Alexander the Great Failure

by John D Grainger

  Apama was still alive in 299, but must have died in that year or the next.

  Seleukos married again in 298, to Demetrios’ daughter Stratonike. (The Seleukids, unlike the Argeads, Ptolemies and Antigonids, developed no tradition of royal

  polygamy, which leads to the presumption of Apama’s decease.) They had a

  daughter, Phila. In 294 or a little later, however, Seleukos handed his wife on

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  to his eldest son, Antiochus. Ancient historians saw it as as a love match, with Seleukos comically ignorant of the mutual attraction of his wife and son until a doctor intervened and told him why his son was morose.36 But the separation came soon after the diplomatic break with Demetrios (Stratonike’s father), and the newly married Antiochus and Stratonike went off to rule the eastern half of the kingdom37 – and Antiochos was the son of the Baktrian Apama. Seleukos was therefore dealing with several problems at once: his son’s attraction for his stepmother, which was presumably reciprocated, though the historians ignore

  Stratonike’s feelings; the tension caused within his household and perhaps in his kingdom by his break with Demetrios; and the need for a man he could trust

  in control of the eastern lands. It was a neat solution, one surely devised by a family conference beforehand, and it testifi es to Seleukos’ suppleness and political sense, just as his city building neatly blocked the several potential threats to his hold on Syria, while also increasing his military power, his population and his kingdom’s wealth.

  Antiochos’ work in the east is known only from fragmentary sources, but it

  was a major force for the consolidation of the Greek presence in Baktria. He ruled there for more than ten years, assisted it seems by the generals Demodamas and Patrokles. Cities were founded or refounded – Alexandria-Eschate, Samarkhand,

  Alexandria-Margiane (which became Antiocheia) and the city at Ai Khanum.

  Patrokles explored the Caspian Sea. Peace was maintained with the Mauryan

  Empire, and invasions by nomads from the north were driven out. 38 The move of Antiochus to the east was one way for Seleukos to clear the decks so that he could concentrate on the problems of the west. Both Lysimachos and Ptolemy

  were also gathering their strength for Demetrios’ expected move.

  It is here that the signifi cance of Demetrios’ attempt at the Thracian Chersonese lies. Until 291 he had operated in much the same way as Kassander and Antipater, working to establish his power in the kingdom and in Greece. He held on to

  Athens and Corinth and was making serious attempts to gain control of Boiotia.

  His success was suffi cient to persuade Pyrrhos and Aitolia to join in an alliance to oppose him, with little success. But the lunge at Lysimacheia revealed the real Demetrios. He was not just aiming to be king in Macedon; he was going to use

  its strength, and that of Greece, to attempt to recover his father’s kingdom. He was Antigonos revived, not just another Kassander; the answer was the revival

  of the same alliance which had brought Antigonos down.

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  King Demetrios and his enemies, 291–285 bc

  Demetrios’ war with Boiotia was seen as a threat by all his neighbours; the

  Boiotians were helped by the Aitolians and Pyrrhos, who joined in with an

  invasion from Epiros.1 Kassander had been content to rule Macedon alone, and constantly resisted Antigonos’ pretensions. But Macedon was still a nursery of soldiers, and if one of the eastern kings could unite it with a greater kingdom, he would be in a position of overwhelming strength. Antigonos’ ambitions to do that had brought all the rest to join together to oppose him.

  Demetrios’ accession marked a fundamental change in the geopolitics of the

  eastern Mediterranean. Macedon was now no longer a block on the reconstitution of the empire; instead it had become a means by which that reconstitution could be accomplished. Demetrios’ intentions became clear in 294, even before his

  acquisition of the Macedonian kingship, when he gained control of Athens,

  the other main source of power in the area, with its commercial wealth and its shipyards, its powerful reputation, and its military potential. For the fi rst time since Alexander, a ruler had arisen in Greece and Macedon who aimed to harness these lands’ might to a programme of conquest.

  And yet, matters had changed in other ways since the time of Philip and

  Alexander. Demetrios had a much harder job stamping his authority on Greece

  than any of the earlier kings – the siege of Thebes took nearly two years, and he had found it a very diffi cult task to conquer Athens. He was famous for his sieges, but that was because his enemies refused to fi ght him in open battle, and instead chose their own grounds for the fi ght. Any ruler of Macedon should have learned by now that conquering a Greek city was never enough. It had also to be held down, by installing a government which could be controlled – and so not a democracy – and by also installing a garrison; the more cities, the more troops were absorbed into garrisons. When Demetrios fi nally took Thebes, he installed a garrison and a governor, to add to those in Chalkis, Athens, Corinth and other places. This was the antithesis of the policy of Philip and Alexander.

  Pyrrhos had intervened in Demetrios’ Boiotian war by invading Thessaly and

  so cutting the land communications between Macedon and Boiotia. Demetrios

  quickly pushed the invaders out, but had to station 10,000 hoplites and 1,000

  horse in Thessaly to prevent a recurrence. 2 The Aitolians were involved also, even though what they did is not clear. The normal military levy of Macedon-

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  plus-Thessaly was about 30,000 to 35,000 men; Demetrios used one-third of his

  Macedonian military manpower simply holding Greece.

  He hired mercenaries, but they were expensive; so were Macedonians, but they

  could be called out in emergencies and quickly sent home again. Demetrios had

  to impose heavy taxes on his subjects. This was new to Macedon. Philip II had

  relied on his control of mining revenues and port dues, but he had always spent all his money; none was left in the treasury when he died. Alexander had cash

  problems within a year of setting off on his great campaign. Macedon, even with Thessaly and even squeezing Greece as much as possible, could not support a

  big army, either in manpower or fi nancially. The wear and tear of the previous 40 years, losses of territory, the draining of manpower, had seriously reduced Macedon’s resources: the 30,000–35,000 estimate of the manpower available to

  Demetrios is substantially less than Alexander had had available. And Demetrios was building a navy as well. The mints in Macedon, at Pella and Amphipolis, and in the Greek cities he controlled, became exceptionally active, no doubt using all the precious metals Demetrios could get. The most productive were in cities where shipbuilding took place, a very expensive activity. 3

  Demetrios was clearly intending to fi nance his campaign by the loot of his

  conquests – as, in fact, Alexander had done – but in the meantime he had to

  fi nance his army and his fl eet from the taxation of Macedon, and what he could get out of the damaged and resentful Greeks: the cities were ordered to produce large sums. One, Eretria in Euboia, got its levy reduced from 200 to 150 talents by an appeal by a philosopher from the city. These numbers are not necessarily accurate, 4 but for a smallish city, even half was a huge burden; the levies on Greece were no doubt intended to produce thousands of talents.

  The enemy Demetrios would have to fi ght was also different. Alexander’s

  campaign of conquest in the Persian Empire had been won by a well-trained,

  well-directed, tactically fl exible army accustomed to campaign and fi ght as a unit; the enemy was a complacent aristocracy and an insecure king,
whose fi ghting

  units had little military discipline. Demetrios was proposing to campaign with a heterogeneous army, mainly mercenaries who had not fought together before,

  against armies and cities of similar and equal discipline from the same military tradition. Alexander had conquered Persia in three battles and three sieges; the defeat of Dareios was the main object, and, once achieved, the world from the

  Aegean to the Indus was open to him. Demetrios was proposing to invade a

  succession of kingdoms equipped with armies very like his, ruled by kings with equivalent or better military skills than his. These kings, moreover, were allied to one another in determined opposition to him. In effect, he proposed to fi ght three Macedons, each with a professional Macedonian army, from an insecure

  and wasting base. The campaign, it was quite certain, would be infi nitely more diffi cult than Alexander’s.

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  Further, Demetrios’ political instability was obvious to his enemies. Alexander had been able to rely on the loyalty of Macedon without question, counting on

  Antipater to defend the kingdom, hold the position he had in Greece, and feed

  him reinforcements on demand. Demetrios had no hereditary Macedonian

  loyalty to rely on, and no Antipater; he left his son Antigonos Gonatas in charge of Greece when he set off, but with few troops and no territorial backing. The slightest weakness, the smallest defeat, would set off risings among his unwilling Greek subjects and desertions by his mercenaries.

  He required a much larger army than Alexander had needed. At Ipsos in 301,

  Lysimachos had deployed at least 40,000 men, and Seleukos 30,000. Since then

  both had expanded their territories: Lysimachos’ army now included many of the men who had fought for Antigonos at Ipsos; Seleukos had worked hard to attract colonists who could be mobilized into his army. Ptolemy was perhaps the weakest of the three in military terms, but he had a fl eet of 150 ships, and his kingdom of Egypt had major geographical advantages in defence. If the three kings could join their forces, they would outnumber Demetrios’ army; even fi ghting them

  one at a time was a forbidding prospect.

  Further, the lands he proposed to invade were fortifi ed in a much more

  effective way than when Alexander went east. Alexander had faced fortifi ed

  cities only in the west – Halikarnassos, Tyre, Gaza – and in India, but most

  cities were now fortifi ed in the latest style, designed to resist attack by the sort of machines Alexander had brought with him. This was partly Demetrios’ own

  doing, for his sieges had shown what was needed to withstand the skills and

  energies he deployed. His reputation as a besieger was based not on the number of sieges he won, but on those he fought; and he lost as often as he won. The

  new fortifi cations were very effective defences, 5 and every siege cost time, lives, resources and money. The generals he faced were professional strategists, and

  certainly Demetrios’ superiors in that aspect of warfare. They were not going

  to play to Demetrios’ strengths, but to his weaknesses, and one of these was his poor resource base. Tying up Demetrios’ army in a few sieges would soon cost

  him the war.

  There were, however, fewer tangible effects operating for him. His father’s

  former subjects in Asia Minor and Syria were perhaps nostalgic for his

  government: Lysimachos’ hand on the people in Asia Minor was much heavier;

  Demetrios might sap Lysimachos’ strength by appeals to their old loyalties, but only as long as he seemed to be winning. He might attract to his side those who knew of Alexander’s exploits and were keen to emulate their fathers’ adventures.

  A swift defeat of Lysimachos’ army, if it could be contrived, could well dismantle his whole kingdom. Seleukos would be tougher. The size of his kingdom, his

  political sense and strategic intelligence, and the proven loyalty of his people, were much more diffi cult to combat. The loyalty of the old Antigonid subjects

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  of Seleukos towards Demetrios was a factor to remember, but Seleukos’ vigorous colonizing work had diluted their numbers, and the new colonists owed their

  loyalty to Seleukos alone.

  Then there were the kings’ sons. Seleukos’ son Antiochos ruled eastern Iran

  for his father, had proved himself loyal to his father, and was a capable soldier.

  Antiochos was also king, so if Demetrios beat Seleukos, he would still have to face Antiochos coming out of the east with an army bent on revenge – and

  Demetrios knew all about wanting revenge for the death of a father. Lysimachos’

  eldest son Agathokles was as capable a soldier as Antiochos, and probably a better commander than his father, and soon proved it. Ptolemy’s eldest son, who would become Ptolemy II, was adult and more an administrator than a soldier, but the Egyptian kingdom was well fortifi ed in the Phoenician cities and competently

  defended by a professional army behind the barrier of the Sinai Desert. Any

  objective evaluation of a plan to reunite Alexander’s empire by conquering the world a second time from Macedon would conclude that by the 280s it was

  impossible.

  But stranger things have happened. Demetrios was no fool, though perhaps

  shortsighted and over-ambitious. He was surely aware of the diffi culties; he had, after all, grown up along with the way this world had developed. His alternative to a campaign to win the world was to become another Kassander, king of the

  Macedonians in Macedon only, periodically campaigning against Greeks and

  barbarians. After roaming the whole Middle East, he was not prepared to settle for less than Alexander’s full inheritance, any more than his father had been, but he was not prepared to be as patient as his father, for the kingdoms he faced were becoming stronger and more solidly founded with every year he prepared.

  His plans were on a scale fi tted to his enterprise. He recruited mercenaries all over the Mediterranean, and built a fl eet of 500 warships. This number included those he already had, but it was a huge programme even so, perhaps an extra

  200 to 300 ships. A fl eet of this size would easily outclass Ptolemy’s, the only other fl eet of any size. But such a fl eet would require to be manned by at least 50,000 men, particularly since Demetrios built many extra large vessels – at

  least one had 16 men per bank of oars, another 15, many more were fi ves and

  sevens. The manpower requirement on top of the land forces, which are said to

  have amounted to 98,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry, was crippling. It is widely doubted if these fi gures are accurate, and they do seem too great but, given the task Demetrios set himself, they are of the right scale. 6

  This all called for a huge amount of work by Demetrios, who frequently visited the shipyards to check on the work being done personally. 7 He had to watch over the gathering of the soldiers and the collection of supplies, and his mints were uniformly busy. Inevitably other tasks did not get done. He was king of a country where individual Macedonians expected to have direct access to him,

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  but under Demetrios they did not have it. His workload was too great, but it

  also went against his personal inclinations; in this, he was very much a contrast with his father.

  Demetrios had been rich all his life, and had habits of personal display and

  extravagance diffi cult to break away from – not that he ever showed any signs of wanting to do so. Macedonian preference was for a less ostentatious lifestyle in its kings; his display offended them. Nor was Demetrios used to dealing with the small complaints and problems of his subjects. The story is told that an old woman
whom he put off by saying he was too busy to attend to her petition,

  shouted at him: ‘Then stop being king!’ This is a story also told of Philip II and the Emperor Hadrian, and as such it is suspect in all these cases – but with Philip and Hadrian the result was that the problem was attended to. So did Demetrios, but then he reneged on the reformation, whereas Philip and Hadrian learned

  their lesson. Demetrios is the butt of another hostile story: he collected written petitions as they were handed to him, put them in his cloak pockets, but then

  threw them in the river. How true such anecdotes were is impossible to judge,

  but their tone refl ects the dislike of his Macedonian subjects. 8

  Thebes fell at last in 290, but fell into a dispute with Pyrrhos, out of which he gained another wife, Lanassa, daughter of Agathokles of Sicily, and the island of Korkyra. He invaded Aitolia next year, and went on into Epiros. Pyrrhos

  brought his army to assist the Aitolians, but the two marching armies missed

  each other, going in opposite directions by parallel roads. Pyrrhos found a

  Macedonian force ravag ing the country, and defeated it, taking 5,000 prisoners.

  On the fi ght Pyrrhos fought a duel with the Macedonian commander Pantauches,

  to the admira tion of both armies. 9 Demetrios returned to Macedon where he fell ill, and Pyrrhos invaded, but was quickly deterred by an army gathered by Demetrios’ com manders. The result was an agreement between the two kings to

  keep the peace. 10

  This was hardly a good preparation for the great expedition Demetrios

  intended. The attacks on Aitolia and Pyrrhos were presumably designed to deter them while he was away, but victory was required for this to work. He again had the chance to become a king of Macedon only; the great force he had collected

  could have crushed Pyrrhos and the Aitolians, and his possession of Korkyra gave him an admirable base for expeditions north along the Adriatic or westward, but he rejected the opportunity.

  Now all his Greek enemies had to do was to wait for him to leave; he cannot

  have been unaware of the instability of his position.