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

38 FATHER, SON, AND COURT
building. The statues were not made of ivory and gold, but of marble,
presumably polished and gilded to give an impression of chryselephantine
technique. 21 An alternative view was offered by Giorgos
Despinis, who suggested that the bottoms of the statues were in
marble, with marble plinths, whereas the upper parts were completed
in ivory and gold. 22 As there are no other examples of this technique
from the classical period, however, this suggestion remains sub
judice.
We now come to the crux of the matter, Philip’s Eurydice. Philip
was obviously very selective in his choice of family members for the
dynastic monument, considering that he had left out several of his
wives and children, not to mention his brothers. Would the inclusion
of his mother have served his purposes in 338–336? There is no evidence
that she was still alive in 338, and despite her eventful career
earlier in life, she seems to have had no impact on the reign of Philip II.
Her last recorded action fell in 368/7: during his embassy to Philip
in 346 Aeschines (2.27–29) recalled Eurydice’s plea to the Athenian
general Iphicrates to save the dynasty in 368/7, implying that she was
no longer alive as he spoke. 23 Besides, Philip’s claim to the throne
rested almost entirely on the fact that he was Amyntas III’s son. He
was not his brother’s obvious successor since Perdiccas III had an
infant son, Amyntas ‘IV’, who was pushed aside to make way for
Philip. After Philip’s death, Amyntas ‘IV’ constituted a potential
threat to Alexander, who had him eliminated by 335. 24
Eurydice in the Philippeum has been almost unanimously identifi
ed by modern scholars with Philip’s mother. 25 There is, however, a
more obvious candidate, who seems more appropriate in the context
of 337. Philip’s last wife Cleopatra is named Eurydice by Arrian
(3.6.5). Given her prominence in Philip’s life at the time the Philippeum
was built, it would have been surprising had she not been represented
in the dynastic portrait gallery. Her absence, especially considering
the inclusion of Olympias, would have constituted an affront to the
faction of Attalus that was so powerful at court on the eve of Philip’s
Asian campaign. Arrian (3.6.5) says that Philip became suspicious of
Alexander after he married Eurydice and disgraced Alexander’s
mother, Olympias. Because all other sources name Philip’s last wife
Cleopatra, 26 the name Eurydice was considered a mistake on the part
of Arrian, notably by Ernst Badian, who published a polemical article
on the issue. 27 Badian, as we saw earlier, succeeded in establishing
that Eurydice was not a regnal name. On the other hand, there is
no reason to reject Cleopatra’s name change in the face of all other
name changes attested for Macedonian royalty. Far from doubting
Arrian’s testimony, Helmut Berve had proposed the reverse scenario,