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GREEK - Macedonian Kingdom:
Cassander - King 319-297 B.C. -
Bronze 18mm (6.7 grams) Struck 305-297 B.C.
Reference: Sear 6754; Price (Coins of the Macedonians) pl. XII, 65 ---
Head of young Hercules right, clad in lion's skin.
ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ / KAΣΣAΝΔΡΟΥ above and beneath naked youth on horse pacing right.
The son of Antipater, Regent of Macedon appointed by
Alexander, Cassander succeeded to the government of the country of his father's
death in 319 B.C. He was notorious for his cruelty, and in 311 B.C. he executed
Alexander's widow Roxana and her young son Alexander IV. In 305 B.C. he assumed
the title of King.
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Cassander (Greek:
Κάσσανδρος , Kassandros Antipatros; ca. 350 - 297 BC), King of
Macedonia (305 - 297 BC), was a son of
Antipater,
and founder of the
Antipatrid dynasty.
Early
history
Cassander is first recorded as arriving at
Alexander the Great’s court in
Babylon in
323 BC, where he had been sent by his father, Antipater, likely to help uphold
Antipater’s regency in Macedon, although a later contemporary suggestion hostile
to the Antipatrids was that Cassander had journeyed to poison the King.[1]
Whatever the truth of this suggestion, Cassander certainly proved to be
singularly noted amongst the
diadochi in
his hostility to Alexander‘s memory[1].
Alexander IV,
Roxanne, and Alexander’s supposed illegitimate son
Heracles would all be executed on his orders, and a guarantee to
Olympias to
spare her life was not respected.[2]
So too, Cassander would restore
Thebes, which had been destroyed under Alexander. This gesture was perceived
at the time to be a snub to the deceased King.[3]
It was even said that he could not pass a statue of Alexander without feeling
faint. Cassander has been perceived to be ambitious and unscrupulous, and even
members of his own family were estranged from him.[4]
Later
history
As Antipater grew close to death in 319 BC, he transferred the regency of
Macedon not to Cassander, but to
Polyperchon, possibly so as not to alarm the other diadochi through an
apparent move towards dynastic ambition, but perhaps also because of Cassander’s
own ambitions.[5]
Cassander rejected his father’s decision, and immediately went to court
Antigonus,
Ptolemy and
Lysimachus
as allies. Waging war on Polyperchon, Cassander would destroy his fleet, put
Athens under the control of
Demetrius of Phaleron, and declare himself Regent in 317 BC. After Olympias’
successful move against
Philip III later in the year, Cassander would besiege her in
Pydna. When the
city fell two years later, Olympias was killed, and Cassander would have
Alexander IV and Roxanne confined at
Amphipolis.
Cassander associated himself with the
Argead dynasty by marrying Alexander’s half-sister,
Thessalonica, and had Alexander IV and Roxanne executed in either 310 BC or
the following year. Certainly, in 309, Polyperchon would begin forwarding the
claims of
Heracles as the true heir to the Macedonian inheritance, at which point
Cassander bribed him to have the boy killed.[6]
After this, Cassander’s position in Greece and Macedonia was reasonably secure,
and he would proclaim himself King in 305 BC.[7]
After the
Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, in which
Antigonus was killed, he was undisputed in his control of Macedonia.
However, he had little time to savour the fact, dying of
dropsy in 297 BC.
Cassander’s dynasty did not live much beyond his death, with his son
Philip dying of natural causes, and his other sons
Alexander and
Antipater becoming involved in a destructive dynastic struggle along with
their mother. When Alexander was ousted as joint king by his brother,
Demetrius I took up Alexander's appeal for aid and ousted Antipater, killed
Alexander, and established the
Antigonid dynasty. The remaining Antipatrids such as
Antipater Etesias would prove unable to re-establish the Antipatrids on the
throne.
Of more lasting significance was Cassander’s transformation of
Therma into
Thessalonica, naming the city after his wife. Cassander also founded
Cassandreia upon the ruins of
Potidaea.
Cassander
as a fictional character
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