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

58 FATHER, SON, AND COURT
one’s judgement in his Table Talk (= Mor. 715c), where no one plays
an explicit role as the hero of the episode. In this context, while there
is an apparent allusion to Philip’s drunken behavior after Chaeronea, 9
the emphasis of the anecdote is on his ability to recover his sobriety
in response to a delegation from the Athenians offering him a peace
treaty.
We should note that there was clearly an alternate version of the
episode in circulation, which exculpated Philip from drunken hubris
entirely. Justin (9.4.1–3) claims that Philip’s behavior was restrained
after his victory, but attributes his motives to political calculation, “so
as not to appear exultant before his own soldiers or insulting before
the defeated.” Similarly, Aelian ( VH 8.15) claims that Philip exercised
restraint and did not behave in an arrogant way ( ο ὐ χ ὕ β ρ ι σ ε),
although this statement is somewhat at odds with his earlier implication
that Philip’s treatment of his captives was in fact excessive (6.1). 10
As this example reveals, the Greek sources were more than willing to
tailor their accounts of the drinking habits of the Macedonian royalty
to fi t the narrative context, and the contradictions within the tradition
(and sometimes, as we have seen, even within the same author) render
the details of any of the extant versions suspect at best. 11
The drunken hubris of Philip and his companions in this episode
is given credibility in its earliest extant rendition, that of Theopompus,
by the specifi c mention of the names of Philip’s musicians. This
kind of circumstantial detail not only adds color to the narrative, but
also an air of veracity, for it creates the impression of eyewitness
testimony. Theopompus himself was a contemporary of Philip of
Macedon, and was an eyewitness to Macedonian symposia (although
probably not the one in question), for he spent time at Philip’s court
in the late 340s (Speusippus, Letter to Philip 12= FGrH 115 T 7), 12 and
is reported even to have enjoyed the king’s patronage. 13
Demosthenes, who also spent time at the Macedonian court when
he participated in the Athenian embassy to Philip which resulted in
the infamous Peace of Philocrates, offers another, very similar, a ccount
of the court symposia of Philip II, also based on eyewitness testimony
(2.18–19):
If there was anyone among them [Philip’s mercenaries and
pezhetairoi] who was experienced in military matters, all of
these men he sent away through ambition [my informant] said,
wishing to take all the credit himself, for in addition to his other
vices he was also not to be surpassed in ambition. But if there
was anyone who exhibited good judgment and justice in other
respects, who could not abide the daily dissolute style of life