Parmenion

Parmenion was a senior Macedonian general who served Philip II and Alexander the Great. He commanded major sections of the army at battles including Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela, but was executed after his son Philotas was accused of conspiracy.

In David Gemmel’s Lion of Macedon, Parmenion is born between worlds: too Macedonian for the Spartans who raise him and never fully accepted by either people. In David Gemmel’s Dark Prince, Parmenion has helped Philip build a powerful kingdom, but the future now turns on Alexander, a gifted child surrounded by ambition, prophecy and fear. Other novels featuring Parmenion include Valerio Massimo Manfredi’s Child of a Dream and Valerio Massimo Manfredi’s The Sands of Ammon.

In non-fiction, Parmenion is discussed in Quintus Curtius Rufus’s The History of Alexander and Diodorus Siculus’s The Library, Books 16-20. In Quintus Curtius Rufus’s The History of Alexander, the executions of Philotas and Parmenion, the killing of Cleitus, the conspiracy involving Callisthenes, Alexander’s marriage to Roxana and the death of Hephaestion reveal a command fractured by fear and rivalry.