Alexander the Great Failure

by John D Grainger

inform him that a new law prohibited the city from accepting kings within the

  walls, and that his wife Deidameia had been expelled, though he was given his

  ships back. 37 Here, then, was a rather diverse kingdom to emerge from the dust and death of the battle. It was not really unusual for a king with a fl eet to control widely spread territories; Ptolemy had done so for a decade.

  The main benefi ciary of the victory, perhaps with some justice after his whole-hearted participation in the fi ghting, was Lysimachos. He took over western and central Anatolia, therefore ruling a solid block of territory from the Danube

  to the Taurus, centred on the Straits and his new city, Lysimacheia. Seleukos

  took everything south and east of the mountains, though this was no more

  than northern Syria. Ptolemy insisted on taking over southern Syria, from the

  Eleutheros River to Gaza, except for Demetrios’ cities of Tyre and Sidon. Seleukos therefore advanced his western border only from the middle of Mesopotamia

  to the Syrian coast. It did not seem a commensurate reward for his great march from the east, and for having had the battle-winning weapons, the elephants and the cavalry. Kassander, relieved of the pressure of Demetrios’ army, and happy to see the disintegration of the Hellenic League, took nothing for himself, but his brother Pleistarchos was given an odd kingdom of several provinces along the

  southern coast of Asia Minor from Karia to Kilikia. No doubt this was a means

  of keeping Seleukos and Lysimachos apart, but it was a clumsy device. 38

  Ptolemy’s conquest of southern Syria annoyed Seleukos, who complained, and

  then announced piously that he would not fi ght his old friend. Quite reasonably

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  considering this as a clear threat, Ptolemy made marriage alliances with both

  Kassander and Lysimachos during 300. They were directed at both Seleukos and

  Demetrios, whose naval power impinged on all the kings, in Greece, in Ionia, in Cyprus and in Phoenicia. In reply Seleukos and Demetrios, the two isolated kings, formed their own alliance; Seleukos, his Iranian wife Apama apparently having

  died, married Demetrios’ daughter Stratonike. On his way east for the meeting, Demetrios took over Kilikia, part of Pleistarchos’ gimcrack kingdom.39

  The recovery of Demetrios was a threat to everyone else. All the kings looked to their defences. The most creative response came from Seleukos. His basic problem had been revealed in the Ipsos campaign, when his army was counted: he arrived with only 20,000 infantry. By contrast Kassander, from a much smaller kingdom, had sent that many foot soldiers to Lysimachos and had retained as many in

  Macedon; and Lysimachos, Seleukos’ new neighbour, had brought an army of

  over 30,000 infantry to the fi ght, and now could draw on the great manpower

  resources of western Asia Minor. Seleukos was poorest in manpower, despite his cavalry and his elephants. Further, he took over, in northern Syria, a virtually undefendable region, which had been marched through without diffi culty

  repeatedly in the past 30 years – by Alexander, Eumenes and Antigonos. One

  reason Ptolemy always was content with southern Syria and Phoenicia was that

  there were no defensible fortifi ed towns in the north in which he could anchor his power. And Seleukos’ neighbours, Ptolemy, Demetrios and Lysimachos, were

  hardly the most friendly of kings, either towards him or each other.

  Seleukos set about solving these problems with one huge measure. He

  founded a whole group of cities in his new province. Four of the greatest cities in the eastern Mediterranean were developed in a geographical quadrilateral,

  all named for members of his family – Antioch for his father, Laodikeia for his mother, Apamea for his wife, Seleukeia for himself. Each was laid out on a lavish scale, almost the size of Egyptian Alexandria, provided with fortifi cations, and populated partly by Greek immigrants, partly by Syrians from the surrounding

  countryside. He thus constituted a well-fortifi ed region, referred to as Seleukis: two cities on the coast were developed as major ports and naval bases; two inland cities blocked the landward approaches from the south, Ptolemy’s lands. Each

  of the four cities grew to a population of up to 100,000, and Antioch eventually to three times that.

  This was not totally virgin territory in terms of cities, for Antigonos had

  been building his new Antigoneia close to where Antioch was founded. Seleukos

  trumped that ace twice over, fi rst by founding four cities, not just one, and secondly by dismantling Antigoneia and incorporating the site into Antioch as

  a constituent village. He probably intended Seleukeia to be the main city of the four: it bore his own name (as did the city he had founded in Babylonia), it was on the coast, and the dynastic tombs were there. Inland Antioch was in a better

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  position for food supplies from the surrounding plain, and was less exposed to attack from the sea, so it grew where Seleukeia did not.

  Seleukos went still further. Northern Syria had a number of fairly small

  Antigonid settlements, and he made these into six more cities. They occupied

  the territory between the major group of four and the Euphrates River: Kyrrhos, Chalkis and Beroia were named for Macedonian towns; Zeugma was at the vital

  crossing point of the Euphrates; Hierapolis was a local temple town promoted

  to city status; and Nikopolis was named to celebrate Seleukos’ victory, probably that over Demetrius later, which took place nearby. These places could have

  been a source of danger, for their Greek and Macedonian populations were

  originally Antigonid subjects, and they might have felt a residual loyalty to King Demetrios; the marriage with Stratonike helped to defuse that, and importing

  new populations would dilute that effect. 40

  It took time to build up and populate these places, but the attraction of

  generous land grants and a new home in a new city brought in people fairly

  quickly; we know of groups of settlers from Athens, Cyprus and Crete; there were undoubtedly others we do not know of; the more who arrived, the greater would

  be Seleukos’ economic and military resources. The majority of the immigrants

  would be young adults, perhaps educated, with economic skills and (probably)

  military expertise among the men. All young male citizens served time in the

  army and then constituted a military reserve, unless they chose to remain in the professional army. Seleukos was thus getting a military reserve for free. He had a big enough army within 20 years to be able to challenge and beat Lysimachos.

  It took time to build up the new cities, but the actual time needed was less than might be imagined – just to announce that the cities existed was a political and military statement which would lodge in the minds of kings and statesmen. These fortifi ed places now existed, even if they were still being built.

  It was not Ptolemy who was the real danger; he had always wanted southern

  Syria as a forward defence for Egypt, but never showed a wish to go further. He certainly showed no sign of aiming at the whole empire. If he wished to move

  out of southern Syria he would fi rst need to remove the threat from Demetrios’

  cities of Tyre and Sidon, which had already been the bases for a raid by Demetrios as far as Samaria in Palestine, probably in 298. 41 Ptolemy, as far as Seleukos was concerned, was not the most immediate threat.

  The elimination of Antigonos had therefore settled nothing. Ptolemy and

  Kassander were still the main obstacles for any king aiming at restoring

  Alexander’s empire; Lysimachos, who also never showed a desire to resuscitate

  the empire, was another. Th
e unsatisfi ed kings were Demetrios and Seleukos.

  The former aimed to recover his father’s lost territories; the latter was annoyed at Ptolemaic actions in Syria, which he claimed as his share of the spoils from Ipsos. He was boxed in by his neighbours Ptolemy, Demetrios and Lysimachos,

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  all of them stronger in vital ways than he was. Demetrios was rescued by Seleukos for the time being, but only for his own reasons, and neither was faithful to the alliance. Demetrios was an even more disturbing element than Seleukos and

  seemed as great a threat to everyone as his father had been.

  11

  New kings for Macedon, 298–291 bc

  Demetrios was a threat to every other king because he sought revenge, was

  inherently ambitious, had great military abilities, and possessed territories

  bordering on them all. His cities of Tyre and Sidon were thorns in the side of Ptolemy, but they were also coveted by Seleukos. His lands in southern Asia

  Minor, formerly those of Pleistarchos, bordered on Seleukos’ lands in Syria, and on Lysimachos’ inland; they had been taken from Kassander’s brother, and some

  of Ptolemy’s cities were his neighbours. His control of Cyprus was a standing

  naval threat to the coasts of Syria and Egypt, especially since neither Seleukos nor Ptolemy could match his naval strength, and Ptolemy wanted the island back.

  In western Asia Minor Demetrios held the city of Ephesos and others in Ionia

  perhaps including Erythrai and Klazomenai; this annoyed Lysimachos. Ephesos

  was at war with the tyrant of Priene, who was therefore on Lysimachos’ side, a situation ripe for exploitation when either king felt it worthwhile. In Greece, Demetrios held Corinth and some other places, and his fl eet, returned to him by Athens when the city shut him out after Ipsos, gave him mobility; and Kassander’s Macedon was close by.

  Athens was still the most potent city-state in Greece, and in 299 the regime

  in power, which had excluded Demetrios, made peace with Kassander, clearly

  aiming for neutrality. The city was politically unstable, with internal disputes between the men who commanded the citizen troops and the mercenaries. The

  commander of the mercenaries, Lachares, became leader of the city during 298,

  and he aligned himself with Kassander. 1 Athens was counted out for the moment, and yet at the same time was vulnerable.

  Kassander had survived Demetrios’ assault in 302 more or less unscathed

  but he lost many soldiers in the war, in Thessaly and in Asia, and those lost at sea. Afterwards he was quite unable to infl uence the collusive process by which his brother’s curious kingdom in southern Asia Minor had been suppressed,

  but then his concerns had never strayed far from Macedon and Greece. He and

  Lysimachos were colleagues and neighbours, who had never interfered in each

  other’s spheres and protected each other’s borders; this condition remained even when Lysimachos controlled Asia Minor. Lysimachos provided a principality for

  Pleistarchos in Karia, after he lost Kilikia. 2

  Pleistarchos became one of a number of men, Macedonians mostly, who

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  controlled substantial tracts of Asia Minor. These men are referred to usually as ‘dynasts’, and in many cases they did pass their estates on to their children.

  Some were already in place when Lysimachos became their overlord, such as

  Dokimos and Themison who had founded cities named for them. Karia was

  an area particularly rich in such men, no doubt because of its tangled and

  diffi cult geography: Pleistarchos joined Asandros, Eupolemos and Olympichos

  in controlling parts of it. A dynasty founded by Lysias operated from a city in Phrygia; later the youngest son of Seleukos Nikator became established in Lydia; the lord of Pergamon, Philetairos, was another example.

  The existence of such lordships made Asia Minor a rather different society

  from that of others. These men were useful to the kings in that they controlled considerable areas, and could usually be relied on to be active in both government and defence. They were also obviously dangerous, and more than one of them

  tended towards independence, and even kingship, in the next century. Philetairos of Pergamon was the founder of the Attalid dynasty; Olympichos’ descendants

  became briefl y independent. Dokimos changed allegiance all too easily in the

  early wars. Asia Minor clearly required a fi rm but delicate royal control if it was not to disintegrate into competing minor principalities. 3

  In Macedon, Kassander faced the same problems as his Argead predecessors.

  He was frequently in dispute with the Epirote kingdom, and intervened more

  than once to change the regime there – just as had Philip II.4 He tried to dominate Greece, if only to prevent anyone else – Antigonos, Ptolemy, Demetrios – from

  doing so, but he found it diffi cult to reach further south than Athens: Kassander’s soldiers occupied Corinth only because Ptolemy ceded the city to him; they had lost it easily to Demetrios. Kassander operated very much as a typical fourth-century Macedonian ruler in his restricted range of international concerns.

  Demetrios’ return to Greece after Ipsos brought a restless and vengeful spirit into a confused and complicated situation. His alliance with Seleukos a year later provided him with an international lifeline, and his conquest of Kilikia included the acquisition of the royal treasure at Kyinda, containing 1,400 talents. Yet he did not interfere with a maritime expedition made by Kassander to the Ionian

  Sea island of Korkyra during 298 – Agathokles of Sicily prevented him from

  acquiring it.5 But the following year the whole unstable situation in Greece was made worse by the death of Kassander.

  He is said to have died of a wasting disease, dropsy perhaps, or maybe

  tuberculosis. 6 His death was followed by a series of disputes within the royal family, as usual, and this time these disputes eliminated the whole family.

  The change of dynasty had not changed Macedon; this regular collapse was

  not an Argead pecu liarity; it was inherent in Macedonian politics and society.

  Kassander had done his best to avoid a succession crisis: he had been a successful ruler, had associated himself with the former royal family by his marriage, and

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  provided three almost adult sons as his heirs, together with a capable widow

  to supervise them. It was not enough. At fi rst the kingship passed without a

  problem to Kassander’s eldest son, Philip IV. Behind him hovered his mother,

  Thessalonike. Her bloodline had certainly been of assistance to Kassander in his Macedonian career, as it was to be for her children as well. But Philip IV lasted only four months. 7

  In Athens, Lachares’ local enemies seized control of Peiraios, while he

  con tinued in power in the city. Lachares had been an adherent of Kassander,

  who is said to have urged him to take this step, and his death prevented further Macedonian assistance. The result was Athenian paralysis, and, in view of the

  sudden absence of Macedonian royal authority, the only possible benefactor of

  this situation was Demetrios. 8

  Kassander had also intervened in Epiros to support Neoptolemos in the

  struggle for the kingship with his cousin and rival Pyrrhos. (Neoptolemos was

  the nephew of Olympias; Pyrrhos was the grandson of King Arybbas, expelled

  by Philip II.) Pyrrhos, defeated for the moment in 302, had become a soldier of fortune, attaching himself inevitably to Kassander’s enemies. He had been present on the losing side at Ipsos, had escaped, and served as an offi cer of Demetrios until 297, whe
n Demetrios sent him as a hostage to Ptolemy. Ptolemy took to

  him, gave him his daughter Antigone as wife, and helped him to get back to

  Epiros as king. 9 This happened soon after Kassander died, while Philip IV was establishing himself. Pyrrhos’ wife Antigone soon died, and he married a second time, to Lanassa, the daughter of King Agathokles of Sicily, another of Kassander’s enemies; she brought the island of Korkyra as her dowry, the very island which Kassander had been attempting to seize not long before he died. 10 Kassander’s aim had been to gain a foothold from which to threaten Epiros; in Pyrrhos’ hands it was a forward defence.

  Pyrrhos had his rival Neoptolemos assassinated, claiming he was merely

  anticipating a like fate for himself,11 but the main reason he was able to settle into power in Epiros was that there was no response from Macedon to his seizure of

  the kingship. Philip IV reigned for only four months before his own death. He

  was at Elateia in Phokis when he died, so he was probably on his way to begin

  the process of rebuilding Macedonian power in Greece, no doubt by assisting the

  ‘tyranny’ of Lachares in Athens. If so, the expedition stopped at once.

  Philip was succeeded by both his younger brothers. Antipater and Alexander IV

  became joint kings, an arrangement organized by Thessalonike, who held the real power.12 The elder of the two, Antipater, was about 16 and this gave their mother regency authority; she is said to have favoured Alexander, the younger boy, but failed to bypass Antipater, presumably being thwarted by the Assembly, which

  had to accept the new king. The result was paralysis at the top. The succession in Macedon was running true to form. (The similarity to the situation in Babylon

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  after the death of Alexander the Great presumably escaped no one, but the lesson of the previous 30 years was ignored.)

  Demetrios was the benefi ciary. He made an attempt on Athens while it

  was divided, 13 but was unsuccessful. He went on to extend his power in the Peloponnese, so safeguarding his base at Corinth. He had now quarrelled with

  Seleukos, who demanded that he hand over Kilikia, Tyre and Sidon, all of which Seleukos claimed as part of his spoils as a participant in the defeat of Demetrios’