The Murder of Philip II of Macedon

The Accused:

Pausanias of Orestis• A young Macedonian nobleman, employed as

one of King Philip II’s bodyguard, and Philip’s ex-lover.

• There were traditionally seven bodyguards (Somatophylakes) assigned to the King. These were usually in their late 20s or early 30s, and were selected because of their physical abilities. The position provided protection for the king, but also held the families of the bodyguards hostage against disobedience while giving them honour at the same time.

The Witness:Diodorus Siculus, 16.93-4

“Pausanias was a Macedonian from the district of Orestis; he was one of the king’s bodyguard and because of his beauty he had become his lover. Seeing that another man also called Pausanias was attracting Philip’s attention, he used insulting language to him, calling him a hermaphrodite who was ready to accept the favours of all and sundry. This other Pausanias was unable to endure such wanton abuse. Although he kept silent for some time, he eventually, after confiding his intentions to Attalus, one of his friends, committed suicide in a remarkable manner. For a few days later, while Philip was fighting with Pleurias, the King of the Illyrians, he stepped in front of him and received on his body all the blows directed against Philip, so ending his life.

The incident became so notorious and Attalus, who was one of Philip’s courtiers and had great influence with him, invited Pausanias to dinner, filled him with unmixed wine and handed him over unconscious to his grooms to illtreat in their drunken sport. When he sobered up, Pausanias was extremely distressed at the wanton treatment he had suffered and denounced Attalus to the King.

Philip was angry at the barbarous action, but because he was related to Attalus and needed his services immediately he was not willing to condemn his conduct. For Attalus was the uncle of Cleopatra, Philip’s new wife, and had been chosen as the commander of the advance force that had been sent to Asia, for he was a brave soldier. And so the king, wishing to mollify Pausanias’ justified anger at his treatment, gave him generous gifts and promoted him to a position of honour among the bodyguards. However, Pausanias’ resentment was not mollified. He was determined to punish not only the man responsible for the outrage, but the man who had failed to punish Attalus. He was encouraged in his purpose by the sophist Hermocrates in particular. For when Pausanias, who was attending his classes, asked in the course of a discussion how a person could become most famous, Hermocrates answered: ‘If he kills the man who has done the greatest deeds; for the tradition about this great man will preserve the name of his murderer’. Applying this answer to his own grievance and resolving because of his resentment not to delay his purpose, Pausanias planned to carry out the plot at the wedding festivities.

He stationed horses at the gates and proceeded to the entrance to the theatre with a Celtic dagger concealed under his cloak. Philip told the friends who accompanied him to go on ahead into the theatre and when his bodyguards were standing some distance away, Pausanias, seeing the king left all alone, ran up to him, stabbed him through the ribs and left him dead on the ground; then he ran for the gates and the horses he had prepared for his escape. Immediately some of the bodyguards ran to the body of the king while the remainder poured out in pursuit of the murderer, among them Leonnatus, Perdiccas and Attalus. Having a start on his pursuers, Pausanias would have mounted his horse before they could stop him had his boot not caught in a vine and brought him to the ground. As it was Perdiccas overtook him as he was getting up and killed him with his javelin.”

While this is only the evidence from one witness,

none of the other sources cast doubt on its reliability.

The Motive:

Pausanias sought revenge on Philip because he refused to punish Attalus, at whose hands he had suffered abuse in 344 BC.

The Proof:

Pausanias was seen to commit the murder by the entire crowd present at the Games to celebrate the wedding of Philip’s daughter Cleopatra to Alexander, King of Epirus, in the early summer of 336 BC.

Is there any doubt?

Not concerning the murderer. None of the sources question Pausanias’ guilt. He killed Philip.

BUT, there is doubt about the motive. If Pausanias’ assault occurred in 344 BC (as Diodorus suggests) why did he wait EIGHT YEARS for his revenge?

Well, perhaps Pausanias’ anger had recently been revived. After all, Attalus’ niece Cleopatra had just married Philip (337 BC), Attalus was made commander of the advance force being sent into Asia, and the friendship between Attalus and Philip seemed stronger than ever.

Did Pausanias act alone?

Pausanias killed Philip, but was he solely responsible for the murder?

Diodorus, Plutarch, Justin and Aristotle all explained the murder by referring to Pausanias’

personal desire for revenge against Philip.

BUT, the death of King Philip occurred at such a critical time that others have inevitably been

linked with the crime.

The other suspects:

• Dissaffected Macedonian nobles– The Macedonian noble Antipater was the first person to acclaim Alexander as the new

King. He had advised Alexander in 340 BC when he was regent. Many Macedonian nobles had recently been alienated by Philip’s actions which suggested that he considered himself to have divine status. Philip had built the Philippeum, a circular building with god-like statues of members of his family, at Olympia following his victory at Charonea. On the day of his murder he had a statue of himself carried along with statues of the 12 gods.

• Greeks outside Macedonia– Angry at their defeat at Charonea in 338 BC, and uncomfortable with the Macedonian

domination of the League of Corinth, many non-Macedonian Greeks very much disapproved of Philip. Demosthenes of Athens was particularly anti-Philip.

• The Persian King– Philip had publicly stated his intention to invade Persia. In a letter from Alexander to Darius

after the Battle of Issus in 333 BC, Alexander implied that the Persians had claimed credit for the assassination of Philip in 336 BC. Also, when Alexander visited the oracle at Siwah in 331 BC, he asked whether the murderers have been punished, suggesting that he still did not know who was responsible.

More suspects:When Alexander became King, he blamed the Lyncestian brothers, Arrhabaeus and Heromenes. They were members of the royal family from Lyncetis and their father, Aeropus, had been exiled by Philip in 334 BC for the crime of consorting with a flute-girl instead of appearing on parade.

Alexander arrested and executed two of the three Lyncestian brothers shortly after his acclamation as King. (Perhaps these were the two men who were waiting with Pausanias’ horse as he tried to escape?)

The third brother, Alexander Lyncestian, was spared, apparently because he was the first person to acclaim Alexander as King. (This in itself is a matter of controversy.)

Anyone else?

The timing of the murder was so fortuitous for both Alexander and Olympias that they have inevitably become suspects.

The case against Olympias:Olympias’ relationship with Philip had never been smooth, but she retained two claims on Philip’s respect – as mother of Alexander, Philip’s only competent son, and as princess of neighbouring Epirus.

Between 337 and 336 BC the situation changed dramatically, however. Olympias was replaced as Philip’s primary wife by his marriage to Cleopatra in 337 BC. She returned to her home in Epirus, where she hoped to persuade her brother, Alexander, King of Epirus, to avenge the slight against her.

She should have known better. Alexander of Epirus owed his kingdom to Philip’s intrigues five years before. They had grown up together in the Macedonian court, and gossip suggested that they had once been lovers.

To make matters worse for Olympias, Alexander now had another reason not to annoy Philip. He was to be married to Philip’s daughter Cleopatra; Olympias’ daughter and his own niece.

This very neat system of nuptial arrangements meant that Olympias became almost irrelevant to Philip’s politics and private life. Only their son, Alexander, kept her hopes for influence in Macedonia alive.When Philip married Cleopatra, however, even that was threatened. As a princess from Epirus, Olympias had been accepted as a Macedonian, and Alexander had been considered Philip’s legitimate heir since his birth. Cleopatra was a native Macedonian, however, and any children borne to Philip by her would be more legitimate than Alexander. At the time of Philip’s murder, Caranus, Cleopatra’s son by Philip was only a few weeks old.Olympias was a wild and passionate woman, and her son’s succession to the throne of Macedonia was her consuming obsession. Could she really have caused Philip’s murder just in order to ensure Alexander became King of Macedonia?

Pausanias’ native Orestis was a new addition to Macedonia, conquered during Philip’s reign. His country had previously been ruled by Epirus, Olympias’ native land. Olympias and Pausanias could claim historic ties of kinship. If she had wanted to, during her time in Epirus after she left Macedonia in disgust, she could easily have worked on Pausanias’ natural loyalties.Historians have puzzled over why Pausanias waited to murder Philip at such a public occasion. As a bodyguard he could have used any number of chances to commit the crime in private and escape undetected.

For Olympias, however, the timing was ideal. Philip was murdered at the wedding designed to complete her removal from the Macedonian political scene, within a week of the birth of Cleopatra’s son.

As soon as Philip was dead her son Alexander could take the throne from his rivals and restore her to her former position of influence. Cleopatra, not Olympias, would be made irrelevant.

An unattributed source suggests Olympias was behind Pausanias’ crime.

“On the same night that she returned to Macedonia, she placed a golden crown on Pausanias’ head, though he was still hanging on his murderer’s stake: a few days later she took down his body and burnt it over the remains of her dead husband. She built a mound there for Pausanias and saw that the people offered yearly sacrifices at it, having drummed them full of superstition. Under her maiden name she dedicated to Apollo the sword with which Philip had been stabbed: all this was done so openly that she seemed to be afraid that the crime might not be agreed to have been her work.”

The real controversy, though, is over whether Alexander was involved in the plot to murder King Philip.

The case against Alexander:

Though no reliable evidence has ever come to light concerning Alexander’s involvement in the murder, he has been accused.

Despite being the only sensible choice to take the throne after Philip, Alexander was paranoid about his chances. He fell out with his father twice in the two years before Philip’s murder.

In 338 BC the Great King of Persia, Artaxerxes III died. The future was uncertain for the Persian empire and Philip wanted to be able to take advantage. An opportunity arose when Pixodarus, ruler of Caria (a minor state in the Persian empire), offered his daughter in marriage to one of Philip’s other sons, Philip Arrhidaeus (the half-witted son of Philip and a Thessalian woman). Alexander heard about the offer and thought Philip was trying to sideline him. He was insulted, and secretly offered to marry the daughter himself, much to the delight of Pixodarus. The offer fell through when Philip found out, and both Alexander and Philip blamed each other. Philip thought Alexander had ruined his chance of securing an alliance in Persia and banished Alexnader’s accomplices including Ptolemy, Nearchus and Harpalus, while Alexander felt he had seen proof that his father wished to cut him out of the succession.

The second time, at the wedding feast after Philip married Cleopatra in 337 BC, Alexander and Philip had a very public argument:

“(Cleopatra’s) uncle Attalus in his drink desired the Macedonians would implore the gods to give them a lawful successor to the kingdom by his niece. This so irritated Alexander, that throwing one of the cups at his head, "You villain," said he, "what, am I then a bastard?" Then Philip, taking Attalus's part, rose up and would have run his son through; but by good fortune for them both, either his over-hasty rage, or the wine he had drunk, made his foot slip, so that he fell down on the floor. At which Alexander reproachfully insulted over him: "See there," said he, "the man who makes preparations to pass out of Europe into Asia, overturned in passing from one seat to another."

Plutarch, “Life of Alexander”

Alexander and his friends were exiled by Philip after the wedding argument, but while Olympias went to Epirus, he travelled through Illyria. Philip invited Alexander to return, however, and an uneasy reconciliation took place. Despite this, his age and his abilities still marked him out as Philip’s likely successor. Nevertheless, Alexander was anxious about the chances of his taking the throne. Though Cleopatra’s son was only days old and her uncle Attalus was in Asia when Philip died, both were killed as soon as Alexander took the throne.

The Verdict:

Though Pausanias’ guilt can hardly be questioned, others have been jointly

accused of the murder.

Who do you hold responsible for

Philip’s assassination in 336 BC?