Can I please ask you about the rise of Antipater and what justifies Philip's & Alexander's trust on him? His backstory seems very obscure for the immense power and senior position he achieved within Macedon & the royal house. Can I also question why he never tried to marry into the royal family all this time even though his son shamelessly vied for the throne?
Antipatros (Antipater), Son of Iolaos
Antipatros was regent across four reigns (Perdikkas III, Philip II, Alexander III, and Philip III Arrhidaios/Alexander V), and possibly five (Alexander II). That’s almost unheard of. So yes, his influence was massive.
Aside from being a statesman, he also wrote a history about the reign of Perdikkas III (Philip’s older brother), and two books of letters, some of which were to Aristotle, his close friend. He acted as executor for Aristotle’s will after the latter’s death in 323 (yes, same year as Alexander). He seems to have had an intellectual-philosophic bent and was almost twenty years older than Philip. There’s a funny story in Athenaeus (I believe), wherein Philip and Parmenion were playing a game of droughts. Yet when Antipatros entered the room, Philip shoved the gameboard under his chair—like a naughty boy. It seems Philip’s older brother Perdikkas had a more philosophical bent himself, which may have paired well with Antipatros—perhaps why Antipatros wrote a history about him (not Philip). If Philip certainly seems to have trusted Antipatros, he doesn’t seem to have been as close to him as to Parmenion.
If Waldemar Heckel is correct, Antipatros and Antigonos Monophthalmos were allies, and Parmenion was his/their adversary. As the allyship with Antigonos depends on ties in the Successor Wars, it’s unclear how far back it went however. Alexander’s death scrambled older partnerships. Eumenes was supposedly a friend of Krateros, but they fought on opposite sides, and it was Eumenes’s tricky tactics that got Krateros killed. That said, I can see Parmenion and Antipatros at political odds, being the two most prominent men at Philip’s court. And, of course, Antipatros famously clashed with Olympias, and with Eumenes (Philip’s, then Alexander’s secretary).
Antipatros had at least ten kids with (probably) more than one wife. Seven of those were boys, only three girls. Yet as I’ve frequently pointed out, girls are rarely mentioned unless they played a role in history, and all three we know of did: Phila, Nikaia, and (of course) Berenike of Egypt, one of Ptolemy’s wives. I’m betting on more girls we just don’t hear about. The unnamed wife of Alexander of Lynkestis might have been Nikaia or Berenike, but she could easily have been someone else entirely.
If Kassandros eventually became king, it doesn’t seem Antipatros was too fond of him. Given that Kassandros was younger than Alexander, but Antipatros notably older than Philip, we may wonder if most of his older kids were female. His father’s name was Iolaos, but Kassandros was supposedly his eldest son … which is odd, as in most cases, a man named his eldest son after his own father. If not hard-and-fast, it was extremely common. That Antipatros had a much younger son named Iolaos, this could suggest there was an older boy who died, either in war or disease—so Antipatros then named a new son Iolaos, leaving Kassandros as (now) eldest. Several of the daughters also seem to have been older than him.
Anyway, let’s go back to Antipatros’s own father, Iolaos. Given the naming patterns, I want to point out that an Iolaos was regent for Perdikkas II, back during the Peloponnesian War. That’s quite possibly Antipatros father, as Antipatros was born c. 400. (We happen to know his death year from the Marmor Parium: 319 BCE, at 81-ish. Image of the inscription below.)
We’ve good reason to suppose Antipatros was regent for Perdikkas III before Philip, so we may be looking at a family “dynasty,” of top advisors for the king. I’m skeptical that Alexander was ever truly worried about Antipatros’s loyalties, but if he was, that might be why: his family had been throne-adjacent so long, he thought it time he sat in it, especially if Alexander was off Great-Kinging it in Persia. Certainly, that family prestige seemed to drive Kassandros.
As for Antipatros not trying to marry into the family…we don’t know that he didn’t. I suspect one BIG reason Alexander didn’t marry before leaving Macedon is that both Antipatros and Parmenion had convenient daughters of an age to offer him a bride, and he was disinclined to be that much under either’s thumb.
Antipatros was a very capable general, if not quite on Krateros’s level—one reason he courted Krateros after Alexander’s death, offering him Phila, Balakros’s widow. (Balakros had been a satrap in Cilicia.) And of course, after Krateros died on the battlefield, Phila went on to marry Demetrious Poliorketes, so she became the “mother” of the Antigonid Dynasty.
Anyway, fun fact, Antipatros—despite his very “traditional” mindset—considered Phila exceptional and sought her advice in politics, as if a son. I suspect he’d have handed over the regency to her in a heartbeat, if that had been an option. Instead, he was stuck with Polyperchon … just the-hell-not Kassandros!
A quite interesting historical novel could be written from Antipatros’s point of view, covering the reign of four Macedonian kings, although from a purely European (not Asian) point-of-view. That, in itself, would make a fantastic way to differentiate such a novel from “all the others” (including mine). Not unlike The Shadow King by Harry Sidebottom about Alexander Lynkestis. I’ve not yet read that one, but I bought it and will at some point. I like new takes.
