The Hellenistic World. F. Walbank W.

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СКАЧАТЬ 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, СКАЧАТЬ