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Lecture 20 Decline of Greece; Rise of the Hellenistic World

CRIB SHEET OF THIS LECTURE (prepared by Grad TA in 2004)

1. Greek warfare continues following Peloponnesian War.

As destructive as the Peloponnesian War proved, the level of violence in Greece continued to rise in the following era. Conflict remained incessant during the fourth century as city states continued to realign themselves into shifting alliances in order to combat the threatening military ascendancy of first Sparta (404-371), then Thebes (371-362), and then Athens (362-357). The bewildering rotation of alliances appears to reflect the innate tendency of Greek city-states to restore particularism, city-state autonomy, by weakening whatever power appeared to be on the verge of asserting political ascendancy over others. The result was to leave the Greek mainland divided and resentful of one another at the very moment that outside powers were again threatening to exert their influence over Greece as a whole.

2. Rise of Neighboring Peoples, in particular Macedonia under King Philip II (359-336 BC).

Macedonia, a neighboring people to the north that spoke a language similar to Greek but was apparently unrecognizable to Greek speakers, was one such power. Long existing as an Aegean backwater, Macedonia emerged in the mid 4th century BC to assume a dominant role in Aegean and then in world affairs. One of the consequences of Greek colonization and military hegemony throughout the Aegean was to expose neighboring, less developed, non-urban peoples gradually to Greek culture and technologies. The process of assimilation was extremely slow, but by this time had been going on for centuries in Macedonia. A rugged mountainous region, the Macedonians existed in a nearly Bronze-Age level of political development with rural cantons dominated by local nobles called "kings" (basileis) who ostensibly owed loyalty to the royal dynasty of the Aegead clan in Pella, though they rarely displayed it. The Macedonian king was essentially a "king among kings", and his authority was severely reduced by court intrigues, constant conspiracies among the nobles, threatening neighboring peoples such as the Illyrians and the Thracians, and worst of all, by superior external powers such as the Persians, the Athenians, the Spartans and the Thebans. Few Macedonian kings died natural deaths. However, the potential resources of this region were vast - larger manpower capabilities than any single Greek city state, rich forests producing timber and maritime supplies, and veins of silver at the Pangaeus Mt. Were these to be harnessed by a strong king, Macedonia's fortunes might considerably improve. Philip II or Philip the Great proved to be such a king (born c. 390 BC). While his brother ruled as king and client to the Thebans, Philip began his career as a hostage in Thebes, learning the new techniques of oblique phalanx maneuvers with the dominant military force of the 370s. At his brother's demise fighting the Illyrians, Philip was sent to act as regent to his infant nephew and was able to defeat these neighboring peoples while at the same time rapidly assert control over the warrior bands of the nobles of the Macedonian interior. He took their sons "hostage" to live and to learn at the royal court at Pella where they were exposed to Greek language and learning and taught to hold greater loyalty to the throne than to their ancestral families. He also repopulated the hinterland populations by moving them into more effective locations militarily, particularly as garrison colonies on the frontiers and as royal military camps in lowland areas near the shore. Using deft diplomatic maneuvering and the silver available in the mountains, he bought time to galvanize his male population into a royal fighting force that owed loyalty to himself as king. A phalanx ultimately of 32,000 infantry and a shock cavalry of some 8000 became the backbone of the Macedonian state by the time of his death. This far exceeded the forces of any one Greek city-state such as Athens. Adapting to the latest military tactics, Philip employed a conscious of "meritocracy" to recruit the best and the brightest warriors from throughout the Greek world, giving them Macedonian status, settling them on land and promoting them to high positions based entirely on their performance in the field. The result was a highly professional fighting force that due to his skilful diplomatic maneuvering, sliced its way through the Greek armies sent to oppose it, ultimately defeating Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 and assuming ascendancy over the entire Greek world. Recognizing that his ascendancy was at best momentary, he attempted to channel the aggressive instincts of Greek warriors away from himself and each other by declaring his intention to conduct a "crusade" against the Persians for all the troubles they had caused Greece through the years. Leaders of Greek city states were delighted to see him go, hoping, of course, that he would never return. However, on the eve of his campaign in 336 BC, Philip II was murdered in a palace coup that remains a mystery, and his 20-year-old son Alexander assumed the throne. At first Philip's generals assumed they could use the young king as a "puppet," but they proved sadly mistaken. For Alexander's ambitions exponentially exceeded those of his father.

3. The Campaigns of Alexander the Great of Macedonia, 336-323 BC

One cannot be certain of Philip's original intentions in invading Asia Minor; perhaps his desire was to assume political hegemony throughout the Aegean world, perhaps he intended to assume control of the entire eastern Mediterranean seaboard as far as Egypt. It was unlikely that he intended to drive directly into the heart of the Persian Empire as Alexander ultimately did. With swift battles and forced marches Alexander quickly seized control of 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. There are clear indications that when he then commanded his forces to prepare for an assault on Mesopotamia, 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 army to fight with reckless abandon on the battlefield and thereby shame their older superiors into obedience. By the time he reached Ecbatana in the heart of Iran in 330, he announced that all the allied forces were free to return to Greece, but that they would receive huge bounties if they remained. At this point he galvanized the entire army into the "Macedonian people and state," regardless of their origins, and induced them to continue campaigning by lavishly spending the Persian reserves of silver and gold he conquered and by extending to his troops unlimited financial credit. The campaigning in Afghanistan and India between 329-325 BC proved exceedingly brutal; one source claims that of the 40,000 men that he led into Afghanistan in 329, only 1 in 4 returned to Babylon in 324. The others either died on the march or were left behind in his 15+ colonies, all named Alexandria after himself. Conspiracies abounded, and numerous high-level generals and nobles of the Macedonian aristocracy were executed. 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 tributary of the Indus and refused to go any further in 326. Returning to Babylon still in his early 30s, Alexander died mysteriously in 323 BC, probably from infections caused by his wounds to the chest during a battle in India. His generals gathered around his deathbed and asked him which of them he wanted to run the newly conquered empire in his succession. "The fittest," were reportedly his final words. His example, his conquests, and his newly acquired wealth set in motion two generations of conflict among his "marshals" as they at first vied for his place as the emperor of a vast empire. By 306 BC most surviving leaders came to recognize the impossibility of every assembling a world empire and began a second phase of conflict intended to carve out individual territories for themselves. The surviving powers were as follows:

4. 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 Philip II's bastion of Macedonia proper, with its capital at Pella. In comparison with the competing Hellenistic dynasties, Macedona resembled somewhat a cultural backwater, but this appraisal belies the strengths furnished by its topography, its resources, and its manpower. In comparison with its rivals Macedonia presented itself as a compact state well defended by mountains allowing few means of access. Its timber resources and silver mines provided it with significant revenues with which 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 eastern Mediterranean world. 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 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) conducted razzias as far removed as the Peloponnesus, invading Laconia under Antigonus Gonatas, and Ionia, besieging Eumenes II at Pergamum under Philip V. The Roman Republic found the Antigonids exceedingly difficult adversaries, fighting them 3 times, during the Hannibalic War (when Philip V posed as an ally to Hannibal himself and invaded Greece, besieging Athens itself), again in 201-197 (when L. Quinctius Flamininus defeated Philip V at Cynoscephalae with strong backing from Greek allies), and 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 dynasty was deposed and the Romans attempted to reorganize Macedonia into a dismembered settlement of 4 small republics. When this failed in 148 BC, Roman forces again had to intervene to suppress Macedonian and wider Greek uprisings (including the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC) and reduced Macedonia tp provincial status, the first such Roman province in the Aegean world.

Attalid Pergamum (270-133 BC) - capital at Pergamum

Founded by Philetairos, the Greek secretary of Alexander's general Lysimachus. When the latter fell fighting Seleucus, Philetairos (a eunuch) withdrew with his commander's military war chest to a mountain fortress that ultimately became his palace acropolis of Pergamum. He gained royal 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. He became recognized by the Greek cities of the coastal region as a liberator and savior and established his hegemony over them. 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 at state building. 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 Phrygian highland as well. In direct competition with the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, the Attalids succeeded at establishing Pergamum as a leading cultural center, its library second only to that of Alexandria, its sculpture, woven tapestries, and ceramics 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 development at Rome. The Attalids likewise competed for control of the eastern luxury trade, relying on the overland route of the now ancient Persian 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 royal domain to the people of the Roman Republic in his will. His nobles were concerned about security after his passing, and to prevent a dynastic dispute (which ultimately did arise) he wrote this into his will as a form of "poison pill." At his demise in 133 BC, ambassadors brought the report of his bequest to Rome, where it was accepted and secured by military intervention. By 126 BC the royal territories of Pergamum became the Roman province of Asia, the richest of all Roman provinces. Abusive exploitation by Roman tax collectors (publicans) induced a province-wide revolt in Asia in 88 BC, culminating 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 enabled impressive recovery. In 63 BC the Roman orator and senator, M. Tullius Cicero, stated that approximately 40% of tribute raised by the Republican empire came from Asia alone. The merger of Greco-Roman culture was probably most successfully achieved here. In the imperial era, cities such as Pergamum, Ephesus, Sardis, and Miletus ranked among the leading cultural centers of the Roman world.

Seleucid Syria (305-66 BC) - capital at Antioch

Founded by Seleucus, like Ptolemy, one of a handful of generals to survive Alexander's campaigns in India, the empire had its capital at Antioch, but enjoyed numerous other Greek colonies in the Syrian territory, including Syrian Alexandria, Laodicea, Beroea, and Edessa. The heartland of the empire remained in coastal Syria, but its territories usually included Mesopotamia as well (Seleucia). As late as 205 BC, 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 188 BC compelled him to restrict his authority to the Seleucid heartland of the north Syrian coast. Generally, the Seleucid foreign policy looked to the Mediterranean theater. Afghanistan was taken by the Mauryans and the Kushans; Iran was reorganized by the Parthians.

Through methodical efforts at colonization, development of artisan production in Syria-Palestine and by challenging the Ptolemies for control of the eastern luxury trade, the Seleucids enjoyed significant wealth. Its cities were prominent for their craft work -- perfumes, incense, purple dyed clothing, tapestries, a highly polished red-slipped fineware known as Eastern Sigillata A. The artisans of the Seleucid empire established a number of material trends for Mediterranean civilization.

The Seleucids were energetic colonizers, founding numeorus cities throughout Anatolia, Syria, and Mesopotamia named Antioch and Seleucia. They were largely responsible for encouraging the out-migration of Aegean Greek populations to non-Greek areas of the Mediterranean, helping to develop Hellenistic "koine" Greek culture. It is commonly stated that the Roman Empire reaped the benefit of centuries of colonizing work by the Seleucids.

Their weakness was to some degree the problems posed by the high diversity 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 frequently engaging in vehement ethnic hostility (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 empire into the Roman empire as provinces 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 dynasty's craftsmen remained unrivaled.

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 successor states to Alexander. Its capital, Alexandria reportedly attained a population of 1 million at the height of the Roman era. Ptolemy and his successors successfully harnessed and maximized the grain production of the Nile, converting Egypt into the "bread basket to the Mediterranean." Together with Rhodes they combined to assume near monopolistic control of trade in grain and wine throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. Ptolemaic explorers also learned the prevailing patterns of the monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean to establish a lucrative maritime trade with Arabia and India. Alexandria quickly supplanted Athens as the most cosmopolitan urban center 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 were all celebrated monuments. 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 King's Stoa.

During the third century BC the Ptolemies commanded an extensive eastern Mediterranean naval empire (Cyprus, Crete, the Aegean, south Anatolia), drawing on Greek population areas 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 the neighboring and rival Seleucids led to gradual political and military decline during the second century BC, however. An astute diplomatic relationship with the Roman Republic prevented Seleucid incursions on more than one occasion; however, the Ptolemies gradually became recognized as the "sick man" of the Mediterranean. The last dynast, Cleopatra (52-30 BC), actually attempted to exploit personal relationships with Julius Caesar (by whom she had a son) and Mark Antony (more children) to revitalize Ptolemaic influence 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 serve as the "bread basket" during the Roman Empire, furnishing grain for the burgeoning population at Rome.

Confronted by the scale of these empires, 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; 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 generally xenophobic behavior. But trends definitely shifted in the direction of the new empires. Greek mercenaries, citizens down at their luck, and/or nobles seeking greater opportunities migrated eastward to join the Greek-speaking intelligentsia of the Hellenistic capitals, to serve in Hellenistic armies, or to participate in colonizing enterprises. The common denominator to membership in the Hellenistic hierarchy, regardless of ethnic origin, was Greek language and Greek culture, obtained exclusively through educational training in the Greek gymnasium. 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 the royal families cemented such relationships closer still. The emerging international community that ran the Hellenistic world assumed a confident new attitude 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.