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

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The Symposia of Philip II and
Alexander III of Macedon
The View from Greece
Frances Pownall
The court symposia of both Philip and Alexander of Macedon are
unanimously portrayed in the extant Greek sources as riotous
gatherings in which large quantities of wine were consumed, usually
to excess, leading to unrestrained, licentious, or even violent behavior.
This perception appears to be confi rmed by the prevalence of
drinking vessels in the royal tombs at Vergina. 1 As I shall argue, however,
the dismissal by the Greek sources of Macedonian symposia as
mere drinking parties is based upon a misunderstanding of the integrative
social function of the symposium in the courts of both Philip
and Alexander. The Greek misunderstanding arises because the Macedonian
monarchs did not model their own symposia upon those of
their neighbours to the south, but turned rather to Homer, where communal
feasting and drinking served to strengthen the ties between
Achilles and his Myrmidon Hetairoi. In her recent examination of
Macedonian royal symposia, Elizabeth Carney demonstrates that the
Macedonians were not ignorant of Greek sympotic customs:
Granted the increasing Hellenization of the court and the dramatic
increase in the number of courtiers of Greek origin, the
distinctive nature of the Macedonian symposium was hardly
the consequence of ignorance of southern Greek practice. It represented,
rather, a willful refusal to abandon practices that
defi ned both the style and the substance of Macedonian monarchy
and, at the same time, by their excess, confi rmed their
wealth and power. 2
I intend to demonstrate that it is actually the Greek sources who were
ignorant, and willfully so, of the important role the distinctive Macedonian
symposium played in the integration of the elite for both
Philip and Alexander. Failing to perceive the deliberate Homeric
allusions of the Macedonian symposium, they transferred the ritual
drinking customs of Philip and Alexander and their court into further
evidence of their barbarism.
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