Philip III of Macedon

Philip III Arrhidaeus (Φίλιππος Γ΄ ὁ Ἀρριδαῖος; c. 359 BC – December 25, 317 BC) was a Greek king of Macedon from after June 11, 323 BC until his death. He was a son of King Philip II of Macedonia by Philinna of Larissa and a half-brother of Alexander the Great. Named Arrhidaeus at birth, he assumed the name Philip when he ascended to the throne.

As Arrhidaeus grew older it became apparent that he had mild learning difficulties. In Plutarch's report, he became disabled by means of an attempt on his life by Philip II's wife, Queen Olympias – who wanted to eliminate a possible rival to her son Alexander – through the employment of pharmaka (drugs/spells); however, this claim is considered by most modern authorities as unlikely to be true. Alexander was fond of him and took him on his campaigns, both to protect his life and to ensure he would not be used as a pawn in a challenge for the throne. After Alexander's death in Babylon, Arrhidaeus was proclaimed king by the Macedonian army in Asia; however, he was a mere figurehead, and a pawn of the powerful generals, one after the other. The crater Ariadaeus on the Moon is named after him.

Biography
Even though Arrhidaeus and Alexander were about the same age, Arrhidaeus appears never to have been a danger as an alternative choice for Alexander's succession to Philip II; nevertheless, when the Persian satrap of Caria, Pixodarus, proposed his daughter in marriage to Philip, the king declined, offering his son Arrhidaeus as husband instead, and Alexander thought it prudent to block the dynastic union (which might have produced a possible future heir to Philip's domain before Alexander himself did), resulting in considerable irritation on the part of his father (337 BC). Arrhidaeus' whereabouts under the reign of his brother Alexander are unclear from the extant sources; what is certain is that no civil or military command was given him in those thirteen years (336–323 BC).

He was at Babylon at the time of Alexander's death, the 11th of June 323 BC. A succession crisis erupted: Arrhidaeus was the most obvious candidate, but he was mentally unfit to rule. A conflict exploded between Perdiccas, leader of the cavalry, and Meleager, who commanded the phalanx: the first wanted to wait to see if Roxana, Alexander's pregnant wife, would deliver a male baby, while the second objected that Arrhidaeus was the closest relative living and so should be chosen king. Meleager was killed, and a compromise was engineered: Arrhidaeus would become king with the name of Philip, and he would be joined by Roxana's yet-unborn child as co-sovereign should that child prove a male (an eventuality that indeed arose, and resulted in the son, Alexander, being joined with his uncle Phillip III as co-sovereign on the throne of Macedon). It was immediately decided that Philip Arrhidaeus would reign, but not rule: this was to be the prerogative of the new regent, Perdiccas.

When news arrived in Macedonia that Arrhidaeus had been chosen as king, Cynane, a daughter of Philip II, matured a design to travel to Asia and offer the new king her daughter Eurydice for wife. This move was an obvious affront to the regent, whom Cynane had completely bypassed, and to prevent the marriage, Perdiccas sent his brother, Alcetas, to kill Cynane; the reaction among the troops generated by this murder was such that the regent had to give up his opposition to the proposed match and accept the marriage. From that moment on, Philip Arrhidaeus was to be under the sway of his bride, a proud and determined woman bent on substantiating her husband's power.

Eurydice's chance came when the first war of the Diadochi sealed the fate of Perdiccas, making a new settlement necessary; a settlement that was made at Triparadisus in Syria in 320 BC. Eurydice moved deftly enough to obtain the removal of the first two designed regents, Peithon and Arrhidaeus, but was powerless to block the aspirations of Antipater, whose position proved too powerful, and the latter was made the new regent; Philip Arrhidaeus and his wife were forced to follow him to Macedonia.

The regent died of natural causes the following year, nominating as his successor not his son Cassander, but his friend and lieutenant, Polyperchon. Cassander's refusal to accept his father's decision sparked the Second War of the Diadochi, in which Eurydice saw once again a chance to free Philip from the control of the regent. An opportunity presented itself in 317 BC when Cassander expelled Polyperchon from Macedonia: Eurydice immediately allied herself with Cassander and induced her husband to nominate him as the new regent; Cassander reciprocated by leaving her in full control of the country when he left to campaign in Greece.

But all this was to prove exceedingly volatile: that same year (317) Polyperchon and Olympias, allied with her cousin, Aeacides, king of Epirus, invaded Macedonia. The Macedonian troops refused to fight Olympias, the mother of Alexander. Philip and Eurydice had no choice but to escape, only to be captured at Amphipolis and thrown into prison. It soon became clear that Philip was too dangerous to be left alive, as Olympias' many enemies saw him as a useful tool against her, and so on December 25, 317 BC, she had him executed, while his wife was forced to commit suicide.

Tomb


In 1977 important excavations were made near Vergina leading to the discovery of a two-chambered royal tomb, with an almost perfectly preserved male skeleton. Manolis Andronikos, the chief archaeologist on the ground, along with the majority of archaeologists, decided it was the skeleton of Philip II, but many have disputed this attribution and instead proposed it to be the remains of Philip Arrhidaeus.

Arrhidaeus in fiction
He appears as one of the main characters in the novel Funeral Games by Mary Renault. In Renault's version, the villainous Cassander slows down his advance on Macedonia to give Olympias enough time to kill Arrhidaeus and Eurydice.

Arrhidaeus is also a main character in Annabel Lyon's novel The Golden Mean. In it, the young Arrhidaeus is tutored by Aristotle while he also mentors his younger half-brother, the future Alexander the Great. Alexander, who is initially disgusted with his brother's inferior intellect, learns to love him before he sets out to conquer the world.