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

HIS SON’S FATHER? 199
Alexander qua Trajan claim to be unable to obey any mortal authority,
Dio is again signaling Alexander’s Greco-Roman hybridity: the idea of
Alexander’s “divine authority” invariably calls to mind his famous
self-promotion as a son of Zeus, 31 but the immediate philosophical
context is Stoic, referring to the good king’s authority from Zeus (a
theme seen everywhere in the Kingship Orations). 32 Unlike Plato’s
Socrates, who in the end always dominates his interlocutor, the querying
Philip only gets the literal “last word” (in the fi nal section, 79)
with a great act of self-effacement, when he concedes Alexander’s
excellent education to another authority altogether, Aristotle:
“Alexander, it is not for nothing that we appreciated Aristotle so
greatly. . . . He is a man worthy of many great gifts, if he teaches you
such things about rule and kingship, either by interpreting Homer or
in some other way.” 33
It is clear, then, that Philip has been minimized for Alexander’s
benefi t. But how does this minimized Philip fi t in with Trajan’s Nerva?
Trajan’s own propaganda, in fact, denigrated the memory of Nerva
much more profoundly than is refl ected in Dio’s text. Pliny in his
Panegyricus, perhaps as reliable a source for Trajan’s own propaganda
as they come, 34 shows good evidence for this when he characterizes
Nerva as thoroughly impotent (6–8, 10–11, and 89). Indeed,
the adoptio of Trajan is presented as Nerva’s one good deed—a deed
for which he, the father, should thank the son. Dio, by contrast, walks
the line on Nerva. Not only does he represent Nerva with a wise and
nurturing Zeus in Oration 1, but there is a clear implication in Oration
2 that the emperor’s father is a man of culture. Philip makes the
argument (which he stops pressing by section 32) for privileging
Hesiod over Homer (8–14) in Alexander’s presence, but even more
surprising is Dio-as-narrator’s reference to Philip’s letter writing (25),
the only such reference I have seen in a literary text. Certainly there
were some fake Philip-letters in circulation in antiquity, but one may
easily suspect that the reference here has less to do with the historical
Philip than with Nerva’s own literary ambitions: according
to Martial, Nero had compared Nerva’s poetry to that of Tibullus
(8.70.7–8). 35
As a Nerva fi gure, then, the Philip of the Kingship Orations may
appear as a slight rebuke to Trajan for neglecting mutual pietas. Ultimately,
however, no real authority is ceded by Alexander to Philip.
The very mortal Philip/Nerva of Oration 2 is not divine Zeus/Nerva
of Oration 2. Dio’s Philip exists to be dominated by his son, who, like
Trajan at his very best, has that capacity for virtus and humanitas that
will keep him looking culturally and spiritually upward and expanding
militarily outward.