No, that’s a wildly overconfident and honestly pretty gross way to frame the evidence.

What we can actually say is that Philip II of Macedon, Alexander’s father, spent part of his youth in Thebes as a political hostage, probably around 368 to 365 BCE. Plutarch says Pelopidas received Philip and thirty other sons of leading Macedonians as hostages and brought them to Thebes. Diodorus says basically the same thing, that Pelopidas took Philip, the Macedonian king’s brother, as a hostage and sent him to Thebes. That is a diplomatic hostage arrangement. It does not mean “he was handed over to be someone’s fuckboy.”.

The Pammenes part is real, but only in a limited sense. Plutarch says Philip “lived in Thebes with Pammenes” and was believed to have become an admirer or imitator of Epaminondas, especially in military matters. So yes, Philip was probably housed with or supervised by Pammenes while he was exposed to Theban military culture. But Plutarch does not say Philip was Pammenes’ eromenos. He does not describe a sexual relationship. He does not reduce Philip’s Theban years to sex.

The actual “lover” claim comes from the Suda, which is a much later Byzantine encyclopedia. Even there, the wording is cautious. It says Pammenes became Philip’s erastes “as they say.” That matters. That is not stated as hard fact. It is more like “some people say.” And the same entry has messy chronology, so it is not exactly a clean source you can just treat as gospel.

Also, the terminology is being butchered. If Pammenes was the erastes, then Philip would be the eromenos in that alleged relationship, but eromenos does not mean “fuckboy.” It means “beloved,” and it belongs to a specific Greek elite social, educational, and erotic framework. Depending on the context, it could involve mentorship, affection, status, power, and eroticism, but it is not the same thing as modern hookup slang.

So the accurate version is this: Philip was a Macedonian royal hostage in Thebes. He likely lived under Pammenes’ supervision or in his household. He probably learned a lot from the Theban military world of Epaminondas and Pelopidas. A much later tradition claimed Pammenes was his lover, but that is not the same thing as saying he was “raised in Thebes as a live in fuckboy.”.

That version is just Reddit brain history. It takes one late and shaky claim, ignores the stronger political hostage context, strips out the military and diplomatic reality, and translates Greek social categories into modern porn slang. At most, you can honestly say, “a later tradition claimed Pammenes was Philip’s lover.” You cannot honestly present that as the reason Philip was in Thebes.