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Heracles of Macedon ( Ancient Greek: Ἡρακλῆς; c. 327 – 309 BC) was a reputed illegitimate son of Alexander the Great of Macedon by Barsine, daughter of Satrap Artabazus of Phrygia. Heracles was named after the Greek mythological hero of the same name, from whom the Argeads claimed descent.
Jul 9, 2023 · Alexander had one and possibly even two children — both sons. One, known as Alexander IV, was his son with his wife Roxana. The other, known as "Heracles of Macedon," was his son with Barsine...
This chapter challenges the commonly held view that Alexander the Great’s emulation of Heracles was real, a notion based on a plethora of ancient material purporting to document a special relationship between the Macedonian king and the Greek hero.
In a fit of madness, induced by Hera, Heracles killed his children and Megara. After his madness had been cured with hellebore by Antikyreus, the founder of Antikyra, [34] he realized what he had done and fled to the Oracle of Delphi. Unbeknownst to him, the Oracle was guided by Hera.
- Overview
- The rise of Macedon
- Macedonian supremacy in Greece
In 359 two new strong rulers came to the throne, Artaxerxes III of Persia and Philip II of Macedon. The last decade of the long reign of Artaxerxes II had been blighted by revolts in the western half of his empire—at first sporadic, then concerted. Already in the late 370s Datames, the governor of Cappadocia, had established his independence. Then, by the middle of the decade, Ariobarzanes of Hellespontine Phrygia went into revolt, assisted by Timotheus of Athens and Agesilaus of Sparta. The last and greatest phase of the revolt was led by Orontes, described by the sources as satrap of Mysia. (Possibly an enclave in the Troy region of Anatolia, “Mysia” could, however, also be an error for “Armenia.” If so, the geographic spread of the insurrectionist satraps was still greater.) The other rebelling satraps were Mausolus of Caria (briefly) and Autophradates of Lydia. Some participation by local Greek cities in Anatolia is possible, though perhaps they merely followed the lead of their satrapal overlords; Athens and Sparta seem surreptitiously to have helped.
The aims of the revolt are a matter for speculation, but it looked serious for a long moment: a second and successful Cunaxa was a possibility. (One speculation sees the affair in dynastic terms: Orontes, who was well born, presented a greater danger to Artaxerxes than local men like Mausolus, whose ambitions were by definition limited. No one would follow a native Carian in an attempt on the kingship of Persia; it is significant that Mausolus returned to his allegiance so promptly.) At the date of Artaxerxes’ death in 359, the revolt was over, the traitors’ cause having been ruined by treachery among themselves. Despite setbacks, Artaxerxes II and the empire had weathered the Revolt of the Satraps.
The new king Artaxerxes III promptly ordered the satraps to dismiss their mercenary armies, thus preempting future trouble of the same sort. This was an early indication of the vigour with which he intended to rule and which was to regain Egypt for him.
In Macedon, Amyntas had eventually been succeeded by Perdiccas, the second of his sons by Eurydice. This happened in 365, after a turbulent five-year interval of two brief reigns, those of Alexander II and Ptolemy, and one intervention by a pretender, Pausanias. Perdiccas himself was killed in 359 in a catastrophic battle against the Illyrians, Macedon’s permanent enemies, and his younger brother Philip, the last of Amyntas’s sons by Eurydice, succeeded.
The achievements of Philip’s predecessors have naturally been overshadowed by his own, just as Philip’s were to be eclipsed by Alexander’s. To some extent the historical injustice is beyond redress, because the literary sources gave no systematic attention to Macedon until it was obvious that the activities of its kings were to be the determining factor in Greek history. That realization came later than 359, when Philip’s chances must have looked little better than those of his immediate predecessors; thus, there is not even proper information about Philip’s early consolidation of power.
Fortunately, Thucydides was specially interested in the north, for personal reasons, and he speaks with admiration of the way Archelaus had pulled Macedon together militarily in the last years of the 5th century. Regarding the culture, there is valuable evidence from Herodotus and from excavations, particularly those conducted in the 1970s and ’80s at Macedonian Verghina. The Macedonian kings of the 5th century were sufficiently Hellenized to compete in the Olympic Games (as Herodotus attests) and at the games for Argive Hera (as proved by a dedicated prize tripod found at Verghina). The poets Euripides and Agathon both moved to Macedon at the end of that century, and so evidently did first-rate Greek artists in the course of the next, judging from the paintings discovered in the Verghina tombs. In 1983 investigators discovered, again at Verghina, an inscription in extremely beautiful Greek lettering recording a dedication by Philip’s mother, “Eurydice daughter of Sirras,” which is further proof of the Hellenism of Macedon in this period.
In 359 two new strong rulers came to the throne, Artaxerxes III of Persia and Philip II of Macedon. The last decade of the long reign of Artaxerxes II had been blighted by revolts in the western half of his empire—at first sporadic, then concerted. Already in the late 370s Datames, the governor of Cappadocia, had established his independence. Then, by the middle of the decade, Ariobarzanes of Hellespontine Phrygia went into revolt, assisted by Timotheus of Athens and Agesilaus of Sparta. The last and greatest phase of the revolt was led by Orontes, described by the sources as satrap of Mysia. (Possibly an enclave in the Troy region of Anatolia, “Mysia” could, however, also be an error for “Armenia.” If so, the geographic spread of the insurrectionist satraps was still greater.) The other rebelling satraps were Mausolus of Caria (briefly) and Autophradates of Lydia. Some participation by local Greek cities in Anatolia is possible, though perhaps they merely followed the lead of their satrapal overlords; Athens and Sparta seem surreptitiously to have helped.
The aims of the revolt are a matter for speculation, but it looked serious for a long moment: a second and successful Cunaxa was a possibility. (One speculation sees the affair in dynastic terms: Orontes, who was well born, presented a greater danger to Artaxerxes than local men like Mausolus, whose ambitions were by definition limited. No one would follow a native Carian in an attempt on the kingship of Persia; it is significant that Mausolus returned to his allegiance so promptly.) At the date of Artaxerxes’ death in 359, the revolt was over, the traitors’ cause having been ruined by treachery among themselves. Despite setbacks, Artaxerxes II and the empire had weathered the Revolt of the Satraps.
The new king Artaxerxes III promptly ordered the satraps to dismiss their mercenary armies, thus preempting future trouble of the same sort. This was an early indication of the vigour with which he intended to rule and which was to regain Egypt for him.
In Macedon, Amyntas had eventually been succeeded by Perdiccas, the second of his sons by Eurydice. This happened in 365, after a turbulent five-year interval of two brief reigns, those of Alexander II and Ptolemy, and one intervention by a pretender, Pausanias. Perdiccas himself was killed in 359 in a catastrophic battle against the Illyrians, Macedon’s permanent enemies, and his younger brother Philip, the last of Amyntas’s sons by Eurydice, succeeded.
The achievements of Philip’s predecessors have naturally been overshadowed by his own, just as Philip’s were to be eclipsed by Alexander’s. To some extent the historical injustice is beyond redress, because the literary sources gave no systematic attention to Macedon until it was obvious that the activities of its kings were to be the determining factor in Greek history. That realization came later than 359, when Philip’s chances must have looked little better than those of his immediate predecessors; thus, there is not even proper information about Philip’s early consolidation of power.
Fortunately, Thucydides was specially interested in the north, for personal reasons, and he speaks with admiration of the way Archelaus had pulled Macedon together militarily in the last years of the 5th century. Regarding the culture, there is valuable evidence from Herodotus and from excavations, particularly those conducted in the 1970s and ’80s at Macedonian Verghina. The Macedonian kings of the 5th century were sufficiently Hellenized to compete in the Olympic Games (as Herodotus attests) and at the games for Argive Hera (as proved by a dedicated prize tripod found at Verghina). The poets Euripides and Agathon both moved to Macedon at the end of that century, and so evidently did first-rate Greek artists in the course of the next, judging from the paintings discovered in the Verghina tombs. In 1983 investigators discovered, again at Verghina, an inscription in extremely beautiful Greek lettering recording a dedication by Philip’s mother, “Eurydice daughter of Sirras,” which is further proof of the Hellenism of Macedon in this period.
In 353 Philip was in undisputed control of a much-enlarged Macedon. He was brought into Greece itself as a result of the Third Sacred War of 355–346. That war originated in a more or less gratuitous Theban attack on Phocis, which in 362 had refused to send a contingent for the Mantinea campaign. The time lag is to be explained in terms of power politics: the Thebans had suffered a reverse on Euboea in 357, when Theban ascendancy was suddenly and humiliatingly replaced by Athenian, and they were looking for a victim. Phocian behaviour offered an excuse. The Thebans, who since 364 had influence over the preponderance of votes in the Delphic Amphictyony, persuaded it to condemn Phocis (autumn 357) to a huge fine for the usual technical offense, “cultivation of sacred land.” The hope was that if, or rather when, Phocis was unable to pay, Thebes would be awarded the conduct of the ensuing Sacred War. It all went wrong. The Phocians seized the temple treasure in 356 and recruited a mercenary force of such size and efficiency that the Thebans could not defeat them. The Phocian leaders were Philomelus, followed by Onomarchus, Phayllus, and finally Phalaecus. The actual declaration of the Sacred War was delayed until 355, partly because it was only in that year that the relative impotence of one of Phocis’s hitherto most-impressive-looking allies, the Athenians, was revealed by the miserable end to the Social War in the Aegean.
After Philomelus’s death, Onomarchus formed alliances with the rulers of the Thessalian city of Pherae. Thessaly as a whole had been willing enough to declare war on Phocis in keeping with an enmity of immemorial antiquity already remarked on as long-standing by Herodotus in the context of the Persian Wars. Nonetheless, Thessalian unity on the one hand and Theban ability to influence events in Thessaly on the other were both less than complete, and Onomarchus evidently succeeded in exploiting this fluid situation. Yet another city, Larissa, responded by issuing an invitation that was ultimately to be disastrous to Greek, as well as merely to Thessalian, freedom. It called in Philip.
The immediate consequence, a victory for Onomarchus’s Phocians over Philip, his only defeat in the field, was totally unexpected. The Phocians seem to have had a “secret weapon,” in the form of nontorsion artillery. In the following year (352) that defeat was, however, completely reversed at the Battle of the Crocus Field. Philip, who had already perhaps been officially recognized as ruler of Thessaly before the Crocus Field, now took over Thessaly in the full sense, acquiring its ports and its revenues. A further asset was the Thessalian cavalry, which was used to augment Macedon’s own “companion cavalry” in the great battles of Alexander’s early years in Asia.
Southern Thessaly was the gateway to Greece proper, as Thermopylae had illustrated in 480 and the Spartans had recognized by their foundation of Heraclea in Trachis. A probe by Philip on Thermopylae itself was, however, firmly repelled by Athens. Philip could afford to wait and perhaps was obliged to do so by Thracian trouble closer to home (end of 352). When he laid siege to a place called Heraeum Teichos, Athens sent a small contingent in September 351. At some date not long before this, perhaps June 351, Demosthenes delivered his “First Philippic,” a denouncement of Philip and Macedonian imperialism. He decried the Athenian moves to counter Philip as always being too little and coming too late. He also urged the creation of a task force and larger emergency force. It is not clear how influential Demosthenes’ advice was—or how influential, at this stage, it deserved to be: at about the same time, and, perhaps actually after the “First Philippic,” Demosthenes was found advocating, in the “Speech on the Freedom of the Rhodians,” a foolish diversion of resources to the southeastern Aegean against the encroachments of Mausolus’s family. The situation there was, in fact, beyond repair.
In summer 349, with Etesian winds about to blow, Philip, despite the alliance of 356, attacked Olynthus, the centre of the Chalcidic Confederation. Olynthus turned to the only and obvious place for help, Athens. This was the occasion of the three “Olynthiac Orations” of Demosthenes. One of Demosthenes’ pleas was to make the reserves of the so-called Festival, or Theoric, Fund immediately available for military purposes—in fact, to finance an Olynthian expedition. There is no agreement that his stirring patriotism was correct from the point of view of policy; perhaps the decision to build up Athens’s financial resources slowly in preparation for the time when Philip had to be confronted nearer home was right. This unglamorous, though not actually dishonourable, policy is associated with the name of Eubulus, the Athenian leader of the pacifist party, whose caution helped to make possible the prosperous Athens of the time of the statesman and orator Lycurgus.
Olynthus fell in 348, despite the Athenian help that was eventually sent. Many of the inhabitants of the city were sold into slavery. Although Greek warfare always permitted this theoretically, the treatment of Olynthus was, nevertheless, shocking to Greek sentiment. In addition, there was no comfort for Athens from the events on its doorstep; Euboea, which Eubulus and his supporters agreed should always be defended, successfully revolted in 348.
- Simon Hornblower
Jan 23, 2023 · During Alexander the Great’s time, Heracles was worshipped throughout the kingdom of Macedonia as the god of bravery, military might, and physical excellence. He was also the guardian deity of the youth and hunters.
Worship of Zeus's son Heracles was also prominent; coins featuring Heracles appear from the 5th century BC onwards. This was in large part because the Argead kings of Macedon traced their lineage to Heracles, making sacrifices to him in the Macedonian capitals of Vergina and Pella.
