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

Introduction
T he careers of Philip II and his son Alexander the Great (III) were
interlocked in innumerable ways in their own lifetimes: Philip II
centralized ancient Macedonia, created an army of unprecedented
skill and fl exibility, came to dominate the Greek peninsula, and
planned the invasion of the Persian Empire with a combined Graeco-
Macedonian force, but it was his son Alexander who actually led the
invading forces, defeated the great Persian Empire, took his army to
the borders of modern India, and created a monarchy and empire
that, despite its fragmentation, shaped the political, cultural, and
religious world of the Hellenistic era. Alexander drove the engine
his father had built, but had he not done so, Philip’s achievements
might have proved as ephemeral as had those of so many earlier
Macedonian rulers. On the other hand, some scholars believe that
Alexander played a role, direct or indirect, in the murder of his
father, so that he could lead the expedition to Asia that his father
had organized.
In short, it is diffi cult to understand or assess one man without
considering the other. This seems to have been so from the start.
Alexander himself tended both to imitate his father and react against
his policies, to defi ne himself as both another Philip and as an anti-
Philip. Certainly their contemporaries seemed unable to think of the
accomplishments of one without thinking of the other and making
comparisons. Hellenic culture generally was intensely and fundamentally
competitive. This was particularly true for the Macedonian
elite whose culture and values were self-consciously Homeric. The
aretē ethic, which defi ned excellence only comparatively—one
needed to be not simply good but better than anyone else—inevitably
led to a kind of contest in the minds of the contemporaries of the two
kings about which was better, as a king, as a general, as a person. Succeeding
generations were heirs to this contest, as our extant sources
demonstrate. This collection, therefore, looks at the careers and
impact of both father and son. Some of the articles consider only one
of the Macedonian rulers although most deal with both, and with the
relationship, actual or imagined, between the two. Whatever the focus