Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and Son ... - Historia Antigua

CASSANDER AND THE LEGACY OF PHILIP II AND ALEXANDER III 121
prince, but also conveyed Poliorcetes’ wish to draw ideal continuity
between himself and the Temenids, whose memory was one of the
founding factors of Macedonian national identity.
Thus, by a twist of fate, Cassander and Demetrius Poliorcetes,
despite being harsh enemies, both wished to present themselves to
the Macedonians as the heirs of the Argeads. Through his marriage
with Thessalonice and the funeral honors granted to Philip III
Arrhidaeus, Cassander privileged his ties with Philip II, the “architect”
of Macedonian power in the Aegean; Demetrius, instead, by
assuming the role of the “avenger” against the Antipatrids, i.e.,
against those who, in the fi gure of Cassander, had succeeded in
eliminating Alexander IV, Alexander the Great’s only legitimate
son, drew continuity between himself and the ecumenical legacy of the
latter, the king who had extended the boundaries of the Macedonian
kingdom well beyond the Greek borders to encompass the entirety of
the Persian Empire.