Argead dynasty

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The Argead dynasty (Greek: Ἀργεάδαι, romanized: Argeádai), also known as the Temenid dynasty (Greek: Τημενίδαι, Tēmenídai) was an ancient Macedonian royal house of Dorian Greek provenance. They were the founders and the ruling dynasty of the kingdom of Macedon from about 700 to 310 BC.

Argeads
Ἀργεάδαι
Royal house
Parent houseTemenids (Heracleidae)
CountryMacedonia (Ancient Greece)
Founded7th century BC
Final rulerAlexander IV of Macedon
TitlesBasileus of Macedonia, King of Persia, King of Asia, Pharaoh of Egypt (Thirty-second Dynasty of Egypt), Hegemon of the Hellenic League, Strategos Autokrator of Greece
EstateMacedon
Dissolution310 BC
Cadet branchesPtolemaic dynasty (?)

Their tradition, as described in ancient Greek historiography, traced their origins to Argos, of Peloponnese in Southern Greece, hence the name Argeads or Argives. Initially, the Argeadae were the rulers of the tribe of the same name, (Argead Macedonians) who prevailed in early Emathia. By the time of Philip II they had expanded their reign further, to include under the rule of Macedonia all Upper Macedonian states. The family's most celebrated members were Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great, under whose leadership the kingdom of Macedonia gradually gained predominance throughout Greece, established the Hellenic League, defeated the Achaemenid Empire and expanded as far as Egypt and India. The mythical founder of the Argead dynasty is King Caranus. The Argeads claimed descent from Heracles through his great-great-grandson Temenus, also king of Argos.

Origin

Triobol of Argos (top), and a bronze coin of King Amyntas II of Macedon (bottom). The early Argead kings often copied the wolf of Argos' coins on their own coinage to highlight their supposed ancestry from this city.

The words Argead and Argive derive (via Latin Argīvus) from the Greek Ἀργεῖος (Argeios meaning "of or from Argos"), which is first attested to in Homer where it was also used as a collective designation for the Greeks ("Ἀργείων Δαναῶν", Argive Danaans). The Argead dynasty claimed descent from the Temenids of Argos, in the Peloponnese, whose legendary ancestor was Temenus, the great-great-grandson of Heracles.

In the excavations of the royal palace at Aigai (near modern Vergina), Manolis Andronikos discovered in the "tholos" room (according to some scholars "tholos" was the throne room) a Greek inscription relating to that belief. This is testified by Herodotus, in The Histories, where he mentions that three brothers of the lineage of Temenus, Gauanes, Aeropus and Perdiccas, fled from Argos to the Illyrians and then to Upper Macedonia, to a town called Lebaea, where they served the king. The latter asked them to leave his territory, believing in an omen that something great would happen to Perdiccas. The boys went near the garden of Midas, above which mount Bermio stands. There they made their abode and slowly formed their own kingdom.

Herodotus also relates the incident of the participation of Alexander I of Macedon in the Olympic Games in 504 or 500 BC where the participation of the Macedonian king was contested by participants on the grounds that he was not Greek. The Hellanodikai, however, after examining his Argead claim confirmed that the Macedonian kings were Greeks and allowed him to participate. According to the Greek scholar M. Sakellariou, the common name of Temenids between the Macedonian dynasty and the Doric dynasty of Argos had its origin to the relation between the tribe of Makednoi, that later became the Makedones, and the Dorians.

Thucydides, in the History of the Peloponnesian War, the Argeads were originally Temenids from Argos, who descended from the highlands to Lower Macedonia, expelled the Pierians from Pieria and acquired in Paionia a narrow strip along the river Axios extending to Pella and the sea. They also added Mygdonia in their territory through the expulsion of the Edoni, Eordians, and Almopians.

Another theory supported by the Greek historian Miltiades Hatzopoulos, following the opinion of the ancient author Appian, is that the Argead dynasty actually came from Argos Orestikon.

Miltiades Hatzopoulos has suggested that the Ancient Macedonian dialect of the 4th century BC, as attested in the Pella curse tablet, was a sort of Macedonian 'koine' resulting from the encounter of the idiom of the 'Aeolic'-speaking populations around Mount Olympus and the Pierian Mountains with the Northwest Greek-speaking Argead Makedones hailing from Argos Orestikon, who founded the kingdom of Lower Macedonia. However, according to Hatzopoulos, B. Helly expanded and improved his own earlier suggestion and presented the hypothesis of a (North-)'Achaean' substratum extending as far north as the head of the Thermaic Gulf, which had a continuous relation, in prehistoric times both in Thessaly and Macedonia, with the Northwest Greek-speaking populations living on the other side of the Pindus mountain range, and contacts became cohabitation when the Argead Makedones completed their wandering from Orestis to Lower Macedonia in the 7th c. BC. According to this hypothesis, Hatzopoulos concludes that the Ancient Macedonian Greek dialect of the historical period, which is attested in inscriptions, is a sort of koine resulting from the interaction and the influences of various elements, the most important of which are the North-Achaean substratum, the Northwest Greek idiom of the Argead Macedonians, and the Thracian and Phrygian adstrata. Borza has argued that "the 'highlanders' or Makedones of the mountainous regions of western Macedonia may have been derived from northwest Greek stock", and that "those who emerged into the lowlands were to be distinguished from the rest of the Makedones who remained in the mountain cantons by the name Argeadae".

History

Succession disputes

The death of the king almost invariably triggered dynastic disputes and often a war of succession between members of the Argead family, leading to political and economic instability. These included:

  • Six-year Macedonian interregnum (399–393 BCE), after the death of king Archelaus, between Orestes, Aeropus II, Amyntas II and Pausanias
  • Macedonian war of succession (393–392 BCE), after the death of king Pausanias, between Amyntas III and Argaeus II
  • Macedonian war of succession (369–368 BCE), after the death of king Amyntas III, between Ptolemy of Aloros and Alexander II of Macedon[citation needed]
  • Macedonian war of succession (360–359 BCE), after the death of king Perdiccas III, between Philip II (who deposed Amyntas IV), Argeus (supported by Athens), Pausanias (supported by Thrace) and Archelaus (supported by the Chalcidian League)
  • Wars of the Diadochi (323–277 BCE), after the death of king Alexander the Great, between his Diadochi ("Successors")

Additionally, long-established monarchs could still face a rebellion by a relative when the former's kingship was perceived to be weak. An example was Philip's rebellion against his older brother, king Perdiccas II, in the prelude to the Peloponnesian War (433–431 BCE).

List of rulers

Argead Rulers
Image Reign Monarch Name Comments
c. 808-778 BC Karanos Founder of the Argead dynasty and the first king of Macedon. (Possibly Fictional)
c. 778-750 BC Koinos (Possibly Fictional)
c. 750-700 BC Tyrimmas (Possibly Fictional)
c. 700-678 BC Perdiccas I
c. 678-640 BC Argaeus I
c. 640-602 BC Philip I
c. 602-576 BC Aeropus I
576-547 BC Alcetas
547-498 BC Amyntas I Vassal of the Achaemenid Empire in 512/511 BC. Historians recognize Amyntas as the first Macedonian monarch of historical importance.
497-454 BC Alexander I Fully subordinate part of the Achaemenid Empire after 492 BC, then full Independence after 479 BC following the withdrawal of the Achaemenid army.
454-413 BC Perdiccas II
413-399 BC Archelaus
399-396 BC Orestes Ruled jointly with Aeropus II, until he was murdered by Aeropus II
399-394/393 BC Aeropus II Joint rule with Orestes until 396 BC, then sole rule
393 BC Amyntas II Very brief reign ended with his assassination by an Elimieotan nobleman named Derdas
393 BC Pausanias Assassinated by, Amyntas III in the year of his accession
393 BC Amyntas III (First Reign)
393-392 BC Argaeus II Usurped throne from Amyntas III for about a year with the aid of the Illyrians
392-370 BC Amyntas III (Second Reign) Restored to the throne after around one year
370-368 BC Alexander II Assassinated by his maternal uncle Ptolemy of Aloros
368-359 BC Perdiccas III Ptolemy of Aloros was his regent from 368-365 BC, until he was murdered by Perdiccas III
359 BC Amyntas IV Young son of Perdiccas III, throne usurped by Philip II
359-336 BC Philip II Expanded Macedonian territory and influence to achieve a dominant position in the Balkans, confederated most of the Greek city-states in the League of Corinth under his hegemony.
336-323 BC Alexander III the Great The most notable Macedonian king and one of the most celebrated kings and military strategists of all time. By the end of his reign, Alexander was simultaneously King of Macedonia, Pharaoh of Egypt and King of Persia, and had conquered the entire former Achaemenid Empire as well as parts of the western Indus Valley.
323-317 BC Philip III Arrhidaeus Half-Brother of Alexander the Great, Titular figurehead king of the Macedonian Empire, during the early Wars of the Diadochi; was mentally disabled to at least some degree. Executed by Olympias.
323/317-309 BC Alexander IV Son of Alexander the Great and Roxana of Bactria, who was yet unborn at the time of his father's death. A pretender upon his birth, from 317 BC the titular figurehead king of the Macedonian Empire, during the early-middle Wars of the Diadochi. Executed by Cassander.

Family tree

Modern historians disagree on a number of details concerning the genealogy of the Argead dynasty. Robin Lane Fox, for example, refutes Nicholas Hammond's claim that Ptolemy of Aloros was Amyntas II's son, arguing that Ptolemy was neither his son nor an Argead. Consequently, the charts below do not account for every chronological, genealogical, and dynastic complexity. Instead, they represent one common reconstruction of the Argeads advanced by historians such as Hammond, Elizabeth Carney, and Joseph Roisman.


Further reading

  • Anson, Edward M. (2014). Alexander's Heirs: The Age of the Successors. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
  • Carney, Elizabeth Donnelly (2009). "The Role of the BASILIKOI PAIDES at the Argead Court". In Howe, Timothy; Reames, Jeanne (eds.). Macedonian Legacies: Studies in Ancient Macedonian History and Culture in Honor of Eugene N. Borza. Claremont, CA: Regina. pp. 145–164.
  • Carney, Elizabeth Donnelly (2010). "Putting Women in their Place: Women in Public under Philip II and Alexander III and the Last Argeads". In Carney, Elizabeth D.; Ogden, Daniel (eds.). Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and Son, Lives and Afterlives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 43–53.
  • Errington, Robert Malcolm (1978). "The Nature of the Macedonian State under the Monarchy". Chiron. 8: 77–134.
  • Griffith, Guy Thompson (1979). "The Reign of Philip the Second: The Government of the Kingdom". In Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière; Griffith, Guy Thompson (eds.). A History of Macedonia. Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon. pp. 383–404.
  • Hatzopoulos, Miltiades B. (1996). Macedonian Institutions under the Kings (2 Volumes). Paris: De Boccard.
  • King, Carol J. (2010). "Macedonian Kingship and Other Political Institutions". In Roisman, Joseph; Worthington, Ian (eds.). A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. Oxford, Chichester and Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 373–391. ISBN 978-1-4051-7936-2.
  • Ogden, Daniel (2011). "The Royal Families of Argead Macedon and the Hellenistic World". In Rawson, Beryl (ed.). A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Malden, MA: Blackwell-Wiley. pp. 92–107.

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