CHAPTER III

THE NEW HELLENISTIC KINGDOMS

I.

THE YEARS AFTER IPSUS

SHORTLY before the battle of Ipsus Diodorus’ narrative, largely based on Hieronymus, breaks off, and for the eighty years between 301 BC and the formal commencement of Polybius’ history in 221 no continuous account remains; and large parts of the story have to be reconstructed from inscriptions and from surviving fragments of literary material, often of dubious value. Chronology in particular, prior to Polybius, is an ever-present difficulty, except when an event can be dated by the Delian archons or the eponymous magistrates of Miletus, whose years and succession are certain, or by that great invention the Seleucid Era, which was fortunately used at Babylon1; some of the Athenian archon-list is conjectural, scarcely any Delphic archon can be satisfactorily dated, and the Egyptian chronological material is difficult to interpret precisely. A solid deposit of fact is slowly being built up beneath the ebb and flow of conflicting discussion; but it seems proper to warn the reader that this chapter, and more especially chapters 6 and 22, contain of necessity much which can only claim to represent what seems the most probable view at the time of writing.

With Antigonus’ death the new kingdoms began to take shape. Cassander’s renunciation of possessions in Asia was to determine the future of Macedonia as again a purely European state. In the partition Lysimachus nominally secured all Asia Minor north of the Taurus, including Cappadocia (for Cassander would certainly not have surrendered his claim on that province to anyone else); Pontus and Bithynia were however independent kingdoms, and many Greek cities still held to Demetrius. South of the Taurus Pleistarchus’ kingdom, with its capital at Heraclea on Latmus, renamed Pleistarchea, whose astonishing fortifications have now been traced, was to be only a temporary accident. Seleucus nominally obtained Syria and Mesopotamia; his vast empire stretched in theory from the Hindu Kush and the Jaxartes to the Mediterranean, though Tyre and Sidon remained possessions of Demetrius; he demolished Antigoneia on the Orontes, and built himself a new capital near it, Antioch, named after his father, to mark his return to Aegean politics. Ptolemy, who had not fought at Ipsus, received no share of Antigonus’ kingdom; Cassander was hardly his friend, and Cassander’s hand can be traced in the assignment of Syria to Seleucus as clearly as in that of Cappadocia to Lysimachus. But during the campaign Ptolemy had occupied Syria south of Damascus and the Lebanon, and Seleucus, who never forgot that he owed Ptolemy both life and fortune, did not insist on its retrocession; but he preserved his claim.

Demetrius had escaped from Ipsus to Ephesus with 9000 men. Except for various coastal cities in Ionia, Caria, and Phoenicia, he had lost Asia; but he was still supreme at sea, he held Cyprus and the Aegean islands, and was still President of his powerful Hellenic League. He had left Deidameia and part of his fleet and treasure at Athens; from there, lord of Greece and the sea, he hoped to retrieve his fortunes. But his friends in Athens had been overthrown after Ipsus, and envoys from the new government met him in the Cyclades; they restored to him his wife, ships, and money, but explained that to himself their gates were closed. It was a harder blow to Demetrius even than Ipsus; it was the end of his illusions about Greece; all thought of a union of hearts was now dead. He landed at Corinth and found the Hellenic League in ruins; most of the cities not held by his garrisons had repudiated him; that he retained part of the Peloponnese shows that even in 302 he had not trusted entirely to Greek good-will. Cassander possibly helped to break up the League, for during the Ipsus campaign he had invaded Peloponnese; but after a failure before Argos he was apparently recalled by events on the Adriatic, and in attempting to reduce Corcyra, which had been seized by the Spartan Cleonymus during his campaign in Italy, he was defeated by Agathocles of Syracuse, who annexed the island.

Demetrius was now little but a sea-king; but he still had friends in Asia, where the Ionian League was maintaining his cause against one Hieron, who had seized Priene as a tyrant in Lysimachus’ interest. Between Lysimachus and Demetrius there existed an irreconcilable personal hatred, of which the cause is unknown; Demetrius shipped some mercenaries and sailed to the Dardanelles, to help Ionia and take revenge on Lysimachus. Nothing is known of this war, except that Lysimachus failed to secure Ionia; but in 299 relief came to Demetrius unexpectedly. The victors of Ipsus were already quarrelling; Ptolemy, to safeguard himself against Seleucus, approached Cassander and Lysimachus; Cassander’s son Alexander married Lysandra, daughter of Ptolemy and Eurydice, and Lysimachus married Arsinoe, daughter of Ptolemy and Berenice, and sent his Persian wife Amestris away to Heraclea, which he restored to her as compensation; there this remarkable woman made herself a principality, including Tios and Cieros, and founded Amastris. Seleucus saw himself isolated, and offered Demetrius his alliance; he married Stratonice, daughter of Demetrius and Phila, and reconciled him to Ptolemy, who betrothed to him his and Eurydice’s daughter Ptolemais. Phila was still alive, though Deidameia was dead; but Demetrius, like Seleucus and Pyrrhus, claimed the old right to two legitimate queens at once, which the other Successors abandoned. He sent Pyrrhus to Egypt as his hostage, together with Deidameia’s son Alexander, who lived and died there1; but he did not marry Ptolemais, for Ptolemy soon became his enemy again. Pyrrhus then abandoned Demetrius, joined Ptolemy, and married Berenice’s daughter Antigone; and Ptolemy took a belated revenge upon Cassander for the Ipsus settlement by restoring Pyrrhus to his kingdom after Cassander’s death. Meanwhile Seleucus began to court Demetrius’ cities. He had already restored to Miletus the temple statue of Didyma, carried off by the Persians, and he and his wife Apama now encouraged the .Milesians to begin rebuilding the temple, for which he and his son Antiochus later sent large gifts, while Antiochus undertook to construct a market hall in Miletus, now excavated2, whose revenues should go toward the rebuilding. A joint embassy also announced the alliance of Seleucus and Demetrius at Ephesus, and doubtless elsewhere. Demetrius on his side, with Seleucus’ privity, attacked Pleistarchus and drove him from his kingdom.

The shifting policies of the Successors since 301, all afraid of each other and unwilling to commit themselves too far, were of advantage to Athens. There both the extreme parties had suffered; many of Cassander’s friends, the thorough-going oligarchs, were in exile, while of the democrats Stratocles’ following was discredited and his opponent Demochares was in exile also. On Stratocles’ downfall after Ipsus a true centre party took shape, composed of the well-to-do of both types, moderate oligarchs and democrats, and came into power; its leaders were Phaedrus of Sphettus, the moderate son of a Cassandrean oligarch, Philippides of Paeania, and Lachares, a friend of Cassander. Their policy was strict neutrality; they hoped that if Athens interfered with no one, no one would interfere with her; and for five years this curious optimism was justified by events. They even disarmed, and substituted for the compulsory ephebe training a voluntary system, which reduced the annual recruits from 800 to 30, generally young men of means who could afford to study arms and philosophy; the franchise was apparently reduced, and election by lot abolished. The success of such a policy depended on Cassander; and after 301 Cassander left Greece alone, and made a treaty with Athens which did not even restore his exiled supporters. The explanation is the fearful exhaustion of Macedonia; Cassander was statesman enough to abandon his policy of conquest in Greece and subordinate personal ambition to the recuperation of his people. He even refused to reinstate his dispossessed brother Pleistarchus, a refusal to which the pleading of his sister Phila on Demetrius’ behalf perhaps contributed. But in 297 Cassander died of consumption, and with him died the wisest head in the world’s councils; a fresh outburst of fighting followed.

In 296 Seleucus demanded Tyre and Sidon from Demetrius as compensation for allowing him to take Cilicia, and Demetrius in a rage broke off relations1. He then sailed to Greece to take up again his project of 302, which Cassander’s death seemed to have rendered feasible, whereupon Lysimachus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy renewed their alliance against him; Ptolemy annexed Cyprus and possibly part of Lycia, Seleucus Cilicia, and Lysimachus Ephesus, Miletus (between 294 and 289), and all Ionia and most of Caria; nothing remained to Demetrius in Asia but Tyre, Sidon, and Caunus in Caria. Demetrius himself first attacked Athens, where dissensions had arisen between the democrats and Lachares, who was seeking power for himself even before Cassander’s death; but some ships were wrecked, his attack repulsed, and he retired into Peloponnese. During his absence Lachares made himself dictator (March 295), Phaedrus consenting to serve under him, and secured Boeotia’s alliance and possibly Sparta’s; the democrats, who held the Piraeus, then called on Demetrius, who returned, occupied Eleusis and Rhamnus, and blockaded Athens. Lachares showed energy and decision, even stripping the gold robes from Pheidias* statue of Athena, and the city held out gallantly; but an attempt at relief made by Ptolemy failed in face of Demetrius’ superior fleet, and in spring 294 Athens, after enduring the extremity of hunger, surrendered; Lachares escaped. Demetrius treated the city kindly, and poured in corn; but though he banished no one and merely restored Stratocles’ government, he disclosed a very different policy from that of 307;. the days of free alliance were over, and henceforth he would act like Cassander. He not only secured and garrisoned the Piraeus and Munychia, but he built and garrisoned a new fort on the Museum hill; and Athens became a subject town, with foreign troops inside the city wall.

II.

DEMETRIUS, KING OF MACEDONIA

Demetrius was still following his father’s plan of 307-302, but with a difference; he still meant to lead Greece against Macedonia, but as a subject country, not a willing ally. After taking Athens he attacked Sparta, but was called off by news from Macedonia which promised him a shorter way. Cassander’s eldest son, Philip IV, had died of consumption after reigning four months, and Cassander’s widow Thessalonice had used the unique influence which, as the last survivor of Philip’s house, she possessed with the army to obtain a division of the kingship between her younger sons Antipater and Alexander; Antipater, the elder, who had married Lysimachus’ daughter Eurydice and probably had his support, thereupon murdered his mother and attacked Alexander, who turned for help to Pyrrhus and Demetrius. Pyrrhus established Alexander as sole ruler and took five provinces in payment; Demetrius came too late, and Alexander escorted him back to Larissa, where he himself was killed by Demetrius’ guards; the Antigonid version of the affair was that Demetrius merely anticipated a plot to assassinate himself, but another version, perhaps that of Lysimachus, said that Lysimachus had reconciled the brothers and spoilt Demetrius’ opening. Whatever the truth, the leaderless Macedonian army elected Demetrius king, a choice to which the popularity of Phila, the favourite daughter of Antipater the Regent, is said to have contributed. Demetrius now had the country which, in his father’s plan, was the indispensable starting-point for the reconquest of Asia.

As such he treated it. Macedonia never had a worse king, and many must have regretted Cassander. The people naturally felt no loyalty to him; but instead of cultivating their good-will, he made himself inaccessible, like an Asiatic despot. They might have pardoned his double diadem (Europe and Asia), or the mantle which portrayed him as the Sun among the stars, or his own portrait on the coinage, a thing unknown in Europe; they could not pardon his neglect of his duties, justice and administration. Above all, they needed peace and he gave them war. That his rule lasted for six years was largely due to the fact that the cautious Lysimachus, who respected Demetrius’ generalship, waited till the fruit was ripe. Cassander’s son Antipater, his nephew, another Antipater, Alexander’s widow Lysandra, all took refuge with Lysimachus, and all Cassander’s friends looked to him. He married Lysandra to Agathocles, his son by his first wife Nicaea: he had a pretext for war whenever he chose.

A United Greece would still have been the strongest Power between the Adriatic and the Indus; and, as Demetrius had abandoned the idea of winning over Greece, he spent the years 293—289 in attempting to subdue enough of it to give him a preponderance of strength over the states he could not hope to secure—Epirus, Aetolia, and Sparta—and enable him to reconquer Asia. In spring 293 he mastered Thessaly, and assumed the regular place of a Macedonian king as the nominally elected head for life of the Thessalian League. In spite of its frequent revolts, Thessaly stood nearer to Macedonia than any other country, and must have contained larger pro-Macedonian elements; some Greeks refused to reckon it as part of Hellas1, while Macedonians regarded it almost as part of Macedonia; not only were the two dialects akin, but almost every Macedonian proper name is common in ’the Hellenistic Thessalian inscriptions. It may explain why Demetrius founded his name-city on Thessalian (Magnesian) soil. This impregnable fortress, Demetrias, was built on the north side of Pagasae, both apparently being enclosed within one continuous wall; from it the Antigonid kings could keep Greece under observation. It contained the palace and probably the administration buildings, and Pagasae became only the commercial quarter and harbour. Cassander had once similarly planned an enlarged Phthiotic Thebes on the Pagasaean Gulf, but Demetrius went further; Pagasae and every Magnesian town from Cape Sepias to Tempe on the Macedonian border became villages of Demetrias, a unique synoecism which in effect made Demetrias a southward projection of Macedonia. Demetrias came to possess a hereditary corporation of herbalists called ‘Cheiron’s descendants,’ with a secret lore, who healed the sick free. Demetrius next received the submission of the Euboean League—if it was not already his—and Chalcis probably became again a Macedonian fortress; he was worshipped in the Euboean cities, and a month named after him. Boeotia first submitted and then rose under the lead of Pisis of Thespiae, once Antigonus’ partisan; but Demetrius quelled the revolt, and as Boeotia with its 10,000 hoplites was vital to him he showed clemency, pardoned Pisis, and made him polemarch; but he garrisoned some cities and made Hieronymus the historian harmost (governor) over the country, and Boeotia became, like Athens, a subject state; he also acquired Eastern Locris and most of Phocis. As he already held Athens, Corinth, and Megara, he had by winter everything he could hope for north of the Isthmus.

But he was no longer champion of the Greek democracies, as in 302; he now sat in Cassander’s seat, and Cassander’s friends the oligarchs began to look to him. Though difficult, it was not quite impossible to reconcile parties; Alexander had succeeded in some cities, as Nymphis at Heraclea later; and in 294 Demetrius honestly tried to unite the factions at Athens. Though Stratocles was in power, Demetrius won over the moderate Phaedrus, while Stratocles cultivated Philippides of Paeania; and Demetrius then approached the two extremes, the Nationalist democrats and the banished Cassandrean oligarchs. He issued ;a general amnesty, recalled all exiles, and secured as eponymous archon a strong democrat, Olympiodorus, who, though a Peripatetic, was also a patriot, and in the Four Years’ War had defeated ;Cassander; but, generally speaking, he failed to win the democrats; they would not stomach the recall of the oligarchs, and branded the government, which was really composed of Stratocles’followers and the moderate Centre, as oligarchic; the democrats ;at Lysimachus’ court—Demochares and Lysimachus’ friend Philippides of Cephale, writer of comedies, whose lampoons on Stratocles had rendered residence abroad advisable—refused to return under the amnesty, and the democratic opposition of 303 revived. Consequently when in 293 Stratocles died, Demetrius was thrown back upon the moderates, and Phaedrus became leader of the government.

From this time the labels of oligarch and democrat begin to lose their meaning; the real question in most cities was simply, were you for or against the house of Antigonus; and men divided into pro-Macedonians and Nationalists. The kernel of the Nationalist party at Athens was the democratic opposition to Demetrius, but it must have absorbed some moderates; the kernel of the pro-Macedonian party was at first Phaedrus and the moderates, though later the party absorbed the Cassandrean oligarchs. But there was of course some cross-division; the Stratoclean democrats, for instance, were pro-Macedonians. Doubtless there was, as in every self-governing community, an indeterminate body of opinion which might swing either way and transfer power from one party to the other, but there was no longer, as in 301, a separate centre party with leaders; that vanished when Phaedrus joined Demetrius.

In 292 Lysimachus made a mistake; he crossed the Danube, attacked the Getae, and was worn down, like Darius, and compelled to surrender; but the Getic king Dromichaetes released him and secured his friendship. Tradition merely points the moral of the civilized brigand and the noble savage; but in reality Dromichaetes saw the advantage of restoring Lysimachus to ward off from himself a worse danger, Demetrius, who had at once attempted to seize Thrace. During Demetrius’ absence, Boeotia allied herself with Aetolia and Pyrrhus, and rose; and at Athens the extreme oligarchs, who had returned in no pleasant temper, conspired with Boeotia’s help to overthrow both government and constitution. Phaedrus however frustrated their attempt, and Demetrius on his return found that his son Antigonus had already defeated the Boeotians. He besieged Thebes; Pyrrhus in vain attempted to relieve the city by raiding Thessaly, and in 291, after a brave resistance, Thebes fell. Demetrius only executed ten ringleaders; but he deprived Thebes of autonomy and garrisoned the Cadmea. But the revolt had shown him that, before thinking of Asia, he must reckon with Boeotia’s allies, Aetolia and Pyrrhus.

III.

PYRRHUS AND DEMETRIUS

The effective history of Epirus begins and almost ends with Pyrrhus the Molossian, who for a time forced, his backward country into prominence at the expense of its future. Brilliant and attractive, Alexander’s kinsman must have had some good points as a king, for he kept his people’s loyalty in spite of their terrible losses in his wars; but he was essentially a soldier, and lived for war only. Unlike his Macedonian contemporaries, he cared nothing for the advancement of learning; Epirote literature consisted of his military Memoirs, probably based on his Journal, and an epitome of Aeneas’ military manuals made for him by his minister Cineas. Chivalrous in act, he was unscrupulous in breaking his word; he had neither ideas nor a connected policy, and though he could always win battles he never gathered their fruit; Antigonus Gonatas said of him that (in modern phraseology) he held good cards but could not play them. His men thought him a second Alexander; except in military talent, few resembled Alexander less. Modern Albania claims him, and probably he had some Illyrian blood; his people at best were only semi-Greek.

Their three tribal Leagues—Molossians, Thesprotians, Chaonians— had before 300 coalesced into the ‘Epirote alliance,’ a combination of federalism and monarchy under the Molossian king. The king’s power was limited; every year at the holy place at Passaron he took a fresh oath to the people to rule according to the laws, while they, instead of renewing their annual oath to uphold him, could expel him and take another. But, though federalism ultimately conquered, the rule of the energetic and popular Pyrrhus much resembled autocracy. He greatly enlarged the kingdom; Cassander’s son Alexander had ceded to him two Macedonian provinces, Parauaea and Tymphaea, and three vassal countries, Ambracia, Amphilochia, and Acarnania; he also acquired Atintania, and soon afterwards Corcyra, Apollonia, and part of Southern Illyria, thus cutting off Macedonia from access to the Adriatic. He cultivated Egypt’s friendship, and founded a city Berenikis in honour of his Egyptian wife; but Ambracia, which he adorned, became his capital. His offerings at Dodona show that he realized the advantage to Epirus, in Greek eyes, of containing a great oracle; possibly he modernized its buildings and founded the festival Naia.

The Aetolian League will be described later. This brave and democratic people had already begun to expand; between Cassander’s death and 292 they incorporated Western Locris and gained control of Delphi, perhaps through disturbances in Phocis; for though most of Phocis obeyed Demetrius, Aetolia in her treaty with Boeotia in 292 contracted for herself and her Phocian friends, possibly a body of exiles settled in her territory. Her present policy was to maintain the balance of power by supporting the second state in the peninsula against the first; except when Macedonia was divided, this implied opposition to Macedonia.

Demetrius soon found an opportunity of repaying Pyrrhus for his interference on Thebes’ behalf. After Antigone’s death Pyrrhus had married Lanassa, daughter of Agathocles of Syracuse, who brought him Corcyra as her dower; but subsequently he married an Illyrian princess, and in 291 Lanassa left him, retired to Corcyra, and offered herself and her island to Demetrius. Demetrius married her and apparently wintered in Corcyra with her; he cultivated Agathocles’ friendship, and planned to cut a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. Pyrrhus prepared for war, and his ally Aetolia excluded all Demetrius’ friends, including the Athenians, from the Pythian games of 290; and when in that summer Demetrius made a state entry into Athens with Lanassa as the divine pair Demetrius and Demeter, he found the people greatly excited; a popular song, addressed to himself as the Sun, begged him to put down the new Sphinx who was harrying Greece. He quieted the Athenians by celebrating an opposition Pythian festival in Athens, and in spring 289 invaded and ravaged Aetolia. But the wild country was not seriously damaged; and when, leaving Pantauchus with an army to occupy Aetolia, he entered Epirus, Pyrrhus evaded him, defeated Pantauchus, and compelled Demetrius to evacuate both countries; but when he in turn raided Macedonia, his opponent, though ill, easily chased him out again. Then Demetrius made an inconclusive peace; his rear was no more secure than before, but he was impatient to begin the invasion of Asia.

Demetrius’ power, to outward seeming, was great; beside Macedonia, he controlled Thessaly, Athens, Boeotia, Eastern Locris, Phocis, Euboea, Megara, Corinth, Argos and the Argolid, Sicyon, Achaea, all Arcadia except Sparta’s satellite Mantinea, and the Island League. These states were frankly his possessions; he taxed the cities, and some were under his governors—he had a harmost in Boeotia, a nesiarch over the Islands; his money circulated among them, and in many places he was worshipped. Of the independent states, Messene consistently avoided aggression, and Elis would only act in conjunction with Sparta or Aetolia; this left three states as his potential enemies, Greater Epirus, Aetolia, and Sparta. They might raise some 35-40,000 men, half of them Pyrrhus’ troops; but Sparta was isolated, and only Pyrrhus actually threatened Macedonia. Against this, Macedonia could give Demetrius 30-35,000 men, and his Greek possessions at least as many; add his mercenaries, and his capable allies, the semi-organized pirates of the Aegean, and it may really be true that his army list, i.e. the paper total of troops on whom he might draw, amounted to 110,000 men. On land he was far stronger, on paper, than any other king, and at sea he was supreme; he perhaps controlled 300 warships, while Ptolemy had hardly yet restored his standard number before Salamis, 200, and the navies of Lysimachus, Seleucus, Rhodes, Heraclea, and Byzantium were relatively small. In the autumn of 289 he began his preparations for invading Asia and retrieving the failure of 301 by conquering Alexander’s empire. He was already coining freely at Pella and Amphipolis for this purpose; he now built more ships at Corinth, Chalcis, Piraeus, and Pella, and launched among others two galleys of fifteen and sixteen men to the oar, whose speed and efficiency were even more admired than their size.

IV.

THE FALL OF DEMETRIUS

Demetrius’ shipbuilding revealed his intentions, and Lysimachus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy once more revived the coalition of 302 against him, Lysimachus being the moving spirit; his task was to invade Macedonia while Ptolemy raised Athens. Lysimachus presumably knew on what an unstable basis Demetrius’ rule in Macedonia rested, and as he asked no help from Seleucus, whom doubtless he already mistrusted, he may well have felt certain of the ultimate result; but he rather feared Demetrius in the field, so he persuaded Pyrrhus to break his treaty and aid him; Audoleon of Paeonia, another of Pyrrhus’ numerous fathers-in-law, also joined the coalition. In spring 288 Lysimachus and Pyrrhus invaded Macedonia from opposite sides. Demetrius was taken by surprise; his fleet was laid up, his mercenaries distributed throughout Greece. He could only call out the Macedonians and hurry to meet Lysimachus, whom he checked before Amphipolis; but his men’s temper was unsatisfactory, and on the news that Pyrrhus had reached Beroea they began to desert to Lysimachus. Demetrius left a force at Amphipolis to hold Lysimachus, and turned to face Pyrrhus. But the Macedonians, who thought he had no further chance, went over to Pyrrhus in a body (about September 288); Amphipolis was betrayed to Lysimachus; and he and Pyrrhus partitioned Macedonia, Pyrrhus obtaining the larger share and part of the elephants. Demetrius escaped to Cassandreia; there Phila committed suicide. The reason given is the loss of Demetrius’ kingdom; but she had stood by him through every adversity before, and though to modern ideas her life amid his innumerable infidelities must have been a terrible one, no other Hellenistic queen, until Cleopatra VII, took her own life. As tradition praises her as the noblest woman of the age, her death conceals some unknown tragedy, the sadder because, had she lived, she would soon have found rest with her son.

Meanwhile Ptolemy had put to sea; while his battle-fleet watched Corinth, his cruisers under Zeno appeared off Athens some time before July, and on their arrival the Nationalists rose under the lead of Olympiodorus and a young Olympian victor named Glaucon, and overthrew the government; Demetrius’ garrison, probably tampered with, did not interfere, and though he held the Piraeus, Zeno provisioned the city from one of the open roadsteads, for which Athens thanked him in the first days of 288—7. Every Athenian now had to decide for Demetrius or the revolution. Demetrius’ friends, including Phaedrus, who was hoplite-general, were excluded from office, and new magistrates chosen; election by lot was restored, and the single superintendent of the administration replaced by a board, henceforth the distinguishing mark of Nationalist rule. Demochares and Philippides of Cephale were at once recalled, if indeed they had not already started; they arrived soon after the revolution, and Demochares took the lead in the new government. It began well, for Olympiodorus with some volunteers stormed the Museum fort, a captain of mercenaries, Strombichus, coming over with his men; but it then made the mistake of supposing that there was nothing more to fear from Demetrius; it trusted to its friends the kings, and neglected to raise a proper force, for which Demochares must take his share of responsibility.

Demochares has been alike over-praised and over-abused. He had rendered Athens much service as an organizer in the Four Years War, and he now succeeded in the doubtless necessary task of reducing public expenditure; and for six years his government was to maintain Athens’ freedom. But he was a purist in democracy, and would not work with moderate men, whom his circle branded as ‘oligarchs’; his provocative oratory made him many enemies; and it is unpleasant to recall that subsequently, despite his hostility to Demetrius, he tried to get Zeno the philosopher to make interest for him with Demetrius’ son. He was probably a useful politician of the second rank, conscious that as Demosthenes’ nephew he ought to play Demosthenes, but not qualified for the part.

The loss of a second kingdom, the ruin for the second time of his ambition, called out all that was best in Demetrius’ very formidable talents. He hurried to Greece; the mercenaries of his garrisons stood by their oath; he secured Boeotia by restoring autonomy to Thebes, and appeared unexpectedly before Athens with a considerable force. Athens was thoroughly alarmed; she had no army ready, and the walls were perhaps out of repair. Messengers were sent to Pyrrhus and Lysimachus for help, but though Pyrrhus started at once it became apparent that Demetrius would take Athens before he arrived; and an embassy of philosophers, headed by Crates of the Academy, was sent out to beseech Demetrius to spare the violet-crowned city in the name of her illustrious dead. It was not an incident creditable to Athens, though it probably relieved Demetrius of some embarrassment; he had never been vindictive, he retained a tender feeling for Athens, and he did not want to squander his mercenaries on fighting Pyrrhus. He granted the philosophers’ request, and made peace with Pyrrhus on his arrival, each to keep what he had; each merely wanted to turn elsewhere. Pyrrhus entered Athens, sacrificed, and told the people that if they had any sense they would never again admit a king within their walls; then he hurried back to Macedonia. He did not trust Lysimachus. But Lysimachus as usual was in no hurry; he probably suspected that Demetrius was not yet done with, and that he might yet need Pyrrhus.

And indeed Demetrius did carry out his invasion of Asia, but not as he had hoped; his motive probably, as after Ipsus, was vengeance upon Lysimachus. Ptolemy did not interfere; Demetrius was still powerful at sea, and Lysimachus’ troubles would not hurt Egypt. Demetrius left Antigonus as his governor in Greece, and by denuding him of troops shipped 11,000 mercenaries; he landed near Miletus (287), which opened its gates. There he found Phila’s sister Eurydice, Ptolemy’s divorced wife , with her daughter Ptolemais, betrothed to him in 299; the three are probably shown on the Villa Boscoreale fresco, where the sadness of Eurydice’s face is haunting1. He married Ptolemais, and probably spent some time with her at Miletus, recruiting troops; he then invaded Ionia, perhaps late in 287. Some cities he took, some joined him; Lysimachus’ governor put Sardes into his hands. But there were cities that refused to abandon Lysimachus; Demetrius could not take Ephesus, and Priene remained loyal, though attacked, not only by Magnesia, but by the peasants  on her own territory, the Pedieis; the dread their rising inspired can be measured, by the extraordinary present, a crown of 1000 gold pieces, which Priene made to Lysimachus for suppressing it. Ionia was evidently thrown into confusion, but Demetrius’ success was only partial; it was probably in this campaign that Lysimachus’ general in Ionia, Sosthenes, acquired his reputation.

Then in spring 286 Lysimachus’ popular and capable son Agathocles came south with a strong army. Demetrius could not face him, and turned eastward, as Eumenes had once done, hoping to reach Media through independent Armenia and raise the Far East; perhaps he thought of treating Seleucus as Seleucus had treated Antigonus I, and of founding a kingdom in his rear. But Agathocles followed and cut off his supplies; his Greek troops disliked going so far from the sea; he suffered great hardships, lost many men through hunger and plague, and was forced across the Taurus into Seleucus’ province of Cilicia; Agathocles closed the passes behind him to prevent his return. Seleucus was at first inclined to welcome Lysimachus’ enemy, and sent him supplies; but presently, urged by his experienced general Patrocles, he took fright, closed the Amanus passes, and attacked him instead. Demetrius fought ‘like a wild beast cornered’; whatever the odds, he defeated Seleucus in every engagement, captured the Amanic Gates, and opened a way into Syria. Seleucus was at his wits’ end, yet he dared not accept Lysimachus’ proffered help; men from every quarter flocked to Demetrius’ banner, and it looked as if he would yet win a third kingdom, and rule Asia from Seleucus’ throne in Antioch. Then he fell ill. He had recovered from the loss of two kingdoms, but from the loss of his hand on the helm during those critical weeks he could not recover; he arose to find his army reduced by desertion to a remnant of his own mercenaries. He met his fate face to face; he crossed the Amanus, planned a night surprise of Seleucus’ army, which was betrayed, and then attacked him next day and even obtained some success, till Seleucus, bringing up the elephants, dismounted and ran forward bareheaded to the little band of mercenaries who had kept their oath to the end, begging them to abandon their hopeless cause and not force him to kill them. Demetrius escaped, and tried to recross the Amanus, hoping to reach his fleet; but all points were guarded, and finally, starving, he surrendered (285).

V.

LYSIMACHUS

Demetrius had made no treaty with Athens before his departure, and the Nationalist government at once prepared to attack Antigonus, who was short of men. Their vital needs were corn and money to hire mercenaries. Audoleon of Paeonia and Spartocus, dynast of the Crimea, sent corn, but Philippides, who in 287 went to Lysimachus, got nothing but compliments. In 286, however, pressed by Demetrius in Ionia, Lysimachus was ready to subsidize any enemy of his; Demochares went himself and obtained 130 talents from him, while Cassander’s son Antipater gave twenty talents and Ptolemy fifty. The democracy acclaimed Demochares’ services; but they were a confession that Athens could no longer fight without some king’s help. Demochares recovered Eleusis by arms, but the government trusted to Lysimachus’ gold to recover the Piraeus, and bribed the wrong man, a Carian officer named Hierocles, who informed his commander; a gate was opened as arranged, and the Athenians who entered were cut to pieces. Next year, however, 285, Olympiodorus’ Phocian friend Xanthippus, also subsidized by Lysimachus, expelled Antigonus’ garrison from Elatea and perhaps freed Phocis, and Olympiodorus himself crowned his services to Athens by storming the Piraeus; and events elsewhere, with Demetrius’ captivity, compelled Antigonus to make peace.

Lysimachus had benefited by his foresight in leaving Pyrrhus undisturbed since 288; for in 286 he persuaded him that the treaty under which they had partitioned Macedonia, and which probably provided for mutual defence against Demetrius, must override his later treaty with Demetrius; and Pyrrhus in Lysimachus’ interest attacked Antigonus and took all Thessaly except Demetrias. Lysimachus also approached Aetolia, where cities were founded in the names of himself and Arsinoe, while Delphi honoured his general Prepelaus, formerly Cassander’s man. But by winter Lysimachus was satisfied that he need no longer fear Demetrius, and began to show his hand; and Pyrrhus, isolated and afraid, turned round and approached Antigonus, who made a secret alliance with him; that Antigonus should join the man who had so injured his father and himself shows alike to what straits he was reduced and what fear Lysimachus inspired. Once secure in Asia, Lysimachus in 285 tore up his treaty with Pyrrhus and invaded Pyrrhus’ half of Macedonia, and Antigonus sent troops to aid his ally, denuding his garrisons; but Lysimachus outgeneralled Pyrrhus and corrupted his friends, and Pyrrhus abandoned Macedonia and Thessaly to him without a battle, while Antigonus lost Piraeus and had to make peace with Athens. The Macedonian army elected Lysimachus king; Cassander’s son Antipater, who had expected Lysimachus to restore him, apparently protested, whereon Lysimachus, to further his own ambition, put his best friend’s son to death. Aeschylus himself could not have bettered the vengeance which was to be taken by Antipater’s Furies.

But at present it looked as if Lysimachus were Alexander’s destined heir. His power had grown great; he ruled Macedonia, Thessaly (except Demetrias), Thrace, and most of Asia Minor north and west of the Taurus; his Greek cities gave him a navy, and he could turn Antigonus out of Greece whenever he chose. Bithynia indeed under Ziboetes successfully maintained her independence against him, while eastward of Sinope he was cut off by the new kingdom of Pontus, with which he never lived to deal; but in 289 the murder of Amestris by her sons enabled him, in the guise of vengeance for his former wife, to annex Heraclea, which isolated Bithynia and gave him some good ships and a new outlet to the Black Sea; and if Byzantium, independent and wealthy, controlled the Bosporus, anxiety for her territory would prevent her thwarting him. Probably he now made Cassandreia his capital.

Lysimachus may have had less feeling for learning than some of his contemporaries, but Onesicritus wrote at his court, and he perhaps joined Cassander in subsidizing the researches of Dicaearchus the Peripatetic, who in calculating the earth’s circumference used Lysimacheia-Syene as base line; and the tradition that he expelled the philosophers from his kingdom may be untrue, for his finance minister Mithres was the close friend of Epicurus and Metrodorus. Lysimachus is represented as harsh and avaricious, but possibly literary tradition, influenced perhaps by Hieronymus’ friendship for his Antigonid foes, has been less than just; after Ipsus he released his Athenian prisoners without ransom. Certainly his finances were well managed; beside the land tax, he must have taxed manufactures, for it is said no industry was too unimportant to escape his levies. But he did much to foster trade, and the enormous outburst of striking money in the Black Sea cities, first of Alexander’s and then of Lysimachus’ pieces, which replaced their local coinages, probably belongs to his reign; certainly at Sinope, which flourished exceedingly, the change has been dated to about 29o.Pos sibly he was following out certain indications that Alexander, had he lived, would have turned his attention to the Black Sea, and he hoped to make it his lake; the coins suggest that his relations extended from Sinope round to Odessus, and doubtless the powerful Spartocids of the Crimea were his friends, as they both supported Athens in 288; his expedition against Dromichaetes, which recalls Zopyrion’s, may have been made on behalf of the Greek cities. He put Alexander’s head on his coins and renamed Antigoneia Troas Alexandria; and though he was worshipped himself in Cassandreia, Priene, and elsewhere, it was doubtless his doing that the Ionian League substituted for Antigonus as their official god not Lysimachus but Alexander.

Toward the cities his policy was of course Cassander’s; they were subjects, not allies, and he managed the Ionian League (and doubtless the Ilian) through a general, as Cassander had managed the Peloponnese. His policy contained few innovations: he taxed the cities, but so had Athens and Demetrius done; he interfered with their affairs and transferred populations, but so at the end did Antigonus I; he supported tyrants in Priene, Samos, and elsewhere, but Antipater had done the same; if he stopped Callatis coining her local money, it was to replace it by an international issue, like Alexander’s. At Ephesus, however, he curtailed democratic government, and replaced the Council by an oligarchic council of elders, to which he apparently gave control of the revenues of the temple of Artemis, heretofore administered by the semi-oriental priesthood; the temple ceased to be a state within the State, and the bee of Artemis vanished from the coinage. His interferences, though often bitterly resented, were not necessarily arbitrary; when, against the people’s protests, he moved Ephesus nearer to the sea, it was because the harbour was silting up; but that the people had to pay for the new wall1 was characteristic of him. But he ruined Cardia by moving the people to Lysimacheia, of which it became a village, and he destroyed Astacus, which the Bithynians had made their capital. The story that he destroyed Colophon is, however, unfounded; what he did was to quash Antigonus’ synoecism of Lebedus and Teos, and remove some of the people of Lebedus and Colophon to Ephesus; but both continued to exist as cities. But he had to take Colophon by force, perhaps in 286, and the poet Phoenix wrote a lament on his city’s fate. On the other hand, he released the Scepsians whom Antigonus had settled in Troas and allowed them to restore Scepsis, and perhaps gave freedom to Thasos1 and permitted Miletus to coin; and in 286 some cities refused to desert him. He built no important new city except Lysimacheia, though another Lysimacheia occurs in Mysia; but he enlarged Troas and Ilium by new synoecisms, adorned Ilium, completed Smyrna, and refounded Antigoneia on the Ascanian lake, most symmetrical of all Hellenistic cities. He renamed Antigoneia after his first wife Nicaea, his new Ephesus after Arsinoe, and Smyrna after his daughter Eurydice; doubtless the ladies were honorary ‘founders’ and received the taxes as pin-money, though he also presented Arsinoe with Heraclea. Two of the names went out of use on his death; but Nicaea’s endured for centuries, and is still perpetuated in the Nicene creed.

But if Lysimachus secured much when Demetrius fell, he did not secure the sea. During 286 he regained his revolted cities in Asia, except Miletus, where lay Demetrius’ great fleet; Miletus joined Ptolemy as an ally (though Lysimachus recovered it later) and the ships loyal to Demetrius moved to Caunus, but Demetrius’ Phoenician admiral, Philocles king of the Sidonians, carried over to Ptolemy the best of the fleet, including the Phoenician contingents, and therewith Ptolemy also acquired Tyre and Sidon; Demetrius’ dated Tyrian coinage ends with the 287 issue, while its deterioration exhibits his gradual loss of grip. Ptolemy thus gained command of the sea without fighting, and with it the Island League and the prestige of the suzerainty of Delos, where possibly he dedicated Demetrius’ flagship to Apollo, as a sign that the sea had changed hands; he also acquired Thera, while in 285 Philocles gave him a footing in Caria by capturing Caunus. Ptolemy temporarily remitted Demetrius’ taxation in the Islands, as was usual with new acquisitions, and the Islanders replaced the worship of the aforetime Saviours, Antigonus and Demetrius, by that of their new Saviour, Ptolemy, and honoured Philocles as their Deliverer. Ptolemy rewarded Philocles by making him nauarch., i.e. admiral and military governor of the Island League, with powers equivalent to a viceroyalty of the sea; no Asiatic ever again held such a position in any Hellenistic kingdom. Lysimachus indeed secured Lemnos, Imbros, and Samothrace; Arsinoe adorned Samothrace with a new temple, and the island worshipped Lysimachus as a Benefactor. But he wanted more than Samothrace; he bided his time, but carefully informed Delos of his goodwill.

Seleucus alone acquired no territory by Demetrius’ overthrow, though he recovered Cilicia; but he gained indirectly, for all Demetrius’ friends in the cities, and all Lysimachus’ enemies, necessarily turned to him, and parties of ‘Seleucizers’ appeared in Ephesus, and doubtless in every city. In 292, recognizing that he could not govern the Far East from Antioch, he had handed over his wife Stratonice, who had borne him a daughter Phila, to his son Antiochus, and made Antiochus, who as Apama’s son was half Iranian, joint-king and governor of the East, an extension of the Achaemenid practice of making a prince of the blood satrap of Bactria. The reason why he gave Stratonice to Antiochus is lost, but the tradition that she objected seems correct; for her numerous dedications at Delos not only show Antigonus’ sister to have been a religious woman, but reveal the significant fact that she never describes herself as Antiochus’ wife. Antiochus’ capital was the ‘Royal City,’ Seleuceia on the Tigris, where Seleucus had settled many Babylonians, Antigonus I having partially ruined Babylon; in 275 Antiochus ended Babylon’s civil existence, but Seleuceians were still sometimes called Babylonians.

Seleucus received Demetrius honourably on his surrender, and assigned him a residence in a loop of the Orontes, ample, but too well guarded to permit of escape. He indeed spoke of releasing him when Antiochus and Stratonice should come to Antioch; but they never came, and were not meant to come. Antigonus with devoted loyalty offered to cede to Seleucus every city he held and to come himself as hostage if Seleucus would free his father, but Seleucus dared not take the risk of liberating a man still capable of shaking the civilized world; also Demetrius was the one man Lysimachus feared, and the threat of his release could be usefully held over Lysimachus’ head. Lysimachus knew this, and in his hatred he offered Seleucus 2000 talents to murder Demetrius. Seleucus rejected the bribe with scorn; and the ‘dirty piece of savagery,’ as he called it, merely served to deepen the growing distrust between the two kings. Demetrius on his side had managed to send a message to his captains in Greece, telling them to trust no orders that purported to come from him, but to treat him as dead and hold the cities for Antigonus. It made Antigonus’ position clear. He was no longer his father’s lieutenant; he was to act for himself.

VI.

ANTIGONUS GONATAS

Antigonus II Gonatas, son of Demetrius and Phila, now about 35, was to be the second founder of the Macedonian monarchy and the first king whom philosophy could claim as her own. The meaning of his nickname Gonatas is unknown; if Greek, it might be ‘knock-kneed.’ He was a plain, straightforward character, with none of Demetrius’ brilliance and few of his failings; probably he owed much to his mother. Moralists were to cite him as proof that the sins of the fathers are not always visited on their children; he himself said that a man was what he made himself. His blunt sarcastic method of speech was often enough turned against himself; he was perhaps the first to remark that he was no hero to his valet, and to call his defeats strategic movements to the rear. But he had the sense of duty which had characterized Antipater and Phila, and the family loyalty which never failed the Antigonids till the half-Epirote Philip V; above all, he possessed a dogged tenacity which never knew when it was beaten. Statesmanship was his by blood on both sides, and he had learnt from the successes and failures of Cassander, Antigonus I, and Demetrius. His tutor had been the Megarian philosopher Euphantus of Olynthus; but his relations with philosophy really centre on Menedemus and on Zeno the founder of Stoicism.

Menedemus of Eretria was a dignified and cultivated man of the world, prominent in Eretria’s political life, though scarcely an original philosopher; but he possessed a strong personality and a noble character, and his mocking speech, the terror of evildoers, was often belied by kindly actions. His friends compared him to Socrates; like Socrates, he wrote nothing, but tried to call out what was in his pupils by question and conversation. Eretria was an art-loving city, and Menedemus gathered round him a little circle of literary men—the poets Aratus of Soli and Antagoras of Rhodes, Dionysius of Heraclea, afterwards Zeno’s pupil, and the youthful tragedian Lycophron, who wrote a satyr-play Menedemos in his master’s honour; from it has survived an account of Menedemus’ famous suppers, modelled perhaps on Plato’s Banquet, where the guests had to bring their own cushions, and the conversation, more important than the wine, might be kept up till cockcrow. Antigonus had frequented the circle when Demetrius ruled Euboea; Menedemus told him his faults, and Antigonus was fond of him and called himself his pupil. We would gladly know more of Menedemus’ circle, for it is a pleasing picture; there we can forget war, and even the feud between philosophy and life was hushed in that oasis of peace.

But Antigonus’ relations with Zeno went deeper than this; for Zeno had seen a vision of something that transcended peace and war alike, a certainty of the soul that no outward thing could shake. We do not know what it was that, in an Athens full of more immediately successful philosophers, attracted Antigonus to the gaunt Phoenician with the thought-lined face, too shy to lecture, silent where all were talking, outraging men’s minds by his impossible demands on their virtue, but with an idea in him that would move the world. Zeno accepted Antigonus as he did the poorest who came; king or beggar was nothing to him. But he became Antigonus’ friend; and to Zeno a friend meant a second self. We can hardly figure the relationship between the rough-spoken hard-drinking prince and the retiring ascetic; but Stoicism acted as a tonic on strong natures, and Zeno taught his pupil to be free of illusions and false pride; and the two men had this in common, that each could look facts in the face. Zeno himself kept his independence as absolutely as if his friend had been the simplest citizen, and scrupulously avoided everything that might affix the stigma of partiality to his school; he was respected because he respected himself, and none ever called him a proMacedonian. But it is written that with Zeno Antigonus recognized no difference of rank or race, and that his admiration and affection for him knew no bounds; Zeno, so long as he lived, was his inspiration, and Zeno’s approval his reward.

Antigonus in 285 was nothing but a commander of mercenaries who held some Greek cities; having no other revenues, he had to tax the cities to pay his troops, which made him unpopular; and as he had no kingdom at his back, and was not a god, his rule rested on force, and he differed from a tyrant only in being pretender to the throne of Macedonia. He had, however, some officers of ability, including his half-brother Craterus, son of Craterus and Phila, whose devotion to him became proverbial, and Hieronymus; the return of the loyal ships from Caunus gave him a fleet; and Aetolia, now that Lysimachus held all Macedonia, followed her consistent policy by informally joining Pyrrhus and himself. Antigonus, however, could hardly rely on the unstable Pyrrhus, who, moreover, was probably occupied in conquering southern Illyria and Corcyra; and at any moment it might suit 

Lysimachus to appear in Greece in overwhelming force. Lysimachus, however, as usual proceeded methodically; he spent 284 in reducing Paeonia, where Audoleon was dead, and in 283 invaded Epirus, but incurred much unpopularity through his Thracians plundering the tombs of Pyrrhus’ ancestors. It is unknown whether he meant to reduce Epirus and met a rebuff, and also whether he restored Parauaea and Tymphaea to Macedonia or whether this was done by Antigonus after Pyrrhus’ death; but he freed Acarnania from Pyrrhus, and, like Cassander, re-established her as Macedonia’s informal vassal, ready to stab Aetolia in the back when required. Pyrrhus subsequently made a treaty with her and recruited Acarnanian mercenaries for his Italian expedition.

VII.

THE PASSING OF THE SUCCESSORS

In spring 283 Demetrius’ imprisonment ended; the most brilliant figure of the age, broken by hope deferred, had drunk himself to death. Antigonus thereon assumed the royal title, and set out to reconquer his father’s kingdom; but, as he could not hope to defeat Lysimachus, he began with Athens. Athens had been rejoicing in her recovered freedom, and Philippides as agonothetes had celebrated a special festival in honour of Demeter and Kore; but unfortunately the city, amid its gratitude to Lysimachus, had expected him to make an end of Antigonus altogether, and had not prepared for a fresh war. Seleucus, too, who wanted friends for his now inevitable conflict with Lysimachus, turned to Antigonus, and sent back to him Demetrius’ ashes; and Antigonus with his fleet met the funeral ship in the Aegean, and brought the remains of the great sea-king in state to Corinth, and thence to his own city Demetrias.

Lysimachus on his side turned toward Egypt; but he played a double game. The long duel in Egypt between Eurydice and her maid-of-honour Berenice had ended (before 287) in Ptolemy repudiating his wife and marrying his mistress; and in spring 285 he adopted as his heir Berenice’s eldest son Ptolemy and made him joint-king with himself to secure his succession. Eurydice’s eldest son Ptolemy (afterwards called Keraunos, the Thunderbolt), a violent and unscrupulous man, had sought help from Seleucus, who promised to seat him on the throne after his father’s death; but Keraunos could not wait, and went to Lysimachus, who always offered asylum to useful pretenders. But when late in 283 Ptolemy I died—the only Successor who died a natural death—and Berenice’s son succeeded peacefully as Ptolemy II, Lysimachus reinsured himself by giving Ptolemy II as his wife his daughter by Nicaea, another Arsinoe; and Keraunos, hopeless of reinstatement in Egypt, began to aim at position in Macedonia. There he found Lysimachus’ son Agathocles an obstacle. Lysimachus’ court was a mass of intrigue, with his wife Arsinoe and Agathocles’ wife Lysandra each scheming for her own children; but the story that Agathocles played Joseph to Arsinoe’s Zuleika, and that Arsinoe took the usual revenge, is probably untrue; for, speaking generally, the conduct of the earlier Hellenistic queens was good, and the vast mass of scandal we possess leaves them untouched. Arsinoe’s fault was inordinate ambition; but this extraordinary woman did not win the devotion she afterwards obtained from her subordinates without great qualities, and one of her coin-portraits is beautiful with a remote and spiritual beauty which has few parallels in Greek art. Undoubtedly the blame for Agathocles’ death lies with Keraunos. For what happened was that Lysimachus, at the height of his fortune, committed political suicide; the man who had murdered Cassander’s son now murdered his own; he put Agathocles to death for alleged treason, and massacred his friends. It was the end of his dream of Alexander’s empire. Lysandra escaped to Seleucus and sought his help, and, though Lysimachus’ position in Macedonia remained strong, disaffection spread in Asia and large elements rallied to Agathocles’ widow; and Keraunos, who doubtless held high command, could now make himself indispensable to Lysimachus while ingratiating himself with the army. With Lysimachus paralysed, Athens was left to face Antigonus unaided. It was beyond her strength. Antigonus captured the Piraeus, garrisoned Munychia, and by spring 281 starved Athens into surrender; but he acted with moderation, for he was anxiously watching events in Macedonia; he garrisoned the Piraeus, but not the Museum, and was content that his friends came into power again.

Lysimachus’ heavy war-requisitions and his support of certain tyrants increased the disaffection in his cities in Asia; and in 282 Seleucus, perhaps at their invitation, crossed the Taurus. Philetaerus, the eunuch from Tios who had helped to betray Antigonus I to Lysimachus, now betrayed Lysimachus in turn, and surrendered Pergamum and the 9000 talents there to Seleucus; the impregnable Sardes with its treasure was also handed over, and Seleucus was joined by Lysimachus’ enemy Ziboetes of  Bithynia. In 281 Lysimachus with the Macedonian army came south to meet him, and in summer the two old men met on the Plain of Koros in Lydia (Korupedion) in the last of the great battles between the Successors; Lysimachus was defeated and killed, and Seleucus, last survivor of Alexander’s companions, was left with all Alexander’s empire save Egypt at his feet. Arsinoe with her three sons escaped from Ephesus to Cassandreia; Keraunos was captured, and honourably received by the victor.

Seleucus enjoyed his triumph just seven months. He made some attempt to settle Asia Minor; many Greek cities, including Miletus, came over to him, others were ‘liberated,’ and he sent commissioners to settle their affairs; doubtless, as was usual, he at first remitted Lysimachus’ taxes; Priene instituted a Soteria festival to celebrate her release from tyranny, and the prevalent feeling is shown by the drastic laws passed by Ilium and Nisyrus against tyrants. But Samos, where Duris the historian had been tyrant, and possibly Halicarnassus and Cnidus, joined Ptolemy; and at Heraclea, which had bought out Arsinoe’s garrison, Seleucus’ commissioner was expelled, the exiles recalled, and Nymphis the historian actually succeeded in reconciling all parties, the exiles claiming no compensation and the city voluntarily providing for them; and Heraclea, Byzantium, Chalcedon, Cius and Tios formed the so-called Northern League to maintain their independence, and were joined by the Persian prince Mithridates of Pontus, who defeated the army Seleucus sent against him and took the royal title. Seleucus did not wait to clear up the position. He was longing to end his days on Alexander’s throne in Pella; he could claim Macedonia by conquest, though probably he was never legally king, i.e. elected by Lysimachus’ army. Early in 280 he crossed the Dardanelles; but he had forgotten Keraunos. Keraunos saw that Seleucus would not reinstate him in Egypt and had deprived him of all chance in Macedonia; outside Lysimacheia he stabbed him and escaped into the city. Seleucus’ army was leaderless, for his son Antiochus was at Babylon; and Lysimachus’ Macedonians welcomed Keraunos as Lysimachus’ avenger, and hailed him king. Philetaerus ransomed Seleucus’ corpse.

Keraunos had numerous rivals. But Antiochus I was cut off from Europe by the Northern League, with which Keraunos allied himself, thus securing Heraclea’s fleet; Lysandra and her children are not again heard of; and Pyrrhus, occupied with his preparations for invading Italy, was accommodating enough to marry Keraunos’ daughter and borrow some Macedonian troops. But Antigonus and Arsinoe were more dangerous. Antigonus started for Macedonia in spring 280; but Keraunos met him at sea with the fleets of Lysimachus and Heraclea and utterly defeated him, destroying whatever prestige he possessed. Arsinoe was established in Cassandreia with her mercenaries, ruling what she could for her eldest son Ptolemaeus; and if large elements in Macedonia were loyal to Lysimachus’ memory, they might not prefer his avenger to his son, while to take Cassandreia would be difficult. Keraunos tried diplomacy: let Lysimachus’ two heirs pool their resources; let Arsinoe marry him and be again queen of Macedonia, and he would adopt Ptolemaeus as his successor. Arsinoe long hesitated, for Berenice’s daughter could hardly trust Eurydice’s son, but ambition conquered; she gave him her hand, was proclaimed queen, and opened the gates; once inside, he murdered her younger sons, but allowed her to take sanctuary in Samothrace. Ptolemaeus escaped to Illyria, and Keraunos gave Cassandreia to his mother Eurydice.

Antigonus’ defeat heralded an obscure war which lasted from spring 280 to autumn 279. Areus of Sparta regarded himself as the equal of any Successor, and struck money with Alexander’s types and his own name; and, encouraged by the troubles in Macedonia, he reformed the old Peloponnesian League in winter 281 to expel Antigonus from Greece; he secured Elis, most of Arcadia, and part of the Argolid, and allied himself with Antiochus, who saw the advantage of playing the part of champion of Greece left vacant by Lysimachus’ death, and as such restored Lemnos to Athens. Antigonus naturally allied himself with Antiochus’ enemy the Northern League, where Byzantium moreover was his hereditary friend; as the Northern League was Keraunos’ ally, Antigonus must have made peace with him, and indeed he had his hands full in Greece. In spring Areus came northward; Argos and Megalopolis expelled Antigonus’ garrisons and proclaimed themselves free, though naturally they did not join Sparta, and Argos borrowed money from Rhodes to strengthen her walls; and four Achaean cities—Patrae, Dyme, Tritaea, and Pharae— revolted from Antigonus. Areus got shipping at Patrae and invaded Aetolia; the reason is obscure, but possibly his real objective was Boeotia, whither Antigonus had withdrawn after his defeat. Anyhow the Aetolians defeated Areus severely and drove him out; the four Achaean towns then deserted him, reformed the old Achaean League, which had broken up at some period after Ipsus, and looked to Aetolia for help. But in Athens the Nationalists overthrew Antigonus’ friends; Demochares moved a decree in posthumous honour of Macedonia’s great enemy Demosthenes, and Callippus son of Moerocles, an extreme Nationalist1, was elected general in 279. Before autumn 279 Boeotia and Megara were also free, and Antigonus, who had probably lost Euboea after Demetrius’ fall, now held nothing but Demetrias, Corinth, the Piraeus, and a few places in Achaea and the Argolid.

Antiochus himself was detained in Syria by a serious revolt, and sent Patrocles to Asia Minor, where Cyzicus, with subsidies from Philetaerus of Pergamum, now virtually independent, was upholding his cause against the Northern League. But Patrocles found that Bitnynia, though she had helped Seleucus against Lysimachus, had no intention of accepting Seleucus’ suzerainty, and his lieutenant Hermogenes was defeated by Ziboetes, perhaps the old king’s last act. He died that winter, and his son Nicomedes, having murdered all his brothers but one—another Ziboetes who seized the Chalcedon peninsula— joined the Northern League and Pontus against the common foe Antiochus, and presently built himself a capital Nicomedia facing the site of Astacus. The Seleucid empire was now permanently cut off from the Black Sea; in that vast region Lysimachus would have no successor. Antigonus, seeing that after Areus’ defeat Corinth was in no danger, but also seeing no opening in Greece, imitated Demetrius, and in 279 sailed to the Dardanelles to recover what he could in Asia; he joined Nicomedes and threatened Antiochus’ fleet. But by autumn 279 the Gallic invasion made his quarrel with Antiochus seem futile, and the two kings had sense enough to make a real peace2. Their treaty of friendship—the treaty of the age—delimited their spheres: Antiochus was not to interfere west of the Thraco-Macedonian boundary (i.e. in Macedonia and Greece), or Antigonus east of it (Le. in Thrace and Asia); and Antigonus was to marry Antiochus’ half-sister Phila. Probably they did not formally abandon their respective claims within each other’s spheres, but they agreed not to enforce them; and the treaty stood for generations, a cardinal point of Hellenistic politics. Henceforth no king dreams of ruling Alexander’s undivided heritage.

To Egypt the events of these last years were pure gain. The deaths of Demetrius, Lysimachus, and Seleucus had stabilized the sea-power of Ptolemy II without any effort on his part; and in 280 he celebrated the occasion by issuing invitations to all the Greek states to a great festival in Alexandria in his father’s honour, which became the pattern of many other festivals. He also emphasized his command of the sea by founding at Delos, where the Islanders worshipped him beside his father, the vasefestival1 in honour of its gods called the first Ptolemaieia.

VIII.

THE INVASION OF THE GAULS

Keraunos spent the rest of 280 in defeating an attack by Lysimachus’ son Ptolemaeus and his Illyrian allies, which perhaps blinded him to his real danger. For the migrating Galatae (Gauls), whose movements have been previously traced, had now come within striking distance of Macedonia; Lysimachus’ death seemed to render invasion feasible, and Cambaules had already reconnoitred Thrace. Their attack burst upon Macedonia very early in 279, when Keraunos’ Macedonians were in their homes and his mercenaries scattered in winter quarters. The Gauls, whose object was two-fold, plunder and settlement, came in three bodies under different leaders: Bolgius entered Macedonia by the Aotis pass, Brennus, the ‘Rede-giver,’ overran Paeonia, and Cerethrius invaded Thrace. Their actual fighting men cannot have been numerous; but they brought with them slaves, camp-followers, contingents from conquered Illyrian and Thracian tribes, and trains of waggons carrying their families, household goods, and booty; and they were joined by Macedonia’s frontier foemen the Dardanians, whose proffered help Keraunos had declined. Keraunos naturally refused Bolgius’ preliminary offer of peace for cash down. But he chose, or was compelled, to meet him without waiting to mobilize; he was defeated and killed, and the Gauls poured into Macedonia with its king’s head borne before them on a spear.

Panic followed; the walled towns were safe, as the Gauls did not understand siege-works, but the country lay open to plunder. In Cassandreia a proletarian revolution broke out, led by one Apollodorus; Eurydice’s mercenaries joined the mob, and, probably making a virtue of necessity, she surrendered the citadel and was honoured as Liberator, while Apollodorus made himself tyrant and plundered the well-to-do, part of whose property he gave to his followers. The Macedonian army crowned Keraunos’ brother Meleager, dismissed him as incompetent, crowned Cassander’s nephew Antipater, and dismissed him also forty-five days later with the scornful nickname Etesias, ‘King of the Dog-days.’ Lysimachus’ general Sosthenes then took command, but refused the proffered crown; possibly he intended to crown Lysimachus’ son. Bolgius, after plundering his fill, apparently withdrew northward; his force perhaps included the Scordisci, who under Bathanattus founded a kingdom in Serbia, and by their pressure compelled the Illyrians to unite into one state. But Brennus had now entered Macedonia by the Iron Gate (Demir Kapu). Sosthenes fought with him without definite results, but at least prevented him settling, if such were his intention; and in late autumn 279 Brennus too quitted Macedonia, but only to invade Greece. It was Brennus’ movements which led Antigonus and Antiochus to make peace.

Greek writers were unfortunately fond of comparing Brennus’ invasion of Greece with that of Xerxes, and darken counsel with echoes of Herodotus and equally absurd figures. The number of Brennus’ fighting men is unknown; but as 20,000 Gauls held up Asia Minor for years, 30,000 would seem an outside estimate. He advanced through Thessaly, where some land-owners joined him to purchase immunity for their estates, had the Spercheus bridged and left the Thessalians on guard there, and reached Thermopylae. The Greeks holding Thermopylae were some 11-12,000 Aetolians, 10,500 Boeotians, 3500 Phocians, 1500 Athenians under Callippus, 700 Locrians, 400 Megarians, and 1000 mercenaries equally contributed by Antigonus and Antiochus; no Peloponnesians came, as they trusted to Antigonus holding the Isthmus. In view of the jealousy between Aetolia and Boeotia the supreme command was given to Callippus. Brennus made one frontal attack, but saw at once that his hal-farmed followers, however brave, with no body-armour and no weapons except pointless broad-swords, had no chance in a narrow place against spears; he therefore detached a column, which entered Aetolia through Malis, took and burnt the little town of Callium, and butchered the inhabitants. As he hoped, the Aetolians immediately quitted Thermopylae and hurried home. But the whole of Aetolia, men and women alike, had already risen to take vengeance; they fought no pitched battle, but the Gauls were caught in an endless guerilla fight and shot down from behind trees and rocks; less than half escaped, and the Aetolians had made the great discovery that Gauls were only formidable at close quarters. Without the Aetolians the Greeks could still hold the pass, but the mountain paths were ill defended; and Brennus, leaving Acichorius in command of the main body, turned the pass with a flying column, traditionally by the same route as Hydarnes, though he really started farther westward. The Greeks got word in time and scattered to their homes, and Thermopylae lay open to Acichorius.

So far Brennus had shown the qualities of a leader. But he now made a fatal mistake; he decided to raid Delphi for plunder with his flying column, though the main Aetolian force was intact and he himself was ignorant both of its whereabouts and of the defeat of his other column in Aetolia. When the Aetolian leaders heard of the fall of the pass and Brennus’ objective, they were faced with a critical decision: were they to save Greece, or their own Delphi? They chose the course which honour and generalship alike demanded; they detached a few men to organize resistance at Delphi, and with their main body hurried to meet Acichorius, who had passed Thermopylae with his unwieldy train of waggons. Again they fought no pitched battle; but they clung to his flanks, cut off all supplies, and killed when they could; he had made little progress before the fate of Delphi was decided.

Beside the Delphians, there were at Delphi a Phocian force under Aleximachus, 400 Amphisseans, a few Aetolians, and some men from Magnesia on the Maeander, possibly there on other business. Brennus reached Delphi in mid-winter, and tried to storm it; Aleximachus fell in the battle on the wall, but Brennus was checked and Apollo’s temple was not sacked. During the assault a thunderstorm burst, and the priests from the temple came down to the defenders and announced that Apollo was fighting for them; some of the excited warriors afterwards declared that they had themselves seen Apollo manifest in the skies, shooting down the Gauls; that this became an article of official belief will surprise no one. Brennus camped for the night outside the town. That night the Greeks were strongly reinforced, for Phocis was rising as Aetolia had risen; and at dawn, in a blizzard of snow-flakes—the ‘white maidens’ whose help Apollo had promised—they attacked Brennus’ camp with missiles. Against arrows the Gauls were helpless, but they stood till Brennus was shot down; then they slew their wounded, took up Brennus, and set out on their terrible retreat through unknown country, unable to see their way in the snow or retaliate on their guerilla foemen. Few struggled back to Acichorius. But the news had travelled faster than they; the Athenians and Boeotians took the field again, and Acichorius turned back. The Aetolians hung on his rear and chased him north with heavy loss to the Spercheus of, where his Thessalian allies also fell on him; Brennus slew himself in despair; and the remainder the Gauls retreated into Macedonia, after being twice annihilated on the way by patriotic Greek historians.

There was no question as to who had saved Greece. The Aetolians had borne the burden of the campaign; they had discovered how to defeat Gauls, and had held back the main body of the enemy single-handed. From this year dates the new importance of Aetolia. Beside statues of her generals, she set up at Delphi her monument of victory, an heroic figure of Aetolia as an armed woman seated on a pile of Gallic shields; the shields themselves were hung on the temple to match the Persian shields taken at Marathon. The Amphictyons instituted at Delphi a festival of the Soteria, the Deliverance of Greece, and rewarded Phocis, who had fought well, by restoring to her the Amphictyonic votes she had lost after the Sacred War; and for centuries the hymns of Apollo’s temple recalled with triumph the repulse of the barbarians.

We may follow the wanderings of the Gauls to their end before returning to Macedonia. Two tribes, the Tolistoagii or Tolistobogii (? Tolistovagi) and the Trocmi, under their ‘kings’ Leonnorius and Lutarius, had separated from Brennus before he entered Macedonia, but in 278 had reached the sea. They advanced plundering along the coast to the Dardanelles, but Antiochus’ governor refused to let them cross; Leonnorius then went on to Byzantium, where Nicomedes engaged him to attack Ziboetes and brought him over; Lutarius captured some boats and crossed the Dardanelles, and Ziboetes was soon disposed of. Meanwhile a third tribe, the Tectosages, who had been with Brennus in Greece, had followed the others, and also crossed. Their combined forces numbered 20,000 men, with women and children; only half were armed, but Nicomedes armed the others. The whole body was in the service of Nicomedes and his ally Mithridates of Pontus; their business was to worry Antiochus, which they did after their own fashion. They divided the Seleucid territory into spheres of plunder; the Tolistoagii took Aeolis and Ionia, the Trocmi the Dardanelles region, the Tectosages, the last to arrive, the less wealthy interior. Then there fell upon Asia Minor the horrors which Greece had largely escaped. Literature supplies only echoes of the great raid: how Themisonium and Celaenae were, like Delphi, saved by their gods from the ‘late-born Titans’ who burnt temples and warred against heaven; how at Miletus some captured girls slew themselves to avoid worse; how a girl would have betrayed Ephesus for the Gauls’ golden bracelets, and was crushed to death beneath their weight. But the inscriptions show that seldom can so few men have created such a panic. The reason given was their cruelty to prisoners; but the very different ways in which they were met in Greece and Asia show that the cause lay far deeper.

In fact in 277 Asia Minor was threatening to break up, and there was no strong central authority. Mithridates had extended his kingdom along the coast to Amastris, thus marching with Heraclea, which had bought Tios; inland he was advancing from the lower Halys and Iris into northern Phrygia, and the unconquerable Bithynia was seemingly extending into Northern Phrygia also to meet him. There were probably native dynasts in inner Paphlagonia, and all Pisidia was independent; Egypt held part of Lycia, together with Miletus and probably Halicarnassus and Cnidus. Antiochus was needed everywhere, and he could not leave Syria. There was no common action against the barbarians; even the cities of the Ionian League, weary of war and hampered by Miletus’ defection, no longer co-operated. Cyzicus in 277 fought the Trocmi by herself, with Philetaerus’ subsidies. The Tolistoagii, having failed to seize Ilium, came down the coast in bands. Arcesilas the philosopher went to Antigonus for help for his city, Pitane, which Antigonus could not give. Philetaerus himself consolidated his rule by driving the Gauls off from Pergamum; Miletus seemingly fought, but Erythrae and other cities paid ransom to save their lands from plunder. Priene would neither fight nor pay; she let her lands be ravaged, until Sotas, a private citizen, hired some men himself, armed his slaves, and had success enough to attract volunteers, whereon he met the Gauls fairly and saved many country people by bringing them within the walls; that he had time to do this shows that the band which held up Priene took some time to work through its lands, and was therefore very small. At last, late in 277, Antiochus managed to come; but in 276 Ptolemy’s invasion recalled him to Syria, and though he left his son Seleucus at Sardes, the Gauls apparently continued their operations, for in 275 they were at Thyateira. But that year saw the end of the first great raid; Antiochus defeated them thoroughly and restored his kingdom, and the cities worshipped him as a Saviour.

After this, things quieted down in one way, for Nicomedes and Mithridates settled the Gauls on the territory in northern Phrygia (Galatia) taken from Antiochus, as a buffer against him; but the Seleucids were too fully occupied elsewhere ever to deal radically with the barbarians, and for many years they exacted tribute from the Seleucid kings as a condition of sparing their cities, and a special ‘Galatian’ tax was raised from the cities to pay it. Galatia was a poor country, but it gave the Gauls what they wanted, strongholds in which to leave their families and booty while they raided. The Tolistoagii settled about Pessinus, the Trocmi about Tavium, the Tectosages between them about Ancyra (Angora); each tribe was normally ruled by four tetrarchs, the ‘kings’ whom we hear of being merely temporary warleaders; but the three tribes had a common sanctuary called Drynemetos (unidentified), possibly a circular moot in a grove, where (perhaps later) a joint council of 300 elders tried criminal cases. The Phrygian peasants tilled the land for them, and they increased fast, but did not occupy any towns till much later; for long they kept their native customs, a foreign body which the Seleucid empire could not assimilate, always ready to sell their swords to the highest bidder.

IX.

ANTIGONUS, KING OF MACEDONIA

The events of 279 had disorganized Macedonia, and in spring 278 Antigonus invaded the country from Thrace and obtained a footing, but Sosthenes drove him out, probably in spring 277, and he retired again into Antiochus’ territory; evidently the memory of Lysimachus was still strong in Macedonia, while a city Sosthenis appears among the Aenianes. The last body of Gauls, that which under Cerethrius had invaded Thrace, now appears on the scene. Their slow progress shows the resistance of the Thracian tribes; but in 277 part of them reached the sea and threatened Lysimacheia. Antigonus, whether by accident or design, was near the city; he met the Gauls, and by a ruse compelled them to fight with their backs to the sea; the god Pan spread his panic terror among them, and Antigonus cut them to pieces. The effect was great, for a Gallic army had never yet been broken in a stand-up fight; it gave Antigonus the prestige he so sorely needed. He probably entered Macedonia again at once; Sosthenes was apparently dead, the country in anarchy, and this time, late in 277 or early in 276, the Macedonian army elected him king. Greek cities thanked him for his victory, and Eretria’s decree, moved by Menedemus, emphasized the return of the exile to his home. But the interior of Thrace was lost to Hellenism; the kingdom of the Odrysae revived, and the rest of Cerethrius’ Gauls, under Commontorius, founded the kingdom of Tylis, which extended from the Danube to Byzantium, and for two generations was strong enough to blackmail the coastal cities; even Byzantium ended by paying eighty talents a year to secure her territory from plunder.

Antigonus spent 276 in consolidating Macedonia, where there were three pretenders—Antipater Etesias, Lysimachus’ son Ptolemaeus, and one Arrhidaeus, who possibly claimed descent from Philip III. As however he could not call out the Macedonians, utterly weary of fighting, in a domestic quarrel with the houses of Cassander and Lysimachus, and dared not waste his own mercenaries, his ultimate support, he imitated Nicomedes, and enlisted those Gauls who still roamed the country; once done, every king enlists Gauls as a matter of course. They disposed of the pretenders for him; Ptolemaeus escaped to Egypt, as did Antipater, who played no further part in affairs. The Gauls tried to bluff Antigonus over their pay, and failed, which gave them an added respect for the man who had defeated their countrymen. But he also had to deal with Apollodorus, of whose wickedness and nightmare terrors a lurid account remains, possibly derived from a tragedy of Lycophron’s; and Gauls were useless against the walls of Cassandreia. He turned to Demetrius’ friends the pirates; and, while he was recovering Thessaly, the arch-pirate Ameinias, afterwards his general, stormed Cassandreia for him. By the end of 276 Antigonus was master of his kingdom. He did not forget Pan’s help; his worship was officially established at Pella, and his head figured on Antigonus’ new tetradrachms, occasionally wearing the diadem; but none of these coins can be portraits of Antigonus, if, as seems probable, the thoughtful face of the young king of the Villa Boscoreale fresco be his. Apparently too Antigonus instituted a festival of kingship called Basileia, to commemorate his victory; Greek cities sent religious envoys to him to some festival. That winter he celebrated, with much circumstance, his marriage with Phila; his friends from Athens and Eretria were bidden, and Aratus of Soli wrote two hymns for the occasion: one praised Pan for his help at Lysimacheia, which had given Antigonus his kingdom; the subject of the other was the treaty which had given Antigonus his bride, and which might do something to give peace to a distracted world.

By 275 the kingdoms, after all the fighting, had thus returned to much the shape they had before Alexander. Antigonus ruled most of Philip’s Macedonia, less Thrace. Antiochus held most of what the Achaemenids had held after losing Egypt and India. Ptolemy represented Pharaoh, but with greatly increased territory. Macedonia however was relatively much weaker, while Ptolemy’s empire was relatively so much stronger that for a generation the natural grouping was to be that of Antigonid and Seleucid in opposition to Egypt. But the principal difference— a very great one—was that Egypt and Asia were now officially, and to some extent actually, occupied by a different civilization, which was extending even into semi-barbarous states like Bithynia. It illustrates the fact that Alexander’s work had primarily been neither military nor political, but cultural.

CHAPTER IV. PTOLEMAIC EGYPT By M. Rostovtzeff