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

CONSENSUS STRATEGIES UNDER PHILIP AND ALEXANDER 71
of the Phocians who, according to Justin, terrifi ed by the emblem of
the god, left their arms and ran away. 8 This success, the historian
concludes, gave glory to Philip, “avenger of the sacrilege” ( vindex
sacrilegii) and “avenger of the god” ( ultor religionis). It also made him
very close to the gods ( a diis proximus), since he had avenged their
majesty. 9
We can fi nd a similar version in Diodorus who interprets the whole
Third Sacred War in terms of vengeance and adopts a pro-Macedonian
point of view. In his opinion, the god’ s vengeance against the sacrilege
is manifest at many different moments of the confl ict: the earthquake
that struck the temple of Delphi while the Phocians were plundering
it; 10 the fi re in Apollo’s sanctuary at Abae (where the Phocians had
sought refuge from the Boeotians’ attack), a just punishment for those
sacrilegious men; 11 and the fi nal destiny of all Phocian’s leaders.
Philomenus killed himself jumping from a rock; Onomarchus was crucifi
ed; Phayllus died after a long and painful illness; and Phalaecus
went wandering for the rest of his life. 12 Diodorus also recalls how
Philip joined the Delphic Anphictyony taking the Phocians’ place, and
not just because of his military victory, but also because of his piety 13
and his respect for the gods who had given him the power to make his
realm the biggest in Europe. 14
Such different interpretations show a clear ideologization of the
war: one part of the tradition is manifestly anti-Macedonian, but
another is evidently pro-Macedonian. The anti-Macedonian tradition
clearly follows Demosthenes who, since 351 B.C., has never lost any
chance to attack Philip. It is more diffi cult to determine the origin of
the pro-Macedonian tradition.
It is signifi cant that, right at the end of the Third Sacred War, a
group of intellectuals started to write in support of Philip. Cephisodorus,
Anaximenes of Lampsacus, and Leon of Byzantium composed
a series of works with the intent of celebrating Philip’s victory;
Aristotle and Callisthenes drew up a List of the Winners of the Pythian
Games taking, perhaps, the opportunity of the new beginning of the
competition, after the end of the Third Sacred War; 15 Ephorus and
Theopompus collected in their works the main facts regarding the
confl ict, the former in the 30th book of his Universal History (left
unfi nished and completed by his son Demophilus), the latter in his
Philippic History and also in his monograph On the resources stolen
from Delphi. 16 Most of these works have been lost and we cannot,
therefore, know exactly the terms they used to celebrate Philips’ victory.
Nevertheless, analysis of Diodorus’ and Justin’s reports allows
us to deduce the main themes used on this occasion by some of these
authors.