Polyperchon

The last chapters of the Life of Phocion written by Plutarch of Cheronea recount the dramatic events that preceded the death of the Athenian general and politician Phocion. Among these is a singular episode in which Phocion, despite himself, was one of the main protagonists: the meeting that took place in a town in central Greece, called Pharige, between the Macedonian king PhilipArrhidaeus, accompanied by his philoi and the regent Polyperchon, and a dual Athenian delegation. The modalities of the meeting between the Macedonian authorities and the dual Athenian embassy deserve to be reconsidered for several reasons. One of these is the very special environment in which king Philip Arrhidaeus, accompanied by a council of Macedonian notables, received the Athenian delegates: under a golden canopy that the regent Polyperchon had raised and under which he had seated both the king and his philoi. Equally interesting is the role played on this occasion by Philip Arrhidaeus and the Macedonian council that accompanies it. Both, in fact, though under the control of the regent Polyperchon, interact directly with the Athenian delegates. Finally, the negotiation between the Athenian delegates and the Macedonian court is significant for our reconstruction of events that followed the restoration of democracy in Athens and the connections that the Athenian democrats developed with Polyperchon on that occasion.
Keywords: Polyperchon, diagramma, Phocion, Philip Arrhidaeus, Antipater, Cassander, Agnonides, Duris, Diodorus, Plutarch

The diagramma’s priority was to present the Greeks with Philip II as a model for peace and Greek freedom and to focus their feelings of resentment on Antipater in order to conceal a decisive fact: infringements of the peace with Philip were largely ascribable to Alexander’s decisions. That result was gained subsuming Alexander’s policies in those of Philip and attributing Alexander’s decisions from 334 to Antipater’s policy. From this point of view, recalling Philip II’s policies had an added value beyond the more evident meaning as a contrasting model to Antipater’s. The analysis of the diagramma’s concrete provisions is consistent with this role of Antipater. What emerges is that Philip III’s relationship with his predecessors’ policies was carefully designed on the basis of a selective criterion which upholded those Philip II’s provisions capable of consolidating Greek consent and amended those Alexander’s dispositions which had caused Greek dissent. Polarization against Antipater was instrumental to express this “selective relationship” and to overshadow the fact that the diagramma’s provisions often corresponded to a rejection of Alexander’s policies.