One of the foremost figures of Greek antiquity was Philip II - father of Alexander the Great
and the man who ‘ended Greek freedom’. His fearsome reputation as a warrior and a
military reformer is well known, but it also overshadows another key aspect of his success,
without which the exploits of his son might never have been possible. Welcome to our video
on the diplomatic skills and endeavors of Philip II of Macedon.
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Future Philip II was born in Pella at some point during 382BC, the youngest child of
King Amyntas III of Macedon. He grew up in one of the most tumultuous and often downright
lethal environments in Ancient Greece. It was an upbringing which would have illustrated
to him just how crucial it was to develop a pragmatic, pitiless political instinct.
Ever since claiming Macedon’s throne centuries earlier, the Argead dynasty was riven by internal
dissent and civil wars. For example, Amyntas III had been driven from the kingship twice
in a decades long reign. As the king ailed in the late 370s, Philip witnessed his father
almost lose his throne for a third time, as an ambitious distant relative, Ptolemy of
Alorus, challenged the king. Although Ptolemy’s desire was temporarily
sated by a prestigious marriage to one of Philip’s sisters, he began scheming again
immediately after Amyntas’ death in 370. Philip’s eldest brother Alexander inherited
the throne and Ptolemy waged a civil war against him, only failing due to a Theban intervention.
Although he tentatively kept the throne for just over a year, the king was soon assassinated
by Ptolemy’s supporters, and was then replaced by another of Philip’s elder brothers - a
teenager known as Perdiccas. Philip II had matured into the man and the king in this
kind of dangerous environment . Ptolemy and Perdiccas decided that the fifteen
year old Philip was to be sent to Thebes - hegemon of the Greek city-states - in 368BC. There,
he lived and mingled with the best and brightest in Theban society, including brilliant generals
Epaminondas and Pelopidas - their knowledge was essential for Philip’s military reforms
down the line. Philip also learned about the histories and political structures of the
Greek states, and started to see how it could be exploited by a strong Macedon. This later
allowed him to tailor specific strategies to deal with specific enemies. From the surviving
texts, we can discern that the future Philip II was gifted enough to exploit the weaknesses
he saw, traits which must have begun to bloom during his adolescence in Thebes.
Philip would become a controversial figure among many Greeks because of what he would
do in the future. It was probably because of this that most Greek sources portray Philip’s
personality in a purely negative manner. To them, he was aggressive and brutish, an alcoholic,
and a craven breaker of oaths. In a word, Philip of Macedon was the archetypical uncivilised
barbarian - an outsider unworthy of the moniker of ‘Hellene’.
However, when an Athenian statesman called Aeschines returned from a diplomatic mission
in Pella, he had far more positive things to say about the Macedonian king’s conduct
to his fellow Athenians. Philip, according to him, was an ‘outstandingly good speaker’
with vast amounts of rhetorical skill. Moreover, he asserted that he had “never in all his
long life seen so sweet and charming a man as Philip.” The whole truth is probably
somewhere in the middle. While at times Philip must have unleashed
his ‘’Macedonian side’ - the hard drinking, violent side - he also possessed a more civilised
‘Greek’ element. This was his more diplomatically calculating, charming personality which Aeschines
encountered. During such occasions, it is only natural that Philip would have wanted
to put his best foot forward. In fact, Philip probably switched between these two acts relatively
seamlessly when the need arose. Though his sponsoring of acting contests and attending
the theatre was a personal hobby, the future king was himself supposedly a brilliant political
actor. Charming and treacherous in equal measure, Philip was adept at concealing his true intentions
even from highly trained emissaries. Five years after returning from Thebes, he
became the King of Macedon as Philip II in 359BC. Macedon was in a total crisis, on the
brink of losing its statehood. In the northwestern uplands, the Illyrian army under a chieftain
Bardylis had wrested control of strategic approaches, and was preparing to take the
vulnerable heartland. On the Thermaic Gulf, prosperous cities all the way from Thessaly
to the Strymon River were under foreign control and, in the north, Paeonian raiders began
making incursions into Macedonian territory. These threats were accompanied by the prospect
of renewed dynastic turmoil, influenced by outside powers, supporting different claimants.
On top of that Philip II had scarce resources to work with. Much of his tax base was either
under the control of hostile powers or had been raided. Moreover, the Macedonian army,
depleted by decades of warfare and internal strife, was a pale shadow of what it once
was. To begin pulling Macedonia away from these
existential threats, the new king employed his diplomatic skill. Philip wasted no time
in opening peace talks with the Illyrian chief. Realising that sacrifices would be needed
to prevent total collapse, Philip agreed to recognise Illyrian rule over most of Upper
Macedonia and paid Bardylis rich tribute. With the northern barbarians dealt with, Philip
turned south to deal with the Athenians and his dynastic problems.
Due to Macedonian control of Amphipolis - a vital trading port which had access to rich
mineral and timber reserves - Athens backed a usurper known as Argaeus, who pledged to
return the city if he became king. Another Argead pretender known as Pausanias gained
the allegiance of the Odrysian king, who agreed to install him on the throne if he was given
Amphipolis. One of Philip’s three half brothers - Archelaus - gained the support of the Chalcidian
League and also asserted his claim to the throne.
The solution for that problem was a quick and easy one: Philip simply had Archelaus
assassinated, forcing his other half-siblings to flee. Then Philip II withdrew the Macedonian
garrison from Amphipolis, hoping to appease Athens. However, Athens saw this gesture as
a sign of Philip’s weakness, and continued to assemble an invasion force to support Argaeus.
Realising a military confrontation might be inevitable no matter what he did, the Macedonian
monarch instead shifted his negotiation efforts to the north and east, so that he would not
have to fight on two fronts. Both Cotys and the many Paeonian tribes received
envoys bearing generous bribes and promises from Philip. As a mark of his success, the
usurper Pausanias disappears from history after this moment, almost certainly killed.
In only a few months following his enthronement, Philip had used subtle, pragmatic statecraft
to significantly reduce the threats facing his kingdom.
With the breathing room he’d earned, Philip embarked on his famous military reforms, and
politically unified Macedonia, accomplishing the latter by subjugating and integrating
the many independent regions into a centralised kingdom controlled by him and his trusted
subordinates. Macedonian influence gradually began radiating outwards. Philip’s first
and foremost target was Thessaly, a region bordering his own lands, geographically made
up of a large plain surrounded by mountains. The value of Thessaly to Macedon’s interests
was manyfold. It was one of Greece's largest and richest regions, with the Thessalian Plain
serving as catalyst for productive agriculture, and access to the sea enabling vast amounts
of trade. Militarily, the lands of Thessaly could function as an invasion highway for
armies going north towards Macedon or, if Philip played his cards right, south into
Greece proper. Furthermore, Thessalian cavalry was famous as the greatest in the Greek world,
and the region’s horses were known for their size and stamina.
When bringing Thessaly into the Macedonian fold, Philip’s showed a fine understanding
of diplomacy. His up-and-coming military might was used to get what he wanted, but only in
an outwardly benevolent manner. Thessaly never suffered outright invasion, simply because
the Macedonian king knew he could do things more efficiently.
The critical mantra for Philip’s diplomatic engagement with Thessalian cities was to act
with permission at all times. Between 358 and 352, the Macedonian war machine never
once intervened without the assent of at least one friend who requested its assistance. Philip
received his first request of this kind in 358 from the patriarch of a prominent family,
known as Cineas. His Aleuadae clan ruled the city of Larissa, founder of the Thessalian
League, who were in a regional war with a rival city - Pherae. Its tyrants led an opposing
alliance which held hegemony over the area’s coastal settlements.
At Larissa’s invitation, Philip II seems to have taken on the role of a neutral arbiter
in peace negotiations between Thessaly’s factions. In the role, he may have managed
to help enact a temporary peace, but we know that the country was in a state of conflict
for another half decade after. Nevertheless, the Macedonian king would not necessarily
have seen this as a loss. On the contrary, his ‘failed’ intervention was the landmark
moment which Philip had been waiting for. It set a crucial precedent, establishing him
as a legitimate player on the stage of Thessalian internal politics, one to whom other cities
could turn to in times of need, and one whose influence would only grow.
Rather than artificially forcing annexation, Philip waited patiently for years, always
keeping one eye on the Thessalian internal conflict. In the meantime, he dealt with other
matters that required his attention, such as capturing Methone and Amphipolis, thereby
bolstering his own realm’s power to an even greater degree. Even as he did, the long-term
project to ensnare his southern neighbor with goodwill never left the king's mind. When
local disputes broke out in Thessaly, Philip II would put himself forward as an honest
broker, offering his services to resolve the dispute.
Always the hedonist, the Macedonian king also began throwing massive banquets, parties,
and other lavish celebrations for himself and his aristocratic Thessalian friends. These
were accompanied by vast riches which Philip distributed as gifts - or ‘bribes’ depending
on who you talk to - to the region’s upper and lower classes. In essence, he always tried
to play the good guy. As Polyaenus relates, when the Thessalians fought with one another,
Philip “always responded positively to requests for aid. When he won he did not exile the
losers, take away their arms or knock down their walls. He supported rather than destroyed
factions, took care of the weak, brought down the more powerful, was a friend to the people
and cultivated the popular leaders. By these stratagems Philip mastered Thessaly, not by
arms.” Philip finally saw an opportunity and pounced
in 353BC, crushing the tyrants of Pherae in a decisive military engagement. After he did,
the region’s aristocrats, many of whom probably considered their Argead benefactor a savior
and honorary Thessalian, freely elected him archon of the League for life. This unprecedented
event made Philip II, a foreign king, the de facto ruler of Thessaly without the need
for a war of conquest. In addition to giving Philip control over military forces and taxation,
it also handed the Argead a dominant voice in the Amphictyonic League - a religious and
politically influential union of Greek polities in which Thessaly controlled a large quantity
of votes. To cement himself even more firmly with the
people of his newly acquired territories, Philip II wed a native aristocratic Thessalian
woman known as Nicesipolis in 353BC. This political marriage was doubly successful for
Philip’s purposes of consolidating the region. Not only was Nicesipolis another woman from
a prominent Thessalian house now married to Philip, a fact we’ll discuss shortly, but
she was also related to the old tyrants of Pherae. Marrying one of the women from the
defeated party may have assisted in putting the defeated Pheraeans at ease, and would
have signalled that Philip would include them in his new order, if they fell into line.
The Macedonian king appears to have never forgotten about the political nature of his
marriage. When Nicesipolis died giving birth to Philip’s daughter in 345BC, the child
was named ‘Thessalonice’ - or ‘Victory in Thessaly’ - as a tribute to the land
of her origin. This kind of diplomatic marriage was nothing new to Philip, and the king’s
expertise in using it to his advantage was the result of much experience. Macedonian
monarchs were not expected to be content with just one wife and therefore practiced polygamy,
a fact which made political engagements even more valuable.
In fact, Philip made Henry VIII of England, famous for his six wives, look like an amateur.
Back in 358BC, he joined hands with two women one after the other. The first was Audata,
daughter of the defeated Illyrian ruler Bardylis, whose presence in Pella would make any re-emergence
of a hostile northwestern frontier less likely. Soon after that wedding, Philip dipped his
toe into the pool of Thessalian diplomacy by marrying Phillina of Larissa - the first
of his two Thessalian wives. The year after that, the Macedonian king married his most
famous wife - Olympias - in order to secure his border with Epirus. Including Nicesipolis,
Philip would embark on a total of four additional more marriages after Olympias, the brides
ranging from Macedonian noblewomen to wild Scythian princesses, all of whom were designed
to maximise the king’s political capital. Whatever his turbulent personal feelings were
towards his seven wives throughout his life, Philip’s attitude to these weddings was
simple. As summed up by Greek rhetorician Athenaeus: “Philip always married with war
in mind.” This was a tried and tested approach to diplomacy which had been standard practice
in Macedonian politics and in the wider Mediterranean world for millennia. However, Philip took
the tactic further and exploited it to the greatest extent he could.
Throughout the decade following his essential annexation of Thessaly, Philip continued using
the Macedonians’ revolutionary military machine to great effect, quelling unrest and
expanding his influence, only applying force where it was absolutely necessary and using
the threat of force where it was not. One of the former occasions took place in 346,
when the Dardarnes and Ardaei tribes of Illyria attempted to unify against him. This didn’t
last long. After hearing of unrest among the barbarians on his northwestern frontier, Philip
marched into their territory and smashed them in battle. Many tribespeople were cruelly
deported away from their kin in the aftermath, forced to intermingle with surrounding populations
in order to make them weaker and less likely or able to rebel again.
In 342, as Philip was planning for his climactic war against Athens, he moved to preempt any
possible effort to stab him in the back. Marching into Epirus, the one-eyed monarch deposed
Olympias’ less than trustworthy uncle Arybbas from the regency and installed Alexandros
on the Molossian throne, a man who had been educated and raised in Pella specifically
for the purpose. All the while Philip puppeteered the dominant states of Greece masterfully,
stabilising the balance of power in the region as best suited his interests. A Macedonian
alliance with Thebes forced Athens, its main rival, to keep significant land and naval
forces in Attica and away from Macedonia. However, because Athens was itself aligned
with the militaristic city-state of Sparta, Thebes - a traditional invader of Macedon
and influencer in its affairs - could not risk redeploying any of its military strength
away from the south, lest it suffer attack by the Lacedemonians.
The implication was clear: Philip’s subtle interventions in Greece checkmated all of
his possible enemies in the region, while he only became stronger. The summer of 341BC
saw a Macedonian invasion of Thrace which left Philip II in control of the entire region,
including all of its rich Greek cities3, mineral wealth, and manpower reserves, from the Aegean
coast to the Balkan Mountains. While the Thracian campaign was ongoing, Athens began actively
supporting Philip’s enemies in Euboea and sending more colonists, or ‘cleurchs’
to the Chersonese, along with a naval expedition under Diopeithes which engaged in piracy against
Macedonian shipping. Rather than immediately responding with force, Philip sent an envoy
of protest to the Athenian assembly, requesting that Diopeithes be recalled and punished.
However, Demosthenes’ belligerent faction convinced the assembly to refuse.
Despite the blatant acts of war perpetrated against him, Philip took no retaliatory action.
What might seem like obvious weakness was instead motivated by a far greater diplomatic
consideration - the Achaemenid Empire. The Persian colossus had suffered a period of
internal crisis throughout most of Philip’s reign, but by the late 340s BC, King of Kings
Artaxerxes III managed to restore central control over all the empire’s lands. Before
embarking on his march to the Hellespont in 342, Philip made a deal with his Persian counterpart
in which the latter pledged not to intervene in Thrace or at sea, while Philip promised
a passive policy towards Asia. Still, Philip was cautious of the vast resources of the
Achaemenids, and feared any alliance between Athens and the empire. He allowed events to
run their course and acted as was appropriate. In early summer of 340, Athens did indeed
send an envoy to Susa seeking a defensive alliance. When it was politely refused and
sent home with financial gifts, Macedonia’s last restraint was removed. Two years later,
Philip decisively defeated a military alliance consisting of Athens and his former hosts
- Thebes - at Chaeronea, resulting in the unification of Greece in the Hellenic League.
In just over twenty years, the Macedonian king’s adroit combination of diplomacy and
military force had carried the kingdom from near disintegration to pre-eminence over all
Greece. In a poetic twist, it was one of Philip’s
small efforts in statecraft which eventually led to his untimely death. The day after his
daughter’s wedding in July of 336BC, a procession of twelve divine statues were towed into the
theatre of Aegai, followed by a magnificent depiction of Philip II of Macedon. Following
them was the king himself wearing a beautiful white cloak, shadowed by his bodyguard, whom
he had ordered to remain at a distance. Philip wished to show that he was not some tyrant
who required the protection of armed thugs; he was the leader of Greece’s Hellenic League
by consent and a loved monarch. As the king strode into the centre of the theatre, a single
rogue member of his bodyguard strode forth and stabbed Philip in the chest, killing him
and changing the course of history. In the crowd that day was a young, up and coming
heir to the newly minted Macedonian throne known as Alexander, soon to be known as Alexander
the Great. We are planning more videos on the Hellenic
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