chapter 3 The Reception of Alexander’s Father Philip ii of Macedon* Sabine Müller Philip ii turned a disunited, weakened, and peripheral Macedonia into the hegemonic power of the Mediterranean world. Without his political achieve- ments, Alexander iii’s conquests would not have been possible.1 In 360/59bc, when Philip was in his early twenties, he ascended to the Argead throne in the midst of a desolate situation when the Argead Empire was at the edge of collapse, militarily on its knees, threatened by the neighbouring Illyrians, Thracians, and Paeonians and challenged by five pretenders.2 During his reign, Philip and his capable generals such as Antipater and Parmenion managed to neutralize both external and internal threats. They reorganized and mod- ernized the army and warfare, stabilized the political structures, subjugated their neighbours, conquered the Macedonian coast and Chalcidice, thereby extinguishing the Athenian influence in these regions, then the Thracian Cher- sonesos and Hellespontic zone before making their way into Central Greece, strategically using Philip’s involvement in inner-Greek conflicts. The Attic ora- tor Demosthenes, the leader and figurehead of the Athenian circles favouring an offensive policy towards the Macedonians, finally united a Hellenic Alliance that failed at the battle of Chaeroneia in 338bc.3The victory under Philip’s lead- ership established Macedonian hegemony over Greece. Philip consolidated the * I would like to thank Kenneth Moore for his kind support. 1 Cf. Ian Worthington, “‘Worldwide Empire’ versus ‘Glorious Enterprise’: Diodorus and Justin on Philip ii and Alexander the Great”,in PhilipiiandAlexandertheGreat:FatherandSon,Lives and Afterlives, edited by Elizabeth D. Carney and Daniel Ogden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 165; Sabine Müller, “Philip ii”, in Blackwell Companion to Ancient Macedonia, edited by Joseph Roisman, and Ian Worthington (Oxford:Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 166, 183–184; Ian Worthington, Philip ii of Macedon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 1; Waldemar Heckel, Who’s Who in the Age of Alexander the Great (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 208–211; Giuseppe Squillace, Filippo il Macedone (Roma, Bari: Editori Laterza, 2009), 77–78. 2 One of these pretenders, Argaeus, was supported by Athens. Obviously, he had promised to help her to win back Amphipolis (Diod. 16.2.5. 3.3–5). 3 Diod. 16.84.3–86.6; Plut. Demosth. 17.4–5; Plut. Alex. 9.2–3; Just. 9.3.4–10; Polyain. 4.2.2, 2.7. Cf. Sabine Müller, Die Argeaden. Geschichte Makedoniens bis zum Zeitalter Alexanders des © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004359932_004 the reception of alexander’s father philip ii of macedon 73 conquest through the political instrument of the Corinthian League tying the Greeks into a new order, styled as a common peace (koine eirene) controlled by a synedrion of which Philip was elected hegemon. At the second meeting in 337bc, war against the Achaemenid Empire of Persia was declared.4The under- lying Panhellenic message was nothing more than propaganda. In truth, the campaign was a continuation of the Macedonian expansion in the East that had been stopped in 341/40bc by the intervention of the Achaemenid king Artaxerxes iii. When Philip’s troops besieged Perinthus and Byzantium, the alarmed Great King ordered his satraps on the coast of Asia Minor to interfere and the Macedonians drew back.5 Artaxerxes’ reaction was a clear sign that any further Argead expansion in the Hellespontic area would meet Achaemenid military resistance. In consequence, the former times of the peaceful accom- modation between Macedonia and Persia had ended.6 Presumably, Philip had planned to limit his Asian campaign to the conquest of the Ionian cities and resourceful satrapies on the coast of Asia Minor.7 How- ever, the task fell to his successor, Alexander. For in the autumn of 336bc, in the 25th year of his reign, Philip was assassinated. He died in the theatre of Aegae before the eyes of a crowd assembled to celebrate the marriage of his daugh- ter by Olympias, Cleopatra, Alexander’s full sister, to her uncle Alexander i of Epirus.8 The marital bond was meant to strengthen young Alexander’s political faction at court in order to improve his chances of succeeding Philip in a future that was surely expected to be not that near.9 The assassin, Philip’s bodyguard Großen (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2016), 264–267; Müller, “Philip”, 176–178; Squillace, Filippo, 64–70; Worthington, Philip, 147–151; Heckel, Who, 210. 4 Just. 9.5.1–7; Diod. 16.77.2, 89; StV 3.403. 5 Diod. 16.75.1–2; Arr. an. 2.14.5. Cf. Müller, Argeaden, 264, 267–269; Pierre Briant, Histoire de l’empire perse de Cyrus à Alexandre (Paris: Fayard, 1996), 707–709. 6 On the close connections between Persia and Macedonia before see Marek Jan Olbrycht, “Macedonia and Persia”, in Blackwell Companion to Ancient Macedonia, edited by Joseph Roisman, and Ian Worthington (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 342–369. 7 Cf. Müller, Argeaden, 267–268; Müller, “Philip”,178–179; Squillace, Filippo, 70–77;Worthington, Philip, 170; Gerhard Wirth, Philipp ii. Geschichte Makedoniens 1 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1985), 148–150. 8 Just. 7.6.3–4; Diod. 16.2.5–3.1. Cf. Müller, Argeaden, 236–239; Squillace, Filippo, 10–11; Heckel, Who, 210. 9 Despite the retrospective rumours about his assumedly tensed relationship with Alexander, Philip never seems to have intended to marginalize or even disinherit his militarily and politically educated son. Cf. Müller, Argeaden, 269–270; Selene E. Psoma, “Innovation or Tradition? Succession to the Kingship in Temenid Macedonia”, Τεκμήρια 11 (2012): 78; Gerhard Wirth, “Alexander, Kassander und andere Zeitgenossen”, Tyche 4 (1989): 193–220. Alexander was distinguished from early on as the would-be successor and seems to have been Philip’s choice for his succession until the end..