Ancient Coin Stories

Among everyone’s favorites from the Era of the Diadochi, Kassander is never listed. Was he a major schmuck or just maligned? I present the evidence on both sides.

The Schmuck Things

1) There were ancient accusations, especially by Olympias, that Kassander was directly involved in Alexander the Great‘s death.

2) He executed Olympias, Alexander the Great‘s mother, despite agreeing to spare her life as terms for her surrender. Execution was by stoning, and Kassander then denied her burial rites.

3) He ordered the deaths of both the 14-year-old Alexander IV, and his mother Roxana.

4) His own father didn’t seem to find him fit to be regent, and appointed Polyperchon instead. Kassander then took things into his own hands and seized the throne.

5) He died of gout. Sure, he was one of the few rulers of this period to not be killed (others were Ptolemy and Antipater), but he had probably the most painful death of all. One could argue that’s a sign of major karma.

The Explanations

1) We don’t truly know what killed Alexander. There’s a lot of speculation that no poison of the day would have taken 11 days to finish him. Also, Olympias was Kassander’s primary enemy, and she had a lot to gain by spreading such a rumor. Of course, since both Antipater and Kassander were in power then, any such rumors that occurred in writing could have been snuffed out.

2) Olympias herself had been cruel to Philip III and his wife Eurydice. Kassander had also ordered a more stately death for Olympias, but no soldier would carry out a sentence on Alexander the Great‘s mother.

3) The other diadochi – Lysimachos, Antigonos I Monophthalmos, Ptolemy I Soter, and Seleukos I Nikator, didn’t shed many tears over the act and soon declared themselves kings. There’s much speculation that Kassander ordered the executions with agreement from the others. In reality, at that time there was no unified empire for Alexander IV to inherit.

4) It’s possible Antipater was worried that the other diadochi would not respond well to dynastic succession, and appointing Kassander may have resulted in a war they would not have won.

Potential good points

1) Macedonia under Kassander was peaceful and flourished.

2) He named the city of Thessalonika, one of several he either founded or rebuilt, in honor of his wife Thessalonike. She was raised by Olympias, so probably didn’t have happy-feely thoughts about marrying Kassander. She bore him three sons.

3) Several of his siblings weren’t so bad. His sister Phila was married to Balakros, Krateros, and Demetrios of Macedon, and was highly respected. She in particular had a major impact on the reckless Demetrios.

4) Kassander allowed his brother Alexarchos, who was a bit on the loony side, to found the utopian city Uranopolis.

5) Unlike Ptolemy, Lysimachos, and Seleukos, Kassander never minted silver in his own name. He did mint bronze. Only Antigonos never minted either bronze or silver in his own name.

So, given the evidence, what do you think? Was Kassander just a pragmatist who knew how to play the game of thrones, or was he a major schmuck?