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Macedonian King Philip II
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Born
in Pella, Philip was the youngest son of King Amyntas III and Eurydice.
In his youth, (ca. 368 BC–365 BC) Philip was a hostage in Thebes, which
was the most prominent city of Greece at that time. During his captivity
in Thebes, Philip received a military and diplomatic education from Epaminondas,
was involved in a pederastic relationship with Pelopidas and lived with
Pammenes, who was an enthusiastic advocate of the Sacred Band of Thebes.
In 364 BC, Philip returned to Macedonia. The deaths of Philip's elder brothers,
King Alexander II and Perdiccas III, allowed him to take the throne in 359
BC. Originally appointed regent for his infant nephew Amyntas IV, who was
the son of Perdiccas III, Philip managed to take the kingdom for himself
that same year.Philip's military skills and expansionist vision of Macedonian
greatness brought him early success. The hill tribes were broken by a single
battle in 358 BC, and Philip established his authority inland as far as
Lake Ohrid. He used the Social War as an opportunity for expansion. In 357
BC, he took the Athenian colony of Amphipolis, which commanded the gold
mines of Mount Pangaion. That same year Philip married the Epirote princess
Olympias, who was the daughter of the king of the Molossians. In 355 BC,
Philip conquered the town of Crenides and changed its name to Philippi.
Philip also attacked Abdera and Maronea, on the Thracian sea-board. He took
Methone in 354 BC, a town which had belonged to Athens. During the siege
of Methone, Philip lost an eye.
Not until his armies were opposed by Athens at Thermopylae in 352 BC did
Philip face any serious resistance. Philip did not attempt to advance into
central Greece because the Athenians had occupied Thermopylae. Also in 352
BC, the Macedonian army won a complete victory over the Phocians at the
Battle of Crocus Field. This battle made Philip tagus of Thessaly, and he
claimed as his own Magnesia, with the important harbour of Pagasae.Hostilities
with Athens did not yet take place, but Athens was threatened by the Macedonian
party which Philip's gold created in Euboea. From 352 to 346 BC, Philip
did not again come south. He was active in completing the subjugation of
the Balkan hill-country to the west and north, and in reducing the Greek
cities of the coast as far as the Hebrus (Maritza). For the chief of these
coastal cities, Olynthus, Philip continued to profess friendship until its
neighboring cities were in his hands.In 349 BC, Philip started the siege
of Olynthus. Olynthus at first allied itself with Philip, but later shifted
its 
allegiance
to Athens. The Athenians did nothing to help Olynthus. Philip finally took
Olynthus in 348 BC and razed the city to the ground. In 346 BC, he intervened
effectively in the war between Thebes and the Phocians, but his wars with
Athens continued intermittently.Macedonia and the regions adjoining it having
now been securely consolidated, Philip celebrated his Olympic games at Dium.
In 347 BC, Philip advanced to the conquest of the eastern districts about
the Hebrus, and compelled the submission of the Thracian prince Cersobleptes.
Meanwhile, Athens had made overtures for peace, and when Philip, in 346
BC, again moved south, peace was sworn in Thessaly. With key Greek city-states
in submission, Philip turned to Sparta; he sent them a message, "You
are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into
your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city."
Their reply was "If." Philip and Alexander would both leave them
alone. Later, the Macedonian arms were carried across Epirus to the Adriatic
Sea. In 342 BC, Philip led a great military expedition north against the
Scythians, conquering the Thracian fortified settlement Eumolpia to give
it his name, Philippoupolis (modern Plovdiv).In 340 BC, Philip started the
siege of Perinthus. Philip began another siege in 339 BC of the city of
Byzantium. After unsuccessful sieges of both cities, Philip's influence
all over Greece was compromised. However, Philip successfully reasserted
his authority in the Aegean by defeating an alliance of Thebans and Athenians
at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC. He erected a memorial of a marble
lion to the Sacred Band of Thebes for their bravery that still stands today.
Philip created and led the League of Corinth in 337 BC. Members of the League
agreed never to wage war against each other, unless it was to suppress revolution.
Philip was elected as leader (hegemon) of the army of invasion against the
Persian Empire. In 336 BC, when the invasion of Persia was in its very early
stage, Philip was assassinated, and was succeeded on the throne of Macedon
by his son Alexander the Great.
Philip's assassination
The murder happened in October of 336 BC, at Aegae, the ancient capital
of the kingdom of Macedon. The court had gathered there for the celebration
of the marriage between Alexander I, king of Epirus, and Philip's daughter
Cleopatra. While the king was entering unprotected into the town's theatre
he was killed by Pausanias, one of Philip's seven bodyguards. The assassin
immediately tried to escape and reach his associates who were waiting for
him with horses at the entrance of Aegae. He was pursued by three of Philip's
bodyguards and died by their hands.The reasons for Pausanias' assassination
of Phillip are difficult to fully expound, since there was controversy already
among ancient historians. The only contemporary account in our possession
is that of Aristotle, who states rather tersely that Philip was killed because
Pausanias had been offended by the followers of Attalus, the king's father-in-law.Fifty
years later, the historian Cleitarchus expanded and embellished the story.
Centuries later, this version was to be narrated by Diodorus Siculus and
all the historians who used Cleitarchus. In the sixteenth book of Diodorus'
history, Pausanias had been a lover of Philip, but became jealous when Philip
turned his attention to a younger man, also called Pausanias. His taunting
of the new lover caused the youth to throw away his life, which turned his
friend, Attalus, against Pausanias. Attalus took his revenge by inviting
Pausanias to dinner, getting him drunk, then subjecting him to sexual assault.When
Pausanias complained to Philip the king felt unable to chastise Attalus,
as he was about to send him to Asia with Parmenion, to establish a bridgehead
for his planned invasion. He had also married Attalus's niece, or daughter,
Eurydice. So he tried to mollify Pausanias, and elevated him within the
bodyguard. Pausanias' desire for revenge seems to have turned towards the
man who had failed to avenge his damaged honour; so he planned to kill 
Philip,
and some time after the alleged rape, while Attalus was already in Asia
fighting the Persians, put his plan in action. Other historians (e.g., Justin
9.7) suggested that Alexander and/or his mother Olympias were at least privy
to the intrigue, if not themselves instigators. The latter seems to have
been anything but discreet in manifesting her gratitude to Pausanias, if
we accept Justin's report: he tells us that the same night of her return
from exile she placed a crown on the assassin's corpse and erected a tumulus
to his memory, ordering annual sacrifices to the memory of Pausanias.Many
modern historians have observed that all the accounts are improbable. In
the case of Pausanias, the stated motive of the crime hardly seems adequate.
On the other hand, the implication of Alexander and Olympias seems specious:
to act as they did would have required brazen effrontery in the face of
a military machine personally loyal to Philip. What appears to be recorded
in this are the natural suspicions that fell on the chief beneficiaries
of the murder; their actions after the murder, however sympathetic they
might appear (if actual), cannot prove their guilt in the deed itself. Further
convoluting the case is the possible role of propaganda in the surviving
accounts: Attalus was executed in Alexander's consolidation of power after
the murder; one might wonder if his enrollment among the conspirators was
not for the effect of introducing political expediency in an otherwise messy
purge (Attalus had publicly declared his hope that Alexander would not succeed
Philip, but rather that a son of his own niece Eurydice, recently married
to Philip and brutally murdered by Olympias after Philip's death, would
gain the throne of Macedon).
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