#arrhidaios

[jeannereames]

I have fallen into Philip and Pausanias drama love, tried looking but couldn't find asks about this but so sorry if you have answered these before!

1) I was confused by Pausanias being a bodyguard of Philip but not part of "the seven". Did I misunderstood 7 bodyguards being the closest people to the king? Or was the difference 7 being with the king in battle? If Philip wanted to calm Pausanias down by promoting him, wouldn't making him a "lower-ranking" bodyguard(?) be a slap to his ego?

2) Learned about Philip III Arrhidaeus through you, thank you! Do we have any details about how was he? Like something that could hint did it sound more like learning disability/neurodivergency or was it mental illness like schizophrenia or something like that?

The Macedonian Royal Bodyguard

The problem is the use of the word bodyguard (somatophylax) for two different units.

One of these is the “Big Seven”: the guys who attended the king. We usually distinguish them by capping the /s/: Somatophylakes. That is not a low-ranking anything. In fact, it’s too high-ranking for (young) Pausanias, even if he were related to the king of Orestis. These were not an ancient Macedonian Secret Service. They’re Macedonian noblemen who controlled access to the king and were often unit commanders in their own right. They’re not themselves a battle unit. (There are only 7 of them, after all.)

But the Hypaspists are also called the “bodyguard” (somatophylakes, small /s/) in combat because especially the agema (royal) unit guarded the king in battle.* To make it even MORE confusing, under Philip, these guys appear to have been called the Pezhetairoi. Alexander then transferred that term to all the foot (pezes) in the Sarissa phalanges, and named the special unit Hypaspists (Shieldbearers) instead.

So Pausanias was not anywhere near important enough to be one of the Seven. Those guys were among the highest of the high. Alexander wasn’t even able to put Hephaistion in their ranks until sometime after the Philotas affair…and Ptolemy (not Hephaistion) got the slot left empty by Demetrios’s execution. Why? Ptolemy’s family was (apparently) more important.

Pausanias was likely moved by Philip into the agema of the Pezhetairoi/Hypaspists. That was the unit he ought to have been in, in the first place, if he hadn’t been disciplined and demoted for having bullied a boy to death. I don’t know if you’ve read Dancing with the Lion, but I discuss the whole Pausanias incident there (and what I think actually happened). The precipitating event is in book 1, Becoming, and the rest of it near the end of book 2, Rise. As one of the Hypaspists from the agema, he was probably among the soldiers who would have been near the king, if not right next to him, during Philip’s final parade. Philip famously told his Bodyguard (the Seven) not to accompany him that morning. But it was a military parade and there would certainly have been a variety of soldiers nearby if not right next to him. We don’t know exactly what things looked like, but I took a stab at describing it in the last chapter of Rise, and where Pausanias might have been located. It’s pure speculation, as Diodoros doesn’t tell us precisely, but it’s educated speculation. Ha. A while back, someone asked me if I’d rewrite that final scene from Hephaistion’s POV, and that is available on my website. You don’t get the blow-by-blow of it from Alexander’s view (that’s in the novel), but it’s linked HERE.

I’ve done both a Tumblr entry and also a YouTube video on offices at the court:

Traditional Offices at the Macedonian Court (Tumblr, 2020)

Offices at the Macedonian Court (YouTube, 2025)

Also, Carol King has written about Alexander’s Somatophylakes at some length in Brill’s Companion to Bodyguards in the Ancient Mediterranean: “Guarding the Macedonian King: Royal Servitude, Political Jockeying, and Regicide.” Brill is absurdly expensive. If you’d like a copy, I’d suggest just emailing her directly and asking if she’d send you a PDF for your personal scholarship. (King is the author of the 2010 Ancient Macedonia, btw.)

As for Arrhidaios, Alexander’s brother, I did this entry on him back in 2021. It gives about all we know about him:

Arrhidaios

Hope that helps to clarify a bit.

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(* One complicating factor in this is the fact that ancient Greek did not have lower-case; everything was in capitals. That really obscures when a term that had both a common and a “titular” meaning is being used as a title, not a simple noun. And the reverse.)

[charlenefrl]

Alekos of nowhere, prince of nothing

“How do I look?” Kleitos smiles, teeth white in the midst of his black beard. “Fantastic,” he answers. “And to my brother,” I ask, “how will I look?” “Not fantastic, I guess,” my almost-uncle jokes. “You look like war.”

This short fic was initially posted on AO3! I have a lot of thoughts about the relationship between Arrhidaios and other members of his family, which usually don't fit into my main novel.

Under the cut: Alexandros and Arrhidaios after the battle of the Granicus.

Note: The scene takes place soon after Alexander crossed to Asia, right after the battle of the Granicus. While we don't get to see the battle in this fic, I picture it like Steven Pressfield did in his book The Virtues of War, in which every Persian that matters tried to have a go at killing Alexander.

***

The field parts for my horse. Boukephalas, my black monster, wide chested, covered in blood, sweat and dust.

A field of soldiers. Men packed as close as barley before the reaping. My men, cheering, their hands reaching out to touch my blood-soaked clothes and my armor. One shoulder piece is hanging at an odd angle, half cut from the rest by a sword slash to the chest; the crest, on my helmet, has been shaved by another. Their fingers brush against my thigh, soiled red by my own blood.

Red, red, red everywhere, and their voices deafen me.

I let Boukephalas carry me. He doesn’t prance, my brave companion; he’s too spent for that after the battle we had, and cut from half a dozen light cuts.

Victory.

My first battle against the Persians. Mine, no one will deny it. I listened to my officers and they fought well, but it’s my body throbbing from the hit of a mace, my blood that has dried in dark rivulets along my spear arm. I am the king, I made no secret of it – to me they rode, the magnificent lords of Persia, dozens of them rushing at me. Kill the king and the battle is done. Duel after duel I fought, friends falling all around me, friends saving me at every heartbeat.

Kill the king.

Praise the king.

And I think: father, are you proud? I am one step further to avenge you, one step further toward the throne room, that throne room of the King of kings where one can fit the whole palace of Pella.

Dark clouds above. I raise my eyes to the skies. I dream of rain, to clean the blood sticking to my face. Father, I think again, though this time it is not my mortal father I think of. Are you pleased? Am I worthy at least of the divine blood rushing in my veins?

 I am lightheaded, riding through a sea of hands and faces alight with savage happiness.

***

I reach the center of my camp.

I am a sack, a heavy sack full of blood and bones and flesh. I am so tired it takes Hephaistion and Kleitos both to help me slide down Boukephalas. My legs don’t carry me; what mad energy spurred me forward, forward, forward has deserted me. Have I lost too much blood? Ares clothed me in bloody purple. How much of it is mine?

I walk into my tent, weighting on my most trusted companion and the man I love like an uncle. There I crash in a chair and then fumble with the strap of my helmet. Fingers (not mine) untie all one can untie to get me out of my armor. Servants flock, like gulls on the corpses of dead fishes.

“How do I look?”

Kleitos smiles, teeth white in the midst of his black beard.

“Fantastic,” he answers.

“And to my brother,” I ask, “how will I look?”

“Not fantastic, I guess,” my almost-uncle jokes. “You look like war.”

Yes.

That is because, I am war. I am born for it, am I not, Father Zeus? You could have chosen a philosopher or an artist, but no: you made me as the son of Philippos. Tell me, do you like your new sword, now that you have abandoned your last one, broken and dead and betrayed at the very door of Asia?

I smile, and I feel empty.

I let the servants clean my skin. I am war, but there are places I will not go bearing the face of Ares. It is enough that the cuts remain on my spear arm, on my thighs, enough that my skin is turning into thunderous shades of purple.

“Enough,” I order.

I won’t get more presentable than this. Someone presents me with a cup full of kykeon – thick wine mixed with barley, honey and spices. I swallow the mixture with a grimace. I need the energy; the black juice of the grapes is so strong, despite everything else, that warmth shoots straight to my head.

I push the cup away.

“Tell my brother he may see me now.”

***

I am half naked when Arrhidaios is led into my tent, my physician checking my wounds. I wish I could hide the battlefield of my body from my brother – but that would be denying his bravery, and I will not take it away from him.

Arrhidaios doesn’t hide. He doesn’t know how, and this is why my father protected him with secrecy – why he made me swear, long before his death, that I would always stand between my brother and the world.

Arrhidaios doesn’t hide. Horror and fear and sadness shape his plump face. The face of Philippos of Makedon, rounder because of the layer of fat, and with eyes like windows baring his soul. It is always strange to see my father’s face with such innocence and openness. To see this face shocked by violence, shocked by my wounds.

But then, I remember, a long time ago, Arrhidaios begging our father to stay home. I don’t like it when you go to war, Pappas, please, war is dangerous, why do you keep going to war?

“I am well,” I greet him, to keep the tears out of his eyes. “Arrhi, dear, I am well.”

His huge steps swallow the space between us. Arrhidaios is the biggest man in our family. Tall, wide, he can make me disappear in the circle of his arms. Everything about him is soft. His belly, his chest, his arms. He is no warrior, travelling with my baggage train like a woman; I don’t care. I won’t tell anyone, and I can’t let him hug me like that too often, but I like that feeling of warmth.

In my world, everything is always sharp and tough, even Hephaistion; everything except my half-brother.

“You are bleeding,” he whimpers against my hair, sticky with sweat after hours under the helmet.

I nod and fall back into my chair. “Yes, but the physician says it’s nothing dire. Would you mind…”

“Yes, yes of course, Alekos.”

I smile a tired smile. People say Arrhidaios is dumb. Half-witted fool, they snicker behind my back. They should see him now. My brother is not bright, this is true. His mind is not a burning flame jumping from one thing to the other, like mine was when I was a child. It is more like an ox.

Moving slowly, but moving somewhere.

I wait as Arrhidaios prepares his tools. He absently hums a wordless song, an Illyrian song no one in the family knows the lyrics of. My grandmother sang it, a long time ago, to children who didn’t speak her language.

My brother is a healer. Not a very good one, granted. He has a good memory but slow hands. When he doesn’t hum, he repeats under his breath all the instructions he learnt by heart, from the books I sent him from Mieza, and then from the teachers my father paid for him when Arrhidaios asked for them. Whatever he wanted, my father always paid for – painting and sculpting lessons, toys, singing birds and a loom, music instruments and pet rabbits.

Today, none of my wounds require much competence. I lay back in my chair as Arrhidaios takes his time sewing one cut shut, applies salves and wraps bandages around me. He is slow, yes, but one would be hard pressed to find a kinder hand.

You look like war, Kleitos said.

Yes. I am war, and to most people, that is all I will ever be.

But to Arrhidaios?

“I don’t like when you fight,” he says, quiet and sad, taking my scared hand in his, soft, so soft. “I don’t like it when so many people want to harm you.”

He doesn’t ask me not to go. He asked Philippos so many times, and our father never listened; but then, why should I? The men of our family rarely die on the battlefield. It’s assassination I must fear, not fellow warriors rushing at me with their eyes full of Ares.

“I know. But don’t worry, we have them running. No one is going to try for a while now. We’ll be going down the coast to our fellow Hellenes cities. We’ll go to the theater together, would you like that?”

“Only if it’s a comedy,” Arrhidaios answers. “I don’t like to see you cry.”

I chuckle. “The tears the tragedies get from us are good tears.”

“Still tears,” he mumbles. “I want you to laugh, Alekos.”

“You are kind, but I do laugh, dear.”

“No,” he rebukes me. “Your eyes are always sad. It’s not a real laugh if your eyes remain sad.” He squeezes my hand. “Comedies. I want them funny and I want you to be happy.”

“Fine. Comedies, then. Comedies in every city we’ll visit, just for my dearest brother, and songs and jugglers. Hymns to happiness and spring and love.”

“Thank you,” he says, and then he rewards me with a very inappropriate bear hug. “I love you Alekos.”

And I love you too, dear. Because of all the men that follow me now, he is the only one who wants nothing from me. No glory, no loot, no power, no women, no honors.

Just I, Alekos of nowhere, prince of nothing.

[jeannereames]

How important was it, really, that Alexander didn't have more brothers? He had Karanos, and it there's the gossip that ATG or his mother killed the boy. Philip Arridhaios apparently wasn't seen as a direct challenge and ATG kept him around. But if Philip had more healthy male offspring around Alexander's age, would that have threatened his hold on power, the partition of the empire or even the military campaigns themselves (the brothers becoming generals for example)?

Philip’s (Lack of) Sons

So, first I need to correct the bit about Karanos. He didn’t exist. Justin gave baby Europē a sex-change. No historian reports two children for Kleopatra Eurydikē, and Justin alone names a boy. We get two children when modern historians try to reconcile Justin and Diodoros/others. But Justin gets things wrong a lot. So, where Justin disagrees with other historians, I’ll go with the others (especially if it’s more than one). Justin wasn’t simply epitomizing Pompeius Trogus; he had his own agendas and themes, so he changed things when it suited him.

Therefore, “Karanos” = Europē,* born just a few days (maybe a week or two) before Philip’s murder.

The wives and children of Philip are reported in a fragment from Satyrus preserved in Athenaeus (13.557b-c). Of his (living) children, we have four girls (Kynannē, Kleopatra, Thessalonikē, and Europē), and only two boys (Arrhidaios and Alexander).

I specify living because ancient accounts don’t usually list children who died young unless it somehow impacted events. So, the murder of Europē, which led to the suicide of Kleopatra Eurydikē, means Europē got a mention whereas if she’d died of some childhood disease, we’d probably not hear about her.

Ergo, it’s possible Philip did sire other children who simply didn’t survive long enough to make it into the histories—especially if they’d been born (and died) in his earlier years. In Dancing with the Lion, I invented a son (Menelaos) by the shadowy Phila of Elimeia, who died young, specifically to illustrate that point.

The two-to-four ratio of boys to girls suggests Philip fathered girls more than boys. Would more boys have endangered Alexander’s place? Certainly, if they were around his age. But not if they were notably younger—another point I make in Dancing with the Lion: why Alexander is less upset by Philip’s seventh marriage than his mother. The chance that Kleopatra Eurydike might bear a male child threatened Olympias’s position far more than Alexander’s. Even some of my colleagues seem to forget that. While yes, sons and mothers did form a political unit at polygamous courts, that doesn’t mean that threats to the mother’s status necessarily entailed threats to a son’s. Philip’s marriage to Kleopatra Eurydikē was just such a case. Any son she produced would’ve been so far behind Alexander in achievements (and thus, a shot at the throne), that the marriage was no threat—which is why he attended the wedding. That makes events at the wedding very curious indeed! And convinces me that we don’t even begin to have the whole story there.

I made up some things in Rise (no spoilers), precisely because we don’t know and I had to come up with something that didn’t make Alexander into a reactionary rube. Too often people point to him as a “hotheaded youth” who made a mountain out of a molehill at his mother’s instigation. Folks, he was eighteen or nineteen. Hotheaded (always), but not some little kid to jump at shadows and Mommy’s tales. Something truly threatening generated that level of reaction from him (and beyond what Diodoros relates at the wedding). It wasn’t fear of being replaced by an as-yet-not-even-conceived infant brother--unless Philip had other reasons to replace him, and there weren’t any … on the face of it.

Anyway, I want to end by pointing to the Big Pink Elephant in the room that way too many people seem to forget….

AMYNTAS PERDIKKA was Alexander’s chief rival, not Arrhidaios or a fictional infant brother. Amyntas was older than Alexander, the only son of Philip’s older brother Perdikkas (III), who’d been king before Philip. Amyntas didn’t become king when his father died in battle precisely because he was only about a year old, while Philip was c. 23/24, and the kingdom was in crisis. Being a baby was also why Philip didn’t kill him. He needed an heir until he could father his own.**

So despite being the eldest Argead after Philip and the legitimate son of a former king, Amyntas spent his life as “the spare.” Imagine the resentment that would have generated. It’s not an accident that Alexander had him killed inside six months of taking the throne. And it’s probably in that time frame that Amyntas would’ve staged a bid for the throne himself. After all, not only was he an Argead, with military experience, he was married to Philip’s eldest child, who was already pregnant, showing he was fertile. He had a really good claim.

Such a clearing out of competing Argeads was standard for any new king’s first year or so. It’s what whittled down available Argead males from the five sons (and progeny) of Alexandros I to just three at Philip’s death, a hundred years later: Amyntas, Alexander, and Arrhidaios. Alexander wasn’t unique in house-cleaning. Philip had killed various collateral Argeads upon taking the throne, keeping only Amyntas, his nephew.

So basically, given Argead patterns, the survival of male siblings/cousins depended on a couple things:

The age of the sibling(s)/cousins. Siblings and half-siblings who were notably younger were likely to be spared if they didn’t appear to offer an immediate threat. After all, the new king needed an heir until he could father his own.

The apparent competence of the sibling(s)/cousins. Arrhidaios is our best evidence for this: Alexander took him with him to Asia to keep an eye on him—prevent his use as a stooge in a coup—but he otherwise kept him alive.

The king’s personal relationship with the sibling(s)/cousins. This is obviously very hard to determine, as our sources may not tell us, or not tell us honestly, but even if it’s hard, that doesn’t mean we should neglect it as a possible motivating factor. It may, in fact, explain why Alexander II (Philip’s older brother) didn’t kill his siblings. He may have loved them (and them, him). While we can’t say from the evidence, we also shouldn’t dismiss that as a possible motivating factor.

Here's an earlier posts about Amyntas, btw.

AMYNTAS PERDIKKA

* The names themselves are a give-away. “Europē,” like “Thessalonikē” was bestowed in celebration of Philip’s military victories. By contrast, “Karanos” (which means generic “chief”) isn’t a royal Macedonian name at all. Bill Greenwalt talks about the name’s significance in one of his articles, but I can’t now recall which.

** There is some question as to whether Amyntas was ever king, however briefly, due to a reference to an “Amyntas IV.” But many of us believe that was part of a challenge to Alexander later, not proof that Amyntas was king briefly, and Philip his regent.

[jeannereames]

Hello Dr. Reames! I'm having a hard Iliad brainrot this last mounth leading to an absurd fall into the Alexander the Great rabbithole and I was wondering, do we have any records or anything that Philip also took his others sons on the roads and/or battlefields with him, or was Alexander the only one?

Philip only had one other son, Arrhidaios, who was mentally infirm. So it's unlikely he went into battle. Alexander didn't take him into battle either.

That said, if Polyaenus can be believed, Philip DID take his warrior daughter, Kynanna, into combat, at least when fighting Illyrians. Polyaenus tells us that she did single combat with and Illyrian queen and beat her. This could be later invention--at least about the winning in combat part--but we know Illyrian women fought and that Audata, Philip's first (or second) wife trained her daughter--that same Kynanna--in military matters, as Kynanna in turn trained HER daughter, Hadea Eurydike. Eurydike turned up at least once dressed in armor at the head of her Macedonian army, when she faced off with Olympias leading Epirote troops.

Also, when Perdikkas's brother, Alketas, murdered Kynanna in order to prevent her from marrying Hadea (Eurydike) to Arrhiadaios, the army stepped in and forced Alketas to allow the marriage anyway. The text doesn't stay, but it may have been out of their respect for Kynanna, beside whom they'd fought in the past.

[jeannereames]

Can you tell us more of Alexanders brother Arrhidaeos ?

Arrhidaios

I will admit up front that much information about Philip III Arrhidaios belongs to the very early Hellenistic Era in the immediate aftermath of Alexander’s death…

…which extends beyond the period I know well. I can tell you more of the reign of Alexander I (in the Persian Wars down to c. 450ish) than what immediately followed the reign of Alexander III (e.g, the Great).

So I’ll just put that out there.

Yet as the asker named Arrhidaios (not Philip III), I assume them more interested in his life while Alexander was alive.

First, there’s real question as to the order of birth. Common consensus now says Arrhidaios was slightly older than Alexander: a year or two. Remember, Philip married his first five wives in his first five or so years. Their order is debated, but not for Arrhidaios’s mother.

Audata (#1…or #2)…mother of Kynnane

Phila (#2…or #1)

Philinna #3…mother of Arrhidaios

Nikesepolis (#4…or #5)…mother of Thessalonike (but after Kleopatra)

Olympias (#5…or #4)…mother of Alexander and Kleopatra

Meda #6

Kleopatra Eurydike #7…mother of Europa

My best guess, as I portrayed him in Dancing with the Lion, makes Arrhidaios about a year older than Alexander.

Nowhere in Greece was “primogeniture” (inheritance by the eldest male) fixed. There might be a slight favor for it in Macedon, but other matters such as status of the mother or health of the child (and his ability) also figured. Remember, Macedonia practiced royal polygamy at least back to Perdikkas II, and probably earlier. Most prior kings married 2 or 3 wives, for political reasons. Philip married 7 times. (!!)

He had four daughters, but only two living boys. Ad only one of those was mentally viable.

Let me remind folks, infant mortality was high. These probably weren’t Phil’s only kids. In Dancing with the Lion, I gave Phila a boy who didn’t make it to adolescence (Menelaos), dead of malaria, and Nikesepolis had other miscarriages before Thessalonike (not much mentioned). This was fictional, but meant to underscore that the Greeks rarely record children who died young (without a good reason).

So, that said…WE HAVE NO IDEA what was wrong with Arrhidaios. Many theories have been advanced, but all we know from the sources is that he had some mental defect which showed up after his first year or so. How severe, we don’t know. Severe enough he was never in contention for the throne. Alexander’s REAL rival was always his elder cousin Amyntas (son of Perdikkas III, Philip’s older brother).

Plutarch is the one who suggests Olympias poisoned Arrhidaios with her pharmaka, which can be medicine OR poison/witchery. Plutarch hated Olympias. Yet the reference to pharmaka is why I made her a healer in Dancing with the Lion! Women “healers” and midwives were often looked at askance and conflated with witchery.

Olympias was ruthless, and all about securing the throne for her son, So if she did have medical knowledge, it would have included dangerous herbs. She could have done it. Even so, I want to emphasize this wouldn’t be because Olympias was a snaky, awful bitch who hated babies. Had she done so, it would ENTIRELY have owed to securing HER son’s inheritance.

Don’t fall prey to the misogynistic Greek male narrative about women.

Yet I remain unconvinced she had anything to do with it, so didn’t follow that thread in my novels.

The texts say Arrhidaios was born “normal,” but evinced issues as a toddler. As we know today, developmental delays may not manifest until after the first year, when a baby is expected to start walking and talking.

He was not so incapacitated that he couldn’t be considered as a king after Alexander’s death. Yet Kynanne (Philip’s eldest child) brought her OWN daughter (by Amyntas, their cousin)—Hadea Eurydike—to marry him. Hadea was a teen of marriageable age, while her uncle, Arrhidaios, was by then about 35-ish? So less than half his age. Nonetheless, it seems clear she wore the pants. And that’s why Kynanne wanted to make the marriage. She knew H. Eurydike would be the real power on the throne. And Kassandros apparently supported them because he knew HE could be the power behind both.

Olympias supported Alex IV, which led to the great confrontation of armies from Epiros (Olympias) and Macedon (Eurydike-Philip III) in 317/(16) that resulted in the Macedonians defecting to Olympias and taking the royal pair captive. Olympias then killed them and refused to bury them (SUPER insulting/impiety). Eventually Olympias would be pinned down in Pydna and killed, where Kassandros would collect Thessalonike and hold a shot-gun wedding to give his rule legitimacy. Also, he captured Alex IV and Roxanne, held them captive, and eventually killed Alex IV c. 309, when Alex was about 14 and should be able to assume rule. Yeah, Kassandros couldn’t let that happen.

That encompasses the major beats of Arrhidaios’s life. We really don’t know a lot more. Alexander seems to have brought him along to Asia because leaving him behind could give his enemies a puppet to use against him. So even if Alexander didn’t give a damn about his brother, he had to secure him.

Yet I get a sense he also did it to protect him. He could have eliminated Arrhidaios at some point in Asia—had him disappear. He didn’t. Yes, he was a spare Argead male, but he doesn’t appear to have been even considered as king until Alexander’s unexpected death. If ATG wasn’t in a hurry to pop out Argead babies to fill the “heir” bill, why worry about keeping Arrhidaios alive just to be A Spare?

So often, I’ve seen developmentally normal siblings assume special care of developmentally delayed ones that I wanted to seize on that for Dancing with the Lion. Alexander genuinely loves Arrhidaios, protecting him from their father as he can, and after Philip’s death, he’ll continue to do so. Sure, he doesn’t want his enemies to seize on his brother as a puppet…but largely because he doesn’t want to see Arrhidaios abused. He brings him to Asia to protect him, not just to nullify him as a potential rival.

In my novels, I decided to go with frequent, early epileptic seizures that affected Arrhidaios’s mind while an infant. That choice explains why he was born “normal,” but experienced mental delays later. Yet it’s only one of a wide variety of possibilities.

And again, I want to stress that we really have no idea what he suffered, or exactly how mentally incapacitated he was. I expect he could engage socially, and take care of regular hygiene and basic self-care, but was unable to make significant decisions or exercise complicated judgement. So yes, Hadea Eurydike would effectively have been king—probably not outside Illyrian norms, but certainly outside Macedonian.

[jeannereames]

Hi Dr Reames Do you think Alexander newer had his brother killed because he loved him ?

Hard to know, but I suspect he did care for him. I expect they were raised together, and would have fought and played like any set of brothers (they would have been close in age). Arrhidaios was no threat to Alexander, which was probably obvious from a young age, so that would have tempered any potential hostility caused by politics. ATG (apparently) took Arrhidaios with him, on campaign, to prevent him being used by enemies against Alexander (and therefore possibly needing to be killed). That was shrewd politicking, but a lot of effort if he hadn't cared about his brother, I think.

[jeannereames]

You've spoken a little about what Arridhaios' child would have been like. It sounds very sad, but what would his life whilst Alexander was king, and in the Successor Wars, have been? What sort of character do you think he possessed?

He seems to have been under the authority of someone his entire life. Alexander took him with him, to Asia. First, he couldn’t risk leaving him in Macedon where a rival might have used him to try to usurp the throne. But I’d also like to think Alexander took decent care of him.

Similarly, we don’t have a lot of evidence about what his life was like under control of Perdikkas, or later, Kassandros. He was married to his niece (such marriages were normal, not incest by their reckoning). Whether it was consummated probably depended on his physical ability. Kynanne brought Hadea to marry him in order to secure her daughter’s future (and life). Perdikkas clearly didn’t want them married, as he sent his brother to kill Kynanne, and it was the army who insisted that the marriage go forward, in respect to Kynanne (which may, more than anything, speak to Kynanne’s status among the soldiers).

In any case, it seems that she wore the “pants” in the family, despite her youth, but both she and Arrhidaios would have been under Kassandros’s authority. Eventually, that set her in opposition to Olympias. We don’t know how much Arrhidaios understood about what was going on just because we have no idea what was actually wrong with him.

My suspicion is that his life was probably best under Alexander, rather than before or after, but that’s pure speculation.