Their tradition, as described inancient Greek historiography, traced their origins toArgos, ofPeloponnese in Southern Greece, hence the nameArgeads orArgives.[5][6][1] Initially, the Argeadae were the rulers of the tribe of the same name,[7] (Argead Macedonians) who prevailed in earlyEmathia. By the time of Philip II they had expanded their reign further, to include under the rule ofMacedonia allUpper Macedonian states. The family's most celebrated members werePhilip II of Macedon and his sonAlexander the Great, under whose leadership the kingdom of Macedonia gradually gained predominance throughout Greece, defeated theAchaemenid Empire and expanded as far asEgypt andIndia. The mythical founder of the Argead dynasty is KingCaranus.[8][9] The Argeadsclaimed descent fromHeracles through his great-great-grandsonTemenus, also king ofArgos.
Triobol of Argos (top), and a bronze coin of KingAmyntas 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.[10]
The wordsArgead andArgive derive (viaLatinArgīvus)[11] from theGreekἈργεῖος (Argeios meaning "of or fromArgos"),[12] which is first attested to inHomer where it was also used as a collective designation for the Greeks ("Ἀργείων Δαναῶν",ArgiveDanaans).[13][14] The Argead dynasty claimed descent from theTemenids of Argos, in thePeloponnese, whose legendary ancestor wasTemenus, the great-great-grandson ofHeracles.[1] 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 ofMakednoi, that later became theMakedones, and theDorians.
In the excavations of the royal palace atAegae,Manolis Andronikos discovered in the "tholos" room (according to some scholars "tholos" was the throne room) aGreek inscription relating to that belief.[15] This is testified byHerodotus, inThe Histories, where he mentions that three brothers of the lineage of Temenus,Gauanes,Aeropus andPerdiccas, fled from Argos to theIllyrians and then toUpper Macedonia, to a town calledLebaea, 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 to another part ofMacedonia, near the garden ofMidas, above which mount Bermio stands. There they made their abode and slowly formed their own kingdom.[16]
Herodotus also relates the incident of the participation ofAlexander I of Macedon in theOlympic 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. TheHellanodikai, however, after examining his Argead claim confirmed that the Macedonian kings were Greeks and allowed him to participate.[17]
Another theory supported by the Greek historian Miltiades Hatzopoulos, following the opinion of the ancient authorAppian, is that the Argead dynasty actually came fromArgos Orestikon.[18][19]
The death of the king almost invariably triggered dynastic disputes and often awar of succession between members of the Argead family, leading to political and economic instability.[21] These included:
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, kingPerdiccas II, in the prelude to thePeloponnesian War (433–431 BCE).
Expanded Macedonian territory and influence to achieve a dominant position in the Balkans, confederated most of the Greek city-states in theLeague of Corinth under his hegemony.
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 simultaneouslyKing of Macedonia,Pharaoh of Egypt andKing of Persia, and had conquered the entire formerAchaemenid Empire as well as parts of the western Indus Valley.
Half-Brother of Alexander the Great, Titular figurehead king of theMacedonian Empire, during the earlyWars of the Diadochi; was mentally disabled to at least some degree. Executed byOlympias.
Son of Alexander the Great andRoxana 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 theMacedonian Empire, during the early-middleWars of the Diadochi. Executed byCassander.
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 thatPtolemy of Aloros wasAmyntas II's son, arguing that Ptolemy was neither his son nor an Argead.[24] 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.[25][26][27][28]
^abcHowatson & Harvey 1989, p. 339: "In historical times the royal house traced its descent from the mythical Temenus, king of Argos, who was one of the Heracleidae, and more immediately from Perdiccas I, who left Argos for Illyria, probably in the mid-seventh century BC, and from there captured the Macedonian plain and occupied the fortress of Aegae (Vergina), setting himself up as king of the Macedonians. Thus the kings were of largely Dorian Greek stock (see PHILIP (1)); they presumably spoke a form of Dorian Greek and their cultural tradition had Greek features."
^Hammond 1986, p. 516: "In the early 5th century the royal house of Macedonia, the Temenidae was recognised as Macedonian by the Presidents of the Olympic Games. Their verdict considered themselves to be of Macedonian descent."
^Rogers 2004, p. 316: "According to Strabo, 7.11 ff., the Argeadae were the tribe who were able to make themselves supreme in early Emathia, later Macedonia."
^According toPausanias (Description of Greece9.40.8–9), Caranus set up a trophy after the Argive fashion for a victory against Cisseus: "The Macedonians say that Caranus, king of Macedonia, overcame in battle Cisseus, a chieftain in a bordering country. For his victory Caranus set up a trophy after the Argive fashion, but it is said to have been upset by a lion from Olympus, which then vanished. Caranus, they assert, realized that it was a mistaken policy to incur the undying hatred of the non-Greeks dwelling around, and so, they say, the rule was adopted that no king of Macedonia, neither Caranus himself nor any of his successors, should set up trophies, if they were ever to gain the good-will of their neighbors. This story is confirmed by the fact that Alexander set up no trophies, neither for his victory over Dareius nor for those he won in India."
^Cartledge 2011, Chapter 4: Argos, p. 23: "The Late Bronze Age in Greece is also called conventionally 'Mycenaean', as we saw in the last chapter. But it might in principle have been called 'Argive', 'Achaean', or 'Danaan', since the three names that Homer does in fact apply to Greeks collectively were 'Argives', 'Achaeans', and 'Danaans'."
^The Greek inscription found in the tholos room of the royal palace at Aegae reads "ΗΡΑΚΛΗΙ ΠΑΤΡΩΙΩΙ" (Andronikos 1994, p. 38: "Η επιγραφή αυτή είναι: «ΗΡΑΚΛΗΙ ΠΑΤΡΩΙΩΙ», που σημαίνει στον «Πατρώο Ηρακλή», στον Ηρακλή δηλαδή που ήταν γενάρχης της βασιλικής οικογένειας των Μακεδόνων." [Translation: "This inscription is: «ΗΡΑΚΛΗΙ ΠΑΤΡΩΙΩΙ», which means "Father (Ancestor) Hercules", dedicated to Hercules who was the ancestor of the royal family of the Macedonians."])
^Fox, Robin Lane (2011). "399–369 BC". In Fox, Robin Lane (ed.).Brill's Companion to Ancient Macedon: Studies in the Archaeology and History of Macedon, 650 BC – 300 AD. Boston: Brill. pp. 231–232.
^N.G.L., Hammond; Griffith, G.T. (1979).A History of Macedonia Volume II: 550-336 B.C. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 179. ISBN 9780198148142
^Roisman, Joseph (2010). "Classical Macedonia to Perdiccas III". In Roisman, Joseph; Worthington, Ian (eds.). A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 158.
Hoover, Oliver D. (2011).Handbook of Coins of the Peloponnesos: Achaia, Phleiasia, Sikyonia, Elis, Triphylia, Messenia, Lakonia, Argolis, and Arkadia, Sixth to First Centuries BC (The Handbook of Greek Coinage Series, Volume 5). Lancaster/London: Classical Numismatic Group.
Hoover, Oliver D. (2016).Handbook of Coins of Macedon and Its Neighbors. Part I: Macedon, Illyria, and Epeiros, Sixth to First Centuries BC (The Handbook of Greek Coinage Series, Volume 3). Lancaster/London: Classical Numismatic Group.
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.
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.ISBN978-1-4051-7936-2.
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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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Mason, Charles Peter (1870)."Argaeus". InSmith, William (ed.).Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 279.
