Alexander's Heirs

The Age of the Successors

Edward M. Anson

• Éditeur: Wiley-Blackwell
• Année: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781118862407
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: History
• Sous-sujet: Greek Ancient History

Alexander's Heirs offers a narrative account of the approximately forty years following the death of Alexander the Great, during which his generals vied for control of his vast empire, and through their conflicts and politics ultimately created the Hellenistic Age.

• Offers an account of the power struggles between Alexander's rival generals in the forty year period following his death
• Discusses how Alexander's vast empire ultimately became the Hellenistic World
• Makes full use of primary and secondary sources
• Accessible to a broad audience of students, university scholars, and the educated general reader
• Explores important scholarly debates on the Diadochi

1
Introduction

Any history of the Diadochi, the Successors, the generals who inherited the empire of Alexander the Great, will of necessity be an adventure story of larger-than-life characters pursuing glory and empire. This was an age that arose directly out of the conquests of one of the most mercurial figures in world history. It is only by comparison to the great Conqueror himself that these individuals’ exploits pale. After all, they were fighting over an empire, stretching from Greece to Egypt to India, that he had created, and that ultimately none of them singularly could hold. Yet it is in their struggles with each other over what might be called Alexander’s estate that the Hellenistic world was created. This estate over which they contended was both material and mythical. On the one hand, there was the physical, territorial, empire, but on the other was the legend of Alexander himself. This myth that grew with each passing year was often the exemplar by which supporters of the various Diadochi would measure their generals and rulers. Alexander, however, himself was but a catalyst in the creation of this new age (Anson 2013b: 181–8). He set the stage; he conquered the old Persian nemesis that had haunted Greek affairs since the sixth century bc, but then he left that stage. In his leaving, he is supposed to have said, when asked to whom he left his empire, “to the strongest.” He certainly had done little to ensure the empire’s survival. In the words of Ernst Badian (1964a: 203), “Alexander was, essentially, not interested in a future without himself.” He left a legacy of tremendous potential, but also one of administrative ambiguity and a world wedded to warfare as the means to virtually every end.

At his death, Alexander’s potential heirs were a child, Heracles, by a mistress; a half-brother of dubious competence, and an as yet unborn son by his Bactrian or Sogdian wife Roxane (Heckel 2006: 187, 241). In short, there was to be no smooth transition in power, and, in the final analysis, Alexander’s family, the Argeads, would not long survive the great king’s death.

While his Successors contended in a world in which few parameters had been set, some of these were to resound until the fall of the various Hellenistic states to Rome, and in some cases to transcend even this conquest. These qualities were especially important given the personal nature of Alexander’s empire and his Successors’ kingdoms. Unlike the later Roman empire, in which lands secured overseas by Roman armies redounded to the benefit of the Roman state, Alexander’s conquests were regarded as his personal possessions won through his personal triumphs. For Alexander, Macedonia was a manpower resource only. His connection to his homeland grew dimmer with every new conquest and with every step he took further into the east. He even planned to center his empire on Babylon (Str. 15.3.9–10). This personal aspect of rule was one of Alexander’s major legacies to his Successors. Alexander’s kingdom was one won on the battlefield, and warfare was not just the backdrop of Alexander’s initial conquests, but also that of the first forty years of the Hellenistic age. The ruler as general, ever attempting to increase his personal domains, is the history of the Hellenistic world, and, perhaps, the legacy of Alexander not just to his contemporaries, the Successors, about whom this book relates, but to the age as a whole.

This history is a story of vaulting ambition, treachery, and wars almost without cessation. It was this inheritance, first from Alexander, and then from his immediate true heirs, his generals, that formed the underpinnings of the entire Hellenistic period. Even after the establishment of relatively stable royal families in the kingdoms carved from Alexander’s empire by the second and third generations of the Conqueror’s successors, personal monarchy and warfare remained the staples of the new age. Alexander’s generation was to serve as a transition from the conquest itself to the more settled world by comparison that appeared with the emergence of formal Hellenistic states. In part, these more settled conditions were the result of the emptying of the vast treasuries that had been captured from the Persians. These funds fueled the almost incessant warfare of the Successors.

While Alexander had not created an empire that was fixed by tradition or institutions, he had created a governmental pattern that was to be reinforced by his more successful Diadochs. Alexander had in the main copied the administrative structure of the Persian empire, which had the various regions divided up into provinces or satrapies, under the administrative authority of a governor or satrap, but Alexander’s legacy was much more than the transmittal of some basic Persian administrative organization, and it was this inheritance that was continued and enhanced by his Successors. Alexander had created his empire in war and blood, and those who came after him fought for their share of this inheritance in the same fashion. The Successors had to demonstrate their fitness to rule on a regular basis, while their descendants owed their legitimacy, in the main, to their forebears. For Alexander the core of his empire was his increasingly polyglot army, with the military camp serving as his true capital. With few exceptions this was another way in which those who followed emulated the Conqueror. With respect to those territories brought under their aegis through conquest, the Successors mostly sought to dominate these areas through garrisons and often, again in the pattern of Alexander, with city foundations, but also through securing the loyalty of local elites. With regard to the last, Alexander had been most adept (Briant 2002: 870, 842–4, 1046–60), and among his Successors, Peucestas and Seleucus were noted for their acceptance of foreign traditions and peoples. Peucestas, Alexander’s satrap of Persis, wore Persian dress, learned the Persian language (Arr. Anab. 6.30.2–3), and treated many Persians as his close, personal, advisors and allies (Diod. 19.22.2). Later, in the second great contest of Alexander’s Successors, Peucestas assembled an army that included 6000 Persian archers and slingers, 3000 heavy infantry made up of “men of many races … in Macedonian array,” and 400 Persian cavalrymen (Diod. 19.14.5). Seleucus’ later success in securing much of the east was tied to his ability “to find common ground with the native populations” (Olbrycht 2013: 168). In both Babylonia and Iran his “generosity” and “benevolence” secured the support of even the common people (Diod. 19.91.2, 92.5).

As part of this courting of the local elite, it was equally important for the successful Diadoch to recognize the nature of the military organization bequeathed by Alexander. This was no longer the national force of Macedonia, but rather a polyglot army of different nationalities, including increasing numbers of true mercenaries, but with all exhibiting many of the characteristics of mercenaries (Anson 1991: 230–47). Troops in this period tended to follow leaders who were both successful on the battlefield and excellent paymasters. Often, defeated armies would desert their now beaten general and enter service with the commander of the victorious force. The other aspect of these armies of the Diadochs was that, while they may have had Macedonian cores, the majority of the troops were Asians or Greek mercenaries. When Alexander died in Babylon in June of 323, his army only consisted of approximately 2000 Macedonian cavalry and 13,000 Macedonian infantry (Curt. 10.2.8). In addition to these Macedonians, there were present 30,000 infantry called the Epigoni or Offspring, young Asians armed and trained in the techniques of the Macedonian heavy infantry (Arr. Anab. 7.6.1; Curt. 8.5.1; Diod. 17.108.1–2; Plut. Alex. 47.3, 71.1), 20,000 Persian infantry armed in their traditional fashion, forces of Cossaeans and Tapurians (Arr. Anab. 7.23.1), 30,000 mercenary infantry and 6000 such cavalry brought from Greece prior to his voyage down the Indus (Diod. 17.95.4), and unspecified forces brought to Babylon shortly before his death from Caria and Lydia (Arr. Anab. 7.23.1). Moreover, it is unknown, other than the numbers of Macedonians, how many of the original force that entered India had survived the journey down the Indus, the crossing of the Gedrosian desert, or had been left behind in various garrisons. According to Curtius (8.5.4), the army that entered India contained 120,000 men (cf. Engels 1978: 150). Many of these were recruited in and around what is today Afghanistan (Curt. 8.5.1; Arr. Anab. 6.2.3, 8.2; cf. 4.17.3). While these Asian and Greek forces in the aftermath of Alexander’s death are most often not specified ethnically by our sources, there are indications that they continued to serve in the armies of the various Diadochs in large numbers. Eumenes in 320 had an army composed of “men of many races” (Diod. 18.30.4). In the Battle of Paraetacene in 316, Eumenes’ infantry contained 6000 mercenaries (presumably Greek), and 5000 “men of many races” armed in the Macedonian fashion, and in his opponent Antigonus’ ranks, 9000 mercenaries, 3000 Lycians and Pamphylians, and 8000 “mixed troops in Macedonian equipment” (Diod. 19.27.6, 29.3; cf. 18.40.7). The cavalry fighting in Asia during the wars of the Successors was predominantly of Asian horsemen (cf. Diod. 19.14.5–8, 20.3, 27.4, 29.2). In the early wars of the Diadochi, however, while Asian elements may have predominated numerically, it was the Macedonian veterans who served as the core of these armies (Roisman 2012). Over time this Macedonian importance decreased significantly.

While Alexander the Great’s importance in the creation of the Hellenistic world is clear, what only in recent years has come to be fully appreciated is the contribution made by the Conqueror’s father Philip II. For so many reasons the father deserves the epithet of Great as much as does his son, and in some ways, more so. Prior to Philip, Macedonia was a territorial region not a country. It was he who made it into a nation (Anson 2008a; 2013b: 43–81). Prior to this ruler, the authority of the king was circumscribed by his dependence on the landed aristocracy for both his government and his army. In a relationship accurately described as Homeric, the king shared power with his hetairoi, or companions. These were most often aristocratic Macedonian landowners, but did include a minority of those of other nationalities. With the Macedonian court lacking anything approaching a bureaucracy, all of the basic functions of government were entrusted to these hetairoi. They ruled their own lands as independent fiefdoms and served the king when it suited them or on those occasions when a king’s personality could dominate them. This was in truth a very personal relationship. The companions were formally tied to the monarch by religious and social bonds; they worshipped, hunted, drank, and fought alongside the king. Indeed, the military of Macedonia was dominated by these individuals, who made up one of the best cavalry forces in the Greek world. Due to the fact that Macedonia was not much urbanized, with most of its coastal cities independent Greek city-states, and, therefore, chiefly without a Macedonian middle class, the infantry was made up of lightly armed and poorly trained peasants, the tenant farmers, small land-holders, and herders, who served their aristocratic masters. These features of Macedonia explain what is one of the more surprising aspects of the Classical Age. Despite the many resources of this northern part of Greece – the largest and most fertile plain in the peninsula, large mineral deposits, rich resources of timber, and, by the standards of other regions in the peninsula, a large population – Macedonia played only a marginal role in the fifth century. Most often these Macedonian resources were exploited by the southern city-states, such as Athens, with the Macedonian kings unable to resist their incursions. If these resources could ever be used exclusively by and for the Macedonians, then the nature of the power structure in the Greek world would be transformed.

While the Macedonian kings were so often at the mercy of foreign powers and their own native aristocracy, they were theoretically the possessors of great power. The king shared power officially with no one. Long-standing arguments that the Macedonian king shared power with an assembly of Macedonians (Granier 1931; Hammond and Griffith 1979: 161–2; Mooren 1983; Hatzopoulos 1996: 1:261–322), is not borne out by the evidence (see Errington 1978; Anson 1985: 303–16; 1991; 2013b: 26–42). When supposed assemblies from the reigns of Alexander the Great and earlier Macedonian monarchs are examined, they turn out not to be constitutional entities but ad hoc assemblages called by the king for a variety of reasons, but in no case involving any mandatory requirement that they be summoned or that their decisions be followed. The king was, in the words of a contemporary of Philip II, “the absolute autocrat, commander, and master of everybody and everything” (Dem. 18.235). It was the king who officially declared war and made peace, commanded armies, and served as the intermediary between the people and their gods (Anson 1985: 304–7; Borza 1990: 238). The sacral nature of the monarchy was carried over even after death. Sacrifices were made to dead kings (Hammond 1970: 64–7; and Griffith 1979: 57). The sacral nature of the monarchy likely accounts for the success of the royal clan, the Argeads, in monopolizing the kingship. Even though kings were assassinated, from roughly 700 to 310, all kings came from this clan. If one of these kings could ever turn his theoretical powers into actual ones, such a monarch might dominate the Greek world.

Such a king was Philip II. However, in 359, his accession to the throne would seem anything but promising. In this year, an invading force from the northwest, the tribal Illyrians, had swept into Macedonia, joined with many of the Macedonian aristocrats, and prepared to contest control of the country with the king. Philip’s brother, King Perdiccas III, gathered his forces and met the Illyrians somewhere in the northern upland regions of Macedonia, where his army was defeated, with 4000 dead including the king himself (Diod. 16.2.4–6). It was with an Illyrian army encamped in the northwest and threats of additional invasions from the north and east that Philip became King Philip II of Macedonia. At the time, none could have imagined that in twenty years he would turn this fragmented region into a nation that would dominate the southern Greek world with his victory at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 and his creation of the League of Corinth in 337, by which he exercised his control of the Greek city-states. It was with no exaggeration that the historian Diodorus of Sicily called Philip “the greatest of the kings of Europe in his time” (Diod. 16.95.1). While it was Alexander the Great and his conquest of the Persian Empire that set in motion the creation of the Hellenistic world, it was Philip who made Alexander’s achievements possible.

Philip, also, transformed the Macedonian army, the army with which Alexander did conquer the Persian Empire, by creating a Macedonian heavy infantry to complement the traditionally strong aristocratic cavalry. Here, he changed the very nature of Greek warfare. Prior to Philip the core of every Greek army was its hoplite phalanx. These heavily armed infantry soldiers wore breastplates and greaves, carried a round shield, 3 feet in diameter, and a 7-foot-long thrusting spear, and fought typically shoulder to shoulder in a compact unit, the phalanx. Cavalry and light-armed troops played only a secondary role, protecting the flanks and rear of these formations. In Philip’s new Macedonian phalanx, the infantryman was initially equipped with a 14- to 15-foot pike (the sarissa), and perhaps a 2-foot-diameter shield hung from the neck and shoulder, but little else in the way of defensive armor. Moreover, this ...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Abbreviations
• Chronology
• Preface
• Maps
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Death of a Conqueror
• 3 The Funeral Games Begin
• 4 The End of a Dynasty
• 5 “War, both the King and Father of All”
• 6 The End of the Diadochi
• 7 Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index
• End User License Agreement