The Hellenistic World. F. Walbank W.

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      The League however was not destined to last long, for in 301 a coalition consisting of Cassander, Lysimachus and Seleucus (who brought with him his 500 elephants) forced the combined armies of Antigonus and Demetrius (whom his father had summoned from Europe) to battle at Ipsus in Phrygia, and there inflicted a decisive defeat; Antigonus perished and Demetrius fled. In the sharing of spoils Lysimachus took most of Asia Minor as far as Taurus and Ptolemy, who had been campaigning separately in Palestine, took all the area as far north as the river Eleutherus (Nahr al-Kabir) as well as parts of Lycia and Pisidia. Ipsus marked the end of any pretence that there was still a single empire and despite the fact that Lysimachus’ kingdom straddled the straits, Asia and Europe now went different ways.

      III

      Between 301 and 286 Demetrius tried to restore his fortunes in Greece and for a time held Macedonia (after Cassander’s death) in spite of pressure from Pyrrhus. But from 289 onwards his position deteriorated. He lost his Aegean possessions and Athens to Ptolemy and was expelled from Macedonia by the combined forces of Lysimachus and Pyrrhus. In 285 Seleucus took him prisoner and he died of drink two years later. This episode left the possession of Macedonia still undecided. After the expulsion of Demetrius Lysimachus had first divided it with Pyrrhus and then, in 285, had contrived to annex the whole. But nemesis now overtook him. He was persuaded by his third wife, Arsinoe, to put his son Agathocles to death (to the advantage of Arsinoe’s children). Agathocles’ window Lysandra and her brother Ptolemy Ceraunus – they were half-brother and half-sister to Arsinoe, all three being children of Ptolemy – therefore incited Seleucus to challenge Lysimachus. In 282 Seleucus invaded Asia Minor and early in 281 at Corupedium Lysimachus was defeated and killed. But on crossing into Europe Seleucus, now redundant, was assassinated by his ally Ceraunus, who seized the throne of Macedonia.

      Two years later (279), weakened by Lysimachus’ defeat, the country was overrun by an army of Gaulish marauders, part of a large-scale migration. Another group established a kingdom in Thrace, others reached Delphi but were destroyed by the Aetolians, and yet further bands crossed over into Asia Minor and settled in what was henceforth to be known as Galatia. What happened subsequently in Macedonia is obscure. A series of weak reigns with anarchic conditions gave Antigonus Gonatas, Demetrius’ son, who had managed to hold on to the strong-points at Corinth, Chalcis and Demetrias (his father’s foundation in the Pagasean Gulf), the opportunity for which he was looking. In 276, after winning a much publicized victory over the Gauls at Lysimacheia in 277, he established himself as king in Macedonia and Thessaly. Thus the dynasty founded by Antigonus the One-eyed gained possession of the last unpre-empted territory, the homeland of Macedonia.

      Lysimacheia СКАЧАТЬ