The Hellenistic World

3. The Formation of the Kingdoms (323–276)

On his death Alexander left an empire stretching from the Adriatic to the Punjab and from Tadzhikistan to Libya. But much of it was loosely held and parts of northern Asia Minor had never come under Macedonian control at all. Whether, had he lived longer, Alexander could have organized and co-ordinated this inchoate area effectively is a moot question. Without him even the survival as a whole seemed unlikely. The history of the next fifty years – from 323 until 276 – is of a struggle between Alexander’s generals and their sons and successors to take what they could for themselves. For a time that could have meant the whole. But the assumption of the royal title by several of the contestants from 306 onwards and the defeat and death of Antigonus at Ipsus in 301 marked two decisive steps in the process of dissolution. This proces can be traced in detail since the period down to 301 is well documented, with Hieronymus’ solid account standing behind our extant sources, especially Diodorus, whose narrative is intact down to that date.

I

Of those who were at Babylon when Alexander died the most important were Perdiccas, the senior cavalry officer and probably, since the death of Alexander’s favourite, Hephaestion, ‘chiliarch’ (in effect vizier), Meleager, the senior phalanx-leader, Ptolemy and Leonnatus (both related to the royal house), Lysimachus, Aristonous and Peucestas (who was satrap of Persis and Susiana). Others who were to play a major part later on were Seleucus, the commander of the hypaspists (a crack guards’ regiment), Eumenes of Cardia, Alexander’s secretary and the only Greek among the leading Macedonians, and Cassander, the son of Antipater. Antipater had been left by Alexander as regent in Macedonia, and Craterus, who had been sent to replace him, had already reached Cilicia. Finally there was Antigonus Monophthalmus, the One-eyed, a man (like Antipater) of the older generation, satrap of Phrygia. The struggle broke out at once and was to last in various forms until c. 270. Because the contestants, apart from Eumenes, were Macedonians, Macedonia was to play a special role in the conflict. It is perhaps not mere chance that it was the last major division of the empire to acquire a stable dynasty.

The twenty years we are now considering fall into two periods. The first, from 323 to 320, represents Perdiccas’ attempt to devise a compromise settlement which could claim legitimacy while leaving power in his hands. It ended in his violent death. The second period is longer; it covers the years from 320 to 301 and is dominated by Antigonus’ efforts to bring the whole empire, or as much of it as possible, under his control. Details are complicated. The scene shifts from Asia to Europe and back again to Asia where at Ipsus in 301 a coalition of his enemies brought about Antigonus’ defeat and death. After 301 the struggle continued with Demetrius Poliorcetes, Antigonus’ son, attempting to revive his father’s empire from a base in Greece and Macedonia but a coalition between Lysimachus and a new contestant, Pyrrhus of Epirus, brought about his fall and he died in captivity. In effect Ipsus had confirmed the existence of separate dynasties in Egypt (Ptolemy), Babylonia and northern Syria (Seleucus) and northern Anatolia and Thrace (Lysimachus). Only the fate of the homeland, Macedonia, remained undecided. Between 288 and 282 Lysimachus made a determined attempt to annex it, first in alliance with Pyrrhus and then alone but in 282 he was defeated by Seleucus at Corupedium, where he fell fighting, and after a period of near anarchy, with Gaulish invasions and rapid dynastic changes, Macedonia too at last obtained a permanent ruler in Demetrius’ son, Antigonus Gonatas.

The main territorial divisions of Alexander’s former empire were now established and were to survive with only minor changes for the next two centuries. In the present chapter we shall look briefly at the course of events which ended in this division of territories and power, and the dissolution of Alexander’s world-empire into a group of rival kingdoms and a de facto (though never properly recognized) balance of power.

Alexander’s death nearly precipitated civil war over the succession between the cavalry and the infantry sections of his army. Perdiccas proposed waiting for the birth of the unborn child of Alexander and Roxane and (if it was a boy) making it king but the phalanx led by Meleager put forward Philip II’s feebleminded bastard Arrhidaeus and thanks to Eumenes a compromise was made, appointing the two jointly. They were in due course recognized as Philip III and Alexander IV, but from the outset both were pawns in a struggle for power. Perdiccas now summoned a council of friends to assign commands. The army agreed

that Antipater should be general in Europe, Craterus ‘protector’ (prostates) of Arrhidaeus’s basileia, Perdiccas chiliarch over the chiliarchy which Hephaestion had commanded (which meant charge over the whole basileia) and Meleager Perdiccas’ subordinate (Arrian, Events after Alexander, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, 156, F i, 3).

Craterus’ position in this settlement is far from clear, since basileia can mean either ‘kingdom’ or ‘kingship’ (it has the former meaning in the parenthesis on Perdiccas’ command), and the post of prostates can be interpreted in several ways. Other sources, moreover, have slightly different versions; for example, Q. Curtius (x, 7, 8–9) has Perdiccas and Leonnatus designated guardians of Roxane’s child without any mention of Arrhidaeus. On the whole it seems likely that Perdiccas’ position as ‘chiliarch’ put him above Craterus (who was absent from Babylon) but in any case Perdiccas very soon had Meleager murdered, after which Craterus’ powers seem limited to sharing Macedonia with Antipater. So perhaps his post as prostates was a temporary concession to the phalanx and Meleager.

Perdiccas was now clearly on top – though, as Arrian remarks, ‘everyone was suspicious of him and he of them’ (Events after Alexander, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, 156, F i, 5). Of the rest Ptolemy received Egypt, and soon afterwards embellished his position there by cunningly sidetracking to that province the cortège containing Alexander’s embalmed body. Antigonus was given all western Asia Minor (including Greater Phrygia, Lycia and Pamphylia), Lysimachus received Thrace (which was separated from Macedonia), Leonnatus Hellespontine Phrygia (but he soon died) and Eumenes was sent to expel a local dynast Ariarathes from Cappadocia and Paphlagonia. Of these men Ptolemy, Antigonus, Eumenes and Lysimachus were to prove the most tenacious over the next decades and to play the greatest part in the conflict. Perdiccas was soon eliminated. While Craterus and Antipater collaborated under the command of the latter to suppress a Greek revolt (the so-called Lamian War ended in a crushing blow to the Greeks and especially Athens), Perdiccas took control of the kings and alienated Antipater by jilting his daughter in order to marry Alexander’s sister Cleopatra. A coalition of Antipater, Craterus, Antigonus, Lysimachus and Ptolemy was formed against him and only his murder in Egypt in 320 averted war. The first stage in the struggle was over and at a meeting of the coalition at Triparadeisus in north Syria (320) Antipater was made guardian of the kings (for Craterus had died operating against Eumenes) and removed the court to Macedonia. ‘Antigonus’, Diodorus tells us (xviii, 40, 1), ‘was declared general of Asia and assembled his forces from winter quarters to defeat Eumenes.’ The tide suggests a division of the empire with Antipater, who was general in Europe and an old man; he had never had much interest in Asia. Already therefore the attempt to maintain the empire in one set of hands had suffered a serious setback. Macedonia, Asia and Egypt were under separate control. Though the dynasties controlling the first two were later to change, the pattern of the hellenistic world was already beginning to emerge.

II

The next twenty years (320–301) are dominated by Antigonus. It was widely believed – Polybius (v, 102, 1) quotes the fact, not very appropriately, in connection with Philip V of whom it was not true – that the house of Antigonus had always aimed at universal dominion. We cannot be quite sure what was in Antigonus’ mind, but the sources certainly insist that he was never prepared to settle for less than the whole empire. The years down to 316 were devoted to hounding down and eliminating Eumenes. In 319 this was within Antigonus’ grasp but when he heard that Antipater had died having appointed one of Philip II’s officers, Polyperchon, as regent, he came to terms with Eumenes and joined Lysimachus, Ptolemy and Antipater’s son Cassander in a new alliance against Polyperchon. The latter, despite a proclamation ‘liberating the cities of Greece and dissolving the oligarchies set up by Antipater’ (Diodorus, xviii, 55, 2), failed to win support in Greece, where his move was seen as a propaganda exercise, and very soon Cassander’s forces were in the Piraeus and Athens under the control of his protégé, the Aristotelian philosopher, Demetrius of Phalerum. Meanwhile in Macedonia Philip III’s wife Eurydice declared for Cassander. When Polyperchon replied by inviting Alexander’s mother Olympias back from Epirus, she engineered the death of Philip III and Eurydice but was in turn tried and executed by the forces of Cassander, who invaded Macedonia. The legitimate house was now represented only by Alexander IV. Over in Asia Antigonus soon resumed the war against Eumenes, who scored some successes in Asia Minor, Phoenicia and Babylonia until in 316/15 he was betrayed by his troops to Antigonus, who had him tried and executed. This victory enabled Antigonus to extend his power into Iran and this made him the avowed enemy of the rest.

In the settlement of Triparadeisus Babylonia had been assigned to Seleucus. In 315 Antigonus, now back from a visit to the east and master of all the lands from Asia Minor to Iran, expelled him and he took refuge with Ptolemy. Largely at his instigation Ptolemy, Cassander and Lysimachus now served an ultimatum on Antigonus, demanding that he surrender most of his gains, restore Babylonia to Seleucus and share Eumenes’ treasure with them (Diodorus, xix, 57, 1). Antigonus can hardly have been expected to comply, nor did he. Instead he continued with his conquests, seizing southern Syria, Bithynia and Caria and he made a prudent alliance with Polyperchon. Moreover at Tyre in 314 he issued a proclamation that precipitated a thirteen years war with Cassander.

Calling together an assembly of his soldiers and those living there, he issued a decree declaring Cassander an enemy unless he destroyed the recently founded cities of Thessalonica and Cassandreia and, releasing from his custody the king (i.e. Alexander IV) and his mother Roxane, handed them over to the Macedonians and in short showed himself obedient to Antigonus, who had been constituted general and had taken over the control of the kingdom. All the Greeks too were to be free, without garrisons and self-governing (eleutherous, aphrouretous, autonomous) (Diodorus, xix, 61, 1–3).

Largely intended as propaganda this proclamation was to have far-reaching repercussions, for its last clause raised an issue which had already been put forward by Polyperchon in 319 as a weapon against Cassander (see p. 50) and was later to re-echo through the politics of the hellenistic age, until eventually the Romans took it up and adapted it to their own ends. We shall be considering it further in Chapter 7. Here we need note only that the significance was immediately evident to Ptolemy who

hearing of the resolution passed by the Macedonians with Antigonus concerning the freedom of the Greeks, himself wrote a similar declaration, being anxious that the Greeks should know that he was no less solicitous for their autonomy than was Antigonus (Diodorus, xix, 62, 1).

For Antigonus, however, it remained a cardinal principle of his Greek policy for the rest of his life and it was probably at this time and in accordance with this programme that he promoted the foundation of the League of Island Cities – the Nesiotes – in the Aegean, our knowledge of which is derived solely from inscriptions. Some scholars have attributed the foundation of this league to the Ptolemies, in 308 or even as late as 287. But a League inscription (IG, xi, 4, 103 6=Durr bach, Choix, 13) records the celebration in Delos in alternate years of festivals entitled Antigoneia and Demetrieia, and it seems likely (a) that these are federal festivals and (b) that the Demetrius and Antigonus whom they commemorate are Antigonus I and Demetrius I. If that is so, though it later fell under the Ptolemies, the League will have originated now as an instrument of Antigonid policy. The separation of Delos from Athens struck a blow at a city now under Cassander’s control.

Reacting to an invasion of Caria by Cassander (313), Antigonus now crossed the Taurus, sent various officers to intrigue in the Peloponnese and himself took action against Lysimachus in Thrace, where he intervened to assist Callatis and other Pontic cities which were in revolt (312). The same year he had an abortive meeting with Cassander on the Hellespont (Diodorus xix, 75, 6). But meanwhile Ptolemy had attacked Demetrius, whom his father had left to defend Palestine, and routed him at Gaza. Seleucus thereupon seized the chance to recover Babylon with forces provided by Ptolemy and Antigonus had to abandon fighting in the north in order to restore the situation in Syria. Both Antigonus and Ptolemy were by now ready for peace and this was agreed in 311 on the basis of the status quo. According to Diodorus (xix, 105, 1),

Cassander, Ptolemy and Lysimachus made peace with Antigonus and subscribed to a treaty, the terms of which were that Cassander should be general of Europe until Alexander, Roxane’s son, should come of age, Lysimachus should be lord of Thrace, and Ptolemy of Egypt and the cities bordering Egypt in Africa and Arabia; Antigonus should be in charge of all Asia and the Greeks should live according to their own laws. But they did not abide by this contract for long, but each one of them put forward plausible excuses for trying to acquire more territory.

The treaty of 311 was a setback to Antigonus’ ambitions but in a letter to the Greek cities, a copy of which was found at Scepsis (mod. Kurşunla Tepe), he represents it as a success and refers to the freedom of the Greeks as his main concern.

What zeal we have shown in these matters will, I think, be evident to you and to all others from the settlement itself. After the arrangements with Cassander and Lysimachus had been completed . . . Ptolemy sent envoys to us asking that a truce be made with him also and that he be included in the same treaty. We saw that it was no small thing to give up part of an ambition for which we had taken no little trouble and incurred much expense, and that too when an agreement had been reached with Cassander and Lysimachus and when the remaining task was easier. Nevertheless, because we thought that after a settlement had been reached with him the matter of Polyperchon might be arranged more quickly as no one would then be in alliance with him, because of our relationship to him [what this was is uncertain] and still more because we saw that you and our other allies were burdened by the war and its expenses, we thought it was well to yield and make the truce with him also. . . Know then that peace is made. We have provided in the treaty that all the Greeks are to swear to aid each other in preserving their freedom and autonomy, thinking that while we lived on all human calculations these would be protected, but that afterwards freedom would remain more certainly secure for all the Greeks if both they and the men in power are bound by oaths (Welles, R. C., no. I, II. 24–61 =SVA, 428= Austin, 31).

In this letter Antigonus not surprisingly makes no reference to Demetrius’ defeat at Gaza. It is of interest in that it provides evidence that Polyperchon was still active in the Peloponnese and also shows that Antigonus, now 71, is beginning to consider what is to happen after his death. More immediately, however, the swearing of oaths would enable him to call on Greek help if in the future he could plausibly allege a breach of the treaty.

By that treaty the unity of the empire had suffered a perhaps fatal blow, for by implication it recognized the existence of four independent powers – not to mention Seleucus and Polyperchon, who were both excluded from it. Shortly afterwards Cassander took the callous but logic step of assassinating Alexander IV and Roxane.

Cassander, Lysimachus and likewise Antigonus were now freed from their fear in regard to the king. For since no one now survived to inherit the kingdom, each one who was exercising rule over peoples or cities began to cherish hopes of sovereignty and to hold the territory under him as if it were a spear-won kingdom (Diodorus, xix, 105, 3–4).

Antigonus regarded the peace as a breathing-space before his next move. The events of the ten years which followed are complicated because, despite the general alignment against Antigonus, his rivals intrigued against each other and even made temporary arrangements with the common enemy. There is some evidence that the period opened with an unsuccessful attempt by Antigonus to recover the eastern satrapies, but that after being defeated by Seleucus he made a treaty with him giving him Iran and leaving him free to fight Chandragupta in India. That struggle ended about 303 with Seleucus ceding at least Gandhara and eastern Arachosia and Gedrosia. ‘Seleucus gave them to Sandracottus (Chandragupta) on terms of intermarriage and receiving in exchange five hundred elephants’ (Strabo, xv, 2, 9). These elephants were to prove a notable addition to hellenistic warfare. Meanwhile Ptolemy seized Cyprus and it was probably now that he contracted an alliance with the powerful, independent maritime city of Rhodes. Control of the Aegean was a bone of contention between Ptolemy and Antigonus, each of whom posed as the guardian of Greek liberty but when Cassander patched up a peace with Polyperchon (the price was the murder of Heracles, an alleged bastard of Alexander whom Polyperchon was using to rally support), Ptolemy and Antigonus drew together in circumstances which remain obscure. The agreement did not last. Faced with the alliance of Cassander and Polyperchon the Greek cities appealed to Ptolemy, who invaded the Peloponnese in 308 but then, having obtained little solid support, soon made peace with Cassander (though his garrisons remained installed at Corinth and other Greek cities). In 307, while Cassander was in Epirus, Demetrius sailed to Athens, expelled Demetrius of Phalerum, and set up a democracy and in 306 Antigonus sent him against Cyprus, where he won a resounding victory over the Ptolemaic governor and then over Ptolemy himself. Cyprus passed into Antigonid hands but a further sequel to this victory was even more significant.

For the first time the multitude saluted Antigonus and Demetrius as kings. Antigonus accordingly was immediately crowned by his friends, and Demetrius received a diadem from his father with a letter in which he was addressed as king. The followers of Ptolemy in Egypt on their part also, when this was reported, gave him the title of king so that they might not appear to be downcast because of their defeat. And in this way their emulation carried the practice among the other successors. For Lysimachus began to wear a diadem, and Seleucus also in his encounters with Greeks; for already before this he had dealt with the barbarians as a king. Cassander, however, although the others addressed him as a king in their letters and addresses, wrote his own letters in the same form as he had done previously (Plutarch, Demetrius, 18, 1–2).

Antigonus’ assumption of kingship was in 306, that of Ptolemy shortly afterwards in 305/4, and that of Seleucus, as we know from cuneiform texts, likewise in 305/4. A cuneiform tablet containing a Babylonian king list of the hellenistic period (see p. 26) adds to our information about this. Lines 6–7 (obv.) read:

Year 7 (Seleucid era), which is [his] first year, Seleucus [ruled as] king. He reigned 25 years. Year 31 (Seleucid era), month 6, Se[leucus] the king was killed in the land [of the] Khani.

This text, besides giving the date of Seleucus’ death (between 25 August and 24 September 281) also makes clear that his first regnal year (305/4) was the seventh year of the Seleucid era, which therefore began in 312/11 (in fact in October 312 in the Greek reckoning and in April 311 in the Babylonian). The document proves that Plutarch’s statement that Seleucus had already previously dealt with barbarians as a king is not literally true nor should his statement about Cassander be taken to imply that he refrained from using the royal title generally, since he is called ‘King Cassander’ on coins, and an inscription from Cassandreia recording what is probably the confirmation of a grant of land begins:

The king of the Macedonians Cassander gives to Perdiccas son of Coenus the land in Sinaia and that at Trapezus which was occupied by his grandfather Polemocrates and his father in the reign of Philip (II) etc. (Syll., 332).

This sudden spate of royal titles marked yet a further step in the break-up of the empire – though just what each king took his title to mean we can only speculate. It is unlikely that each general was staking out a claim to the whole empire – unless this was perhaps Antigonus’ idea. More likely, as the passage from Diodorus quoted on p. 54 suggests, they were exploiting the death of Alexander IV to claim kingship within their own particular territories – though not kingship of those territories. Ptolemy was already king of Egypt to the native population but he never calls himself king of Egypt in any Greek document. And of what kingdom – if any – was Antigonus king? The later career of Demetrius, who was for several years a king without a kingdom, is some indication that these monarchies were felt to be personal, and not closely linked with the lands where the king ruled. They constituted recognition of a claim based on high military achievement by men who through their efforts controlled ‘peoples or cities’. The exception was Macedonia and in the inscription quoted above in which Cassander calls himself ‘king of the Macedonians’, his purpose in doing so is perhaps to assert a unique position not open to any of his rivals (rather than simply to affirm his authority to validate a land-grant within the kingdom of Macedonia, as has been suggested).

Demetrius followed up his victory in Cyprus with the famous attack on Rhodes which brought him his title of Poliorcetes, the Besieger (305). This attack was a further provocation to Ptolemy, the close friend of Rhodes. The siege lasted a year and was celebrated for the siege-engines which Demetrius deployed, though unsuccessfully, in order to reduce the city. It ended in a compromise peace (304), in which the Rhodians gave 100 hostages and agreed to be ‘allies of Antigonus and Demetrius, except in a war against Ptolemy’ (Plutarch, Demetrius, 22, 4). In 304/3 Demetrius seized the Isthmus of Corinth and in 302, in preparation for war on Cassander, he resurrected the Hellenic League of Philip and Alexander ‘thinking that autonomy for the Greeks would bring him great renown’ (Diodorus, xx, 102, 1). An inscription found at Epidaurus (SVA, 446) contains the constitutive act setting up the League. In it provision was made for regular meetings of the Council and for Antigonus and Demetrius as leaders to exercise an even closer control than Philip and Alexander had done over their League of Corinth. The Epidaurus inscription is extremely fragmentary, but the information it contains can be supplemented from a Delphic inscription containing a letter written by Adeimantus of Lampsacus to Demetrius and an Athenian decree honouring Adeimantus (Moretti, i, 9; ii, 72). These inscriptions show that so long as the war with Cassander lasted, Demetrius appointed the presidium of the League personally and also that Adeimantus, known hitherto mainly as a flatterer of the king and friend of philosophers, played an important role as Demetrius’ representative at the council of the League and perhaps in proposing the institution of a festival in honour of the two kings.