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Kassander Cassander – Macedonian King: 319-297 B.C.
Bronze 16mm (4.37 grams) Struck as Regent: 319-305 B.C.
Reference: Sear 6753; Forrer/Weber 2161
Head of young Hercules right, clad in lion’s skin.
KAΣΣAΝ / ΔΡΟΥ
above and beneath lion seated right.
This type was issued before Kassander’s assumption of the
royal title in 305 B.C.
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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HERCULES – This celebrated
of mythological romance was at first called Alcides, but received the name of
Hercules, or Heracles, from the Pythia of Delphos. Feigned by the poets of
antiquity to have been a son of “the Thunderer,” but born of an earthly mother,
he was exposed, through Juno’s implacable hatred to him as the offspring of
Alemena, to a course of perils, which commenced whilst he was yet in his cradle,
and under each of which he seemed to perish, but as constantly proved
victorious.
At
length finishing his allotted career with native valor and generosity, though
too frequently the submissive agent of the meanness and injustice of others, he
perished self-devotedly on the funeral pile, which was lighted on Mount Oeta.
Jupiter raised his heroic progeny to the skies; and Hercules was honored by the
pagan world, as the most illustrious of deified mortals. The extraordinary
enterprises cruelly imposed upon, but gloriously achieved, by this famous
demigod, are to be found depicted, not only on Greek coins, but also on the
Roman series both consular and imperial. The first, and one of the most
dangerous, of undertakings, well-known under the name of the twelve labors of
Hercules, was that of killing the huge lion of Nemea; on which account the
intrepid warrior is represented, clothes in the skin of that forest monarch; he
also bears uniformly a massive club, sometimes without any other arms, but at
others with a bow and quiver of arrows. On a denarius of the Antia gens he is
represented walking with trophy and club.
When his head alone is typified, as in Mucia gens, it is covered with the lion’s
spoils, in which distinctive decoration he was imitated by many princes, and
especially by those who claimed descent from him – as for example, the kings of
Macedonia, and the successors of Alexander the Great. Among the Roman emperors
Trajan is the first whose coins exhibit the figure and attributes of Hercules.
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.
Whatever the truth of this suggestion, Cassander certainly proved to be
singularly noted amongst the
diadochi
in
his hostility to Alexander‘s memory.
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.
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.
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
Kingdom of Cassander Other
diadochi
Kingdom of
Seleucus
Kingdom of
Lysimachus
Kingdom of
Ptolemy
Epirus
Other
Carthage
Rome
Greek
colonies
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.
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.
After this, Cassander’s position in Greece and Macedonia was reasonably secure,
and he would proclaim himself King in 305 BC.
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
-
Mary Renault
refers to Cassander in the Alexander Trilogy by his Greek
name, Kassandros, and depicts him highly negatively. In
Funeral Games
, he is the villain of the piece.
-
In the
Oliver Stone
film
Alexander
, he is portrayed by
Jonathan Rhys Meyers
.
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