Dividing the Spoils

by Waterfield, Robin

  10. On the preserved Argead tombs at Vergina, the modern village near the site of ancient Aegae, see especially Andronicos, tempered by Borza 1990, 253–66, and by Borza/Palagia 2007.

  11. Carney, Olympias, 61.

  Chapter 3

  1. R. G. Kent, Old Persian: Grammar, Texts, Lexicon (2nd ed., New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), 151–2. Alternatively: http://www.livius.org/aa-ac/achaemenians/XPh.html.

  2. Curtius 9.7.11.

  3. DS 18.7.1.

  4. DS 18.7.2.

  5. See especially Billows 1990, 292–305; Billows 1995, 146–82; Briant 1978/1982; Fraser 1996. For the general connection between empire building and mass migration, see Pagden 2001.

  6. See Lecuyot in Cribb and Herrmann 2007, 155–62. For the city’s history, see Holt 1999. The site has apparently been pillaged and badly damaged by the Taliban in recent years.

  7. The inscription is Burstein 49; it can also be found at Holt 1999, 175.

  8. The guild is first heard of in an inscription of 287 BCE, but as an already well-established organization: IG II2 1132.

  9. Holt 1999, 44.

  10. Robertson 1993, 73.

  11. On Pytheas, see B. Cunliffe, The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek (New York: Penguin Books, 2003).

  12. Koin was such an important feature of the new world that the scholarly term “Hellenistic” for the entire period from Alexander’s death in 323 until the death of the last of the Macedonian rulers in 30 BCE is derived from the Greek verb meaning “to speak Greek.”

  13. The few fragments of Manetho have been collected as FGrH 609, those of Berossus as FGrH 680. On both historians, see J. Dillery, “Greek Historians of the Near East: Clio’s ‘Other’ Sons,” in J. Marincola (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography, vol. 1 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 221–30.

  14. Main literary sources for the Lamian War: DS 18.8–18; Plutarch, Life of Phocion 23–9, Life of Demosthenes 27–31; Hyperides 6 (Funeral Speech).

  15. The evidence for this incident is difficult to interpret: see Carney 2006, 67–8.

  16. Arrian, After Alexander fr. 12 (cf. Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus 8.2).

  17. Hyperides 6 (Funeral Speech).

  18. Plutarch, Life of Demosthenes 30.5.

  19. The historian Polybius’s description of mercenaries at 13.6.4. See also Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 12 : “Such troops are disunited, ambitious, insubordinate, treacherous, insolent among friends, cowardly before foes, and without fear of God or faith with man” (trans. N. H. Thomson).

  20. Text and discussion of the tablet in Jordan 1980.

  21. On polygamy etc., see Ogden 1999.

  Chapter 4

  1. e.g. Inarus of Egypt in 454 (Ctesias fr. 14.39 Lenfant); Ariobarzanes in 362 (Harpocration s.v. “Ariobarzanes”).

  2. Pausanias, Guide to Greece 1.6.3.

  3. We are fortunate to have the text of the revised constitution: SEG 9.1, translated as Austin 29 and Harding 126. Cyrenaica did not entirely shake off its political troubles, but it stayed in Ptolemaic hands until the Romans took it over in 96 BCE.

  4. Arrian, After Alexander fr. 1.22–3; Polyaenus, Stratagems 8.60.

  5. Bosworth 1993, 425.

  6. This is a much-discussed episode of Alexander’s life. See e.g. Cartledge 2004, 265–70; Lane Fox 1973, 200–18. Texts in Heckel/Yardley, 217–22.

  7. Full description at DS 18.26–27. See Miller 1986 for discussion of the catafalque, and Erskine 2002 for the whole episode.

  8. DS 18.27.4.

  9. Aelian, Miscellany 12.64.

  10. On Alexandria’s Alexander artwork, see Stewart 1993, Index s.v. “Alexandria.”

  11. A particularly good study of Ptolemy’s quest for legitimacy is Bingen 2007, ch. 1.

  12. Eumenes’ dream: DS 18.60.4–6; Seleucus’s dream: DS 19.90.4; Seleucus and Apollo: Justin 15.4.2–6.

  13. What little remains of his history is collected as FGrH 138.

  14. Craterus’s monument: Plutarch, Life of Alexander 40.5; the inscribed base of the bronze group has been preserved: Fouilles de Delphes 3.4.2, no. 137. Craterus’s pretensions: Arrian, After Alexander fr. 19. Leonnatus’s pretensions: Arrian, After Alexander fr. 12 (cf. Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus 8.2). On the Mosaic, see Stewart 1993 130–50. On Alcetas’s tomb, Stewart 1993, 312. On the topic of legitimation in general, Meeus 2009 c.

  15. On Alexander’s postmortem influence, see also Errington 1976; Goukowsky 1978/1981; Lianou 2010; Meeus 2009 c; Stewart 1993.

  16. The starting point for further discussion is Cartledge 2000.

  17. J. K. Davies in Walbank et al.1984, 306.

  18. Plutarch tells the most famous story at Life of Alexander 14.2–5. The complete texts can be found at SSR V B 31–49.

  19. SSR V H 70.

  20. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.119; Epicurus, Vatican Sayings 58.

  21. Posidippus 63 Austin/Bastianini.

  22. Posidippus 55 Austin/Bastianini; translation by Kathryn Gutzwiller.

  23. Palatine Anthology 12.46; translation by Kathryn Gutzwiller.

  24. On the education of women in the Hellenistic period, see Pomeroy 1977.

  25. Women as benefactors: Burstein 45. Women holding public office: H. W. Pleket, Epigraphica, vol. 2: Texts on the Social History of the Greek World (Leiden: Brill, 1969), nos. 2, 5, 170. Women signing their own marriage contracts: P.Tebt. 104.

  26. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 3.82.8; see the perspicacious remarks of J. de Romilly in ch. 3 of The Rise and Fall of States According to Greek Authors (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977).

  Chapter 5

  1. Within the forty years covered by this book, Agathocles made himself supreme in Syracuse and then in Sicily as a whole, and nearly defeated the Carthaginians in North Africa. In 304, after finally defeating his rivals, he declared himself king of Syracuse. He died in 289. A little farther north, the Romans were forcing all the northern Italian tribes to submit to their rule. The Greeks of the south would be next.

  2. Plutarch, Life of Eumenes 7.4–7.

  3. On Philip’s military innovations, see Hammond 1989a, ch. 6.

  4. Polybius, Histories 5.84.3; for war elephants in the ancient world, see Scullard 1974; Epplett 2007.

  5. For the claim that Egypt was now spear-won land, see DS 18.39.5, 20.76.7.

  6. Schlumberger 1969.

  7. Adea Eurydice’s actions at Triparadeisus are difficult to reconstruct from the conflicting sources; see e.g. Carney 2000, 132–34.

  8. DS 18.39.2. For fuller details of the distribution of satrapies, see DS 18. 39.5–6 and Arrian, After Alexander fr. 1.34–8 (= Austin 30).

  9. Arrian, After Alexander fr. 1.34.

  Chapter 6

  1. Plutarch, Life of Eumenes 11.3–5.

  2. DS 19.16.

  3. DS 18.58.2.

  4. DS 18.56.8.

  5. On the Greek cities in the early Hellenistic period, see especially Billows 1990, ch. 6; Billows 2003; Chamoux 2003, ch. 6; Dixon 2007; Gruen 1993; Shipley 2000, 186–207.

  6. Polybius, Histories 15.24.4.

  7. Many examples in Welles.

  8. Bagnall/Derow 14, dating from 283.

  9. See Chaniotis 2005, 116–17.

  10. McNicoll and Milner 1997, 103.

  11. See Chamoux 2003, 209–10, for discussion of a document from 206 BCE, showing how hard it was for a small town to pay for building its own defenses.

  12. Austin 54; Bagnall/Derow 13.

  Chapter 7

  1. There is a detailed account of Polyperchon’s Megalopolis campaign in DS 18. 70–71.

  2. Plutarch, On the Fortune of Alexander 338a.

  3. See Murray 2012.

  4. Theophrastus, Characters 8.6.

  5. e.g. Aristophanes, Acharnians 628–58, Frogs 389–90.

  6. Vitruvius, On Architecture 7.5.2–3; see Pollitt, ch. 9.

  7. Green 1990, 234. The translation of Theocritus that, to my mind, best captures his spirit is t
hat of Robert Wells, Theocritus: The Idylls (New York: Carcanet, 1988).

  8. Pliny, Natural History 34.65.

  9. Aelian, Miscellany 2.3; Pliny, Natural History 35.95.

  10. DS 19.11.6; Aelian, Miscellany 13.36. The lunar crater Ariadaeus is named, or misnamed, after Philip III Arrhidaeus.

  11. More details in DS 19.51.2–5.

  12. The identity of the occupants of Tomb 2 is extremely controversial. I follow the most recent work on the subject, that of Borza and Palagia 2007, but the alternative view, that the tomb’s main occupant was Philip II himself (along with his seventh and last wife), promulgated by the tomb’s original excavator, Andronicos, is still extremely popular, and is naturally enough the default position for tourists. On the hunt painting, see Saatsoglou-Paliadeli 2007.

  13. For some of the later history of the city, see Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts (London: HarperCollins, 2005).

  Chapter 8

  1. The main ancient sources are DS 18.58–63, 73, 19.12–5, 17–32, 34.7–8, 37–44; Plutarch, Life of Eumenes 13–9. My discussion is indebted above all to Bosworth 2002, ch. 4.

  2. DS 19.12.3–13.5 contains more details of Eumenes’ departure, or escape, from Babylonia.

  3. DS 19.41.1.

  4. Curtius 4.15.7.

  5. DS 19.46.1.

  6. DS 19.48.3.

  7. Details of Chandragupta’s administration may be found in Mookerji 1966/1999.

  8. They are preserved as FGrH 715.

  9. If it was a drunken rampage. The destruction of the palace may have been an act of policy; archaeology has revealed that the rooms were emptied of their treasures before the fire was set. See e.g. Fredricksmeyer 2000, 145–9.

  10. Phylarchus fr. 12 (FGrH 81 F 12).

  11. The evidence for Antigonus’s administration of Asia is exiguous. Billows 1990, chs. 7 and 8, has made the most of it.

  12. Arrian, Anabasis 2.4.8–9; Curtius 4.1.13–14.

  Chapter 9

  1. DS 19.56.2.

  2. Ps.-Aristotle, Oeconomica 1345b–1346a; for the assignation of this passage to Antigonus’s times, see Billows 1990, 289–90; for further discussion of the passage, Aperghis 2004b, 117–35.

  3. SIG3 344 = Welles 3, Ager 13, Austin 48.

  4. Theophrastus, Inquiry into Plants 4.8.4.

  5. DS 19.90.4; see also Appian, Syrian History 56.

  6. Text at DS 19.61.1–3 = Austin 35.

  7. DS 19.63.2.

  8. DS 19.63.4.

  9. An inscription has survived, IG II2 450, that places Asander in Athens in the winter of 314/313, but whether his visit preceded or followed Prepelaus’s expedition to Caria is uncertain.

  Chapter 10

  1. Plutarch, Life of Demetrius 6.1.

  2. Details of the Nabataean campaign can be found in DS 19.94–100.2.

  3. The Devil’s Dictionary (1911), s.v.

  4. Text in Austin 38–9; Bagnall/Derow 6; Harding 132.

  5. Plutarch, Life of Demetrius 7.3.

  6. AD (Astronomical Diaries) 1–309, obv. 9, available at http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/bchp-diadochi/diadochi_06.html.

  7. ABC (Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles) 10: rev. 23–25, available at http://www.livius.org/di-dn/diadochi/diadochi_t23.html.

  8. Plutarch, Life of Demetrius 19.4

  Chapter 11

  1. DS 19.105.4.

  2. As late as 305 in Egypt: P.Dem. Louvre 2427, 2440.

  3. Plutarch, On Spinelessness 530d. There has been speculation in the press that the new royal grave discovered at Aegae/Vergina in 2009 is that of Heracles (see e.g. http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_0_31/08/2009_110269), but it is far too soon to tell.

  4. “A monument to the rewards of carefully limited ambitions” is Green’s description (quoted in Ellis 1994, 66).

  5. DS 20.37.2.

  6. See Dixon 2007, 173–75.

  7. For more on Cleopatra, see Carney 2000a, and Meeus 2009.

  8. DS 20.106.2–3.

  9. Habicht 1997, 153–54.

  10. Plutarch, Life of Demetrius 10.3.

  11. On the library, see Canfora 1990; Collins 2000; Erskine 1995.

  12. The definitive account of Alexandria is Fraser 1972; Green 1990, ch. 6, is considerably shorter.

  13. On the Septuagint, see Collins 2000.

  14. The famous earlier fire, in the time of Julius Caesar, did not, as is usually thought, damage the main library. See Canfora, 66–70.

  15. P.-A. Beaulieu in Briant and Joannès 2006, 17–36.

  16. See e.g. Plato, Timaeus 22a–23b.

  17. Theocritus’s Idyll 17 in praise of Ptolemy II is a prime example.

  18. “In the populous land of Egypt there is a crowd of bookish scribblers who get fed as they argue away interminably in the birdcage of the Muses,” said the satirist Timon of Phlius (fr. 60 Wachsmuth; fr. 12 Diels).

  Chapter 12

  1. IG II2 469.9–10. A photograph of this decree is available, thanks to the Oxford University Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, at http://www.csad.ox.ac.uk/CSAD/Images/200/Image286.html.

  2. See P. Anderson, “The Divisions of Cyprus,” London Review of Books 30.8 (April 24, 2008), 7–16; or online at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v 30/n 08/perryanderson/the-divisions-of-cyprus.

  3. Plutarch, Life of Demetrius 17.5; see also Appian, Syrian History 54; DS 20. 53.2.

  4. Plutarch, Life of Demetrius 25.4; see also Plutarch, Precepts of Statecraft 823c–d; Phylarchus fr. 31 (FGrH 81 F 31). For discussion, see Hauben 1974.

  5. Bosworth 2002, 246.

  6. The nature of Hellenistic monarchy is, naturally, much debated. See especially Austin 1986; Bosworth 2002, ch. 7; Bringmann 1994; Beston 2000; Chamoux 2003, ch. 7; Gruen 1985; Ma 2003; Smith 1988; Walbank 1984.

  7. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 14 (trans. N. H. Thomson).

  8. Plutarch, Life of Demetrius 42.3.

  9. Plutarch, Whether Old Men Should Engage in Politics 790a.

  10. Appian, Syrian History 61.

  11. Durrell’s Reflections on a Marine Venus (London: Faber and Faber, 1953) contains a spirited account of the siege, in a chapter perhaps unfortunately titled “The Sunny Colossus.” Durrell is not unsound, but Berthold (1984, 66–80) is better.

  12. Polybius, Histories 12.13.11. On Hellenistic technology in general, Lloyd 1973, ch. 7, but for technical details, see Oleson 2008. Demetrius’s snail was reconstructed in theory by A. Rehm, “Antike Automobile,” Philologus 317 (1937), 317–30.

  13. Plutarch, Life of Demetrius 24.1.

  14. e.g. DS 22.92.3, Plutarch, Life of Demetrius 2.2.

  15. The Flatterer, fr. 4 Arnott; Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters 587d. The line is addressed to a soldier, who in Menander’s comedies of the period was often a Demetrius look-alike. See S. Lape, Reproducing Athens: Menander’s Comedy, Democratic Culture, and the Hellenistic City (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 61–3.

  16. Heckel 1992, 188.

  17. A fragmentary constitution of the league survives: IG IV2 1.68 = Austin 50; Harding 138; Bagnall/Derow 8; Ager 14.

  18. Plutarch, Life of Demetrius 3.

  Chapter 13

  1. Studies stressing or discussing Seleucid continuation of Achaemenid practices: Aperghis 2008; Briant 1990, 2010; Briant and Joannès 2006; Kuhrt and Sherwin-White 1988, 1994; McKenzie 1994; Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993; Tuplin 2008; Wolski 1984. For continuity in Ptolemaic Egypt: Manning 2010.

  2. Curtius 9.1.1–2.

  3. This paragraph skates over considerable debate about the degree of constitutionalism in early Macedon. See especially Adams 1986; Anson,1985, 1991, 2008; Borza 1990 (ch. 10); Carlier 2000; Errington 1974, 1978, 1990 (ch. 6); Greenwalt 2010; Hammond 1989, 1993, 1999, 2000; Hammond and Walbank 1988; Hatzopoulos 1996; Lock 1977; Mooren 1983, 1998; O’Neil 1999, 2000.

  4. Leriche in Cribb and Herrmann 2007, 131, 134.

  5. Some idea of the increasing importance of gymnasia, and the increasing civic power wielded by their directo
rs, is given by a second-century inscription from Macedon: Austin 137 = Bagnall/Derow 78.