Agesilaos wrote:
Hammond is to be congratulated that he can date the fragmentary vessels of tomb I, when the complete ones of Tomb II are inconclusive, yep, sarcasm.
Actually, it is Andronikos' datings Hammond refers to, and his expertise in the field is pretty formidable, considering his record. He dated the sherds outside Tomb II, and the whole pots within, to the period 350-320 BC.
Basically, if anything can point to Amyntas or Philip I will declare it to be Amyntas and use that to support other tendatious dating; circular and a priori, we can only guess at the sort of person who would find that impressive
Oh, I agree to an extent, though this is a little harsh. Hammond bases this on Andronikos' rather vague dating of pottery from Tomb I of 'around mid fourth century', and if that can be construed as minus 20 odd years, it can also be construed as plus 20 odd years - taking it into Philip's time. His point about the armour of Tomb II
The offerings of weapons and armour do not suit Arrhidaeus, who was incapable of combat;
is another rather dubious assertion considering :
a) We don't exactly know the nature of Arrhidaeus' disability
b) As the trappings of a King, he would likely have these whether or not he could actually physically fight.
...and there are others.
Like I said, I don't agree with all Hammond's reasoning, but his paper is interesting for the detail you don't find elsewhere - like the 47 'headstones' without graves found in the tumulus, or the two skeletons, or the two swords found in the remains of the pyre above Tomb II.
Consider, why was Philip's implicit claim to divinity so shocking if his father was already being worshiped? Similarly, with Alexander's divine pretensions.
The English word 'divine' is rather black-and-white in our Judaeo-Christian context, whereas in Greek religion, there were varying degrees of 'divinity', a sort of sliding scale, so that worship or honouring the Gods could vary from the all-powerful Olympian Gods, down through minor deities such as river Gods and so on, and demi-gods such as Heracles or Asclepius through Hero cults down to ancestor worship ( the latter two or three overlapping and blurring to an extent). All of these could have temples or shrines, or a simple roadside altar erected in their honour, where libations were poured and sacrifices burnt, and 'worship' took place. By the 4th C, however, the word 'Hero' came to mean specifically a dead man, venerated and propitiated at his tomb or at a designated shrine, because his fame during life or unusual manner of death gave him power to support and protect the living. A 'Hero' was more than human but less than a God, and various kinds of supernatural figures came to be assimilated to the class of heroes; the distinction between a Hero and a God was less than certain, especially in the case of Heracles, the most prominent, whose status was higher, a demi-god who almost reached god-like status. Thus the worship of Amyntas and Philip would easily fall into this tradition. What was shocking about Philip is that by including a 13th statue of himself alongside the 12 Olympians, he was in effect claiming to be their equal - which many would see as blasphemous. 'Divine honours' was one thing, 'Godhood' quite another. Also by the 4th C, the worship of Amon-Ra had reached the point of monotheism in Egypt, where Amon, the King of the Egyptian Gods, was identified with the sun (Ra) and acknowleged as 'The creator of all' and the pantheon of Egyptian Gods were seen as mere aspects of Amon-Ra. By claiming Amon as his "real" father, Alexander too was committing blasphemy in Greek eyes, but a cynic like me might point out that in so doing Alexander was acknowledging the power of Egypt's priests, and in so 'restoring' Egypt as Son of Amon could claim to be a legitimate Pharoah, in contrast to the Persian "Great Kings' who ignored such niceties, to their peril and constant rebellion in Egypt. Alexander didn't suffer this problem, thanks to the 'priestly caste' being on-side.....
Vaulted tombs are standard in Etruria, in fact Plato's ideal sounds very like an Etruscan tomb, and we know he went West after Sokrates' death, I do not recall a connection with Macedonia.
I take it you didn't read Hammond's paper in full ? He gives a connection:
Hammond:
Such a person may have been Euphraeus, a pupil of Plato, who was influential as a philosopher at the court of Perdiccas III in the later 360s.
.
However the importance of Plato is rather moot considering there are several barrel vaulted tombs which pre-date Philip's death (e.g. the 'Eurydike' tomb and the non-royal 'Tomb of Palatitsia' )
Agesilaos wrote:
And why the enclosed cremation? Every circumstantial 'clue' has an answer from the other camp, this one will just run and run.
Actually this is not so. There is more 'circumstantial' evidence in Hammond's paper - the two skeletons found in the mound above Tomb II for example, which can be explained in the context of Philip II :-
Hammond:
Two sons of Aeropus had been found guilty of complicity; they were killed on Alexander's
orders 'by his father's tumulus' (Just. I I. 2. I). It was probably their skeletons which were
found with no offerings in the fill of tumulus, and it was their swords which were placed on
the pyre.
.....which adherents of the tomb being that of Arrhidaeus cannot explain - though caution is needed, as I said, because we simply don't have the detail about Arrhidaeus' funeral that we have about Philip II's. Another point of Hammond's is that clearly Tomb II was the focal point of the Great Tumulus - hardly likely if its occupant was Arrhidaeus. A little specious perhaps, but hard for adherents of Arrhidaeus to explain away....and there's more in the paper ( good and bad ! )
Overall, the 'circumstantial' evidence seems to fit Philip II better than Arrhidaeus. However, we are in agreement that this debate will 'run and run'...
Xenophon wrote:
It is unfortunate that we have two potential occupants of the tomb, who died within 20 years aprox of each other. The decider might be that excavation of the remaining many tumuli reveals Cassander’s burial of Philip Arrhidaeus, Eurydike and Kynna separately ( difficult to positively identify unless the tomb is unrobbed) or another tomb that can be positively identified as Philip II’s.....