cremated bones, wrapped in a purple cloth.

Beside the bones there was another gold diadem of flowers and twigs. As mentioned, Andronikos initially postulated that Kleopatra, Philip’s last wife, might be the occupant of the larnax of the antechamber.20

The interpretation of the contents of the tomb

Andronikos’ discovery and preliminary publication of the contents of the tomb understandably caused a sensation at the time. As Andronikos himself pointed out, this was the first un-plundered Macedonian tomb ever found. After the announcement of the discovery and the initial publication of the contents,

Andronikos’ argument, based upon his analysis of the objects he found, that it was

Philip II who was interred in the tomb, convinced many important experts in the field that he was correct: Andronikos had found the tomb of Philip II.21 It was perhaps the greatest archaeological discovery of the second half of the 20th century, a discovery every bit as important, if not quite as rich, as Arthur Carter’s discovery of King Tut’s tomb. Or was it?

For although Andronikos persuaded many experts, other scholars (perhaps predictably) began to question Andronikos’ association of the tomb with the burial of Philip II, arguing, among others things: that the tomb’s barrel vaulting was not introduced into Macedon until after the death of Philip II; that the style of the diadem found in the main chamber of the tomb only was brought back to Macedon from the east by Alexander (and therefore could not have been placed in the tomb of his father in 336); that the good condition of the bones in the sarcophagus of the main chamber was more consistent with the story of the cremation of Philip

Arrhidaeus a full six months after his death in 317; and, most recently, that the boar or lion hunting scene on the façade of Tomb II at Aegae was inspired by the large hunts Alexander conducted while he was in Asia and thus was chronologically more compatible with the reburial of Philip Arrhidaeus, Eurydice, and Cynnane in 316 than with the simultaneous burial of Philip II in 336 and one of his wives.22 Indeed, at this point, it is probably fair to say that the arguments for the identification of the tomb with the burial (or to be more precise, the re-burial) of Philip Arrhidaeus in

317 seem to be gaining momentum.

That said (and without presuming to settle here the detailed scholarly disputes about the individual artifacts found in the tomb, which undoubtedly will go on for decades) it is important nevertheless to state here what should be the general scholarly principle which needs to be followed by anyone attempting to resolve the controversy, or to understand how archaeological evidence must be used by historians to reconstruct the past.

The principle is this: such disputes cannot be resolved with reference only to some of the evidence. Ultimately, scholars must use and explain the relevance of all of the evidence, not just the pieces of the evidence which suit their own hypotheses.

Thus, in this case, while the dating and interpretation of the individual material artifacts found in the tomb need to be established and properly published, as is now taking place at last, the results of dating and interpreting those artifacts also need to be brought into coordination with what the literary accounts tell us about the immediate aftermath of Philip II’s, or Philip Arrhidaeus’ deaths. If we follow this principle, it still seems clear that the evidence for the tomb being the ultimate resting place of Alexander’s father, rather than his half-brother, remains stronger. The supporters of the Philip Arrhidaeus hypothesis, for instance, never have adequately explained Andronikos’ discovery of the mud-brick structure on top of the tomb and the pile of two iron swords, the point of the sarissa, and the many iron harnesses. There is nothing in the literary sources documenting the aftermath of Philip Arrhidaeus’ death which adequately accounts for the existence of this structure and the artifacts mixed in with it.

Can the placement of those remains be explained by what the literary sources tell us happened immediately after the death of Philip II? For Andronikos, as we have seen, these artifacts evoked the funeral of Achilles’ friend Patroklos in the

Iliad.

But Justin tells us that the corpse of none other than Pausanias, Philip’s assassin, himself was burnt above the remains of Philip.23 Moreover, later still, we are told, some men condemned as accomplices were executed “at the tumulus” of

Philip.24 These accomplices presumably included Heromenes and Arrhabaeus, the two Lyncestian brothers,25 and the three sons of Pausanias, who (we know) also were executed at the time.26

What Andronikos found on top of the tomb perhaps was not the remains of some recreation of the funeral of Patroklos. Rather, what he found was the evidence for the execution of those individuals who were judged to have played some role in the assassination of the king. It is also possible that the iron harnesses Andronikos uncovered belonged to the very horses Pausanias had stationed outside the theatre to help him make his escape, which then were sacrificed on top of the tomb, along with the assassins.27 It is even possible that the sarissa point that Andronikos found in the same debris belongs to one of the sarissae carried by Philip’s bodyguards, Leonnatus, Perdiccas, or Attalus, as they pursued Pausanias; indeed it just may be the very point of the sarissa by which Pausanias was killed.28 Thus far no other scholar has provided a convincing argument about why a sarissa point should have been included in some kind of sacrificial pile on top of the tomb.

Also left unanswered by those scholars who have argued that Andronikos discovered the tomb of Philip Arrhidaeus is how and why the plastering of the main chamber of the tomb was left unfinished. We know from the literary accounts that

Philip II was buried right after his death, a death he certainly was not expecting, at a time when he was about to lead a major military expedition against the Persian empire. On the other hand, we are equally certain from the literary evidence that

Philip Arrhidaeus was not buried for six months after his death (or rather was re- buried six months later).

Even if ancient tomb workers worked with all the sense of urgency characteristic of modern contractors, six months would have been a long time for the ancient painters not to have been able to finish the paint job on the inside of the main chamber, especially considering that the tomb being prepared was for the son of Philip II, the brother of Alexander. An unfinished chamber is far less likely to be the final resting place of a man who only was interred six months after his death

(Philip Arrhidaeus) than the tomb of a man whose death no one had expected.

1 As described by Andronikos (1978) pp. 33-41. For subsequent general discussions see Hammond, N. “’Philip’s Tomb’ in historical context,” GRBS 19 (1978) pp. 331-350; Andronikos, M. “The finds from the Royal Tombs at Vergina,” PBA 65 (1979) pp. 355-67 and “The Royal Tomb at Vergina and the problem of the dead,” AAA 13 (1980) pp. 168-78; Parsons, P. “The burial of Philip II,” AJAH 4 (1979) pp. 97-101; Borza, E. “The Macedonian Royal Tombs at Vergina: some cautionary notes,” Archaeological News 10 (1981) pp. 73-87; 11 (1982) pp. 8-10; Hammond, N. “The evidence for the identity of the Royal Tombs at Vergina,” in Philip II, Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Heritage (ed. W. Adams and E. Borza) (Washington 1982) pp. 111-127; and Green, P. “The Royal Tombs of Vergina: a historical analysis,” in Philip II, Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Heritage (W. Adams and E. Borza ed.) (Washington 1982) pp. 129-151.

2 Andronikos (1978) pp. 33-41; N. Gage, “Tomb of Philip II of Macedon is Found in Northern Greece,” The New York Times, 25 November 1977, A1 and A14. In the article Andronikos was quoted by Gage as asserting that the tomb uncovered was “without reservation” that of King Philip II of Macedon.

3 Most recently, debate has focused upon analysis of the bones of the occupant of the main chambers. In an article in the journal Science, Dr. A. Bartsiokas of the Anaximandrian Institute of Human Evolution in Voula, Greece has argued (based upon his examination of life-sized photographs of the bones) that they belong to Philip Arrhidaeus. Dr. J.H. Musgrave of Bristol University in England, who previously had argued that the remains of the facial bones were consistent with what we know about Philip’s history of receiving at least one devastating arrow wound to his right eye in 354 (in Prag, A., Musgrave, J. and Neave, R. “The skull from Tomb II at Vergina: King Philip II of Macedon,” JHS 104 (1984) pp. 60-78), immediately replied that Dr. Bartsiokas had been selective in his use of evidence, as quoted in “New Controversy Over Occupant of Ancient Tomb,” New York Times 25 April 2000; see also A. Schuster, “Not Philip II of Macedon,” Archaeology, 20 April 2000.

4 Andronikos (1978) p. 41. Another problem with this guess is that it was hardly likely that Kleopatra, who either was executed by Olympias subsequently, or forced to commit suicide, would be allowed to be buried with Philip.

5 Hammond, N. “’Philip’s Tomb’ in historical context,” GRBS 19 (1978) p. 336.

6 Andronikos (1978) p. 35.

7 Andronikos (1978) p. 35.

8 Andronikos (1978) p. 35.

9 Andronikos (1978) p. 35.

10 Since Philip Arrhidaeus was buried in 317, thus after the date of the pottery sherds.

11 Andronikos (1978) p. 36.

12 Iliad, Book 23, lines 170-172.

13 Andronikos (1978) p. 36.

14 Andronikos (1978) p. 38.

15 In the estimation of Polybius, 8.10.6.

16 Andronikos (1978) p. 39.

17 Andronikos (1978) p. 39.

18 Andronikos (1978) p. 41.

19 Andronikos (1978) p. 41.

20 Andronikos (1978) p. 41.

21 See N. Hammond, “The Evidence for the identity of the Royal Tombs at Vergina,” in Philip II, Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Heritage (Washington 1982) pp. 111-127; P. Green, “The Royal Tombs of Vergina: a historical analysis,” in Philip II, Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Heritage (Washington 1982) pp. 129-151.

22 O. Palagia, “Hephaestion’s Pyre and the Royal Hunt of Alexander,” in Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction (Oxford 2000) pp. 167-206.

23 9.7.11.

24 11.2.1.

25 Arrian, 1.25.2.

26 Itin. Alex. 5.

27 Diodorus, 16.94.3. Hammond (1997) pp. 29-30 also argues for this interpretation of the artifacts found on top of the tomb.

28 Diodorus, 16.94.4.