okamido

Considering the ups and downs of their relationship, as described by history, I was wondering to what degree they may have actually loved each other?

Common father-son turmoil, or too much coveting of power?

okamido

I guess they didn't.

Tapio, the king of forest

Who else would Philip love, if not his own son, who would became king later.

markdienekes

Funny kind of love if Alexander was responsible for Philip's death... who knows, Alexander seemed to have had Philip's ghost overlooking his shoulder throughout his life...

Midas

I think Olympia had managed to convince Alexander that his real father was a god. Nevertheless, I believe that there was a father - son relation, at least in Alexanders young age.

Arete

Well, they do seem to have gone at it a lot, with the whole Attalus affair, followed by the Pixodorus affair. And Alexander being suspect in Philip's assassination doesn't give the rosiest picture.

But then again, Philip reacts like any proud father in Plutarch's account of Alexander's taming Bucephalus. And he did give Alexander a stellar education. I do know that Dionysus I of Sicily didn't bother educating his son and was succeeded by someone with a questionable intellect. While that was largely setting up for a smooth succession, he does seem to have taken an interest in Alexander's upbringing-having him tutored by Aristotle with his companions at Mieza, giving him regency at sixteen, command at eighteen-he was bred well for Kingship, IMO. And I wonder if Philip would have carried through that for a son he hated. True, he only really had the mentally impaired Arridaeos (sp?) and might have preferred a son from Kleopatra/Eurydike-but I do think he would not have settled with an heir he found incompetent.

As for the questions in the OP-I think Alexander definitely coveted power and the problems with Attalus and the Pixodorus affair are symptoms of that. But they were father and son and might have gone through those hassles as well.

But love or hate? I think only they'd know.