Whatever his triumphs in war, Philip faced frustration in one quarter, from his eldest son and presumed heir, Alexander, the child of his Molossian Greek wife, the powerful Olympias. Through his parents, Alexander was aware of a heritage that supposedly took him back on his mother’s side to Achilles and on his father’s to Heracles, a heady genetic mix. As a young boy he steeped himself in Homer, and perhaps even in childhood lived in a half-fantasy world of heroic combat. Later accounts suggest that he had the most famous intellectual figure of the time, Aristotle, as his tutor, though little remains to tell of the fruits of their encounter. Alexander was self-confident, endlessly curious, and reckless. He showed every sign of being a brilliant commander. Already, when only i8, he had been entrusted by Philip with command of the cavalry at Chaeroneia, and was not slow to claim at least part of the credit for the victory himself. (For reliable biographies of Alexander, see Paul Cartledge, Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past, London and New York, 2004; A. B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great, Cambridge and New York, 1988; Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 Bc: A Historical Biography, London 1974.)
Conflict between father and adolescent son was in these circumstances inevitable. When, in 337 Philip embarked on yet another marriage, with Cleopatra, the daughter of a Macedonian noble, and his only fully Macedonian wife, an appalling row broke out. Alexander doubtless feared any new sons would have a purer Macedonian heritage than himself and thus perhaps be preferred for the throne on his father’s death. He was forced temporarily into exile, and even when he returned his status remained uncertain, especially when Cleopatra became pregnant.
Alexander’s chance came suddenly and unexpectedly in October 336. Philip was host at the marriage of his daughter by Olympias to her uncle, the king of Molossis, one more link in the network of marriage alliances with neighbouring states in which Philip specialized. The celebrations were designed as an extravagant display of Macedonian power, and Philip seemed relaxed walking in the grand procession without a bodyguard. Suddenly a young nobleman, in fact a member of this bodyguard, stepped forward and stabbed him. The intrigues behind the attack are still unclear (later gossip talked of backroom homosexual jealousies) but Philip was soon dead.
The ceremonies had taken place at Aigai, the original Macedonian capital (the modern Vergina). This was an ancient settlement, its earliest burials go back as early as the eleventh century BC, and it had become an important cultural centre for the Macedonian dynasty in the sixth and fifth centuries with links to the major Greek cities. Even after the move of the capital to Pella by king Archelaus in the late fifth century, Aigai retained its role as a sacred site, and the legend persisted that, so long as the Macedonian kings were buried here, the dynasty would survive.
In 1977, excavations were carried out on a monumental, man-made tumulus in the necropolis of Aigai. Underneath the great mound four elaborate tombs were found. One had been looted, although it was decorated with a painting of the Rape of Persephone, apparently by the celebrated Greek painter Nicomachus. Further underground were untouched tombs, sumptuously crowded with gold. In one sarcophagus a middle-aged man, one eye-socket scarred but healed, lay in a chamber alongside another with a woman aged about 20. The first chamber had been hurriedly constructed, the second added later. The male body was in a gold coffin surrounded by the grave goods of a warrior. Was this the body of Philip, hurriedly buried by his son Alexander after the killing and later joined by his last wife Cleopatra, who had been murdered in her turn by Alexander’s mother Olympias? In an adjoining chamber a woman lies with a youth, probably a later burial still. This may well have been the posthumous son of Alexander murdered with his mother Rox-ane in 311 Bc. The body of Alexander himself was, as will be seen, never returned to Aigai, and so the legend that that dynasty would die, as indeed it did, if the burials ceased, proved to be true.
Whether Alexander knew anything in advance about the attack on Philip is impossible to know. He certainly stood to benefit but only if he moved fast. There were speedy executions of those who had questioned his position as heir. Olympias herself returned from her native Epirus to engineer the murder of Cleopatra and her child, a baby daughter. Somehow Alexander won the acclaim of the nobility and the army, probably by claiming he would continue his father’s policies with all the rewards they had brought them. Reasonably secure at home, he now had to deal with his neighbours. The mainland Greeks along with the Illyrians and the Thracians saw the chance to reassert their independence. Alexander marched an army southwards to overawe the leading Greek cities, Athens and Thebes, and force them to accept him as leader of the League of Corinth in his father’s place. The Thracians and the Illyrians were then defeated in brilliant campaigns. While he was on the northern borders of Macedonia, Thebes chose to revolt. Alexander was always sensitive to betrayal, real or imagined. His move south was so rapid (500 kilometres in only 12 days) that the Thebans knew nothing of it until he was three hours’ march away from the city. When the city resisted, it was stormed. Six thousand Thebans died, 30,000 were enslaved, and Thebes was destroyed—only its religious shrines left without violation. These campaigns had taken no more than a few weeks and left the Greeks stunned. Whatever his apparent love of the world of Homer’s heroes, Alexander never appreciated the spirit of liberty that had been such an essential feature of Greek culture.
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