This book brings together thirteen of C.’s essays published between 1980 and 2009 on royalty, court life, dynastic intrigues, the role of women, and the lifestyles and culture of the elite in Macedonia, especially during the pre-Hellenistic period. Every article, republished here with the addition of an afterword, takes into account advances in research on the various themes and contains updated information and some second thoughts. The in-depth introduction, the only previously unpublished contribution to the volume, offers a valuable overview of developments in Macedonian studies over the last 40 years, while being at the same time a brilliant and unconventional intellectual autobiography.

The first of the three sections, ‘Argead Monarchy: Image and Practice’, is focused on the ‘workings’ of the Argead monarchy and the self-image that the royal power aimed at constructing and showing through art and monuments. The second section, ‘Conspiracies Real and Alleged’, insists on the instability of the monarchic institution and the transmission of power. The final section, ‘Life At Court’, examines aspects of court life where the sharing of similar lifestyles between the sovereign and the members of the elite is highlighted. All three sections contain considerations on the general nature of Macedonian rule. Though avoiding a too radical approach, C. still seems sceptical of the real ‘institutional’ weight of the Macedonian Council and Assembly, even in the age of Philip II and beyond. In her opinion personal charisma and the sovereign's ability to renegotiate decisions with the court and the elite, and the intrusiveness of the clans, carry the weight in the balance of Argead power. In Chapter 1, ‘Women and Basileia: Legitimacy and Female Political Action in Macedonia’, she explicitly states: the Macedonian monarchy was not an ‘office’ with ‘clearly defined powers, duties, and limitations’, but ‘an autocracy … whose real power was often limited by circumstances’ (p. 2). The usual habit in available documents of referring to the king, at least until the age of Alexander the Great, with name (and eventual patronymic) alone is interpreted as a clue ‘that the king's power was determined not by title or office but rather by his position as the dominant Argead’ (p. 3). In these occurrences, however, the origin of many of the epigraphic documents from outside Macedonia and therefore the use of local chanceries must be given proper due. Inconsistency or vagueness in the literary sources when defining Antipater's role during Alexander's Asian campaign is interpreted by C., again, as a sign of the poor development of bureaucratic structures and political institutions in Macedonia. In the same sense, the lexical oscillation on the roles of those in charge of the ‘protection’ of the kingdom at the death of Alexander (pp. 4–5) is given this same interpretation. In truth, these aspects of the literary tradition could be better explained allowing for the usual lack of interest on the part of the Greek historians for legal and formal details of this type.

Of the various elements that constituted the Macedonian state, cities are almost exclusively observed from the perspective of the central power. In Chapters 4 (‘Tomb I and the Meaning of the Great Tumulus as a Historical Monument’), 5 (‘Were the Tombs under the Great Tumulus at Vergina Royal?’) and 12 (‘Symposia and the Macedonian Elite: the Unmixed Life’), as well as briefly elsewhere, C. touches on the ‘distribution of roles’ among the main cities of the kingdom, though primarily focusing on the localisation of Aigai to Vergina, the chronology and purposes of the Great Tumulus, the structure of the Royal Palaces at Pella and Vergina. She is apparently less interested in local institutions and the means by which the central power intervened in cities that were not ‘capitals’ or royal residences, and in the urban and monumental structures of these poleis (on these themes see chapters on individual cities in R.J. Lane Fox [ed.], Brill's Companion to Ancient Macedon. Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Macedon, 650 bc–300 ad [2011]).

Ample space is given to the ‘grey areas’ where uncertainty and instability exists for the Macedonian state, especially in the pre-Antigonid age characterised by dynastic and clan conflicts, polygamy, court intrigues related to sex affairs and family relations (see again Chapter 1, and the entire second section of the book, Chapters 6–9: ‘Alexander the Lyncestian: the Disloyal Opposition’; ‘The Death of Clitus’; ‘Regicide in Macedonia’; ‘The Politics of Polygamy: Olympias, Alexander, and the Murder of Philip’). The lack of a substantial distinction between public and private in the mechanisms of court relations and royal power management in Macedonia is very much insisted upon. In part this aspect was a genuine feature of Macedonian society, especially before the modernisation taken on by Philip II, but at the same time it must also be considered the effect of the biased representation that the Greek authors have passed on. From this perspective C. makes some astute observations, particularly with regard to the role of women (as it is well known, one of C.’s indisputable merits lies in her disclosure of the fully legitimate participation of ‘royal women’ in political action in Macedonia). C.’s studies, like those of D. Ogden, have also successfully demonstrated that the plots and regicides were a structural element of Macedonian royalty, rather than purely fictional features of the literary tradition on Philip and Alexander. C. also knows exactly how to exploit the enormous potential within the narrative literary traditions on these themes, for the benefit of clarity in her writing style and without sacrificing the finesse of her analysis: see Chapters 6–9, already cited, and Chapter 11, ‘The Role of the Basilikoi Paides at the Argead Court’.

Chapter 10, ‘Elite Education and High Culture in Macedonia’, deserves some additional remarks. C. partly explains Alexander's fondness for the Homeric poems in the literary tradition as an effect of the influence of the king's mother's family, which claimed descent from Achilles and Helenus, son of Priam (p. 191); she also stresses the particularly pronounced preference for Homer in the literary tastes of the Macedonian elite (p. 198). It is still most important, in my view, to emphasise the centrality of Homer in the Greek education system in general; in the fourth century the attribution of Homeric overtones to contemporary history is already present in Isocrates, well before the historians of Alexander. As for the disinterest or contempt for sport attributed to Alexander by the literary tradition, we must see here a suspicious topos: it seems really difficult today to conclude that ‘athletics were probably not a major component in [Alexander's] education’ (p. 192), or that such an attitude was common in the Macedonian elite (p. 197). C. corrects herself on this interpretation in the afterword.

Several points from the volume affect the institution of βασιλικοὶ παῖδες, also subject of a separate chapter (‘The Role of the Basilikoi Paides’, cited above). C.’s treatment of the Hermolaus conspiracy, its context and reasons is exemplary. This episode casts light on the institutional relationship between παῖδες and the king, and likewise on the forms of education reserved to the young elite. The fascinating side of the ‘rites of passage’ here is only quickly touched upon; but on this argument, the epigraphic documentation allows a broadening perspective beyond that of the court, at least for later epochs (cf. M.B. Hatzopoulos, Cultes et rites de passage en Macédoine [1994]; S. Psoma, Entre l'armée et l’oikos: l’éducation dans le royaume de Macédoine, in A.-M. Guimier-Sorbets, M.B. Hatzopoulos, Y. Morizot [edd.], Rois, cités, nécropoles. Institutions, rites et monuments en Macédoine [2006], pp. 285–99; I. Savalli-Lestrade, Les philoi royaux dans l'Asie hellénistique [1998], pp. 293–300).

The limited space available for this review forces me to pass over the many other interesting ideas and points of discussion that the re-reading of these essays inevitably provokes. It remains only to express appreciation for a very useful editorial initiative. This book successfully brings together many brilliant and innovative essays by an authoritative scholar, which were previously dispersed in many different locations, thus providing an exhaustive sum of C.’s contribution to Macedonian studies, while at the same time updating the references to the critical debate. The result is a great, fascinating and brilliantly written overview on the social, cultural and political background that in the central decades of the fourth century bc produced the ‘Macedonian miracle’.