whether it was all worth it, given the destruction and death that they unleashed.
An equal y pointed question could be asked with respect to the forty years of war that passed before some semblance of order emerged after the Conqueror’s death.
Combined with the ten years of Alexander’s expedition, this entire period has
been seen as the beginnings of western imperialism and colonialism in the east
(Burstein 1997: 2). While Bosworth (2002: 1–2) is correct that it is unlikely that even the great Alexander could have held his empire together, the disruption and
chaos that followed his death must have made many look longingly back to the
“good old days” of the Persian Empire. Yet out of this seeming chaos a new world
did emerge.
These new regimes would seem to have had a multiplicity of examples to follow
in creating their polities, but in truth, whether Near Eastern models were followed or that of Macedonia, in the final analysis both traditions endorsed autocracy.
Whether it was the Persian Empire or Philip II’s Macedonia, this was an autocracy tempered by the limits of pre-industrial bureaucracy. Local autonomy was
permitted on a wide scale, but always under the absolute authority of the ruler.
Style might differ and did, certainly from the Persian model, but in the end the
king was the state, controlling all aspects of rule. With the Achaemenid Persian
rulers or the Macedonian Argead ones, this power came from the charismatic
aspect of the family or clan. What then gave these new regimes legitimacy? Much
of the history of the generation that followed Alexander was the attempts to create new dynasties and new legitimacies.
In a very real sense the political regimes of the Successors were one-dimensional.
There was no state, initial y no dynasty, to which populations or subordinates
could be loyal. Soldiers were in most ways mercenaries tied to their leaders because of those individuals’ personal charisma, benefactions, and military successes.
In the case of Demetrius Poliorcetes, the regime was clearly the man. After the
defeat at Ipsus, he was a king without a kingdom, and yet he remained a king with a sizable number of adherents. This was to a great degree true of Antigonus. While Celaenae was his haven, the place where his wife resided, there was no great
imperial apparatus that worked out of any central location. He had become a “king”
by the acclamation of his army in Phoenicia. Michael Austin (1986: 456–62)
suggests that, in the case of the emerging Hellenistic regimes, it was military
success, “an ideology of conquest,” that led to power. He even suggests that the Age of the Successors did not come to an end until the Romans displaced the old
regimes with Roman governors (Austin 1986: 456). Certainly it helps explain the
rise to prominence of Antigonus and Seleucus, who of all the Diadochs were the
closest in military skill to the great Alexander. Ptolemy was not all that successful on the battlefield, and Demetrius failed before Rhodes and lost at Gaza and Ipsus.
Yet, as Waldemar Heckel (2002: 86–7) has declared, the ultimate cause of the
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fragmentation of Alexander’s empire may be that the Conqueror’s Successors were
too competent and that their rough equality of talent doomed the unity of
the empire. There is much truth to this claim. This was an age of almost endless
warfare in which none could obtain the final, decisive, victory. While Alexander
was undefeated in battle, none of his Successors could make a similar claim. The
rough balance of abilities created situations where success or failure could be
redeemed through new coalitions. In many ways, it was the history of Greece in
the fourth century prior to the emergence of Macedonia. All Diadochs sought
power and supremacy, but none were ready to concede them to a rival. This new
Hellenistic political world was a variation on an old Greek pattern. Here the
contenders were military commanders and future dynasts whereas before the
contenders were city-states. The prominence of one would lead to a reaction by
the others and the emergence of a new power or coalition, and the pattern would
then repeat itself. Warfare as a means to a political end was not the creation of the Hellenistic age, it was endemic in the Greek experience.
Was the power of the Diadochs the result of their connection to the god
Alexander? In a sense, yes, all of the winners were his lieutenants or their descendants. But then so were the losers. The jibe from Neoptolemus that Eumenes was
merely a scribe carried no weight with the Macedonian veterans who recognized
his close connection to Alexander and his military ability. Nor was it solely the generals who advertised their connection to the great Conqueror; the common
soldiers did as well (Roisman 2012: 242–3). In part, the prominence of the various contenders was tied both to their relationship with Alexander, the man and the
legend, and to their sharing of this tie – initial y with the Macedonian veterans and subsequently, through the legend, to troops who had no personal experience of the Conqueror. One contender who attempted to make the most of his connection to
Alexander was Lysimachus. He had been one of the seven somaphylaces and had saved the Conqueror’s life. His coinage emphasized his connection to Alexander;
his intercession to save his king from the attack of a lion was noted by the inclusion of the symbolic lion in the background of coins depicting the deified Alexander
(Hadley 1974: 50–65; Mørkholm 1991: 81–2). Lysimachus also founded a number
of cities, naming them after himself, family members, and at least one to honor
Alexander (Hadley 1974: 63; Lund 1992: 175–6). A connection to the Conqueror,
however, does not explain the prominence of all the Diadochs. Despite his son’s
later claim to the contrary (Just. 16.1.12–17), Antigonus had not served on all of Alexander’s campaigns. Of all the Successors in that first generation after the
Conqueror’s death, he was the least connected. He had been abandoned in Phrygia
in 333. He was older, not one of those who grew up with Alexander; he was of
Philip II’s generation. Indeed, those who had the closest connections to Alexander were all dead by the close of the First Diadoch War: Leonnatus, Perdiccas, and
Craterus. It is also true that the importance of Alexander’s veterans diminished
exponential y as the years progressed. After Antipater returned to Macedonia in the winter of 320/19, recruitment of Macedonian soldiers was virtual y non-existent for the Diadochs in Asia or Egypt. For these individuals, manpower was increasingly
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supplied by Greek mercenaries and the non-Greek indigenous populations.
For these groups, connections to Philip II, or Alexander the Great, or to the Argead clan in general, were much less of a draw. It is true that as the legend of the
Conqueror grew so did the status of those who had served with him. However, the
Macedonian heartland came to be ruled by Cassander, who was rumored to have
been part of a supposed plot that killed Alexander the Great, and was clearly
responsible for the deaths of Olympias, Roxane, and Alexander IV. Moreover, the
indigenous peoples of Asia and Egypt appeared anxious to have a dynasty in place
as the harbinger of stability. Ptolemy became pharaoh of Egypt (Manning 2010:
94–5 n. 85; cf. Meeus 2013: 88); royal honors were given to Antigonus in 315 in
both Persia (Diod. 19.48.1) and Babylonia (Diod. 19.55.2), and Se
leucus was
hailed as king of Babylonia (cf. Plut. Demetr. 18.2–3; BM 35603 Obv. 6–8). As opposed to “generals,” the tradition of royalty encompassed dynasty. Routine,
hereditary, succession to power was, outside of the Greek city-state and the Roman republic, the definer of stability.
The question then arises: if the Macedonian presence in the armies serving
most of the Successors had diminished significantly, and the indigenous peoples
were unaffected by Argead loyalty, then why did Antigonus wait almost four
years after the death of Alexander IV, and the other Diadochs later stil , to accept diadems in a Greek/Macedonian context? Erich Gruen (1985: 254) states that
the difficulty was that power down to this moment was theoretical y based on
the Argead monarchy. Individuals were the satraps, generals, or regents for the
monarchy. While the fiction of such rule might seem patent, power still needed a
focus. The initial struggle in Babylon had centered on the succession to Alexander, and power was distributed in the name of the kings and the regent. This de jure
position was, however, important only with respect to the Greeks and Macedonians.
It is clear that neither Ptolemy, Antigonus, nor Seleucus had any problem accepting royal titles handed out to them by those indigenous peoples under their authority, nor did the native populations have any problem dispensing such. When the break
with the past occurred, it was complete. These new monarchies were not to be
based on some invented extension of Argead power, but were new kingdoms based
on the person of the charismatic leader and his dynastic heirs (Gruen 1985: 256).
But if these new kingdoms were not to be territorial or ethnic, how were they to be maintained?
Patronage was the major element in the creation of these new states. Largesse
was to a degree responsible for the deification of kings. Gods received worship
when they were seen as being in a position to confer benefits or inflict harm on the worshiper (Mikalson 2005: 27). Kings were in just such positions. Unlike the
Olympians, their largesse was clear and often immediate. Kings were the distributers of wealth, and stinginess was considered to be unworthy of a king. Through
patronage the general, dynast, or monarch created a party of adherents, whose possession of power and privilege emanated from the person of the leader. This was
especial y the case at the royal court and in the army. In the former, whether called philoi or hetairoi, this coterie was critical. These “friends” were the intermediaries
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who linked the king to others, including cities and native populations, through the exercise of the king’s authority and patronage. As noted, the monarchies of the
Hellenistic age were personal. Over time a bureaucracy developed; in Egypt there
was already in existence an extensive bureaucracy governing the native Egyptians, but Hellenistic royal government was never about government institutions. The
founding of cities, the granting of land, and the bestowal of benefits to supporters both great and small: these were the keys to the rise of Macedonia under the rule of Philip II. Through his granting of land he established a loyal following personal y, and since these land titles flowed from the monarchy, this loyalty transcended the single king and encompassed the dynasty (see Anson 2008a; 2013b: 62–71).
To support the king was to ensure your prosperity and future in the state. If all power flowed through the regime, then it was in the interest of everyone with a
stake in society to support that regime. Intelligent kings would incorporate in their rule their adult sons to ensure a smooth transition, and the stakeholders would
acclaim the continued status quo. The cities, the army, the businessmen: all had a vested commitment to the regime. To do otherwise would jeopardize one’s present
and future.
What made this complicated was the diversity of the people included in many of
these emerging states. Even Macedonia transcended the traditional heartland and
through outright annexation and alliances extended its power far and wide in the
Greek peninsula. Much of the struggle among the Diadochs was over the control of
the Greek mainland. Its importance was tied to the desire for manpower, or to
restrict a rival’s access, or simply the result of Greek/Macedonian ethnocentrism.
Whether it was a proclamation of freedom for the Greeks or garrisons and
political puppets, patronage still ruled the day. In Seleucid Asia and the Ptolemaic empire, by various means local populations were tied to the monarchy through
royal patronage. Eumenes of Cardia secured the loyalty of the Cappadocians and
Paphlagonians in his satrapy through such patronage. Ptolemy I initiated close ties with the all-important religious establishments in Egypt. With the exception of
Macedonia, these kings were initial y strangers in strange lands, not unlike the
Argead kings initial y in Macedonia itself. By tradition this clan originated in
Argos and moved to Macedonia, where they became the ruling family (Hdts.
8.137–9, Thuc. 2.99.3).
Having a central territorial and/or ethnic focus became increasingly important
over time (Bosworth 2002: 2–3), but these still remained personal kingdoms. What
gave shape to two of these emerging dynasties was that each of them had a base, that central focus. The Antigonids eventual y had Macedonia and the Ptolemies from
the beginning centered their ambitions on Egypt. Both were bases with different
anchors. Macedonia was held together through nationalism and a sense of a
common heritage and citizenship; Egypt, by the advantage of impregnability.
Seleucid Asia on the other hand was multinational, without secure borders, and
was always being dismantled and reassembled. Unlike Macedonia, there was no
true core. Its dynasty began its rise to prominence in Babylonia and then moved its base of power west to Syria, but it was never centered on a single land or ethnicity.
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While the Achaemenid Persian Empire had stretched over more territory, there was
the Persian heartland. It was in the case of Seleucid Asia where the one great innovation of Alexander would have benefited this new empire. Peucestas had fostered
close relations with the Persians, adopting their dress, using them extensively in his army. Unfortunately while, in comparison to Antigonus, Seleucus might have
appeared as a true benefactor to the Persians, and while he maintained his
marriage to Apama, the daughter of the Sogdian or Iranian rebel Spitamenes, and
appointed his son by this marriage as his successor, his empire like the others was dominated in its highest positions by Greeks and Macedonians, and over time
those who had acclimatized to Greek culture. The ownership of the Seleucid
Empire never moved much beyond a limited ethnic focus; lower-echelon officials
and troops might be Asian, but the empire remained Greek. In a very real sense
what held the Seleucid world together were its cities, not those of long-standing tradition, but those of Seleucid foundation. Most of these had colonial cores of
Macedonians and Greeks located in often very cosmopolitan communities
(Cohen 1978: 37–41; Bil ows 1995: 172–8). These communities were primarily
created for military purposes, as islands of loyalists in the sea of indigenous peoples, and as a source for soldiers. Since the key elements in these foundations were Greek settlers, they also provided pockets of Hellenism in a wide span of west Asia and northeastern Africa. Even though native peoples might serve in the army and in
loc
al administrative positions throughout these kingdoms in Asia and Egypt, in the court and in the new urban foundations, native Greeks and those assimilated to
Greek culture dominated.
The new rulers did not push their racism to the extremes of conceiving of the
others as evil and in need of extermination, but the native population mostly
engaged in agriculture did most often find themselves existing as tenant farmers
or laoi, serfs, or even chattel slaves. Yet the new rulers rarely attempted to impose their culture or religion on others, and most often participated in native practices, especial y establishing ties to local religious institutions. Hellenism was not
enforced, but proved attractive to those who wished to thrive, as opposed to simply survive, in this new world. Greek-speakers became a privileged class in a world
that far transcended the city-state. Greek ethnicity was never so much tied to
blood as to culture (Anson 2010b). Isocrates (4.50) expressed it best, stating: “The title Hellenes is applied rather to those who share our culture than to those who share a common blood.” Herodotus (1.56.2, 57.2–3, 58; 8.44.2) put this concept in a historical context when he noted that the Athenians, the embodiment of all
things Greek in the Classical and Hellenistic ages, were original y Pelasgians, who through the adoption of Greek culture and especial y language became Greeks
(Anson 2010b). Through intermarriage and through the need to succeed in
business and politics, Greek culture spread throughout the native elites of the Near East. Hellenistic kings patronized Hellenism in its many forms. Even though many
new “Greeks” simply adopted the veneer of Hellenism, much as the nouveaux
riches today stock their bookcases with impressive volumes which they never read
and buy art they dislike for the sake of appearances. While the Persian Empire may
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not have been the dying carcass of former greatness put out of its misery by
Alexander, it was very different from the Hellenistic world that eventual y replaced it. It may be that, as dragonflies hover just above a quiet pond, Hellenism may have only existed at the surface with the elite, not in the depths of the Egyptian and Asian populations, but it existed, and it had influence. Paul of Tarsus is but one example of the enduring legacy of the Hellenistic world. He was a Roman citizen,
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