or Greek mercenaries. When Alexander died in Babylon in June of 323, his army
only consisted of approximately 2000 Macedonian cavalry and 13,000 Macedonian
infantry (Curt. 10.2.8). In addition to these Macedonians, there were present
30,000 infantry called the Epigoni or Offspring, young Asians armed and trained in the techniques of the Macedonian heavy infantry (Arr. Anab. 7.6.1; Curt. 8.5.1; Diod. 17.108.1–2; Plut. Alex. 47.3, 71.1), 20,000 Persian infantry armed in their traditional fashion, forces of Cossaeans and Tapurians (Arr. Anab. 7.23.1), 30,000
mercenary infantry and 6000 such cavalry brought from Greece prior to his voyage
down the Indus (Diod. 17.95.4), and unspecified forces brought to Babylon shortly before his death from Caria and Lydia (Arr. Anab. 7.23.1). Moreover, it is unknown, other than the numbers of Macedonians, how many of the original force that
entered India had survived the journey down the Indus, the crossing of the
Gedrosian desert, or had been left behind in various garrisons. According to Curtius (8.5.4), the army that entered India contained 120,000 men (cf. Engels 1978: 150).
Many of these were recruited in and around what is today Afghanistan (Curt. 8.5.1; Arr. Anab. 6.2.3, 8.2; cf. 4.17.3). While these Asian and Greek forces in the aftermath of Alexander’s death are most often not specified ethnical y by our sources, there are indications that they continued to serve in the armies of the various
Diadochs in large numbers. Eumenes in 320 had an army composed of “men of
many races” (Diod. 18.30.4). In the Battle of Paraetacene in 316, Eumenes’ infantry contained 6000 mercenaries (presumably Greek), and 5000 “men of many races”
armed in the Macedonian fashion, and in his opponent Antigonus’ ranks, 9000
mercenaries, 3000 Lycians and Pamphylians, and 8000 “mixed troops in Macedonian
equipment” (Diod. 19.27.6, 29.3; cf. 18.40.7). The cavalry fighting in Asia during
4
Alexander’s Heirs
the wars of the Successors was predominantly of Asian horsemen (cf. Diod.
19.14.5–8, 20.3, 27.4, 29.2). In the early wars of the Diadochi, however, while Asian elements may have predominated numerical y, it was the Macedonian veterans
who served as the core of these armies (Roisman 2012). Over time this Macedonian
importance decreased significantly.
While Alexander the Great’s importance in the creation of the Hellenistic
world is clear, what only in recent years has come to be ful y appreciated is the contribution made by the Conqueror’s father Philip II. For so many reasons
the father deserves the epithet of Great as much as does his son, and in some
ways, more so. Prior to Philip, Macedonia was a territorial region not a country.
It was he who made it into a nation (Anson 2008a; 2013b: 43–81). Prior to this
ruler, the authority of the king was circumscribed by his dependence on the landed aristocracy for both his government and his army. In a relationship accurately
described as Homeric, the king shared power with his hetairoi, or companions.
These were most often aristocratic Macedonian landowners, but did include
a minority of those of other nationalities. With the Macedonian court lacking
anything approaching a bureaucracy, all of the basic functions of government were entrusted to these hetairoi. They ruled their own lands as independent fiefdoms and served the king when it suited them or on those occasions when a king’s
personality could dominate them. This was in truth a very personal relationship.
The companions were formal y tied to the monarch by religious and social
bonds; they worshipped, hunted, drank, and fought alongside the king. Indeed,
the military of Macedonia was dominated by these individuals, who made up
one of the best cavalry forces in the Greek world. Due to the fact that Macedonia was not much urbanized, with most of its coastal cities independent Greek
city-states, and, therefore, chiefly without a Macedonian middle class, the
infantry was made up of lightly armed and poorly trained peasants, the tenant
farmers, small land-holders, and herders, who served their aristocratic masters.
These features of Macedonia explain what is one of the more surprising aspects
the largest and most fertile plain in the peninsula, large mineral deposits, rich resources of timber, and, by the standards of other regions in the peninsula, a large population – Macedonia played only a marginal role in the fifth century. Most
often these Macedonian resources were exploited by the southern city-states, such as Athens, with the Macedonian kings unable to resist their incursions. If these
resources could ever be used exclusively by and for the Macedonians, then the
nature of the power structure in the Greek world would be transformed.
While the Macedonian kings were so often at the mercy of foreign powers and
their own native aristocracy, they were theoretical y the possessors of great power.
The king shared power official y with no one. Long-standing arguments that the
Macedonian king shared power with an assembly of Macedonians (Granier 1931;
Hammond and Griffith 1979: 161–2; Mooren 1983; Hatzopoulos 1996: 1:261–322),
is not borne out by the evidence (see Errington 1978; Anson 1985: 303–16; 1991;
2013b: 26–42). When supposed assemblies from the reigns of Alexander the Great
Introduction
5
and earlier Macedonian monarchs are examined, they turn out not to be constitu-
tional entities but ad hoc assemblages called by the king for a variety of reasons, but in no case involving any mandatory requirement that they be summoned or
that their decisions be followed. The king was, in the words of a contemporary of Philip II, “the absolute autocrat, commander, and master of everybody and everything” (Dem. 18.235). It was the king who official y declared war and made peace, commanded armies, and served as the intermediary between the people and their
gods (Anson 1985: 304–7; Borza 1990: 238). The sacral nature of the monarchy
was carried over even after death. Sacrifices were made to dead kings (Hammond
1970: 64–7; and Griffith 1979: 57). The sacral nature of the monarchy likely
accounts for the success of the royal clan, the Argeads, in monopolizing the kingship. Even though kings were assassinated, from roughly 700 to 310, all kings came from this clan. If one of these kings could ever turn his theoretical powers into actual ones, such a monarch might dominate the Greek world.
Such a king was Philip II. However, in 359, his accession to the throne would
seem anything but promising. In this year, an invading force from the northwest,
the tribal Illyrians, had swept into Macedonia, joined with many of the Macedonian aristocrats, and prepared to contest control of the country with the king. Philip’s brother, King Perdiccas III, gathered his forces and met the Illyrians somewhere
in the northern upland regions of Macedonia, where his army was defeated, with
4000 dead including the king himself (Diod. 16.2.4–6). It was with an Illyrian
army encamped in the northwest and threats of additional invasions from the
north and east that Philip became King Philip II of Macedonia. At the time, none
could have imagined that in twenty years he would turn this fragmented region
into a nation that would dominate the southern Greek world with his victory at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 and his creation of the League of Corinth in 337, by
which he exercised his control of the Greek city-states. It was with no exaggeration that the historian Diodorus of Sicily called Philip “the greatest of the kings
of Europe in his time” (Diod. 16.95.1). While it was Alexander the Great and his
conquest of the Persian Empire that set in motion the creation of the Hellenistic world, it was Philip who made Alexander’s achievements possible.
Philip, also, transformed the Macedonian army, the army with which Alexander
did conquer the Persian Empire, by creating a Macedonian heavy infantry to
complement the traditional y strong aristocratic cavalry. Here, he changed the
very nature of Greek warfare. Prior to Philip the core of every Greek army was
its hoplite phalanx. These heavily armed infantry soldiers wore breastplates and
greaves, carried a round shield, 3 feet in diameter, and a 7-foot-long thrusting
spear, and fought typical y shoulder to shoulder in a compact unit, the phalanx.
Cavalry and light-armed troops played only a secondary role, protecting
the flanks and rear of these formations. In Philip’s new Macedonian phalanx, the
infantryman was initial y equipped with a 14- to 15-foot pike (the sarissa), and perhaps a 2-foot-diameter shield hung from the neck and shoulder, but little else in the way of defensive armor. Moreover, this new phalanx played a substantial y
different role in battle than its predecessor. Unlike the hoplite phalanx, this new
6
Alexander’s Heirs
infantry formation’s purpose was not to win battles, but rather to pin down
the enemy’s infantry, giving the Macedonian heavy cavalry, now outfitted with
sarissas, albeit shorter than their infantry counterparts, of their own, the ability to probe the enemy for weaknesses, which they would then exploit. This new
strategy has been called the “hammer and anvil” tactic, where the infantry is the anvil and the cavalry, the hammer. Over time Philip added numerous other units
to his force, including skirmishers, archers, and mercenaries. With this new army Philip subdued his enemies, and his son Alexander conquered the Persian Empire.
This military change was closely tied to an even more dramatic change inaugu-
rated by Philip. The new model army employed large numbers of the peasant
population of Macedonia. Indeed, the origin of the sarissa-phalanx had much to do with the nature of the available manpower. Unlike the southern Greek city-states that depended on the middle class to supply their heavy infantry, with little in the way of such a class, Philip designed an infantry that required little in the way of material resources. In this new phalanx, the infantryman had virtual y
no expensive defensive armor. Moreover, a pike phalanx, when used primarily
for defensive purposes, required little in the way of training, and whereas hoplite warfare demanded close-in fighting, for those unfamiliar with the horrors of
warfare, the pike presented a measure of distance from your opponent. Unlike
hoplites, in the words of one commentator on hoplite warfare, the pikeman could
not “smell the breath” of his opponent.
To reward these new infantrymen and to free himself from total reliance on his
aristocratic companions, Philip granted these new troops land, transforming
many thousands of tenant farmers and dependent herdsmen into land-owning
Macedonians, freeing them from their dependence on those landed aristocrats. As
Arrian ( Anab. 7.9.2), claiming to quote Alexander concerning his father, states:
“Philip found you wandering and poor, wearing goatskins and grazing a few goats
on the mountains … he brought you down from the mountains to the plains …
and made you dwellers in cities.” By so doing, Philip created a confident and
exceedingly loyal population, loyal both to the monarch who had given them their
land and who defended their possession of it, but also to the institution of mon-
archy itself. These holders of king’s land became “citizen soldiers” (Diod. 18.12.2; Anson 2008a). Land for military service became a characteristic of the Hellenistic kingdoms that arose from Alexander’s conquests. Most of the new cities created by the Successors were composed of just such settlers. This desire for land on the part of the landless or the small landowner encumbered by debt or obligation has
sparked revolution across the centuries. Philip further cemented this new landed
class to him by extending the concept of companionship to them as wel . As the
powerful aristocrats were the king’s hetairoi, now the new citizen infantrymen became his pezhetairoi, his “foot companions.”
Macedonian tradition made the relationship between king and people always
one of informality and openness (Adams 1986). As part of this general lack of
royal ceremony and decorum, even the title of king was apparently not an official part of Macedonian royal nomenclature prior to the reign of Alexander the Great
Introduction
7
(Errington 1974). The king would simply be known by his given name, i. e. Philip, Alexander, etc. This personal aspect of rule was especial y true in the army where in battle the king was literal y the first to engage and the last to leave (Carney 1996: 28–31). Philip, with the creation of the pezhetairoi, changed informality into camaraderie. Alexander’s Successors likewise maintained this close tie to
their troops. As noted earlier, personal charisma was one very important key
to a Diadoch’s success.
Unlike Philip, who had created a Macedonian nation tied to the Argead mon-
archy, Alexander’s actions were never about his homeland, but always about
Alexander. In this regard, it was the example of Alexander and not Philip that the Successors followed. For the Diadochs, it was never about Macedonia, but about
their personal domains. The Successors might be forgiven their lack of interest in the Macedonian nation. It must be remembered that it was only with Alexander’s
father, Philip II, that Macedonia had become permanently united under the
authority of the Argead king. Moreover, these former generals of the Conqueror
had been away from their homeland for more than a decade, and of their number
few would ever return. Given that Alexander died without a clear and viable heir
who could step in and take his place, given that he died far from Macedonia, and
that his empire was personal, not national, it is understandable that his generals, his Successors, did not ral y to the support of the nation.
While they did initial y crown Alexander’s surviving brother as King Philip III,
and later, with the birth of Alexander’s second son, crowned the newborn as king
also, Alexander IV, the apparent unity was ephemeral. It would take forty years of incubation for this new age to emerge political y. In the final analysis, the evolution from one man’s conquests to a number of stable political states would be accomplished in these roughly forty years of destruction and bloodshed. Out of these
wars the new political realities of the Hellenistic world did emerge: Ptolemaic
Egypt, Antigonid Macedonia, Seleucid Asia, and others. While these shared
aspects of both Alexander’s administration and that of his immediate Successors,
there was final y no single model that fit all of the states that peopled the Hellenistic world. Each political entity had to accommodate the traditions of the populations that made up their states. Yet, in most every case, the structure was monarchical, heavily dependent on the military, and aggressive in foreign policy.
Before proceeding to these forty years of apparent chaos, the basis for our
knowledge requires a brief examination. First, ancient writers were not guided by the modern rules of the profession, with anecdotal material often given the same
weight as, or even greater weight than, more trustworthy accounts; they often used the past to excoria
te or praise their own present, or to teach universal lessons, sometimes coloring their accounts to make the praise, blame, or lesson more
profound. Moreover, in the special case of the period of the Diadochi, as it was
for the career of the Conqueror himself, no contemporary narrative source survives.
All of our chief sources date from the late Roman Republic or from the period of the Empire. Our principal source for much of this period is the universal history of
Diodorus of Sicily, titled The Library of History. This author wrote during the last
8
Alexander’s Heirs
half of the first century bc. With the loss of most of Diodorus’ history concerning events after 302, our knowledge of the following years relies on other far less
detailed sources. Indeed, this current history represents both the relative abun-
dance of material for the age down to 301, and the dearth thereafter. This gives my work a rather disjointed aspect with greater attention to the earlier period, but I believe it is better to include all the evidence that is available even if it gives this account of the history of the Successors an unbalanced appearance, than to truncate these years in the interest of maintaining some sense of chronological uniformity in the narrative presentation.
Diodorus’ narrative, despite its centrality to the history of this period, does have numerous shortcomings (Meeus 2013: 84–7). He is a secondary source, abbreviating extensive material not often too successful y, frequently inserting his own opinions of the role of fate and “moral utility” in historical causation (Sacks 1990: 24–35, 42–54). It is postulated that he, however, does in the main follow one
source for extensive periods (Hornblower 1981: 2–3; Sacks 1990: 19, 21, 41, 158).
Unfortunately, like most ancient historians he does not acknowledge his sources.
While he may not have been a slavish abbreviator (so Stylianou 1998: 15, 49, 137–9), the writing style, at the least, has been claimed as his own (Palm 1955), there
would appear to be a minimum of inserted additional material. In the case of
the aftermath of Alexander’s death down to the preliminaries to the Battle of Ipsus in 301, Diodorus is general y believed to be following the history of Hieronymus