The Courts of Philip II and Alexander the Great

Monarchy and Power in Ancient Macedonia

Frances Pownall, Sulochana R. Asirvatham, Sabine Müller, Frances Pownall, Sulochana R. Asirvatham, Sabine Müller

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9783110623642
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient Languages
• Index: Literature

Recent scholarship has recognized that Philip II and Alexander the Great adopted elements of their self-fashioning and court ceremonial from previous empires in the Ancient Near East, but it is generally assumed that the advent of the Macedonian court as a locus of politics and culture occurred only in the post-Alexander landscape of the Hellenistic Successors. This volume of ground-breaking essays by leading scholars on Ancient Macedonia goes beyond existing research questions to assess the profound impact of Philip and Alexander on court culture throughout the ages. The papers in this volume offer a thematic approach, focusing upon key institutional, cultural, social, ideological, and iconographical aspects of the reigns of Philip and Alexander. The authors treat the Macedonian court not only as a historical reality, but also as an object of fascination to contemporary Greeks that ultimately became a topos in later reflections on the lives and careers of Philip and Alexander. This collection of papers provides a paradigm-shifting recognition of the seminal roles of Philip and Alexander in the emergence of a new kind of Macedonian kingship and court culture that was spectacularly successful and transformative.

II The Courts of Philip and Alexander in the Eyes of Contemporary Greeks

Diplomatic Activity at the Court of Philip II

Jeremy Trevett

Introduction

The reception of foreign envoys was an important function of the court of Philip II, during whose reign Macedonia acquired a dominant position in the Aegean world and, in consequence, had for the first time frequent and extensive diplomatic dealings, bilateral and multilateral, with numerous other states, Greek and non-Greek.¹ The kingdom of Macedonia changed rapidly under Philip, and the development of his court as the primary locus of diplomatic interaction with the Greek city-states and others was part of this process. It is also an aspect of Philip’s court about which we are particularly well informed through the contemporary evidence of a number of lawcourt speeches delivered by two rival Athenian politicians, Demosthenes and Aeschines, who both served as envoys to the Macedonian court in 346 BC.

Although Philip’s reign marks a clear watershed, earlier Macedonian kings had certainly engaged in diplomacy with, and received ambassadorial visits from, various states and kingdoms, both Greek and non-Greek. There were, for example, extensive dealings between Macedonia and Athens in the fifth and earlier fourth centuries, including the making of several alliances as well as the establishment of ties of friendship between the king and individual leading Athenians.² But our knowledge of the reception of envoys at court before the mid-fourth century is limited to Herodotus’ lurid and, as it stands, unbelievable account of the murder of Persian ambassadors at the court of Amyntas I in the late 6^th century (5.17 – 21).³ Of the very many diplomatic visits that must have been made to the Macedonian court during Philip’s reign, the vast majority are not directly attested in the sources. Numerous Greek cities are known to have had dealings with him, all of which will have involved the despatch of envoys.⁴ On occasion, multiple Greek embassies were in Macedonia at the same time.⁵ There were also diplomatic visits from non-Greeks. For example, Plutarch gives an account, possibly apocryphal, of the courtesy with which Philip’s son Alexander received Persian envoys during his father’s absence on campaign (Alex. 5.1). To these we can add the reception of envoys from the various neighbouring kingdoms with which Philip had dealings throughout his reign, as well as the series of royal weddings which Philip used to cement diplomatic settlements.⁶

But our evidence skews heavily towards Greece in general and Athens in particular. Such knowledge as we have about embassies from other places comes mostly from Athenian sources, and it is about the experience of Athenian envoys at the Macedonian court that we are much the best informed. Of fundamental importance are the two opposing speeches delivered in 343 by rival Athenian politicians, Demosthenes and Aeschines, in the course of the former’s prosecution of the latter for misconduct as an envoy to Philip in 346 (Dem. 19 and Aeschin. 2).⁷ These two long texts deal with a pair of Athenian embassies to Philip. Of these, the first was sent to negotiate the terms of a peace (the peace of Philocrates) to bring an end to the state of war between Philip and Athens, the second to administer to Philip the oaths that would ratify the peace. These events are revisited in the two opposing speeches from Aeschines’ prosecution of Demosthenes’ supporter Ctesiphon in 330 (Aeschin. 3 and Dem. 18), but the specificity and detail of the earlier speeches are largely absent. The two speeches of 343 together constitute the single most substantial piece of literary evidence for any aspect of Philip’s court. They are concerned with the conduct of diplomatic visits to Macedonia, were written by participants, and were composed and delivered within three years of the events they describe. They must, however, be treated with considerable caution as sources. Lawcourt speeches were written to achieve conviction or acquittal rather than to provide a truthful or comprehensive record of events. Each speaker aimed to convince the jurors that he had acted correctly and that his opponent had behaved disreputably or illegally. For most matters we have only one man’s account; where they both discuss the same occasion, there is often disagreement about what happened.⁸ Whilst there were limits to the amount of outright invention that would have been possible, everything was presented in such a way as to support the speaker’s case, and it is impossible to assume that either man is ever telling the whole truth. Moreover, the actual conduct of the embassies takes up only part of the speeches, and the time spent at Philip’s court only a relatively small part of that. Neither speech contains a continuous narrative (Aeschin. 2.22 – 38 on the first embassy comes closest) and the two men are largely silent about many aspects of their visits to the Macedonian court because they are not relevant to their argument. In addition, by 343 the peace was unpopular at Athens, and each man is...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• I The Transformation of Royal Authority: Personal Relationships at the Macedonian Court
• II The Courts of Philip and Alexander in the Eyes of Contemporary Greeks
• III The Influence of Persia and the Ancient Near East on Alexander’s Court
• IV Raising a Prince in the Macedonian Court: Stories of Alexander’s Birth and Education
• V Alexander’s Court in Retrospective
• Index