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  that it was through Lydia. This would imply that the Macedonians chose

  the main road to the south east from Zeleia to the Macestus river valley,

  thence via Thyateira and the Hermus river valley to Sardis. Such a route is

  c. 270 km long and therefore the march would have lasted until the end of

  May 334. Sardis, the capital of the former Kingdom of Lydia, was in

  26 Diod., 16.21.6; Arr., An. , 1.16.3-7; Plu., Alex. , 16.15-18; Just., 11.6; It. Alex. , 23; Curt., 3.1.9; P.Hamb. 652. Hanson 1999, p. 130.

  27 Plu., Alex. , 16.19; Fragmentum Sabbaiticum, FGrH, 151 F1.1; Ps.-Callisth., 1.28; Syll. 3 252. Carney 2000, p. 86.

  28 Arr., An. , 1.17.1. Heckel 1992, pp. 355-357. Coins: Debord 2000.

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  Chapter IV

  Persian times a large, multi-ethnic city. Most of the population, however,

  were Lydians and in the second half of the 4th century Lydian social elites

  were intensively influenced by Hellenic culture, as is apparent in the city’s

  artwork from the late Achaemenid period. The city’s other inhabitants

  included Greeks, Carians, Babylonians, Iranians and other people bearing

  Asianic names. The populace worshipped both local and Iranian gods

  Ahura Mazda and Anahita. At Hierokome, situated in the rural district of

  Sardis, there was a temple of Anahita run by magi right up to Roman times.

  In Persian times and immediately after Alexander’s conquest Sardis

  maintained a certain degree of autonomy which allowed it to have

  independent diplomatic relations with Miletus, but it had not yet acquired

  the status of a Greek polis, which was to come in the Hellenistic period.

  Sardis was significant as the seat of the satrap of the Sparda (the territory

  of the former Kingdom of Lydia), who frequently also governed Ionia.

  Being linked by the Royal Road with Susa, Sardis was also the

  unquestioned centre of Persian authority in the whole of Asia Minor. The

  garrison at the Sardis citadel was directly subordinate to the Great King as

  was the keeper of the local royal treasury. For Alexander the capture of

  this treasury was of prime importance for, despite the victory at the

  Granicus, his finances were in a critical condition. According to both

  literary sources and archaeological findings the citadel at Sardis, where the

  treasury must have been located, was virtually impossible to capture

  without a long, drawn-out siege.29

  Yet this did not happen. Before Alexander reached the city, he was met

  by the commander of the Sardis garrison, Mithrenes, accompanied by the

  city’s most influential citizens, who surrendered to the Macedonian king

  the acropolis and treasury. Our sources do not explain why it happened

  this way, but we can certainly not conclude that this was a spontaneous

  gesture. Later examples of great cities surrendering without resistance

  during Alexander’s campaign – Babylon or Susa – show a certain

  procedure. The surrendering commander always greeted the victor some

  distance away form the city and showed his respect. Such was the

  established custom not only in Achaemenid times but at least since the

  time of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Failure to surrender to the approaching

  army outside the city was a sign of hostile intentions. Once this greeting

  ceremony was completed, the official victor formally entered the city as its

  new master. Although the sources do not always mention this directly, the

  29 Diod., 17.21.7. Magie 1950, pp. 797-799; Seibert 1985, pp. 35-37; Bosworth

  1988, pp. 44-45; Briant 1993, pp. 18-19; Briant 1996, pp. 722-725; Hornblower

  1994, pp. 214-217; Debord 1999, pp. 432-433; Sartre 2003, p. 16. Dusinberre 2003

  is a monograph of Sardis in Achaemenid period.

  From Abydus to Alexandria

  127

  formal capitulation of great and powerful cities was normally preceded by

  secret negotiations to establish the terms and conditions of surrender, not

  least compensation to the availing commander of the surrendering fortress.

  That is what must have happened before the surrender of Sardis and

  Mithrenes had a lot to bargain with; in return for capitulation he

  guaranteed for himself a position in Alexander’s closest circle as the first

  Iranian, indeed first Asian to be so honoured. After the Battle of Issus

  Alexander sent him on a mission to Darius III’s captured family and later

  appointed him satrap of Armenia. Mithrenes’ defection was no less

  significant from Alexander’s point of view, for it started an immensely

  important process, never fully understood or accepted by contemporary

  Greeks and Macedonians: the winning over of what P. Briant calls ‘the

  ethnoclass ruling the Achaemenid empire’ or, more simply put, the Iranian

  aristocracy. With time, after battles personally lost by Darius III himself,

  many Iranians would follow in Mithrenes’ footsteps. However, according

  to Curtius Rufus, who frequently was well informed about the mood on

  the Persian side at given times, the commandant of the Sardis citadel was

  initially seen as a traitor among his compatriots. Having been greeted by

  Mithrenes, Alexander set up camp 20 stades (c. 4 km) from Sardis and

  instructed Amyntas the son of Andromenes to occupy the Sardis citadel.

  Only then did he himself formally enter the city. In Sardis Alexander

  resolved to build a temple to the Olympian Zeus. Interpreting as a sign

  from the said deity a thunderclap that struck a spot where the palace of the

  Lydian kings had once stood, Alexander decided to have the temple built

  there. To the local population the thunderbolt had a symbolic meaning

  suggesting that Alexander was the continuator of the ancient Lydian

  dynasty that Cyrus the Great had overthrown over two centuries earlier.

  Continuing Achaemenid administrative solutions, Alexander divided

  authority over Sardis between three officials: Asander, the son of Philotas,

  became the satrap of Lydia; Nicias was entrusted with the collection of

  taxes and Alexander’s Companion ( hetairos) Pausanias was given

  command of the garrison, which was to include a contingent from Argos.

  Soon afterwards Alexander occupied part of the Aegean coast and islands,

  which he added to Asander’s satrapy, though most probably as a separate

  hyparchy (administrative unit) governed by the Macedonian Philoxenus.

  This way the administrative structure from before the 5th-century Persian

  wars was restored. Alexander instructed Calas and Alexander of Lyncestis,

  who commanded the Peloponnesian contingent, to confiscate Memnon’s

  estates situated in what was now Calas’s satrapy. This was an ostentatious

  measure taken against one of the Great King’s fiercest generals, but no

  mass confiscations of the property of Iranian aristocrats in this region

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  Chapter IV

  followed. In later times many of their descendants belonged to social elites

  of the poleis of Asia Minor. In Achaemenid times these Iranian aristocrats

  had held land in royal territories but after 334 their estates were gradually

  incorporated into the poleis rural territories ( chorai). The process almost

  certainly began during Alexander’s reign. The earliest extant documentary

  evidence is a decree of the city of Amyzon
in Caria issued in 321/320.

  Both this decree, passed on the initiative of the satrap Asander, and later

  actions by the Seleucids incorporating aristocratic property into the chorai

  of poleis show that the monarchy was the main driving force behind the

  process of transforming the administrative structure of Asia Minor. We do

  not know what was meant in Arrian’s statement that Alexander had

  allowed the Lydians keep their freedom as the satrap’s authority and the

  level of tributes remained the same.30

  Having made the essential administrative decisions, Alexander headed

  for Ephesus, which lay on an offshoot of the Royal Road. In a story

  written much later by Pausanias, sometime after a hunting excursion

  during that four-day march Alexander fell asleep and in his dreams he saw

  the goddess Nemesis, who showed him where to rebuild Smyrna.

  Although this is a well established story, later officially commemorated on

  coins issued in Smyrna, unfortunately one cannot dismiss the possibility

  that like many stories of historical or mythological figures founding cities

  this one was invented in Roman times.31 Ephesus, historically the second

  most important Ionian city after Miletus, had always been of considerable

  interest to the Persian authorities. They surrounded the city with care,

  especially the temple of Artemis, and under Tiberius the Ephesians were

  still referring to the city’s right to asylum granted by the Persians. The

  degree of respect to what was after all a pagan goddess accorded by the

  Persian Zoroastrian state is apparent in the fact that at the turn of the 4th

  century the satrap Tissaphernes issued coins with her image. The city also

  had an Iranian colony and even centuries later the temple servant

  ( neokoros) of the Artemision was also called megabyzus, a word derived

  from the Persian name Bagabuxša meaning “satisfying or serving the

  god.”32

  News of the Persian defeat provoked in Ephesus the second revolution

  within three years. Greek mercenaries of the small garrison of Ephesus

  30 Curt., 3.12.7; Arr., An. , 1.17; Diod., 17.21.7; Plu., Alex. , 17.1; It. Alex. , 24. Lane Fox 1973, pp. 140-141; Robert 1983, pp. 97-118; Briant 1985; Briant 1993; Heckel

  1992, pp. 176-178, 385; Debord 1999, pp. 159-160, 185. On surrendering cities see

  below chapter V.4.

  31 Paus., 7.5.2. Debord 1999, p. 435.

  32 Boyce, Grenet 1989, p. 206; Briant 1996, pp. 721-722; Shabazi 2003, pp. 7-14.

  From Abydus to Alexandria

  129

  commandeered two triremes and escaped from the city, taking with them

  Amyntas the son of Antioch, who was a Macedonian aristocrat opposed to

  Alexander’s rule. Alexander entered Ephesus accompanied by the

  previously expelled supporters of Macedonia and personally ended

  oligarchic rule, establishing or rather re-establishing in its place a

  democracy. No longer fearful of the oligarchs a crowd dragged their

  leaders: Syrphax, his son Pelagon and his nephews, from the temple and

  stoned them to death. But once the leaders were killed Alexander forbade

  further retributions and, according to Arrian, the wisdom of this decision

  earned him great popularity among the populace. A considerable part of

  Alexander’s actions in Ephesus focused on the Temple of Artemis – the

  goddess who according to legend had failed to save the Artemisium from

  fire because she was preoccupied with assisting Olympias in labour.

  Alexander now laid offerings to the goddess and arranged a military

  parade. He also extended the asylum area around the temple to one stade

  (c. 180 m) – we do not know the size of the original asylum area. This was

  an important privilege, and Ephesus would have to wait another 300 years

  for it to be further extended. Moreover, Alexander decided that the tribute

  from the city due to him should be deposited in the temple’s treasury. The

  Artemisium lay within the city’s boundaries and, as the division of church

  and state was unknown in Antiquity, the temple’s treasury was actually

  administered by the city; therefore Ephesus was paying itself tribute.

  Strabo records an anecdote about an offer by Alexander to rebuild the

  Artemisium from his royal funds which was rejected by the proud

  Ephesians, who wanted for themselves the glory of rebuilding the temple.

  Yet so as not to offend the monarch they explained that it was not befitting

  for deity to build a temple for another deity. Although anecdotal nature of

  this account does not necessarily undermine its historical veracity, it is

  highly unlikely that something like that could have happened during

  Alexander’s first and only visit to Ephesus. Firstly, the current state of his

  finances would have prohibited him from making such an offer. Secondly,

  the Greeks’ attitude to religion was much too serious for them to have

  proclaimed this young Macedonian ruler a god as early as in 334.

  Nevertheless this story does illustrate Alexander’s consistent interest in

  Artemis of Ephesus, for whom he was willing to give donations even

  when royal revenues were at their lowest.33 Whilst in Ionia Alexander

  must have also made a very generous donation for the construction of a

  33 Arr., An. , 1.17.10-18.2; Str., 14.1.22-23. Bosworth 1980, pp. 132-133; Higgins

  1980, pp. 132-134; Badian 1996, pp. 24-25; Nawotka 2003a, pp. 23-24, 29.

  130

  Chapter IV

  temple to the goddess Athena Polias in the city of Priene as it is recorded

  in an inscription on the temple to this day.34

  Arrian writes that while Alexander was in Ephesus emissaries came

  from Magnesia and Tralles to surrender their cities to him. The king

  accepted their capitulation and provided these Greek cities military

  protection by sending there Parmenion with a force of 5,000 infantry (half

  of whom were Macedonian and the other half mercenaries) as well as 200

  hetairoi. He sent another force under the command of Alcimachus to the

  cities of Ionia and Aeolis with instructions: ‘He ordered the oligarchies

  everywhere to be overthrown and democracies to be established; he

  restored its own laws to each city and remitted the tribute they used to pay

  to the barbarians.’ In Caria somewhat later that year Alexander said that

  he had started the war with Persia in order to liberate the Greek cities.

  These two simple remarks quoted in the sources have aroused a major

  historical debate regarding Alexander’s attitude towards the Greek cities

  of Asia Minor. Stances in this debate are between two extreme views. One

  claims that Alexander genuinely restored freedom to the poleis of Asia

  Minor and invited them to join the League of Corinth. The opposite view

  claims that actually nothing changed: tributes continued to be extracted

  even if under a different guise and that the pro-Persian cliques called

  oligarchies were merely replaced by pro-Macedonian cliques forming

  puppet regimes called ‘democracies’. If nothing had indeed changed, then

  the decisions made by Alexander at Ephesus would have only been for

  propaganda purposes.35

  Historical debate has allowed us to establish that in all probability,

  unlike certain island states, the poleis of
Asia Minor never became

  members of the League of Corinth. The sources do not mention anything

  like this happening, whereas for Alexander the League was never such an

  important political tool as to make it necessary for him to recruit so many

  new members. Other controversies, however, remain. Perhaps a way out of

  this academic deadlock would be to look at the liberation issue from the

  point of view of the Greeks in Asia Minor and on the basis of their

  concepts of sovereignty and freedom. To the 4th-century Greeks a free

  polis was one which had its own laws, controlled its rural territories, could

  decide on the settlement or expulsion of foreigners, had its own foreign

  policy and made independent financial decisions, including ones

  concerning taxes. The most important of these criteria was the first, which

  34 IPriene, 156. Heisserer 1980, pp. 143-144, 156-158.

  35 Arr., An. , 1.18.2; Diod., 17.24.1. Detailed discussion of the issue of freedom of

  Greeks in Asia Minor with reference to all extant sources: Nawotka 2003a. Now

  see also Mileta 2008, pp. 21-40. Here I provide a summary and conclusions.

  From Abydus to Alexandria

  131

  the Greeks called autonomia though today we would call it sovereignty

  rather than ‘autonomy’. A free polis could belong to a military alliance

  and pay contributions to a common cause. However, the imposition of a

  duty to pay tributes was contrary to their concept of sovereignty. In the 4th

  century a view emerged and became predominant from the 330s onwards

  that democracy was the typical system of government for a free polis.

  Therefore not only tyranny (which is obvious) but also oligarchy was

  considered incompatible with what they believed to be the natural

  constitution of a free Greek state.

  One of the visible – and therefore important to modern scholars –

  aspects of ancient Greek democracy was the transparency of government,

  namely the freedom to express views and a tendency to publish the results

  of public debates, i.e. the decrees of the council and people. Oligarchies

 

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