Secrets & Lies: the Alexander Cult

A History of Mankind (140)

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Aristotle didn’t survive his former pupil Alexander by much. As luck would have it, it was Antipater, widely disliked in many formerly independent Greek cities for supporting oligarchs and tyrants, who did. He also survived in a dominant position.

This is largely because Antipater got into a dangerous spat with the ambitious Olympias, Alexander’s mother. Thus, one of Alexander’s last orders was that Antipater lead fresh troops into Asia, while Craterus, in charge of discharged veterans returning home, was appointed to take over the regency in Macedon.

Such an order was a stroke of good luck for Antipater when Alexander died, leaving the old man in charge of fresh troops and excellently positioned to use them in the civil wars that followed. This was also a gift for the anti-Macedonian, Sophist-heavy faction in Athens. With Alexander gone and Macedonian armies chasing each other across the known world, Demosthenes rekindled democratic sentiment, and Aristotle was attacked by the tried-and-tested method of impiety accusations.