certainly Carthage and its power, if only because of the confl ict with Syracuse, was a known political factor.
To their north, the Macedonians knew the Illyrians all too well. King Bardylis had been a constant threat for a generation; the Thracians to the east had kings who had much the same problems of control as those of Macedon. Beyond
these peoples it seems likely that some knowledge may have reached them of
the expansion of the Celts, one branch of whom were in Gaul, a second in north Italy, and a third had recently reached the lower Danube Valley. This is likely to have been the limit of Macedonian knowledge, partly because the arrival of the Celts was quite recent, and their presence had been thoroughly disturbing to all the local peoples.
These Balkan peoples were only part of the social mixture of inland Europe,
referred to by both Greeks and Italians as barbarian. There were few cities in those areas, but apart from that the people lived at much the same economic level as those round the Mediterranean. They were mainly farmers, living in villages, but
A L E X A N D E R T H E G R E AT F A I L U R E
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there were also miners, traders and seamen, and there were kingdoms and tribes, competing, trading and intermarrying with each other. The difference between
the communities of the Mediterranean shores and those of inland Europe were
thus primarily differences of political organization and literacy, not of economic development. Macedon partook of both types: the general population lived as
did the barbarians of Europe, but the culture of the elite more resembled that of the Greek cities, if with a distinctive Macedonian tinge. The Macedonian kings resembled those of the Illyrians, and the Thracians, but at the same time they were strongly attracted to Greek culture: King Archelaos had welcomed Euripides to his court, and King Perdikkas allowed the Greek philosopher Euphraios to
organize his court. These differing elements could create dangerous tensions
– some of the Macedonian barons detested Euphraios – but the combination of
Greek culture and administrative expertise with the aggressiveness and vigour
of the Macedonian elite was to have extraordinary effects.
East of Greece were series of societies and political entities that were wholly different from those of Greece and Italy, and from those of inland Europe.
These lands were the old, long civilized, imperial territories, and in 360 bc they were included within the greatest of the empires, that of the Persians ruled by the Akhaimenid royal family.10 For two centuries this enormous empire had dominated the whole world from India westwards to Greece. In many ways, it
was even more of an antithesis to the Greek cities than were the barbarian tribes and kingdoms, but it was far more fl exible and adaptable than either of them, and included within its boundaries ancient kingdoms, Greeks in their cities,
barbarian tribes, merchant cities and nomad tribes.
The Persian Empire was the basic geopolitical fact of life for every person
and state in the world between eastern India and the Strait of Gibraltar. Its
sheer size meant that it had no choice but to be tolerant of the varied groups of people and societies it had conquered, though some remained determinedly
discontented. Egypt had successfully shaken itself free of Persian rule, and in 360
had been independent for four decades, and Persian rule had receded from the
Indus Valley.11 The Greek cities of Asia Minor, however, had been reclaimed at the King’s Peace in 387, and had accepted their situation of subordination with little demur. 12 The rule of the Great King and his governors, the satraps, lay fairly lightly on their subjects.
This did not make Persian rule any more attractive to outsiders than to the
Egyptians. For Macedon, the empire was a former suzerain and a near neighbour, its western provinces only a day’s sail eastwards across the Aegean Sea. From the Black Sea to the borders of Egypt the empire controlled the whole Mediterranean coastline, and to the Greeks it stretched away eastwards, through Anatolia and Syria to Babylon and Iran and beyond, apparently to infi nity; no Greek shows
any knowledge of land beyond Susa. 13
W O R L D V I E W I : 3 6 0 b c
21
The empire in 360 was in less than robust health. Attempts for years by the
Great King Artaxerxes II to recover control of Egypt had been ignominious
failures, and in the late 360s a widespread rebellion broke out among the satraps of several of the western regions. This had fi zzled out by 360, but not before giving a vivid indication of the empire’s fragility. The suppression of the revolt, however, was also a sign of the empire’s resilience. 14 The concept of ‘decline’
of this empire is not very helpful, being a projection back from its defeat by Alexander; the surmounting of imperial diffi culties in the 360s and 350s implies strength, not decline.
There is no sign of similar trouble in any part of the empire east of Syria.
Babylonia, Iran and Baktria were all calm and loyal, and Artaxerxes II, king since 405, was able to concentrate on his western problems without being interrupted or disturbed. He was tough and persistent, but constantly suspicious. Repeatedly he recalled his generals when they were on the verge of victory, perhaps because he could not trust them to be loyal if they were victorious – he had, after all, been attacked by his own brother as soon as he had inherited the throne. He died in 359, the year Philip became king in Macedon, and was succeeded by his son
Artaxerxes III Ochos, a more ruthless and determined ruler.
Beyond the uncertain Persian eastern boundary, India was as complex a
mixture of kingdoms, tribes, cities and republics as Greece and Italy, though one state had been growing in the Ganges Valley for some decades. This was Magadha, centred at the city of Pataliputra, and ruled by a ruthless dynasty, the Nandas.
Their power was growing, but so was the dislike other Indians felt for them. The violence and volatility of Indian political life had provoked the development of a new religion in the previous century or so, and as Buddhism it was to increase steadily in importance. 15
China was separated from all the rest of the civilized world by formidable
mountains and by the nomad-inhabited Steppes of Mongolia and Central Asia.
It was, like India and the west, divided and violent, consisting of a collection of states spread along the valley of the Yellow River, constantly fi ghting each other with diplomatic intrigue and warlike weapons.16
It is useful to see Persepolis as the political centre of the world, with the
Akhaimenid empire the stable and rich element around which other political
societies were grouped – China, the nomads, India, Greece, Italy, Sicily. But it is also notable that by 360 or so all these peripheral groupings were undergoing
major changes. In Italy, Rome was emerging; in Greece, mutual exhaustion
among the cities was about to open the way for Philip of Macedon; in India, the power of Magadha threatened all other states; in China, the many competing
states were being steadily reduced in number. And all of them were faced with the problem which only the Akhaimenids had so far solved: how to rule an empire
without exerting continuous and repressive force on its inhabitants.
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The problems of the Macedonian kingdom were not dissimilar in many
ways to those of its contemporaries. Holding a state together was as diffi cult in the Akhaimenid empire and in the Peloponnese as in Macedon; building a
state was equally diffi cult in Italy or India, or China, or the Athenian Aegean.
Even states whose longevity seemed to show that they had solved the stability
problem proved to be controlled by aristocracies that were liable to be dispensed with as and when they became o
ppressive and ineffi cient. But the methods of
state building were known, and had been seen to be successful, in Persia, in the Greek cities, in Sicily, in Egypt. The necessary tools, honest governors, effi cient bureaucrats, professional armies, were available for the constitution of a stable state in Macedon. Several of its kings had made tentative attempts to use them; it was Philip who succeeded, for a time.
2
The security of Macedon, 359–354 bc
Philip II developed into the master-statesman of his time, a creative politician whose work made Macedon a world power for three decades and a great power
for a century after that. This aspect of his achievement took some years to emerge, however, since for the fi rst period of his reign he was preoccupied with securing his own position, and with providing security for his kingdom. These were, of
course, much the same problem.
Philip had to use a combination of qualities: a wily and cunning diplomacy,
military leadership which brought victories, and a keen eye for developing
the resources of his kingdom. He had precedents in the activity of previous
Macedonian kings, but not every new king in his early twenties would have
deployed them. It is part of Philip’s genius that he was able to utilize all these actions and qualities successfully at the same time.
Philip was about 23 years old when he became king, a few years older than his
brothers at their accessions, with a life experience somewhat different from theirs.
He grew up at the court of his father, Amyntas III, in a time when Macedon was more or less at peace, having been born in the year following Amyntas’ recovery of his kingdom in 383/382. He saw the efforts his father had made to develop his kingdom, but he had also witnessed the threats the outside world forced upon him.
In his family he was one of the middle children, with older brothers, an older sister and their younger half-brothers. Getting attention cannot have been easy. 1
At the age of 12 he was sent as a hostage to the Illyrians – presumably to King Bardylis – along with tribute which Alexander II paid to avoid an invasion. 2
Soon after, at 14 or so, he was sent to Thebes, again as a hostage. This was not a situation of danger or discomfort. A hostage, especially a child, was taken into the house hold of a prominent man, treated as a member of the family and given an education. At Thebes Philip lived in the house of Pammenes, an important
politician, 3 in the years when Thebes was the greatest power in the Greek peninsula. He missed the killings in Macedon of his brother Alexander and of
Ptolemy of Aloros, returning home when his other brother Perdikkas emerged
as king in his own right in 365. For the next fi ve or six years he was completely loyal to Perdikkas, and was entrusted, perhaps after some years, with lands of his own, on which he is said to have maintained an armed force, possibly little more than a bodyguard. 4
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His conduct in his fi rst year as king suggests that he had given thought to
what was required. In what he accomplished in his fi rst years, Philip was clearly helped by two important factors: the crisis in Macedon was so bad that he had
a free hand in dealing with it; and the Greek powers ignored what was going on in Macedon, reasonably assuming that the continuing political collapse of the
kingdom was yet another example of its fragility and instability. They were rather slow to intervene, and then only minimally. Despite the Common Peace of 360,
further international crises developed, notably at Athens, whose league began to crumble in 357; then the ‘Sacred’ war embroiled all central Greece for the next ten years. Philip had a breathing space in which Macedon’s main enemies were
either uninterested or preoccupied elsewhere. In this time he laid the basis for his later more extensive achievements.
The fi rst priority was to attend to the internal condition of the kingdom. Philip had his half-brother Archelaos killed; this secured him the throne, for Archelaos was the next member of his family. The invading pretenders were next. Pausanias came with Thracian backing, originally that of King Kotys, and then his successor Berisades. Perhaps because Berisades was also newly in power he was persuaded
to accept a bribe to leave. Philip’s persuasiveness was at work here: Berisades was joint heir to Kotys with his two brothers, who now fought each other; Thrace
could thus now been ignored for a time. 5
Argaios’ support from Athens was as uncertain as that of Pausanias from
Thrace. A force of 3,000 Athenian hoplites landed with him at Methone, but
Argaios was then expected to make his own way to the throne. This was reason-
able, since a pretender needed to show he had local support, and without it
no backer would bother with him. Athens’ main ambition in the north was
to gain control of Amphipolis, now an independent city, with a Macedonian
garrison. Philip withdrew these troops. No doubt he was glad to have them
available for more active uses, but the act of withdrawal was also directed at infl uenc ing Athens. Supposedly it signalled Amphipolis’ new vulnerability, and by implication Philip’s political acquiescence in an Athenian takeover. Argaios’
Athenian troops stayed in Methone, and Argaios went on to Aigai with only his
own small force of mercenaries and the few Macedonian exiles and Athenians
who supported his enterprise.
He marched the 20 km to Aigai, but gained no support from the locals, either
on the march or in the city. He turned back to return to Methone, perhaps
hoping to persuade the Athenians there to be more active in his cause, but was intercepted by Philip on his march. Philip easily beat Argaios’ troops: many of the mercenaries were killed; the Macedonian exiles, many of them related to
loyal Macedonians, were taken prisoner; the Athenians were released with gifts.
Philip had no wish to set up a situation where Athens might seek revenge; the
Athenian force in Methone then sailed home, taking the released men away as
T H E S E C U R I T Y O F M A C E D O N , 3 5 9 – 3 5 4 b c 25
well. At Athens, the prospect of regaining Amphipolis, combined with the failure of the intervention in Macedon, persuaded the Assembly towards peace. Argaios
vanished, no doubt executed, if he had survived the fi ght. What happened to the exiles is not known, but Philip is as likely to have held them as hostages for the good behaviour of their relatives as to have had them executed as traitors. 6
The landward invaders of the kingdom were tackled with a similar mixture
of force and diplomacy. Bardylis did not follow up his successful invasion, either because of the casualties his own forces had suffered in the battle, or because Philip had arranged a truce with him. 7 Philip certainly bought off the threatened Paeonian invasion from the north by gifts to the Paeonian king. 8 Neither of these measures could be decisive in the long term: gifts would only whet the
Paeonian appetite, and Bardylis’ victory could only encourage him to mount
another invasion.
The precise sequence of all these invasions, diplomacies and manoeuvres is
uncertain, but they certainly all took place during 359, very early in Philip’s reign; indeed, most of the manoeuvres and diplomacy probably took only a fairly short time, probably more or less simultaneously. Their success will have consolidated his local support among the Macedonians. The unwillingness of the people of
Aigai to join Argaios is a sign of this.
Philip had to attend to internal governmental matters. Even in his fi rst year he had no diffi culty in fi nding gifts rich enough to buy off the Paeonian and Thracian kings, and to give presents to the Athenians in Argaios’ force – nor to forgo the ransoming or selling of those captives – t
hough where he found the money is
unclear. 9 Kallistratos’ customs reforms may have helped, but not by much. But the main internal problem he faced was the development of an effective army.
In 358, after a year as king, Philip was able to muster a force of 10,000 infantry and 600 cavalry for a campaign in which he needed his full strength.10 Perdikkas’
defeat had cost 4,000 Macedonian lives. By adding these fi gures together it seems that the maximum force available to the Macedonian kings before Philip was
about 15,000 men, of which the effective element, the cavalry, numbered 1,000
at most. This was a fairly small force for such a large kingdom – Athens could produce forces double that. Yet even with that smaller force, Philip won battles against larger armies. This was due to his intelligent generalship in part, but he also instituted better training for the men, in particular the infantry. He had seen, during his earlier life in Thebes and Macedon, that infantry needed to be properly trained, drilled and equipped for them to be effective; he only needed to compare the old ineffective Macedonian foot soldiers with the all-conquering Theban phalanx. He was up-to-date with the military developments which had
taken place in recent years in Greece, including the use of light infantry, peltasts, developed by Athenian commanders. And he added something particularly
Macedonian, the use of a shock force of heavy cavalry.
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It will not do to emphasize the innovations Philip made at the expense of
the continuities. The kings had always had a bodyguard of cavalrymen, called
Companions ( hetairoi). The very name shows that they were of high status, socially almost the equals to the king by birth, being noble landowners and their sons. They numbered only 600 in Philip’s army of 358, no doubt the survivors of Perdikkas’ disaster, and probably others were available who did not turn out for the new king. Their numbers increased in the next generation as Macedonians
and Greeks were awarded lands in conquered territory: by 334 the cavalry
Alexander the Great Failure Page 5