After Alexander died of
some mysterious illness or poison
at Babylon in June 323 BC, the
bodyguards summoned
his principal friends and officers.
Perdiccas
placed on the empty throne the ring Alexander
had given him while
dying and suggested they wait to see
if the pregnant Roxane would
give birth to a son who could
be king, but Ptolemy and others
disliked being ruled
by the son of an Asian mother.
The general
Meleager objected to being ruled by Perdiccas
in a regency and
walked out to join disgruntled soldiers.
To avoid civil war, someone
suggested Philip's son
Arrhidaeus
could be king as Philip III,
and though considered retarded, he
had enough presence
to prevent imminent fighting; it was agreed
that
Meleager
would be a third general after Craterus and Perdiccas.
A barbaric Macedonian ritual was arranged in which
a dog was
cut in two, and the army was supposedly purified.
At the urging
of Perdiccas though, Philip III allowed 300 men,
who had instigated
the discord with Meleager,
to be trampled to death by the elephants,
and Meleager was later murdered in a temple.
It was decided that
the king would hold supreme power
with Ptolemy satrap in Egypt
and Libya, Leomodon in Syria,
Philotas in Cilicia, Antigonus in
Lycia and greater Phrygia,
Cassander in Caria, Menander in Lydia,
Leonnatus in western Phrygia, Eumenes in Cappadocia,
Pithon in
Media, Lysimachus in Thrace,
and the eastern provinces were to
stay the same.
Perdiccas was to command the army for the king.
Alexander's body in an elaborate funeral procession was
headed
for Macedonia, but in Damascus
it was diverted to Egypt by Ptolemy.
When news of Alexander's death in Babylon reached Athens,
Demades
doubted it, saying if it were true, the whole world
would stink
with the dead body.
Already upset by the decree that they must
readmit exiles
and thus give up Samos, Athens led by Hyperides
and
Leosthenes voted to equip 200 triremes and 40 quadriremes
and put all men under forty in the military.
Phocion opposed war
but continued as a general,
while Pytheas, Callimedon and others
fled to Antipater
and helped to discourage the revolt among the
Greeks.
With Athenian arms and money Leosthenes hired
8,000 mercenaries
at Taenarus.
Hyperides and Demosthenes
recruited allies in the
Peloponnese, though because of the recently
defeated
Spartan revolt, little help came from there.
In gratitude
for his patriotic efforts Demosthenes was
welcomed back to Athens,
which paid his fine.
The Athenians and Aetolians did get strong
cavalry
support from Thessaly as well as Achaeans, Dorians
a
few Illyrians and Thracians, Carystians from Euboea,
and some
Argives, Sicyonians, Eleians, and Messenians
from the Peloponnesian
peninsula.
The league established at Corinth was dissolved,
and
a new Hellenic league was formed.
Macedonian ruler Antipater sent
to Craterus in Asia for aid.
Athenian Leosthenes led a force to the pass at Thermopylae
and attacked and defeated the Boeotians
so that allies could join
him.
In the first battle with Antipater the Thessalian cavalry
helped
the Athenians and their allies defeat Antipater's Macedonians,
who took refuge in Lamia.
Antipater asked to negotiate; but Leosthenes
demanded
surrender and besieged the fortress, though he did not
have
the equipment to storm the town successfully.
Knowing that
Macedonian reinforcements were sure to arrive,
Phocion noted that
the short sprint had been run well,
but he doubted they had the
strength for the long course.
Leosthenes was hit by a stone from
a catapult and died;
he was replaced by Antiphilus.
A Macedonian
army of 20,000 with 1500 cavalry was led
from Asia by Leonnatus,
but he was defeated and killed
by the Hellenic league's 22,000
infantry and 3500 cavalry
after they left Lamia, allowing Antipater
to withdraw
with the remaining forces into Macedonia.
At a funeral
for Leosthenes and others Hyperides spoke
of their courage to
safeguard the universal liberty of Greece
through the rule of
law.
If men are to be happy, the voice of law,
and not a ruler's threats, must reign supreme;
if they are free, no groundless charge,
but only proof of guilt, must cause them
apprehension; nor must the safety of our
citizens depend on those who slander them
and truckle to their masters
but on the force of law alone.1
However, a Macedonian fleet of 240 ships defeated the
Athenian
navy in two major battles off the coast of Aetolia
and at Abydos
near the Hellespont.
Many of the Greek allies who had volunteered
went home,
and Craterus arrived with 43,000 troops and 5,000 cavalry
to defeat the league at Crannon in August 322 BC.
With the isthmus
to the Peloponnesian peninsula blocked
and Athens' harbor at Peiraeus
blockaded,
Athenians had to submit; they recalled the disenfranchised
Demades and sent him with Phocion, Demetrius of Phalerum,
and
Academy head Xenocrates to Antipater,
whose turn it was to demand
surrender.
By Antipater's refusing to negotiate with the league
as a whole and by granting favorable terms to the allies,
Aetolia
and Athens were left isolated.
Athens was required to pay the cost of the war,
accept a Macedonian
garrison at Munychia,
disenfranchise and exile more than half
their citizens,
transfer Samos to its natives and exiles,
and
surrender Demosthenes, Hyperides
and two other
anti-Macedonian politicians
(who were hunted down
and killed).
Xenocrates commented that these terms were moderate
if they were slaves but severe if they were free men.
Phocion
argued against the garrison, and it was agreed
it might be removed
when the disenfranchised Athenians
went into exile; but the garrison
stayed fifteen years.
Athens thus became an oligarchy run by its
richest
9,000 citizens, who had property over 2,000 drachmae
(a drachma being a skilled worker's day's wage);
this marked
the end of Athenian naval power.
Aetolians retreated into the
mountains unconquered,
as Antipater and Craterus returned to Macedonia
before crossing over to Asia to challenge Perdiccas
in alliance
with Antigonus and Ptolemy.
In Libya Thibron, who had probably
killed Harpalus
on Crete, with the mercenaries attacked and besieged
Cyrene.
The poor drove out the rich, who fled to Egypt and appealed
to Ptolemy; he sent a force led by Ophellas,
which defeated the
democrats and Thibron's forces.
Roxane had given birth to a son, Alexander IV;
now there were
two kings.
When Philip II's
daughter Cynane arranged for her daughter
Eurydice to marry Philip
III, Olympias instigated Perdiccas
and his brother Alcetas to
murder Cynane;
but the soldiers were so upset that they had
to
allow the king to marry Eurydice.
Perdiccas, leaving Alcetas and
Eumenes in Cappadocia,
marched into Egypt, where a botched crossing
of the Nile
lost 2,000 men; his army mutinied,
killed him, and
joined Ptolemy.
Eumenes, not telling his men
they were fighting
against Craterus,
killed Neoptolemus in single combat and won
a victory
in which Craterus was also killed.
The message from
the Greek Eumenes to Perdiccas was
read by the Macedonian army,
which declared Eumenes
an enemy and killed supporters of Perdiccas.
Antipater became guardian of the two kings while in Syria,
and
the satrapies of Antigonus and Ptolemy were confirmed,
while Seleucus
was given Babylon, Antigenes Susa,
and Peucestes held Persia.
Antigonus went to war against Eumenes and defeated him
in Cappadocia,
killing 8,000;
but Eumenes escaped to a fortress in Armenia.
Antigonus
consolidated Lydia and Phrygia and built a fleet
that destroyed
Alexander's navy commanded by Cleitus
for Polyperchon, while Ptolemy
sent an army
that took over Syria and Phoenicia.
Antipater returned to Macedonia with the two kings
and died
of illness, having appointed Polyperchon administrator
and as
chief bodyguard his son Cassander, who immediately
replaced the
governor of the Munychia
garrison at Athens with Nicanor.
Next
Cassander allied himself with Antigonus and Ptolemy
against the
imperial dynasty, which turned to Eumenes in Asia.
Olympias came
to Macedonia but became unpopular
for executing Antipatrian partisans.
Having escaped a siege with an oath of allegiance
to the royal
family and driven from the Phoenician coast,
Eumenes went east
to gather support.
Seleucus would support the kings but would
not obey
Eumenes, who had been condemned by a Macedonian army.
So Eumenes captured and garrisoned Babylon but was
flooded out
by Seleucus and Pithon, who opened a dike.
In Persia Eumenes was
supported by Antigenes,
Peucestas, and the imperial army.
Two
large battles were fought against the army of Antigonus;
but when
the wives and children of his veterans were
captured with the
baggage, they mutinied and gave up
Eumenes to get them back.
Antigonus
executed Eumenes
and had Antigenes burned alive.
Seleucus, fearing
treachery when called to account
by Antigonus, fled to Egypt,
where Ptolemy treated him kindly.
To gain favor in Greece, Polyperchon proclaimed for the kings
that exiles (with a few exceptions) were to return to the cities,
which were to have the autonomy they had
under Philip and Alexander.
So the Athenians asked the Macedonian garrison to leave
Munychia;
but Nicanor, serving Cassander and refusing
to obey Olympias'
order to surrender it, took over the
harbor at Peiraeus and was
reinforced by Cassander
before Polyperchon's son Alexander arrived.
Phocion, whose trust of Nicanor had allowed this,
now urged the
Athenians to let Alexander's troops into Athens,
but the growing
number of exiles returning voted to depose
those who held office
in the Antipatrian oligarchy,
which included Phocion and Demetrius
of Phalerum,
who took refuge with Nicanor while Phocion went to
Alexander's camp and was accused of treason.
His "trial"
was by a large mob that included foreigners
and slaves, and very
few could hear him over the shouting;
finally Phocion exclaimed
that he pleaded guilty and
pronounced his own death sentence but
then asked
why the others who were not guilty should be punished
too.
Nonetheless Phocion and four others were executed
with
poison
hemlock, but Demetrius of Phalerum went into exile.
Within three
months Cassander arrived with an army,
and the oligarchic party
put to death their prosecutor
and recalled Demetrius of Phalerum.
Polyperchon brought an army of 25,000 but could not retake
Piraeus; he operated from Corinth
but failed to take Megalopolis.
The Athenians made terms with Cassander that lowered the
property
requirement for citizenship to 1,000 drachmae,
but Cassander
retained the garrison of Munychia for the
duration of the war;
Demetrius of Phalerum was put in charge
of the government as a
despot under Cassander and held
that position for ten years.
Athens
was said to have 400,000 slaves, a vast majority.
Many Greek cities
supported Cassander, and for the first time
in its long and proud
history Sparta built
a wall of defense around the city.
Olympias, supported by prince Aeacides of Epirus, marched
back
to Macedonia, imprisoned and had killed Philip III
and his wife
Eurydice
(who chose suicide by hanging) and a hundred
prominent
friends of Cassander.
However, Cassander's army escaped from the
Peloponnese
and besieged Olympias at Pydna;
when the Macedonian
soldiers were too awed by
Alexander's mother to kill her, some
relatives
of her victims murdered Olympias.
Cassander joined with
Lysimachus of Thrace,
Ptolemy of Egypt, and Seleucus of Babylon
to challenge
the growing power of Antigonus,
while Polyperchon
retreated to Aetolia.
Cassander revived the city of Thebes and,
sailing across
to Epidaurus, retook Argos and Messenia
from Polyperchon's
son Alexander.
Antigonus had Cassander condemned by a Macedonian
council for killing Olympias and recalling Olynthian exiles.
Antigonus
took over Phoenicia, put his son Demetrius at Gaza,
and built
a fleet of 240 large ships; he also proclaimed
Greek freedom and
self-government.
Antigonus was imitated in this proclamation by
Ptolemy;
this stimulated Cyrene to revolt against Ophellas,
but
it was quelled.
In 313 BC Antigonus sent forces to the Black Sea, Miletus
and
Caria, the Peloponnesian peninsula, and Chalcis before
approaching
the Bosphorus with his army;
but he was blocked there by Lysimachus.
Ptolemy with an army of 22,000 attacked Demetrius at Gaza,
where
8,000 mercenaries surrendered;
Peithon and perhaps Nearchus were
killed,
and Demetrius fled.
Ptolemy then recovered Phoenicia and
Syria and settled
surrendering mercenaries and Jews at Alexandria.
This enabled Seleucus to raise an army and occupy Babylon,
defeating
and enlisting most of the 17,000 troops of Nicanor
before going
on to take Media and Susiana.
Antigonus recovered Syria and Phoenicia
as Demetrius
captured 7,000 of Ptolemy's troops at Myus,
and Cyrene's
Ophellas became independent.
Eventually after it was agreed that
Antigonus should rule in Asia,
Lysimachus in Thrace, Ptolemy in
Egypt,
the Greek cities be free, and Cassander command
in Macedonia,
Cassander had Roxane
and the young Alexander IV killed.
Antigonus
encouraged the forming of the Ionian and Aeolian
Leagues, founded
several new cities, collected contributions,
and interfered with
grain trading.
Cassander offered to let Polyperchon's son Alexander
govern
the Peloponnese under him; he accepted and fought
against Antigonus'
supporter Aristodemus until Alexander
was assassinated, though
his widow held onto Sicyon.
Antigonus encouraged Polyperchon to
support Alexander III's
son
by Barsine, Heracles, and to invade Macedonia;
but Cassander offered
him the Peloponnese also,
and Polyperchon, accepting, murdered
young Heracles.
The army of Antigonus ravaged Babylon but could
not
subdue Seleucus, stimulating Ptolemy to send forces
to Cilicia
against Antigonus.
When Ptolemy wanted to marry Cleopatra, a full
sister
of the "great" Alexander
III, she was assassinated
by order of Antigonus, who blamed
it
on some women he then executed.
Only Cassander's wife Thessalonica,
a daughter of Philip
by a Thessalian mistress, survived of the
royal family;
all the rest were murdered in these power struggles
between the successors.
Ptolemy brought an army into Greece and
took over
Corinth and Sicyon, proclaiming himself a liberator
of
Cassander's garrisons; but angry the Peloponnesians
did not
make the contributions they promised,
he made an agreement with
Cassander,
left his own garrisons in Corinth and Sicyon,
went
back to Egypt, and recovered Cyrene
after the death of Ophellas.
In 307 BC Antigonus' son Demetrius took the Peiraeus
by surprise,
allowed Demetrius of Phalerum to retreat to
Thebes and then Egypt,
and captured the Cassandrian
garrisons at Munychia and Megara,
declaring the
Megarians free and destroying the fortifications
at Munychia.
The Macedonian Demetrius entered Athens triumphantly,
restored its democracy,
and promised a large distribution of wheat.
Athenians responded by declaring Demetrius and his father
Antigonus
not only kings but gods and saviors.
Those in the previous Athenian
government who did not go
into exile but stayed for a trial were
acquitted.
Resentment of the aristocratic government of Cassander
and
Demetrius of Phalerum influenced by the philosopher
Theophrastus
(Aristotle's successor) and the speech-writer
Deinarchus led a
Sophocles to propose and pass a law that
no philosopher could
open a school without permission
of the council and assembly.
Theophrastus and other philosophers left Athens,
but a year later
Philon of the Peripatetic school prosecuted
Sophocles for an unconstitutional
law,
and the latter was fined five talents; it was repealed,
and
the philosophers returned along
with a new one named Epicurus.
Demetrius, aided by thirty quadriremes from Athens,
at Cyprus
defeated Ptolemy, who lost 120 warships
and had 8,000 mercenaries
captured.
Demetrius and his father Antigonus
began calling themselves
kings.
Antigonus with 88,000 men, the largest Greek army ever,
and a comparable navy led by Demetrius invaded Egypt;
but storms
scattered the fleet, and Ptolemy won over many
of Antigonus' mercenaries
with money.
Now Ptolemy was called king of Egypt, and the royal
title
was soon adopted by Lysimachus in Thrace,
Seleucus in Babylon,
and Cassander in Macedonia.
Next Rhodes with help from Ptolemy
held out for more
than a year against the huge siege engines of
Demetrius
before peace was made; Rhodes sold the abandoned
siege
engines and used the money to build the famous
Colossus of the
Sun over its harbor.
Demetrius returned to Athens and, for relieving
them
from a blockade by Cassander, was gratefully welcomed
in
triumph once again, only to turn
Athena's Parthenon into a harem.
Demetrius helped liberate much of Greece,
married Pyrrhus' sister
Deidameia, and revived the league
of Corinth as a Panhellenic
congress,
though it lacked Thessaly, Sparta, and Messenia.
Antigonus, now eighty years old, refused to negotiate with
Cassander, and so Cassander formed an alliance with
Lysimachus,
Ptolemy, and Seleucus.
In 302 BC Demetrius invaded Thessaly with
57,500 men
and was met by Cassander with 31,000.
However, when
Lysimachus crossed the Dardanelles and
Seleucus marched west with
500 elephants
he had gained in a treaty with India's Chandragupta,
Antigonus recalled his son Demetrius to Asia.
Two of Antigonus'
generals in Asia Minor,
Docimus and Phoenix, betrayed him.
Lysimachus
married the widow of Dionysius
to secure Heraclea as winter quarters.
Demetrius made a truce with Cassander,
recovered the Dardanelles,
and wintered in Ephesus.
Ptolemy invaded Syria but returned to
Egypt after hearing
a false report that Lysimachus had been defeated.
At Ipsus in 301 BC Lysimachus joined forces with Seleucus,
and
though supported by his son Demetrius,
Antigonus was defeated
and killed.
Demetrius fled to Ephesus, and Antigonus' kingdom
was divided between Lysimachus and Seleucus.
Athenians passed a law declaring their neutrality
and forbidding
any king to enter the city;
thus they sent away Demetrius and
his wife Deidameia,
though Lachares, supported by Cassander's
soldiers,
took despotic control.
Exiles joined Demetrius, who
recovered much of the
Peloponnese and blockaded Athens into starvation
(by hanging the captain of a wheat shipment to terrorize others)
until they opened their gates to him, as Lachares escaped.
Cassander
died in 298 BC, and his younger son Alexander
appealed to Demetrius;
but Pyrrhus, secured as king of Epirus
by Ptolemy's help, got
to Macedonia first
and was given western territory by Alexander.
Demetrius brought his army, wounded and defeated Pyrrhus,
murdered
Alexander, expelled his brother Antipater,
and proclaimed himself
king of Macedonia in 294 BC.
When Boeotia allied itself to Pyrrhus
and the Aetolian League,
Demetrius took Thebes, its money,
and
garrisoned it, as he had Athens.
Demetrius levied 98,000 soldiers, 12,000 cavalry,
and had his
fleet built up to 500 galleys
in preparation for an invasion of
Asia.
However, the coalition of Lysimachus, Seleucus,
and Ptolemy
called in Pyrrhus.
Afraid his army would desert to Lysimachus,
Demetrius marched against Pyrrhus; but the army,
not wanting to
fight for his luxuries, mutinied and went over
to the Epirote
king, as Demetrius fled in a disguise.
So in 288 BC while Ptolemy
crossed the Aegean to attack
Demetrius at Athens and Corinth,
Pyrrhus and Lysimachus
conquered and divided Macedonia,
Pyrrhus
yielding the crown to Lysimachus.
Demetrius retired to Cassandrea,
where his wife Phila poisoned
herself.
Athenians had overcome the garrison in the Museum;
but
an attempt to attack the Piraeus garrison was betrayed,
and 419
Athenians were killed.
However, the Cynic philosopher Crates managed
to persuade Demetrius to lift his siege
and not fight Pyrrhus
over Athens.
Then Demetrius left his son Antigonus Gonatas in
charge
of the remaining garrisons in Greece,
while he crossed
over to Asia Minor and took Sardis.
The army of Lysimachus drove
Demetrius into Phrygia,
and he considered going to Armenia and
Media;
but hunger took 8,000 men, and they retreated south
to
Tarsus and Cilicia, where his mercenaries
defected to Seleucus,
who captured Demetrius
and allowed him to drink himself to death,
which came in 283 BC.
The same year Berenice's son Ptolemy II Philadelphus
succeeded
in Egypt.
Berenice's daughter Arsinoe II, now queen of Macedonia
as wife of Lysimachus, got his popular son Agathocles
executed
for treason, which caused many
to join Seleucus in Anatolia.
Lysimachus
marched his army there but was defeated
and killed in Lydia in
281 BC.
Seleucus went to Macedonia to claim the crown,
but he
was assassinated by Ptolemy Ceraunus,
Eurydice's disinherited
son,
who now married his half-sister Arsinoe II.
Seleucus had
already arranged
for his son Antiochus to succeed him.
Antigonus
Gonatas marched north to discover a large invasion
of Celtic Gauls
defeating and killing Ceraunus;
only a legendary miracle of snow
at Delphi,
the pursuing Aetolians, and a defeat by Antigonus Gonatas
in Thrace were able to push the Gauls back out of Greece
and across
the Hellespont into Anatolia,
where they settled as Galatia.
The
Macedonian crown passed quickly from Ceraunus
to Meleager to Antipater
and to Sosthenes until in 277 BC
Antigonus Gonatas established
the Macedonian dynasty
that would last more than a century.
Pyrrhus
returned from campaigning in Italy and ravaged
the Peloponnesian
peninsula, but he was eventually defeated
and killed at Argos
by the combined armies of
Sparta and Macedonia in 272 BC.
In 334 BC Alexander of Epirus had attacked Lucanian,
Bruttian,
and Samnite raiders in Italy,
where he was killed by a Lucanian
exile.
In Greek Sicily the Syracusan constitution of Timoleon
had been overthrown by an oligarchy of 600.
Syracuse sent a force
to help Crotona fight off the Bruttians.
The strong Agathocles
fought bravely,
and resenting not being honored,
he organized
his own force and tried twice
to seize the government of Syracuse.
By dressing as a beggar Agathocles escaped assassination;
but
supported by Carthaginians,
he was appointed a general in Syracuse
by the 600.
In 317 BC his soldiers murdered forty senators,
then
ravaged the city killing 4,000,
as 6,000 fled or were expelled.
Calling an assembly, Agathocles would only agree to lead
if the
city gave him dictatorial power.
He promised abolition of debts
and land distribution;
he then expanded Syracusan territory by
force of arms.
Syracusan exiles appealed to Spartan king Cleomenes,
who sent
his son Acrotatus; but when Agathocles killed
exile leader Sosistratus
at a banquet, Acrotatus fled.
A peace mediated by Carthaginian
general Hamilcar
divided hegemony in Sicily between Agathocles
and the Carthaginians although the Greek cities
were supposed
to be autonomous.
Messena stood outside, but Agathocles managed
to kill 600 of those who opposed him there and at Taormina.
When
he besieged Agrigentum, Deinocrates and the
exiles turned to Carthage,
which captured twenty of his ships.
So Agathocles marched into
Gela
and massacred 4,000 people.
At the Himera River he lost 7,000
to the Carthaginian
cavalry and from thirsty men drinking salt
water.
Besieged at Syracuse in 310 BC Agathocles managed
to steal
enough money from the 1600 wealthiest citizens
he had slaughtered,
women's jewelry, and temples to take
sixty ships filled with soldiers
across to be
the first Europeans to attack Carthage.
In a sacrifice
to Demeter and Persephone
he burned his ships before taking
a
large city and fortifying Tunis.
The Carthaginian army was defeated
and driven back to Carthage.
Believing their loss was because
they had been cheating
on their child sacrifices, it was said
the Carthaginians
killed 500 children to expiate their guilt.
Meanwhile Agathocles' brother Antander defeated the
Carthaginian
attack on Syracuse led by Hamilcar,
who was captured and killed.
The Agrigentines led by Xenodocus expelled garrisons
and liberated
Sicilian towns.
When a mutiny broke out in Tunis,
Agathocles'
threatening suicide
got himself reinstated as general.
After the Syracusans and Carthaginians fought each other
while
the Libyans watched, Agathocles appealed to
Ptolemy's viceroy
in Cyrene Ophellas,
whom Agathocles then killed, taking over the
army
he brought, shipping out to Syracuse the colonists
Ophellas
had raised from Athens.
At the same time the Carthaginians were
being
betrayed by their general Bomilcar.
Like Alexander's successors,
Agathocles declared himself king;
then he attacked Utica by using
its leading 300 citizens
as shields for his siege engines.
Agathocles
crossed back to Sicily, and two-thirds
of the army led by his
son in Libya was destroyed.
His generals defeated the Agrigentines,
but the autonomy movement was revived by Agathocles'
old friend
Deinocrates, who raised an army of 20,000.
Agathocles went back to Tunis, where the situation became
so
desperate he tried to escape secretly but was arrested.
Eventually
he escaped back to Sicily;
his sons left in Libya were killed,
as his soldiers capitulated
to the Carthaginians; commanders who
did not were crucified,
while their men were enslaved.
In Sicily
Agathocles sent for his army,
which massacred and plundered Egesta.
Unable to agree with Deinocrates, Agathocles made a deal
with
the Carthaginians, defeated the forces of Deinocrates,
and regained
control of Syracuse.
Agathocles led military expeditions in Italy
and took the island of Corcyra away from Cassander's
Macedonians
in 298 BC and then had 2,000 Ligurians
and Etruscans killed for
mutinously demanding their pay.
Agathocles ruled in Syracuse until
his death
at age 72 in 289 BC when he was probably poisoned.
Alexander's army had been
welcomed into Egypt,
and the Macedonians took over imperial rule
from the Persians.
After Alexander's death, Ptolemy I Soter defeated
Perdiccas
and established his Macedonian dynasty in Alexandria.
Using Egyptian wealth, he hired Greek mercenaries
to defend and
expand his kingdom, claiming Syria
as far north as the Eleutherus
River in 301 BC.
Seven years later he commissioned Peripatetic
scholar
and Athenian exile Demetrius of Phalerum to organize
the
Museum for Hellenic intelligentsia.
With the final fall of the
Antigonid Demetrius in 285 BC
Ptolemy took over his navy along
with ports in the
Cyclades, Tyre, and Sidon to add to Cypress.
Two years earlier he had repudiated his wife Eurydice
and her
son Ptolemy Ceraunus to marry Berenice.
Against the advice of
Demetrius of Phalerum he associated
in his rule Berenice's and
his son, who two years later
became Ptolemy II Philadelphus and
locked up Demetrius,
who was then killed by an asp.
In 280 BC
Ptolemy II's army took Damascus
and Miletus away from the Seleucids.
In 275 BC Ptolemy II Philadelphus married his sister Arsinoe
II,
who also took the name Philadelphus
to signify their love
for each other.
The next year his half brother and viceroy of
Cyrenaica
invaded Egypt, while Antiochus I marched into lower
Syria.
Arsinoe's ambition was credited with Egypt's holding
off
the Seleucids and hanging on to Anatolia
and Cilicia from Miletus
south.
Egyptian money was sent to support Pyrrhus' plunder of
the
Peloponnese until he was killed; then Ptolemy II supported
Spartan king Areus against Antigonus Gonatas.
Egyptian gold also
subsidized the new dynasty at Pergamum
in Anatolia, and Ptolemy
II took Ephesus,
only to have Arsinoe's son (by Lysimachus) placed
there
turn against him in an Ephesian insurrection in 260 BC.
Rhodes took over Ephesus as this son was killed
by his own troops,
and the next year
Antiochus II took back Miletus.
Egypt lost a
naval battle to Antigonus Gonatas off Cos
and had to surrender
much of its northern empire.
In 246 BC Ptolemy III Euergetes succeeded his father,
as did
Seleucus II his father Antiochus II.
When his sister Berenice
was murdered after having
married Antiochus II, Euergetes marched
into Syria and
was victorious, then lost some territory
before
signing a peace treaty in Palestine.
In 219 BC Antiochus III marched
down the Phoenician coast;
Ptolemy IV Philopator's prime minister
Sosibius recruited
an army of native Egyptians and stopped the
Seleucids
at Raphia near Gaza two years later, but the costs of
this
taxation were felt for many years.
The Ptolemies used substantial
income taxes, tariffs,
and tolls to maintain their Macedonian-ruled
military empire.
A bureaucracy of Greeks educated by the state
administered the top levels, while the Alexandrian library
grew
to a collection of 700,000 papyrus scrolls.
Slaves captured in
wars were imported, and it was said
that Ptolemy I Soter brought
100,000 Jewish captives
back to Alexandria, though scholars consider
this exaggerated.
Greeks were clearly favored over natives even
by the laws,
and resentment grew after the Egyptians
helped win
the victory at Raphia.
When Ptolemy IV Philopator died in 204 BC, a power
struggle led to the disappearance of Sosibius, the lynching
of the other minister Agathocles in Alexandria,
and the murder of Arsinoe III, Philopator's sister and wife.
The young Ptolemy V Epiphanes (r.
203-181 BC)
faced revolts and even lost control of Thebes
to a
secessionist Nubian dynasty until 187 BC.
Antiochus III took over
Syria for the Seleucids,
as Egypt was reduced to itself, Cypress,
and Cyrene.
Ptolemy V was only 28 when he was poisoned in 181
BC;
his widow Cleopatra I, daughter of Antiochus III,
ruled as
regent for eight years.
After Egypt sent an expedition into Palestine,
Antiochus IV invaded Egypt, and in 169 BC
Ptolemy VI Philometor
was captured at Memphis,
causing the Alexandrians to appoint his
brother
Euergetes II king as Ptolemy VII.
Rome,
which was becoming dependent on Egyptian grain,
sent an envoy
to demand that Antiochus IV leave Egypt,
and thus the Seleucids
were kept out of Egypt.
The Roman senate and the Alexandrians
agreed that
Ptolemy VI Philometor should rule Egypt and Cypress,
while Euergetes II was given Cyrenaica.
Philometor invaded Syria
again in 147 BC and held it
for two years before he was killed
near Antioch;
Ptolemaic Egypt then withdrew from Syria and never
returned.
Euergetes II married Philometer's widow and sister
of both
of them, Cleopatra II, and then ruled for 29 years
along with
Ptolemy VI's daughter Cleopatra III,
surviving an exile of five
years from conflicts with his
divorced sister and mother-in-law
Cleopatra II.
According to Diodorus, Ptolemy VII (Euergetes II)
was hated for brutally killing Cyreneans and others,
but he favored
native Egyptians
as the native soldier class grew.
Greek language
and Egyptian culture merged.
Cleopatra III co-ruled with her son
Ptolemy VIII
until she was able to permanently replace him with
her
favorite son Alexander, who became Ptolemy IX in 108 BC.
Cleopatra
III died in 101 BC but was replaced by Berenice.
In 88 BC Ptolemy
VIII expelled his brother
and ruled until he died in 81 BC.
Rome
took over Cyrenaica in 96 BC
and annexed it as a province in 74
BC.
The Ptolemies continued to rule under the supervision
of the
Roman senate until the Alexandrians drove out
the flute-playing
king Ptolemy XI in 59 BC;
but he was restored three years later
by the Roman
commander in Syria and ruled until 51 BC, when he
was
succeeded by Ptolemy XII and his sister Cleopatra VII,
who
became involved with Julius Caesar
and Mark Antony in Rome's civil
wars.
Under the Ptolemies the temples of Egyptian religion
were respected,
and many new ones were built.
These included hymns to the gods,
such as one to the
creator god Khnum urging him to awaken in peace.
The Demotic language was used not only for daily business
but
also for literary works that continued
the ancient Egyptian wisdom
tradition.
Two tales of the antiquarian prince Setne Khamwas
indicate
that magic was still a popular theme.
In the first, Setne Khamwas
finds a magic book he gets from
Na-nefer-ka-ptah and his wife
and child, who had all died
in attaining the magical book, which
Setne then uses
to seduce a beautiful woman named Tabubu;
but
before she will give in to his pleasure,
she keeps making requests
until finally
Setne kills his own children.
Just as he is about
to enjoy her, he awakes naked to see
the Pharaoh telling him to
go to Memphis to see his children.
Setne finds his children there
safe and is persuaded
to return the magic book back to Na-nefer-ka-ptah.
In the second story Setne's son Si-Osire demonstrates
his ability
to read a book without opening it.
They observe the honored funeral
of a rich man and the
body of a poor man being carried off only
in a mat,
but the son wishes that his father will go
to the underworld
with the poor man.
When his father asks why, the son leads him
to the next world,
where one's good deeds are weighed against
one's bad deeds.
Those whose misdeeds are greater go to the Devourer,
while the soul that has more good deeds
rises into heaven with
the august spirits.
The poor man is now richly dressed and standing
next to Osiris,
because his good deeds outweighed his bad deeds;
but the rich man has been imprisoned for his many bad deeds.
Those
who do good to others will fare well in the next world,
but the
evil experience evil.
Si-Osire demonstrates his abilities by reading
a closed book
for the Pharaoh and proving that his magic is more
powerful
than the magic of the Nubian court; then he vanishes,
and Setne and his wife conceive another son.
Animal fables were also passed down as folkloric wisdom.
The
one which concludes with the Aesopian
fable of the
mouse who helps the lion after he is spared is very
critical
of humans who kill and torture various animals such as
a
panther, horse, donkey, bear, ox, cow, and another lion.
Each
of these says that there is no animal more cunning
than man and
hopes that they will not fall into the hand of man.
After the
mouse helps the lion escape from the human trap,
he says, "It
is beautiful to do good to him who does it in turn."2
The Instruction of Ankhsheshonq is about a priest of
Re,
who is asked to join a plot to kill Pharaoh;
but Ankhsheshonq
tries to persuade his friend not to do it.
The conspirators are
caught and executed,
and Ankhsheshonq is put in prison for not
reporting the plot.
There he writes a long list of proverbial
wisdom for his son
that includes such ideas as being gentle and
patient so that
your heart will be beautiful and not to abuse
others
when faring well lest you fare badly.
The golden rule is
well expressed as not doing to another
what you dislike so as
to cause another to do it to you.
Wealth of a town is a just lord,
of a temple the priest,
of a field its work, of a storehouse its
stock,
of a wise person speech, of a town not taking sides,
and
of a craftsperson one's equipment.
Much more good and practical
advice is included.
The Instruction of Papyrus Insinger is more pious and
moral.
The author noted that a son does not die from being punished
by his father; but whoever loves his spoiled son
will spoil himself
too.
Various ways of discovering the heart are by sending one
on a mission, testing in some matter, consulting one
in deliberation,
and asked one for something;
but a woman may not be known anymore
than the sky.
A ruler is punished for letting an impious person
have power.
Greed is condemned for putting strife and combat in
a house
and for removing shame, mercy, and trust from the heart.
Whoever loves one's neighbor will find a family around one.
We
are advised not to cheat when questioned,
because behind us is
a witness (God).
Violence, poverty, insult, and unkindness
are
found to be never at rest.
The library and museum at Alexandria attracted and
encouraged
not only the collection of literature in Greek
but the writing
of it too.
Euclid taught geometry and wrote
his Elements here
about 300 BC.
Callimachus was born in Cyrene about 310 BC, studied
withmthe Peripatetic philosopher Praxiphanes in Athens,
and was
appointed a librarian at Alexandria
by Ptolemy II Philadelphus.
Most of his works are lost, but his hymns praising Zeus,
Apollo,
Cyrene, Artemis, Delos, and Demeter survive.
He wrote that Apollo
appears only to the good,
and the "Bath of Athena" describes
how Teiresias
went blind after seeing the goddess naked
but was
given prophetic vision.
His hymn about the island of Delos mentions
the Celtic war
of the Galatians and claims he prophesies
for Ptolemy
who is to be.
His first epigram advises a man not to marry above
his station but to keep to his rank.
An epitaph of a man sleeping
the holy sleep
suggests that the good do not die.
Theocritus was born at Syracuse in Sicily about 310 BC;
he
may have studied medicine at Cos in the eastern Aegean,
and he
wrote poetry for Ptolemy II Philadelphus at Alexandria.
He agreed
with Callimachus on literary style and is considered
the founder
of Bucolic or pastoral poetry, although he lived
in the two largest
cities of the Hellenic world,
Syracuse and Alexandria.
Another
poet and friend of his named Sotades was
imprisoned for denouncing
Ptolemy's incestuous marriage;
after many years Sotades escaped
and was captured by an Egyptian admiral.
Theocritus wrote "Harvest
Festival" complaining of his
friend's suffering; but Ptolemy
ordered Sotades
put in a chest and drowned at sea.
Theocritus
returned to his native Syracuse, where the tyrant
Hieron II put
him to death for criticizing his son
and refusing to stop doing
so.
Theocritus wrote that the Cyclops Polyphemus found relief
in
singing about his love; perhaps the poet did too,
though his description
of Aeschines' smacking his girlfriend
on the head a couple of
times, causing her to run off
like a swallow, portrayed a grim
realism.
Thyonichus tells Aeschines that Ptolemy is warm-hearted,
loves his mistresses and learning, never forgets a friend
or an
enemy, is generous if one does not ask too much,
and would be
ready to hire him as a soldier if he was ready
to bear the brunt
of an enemy's charge without budging.
In another dialog describing
a crowded festival at the palace,
the housewife Praxinoa praises
Ptolemy for having cleaned
things up and reduced crime since his
father died.
Though he often praised warriors, in "The Graces"
Theocritus hopes that the armory will be shrouded with
cobwebs
and that the war-cry will become a forgotten sound.
His 17th Idyll praises Ptolemy for controlling
with the sword
Syria, Phoenicia, Libya, Arabia, Ethiopia, Lycia,
Pamphylia,
Caria, Cilicia, and the Cyclades,
while his ships are
sovereign on the seas.
He lauds his wealth derived from tribute
all around
and claims there is peace from raiders.
This treasure
is put to use in temples and cities and shared
with vassal kings
and companions;
even singers do not lack a reward.
Theocritus
praised Ptolemy for having deified both his parents
and for combining
the love of a wife and sister.
Although Ptolemy's name may be
ranked with gods
and heroes, for virtue one must still pray to
Zeus.
For a statue of Aphrodite Theocritus wrote,
"Those
who cherish the divine powers
live more happily here on earth."3
Apollonius was a citizen of Alexandria
and studied with Callimachus.
To show that epic poetry still was viable, he wrote
the Argonautica,
which was severely criticized
by Callimachus and Theocritus.
So
the young poet went to Rhodes, where his revision
of the work
was so popular that they honored him
with their citizenship; thus
he is known as Apollonius of Rhodes.
Later returning to Alexandria,
he was much acclaimed
and appointed director of the Library.
The
story of Jason and the heroes, who sailed on the Argo
to capture
the golden fleece from Colchis
at the east end of the Black Sea,
was already well known;
but Apollonius' psychological as well
as mythical treatment
might qualify it as one of the first novels
except that it is in verse.
His comments aside to the reader make
it seem modern.
Afraid of a prophecy that Jason would mean his death,
King
Pelias sends his nephew on a long perilous journey,
hoping that
he will never see him again.
Pelias having slighted the goddess
Hera, she takes Jason's side.
A generation before the Trojan War,
the heroes who volunteer
for the adventure include Peleus (father
of Achilles),
Telamon (father of Ajax), Orpheus,
and the immensely
strong Heracles himself.
The use of a ship to secure a valuable
item from the
Black Sea area reflects the Aegean Greeks' concern for
centuries to control trade from that region with a strong
navy.
In choosing their leader, Heracles declines and nominates
the organizer Jason, who is elected.
Idmon prophesies their quest
will be successful,
though he himself will die.
Idas belligerently
asks his own fate, and this quarrel might
have become violent;
but Jason intervenes,
and Orpheus calms them down with music.
On the island of Lemnos they meet women,
who had slaughtered
their husbands the previous year
for casting them off and enjoying
captured women;
the poet noted how Hypsipyle glossed over the
massacre
in her account to Jason and his men, who lingered to
help
repopulate the island with men until
Heracles urged them
to get moving again.
Hypsipyle gives Jason several gifts,
which
he later gives to others.
They are initiated into secret mysteries
at Samothrace.
On an island in the Propontis when they are attacked
by savages, they kill them all; then taken for raiders at night
by mistake, they kill many of their hosts, the Doliones.
When
his servant Hylas is captured by a water nymph,
Heracles goes
looking for him and is left behind.
The twin Polydeuces (Pollux)
kills
the bully Amycus in a boxing match.
The Berbyces then attack,
and Castor kills the first man.
The natives soon scatter,
and
the Argonauts pillage their cattle and sheep.
The Argonauts rescue the prophet Phineas from his daily
torment
by the Harpies, and he becomes their counselor
and helps them
get through the Cyanean rocks.
The chief Lycus offers his son
Dascylus as their guide.
They find the sons of Phrixus (who had
taken the
golden fleece in the first place) shipwrecked suppliants
and decide to help them.
Phrixus had married Chalciope, the daughter
of King Aeetes;
now that Phrixus has died, these brothers are
going to
take over their grandfather's estate.
Jason asks for
their help as pilots so that
he can take the golden fleece to
Greece.
Argus and his brothers warn them that a serpent guards
the fleece and that it will be difficult to take it from the
warlike
Aeetes without his permission.
Jason assures them they are well
acquainted with war also,
but Ancaeus suggests they consider
using
fair words to get what they want.
Hera and Athena decide to ask Aphrodite for help so that
Medea
will fall in love with Jason and help him get the fleece.
Hera
is grateful to Jason, because once when she was
disguised as an
old woman, he carried her across a river.
Aphrodite offers Eros
a toy ball if he will shoot Medea,
who is considered something
of a witch herself.
When Jason goes to talk with Aeetes, his daughter
Medea
is shot in the heart by Eros and can not
stop looking at
and thinking about Jason.
He offers to fight the enemies of Aeetes
for the fleece,
but Aeetes fears they came to take his throne.
This angers Telamon, but Jason makes a more politic reply
to soothe
the king's feelings.
Aeetes tells how he plows his field with
two ferocious bulls,
sows it with teeth from a monstrous serpent
which grow
into warriors, whom he then slays.
If Jason can do
this, he may have the fleece.
Argus and Chalciope ask for Medea's
aid,
and so swept away by love is she that she almost commits
suicide but then gladly helps Jason by giving him
an ointment
that will protect him.
Jason promises her a bridal bed and declares
that
nothing shall part their love but death.
Jason accomplishes
his task in the field as the warriors
all are killed; then Medea
puts the serpent asleep
so that he can take the golden fleece.
Medea, Jason, and his men flee in the Argo,
but Aeetes' son
Apsyrtus corners them in the Danube River.
He agrees that they
had the right to the fleece even though
they took it clandestinely,
and he proposes Medea's fate
should be decided by a neutral king.
Medea demands that Jason honor his pledge
to her or slit her throat.
She lures her brother Apsyrtus to a meeting
so that Jason can
murder him.
Then the argonauts kill his Colchian crew.
On their
long trek home Medea is denied forgiveness
from Circe for killing
her brother,
but divine aid guides their journey.
Medea pleads
for help from Arete, wife of King Alcinous,
who learns that her
husband will allow her to stay with Jason
if she is married to
him or has conceived his child.
Arete tells them to wed that night,
and the virgin Medea does so.
The Colchians have to accept Alcinous'
judgment
or lose access to his harbors.
After being blown south
to Libya and carrying the Argo
over land to another port,
the
Argonauts eventually come home.
Value taken from a distant kingdom
proved to be a violent adventure.
The Seleucid kingdom dated its beginning from 312 BC
when Seleucus
I Nicator seized Babylon in his own name;
but his empire was not
really established until Antigonus I
was defeated at Ipsus in
301 BC, and Asia Minor
was not
included until Lysimachus was eliminated
in Lydia in 281 BC.
When Seleucus I was assassinated the next
year,
his son by his Persian wife Apame had already married
his
step-mother Stratonice and was co-ruling from Seleucia
on the
Tigris; Antiochus I became the second Seleucid king,
ruling over
the Asian empire Alexander had taken from the
Persians with the
exception of Egypt, Cyrene, and those
parts of southern Syria
which Ptolemy held temporarily
and which the Seleucids and Ptolemies
fought over
until the end of the third century BC.
This Seleucid
empire extended from the Aegean Sea
to what is now Afghanistan,
containing about one and a half
million square miles and about
thirty million people
compared to seven million in Egypt
and four
million in Macedonia.
However, it was not long before this cumbersome
empire
governed by Macedonian soldiers lost vast territories.
Antiochus defeated the Galatians in Anatolia in 275 BC
and invaded
lower Syria the next year.
A more western capital was built for the king and called
Antioch
on the Orontes in Syria, taking over the Macedonian
population
of nearby Antigonia, while the crown prince
continued to govern
in Seleucia on the Tigris, where most
of the Babylonian population
moved.
Another Seleucia called Pieria was established on the
Phoenician
coast; but this was lost to the Ptolemies
from 241 to 219 BC until
the Seleucids built a strong navy.
Various heavy taxes were levied
to support the empire
and its military garrisons, whose soldiers
were given farms
and organized into cities with
Hellenic assemblies,
judges, and laws.
Many Hellenistic cities were established with
the
designated number of 5,300 male citizens, close to what
was
recommended in Plato's Laws, making a city
of about
25,000 Greek inhabitants plus slaves.
Trade was facilitated by
a single currency,
and silk came all the way from China.
Antiochus I Soter (r. 280-261 BC) was credited with driving
out the Gauls and tried to take Syria from the Ptolemies
with military force but was turned away.
In the reign of Antiochus
II Theos (r. 261-246 BC),
who was admired for killing the Milesian
tyrant Timarchus,
Persia broke away.
By the time he was poisoned
by his first wife Laodice,
the Greeks in prosperous Bactria led
by Diodotus
had become independent, followed by Hyrcania and Parthia
led by the brothers Arsaces and Tiridates.
Arsaces was killed
in battle, but Tiridates ruled Parthia
for 37 years and moved
the capital
to Hellenized Hecatompylos.
Ptolemy II was forced
to cede Ionia, Cilicia,
and Aegean islands to Antiochus II in
255 BC.
Three years later Antiochus II repudiated his wife
Laodice
and married Ptolemy's daughter Berenice.
Seleucus II (r. 246-226 BC) tried to recover the east
with
his army, but he had to return to Antioch to quell a revolt.
Seleucus
II appointed his brother Antiochus the Hawk
regent in Asia Minor,
and they fought each other
for a decade while the empire shrank.
After both Antiochus the Hawk in Thrace and his brother
Seleucus
II were murdered the same year,
Seleucus III tried to reconquer
Asia Minor but was defeated
by Pergamum's Attalus I and was then
assassinated
by his own men in 223 BC;
he was succeeded by his
brother, 18-year-old Antiochus III
(called "the Great"),
who appointed Achaeus
to direct the war in Asia Minor.
Two brothers, Molon and Alexander, satraps in Babylon
and Persis
respectively, declared themselves independent kings
and were followed
by Media king Atropatene,
who threw off his vassalage.
Antiochus
III marched his imperial army east,
and by 219 BC Molon and Alexander,
abandoned by their armies, committed suicide.
Achaeus, whose father
was a hostage in the court
of Ptolemy III, broke off the siege
of Pergamum and
heading toward Antioch, declared himself king;
but his troops failed to go along.
Antiochus III took advantage
of a dynastic succession
in Egypt to attack Palestine; but after
regaining Seleucia Pieria
he was eventually defeated at Raphia
in 217 BC.
Three years later Antiochus III besieged Achaeus at
Sardis
and, after he was betrayed, had his body mutilated.
Having ended the civil war and regained some of western
Anatolia,
the energetic Antiochus III next marched east
through Armenia
and Media to take on the Parthians.
To finance this adventure
Antiochus III took the treasury
from the temple of the goddess
Anahita near Ecbatana.
The Seleucid army captured Hecatompylos,
causing
Parthian king Artabanus I to withdraw into Hyrcania;
but
Antiochus III could do no more than
accept their promise of fealty
and tribute.
Then Antiochus III attacked independent Bactria,
which would not yield.
Euthydemus argued that their conflict would
only help the
Sacae nomads; so by conferring a gift of elephants
and supplies, Euthydemus was accepted as a vassal king,
as his
son Demetrius married a daughter of Antiochus III.
After eight
years Antiochus III eventually returned to Seleucia
on the Tigris,
having gone through Afghanistan to India
and back through Arachosia
and Seistan;
but these regions were too spread out
to be governed
by his empire.
Another dynastic succession in Egypt stimulated Antiochus III
to negotiate with Macedonian Philip V
to divide up Egypt's Asian
possessions.
The Seleucid army then defeated the Egyptians
at
Panium in 200 BC, and five years later
Ptolemy V surrendered his
Asian holdings in a treaty and
accepted Antiochus' daughter Cleopatra
I as a bride.
By then the ambitious Antiochus III had already
crossed
over into Europe to take Lysimachia in Thrace.
He sent
ambassadors to Rome asking for friendship;
but the Roman senate
replied that they would be friends
if Antiochus left the Greeks
in Asia free and independent
and if he kept away from Europe.
Antiochus would not release the Aeolians and Ionians,
who were
accustomed to obeying Asian kings.
Antiochus III with 10,000 men
sailed across the Aegean
and took Euboea, Thebes, and Thessaly,
where he alienated Philip V.
Smyrna and Lampsacus appealed to Rome,
which gained the
support of Philip V's Macedonians,
and the Seleucids were defeated
at Thermopylae,
Antiochus III barely escaping by ship to Ephesus.
Withdrawing from Thrace and granting autonomy to Smyrna
and
Lampsacus were now not enough for Rome,
which demanded that the Seleucids clear out of Anatolia.
Eumenes
II of Pergamum helped the Roman soldiers
at Magnesia defeat the
more numerous forces
of Antiochus III, who sued for peace.
Publius
Scipio replied that the grasping nature of Antiochus
caused his
misfortunes; he should not have invaded Europe
and taken away
the liberty of the people Romans had freed.
In the treaty of Apamea
in 188 BC Scipio imposed the same
conditions, demanded twenty
hostages including his
son Antiochus, a reduction of ships to
twelve, and payment
to Rome
for the cost of the war totaling 15,000 talents
over the next
twelve years.
The over-reaching ambition of Antiochus III
had
broken the Seleucid power.
Parthian king Phriapatius reconquered
the regions
south of the Caspian Sea,
and the Media Atropatene
declared independence.
Seleucus IV (r. 187-175 BC) was assassinated by a
conspiracy
of court officers; but his brother Antiochus IV
Epiphanes (r.
175-163 BC), who had been a hostage
in Rome, modernized the Seleucid army along Roman lines,
and in 169 BC
he sent troops east to Bactria
and then attacked Memphis in Egypt.
However, he had to withdraw before Roman power in Egypt,
and his
taking of the treasury from the temple at Jerusalem
and his Hellenistic
religious reforms
brought on a Judean revolt.
Shortly after the
death of Antiochus IV, Judea and
Commagene in Syria both became
independent kingdoms
during the reign of Demetrius I until he
was killed and
succeeded by Balas in Syria.
The Seleucids lost
Mesopotamia to the Parthians,
whose king Mithridates I (c. 171-138
BC)
captured Seleucid king Demetrius II in 140 BC.
An invasion
by Antiochus VII to recover Media and Babylon
eventually ended
in his defeat and death in 129 BC.
Starting in 150 BC two rival
branches of the Seleucid dynasty
fought each other for the Syrian
kingdom that remained
until the Romans took it over in 64 BC.
In Bactria Demetrius moved east into Taxila and in 175 BC
sent
his general Menander to conquer much of the northern
Mauryan empire
including the capital at Pataliputra.
Eucratides I (c. 171-155
BC) was succeeded by
Menander (c. 155-130 BC), and after his queen
Agathocleia's
regency, Strato I ruled for half a century while
Amyntas,
a descendant of Eucratides I, reconquered some territories
from the Scythians; but by the middle of the first century BC
there were no more Greeks ruling in this area.
Bithynia and Caspian regions east of it never were
conquered by Alexander nor by his successors
and remained independent kingdoms.
Nicomedes I (r. 279-250 BC), the son of Bithynian king
Zipoetes
I (r. 297-279 BC), encouraged Hellenistic culture
but also asked
for the aid of the Gauls against Antiochus I,
which led to the
establishment of these Celts in Galatia.
Bithynia thrived under
Prusias I (c. 230-182 BC)
and allied itself with Rome; but Nicomedes
IV
at his death in 74 BC bequeathed the kingdom to Rome.
In Pontus Mithridates I ruled 301-266 BC, while at Comana
the
priests of the earth-mother goddess Ma
dominated 6,000 male and
female slaves.
In 183 BC Pharnaces I, who according to Polybius
surpassed all previous kings in his contempt for the laws,
attacked
Sinope, then took Tium
in Bithynia and invaded Galatia.
After
three Roman embassies and pressure from Rhodes,
three years later
Pharnaces made peace "for all time"
with Eumenes II
of Pergamum and Ariarathes of Cappadocia,
renouncing Galatia,
restoring Tium and prisoners of war
while paying 1200 talents.
Cappadocia governed itself as a vassal of the Seleucids,
and Ariarathes
III was named king there in 255 BC.
With Greek administrators
Pontus grew in power
until Mithridates V (c. 150-120 BC)
was the
most powerful king in Asia Minor.
His son Mithridates VI called
Dionysius (c. 120-63 BC)
tried to expand the kingdom and fought
numerous wars
with the Romans until Pontus was finally absorbed
into the Roman province of Bithynia by Pompey,
though Tigranes
I, who had conquered Syria in 83 BC,
was able to hang on to Armenia
until his death in 56 BC.
Mithridates II reigned in Parthia from
123 to 86 BC.
Philetaerus was military governor of Pergamum under
Antigonus
I, then for Lysimachus, before contributing the
enormous treasure
to the Seleucids and ruling there for them.
However, his son Eumenes
I (r. 263-241 BC) with the help
of Ptolemy III became independent.
Pergamum's Attalus I Soter (r. 241-197 BC) defeated the
Galatians
and sided with the Romans and the Aetolians
against Macedonia's
Philip V.
His son Eumenes II (r. 197-160 BC) expanded Pergamum
to half of Asia Minor including Lydia and Phrygia.
Pergamum was
Hellenized with military settlements
and a library that rivaled
Alexandria's;
but Attalus III (r. 138-133 BC) bequeathed his royal
estates
and treasures to Rome, which took the kingdom,
squelched a revolt, and made it the province
of Asia.
Under the Ptolemies Israel and Judah were combined into
Judea
and were administered by their own Jewish council
of elders as
before for about a century until the
Zadokite priest Onias II
withheld taxes.
So Ptolemy III transferred authority to Tobias,
and the
Tobiad family became the tax collectors for Egypt.
When
Manetho and other Hellenistic historians contradicted
the Hebrew
account of the Exodus from Egypt,
writing that they had been deported
so as not to spread
infectious diseases, Jewish scholars in Alexandria
got together
and published a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures
called the Septuagint after its seventy translators.
After the Egyptians were defeated by Antiochus III at Panion
in 200 BC, the Seleucids restored the Zadokite priest
Simon the
Just and exempted the shrine at Jerusalem from taxes.
However,
the reparations the Seleucids had to pay Rome
after the treaty
of Apamea brought about a land tax
in Judea of one-third of the
crop.
Many Jews, notably the Hasidim, resented Hellenistic
influences;
others did not.
Onias III was suspected of using the Temple treasure
for
Ptolemaic subversion and was assassinated after his brother
Jason took over the high priesthood by offering more tribute
to
Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
The Zadokite line was replaced though
when pro-Greek
Menelaus offered even more gifts in 172 BC.
Jason
went into exile but came back and regained his priesthood,
put
Menelaus in prison, closed the gymnasium at Antiochia,
and expelled
the foreign troops from the Akra fortress.
This brought Antiochus
IV to Jerusalem, where he had its walls
torn down, took the temple
treasure, and reinstated Menelaus
and the Syrian garrison to protect
the Hellenizers.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes tried to replace Judaism
with Hellenic religion by forbidding circumcision
and in 167 BC
even rededicated the
Jerusalem temple to Olympian Zeus.
Mattathias refused to make a pagan sacrifice and killed a Jew
who did and the Seleucid officer enforcing the sacrifice;
then
he escaped to the hills with his five sons.
After some of these
revolutionaries were killed on the Sabbath
when they refused to
fight, Mattathias and his friends decided
that they must defend
themselves on the Sabbath.
Mattathias died the next year, but
his son Judas led a guerrilla
movement that attacked Seleucids
and any Hellenizers.
Judas persuaded his men that it was not the
size of their army
but strength that comes from heaven that gave
them victories.
After they defeated a force from Samaria led by
Apollonius,
Antiochus IV appointed Lysias governor of the region,
and he sent 40,000 soldiers and 7,000 cavalry.
According to the First Book of Maccabees Judas with
3,000 men defeated
a force led by Gorgias of 6,000,
of which half were killed.
Lysias
came back the next year with 65,000,
and the Jews killed 5,000
of them.
In December 164 BC the Maccabees took over the temple
at Jerusalem,
dedicating it with the festival of Lights (Hanukkah).
Many more
battles were fought, and even more more killed.
Judas' men killed
every male in the city of Bozrah,
but an attack by Joseph and
Azariah cost 2,000 Jewish lives.
According to the First
Maccabees author, Antiochus IV
died regretting the evils
he had done to Jerusalem,
but according to Polybius he died because
he intended to plunder the temple of Artemis in Parthia.
Antiochus V attacked Jerusalem with 100,000 infantry
and 20,000
cavalry; but because of the Sabbath year
and a famine, a peace
was made with the Jews.
Demetrius I seized the Seleucid throne
and had
Antiochus V and Lysias murdered.
Bacchides was appointed
governor,
and a Hellenizer called Alcimus high priest.
The Hasidim
trusted him, but Alcimus
had sixty of them killed in one day.
Command of the army was given to Nicanor,
who had intended to
raise the tribute due to the Romans
by selling Jews as slaves
at the rate of ninety for a talent.
The Jews defeated the army
led by Nicanor,
who was killed and beheaded.
However, facing an
army of 22,000, most of the 3,000 Jews
slipped away; Judas, fighting
with the 800 who remained,
was killed in 160 BC.
Alcimus also
died that year, and so Judas' brother Jonathan
combined both leadership
roles until he too
was captured and killed in 142 BC.
The last
Maccabean brother Simon expelled the Seleucid
garrison from Jerusalem,
captured the Gazara fortress,
secured an alliance with Rome,
and established a free Jewish state.
When Simon was assassinated by his son-in-law in 135 BC,
Antiochus
VII reconquered Judea; but with his death
six years later Simon's
son John Hyrcanus I regained control
by renewing the Hasmoneans'
treaty with Rome,
annexing
Samaria, Galilee, and Idumea.
Hyrcanus forced Idumeans to convert
to Judaism
by circumcision, and his resentment against the independent
Samaritans destroyed their town and shrine at Mount Gerizim.
According
to Josephus, Hyrcanus was the first Jew
to use the wealth of the
sepulcher to maintain foreign troops.
Jews had divided into Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes.
Sadducees
were nationalistic aristocrats, officers, soldiers,
and the wealthy,
who believed in authority, force,
and strict punishments.
The
Pharisees were more liberal in interpreting the scriptures
and
allowed more mercy, though emphasizing the law.
Matthai of Arbela
said, "Take a teacher, win a friend,
and judge every person
from the presumption of innocence."4
The Essenes were mystics,
who sought purity through
cleanliness, asceticism, celibacy, communal
living, and
meditative prayer away from the temple and synagogues.
When Hyrcanus asked the Pharisees if they had any criticism
of
him, Eleazar ben Poira suggested he appoint another
high priest,
since he should not be such as the son of a prisoner.
Hyrcanus
reacted by appointing Sadducees to offices
in the temple, courts
of law, and on the council,
while the Pharisee judges sentenced
Eleazar to 39 lashes.
Hellenizing increased though, as John Hyrcanus' son
Aristobolus
I called himself Philhellen;
after replacing her as head of state,
he was said to have
starved his mother to death in prison and
had his brother
Antigonus killed; but he ruled only a year.
His
widow let his brothers out of prison, making
Alexander Janneus
king (r. 103-76 BC);
he expanded his realm by force of arms using
mercenaries,
taking from the Nabateans Gaza
and twelve cities
across the Jordan.
Alexander was influenced by the Sadducee Diogenes;
when as high priest he snubbed a ritual cherished by the
Pharisees
at the feast of Tabernacles, they threw fruit at him;
in reaction
his mercenaries killed 6,000
within the precincts of the temple
in 93 BC.
Six years of bloody uprisings followed, and the Pharisees
even turned to Seleucid king Demetrius III, who invaded
Judea with 40,000 troops; however, several thousand
Pharisees left the
Syrian camp to join Alexander,
and Demetrius had to retreat.
Other
Pharisees were forced to surrender, and Alexander
ordered 800
of them crucified, causing thousands of Pharisees
to flee Judea
while the Sadducees feasted.
He had strong fortresses built near
the Dead Sea
at Alexandrion and Machaerus,
though Hyrcanus had
already built Hyrcanion.
Alexander was succeeded on the throne by his widow
Salome Alexandra,
who in correcting his wrongs was greatly
influenced by the Pharisees,
as prisoners were released
and exiles came back.
The Sadducees
were removed from the Sanhedrin.
Her brother Simon ben Shetach
deferred presidency of the
great council to Judah ben Tabbai,
who came from Alexandria;
both these men promoted education and
improved
administration of the law, though after Simon ben Shetach
succeeded Judah eighty women were crucified
for witchcraft at
Ascalon.
Alexandra's son was high priest and as John Hyrcanus
II
claimed the throne in 67 BC; but he had to fight a civil war
for six years against his brother Aristobolus II,
who took the
side of the Sadducees.
According to Josephus, who may have exaggerated,
50,000 Jews died in this war.
A good man named Onias was stoned
to death
for trying to bring the two sides together.
Bribed by Antipater, the Nabatean king Aretas marched
into Judea with 50,000 men to aid Hyrcanus' forces
in besieging Jerusalem.
The Roman Pompey, who was fighting the
Armenian king Tigranes,
sent Scaurus to Judea.
Aristobolus' gift of 300 talents inclined
him to give an
ultimatum to Hyrcanus and the Arabs that they lift
the siege.
While Aretas fled to Philadelphia (Amman) and
Scaurus went back to Damascus,
Aristobolus pursued the retreating Jews,
killing 6,000.
Hyrcanus II and Antipater appealed to Pompey,
urging
him to repudiate the violent methods and unjust claim
of Aristobolus
II; thus they gained
the support of the Roman army.
Pompey then
denied the appeals of Aristobolus,
kept him in custody, and besieged
Aristobolus' Sadducees
in Jerusalem, finally using a Sabbath day
to build up
his earthworks and take the city.
Pompey made Judea
a Roman province in 63 BC,
designated Hyrcanus high priest and
ethnarch but not king,
appointed Antipater governor, ordered the
walls of
Jerusalem razed and the city taxed,
and had the zealots
beheaded, though he kept
Aristobolus and his family as prisoners.
Josephus blamed the Roman takeover on the conflict
between Hyrcanus
II and Aristobolus II.
Alexander, the son of Aristobolus II escaped, but the Roman
army led by Gabinius defeated the Jews at Jerusalem,
killing 3,000
and capturing 3,000.
Gabinius divided Israel into five parts,
and the Jews were
ruled by an aristocracy instead of a monarch.
Aristobolus also escaped from Rome and quickly gathered
an army
of 8,000 in Judea; but they were also overwhelmed
by the Romans
at Machaerus, and for a second time
Aristobolus went as a captive
to Rome.
Jewish uprisings continued to occur, but Antipater helped
the Romans win over the rebels or put them down.
The Roman Crassus, betraying his promise, plundered the
temple
treasury of gold worth 10,000 talents and was killed
fighting
the Parthians in 53 BC.
When Julius Caesar took power in Rome,
he released
Aristobolus II and gave him two legions
to bring over
Judea to his side.
When Pompey died, Antipater went over to Caesar,
who in gratitude for military help from Antipater and
John Hyrcanus
II, appointed the latter ethnarch
and made Antipater administrator
to collect Roman taxes.
Caesar also enacted laws protecting Jewish
communities
in the empire.
Jews did not have to go into the Roman
army and were
permitted to meet and practice their religion.
They
were no longer forced to provide winter quarters
for Roman legions,
but they had to give a fourth part
of their harvest every other
year to the Roman soldiers.
Antipater's son Herod, to please the
Romans, captured
and executed a band of zealots led by Hezekiah.
However, Hyrcanus II was urged to put Herod on trial
for killing
people contrary to Jewish law;
though when Herod appeared unrepentant
with an armed guard, Hyrcanus adjourned the court.
Sextus Caesar
in Damascus appointed
Herod governor of lower Syria.
After assassinating Julius Caesar, Cassius raised Roman
armies and
oppressed Judea, demanding 700 talents and
reducing Emmaus, Gophna
and two other cities to slavery
when they did not readily comply.
Herod brought in a hundred talents from Galilee
and was made a
general over a fleet and an army.
Antipater brought another hundred
talents and,
according to Josephus, persuaded Cassius not to execute
Malichus, who turned around and had Antipater poisoned,
though
Herod and Cassius plotted the murder
of Malichus in revenge.
This
caused Helix with the support of Hyrcanus II
to attack Herod's
brother Phasael.
Herod expelled Marion,
whom Cassius had made
autocrat of Tyre.
Marion brought back Antigonus, the other son
of
Aristobolus II;
but Herod banished him and then betrothed Mariamme,
daughter of Aristobolus' son Alexander
and grand-daughter of Hyrcanus
II.
After Cassius was defeated at Philippi, bribes convinced
Antony
to appoint Herod and his brother Phasael tetrarchs
over all Judea;
those who complained
were imprisoned, and some were killed.
Two
years later a Parthian army, led by prince Pacorus
and commanded
by Barzapharnes and supporting the claim
of Antigonus to Hyrcanus'
throne, invaded Syria.
Herod and Phasael's forces fought and guarded
Jerusalem
against the Jews supporting Antigonus,
who sent Pacorus
as a mediator.
Phasael naively welcomed Pacorus into Jerusalem
and went
as an envoy along with Hyrcanus II to Barzapharnes,
from
whom they learned that Antigonus had promised the
Parthians 500
Jewish women, according to Josephus.
Herod avoided being lured
into their trap, escaped from
Jerusalem, fought against Jews,
deposited his closest friends
and family at Masada while scattering
his forces in Idumea,
and escaped to Petra in Arabia.
The Parthians
then plundered Jerusalem and enthroned
Antigonus, who personally
chewed off the ears of Hyrcanus II
so that he could not serve
as high priest
according to Mosaic law.
Phasael killed himself
by smashing his head,
and Hyrcanus was taken in chains to Parthia.
Herod went to the Nabatean king, who pressured by the
Parthians,
expelled him to Egypt.
From there Herod made his way to Rome,
where his gifts to
Antony encouraged the senate to make him king
in order to help fight the Parthians.
Herod raised money for mercenaries
in Antioch,
marched through Galilee gaining support, took Joppa,
rescued his friends at Masada, and then attacked Jerusalem.
Herod
arranged for Silo's Roman army to winter at Jericho
and cleared
the zealots and garrisons
of Antigonus out of Galilee.
Herod then
used his forces to help Antony to take Samosata.
However, Herod's
brother Joseph and some Romans
were wiped out near Jericho by
Antigonus.
Antony made Sossius governor of Syria and ordered him
to assist Herod with Roman legions.
Herod with one legion marched
through Samaria,
killing many and burning the houses.
The combined
armies of Herod and Sossius besieged
Jerusalem while Herod married
Mariamme;
the Jews resisted for four months and then were slaughtered
mercilessly by the frustrated soldiers in 37 BC.
Herod tried to
stop the looting of the kingdom he wanted
to rule but gave the
gold and silver to Antony,
who ordered the captured Antigonus
beheaded.
Hyrcanus II was returned to Judea, though Herod appointed
Ananel
high priest, but replaced him with Aristobolus III
at the urging
of his mother, wife, and Cleopatra of Egypt;
however, Herod had
his men drown the young Aristobolus.
Herod was given Samaria,
but several territories including
Jericho Antony handed over to
his mistress
Cleopatra VII in Egypt.
Herod attacked the Nabatean
Arabs, according to Josephus,
accusing them of violating international
law by murdering
his envoys; but when Cleopatra sent a force led
by Athenion
to assist King Malich, Herod was defeated;
yet he
roused his troops and eventually conquered
the Nabateans, making
Malich his vassal.
Herod had refused to accept 500 talents when
the Arab
water supply dried up, killing and imprisoning many thousands.
Herod accused Hyrcanus of having plotted with the
Nabatean king
and executed him,
and he replaced the Sanhedrin, which had criticized
him
for brutality, executing 45 of its 71 members,
though he spared
the chairmen and influential teachers
Hillel and Shammai.
When
Antony and Cleopatra were defeated at Actium
in 31 BC, gifts and
Herod's abilities persuaded Octavius
at Rhodes to give back
to Herod a larger Judea;
rival governors were put to death.
Many Jewish
lives had been lost in resistance,
but Roman power eventually
made this cunning
Idumean king of the Jews under their empire.
Several apocryphal (hidden) books written during the
Hellenistic
era were included in the Septuagint,
but only the book
of Daniel made the later canon.
Its prophecies indicate
that at least part of Daniel was
probably written about
164 BC during the Maccabean revolt,
the point at which the prophecies
go astray.
The first part of the book tells the story of the heroic
Daniel,
who is able to perceive and interpret the dreams
of Babylonian
king Nebuchadrezzar.
His three friends, who prove that their vegetarian
diet is more
healthy than the king's rich food, are miraculously
protected in
a burning furnace, and Daniel himself survives caged
with lions.
The second half of the book contains Daniel's visions
and
prophecies of the future; but the speculation about the northern
king (Antiochus Epiphanes), who would take action against
the
holy covenant and set up an abomination of desolation,
that he
would conquer Egypt and Libya and then die there
did not occur,
as the 6th chapter of First Maccabees
indicates he never
conquered Egypt and died in Babylon.
A story of sexual harassment was added to the book of
Daniel
in which Susanna is falsely accused of adultery
by two judges,
who try to use their position
to make her lay with them.
She refuses
and is convicted of adultery; but a young Daniel
senses something
is wrong and by questioning the two judges
separately proves that
their stories do not match;
thus she is saved, and the two judges
are executed.
In another detective story Daniel demonstrates to
the
Babylonian king that the god does not eat the daily sacrifices
by spreading ashes to show the footsteps of those
who come in
to take the food.
This story carries the common theme that the
one
spiritual God is more real than the
many gods depicted as
idols and images.
A philosophical story in Esdras asks
what one thing
is strongest.
One man says wine, because it overcomes people;
another says the king, who rules over people;
Zerubbabel first
says women,
who give life and can control men;
but then he notes
that truth is stronger than all of these,
which can be unjust,
because the truth is never unjust.
Tobit is about an angel rewarding the family of Tobit,
who cares enough to bury the abandoned corpses of Jews.
He advises
his son Tobias to be disciplined in his conduct,
not to drink
to excess, to give bread to the hungry,
clothing to the naked,
and all his surplus to charity.
Occult or Egyptian influences
are indicated in the way
the angel guides Tobias to use magic
to chase away
the demonic lover of Sarah so that he won't die
like the others when he marries her;
magic also cures the blindness
of his father Tobit.
Then the angel advises them to praise God
and do good,
indicating that prayer is good when accompanied by
fasting, almsgiving, and justice; those who give charity
will
have a full life, but those who sin
are the enemies of their own
lives.
Like Esther the story of Judith is another violent fantasy
of revenge in which a beautiful widow seduces
Nebuchadrezzar's
commander Holofernes into trusting her
so much that she is able
to cut off his head and so inspire
the Jews to defeat his decapitated
forces and take their booty.
Prior to this assassination the Jews
are clearly
the innocent sufferers, as the only reason for the
war
against
them is that they refused to join Nebuchadrezzar in
his war.
The theme of the story is indicated by the advice of
Achior
to Holofernes that God will defend the Jews
as long as
they do not sin.
The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach was written
about
180 BC and translated into Greek by his grandson
about fifty years
later.
After a brief prologue the book begins with the idea that
all wisdom comes from God, and there is much wisdom
in this collection
of proverbs.
Unjust anger can tip the scale to ruin, but a patient
person
will endure until the right moment
and then find joy bursting
forth.
Exalting oneself can lead to a fall and dishonor.
A son
should help his father in his old age and not grieve him;
even
if he lacks understanding, one should show forbearance.
As water
extinguishes fire, charity atones for sin;
and whoever requites
favors provides for the future.
Further advice is to deliver the
wronged from wrong-doers
and not to be fainthearted in judging
a case.
Be like a father to orphans
instead of like a husband
to their mother.
Wisdom (Sophia) is personified as female.
Whoever obeys
Wisdom will judge the nations,
and whoever gives heed to her will
live securely.
Whoever loves her loves life, and those
who seek
her early will be filled with joy.
"Never speak against the
truth,
but be mindful of your ignorance."5
Refuse to lie,
for lying serves no good.
The teacher warns against the dangers
of riches
and notes the disadvantages of poverty.
"A rich
man does wrong, and he even adds reproaches;
a poor man suffers
wrong, and he must add apologies."6
Much practical advice
for seeking wisdom
and avoiding fools is given.
The idea that
evil will roll back
on the one doing it is expressed.
Vengeance
lies in wait like a lion
or the proud who mock and abuse.
It
is suggested that if one forgives others,
one will be pardoned
when praying.
The last part of the book praises the lives of Enoch,
Noah,
Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Aaron,
Phinehas, Joshua, Caleb,
Nathan, David,
Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Hezekiah,
Isaiah,
Josiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zerubbabel, and Simon ben
Onias,
who was high priest about 219-196 BC.
The Second Book of Maccabees includes a martyrdom
story
of a mother and her seven sons, who one after another
are
tortured and killed for refusing to eat pork
forbidden to the
Jews.
The Fourth Book of Maccabees places this story
in the
context of the Stoic philosophy, which demonstrates that
reason can overcome the passions.
God gave the law by which one
may order oneself
through prudence, justice, virtue, and courage.
The Wisdom of Solomon was probably written by a Jew
in the first century BC although the persona of the ancient sage
king is used to praise wisdom.
The author considered the reasoning
unsound of the
atheistic hedonists, who deny there is a spiritual
life
beyond the body and thus whose values are
only material and
short-sighted.
The ungodly are punished by their reasoning and
sinners
by their own actions in disregarding the just,
for whoever
despises wisdom is miserable.
The most severe judgment falls on
those in high places.
Wisdom begins with the desire to learn,
and the love of wisdom leads to keeping her laws.
She teaches
self-control, prudence, justice, and courage.
Antigonus II Gonatas, son of Demetrius and grandson of
Antigonus
I, after defeating the Gauls in Thrace, eliminated
his rivals
and established the Antigonid dynasty
in Macedonia in 276 BC.
Two years later though, the king of Epirus, Pyrrhus, invaded
Macedonia,
drove out Antigonus Gonatas to Thessalonica,
and took over the
defecting Macedonian army.
Violations of royal tombs by a garrison
of Gauls at Aegae
offended people, and Pyrrhus went south to invade
the
Peloponnese, leaving his son Ptolemy in charge.
Antigonus
Gonatas regained control of Macedonia and
conveyed an army by
sea to Corinth against Pyrrhus,
whose son Ptolemy was killed in
an ambush
by the forces of King Areus of Sparta.
At Argos Pyrrhus
was trapped between the armies of the
Macedonians and the Spartans
and killed by a tile
thrown by a woman from a rooftop in 272 BC.
The Aetolian league had taken possession of Delphi
in 290 BC and fought off, according to Diodorus,
160,000 Gauls there in
279 BC.
This collection of villages north of the Corinthian Gulf
joined
together for defense and plunder, increasing their votes
on the Amphictyonic council from two to six in ten years.
Athens,
urged on by Egypt, declared the
Chremonidean War (named after
its Athenian proposer)
against Antigonus Gonatas in 267 BC; but
Spartan help
collapsed when their king Areus died two years later;
the army of Epirus was defeated by Gonatas' young son.
Besieged
Athens, unrelieved by Egypt, was starved into
accepting a Macedonian
garrison by 262 BC.
The city of Sicyon often suffered under tyrants;
but when Cleon
was killed, Timoclides and Clinias
were chosen as respected magistrates.
When Timoclides died, Abantidas killed Clinias and tried
to kill
his seven-year-old son Aratus too,
but he escaped to Argos.
After
a while the tyrant Abantidas was killed by Dinias
and a logician
named Aristotle during a
discussion in the marketplace.
Abantidas'
father Paseas took over but was assassinated
by the next tyrant
Nicocles.
Now twenty, Aratus gathered some mercenaries and in
a
stealthy raid at night took over the tyrant's house without
a person dying, as Nicocles fled
through underground passages.
Aratus had Sicyonian liberty proclaimed and invited back
the many
exiles driven out by previous tyrants,
causing internal conflicts
over property.
To defend themselves against the ambitions of Macedonian
Antigonus Gonatas, Sicyon joined
the Achaean league in 249 BC.
Aratus went to Egypt and got 150 talents from Ptolemy II
to help
settle the disputes between the rich and the poor.
Made sole arbitrator,
Aratus nonetheless convened a
commission of fifteen citizens to
help him make settlements.
In 245 BC the Aetolian league defeated the Boeotians
and controlled
central Greece, while many Dorians and
Arcadians became citizens
of the Achaean league,
which elected Aratus its leader.
The Achaean
general was not allowed to succeed himself,
and so Aratus was
elected every other year;
two years later after raising money
by selling family treasures,
Aratus led another daring raid that
took the citadel at Corinth
away from the Macedonians.
Megara,
Troezen, and Epidaurus joined the Achaean league;
but though Aratus
devastated Salamis and released Athenian
citizens without ransom,
the Athenians refused to join the league.
Intent on overthrowing the tyranny in Argos, Aratus faile
and was charged by its latest tyrant Aristippus and convicted
of acts of hostility by a jury of Arcadians from Mantinea.
His
hatred of Argos also caused the Achaeans to violate the
traditional
safe conduct by selling their enemies,
who passed through their
territory after attending
the games celebrated by the Argives.
However, when Aristippus marched on Cleonae,
Aratus defeated the
Argives, as his forces
killed 1500 soldiers and Aristippus without
losing a man;
but he still could not take or liberate Argos,
as
Aristomachus became tyrant there.
So Aratus turned his attention
to Lydiades, who had
usurped power at Megalopolis, and he persuaded
him
to resign the government and enroll his city
into the Achaean
league.
Lydiades was then elected general in 235 BC
by the Achaeans and declared war on the
Lacedaemonians, which Aratus opposed.
While the Achaeans fought the Aetolian league,
Aratus and Lydiades
were elected
general in alternating years.
Aristomachus was also
persuaded to let Argos join the
Achaean alternately in 229 BC,
and he was elected
general by the Achaeans the next year.
Frequent wars in Greece increased the population of slaves,
causing unemployment, increasing mercenaries,
and leading to more
wars.
The poet Leonidas of Tarentum indicated that one had
to wear weapons to live in Sparta,
for the city had gone weapons-crazy.
The number of citizens in Sparta was reduced to 700 hoplites;
many of the remaining landowners were women,
and wealth was concentrated
in the hundred
who owned more than their own lots.
In 244 BC 20-year-old
Agis became king and canceled debts,
promising to redistribute
the land of Sparta into
4,500 equal lots with 15,000 lots for
those dwelling in the
surrounding area who could bear arms;
he
promised to contribute his own land and 600 talents,
and many
of his wealthy relatives and friends did likewise.
However, Agis
IV postponed the land reform to join Aratus'
Achaean league in
challenging Macedonian tyranny
over Megalopolis and Argos.
Returning
from the war, Agis found reactionary forces
led by co-king Leonidas
in control; rather than provoke
a civil war, Agis went into exile
and was the first Spartan
king to be executed by the ephor officials.
Antigonus Gonatas was succeeded as king of Macedonia
in 239
BC by Demetrius II.
Alexander of Epirus had also died, and the
Aetolians were
demanding the northern half of Acarnania,
which
Epirus thought belonged to them.
Alexander's widow Olympias gave
Demetrius her daughter
Phthia in marriage, which put the Macedonians
against the
Aetolians, who allied themselves with the Achaeans.
Thus Demetrius spent ten years fighting the Aetolian and
Achaean
leagues, taking Boeotia and Phocis
but losing control of the Peloponnese.
In Epirus after Macedonian support was withdrawn,
a revolution
overthrew the royal dynasty in 231 BC,
establishing a federal
republic and renouncing
its claims in Acarnania.
The Acarnanians
declared their independence,
but were invaded by the Aetolians
and so appealed to
Demetrius for help; he recommended the Illyrians, who
were known for their piracy and now turned to conquest,
extending
their control south to the Corinthian Gulf
and even taking Corcyra
until
they were stopped by the Romans.
Leonidas II ruled Sparta alone until he died in 235 BC
and
was succeeded by his son Cleomenes III, who married
Agis' beautiful
widow Agiatis and was won over by her
to the radical program of
social reform.
After the death of Demetrius II in 229 BC, the
Achaean
league and the Spartans fought over Arcadian towns.
Athens
by 228 BC finally paid off the Macedonian garrisons
with 150 talents
to which Aratus contributed twenty talents,
although Athens still
refused to join the Achaean league.
The wealthy Eucleides contributed
large amounts,
raised private funds for the defense of Athens, and as military
treasurer controlled Athenian finances for twenty
years.
However, the Boeotians and Phocians in throwing off
Macedonian
domination did join the Achaeans.
When the Achaeans attacked Elis
in 227 BC,
Cleomones' Spartan forces routed them;
but he was defeated
by a relief force
led by Aratus near Megalopolis.
When Aratus
refused to pursue them,
Lydiades did and was killed.
Returning to Sparta to institute the reforms, Cleomenes
had
his soldiers murder the ephors; he exiled eighty citizens
and
removed the ephors' seats, except for the
one he sat in to conduct
business.
Cleomenes gave his property to the state and assigned
a lot
to each of those he had exiled.
He made citizens of 4,000
men who lived around Sparta,
arming and training them as hoplites
with traditional Spartan discipline.
Cleomenes was also influenced
by the Stoic philosopher
Sphaerus, whom he appointed Spartan Minister
of Education
and put in charge of Lycurgan restoration of Spartan
discipline.
Those previously not enfranchised who lived around
Sparta,
resident aliens, and even Helots were given more rights.
With Ptolemy III's support, the army was re-organized,
though
the mother and children of Cleomenes III
had to go to Alexandria
as hostages.
Spartan power grew, but Aratus still refused to accept
Cleomenes'
leadership of the Achaean league.
Instead in 224 BC Aratus turned
to the Macedonian regent
for young Philip V, Antigonus Doson,
who formed an alliance
not only with the Achaean league but also
with Thessaly,
Epirus, Acarnania, Boeotia, Euboea, and Phocis.
Doson was elected commander-in-chief (hegemon), took
Mantinea
and gave it to the Achaean league, which killed
or sold into slavery
all its people in revenge for the
Mantineans having murdered the
Achaean garrison.
Cleomenes freed 6,000 Helots, who could pay
five minae each, raising 500 talents and
equipping 2,000
of them for his phalanx.
The Spartans captured Megalopolis; Cleomenes
offered to
restore the city if they would become his ally;
but
Philopoemen would not let the Megalopolitans
abandon their pledge
to the Achaeans,
and the city was plundered and razed.
One of
the generals for Megalopolis in their battles with
Sparta was
the Cynic poet Cercidas, who lamented the
suffering of the poor,
criticized the gods for not distributing
earthly goods justly,
and warned the rich to stop being
spendthrifts or misers and to
help those in need,
or else there would be trouble.
While the Macedonian troops were in winter quarters,
the forces
of Cleomenes ravaged the country around Argos;
but with their
Egyptian subsidy withdrawn, Sparta was
defeated at Sellasia by
greater numbers and
taken for the first time in its history.
Although
Antigonus Doson treated the city humanely and left
soon to quell
revolts in the north, the reforms were canceled.
Cleomenes fled
to Egypt, where he was supported
by Ptolemy III; but conditions
deteriorated under Ptolemy IV,
and Cleomenes and his few supporters,
after a futile revolt
in Alexandria, committed suicide.
Antigonus Doson died in 221 BC, and 17-year-old
Philip V began
to rule Macedonia.
Described as lascivious and a most cruel tyrant
by Plutarch,
Philip V gave the Aetolian Dicaearchus twenty ships
to use
for piracy, ordered 10,000 Dardanians massacred,
and put
to death without trials so many of his noble subjects
and relations
that the Macedonians felt horror
and hatred toward him.
The Aetolians
led by Scopas ravaged their former ally
Messenia, which having
been spared in the Cleomenic war,
offered much booty.
The Achaeans
voted for reprisals.
Some Cynaetheans betrayed their city to the
Aetolians,
and Polybius blamed their destruction
on neglecting
their musical traditions.
Young Philip V did not punish Sparta for those
who had killed
some of his supporters.
Joining with Macedonia's allies at Corinth,
he and the Achaean
league declared they would take back any city
taken by
Aetolians since the death of Demetrius II nine years
before;
but they would not punish those who had been compelled
to join the Aetolian league.
So began what was called the Social
War.
Scerdilaidas got help from Philip in subduing Illyria
by promising to attack the Aetolians by sea
for twenty talents per
year.
The Byzantines, no longer able to pay off the Gauls,
had
to start charging shipping duties, which led to a war
with maritime
power Rhodes until
Byzantium agreed to end the tolls.
On Crete
the dominance of Knossos and Gortyna
led to a civil war, as Polyrrhenia
appealed to and later
supported the Achaeans and Philip,
while
the Knossians supported Aetolia.
When news of Cleomenes III's death reached Sparta
in 219 BC, the ephors were assassinated;
Lycurgus and Agesipolis were made
kings,
and an alliance with the Aetolians and Elis was formed.
While Scopas and the Aetolians marched through Thessaly
to invade
Macedonia, Philip's forces passed through
Acarnania to attack
the Aetolian city Phoetiae
until news of a Dardanian invasion
of Macedonia
caused Philip to send Demetrius of Pharos by sea
while he marched back to Pella, scaring away the Dardanians.
While
the Spartans harassed Argolis and Arcadia
the Aetolians, now
led by Dorimachus, invaded Epirus
and destroyed their sanctuary
at Dodona.
Philip joined the Achaeans led by the younger Aratu
in Arcadia where they stormed Psophis and gave this town
and
Lasion to the Achaeans.
Next the Macedonian army captured many
while plundering
Elis, no longer inviolable because of the Olympic
games.
Philip V started listening more to Aratus than to the advice
of Apelles, who was hostile to the Achaeans and whose
accusation
of Aratus proved false.
Short of supplies, Philip got the Achaeans
to vote him fifty
talents and a large supply of grain.
With Dorimachus
and half the Aetolian army fighting in Thessaly,
Philip invaded
Aetolia again and in revenge for Aetolian crime
at Dium and Dodona
the Macedonians looted and destroyed
religious and artistic works
at Thermus.
Polybius strongly criticized Philip for this behavior
and
suggested he would have been much more successful
by being generous rather than destructive.
Eventually the conspiracy of
Apelles, Leontius, and Megaleas
was exposed after Megaleas was
tried by Philip's friends
and imprisoned; Leontius and Ptolemaeus
were executed,
and Megaleas, Apelles, his son and a favorite
took
their own lives.
Philip's army regained control of Thessaly and
Magnesia,
taking a town there called Thebes, selling its inhabitants
into slavery, and renaming it Philippi.
Hearing that Hannibal had defeated the Romans in Etruria,
Demetrius
of Pharos began to fill Philip's head with
thoughts of greater
conquest.
So in 217 BC he made a treaty with the Aetolians
in
which each side kept what they held.
Agelaus of Naupactus argued
that the Greeks must be united
in peace to take up the challenge
of either Rome or Carthage.
According to Polybius, a drastic change
in Philip's situation
occurred when he listened to Demetrius of
Pharos again
rather than Aratus and betrayed the Messenians
by
taking their citadel.
Later Philip V secretly had Aratus poisoned.
Philip's ambition caused him to make an alliance with
Carthage's
Hannibal against Rome,
which then formed an alliance with the
Aetolians,
Elis, Sparta, Messenia, and Pergamum.
When Spartan
tyrant Machanidas attacked Mantinea
in 208 BC, Philopoemen's Achaean
army trained in phalanx
warfare was said to have slaughtered 4,000
men there,
as Philopoemen killed Machanidas with his javelin.
The next year Nabis instituted more radical policies
in Sparta
that even freed some Helots.
Philip V invaded Aetolia and made another peace,
but his enslavement
of the Cius alienated Rhodes.
Having built up his navy, the Macedonians
attacked Rhodes,
raised money by piracy, fought the Pergamene
fleet,
and besieged Abydos.
Attalus I of Pergamum and Rhodes appealed
to Rome.
When they had defeated Carthage, the Romans saved Athens
after Philip's forces sacked the suburbs.
The Romans then invaded
Macedonia, and supported by the
Aetolian league, defeated the
Macedonian army
in Thessaly in 197 BC.
The poet Alcaeus, who satirized
Philip for attacking everything
except Mount Olympus and for poisoning
Epicrates and Callias
wrote the following epigram:
Not wept for and not buried in this tomb we lie,
traveler, thirty-thousand men, destroyed by the
fighting Aetolians and Latins brought by Titus
from broad Italy, a calamity to Emathia; while
His Boldness, Philip, went off faster than any deer.7
Apparently Philip V had the critical poet crucified,
for he
left the following epigram:
Traveler, on this ridge a leafless, barkless tree,
one gaunt cross, is planted: Alcaeus'.8
The next year during the Isthmian games at Corinth,
Flamininus
proclaimed Greek liberty as a gift from Rome.
However, Thessaly was divided into a federation of four states,
and several cities had their magistrates and council seats
restricted
to the wealthy.
Unable to protect it, Philip had given Argos to
Spartan tyrant Nabis, who instituted his reforms there
by terror
until he was persuaded by the Romans to free Argos.
The Romans
withdrew from Greece in 194 BC.
Unhappy with the settlement, the Aetolians allied with Nabis
in Sparta and invited Seleucid Antiochus III to liberate Greece.
However, some Aetolians, who assassinated Nabis and
plundered
their host city, were then massacred by the Spartans.
The Aetolians
took Demetrias in Magnesia and waited there
for the 10,000 men
Antiochus brought across to take the
Propontis peninsula in Thrace;
but they were defeated
by the Romans at Thermopylae,
and Antiochus
fled back to Asia.
The Romans punished the Aetolians
by restricting
their territory,
and a treaty with Rome
ended their independence.
The Roman legions marched through Macedonia
with
Philip's protection, crossed the Hellespont and defeated
the
Seleucids again at sea and on land.
The Roman senate liberated
the Greek cities who had taken
their side, giving Pergamum much
territory and Rhodes
Lycia and Caria south of the Maeander.
Though
Rhodians had argued for liberating Greek cities
from Pergamum's
control, Lycians were soon fighting
Rhodes for their independence.
As this war was ending in 188 BC, the Achaean league
led by
Philopoemen captured Sparta unresisted.
Philopoemen executed eighty
Spartans who had murdered
Achaeans at Compasium, expelled the
partisans of Nabis,
sold 3,000 who would not leave into slavery,
demolished new fortifications, dispossessed the Helots,
and abolished
the institutions of Lycurgus, replacing them
with Achaean ephebic
training.
Philopoemen got Sparta, Elis, and Messenia to join
the
Achaean league, uniting the Peloponnesian peninsula;
but when
Messenia revolted,
Philopoemen was captured and poisoned in 182
BC.
Callicrates became leader of the Achaean league and,
while
staying on friendly terms with Rome, allowed Sparta
to rebuild
their walls and resume their traditional discipline.
Philip V
died in 179 BC and was succeeded in Macedonia
by his son Perseus,
who already had had his brother
Demetrius assassinated, ordered
his rival Antigonus killed,
and continued his father's war preparations
against Rome.
When Eumenes II of Pergamum was nearly murdered
by
agents of Perseus and persuaded the Roman senate
to attack
Macedonia, the Roman army invaded Greece
and took three years
to defeat the Macedonians;
but in 168 BC largely because Perseus
was unwilling
to give money to allies, his army was
soundly defeated
at Pydna.
The Antigonid dynasty ended as Macedonia was divided
into four tribute-paying republics by the Romans.
One thousand
eminent Achaeans named by Callicrates
were deported to Rome for
fifteen years,
including the historian Polybius.
From Epirus 150,000
were taken to the Roman slave markets.
Athens had supplied the
Roman army with over a
million gallons of grain and was rewarded
with Haliartus
as well as Lemnos and Delos, which as a free port
became
a great commercial success, though Athenian settlements
caused problems later in all these colonies.
When Athens tried to tax Oropus, they complained to the
Roman
senate; they referred the dispute to Sicyon,
which fined Athens
500 talents.
The Athenians sent to Rome
Carneades, head of the Academy,
along with the heads of the Stoic
and Peripatetic schools,
and they managed to get the fine reduced
to 100 talents.
When the Oropians appealed to the Achaean league,
Athenians plundered Oropus and withdrew; but a dispute
over a
bribe of ten talents divided this league, and Rome
eventually
allowed Sparta, Corinth, Argos
and others to secede from the
league.
In 150 BC the Achaean league attacked Sparta
in defiance
of the Roman senate.
The next year Andriscus, claiming to be the
son of Perseus,
tried to revive the Macedonians; but they were
defeated,
and Macedonia became a Roman province.
In 146 BC the
Achaean army was routed by the Romans.
Because Roman envoys had
barely escaped death
from a Corinthian mob, the Roman senate ordered
all the inhabitants of Corinth sold into slavery
and the city
demolished.
Greece was absorbed into the province of Macedonia.
When Pontus king Mithridates VI revolted against
Roman taxation,
he sent to Athens in 88 BC an envoy
named Athenion, who persuaded
the Athenians to let him
take over the city and challenge Rome.
The wealthy began to leave, but Athenion placed guards
at the
gates and put to death many who resisted his dictates.
Archelaus
led forces that killed thousands of Italians
at Delos and sent
its treasure with Aristion to Athens.
Archelaus also got support
for Mithridates' revolt
from the Lacedaemonians and Achaeans,
and his fleet seized the Piraeus harbor.
However, Sulla brought
five Roman legions to Greece,
picked up support in Boeotia,
and
besieged Athens and Piraeus.
Athenians were reduced by starvation
to cannibalism;
when the Romans finally stormed the city,
many
were slaughtered, slaves were sold,
Aristion and his bodyguards
were executed,
and 40 pounds of gold and 600 pounds of silver
were taken;
but Athens was allowed to survive under Roman domination.
Rhodes steadily grew in prosperity and power,
especially after
withstanding the siege of the
Antigonid Demetrius in 305 BC.
Building
the Colossus and becoming a commercial center,
Rhodes got wealthy
from a two-percent tax on trade
that included much grain.
After
the colossal statue was destroyed by an earthquake
in 227 BC,
many Greek cities contributed to restoring the city.
Early in
the second century BC to safeguard shipping,
their navy cleared
the eastern Mediterranean of pirates.
However, when Rhodes did
not support the Romans
in their war against Macedonian king Perseus
171-168 BC,
Rome declared Delos a free port under Athenian control,
which took much banking business
and trade away from Rhodes.
With
less funds piracy increased again, though Rhodes
fought off Rome's
enemy Mithridates VI, and they continued
to be a cultural center
until Rhodes was devastated
by Caesar's murderer Cassius in 43
BC.
Xenocrates (396-314 BC) was head of the Academy
in Athens from
339 BC for 25 years until his death.
Plato
said that Aristotle needed a
bridle
but Xenocrates a spur.
In Sicily when Dionysius II warned
Plato he might lose his head,
Xenocrates pointed to his own and said that no one
would touch
it until they cut off his.
Xenocrates went as a diplomat to Macedonia,
and Philip said he was the
only man he could not bribe.
Alexander
gave Xenocrates a large amount of money,
but he took only 3,000
drachmae and sent the rest back,
saying that Alexander
had greater needs
and more people to keep.
Xenocrates refused
to accept a gift from Antipater;
when sent to plead for Athenian
prisoners,
he refused to dine with Antipater until the
Macedonian
agreed to release them.
A native of Chalcedon and unable to pay
the Athenian tax
on resident aliens because he refused to charge
fees,
Xenocrates was put up for sale;
but Demetrius of Phalerum
purchased him so that
Athens would have its tax and then liberated
him.
Xenocrates lived simply, studying and teaching;
it was said
that he left the Academy only once a year
to attend the Dionysian
tragedies.
Xenocrates spent an hour each day in silence.
Testing
his reputation for virtue, the courtesan Phryne
told him she was
being pursued; he shared his bed with her,
but she complained
he was more like a statue than a man.
Many of his ideas were adopted
by the Stoics, such as the
division of philosophy into logic,
ethics, and physics,
the distinction between the body, mind, and
soul,
and particularly the ethical idea that
happiness results
from what is natural.
His division of spiritual beings into gods,
humans,
and semi-divine spirits later influenced Christians.
Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360-270 BC) began as a poor and unknown
painter, but he traveled extensively and learned not only from
the Magi of Persia when he accompanied Alexander
but also
from the philosophers of India.
He became an agnostic and founded the Skeptical school
based on
the suspension of judgment.
Pyrrho denied that anything is just
or unjust,
honorable or dishonorable; there is only custom and
convention or a moral relativism.
Influenced by Hindu ascetics,
Pyrrho withdrew from the
world and lived in solitude, rarely seeing
his relatives.
It was said that Athens honored him with citizenship
for having killed the Thracian Cotys.
The Skeptics challenged
the dogmas of the other schools
but put forward none themselves
except the suspension of judgment.
They tried to show how things
gained credence and then
endeavored to destroy those beliefs.
Some considered their goal to be insensibility,
but others described
it as gentleness.
Skepticism influenced Arcesilaus (315-241 BC),
the founder
of the Middle Academy, and Carneades (213-129 BC)
who headed the New Academy.
With the development of Stoic and
Epicurean ideas,
many philosophers became more eclectic also.
Theophrastus (371-287 BC) first studied with Plato
but left him to join Aristotle
and became head of the Lyceum
when Aristotle
died in 322 BC.
He was given the name Theophrastus by Aristotle
for his graceful style.
When Agnonides prosecuted Theophrastus
for impiety,
he barely got enough votes to escape being punished
himself.
Some 2,000 people were said to have attended
the lectures
of Theophrastus.
He left Athens when philosophers were forbidden
to teach
there without permission; but he came back the next year
when the law was overturned as its author was fined.
Theophrastus
said that the most valuable expenditure is time.
His last words
when he died at 84 were to encourage
his students to go on inquiring
into right conduct.
Theophrastus believed that all living beings
are related,
and he rejected animal sacrifices and the eating
of meat;
he said that all people are related to each other
and
members of the same nation.
He wrote many books on a wide variety
of subjects
in science as well as philosophy and was most influential
in botany for centuries; one of his books described the
medicinal
properties of plants.
However, his only extant work is a short
book on
Characters, which only includes the bad ones.
In Characters Theophrastus defined the ironical person
as one
who affects to be worse, considered flattery degrading,
described the behaviors of chatterers, boors, those who are
too
anxious to please, the demoralized outcast, those who
invent news
and rumors, the shameless, the stingy, the
abominable who are
blatantly offensive, those
whose timing is wrong, those who overdo,
the ineffectual, the hostile whose words are harsh,
the superstitious,
the person always with a grievance,
the distrustful, the offensive
who neglect their
personal condition, the tiresome, those with
petty ambitions,
the mean with money, boasters, the arrogant,
the cowardly, the authoritarian, slanderers,
the avaricious, those
who seem to love evil,
and those who learn too late.
He gave numerous
examples for each, such as the
avaricious person when giving a
party
will not put out enough bread for the guests.
There is much
practical wisdom in these negative examples
of the annoying things
people often do.
Menander (342-292 BC) studied with
Theophrastus at the Lyceum.
Menander wrote more than a hundred plays,
and many of his new
comedies of manners were
adapted by the Romans Plautus and Terence.
Until the discovery of Dyskolos in 1958,
none of his surviving
plays were complete.
This comedy won a prize
when it was first
performed in 316 BC.
The title refers to a person who is hard
to please.
The play is set in the country, where the farm house of the
misanthropic Knemon is near a shrine to Pan
and the house of his
step-son Gorgias, who now lives with
his mother, because Knemon
is tired of "holy acrimony."
Pan has caused the well-to-do
young Sostratos
to fall in love with Knemon's daughter Myrrhine.
To gain her father's permission Sostratos works in the field
with
Gorgias; but Knemon, bothered by requests to borrow
kitchen utensils
from the cook of Sostratos' family
celebrating at Pan's shrine,
keeps the sourpuss home,
wary of the people nearby.
Knemon's slave
has dropped the bucket in the well,
and trying to fetch it and
a hoe,
Knemon falls into the well himself.
When he is rescued
by Gorgias and Sostratos,
his gratitude changes his usual mood.
With everyone concerned about making money
he never thought he
would meet a kind person.
He adopts Gorgias as his son and asks
him to find
a husband for his daughter, offering a dowry of one
talent.
Soon Sostratos is betrothed to Myrrhine and Gorgias
to
the sister of Sostratos, whose father offers the
hardworking farmer
a dowry of three talents.
The slave of Sostratos' father brings
out the
recuperating Knemon while the cook and he
ask to borrow
one thing after another.
Finally they are able to get the reclusive
old man
to attend the wedding feast, and all celebrate.
The Woman of Samos is about a refugee, who was expelled
from there when Macedonia defeated Athens in 322 BC.
Demeas has
taken her in but will not marry her
until her citizenship is proven,
and it is considered her duty
not to have children who would not
be citizens.
Thus she has ordered her child to be exposed while
Demeas is away; but she is raising the child of Demeas' son
Moschion
and Plangon, the daughter of their neighbor;
Demeas' not knowing
whose child it is makes for the drama.
Moschion, accused by his
father of fathering a child
by the Samian woman Chrysis, considers
soldiering in the east;
but his love for Plangon makes that unthinkable,
forbidden by his new purpose of love.
The play deals with the
problems of those returning from
Samos and the increasing tendency
to expose babies
(particularly girls) at birth because of poverty.
In several of Menander's plays young men fall in love
with
slave-girls, who when their origins are learned,
turn out to be
citizens so that they can be happily married.
In The Arbitration
a passer-by is stopped to arbitrate
a dispute over tokens taken
from a foundling,
who was handed over to someone else.
It is argued
that everyone ought to feel an obligation
to see that justice
is done.
Charisios considers himself a faultless student of ethics
who has made honor his aim; but now his having rejected
his wife
for a mishap reveals his conceit and folly,
and he is afraid he'll
be a bad example.
A slave asks Smicrines if he thinks it is right
for a man
to take his daughter from her husband; but the father
replies
that it is necessary even if it is not right.
The slave
turns to the audience and notes that this man
considers what is
wrong necessary.
However, when the slave explains to him that
the child is his grandchild, all is bliss.
Another play, the title of which means the woman whose hair
has been clipped all around, is about a soldier Polemon,
who comes
home to find his mistress Glycera in the arms of a
neighbor; so
he cuts off her hair.
Glycera's maid calls soldiers a lawless
lot, who can't be trusted.
However, the neighbor turns out to
be her brother,
and their father warns Polemon not to take the
law into his
own hands by taking her away by force; but he does
have
a right to lodge a legal complaint.
Eventually Polemon learns
to be less ferocious after
he realizes that he almost destroyed
his whole life.
He asks Glycera to forgive him, and she does.
Many fragments indicate the gentle ethics of Menander,
who along with Homer and Virgil was one of the
most admired writers
in ancient times.
One character notes that the greatest strength
is to know
how to endure the greatest wrongs with self-control;
anger and bitterness betray to the world a petty mind.
Another
passage transcends the traditional idea of noble birth
by suggesting
a noble character that makes for a noble life
makes one of noble
birth even if one is a black African.
He also noted that a conscience
with a secret guilt can
make even the bold cowardly.
The following
fragment indicates his
community spirit of justice:
If each of us would willingly take our part, and join
In stout resistance, call each unjust act a blow
Aimed at ourselves no less than at our neighbor, if
We worked and fought in common, we wouldn't every time
See crime succeed; we'd keep a watch on wicked men,
Get them their just deserts; and soon they'd be reduced
To a mere handful easily kept under control.9
Epicurus was born in February 341 BC and died in 270.
He was
an Athenian citizen, although he was raised
at Samos by his father,
who was a schoolmaster.
At 14 he became interested in philosophy
when a teacher
could not explain the meaning of Hesiod's
term "chaos,"
and the works of Democritus soon intrigued
him.
At the age of 18 he reported to Athens
for two years of military
service.
A year later he joined his father for a few years in
Colophon,
where he had gone when the Athenian settlers were expelled
from Samos by Perdiccas; there Epicurus gained disciples.
He traveled
and listened to the lectures of Xenocrates.
Epicurus taught at
Mytilene and Lampsacus in Asia
before buying a home and the Garden
in Athens,
where he taught from 306 BC until his death,
although
he occasionally traveled to Asia Minor.
Unlike the Academy, the
Lyceum, and the Stoics,
his school at the Garden admitted women
and even one slave.
Because of the rivalry of other schools and his emphasis
on
pleasure, critics accused Epicurus of living with courtesans
and
overindulging in eating so much
that he vomited twice a day;
but
his own ideas and life-style
make these charges seem unlikely.
He had many friends, who considered him
a moderate man of goodwill,
and he was honored with a statue in bronze.
Friends came from
all over to be with him in the Garden,
and he was described as
living simply and frugally,
drinking water and only a half pint
of thin wine per day.
His own writing mentioned living on bread
and water,
as he asked for a little cheese as a treat.
However,
there can be little doubt that Epicurus' philosophy
of pleasure
was practiced differently by many and was
condemned by even more
as indulgent hedonism.
The philosophy of Epicurus affirms in every
animate being two
states of feeling—pleasure and pain;
one is favorable and the
other hostile to life,
and by them choice and avoidance are determined.
He taught that three motives for injurious acts are
hatred, envy,
and contempt,
but the wise overcome these by reason.
Once one
becomes wise, one does not assume the
opposite habit, if one can
help it.
Susceptibility to emotion does not
necessarily hinder
one's wisdom.
The wise are happy even on the rack and will show
gratitude to friends in word and deed.
The wise do not make fine
speeches, and Epicurus
believed that one is never better for sexual
indulgence.
He advised against taking part in politics nor would
the wise ever be a tyrant nor a Cynic nor a beggar.
One may take
a suit to court and take
care of one's property for the future.
The wise are grateful to those who correct one,
will believe and
not doubt everything.
Epicureans did not consider all sins to
be equal
and valued health as sometimes a good.
In his letter to Menoeceus Epicurus encouraged him
to seek
wisdom when young and not tire of it in old age,
for no age is
too early or late for the health of the soul.
To say that it is
not the time for studying philosophy
is to say that it is not
the time for happiness.
He recommended believing that God is a
living being,
immortal and blessed, and that one should
uphold
this blessedness and immortality.
The greatest evils happen to
the wicked and the greatest
goods to the good from the gods, because
they favor their
own good qualities in humans but reject what
is alien to them.
The wise do not deprecate life nor fear its
end.
The same exercise involves living well and dying well.
Preference
and aversion should be toward securing the
health of the body
and the tranquillity of the mind,
which are the sum of the blessed
life;
for the end of all actions is to be free of pain and fear.
Pleasure is the beginning and end of the blessed life
and the
starting point of every choice and aversion.
Although pleasure is the first and natural good,
not every
pleasure is to be chosen, but they should be
passed over when
a greater annoyance may ensue.
Pains are often better than pleasures
when
they eventually result in greater pleasure.
By measuring
one against the other and looking at their
convenience and inconvenience,
these matters may be judged.
Independence of outward things is
a great good.
Those enjoy luxury the most who have the least need
of it.
What is natural is easily procured,
but vain and worthless
things are hard to gain.
Plain fare gives as much pleasure as
a costly diet,
once the pain of desiring is removed.
Hunger makes
bread and water highly pleasurable.
To habituate oneself to a
simple and inexpensive diet
will supply all one's needs for health
and enable one
to meet the necessities of life easily.
Epicurus noted that by making pleasure the aim
he did not mean
prodigal pleasures of sensuality
as misunderstood through ignorance,
prejudice,
or misrepresentation.
He considered pleasure to be
the absence of pain
in the body and of trouble in the soul,
not
an unbroken succession of drinking bouts,
revelry, sex, and luxurious
food.
Rather sober reasoning rationally determines every choice
and avoidance by banishing those beliefs
that cause the soul tumult.
Thus the greatest good is prudence,
and all virtues spring from
it.
He taught that we cannot lead a life of pleasure without
prudence,
honor, and justice, nor a life of prudence, honor,
and justice
that is not also a life of pleasure.
Such a person holds a holy
belief in the gods
and is free of the fear of death.
One may understand
how the limit of good things may be
reached and attained and how
either the duration
or the intensity of pain is slight.
Epicurus
taught that some things happen by necessity,
others by chance,
and some through our own agency;
it is to our free actions that
praise and blame attach.
Even the misfortune of the wise is better
than the prosperity of a fool.
By practicing these things day
and night with similar people
one will not be disturbed
but will
live as a god among people.
Epicurus chose the virtues on account of pleasure
and not for
their own sake.
He left a list of sovereign maxims for his followers.
A blessed and eternal being has no trouble and brings
no trouble
to any one else,
being exempt from anger and partiality.
Pleasure
reaches its limit by removing all pain.
It is impossible to live
pleasantly without living wisely, well,
and justly; it is also
impossible to live wisely, well, and justly
without living pleasantly.
Fortune seldom interferes with the wise,
who direct their life
by reason.
The just enjoy the greatest peace of mind,
while the
unjust are full of extreme uneasiness.
Those who understand the
limits of life know how
easy it is to procure enough to remove
the pain of need
and make all of life complete, no longer needing
things
that can only be won by labor and conflict.
Of all the ways to ensure happiness by wisdom throughout life
the most important is to acquire friends.
Nothing enhances our
security so much as friendship.
Natural desires, which do not
give pain when not gratified,
are pursued because of illusory
opinion and
persist only because of illusory opinion.
Natural
justice is based on the expediency of preventing
one person from
harming or being harmed by another.
Animals and tribes, which
cannot make covenants
with each other so as not to inflict and
suffer harm,
are without justice.
Injustice is not evil for itself
but because of its consequences.
For a wrong-doer to be undetected
is difficult,
for no one secretly violating the social contract
may feel confident of not being discovered.
Laws which cease to
be expedient cease to be just.
Necessity is an evil; but it is not necessary
to continue living
subject to necessity.
Most people are in a coma when they are
at rest
and mad when they act.
As we value the work on our own
characters,
so too should we regard the characters of our friends.
No one chooses something thinking it is evil;
but when it appears
good compared to a greater evil,
the bait is taken and one is
caught.
We may obey nature by satisfying necessary desires
and
also bodily desires that do not harm us,
while rejecting those
that are harmful.
Poverty in proportion to the natural purposes
of life
is great wealth, but unlimited wealth is great poverty.
Learning and pleasure advance together.
Our flesh bids us escape
from hunger, thirst, and cold;
the one free of these in happiness
may vie with Zeus.
Don't spoil what you have by desiring what
you don't have.
Whoever sees many reasons for ending one's life
is of small account.
Neither the one who engages in the petty
trade of always
seeking aid from friends nor the one who deprives
oneself
of hope for the future by never thinking
of such aid can
be a true friend.
"The love of money, if unjust, is impious, but if just,
shameful;
for to be sparing sordidly is unseemly even with justice."10
The wise accustomed to limited means have learned such
self-sufficiency
that they know better how to share
with others than to take from
them.
The study of nature does not produce people who boast
and
shout or make a show of their culture,
but people who are fearless
and self-sufficient,
depending on themselves and not on those
who depend on their possessions.
In regard to sexual passion Epicurus
advised following
one's inclinations provided that one neither
violates the laws,
disturbs customs, harms any neighbors,
injures
one's own body,
nor wastes one's possessions,
though he considered
this impractical.
"Friendship dances around the world summoning
us all
to awaken to the blessing."11
Envy no one: the good
do not merit envy;
as for the evil, the greater their fortune,
the greater the pains they inflict on themselves.
We need to free
ourselves from the prison
of private and public business.
It is
not one's belly that cannot be satisfied,
but the false idea of
the unending filling of one's belly.
It is foolish for children to resist their parents' anger:
for if it is justified, it's better to seek forgiveness;
if it
isn't justified, resisting usually makes it worse;
it is better
to turn the anger aside by a display of good feeling.
Epicurus
saw a limit to simple living,
which when surpassed is as great
an error as extravagance.
Praise may be welcomed if unsought,
but we should be
more concerned with correcting ourselves.
It
is foolish to pray for what one is capable of obtaining oneself.
We may show our feeling for departed friends
not by wailing but
by meditating.
If one happens on great wealth, one may gain good
will
by distributing it to others.
Don't do anything that would
cause you to fear
if it were discovered by your neighbor.
Test
every desire by considering what will happen
if it is fulfilled
and if it is not fulfilled.
Suffering bodily pains helps us
to
guard against them in the future.
In a philosophical dispute the
one who is defeated
gains most by learning most.
Freedom is the
fruit of self-sufficiency.
The noble are concerned with wisdom
and friendship.
The calm do not disturb themselves or others.
The soul does not rid itself of confusion nor gain a worthy joy
through possessing wealth nor honors from the
common crowd nor
through any of the unlimited desires.
Zeno was a Phoenician from Citium on Cyprus.
He died about
260 BC at the age of 72 or 90.
His fortune of a thousand talents
was lost in a shipwreck
on the Attic coast about 314 BC.
His merchant
father had brought him many books
about Socrates
when he was a boy.
He was reading Xenophon's
Memoirs of Socrates
in Athens
when he asked where men like that were to be found.
Someone pointed to the Cynic philosopher Crates,
who lived like
a beggar with the woman Hipparchia,
another philosopher.
Zeno
was a pupil of Crates and attended the lectures
of Xenocrates
and Stilpo for ten years.
An oracle told him to take on the complexion
of the dead,
and so he studied the ancient authors.
However, his
natural modesty did not allow him
to practice the ascetic shamelessness
of the Cynics.
When Crates tried to drag him away from Stilpo
by pulling his cloak, Zeno said that the proper way to seize
a
philosopher is by the ears and to drag one by persuasion;
violence
may take his body,
but his mind would still be with Stilpo.
Zeno
once pointed out to a youth talking nonsense
that we have two
ears and only one mouth
so that we may listen more and talk less.
Zeno began to teach pacing back and forth in a colonnade,
and
thus his school of philosophy became known as the
Stoics from
the Greek word for porch (stoa).
Athens honored him with
the keys to the city,
a gold crown, and a bronze statue.
Antigonus
Gonatas liked his lectures
and invited him to his court;
but Zeno,
writing he could not go at the age of eighty,
sent two of his
companions instead.
He said a friend is another I.
When he was
punishing a slave for stealing,
the slave pleaded that it was
his fate to steal;
Zeno agreed and said it was his fate to be
beaten too.
Zeno could endure and practiced frugality,
eating
uncooked food and wearing a thin cloak.
The Stoics considered the first impulse of all animals
to be
self-preservation; pleasure only comes as a by-product.
Zeno wrote
that the purpose of life is agreement with nature,
for our individual
natures are part of the whole universe.
Right reason pervades
all things, and the law common to all
forbids what is contrary
to nature.
The virtue of the happy person in the smooth flow of
life
is when all actions promote the harmony of the spirit
living
in the individual with the will
of the one who orders the universe.
Virtue is valuable for its own sake as a harmonious
disposition
and not from hope or fear of external motives.
Virtue is the state
of mind that makes life harmonious.
A rational being may be perverted,
however,
by the deception of external pursuits
or by the influence
of associates.
The Stoics argued that virtue can be taught,
because bad people
do sometimes become good.
The primary virtues are wisdom, courage,
justice,
and moderation.
Particular virtues are magnanimity, continence,
endurance,
presence of mind, and good counsel.
Wisdom is defined
as knowledge of good and evil,
courage as knowledge of what one
ought to choose.
Magnanimity is what enables one to rise above
anything
that happens; continence is the disposition and habit
in accord with reason that is never overcome by pleasure;
endurance
is the knowledge of what to hold on to;
presence of mind is finding
out what is best to be done
at any moment; and good counsel is
knowing
what we need to do and how to do it for the best.
The
corresponding vices come from ignorance.
Goods can be external
or mental.
For the Stoics all good is expedient, binding toward unity,
profitable, useful, serviceable, beautiful, beneficial, desirable,
and just or right in that it brings people together.
What most
people consider to be external values such as life,
health, pleasure,
beauty, strength, wealth, a good reputation,
and noble birth and
their opposites to the Stoic
are neutral and thus neither good
nor evil,
though they may be "preferred."
What is good
benefits and does not injure,
but those things which can be used
either for good or bad
are not goods in themselves.
However, Poseidonius
(c. 135-50 BC), who taught at Rhodes,
did maintain that these
values are good too.
Chrysippus (c. 286-206 BC) denied that pleasure
is a good,
because some pleasures are disgraceful.
For most Stoics
these things are indifferent,
though those valued may be preferred
and others rejected.
Harmony in life's process is what determines
duty
or what one ought to do.
Appropriate acts are those guided
by reason such as
honoring the gods, parents, brothers,
and country
and communicating with friends.
Taking care of one's health is
considered an unconditional duty;
other duties depend on circumstances.
Falsehood can lead to perversion and the passions or emotions,
which Zeno defined as unnatural movements in the soul
or as excessive
impulses.
Zeno classified the emotions into the categories of
grief, fear, desire, and pleasure.
Chrysippus wrote that emotions
are judgments;
avarice, for example, is based on the supposition
that money is a good.
Grief or pain they held to be a mental contraction
expressed as pity, envy, jealousy, rivalry, heavy grief,
annoyance,
distress, anguish, and distraction.
Fear is an expectation of
evil and can be terror,
nervous shrinking (from action), shame,
consternation, panic, and mental agony.
Desire or the craving
of an irrational appetite ranges as want,
hatred, contentiousness,
anger, love, wrath, and resentment.
Pleasure is an irrational
elation at getting what one wants
and includes ravishment, malevolent
joy, delight,
and transports of delight that can melt away virtue.
The three emotions that are considered good by the Stoics are
joy, caution, and wishing, which are the rational counterparts
of pleasure, fear, and desire.
The wise person is passionless
and does not fall into the
weakness of the emotions, although
a bad person
can be apathetic in being callous and relentless.
The wise are free of vanity, being indifferent
to good or bad
reports, genuinely earnest in self-improvement,
and free from
pretense and business cares.
They are not liable to madness nor
to grief.
Stoics were willing to participate in politics in order
to restrain vice and promote virtue,
and they married and raised
children.
They believed that the wise are free
and the bad are
slaves of their vices.
They also condemned the subordination of
traditional slavery.
They believed only the wise and good are
fit to be magistrates, judges, and orators.
The wise do not hurt
others or themselves.
The wise pray to the gods for good things,
and they believed that friendship, which is a common use
in treating
friends as oneself,
can only exist between the wise and good.
The unwise are mad, which comes from folly.
Wisdom comes from
understanding and good counsel,
moderation from good discipline
and orderliness,
and courage from constancy and vigor.
Stoics held that a wise person might make one's own exit
from
life for the sake of one's country and friends
or if suffering
from intolerable pain,
mutilation, or an incurable disease.
Zeno
in his Republic and Chrysippus in his treatise
On Government
both favored a community of wives
with the free choice of partners,
sharing paternal affection
for all the children alike and, they
believed,
ending the jealousies arising from adultery.
They both
recommended a mixed government of democracy,
kingship, and aristocracy
(rule by the virtuous).
God they identified with reason, fate,
Zeus,
and many other names.
Zeno maintained the unity of the world,
and the Stoics considered the world a living being endowed
with
a soul, as indicated by the individual souls making it up.
For
the Stoics God is a living being, immortal, rational, perfect,
intelligent, happy, with no evil, and taking providential care
of the whole world but not having a human shape.
The various Greek
gods and goddesses represent
peculiar attributes of God.
Zeno's
successor was considered by most to be Cleanthes,
who lived to
be nearly ninety, dying in 232 BC.
Chrysippus studied with Cleanthes
and wrote extensively.
The Hellenistic times were hard with many wars,
occasional
famines, and increasing slavery.
30,000 slaves toiled in Athens'
silver mines at Laurion,
and the gold mines of the Ptolemies
worked
by slaves were notorious.
Slave revolts were becoming more frequent
and larger,
and Poseidonius warned that the ill treatment of slaves
by their masters endangered the whole community.
City states had
lost power to larger kingdoms;
wealth and power had become concentrated
in fewer hands;
and philosophers had responded by turning
inward
for personal happiness.
Utopian visions were written by Euhemerus,
who lived at the court of Macedonian king Cassander
about 300
BC and suggested in his fanciful Sacred History
that the
gods had once lived on earth,
and by Iambulus, a Nabatean who
wrote about a city
of the sun found near Ethiopia, where people
lived
communally with dignified free labor and no class distinctions.
1. Hyperides, Funeral Speech tr. J. O. Burtt, 25.
2. Ancient Egyptian Literature tr. Miriam Lichtheim, Vol.
3, p. 159.
3. Theocritus, Selected Epigrams tr. Robert Wells, 13.
4. Graetz, Heinrich, History of the Jews, Vol. 2, p. 20.
5. Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach,
Revised Standard Version, 4:25.
6. Ibid., 13:3.
7. Palatine Anthology 7:247 tr. Alistair Elliot
8. Ibid. 16:26b tr. Edwin Morgan.
9. Menander fragment 542 tr. Philip Vellacott.
10. Vatican Sayings 43 tr. Sanderson Beck.
11. Ibid., 52.
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