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So great numbers of people flocked together from all directions to the festival, and the games and the marriage were celebrated in Aegae in Macedonia. Not only did individual notables crown him with golden crowns but most of the important cities as well, and among them Athens. [2] As this award was being announced by the herald, he ended with the declaration that if anyone plotted against King Philip and fled to Athens for refuge, he would be delivered up.1 The casual phrase seemed like an omen sent by Providence to let Philip know that a plot was coming. [3] There were other like words also spoken, seemingly divinely inspired, which forecast the king's death.

At the state banquet, Philip ordered the actor Neoptolemus, matchless in the power of his voice and in his popularity, to present some well-received pieces, particularly such as bore on the Persian campaign. The artist thought that his piece would be taken as appropriate to Philip's crossing and intended to rebuke the wealth of the Persian king, great and famous as it was, (suggesting) that it could some day be overturned by fortune. Here are the words that he first sang:“ Your thoughts reach higher than the air;
You dream of wide fields' cultivation.
The homes you plan surpass the homes
That men have known, but you do err,
Guiding your life afar.
But one there is who'll catch the swift,
Who goes a way obscured in gloom,
And sudden, unseen, overtakes
And robs us of our distant hopes—
Death, mortals' source of many woes.
”2 He continued with the rest of the song, all of it dealing with the same theme. [4] Philip was enchanted with the message and was completely occupied with the thought of the overthrow of the Persian king, for he remembered the Pythian oracle which bore the same meaning as the words quoted by the tragic actor. [5]

Finally the drinking was over and the start of the games set for the following day. While it was still dark, the multitude of spectators hastened into the theatre and at sunrise the parade formed. Along with lavish display of every sort, Philip included in the procession statues of the twelve gods wrought with great artistry and adorned with a dazzling show of wealth to strike awe in the beholder, and along with these was conducted a thirteenth statue, suitable for a god, that of Philip himself, so that the king exhibited himself enthroned among the twelve gods.3

1 Such protective decrees were common (cp. Dem. 23.95, the most famous being the decree of Aristocrates proposed in honour of Cersobleptes in 353 B.C.

2 Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. （2）, Adesp. 127; Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. （2） 3.744-745. The ode has been thought Aeschylean. Lines 8-9 are quoted, with slight grammatical change, by Philodemus, De Morte, col. 38.12-14 (D. Bassi, Papiri Ercolanesi, 1; Milan, 1914).

3 Cp. p. 101, note 3.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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