Alexander the Great Failure

by John D Grainger

  League, Pontos, Armenia, Atropatene, the Galatians, and soon Baktria would be

  independent; the process had only just begun.

  Within the great kingdoms, attempts to enlist native support grew. In

  Babylonia, local men were working in the administration. In Egypt, Ptolemy was generous to the temples, and he announced victory in his war with Antiochos by reporting that the statues of gods abducted by his enemies had been recovered, an Egyptian formulation.27 In Asia, the Greek cities honoured Antiochos for his efforts to protect them from the Galatian raids. In Baktria, the Seleukid governors, successors of Antiochos’ work between 292 and 281, united Greeks and Baktrians in their efforts to resist nomad incursions. In Macedonia, Antigonos’ careful rule contributed to a gradual acceptance of the new dynasty by the Macedonians, a

  partnership which lasted for another century. The three greater kingdoms which had emerged from the wreckage and confusion of Alexander’s empire were now

  fi rmly founded, each had a clear character of its own, and each had an operative governing system, though the Macedonian version would take time to develop; all of them looked solidly established for the foreseeable future. The new generation of kings had ambitions of their own, but they were a good deal less disruptive than those of their fathers, and these lesser ambitions were much less damaging to their subjects’ well-being, though this reduction was due more to an appreciation of the limits of their resources than anything else.

  The round of warfare which began with Magas’ attempt on the Ptolemaic

  throne in 275 and ended with the peace agreement between Antiochos I and

  Ptolemy II in 271 demonstrated the kingdoms’ limitations: none was any longer

  capable of seriously damaging the others. The alliance of Antiochos II with Magas is particularly signifi cant, and shows that diplomatic manoeuvring was as crucial an element in affairs as warlike preparations. If an attack was apprehended, the potential victim had plenty of diplomatic resources available to distract the

  attacker. That is, a balance of power now existed in the eastern Mediterranean, just as it had in Greece before the Macedonian intervention in the affairs of

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  the city-states. Like all balances of power, survival depended on alertness and produced constant warfare, and eventually a single winner would emerge. There

  was no sign for the next two centuries that any king harboured a serious aim

  to recover the brief unity of Alexander’s empire, with the possible exception of Antiochos III. All three kingdoms had solved that bane of Macedon, the hiatus at the death of a king, each in its own way, and their dynasties provided an ordered centre for the administration which kept the internal peace.

  The unification of Alexander’s empire was part of the world’s political

  discourse for almost 50 years, from Alexander’s return from India to the death of Seleukos Nikator. It proved to be impossible to realize that unity except for the brief period between 325 and the death of Antipater in 319, despite its near achievement by Antigonos and by Seleukos. The frustration of the idea of unity was due at fi rst to the lack of imagination of the two dominating personalities of Antipater and Antigonos and that was above all due to their not having

  accompanied Alexander on the great campaigns in Baktria and India. These men

  then set the political agenda for the next 20 years: Antigonos looked to have the ambition to re-unify, but, like Antipater, he was really too old. Yet it was not age which stopped him, for Seleukos had the ambition still until his death in his late seventies. Nor was unity really blocked by the lesser ambitions of Kassander and Ptolemy and Antigonos Gonatas. In the end it was blocked by the inability of the Macedonian kingdom and people to rise to the task; the repeated refusal of the Macedonians to accept their imperial role was the real block to unity. Alexander’s ambition was too great for his people.

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  World view III: 272 bc

  In Greece, 272 marks the death in battle at Argos of King Pyrrhos, after which matters were much less disturbed and exciting. Pyrrhos’ garrison in Taras

  surrendered to the Romans in the same year, which led to the Roman capture

  of the city, which they called Tarentum. 1 This marked the preliminary Roman unifi cation of Italy, the moment at which another Great Power emerged on to

  the Mediterranean geopolitical scene, joining Ptolemy’s Egypt, Macedon, the

  Seleukid empire, and, as it proved, Carthage. The actual unifi cation of Italy was still fairly rudimentary, amounting to a series of annexations, alliances, and more or less brutal conquests over the previous 70 years, but it placed Rome in control of central and southern Italy for the next two centuries.

  The new condition of Italy was recognized the year before when Ptolemy II

  initiated diplomatic contact with Rome. 2 Roman power had been growing for some time, but it is remarkable just how quickly the city had developed its confederation of Italy. In 360, in the fi rst of these ‘world views’, Rome had been a single city; in less than a century it had become a great power – and in less than another century, it was to be the greatest Mediterranean power.

  The Roman success was due in part to the repeated revivals and collapses of

  the Greek state of Sicily. Three times the Greek cities of the island had united into a powerful state, the third time under Agathokles between 313 and 289, and three times the hard-won unity scarcely survived the death of the ruler; if Sicily had continued to dominate south Italy, as it had under Dionysios I and II and then under Agathokles, it seems unlikely that Rome would have been able to penetrate southwards much beyond Campania.

  Rome’s success was also in part a consequence of the failure of the empire of

  Alexander. If Alexander had carried out the western expedition he was planning, one of his main purposes would be to establish his control over Sicily, so pre-empting Agathokles’ kingdom. The island was the essential basis for power in the western Mediterranean, as Rome and Carthage both appreciated in their great

  contest between 264 and 202: the First and Second Punic Wars were in many

  ways wars for Sicily, and Rome’s victory was decisive for its future power. The Roman embassy in Babylon in 323 will have gone home with news of Alexander’s

  plans, and Rome at once would begin to expand its power. The two events may

  not have been as directly connected as that, but Alexander’s death would be a

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  relief to those in Rome with the strategic insight to understand his ambition.

  The break-up of his empire left the interventions from old Greece into the west to the Epirotes and the Spartans. Alexander of Epiros was almost successful, and Pyrrhos did his erratic best, but the interventions were never strong enough,

  and the local population and economic base in south Italy could not sustain a

  northward offensive; and there were mutual suspicions between the Greek cities, and suspicions invariably developed between rescuers and rescued. Pyrrhos’

  expedition between 280 and 275 only hastened the Roman conquest, the better

  to prevent any other armed arrivals.

  Pyrrhos also clashed with Carthage, and his career emphasized the continuing

  disaster which was Greek Sicily. Agathokles had made himself king during the

  elevation process following Antigonus’ self-proclamation, 3 and when he died his kingdom collapsed. The Greeks of the island had to be rescued by Pyrrhos from

  a likely Carthaginian conquest ten years later. 4 Sicily’s political history was rather like Macedon’s: at the end of one regime or king came a collapse, which had to be painfully recovered from.

  The west had changed drastically since the last survey, for 319 ‘world view II’.

  The power and cohesion of the Greek
centre in Sicily had proved far too fragile, and that of southern Italy far too weak; that of Carthage endured, surviving even an invasion of Africa by Agathokles, and that of Rome had grown spectacu larly.

  The collapse of Greek Sicily provided an all too attractive area of combined

  wealth and weakness, a power vacuum into which its neighbours were inevitably

  drawn: the scene was set for the confl ict of Rome and Carthage, a mutually

  absorbing confl ict which would keep both of these powers out of the eastern

  Mediterranean for almost a century.

  No such problems of internal confl ict affected India. In 272 a new emperor

  of India, Asoka, took the throne, though he had to face competition from his

  brothers, and it was not for some time that he felt secure enough to be crowned formally.5 Asoka was the third emperor of the Maurya family: Chandragupta the founder had seized control of the Magadhan kingdom and vigorously expanded

  it into the Indus Valley after Alexander’s visit, and then rebuffed Seleukos’

  attempt to regain control there. He was succeeded by his son Bindusara in

  297, who extended the empire into the south until only the southern tip of the peninsula and the region of Orissa called Kalinga were outside the empire; this was conquered by Asoka.

  Asoka was not the eldest son of his emperor father – it was not just Macedonians who had these succession troubles. The problem at the top did not have serious effects elsewhere, but Asoka felt the need to demonstrate martial achievements by his conquest of Kalinga. Then he could settle down to a long and peaceful

  reign, during which he tried to push his people to be Buddhists. The imposition of a uniform religion as a means of assisting political unifi cation was a problem

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  the successors of Alexander did not have to face.

  The western and eastern neighbours of the fragmented empire of Alexander

  had therefore developed into formidable powers of their own during the period

  of Macedonian warfare; to a large degree it was in reaction to Alexander’s career of conquest and brutality that this happened. Rome’s conquest and unifi cation in Italy was undoubtedly eased by the continuing threat that, if the Italians remained divided, a conqueror would emerge from the east to do the job for them.

  Chandragupta Maurya is specifi cally said to have been ‘inspired’ by Alexander’s career; the prospect of another Macedonian invasion of the Indus Valley would be quite enough to persuade the ravaged societies there to prefer his rule to that of the westerners; it is quite likely that the fi nal seal on his new empire was applied by Seleukos’ invasion, with its implied threat of even more killing and damage, and by Chandragupta’s victorious defence.

  In China the growth of Qin, the most westerly kingdom of the Warring States,

  continued. It owed its success to an effective system of government, its border position, which allowed it to expand and gave its army plenty of practice, and the deliberate ruthlessness of its rulers. It was a similar polity to Macedon, but had been compelled to develop an effective bureaucratic governing system by the intense competition of its equals. At the same time Rome established its early hegemony in Italy, Qin did the same in China. Between 311 and 293, some small

  states in the centre were annexed, and three of the larger were defeated in war.

  In 288, the lords of Qin and Qi agreed that each should be called emperor, and no others. Qi succumbed to a hostile alliance four years later, and Qin was left as the most powerful state in the Chinese system. Yet Qin directly controlled only a part of central China, and it would take another half-century of effort to bring the whole distracted country into unity. 6 The effectiveness of the governments in all the Chinese kingdoms is shown by their ability to construct long sections of wall to prevent attacks by neighbours, and by the regular mobilization of

  large parts of their populations into their armies. It would be impossible at 272

  to discern the future course of Chinese history. The collapse of Qi in 284 could well be repeated in Qin. The one certainty was that warfare would continue.

  Like Rome in Italy, only one great power remained; if it survived, it would be the unifi er and peace-bringer.

  The break-up of Alexander’s empire ended Macedonian expansion, and

  began the reduction of the territories under the rule of Macedonian kings as the border areas asserted their independence. This began in the Indian borderlands even before Alexander’s death, and some parts of Iran and Anatolia were never

  part of the empire at all: these formed themselves into independent kingdoms.

  At the west, some of Philip II’s conquests for Macedon were lost to Epiros in

  the 290s. Then the invasion of the Galatians eliminated Macedonian remnants

  in Thrace; and when the Galatians settled down, they took over a considerable

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  section of Anatolia, so sheltering the new Anatolian states of the north and east behind them.

  The unifi cations of India and Italy, and the potential unifi cation of China, contrasted strongly with the failure of Alexander’s empire. The difference was that Alexander’s work was superfi cial, whereas the other processes were slow and careful and detailed. Alexander’s attempts to recruit the Iranians to his imperial cause suggest that he appreciated the need to conciliate his new subjects and win their cooperation, and the move into independence of many Iranian regions

  showed his good sense in that. But he could not convince others. Alexander had essentially failed as an empire builder.

  Conclusion

  For two centuries from 550 bc, from the Bay of Bengal to the Atlantic Ocean,

  the Akhaimenid empire dominated the world. Its political infl uence reached well beyond its borders, into Greece and the western Mediterranean, deep into India, and it affected the lives and movements of the nomads of the Eurasian steppes.

  Its economic infl uence was as pervasive, perhaps more so. It was the centre of the civilized world – indeed, it was the civilized world, and anyone outside its borders was a barbarian. This included not just the nomads and the Arabs of the desert, but Greeks and Macedonians, Italians and Indians – though these did not necessarily agree with this classifi cation.

  Alexander’s invasion was, to the Persians and to many of their subjects, a

  barbarian invasion, destructive, murderous and sacrilegious. In India, this was obvious even to the Macedonian soldiers, but it had been so regarded by the

  Persians, Babylonians and Baktrians all along. Those who welcomed Alexander’s

  invasion were few: the Ionian Greeks, the Egyptians, possibly some of the

  Babylonians; to everyone else, his career was a disaster in one way or another.

  And Macedon suffered as well.

  It is worth considering the events recounted in this book from the point

  of view of the victims, since the normal assumption is that Alexander was a

  hero, a military genius, that the Greeks and Macedonians had been victims of

  Akhaimenid aggression, and the results of his career of conquest benefi cial. This is the viewpoint of the victors and their political and emotional heirs in Europe.

  Adopt the Persian point of view, and the landscape looks very different. 1

  It has always been diffi cult to isolate the heritage of the Akhaimenid state.

  Certain elements in the administration of the Seleukid kingdom can be traced

  back, but they consist mainly of provincial names and boundaries; their admin-

  is trative systems were different. Local dynasties in the Near East – Pontos,

  Armenia, Kommagene, Atropatene – purported to trace their origins back to

  Akhaimenid times, but it is often an assertion only, not documented proof, and these are marginal areas, some of which
were scarcely part of the Akhaimenid

  state at all. The real reaction of the empire’s former subjects is to be seen in the frag men ta tion of the Iranian and Anatolian lands into independent states: this began as soon as Alexander was dead, or even before, and within 50 years his

  Macedonian successors controlled little more than half of Iran and less than

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  half of Anatolia. The independence of the states along the north, from Bithynia to Atropatene, showed their detestation of Macedonian rule. Within a decade

  of 272, Baktria was also independent: a development foreshadowed by its stiff

  resistance to Alexander’s invasion.

  The conclusion must be that for the former subjects of the Akhaimenid

  empire the Macedonian conquest was a disaster, something they continued to

  detest after Alexander was dead, and they wished to escape Macedonian rule as

  soon as possible. There is some evidence, indeed, that numbers of Iranians left Iran, particularly for India, rather than accept Macedonian rule. This applied to aristocrats such as Barsaentes, the satrap of Arachosia, and to craftsmen whose skills were not required by Greek and Macedonian rulers. They took their skills and the Iranian artistic tradition eastwards, and elements of Iranian art can be detected in later Indian buildings.2 This antipathy to Macedonian rule was not an attitude shared by all. The Egyptians seem to have been generally content with the Ptolemaic kings for a time. Their opportunities for dissent were few, and when the chance came, a formidable rebellion developed; its aim was independence.

  The Babylonians had never been particularly pleased to be Akhaimenid subjects; when the Seleukids showed themselves willing to respect their customs and

  their gods, and to pay handsomely for the upkeep for their temples and cities, they became generally content, even strongly supportive during Seleukos’ and

  Antiochus’ early wars. 3 That was after they had the experience of the alternative, which was rule by Antigonos.