Alexander the Great

Themes and Issues

Edward M. Anson

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781441143631
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Alexander the Great's life and career are here examined through the major issues surrounding his reign.What were Alexander's ultimate ambitions? Why did he pursue his own deification while alive? Did he actually set the world in 'a new groove' as has been claimed by some scholars? And was his death natural or the result of a murderous conspiracy? Each of the key themes, arranged as chapters, will be presented in approximately chronological order so that readers unfamiliar with the life of Alexander will be able to follow the narrative. The themes are tied to the major controversies and questions surrounding Alexander's career and legacy. Each chapter includes a discussion of the major academic positions on each issue, and includes a full and up-to-date bibliography and an evaluation of the historical evidence. All source material is in translation.Designed to bring new clarity to the contentious history of Alexander the Great, this is an ideal introduction to one of history's most controversial figures.

1

The Macedonian background

Prior to the reigns of Macedonia’s two most famous kings, Philip II and his son Alexander III, the Great, the term Macedonian had not achieved a national status (Diod. 16. 8. 1; see Billows 1995: 1). This rural, mostly pastoral, society virtually broke on the world scene from out of nowhere. Prior to the mid-fourth-century BC, Macedonia had been subject to frequent incursions by her tribal neighbors to the west, east, and north, chiefly and respectively, the Epirotes, Thracians, and Illyrians; and also by the forces of the southern Greek city-states, the poleis. The latter exploited the region for its large resources of minerals and especially timber, which was the mainstay of the naval forces of Macedonia’s southern neighbors. Moreover, Macedonians were not commonly seen as true Greeks before or even during the reigns of these illustrious rulers. Throughout the Classical Age most Greeks acknowledged a distinction between themselves and the Macedonians, despite their many cultural affinities, due primarily to the lack of cities and the city-state culture of the more urbanized south (Anson 2004: 201–3). The region was ruled by kings and powerful aristocrats, not the assemblies that characterized the governments of the poleis. This general belief that the Macedonians were not true Greeks is evidenced by their inability to participate in the various Panhellenic activities of the Greek world. Only the kings were permitted to participate in the Olympic Games, the great celebration of the chief Greek god Zeus (Hdts. 5. 22). The Argead or Temenid ruling family, was generally acknowledged by contemporaries and vigorously argued by the members of the royal family themselves, to have arisen in the Peloponnesian city-state of Argos. The kings down to the death of Alexander the Great’s son and heir, Alexander IV, were by tradition descended from the Argive Temenus, thus the family was often referred to as Temenid (Hdt. 8.137–9, Thuc. 2.99.3). The ruling family was also called Argead, a term that apparently derives from a tribal name, “Argeas, the son of Macedon” (Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Argeou), but which also came to be associated with their claimed Argive origin.

It is even questionable when the appellation Macedonia came to be generally applied to the great plain formed by the Axius and the Haliacmon Rivers and its surrounding mountains in the northern Greek peninsula (Borza 1990: 99). Certainly by the fifth-century BC, Herodotus and Thucydides both speak of the plain as Lower, and the plateau, as Upper Macedonia.¹ Lower Macedonia was at least in theory a united country ruled by a king. The region of Upper Macedonia was only permanently joined to Lower Macedonia during the reign of Philip II (Diod. 16. 8. 1; Dell 1963: 62–99, 1970: 115–26; Hammond and Griffith 1979: 14–31, 650–6). Prior to this time, although the peoples of Upper Macedonia, the Orestians, Lyncestians, Tymphaeans, and Elimeians may have been brought under the control of the Lower Macedonian king during the period of Persian domination (c. 513–479 BC), these cantons had their own separate governments, paying at most lip service allegiance to the Lower Macedonian king (Thuc. 2. 99. 2; IG I³ 89).

Prior to unification, the Upper Macedonians maintained their independence often by armed conflict and alliances with the Lower Macedonian kings’ enemies. In 433, Derdas I, king of Elimeia, had allied himself with the Athenians and a pretender to the throne of what was in effect Lower Macedonia (Thuc. 1. 57. 3). Derdas II likewise ruled an independent Elimeia and formed an alliance with the Spartans in 382 BC against the Olynthians (Xen. Hell. 5. 2. 38). In the late 420s, Arrhabaeus, the king of Lyncestis, was openly hostile to the Lower Macedonian kings (Arist. Pol. 5. 8. 1311b; Borza 1990: 150–1, 163–4).

Even with political unification, certain distinctions between Lower and Upper Macedonia remained during the reigns of Philip and Alexander. The Macedonian army was built on regional recruitment with the command structure of the forces especially from Upper Macedonia dominated by members of these areas’ local, hereditary, nobility. When Alexander crossed to Asia, Perdiccas, from the canton of Orestis (Arr. Anab. 6. 28. 4; Ind. 18. 5) and descended from the former kings of that upland region (Curt. 10. 7. 8), commanded the battalion from Orestis and Lyncestis (Diod. 17. 57. 2); the Elimeian Coenus, that from Elimeia (Heckel 1992: 58–9), and Polyperchon, that from his native Tymphaea (Diod. 17. 57. 2). Later in 333, Polyperchon’s unit was commanded by Ptolemaeus, the son of Seleucus, perhaps, another Tymphaean (Heckel 2006: 234–5).

While our only information comes from the reign of Alexander the Great, it would still appear that the infantry during Philip’s reign from Lower Macedonia was not ethnically organized, or routinely led by aristocrats from that region. In the army at Gaugamela, the overall commanders were Meleager, Philip, the son of Balacrus (Diod. 17. 57. 3; Curt. 4. 13. 28), and Craterus (Diod. 17. 57. 2–3). Of these Meleager was probably from Lyncestas (Heckel 2006: 159), while Craterus was from Orestis (Arr. Ind. 18. 5), and Philip’s origin is unknown (Heckel 2006: 211–12). It is most likely, however, that before the reigns of these two monarchs, all infantry and cavalry were commanded by local representatives of the nobility. It was only in the reign of Philip II that Macedonia developed any significant heavy infantry (see Chapter 2).

Another distinction between the two regions was, the greater urbanization that existed in lowland Macedonia, while in the period before Macedonian’s two most famous monarchs minimal even in Lower Macedonia (Millett 2010: 480). During the reign of Alexander the Great, Macedonians from the plain were often associated with particular cities, not with regional areas. In the listing of the honorary trierarchs for Alexander’s voyage down the Indus in 326, most Macedonians associated with Lower Macedonia are listed as from the cities of Pella, Pydna, Amphipolis, Mieza, Alcomenae, Aegae, Aloris, or Beroea; those from Upper Macedonia, from the districts of Orestis and Tymphaea (Arr. Ind. 18. 3–6). However, many of those listed as from these lowland cities were originally from Upper Macedonia, and must have received estates from the king near these communities. For example, Leonnatus is described in Nearchus’ list of the trierarchs of the Indian fleet as a Macedonian from Pella (Arr. Ind. 18. 3), but was a member of the Lyncestian royal house (see Heckel 1992: 91; 2006: 147; Hammond and Griffith 1979; 352–3, 409–10). The different listing of the individuals from the two districts and the close association of troops from Upper Macedonia with commanders from the same areas, and the seeming absence of such close association for troops and commanders from Lower Macedonia might suggest that those from the latter were more integrated into the Macedonian state, having replaced their regional affiliations with a national one long ago. However, lowland aristocrats are not always associated with communities in Alexander’s command. Ptolemy, son of Lagus, Peithon, son of Crateuas, and Aristonous, son of Peisaeus, are listed as from Eordaea, a lowland district, without any reference to a municipality (Arr. Anab. 6. 28. 4; Ind. 18. 5); there was also a Bottiaean unit of the Companion cavalry (Arr. Anab. 1. 2. 5). Moreover, apparently until relatively late in the campaign, the troops, including new arrivals, were brigaded according to region (Arr. Anab. 3. 16. 10–11). A similar sort of division was employed in the Macedonian cavalry. Against the Triballians in 335, Philotas led the cavalry of Upper Macedonia, and Heracleides and Sopolis led the cavalry from Bottiaea and Amphipolis (Arr. Anab. 1. 2. 5). What is remarkable is that while the upland regions had long maintained their at least practical independence from their Lower Macedonian neighbors, once joined, there is little evidence of dissatisfaction with the union by these formerly independent districts. In the centuries following Philip II’s annexation of Upper Macedonia (Diod. 16. 8. 1; see also 16. 1. 5), right up to the Roman conquest, there is only one attested revolt of an area roughly corresponding to a former Upper Macedonian kingdom, and that, if it occurred at all, took place in 197 BC (Polyb. 18. 47. 6), one-and-a-half centuries after its annexation. While A. B. Bosworth (1971: 105) believes this is evidence that “the incorporation of the mountain kingdoms [Upper Macedonia] proved ultimately unsuccessful,” Miltiades Hatzopoulos (1996A: 103) challenges the very existence of the revolt, calling it, perhaps, “a pious fiction invented by the Romans.” In any case, a single revolt is hardly evidence of ongoing hostility to the merger of the two Macedonian districts. That the union was so successful relates to the accepted belief in the two districts’ common ethnicity, and also to the benefits given to various groups by their new king Philip (see Chapter 2).

With respect to the acceptance of a common ethnicity, the earliest tradition holds that the original Macedonians were a group of related tribes, part of whom moved from the western mountains down into the central plain during the period from about 650 to 550 BC (Thuc. 2. 99. 1–3; 4. 83. 1).² According to Strabo (7. 7. 8–9; 9. 5. 11), a geographer of the early Roman imperial period, the tribes that came to inhabit Upper Macedonia were not Macedonian at all, but from, the western neighboring district of Epirus. However, the fifth-century BC historian Thucydides (2. 99. 2) clearly saw these groups as Macedonians in an ethnic sense. When the “Macedonian” tribes moved into the coastal plain either in the early- or mid-seventh-century BC (Hammond and Griffith 1979: 4; Borza 1990: 87), most of those encountered were expelled from their lands and replaced by Macedonian settlers. These included the original Pierians, Bottiaeans, Edonians, Eordaeans, Almopians, Crestonians, and Bisaltians (Thuc. 2. 99. 2–6; see Ellis 1976: 36). With respect to the last two, the nature of the conquest is unclear. They may have already migrated from Bisaltia and Crestonia into the northern mountains to escape Xerxes’ advance into Greece (Hdts. 8. 116. 1). Alexander I (498–454) then would have moved into evacuated territory. Even though according to Herodotus the Bisaltians fled north, where they maintained their independence into the reign of Perseus (Livy 44. 45. 8; 45. 29. 7, 30. 3), many Bisaltians and Crestonians are later found living in Chalcidice (Thuc. 4. 109. 4), suggesting that the evacuations and expulsions related to the Persians and to the campaign of Alexander were not as complete as indicated by the sources with many of these peoples, perhaps, remaining in their original homelands.

In addition to these, perhaps, holdovers from the initial conquest, over the years many others migrated to Macedonia, coming from southern Greece, Illyria, Paeonia, Thrace, and elsewhere. From at least the time of Alexander I, migration of Greeks from the south to Macedonia was encouraged. Even though many of these refugees came as communities, they are not found subsequently as distinct entities in Macedonia. When Mycenae was destroyed by Argos, over half the population came to Macedonia on Alexander I’s invitation (Paus. 7. 25. 6). Similarly in 446, when the Athenian Pericles captured Histiaea on Euboea, the inhabitants took refuge in Macedonia (FGrH 115 F-387). As people coming from poleis, it is possible that they were associated with Macedonian urban populations, but these at this time were few. While Hammond (1995A: 126 n. 20) argues on the basis of Thuc. 4. 124. 1, “Perdiccas meanwhile marched . . . to Lyncus . . . [leading] a force of Macedonians, . . . and a body of Hellenic hoplites domiciled in that country,” that these Greek migrants maintained their identity, A. W. Gomme (1974: 612) rightly sees these “Hellenic hoplites” as coming from the independent Greek coastal cities, such as Pydna. Hoplites are most often associated with Greek city-states and by-and-large represent these communities’ middle class. Typically these heavy infantrymen were to supply their own equipment, the round, three-foot in diameter shield, the seven-to-eight-foot stabbing spear, grieves, and breastplate, since the cities themselves were seldom wealthy enough to do so. Macedonia, although a wealthy region (Millett 2010), with certain products even seen as royal monopolies, especially timber and minerals (Hammond and Griffith 1979: 157; Borza 1987 B: 39–40; 1982: 11–12; Hatzopoulos 1996A: 43), possessed few hoplites. This was a product of a number of factors. Much of the trade of the hinterland was exported through the independent Greek cities along the Macedonian coast, the hinterland often controlled by noble barons. Additionally, with little urban population or middle class, the state would have had to supply each soldier with the hoplite panoply. These economic limitations when combined with the lack of a tradition of heavy infantry warfare meant that until the reign of Philip II, that arm of the military was always in short supply. The dominant military arm of Macedonia was its aristocratic cavalry with its infantry primarily being light-armed. The vast majority of the Macedonian population prior to the reigns of Philip II and Alexander III were likely much like that of the hectemoroi and the pelatai of Solonian Athens (Ath. Pol. 2. 2; Plut. Sol. 13. 4–5). These impoverished tenant farmer and dependent pastoralist hectemoroi were Macedonians, and though similar to the Thessalian penestai, the laoi of Hellenistic Asia, and the Spartan helots in their dependent status, they were not an indigenous, conquered population, as were the latter groups. A large number of these individuals would be freed from this serf-like status by Philip II (see Chapter 3; Anson 2008B: 17–30).

Despite Macedonia being a land of much diversity, with its population including a mixture of peoples ranging from southern Greek immigrants to those from the neighboring regions of Thrace and Illyria, among others, the evidence suggests that this region was certainly part of the Greek cultural milieu in the fifth century and, by the end of the fourth century, was recognized as such by the inhabitants of the southern regions of the peninsula. While Aristotle (Pol. 7. 1324b) listed the Macedonians among the barbarians, others regarded them as either people related to the Greeks or even as Greeks. In The Catalogue of Women, attributed in antiquity to Hesiod, it states that “the district Macedonia took its name from Macedon, the son of Zeus and Thyia, Deucalion’s daughter, and she conceived and bore to Zeus who delights in the thunderbolt two sons, Magnes and Macedon, rejoicing in horses, who dwell round about Pieria and Olympus” (West 1985: 127–30, 169–71). The ancestor of the Macedonians is then the nephew of Hellen, the forebear of the Hellenes. However, by the end of the fifth century, with Hellanicus, the Greek logographer, Macedon becomes the son of Aeolus, a son of Hellen and ancestor of the Aeolians, and hence in the direct line of descent from Hellen (FGrH 4 F 74). By the fifth-century BC, if not before, Macedonia and the southern Greeks shared most of the same gods, and the Greek alphabet and language were employed for written communication. Of the roughly 6300 inscriptions recovered within the confines of what was ancient Macedonia, approximately 99 percent were written in Greek (Panayotou 2007: 436), and the legends on all currently discovered Macedonian coins are in Greek (Price 1974). The evidence also suggests that the language spoken by most Macedonians was a dialect of Greek (Voutiras 1996: 678–82; Masson 1996: 905–6).

Politically the government of Macedonia was an autocracy. Indeed, in theory, the Macedonian king was the kingdom. While our evidence for earlier reigns is sparse, with respect to Philip II, Isocrates (5. 107–8) notes that Macedonia was subject to the rule of “one man,” and Demosthenes (1. 4) comments that Philip was the sole director of his policy, “uniting the roles of general, ruler, and treasurer,” and “was responsible to nobody: the absolute autocrat, commander, and master of everybody and everything” (Dem. 18. 235). G. T. Griffith (Hammond and Griffith 1979: 384) correctly declares: “there was simply no government apart from the king.” The king apparently on his own authority determined the taxes to be paid and saw to their collection (Arr. Anab. 7. 10. 4; Plut. Demetr. 42. 3–4; Mor. 178A–179C). Miltiades Hatzopoulos (1996A: 431–5) argues that the king was only the trustee of the “people’s” money. Even if this were technically true, there is no evidence of any regulatory body overseeing or disciplining the king. Moreover, the king’s control over his population in many ways could be profound. Amyntas I in 505 BC had offered the entire region of Anthemus and its people to the Athenian Hippias (Hdts. 5. 94. 1).³ The king controlled much of the kingdom’s natural resources (Hammond and Griffith 1979: 157). He controlled foreign policy. It was the Macedonian king to whom embassies were sent (Hdt. 5. 17; Dem. 18. 24, 19. 12, 229; Aeschin. 2. 12, 18), and from whom embassies departed.⁴ This is clear in the reports of Demosthenes and Aeschines on the Peace of Philocrates. It was to be a treaty between the Athenians and their allies and Philip and his allies (Dem. 19. 159, 278; Aeschin. 2. 84, 137; 3. 65). The peace was to end a war between Athens and Philip (Dem. 18. 235, 19. 93), and it was ratified in Pella by solemn oaths taken by the Athenian ambassadors on the one hand and by Philip on the other.⁵ Indeed, the Athenian ambassadors had to wait a considerable period of time in Pella for Philip’s return before the treaty could be ratified (Dem. 19. 155; see also 19. 57). Moreover, it is always the Macedonian king’s name alone, usually without even the suffix “of the Macedonians,” which is mentioned by Greek contemporaries. Philip accepts the surrender of the Phocians at the conclusion of the Third Sacred War (Dem. 19. 62), not the representatives of the Macedonians, and it is Philip who receives the two seats on the Amphictyonic Council formerly held by the Phocians (Diod. 16. 60. 1; Dem. 19. 111; Speusippas’ Letter to Philip 8), not the Macedonian people. Diodorus, in particular, is very clear that the two seats were Philip’s and his heirs.⁶ The other seats were held by peoples: the Thessalians, Boeotians, Dorians, Ionians, Perrhaebi, Magnetes, Dolopians, Locrians, Oetaeans, Phthiotians, and Malians (Aeschin. 2. 116). This omission of any reference to the Macedonians is common. The Pythian Games of 345 were to be held by the Boeotians, the Thessalians, and Philip (Dem. 19. 128; Diod. 16. 60. 2). Demosthenes (18. 36; 19. 83) routinely speaks of Philip without title or reference to the Macedonians. This usage was common practice well before the reign of Philip II. In Thucydides (4. 82), the Athenians proclaimed Perdiccas their enemy, not the Macedonians, and at the Congress of 371, it was Amyntas III, the father of Philip II, who was entitled to a seat without reference to the Macedonian state or people (Aeschin. 2. 32). In general, prior to Alexander the Great, there are few references even to the title “King of the Macedonians,” and these are meant to be primarily geographically descriptive (Errington 1974: 20).

It was the king...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1 The Macedonian background
• 2 A father’s legacy: Philip II and the rise of the Macedonian nation
• 3 Alexander and deification
• 4 Alexander and the administration of an empire
• 5 The kingdom of Asia
• 6 Alexander’s legacy
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index