Philip of Akarnansky

Originally from Akarnania , an area located in the west of Greece . According to Curtius Ruth , Philip was a friend and doctor of Alexander the Great from childhood.

Philip accompanied Alexander during the Eastern Campaign. The story told by several ancient authors has reached our time. After bathing on a hot day in the icy water of the Kidn River in Cilicia, Alexander caught a cold and fell ill dangerously. The whole army was gripped by deep concern over the fate of his leader and his own. But Alexander said that the situation does not tolerate “slow-acting funds and cautious doctors” and that for him “it is better to die right away than to recover too late.” None of the doctors who were in the Macedonian camp decided to treat the king, “believing that the danger was too great and that it could not be overcome with any medicine; in case of failure, the doctors were afraid to incur charges and the wrath of the Macedonians. ” Then Philip, according to Plutarch , “seeing the patient’s grave condition, placed friendship above all and considered it criminal not to share the danger with Alexander and not to exhaust - even with all the risk to himself - all the means.” Philip has prepared a potent medicine for Alexander suffering from fever. At this time, a messenger arrived from Cappadocia from Parmenion with urgent dispatches, in which the commander reported that the doctor, bribed by the Persian ruler Darius III for a huge sum of a thousand talents , intended to poison his royal patient. Alexander handed this letter to Philip, and while he was reading, he drank the prepared potion before his eyes. After that, the king within several days fully recovered and appeared before the army, and then “the whole army received Philip with such a feeling as the king himself; each shook his hand and thanked him as if sent by God. "

During the siege of Gaza in 322 BC. e. Alexander was wounded in the shoulder by an arrow fired by the city’s defenders, which Philippe then drew.

The history that happened in Cilicia was depicted in his painting “Tsar Alexander and his physician Philip” by German artist Hans Wörtinger in 1517. It is currently kept at the National Gallery in Prague .

In 1870, Henry Semiradsky received a large gold medal from the Academy of Arts for the painting “Alexander the Great's Trust in Physician Philippe”.

Primary sources

• Diodorus of Sicily . Historical Library (XVII.31.4-6.)

• Arrian Anabasis Alexandra (II.4.7-11)

• Quintus Curtius Rufus . History of Alexander the Great (III.5.1-16, III.6.1-17, IV.6.17.)

• Plutarch . Comparative biographies . Alexander (19)

• Justin . Epitome of the composition of Pompey Trog. (XI.8.3-9.)

In fiction

• One of the heroes of the story Lyubov Voronkova "In the depths of time."