The Murder of Cleopatra by Pat Brown Page A

father, Philip II, in 382 BCE, the Macedonians were considered backward and uncultured by the elite Greeks of Athens, Sparta, and Thebes. This kingdom to the south of Greece spoke a dialect of Greek considered low and unintelligible by their northern neighbors. They gave little credit to the region or recognized its strength until Philip took the Macedonian throne in 359 BCE. He was a king who had it all. He was brilliant, charming, and aggressive; and he could be both diplomatic and brutal. And he was the ultimate warrior. When such a man rises to the top, it is easy to understand why he was able to conquer his neighbors and seize complete control over vast amounts of land and build himself an empire.
    Philip II, however, had one great fault, which was to be his undoing. After he conquered nearly all the Greek kingdoms by 336 BCE and was heading off to take on the Persians, the greatest empire of the time, he managed to get himself assassinated by his own Macedonian enemies (which may have included his wife, Olympias, and their son, Alexander), having neglected to keep himself on theirgood side. Narcissism has been many a great man’s undoing. When he reaches a point where he believes himself to be the epitome of perfection, he often fails to see growing resentment among those he treats as lesser beings. We will later see that this self-centeredness was the undoing of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony as well.
    Just as Philip entered the theatre for a grand October celebration of Macedonian might and his own great achievements, one of his seven bodyguards suddenly stabbed the king in the chest. The other bodyguards killed the assassin quickly as he attempted to flee, so it is difficult to judge whether this was one disgruntled underling or if he was the sacrificial lamb for a bigger plot. However, since Alexander simply moved into his father’s position, there doesn’t seem to be any political incentive to assassinate Philip unless Alexander was becoming impatient to be in charge. There were rumors that his mother, Olympias, instigated the murder, but no one was going to push the issue since Alexander was already on the throne and no good would come of angering the new king. Since Alexander was present at the time of the assassination as well and was a witness the murder, the other possibility was that he was supposed to have been taken down with his father. That would have dramatically changed history. However, it seems a bit odd (to me at least) that the plot would be only half-enacted, unless the assassins were quite pitiful in the execution of the plan. But since father and son were supposed to be seated together and were not, maybe the plan went awry.
    One thing is for sure: the young Alexander learned from this incident (even if he was involved in his father’s death). Being king was a dangerous job, and he would have to be vigilant over the possibility that he could be next. His father wasn’t the only Macedonian leader to be eliminated by domestic rivals, hence the seven bodyguards Philip employed to protect him. But since, as quite often happens, it is one’s own men who do one in, Alexander learned that no one was to be entirely trusted—even one’s own child. Many a king and queen have been dispatched by their progeny in order for them to assume the throne. Such royal parents, whose own lusting for power brought themto the throne and kept them in power for any time at all, surely are role models for their sons and daughters, and their ruthlessness and narcissism is passed on to the next generation. Some great monarchs even refused to have children to avoid creating equally ambitious versions of themselves. Whether or not Alexander had any part in the demise of his father, the Macedonians were fortunate that this young man was as brilliant and militarily adept as his father when he became king at the age of twenty. In spite of his youth, he was far advanced for his years in wisdom and