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Philip III Arrhidaeus (c. 359 BC - December 25, 317 BC), king of Macedonia (June 10, 323 BC - December 25, 317 BC), was an illegitimate son of Philip II of Macedon by Philinna of Larissa, a Thessalian dancer, and a half-brother of Alexander the Great. Called at birth Arrhidaeus, he assumed the name of Philip when he ascended to the throne. In Plutarch's report he became feeble-minded and epileptic following a poisoning attempt by Philip's wife Olympias, who wanted to eliminate a possible rival of Alexander.
For his illegitimacy, he appears to have never been a danger for Alexander's succession to Philip II, notwithstanding their being of about the same age; all the same, when the satrap of Caria Pixodarus proposed his daughter in marriage to Philip, who offered Arrhidaeus as husband, Alexander thought it prudent to block the operation, with considerable irritation of his father (337 BC). Arrhidaeus' whereabouts under the reign of his brother Alexander are unclear: what is certain is that no civil or military command was given him in those thirteen years (336 BC–323 BC).
He was at Babylon at the time of Alexander's death, the 11 June 323 BC. A succession crisis exploded: Arrhidaeus was the most obvious candidate, but he mas mentally unfit to rule and illegitimate. A conflict exploded between Perdiccas, leader of the cavalry, and Meleager, who commanded the phalanx: the first wanted to wait to see if Roxana, Alexander's pregnant wife, would deliver a male baby, while the second objected that Arrhidaeus was the closest relative living and so should be chosen king. Even if Meleager was killed, a compromise was engineered: Arrhidaeus would become king with the name of Philip, and he would be joined by Roxana's son as co-sovereign should he prove a male, as he did, and joined his uncle with the name of Alexander. It was immediately decided that Philip Arrhidaeus would reign, but not rule: this was to be the prerogative of the new regent, Perdiccas.
Archeological background: In 1977 important excavations were made near Vergina leading to the discovery of a two-chambered royal tomb, with an almost perfectly conserved male skeleton. Manolis Andronikos, the chief archaeologist on the ground, decided it was the skeleton of Philip II, but many have disputed this attribution and instead proposed it to be the remains of Philip Arrhidaeus, as the style of the tomb relates better to his date of death (317 BC) than that of his father (336 BC). Other reasons are the near absence of injuries, quite strange for a warrior such as Philip II; and lastly, it is argued that only a "dry cremation" could result in such a preservation of the skeleton (a dry cremation means that the body is cremated long after the time of death, as was the case with Philip Arrhidaeus but not with Philip II).
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