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Philip of Macedon

THE story of Alexander the Great is inexorably bound up with that of his father, King Philip II, and with his country, Macedonia. Philip was a most remarkable and dominating figure in his own right; while Macedonia, as has recently been observed,1 ‘was the first large territorial state with an effectively centralized political, military and administrative structure to come into being on the continent of Europe’. Unless we understand this, and them, Alexander's career must remain for us no more than the progress of a comet, flaring in unparalleled majesty across the sky: a marvel, but incomprehensible. Genius Alexander had, and in full measure; yet even genius remains to a surprising extent the product of its environment. What Alexander was, Philip and Macedonia in great part made him, and it is with them that we must begin.

On an early September day in the year 356 B.C.2 a courier rode out of Pella, Macedonia's new royal capital, bearing dispatches for the king. He headed south-east, across the plain, past Lake Yanitza (known then as Borboros, or Mud, a godsend for superior Greek punsters: borboros-barbaros, uncouth primitivism in a nutshell), with Ossa and Olympus gleaming white on the far horizon, as Xerxes had seen them when he camped by Homer's ‘wide-flowing Axius’ at the head of his invading host. The courier's destination was Potidaea, a city of the Chalcidic peninsula, where the Macedonian army now lay; and he did not waste any time on his journey. Philip, son of Amyntas, since 359 B.C. ruler over a dubiously united Macedonia,3 was not a man who took kindly to delay or inefficiency in his servants. At present, however, having recently forced the surrender of Potidaea — for over a century a bone of contention between various Greek powers, Athens included, and a most valuable addition to his steadily expanding domains — he was liable to be in a benevolent mood, and very probably drunk as well.

If the courier had not known Philip by sight, he might have been hard put to it to pick him out from among his fellow-nobles and staff officers. The king wore the same purple cloak and broad-brimmed hat that formed the regular attire of a Macedonianaristocrat. He affected no royal insignia of any sort, was addressed by his name, without honorifics, and indeed never described himself as ‘king’ on any official document.4 Here, as so often in Macedonia, Mycenaean parallels apply:5 Philip was an overlord among equals, the wanax maintaining a precarious authority over his turbulent barons. Perhaps he felt, too, that his position, especially in the faction-torn feudal court of Pella, was better not too closely defined. Rivals for the throne had spread a rumour that he and his two brothers — both kings before him, both violently killed — were impostors;6 accusations of bastardy formed a stock weapon in the Macedonian power-game.

Philip was now twenty-seven years old: a strong, sensual, heavily bearded man much addicted to drink, women, and (when the fancy took him) boys. Normally of a jovial disposition, he had even more reason for cheerfulness after studying the dispatches which the courier brought him. His most reliable general, Parmenio, had won a decisive victory over a combined force of Illyrians and Paeonians — powerful tribes on the Macedonian marches, occupying districts roughly equivalent to modern Albania and Serbia. In the Olympic Games, which had just ended, his entry for the horse-race had carried off first prize. Best of all, on about 20 July7 his wife Myrtale — better known to us by her adopted name of Olympias — had given birth to a son: his name (two previous Argead monarchs had already borne it) was Alexander.

After he had finished reading, Philip is said to have begged Fortune to do him some small disservice, to offset such overwhelming favours.8 Perhaps he recalled the cautionary tale of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, who received a letter from the Egyptian Pharaoh Amasis expressing anxiety at his excessive good fortune. ‘I have never yet heard of a man,’ Amasis declared, ‘who after an unbroken run of luck was not finally brought to complete ruin.’ He advised Polycrates to throw away the object he valued most; Polycrates tossed an emerald ring into the sea, but got it back a week later in the belly of a fish.9 Amasis promptly broke off their alliance, and Polycrates ended up impaled by a Persian satrap. It is, therefore, curious — though by no means out of character — that of the three events listed in that memorable dispatch, the only one we know Philip to have publicly commemorated is his victory at Olympia. The Macedonian royal mint put out a new issue of silver coins: their obverse displayed the head of Zeus, their reverse a large and spirited horse, whose diminutive naked jockey was shown crowned with the wreath of victory and waving a palm-branch.10

What was it that gave these three particular events such extreme, almost symbolic significance for him? To understand the king's reaction it is necessary to look back for a moment, at the chequered history and archaic customs of Macedonia before his accession.

First — and perhaps most important of all — the country was divided, both geographically and ethnically, into two quite distinct regions: lowlands and highlands.11 The case of Scotland provides close and illuminating parallels. Lower Macedonia comprised the flat, fertile plain round the Thermaic Gulf. This plain is watered by two great rivers, the Axius (Vardár) and the Haliacmon (Vistritza), and ringed by hills on all sides except towards the east, where the first natural frontier is provided by a third river, the Strymon(Struma). Lower Macedonia was the old central kingdom, founded by semi-legendary cattle barons who knew good pasturage when they saw it, and ruled over by the royal dynasty of the Argeads, to which Philip himself belonged. About 700 B.C. this noble clan had migrated eastward from Orestis in the Pindus mountains, looking for arable land. They first occupied Pieria, the coastal plain running northward from Mt Olympus, and afterwards extended their conquests to include the alluvial plain of Bottiaea — Homer's Emathia— lying west of the Thermaic Gulf. During this process of expansion they also captured the picturesque fortress town of Edessa, on the north-west frontier. The district was so rich in orchards and vineyards that people called it the ‘Gardens of Midas’. Edessa also had considerable strategic value, lying as it did above the pass which carried the trans-Balkan trunk road — later the Roman Via Egnatia — through to Illyria and the West.12 Near Edessa the Argeads established their first capital, Aegae. Even after the seat of government was transferred to Pella, down in the plain, Aegae remained the sacred burial-ground of the Macedonian kings, and all important royal ceremonies were conducted there.13

Upper Macedonia and Paeonia formed a single geographical unit: a high horseshoe of upland plateaux and grazing-land, encircling the plain from south to north-east, and itself backed — except, again, towards the Strymon — by mountain ranges. Passes across these mountains are few, the best-known being the Vale of Tempe by Mt Olympus, and that followed by the Via Egnatia. Thus Macedonia as a whole tended to remain in isolation from the rest of the Balkan peninsula; like Sparta, it preserved institutions (such as kingship and baronial feudalism) which had lapsed elsewhere. The highlands lay mostly to the west and south-west of the central plain, and were divided into three originally autonomous kingdoms: Elimiotis in the south, Orestis and Lyncestis to the west and north-west, the latter by Lake Lychnitis. The northern frontier of Lyncestis marched with Paeonia, and all three cantons shared frontiers with Illyria and Epirus. Indeed, in many ways their inhabitants were more akin to Illyrians or Paeonians or Thracians than they were to their own lowland cousins. The men of Lower Macedonia worshipped Greek gods; the royal family claimed descent from Heracles. But the highlanders were much addicted to Thracian deities, Sabazius, the Clodones and Mimallones, whose wild orgiastic cult-practices closely resembled those portrayed by Euripides in the Bacchae. They were, indeed, partly of Illyrian stock, and they intermarried with Thracians or Epirots rather more often than they did with Macedonians of the plain.

Originally, too, the three cantons had been independent kingdoms, each with its own ambitious and well-connected royal house. Efforts to preserve that independence — or to reassert it — naturally drove them into alliances with the Epirots, Paeonians or Illyrians. The sovereigns of Lower Macedonia were equally determined to annex these ‘out-kingdoms’, whether by conquest, political persuasion, or dynastic inter-marriage.14 Lyncestis was ruled by descendants of the Bacchiad dynasty, who had moved on to Macedonia after their expulsion from Corinth in 657 B.C.15Excavations at Trebenishte have revealed a wealth of gold masks and tomb furniture of the period between 650 and 600;16 these were powerful princes in the true Homeric tradition, like the kings of Cyprus. The Molossian dynasty of Epirus, on the marches of Orestis and Elimiotis, claimed descent from Achilles, through his grandson Pyrrhus — a fact destined to have immeasurable influence on the young Alexander, whose mother Olympias was of Molossian stock.

The Argeads themselves, as we have seen, headed their pedigree with Heracles, and could thus (since Heracles was the son of Zeus) style themselves ‘Zeus-born’ like any Mycenaean dynast: both Zeus and Heracles appear regularly on Philip's coinage. It is clear, however, that there were other clans whose claim to the throne of a united Macedonia could at least be urged with some plausibility. From the Argead viewpoint no real advance was possible until Upper Macedonia had been brought under some sort of central control. Paradoxically (but for obvious enough reasons) the nearer this aim came to fulfilment, the greater the danger of a palace coup d'état by some desperate out-kingdom prince determined to keep his crown at all costs.

At least as early as the fifth century B.C. the Argeads were claiming ‘traditional’ suzerainty over Upper Macedonia — again, on quasi-Homeric lines. The overlordship much resembled that of Agamemnon over his fellow-kings: each canton gave just as much allegiance to the Argead throne as any individual monarch could exact. The out-kingdoms were quite liable to connive at Illyrian or Paeonian invasions, if not to give them active backing. Add to this the endless intrigue — often ending in bloody murder and usurpation — which took place at the Argead court, and we begin to see why Macedonia, before Philip's time, played so insignificant a part in Greek history. The country was frankly primitive, preserving customs and institutions which might have made even aSpartan raise his eyebrows. To achieve formal purification of the army, a dog was cut in two by a priest, and the troops then marched between the severed halves. Various ritual war-dances, mimetic in nature, have an unmistakably Zulu air about them for the modern reader.

The attitude of city-state Greeks to this sub-Homeric enclave was one of genial and sophisticated contempt. They regarded Macedonians in general as semi-savages, uncouth of speech and dialect, retrograde in their political institutions, negligible as fighters, and habitual oath-breakers, who dressed in bear-pelts and were much given to deep and swinish potations, tempered with regular bouts of assassination and incest. In a more benevolent mood, Athenians would watch the attempts of the Argead court to Hellenize itself with the patronizing indulgence of some blue-blooded duke called upon to entertain a colonial sugar-baron. No one had forgotten that Alexander I, known ironically as ‘the Philhellene’, had been debarred from the Olympic Games until he manufactured a pedigree connecting the Argeads with the ancient Argive kings.17

Nor was Macedonia's record in the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars liable to improve her standing with patriotic city-state Greeks. Alexander I had collaborated wholeheartedly with the Persians, marrying his sister to a Persian satrap, and accompanyingXerxes' army as a kind of liaison officer — though he was not above hedging his bets discreetly when a Greek victory seemed possible.18 After Plataea, he turned on the retreating Persians and carved up a large body of them at Nine Ways (Ennea Hodoi) on the lower Strymon. From the spoils he then set up a gold statue of himself at Delphi, to emphasize his having (even at the eleventh hour) fought on the right side, against the Barbarian.19 As though to add insult to injury, he profited by the Persian retreat to subjugate the tribes of the Pindus in the west and the Thracian Bistonae and Crestonians in the east, thus almost quadrupling his royal territory. From silver mines on the Lower Strymon he now drew revenues amounting to one silver talent daily. He began to strike coins in his own name, the first Macedonian monarch to do so. These were sizeable achievements, but not of the sort to win him popularity among the Greek states. His successors presented an even shadier picture. His son Perdiccas II switched his allegiance so many times during the Peloponnesian War that one modern scholar thoughtfully provides a tabulated chart to show which side he was on at any given point.20 What, Athenian democrats must have said, could you do with a man like that? Not to mention the unspeakableArchelaus, Perdiccas' illegitimate son, who reached the throne by murdering his uncle, cousin and half-brother, proceeded to marry his father's widow, and was finally murdered himself as a result of his lurid homosexual intrigues.21

Yet it is, precisely, the careers of Perdiccas and Archelaus which hint at Macedonia's true potential. Perdiccas' remarkable tergiversations were mostly due to his possessing, in abundance, a basic raw material which both sides needed desperately: good Macedonian fir for shipbuilding and oars. Upper Macedonia has a continental rather than a Mediterranean climate, and its mountains still show traces of the thick primeval forests which covered them in antiquity. Perdiccas was at pains to establish a treaty of alliance and friendship with Athens (Thuc. 1.57.2), though this was an agreement which both sides honoured in the breach rather than the observance. If the Macedonian king showed himself a slippery customer, it was not for lack of harassment on Athens' part. The foundation of Amphipolis in 437 and the acquisition of Methone three years later enabled the Athenians to put direct pressure on Macedonia; by 413 they were prohibiting Perdiccas from exporting timber without specific permission from Athens (who held the monopoly).22 However, it was Perdiccas who got the best of the exchange in the long run, playing Sparta and Athens off against each other with cool cynicism, selling timber to both sides, making and tearing up monopoly treaties like so much confetti. He also contrived to keep Macedonia from any serious involvement during the Peloponnesian War, thus preventing that ruinous drainage of manpower which so weakened both main combatants. It was surely Perdiccas' example that Philip had in mind when he said: ‘Cheat boys with knucklebones, but men with oaths.’23

It is hard to see what else Perdiccas could have done; Macedonia during his reign was still so weak and disunited that effective resistance, let alone any kind of expansion, was out of the question. At least he managed to safeguard the country's natural resources — in the circumstances no mean achievement. But it was Archelaus who, with realistic insight, first formulated the basic problems which had to be dealt with before Macedonia could become any kind of force in Greek affairs, and who seriously applied himself to solving them. Alexander I had, of course, pointed the way, and not merely in the field of territorial expansion. He worked hard to get Macedonia accepted as a member of the Hellenic family (mainly by establishing a fictitious link between the Argead dynasty and Argos), and encouraged Greeks to domicile themselves on Macedonian soil, a policy which both Perdiccas and Archelaus followed. In particular, he offered attractive patronage to such distinguished artists as Pindar and Bacchylides.24 His general policy was clear enough: extend the frontiers while polishing up Macedonia's cultural image abroad.

When Archelaus came to the throne, in 413/12, Athens was no longer an immediate danger: the failure of the Sicilian Expedition had seen to that. When her rulers now approached the Macedonian king it was as petitioners, desperate for ship-timber: a decree honouring Archelaus as ‘proxenos and benefactor’, together with evidence supplied by that shifty Athenian politician Andocides, suggests that (in 407/6) they attained their desired end.25 But it was still vital to safeguard the country against constant incursions by ambitious neighbours. This meant both strengthening the army, and achieving some kind of permanent unification between Upper and Lower Macedonia. Alexander I had already systematized the old institution of the ‘Companions’ (hetairoi), landed gentry who served the king, into formal cavalry units, the famous Companion Cavalry. It also seems probable that it was he who first created an equivalent infantry body, the Foot Companions or pezetairoi, making large grants of land in the freshly conquered territories to Companions of every degree, and thus ensuring stability for his new frontiers. Also, as Edson points out,26 ‘by means of these grants he would increase the prestige of the kingship and the loyalty of the Macedonians to himself and to the Argead house’. Archelaus seems to have improved the supply of arms, horses, and other military equipment; he also built a network of roads and fortified posts, which served the double purpose of improving communications and letting him keep a firmer hand on his unruly vassals.27Whether by force or diplomacy, he established so secure an entente with the out-kingdoms that by the end of his reign (400/399) he was ready to acquire a little Lebensraum at the expense of Thessaly and the Chalcidic League.

He also saw, very clearly, that a great deal more Hellenization — a programme, in fact, of conscious cultural propaganda — was essential before more advanced Greek states would begin to treat Macedonia on equal terms. He established a specialMacedonian festival at Dium in Pieria, dedicated to the Nine Muses, and boldly entitled ‘Olympian’. Like its namesake, it offered both athletic and musical contests. Like so many tyrants in antiquity, he set himself up as an enlightened patron of literature, science, and the arts. The famous painter Zeuxis was commissioned to decorate his palace. Amongst various other distinguished figures who took up residence in Macedonia were the tragic poet Agathon and the now octogenarian Euripides: seldom can patronage have been more memorably rewarded than by that terrifying final explosion of genius, the Bacchae. The luxury and dissipation of Archelaus' court were notorious; but few men had the strength of mind to refuse an invitation there. (Agathon, indeed, if Aristophanes' picture of his effeminate habits is remotely near the truth, must have felt more than at home in Archelaus' company.) One of the few exceptions, characteristically enough, was Socrates, who remarked that he would rather not accept favours he could never repay.28

But after Archelaus was murdered, the whole edifice he had laboured to build up collapsed overnight, to be followed by forty years of the worst anarchy and intrigue Macedonia had ever experienced. His claim to the throne, dynastically, was weak at best, and his heir was a child. The out-kingdom princes saw their chance, and took it. For this they can hardly be blamed. The glimpse of the future which Archelaus had given them was far from enticing. They had no intention of being reduced to the status of provincial vassal barons if they could help it; and most of them viewed the late king's Hellenization policy with fierce distaste. Warriors who wore cords round their waists until they had killed a man in battle, who could not even sit at meat with their fellows until they had speared a wild boar single-handed, who drank from cattle-horns like Vikings — such men were not the stuff of which a cultural renaissance is made.29

We may doubt, then, whether Archelaus' support for the arts made any impression beyond his immediate entourage. Most Macedonian nobles preferred the more manly pleasures of hunting, carousing, and casual fornication. Sodomy — with young boys or, at a pinch, with each other — they also much enjoyed; but they had no intention of letting it be contaminated with decadent Platonic notions of spiritual uplift.30 The simultaneous presence in Alexander's headquarters of tough Macedonian officers and Greek civilian intellectuals was to produce untold tension and hostility (see below, pp. 163, 372 ff.). All the same, Archelaus' failure to establish a lasting settlement was not entirely due to baronial intransigence. National income — or the lack of it — must also be taken into account. Timber-export and mining rights brought in a fair return, but hardly enough to subsidize military stockpiling, lavish hand-outs to visiting celebrities, and road-construction on a nation-wide scale. It seems at least possible that Archelaus had begun to alienate crown land in return for immediate cash subsidies — a practice which Alexander later revived before the launching of his expedition (see below, pp. 155–6). The out-kingdom barons in particular would jump at such an opportunity: whatever Archelaus demanded was cheap in return for a ‘gift-fief’ in Lower Macedonia.

Granted these circumstances, it may not be without significance that the ‘guardian’ of Archelaus' young son Orestes was a prince of Lyncestis, Aeropus. Until 396 they ruled conjointly. Then Aeropus, having secured his own position, did away with Orestes and ruled alone. Two years later he died: since his grandson was of age, it may even have been from natural causes. His son Pausanias succeeded him, but was promptly assassinated by the legitimate Argead claimant, Alexander I's grandson Amyntas.

In 394 Amyntas was nearer sixty than fifty; he had already made one unsuccessful bid for power, some three decades earlier, against his wily old uncle Perdiccas. Even now he found it a hard business claiming his inheritance. The House of Lyncestis, having once got its hands on the Macedonian crown, did not mean to relinquish it without a struggle. The Lyncestian barons, led by Pausanias' son, called in an Illyrian army to help them and drove Amyntas out of Macedonia again. But in 392, with Thessalian support, he made his comeback — this time for good.31 His reign lasted until 370: precariously enough, but the main wonder is that he survived so long. In his old age he sired three legitimate sons — a very necessary precaution, since he already had three bastards with designs on the throne. The youngest of these late-born heirs was Philip, Alexander's father, born in 383/2, when Amyntas was well over sixty-five. It is not hard to see how the rumour arose that all three of them were illegitimate.

For the old king the price of survival was constant and open humiliation. At first he managed to stave off the Illyrians by paying them heavy annual tribute. This did not stop them intriguing with the rebellious out-kingdom barons, who wanted nothing better than a coup d'état that would put the House of Lyncestis back into power. From 384 onwards, indeed, Illyria exercised de facto sovereignty over the western marches of Lyncestis itself — a strategically vital region between Lake Lychnidus (Okhrida) and theTcherna River. Amyntas could still count on the support of Elymiotis, the remaining out-kingdom: its chieftain, Derdas, was his personal friend. But he dared not risk a full-scale civil war. Nor had he any firmer a hold over Macedonia's ill-defined eastern frontier. Before his forcible expulsion in 394/3, he had ceded a valuable strip of border territory to Olynthus, the most powerful maritime city in the Chalcidic peninsula — presumably as a quid pro quo for promised military aid, which in the event came too late, if at all. When he finally established himself on the throne he claimed this land back, on the grounds that he had merely left it in trust with the Olynthians till his restoration. They blandly ignored his protests, and made still further encroachments.

Nothing more clearly reveals Macedonia's weakness during this period than the off-hand treatment which Amyntas received from powers such as Athens or Sparta: unwisely, since the raids of wild tribesmen from the north, Triballi and others, was as prejudicial to Greek as to Macedonian interests. To Athens Macedonia was simply a useful buffer-state in her complex dealings with Chalcidice and Thrace, a pawn in the end-game which aimed, ultimately, at secure control of the Black Sea grain-route through theBosporus. When Sparta was persuaded to send an expedition against Olynthus, it was not out of regard for Amyntas, but because the Chalcidic League (of which Olynthus was the head) represented a growing threat in the Thraceward regions. Olynthus surrendered in 379; the Chalcidic League was — temporarily — broken up; and the Spartans doubtless went home congratulating themselves on having done a states-manlike job of work. In fact their action constituted one of the most disastrous errors of judgement imaginable. Forty years later they — along with every other city-state, not least Athens and Thebes — realized the truth: that they had fatally weakened the one power-group which might conceivably have checkmated Macedonia's meteoric rise to power before it was well begun. Knowledge, as so often, came too late.

Yet it would have taken more than Delphic prescience to have foreseen, in 379, just what the future held. Amyntas, everyone agreed, was a joke, like most of his predecessors. Trimmers, traitors, drunks, murderers, vacillating moneygrubbers, cowardly and inefficient despots — the Argead dynasty had not won much respect from Greek public opinion, and Amyntas in this respect did little to improve matters. He touted indiscriminately for alliances, approaching, at various times, everyone from the Thebans to that remarkable condottiere Jason of Pherae. In his efforts to please Athens (and to protect his own crumbling authority) he had even gone so far as to adopt an Athenian general, Iphicrates, as his son. He, and Macedonia, could clearly be discounted.

On top of all this, the usual palace intrigues continued to flourish. The king's wife, Eurydice, had taken a lover, a Macedonian nobleman named Ptolemy, from Alorus. With enviable sang-froid she married off Ptolemy to her own daughter — in order, presumably, to have an unchallengeable reason for keeping him around the house. After a while she got careless, and Amyntas actually caught her in bed with his son-in-law. Unwisely, he did nothing — as usual. He was much attached to his daughter, and anxious to avoid any scandal that might cause her distress.32 Ptolemy, however, showed little gratitude for this forbearance. Like most Macedonian aristocrats, his ambition was only equalled by his unscrupulousness. To enjoy the queen's person was, for him, simply a foretaste of the headier delights conferred by royal authority. Compared to him, Rizzio and Darnley were sentimental amateurs; but then Eurydice, one suspects, could have taught Mary a thing or two as well.

This fascinating pair now decided to murder Amyntas, and set up Ptolemy as King of Macedonia in his stead: an act of pure usurpation rather than a bid on behalf of one of the out-kingdoms, since Alorus lay in Bottiaea, and thus formed part of Lower Macedonia. (The tradition that Ptolemy was in fact Amyntas' son33 clearly represents dynastic propaganda on his behalf.) Here, however, they reckoned without Eurydice's daughter, whose Grizelda-like submissiveness clearly drew the line at parricide, and who lost no time in warning her father what was afoot. However, any social embarrassment the situation might have caused at court was obviated by Amyntas promptly dying, perhaps of shock. After all, he was close on eighty.

If Ptolemy had hoped to occupy this conveniently vacant throne without trouble, he was disappointed. The king's eldest legitimate son, Alexander II, at once established his claim to the succession. However, he was unwise enough to get himself involved in a war between the rival dynasts of Thessaly, and during his absence Ptolemy made a spirited bid at usurping his crown. He met with enough opposition for the case to be decided by arbitration. The eminent Theban statesman Pelopidas gave his verdict in favour of Alexander, and Ptolemy retired gracefully — at least until Pelopidas was safely out of the country. Then, resourceful as ever, he had the young king assassinated during a Macedonian folk-dancing exhibition, married Eurydice (what became of her daughter history does not relate), and assumed the office of regent on behalf of Perdiccas, Alexander's brother, who was next in line for the throne, but still a minor. Realizing that such a move was open to misconstruction by political cynics abroad, he proceeded to negotiate an alliance with the Thebans, who had just smashed the myth of Spartan military supremacy in a pitched battle at Leuctra (371), and were rapidly emerging as the most powerful state in Greece.

As a proof of his sincerity, he also dispatched to Thebes a highly distinguished group of hostages: perhaps he was glad to have some of them safely out of the way — especially Amyntas' only other legitimate son, the young Philip, at this time fifteen years old.34 Ptolemy can hardly have foreseen the consequences of his action. For Philip, while in Thebes, stayed with Pammenes, who was not only a skilled general himself, but a close friend of Epaminondas, the victor of Leuctra, and perhaps the finest strategist Greece produced before Alexander. Philip's whole military career (and that of Alexander after him) was incalculably influenced by the lessons the great Theban commander taught him. He learnt the importance of professional training in drill and tactics, of close cooperation between cavalry and infantry, of meticulous staff planning combined with speed in attack. By watching the manoeuvres of the Sacred Band, Thebes' crack infantry regiment, he came to appreciate the potential of a permanent corps d'élite — so much so that thirty years later he and his formidable son were at pains to wipe out this famous military unit almost to the last man. Above all, he learnt one cardinal principle: that ‘the quickest and most economical way of winning a military decision is to defeat an enemy not at his weakest but at his strongest point’.35

Philip's training for power was proceeding along useful if unorthodox lines. His experience as a member of the Macedonian royal household had given him an understandably cynical view of human nature: in this world murder, adultery and usurpation were commonplace, as liable to be practised by one's own mother as by anyone else. In later life Philip took] it as axiomatic that all diplomacy was based on self-interest, and every man had his price: events seldom proved him wrong. In Thebes he saw, too, the besetting weaknesses of a democratic city-state — constant party intrigue, lack of a strong executive power, the inability to force quick decisions, the unpredictable vagaries of the assembly at voting-time, the system of annual elections which made any serious long-term planning almost impossible, the amateur ad hoc military levies (though here Thebes was better off than, say, Athens). For the first time he began to understand how Macedonia's outdated institutions, so despised by the rest of Greece, might prove a source of strength when dealing with such opponents. Throughout his life he gained his greatest advances by exploiting human cupidity and democratic incompetence — most often at the same time.

The King of Macedonia was, with certain caveats, the supreme authority over his people: in a very literal sense he could make that famous Bourbon boast ‘L'état c'est moi.’ Much has been made of the tradition that the king could not execute a free citizen on a charge of high treason (i.e. attempted murder or usurpation directed against himself), but must appear before the Macedonian assembly in the guise of a plaintiff.36 But there are so many instances on record of monarchs who put leading Macedonians to death without consulting the assembly at all that the rule, if it ever existed, would seem to have been something of a dead letter. The Macedonian assembly did, it is true, confirm each king's succession (usurpers might get away with it if they won public approval) and could, in theory at least, depose him by vote; they also heard capital charges. Apart from this, however, and a requirement that he observe the ‘traditional laws’, the king's power was absolute. He ‘owned all land, held supreme command in war, was judge, priest, and treasurer, and could delegate his powers during absence abroad’.37 His status much resembled that of a Mycenaean wanax, ruling over a tribally orientated society.

Macedonian noblemen were the ancient equivalent of feudal barons; as a general rule they held their lands in fee from the king, and owed him personal service, together with their retainers, in return. It was from these tribal aristocrats that the king selected his Companions, or hetairoi, who acted both as a peacetime council, and as a general staff when Macedonia was at war. (Again, Homer provides a close parallel, in the example of Achilles and his Myrmidons.) They also furnished Gentlemen of the Bodyguard (somatophylakes), who appear to have been eight in number,38 and who attended the king at all times, not merely in battle. They were on terms of frank and easy familiarity with him, wearing the same dress and addressing him as an equal. Macedonian royal absolutism certainly did not lack the common touch.

Like that other feudally organized horse-breeding state, Thessaly, Macedonia possessed a fine heavy cavalry arm. We find these troopers giving an excellent account of themselves against the Thracians in 429; a squadron from Elimiotis distinguished itself during the Olynthian campaign of 382/1. The nucleus of this Macedonian cavalry was provided by the Companions themselves, who originally did duty as a royal mounted escort. They wore helmets and cuirasses; Thucydides describes them as ‘excellent horsemen’ and says that ‘no one could stand up to them’. But — as one scholar has recently reminded us — it would be a mistake to think of them as resembling medieval knights, or even Napoleonic dragoons. Their horses were small and unshod, little more than sturdy ponies, though they had begun to breed heavier mounts from bloodstock captured during the Persian Wars. They used neither saddle nor stirrups, as we can see from the Sidon sarcophagus; and this meant that the lance-charge of the Middle Ages was unknown to them. Instead, they carried a short stabbing-spear, the xyston, some six feet long, with which they were adept at spiking their opponents through the face during close-quarters combat.39

As regards infantry, however, Macedonia — at least before Philip's reforms — was lamentably weak. This tends to be an occupational defect of any aristocratic feudal state, and Macedonia, like Persia, was no exception to the rule. (One reason why theAchaemenid empire fell to Alexander was that he and his father between them had solved the infantry problem, whereas the Great King had not.) Originally this arm consisted of mere tribal levies, peasants and shepherds following the cavalry in an unruly mass. During most of the fifth century they remained negligible, though under Archelaus there was some effort to train and organize them. But economic progress slowly produced a yeoman middle class, even in Macedonia; and a middle class, throughout Greece, was synonymous with the emergence of a heavy infantry force, however inadequate.

It was, as we have seen, Alexander I40 who formally established a regular body of pezetairoi, or ‘Foot Companions’, perhaps inter alia as a counterweight against the pretensions of his more than usually turbulent barons. The name implies not merely organization but also — perhaps as important — social acceptance. These ‘Foot Companions’ became a permanent addition to the Macedonian military establishment; but it took Philip to see their true potential, and forge them into one of the most formidable fighting units the world has ever seen — the legendary Macedonian phalanx. Its members were as highly trained and drilled as Roman legionaries; for their main weapon they had the terrible sarissa, a spear some 13–14 feet long, heavily tapered from butt to tip, and much resembling a medieval Swiss pike. To handle such a weapon effectively required parade-ground dressing and discipline; but once that discipline had been acquired, the phalanx enjoyed a vast initial advantage in battle. Since a normal infantry thrusting spear was only half the length of the sarissa, the Macedonians could always rely on making their first strike before the enemy got to grips with them.41

From Thebes the young Philip waited on events at home, in the intervals of studying military tactics and being lectured by his tutor, a Pythagorean. (It would be hard, on the face of it, to find a less likely convert than Philip of Macedon to the philosophy which advocated vegetarianism, pacifism, and total abstinence.) Opposition to Ptolemy's rule was considerable; but most of it, once again, came from the House of Lyncestis, which now backed yet another Pausanias — perhaps the last claimant's nephew — in a near-successful bid for the throne. Eurydice made a highly emotional appeal to Iphicrates, the Athenian general whom her late husband had adopted. No Athenian ever passed up the chance of getting his political foot in someone else's door; so Iphicrates (with the tacit backing of his government) drove out Pausanias, and with due filial restraint made no reference to Eurydice's marital peccadilloes.

No one paid much attention to young Perdiccas, and this, as things turned out, was a mistake. Perdiccas might, like Archelaus, have a weakness for literature and philosophy; but he was not on that account a person to trifle with. He waited three years, until he attained his majority (there was to be no excuse for foisting another regent on him) and then had Ptolemy executed (365/4). What his mother had to say about this, or how he dealt with her after her lover's removal, our sources do not relate; but we never hear of her again. Perdiccas now settled down to rule Macedonia in his own right; and one of his first acts as king was to arrange for Philip's release, or escape, from Thebes. His mentor and éminence grise was a philosopher named Euphraeus, who came to Macedonia onPlato's recommendation. He is described as being of common origin and very slanderous in his conversation; moreover, as Carystius tells us, ‘he was so pedantic in his selection of the king's associates that nobody could share in the common mess if he did not know how to practise geometry or philosophy’.42 But he gave Perdiccas one excellent piece of advice, which was to appoint Philip governor of a district, and let him recruit and train troops there.

Philip at once began to put the lessons of Epaminondas into practice. Discipline and organization were completely overhauled. Macedonian troops, infantry of the levy, suddenly found themselves learning tactical manoeuvres and complex close-order drill.Philip sent them on thirty-five mile route-marches with full pack and provisions, and then (when they were too tired to protest) subjected them to morale-boosting lectures. Aristocratic cavalrymen and footslogging peasants found themselves involved in extended joint exercises: it is a moot point which of them (to begin with at least) were the more disconcerted by the experience. Certainly Philip showed himself no respecter of persons. One officer who ventured to take a bath in camp was stripped of his command; a young sprig of the nobility who broke ranks to get a drink was publicly flogged.43 Hitherto only mercenaries had attained such a level of efficiency. Now, slowly but surely, Philip began to train a nucleus of professional soldiers who were still, at the same time, Macedonia's free national levy. It was a momentous innovation.

Meanwhile Perdiccas, who possessed all his father's political pliability, and a good deal more drive, arranged a fresh alliance with Athens. He might be building up an army, but he was still very short on ships and naval expertise, and Athens had both in full measure. The Athenian with whom he had to deal was a genial condottiere named Timotheus, a friend of Iphicrates. For a time all went well. Timotheus campaigned in the Thracian Chersonese, now the Gallipoli Peninsula (Athens, as usual, was anxious about hergrain-route through the Dardanelles), and, with Macedonian assistance, captured several vital Chalcidic towns, including Potidaea. But Timotheus was, after all, an Athenian, and had an Athenian policy to carry out. He now, very coolly, snapped up two of Perdiccas' own best southern ports, Methone and Pydna, and then turned his attention to the vital frontier city of Amphipolis, on the Strymon, where Macedonia maintained a garrison. No one could now fail to recognize that Athens' real object was the recovery of her lost fifth-century maritime empire. Perdiccas promptly switched what troops he could spare to the city's defence; by 362 theentente cordiale had gone up in smoke. A year later, nothing daunted, Athens concluded an ‘eternal alliance’ with Thessaly instead, and — more ominously — began to extend a helping hand to the out-kingdom barons.44

Those who condemn Philip's subsequent policy of aggression (particularly against Athens: modern scholars seldom get morally worked up about the Chalcidic peninsula) sometimes forget Athens' own record of freebooting grab-as-grab-can in north-east Greece. One must not believe everything one reads in Demosthenes.45 The Athenians themselves had an enviable facility for swallowing their own propaganda: Aeschines not only blamed Perdiccas for failing to help Athens capture Amphipolis, but actually gave Athens credit for remaining friendly despite the wrong done her.46 The only difference between Philip and Athens, politically speaking, lay in their relative success. Philip turned out a better general, a subtler diplomat, and a larger personality than any Athenian with whom he had to deal; but so far as political morality went there was not a penny to choose between them.

By 359 Perdiccas felt strong enough to try conclusions with Illyria. The situation on his western frontier was, obviously, intolerable. Lyncestis had more or less seceded from Macedonian control; despite the humiliating annual tribute which he paid, Perdiccas had no guarantee that at any time he would not be swept off his throne by an Illyrian-backed coup. He mustered a large army, left Philip behind as regent during his absence, and marched westward. Days later a dusty and panic-stricken messenger came back with disastrous news: Perdiccas had been defeated and killed in a great battle against the Illyrians, and some 4,000 Macedonians lay dead on the battlefield with him.47 Philip of Macedon had come into his inheritance at last; but it would be hard to imagine a reign which began under less hopeful auspices.

Few political experts of the day, in Athens or anywhere else, can have given the new king much more than six months, even at the shortest odds. The western frontier was wide open, and a large proportion of Philip's newly-trained troops were dead. The Illyrians, under their king, Bardylis, were preparing for a mass invasion. The Paeonians had already begun swarming down from the north to pillage Macedonian territory. At home things were no better. On Perdiccas' death no fewer than five would-be usurpers (not counting Philip himself) had thrown their coronets into the ring: they form an interesting group. Pausanias of Lyncestis we have met already: for this, his second attempt, he had secured Thracian backing. Argaeus was Athens' candidate. He had already snatched power briefly once, in the 390s, and was now assembling a sizeable force at Methone. In return for the Athenians' support he had promised — if successful — to cede them Amphipolis. Lastly, there were Philip's three illegitimate half-brothers, Archelaus,Arrhidaeus, and Menelaus. They, presumably, hoped to win the direct support of the Macedonian people; the old canard about Philip's origins began to circulate once more.

Philip coolly assessed this impossible situation, rather in the manner of Marshal Foch, and then struck, with lethal speed and efficiency. First, he arrested and executed Archelaus: the other two brothers managed to escape, but fled the country and sought refuge in Olynthus (see below, p. 45). Next, Philip bribed the King of Thrace not only to withdraw his backing from Pausanias, but also (two birds neatly with one stone) to arrange for the pretender's assassination. He then sent off an embassy to Paeonia, and, saysDiodorus, ‘by corrupting some with gifts and persuading others by generous promises he made an agreement with them to maintain peace for the present’.48 All this was accomplished in a matter of weeks, or less.

Philip was now at leisure to deal with the one remaining pretender, Argaeus, who in addition to his mercenaries had at Methone no fewer than 3,000 Athenian hoplites, under their own general. Philip promptly pulled his garrison out of Amphipolis, declared it a free city, and made a secret deal with Athens whereby it would be restored to her in exchange for Pydna. Argaeus, somewhat bewildered, found himself advancing on Aegae, the old capital, with only his mercenaries to back him. Making the best of a bad job, he called on the citizens to ‘welcome him back and become the founders of his kingship’. The citizens politely ignored him; by now they had taken Philip's measure. Argaeus had no option but to turn about and trail back to Methone. Philip, who had been watching this little comedy with cynical amusement, intercepted the pretender en route and forced him into ignominious surrender. All Athenians among the mercenaries were carefully weeded out and sent home, with compensation. The last thing Philip wanted, now or at any time, was Athens' open hostility.49

The Illyrians, seeing that this new ruler of Macedonia was a far tougher proposition than any of his predecessors, postponed their invasion. Having thus stalled or eliminated all opposition between summer and autumn, Philip spent the winter of 359/8 putting through a crash military training programme. In the early spring came news that the King of Paeonia had just died. Here was too good a chance to miss. Before the barbarian monarch's successor could establish himself, Philip swept over the northern passes, defeated the Paeonians in a pitched battle, and forced them to acknowledge Macedonian overlordship. Attack is the best defence: Philip knew that at this psychological moment he had a unique chance to smash the Illyrian threat once and for all. But it was a tremendous gamble. He mobilized every able-bodied fighting man in the kingdom; when he marched westward into Lyncestis he had 600 horse and no less than 10,000 infantrymen behind him. Bardylis, in some alarm, offered terms, but only on the basis of the status quo; he refused to give up any of the territory he had won. Philip rejected his offer: not, in all likelihood, without some qualms, since the Illyrians who fought Perdiccas gave no quarter and took no ransom, and were unlikely to change their policy when confronted by his brother.50 The two armies finally met in the plain near Monastir, by Lake Okhrida.51

The most interesting thing about this crucial battle is that here, for the first time, we see Philip applying the tactical lessons of Epaminondas, as Alexander was to apply them after him. There was little to choose between Illyrians and Macedonians numerically; what told were superior strategy and training. The Illyrians, seeing themselves in danger of being outflanked by Philip's cavalry, formed up in a hollow square. Philip himself led the infantry, holding back his centre and left, deploying his line in the oblique echelon that was Epaminondas' speciality. As he had anticipated, the Illyrian right wing stretched and slewed round to force an engagement. Philip waited until the inevitable, fatal gap appeared in the left of the square, and then sent in his right-wing cavalry, flank and rear. They drove a great wedge through the gap, and the Macedonian phalanx followed in their wake. A long and desperate struggle ensued. But at last the square broke, and 7,000 Illyrians — three-quarters of Bardylis' entire force — were slaughtered before the fugitives reached the safety of the hills. Here, mutatis mutandis, we have precisely the tactics which produced victory for Philip or Alexander at Chaeronea, the Granicus, and Issus — the oblique advance, with centre and left deliberately echeloned back so that they formed, as it were, a pivot for the knock-out charge delivered by the cavalry from the right; the careful manoeuvring to create a gap in the enemy line; Epaminondas' principle of economy of force coupled with overwhelming strength at the decisive point.52

Now, at last, Philip was in a position to dictate terms, and did so with some relish. Bardylis, grumbling, but knowing when he was beaten, abandoned all his territorial gains in western Macedonia. The immediate threat to Philip's western frontier was now removed, and the danger of out-kingdom disloyalty correspondingly reduced. The next time there was campaigning to be done against the Illyrians, in 356, it was, as we have seen, Parmenio whom Philip delegated for the task.53 During the rest of his reign Philip continued to campaign on the Illyrian marches, especially during the periods 355–1 and 346–2, but now with ever-increasing confidence, strengthening the frontier line by ejecting potentially hostile tribesmen, and in the end bringing many of the Illyrian clans under his direct rule.54 Almost more important for Philip personally was the fact that this crushing defeat of Bardylis at once enhanced his own prestige out of all recognition. His brother's defeat and death had been more than amply avenged; he found himself something of a national hero. There was no further question, now, of his position being challenged. Indeed, he very soon emerged as one of the most popular monarchs ever to rule over Macedonia, a tribute to his vigorous personality no less than his exceptional skill as a commander in the field. For a young man of twenty-three it was no mean achievement.

Among other concessions which Philip obtained from Bardylis was the hand in marriage of his daughter Audata. Feudal societies such as Macedonia, Thrace and Illyria (unlike the more developed Greek city-states) operated on a tribal system of kinship and reciprocal obligations. For them dynastic marriage, as an instrument of political self-insurance, stood second only to dynastic murder. Those with whom one had acquired a formal family relationship were that degree less likely to conspire against one; and a chieftain's daughter could always, at a pinch, be used as a high-level hostage. Philip, of all people, was unlikely to ignore so promising a diplomatic weapon. During his comparatively short life he took no fewer than five wives.

Philip's general attitude to sex, women and marriage has been seriously confused by most scholars from Plutarch onwards. Middle-class romantic respectability (Plutarch on the conjugal—domestic ideal is almost as mawkish as Coventry Patmore) makes very heavy weather of fourth-century Macedonian mores: this applies to drinking habits no less than to sex. Macedonian society knew nothing of conjugal romance, and only insisted on conjugal fidelity in wives to guard against the appearance of unsuspected cuckoos in the dynastic nest. Like any tribal leader, Philip took wives to breed sons, secure the succession, run his household, and cement alliances. His marriages, therefore, must be sharply distinguished from his innumerable amours, which did not affect his marital relationships in any way (though they might have similarly quasi-diplomatic objectives on occasion). The idea that any man should restrict his sexual activities to the marriage-bed, much less cultivate a relationship with his wife in the modern sense, would have struck a Macedonian as both pointless and grotesque. Macedonian wives were not, therefore, given to fits of romantic jealousy if their husbands chose to take mistresses or cultivate the company of young boys. What roused Olympias to fury, as we shall see, was any threat to her own royal position, or her first-born son's status as heir to the throne.

It was a standing joke in antiquity that Philip ‘always married a new wife with each campaign he undertook’.55 This should be regarded as a tribute to his political acumen rather than his concupiscence. The idea of marrying one's mistress, which drove Dr Crippen to murder, is a bourgeois notion little older than the present century. Philip's attitude to marriage, in fact, much resembles that of the Austrian Habsburgs: as an instrument of diplomacy it came cheaper than war. ‘The complicated history of his matrimonial affairs,’ it has been well said, ‘mirrors the progress of his political expansion.’56

However, Philip's liaison with this Illyrian princess brought him only temporary security abroad, and did little to stabilize his position at home. Audata died, probably in childbirth (spring 357) leaving Philip with a daughter, Cynane (or Cynna), rather than the male heir for whom he must have prayed. He now, predictably, sought a wife nearer home, from the princely clan of Elimiotis, most consistently loyal among the out-kingdoms. Phila was a princess in her own right, Derdas' daughter — and, incidentally, the aunt of Alexander's imperial treasurer, Harpalus (see Genealogical Chart, and below, p. 101). It was, on the face of it, an ideal match. But ill-fortune seemed to attend all Philip's early ventures into matrimony. Phila, too, died not long after her wedding. By the high summer of 357 Philip was once more looking for a suitable wife.

Meanwhile he had been busy in other fields. During the winter of 358/7 Alexander of Pherae was assassinated, and his relatives embarked upon such a reign of terror that some rival Thessalian aristocrats, the Aleuadae, invited Philip to come and suppress them (the murder had been carried out by Alexander's own wife in concert with her brothers). Philip, always on the look-out for a political entrée in neighbouring states, duly obliged. The Thessalians were grateful; Philip exercised all his considerable charm. (He had certainly achieved more than Isocrates, who merely sent the conspirators an open letter advocating moderation.) It was now that he acquired as his mistress a dancing-girl named Philinna, from Larissa, the home of the Aleuadae, ‘wishing,’ as 6670 Satyrus tells us, ‘to put in a claim to the Thessalian nation as his own besides others’. Legitimate inheritance in the Macedonian royal house depended on paternity alone, and Philinna's son Arrhidaeus afterwards found neither bastardy nor half-wittedness impediments to his succession.57

Nothing, however, gives so clear a foretaste of Philip's diplomatic in-fighting techniques as his record over Amphipolis. When he bargained this vital port away to Athens (see above, p. 22) he had not the slightest intention of keeping his word; he was merely, as so often, buying time. Amphipolis, lying as it did on the Strymon, at the frontiers of Thrace and Macedonia, had enormous commercial and strategic importance. It provided a port for the shipping of Macedonian timber; more important still, it gave access to the rich mining area round Mt Pangaeus. The Athenian general Thucydides had been exiled for losing Amphipolis during the Peloponnesian War (a fact to which we indirectly owe his History) and Athens had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get it back ever since.

In the spring of 357 Philip picked a quarrel with the Amphipolitan government (where Greeks were concerned it was never hard to engineer a casus belli) and laid their city under siege. They promptly appealed to Athens. But the Athenians had a famine on their hands, and were too busy bargaining for grain-supplies from Thrace and the Black Sea to consider campaigning on the Strymon.58 Besides, they still believed — with that special naivety which sometimes afflicts the politically corrupt — that Philip intended to honour his underhand agreement with them. Why should they go and fight against Macedonians at Amphipolis when it was on Athens' behalf that the assault was being made? And once Amphipolis was theirs, they argued, Philip could whistle for Pydna. It never, seemingly, entered their heads that Philip might pull precisely the same trick on them.

Amphipolis fell that autumn. Philip, far from making Athens a present of his new acquisition, confirmed its independence — thus winning a grateful ally, and much credit for honest dealing among the cities of north-east Greece. The Athenians, morally outraged by this neat finesse — they wanted allies in the north-east themselves — declared war on Macedonia.59 But what with the grain-shortage and a revolt of their own allies in the Aegean, there was little enough they could do — exactly as Philip had calculated. Adding insult to injury, he now marched on Pydna and recovered it for himself. The sheer gullibility of Athenian statesmen at this time is only equalled by Philip's willingness to exploit it. When the Olynthians, somewhat alarmed by Philip's activities, applied to Athens for an alliance, they were politely choked off. Philip, it was thought, would still, somehow, honour his promises. The Olynthians, who were hardheaded realists (as their wealth indicates) thereupon went back home and made a treaty with Philip instead, on behalf of the Chalcidic League. One clause of this document stipulated that Philip should, on Olynthus' behalf, recover Potidaea — ‘a city’, says Diodorus, ‘which the Olynthians had set their heart on possessing’.60 This time Philip kept his word: he needed a free hand in the Thraceward regions. However, after reducing Potidaea, he carefully sent the Athenian garrison back home. There was no harm in hedging one's bets.

Philip's third and by far his most famous wife was, once again, a foreigner, from the royal Molossian house of Epirus. Illyria might be secure for the moment, but an alliance with her southern neighbour and rival offered decided advantages. The reigning prince, Arybbas, had two nieces. The elder, Troas, he had, economically, married himself; but her sister Myrtale (or Olympias, as we know her) was still available, and Arybbas promptly — almost too promptly — gave his consent to the match. Plutarch asserts that Philip and Olympias had already met some four or five years previously, during their initiation into the Mysteries on Samothrace, and had fallen in love at first sight. The story could just be true, though Plutarch's matrimonial idealism leaves him a suspect witness in such matters, and Olympias can have been barely past puberty at the supposed time of her initiation. In any case, Philip had not shown himself in any desperate hurry to follow matters up. Two previous wives and at least one mistress hardly conjure up the image of a pining lover.

At all events, in the autumn of 357 Philip married his Epirot princess, and for the first time in his life found he had taken on rather more than he could handle. Olympias, though not yet eighteen, had already emerged as a forceful, not to say eccentric, personality. She was, among other things, passionately devoted to the orgiastic rites of Dionysus, and her Maenadic frenzies can scarcely have been conducive to peaceful domestic life. One of her more outré habits (unless, as has been suggested, it had a ritual origin) was keeping an assortment of large tame snakes as pets. To employ these creatures on religious occasions could raise no objections; but their intermittent appearance in Olympias' bed must have been a hazard calculated to put even the toughest bridegroom off his stroke. Our sources, furthermore, while admitting Olympias' beauty, describe her variously as sullen, jealous, bloody-minded, arrogant, headstrong and meddlesome. To these attributes we may add towering political ambition and a literally murderous temper. She was determined to be queen in something more than name: this did not endear her to the Macedonian barons, and was later to involve Philip in the most serious crisis of his career. But for the moment his main concern was to sire an heir, and he lost no time in getting Olympias with child.61

So far, both as strategist and diplomat, Philip had scarcely put a foot wrong. Nevertheless, there was still one vital element lacking to his plans for expansion, and that was a large and regular source of income. Philip, like his son, was no natural economist; both of them had the pirate's mentality when it came to finance. For them credit meant, quite simply, enough gold and silver in the vaults to stave off an immediate crisis: the Treasury was equated with treasure. Furthermore, they knew only two ways of acquiring these precious metals: to dig them out of the ground, or to steal them off anyone weaker than themselves. Neither Philip nor Alexander ever understood what a balance of trade meant — a failing which left their Hellenistic successors with some severe economic headaches.

The nearest and best source of both gold and silver was the region round Mt Pangaeus, east of the Strymon. Technically this lay in Thracian territory, and Philip had no wish, as yet, to be branded as an aggressor. However, the stronghold of Crenidesprovided him with just the excuse he needed. This town, north-east of Pangaeus, had been colonized by Thasos. Its occupants (perhaps in response to a broad hint) appealed to Philip for help against Thracian aggression. Philip occupied Crenides in the spring of 356, renamed it Philippi, sent a large body of settlers there, and put his mining engineers to work. Before long precious metals, gold above all, began to pour into the Macedonian treasury. Philip's annual income was now increased by 1,000 talents, or 300,000 gold pieces — as much as fifth-century Athens had extracted from her whole great maritime empire. He at once began to coin on an extensive scale, issuing gold staters (which he called ‘Philips’, perhaps in conscious emulation of their Persian equivalent, the ‘Daric’) and silversigloi, or shekels. This surplus was quickly mopped up by the needs of Philip's near-professional army, and — perhaps an almost greater drain — by the lavish bribes which he was for ever handing out to foreign politicians. He himself afterwards boasted that ‘it was far more by the use of gold than of arms that he had enlarged his kingdom’, and his prodigal expenditure was a by-word throughout Greece.62

So, on that late summer day in 356 B.C., Philip of Macedon sat and read the dispatches from Pella, and called on Fate to grant him some small setback to offset so unbroken a line of successes. In less than four years he had transformed Macedonia from a backward and primitive kingdom to one of the most powerful states in the Greek world. The threat to his frontiers was, if not removed, at least substantially diminished. The country had a secure and indeed princely national income, not to mention a legitimate heir to the throne. A formidable new army was being trained, while the out-kingdoms were beginning to show some grudging respect for Argead sovereignty. Lastly, his victory at Olympia would, Philip hoped, form the prelude to social acceptance by the Greek city-states — above all, by Athens.

Philip's relations with Athens were always somewhat ambivalent. He despised her chattering, venal demagogues, with their empty rhetoric and sordid petty intrigues. He found the whole ramshackle democratic system mildly ridiculous. ‘The Athenians,’ he once remarked, ‘manage to dig up ten generalsa every year; I only ever discovered one in my life — Parmenio.’63 Yet he did not underestimate his opponents. He knew that venality often goes hand in hand with genuine patriotism — as the example of Themistoclesso strikingly demonstrates — and that even a democracy can, on occasion, act with speed and decision. He had some very practical motives for avoiding a head-on clash, not least the formidable Athenian fleet: Macedonia had never been a maritime nation. But he was also impressed, despite himself, by Athens' near-legendary past, The charismatic mystique of the city that had broken the Great King's ambitions at Marathon and Salamis, that had produced Aeschylus and Pericles and Plato, could not fail to leave its mark on him. His contempt was always mingled with a kind of wide-eyed colonial admiration.

Now, at last, he was ready to embark on that astonishing career of expansion and conquest which only ended with his premature death. He had been well-trained for the task ahead of him. His eye for a man's or a city's weakest spot was unerring. He made rival factions his allies by playing them off one against the other. The idea of seasonal campaigning and citizen-levies he regarded with contempt. For Philip there was no close season in war, and victory went to the side that had trained the hardest. He himself exercised unbroken and near-absolute control over Macedonia's affairs, civil no less than military. This, as Demosthenes for one realized, gave him an enormous advantage over any elected democracy when it came to the planning and execution of long-term projects. His parents' example, indeed the whole pattern of Macedonian baronial intrigue, left him with a genial contempt for all human pretensions to virtue or idealism. (No city, he said, was impregnable if it had a postern-gate big enough to admit an ass laden with gold.) His country's long history of humiliation and impotence showed him the ultimate goal at which he must aim. Every personal or national slight would be wiped out, each sneering allusion to barbarism, cowardice or incompetence paid for in full.

At the same time, Sparta's shocking record as an imperial power (404–371) had taught Philip one extremely important lesson. Naked Machtpolitik created, in the long run, more problems than it solved.64 Conciliation always paid off better, even if it conceded no advantage except the semblance of self-respect. The pill of aggression must be gilded with appeals to principle and professions of honest dealing. Here we have yet another of Philip's policies which was afterwards taken over and carried to its logical extreme by his more famous son. The shifty Athenian demagogues who lied and shuffled would find that they had met a more charmingly persuasive liar than themselves. The hotheads who prated of patriotism and liberty would see both cut down to size by troops trained on deeds rather than rhetoric. It was the triumph, ultimately, of authoritarian efficiency over incompetent and corrupt idealism, of a ruthless professional over brilliant but disorganized amateurs who could never agree amongst themselves.

It was also the end of real freedom for Greece; because freedom, in the last resort, means the right to determine one's own future, for good or ill, the right to be stupid, vindictive, dishonest or faction-ridden if that is the will of the majority. Free men would always rather make a hash of affairs on a public vote than be dragooned into efficiency and success by any dictator, however far-sighted or benevolent. This was the ultimate truth which always escaped Philip, just as it escaped Alexander after him. For them achievement always came first; success was its own justification. An ideological opposition they could neither understand nor deal with: Philip regarded such an attitude with jovial cynicism, while Alexander simply rode roughshod over it. The polis, the city-state, had run its course: a new era was dawning.

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