Chapter 12: External Conflict in the Greek World (499-27 BC)

From Persian Wars to Athenian Empire (499-446 BC)

External political developments during the first half of the fifth century BC culminated in the emergence of Athens as an imperial power, arguably the greatest military power of the eastern Mediterranean region at that time. However much unintended, the Athenian Empire seems to have been a natural outcome to a series of events that at each phase was determined by the inherent Greek tendency toward particularism. In other words, at the crux of the matter stood the inherent unwillingness of Greek communities to see beyond their own immediate horizons. To understand this, one needs to explore how developments of the Persian Wars led irreversibly to Athenian naval expansion.

The Persian Wars 499-478 BC

(Darius I, emperor of Persia, 522-486 BC)

Ø Ionian Revolt 499-494

Ø Battle of Marathon 490

(Xerxes I, 486-465 BC)

Ø Battle of Thermopylae 480

Ø Battle of Salamis 480

Ø Battle of Plataea 479

Wider conflict in the Greek Aegean was incited by the tendency of Persian authorities to rely on tyrants to rule the Greek city-states in Ionia (eastern Greece, a former province of Lydian empire, seized by King Cyrus of Persia in 549 BC). As noted earlier, tyranny represented a transitional phase in Greek political development, not a permanent institution. Even if Persian authorities understood this, which seems unlikely, they found it convenient to keep Greek tyrants in place to maintain order and to facilitate tribute payments. Also inequalities existed insofar as tribute payments themselves were concerned. The Persians relied on ancient Lydian tribute rolls that were woefully out of date. Some communities paid less than they were capable of, others paid more. Times had changed, and a reassessment of provincial governance was long overdue. Frustration with these and other issues the led to the outbreak of the Ionian Revolt in 499 BC.

Recognizing that they lacked the necessary military forces to resist what was certain to be a forceful response, the leaders of the Ionian rebellion sought the support of independent Greek states with proven military records, principally, Sparta and Athens. They found some support in Athens, where resentment arising from the asylum of the tyrant, Hippias, at the palace of the Persian satrap of Lydia at Sardis, remained high. The Athenians contributed a small naval contingent to the Ionian forces. Together, they mounted a destructive assault on Sardis that included the conflagration of the Temple of Athena. This was the extent of Athenian involvement, but it gave Persian authorities sufficient pretext to entertain thoughts of retaliation. After Darius' generals suppressed the Ionian revolt in 494 BC, the king approved the undertaking of a military campaign against Athens, ostensibly to punish the state for its role in the rebellion, but equally intended to restore the tyrant Hippias (who accompanied the campaign) and thereby install a Persian client state in mainland Greece. The Persian expeditionary force landed on the Attic shore at Marathon in 490 BC, where it was unexpectedly but resoundingly defeated by the Athenian hoplite phalanx. Since the campaign was exploratory, the Persians did not view this as a major setback. Darius died before he could retaliate, however, and his son, Xerxes I, had to spend several years suppressing rebellions around the empire before he could address this problem. Ultimately he decided to conduct a full-scale invasion and conquest of mainland Greece. As a preliminary, he dispatched embassies throughout the Greek world, everywhere except Athens and Sparta, to demand that the Greek states "medize" or submit in advance to Persian authority. To serve as examples to the rest, Sparta and Athens were targeted for destruction, the former for what it represented as the dominant military state in Greece, the latter for its growing track record of resistance to Persian rule. In 483 BC, Xerxes announced the mustering of a great army to be recruited from all his satrapies at Sardis. Modern estimates suggest that 200,000 combatants and 1200 triremes (state of the art war galleys with three banks of oars) assembled for the invasion in 481 BC.

During the interim politicians in Athens who understood the threat posed by the Persians prepared their community for the inevitable. In 483 BC the democratic leader, Themistocles, proposed that the proceeds of recently discovered veins of silver at the state mines at Laurium be used to construct and to equip a fleet of 200 triremes. Obstruction by conservatives, particularly by Aristides, resulted in the ostracism of 483 BC, in which Aristides was expelled from the city. The construction of the fleet thus proceeded. Aristides’ objections to the measure probably arose from its perceived ulterior motive, namely, that a fleet would expand the political support of democrats like Themistocles. Each ship required a crew of approximately 200 sailors (170 rowers, 30 marines), none of whom could be expended by the phalanx. Themistocles knowingly drew upon the landless poor citizens (thetes) and resident aliens (metics) of the city center to man this fleet, some 40,000 “sailors” in all. The sailors were paid wages for the periods they served, which was typically three to four months during the summer sailing season. This significantly underwrote the livelihoods of the urban population and provided Themistocles and future democratic leaders with considerable political leverage in the assembly.

SIDEBAR On Greek Naval Warfare

Recent analysis by Philip DeSouza has demonstrated that sailors is a misnomer for the combatants who served in the Athenian navy. The fleet was essentially a light-armed mobile attack force that traveled by sea. Being strapped into heavy armor put a warrior at a decided disadvantage in a sea battle; hence, the likely purpose of the 30 marines on board was to engage in offensive tactics (firing missiles, etc.) while the rowers maneuvered the ship against an adversary. On land, however, the entire crew fought as a light armed detachment. A fleet of 200 triremes meant that the Athenians could land a potential army of 40000 men on the shores of its adversaries and plunder the countryside at will. Their speed and mobility also meant that they could evade the risk of having to confront a more heavily armed phalanx. Raiding thus despoiled an adversary of its wealth in the countryside while at the same enriching the impoverished sailors who made up the bulk of the naval force.

In the meantime news that the Persian forces were assembling at Sardis prompted Greek leaders to dispense with their incessant squabbling at least for the moment in order to concentrate on the emerging Persian threat. Religious authorities as venerable as the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi were urging Greek states to avoid annihilation by medizing. In the face of this emergency, numerous Greek states formed a defensive alliance known today as the Hellenic League. At its core was Sparta as hegemon and its allied Peloponnesian League forces. Negotiating on behalf of Athens, Themistocles had the weight of the newly constructed Athenian fleet behind him, particularly since this force represented approximately half of the warships assembled by the alliance (400 triremes). Initially, Themistocles was able to convince the alliance to mount a defense at the Vale of Tempe on the border of Macedonia and Thessaly. When this failed in 480 BC, the Spartan king, Leonidas, attempted to buy time for the Greek forces to regroup further south by obstructing the Persian army with a small force of 300 Spartans and 6000 allies at Thermopylae. After resisting Xerxes' forces for several days, Leonidas and his entire force were overrun and annihilated.

At this point Themistocles and his Athenian commanders had little choice but to evacuate the civilian population from Athens and to prepare for the worst. As a calculated strategy he placed some 6000 Athenian troops on the island of Salamis and withdrew the entire Greek fleet into the island’s interior bay. The rest of the Greek forces withdrew behind defenses under way on the Isthmus of Corinth. Xerxes seized the vacated city of Athens and burned the Peisistratid monuments on the Acropolis in retribution for the Athenian role in the earlier conflagration at Sardis. However, his fleet was outmaneuvered and destroyed by the Greek fleet commanded by Themistocles and Aristides (who was recalled from exile for the occasion) at the Battle of Salamis. Now deprived of naval security, Xerxes had no choice but to withdraw from Greece altogether. This was a stunning defeat, a check on Persian expansion in the Aegean, but not necessarily a deciding turn for Persian authority in the wider Aegean. Xerxes left behind a flying column of infantry under his satrap Mardonius with the hope that he could yet achieve some result on the mainland. In 479 BC, the Hellenic League assembled some 80,000 infantry on the plain of Plataea (not too far from Thebes) and defeated the remaining Persian forces in a decisive battle. The following year (478 BC) Hellenic League naval forces inflicted another serious defeat on an Persian fleet assembled at the Mykale peninsula in Ionia.

With these events the initial phase of Greek resistance to Persian dominance in the Aegean was concluded. The success of the Hellenic League triggered a second phase in the conflict. With no hope of naval support, dozens of Persian garrisons quartered on Greek settlements throughout the Aegean were vulnerable to naval assault. Greek states throughout the Aegean appealed to the leaders of the Hellenic League to undertake their liberation. Initially, the Spartan kings remained at the command of Hellenic League expeditionary forces dispatched to the northern Aegean, but reports of financial improprieties by the Spartan King, Pausanias, at the siege of Byzantium quickly undermined their authority and raised serious doubts back in Sparta. Members of the Spartan Gerousia questioned the wisdom of committing Spartan forces to military campaigns so far removed from the Peloponnesus, particularly given the potentially open-ended nature of the conflict. The Spartans were not a naval power, and lacking the necessary resources to become one, they could ill afford to commit their military forces so far removed from Sparta for extended periods of time. Despite serious reservations, therefore, Spartan authorities decided to recall their forces to the Peloponnesus and to leave the liberation movement to the Athenians. At the time Spartan authorities could take some comfort in the fact that pro-Spartan aristocratic politicians, Aristides and Cimon, had gained ascendancy in Athens, after driving Themistocles into exile. With the blessings of Sparta, accordingly, the Athenian leader, Aristides, convened a congress of Greek maritime states at the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delos in 478 BC, to form a second hegemonial alliance known as the Delian League.

From Delian League to Athenian Empire (478 – 447 BC)
Modeled on the example of the Peloponnesian League, the Delian League was founded as a voluntary alliance in 478 BC. Athens assumed the lead as hegemon, while each allied state received a vote on league policies. The ambassadors of the assembled states vowed to abide by the league forever, promising to liberate the Greek world from Persian oppression and to avenge the destruction of various Greek sanctuaries by the Persians. As organizer of the alliance, Aristides equitably apportioned the league contributions to each member state according to its size and military capacity. The original league contributions or phoros reportedly amounted to 450 talents of silver. If estimated according to the cost-ratio of one talent equaling the funding necessary to maintain a trireme for a single campaign season, then the league had the capacity to muster a fleet of more than 400 warships against Persia. Led by the Athenian general Cimon, league forces slowly rooted out Persian garrisons in the northern and eastern Aegean, ultimately liberating the Greek cities in Ionia. By 470 BC, Delian League forces managed to extend their reach beyond the Aegean to south coastal Asia Minor. A major confrontation with Persian naval forces at the Battle of the Eurymedon River in Pamphylia in ca. 469 BC, resulted once again in a resounding victory and left Persian territories throughout the eastern Mediterranean seaboard exposed to Delian League assaults. By 460 BC league forces landed in Egypt, provoking a rebellion that pinned down Persian military resources for several years. Persian authorities now had to confront the possible loss of territories that were crucial to the maintenance of the empire.

For a number of reasons, however, internal dissension distracted the progress of the Delian League. Member states increasingly chaffed under the authority of Athens. Liberation of Greek states in the Aegean was one thing, but year-round operations in remote regions such as Egypt and the Black Sea were not components to the originally agreed upon objectives of the league. Athenian intentions toward the allies themselves were similarly suspect. The Athenians behaved imperiously toward the allies, annually demanding the mandatory contingents despite the fact that the threat posed by Persian naval forces in the Aegean was now eliminated. In addition, the Athenians arbitrarily determined the status of Greek states liberated by league forces. All liberated states were compelled to join the alliance, and in some instances the Athenians imposed a cleruchy or an Athenian military colony on land taken from the inhabitants for reasons of security. Such a colony was imposed on Amphipolis in Macedonia (in the vicinity of the former Peisistratid silver mines), threatening the long-standing authority of the nearby member-state of Thasos along this coast. In 465 BC, Thasos attempted to secede from the Delian League and was promptly suppressed by Cimon using league forces. Cimon cited as justification the oaths sworn by member-state ambassadors at Delos in 478 BC. Aware of growing resentment in the league, Cimon entertained complains about the excessive burden of annual military contributions at a subsequent league congress and responded with the proposal to commute member-state contributions from military resources to cash payments. Exhausted by the annual commitment of men and material to distant overseas campaigns, most member states were pleased with this solution and willingly agreed to contribute annual cash payments. Naturally the contribution of cash payments resulted in a reduction in military resources, most particularly, in the number of warships available for league operations. Athens offset this shortfall by using the funds to construct additional warships, warships, that is, constructed and manned by Athenians. The gradual but inevitable result of this development was the demilitarization of the Delian League allies. The Athenian navy grew in strength and numbers, while the military capacity of the allied states gradually declined. By 454 BC, only 17 states apart from Athens were furnishing naval contingents to league operations; by 431 BC, only the three great maritime states, Lesbos, Chios, and Samos, were contributing warships to the league.

The growth of the Athenian navy and its concomitant commercial prowess resulted in a shift in the balance of Aegean maritime influence. Athens became the hub of Aegean Greek cultural, military, and economic activity, and its opportunities inevitably attracted the attention of talented people throughout the region. Thousands of naval warriors, merchants, artisans, and financiers migrated to Athens to take up residence as metics because of the superior opportunities made available by Athenian control of league affairs. A veritable "brain drain" of Greek migrants to Athens further eroded the bargaining position of Delian League member states vis-à-vis their hegemon. When league forces encountered a serious setback in Egypt, Athens began to impose its will more forcefully.

Persian forces ultimately retook Egypt in 454 BC, inflicting a stinging defeat on the Delian League expeditionary force. Reportedly some 200 warships and 20,000 league combatants were lost in this expedition, causing the Athenians to undertake a number of precautions. The league treasury was removed from Delos to Athens where it could be administered by the priests of the cult of Athena on the Acropolis. The priests began the practice of recording annual lists of phoros payments by the allies, known today as the Athenian Tribute Lists. Although preserved only in fragments, these two inscribed stelai reveal evidence of numerous rebellions undertaken by league allies, followed by suppression and imposition of punitive tribute payments by the Athenians. Caught between the mounting hostility of Sparta and Persia alike, the Athenians, now led by the democratic leader Pericles, worked to resolve its long-standing conflict with Persia. With the Peace of Callias in 449 BC, Pericles negotiated an end to hostilities that left Athens in control of the Aegean. Realizing that Delian League member states would immediately call into question the need to continue the alliance, Pericles simultaneously summoned a “Hellenic League” congress to address the future of the Delian League and wider Greek affairs. All Greek states, including Sparta, were invited to attend the conference, but none outside the Delian League ultimately chose to do so. As the commanders of the Peloponnesian League and the now moribund Hellenic League, the Spartans refused to be summoned to a congress organized by Athens. This is precisely the response that Pericles anticipated. With no independent Greek states present to raise objections, Pericles announced at the congress that the Delian League and its cash contributions must continue and that the 5000 talents that had accumulated in the league treasury would now be used to reconstruct the monuments destroyed by the Persians, beginning with the temples on the Athenian acropolis.

With this pronouncement Pericles dispelled the illusion of the Delian League as a joint, voluntary alliance of free and equal member states with the cold, hard reality that it was an empire ruled by Athens. Phoros, originally the word for voluntary military contributions, now became the word for tribute. The Athenians had to suppress a number of rebellions by member states in the following decade. To insure league control they imposed cleruchies on land seized from rebellious allies, they dispatched roving inspectors to monitor member-state-behavior, and in some instances they imposed Athenian garrisons and governors on disenchanted communities. Laws imposed by the Athenian assembly became binding on the league as a whole. For example, the Athenian assembly passed laws requiring the use of Athenian currency and Athenian weights and standards in all league business. As noted earlier the assembly required that all grain traded throughout the league must be brought and off-loaded in the port of the Piraeus before being reshipped to further destinations. This ensured adequate food supplies to the burgeoning population of Athens, even as it enabled Athenian authorities to control the flow of grain to allied states and more specifically to prohibit grain shipments to states actively engaged in rebellion. Finally, Pericles pursued a calculated strategy of seeking to monopolize the grain supplies from three pivotal sources - Egypt, the Crimea, and Sicily. Eventually the Athenian attempts to forge alliances in Sicily threatened the prosperity of maritime states aligned with Sparta, particularly Corinth. By projecting Athenian naval influence to Sicily, therefore, Pericles apparently intended to compel Spartan allies to abandon their commitment to the Peloponnesian League in favor of alliance with Athens. Since the Spartans were agriculturally self-sufficient and in any event lacked the necessary naval resources to oppose the Athenians, they were reluctant to confront the growing threat of Athenian maritime supremacy. By their reluctance the Spartans heightened tension within the Peloponnesian League alliance and risked becoming increasingly isolated and marginalized. Despite this intransigence the entire Greek world increasingly looked to Spartan leadership as the only hope to resist the supremacy of Athens.

Athenian military intervention at Megara, Potidaea, and Corcyra (the last two being colonies of Corinth) ultimately provoked the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC). Forced into a asymmetrical conflict by its member states, the Spartans declared war on Athens for the avowed purpose of liberating the Greek world from tyranny. At this point, however, it is fair to reflect on the sequence of events that led to such an outcome. The imminent threat of Persian invasion in 481 BC, had compelled the Greek states to organize themselves into wider alliances. The unwillingness of the Spartans to conduct the liberation of Greek states dominated by Persia in 478 BC, opened the door to Athenian control of the Delian League. The distaste of the Delian League member states for the excessive burden of overseas military campaigns culminated in the decision in 465 BC, to convert military contributions into cash payments. This decision ultimately enabled the Athenians to surpass their allies militarily and to demilitarize them. At every turn, in other words, conscious decisions were taken that seemed beneficial in the short term but were laden with long-term, unforeseen consequences. In essence, by relinquishing the direction of their foreign affairs to the hegemonial powers, Sparta and Athens, Greek communities throughout the Aegean had been unwittingly drawn into a rigidly bifurcated world of Peloponnesian League versus Delian League hegemonies that had incrementally deprived them of their freedom.

The Peloponnesian War 431-404 BC

Athenian aggression against Spartan allies Corinth and Megara precipitated Aegean wide conflict in 431 BC. This long drawn out war culminated in the defeat of Athens by Sparta and its allies, although such an outcome was far from obvious at the outset. Indeed, the asymmetrical character of this war could not have been more apparent. With its proven hoplite army the Spartans and their Peloponnesian League allies enjoyed superiority on the battlefield. They also enjoyed the moral support of most Greek states including Delian League member states who would rebel at the first indication of Athenian weakness. They also enjoyed relative self sufficiency with respect to supplies. However, the Peloponnesian League lacked the necessary means to sustain its forces in the field for long periods of time. Their navy was vastly inferior to that of Athens, and the Spartans themselves always had to be mindful of the potential for helot revolts. As a resul,t their strategy was to invade Attica during the summer campaigning season and to attempt to provoke the Athenians into a military confrontation capable of inflicting serious injury. This would diminish Athenian morale and induce Delian League member states to rebel. The Athenians, on the other hand, enjoyed abundant finances (with some 5000 talents amassed in the treasury), a fleet of some 300 triremes, and the impregnable defenses of the Long Walls that protected the city and its harbor. As limitations the Athenians had to be concerned about their dependency on outside sources of tribute, grain, and naval supplies, the inferior strength of their hoplite phalanx, and the constant threat of revolts by the member states. Pericles’ strategy, accordingly, was to avoid an embarrassing defeat on the battlefield and to rely on the fleet to maintain control of the sea. He also recommended that no attempts be made to expand the empire beyond its current limits until such time as the emergency had passed.

The first half of the war (the Archidamian War, 431-421 BC) passed almost without incident. Each side exercised caution and attempted to confront the enemy from a position of strength. Each summer the Peloponnesian League forces would invade Attica, willfully destroying farmland in an effort to provoke the Athenians into a engagement. However, on the approach of the Spartans the Athenians would withdraw their population inside the urban defenses and avoid contact. Eventually, the enemy would withdraw to the Peloponnesus for lack of supplies. The Athenian navy, meanwhile, conducted desultory raids along the Peloponnesian shore. One unanticipated event was the outbreak of the plague in Athens in 429 BC. Conveyed to the city by infected rats onboard grain ships arriving from Egypt, the plague swept through the congested population, particularly the rural population that had been drawn inside the wals and was forced to reside in highly unsanitary conditions. The plague ultimately eliminated a quarter of the Athenian population including Pericles himself. The unexpected loss of his leadership left the state rudderless and its citizens uncertain about the best way to prosecute the war. After ten years, with resources spent and both populations exhausted, the two powers agreed to a peace that essentially recognized the status quo and left no one satisfied.

In the second half of the war (the Decelean War, 416-404 BC) the Spartan military establishment and the Athenian democracy grew more restive and inclined to take risks. Under the leadership of Alcibiades, the Athenians ventured on an ill-fated attempt to conquer the city of Syracuse. They were persuaded by his argument that if the expedition proved successful the remainder of Sicily would capitulate. Coming to the defense of Syracuse, the Spartans responded by imposing a permanent garrison at Decelea in the Attic countryside. This made it dangerous for Athenian citizens to venture out to their farms at any time of year, while at the same time offering a place of refuge for runaway slaves. In order to challenge Athenian superiority at sea the Spartans also sought and obtained Persian financial support to assemble a fleet. Persian assistance came at an embarrassing price, however. The Spartans agreed to the Persian demand that they be allowed to reclaim their territories in the Aegean, including the states liberated by Athens and the Delian League. In this manner the political fortunes of the Greek city states revolved full circle. When the Athenian expedition in Syracuse ended disastrously (415-412 BC), resulting in the loss of 30000 combatants and the bulk of the Athenian navy, the two sides found themselves on equally desperate footing. Ultimately, Sparta and its allies prevailed against Athens, but only after tremendous costs on both sides. Gradually the seeming pointless character of this conflict became evident to all participants, imposing a profound despair on Greek attitudes in the coming era.

The Decline of Greece and the Rise of the Hellenistic World

As destructive as the Peloponnesian War proved, the threshold of violence in the Greek world seemed only to accelerate in the following century. Conflict remained incessant during the fourth century as Greek city states aligned themselves according to a bewildering array of shifting alliances to combat the military ascendancy first of Sparta (404-371 BC), then of Thebes (371-362), and then Athens (362-357). The rapidly changing character of these alliances reflected the resurgent power of particularism and the rejection of hegemonial authority. By switching sides in successive military conflicts, Greek city states were able to regain their autonomy by combating whichever state (Sparta, Thebes, or Athens) appeared to be on the verge of military ascendancy. The inevitable result of this tendency was to leave the city states of the Greek mainland divided and resentful of one another at the very moment that external military powers capable of threatening their autonomy emerged once again on their horizon.

The Rise of Macedonia under King Philip II (359-336 BC).
The Macedonians were a neighboring people in the northern Aegean who spoke a language similar to Greek, yet, was apparently unrecognizable to Greek speakers. After long existence as an Aegean backwater, Macedonia emerged in the mid-fourth century BC to become the most powerful state in the Aegean and eventually the entire eastern Mediterranean world. Over time Greek colonization and military hegemony in the wider Aegean resulted in the exposure of neighboring, less developed peoples such as Thessaly and Macedonia to Greek urban culture and technology. The process of assimilation was slow, but by the early fourth century BC the Macedonian royal court had made several significant advances. Residing in a rugged mountainous region, the Macedonians existed at what might best be described as a Bronze-Age mode of state formation. Isolated rural cantons in the Macedonian interior were dominated by local nobles referred to by the sources as "kings" (basileis). Although rarely exhibited, these nobles owed loyalty to the royal Aegead dynasty that resided in the Macedonian coastal plain at Pella. The Macedonian king was essentially a "king among kings", and his authority was severely impeded by intrigues at the royal court, by conspiracies hatched among the highland nobles, by the threats posed by Macedonia’s menacing neighbors, the Illyrians and the Thracians, and not least of which, by the military intervention of external empires such as the Persians, the Athenians, the Spartans and the Thebans. All but two Macedonian kings died violent deaths. Nonetheless, the natural resources of Macedonia, including rich highland forests generating timber and maritime supplies and silver mines in the Macedonian mountains, long attracted the attention of neighboring maritime powers, such as Athens. With its dispersed rural population Macedonia also possessed larger manpower capabilities than an individual city state. Were these resources to be harnessed by a effective king, Macedonia's potential as an Aegean power was considerable.

Philip II or Philip the Great (ca. 390-336 BC) proved to be one such king. During his brother’s reign Macedonia had succumbed temporarily to Theban domination. In this era of increasing military specialization and mercenary recruitment, the Theban generals, Epaminondas and Pelopidas, had successfully adapted the Theban army to “joint force” operations. These required the execution of carefully coordinated maneuvers by highly trained cavalry, light armed skirmishers, and a phalanx of heavily armed infantry arranged in an oblique formation to maximum effect. By inflicting a stinging defeat on the Spartan army at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, the Thebans assumed a brief period of military ascendancy throughout the Greek mainland (371-362 BC).

Sent to Thebes as a teenage hostage, Philip studied first hand the new techniques of oblique phalanx maneuvers as the “guest” of the Theban generals. When his brother perished while battling the Illyrians in 359 BC, Philip was allowed by the Thebans to return to Macedonia to act as regent to his infant nephew. He quickly reorganized the Macedonian army according to the Theban techniques and won a decisive victory over the Illyrians. At the same time he used the emergency to seize control over the warrior bands of the nobles of the Macedonian interior. To keep the nobles in check, he also recruited their sons to live and to study at his royal court in Pella. There they were exposed to Greek language and learning and grew to exhibit greater loyalty to the throne than to their ancestral families. By relocating soldiers to garrison colonies on the frontiers or to military camps in lowland areas along the shore, Philip acquired similar leverage over the Macedonian rural population. Through these tactics he incentivized the Macedonian army, rewarding its members with land, agricultural slave laborers, military honors, and cash. His need for skilled professional warriors led Philip to reach beyond his kingdom to recruit the best and the brightest warriors from throughout the Greek world. Imposing a ethos of "meritocracy" he extended Macedonian status to his foreign warriors, settling them on lands and elevating them to high ranking positions based entirely on their performance in the field. Although the pace and direction of his innovations angered many of the traditional Macedonian nobles, it was hard to argue with success. Philip molded the Macedonian army into an effective fighting force. A phalanx ultimately of 32,000 infantry and a shock cavalry of some 8000 formed the backbone of the Macedonian war machine by the time of his death. In size and ability this force far exceeded that of any individual Greek city-state such as Thebes or Athens. When utilized in combination with Philip’s deft diplomatic ability and his lavish use of bribery, the Macedonian army sliced its way through every Greek army sent to oppose it, ultimately defeating the combined forces of Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC. Confronting a seemingly ungovernable society of city states, Philip recognized that his ascendancy in Greece would at best be momentary unless he devised some alternative direction in which to channel their aggressive tendencies. Convening a “Hellenic Congress” at Corinth in 337 BC he announced his intention to conduct a "crusade" against the Persians to punish them for all the troubles they had caused the Greek people through the years. Leaders of Greek city states readily supported the expedition, hoping, of course, that Philip would leave, never to return. However, on the eve of his expedition in 336 BC, Philip II was murdered by a palace coup at Pella, leaving his 20-year-old son Alexander as his successor. Philip's surviving generals assumed at first that they could use the young king as a "puppet," but in this they proved sadly mistaken. As fate would have it, Alexander's raw ambition and innate military genius exceeded those even of his father.

The Campaigns of Alexander the Great, 336-323 BC
It is impossible to determine Philip's original intentions when he landed a Macedonian expeditionary force on the Persian-held coast of Asia Minor in 336 BC. Perhaps his plan extended no further than to seize control of Persian territories in the Aegean; then again, it may possibly have included the conquest of the entire eastern Mediterranean seaboard as far as Egypt. It was unlikely, however, that Philip II intended to march directly into the heart of the Persian Empire as his son, Alexander II, would ultimately do. With swift battles and forced marches Alexander quickly overran the entire eastern Mediterranean, marching as far as the desert oasis of Siwah in Libya to visit the renowned oracle of Zeus by 332 BC. When he ordered his forces to prepare for an assault on Persian positions in Mesopotamia, however, there are clear indications that his generals and many of Philip's senior troops did not have their hearts in it. Alexander used an exaggerated version of his father's policy of meritocracy to induce younger, more reckless, upwardly mobile elements of the Macedonian army to fight with abandon on the battlefield and thereby goad their superiors into compliance. Defeating the Persian King Darius III at the Battle of Gaugamela, he advanced toward Persia unopposed. By the time Alexander reached Ecbatana in the heart of Iran in 330, he announced that all the allied forces were free to return to Greece, but that he would furnish huge bounties to all those who agreed to remain with the expedition. At this point he abandoned distinctions between Macedonians and foreign mercenaries and recognized the assembled fighting force as the "Macedonian people," regardless of origin. To maintain morale on a perilous campaign, he engaged in lavish expenditure of the conquered reserves of silver and gold in the Persian treasuries and extended his troops unlimited financial credit. The campaigns in Afghanistan and India between 329-324 BC proved extraordinarily difficult; Plutarch claims that of the 40,000 men that he departed with from Persia in 329 BC, only one in four returned to Babylon six years later. The others either died on the march or were left behind in some fifteen odd colonies, all named Alexandria after the king. Conspiracies within the ranks abounded, and numerous high-level generals and nobles of the Macedonian aristocracy were executed for real or suspected treason. But Alexander successfully drove his forces to the mouth of the Indus River and would have gone beyond to the Ganges, had his army not openly mutinied at the Hyphasis R. in 326 BC, refusing to go any further.

Returning to Babylon still in his early 30s, Alexander died mysteriously in 323 BC, probably as a result of infections incurred from his numerous wounds during the campaign. Gathered around his deathbed at the palace in Babyon, his generals asked him which of them he would choose to command his newly conquered empire. "The fittest," were reportedly his final words. Alexander’s example, his conquests, and his newly acquired wealth set in motion two generations of conflict among the "marshals" who vied to succeed him as the emperor of a vast empire. By 306 BC, most of the surviving Macedonian commanders came to recognize the impracticality of pursuing a world empire and resorted instead to second phase of conflict intended to carve out individual territories for themselves. The surviving powers were as follows.

Hellenistic Successor States to Alexander's World Empire.

Antigonid Macedonia (279-167 BC) - capital at Pella.
Following an era of considerable political confusion, Antigonus Gonatas, the grandson of one of Alexander's leading generals, was able to secure control of the Macedonian heartland. In comparison with the competing Hellenistic dynasties, Macedona remained a rustic, cultural backwater, but this appraisal belies the strengths furnished by its topography, its resources, and its manpower. Unlike rival Hellenistic states Macedonia presented itself as a compact easily defended state ringed by mountains allowing few means of access. Its timber resources and silver mines furnished it with the revenues necessary to maintain the leading military establishment of the Greek world. Macedonia was, after all, the homeland of the armies used by Philip and Alexander to conquer the Persian Empire. It remained the chief recruiting ground for the armies of the Hellenistic dynasties, the most effective of which remained that of the Antigonids themselves. The skillfulness of the Macedonian phalanx of the Antigonids posed a serious threat to all Greek states of the Aegean, and when commanded by aggressive kings such as Philip V (c. 220-180 BC), it successfully conducted razzias as far removed as the Peloponnesus and Ionia. The Roman Republic found the Antigonids exceedingly difficult adversaries, confronting them on three separate occasions. They fought during the Hannibalic War (215-210 BC) when Philip V posed as an ally to Hannibal and invaded Greece, going so far as to besiege Athens, then again in 201-197 BC, when L. Quinctius Flamininus defeated Philip V at Cynoscephalae, and then a third time in 172-168 BC, when L. Aemilius Paullus defeated Philip's son Perseus at the Battle of Pydna. At this point the Romans removed the dynasty and attempted to reorganize Macedonia into a dismembered entity of four small republics. When this failed to prevent rebellions, Roman forces again had to intervene in 148 BC to suppress Macedonian and wider Greek uprisings (including the suppression of Corinth in 146 BC). This time the Romans reduced Macedonia to provincial status, the first such Roman province in the Aegean world.

Attalid Pergamum (270-133 BC) - capital at Pergamum
This kingdom was the only one founded by a non-Macedonian dynasty. It was created by Philetairos, the Greek secretary of Alexander's general Lysimachus, after the latter died in battle in 281 BC. After the death of his commander, Philetairos (a eunuch) withdrew with the military war chest to a mountain fortress that ultimately became the palatial acropolis of Pergamum. He gained dynastic recognition through his successful efforts at repulsing the Gallic invasion of western Anatolia in 270-269 BC. Philetairos drove the Gauls into the Phrygian highlands where they settled in the region thereafter known as Galatia. For this accomplishment he was recognized by the Greek cities of the coastal region as a liberator and savior and established his hegemony with widespread approval. Since he had no children, his domain passed to the four sons of his brother, Attalus I. Normally, so many rival dynasts would have spelled disaster (as it eventually did in Syria and Egypt), but the Attalids became celebrated for their cooperation in statecraft. They handed the royal authority from one to another in succession and managed to elevate their realm into the top echelon of Mediterranean states.

Particularly skillful diplomacy with Rome enabled the Attalids to enjoy further success during the early second century BC. At their peak under Eumenes II, c. 190-168 BC, they controlled the entire western seaboard of Anatolia and much of the Phrygian highland as well. The Attalids succeeded at establishing Pergamum as a leading cultural center of the Mediterranean world. Its library was second only to that of Alexandria; its sculpture, woven tapestries, and ceramics were prized throughout the Mediterranean. An expressive, highly baroque style of sculpture known as the Asian school set important trends in the Greek world and profoundly influenced artistic endeavor at Rome. The Attalids likewise competed for control of the eastern luxury trade, relying on the overland route of the now ancient “Royal Road” across Anatolia.

When a dynastic dispute threatened to undermine the stability of Pergamum at the end of the second century BC, King Attalus III (138-133) left his domain to the people of the Roman Republic. To prevent the likelihood of a dynastic dispute after his passing (an unavoidable outcome as it turned out) he wrote this into his will as a form of "poison pill." After his death in 133 BC, his ambassadors brought the news of his bequest to Rome, where it was accepted by the Roman Senate and People and secured by military intervention. By 126 BC, the royal territories of Pergamum were transformed into the Roman province of Asia, the richest of all Roman provinces. Abusive exploitation by Roman tax collectors (publicans) incited a province-wide rebellion in 88 BC, that culminated in the massacre reportedly of some 80,000 Romans, Italians, their families, and servants throughout the province. L. Cornelius Sulla restored order in 84 BC just prior to his assumption of the dictatorship at Rome. Indemnities imposed by Sulla remained burdensome throughout the following decade, but the resilience and economic vitality of the province ultimately allowed for recovery. In 63 BC the Roman orator and senator, M. Tullius Cicero, stated that approximately 40% of the tribute generated by the Republican provinces came from Asia alone. The merger of Greco-Roman culture was probably most successfully achieved here. In the Roman imperial era, cities such as Pergamum, Ephesus, Sardis, and Miletus ranked among the leading cultural centers of the Mediterranean.

Seleucid Syria (305-66 BC) - capital at Antioch
Founded by Seleucus, who like Ptolemy was one of a handful of generals to survive Alexander's campaigns in India, the empire had its capital at Antioch, but exhibited numerous additional Greek settlements in the Syrian territory, including Syrian Alexandria, Laodicea, Beroea, and Edessa. Although the core of the Seleucid Empire was situated in coastal Syria, its territories typically included neighboring Cilicia and Mesopotamia (Seleucia). As late as 205 BC, the Seleucid King Antiochus III conducted military operations to restore Seleucid authority as far away as the Indus in the East and the Aegean in the West. However, his defeat by the army of the Roman Republic at the Battle of Magnesia in 189 BC, compelled him to restrict his authority to the heartland of northern Syria. Generally, the Seleucid foreign policy focused on the Mediterranean theater. Afghanistan was abandoned to the Mauryans and the Kushans; Iran and Mesopotamia were ultimately reorganized by the Parthians.

Through methodical efforts at colonization, the cultivation of high quality crafts production in Syria, and direct competition with the Ptolemies for control of the eastern luxury trade, the Seleucids generated tremendous wealth. Its production centers generated expensive perfumes, incense, purple dyed clothing, tapestries, a highly polished red-slipped fineware known as Eastern Sigillata A. Much like the Phoenicians before them, the artisans of the Seleucid empire established a number of material trends in material comfort for Greco-Roman civilization. As energetic colonizers the Seleucids established numerous cities throughout Anatolia, Syria, and Mesopotamia, typically named Antiochia and Seleucia after the dynasty itself. They were largely responsible for encouraging the out-migration of Aegean Greek populations to non-Greek areas of the Mediterranean, helping to create the Hellenistic "koine" culture. It is commonly recognized that the Roman Empire reaped the benefit of centuries of colonizing effort by the Seleucids. Their weakness to some degree arose from the highly diverse character and inveterate enmities of their subject peoples. Their empire arguably attempted to control the most diverse populations of any of the successor states. Syria-Palestine remained a very unstable region, for example, with Greek, Phoenician, Jewish, and Aramaean population elements oftentimes engaging in open sectarian violence (culminating in the revolt of the Maccabees in 122 BC). Dynastic disputes caused the dynasty to implode c. 160-140 BC. A century of civil war and chaos ensued until ultimately the Roman general Pompey the Great absorbed the remaining vestiges of the Seleucid empire into the Republican provincial hierarchy in 66 BC. Remarkably, the Romans viewed the Seleucid dynasty as a viable military threat until the end of the second century BC, and the creative genius of the region’s craftsmen remained unparalleled well into Roman times.

Ptolemaic Egypt (305-27 BC) - capital at Alexandria
Founded by Ptolemy, like Seleucus, one of the youngest generals to follow Alexander to India and back, Ptolemaic Egypt rose to become the most spectacular of the Macedonian successor states. Its capital, Alexandria, reportedly attained a population of one million at the height of the Roman era. Ptolemy and his successors successfully harnessed and indeed maximized the grain production of the Nile, converting Egypt once again into the "bread basket to the Mediterranean." By colluding with Rhodian traders the Ptolemies assumed near monopolistic control of trade in grain and wine throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. The Ptolemies also established a lucrative maritime trade with Arabia and India. Although coastal traffic in the Indian Ocean had clearly progressed for centuries in both directions, with the discovery of the monsoon winds by Ptolemaic mariners at the end of the second century BC, direct passages (approximately 1000 nautical miles) from the western shores of the Arabian Sea became possible. Given the navigational logic of ancient mariners, the necessity of making landfall somewhere along the western coast of India became critical to the open-sea route. The Ptolemies constructed roads connecting the Upper Nile basin with the Red Sea and ports such as Berenike on the Red Sea to facilitate maritime voyages to the Indian Ocean. Forward situated islands such as Charax Spanisou (near the Shatt al Arab) and Socottra (approximately 200 miles east of the Horn of Africa)) offered advantageous points of departure for ocean crossings similar to those offered by Sicily, Crete, and Rhodes in the Mediterranean. Like the Mediterranean islands commercial traffic tended to cluster at places like Socottra while awaiting favorable winds. Pliny (NH 6.84) reports the cautionary tale, for example, of a freedman of an influential first century AD Roman tax farmer, Annius Plocamus, who while sailing around Arabia was blown off course by a northerly gale. Undeterred, he arrived at Sri Lanka some fifteen days later. This was precisely the sort of sailor's yarn that open-sea runners liked to hear. With the development of the sea route the Ptolemies were able to bypass Seleucid control of the overland routes to India and to forge their own trade link to India through the use of large ocean-going vessels. Archaeological finds of materials such as Indian sail clothe at Berenike, the Ptolemaic harbor on the Red Sea help to confirm the direction of this trade. Bolstered by this luxury trade, Alexandria quickly supplanted Athens as the most cosmopolitan city of the world. Its spacious protected harbors, resort-lined canals, and broad avenues designed by Alexander the Great himself made the city an attractive destination for talented Greeks seeking better opportunities abroad. The Museum, the great library, the Mausoleum of Alexander and the Ptolemies, and the great lighthouse all ranked among the most splendid monuments of the era. The Ptolemies established reputations as architectural innovators, as demonstrated by the fact that the Roman building form, the basilica, imitated an Alexandrian prototype known as the stoa basilica, or Royal Stoa.

During the third century BC the Ptolemies commanded an extensive eastern Mediterranean naval empire (including Cyprus, Crete, the Aegean islands, and the south Anatolian coast), drawing on Hellenized population centers for manpower. They earned the reputation of being the "paymasters of the Mediterranean" for their high-paying recruitment of mercenaries. Dynastic disputes and military losses to their rivals and closest neighbors, the Seleucids, resulted in gradual but unmistakable political and military decline during the second century BC. An astute diplomatic relationship with the Roman Republic prevented Seleucid incursions on more than one occasion and was probably the only thing that kept the dynasty in place. The last dynast, Cleopatra (52-30 BC), actually attempted to exploit her personal relationships with Julius Caesar (by whom she had a son) and Mark Antony (begetting more children) to revitalize the realm and perhaps even to establish herself as a Ptolemaic consort at Rome. However, Octavian's defeat of Antony and Cleopatra in 32 BC put an end to these ambitions. Octavian seized Egypt for his own, making the kingdom part of the Julio-Claudian patrimony, to be governed by private procurators. Egypt continued to generate food exports during the Roman Empire, furnishing grain for the burgeoning population at Rome.

Hellenistic Greece

Confronted on all sides by empires of great stature, traditional Greek city states had little choice but to organize themselves into loosely constructed federations, if only to resist pressure exerted by Hellenistic dynasts. The Aetolian League emerged in central mainland Greece and the Achaean League in the Peloponnesus (including Corinth, but not Sparta). Certain states, Rhodes, Athens, Sparta, remained independent, Rhodes because of its importance to Mediterranean trade and its naval power; Athens because of its status as an international cultural center and "university town"; Sparta because of its secure borders and its sustained reputation as an indomitable warlike state. But trends definitely shifted in the direction of the new overseas empires. Greek mercenaries, citizens down at their luck, and/or nobles seeking greater opportunities migrated eastward to join the Greek-speaking intelligentsia at the Hellenistic capitals of the Mediterranean, to serve in Hellenistic armies, or to participate in colonizing enterprises. Regardless of one’s ethnic origin, the common denominator to membership in any Hellenistic hierarchy was training in Greek language and Greek culture, obtained exclusively through education in Greek gymnastic institutions of learning. By exporting the means of replicating Greek cultural institutions overseas, Greek educated leaders successfully imposed their values on neighboring Mediterranean peoples while at the same time enabling co-existing cultures to merge. Many Hellenistic kings continued to employ the "meritocratic" policies of Philip and Alexander, recruiting the "best and the brightest" of the Greek world to command their armies and to serve as governors, courtiers, financiers, and ambassadors. Hierarchical status at the Hellenistic court was designated by recognition as "a friend of the king," and marriage alliances with members of the royal families cemented such relationships closer still. The emerging international community that governed the Hellenistic world exuded a confident new attitude about their identity that transcended traditional loyalties to the Greek polis. They perceived of themselves as "kosmopolitai" (cosmopolitans), or citizens of the world; people so adept with the customs and institutions of the new order that they were at home anywhere in the eastern Mediterranean. This new attitude had a profound effect on society, arts, and philosophy in the Greco-Roman era.