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

“WORLDWIDE EMPIRE” VERSUS “GLORIOUS ENTERPRISE” 167
check. (15) Both were excessively fond of drink, but intoxication
brought out different shortcomings. It was the father’s habit to
rush from the dinner party straight at the enemy, engage him in
combat and recklessly expose himself to danger; Alexander’s
violence was directed not against the enemy but against his own
comrades. (16) As a result Philip was often brought back from
his battles wounded while the other often left a dinner with his
friends’ blood on his hands. (17) Philip was unwilling to share
the royal power with his friends; Alexander wielded it over his.
The father preferred to be loved, the son to be feared. (18) They
had a comparable interest in literature. The father had greater
shrewdness, the son was truer to his word. (19) Philip was more
restrained in his language and discourse, Alexander in his actions.
(20) When it came to showing mercy to the defeated, the
son was temperamentally more amenable and more magnanimous.
The father was more disposed to thrift, the son to extravagance.
(21) With such qualities did the father lay the basis for a
worldwide empire and the son bring to completion the glorious
enterprise.
At a fi rst reading the account gives a generally hostile view of Philip’s
character. Justin views him as a cruel person, deceitful, and beyond
shame in his actions, and, further, says that Philip had no hesitation
in plundering and selling into slavery the women and children of allied
cities (8.3.1–5). Alexander is also the subject of criticism, and the
passage shows that Alexander’s bad qualities outweighed his good
qualities.
The relationship of Justin’s work to the original one by Trogus is
problematic to say the least. 7 Estimates for the life of Justin span the
second to the fourth century A.D., 8 and we cannot say whether he is
merely echoing Trogus or giving us his own opinion. However, his
criticism of Alexander echoes that of Diodorus (see below), who was
writing in fi rst-century B.C. Rome. Diodorus, therefore, could have
been roughly contemporary to Trogus. Moreover, the Romans’ attitude
to Alexander (and of Greek values) was hostile at this time.
Alexander’s reputation was really only elevated in the second century
A.D. when philhellenism fell into fashion again. Both Trogus and
Diodorus are a product of the Roman world and its values and beliefs,
and so must have been infl uenced by these factors (and perhaps by
the depiction of Alexander in Roman writers). 9 Since Justin was
writing so much later, when Alexander was viewed more positively,
we might expect his account to refl ect this reevaluation more widely.
While there are positive elements in it, thus refl ecting Justin’s times,
most of it is critical, and hence refl ective of the earlier negative views