Before and After Alexander

by Richard A. Billows

  The two armies were very evenly matched: each was rather more than forty-one thousand men strong; each had as its heart units of Macedonian or Macedonian-style heavy infantry twenty thousand or more strong, along with mercenaries and light infantry. Antigonus had the advantage in cavalry, well over ten thousand to a little more than six thousand; but against this Eumenes had the matchless Silver Shields as the core of his infantry. The battle was fought very much in the style of Philip and Alexander: each general stationed his best cavalry on his right under his own command, withheld his left, and ordered his infantry to advance steadily to try to drive back the opposition. The aim was to wait for a suitable opportunity for a decisive cavalry charge on the right. In the event, the fight did not work out quite as planned, however. Peithon, stationed in command of Antigonus’ left with a large force of light cavalry, decided to try to win the battle himself and charged Eumenes’ right instead of holding back. He was defeated and driven back to take refuge among the foothills behind Antigonus’ army. Meanwhile, the Silver Shields took the initiative and charged at a swift pace into Antigonus’ infantry, who could not withstand their ferocious impetus. Antigonus’ phalanx was driven back, fighting hard, to join Peithon. The battle threatened to become a disaster for Antigonus, but with typical coolness and decision he refused to retreat to join the rest of his army but led a cavalry charge on his right which drove back the cavalry on Eumenes’ left. Keeping his head, Antigonus then turned his cavalry to threaten Eumenes’ infantry from behind, forcing them to break off their pursuit of his (Antigonus’) defeated infantry. This enabled officers sent by Antigonus to regroup and reorganize his infantry and left wing cavalry, and bring them forward again to rejoin Antigonus and the right wing cavalry. As Antigonus thus reorganized his army to renew the fight, Eumenes did the same, a few hundred yards separating the two armies. By the time they were ready, however, it was nearly midnight.

  Both armies were exhausted after a night of marching and a day of fighting, and both commanders decided against trying to fight again. Eumenes led his army back, intending to occupy the site of the battle—a standard sign of victory; but once it was marching Eumenes’ army refused to stop at the site of the fight and insisted on returning all the way to the comforts of their camp. Antigonus had his men better in hand: once he saw that Eumenes’ army had withdrawn completely, he led his men forward and encamped on the site of the battle, taking up the dead and wounded. Far more of these were Antigonus’ men—nearly eight thousand all told—while Eumenes’ casualties amounted to under fifteen hundred. Thus, though both sides claimed victory in this drawn battle, it was clear that Eumenes’ side had the advantage. Antigonus buried his dead at dawn, and looked after his wounded and the rest of his army, while informing heralds from Eumenes’ army that he would hand over the enemy dead and wounded on the next day. In fact, however, he led his army away under cover of darkness into southern Media, where he put them into winter quarters. Eumenes, after taking care of his own dead and wounded, continued his march into Gabiene and there settled his army too into winter quarters.

  The year 316 thus came to a close with no outcome to the contest, and with Antigonus getting impatient to finish it off and return west. Through scouts or other informants he learned that Eumenes had dispersed his army widely into separate camps for the winter, and perceived in this an opportunity for a surprise attack. The standard route from his winter quarters to the region where Eumenes was quartered was more than three weeks’ march; but the distance was much shorter as the crow flies: a mere nine days’ march through a trackless, waterless desert would bring Antigonus’ army into Gabiene. This desert was overlooked by hills on all sides, and in order to keep the element of surprise an army marching through it would have to avoid lighting fires at night. Just after the winter solstice, as the year changed from 316 to 315, Antigonus announced that he intended to invade Armenia to the northwest and ordered his troops to prepare ten days’ water and rations for a swift march. He then set out across the desert towards Gabiene instead, intending to roll up Eumenes’ army piecemeal in their scattered winter camps. Unfortunately, the winter nights in the desert were so cold that Antigonus’ soldiers disobeyed his orders not to light fires; their fires were observed from the surrounding hills and reported to Eumenes, who realized he was about to be disastrously outmaneuvered. Rising to the occasion, he gathered the troops nearest the desert, several thousand strong, and ordered them to build enough fires on the hills overlooking the desert to suggest an encampment of tens of thousands of men. When these camp fires were, in turn, reported to Antigonus, he assumed that Eumenes had already concentrated his army and at once changed his line of march into inhabited lands to recuperate his army before confronting Eumenes. This of course gave Eumenes time to gather his army, and the two forces drew together for another major confrontation in Gabiene.

  The resulting battle, fought early in 315, took place on a broad plain with a saline, dusty topsoil. Antigonus drew up his army as at Paraetacene, with his strongest cavalry on the right, light cavalry in a withdrawn position on his left, and his infantry in between with orders to hold their ground and look for the right wing cavalry to win the battle. Eumenes decided to take his station on his left this time, with his best cavalry, to counter Antigonus’ right wing cavalry. He relied on his infantry, with the experienced Silver Shields, to win the battle for him. In front of both armies was a skirmishing line of light infantry interspersed with elephants, and when these engaged each other, they threw up such dust clouds that the battlefield became obscured and the action hard to follow. The Silver Shields nevertheless led a charge of Eumenes’ infantry and routed the fearful infantry of Antigonus opposed to them. As Antigonus’ infantry fled, pursued by the Silver Shields, however, Antigonus charged Eumenes’ left wing with his cavalry and, despite fierce resistance from Eumenes’ personal guard, broke through and forced Eumenes’ left wing into flight. Eumenes managed to extricate his guard and rode to join his right wing cavalry, which had not yet been engaged. Despite all Eumenes could do, however, when his light cavalry saw Antigonus’ heavy cavalry coming at it in clouds of dust, they turned and retreated. That left Antigonus free to attack Eumenes’ victorious infantry from behind, abruptly halting their pursuit of his own infantry. Led by the highly disciplined Silver Shields, Eumenes’ infantry organized themselves in a square formation and counter-marched to link up with Eumenes and the light cavalry forces of his right wing, commanded by Peucestas, leaving Antigonus and his cavalry in control of the field of battle.

  So far, the battle seemed like another draw, just as the one fought at Paraetacene in the previous year. But there was a twist to the tale. When his army had reunited some distance from the original battle site, Eumenes urged his men to reform and renew the fight, arguing that victory was within their grasp thanks to the crushing of Antigonus’ infantry. Peucestas and the light cavalry, however, refused to confront Antigonus’ heavy cavalry, instead insisting that the army withdraw to their camp to rest and consider their position. That proved to be impossible, however. When Antigonus noted the huge obscuring clouds of dust thrown up by the screens of skirmishers, he had taken advantage of the lack of visibility to send a special detachment of cavalry to ride unobserved around the site of battle and capture Eumenes’ camp by surprise. In that camp were the wives, children, and life savings of Eumenes’ soldiers. As soon as they learned of this, the Silver Shields decided they had had enough. They sent representatives to negotiate with Antigonus for the return of their families and property. Antigonus was willing enough: all they had to do was switch sides and hand over Eumenes. The unwary Eumenes was suddenly arrested by his own elite soldiers, who carried him off to Antigonus’ camp and handed him over, ending this campaign. Antigonus was now the clear winner. The other eastern satraps either made their own peace with Antigonus on the best terms they could, or fled back to their provinces with whatever troops would follow them. A few, most notably the Silver Shields’ commander Antigenes, were ar
rested and killed.

  After some deliberation, Antigonus decided that Eumenes could not be trusted and was too dangerous to leave alive. Despite their old friendship, therefore, Eumenes was executed; but many of his friends and subordinates, like Hieronymus and Peucestas, found positions in Antigonus’ entourage. Antigonus spent the spring and summer of 315 reorganizing the eastern part of the empire so as to pose no further threat to him, his chief goal being to return to the west as soon as possible. Reliable officers were sent to take over those provinces whose satraps had been killed; the governors who had safely escaped back to their provinces were cowed and offered no further threat. To oversee the eastern provinces Antigonus decided to leave a general with a strong force in Media. For this post he judged that Peithon could not be trusted: he was arrested and executed on charges of disloyalty, and a loyal friend named Nicanor was established in the post instead. Antigonus then took the royal treasure at Ecbatana and moved southwest to Susa. There the gates to the citadel were now open to him, and he took possession of the great royal treasure there too. Having scooped up all the remaining great Persian treasures, Antigonus was able to convoy to the west under his charge the stupendous sum of thirty thousand talents of gold and silver. This, along with his army, formed the secure basis of his power, enabling him to pay armies and administrators, build fleets, establish cities and forts, and bring in colonists and garrisons as he saw fit. Arriving in Babylonia, he decided that Seleucus, like Peithon, was too independent to be trusted, and set about deposing him. More wary than Peithon, Seleucus saw the blow coming and fled with his personal entourage to take refuge with Ptolemy in Egypt.

  At the end of 315 Antigonus returned to Syria with all of the Asian empire of the Macedonians, in effect the former Persian Empire, under his complete control, making him the great winner so far of the wars of the succession and the most powerful by far of Alexander’s Successors. His armed forces had swollen to in excess of eighty thousand men, with outstanding cavalry and a solid core of Macedonian infantry. His wealth was vast and in addition to his treasure we learn that his annual income from his lands amounted to some eleven thousand talents. But new challenges awaited. In the west, Cassander had defeated Polyperchon and established himself as ruler over Macedonia and most of southern Greece. In late 317 Polyperchon had made the mistake of leaving Macedonia to confront Cassander without taking king Philip Arrhidaeus with him. The young queen Eurydice had promptly taken control of her husband and the government, deposing Polyperchon as regent and siding with Cassander and Antigonus. That prompted Alexander’s mother Olympias, concerned for her young grandson Alexander IV, to leave her self-imposed exile in Epirus and enter Macedonia with an army. Eurydice gathered troops to meet her and there occurred the unique spectacle, in western Macedonia, of two armies confronting each other, each of which was commanded by a woman. In the event Eurydice’s Macedonians refused to fight against the mother of Alexander, and the young queen was defeated and captured along with her husband. In control of Macedonia at last, Olympias proceeded to lose all the good will she had by instituting a reign of terror. Eurydice and her husband, the hapless king Philip Arrhidaeus, were brutally executed; relatives and adherents of Cassander were hounded and executed; and even the bones of Cassander’s deceased relatives were dug up and their graves desecrated.

  When Cassander returned at last to Macedonia at the head of a large army, the Macedonians would not fight for the frightful Olympias, who took refuge in the fortified city of Pydna where she was besieged and starved into surrender. Cassander arranged for the relatives of Olympias’ victims to take revenge by killing the old queen, and himself recovered the bodies of Eurydice and Philip Arrhidaeus for royal burial, probably in the famed tomb II at Vergina whose magnificent burial goods are now displayed in the museum built over the tombs. Cassander took charge of the surviving king, the child Alexander IV, and had him placed under “protective custody” with his mother Roxane in Amphipolis, there to be properly educated for his future position as ruler, so he let it be known. Meanwhile, 315 found Cassander in full control of Macedonia and a formidable ruler. Polyperchon had retreated with the remnants of his forces to Aetolia and the western Peloponnese, there to live the life of a minor dynast and mercenary commander.

  Ptolemy had used the years of Antigonus’ absence in the east to secure his control of Egypt, build up his capital city of Alexandria, seize control of the Cyrenaica in Libya, and extend his power over a buffer zone of Palestine (including Phoenicia) and Cyprus. With Antigonus’ return to the west, Ptolemy himself returned to Egypt after establishing strong garrisons in the cities of Phoenicia and Palestine, and prudently removing the fleets of the Phoenician cities to Egypt where he could control them. Ptolemy and Cassander had been in touch with each other, and with another still independent dynast, Lysimachus in Thrace, and decided that Antigonus was so strong that, for the security of all, he must be cut down to size. Along with the refugee Seleucus they had prepared a common ultimatum which was waiting for Antigonus when he arrived in southern Syria. This ultimatum portended future strife and warfare.

  3. CREATING THE EMPIRES OF THE HELLENISTIC WORLD

  With Polyperchon’s brief and failed regency brought to an end, the wars of Alexander’s generals had resulted in the division of Alexander’s realm into three major “empires”: Antigonus ruled over western Asia (essentially the former Persian Empire); Ptolemy controlled Egypt, with its immense wealth and matchless grain resources; and Cassander held Macedonia and its neighboring lands, the source of the Macedonian and Greek manpower without which there could be no empire. This division of lands was to prove permanent, at least until the advent of the Romans in the second and first centuries BCE, though there was still much fighting to be done, and both western Asia and Macedonia changed ruling dynasties before things finally settled down after 272. But it was the organization of empires and systems of rule that was the most crucial feature of the years after 315 down to the 280s and 270s. These are the decades when the governing structures of what we call the Hellenistic World were established, in western Asia by Antigonus and Seleucus, in Egypt by the first two Ptolemies, and in Macedonia by Cassander and Antigonus Gonatas.

  In between fighting their numerous wars and battles, in fact, Antigonus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy expended enormous effort in organizing the conquered lands in Asia and Egypt into stable empires based on Greek civilization. They reorganized the old provinces, in many cases dividing them up into smaller more manageable provinces governed by military governors with the title strategos (general). They revamped the tribute payment system, establishing sub-provinces called chiliarchies (by Antigonus) or eparchies (after Seleucus took over), each ruled by a regional sub-governor responsible for local security and tribute collection. They settled tens of thousands of veteran soldiers in military colonies, many named after cities of Macedonia and Greece, such as Pella, Cyrrhus, Europus, or Larissa, where they functioned as local security forces and their sons and grandsons were eventually recruited into the imperial armies. Most important of all, they imported many tens if not hundreds of thousands of Greek (or at least Greek-speaking) colonists into Asia and Egypt who were settled in new Greek cities. Frequently these cities were named after the kings and other members—including female members—of the royal dynasties, and by the second century BCE, instead of Athens, Sparta, and Corinth, the leading cities in the Greek world were Alexandria in Egypt, Antioch (formerly Antigoneia) in Syria, Seleucia on the Tigris, and many other cities with dynastic names such as Ptolemais, Arsinoeia, Laodiceia, Stratoniceia, or Apamea. For some six centuries the near east was dominated by the new urban civilization we call Hellenistic, a melding of classical Greek culture with elements of native Asian and Egyptian cultures. This vast colonization program, organized primarily by Antigonus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy—though built on and continued by their early heirs—was undoubtedly the most important work carried out by Alexander’s Successors, and deserves careful investigation.

  It ne
eds to be recognized what a vast undertaking the colonization program of the great Successors of Alexander was. In excess of one hundred thousand people were transported across the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean from Greece and other Balkan territories to find new homes in western Asia and Egypt. The human and political geography of western Asia and Egypt were thereby fundamentally changed, as was their culture. Thanks to the city-building enterprises of Antigonus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy, Greek urban life and culture became the dominant way of life and culture, and Greek the universal language. This process required immense organizational skills and a vast expenditure of wealth. Thousands and thousands of people—women and children as well as men—could not simply be told to make their ways from their ancestral homes to new lands, and then parked there to organize themselves into cities and thrive or die as luck dictated. These people had to be transported, they had to be fed and cared for during transportation, they had to be assisted to organize themselves in their new homes, they needed all sorts of assistance to build their new houses and urban infrastructure. That process of building would certainly take years, during which they would continue to need assistance in food and supplies of all sorts, as well as in technical expertise and labor for all of the building that must be done.