Chapter XLIX · THE TRIUMPHS OF PHILIP (continued 2)

THE DEATH OF PHILIP

[336 B.C.]

Such were the animosities distracting the court and family of Philip. A son had just been born to him from his new wife Cleopatra. His expedition against Persia, resolved and prepared during the preceding year, had been actually commenced. But Philip foresaw that during his absence danger might arise from the furious Olympias, bitterly exasperated by the recent events, and instigating her brother Alexander, king of Epirus, with whom she was now residing. He now deemed it essential to conciliate him still further, by a special tie of alliance; giving to him in marriage Cleopatra, his daughter by Olympias. For this marriage, celebrated at Ægæ in Macedonia in August 336 B.C., Philip provided festivals of the utmost cost and splendour, commemorating at the same time the recent birth of his son by Cleopatra. Banquets, munificent presents, gymnastic and musical matches, tragic exhibitions—among which Neoptolemus the actor performed in the tragedy of Cinyras, etc., with every species of attraction known to the age—were accumulated, in order to reconcile the dissentient parties in Macedonia, and to render the effect imposing on the minds of the Greeks; who, from every city, sent deputies for congratulation. Statues of the twelve great gods, admirably executed, were carried in solemn procession into the theatre; immediately after them, the statue of Philip himself as a thirteenth god.

Amidst this festive multitude, however, there were not wanting discontented partisans of Olympias and Alexander, to both of whom the young queen with her new-born child threatened a formidable rivalry. There was also a malcontent yet more dangerous—Pausanias, one of the royal bodyguards, a noble youth born in the district called Orestis in upper Macedonia, who, from causes of offence peculiar to himself, nourished a deadly hatred against Philip. The provocation which he had received is one which we can neither conveniently transcribe, nor indeed accurately make out, amidst discrepancies of statement. It was Attalus, the uncle of the new queen Cleopatra, who had given the provocation, by inflicting upon Pausanias an outrage of the most brutal and revolting character. Even for so monstrous an act, no regular justice could be had in Macedonia against a powerful man. Pausanias complained to Philip in person. According to one account, Philip put aside the complaint with evasions, and even treated it with ridicule; according to another account, he expressed his displeasure at the act, and tried to console Pausanias by pecuniary presents. But he granted neither redress nor satisfaction to the sentiment of an outraged man. Accordingly Pausanias determined to take revenge for himself. Instead of revenging himself on Attalus—who indeed was out of his reach, being at the head of the Macedonian troops in Asia—his wrath fixed upon Philip himself, by whom the demand for redress had been refused. That the vindictive Olympias would positively spur on Pausanias to assassinate Philip, is highly probable. Respecting Alexander, though he also was accused, there is no sufficient evidence to warrant a similar assertion;[18] but that some among his partisans—men eager to consult his feelings and to insure his succession—lent their encouragements, appears tolerably well established.

Unconscious of the plot, Philip was about to enter the theatre, already crowded with spectators. As he approached the door, clothed in a white robe, he felt so exalted with impressions of his own dignity, and so confident in the admiring sympathy of the surrounding multitude, that he advanced both unarmed and unprotected, directing his guards to hold back. At this moment Pausanias, standing near with a Gallic sword concealed under his garment, rushed upon him, thrust the weapon through his body, and killed him. Having accomplished his purpose, the assassin immediately ran off, and tried to reach the gates, where he had previously caused horses to be stationed. Being strong and active, he might have succeeded in effecting his escape—like most of the assassins of Jason of Pheræ under circumstances very similar—had not his foot stumbled amidst some vine-stocks. The guards and friends of Philip were at first paralysed with astonishment and consternation. At length, however, some hastened to assist the dying king, while others rushed in pursuit of Pausanias. Leonnatus and Perdiccas overtook him and slew him immediately.

In what way, or to what extent, the accomplices of Pausanias lent him aid, we are not permitted to know. It is possible that they may have posted themselves artfully so as to obstruct pursuit, and favour his chance of escape; which would appear extremely small, after a deed of such unmeasured audacity. Three only of the reputed accomplices are known to us by name—three brothers from the Lyncestian district of upper Macedonia, Alexander, Heromenes, and Arrhibæus, sons of Æropus; but it seems that there were others besides. The Lyncestian Alexander whose father-in-law, Antipater, was one of the most conspicuous and confidential officers in the service of Philip, belonged to a good family in Macedonia, perhaps even descendants from the ancient family of the princes of Lyncestis. It was he who, immediately after Pausanias had assassinated Philip, hastened to salute the prince Alexander as king, helped him to put on his armour, and marched as one of his guards to take possession of the regal palace.g

A SUMMING UP OF PHILIP’S CHARACTER

His character was always to be without character in disposition and action; his principles, to have no principles and everywhere to dissemble his aims; his habits, to accustom himself to nothing, but solely to follow the inspirations of the moment; his strength, to remain master of himself in every condition and proceeding, and, in a thousand other causes and consequences of weakness, to follow his chief plan unchanged, and to lead everything around him, whilst to the short-sighted he appeared to be led by all.

He possessed wit, sagacity, and eloquence, and made use of them. He was insinuating and condescending when it was a question of winning or deluding; merciful when he hated; irritating when he loved; compassionate when he himself had dealt the wounds; ready to comfort, when he had decided to strike the heart more deeply; poor, so as to soften the rage of the plundered rich, so as to reward his helpers; liberal with promises when he saw the people were credulous; full of respect for the gods only when he had a mind to; unconcerned as to the lawfulness of the means, provided they led to the end.

“Philip,” says Pausanias, “accomplished the greatest deeds of all the Macedonian kings who reigned before and after him, and also broke more oaths and violated more covenants.”

The new politics which Philip established, arose entirely out of his genius, and the master understood his work and knew how to use it. When Philip as a statesman formed something new with cleverness and vigour, the old must therefore have succumbed to it. The old methods were no longer suitable; the means failed the end, the roads no longer led to the goal; danger then took another form, and was threatened on another side. That which could have saved the Greeks from imitating the new methods of the opponent, and of seizing the spirit of them, and throwing themselves quickly into another kind of transaction, they were no longer capable of. By the side of politics he placed an improved war department, but one spirit drifted into both. Philip possessed the talents especially required by a general. In the greatest danger, full of presence of mind, he never doubted his safety; his most terrible deliberation in the field was quiet deliberation and stratagem. The Bœotians learned this when they had cut him off and already thought him caught, and the Chalcidonians whose cleverly contrived perfidy was wrecked by his cunning. He anticipated all his enemies; they admitted that on this account he always had advantage over them.

Demosthenes says to the Athenians: “You wage war with Philip in the same way as the barbarians carry on a boxing match; when some one is hit he tries to protect the place, and if he is struck on another part his hands go to it; but to prevent the blow or to foresee it, they cannot and will not. It is thus with you; when you hear Philip is in Chæronea, you decide to send an army there, when in Pydna, also there, so that he is truly your commanding officer.” He maintained a standing army and was therefore always ready to strike; this gave him a great superiority, because as monarch he could at once use his fighting forces, without losing time in consultation.

When he attacked the Greeks, his army had already been trained through fighting the surrounding barbarians; it had to learn how useful and necessary it was, and realise to what purpose he made them persevere in peace. He often made them march three hundred stadia encumbered with their weapons, with helmet, shield, and splints, and in addition to this, food and clothing and utensils. They had to observe the strictest discipline. A distinguished Tarentine was dismissed from the service because he had helped himself to a warm bath; Æropus and Damasippus were dismissed because they brought singers into the camp. In the same manner as Epaminondas, in whose school Philip had learned, beat the Lacedæmonian mora by a new formation of the army and deprived them of the efficiency of their firm, quiet movements—so Philip formed the Macedonian phalanx.

Even Æmilius Paulus acknowledged that nothing ever terrified them. They stood the test at Chæronea, where the sacred troops of the Thebans were defeated, and the Athenians, also in the last fight for their freedom, did not prevail against them.j

GROTE’S ESTIMATE OF PHILIP

Thus perished the destroyer of freedom and independence in the Hellenic world, at the age of forty-six or forty-seven, after a reign of twenty-three years. Our information about him is signally defective. Neither his means, nor his plans, nor the difficulties which he overcame, nor his interior government, are known to us with exactness or upon contemporary historical authority. But the great results of his reign, and the main lines of his character, stand out incontestably. At his accession, the Macedonian kingdom was a narrow territory round Pella, excluded partially, by independent and powerful Grecian cities, even from the neighbouring sea coast. At his death Macedonian ascendency was established from the coasts of the Propontis to those of the Ionian Sea, and the Ambracian, Messenian, and Saronic gulfs. Within these boundaries, all the cities recognised the supremacy of Philip; except only Sparta, and mountaineers like the Ætolians and others defended by a rugged home.

Good fortune had waited on Philip’s steps; but it was good fortune crowning the efforts of a rare talent. Indeed the restless ambition, the indefatigable personal activity and endurance, and the adventurous courage of Philip were such as, in a king, suffice almost of themselves to guarantee success, even with abilities much inferior to his. That among the causes of Philip’s conquests, one was corruption, employed abundantly to foment discord and purchase partisans among neighbours and enemies; that with winning and agreeable manners, he combined recklessness in false promises, deceit and extortion even towards allies, and unscrupulous perjury when it suited his purpose—this we find affirmed, and there is no reason for disbelieving it. Such dissolving forces smoothed the way for an efficient and admirable army, organised, and usually commanded, by himself. Its organisation adopted and enlarged the best processes of scientific warfare employed by Epaminondas and Iphicrates. Begun as well as completed by Philip, and bequeathed as an engine ready-made for the conquests of Alexander, it constitutes an epoch in military history. But the more we extol the genius of Philip as a conqueror, formed for successful encroachment and aggrandisement at the expense of all his neighbours—the less can we find room for that mildness and moderation which some authors discover in his character. If, on some occasions of his life, such attributes may fairly be recognised, we have to set against them the destruction of the thirty-two Greek cities in Chalcidice, and the wholesale transportation of reluctant and miserable families from one inhabitancy to another.

Besides his skill as a general and politician, Philip was no mean proficient in the Grecian accomplishments of rhetoric and letters. Isocrates addresses him as a friend of letters and philosophy; a reputation which his choice of Aristotle as instructor of his son Alexander tends to bear out. Yet in Philip, as in the two Dionysii of Syracuse and other despots, these tastes were not found inconsistent either with the crimes of ambition or the licenses of inordinate appetite. The contemporary historian Theopompus, a warm admirer of Philip’s genius, stigmatises not only the perfidy of his public dealings, but also the drunkenness, gambling, and excesses of all kinds in which he indulged—encouraging the like in those around him. His Macedonian and Grecian bodyguard, eight hundred in number, was a troop in which no decent man could live; distinguished indeed for military bravery and aptitude, but sated with plunder, and stained with such shameless treachery, sanguinary rapacity, and unbridled lust, as befitted only centaurs and Læstrygons. The number of Philip’s mistresses and wives was almost on an oriental scale; and the innumerable dissensions thus introduced into his court through his offspring by different mothers, were fraught with mischievous consequences.

In appreciating the genius of Philip, we have to appreciate also the parties to whom he stood opposed. His good fortune was nowhere more conspicuous than in the fact, that he fell upon those days of disunion and backwardness in Greece (indicated in the last sentence of Xenophon’s Hellenics) when there was neither leading city prepared to keep watch, nor leading general to take command, nor citizen-soldiers willing and ready to endure the hardships of steady service. Philip combated no opponents like Epaminondas, or Agesilaus, or Iphicrates. How different might have been his career, had Epaminondas survived the victory of Mantinea, gained only two years before Philip’s accession! To oppose Philip, there needed a man like himself, competent not only to advise and project, but to command in person, to stimulate the zeal of citizen-soldiers, and to set the example of braving danger and fatigue. Unfortunately for Greece, no such leader stood forward. In counsel and speech Demosthenes sufficed for the emergency. Twice before the battle of Chæronea—at Byzantium and at Thebes—did he signally frustrate Philip’s combinations. But he was not formed to take the lead in action, nor was there any one near him to supply the defect. In the field, Philip encountered only that “public inefficiency,” at Athens and elsewhere in Greece, of which even Æschines complains; and to this decay of Grecian energy, not less than to his own distinguished attributes, the unparalleled success of his reign was owing. We shall find during the reign of his son Alexander the like genius and vigour exhibited on a still larger scale, and achieving still more wonderful results; while the once stirring politics of Greece, after one feeble effort, sink yet lower, into the nullity of a subject province.g

FOOTNOTES