Philip (husband of Berenice I of Egypt)

Philip (Greek: Φίλιππος, died about 318 BC) was a Greek Macedonian nobleman that lived in the 4th century BC.

Philip was the son of Amyntas by an unnamed mother. He served as a military officer in the service of the Greek King Alexander the Great. Philip was known in commanding one division of the Phalanx in Alexander’s wars and commanded one of the divisions of the Phalanx at the Battle of the Granicus in May 334 BC. His name doesn’t subsequently appear in the campaigns of Alexander, but can be at least distinctly identified.

Based on the implying of Plutarch (Pyrrhus 4.4), before Philip married Berenice he was previously married and had children, including daughters born to him. The identities of his former wife and children are unknown.

In c.325 BC, Philip married Berenice I as her first husband. Pausanias (1.7.1), criticises his marriage to Berenice I and describes him as ‘a Macedonian but of no note and of lowly origin’. The ancient sources don’t say anything else about him and there is no evidence against this. Philip must have been a nobleman of some social status and influence as he married the great-niece of the powerful Regent Antipater and the grandchild of Antipater’s brother Cassander.

Berenice bore Philip three children:

Philip had died of unknown causes. After his death, Berenice and their children travelled to Egypt, where they were a part of the entourage of Berenice’s second maternal cousin Eurydice. Eurydice was then the wife of Ptolemy I Soter. By 317 BC, Berenice married Ptolemy I and became the Queen mother of the Ptolemaic dynasty.

As a posthumous honor to Philip; his son Magas when he served as a Priest of the Greek God Apollo, had dedicated an honorific inscription proudly naming him as the ‘the eponymous priest’ and ‘Magas son of Philip’.