READING HALL

THE DOORSOF WISDOM

ANTIGONUS GONATAS

CHAPTER IX.

THE RECKONING WITH PYRRHUS

The peace of the world was not destined to last. In the year 275/4 two events happened, of crucial importance for the time that followed Ptolemy II married his sister Arsinoe, Keraunos’ widow, and Pyrrhus returned from Italy.

Pyrrhus, because of his well-known war with Rome, has often been treated as a typical Hellenistic monarch. In fact, no one could have been less representative of his time than the king of Epirus. All his Macedonian contemporaries, without exception, were men who cared strongly for learning or letters in some form or other; great fighters and great administrators, they all agreed in this, that it was no small part of the business of a king to encourage intellectual activity and research. Probably the world has never seen a period in which the rulers of the civilized states, taken as a whole, were so unanimous in their efforts to advance knowledge and culture. But Pyrrhus, king of a very backward country, cared as little for knowledge or culture or any other immaterial thing as did any baron of the dark ages. He said' openly (with a side-hit at Antigonus’ philosophical tastes), that there was only one philosophy worthy of a king, and that was war; on war he wrote, and for war, as an end in itself, he lived. We may indeed suspect that one of the reasons which made him the darling of the common soldier was just this, that he, while born a king, was not altogether too far above the common soldier’s level.

In one way he was a spoilt child of fortune; no folly or mismanagement ever appeared to impair his prestige or weaken his attraction; his legend even survived sheer defeat. He came back from Italy something worse than a failure—he came back without his honour, having by a trick evaded the allies who had trusted him, and whom he left helpless before the vengeance of Rome; yet he came back as formidable as ever. That he had been unable to make the least impression on the solid power of Rome is no matter for reproach; where a Hannibal was to fail, a Pyrrhus was not likely to succeed; but it is clear that he completely miscalculated the nature of his undertaking. He had been confident, and rightly so, of his ability to beat the Romans in a pitched battle; but he had never considered what was to happen if Rome refused to come to terms in spite of defeat; and he was driven into an impasse by his inability either to conquer Rome or to make peace with her.

Not a common soldier in his army would have managed things as badly as the brilliant Pyrrhus had done. To fight Rome alone was enough for any man; to drive Rome and Carthage into each other’s arms and fight the two at once was madness. Most of all do the events in Sicily prove Pyrrhus’ utter absence of statesmanship. It may have been too late to revive the policy of Dionysius I, and found an empire of all the Western Greeks; it was not too late to form a strong buffer state in Sicily, a state that could have relied upon Epirot support. The enthusiasm excited in Sicily by the advent of Pyrrhus was enormous ; tyrant after tyrant laid down his power and handed over to Pyrrhus his troops; the whole island, save Messene and Lilybaeum, was in his hands. Carthage was so shaken that she offered Pyrrhus a war indemnity and a fleet if she might only keep Lilybaeum, which Pyrrhus might have known was in any case impregnable to an enemy who did not command the sea. Here surely was an opportunity of some sort for a statesman. But Pyrrhus, already unequal to the task of facing Rome, flung back the Carthaginian overtures, and compelled the two great Powers to unite; attacked, and was of course repulsed from, Lilybaeum; alienated the Sicilians by all sorts of harshness, apart from the naval conscription (which they recognized as necessary if he was going to fight Carthage), and then aroused a terrible outburst of hatred in the island by hanging his most prominent adherents on suspicion and without trial; lost Sicily as fast as he had won it; fought a great battle against Carthage with his Syracusan-Epirot fleet, manned with pressed rowers and troops who had never seen the sea, and naturally suffered a disastrous defeat, which finally decided the secular duel of Carthage and Syracuse in favour of Carthage; and then with shattered forces went out to be defeated again by Rome. The one result of his six years in the west, during which he had drained Epirus of her best blood and weakened her permanently, was to give to Roman legionary and Carthaginian sailor that confidence in themselves, each on his own element, with which they entered on their war for Sicily. Well may Antigonus have said of Pyrrhus that he was a gambler who threw good numbers but had no idea how to make use of them. Pyrrhus was no second Alexander; he was, at best, a second-rate Demetrios.

It 'was in the autumn of 275 that Pyrrhus suffered his defeat at the hands of Manius Curius. He was at the end of his resources; his allies had lost heart, he had no money to enrol mercenaries, and he could not raise another man from Epirus. He had already applied to Antigonus and Antiochus for help; both had very naturally refused. Either that autumn or in the spring of 274 he gave out for the benefit of his allies and of the Romans that Antigonus was coming to his assistance; and under cover of the impression made by the news he succeeded in slipping away unmolested by Rome. He brought home with him 8,000 foot and 500 horse, all that remained, save the garrison left at Tarentum, of the large armies he had raised during these last years; money to pay them with he had none.

But he had one great quality drawn from his very defects. A born fighter, he could never sit down under adversity; and if he did spend his life in dropping the substance to grasp the shadow, he never lost hope that the very next shadow would turn substantially into the thing that he wanted. He now thought that Macedonia might prove an easier conquest than Rome or Carthage; and at once set about enforcing his old pretensions to the crown. His grievance against Antigonus is said to have been, partly, that Antigonus had refused him assistance in Italy, and partly ‘other things’; speculation on the subject is useless, for the terms of the secret treaty of 285 between Antigonus and Pyrrhus are unknown. A reason was not really necessary; it was enough that Macedonia had once in part belonged to Pyrrhus. In the autumn of 274 Pyrrhus started enlisting Gauls, and refreshed his wearied and unpaid troops by attacking and looting the nearest Macedonian towns before going into winter quarters.

It is necessary to turn now for a moment to events in the south. So long as Egypt held Phoenicia, so long had Antiochus a standing grievance against her; and it appears that in the winter of 275/4 an arrangement was come to between Antiochus and Magas, the half-brother of Ptolemy II, who governed Cyrene for him, for a joint attack upon Egypt. Magas married Antiochus’ daughter, Apame, probably in the winter of 275/4, and rose in the spring of 274, but Antiochus was not yet ready. It may, however, have been this danger which prompted Ptolemy to his marriage with his sister Arsinoe, which took place some time in 274, prior to November of that year.

We last saw Arsinoe in Samothrace, where she had taken refuge after the murder of her younger sons by Keraunos. At what time she returned to Egypt is not known, except that she must have been there some little while before 274. She was not as young as she had been, and the result of her two experiments in marriage had hardly been of a nature to make her desire a third husband; but her ambition, and probably her powers, had merely ripened with advancing years, and she seems to have had something of the confidence afterwards felt by her kinswoman Cleopatra that kings and kingdoms existed to be her puppets. But she did not aim as high as Cleopatra was to aim. Her desire was not the empire of the world, but the empire of Macedonia; a quite feasible ambition. She had twice been queen of that country; she desired again to be queen, if not of Macedonia then of some other state, but in any case she desired the kingdom of Macedonia for her eldest and sole surviving son Ptolemaios. Twice he had ruled some part of it; and he had a workable claim as the sole surviving legitimate descendant of Lysimachus.

But the most powerful lever cannot be worked without a standpoint. Looking about her for firm ground from which to start, Arsinoe can have found but one place, Egypt; her first step, therefore, had to be to establish herself in her brother’s kingdom. But though she sought the crown of Egypt for herself, it was but as a step toward the crown of Macedonia, perhaps for herself, anyhow for her son. For her policy as queen of Egypt is known; it was a strenuous revival of the policy of her father; stir up trouble for the Antigonid in Greece by posing as the champion of Grecian liberty. Her point of view was undoubtedly hostile to Antigonus; for her policy was the policy that produced the Chremonidean war. The crown, then, which she had in view was the crown of Macedonia rather than that of Egypt; but first she must control the resources of Egypt. Of her ability to control them to good purpose she can have had no doubt; and very properly so.

Doubtless the idea of marriage with her easy-going brother came from her, and not from him. She was the master will of the combination; perhaps also the mastermind, though he was able enough. Her difficulty must have been the hostility of the Macedonian element in Egypt to such a marriage, a hostility that would weigh heavily with such a nature as her brother’s. It was an extremely tolerant age; but there were one or two things to which even that generation objected, and the marriage of a full brother and sister was one of them. It may be that the revolt of Magas gave her the necessary lever, by showing the advantage to the State of her virile counsels; but it may also be that the revolt was the result of her accession to power. Anyhow, Ptolemy repudiated his. wife, another Arsinoe, a daughter of Lysimachus, who had borne him three children, and married his sister. The Greek-speaking element in Alexandria disapproved, and the poet Sotades expressed the popular feeling in a verse of unexampled coarseness, for which he afterwards paid with his life; but we hear of no serious difficulty; and the queen’s wonderful ability must soon have tended to reconcile the ruling caste to the accomplished fact. To the native Egyptians such a marriage was of course right and proper for the king, consecrated by a tradition coeval with the Pyramids.

Arsinoe had now the power she wanted for herself. She became, and was treated as, not merely queen in name, but co-ruler in fact, with her head on the coinage; and pending the provision of the crown of Macedonia for her son, she seems to have persuaded Ptolemy to adopt him. She made life easy for her pleasure-loving husband, and tolerated his numerous love affairs, while she herself at once set to work to infuse some energy into the foreign policy of the Egyptian government.

In the summer of 274 Magas had invaded Egypt; Ptolemy’s Gallic mercenaries had revolted; Antiochus was making extensive preparations for war. It must have been obvious to Arsinoe, that if Antigonus, who was on very good terms with his brother-in-law, Antiochus chose this moment to put forward his pretensions to the Cyclades, Egypt would have more on hand than she could well manage. Antigonus at any rate must be held off; and Egypt adopted the simple and obvious course of subsidizing her old friend Pyrrhus, who was proclaiming his intention of attacking Antigonus. An alliance, too, either already existed or was now made between Egypt and another traditional friend, Sparta. This seemed to safeguard matters as against Macedonia; and with Magas recalled home by a native revolt, Arsinoe felt free at the beginning of 273 to turn the whole force of the kingdom against Antiochus; prompt success in Asia-followed:

The Egyptian gold completely altered Pyrrhus’ position. By the spring of 273 he had collected a formidable army, and invaded Macedonia in force by way of the Aoos pass; he had many partisans in the western districts, of which he had once been king. Antigonus reluctantly found himself compelled to break with the very necessary policy which he had desired to carry through, and to call out the Macedonian troops. He must have known that to do this was to court possible disaster; but to meet Pyrrhus with the Gauls alone was to make disaster certain. Pyrrhus entered Macedonia, either out-generalled or defeated Antigonus, and compelled him to a retreat; on the march he attacked him again; the Gauls, who had the post of danger in the rear, stood by their salt and were cut down to a man; the Macedonians went over to Pyrrhus in a body, and Antigonus fled to Thessaloniki. Some parts of upper Macedonia and of Thessaly fell at once into the conqueror’s hands, though Aigai resisted and had to be taken by assault. Lower Macedonia was saved for the time by Antigonus’ system of garrisons of mercenaries, and of governors specially appointed by himself; here the king again began to collect an army.

Pyrrhus had won the usual victory; and the plaudits of the Macedonian phalanx had hardly died away when he began to incur the usual unpopularity. On the capture of Aigai his Gallic mercenaries broke open and plundered the old tombs of the kings, stealing the gold and scattering the bones; Pyrrhus neither hindered nor punished, and opinion in Macedonia condemned him severely. He himself made no attempt to consolidate his conquest; he turned south into Thessaly and after dedicating the shields of the conquered Gauls in the temple of Athene Itonia—an act which probably meant that he claimed the leadership of the Thessalian League and treated Antigonus as deposed—he went home, taking with him the Macedonian shields to dedicate to the Dodonaean Zeus, and leaving his son Ptolemaios as governor in Macedonia. By the autumn Antigonus, having more Gauls, attacked Ptolemaios, but was again so completely defeated that he escaped (it is said) with only seven companions. This time it must have looked as if all were over; and Pyrrhus called Antigonus a shameless person for continuing to wear the purple after losing the power which it symbolized.

But Antigonus knew better than his rival. He understood Pyrrhus, and he understood the kind of conquest which he made. In this case it seems to have been more than usually superficial, a temporary phase due to the magic of Pyrrhus’ name, and his relationship to Alexander; and probably it only extended at all to that part of the country which Pyrrhus had ruled before. Though he must have held one or more of the Macedonian mints, he made no arrangements for issuing his own money; he contented himself with surcharging some of Antigonus’ pieces with an Epirot monogram. Even while Antigonus was in flight, Pyrrhus was longing to be off on a new adventure which pad presented itself. The instigator of this fresh undertaking—the fourth within seven years—was Cleonymus of Sparta.

Cleonymus was the younger son of the late king Cleomenes, and a violent and tyrannical character; he had desired the kingship, but had been passed over in favour of his energetic and capable nephew Areus, the son of his elder brother Akrotatos. Cleonymus left the city, seeking an opportunity of vengeance; and Pyrrhus, with his known love of adventure, offered a likely instrument. To him Cleonymus went, received a command in his army, and was instrumental in taking Aigai for him; after this he prevailed upon Pyrrhus to reinstate him in Sparta. Ptolemaios must have been recalled from Macedonia some time in the autumn or winter of 273/2, leaving Macedonia to look after itself; and in the spring of 272 Pyrrhus and two of his sons, Ptolemaios and Helenos, marched a very large force—it is said to have been 25,000 foot, 2,000 horse, and 24 elephants, and included Macedonian troops—through Aetolia to the sea and shipped them, obviously with Aetolian aid, across to Achaea. Aetolia had made her choice between Pyrrhus and Antigonus, and her choice was Pyrrhus.

Antigonus must have remained in arms all the winter of 273/2. The inevitable reaction against Pyrrhus seems to have set in after the violation of the tombs at Aigai; Ptolemaios may even have left Macedonia because he needs  must. Antigonus had never lost the coast cities, strongly garrisoned and governed and supported by his fleet; he must during the winter and spring have recovered the country, or most of it, almost as fast as he had lost it.

But his sudden overthrow had produced its natural result in Greece. The pro-Macedonian government in Athens fell in the autumn of 273 or the following winter, and was replaced by another. It is impossible to make out if the new government consisted of a coalition of Moderates or of the less advanced wing of the Egypto-nationalist party; but it is clear that the pro-Macedonians were no longer in office. It is not likely that the change took place without at least the friendly observation—perhaps co-operation is too strong a word—of Egypt : there seems to have being an understanding—entente is the term used—between Egypt and Athens at the time, and it may perhaps have been now that the Athenians erected statues of Ptolemy and Arsinoe before the Odeion. Egypt was feeling her way, so far as she could do so. But so long as her hands were tied and her energies absorbed by the war with Antiochus she was not ready for any breach with Antigonus. The relations of Egypt and Macedonia in 273 were still, officially, good relations, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say no relations at all; Antigonus could hardly know as yet that Arsinoe, apparently absorbed in the  Asia, was already at work against him behind the scenes. At Athens the new government took a moderate line. An embassy was sent to Pyrrhus on his landing in Peloponnese, probably to ask him to respect the neutrality of Egypt’s friend; and communications were opened up with Aetolia. In or about the year 272 Athens is found, for the first time since the Aetolians gained control of Delphi, in possession of one of the two Ionic votes : a fact that shows that she was acting independently of Antigonus. As Antigonus, while he controlled Athens, allowed no hieromnemon to go from her to Delphi, the sending by Athens of an hieromnemon was practically equivalent to the repudiation of Antigonus’ suzerainty; at the same time, being an act essentially religious rather than political, it was not necessarily of a nature to provoke war. The same attitude of caution—willing to wound and yet afraid to strike—comes out strongly in the decree passed a year later on Laches’ motion in honour of Demochares, with its eloquent omissions.

Elsewhere in Greece movements were more pronounced. It was probably at this time that those of the Achaean towns winch had not yet declared themselves independent of Antigonus did so, completing what had been begun in 280; the ten towns now formed a small federation, with a promising constitution rather like the Aetolian, but otherwise of no special importance. It may have been now, too, that Sicyon got rid of her tyrant Kleon and established for a little while a democracy, under the lead of two prominent citizens, Kleinias and Timokleidas; but there is nothing to show that Kleon had been a partisan of Antigonus. More important to Antigonus was the loss of Euboea, including Eretria and Chalcis, a grievous blow to the communications between Demetrias and Corinth. The vital importance of Corinth to Antigonus was never better demonstrated than now; so long as he held Corinth, everything could be re­established. But the use of Corinth depended on the sea, and it was just as well for him in 272 that Egypt had her hands full elsewhere.

In the spring of 272 Pyrrhus landed in the Peloponnese. Events were moving much too quickly for the Egyptian government, and before the war with Antiochus should be ended they  were to pass entirely out of Egyptian control. But as yet Arsinoe believed that Pyrrhus was still working in the interests of Egypt; and his first proceedings were calculated to reassure her. He gave out on landing that he had come to free the Peloponnesian cities that were still in Antigonus’ hands. These were few and unimportant, save Corinth; but it sounded well, and Pyrrhus was not there to attack Corinth. Of the independent states, Achaea and Messene sent envoys; Elis and perhaps others joined him ; when he reached Megalopolis, the ‘Great City’ opened her gates to him. Up to that time Sparta seems to have had no misgivings. Pyrrhus was the friend of Egypt, and Sparta her ally, in fact if not in name; and King Areus, with the best of the Spartan levies, was in Crete, where one of the neverending wars between the Cretan cities was in progress, fighting there in the interests of Egypt, who either now or soon after acquired a firm footing in the island by the possession of Itanos. At Megalopolis Spartan envoys met Pyrrhus, who protested that nothing was further from his thoughts than an attack on Sparta; but the envoys must have doubted, for a messenger seems to have been sent off in haste to recall Areus, if indeed this had not already been done. After some stay at Megalopolis Pyrrhus moved leisurely forward, plundering the Laconian territory as he marched through it, and came in sight of the wealthy and ill-defended city. Not wishing, it is said, to enter Sparta by night, he camped' and waited for the morning. He had thrown to the winds his word given to the Spartan envoys; he cared nothing that Sparta was the friend of his friends; he meant to take the city, just because it had never been taken

Sparta did many fine things in her time, but few finer than that night. The Senate first decided to send the women away to Crete; but a noble woman named Archidamia, mother of a noble race, came down to the council chamber with a drawn sword in her hand, and demanded of the elders, in the name of her sex, if they thought that Spartan women would care to live after the city was taken. Meanwhile the men had started on the entrenchments, digging a broad ditch opposite to Pyrrhus’ camp and lagering wagons at either end of it, bedded up to their axles in the earth. But they had hardly begun when the women and girls turned out in a body and took the work from the hands of the men who had to fight next day, telling them to sleep while they with the old men finished it. At dawn they handed over the completed fortification to the fighters, with the old Spartan bidding, either to conquer or to die worthy of Sparta.

For two days the unequal battle raged along the trench and the lagered wagons. On the first day Ptolemaios, at the head of a picked body of Chaonians and 2,000 Gauls, nearly broke through the wagons, but was repulsed by Areus’ son Akrotatos, who left his post on the other side of the city, hurried to the point of danger with 300 men, and took Ptolemaios in rear, almost driving him into the trench ; then, streaming with blood, he marched back in triumph through the city, while the old men followed him cheering. But the second day was even more critical, for the defenders were wearying, and many were wounded or dead. All through the hours of fighting the women stood by the men, handing up missiles, supplying them with food and drink, and carrying away the wounded. The Macedonian troops in Pyrrhus’ sendee had in the night cut great piles of wood, and these they now hurled into the trench, together with shields and corpses and anything that might serve to fill it. While they thus engaged the attention of the defenders, Pyrrhus in person turned the end of the line of wagons and led an attack at the head of his guards. Almost he was through; already shrieks for the captured city rose from the women; then a Cretan javelin pierced his horse, which plunged, fell, and flung its rider; the Spartans charged, and swept his Companions back in disorder. But the defenders had lost heavily, and the survivors were worn out; one more assault would have carried the day. But before it could be delivered, Antigonus’ general Ameinias, marching in all haste from Corinth, had flung himself into the city with his men; soon after came Areus the king with 2,000 Cretans and mercenaries; and Sparta was saved. Thereupon the women went quietly to their homes; it no longer became them to be heroes.

Antigonus, with plain common sense, had gone direct to the central point of the position. He had seen that nothing now mattered compared to the man Pyrrhus; Pyrrhus must be followed at any cost. Therefore he, too, having recovered Macedonia before Pyrrhus reached Laconia, had left it, loyal or disloyal, to shift for itself, and was shipping all his available troops to Corinth. Sparta, it is true, was his consistent opponent; but at present his only thought was Pyrrhus; Pyrrhus’ enemy was for the moment his friend. He had therefore sent forward in all haste his best general, Ameinias, the ex-pirate; and he had been just in time. For the second time in his history, Pyrrhus had accomplished the feat of driving two great rivals into each other’s arms.

Pyrrhus was loath to leave the city; he made one more attack, and was beaten off. He then withdrew his troops, and thought of taking up winter quarters in Laconia; but a message from his partisans in Argos caused him to alter his mind, and to snatch at a new hope; whether victorious or defeated, he must needs trouble the world till he died. Two parties in Argos were at feud, the stronger one, led by Aristippos, being favourable to Antigonus; and Aristeas, who led the other, sought to be beforehand with his rival by calling in Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus broke camp and set out northward. In a pass in the hills he was ambushed by Areus and the Spartans and his rear-guard cut up; he sent Ptolemaios to their assistance, and Ptolemaios was slain by a Cretan, a famous runner named Oryssos. Pyrrhus and the main body struggled on through the pass; the Spartans pursued with little caution; once out of the hills Pyrrhus turned on them, and at the head of the Molossian horse took ample vengeance for his dead son. But he had lost valuable time; and he arrived at Argos to find that Antigonus, hurrying from Corinth, had already crowned the heights above the town with all his forces, and held an impregnable position. Pyrrhus camped in the plain near Nauplia, and (it is said) sent a herald to Antigonus, calling him a robber and challenging him to come down and fight it out; Antigonus, with all the cards in his hand at last, naturally replied that he would fight, and when he chose. Meanwhile Argos, caught between the hammer and the anvil, sent envoys to both kings, begging them to retire and leave the city free, on terms that it should be the friend of both. Antigonus agreed, and proposed to send his son as a hostage. Pyrrhus, too, agreed, but offered no hostage.

That night Pyrrhus' partisans in Argos opened the gates, and the king, well accustomed by now to break his word, poured troops into the city from both sides. All went well until he attempted to bring in the elephants; the gateway was too low to admit the towers which they carried, and the noise made in removing and then replacing them roused the sleeping city. The Argives flew to arms, and dispatched a messenger to Antigonus for help; he came down to the plain and sent forward his son Halkyoneus with a strong force, and he and Areus, who with his mixed army of Spartans and Cretans had followed Pyrrhus up, attacked the Gauls from behind as they were entering. Pyrrhus himself from file other side, reached the market-place; there he was caught in the inextricable confusion of a soldier’s battle in the narrow streets; he could neither advance nor retreat. Daylight revealed the whole city choked with men, fighting each other just as it chanced, in utter disorder; a message which Pyrrhus managed to send to his son Helenos outside, bidding him break down the wall and free him a way out, only made matters worse, for the message was wrongly given, and Helenos attempted to enter the city with all the troops left. An elephant became jammed across one of the gates; another elephant, seeking its wounded mahout, ran amuck through the turmoil; and in the press and the confusion, Pyrrhus, trying to cut a way out himself, was struck on the back of the neck and stunned by a the thrown from a house-top by an old woman who saw her son In danger. Before he could properly recover his senses, one Zopyros, a mercenary in Antigonus’ service, had recognized him, and with an Illyrian sword clumsily hacked off his head. Halkyoneus came up on the news, galloped off with the head, and flung it at his father’s feet as he sat in his tent with his Council. When Antigonus recognized it, he struck Halkyoneus with his staff, calling him accursed and barbarian, and then covered his face with his cloak and wept, for he remembered the fate of his grandfather Antigonus and his father Demetrios, and he knew not what Fortune might yet have in store for his house.

Pyrrhus’ army was leaderless and aimless. Helenos surrendered to Halkyoneus, who received him gently and led him to Antigonus, this time gaining his father’s approbation, tempered by a rebuke for having allowed Helenos to retain the garb of a suppliant. The king treated Helenos with every kindness, and sent him back to Epirus; he himself received the surrender of all Pyrrhus’ army. The long duel of the statesman and the soldier was over; and it was Antigonus who gave his rival the due funeral rites. On the spot where Pyrrhus fell, the Argives raised a temple to the goddess Demeter, who, so their legend said, had slain him in the form of a woman; there the ashes of the war-worn Epirot found their rest.

CHAPTER X

THE FIRST WAR WITH EGYPT

ANTIGONUS GONATAS