Alexander the Great Failure

by John D Grainger

  the occasions when he claimed Athens had broken the ‘Peace’, and offering to

  have the differences between them judged by arbitration. He also sent a defi ant challenge, claiming that the orators of the city were not speaking in the city’s true interest. He can have had no hope that this would have any effect by now; and there was no possible arbitrator. The letter (which is more or less authentic, it seems) was mainly aimed at non-Athenian opinion, like the previous year’s

  proposal to identify and settle differences. Philip was trying to show that the dispute was actually between Philip and Athens alone, and not between Philip

  and Athens and her allies. It had no visible effect. 32

  It was the diffi culties Philip encountered in his campaign in 340 which had

  a real effect. From the Chersonese he moved to Perinthos and laid siege to the city. The citizens defended themselves with vigour and ingenuity; even when

  Philip’s rams broke through the city wall, they fought on house by house. Athens did not intervene directly, but Philip’s fl eet was unable to blockade Perinthos’

  harbour, so maybe Athenian sea power was used to threaten the weaker fl eet.

  The Perinthians were actively supported with supplies and troops from both

  Byzantion and the Persians across the sea, whence the satrap of Hellespontine

  Phrygia, Arsites, sent help.

  The Great King was at last taking a hand. The progress of Philip’s arms and

  power, and sentiment in Greece for a campaign of ‘revenge’ for the long-ago

  Persian invasions, were a clear threat. This was the fi rst occasion when Philip could be seriously held up by a Persian intervention.

  Philip, facing defeat, blamed others. He took half his army to attack Byzantion, assuming that the city was now poorly defended. He found he had to besiege

  it, and to besiege Selymbria as well. None of these sieges was successful, and

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  in the midst of them Philip deliberately provoked Athens into declaring open

  war by seizing the fl eet of ships carrying the corn exports from the Black Sea, which had gathered at the Bosporos waiting to be convoyed onwards by the

  Athenian fl eet. 33

  When the news reached Athens, the Assembly met and accepted that the city

  was at war. 34 It scarcely made any difference. The sieges went on; the Athenians continued their search for allies. The ‘war party’ at Athens had gained their goal; the outcome was to be rather more than a war between the Macedonian kingdom

  and the city of the Athenians.

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  The conquest of Greece, 340–334 bc

  Until 340, the work of Philip of Macedon had been essentially one of preserving and expanding his ancestral kingdom. He had expanded the area he ruled directly by three or four times, and had established a wide territory of subsidiary states around it, and it is quite possible to interpret his work as defending Macedon; from the sieges of Perinthos and Byzantion in 340 onwards, however, the story

  changes. Philip embarked instead on a wider programme of conquest, and his

  eventual aim was the conquest of Persia.

  The conquest of Thrace made Macedon a larger state than any other in the

  Mediterranean area, apart from the Persian Empire, now his neighbour across

  the Straits. The attacks on the cities of the Straits brought Persia and Athens into an informal alliance with the cities against him. This combination proved to be too strong, even for him, and the open hostility of Persia was ominous. But it was fi rst necessary to deal with Athens.

  There is never any hint that Philip intended to ‘destroy’ Athens – in whatever sense that word can be understood – but any further work he was to undertake,

  in the Balkans, against Persia, anywhere, required at least Athenian neutrality.

  There is no reason to doubt that Philip had wanted Athens’ alliance, just as there is no reason to doubt that large numbers of Athenians came to see him and his

  policies as a major threat to the city’s independence and prosperity. The challenge he faced when war fi nally came was to avoid fi ghting Persia, and to fi ght Athens in such a way as to persuade the Athenians at the subsequent peace that he was still interested in the city’s friendship and alliance. Here was a bigger challenge to Philip’s statesmanship than anything he had undertaken so far.

  The new war between Athens and Philip was essentially a continuation of

  their previous confrontation, and, as before, it remained unfought for some

  time. In the winter, perhaps in January, Philip withdrew from the sieges, all three cities untaken. He slipped his small fl eet out of the Propontis, past the Athenian ships and through the Hellespont, and is said to have extracted his army by a

  false message designed to be intercepted by his enemies. 1 It seems likely that he then reduced the number of his enemies by making peace with Byzantion,

  necessarily followed by peace with the city’s allies, at least Chios and Rhodes.

  This is a tribute to Philip’s diplomatic skills, for the sieges had been unpleasant. 2

  He marched his army home by way of the unconquered territory between the

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  Haemos Mountains and the Danube, beating fi rst the Scythians in the Dobrudja

  area and then attacking the Triballi. This latter war was a near disaster. Philip was badly wounded and the army lost its booty. 3

  The retirement from the Straits mollifi ed Persia; when Philip recovered, he

  had to organize the war in Greece. His route south was clear as far as Phokis, and there he had been concerned to promote a local recovery rather than leave the

  country as a rural and geopolitical nullity. The initial payment of the Phokian reparation had been delayed, then, after a couple of full payments of 60 talents, the rate was reduced. One of its cities, Elateia, was restored. This was done by permission of the Amphiktyony and Philip and the evidence is that the Phokians gave the credit to Philip. He had converted Phokis into an ally.4

  The next country south of Phokis (separated from Thessaly only by Lokris

  and Malis) was Boiotia. Nikaia, the city commanding the northern entrance to

  Thermopylai, was held by a Macedonian garrison for a time, but the lessening

  of Phokian enmity led to this garrison being reduced. The Boiotians became

  alarmed, and, in the spring of 339, as Philip was returning to Macedon, the

  Thebans seized control of Nikaia, expelling the remaining Macedonians. The

  main route south from Thessaly towards Attika was blocked again. 5

  A quarrel developed between the city of Amphissa and the Delphian

  Amphiktyony. A fi ne was imposed on the city, which refused to pay. 6 The Athenians supported the Amphiktyons; the Boiotians, Amphissa. The dispute

  went forward to the spring meeting of the Amphiktyons in spring 339. By that

  time the war was dominating Greek minds, and it became clear that, as the cities of Greece lined up, Thebes’ position was crucial. If Thebes and the Boiotian

  League remained true to the alliance with Philip he was guaranteed an easy

  passage to the borders of Attika; if Thebes remained neutral, the march was much more diffi cult, even impossible; but if Thebes joined Athens and its allies against Philip, the way was open for an allied victory.

  The Theban leaders were as aware of these possibilities as Philip or any

  Athenian politician. The seizure of Nikaia was not necessarily a move against

  Macedon, but one which opened up the possibility of neutrality for Boiotia. If the Thebans could block Thermopylai, then all their options were open. It also allowed the Thebans to protect Amphissa from the army the Amphiktyons were

  about to send against
that city.

  The Amphiktyons had to consider more seriously how to enforce their will

  on Amphissa. To fi ght the Thebans was impossible with the few forces they had, so they turned to their most prominent member and elected Philip hegemon.7

  This cannot have been done entirely on the initiative of the Amphiktyons, for

  Philip must have been consulted in advance. It gave him a cloak of sacredness in his war – though few Greeks will have been taken in. His attacks on the Greek

  cities of Perinthos and Byzantion had been godsends to Athenian propaganda

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  about defending Greek freedoms; fi ghting on behalf of Apollo went some way

  to counter that.

  Fighting for Delphi in this case, however, might mean driving the Thebans

  into the arms of Athens. Philip suddenly, late in 339, marched south swiftly

  and unexpectedly, and it was not until the last day or two of his march that it became clear that he was not actually aiming at Amphissa. Ignoring both Nikaia and Thermopylai, he marched into Phokis and camped at Elateia, on the road

  towards Boiotia. 8

  There he stopped. Thebes was his ally still, though now uneasy about it. The

  Athenians thought the alliance held and that Philip’s army would be on their

  borders in two or three days – Demosthenes’ description of the Athenian reaction is one of his masterpieces. By stopping at Elateia, Philip gave the Boiotians time to consider their options and their response, but he also gave the Athenians time to put their case at Thebes. Both sides sent envoys to try to persuade the Boiotian leaders. Philip sent two Macedonians, some Thessalians, some Aitolians, and

  others from the Amphiktyons, a coalition of envoys. Athens sent Demosthenes,

  who could speak as the leader of an alliance comprising Euboia, Megara, the

  Akarnanians, Achaia and others.

  Philip’s men argued for the alliance, asking for Boiotian participation or free passage. Demosthenes argued for freedom and independence, and he was the

  more persuasive. Thebes voted to fi ght.9 The Athenian army, already mobilized, at once marched through Boiotia to occupy blocking positions in front of Philip’s army.10

  Philip’s policy and presumably his campaign plans were thus undone. He

  was unable to penetrate the defensive screen set up by the Athenian forces, soon joined by Boiotian troops. Winter was not a good time for campaigning, and a

  reckoning up of potentialities suggested that he would be outnumbered. He sent messages to his allies in the Peloponnese – Arcadians, Messenia, Argos – but they agreed a pact only to protect themselves from Sparta; they had no more wish

  than Athens or Thebes to see him supreme over the whole Greek peninsula;

  they responded with no more than good wishes,11 but would at least prevent the Spartans from joining in. It was to be a fi ght between Athens and Thebes and

  their Greek allies and the Macedonian kingdom and its allies.

  It was also a fi ght between a committee of Greek commanders and one man

  who had proved in the last 20 years that he was one of the great generals. Philip waited through the winter, overcoming we know not what logistical diffi culties, and in the spring of 338 brought forward his full levy, Macedonians, Thessalians, sub-kings, sub-tribes, an infantry force of 30,000 or more and 2,000 cavalry. The allies gathered in the Athenian and the Boiotian levies, receiving contributions from Megara, Corinth, Achaia and Akarnania and hired more mercenaries, so

  that they probably had more infantry though fewer cavalry than Philip. Overall

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  the two were about equal; the outcome would rest on training and generalship.

  Philip surprised the mercenaries guarding the pass above Amphissa by a night

  march and a false message which deluded them.12 This turned the allied line, and they fell back to a new position inside Boiotia, the Kephisos River on the right and the fortifi ed town of Chaironeia on the left; Philip’s army closed up to face them. There was no manoeuvring space, no outfl anking possibilities. This was not Philip’s favourite means of warfare, for though he had fought battles

  before, he much preferred manoeuvres, just as he preferred diplomacy to war.

  A battle between equal-sized armies was too chancy for an intelligent general to contemplate with equanimity. This was a situation brought about by his enemies; he had the better army, capable and trained, unlike the heterogeneous force of mainly amateur soldiers facing him, but this simple clash of spearmen was not

  the sort of fi ght where professionalism was much use.

  The battle took place, therefore, by Philip’s decision, though on ground chosen by the allies. The Greeks were on the defensive; it was up to him to attack. He made plans, which does not seem to have happened on the allied side. The allies expected to fi ght at push-of-pike until one side gave way; Philip intended to use stratagems, but above all to use his cavalry. For the crucial point of a pike battle came when one line broke, allowing the enemy to get among the soldiers, whose

  main weapon, a long spear, was useless in a close fi ght.

  When the battle began, the Macedonian and Thessalian cavalry was kept

  back. Philip, in personal command on his right wing, brought his section of the phalanx into a slow retreat, forcing the Athenians facing him to advance. A gap appeared in the allied line as a result. Philip’s retreat stopped, and he ordered a charge; into the gap rode the Macedonian and Thessalian cavalry, headed by the king’s son Alexander. The allied troops could not stand, and the main part of the army fl ed; the Theban elite force, the Sacred Band, stood its ground and had to be destroyed to a man. Casualties were fairly heavy on both sides, but the allied army was broken beyond recovery. There was no rally until the fl eeing troops reached Lebadeia, 10 km away. The Macedonians, perhaps because Alexander and the

  cavalry were preoccupied with the Sacred Band, did not in the event pursue.13

  Philip negotiated even in victory. The alternative would have been a series of sieges of well-fortifi ed cities, casualties, impoverishment, probable interventions by his northern enemies, or even the Persian Empire. The allies, so recently

  joined, separated. Athens and Thebes were treated differently and placed in

  situa tions where they would fi nd it very diffi cult to cooperate again. Thebes had to accept a Macedonian garrison, those Boiotian cities destroyed by Thebes were restored, and an oligarchic council was put in control of the Boiotian League; 14

  Theban infl uence was thereby drastically reduced. Athens lost its empire-cum-

  confederacy, including control of the Thracian Chersonese. 15 The other allied cities were also no doubt punished, but little is known of the terms they were

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  given, though garrisons were imposed on Ambrakia and Corinth, as well as

  Thebes. 16

  It was not only in the peace terms that Thebes and Athens were separated.

  Philip’s army camped in Boiotia for several weeks, but Attika was not touched; Boiotian prisoners had to be ransomed, Athenians were freed. Philip treated

  Athens, in other words, more as an equal than as a defeated enemy. The Athenian League and colonies might be eliminated, but the Athenian fl eet was preserved, and the city’s economic position was undamaged. Sensibly the Assembly

  had appreciated this, prompted by the orator Demades, one of the released

  prisoners. Thebes’ reduction, the Macedonian garrison in the Cadmeia, and

  the Macedonian acquisition of the Thracian Chersonese, meant that Attika was

  exposed to Macedonian power without any hindrance, and the city’s food lifeline was under Macedon’s control. Athens may have been treated leniently, but was no longer a ‘Great Power’. There was only o
ne of those left in Greece now.

  Philip’s Peloponnesian alliances had been of little use in the fi nal crisis. He took his army there and turned on Sparta, whose enmity had been the cause of his allies’ inability to join him. He deprived the city of its geographical defences, and handed parts over to his unhelpful allies. They therefore gained a major stake in continuing to support him: Argos, the Arkadians and Messenia were all gainers, and had presumably supported the Macedonian invasion with troops, as had Elis, which gained no territory.17 By reducing Sparta’s potential for trouble, Philip had liberated his allies, and in future they might assist him in arms.

  Late in 338, after all this had been done, Philip called a meeting of the Greek states at Corinth. He proposed a Common Peace, to include a mechanism by

  which such a peace could be maintained. Earlier peace settlements, going back

  to the King’s Peace of 387, had all failed, since there was no way of preventing a breakdown; for when one city attacked another, there was no way to stop it.

  Now, of course, there was, in the form of the Macedonian army. This Common

  Peace would be enforceable; at the same time it institutionalized the Macedonian victory.

  Early in 337 the ‘League of Corinth’, or ‘Hellenic League’, was formed. It

  would be out of character for Philip to have dictated the terms, but the delegates were naturally attentive to his requirements. There was a council, in permanent existence, and a hegemon to whom the council would pass its decisions for imple men ta tion; Philip was, of course, elected as the fi rst hegemon. The members of the League were under an obligation to contribute troops when needed, as

  requested by the hegemon. One source claims that the total troops which could be levied amounted to 200,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry, not counting the

  Macedonian army, an impossibly high total (though the forces engaged at the

  Battle of Chaironeia had been 60,000 foot and 5,000 horse). 18

  The purpose of this League was, ostensibly, to maintain the peace within

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  Greece which had been imposed by Philip after his victories over Thebes and