It was in the year 360-359 B. C., that Perdikkas, elder brother and predecessor of Philip on the throne of Macedonia, was slain, in the flower of his age. He perished, according to one account, in a bloody battle with the Illyrians, wherein four thousand Macedonians fell also; according to another statement, by the hands of assassins and the treacherous subornation of his mother Eurydikê.[423] Of the exploits of Perdikkas during the five years of his reign we know little. He had assisted the Athenian general Timotheus in war against the Olynthian confederacy, and in the capture of Pydna, Potidæa, Torônê, and other neighboring places; while on the other hand he had opposed the Athenians in their attempt against Amphipolis, securing that important place by a Macedonian garrison, both against them and for himself. He was engaged in serious conflicts with the Illyrians.[424] It appears too that he was not without some literary inclinations—was an admirer of intellectual men, and in correspondence with Plato at Athens. Distinguished philosophers or sophists, like Plato and Isokrates, enjoyed renown, combined with a certain measure of influence, throughout the whole range of the Grecian world. Forty years before, Archelaus king of Macedonia had shown favor to Plato,[425] then a young man, as well as to his master Sokrates. Amyntas, the father both of Perdikkas and of Philip, had throughout his reign cultivated the friendship of leading Athenians, especially Iphikrates and Timotheus; the former of whom he had even adopted as his son; Aristotle, afterwards so eminent as a philosopher (son of Nikomachus the confidential physician of Amyntas[426]), had been for some time studying at Athens as a pupil of Plato; moreover Perdikkas during his reign had resident with him a friend of the philosopher—Euphræus of Oreus. Perdikkas lent himself much to the guidance of Euphræus, who directed him in the choice of his associates, and permitted none to be his guests except persons of studious habits; thus exciting much disgust among the military Macedonians.[427] It is a signal testimony to the reputation of Plato, that we find his advice courted, at one and the same time, by Dionysius the younger at Syracuse, and by Perdikkas in Macedonia. [423] Justin, vii. 5; Diodor. xvi. 2. The allusion in the speech of Philotas immediately prior to his execution (Curtius, vi. 43. p. 591, Mützell) supports the affirmation of Justin—that Perdikkas was assassinated. [424] Antipater (the general of Philip and viceroy of his son Alexander in Macedonia) is said to have left an historical work, Περδίκκου πράξεις Ἰλλυρικὰς (Suidas, v. Ἀντίπατρος), which can hardly refer to any other Perdikkas than the one now before us. [425] Athenæus, xi. p. 506 E. Πλάτων, ὃν Σπεύσιππός φησι φίλτατον ὄντα Ἀρχελάῳ, etc. [426] Diogenes Laert. v. 1, 1.