Among the noble families gathered about the court of Pella, two from their prominence deserve especial mention; these were the houses of Iollas and Philotas. Philotas’ son was that wise and faithful general, Parmenion, to whose command Philip repeatedly entrusted the most difficult expeditions. To him Philip owed his victory over the Dardanians in 356, and later his possession of Eubœa. Parmenion’s brothers, Asander and Agathon, as also his sons, Philotas, Nicanor, and Hector, carried on the glory of his name, and his daughters contracted marriages with the highest families of the land; one with Cœnus, the leader of the Phalanx, and the other with Attalus, the uncle of a later wife of the king. That a no less honourable and influential post was assigned to Iollas’ son, Antipater, or as he was called by the Macedonians, Antipas, is attested by the king’s words, “I have slept in peace—Antipas was on guard.” The tried fidelity of this statesman, his clear, cool judgment in military as well as political affairs, seemed to single him out as particularly qualified for the high position of viceregent he was soon to fill. He gave his daughter in marriage to the son of a noble Lyncestian family, as being the surest means of gaining their support; his sons, Cassander, Archias, and Iollas, did not attain prominence till later.
Similar to the development of the court was that of the Macedonian nation under Philip’s rule; but to this statement we will add that, owing as much to the position formerly held by the state as to the power of Philip’s personality, the monarchical element of necessity predominated in the political life of the country. We must first consider all the facts in their relation to each other before we can fully understand Philip’s character and methods of procedure. At the centre of a mass of contradictions and disparities of the most unusual nature, a Greek in his relations to his own people, a Macedonian to the Greeks, he exceeded the latter in Hellenic craft and perfidy, and the former in directness and vigour, while he was superior to both in grasp of purpose, in the logical pursuance of his plans, in reticence, and in rapidity of execution. He was proficient in the art of embarrassing his adversaries, always presenting himself before them under a different aspect, and advancing upon them from a different direction from that expected. By nature voluptuous and pleasure-loving, he was as reckless in the indulgence of his appetites as he was inconstant, remaining withal perfect master of himself even when seeming most under the sway of passion; indeed, it is to be questioned whether it was in his virtues or his faults that his true nature was most prominently displayed. In him are united, as are the physical features of a portrait, all the different characteristics of his time—the shrewdness, the polish, the frivolity, coupled with great suppleness and versatility, and the capacity for high thoughts.
OLYMPIAS, MOTHER OF ALEXANDER
[359-336 B.C.]
In striking contrast to that of Philip was the character of Olympias, his wife. She was the daughter of Neoptolemus, the Epirot king, and having known her in his youth at Samothrace, Philip had married her with the consent of her uncle and guardian, Arymbas. Beautiful, reserved, passionate, Olympias was a devotee of the secret rites of Orpheus and Bacchus, and practised in the magical arts of Thracian women. During nocturnal orgies, it is related, she was frequently to be seen rushing through mountain paths with the thyrsus and winding serpents in her hand; and in her dreams were repeated the fantastic pictures with which her brain was filled. The night before her marriage she dreamed, according to tradition, that she was exposed to the fury of a terrific storm, during which a burning thunderbolt fell into her lap which, flaming up ever higher and higher, finally disappeared in its own wild blaze.
Bronze Model of a Grecian Boat
When tradition further relates that among other signs given on the night of Alexander’s birth the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, which, with Megabyzus and his eunuchs and the hieroduli of the Hellenes formed a striking example of true oriental heathenism, was burned to the ground; and that simultaneously with the information of the birth of his son, Philip received the news of a triple victory—it simply expresses in popular form the significance of a hero’s entrance into the world, and the great thoughts associated with such an event.
Theopompus says of Philip, “Everything considered, Europe has never produced a man that could equal the son of Amyntas.” Yet the work that he had set as the aim of his existence was not accomplished by the scheming, resolute, tenacious king. He may have used this aspiration, it having root in the very nature of Greece’s history and culture, to bring into union the whole Greek world; but he was compelled rather by the exigencies of the situation in which he was placed than by the inherent power of the inspiration itself, and failed to follow it out to full fruition. Beyond the sea was the land wherein lay greatness and the future of Macedonia; but the glance that he strained towards this land would often become dimmed, and the solid structure of his plans be obscured under the airy figures of his desire. Philip’s ambition to accomplish a great work was shared by all about him, both the aristocracy and the common people; it was the undertone that was heard through every phrase of Macedonian life, the alluring possibility that was continually beckoning out of the future. The Macedonian armies fought against the Thracians and gained victories over the Greeks; but the Orient was the real object for which they fought and conquered.[b]