7. 3000 cavalry from Antioch: Polybius 30.25.6. Diodorus indicates that after catastrophic defeat to the Parthians in 129 BC, ‘there was not a household (in Antioch) that was exempt from misfortune’ (Diodorus 34.17).
8. Raphia (217): 20,000, Magnesia (190): 16,000. Daphne (168): 20,000.
9. On the cataphract, Rattenbury, R.M. ‘An Ancient Armoured Force.’ Classical Review, Vol. 56, No.3 (1942), pp. 113–116., Glover, R.F. ‘Some Curiosities of Ancient Warfare’, Greece and Rome, Vol. 19, No. 55 (January 1950), pp. 1–3; and Eadie, John W. ‘The Development of Roman Mailed Cavalry.’ Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 57, no. ½ (1967), pp.163–4.
10. e.g. Polybius 30.25.5.
11. Bar Kochba, Seleucid Army, 9.
12. Herodotus 7.83.
13. Livy, 37.40.7–12 : agema eam uocabant; Medi erant, lecti uiri, et eiusdem regionis mixti multarum gentium equites…et mille alii equites, regia ala leuioribus tegumentis suis equorumque, alio haud dissimili habitu; Syri plerique erant Phrygibus et Lydis immixti.
14. H.H. Schullard’s The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World, 60–63.
15. Seleucid Elephant Corps: Bikerman, Institutes, 61–63.
16. Nefiodkin, Alexander. ‘On the Origin of the Scythed Chariots’, Historia: Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte. Band 53, H. 3 (2004), pp. 376–378. Scythed Chariots against Alexander: Arrian Anabasis Alexandrou 3.11.7.
17. For recent studies on the Seleucid court of Antiochus III see Dreyer, Boris ‘How to Become a ‘Relative’ of the King: Careers and Hierarchy at the Court of Antiochus III’, American Journal of Philology, Vol. 132, No. 1, Spring 2011, pp. 45–57. and Strootman, Rolf. ‘Hellenistic Court Society: Seleukid Imperial Court Under Antiochus The Great, 2230187 BCE’, in Duindam, et al., 2011. On philoi, Habicht, Hellenistic Monarchies, 26–40. See also Bikerman, Institutions, 31–50.
18. Polybius 5.82.13. Grainger, Prosopography, 107.
19. See Pownall, 2011:55–65 for the role of drinking in the Argead court. Persians: Herodotus 1.133, 3–4.
20. Athenaeus 14.27, although this may be the dance performed by Philip in 338, after the battle of Chaironaia (Demosthenes 20.3; Grainger, Prosopography: 806). On the use of Athenaeus as a source for the Seleucid Court, see Cecarelli, Paulo. ‘Kings Philosophers and Drunkards: Athenaeus’ Information on the Seleucids’, in Erickson and Ramsey (eds.) Seleucid Dissolution. The Sinking of the Anchor, (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2011), pp. 162–179.
21. Athenaeus 4.155.
22. Livy 34.57.6
23. Grainger suggests that dancing in armour was a Macedonian courtly custom, although the evidence for this is extremely thin, and limited to the image of Philip II dancing on the graves of slain enemy at Chaeronaea.
24. AJ 12.147.
25. Livy 35.15.
26. 1 Maccabees 3:38.
27. Lucian, De Dea Syria.
28. See various references in Grainger, Prosopography, in ‘Institutions of the Kingdom’.
29. Pliny, Natural History 22.59, Galen 14.183.
30. Athenaeus 6.246.d.
31. Wallace Hadrill, Andrew. CAH II, Vol. 10, 289 (in comparison to the Roman Imperial court).
32. Inge, Nielsen, Hellenistic Palaces: Tradition and Renewal (Aarhus University Press, 1994) 111–115.
33. Ibid, 115. For elements of the Seleucid palace at Apamea, see Plutarch Demetrius 50. On hunting in the Macedonian court tradition, Carney, Elizabeth, ‘Hunting and the Macedonian Elite: Sharing the Rivalry of the Chase’, in Ogden (ed.) The Hellenistic World (The Classical Press of Wales, 2002).
34. Nielsen (op. cit. above), 111–115.
35. Athenaeus 4.145. This figure is accepted by Aphergis (2001: 82). The massive rations required by the Persian court complex, to feed courtiers and bodyguards, are listed in Polyaenus 4.3.31–32.
36. Aphergis, Royal Economy, 207.
37. On the library of Alexandria, see Bagnall, Roger. ‘Alexandria: Library of Dreams’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 146 (2002), 348–362.
38. Suda s.v. Euphorion.
39. Athenaios 15.697; πλεῖστον ἰσχύσαντος; Grainger Prosopography, 107.
40. Ibid. κἀγὼ παιδοφιλήσω· πολύ μοι κάλλιον ἢ γαμεῖν/παῖς μὲν γὰρ παρεὼν κἠν πολέμῳ μᾶλλον ἐπωφελεῖ.
41. For an ‘ecological’ view of the Mediterranean, Horden, Peregrin and Purcell, Nicholas The Corrupting Sea: A Study in Mediterranean History (Oxford, Blackwell, 2000). The best overview of the economy of the Seleucid realm remains Rostovetzeff, SEHHW, 422–551. For an overview of modern scholarship on the problems in the Hellenistic Economy, see Archibald, Zofia (ed.) Hellensitic Economies (Routledge, 2001).
42. Austin, Hellenistic World, No. 198. Ma, Asia Minor, 329–35.
43. For the Mnesimachos inscription see Austin, Aphergis, Royal Economy: 137, Document 5.
44. Rostovtzeff, SEHHW, 443–446.
45. Diodorus 19.56.5
46. Assumes military pay of 1 drachma per day, combined pay in coin and the cash value of rations.
47. Austin, Hellenistic World, 461; Aphergis, Royal Economy, 260.
48. Lucian, De Dea Syria, 17–18.
49. The so-called Borsippa cylinder, Austin, Hellenistic World, no. 166.
50. I hope to publish soon on the topic of Seleucid Temple pillaging.
51. Justin 15.4
52. Wells, RC 44.
53. Erickson, Kyle. ‘Apollo-Nabu: the Babylonian Policy of Antiochus I.’ in Seleucid Dissolution: the Sinking of the Anchor. 2011. pp. 51–66.
54. Antiochus IV and Zeus: Rigsby, K.J. ‘Seleucid Notes’, Transactions of the American Philological Association, Vol. 110 (1980), 233–238.
55. Plutarch, Lysander, 18.3–4.
56. Hyperides Contra Demosthenes 5.31–5.32 discusses a statue raised in Athens of ‘Alexander, king and invincible god’, and implies debate in Athens about worshiping Alexander as such, presumably in response to a royal order.
57. Athenaeus 4.353B.
58. Austin, Hellenistic World, No. 200.
Chapter 4
1. An alternative reading of Polybius (e.g. Griffith G.T, Mercenaries of the Hellensitic World, (Cambridge, 1935), pp. 118–122) suggesting that Ptolemy IV could only muster 5000 hoplites is surely incorrect, as it is unclear how Ptolemaic Egypt had even been a military power with such a limited pool of heavy infantry.
2. Spyridakis, Stylianos. ‘Cretans and Neocretans’, The Classical Journal, Vol. 72, No. 4 (April-May 1977), pp. 299–307 argues instead that Neocretans were, in fact, members of the underclass in Cretan cities, similar to the neodamodeis in Sparta. His argument is intriguing, but not fully convincing.
3. On Egyptians in Ptolemaic service, see Fischer Bovet, Christelle, ‘Egyptian Warriors: the machimoi of Herodotus and the Ptolemaic army’, Classical Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 2, New Series, 2011.
4. Ptolemy’s Army: Polybius 5.65
5. Polybius 5.70.10–11.
6. Polybius 5.70–71.
7. Polybius 5.81
8. The Battle of Raphia: Polybius 5.82–5.86.7. Bar Kochba, Seleucid Army, 124–141, Galili, E. ‘Raphia, 217 BCE, Revisited’, Scripta Classica Israelica, Vol. III (1976–77), pp. 52–127.
9. Scullard, H. H., The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World.
10. Polybius 5.82.8; Grainger, Syrian Wars, 212–216.
11. Polybius 5.58.13. τὸ μὲν καθ’ αὑτὸν μέρος πεπεισμένος νικᾶν, διὰ δὲ τὴν τῶν ἄλλων ἀγεννίαν καὶ δειλίαν ἐσφάλθαι νομίζων τοῖς ὅλοις.
12. Keegan, John, The Mask of Command (Viking, 1987), 13–91.
13. Text and Translation: Austin, Hellenistic World, No. 276.
Chapter 5
1. Polybius 5.72–77.
2. Polybius 5.72.3
3. Polybius 5.61.9; Grainger, Prosopography: 100.
4. The relationship between the Silver Shields
and the hypaspists is unclear. At Raphia, they were brigaded together under the command of Theodotus the Aetolian. The linkage with Dionyius and Theodotus again suggests a close relationship between the two units. Likely, the 2000 hypaspists were an elite subset of the larger unit.
5. The confusion of Hellenistic dynastic names is apparent here. Achaeus had an aunt named Laodice, then married Laodice, the daughter of King Mithdradites of Pontus. Mithradites had another daughter named Laodice, the wife of Antiochus III.
6. Polybius 8.15–21.
7. Ma, Asia Minor, 61–62. Text and translation, ibid, Epigraphic Dossier I (pp. 284–289).
8. Translation by Aphergis, Royal Economy, 326 (Document 9). See also Ma, Asia Minor, 284 (No. 1).
9. Ma, Asia Minor: 288(I.3).
10. Ibid.
11. Zeuxis’ exact title is obscure. Polybius describes him as the governor (hyparchos) of Lydia (21.16.4), while Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 12.147) refers to him a general (strategos) and another inscription refers to him as ‘prime minster’ (epi ton pragmaton).
Chapter 6
1. Justin, 41.5.7. Bar Kochba, Seleucid Army, 10 is cautious in dismissing these figures all together.
2. BM 35603. Text and translation by Bert Van Der Speck available online at www.livius.org, s.v. ‘Babylonian Kinglist of the Hellenistic Period’.
3. Polybius 8.23.3 οἱ μὲν οὖν πιστοὶ τῶν φίλων.
4. Grainger, Prosopography, 8–9.
5. The Armenian Campaign: Polybius 8.23. Murder of Xerxes: John of Antioch FGH 4.557.
6. John of Antioch, FHG iv. 557.
7. Apherghis, Royal Economy, 202–203. See also Sherwin-White 1982: 55–61, for the pay rates of the Seleucid garrison in Babylon, and Griffith, G.T., Mercenaries in the Hellenistic World (Cambridge, 1935), 300–306 for general mercenary pay rates in the Hellenistic world.
8. Arrian Anababis 7.14.5 may describe Alexander’s sack of the temple, possible related to his grief over the death of Hephaistion.
9. The major work on logistics in Hellenistic armies remains Engles, Donald, Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army (UC Press, 1980). Two other books on ancient military logistics, focused on the Roman army, are nonetheless worth reading when taking into account Hellenisitic warfare: Roth, Jonathan, The Logistics of the Roman Army at War (264 BC–AD 235) (Brill, 1999) and Erkamp, Paul, Hunger and the Sword, warfare and food supply in the Roman Republican Wars (264–30 BC) (Brill, 1998).
10. The standard Greek military ration was a choinix of grain, a measure of volume roughly equivalent to a modern litre, or roughly 1.5 pounds (.628 kg) of wheat. Scheidel, Walter, Morris, Ian, and Sallers, Richard, The Cambridge Economic History of the Ancient World (Cambridge Universiry Press, 2007), 403, note 96.
11. Van Nuffelen. ‘Le Culte Royal de L’Empire des Seleucides: une reinterpretation’, Historia, Vol. 53 (2004), pp. 278–301.
12. SEG, 1987, 1010; Malay, Hasan. ‘Letter of Antiochus III to Zeuxis with two Covering Letters (209BC)’, Epigraphica Anatolia, Vol. 10 (1987), pp. 7–15.
13. On the speed of the Roman Imperial post, A.M. Ramsay, ‘The Speed of the Roman Imperial Post’, Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 15 (1925), pp. 60–74.
14. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 12.147–151. The first century AD Jewish historian Josephus here relates the contents of the letter, which had probably been inscribed. While some historians have doubted the authenticity of this document, I see no reason to doubt that Josephus gives a relatively faithful transcription of what must have been a still extant inscription.
15. Polybius 29.12.8.
16. We do not know whether he was referring to Magnesia in Thessaly, Magnesia-ad-Syphlium, the site of the famous battle, or Magnesia ad Maeander in Lydia. Euthydemos did not likely himself come from Magnesia. He was probably the descendant of a Greek settler previously settled by either Alexander or Seleucus I. See Lerner, 1999:53–54.
17. Holt, Frank, Thundering Zeus: the Making of Hellensitic Bactria (University of California Press, 1999), 132.
18. Austin, Hellenistic World, no. 178.
19. Polybius 11.39.12; Grainger, Prosopography, 77.
20. On the Greek diplomatic status of Asylia, see Rigsby, Kent, Asylia: Territorial Inviolability in the Hellenistic World (University of California Press, 1996).
21. Hellenistic colonization produced a series of cities sharing the same name, often named after a city in mainland Greece (the habit of naming North American sites after British towns is analogous). Thus there were three major Magnesias: Magnesia in Thessaly, Magnesia on the Maeander and Magnesia on the Siphlum; the last will be the site of the epic battle between Antiochus and Rome.
22. Austin, Hellenistic World, # 189.
23. Kuhrt/Sherwin-White, Samarkhand, 130–131.
24. hiera, asylos, aphorologetos.
25. Austin, #191.
26. Ma, Asia Minor, 297 (E.D. 8).
27. Wells, RC, No. 39. The exact violations against the temple are unclear, as only the first part of the inscription surivives.
28. Green, Alexander to Actium, 295–296.
29. Rostovtzeff, M. SEHHW, 696.
30. The earliest reference to Alexander the Great is in fact Roman, dating from the Plautine play Mostellaria (775), which refers to Magnus Alexandrus. It is highly unlikely, however, that the Romans invented this title out of whole cloth. Indeed, if they had, a more likely Roman title would perhaps be Alexandrus Maximus.
Chapter 7
1. Eckstein, Mediterranean Anarchy, The Greek East, passim.
2. Ibid. passim.
3. Eckstein, Arthur, ‘The Pact Between the Kings, Polybius 15.20.6 and Polybius’ View of the Outbreak of the 2nd Macedonian War’, Classical Philology, Vol. 100, No. 3, July 2005.
4. Grainger, Syrian Wars, 242.
5. Grainger, Roman War, 249; Polyaenus 4.15.
6. Polybius 16.22.
7. I must emphasize that these estimates are extremely speculative.
8. Polybius 15.25.16, Livy 31.43.5–7.
9. Polybius 16.39.3/Josephus AJ 12.3.3.
10. Bar Kochba, The Seleucid Army: 154.
11. Justin 30.3.3. Mittuntur itaque legati qui Philippo et Antiocho denuntient regno Aegypti abstineant.
12. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, 11.15.
13. Porphery, Fragment 46.
14. Grainger, 1997: 115; Gera, 1987: 63–73, Habicht, Hellenistic Monarchies, 264–274.
15. Translations following Aphergis, Royal Economy, 320.
16. Presumably the silver piece in question is a tetradrachma (=1 shekle), putting the value of this royal allowance (essentially a tax break) at roughly 13 talents p.a.
17. A medimnos was a measure of volume equivalent of about six quarts.
18. The council of elders, derived from the Greek gerontes, meaning ‘old men’.
19. Josephus AJ 12.138–144, LCL.
20. Polybius 16.2–8.
21. Polybius 16.24.9 (Athanaeus 3.78C).
22. On the transfer of the naval stone: Ando, Clifford, The Matter of the Gods (UC Press, 2008), 22–27.
23. Eckstein, Mediterranean Anarchy and Rome Enters the Greek East, passim, both works which have fundamentally shaped my understanding of the Mediterranean in the early second century BC.
24. Livy 30.26.3 Dorey, T.A., ‘Macedonian Troops at the Battle of Zama’, The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 78 No. 2 (1957) pp. 185–187.
25. Polybius 18.46.
26. Hegesianax is almost certainly the court poet who previously refused to dance with Antiochus, preferring to recite his works instead.
27. Livy 33.19.9–10. Livy is certainly incorrect in calling Ardys a son of Antiochus. Grainger Prosopography, 22–27 and 81.
28. Polybius 18.40.
29. Polybius 21.20.5.
30. Austin 197 (Syll.(3) 591/I Lampsakos, no. 4).
31. Livy 33.38.
32. Badian Ernst. ‘Rome and Antiochus the Great: A Study in Cold War’, Classical Phil
ology, Vol. 54, No. 2 (April 1959) pp. 81–99.
33. Porphyry, FGH 260, Fr. 47.
34. Grainger, Syrian Wars: 107–108. I concur with his reconstruction of the baffling statement in Josephus AJ 12.154, that ‘Cleopatra brought Koile Syria as a dowry’, to mean that revenues from Koile Syria supported the necessarily lavish lifestyle of the new Queen of Egypt.
35. Livy 33.41; Appian, Syrian Wars 4.
36. Appian, Syrian Wars, 4. Appian is wrong about the chronology, placing Hannibal’s arrival in 196, prior to Hannibal’s magistry in Carthage.
37. Livy 33.47–49.
38. Polybius 3.11. Livy (35.14) reports a delightful story that Scipio Africanus was a member of this delegation, and engaged in a long conversation with his old adversary, but this story is most likely apocryphal.
39. Harris, William V., War and Imperialism in Republican Rome: 327–70 BC (Oxford, 1979). Much scholarship since has been a response to Harris’ grim view of Roman war motives, including Gruen, Coming of Rome, which stresses Rome’s desire to become of full-fledged player in Hellenistic diplomacy, and Eckstein’s Mediterranean Anarchy, which stresses ‘realist’ factors as the driving force behind Roman policy.
40. The Seleucid history lesson: Ma, Asia Minor, 29.
41. Livy 34.59.7: quo decreto turbaturi orbem terrarum essent.
42. Livy 34.57–59, Appian Syrian Wars 6, Diodorus 28.15.
43. Austin, Hellensitic World, No. 199. (SEG 601).
44. Livy 35.15.4–5. grauem successorem eum instare senectuti suae patrem credentem.
45. Grainger, Roman War, 157 (contra Eckstein, Rome Enters the Greek East, 137).
46. Grainger, Prosopography, 22. Grainger’s elegant solution (that the otherwise unattested son Mithradites is Antiochus IV) explains the otherwise puzzling issue of how Antiochus III could have two sons named Antiochus.
47. Livy 35.12–13.1.
48. The Aetolian Council of 192: Livy 35.32–33.
49. Livy 35.33.8–9 quo accerseretur Antiochus ad liberandam Graeciam disceptandumque inter Aetolos et Romanos.
50. This figure represents the Aetolian strength at Cynoscephalae (Plutarch Flamininus, 7), and probably the maximum muster of the Aetolian League.
51. e.g. Polybius 3.11.1–2, Livy 36.6.
52. The Ptolemaic dynasty in particular was plagued by foreign generals turning against their masters. The exiled Spartan king Cleomenes had planned a coup against Ptolemy III, using Peloponnesian mercenaries in the Alexandrian garrison, while the Scopas the Aetolian, backed by Aetolian mercenary forces, had likewise plotted against the crown.
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