Philip II of Macedon

Assassinated in 336 BCE at Aegae by his bodyguard Pausanias of Orestis, months before his planned invasion of the Persian Empire.

Overview

Philip had transformed Macedon into the dominant power of Greece, defeating Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea in 338 BCE and forming the League of Corinth for a Persian campaign. During the wedding festivities of his daughter Cleopatra at the old capital Aegae, Pausanias of Orestis, a member of his own bodyguard, stabbed the king as he entered the theater and was killed while fleeing by pursuers, possibly arranged to silence him. Ancient sources debate the motive, from a personal grievance to a wider conspiracy implicating Olympias and Alexander. The assassination at the moment of his greatest power changed history: his son Alexander inherited the army and the invasion plan and conquered the Persian Empire within a decade. Philip remains one of antiquity most consequential royal victims.