Keywords
Philip of Macedonia, Alexander the Great, ancient Greece, Vergina, tombs, history, military strategy, Greek culture, archaeology, underworld
Summary
This conversation explores the life and legacy of Philip of Macedonia, his military innovations, and the cultural significance of his tomb in Vergina. Anastasia Gietanou, a master tour guide, shares insights into Philip’s impact on Western history, the military strategies he employed, and the rituals surrounding death in ancient Greece. The discussion also delves into the rich mythology of the underworld and the importance of tombs as social and political statements in ancient society.
Takeaways
- Philip II’s reign significantly shaped Western history.
- His military innovations laid the groundwork for Alexander the Great.
- The Macedonian phalanx was a revolutionary battle technique.
- Philip II’s assassination was unexpected and dramatic.
- The tomb of Philip II in Vergina is a significant archaeological site.
- Tombs served as social and political statements in ancient Greece.
- Rituals surrounding death were complex and culturally rich.
- The underworld in Greek mythology was a place of shadows.
- Charon, the ferryman, required payment for passage to the underworld.
- Philip II’s legacy continues to influence Western civilization.
Sound Bites
“He was at the peak of his might.”
“The tomb of Philip II was a revelation.”
“The facade of the tomb resembled a temple.”
Timeline
00:00 – Introduction and overview of Philip of Macedonia
02:30 – Background on Macedonia and Philip II’s reign
05:15 – Interview with Anastasia Gietanou begins
06:45 – Philip II’s early life and military innovations
10:30 – Discussion of Philip’s military strategies and road-building
13:45 – Philip’s assassination at the theater in Aigai
17:30 – Introduction to Vergina and its royal tombs
20:00 – The significance of ancient tombs and burial practices
23:15 – Details about Philip II’s tomb and its treasures
26:30 – Discussion of Greek mythology and the journey to the underworld
29:45 – Closing remarks and summary
Transcript
1. Introduction to Philip of Macedonia (00:00)
Monique Skidmore: Today, we’re off to learn about a man who changed the course of world history. We’ll be traveling to Vergina, the birthplace of Philip of Macedonia. We’ll visit the tombs and the palace of Vergina, but we’ll also be taking a trip to the underworld. And that’s not something you get to do every day. When you think about tours in Northern Greece, there’s only one name that comes to mind, Anastasia Gietanou, a master tour guide who taught many of today’s generation of Greek tour guides. We’ll be talking to Anastasia about her fascination with Philip of Macedonia and her love of the antiquities of northern Greece.
2. The Rise of Ancient Macedonia (02:30)
Well off the main tourist track, away from the Greek islands, Athens and the Peloponnese are an astonishing number of well-preserved and picturesque historical and cultural sites. Northern Greece was once the mighty kingdom of Macedonia. Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Corinth, these were all great city-states of the pre-classical era. Macedonia was small potatoes compared to these cultural and military giants.
But then came a man, the archid King Philip II, who reigned from 359 BC to 336 BCE. It wasn’t a long life. He was assassinated having only reigned for 23 years. It’s written that Philip II subdued mainland Greece, which is quite an achievement given his 23-year reign. Unsurprisingly, Philip II didn’t manage to conquer all of Greece, but he did manage to father a child.
And his son, Alexander the Great, picked up where his dad left off and finished the job. Philip II managed to reform the army. He created a brilliant battle technique known as the Macedonian phalanx. And he was given the title Hegemon because he created a federation of Greek city-states called the League of Corinth. Before Philip II was assassinated, the League of Corinth was making plans to invade Persia. Macedonia was, for a little while then, the greatest empire in the world. And it led to a great flourishing and disseminating of Greek art, culture and philosophy. And that’s why Aristotle is so influential in Western culture. He was Alexander the Great’s tutor and his writings were therefore spread far and wide.
3. Philip II’s Life and Innovations (06:45)
Monique Skidmore: Anastasia, you’ve told me that you believe Philip II changed the course of Western history. Can you tell me why you believe him to be such a significant historical figure?
Anastasia: First of all, I believe that if he didn’t have Alexander the Great as his son, we would be talking about Philip the Great today. As you know, the son exceeded the father. Anyway, he prepared the way for Alexander the Great. I believe that he did not just simply change history, he created history and a large part of our identity in the Western world today goes back to him.
He was born in a time in which his kingdom was quite weak. At that point, he was the third son of the king. He was given as hostage to the reign of Thebes, not Thebes Egypt. And he stayed about 10 years there. So he had the opportunity of encountering a different mentality and also one of the most important generals and politicians of his time.
And he also saw a new weapon, because one of the main weapons that was used at that time was the spear. And the spear usually would be about 2.5 to 3 meters long. When he returned to Macedonia, he introduced that new weapon, but he had the idea of elongating it even further than that, up to six meters. It consisted out of two parts and you would slip one into the other and go to battle. They would use also the cavalry in a kind of wedge formation. And it was just an army that was invincible until the Romans.
He also realized that if you want your army to move fast and if you want trade to pick up in your kingdom, because trade means money as well, then you need good roads. And so he was the first one who really had very well constructed roads made. He also reorganized the economy and realized that if you want soldiers to fight well for you, you have to have happy soldiers to pay them well. He tried to reconcile the city-states of Greece and unite the Greeks, of course with him as king.
4. The Assassination at Aigai (13:45)
Anastasia: Let’s talk about his death as an assassin. He was at the peak of his might. He was so mighty and strong that nobody really believed at that time that there could be an attempt against him, that he could die. That’s why there was no tomb ready, there was nothing. So he went to Epirus.
One of his wives, because he got married many times, and maybe the most famous one, Olympias, was the mother of Alexander the Great. She was a princess of Epirus. And Philip married many times also out of political reasons, to reconcile and have allies. So anyway, he wanted to have his daughter Cleopatra get married to the brother of Olympias. The prince of Epirus would become king.
So it was again a political marriage and the wedding would take place in the old capital of the Macedonian kingdom. The name of the old capital was Aigai. That is written A-I-G-A-I. And we know from the descriptions that we have that they all gathered in the theater of the city.
So they gathered there and we know that 12 young men, unarmed, dressed in white, got into the theatre holding 12 golden statues of the 12 gods of Mount Olympus. And as 13th followed Philip II, again dressed in white, unarmed, holding his own golden statue in his hands. Imagine a time with no social media, no internet or television, no mass media, no nothing. How do you make a statement? Through entrances like that, he did really make an entrance, stating practically that he was the 13th god on Mount Olympus.
And suddenly out of the crowd, one of his former bodyguards jumped and stabbed him to death at the spot. He tried to run away. He was followed and he was killed on the spot as well. We still don’t know, actually, who killed Philip II and there are many theories about it, but we don’t really know. And that was his end.
5. The Royal Tombs of Vergina (17:30)
Monique Skidmore: Well, after that dramatic moment, this week we’ve traveling to Vergina. Can you tell us where Vergina is and what there is to see there?
Anastasia: Vergina, first of all, or Verginna, today’s name of the village that was built there where the royal sanctuary of the ancient capital of Macedonian Kingdom was. What we can see there today is four tombs that are in a building to which we many times refer to as a museum. Two of these four tombs that were found were found looted, but two were found unlooted. So we believe because of what was found in those two unlooted tombs and the dating of the tombs that they were most probably Philip II and his grandson and son of Alexander the Great, Alexander the IV.
Monique Skidmore: You know, anthropologists study death a lot. It’s kind of weird, but if you want to find out what’s important to people who are alive, we often study death rituals. And so I’d like to talk to you about tombs and the political aspects of tombs. Why were such tombs like the tomb of Philip II so important in the ancient world?
Anastasia: Tombs are important anyway, because tombs are, first of all, passage of the soul from this world to the underworld. The tomb is made for the one who dies. But you have a funeral. And you have items brought into the grave. And you have people coming to see that funeral. So the bigger the tomb, the more luxurious the construction, the more the items that you bring into the grave, and the more valuable the items you bring to the grave.
The tomb of Philip II was a revelation, was a sensation at the time. It was discovered in 1977. And we had never seen anything like that before. The amount of gold, the amount of silver that was found in there. And just the golden box that was used for his ashes and bones, I’m saying bones, it was a cremation. But the temperature of the fire was not that high as for the bones to melt. They did shrink, they did not melt. So we have bones, which is very important, of course.
Philip was murdered, as I mentioned before. Nobody had expected that. So there was no tomb ready. There was nothing. And they built a tomb very quickly in two days because the body would start to decay. The box that was used is made out of 24 carats of gold. It’s 8.3 kilos empty. It has amazing work in it. It’s cast, it has details, hammered. We found the largest golden wreath of ancient times so far, more than 700 grams, almost a kilo in weight.
The facade of these tombs, and these tombs in particular are called the Macedonian tombs, would resemble the facade of a temple, because the soul of the deceased was the soul of a hero. This particular tomb of Philip has a frieze, a frieze of a lion hunt. And what is very interesting in that depiction is that you do see the deceased coming from the right, ready to kill the lion, but in the center of that depiction, then in his whole glory, coming from the left, wearing light pink garment, most probably dyed in purple, and holding this long spear in his hand, is a very young man with long hair. That was Alexander the Great. And most probably it’s him delivering that message: Yes, my father is dead. He is in fear. He was very important. I owe everything to him. But now it’s me, all the power. And I’m going to continue his work.
6. Death and the Underworld in Ancient Greece (26:30)
Monique Skidmore: I understand there’s quite a complex and rich Greek mythology about this. You didn’t just die and end up in the underworld. Quite a few things had to work together. What had to happen?
Anastasia: That is also true. First of all, there were many rituals that had to be followed. After you die, they would wash your body, of course. They would put their funeral bed, you would lie in your funeral bed for a day or two because they wanted to make sure that you’re dead because they have big cases where people just got up after a day again.
And what’s happening to your soul if you are dead then? Well, your soul has to go into the underworld. In order for it to go there, you have to get buried. So your family needs to take care of that. After lying on your funeral bed, you get carried on that bed to your grave. And there will be either a burial or cremation. And then everything would be covered with earth. The bigger the tomb, of course, the bigger the earth mound that would be made by that small hill. And if it is a small hill, usually we call it a tumulus.
And then there would be sacrifices for the soul of the dead. And after that, the soul would be able to go to the other world. You would also have to make sure that the dead would have a coin with them. Because one of the twelve gods would come, who would be Hermes, the messenger of the gods. So he would come and would take your soul and bring it to the underworld. But in front of the underworld was a lake. And there was a ferryman. And the ferryman’s name was Charon. And he would get your soul across to the gates of the underworld. But you had to pay him to do that. So if your relatives had not put a coin in your grave, then you could not pay Charon.
In the ancient cult, this idea of life after death does not exist. This is the Christian perspective of it. In ancient times, the realm of Hades, Hades of Cthulhu, who’s the brother of Zeus and he’s the king of the underworld, and he’s very cute, actually. He’s not like in Hollywood films. Not at all. Really very cute guy, really good-looking. And he’s very, very content with what he has because he chose to become the king of the underworld. And he’s really the king of all those souls in the underworld. But the underworld is a cold, dark place of shadows. The souls are there as shadows, though there are variations like the Elysium Fields, which is a place of sun where the souls of the absolutely worthy ones go.
And then the other thing you had to do, had to make sure that you were not really in great sin. Like we have stories, many of them are in ancient tragedies of how people or great sinners like murdering a bunch of people, their souls could not enter the underworld afterward and remain as a shadow in this world and hunted down by the Furies.
Monique Skidmore: It’s such a rich mythology, isn’t it, of the underworld?
Anastasia: It is, because there’s questions, you know, is there an afterlife? What happens afterward? Who’s responsible for the time and the way of death? What happens after that?
Conclusion
Monique Skidmore: Thank you. That was fascinating, Anastasia. So today we’ve traveled through time to meet a man who changed the course of the history of the world. And in doing so, we visit his very elaborate tomb, Exhibition at Vergina. Along the way, we’ve learned why the tomb decorations were such a big deal. We’ve also learned about the complex chain of events required to arrive safely in the underworld and the rich Greek mythology surrounding the afterlife. I’d like to thank our delightful master tour guide, Anastasia Gietanou.
