In the titanic story of Alexander the Great‘s meteoric rise and fall, historians often gloss over the pivotal role played by his father, King Philip II of Macedon. But Philip‘s reign, and especially his notoriously active and chaotic sex life, set the stage for Alexander‘s empire in more ways than one. From his seven marriages to his male lovers to his scandalous assassination, Philip‘s bedroom had just as much an impact on ancient history as his innovative military reforms.
Macedon Before Philip
To understand Philip‘s life and times, we must first set the scene in ancient Macedon. Located in the rugged Balkan hills north of Greece proper, Macedon was considered a semi-barbaric fringe state by the southern Greek city-states for much of its early history. Its people spoke a Greek dialect, worshipped Greek gods, and claimed descent from the legendary hero Heracles. But to the ‘civilized‘ Athenians and Corinthians, the rural Macedonian warriors were uncouth, hard-drinking highlanders.
Macedon‘s early kings from the Argead dynasty struggled to fend off invasions by neighboring Illyrians, Paeonians, and Thracians. The greatest exception was Philip‘s fourth-century BC predecessor, Alexander I, who briefly made Macedon a major player in the Greco-Persian Wars. But his successors squandered these gains in destructive civil wars and territorial losses.
This was the vulnerable state in which Philip found his kingdom upon taking the throne in 359 BC, at just 23 years old. Few could have predicted then how he would transform Macedon – and the ancient world – through the force of his personality, military genius, political savvy, and sexual appetites.
Philip‘s Military and Political Prowess
Philip‘s first priority was to secure Macedon against external threats. To do this, he introduced groundbreaking military reforms, most famously the sarissa phalanx formation. He equipped his foot soldiers with extra-long pikes up to 18 feet in length, which they held in densely-packed ranks. This revolutionary tactic made the Macedonian infantry virtually impenetrable from the front and able to break enemy lines with devastating effect.
Philip also gave his army rigorous training, new siege weapons, better logistics, and a corps of elite cavalry called the Companions. This professional standing army was far superior to the citizen-soldier militias the Greek city-states could muster.
With this formidable force, Philip went on a dizzying 20-year campaign of conquest. He defeated the Illyrians and Paeonians, then intervened in the Sacred War in Greece on the side of Thebes against Phocis. After besieging Olynthus, subduing Thrace, and routing Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea, Philip had made Macedon the master of Greece by 338 BC.
| Opponent | Date | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Illyrians/Paeonians | 358-355 BC | Macedonian victory |
| Athens | 357-355 BC | Macedonian victory |
| Sacred War | 355-352 BC | Macedonian/Theban victory |
| Olynthus | 349-348 BC | Macedonian victory |
| Thrace | 342-340 BC | Macedonian victory |
| Athens/Thebes | 338 BC | Decisive Macedonian victory at Chaeronea |
Table 1: Philip‘s major military campaigns
But Philip didn‘t just rely on hard power. He was also a master diplomat who used a variety of shrewd techniques to divide his enemies and win allies. One of his favorite tools was marriage alliances – and that‘s where his sex life takes center stage.
Philip‘s Persia
Over the course of his reign, Philip married no fewer than seven women from all corners of his growing empire. Each marriage served a clear strategic purpose:
- Audata, an Illyrian princess. This match helped secure Macedon‘s northwestern frontier.
- Phila, from the Macedonian region of Elimeia. This consolidated support within Macedon itself.
- Nicesipolis, a noblewoman from Pherae in Thessaly. This extended Philip‘s influence over this key region to the south.
- Olympias, a princess of Epirus in modern Albania. This protected Macedon‘s western flank and produced Philip‘s most famous son and heir, Alexander.
- Philinna, another Thessalian beauty from Larissa. Further cementing Thessaly‘s bond to Macedon, she bore Philip a son named Arrhidaeus.
- Meda, a Thracian princess from the Getae tribe. A useful diplomatic bridge to this troublesome region to the northeast.
- Cleopatra, a Macedonian noblewoman. Philip‘s marriage to a local girl late in his reign ruffled feathers by threatening Alexander‘s succession.
These marriages, along with several daughters and sisters also wed off to seal alliances, created a vast web of personal and political connections that spanned the Balkans and beyond. But they also brewed resentment, rivalry and instability within the court.
Rivals and Male Lovers
Juggling seven wives was bound to create drama. The ancient sources are full of lurid tales of just how dysfunctional and dangerous Philip‘s family became as his reign progressed.
His fourth wife Olympias was notoriously headstrong and ambitious for her son Alexander. She clashed fiercely with Philip‘s final wife Cleopatra, who came from a powerful Macedonian clan and bore Philip two children, Europa and Caranus. At the wedding feast, Cleopatra‘s uncle Attalus drunkenly suggested that his niece‘s children would be more legitimate heirs than Alexander, since they would be fully Macedonian. Olympias and Alexander took great offense at this and went into self-imposed exile.
But Philip‘s favorites weren‘t just women. In keeping with Greek custom, he also had several younger male lovers. The most notable was Pausanias, one of his bodyguards. But their relationship ended badly after Philip took up with another youth, also named Pausanias. At the wedding banquet for Philip and Cleopatra, the first Pausanias was sexually assaulted by Attalus and other men. When Philip refused to punish Attalus to avoid alienating his new wife‘s family, Pausanias nursed a bitter grudge.
All these family and court tensions would soon erupt in spectacular fashion. In 336 BC, as Philip celebrated the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra to Alexander I of Epirus, Pausanias suddenly stabbed the king to death as he entered the theater. The assassin was killed on the spot, silencing the true motive and any co-conspirators. But ancient historians strongly suspect that Olympias and Alexander, newly returned from exile, had a hand in the plot to remove the main obstacles to Alexander‘s succession.
Alexander‘s Ascension and Legacy
With Philip‘s death, 20-year-old Alexander acted decisively to seize the throne before any challengers could. He had Attalus executed, and either killed or drove to suicide Cleopatra and her infant son. Olympias allegedly even had Cleopatra‘s daughter by Philip burned alive. Europe, luckily, was spared. Any other potential claimants like Arrhidaeus were sidelined. Through this bloody purge, Alexander secured his position.
Over the next 13 years, Alexander would exceed even his father‘s achievements by conquering the mighty Persian Empire. He founded new cities, expanded into India, and spread Greek culture further than ever before. But like Philip, his personal life was turbulent. He too married several foreign princesses like Roxana of Bactria for political reasons. And his closest companions were two rumored male lovers – his boyhood friend Hephaestion and the Persian eunuch Bagoas.
Compared to Philip though, the surviving records suggest Alexander was relatively restrained sexually, with a smaller circle of partners. Perhaps he had learned from the dangerous instability that Philip‘s rampant polygamy unleashed.
Conclusion
The story of Philip II is often overshadowed by Alexander‘s, but his legacy of military innovation, empire-building, and personal scandals profoundly shaped both his son‘s career and the course of Western history. Philip‘s sexual adventurism, while bringing short-term political gains, also sowed the seeds of his dynasty‘s downfall. This is most clearly seen in his assassination at the hands of a spurned lover and in the vicious infighting it sparked between his polygamous offspring and their mothers.
By sleeping with and marrying a wide range of women, and taking male lovers according to Greek mores, Philip expanded his regional influence but also made a deadly rod for his own back. His unresolved succession and relatives‘ rivalries would haunt the Macedonian Empire even after Alexander‘s own premature death, as his generals carved up the realm into warring factions.
So while Philip‘s sexual escapades can seem remote and titillating to us now, they were in fact pivotal factors in the rise and fall of the ancient world‘s greatest empire. As the Macedonian king‘s own murder shows, the personal was very much political in antiquity. And in Philip‘s case, the bedroom was just as key a battlefield as any he fought on.
