In the ancient world, the young and dashing Alexander the Great led his army from northern Greece to what is now Pakistan, leading from the front, killing enemies with sword and spear, ordering executions and massacres , even stabbing an old friend to death in drunken rage. He’s killed a lot of people, but did he launch his career as a king by arranging the murder of his own father, the very successful Philip II?
Philip’s career made Alexander’s conquests possible, as it was Philip who saved Macedonia from the brink of extinction, defeating powerful neighbors before expanding until he dominated Greece and the Balkans. In the process, he created an army of unique effectiveness, combining many types of troops into a formidable and swift team. This was the army that Alexander led against the Persian Empire, made up of Philip’s men, fighting in the same way they had done for over 20 years.
The facts of Philip’s murder in 336 BC are clear and undisputed. The assassin struck in the theater of Aegae (modern Vergina), watched by a crowd who had traveled from all over Macedonia and Greece to show their support for the king. As Philippe made his entrance – limping from an old wound, but still active in his 47th year – one of his bodyguards, a young man named Pausanias, ran towards him. Producing a dagger concealed under his cloak, he stabbed Philip between the ribs and fled. The king died within moments, quickly followed by his assassin – as Pausanias sprinted towards the waiting horses, he tripped over a vine root and was quickly sent off by his fellow bodyguards.
READ MORE: How Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire
An assassination sparked by a personal grievance
Philip II of Macedon.
Getty Images
Pausanias’ personal motive for the murder was also widely known. As a teenager he was for a while the king’s favorite and lover. Polygamous like all Macedonian kings, Philip was known for his many dealings with women and young men. However, Philip’s eye soon wandered, and he replaced Pausanias with another youngster. Resentful, Pausanias mocked the new lover, accusing him of being effeminate and easy to conquer. The new lover, stung by the jokes, tried to prove his manhood in combat by fighting recklessly and was killed.
The young deceased had friends and relatives in high places, notably Attalus, whose niece was taken as wife by Philip in 335 BC. Safe at court, Attalus decided to take revenge on Pausanias, inviting him to a feast and getting the young man drunk. The nobleman and his friends savagely beat Pausanias and possibly raped him. Then they gave the beaten youngster to the mule drivers of Attalus, who raped him one after the other.
As the news of the humiliation spread, Pausanias went to Philippe to seek justice. Philippe, always a shrewd politician, sought to compromise and satisfy everyone: he dismissed Attalus to become one of the two commanders in charge of the vanguard sent to Asia Minor at the start of the great war against the Persian. And he rewarded Pausanias by making him one of his seven personal bodyguards.
While it was a considerable honor for such a youngster, it did nothing to erase the memory of outrage, and no doubt Attalus’ parents and supporters at court made sure there was lots of reminders. Ruminating over it all, Pausanias focused his hatred on Philip for not treating him with the respect he felt was his due as a former lover and more generally from the king to a member of the Macedonian aristocracy, who fought alongside him in battle and feasted. with him in peacetime. Aristotle, who knew Philip and spent several years at his court, used the murder as an illustration of an assassination brought on by personal grievance.
READ MORE: 8 Surprising Facts About Alexander the Great
Was the murderer a pawn in a larger plot?
Philip II of Macedon was assassinated in Aegean by the captain of his bodyguard, Pausanias d’Orestis.
The Print Collector / Heritage Images / Getty Images
Yet then and now questions have arisen as to whether there was more to the story – whether Pausanias acted alone or whether someone used this traumatized young man as a pawn in a bigger game. Some thought – and believed – it was suspicious that Pausanias placed more than one horse for his planned escape. Others wonder if the other bodyguards quickly dispatched the assassin to silence him before he could implicate anyone else.
Alexander later accused the Persian king of organizing the murder, as a way to end the threat of Macedonian hostility, not knowing how aggressive and successful Philip’s son would be.
Some accounts blamed Alexander’s mother Olympias. Of Philip’s seven or eight wives, she enjoyed prestige as the mother of the likely heir to the throne, but Olympias and her husband were widely believed to have come to hate each other. She was believed to resent Philip’s last wife and was held responsible when Attalus’ niece and her newborn baby were murdered shortly after the assassination. Much later, after Alexander’s death, Olympias led armies and killed rivals in the struggle to control the succession. She was without a doubt a formidable character – as intelligent, capable and ruthless as her husband and her son.
READ MORE: Alexander the Great mysteriously died at 32. We now know why
The case against Alexander remains speculative
Alexander The Great
Bettmann Archives / Getty Images
At the time, many people suspected that Alexander himself, the alleged heir to the kingdom, had organized the murder of his father. The obvious motive: an ambition to govern.
Alexander, at age 21, was proclaimed King of Macedonia a few hours after Philip’s murder. To secure his position, he quickly ordered the execution of two potential rivals and sent orders to Asia Minor for the elimination of Attalus. His swift military campaigns over the next year or so cemented his rule over southern Greece and its borders with the Balkans. None of this necessarily indicates any implication or foreknowledge of Philip’s murder. Once Philip died, these were necessary precautions, as any other course of action would likely have resulted in Alexander’s own murder. Hesitation was not a characteristic of Alexander at any age.
At the very least, Philip’s death turned out to be very happy for Alexander: it placed him at the head of a reformed, unified and flourishing Macedonia, and in charge of its formidable army with the great expedition against Persia only just begun. History shows the advantage that Alexander took advantage of this opportunity. Perhaps he was just lucky and – like so many famous leaders – an accomplished opportunist. Not enough is known about his inner character to say whether he could have organized the murder of his father, and there is no evidence that he did. This remains one more enigma to be added to the many which surround the great and terrible career of Alexander of Macedon.
Adrian Goldsworthy is a historian and novelist specializing mainly in the classical world. He has written numerous non-fiction stories and biographies, including Caesar. The life of a colossus. His most recent book is Philip and Alexander. Kings and Conquerors.
History Reads features the work of eminent authors and historians.
