Phila (daughter of Antipater)

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Phila ( Greek  Φίλα ; * around 340 BC; † 287 BC ) was a Macedonian noblewoman and Queen of the Diadochs . She was the eldest of four daughters of the general and statesman Antipater , who was born after Alexander the Great's departure to Asia in 334 BC. Officiated as the corrupt Macedonia .

Life

Before Alexander's campaign in Asia began, Phila was married to the bodyguard Balakros , who lived in 333 BC. Was appointed governor of Cilicia . Due to the birth of three sons together, Antipater, Thraseas and Balakros, it is probable that Phila accompanied her husband to Cilicia or at least traveled there several times. A letter from Balakros to Phila mentioned by the late antique author Antonius Diogenes, which dates to the time after the siege of Tire (August 332 BC), implies that Phila also separated from her husband in Macedonia during the time of the campaign stopped.

Balakros fell around the year 324/323 BC. In the fight against the revolting Pisidians , shortly afterwards Alexander died in Babylon. Presumably Phila and the returning veterans got back to Macedonia to her father under the leadership of the Krateros . Around the year 322/321 BC She was married to Krateros, who in the meantime had become her father's most important ally. Her second husband fell in the spring of 320 BC. During the first Diadoch war in the battle of the Hellespont against Eumenes , who had the body of the Krateros cremated with honor. Phila was only able to receive the ashes several years later, during the siege of Tire (314–313 BC) . From this short marriage the son Krateros was born.

During the conference of Triparadeisos 320 BC BC, which ended the first Diadoch war and in which Antipater rose to regent of the Alexander Empire, Phila was married to Demetrios Poliorketes, who was at least ten years his junior . Demetrios was the son of Antigonos Monophthalmos , the most powerful man in Asia and a friend of her father, who lived in 319 BC. BC died. With the beginning of the third Diadoch war in 316 BC BC entered the family of her husband in a bitter struggle for rule in Greece with their brother Kassander . Phila therefore repeatedly played a mediating role between them. In 306 BC Antigonos Monophthalmos and Demetrios Poliorketes took the title of king with the claim to the successor of Alexander the great. In 301 BC Their cause came to an end in the battle of Ipsos . Phila stayed at the side of her husband, who as Sea King was now pursuing a policy of reclaiming Greece. Around the year 298 BC BC she traveled again to Macedonia to calm Kassander because of the expulsion of Pleistarchus from Cilicia by Demetrios. In 297 BC BC Phila fell with her children and her mother-in-law Stratonike into the hands of the ruler of Egypt, Ptolemaios , when he conquered Cyprus . Ptolemy was generous and immediately released the family by sending them to Demetrios Poliorketes, who was in Greece. In 294 BC BC Demetrios conquered the Macedonian royal throne after Phila's nephews had fought each other in bloody intrigues.

Phila is one of the few female personalities of the Diadoch period who has been described in more detail. Diodorus described her as a wise and just woman. Despite her youth, her father is said to have valued her judgment on political issues. Furthermore, he praised her loyalty to Demetrios in Ipsos, although the latter had neither repaid nor considered her support and advice. Instead, he had humiliated her several times through his oriental attitudes and openly practiced polygamy . As Demetrios 287 BC BC lost the Macedonian kingdom to Pyrrhus and set sail with his fleet, Phila was not ready for a shameful escape. She took her own life through a poisonous drink.

From her marriage to Demetrios Poliorketes († 283 BC) Phila had two children:

Her Seleucid granddaughter of the same name, a daughter of Stratonike and Seleucus, was married to Antigonus Gonatas.

Phila was probably the only queen of the Antigonid dynasty to be worshiped in a ritual way. The Lampsakener Adeimantos demonstrated his devotion to Demetrios Poliorketes by building a temple for Phila, in which she was venerated as Aphrodite , on a place called Philaion, of the Athenian demos Thria . The "Aphrodite Phila" cult and another temple in Lampsakos are confirmed in a fragment by the comedy poet Alexis . A Sami decree, addressed to dignitaries from Kos , mentions a sanctuary ( Temenos ) on Samos , which was dedicated to a Queen Phila. It is controversial whether the inscription is coined on Phila I or on Phila II , the daughter of Seleucus I and wife of Antigonus II Gonatas .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Antonius Diogenes from Photius Bibliotheca 111a-b.
  2. ↑ Memnon , FGrH 434 F1 §4.4; Diodorus 18.18.7.
  3. ↑ Diodorus 19:59.
  4. ↑ Plutarch : Demetrios, 14.2-3
  5. ↑ Plutarch: Demetrios, 35.5; 38.1.
  6. ↑ Diodorus 29.59.3-6.
  7. ^ Plutarch, Demetrios 45.
  8. ↑ Athenaios 6.255c.
  9. ↑ The Alexis fragment has come down to us in Athenaios 6.254a.
  10. ↑ Christian Habicht : God-humanity and Greek cities . Munich 1970, pp. 62-63.
personal data
SURNAME Phila
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Φίλα
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Daughter of Antipater, wife of Balakros, Krateros and Demetrios I. Poliorketes
DATE OF BIRTH 4th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 287 BC Chr.