Robin Lane Fox The Great Question: King Philip or Demosthenes?
LECTURE
FEBRUARY 23, 2024
The speech focused on the personal dispute between the King of Macedon Philip II and the Athenian politician and orator Demosthenes. A dispute that will lead to the conflict on the field of Chaeronea and the Macedonian predominance. The talk examined how the characters of these historical figures shaped the historical circumstances.
Robin Lane Fox is an Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford, where he taught ancient Greek history and gave lectures on Philip and Demosthenes for many years. He has published many books on the subject, from Alexander the Great to his most recent book, Homer and his Iliad, which will be published in a Greek translation in 2024/2025. He has also been weekly gardening columnist for the Financial Times newspaper since 1970. He was the scientific advisor for Oliver Stone’s film Alexander, which was largely based on his own book. A keen horseman himself, he appeared as the head of the Companions (the Hetairoi cavalry) in the film.
VIDEO
THE EXHIBITION
The lecture took place as part of the exhibition Chaeronea, 2 August, 338 BC: A day that changed the world.
The exhibition highlights the importance the Battle of Chaeronea had in ancient times, at the transition from the Classical to the Hellenistic period. The latter became an era in which Greek civilization was dominant for centuries and laid the foundations of what we call the Western world. The theme is the battle that opposed the Macedonian army of Philip II against that of the allied Greek cities of southern Greece – and in particular the Sacred Band of Thebes and the army of Athens – a conflict that for the first time brought the eighteen-year-old Alexander to the front line of history: Alexander who was soon to conquer the world with his great campaigns in Asia.
