The Macedonian Kings and Greek Theatre

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Although the ancient Macedonians had no independent dramatic tradition of their own, from the late fifth century onwards successive Macedonian kings began to sponsor Greek theater productions and professionals with real enthusiasm.

Indeed, their patronage was crucial to the post-classical development of the ancient theater into a more international performance.

Down to the middle of the fourth century, Macedon remained an unstable and weak realm, a remote kingdom of unrealized potential on the northern frontier of the Hellenic world.

It is perhaps understandable that this out-ofthe-way region is only occasionally represented in surviving Greek tragedies, and features on the traditional “tragic map” only indistinctly.

 “If the Macedonians exploited philhellenism, that was for unique Macedonian purposes and reasons”


While a well-established narrative does detail the extraordinary fourth-century transformation of Macedonia into the great imperial power of the age, that rise to supremacy is often presented as the triumph of a brutish cohort, lacking in refinement. Even in the usually steady Arrian we find the Macedonians presented as a barely-civilised people. Even if theatre went on to develop into one of the “defining indicators of Greekness”, that general process is not the key background against which to consider the Macedonian engagement with the medium. Instead different values, different structures, different traditions must apply: Macedonian kings sponsored Greek theatre, for Macedonian reasons. The significance of the Greek-Macedonian cultural conjunction was that the Macedonians adapted and exploited philhellenism for purposes that were uniquely Macedonian.


SOURCE: Philippus in acie tutior quam in theatro fuit …: (Curtius 9, 6, 25): The Macedonian Kings and Greek Theatre by Eoghan Moloney

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About the author:

Dr Moloney B.A., M.A., PhD. (Cantab.) is a Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies at University of Winchester

Before coming to Winchester, Eoghan studied Classics and English at Maynooth University, and Classics at Darwin College, Cambridge, writing his doctorate on the ancient Macedonians (under the supervision of Paul Cartledge). 

Dr Moloney’s main research interest is in the history of ancient Macedonia; he has already published on the Argead kings and plans to complete a volume on their interest in Greek culture in the near future. Another, related, work nearing completion is Eoghan's Ancient Macedon: The Rise and Fall of a Hellenic Kingdom, which will consider the embattled histories of early kings as well as the march to power of Philip II and Alexander the Great. This volume is currently under contract with I.B. Tauris.

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