Book Review: Philip II of Macedonia

The Telegraph, UK (Review by Lorna Gibb)

Philip II of Macedonia by Ian Worthington

Not really about Egypt but this might be of use to anyone who has an interest in Alexander The Great.

Any biography requires the piecing together of partial sources and the working through of contradictory ones to create a plausible narrative. When the protagonist lived more than 2,000 years ago, this task is even more difficult.

There are many gaps. Particularly sad is the lack of information about Philip's early life. Worthington skilfully uses information from the rich documentation of Alexander the Great's early life to speculate about and suggest that of his father, and does so with a great deal of style.

Where more than one outcome or motivation is likely, the alternatives are given, discussed and an author's preference justified. This technique is especially evident in the chapter looking at Philip's assassination.

At the age of just 46, Philip was stabbed by his bodyguard, Pausanias, in the public surroundings of a busy theatre. Two possibilities exist as to why he was murdered. The first, that it was a private matter resulting from the fact that Philip had ended a homosexual relationship with Pausanias and taken up with a new lover; the second, that it was a plot involving Olympias and her son Alexander.

Was Olympias fearful that any male heirs of Philip's newest wife, Cleopatra, might supplant her son and allow her enemy Attalus (the guardian of Cleopatra) to act as regent?

The evidence that Alexander the Great and his mother orchestrated the death of Philip is convincing; shortly after Alexander's accession, Olympias seemed to confirm this by killing both Cleopatra and her new baby girl.

See the above for more.