Battles and Tactics

by Bob Bennett

  There was little enough ideology in all this, only occasional genuflections in the direction of Greek city rights that were equally abused by all and equally used by each as a stick to beat the other when it suited. The only rationale for most was the age-old one of ‘I am the rightful ruler here.’ This was an eventual offspring of the understanding that the Macedonian world empire would not necessarily survive as an absolutely unitary entity. It took some years before we recognize any imperative towards regional particularism but this, in the long term, was arguably the crucial transmogrification that characterized our period. In the beginning, at Babylon, and in the years of the First Macedonian Civil War the participants were, barring odd exceptions, fighting to control a whole empire that Alexander would have recognized. Only after grinding years, where permanent warfare seemed to becoming institutionalized, did the leading men begin to adjust their thinking to new realities. They began to conceive of the unitary Macedonian Empire breaking down; an assessment that allowed the emergence of regional states in the territories that had been under Alexander’s sway. And, these became for the ruling élites, the kings and generals, who tenanted them the very entities they went in to bat for. A plenum, a full range of threats meant these rulers evolved from squabbling underlings into principals, some of whom made such a success that their houses lasted for very respectable lengths of time and in the case of the Ptolemies made a claim to dynastic longevity that had seldom been seen before.

  A recent historian memorably likens these Macedonian conquerors to the kind of mountain clan chieftains who followed Bonnie Prince Charlie in the ’45 and imagines them setting up fiefdoms all over mainland Europe and even beyond.1 This is an apt comparison that helps us keep in mind that these were men from the fringes with only a veneer of ‘civilization’, yet who made a real sea change in the world. In one sense, almost ending the Classical era which we are so familiar with, but also spreading the spirit of Greek civilization over half the known world. There had been deep influences before, Greek sailors had navigated the Indus for Darius and architects and craftsmen had contributed to Persepolis, but it was the achievement of these Macedonian hill chiefs to really establish a hugely extended world of the koine. And it was in the talent they possessed and the formidable and intelligent application of Greek thinking in the area of military affairs rather than any other, that the Macedonian kings and the Diadochi showed themselves truly the heirs of the civilization that flourished to the south of their own homeland.

  The group that led armies and guided states in these years were of a very high martial calibre indeed. Seleucus, Ptolemy, Antigonus, Cassander and Lysimachus; all the big figures who survived were very competent military commanders. They all had, to a considerable degree, the physical, intellectual, personal and professional skills needed to lead great armies to success in combat. They were all possessed of robust health that allowed them to campaign over great distances well into advanced years with few debilitating illnesses ever being mentioned. Only Demetrius is noticed as having ailments that affected any of his projects. Once, when king of Macedonia, Demetrius incapacitation encouraged Pyrrhus to intervene and, near the end in the hills of Asia, when looking like he might make a miraculous escape, Plutarch reports he was forced to his bed for forty days. Obviously it is possible others suffered from illnesses that our sources see fit not to mention but the fact of their general longevity suggest rude heath characterised these men of action. They all knew how to retain the loyalty of demanding and difficult followers, most were generous, a key to keeping followers satisfied, though if Demetrius is to be believed Lysimachus fell down here.2 They knew how important it was to attend to things personally when it really mattered; Antigonus visited his men bearing gifts on occasions when they were experiencing a crisis of morale. Some had the common touch, some did not. Antigonus and his son certainly did and Seleucus, we know, persuaded his men to continue on against the odds by his personal oratory. Lysimachus and Cassander seem far less humane but we should never forget that our ultimate source worked for a family firm that saw these two as some of their most dastardly competitors. With Ptolemy, again we get the impression of his being just the personality to be catnip to his Hellenistic followers, but then this impression may have come flooding from the nib of his very own stylus.

  Most had the ability to put themselves in their enemies’ shoes to know how best to plan counter-strategies, guessing where the enemy might put his strongest troops so they could be countered by their best; Eumenes at Gabene springs to mind here. Like Alexander, they knew the worth of a good ruse, of duping the enemy to gain advantage. Alexander did it before the Hydaspes, so he could cross that river to confront Porus; Lysimachus in Anatolia in 302 BC and Eumenes, before both Paraetacene and Gabene, misled the enemy by lighting fires to give the impression a whole army was present or employed deserters to spread incorrect information so he could steal a march on his opponent. They were strategically sophisticated and could be tactically innovative. It is seldom that they lurch about with little or no plan. Most of the heirs of Alexander had clear goals and clear plans to accomplish them.

  They were all, by and large, brave and tireless, almost all of them led from the front. This was an essential quality of a Hellenistic warlord modelling themselves, as they did, on the absurdly-brave Alexander himself. The only one we know of who seemed to balk at this role at the head of his soldiers was Cassander, and even with him we know he led from the front on a number of occasions. It was typical of their hill baron background the tendency to lead at the head of their men in battle. A frontier lord usually fights in this style; this is the nature of his condition, almost the whole point of his existence and how he builds up a group of loyal warriors around his often-rickety seat of power. The Macedonian kings and the Diadochi took this ethos with them, as the world they inhabited grew to a point where pure calculation made this less of a sensible choice. It is very difficult to find examples of where they stayed back to direct matters, feeding in reserves, and keeping tight control of all aspects of the battle. They were unlike Xerxes looking on from his throne at Salamis in 480 BC, in order to be able to reward courage and punish cowardice, and again unlike Roman consular leaders who also had an oversight ethos of leadership (though, it should be said, they frequently showed ferocious courage when they were younger subordinate officers).

  This fighting like a hero was the norm; Alexander was no aberration in this. Antigonus, when well over 60, led his charging horsemen in most of his battles. Only at the final fight did he stay back a little with the infantry phalanx but by that time at the age of 80 he could reasonably have expected to have done his bit in the heat of battle. Seleucus and Lysimachus, according to one account, actually fought hand-to-hand at Corupedium, when both of them were well over 70 years of age. Eumenes famously duelling with Neoptolemus and Pyrrhus with Demetrius’ general, this was what was expected. It is noticeable that Marcellus in the third century BC was only the third Roman commander-in-chief in several centuries to defeat an enemy commander-in-chief in combat and strip him of his war gear. Our men could provide three examples of such adrenalin-pumped leadership in just three decades.

  One result of this was that, though sophisticated practitioners of the military art, none of them tended to make much use of tactical reserves. Alexander seldom practised this tactic in the sophisticated sense of keeping units back to counter defeat and feed success. Certainly he deployed a second infantry line on occasions, particularly at Gaugamela, where support units behind the wings were deployed. In this very special situation, where massively outnumbered and expecting to be outflanked, he needed his army to form almost into an all-round defensive formation when this occurred. In the battles we are able to describe there are few, if any, examples of this. Only at Ipsus, where it is possible the elephants were held back to be used when necessary, do we have a plausible example. On other occasions, commanders kept troops in hand to be thrown in at the appropriate time, like Antigonus at Paraetacene, when h
is attack saved the day, but this was just good timing in committing his front-line right wing, it was not the use of a tactical reserve. Equally they might move their men around early in the battle; Eumenes did this at Paraetacene, taking horse from his left wing, Ptolemy did it at Gaza, moving troops from one wing to another but, because they would usually themselves be very soon involved at the head of their own retainers in the fight, it was pointless to have a reserve as they would not have the oversight or be in a position to commit it at the right time.

  Despite the qualities of these men, there was still room to ascribe to their careers those themes beloved of Greek chroniclers, particularly hubris. They were far from infallible and not immune to the arrogance that sometimes leads the powerful headlong to disaster. Lysimachus was one, with his failure to appreciate the quality of his Getae enemies and so he foundered, chasing a chimera across the steppe just as Darius the Great’s Persians had done when they tried to conquer Scythia 200 years before. Antigonus, famous for failing to take advice, almost came badly unstuck against the Cossaeans. Then there was his son, Demetrius, who, refusing to pander to the expectation of Macedonian petitioners, found himself bundled off his throne in double-quick time. Even Cassander, who was usually pre-eminent as a patient organizer, made such flawed dynastic arrangements for his succession that the kingdom of Macedonia was very soon completely lost to his family.

  But there were others apart from those who fought these great battles, perhaps not premiership contenders but still leaders whose names are familiar from Alexander’s years and after. Many of these bit-part players showed terrific talent in the military field. Leosthenes, early on in the Lamian War; Alexander, son of Polyperchon; Ptolemaeus, nephew of Antigonus; and Agathocles, son of Lysimachus, had careers that showed them in a favourable light before falling at the hands of enemy missiles, intriguers, false friends or a parent who took the god Kronos for a model. Even Pithon the great intriguer is discovered as a very competent and successful officer and at the end Ptolemy the Thunderbolt, if the most dangerous man of the era to have around, still was clearly charismatic, energetic and talented. Perhaps if he had not bumped into a Gallic horde in a particularly aggressive groove he would have established a state in Macedonia that history would remember with some applause. And, of course, the most famous of the second generation of Successors, Demetrius Poliorcetes and Pyrrhus of Epirus, exhibited extraordinary and much-lauded gifts that were regarded by many as only matched by concomitant failings of character and temperament.

  But, like any group of predominantly blue-blooded military types from all ages, there was very far from any guarantee of intelligence. Dunderheads are common enough in the uniform wearers of any period and the Successor epoch was no different. It is something to do with an aristocratic background and a military education that always leads to the construction of some of these chinless fools. Leonnatus was very much of this mould; incompetent intriguing and ultimately-fatal recklessness in battle were his forte. Others, like Pleistarchus, Cassander’s brother, seemed pretty much to make a hash of everything they laid their hands on: captured in Caria, outwitted in Chalcis, shipwrecked before Ipsus and swiftly losing the kingdom of Cilicia he had been given in the carve up after the battle. Arrhidaeus was another; clearly he must have been a senior figure to be given the task of overseeing the construction of Alexander’s funeral carriage and he was lucky enough to be in the right place when Perdiccas was snuffed out in Egypt. But, when tested as co-regent with Pithon, he was completely out of his depth and though, after this derisory performance, he still received the satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia as his portion at Triparadeisus, he quickly made a useless fist of defending it against Antigonus. Polyperchon might also with some justification be placed somewhere here; though competent enough as a soldier, he seemed to fold when he had the top job handed to him on a plate by Antipater.

  In a class of his own was Eumenes, the provincial Greek who over a decisive period showed himself the most considerable military genius of them all. He was a man whose career may have ended in defeat and death; not at the hands of an opponent, but from the treachery of his own side. He duped and tactically bested the very cream of the Macedonian generals. He faced both triumph and disaster with resolution and, despite the disadvantage of his birth, kept together a coalition army led by deeply treacherous officers through a campaign of triumphs that was only undone at the end. The only criticisms that can be made are that he allowed his health to be compromised when leading his men towards the first of the two great battles against Antigonus. But with the reputation his Macedonian comrades had for drinking perhaps this was forgivable. The other failure that fate did not forgive, however, was his last one, where he failed to provide adequate defence for his baggage train at Gabene, allowing Antigonus’ light horse to capture it and eventually swap it for his own head. If he had followed Alexander’s example at Gaugamela and left an adequate camp guard, the upshot of the great central war of the Diadochi epoch might have been very different.

  That this first generation of Successors generally shines so bright is no fluke; there is some Darwinism here. They had to compete hard from the beginning to survive at the high table of dynastic politics. When after decades and even centuries had passed, the combination of having power handed on a plate down the royal line and years of inbreeding meant there appeared the kind of defectives we are more familiar with amongst modern era royal families. This is particularly the case with the court at Alexandria though there were some pretty spectacular disasters amongst Seleucus’ descendants too. However, Macedonia only lasted less than a century-and-a-half from the end of the Diadochi, not a sufficient period to brew up a truly messy regal gene pool.

  Enough is known about the background of the first Successors to understand something of the world they came from and how it shaped them. Most were from Macedonia, a marcher state, the kind of polity that not infrequently have been the progenitors of empire. Constant border warfare makes such people strong and skilful in war. They have lands on their borders that, after conquest, can be exploited with particular efficiency. The crushed populace are not protected from bone-deep exploitation by hallowed custom, forms of common law and long-held practice that put some sort of brake on oppression in old established communities in the homeland. So it is possible to build a martial and well-funded realm and as a bonus there is always available, to bolster the home levy, the very warlike peoples whose rivalry kept the marcher peoples on their toes in the first place. China was first unified by the ruler of a state whose sinews had been tempered by centuries of conflict with the tribes of inner Asia. Spain’s great empire was bred of border conflict with the Moors, who had conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula in the eighth century AD. The Hapsburgs began as marcher lords on the edge of the German world and Russia, crushed by the Mongols and for centuries exposed to the depredations of their remnants, such as the Golden Horde, earned her imperial spurs in Eurasia before she began to impinge on the world of the West.

  Coming from such a place, the Diadochi were military men. Many were the sons of almost-independent local dynasts who Philip II had brought to his court, both to include their families in the national project and tame the centrifugal tendencies their background had nurtured. This gave the king a hold over potentially-troublesome local warlords and gained him followers who were brave and skilful fighters. It also surely explains much about the reactions of these men who were only a generation away from a time when Macedonia had little tradition of a strong centre, nor any history of powerful loyalty to the ruling dynasty. The effect of all this and the implications for their policy choices could be glimpsed when they were left leaderless and rudderless. Men from a long-established state with time-hallowed institutions would have tried harder to find a legitimate leader and then given that person their backing. With these great officers, though they created a formula to keep the Macedonian Empire in one piece for a short time, the imperative to carve out personal holdings did not take many years to e
merge. This was very different from when comparable imperial entities, whether Achaemenid, Sassanian or Roman, experienced the traumas of internecine warfare. In these polities, where legitimacy at the core was longer established, it was usually this centre that was the prize of civil conflict. The resources of the periphery, financial and military, would be utilized but always to take control at the heart of things, whether it be Darius the Great establishing himself where before the direct descendants of Cyrus had ruled, or Sulla crashing his way back to Rome on the tail of his legions whose loyalty he had won in a successful war against Mithridates. These Macedonians were different and soon enough were creating states at the edge of empire that have few parallels in the history of these other empires.

  Comparison can be a helpful tool of analysis when what is, at first, difficult to understand or sparsely evidenced is compared with an equivalent period that is well sourced. But with the Diadochi it is difficult to find another example where men followed a charismatic leader in founding a great empire and then fell out and fought over the carcass of what they had helped bring into being. Julius Caesar certainly gained a great domain but, on his death, his followers did not split the Roman Empire in the way Alexander’s Successors did. The later Roman Empire seems more to fit the bill with various local usurpers, Emperors and Caesars fighting to win and hold their patches. Yet, even these divisions were not usually institutionalized, though after Theodosius the Great, at the end of the fourth century AD, the Roman Empire split into west and east, never to rejoin again. Perhaps the closest parallel is found when we look at the Dark Ages and the great Frankish Empire of Charlemagne in the ninth century AD. Aiming to recreate its Roman forebear, it was, nonetheless, very soon divided between the various lines of its progenitor’s offspring. But even this does not really throw much light on the process that occurred in the years following Alexander’s death as the two societies where these events played out were so different in nature.