Ancient history

Pausanias (Macedonia)

Pausanias (Pausanias of Orestis) was a somatophylac of the Macedonian King Philip II of Macedonia and his assassin.

During the summer of -336, Philip II was assassinated by Pausanias during the marriage of his daughter Cleopatra with the king of Epirus, Alexander the Molossus, brother of Olympias. Pausanias harbored a grudge against Philippe, the latter having ignored his request to condemn the perpetrators of the gang rape suffered after he called his new favorite "a perverse hermaphrodite". He is immediately captured and killed.

Ancient historians have long believed that Philip's murder was a conspiracy involving Olympias and possibly Alexander the Great. Another hypothesis denies the involvement of Alexander and blames Darius III, the new king of Persia. Plutarch mentions a virulent letter from Alexander to Darius, where the Macedonian blames Darius (and Bagoas, his grand vizier whom Darius III quickly gets rid of shortly after), for the murder of his father, maintaining that it was Darius who had boasted to the various Greek city-states of how he had had Philip assassinated.

After this assassination, Alexander the Great was named King of Macedonia.


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