Friends of the kingIVANA SAVALLI-LESTRADE

The “friends of the king,” along with the army,

are the two pillars of any Hellenistic kingdom.

They have many parallels in the empires of

antiquity, especially in the Achaemenid and

Roman empires. They formed a social group

as well as an institution originating in the

hetairoi (“companions”), the nobles who

attended and rode with the king in Archaic

and Classical MACEDONIA.

Starting with the reign of ALEXANDER III, THE

GREAT, inscriptions mention the philoi tou

basileos (“friends of the king”). This new des-

ignation can be explained by the increased

number of Greeks featuring as personal

friends of kings when Macedonia evolved into

a worldwide power, as a result of the influence

of ARISTOTLE’s theory of philia (“FRIENDSHIP”)

and of the need to distinguish between hetairoi

as cavalry and hetairoi as companions.

In the royal dynasties which inherited the

fragmented empire of Alexander (ANTIGONIDS,

Ptolemies, SELEUCIDS, Attalids, Mithradatids),

the friends, usually chosen by the king, were

mainly recruited from the Greco-Macedonian

elite and, to a lesser extent, from among

Hellenized natives. They were assigned

a variety of tasks to support the king (doctors,

chamberlains, bodyguards) or the government

(counselors and ministers, generals, diplo-

mats). In many cases (e.g., in the kingdom of

PERGAMON) they were mediators between the

court and the cities (Savalli-Lestrade 1996;

Guizzi 2006).

The terminology used in connection

with the king’s friends derives from relation-

ships of “living together” (diatribon para),

being a “friend” (philos), “sharing education

with” (or being a syntrophos), and being a

“blood relative” (syngenes). The king’s use,

real at the beginning and formal later, of

“brother” or “father” in addressing his most

important friends also reveals an emotional

charge.

Among courtiers (aulikoi), the friends

formed a close circle and counter-balanced

the influence of the king’s family and of

the elite traditionally associated with power.

In the late third century or early second cen-

tury BCE, the friends became organized into

classes associated with honorary titles, which

were also awarded to ordinary officials. The

most evolved model of this hierarchy is found

in Ptolemaic Egypt, which had at least seven

classes for the aulic titles, from the diadochoi

(“successors”) up to the syngeneis (“blood

relatives”): the whole royal administration

was an extension of the friends and royal

family circles (Mooren 1977; Weber 1997).

Moreover, the function and title of “friends”

could become hereditary for some families.

Nonetheless, intimacy with the king is the

keystone of the system.

According to Diodorus of Sicily (17.114.2)

and Plutarch (Alex. 47.10), Alexander the

Great used to say that KRATEROS was the “friend

of the king” (philobasileus), but that

HEPHAISTION was his friend (philalexandros).

This distinction between functional (or for-

mal) and private (or real) friendship delineates

clearly the ambivalence of royal friendship.

De facto, the pact of loyalty (pistis) between

the king and his friends could break off

for betrayal, revenge, or murder, and was

undermined by rivalries between friends. The

case of HELIODORUS, friend of king SELEUKOS IV

PHILOPATOR (187–175 BCE), is the most striking

example of the paradoxes found in Hellenistic

royal friendship (Savalli-Lestrade 1998: 44–6,

344–5). This high-ranking dignitary, who was

the viceroy and had been Seleukos’ syntrophos

(foster-brother), was honored in DELOS,

together with his family, both by another

friend and by the king himself. In the inscrip-

tion engraved in the pedestal of this family

monument, Seleukos justified his gesture by

saying that he behaved with Heliodoros as

he did with himself – a phrase that echoes the

Aristotelian notion of friendship as RECIPROCITY.

Nonetheless, Seleukos IV was murdered in

175 – according to literary accounts possibly

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,

and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 2765–2767.

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah09113

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fed by rival clans – by Heliodoros himself. This

enigmatic outcome shows that, if the friends

were a force for stability, they were also a tre-

mendous danger for royal dynasties.

SEE ALSO: Achaemenid Dynasty; Court,

Hellenistic; Hellenization; Hetaireia; Kingship,

Hellenistic; Krateros, Macedonian.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Cotton, H. M. and Worrle, M. (2007) “Seleukos IV

to Heliodoros: a new dossier of royal

correspondence from Israel.” Zeitschrift fur

Papyrologie und Epigraphik 159: 191–205.

Guizzi, F. (2006) “Il re, l’amico, i Galati: epistola

inedita di Eumene II alla citta di Tabai.”

Mediterraneo antico 9.1: 181–203.

Mooren, L. (1977), La Hierarchie de cour

ptolemaıque. Louvain.

Savalli-Lestrade, I. (1996) “Citoyens et courtisans:

le cas des philoi des Attalides.” Chiron 26: 149–81.

Savalli-Lestrade, I. (1998) Les philoi royaux dans

l’Asie hellenistique. Geneva.

Weber, G. (1997) “Interaktion, Reprasentation

und Herrschaft: der Konigshof im Hellenismus.”

In A. Winterling (ed.), Zwischen ‘Haus’

und ‘Staat’: antike Hofe im Vergleich: 27–71.

Munich.

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