| |
PHILIP OF
MACEDON
The Scars of Battle
|
|
|
|
Philip’s
astounding victories did not come without a price and the king,
leading from the front in battle after battle, paid this price
repeatedly. In his recklessness in the face of the enemy Philip
was only surpassed by his son, a fact borne out by the sheer number
of wounds both sustained in their never-ending pursuit of victory.
As
Philip’s body grew increasingly scarred and disfigured from
the years of punishment at enemy hands, it is a miracle he managed
to stay alive until the relatively advanced age of 46, and even
more miraculous that his death was the result of assassination
at home rather than being killed in the field.
In
354 bce Philip sustained his most severe wound when he lost his
right eye during the siege of Methone. The loss had apparently
been foretold by the Oracle at Delphi, which Philip had consulted
over his concerns about his wife Olympia. Having spied on her
having intercourse with a snake, the Oracle revealed the creature
was in fact Zeus-Ammon, the true father of Olympia’s child.
The oracle then told Philip that his spying had been an act of
sacrilege and he was destined to lose the eye that saw the god.
The
ancient sources are quite detailed in describing Philip’s
many wounds, ranging from his missing eye to a broken collar bone,
maimed arm and a lame leg, debilitated by a Thracian spear. His
arch enemy Demosthenes lists them all as the result of Philip’s
greed for power, with more detailed information given by Didymus
Chalcenterus in his C.1st bce commentary on Demosthenes’
work (also drawing on Theopompus, Marsyas and Duris) – “He
had his right eye cut out when he was hit by an arrow whilst inspecting
siege engines during the siege of Methone”. Although this
is the most likely explanation for such a terrible wound, Duris
states it was inflicted by a soldier named Aster using his spear,
whilst Strabo says the damage was the result of a catapult bolt
(which would surely have killed him outright).
|
|
Small
ivory-head, portrait of Philip II,
found in the royal tomb at Vergina
|
After
having examined the recently identified skeletal remains of Philip,
complete with damage to the right eye socket, found in the Royal
Tomb II at Vergina, an archery expert concluded that the wound
“must have been made by a heavy “Cretan” arrowhead
since the smaller “Scythian” type is unlikely to have
caused so much damage to the bone”.
The
Roman writer Pliny the Elder describes the skill of Philip’s
surgeon Kritoboulos, which prevented such a wound from seriously
disfiguring the king’s face. “Kritoboulos achieved
great renown for having removed the arrow from Philip’s
eye, and having treated the loss of the eyeball without disfiguring
his face”. To achieve such impressive results the surgeon
is likely to have used a specialised surgical instrument designed
to remove arrows, known as “the spoon of Diokles”
after its inventor Diokles of Karystos, a contemporary of Aristotle
(whose own father had been court surgeon at Pella, where Hippocrates,
the “Father of Medicine” had also resided for a time.
|
The
stalemate between father and son was eventually broken by family
friend Demaratus of Corinth, who acted as a trusted go-between
for the two. At Philip’s summons, Alexander and Olympias
returned to Pella and were reinstated at court, Philip’s
new wife having given birth to a girl, Europa. Yet with the ever-present
Attalus and his clan growing ever more powerful, Alexander’s
inheritance was only secure until the time Eurydice produced a
male child.
|
By
336 bce Philip was also in negotiation to marry off his other
adult son Arrhidaeus to the daughter of Pixodarus of Caria, client
king of Persia. Imagining himself to have been passed over in
favour of his retarded half-brother, Alexander sent his friend
the actor Thettalus to ask for the princess’s hand for himself,
but Philip found out and was furious that his plans for a diplomatic
marriage to help in his forthcoming Asian invasion had been thwarted.
Plutarch says that Philip went to Alexander’s room and gave
him a serious dressing-down, “angrily reproaching him for
behaving so unworthily as to wish to marry the daughter of a mere
Carian who was no more than the slave of a barbarian king”.
Apparently placing Alexander under temporary house arrest Philip
also banished four of his son’s closest friends, Ptolemy,
Nearchus, Erygius and Harpalus as having contributed to the unsettled
times.
|
The archway, Royal Tomb at Vergina
|
|
With
everything secured at home, Philip decided to send an advance
force into Asia Minor in the spring of 336 bce prior to his planned
invasion. The army of 10,000 men including 1,000 cavalry was led
by his second-in-command Parmenio and his son-in-law Attalus with
a remit to secure the Dardanelles, prepare supplies and liberate
the Greek cities of Asia Minor from Persian rule. As they marched
south down the coast of Ionia the cities of Chios, Erythrae and
Ephesus all opened their gates in welcome, and in Ephesus the
citizens set up Philip’s statue alongside that of the goddess
Artemis herself. Pursuing the notion of divine intervention, Philip
also sent enquiries to the Oracle at Delphi to ask if he would
conquer the Great King. Upon receiving the answer “The bull
is garlanded. All is done. The sacrificer is ready”, Philip
chose to interpret its ambiguous words as confirmation of his
imminent success, yet he could not have been further from the
truth.
The
one to be sacrificed was Philip himself.
Back
to top
|
|
| |
| |
| Site
design by BadgerNet |
|
|
|
| |
© Alan Fildes |
|
|
|
