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  Greek temples by Xerxes. Regardless of how sincere these declared

  reasons for war were, they corresponded well with the public mood and

  44 Wilcken 1967, pp. 34-38; Dobesch 1968, pp. 137-149; Markle 1976; Perlman

  1976; Jehne 1994, pp. 7-19; Hammond 1994, p. 164-165; Huttner 1997, pp. 81-85;

  Flower 2000, pp. 98-104.

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  would certainly have helped Philip become popular in Greece. In return

  for participation in the war, Philip, and Alexander after him, offered the

  Greeks a share in the plunder, including newly conquered territories, as

  well as the satisfaction of righting the wrongs previously perpetrated by

  Persia. From Philip’s point of view an additional advantage in calling for a

  universal attack on Persia could have possibly been greater unity within

  the League of Corinth, which apart from the negative goal of preventing

  intestine conflicts had also a positive aim of defeating Persia. On top of

  that, victory would provide everyone and especially Philip’s supporters in

  Greek cities with wealth from the booty, which would make stronger their

  political position. This in turn would strengthen the ties between the poleis

  and Macedonia. Moreover a defeated Persia would no longer be able to

  interfere in Greek politics and thus threaten Philip’s position as

  hegemon.45

  We do not know when exactly the plan to invade Persia was born.

  Ancient sources do not give us an unequivocal answer, whereas the

  extreme views of modern historians such as claims that Philip had already

  planned to invade Persia as early as the late 350s are only hypothetical as

  are claims associating the idea with Hermias of Atarneus. Philips actions

  in that period can be explained perfectly well in the context of his Greek

  policy and therefore it does not seem necessary to add hypothetical

  explanations unsupported by evidence. The only thing we can be certain of

  is that Isocrates had been advocating war with Persia since at least 346. It

  is very likely that the planning of the invasion of Persia only began with

  the conquest of Thrace and its reorganisation modelled on a Persian

  satrapy in 342. However, Philip started implementing these plans only

  after the Battle of Chaeronea. In 341 Philip’s arch enemy Demosthenes

  could just presume that the Macedonian ruler had anti-Persian intentions

  but he still had no concrete evidence. Artaxerxes III only started regarding

  Macedonia as a threat after the siege of Perinthus in 340/339; from that

  moment on we can talk of Philip’s anti-Persian plans with a high degree of

  certainty.46

  45 Diod., 16.89; Arr., An. , 2.14.5-8; Just., 11.5.6; revenge as a pretext for Philip:

  Plb., 3.6.12-14. Varying interpretations of modern scholarship: Markle 1976;

  Dąbrowa 1988, pp. 24-28; contra Flower 2000. See Lane Fox 1973, pp. 92-93;

  Badian 1982, p. 38; Errington 1981, p. 83; Errington 1990, p. 103; Gehrke 1996, p.

  26; Brosius 2003a; Bloedow 2003; Poddighe 2009, pp. 99-107.

  46 For a review of modern scholarship see Errington 1981. Badian 1983, pp. 67-68;

  Bosworth 1988, p. 18; Errington 1990, pp. 88-89; Hornblower 1994, p. 95;

  Corvisier 2002, pp. 262-263, 271-276.

  The Heir to the Throne

  69

  Another historical controversy concerns Philip’s war objectives,

  particularly whether he intended to conquer the whole of the Persian

  Empire or only the part in Asia Minor. In his Philippus Isocrates lays out

  three scenarios for the Macedonian ruler: destruction of the entire Persian

  Empire, the conquest and Greek colonisation of Asia Minor from Synope

  to Cilicia or at least the liberation of the region’s Greek cities. The

  arguments used in Darius III letters to Alexander indicate that Philip’s

  plans or rather what was being said about his plans referred to the

  conquest of Asia Minor scenario. If one can argue ex post, it is

  characteristic that the actions of one of the most talented among the

  Successors and Philip’s contemporary Antigonus Monophthalmus

  concentrated on the eastern Mediterranean zone but not Iran. Perhaps this

  also reflects the scope of territorial interest that had been formulated by

  Philip’s entourage.47

  It would be a gross oversimplification to view Persian Asia Minor

  prior to Philip and Alexander’s planned expedition from the point of view

  of Greek political authors and see there exclusively a dichotomy of

  politically subjugated Greeks and the oppressive Persian rulers. Of course

  in Asia Minor there was a developed Persian administration and the

  country was divided into at least six satrapies: Hellespontine Phrygia,

  Lydia, Great Phrygia, Caria, Lycia and Cappadocia. In the Persian system

  of government – which we know most about from Greek sources in

  reference to Asia Minor – the satrap had great power, imitating the

  authority of the Great King locally. On his territory the satrap had civil

  authority: the right to collect taxes, part of which was kept for the needs of

  his army and administration, whilst the rest he sent on to the capital. The

  satrap most usually governed his territory through a more often than not

  local aristocracy, which in many cases meant permission to run their

  regions with considerable autonomy, like local principalities. It was a

  general rule that the satraps were totally responsible for the provinces

  entrusted to them: only some of the empire’s most important garrisons had

  soldiers directly under the Great King’s command. Satraps were

  nominated almost exclusively from among members of the Iranian

  aristocracy. The most notable exception from this rule was Caria, where

  the position of satrap in the 4th century was held by members of a local

  dynasty, the Hecatomnids of Mylasa: Hecatomnus, Maussolus, Idrieus and

  Pixodarus. This dynasty indeed shows a tendency noted in other regions of

  Asia Minor if not the entire empire, to make the office of satrap hereditary

  in one family. After the collapse of the Achaemenid Empire some of these

  47 Billows 1990, pp. 3-4; Ellis 1994, pp. 788-789; Hatzopoulos 1997, p. 43.

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  Chapter II

  great Iranian families went on to found new, gradually Hellenised

  dynasties that ruled over states in Asia Minor. Not all of Asia Minor was

  actually ever under effective Persian rule. Some peripheral areas

  maintained de facto or even quite official independence from the Great

  King, the best example of which was the large Greek city of Heraclea on

  the Black Sea coast. Moreover, the pragmatic Persians were more

  interested in colleting tributes, which was easier, than subjugating

  highland regions that were difficult to control, frequently inhabited by

  wild tribes, as in Cilicia Trachea, and economically worthless. Such areas,

  though frequently bounded from all sides by Persian satrapies, were

  allowed to run their own affairs as they pleased. Furthermore, one should

  not think of states in ancient times the same way we think of their 20st-

  century counterparts. Regardless of whether they were in Asia Minor or on

  any of the islands under the Great King’s rule, a state was not cut off from

  the outsi
de world (not even the Greek world) by some iron curtain. In

  antiquity political borders were wide open for trade and demographic

  mobility.48

  Certain parts of Asia Minor – including the Daskyleion in

  Hellespontine Phrygia, the regions of Celaenae and Colossae in Great

  Phrygia and Paphlagonia – were intensively colonised by Iranian

  cavalrymen who received land for their military service. Much larger

  landed estates in Asia Minor were awarded to Persian aristocrats who in

  return were obliged to muster hundreds of horsemen in the event of war.

  Persian kings willingly provided refuge for members of the Greek elites

  forced for one reason or another to leave their poleis. Apart from the

  famous Greek refugees ostracised at the time of the 5th-century Persian

  wars – such as the victor of Salamis, Themistocles, or the Spartan king

  Demaratus – there were dozens of other less well known émigrés. These

  distinguished people were also granted vast estates in return for providing

  armed forces. The cavalry recruited from these three sources together with

  the cavalry units from some of the native populations were the basis of

  satraps’ armies in Asia Minor, which were nearly always on standby,

  ready to fight. Both Greek and Persian culture influenced the local

  populace and also competed with one another as models for the social

  elites. The local upper echelons of society were Hellenised and Iranicised

  in more or less equal measure as is particularly well illustrated in the

  archaeological remains of Lycian culture and the few extant inscriptions

  from that region. Although Lycian was the primary language of the local

  administration, the Lycian aristocracy spoke Greek and employed Greek

  48 Jacobs 1994, pp. 117-146; Hornblower 1982; Hornblower 1994, pp. 74-82, 214-

  222; Sartre 1995, pp. 7-14, 45-48; Debord 1999, pp. 139-140.

  The Heir to the Throne

  71

  artists and craftsmen to carve monuments expressing themes deeply rooted

  in Iranian culture, for instance extolling the skills of riding and archery.

  Likewise the stelae and other monuments at Daskyleion, the capital of the

  satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia, give evidence of a Greco-Iranian

  cultural synthesis and its impact on in this case the Phrygian elites. Traces

  of Iranian cultural influence, for instance in the form of Iranian cults,

  could still be found in Asia Minor at the time of the Roman Empire.49

  We do not know whether there was a clearly formulated Achaemenid

  policy regarding what form of constitution Greek states within the Persian

  Empire should have. Nevertheless, Greek sources do show a clear

  evolution of political systems in Asia Minor from democracies in the

  second half of the 5th century supported by powerful Athens to oligarchies

  in the 4th century. Most probably the main reason for this was a natural

  tendency for satraps to choose political solutions that were most

  convenient from their perspective. That would have been to entrust power

  to elite social groups within poleis under their control, and thus oligarchies

  were formed. For the Persian aristocrats who represented Achaemenid

  authority in Asia Minor, the rule in the cities of wealthy elites must have

  also appeared the natural and most familiar way of running affairs. This

  was the system that had predominated for much longer also in cities that

  were only now being Hellenised, for instance in Caria. Moreover, the

  Hecatomnid dynasty, particularly the famous Maussolus, was known as a

  protector of the oligarchic system in Greek states such as those of Rhodes,

  Chios, Kos, Erythrai and Miletus.50

  With the mandate he had received at the 337 second council session of

  the League of Corinth, in the spring of 336 Philip sent to Asia Minor a

  corps commanded by Parmenion, Amyntas and Attalus as an advance

  force of the main Macedonian and allied armies. The situation in the

  Achaemenid Empire seemed to be favourable from the Macedonian point

  of view. The much feared Artaxerxes III died and the weak government of

  his son Artaxerxes IV, soon to be murdered, augured an inadequate

  Persian response to an attack by Philip’s forces. While he was still alive,

  Artaxerxes III had disbanded the vast mercenary army that had quelled

  rebellious nobles and tyrants such as Hermias of Atarneus. Moreover the

  49 Starr 1977; Mellink 1988, pp. 213-231; Boyce, Grenet 1989, pp. 197-209;

  Hornblower 1994, pp. 230-232; Briant 1996, pp. 718-719; Debord 1999, pp. 20-21,

  183-188; Kaptan 2003; Shabazi 2003, pp. 11-12; Raimond 2007; Briant 2009, pp.

  156-160.

  50 Schachermeyr 1973, pp. 171-175; Hornblower 1982, pp.107-137; Hornblower

  1994, pp. 227-229; Nawotka 1999, pp. 33-34; Nawotka 2003a, pp. 21-26; Debord

  1999, pp. 328, 404.

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  Chapter II

  commander of this mercenary army, Mentor of Rhodes, was by then most

  probably dead, for the sources no longer mention him after 338. The

  Macedonian advance force with an estimated strength of approximately

  10,000 men initially had a number of military successes and occupied

  large swathes of land in Asia Minor. Although there was no general anti-

  Persian uprising, there is on the other hand no evidence to support the

  view that virtually all the poleis in Asia Minor resisted the Macedonians.

  At least some of the Greek cities greeted them as liberators. A genuine

  democratic revolution erupted at Ephesus, no doubt led by Heropythus,

  and a statue honouring the Macedonian king was raised at Artemisium.

  The important cities of Cyzicus and Erythrai allied themselves with

  Macedonia. It is perhaps also then that the satrap Ariobarzanes’s statue

  was pulled down in the Troad. Already before the start of the Asia Minor

  campaign Philip had managed to gain influence on the islands. Most

  notable was an alliance with the tyrants of Eresus on the island of Lesbos,

  who even became members of the League of Corinth.51

  The series of Macedonian successes came to an end when Darius III

  nominated Memnon of Rhodes, brother of Mentor, to take over command

  of the defensive war. This probably happened after Philip II’s death but

  still in 336. Ancient sources do not record any information of the new

  Macedonian king, Alexander, overseeing the campaign in Asia Minor that

  year. Instead he most probably left all the decisions to the commanders his

  father had nominated. Heading a force of 5,000 Greek mercenaries

  Memnon started a vigorous campaign against a numerically far superior

  Macedonian army, but one commanded by less talented generals. The

  Macedonians suffered the first defeat at the Battle of Magnesia. The

  sources do not provide an unequivocal answer as to which of the cities

  bearing that name the battle refers: the more northern Magnesia ad

  Sipylum or the Magnesia on the Maeander to the south of Ephesus. As a

  result of this defeat the invading army turned back north towards the

  Hellespont. We know that at Ephesus Memnon’s mercenaries helped in

  carrying out a counter-revolution that re-established a pro-Persian

  oligarchy headed by Syrphax. Philip’s statue at Artemision was destroyed

  as was
the grave of the city’s heroised democratic leader. One may assume

  that in most of the other cities in Asia Minor pro-Persian governments

  were restored too. Memnon next crossed Mount Ida and quite

  51 Diod., 16.89.2, 16.91.2, 17.2.4, 17.7.7; [D.], 17.7; Arr., An. , 1.17.11; Just., 9.5; IG xii.2.526. Cawkwell 1978, p. 170; Ruzicka 1993, pp. 84-85; Hammond 1994,

  pp. 167-168; Lott 1996; Briant 1996, p. 837; Debord 1999, pp. 421-425; Nawotka

  2003a, pp. 23-24. Heckel 1997, pp. 194-195 formulates an unfounded hypothesis

  of universal resistance to Macedonian army.

  The Heir to the Throne

  73

  unexpectedly attacked Cyzicus, almost capturing it. Meanwhile Parmenion,

  whose mission it officially was to liberate Greeks, somewhat ironically

  captured the Greek town of Gryneion and sold its inhabitants as slaves.

  This was the last Macedonian victory in this part of the war. Memnon

  successfully relieved the beleaguered city of Pitane, which like Gryneion

  was situated in Aeolis, and next we known that in the Troad he fought

  another victorious battle against the Macedonians, this time led by Calas,

  who may have temporarily taken over command from Parmenion. The

  Macedonians were now forced to retreat to the promontory of Rhoeteium

  on the Hellespont. The ancient authors do not provide information

  allowing us to establish the exact chronology of these events. Nevertheless,

  their description of Memnon’s campaign, especially the elements of

  swiftness and surprise in his attacks would suggest that it was a short

  campaign, perhaps lasting from the autumn of 336 to the summer of 335.

  Philip II’s death as well as the uncertainty that accompanied Alexander’s

  transition to the throne and confirmation as the new hegemon delayed the

  expedition of the main Greco-Macedonian force into Asia Minor by one

  and a half years. Left to fend for itself the first expeditionary corps

  suffered defeat and only some of the men would have survived to later see

  the arrival of Alexander’s army at Abydos.52