I. THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER
HISTORIANS divide the past into epochs, years, and events, as thought divides the world into groups, individuals, and things; but history, like nature, knows only continuity amid change: historia non facit saltum—history makes no leaps. Hellenistic Greece did not feel Alexander’s death as “the end of an age”; it looked upon him as the beginning of “modern” times, and as a symbol of vigorous youth rather than a factor in decay; it was convinced that it had now entered upon its richest maturity, and that its leaders were as magnificent as any in the past except the incomparable young King himself.1 In many ways it was right. Greek civilization did not die with Greek freedom; on the contrary it conquered new areas and spread in three directions as the formation of vast empires broke down the political barriers to communication, colonization, and trade. Still enterprising and alert, the Greeks moved by hundreds of thousands into Asia and Egypt, Epirus and Macedon; and not only did Ionia flower again, but Hellenic blood, language, and culture made its way into the interior of Asia Minor, into Phoenicia and Palestine, through Syria and Babylonia, across the Euphrates and the Tigris, even to Bactria and India. Never had the Greek spirit shown more zest and courage; never had Greek letters and arts won so wide a victory.
Perhaps that is why historians are wont to end their histories of Greece with Alexander; after him the extent and complexity of the Greek world baffle any unified view or continuous narrative. There were not only three major monarchies—Macedonia, Seleucia, and Egypt; there were a hundred Greek city-states, of all degrees of independence; there was a maze of alliances and leagues; there were half-Greek states in Epirus, Judea, Pergamum, Byzantium, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Galatia, Bactria; and in the west were Greek Italy and Sicily, torn between aging Carthage and youthful Rome. Alexander’s rootless empire was too loosely bound together by language, communication, customs, and faith to survive him. He had left not one but several strong men behind him, and none could be content with less than sovereignty. The size and diversity of the new realm dismissed all thought of democracy; self-government, as the Greeks understood it, presupposed a city-state whose citizens could come periodically to a common meeting place; and besides, had not the philosophers of democratic Athens denounced democracy as the enthronement of ignorance, envy, and chaos? Alexander’s successors—who were therefore termed Diadochi—had been Macedonian chieftains, long accustomed to rule by the sword; democracy, except as the occasional consultation of their aides, never entered their heads. After some minor trials at arms which disposed of lesser contenders, they divided the empire into five parts (321)—Antipater taking Macedonia and Greece, Lysimachus Thrace, Antigonus Asia Minor, Seleucus Babylonia, and Ptolemy Egypt. They did not bother to call a confirming synod of the Greek states. From that moment, except for some fitful interludes in Greece, and the aristocratic republic of Rome, monarchy ruled Europe until the French Revolution.
The basic principle of democracy is freedom inviting chaos; the basic principle of monarchy is power inviting tyranny, revolution, and war. From Philip to Perseus, from Chaeronea to Pydna (338-168), the foreign and civil wars of the city-states were supplemented by the external and internal wars of the kingdoms, for the perquisites of government tempted a hundred generals to contests for thrones. Violence was as popular, condottieri as numerous and brilliant, in Hellenistic Greece as in Renaissance Italy. When Antipater died Athens revolted again, and put to death old Phocion, who had ruled it as justly as possible in Antipater’s name. Cassander, Antipater’s son, recaptured the city for Macedon (318), widened the franchise to holders of a thousand drachmas, and left as his regent the philosopher, scholar, and dilettante Demetrius of Phalerum, who gave the city ten years of prosperity and peace. Meanwhile Antigonus I (“Cyclops”) dreamed of uniting all of Alexander’s empire under his one eye; he was defeated at Ipsus (301) by a coalition, and lost Asia Minor to Seleucus I. His son Demetrius Poliorcetes (“Taker of Cities”) liberated Greece from Macedonian rule, gave Athens twelve years more of democracy, was lodged as the grateful city’s guest in the Parthenon, brought courtesans to live with him there,2 drove some young men to desperation by his amorous attentions,* won a brilliant naval victory over Ptolemy I at Cyprus (308), besieged Rhodes for six years with new siege instruments but without success, made himself king of Macedon (294), ended Athenian liberty with a garrison, fell into ever new wars, was defeated and captured by Seleucus, and drank himself to death.
Four years later (279), taking advantage of the disorder brought on by the struggle for power in the eastern Mediterranean, a horde of Celts, or “Gauls,” under Brennus* marched down through Macedonia into Greece. Brennus, says Pausanias, “pointed out the weak state of Greece, the immense wealth of her cities, the votive offerings in the temples, the great quantities of silver and gold.”4 At the same time a revolution broke out in Macedonia under the leadership of Apollodorus; part of the army joined in, and helped the angry poor in their periodical revenge of despoiling the rich. The Gauls, doubtless guided by a Greek, found their way through secret passes around Thermopylae, killed and plundered indiscriminately, and advanced upon the rich temple at Delphi. Repulsed there by a Greek force and a storm that in Greek belief was Apollo’s defense of his shrine, Brennus retreated and killed himself in shame. The surviving Gauls crossed over into Asia Minor. “They butchered all the males,” writes Pausanias,
and likewise old women, and babes at their mothers’ breasts; they drank the blood, and feasted on the flesh of infants that were fat. High-spirited women, and maidens in their flower, committed suicide . . . those that survived were subjected to every kind of outrage. . . . Some of the women rushed upon the swords of the Gauls, and voluntarily courted death; to others death came from absence of food or sleep, as these merciless barbarians ravished them in turn, and wreaked their lusts upon them whether dying or dead.†5
After suffering years of such devastation, the Greeks of Asia bought off the invaders, and persuaded them to retire into northern Phrygia (where their settlements become known as Galatia), Thrace, and the Balkans. For two generations the Gauls levied fear tribute from Seleucus I and the Greek cities of the Asiatic coasts and the Black Sea; Byzantium alone paid them $240,000 a year.‡6 As the emperors and generals of Rome were to be occupied, in the third century after Christ, in repelling barbarian inroads, so the kings and generals of Pergamum, Seleucia, and Macedonia gave much of their resources and energies, in the third century before Christ, to driving back the recurring waves of Celtic invasion. Throughout its history ancient civilization lived on the edge of a sea of barbarism that repeatedly threatened to inundate it. The stoic courage of citizens perpetually prepared had once kept back the peril; but stoicism was dying in Greece precisely at the time that devised its classic formulation and its name.
Antigonus II, son of Demetrius Poliorcetes and called “Gonatas” for reasons now unknown, drove the Gauls out of Macedonia, put down the revolt of Apollodorus, and ruled Macedonia with ability and moderation for thirty-eight years (277-39). He gave generously to literature, science, and philosophy, brought poets like Aratus of Soli to his court, and formed a lifelong friendship with Zeno the Stoic; he was the first of that very discontinuous line of philosopher-kings which ended in Marcus Aurelius. Nevertheless it was during his reign that Athens made a last bid for freedom. In 267 the nationalist party came into power under the leadership of a young pupil of Zeno’s, Chremonides. It secured the aid of Egypt, ousted the Macedonian troops, and announced the liberation of Athens. Antigonus came down at his leisure and recaptured the city (262), but dealt with it as became one who respected philosophy and old age. He established garrisons in the Piraeus, on Salamis, and at Sunium, and enjoined Athens from engaging in alliances or wars; for the rest he left the city completely free.
Other Greek states were solving in other ways the problem of reconciling liberty with order. About 279 little Aetolia, peopled like Macedon with half-barbarous and never-conquered mountaineers, began to organize the cities of northern Greece—chiefly those of the Delphic Amphictyony—into the Aetolian League; and about the same time the Achaean League of Patrae, Dyme, Pellene, and other towns attracted to its membership many cities of the Peloponnese. In either league the constituent municipalities kept control of all local government, but surrendered their armed forces and foreign relations to a federal council, and a strategos, elected by such of the citizens as could attend the annual assembly at Aegium in Achaea, or at Thermus in Aetolia. Each league maintained peace, and established common-measures, weights, and coinages throughout its area—an achievement in co-operation that makes the third century in some ways politically superior to the age of Pericles.
The Achaean League was transformed into a first-class power by Aratus of Sicyon. At the age of twenty this new Themistocles freed Sicyon from its dictator by a night attack with a handful of men. By eloquence and subtle negotiation he persuaded all the Peloponnesus except Sparta and Elis to join the League, which chose him as its strategos annually for ten years (245-35). With a few hundred men he secretly entered Corinth, scaled the almost inaccessible Acrocorinthus, routed the Macedonian troops, and restored the city to freedom. Passing on to the Piraeus, he bribed the Macedonian garrison to surrender, and announced the liberation of Athens. From that moment to the Roman conquest Athens enjoyed a unique self-government—militarily powerless, but left inviolate by the Hellenistic states because her universities had made her the intellectual capital of the Greek world. Athens turned to philosophy, and contentedly disappeared from political history.
Now at the height of their power, the two leagues began to weaken themselves by war with each other and class war within. In 220 the Aetolian League, with Sparta and Elis, fought the bitter “Social” War against the Achaean League and Macedon. Aratus, the defender of freedom, was also the protector of wealth; in each city the League supported the party of property. The poorer citizens complained that they could not afford to attend the distant assemblies of the League, and were thereby in effect disfranchised; they were skeptical of a liberty that meant the full privilege of the clever and the strong to exploit the simple and the weak; more and more they gave their applause to demagogues who called for a redistribution of the land. Like the rich of a century before, the poor began to favor Macedonia against their own governments.
Macedonia, however, was ruined by the honesty of Antigonus III. He had assumed power as regent for his stepson, Philip, and had promised to surrender the throne upon Philip’s coming of age. The cynics of the time called him “Doson”—the Promiser—apparently because they took it for granted that he was lying. But he kept his word, and in 221 Philip V, aged seventeen, began a long reign of intrigue and war. He was a man of courage and capacity, but of unscrupulous subtlety. He seduced the wife of Aratus’ son, poisoned Aratus, killed his own son on suspicion of conspiracy, and arranged banquets of poisoned wine for those who stood in the way of his plans.7 He enlarged and enriched Macedonia, and left it more populous and prosperous than for one hundred and fifty years past. But in 215, fearful of the growing power of Rome, he made the historic mistake of allying himself with Hannibal and Carthage. A year later Rome declared war upon Macedonia, and began the conquest of Greece.