Ancient Greeks at War: Warfare in the Classical World from Agamemnon to Alexander 9781612009988, 9781612009995, 1612009980
Ancient Greeks at War is a lavishly illustrated tour de force covering every aspect of warfare in the Ancient Greek worl
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English Pages 304 [290] Year 2021
Polecaj historie
Table of contents :
Cover
Book Title
Copyright
Contents
Introduction
Timeline
Glossary
Chapter 1 Minoans, Mycenaeans and the Sea Peoples
Chapter 2 Classical Greece
Chapter 3 Philip II and the Kingdom of Macedon
Chapter 4 The Age of Alexander
Chapter 5 The Hellenistic Age and the Rise of Rome
Chapter 6 The Military Systems of Classical and Hellenistic Greece
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Select Bibliography
Index
Back Cover
Citation preview
Ancient Greeks at War
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Ancient Greeks At WAr Warfare in the classical World from Agamemnon to Alexander
simon elliott
Oxford & Philadelphia
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Published in Great Britain and the United States of America in 2021 by CASEMATE PUBLISHERS The Old Music Hall, 106–108 Cowley Road., Oxford, OX4 1JE, UK and 1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083, USA © Casemate Publishers Hardcover Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-998-8 Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-999-5 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library Printed and bound in the Czech Republic by Finidr S.R.O. For a complete list of Casemate titles, please contact: CASEMATE PUBLISHERS (UK) Telephone (01865) 241249 Email: [email protected] www.casematepublishers.co.uk CASEMATE PUBLISHERS (US) Telephone (610) 853-9131 Fax (610) 853-9146 Email: [email protected] www.casematepublishers.com All images are from author’s collection, unless stated otherwise. Front cover: A hoplite warrior of the Classical Greek period. Back cover: Second Temple of Hera in Paestum, Italy. Originally called Poseidonia, this was a key Greek colonial city in Magna Graecia. Page 2: The moon rises above the Parthenon atop the Acropolis of Athens, heart of the ancient Greek world. Page 5: Two Greek hoplite warriors depicted in a mythological scene dating to the 5th century BC. Note the large aspides shields, linen armour and doru long thrusting spears. The figure at left is Minerva, Goddess of wisdom, strategic warfare, trade and the arts. (wikicommons)
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contents introduction • 6 timeline • 9 Glossary • 15 Chapter 1 Minoans, Mycenaeans and the Sea Peoples • 22 Chapter 2 Classical Greece • 50 Chapter 3 Philip II and the Kingdom of Macedon • 104 Chapter 4 The Age of Alexander • 140 Chapter 5 The Hellenistic Age and the Rise of Rome • 186 Chapter 6 The Military Systems of Classical and Hellenistic Greece • 240 conclusion • 272 Acknowledgements • 276 select Bibliography • 278 index • 283
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introduction
A
ncient Greeks at War is a tour de force covering every aspect of warfare in the ancient Greek world from the beginnings of Greek civilization through to its assimilation into the ever-expanding world of Rome. It covers military strategy, tactics and technology as they evolved over three millennia, from the beginnings of organized conflict in the eastern Mediterranean through to the denoument of the Hellenistic military tradition. The book begins in Chapter 1 with the onset of Minoan culture on Crete around 2,000 BC, then covers Mycenaean civilization from 1,900 BC and the ensuing Late Bronze Age Collapse around 1,250 BC, before moving on to the story of the enigmatic Sea Peoples. This sets the scene for the flowering of Classical Greek civilization in Chapter 2, beginning with an appreciation of Dark Age/Geometric Greece to set the scene, before moving on to the eternal stories of the Greco-Persian Wars and Peloponnesian War. In Chapter 3 we then move on to the onset of Macedonian domination in the region under Philip II, before focusing in detail in Chapter 4 on the astonishing exploits of his son Alexander the Great. His legacy was the Hellenistic world, with its multiple, never-ending series of conflicts that took place over a huge territory, ranging from Italy in the west to India in the east, these all covered in Chapter 5. Those detailed include the various Wars of the Successors, the rise of the Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms, the various wars between the Antigonid Macedonian, Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms, and later the onset of the clash of cultures between the rising power of Rome in the west and the Hellenistic kingdoms. In the long run, the latter proved
unable to match Rome’s insatiable desire for conquest in the eastern Mediterranean, and this together with the rise of Parthia in the east ensured that one by one the Hellenistic kingdoms and states fell. This narrative section of the book ends with the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC after the defeat by Rome of the Achaean League. Chapter 6 then sets out in great detail the various military establishments of both the Classical and Hellenistic worlds, including indepth appreciations of the evolution of both the Classical Greek hoplite phalanx and Macedonian pike phalanx. The book’s conclusion then briefly considers the legacy of the ancients Greeks in our world today. In terms of housekeeping, given the vast chronological period covered by this work, an understanding of key periods in Greek and Roman history is useful. For the former, those referenced are the Minoan period from around 2,000 BC through to the the onset of the Mycenaean period of regional dominance at some time around 1,650 BC, and then the latter’s demise amid the devastation of the Late Bronze Age Collapse around 1,250 BC. From that point we then talk of the Dark Age/Geometric period of Greek history through to the beginning of
(opposite) The so-called Mask of Agamemnon, the famous gold funeral mask found in the 1870s by Heinrich Schliemann in Mycenae. This incredible artefact dates to around 1,600 BC in the earlier Mycenaean period. (Vineyard Perspective/Shutterstock)
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A Seleucid war elephant with a tower and two fighting crew. Such beasts played a key role in Hellenistic armies from the time of the Wars of the Successors. (Robert Rayner)
the 9th century BC, then the Archaic period, the latter then transitioning into the Classical period from the beginning of the 5th century BC, and finally the Hellenistic period following the death of Alexander in 323 BC which lasted through to the sack of Corinth in 146 BC. For the world of Rome, the periods referenced are the Republic from 509 BC with the overthrow of Tarquin the Proud (the Republic by far the main focus of Roman involvement in this book), then
the Principate phase of empire and finally the Dominate phase of empire. Meanwhile, for those unfamiliar with this often astounding, sometimes bewildering period of world history, an understanding of the meaning of certain terms is useful. To that end, a review of the glossary at the beginning of the book is recommended, given the importance of names, words and phrases.
(opposite) Large Urnfield-type shield of central European design, the precursor to the Classical Greek hoplite aspis shield.
8 • AncIent Greeks
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timeline
T
his is a timeline of key events in the world of ancient Greece. It includes earlier events from the Biblical period, and later events in the Roman Republic, both for context, showing that developments among the Greek poleis, Achaemenid Persian Empire and later the Hellenistic kingdoms did not take place in isolation, but were part of a wider regional narrative.
Date event 6,000 BC Beginning of the pre-Dynastic Egyptian period. 5,500 BC Farming settlements established across Mesopotamia. 5,000 BC First signs of Neolithic settlement in Athens. 3,300 BC First major towns appear in the Nile valley. 3,150 BC Beginning of the Early Dynastic Egyptian period. 2,900 BC Beginning of the Sumerian Early Dynastic Period. 2,700 BC Minoan culture begins to flourish in Greece. 2,686 BC Beginning of the Old Kingdom Egyptian period. 2,600 BC Assyrian city of Assur founded. Linear A script first used in Crete and in Minoan colonies around the Aegean. 2,334 BC Accession of Sargon the Great in Kish, beginning of period of Akkadian dominance in Mesopotamia. 2,193 BC Collapse of the Akkadian Empire. 2,100 BC First evidence of chariots found in kurgan (burial mounds) in the SintashaPetrovka region at the southern end of the Ural Mountains. 2,000 BC First true cities emerge on Crete. New Minoan colonies appear on islands such as Kythera on the southeastern tip of the Peloponnese. 1,975 BC Beginning of the Middle Kingdom Egyptian period. 1,700 BC Old Assyrian Period begins. 1,650 BC Mycenaean culture begins to flourish on the Greek mainland.
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1,626 BC Devastating eruption of the volcano on the Cyclades island of Santorini, sending enormous ash clouds as far east as Cyprus. 1,600 BC First Minoan chariots appear on Crete. 1,549 BC Beginning of New Kingdom Egyptian period. 1,450 BC The Mycenaeans conquer the Minoans. 1,279 BC Accession of Ramesses II as Egyptian king. 1,274 BC Battle of Kadesh. 1,250 BC Societal collapse of Mycenaean and other eastern Mediterranean cultures in the Late Bronze Age Collapse. 1,231 BC First record of Sea Peoples raiding. 1,050 BC First signs of post-Mycenaean recovery in Greece, with proto-geometric pottery appearing for the first time. 1,000 BC Greek Dark Age/Geometric colonial settlements appear in Ephesus, Miletus and Colophon.
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900 BC
Geometric pottery appears on Cyprus for the first time.
776 BC
First Olympic games held.
720 BC
Assyria invades Israel, leading to its final destruction.
701 BC
Assyria invades Judah, destroying many cities including Lachish. Siege of Jerusalem.
597 BC
First Siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzer II.
593 BC
The archon Solon institutes Athens’ earliest democratic reforms.
587 BC
Second Siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzer II, final fall of the city.
579 BC
Accession of the legendary Servius Tullius, second Etrusco-Roman king of Rome.
559 BC
Accession of Cyrus the Great as the first Achaemenid Persian king.
534 BC
Accession of Tarquin the Proud as king in Rome.
509 BC
Overthrow of Tarquin the Proud, Roman Republic begins.
499 BC
Beginning of the Greco-Persian Wars.
492 BC
Darius I orders Mardonius to begin the First Persian Invasion of Greece.
490 BC
Beginning of the second campaign of the First Persian Invasion of Greece. Battle of Marathon.
480 BC
Second Persian Invasion of Greece under Xerxes I, battle of Thermopylae, death of Leonidas I of Sparta. Battle of Salamis.
479 BC
Battle of Plataea.
431 BC
Beginning of the Peloponnesian War.
425 BC
Battle of Pylos, battle of Sphancteria.
421 BC
Peace of Nicias.
418 BC
Battle of Mantinea.
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415 BC
Beginning of the Sicilian Expedition.
411 BC
Battle of Syme.
406 BC
Battle of Notium, battle of Arginusae.
405 BC
Battle of Aegospotami.
404 BC
End of the Peloponnesian War with the defeat of Athens.
399 BC
Assassination of the Macedonian king Archelaus I.
395 BC
Battle of Haliartus between Thebes and Sparta.
394 BC
Battle of Coronea between Thebes and Sparta.
393 BC
Accession of the Macedonian king Amyntas III.
390 BC
Battle of Allia, sack of Rome by the Senones Gauls.
382 BC
Birth of Philip II of Macedon.
375 BC
Battle at Tegyra.
371 BC
Battle of Leuctra.
369 BC
Arrival of Philip II as a teenage hostage in Thebes.
362 BC
Battle of Mantinea, death of Epaminondas.
359 BC
Philip II declared the full basileus (king) of Macedon.
357 BC
Philip II marries Olympias, daughter of the late Molossian king Neoptolemus, his fifth wife.
356 BC
Alexander the Great born. Third Sacred War breaks out.
Classical Greek triremes as depicted on a plaster wall painting in Pompeii. Note the hoplite-equipped marines in both vessels, with doru (long thrusting spears) and aspides (shields).
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338 BC
Battle of Chaeronea.
336 BC
Assassination of Philip II, accession of Alexander the Great. Accession of Darius III as the first Achaemenid Persian king.
334 BC
Alexander the Great launches his anabasis eastwards, crossing into Asia. Battle of the Granicus River.
333 BC
Battle of Issus.
332 BC
Siege of Tyre begins.
331 BC
Battle of Gaugamela.
330 BC
Death of Darius III.
327 BC
Alexander the Great marries Roxanna.
326 BC
Battle of the Hydaspes River.
323 BC
Death of Alexander the Great.
322 BC
First War of the Diadochi begins.
318 BC
Second War of the Diadochi begins.
317 BC
Battle of Paraitacene.
315 BC
Battle of Gabiene. Death of Eumenes.
314 BC
Third War of the Diadochi begins.
308 BC
Fourth War of the Diadochi begins.
301 BC
Battle of Ipsus, death of Antigonus Monophthalmus.
281 BC
Death of Lysimachus at the battle of Corupedium, end of his Thraco-Macedonian successor kingdom. Assassination of Seleucus I by Ptolemy Ceraunus.
280 BC
Beginning of the Pyrrhic War in Italy with the invasion of Pyrrhus of Epirus. Battle of Heraclea.
279 BC
Battle of Asculum.
275 BC
Battle of Beneventum.
274 BC
Beginning of the First Syrian War.
264 BC
Beginning of the First Punic War.
260 BC
Beginning of the Second Syrian War.
250 BC
Around this time the Bactrian satrap Diodotus declares his independence from the Seleucid Empire. Beginning of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom.
246 BC
Beginning of the Third Syrian War.
219 BC
Beginning of the Fourth Syrian War.
218 BC
Beginning of the Second Punic War, battle of the Trebia.
217 BC
Battle of Lake Trasimene, battle of Raphia.
216 BC
Battle of Cannae.
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214 BC
Beginning of First Macedonian War.
202 BC
Battle of Zama, beginning of the Fifth Syrian War.
200 BC
Beginning of Second Macedonian War, battle of Panium.
197 BC
Battle of Cynoscephalae.
192 BC
Beginning of Roman–Seleucid War.
190 BC
Battle of Magnesia.
172 BC
Beginning of Third Macedonian War.
170 BC
Beginning of the Sixth Syrian War.
168 BC
Battle of Pydna. ‘Day of Eleusis’, with Antiochus IV. Epiphanes withdrawing from Egypt under duress from the Roman envoy Gaius Popilius Laenas.
150 BC
Beginning of Fourth Macedonian War.
149 BC
Beginning of Third Punic War.
146 BC
Achaean War begins. Sackings of Carthage and Corinth.
113 BC
Beginning of the Cimbrian War.
107 BC
Marius elected consul for the first time.
100 BC
Gaius Julius Caesar born.
82 BC
Sulla becomes dictator, Caesar flees to Asia to join the military.
78 BC
Sulla dies, Caesar returns to Rome.
60 BC
First Triumvirate.
58 BC
Beginning of Caesar’s Gallic Wars.
55 BC
Caesar’s first incursion to Britain.
54 BC
Caesar’s second incursion to Britain.
53 BC
Death of Crassus at the battle of Carrhae against the Parthians.
52 BC
Gallic revolt under Vercingetorix, siege of Alesia. End of the Gallic Wars.
49 BC
Caesar crosses the Rubicon river with legio XIII.
48 BC
Battle of Pharsalus, death of Pompey in Egypt.
47 BC
Alexandrian War, Caesar campaigns against Pharnaces II.
46 BC
Battle of Thapsus, quadruple triumph in Rome.
45 BC
Battle of Munda.
44 BC
Caesar appointed dictator for life, assassinated on the Ides of March.
42 BC
Battle of Phillipi.
31 BC
Battle of Actium.
27 BC
Octavian becomes Augustus. End of the Roman Republic, beginning of the Principate Empire.
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Glossary Achaemenid Dynasty
The ruling dynasty of the Achaemenid Persian Empire.
Anabasis
A large-scale campaign to the east.
Antigonid Dynasty
The Macedonian Dynasty based on the lineage of Antigonus Monophthalmus.
Antipatrid Dynasty
The Macedonian Dynasty based on the lineage of the regent Antipater.
Argead Dynasty
The traditional dynasty of rulers of the Kingdom of Macedon, and the line of both Philip II and Alexander the Great.
Argyraspides
Later Macedonian and Hellenistic elite foot guard troops, named after their silver shields.
Aspis
The standard, large, round body shield used by Greek hoplites.
Attica
The large peninsula projecting into the Aegean Sea, featuring Athens and its hinterland.
Bireme
A war galley with two banks of oars.
Chalcidice Peninsula
The three-pronged peninsula in coastal northeastern Macedonia, today called the Halykydiki Peninsula.
Chalcolithic period
The Copper Age.
Chiliarchia
A unit of organization for Macedonian and Hellenistic troops.
Cuirass
Armour for the torso.
Dekad
A file of Macedonian phalangites, originally 10 deep after the reforms of Philip II, later 16 deep.
Democracy
A system of government in the Greek poleis where the whole population (or at least those eligible to vote) elect their ruling officials.
Diodochi
The successor generals fighting for control of all or part of Alexander the Great’s former empire.
(opposite) A bronze bust of Seleucus I, one of the greatest figures from the Hellenistic world. Found in the Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum, Roman Bay of Naples.
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Dipylon
A shield dating to the Greek Dark Age/Geometric period, characterized by its oval shape with lateral notches cut into the sides.
Doru
A hoplite’s long thrusting spear.
Embolus
The half-rhomboid, wedge-shaped formation used by Macedonian and Hellenistic shock cavalry.
Equites
Roman cavalry
Euboea
The large Greek island running along the eastern side of the Balkans Peninsula from Central Greece to Attica.
Euzenoi
A Macedonian pikeman rearmed with a lighter panoply.
Galley
A key form of maritime transport in the ancient world, the galley featured oars along its length to provide the power to propel the vessel through the water in addition to, or instead of, a sail.
Gladius Hispaniensis
The iconic infantry sword used by Roman legionaries from the midRepublic through to the later Principate phase of Empire.
Greave
A band of armour wrapped around the lower leg.
Hasta
A Roman spear.
Hastati
A type of Republican Roman legionary.
Hellenistic
The period of Greek history from the death of Alexander the Great to the rise of Roman power in the eastern Mediterranean.
Helot
A Spartan slave.
Hetairoi
The Macedonian king’s close bodyguard cavalry.
Hipparchia
A unit of organisation of Macedonian cavalry.
Hippeis
Spartan knights, the elite troops among the Spartan army. Singular is hippeus.
Hoplite
The principal line-of-battle warrior in the armies of the Greek poleis.
Hypaspists
Macedonian elite foot guard troops.
Ilia
Units of organization for Macedonian cavalrymen. Singular is ile.
Immortals
Elite guard troops of the earlier Achaemenid Persian kings.
Ionian
Referencing the dialect of ancient Greek, and the Greek colonial cities along the western coast of Anatolia.
Kopis
A slashing sword with an inwardly curved blade, extensively used in the Classical world.
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Krater
A large vase used to dilute wine with water.
Lambda
The upturned V symbol used by the Spartans.
Late Bronze Age Collapse
The dramatic event that destroyed many of the cultures in the eastern Mediterranean around 1,250 BC, now thought to be climate change related.
Legate
A senior Roman military officer.
Legion
The formal name given to the large, specific formations of Roman frontline warriors.
Hoplite depicted on an Attic drinking cup, 500 BC. Note the scale mail attachments to his linen cuirass. (Rogers Fund, 1941, The Met)
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Legionary
The name given to warriors who served in the legions.
Lorica hamata
A chainmail hauberk of the type worn by Roman legionaries of the midand later Republic.
Magna Graecia
The region settled by Greek colonists in southern Italy and Sicily.
Mahout
An elephant rider controlling the animal.
Marching camp
The temporary fortification built by Roman troops at the end of each day marching in enemy territory.
Maryannu
The chariot-riding aristocracies of the Biblical Levant.
Minoan
The name given to the maritime civilization centered on Crete that dominated the eastern Mediterranean from 2,700 BC to 1,450 BC.
Mycenaean
The name given to the Greek civilization based in the Peloponnese, Attica and Central Greece that dominated the Balkans and Aegean from 1,650 BC to 1,250 BC.
Oligarchy
A form of autocratic rule by a few individuals, the common alternative to democracy in the Greek poleis.
Panoply
The arms and armour of an ancient warrior.
Pavise
A large shield which covers the entire front profile of the warrior carrying it, too heavy to wield as a normal shield.
Peloponnese
The large peninsula located at the southern tip of the Greek mainland.
Peltast
A lighter type of Greek warrior armed with javelins, ideal for use in difficult terrain.
Pelte
The smaller, round shield used by Iphicratean hoplites and, later, Macedonian and Hellenistic phalangites.
Periokoi
Spartan hoplites recruited from the city’s hinterland.
Pezetairoi
Macedonian line pikemen armed with a sarissa.
Phalanx
A dense, organized body of spear- or pike-armed heavy infantry.
Pilum
Roman, lead-weighted, throwing javelin.
Poleis
Greek city-states.
Principes
A type of Republican Roman legionary.
Prodromoi
Macedonian lance-armed light cavalry.
Province
A large geographical unit of organisation in the later Roman Republic and Roman Empire.
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Psiloi
The lightest type of Greek warriors, best suited to skirmishing with missile weapons.
Pteruges
A skirt of leather strips worn to protect the groin and upper thighs.
Ptolemaic Dynasty
The dynasty of Hellenistic rulers established in Egypt by Ptolemy I.
Punic
A word used to describe Carthaginian armies and territory.
Rhyton
A conical drinking vessel.
Roman Empire
The period of Roman history lasting from 27 BC when Octavian was first styled Augustus by the Senate through to the fall of the western Empire in AD 476, though it continued to exit in the east.
Roman Republic
The period of Roman history lasting from the overthrow of Tarquin the Proud in 509 BC through to 27 BC when Octavian was first styled Augustus by the Senate.
Bronze helmet of Southern Italian-Corinthian style, mid 4th century BC. (Bequest of Bill Blass, 2002, The Met)
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Marble bust of Demetrius Poliorcetes, also found in the Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum, Roman Bay of Naples.
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Sacred Band
The elite group of 300 paired hoplites in the Theban army.
Sarissa
The Macedonian and Hellenistic pike, held two handed towards the rear.
Sarissaphoroi
An alternative name for prodromoi Macedonian lance-armed, light cavalry.
Scutum
The ubiquitous, large, rectangular body shield used by Roman legionaries from the mid-Republican period to the late Principate phase of Empire.
Sea Peoples
The name given to the armed migratory peoples who predated around the eastern Mediterranean coastline following the Late Bronze Age Collapse.
Seleucid Dynasty
The dynasty of rulers established in much of Alexander the Great’s former empire by Seleucus I, including most of the Middle East, the east and occasionally much of Anatolia.
Senator
The most senior class of Roman aristocrat.
Sparabara
Achaemenid Persian line-of-battle troops, named after the pavises carried by their front rankers.
Spartiate
A Spartan citizen hoplite.
Strategos
A senior Greek or Hellenistic military officer.
Tarantines
Javelin-armed Hellenistic skirmishing light cavalry.
Thorakitai
Armoured Thureophoroi, usually depicted or described wearing a chainmail hauberks.
Thureophoroi
Evolved peltast-type soldiers ubiquitous in the Hellenistic period, named after their distinctive oval-shaped thureos shields. Armed with long-thrusting spears as well as javelins, such troops were much better able to hold their own in the line of battle.
Thureos
The oval-shaped shields carried by Thureophoroi and Thorakitai, a development of the classic Gallic infantry shield.
Triarii
Veteran Republican Roman legionaries.
Tribune
A mid-ranking Roman military officer or magistrate.
Trireme
A war galley with three banks of oars.
Xyston
A long lance up to 4 m in length used by Macedonian and, later, Hellenistic shock cavalry.
Xystophoroi
Elite, xyston-armed Hellenistic shock cavalry.
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CHAPTeR 1 M In oAnS, MyC enA eA n S A n d THe SeA P eoP l eS
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T
his chapter focuses on some of the earliest civilizations in Europe and their respective military systems, starting with the Minoan culture that flourished on Crete and the islands of the Aegean Sea from 2,700 BC. These were joined from 1,650 BC by the Mycenaean culture in the Peloponnese and Attica on the Greek mainland. The Mycenaeans conquered the Minoans around 1,450 BC, they themselves then suffering a major societal failure around 1,250 BC in the context of the Late Bronze Age Collapse. This was the event that began the Greek Dark Age/Geometric period. The downfall of the Mycenaeans caused widespread economic disruption across the eastern Mediterranean, the event a causal factor in the emergence of the Sea Peoples at this time. These tribes of maritime raiders attacked the coastal regions of Hittite Anatolia, the Hurrian Levantine coast and New Kingdom Egypt, inflicting widespread damage. They often settled where they were most successful, a prime example being the Peleset who, colonizing Gaza (most likely at the behest of the Egyptians to act as a buffer state) founded the Philistine Pentapolis there. This culture is considered here given its likely links to the Mycenaean collapse. It is also from the word Philistine that we get the name for this region today, Palestine. This period in European history is also famous for being the setting for Homer’s semi-legendary Trojan War, this considered here also, with the chapter more broadly setting the scene for the advent of Dark Age/Geometric, Archaic and ultimately Classical Greece in the next chapter.
The Minoans The Minoan Empire was a thalassocracy knitting together the numerous city-states on Crete and across the Aegean Sea. The Minoans did not
speak an Indo-European language and so were not Greek, with their actual origins unknown. Neolithic farming began on Crete around 3,000 BC, with the use of copper and then bronze swiftly following as their use spread around the Aegean. The first evidence of what later evolved into the Minoan culture dates to this time, with the vector of cultural transmission seemingly from Libya based on similarities in burial customs, art styles and dress. The Libyan tribes there were those that proved so troublesome to the pre-Dynastic and Old Kingdom Egyptians, as they lived in the vast swathes of semi-desert stretching westwards from the Nile Valley. The first two tribes referenced by the Egyptians were called the Tjehenu and the Tjemehu. The former were depicted as physically akin to the Egyptians and are thought to have moved westwards and away from their Nile Valley neighbours around the time of the unification by Narmer of Upper and Lower Egypt around 3,000 BC. However, the latter were depicted as being physically distinct and it is this group which some think may have had pre-existing links, or later developed them, with the early Minoans. The first large cities in Minoan Crete emerged around 2,000 BC, in association with an increase in centrally controlled agriculture. At first sight this seems an unlikely development given Crete
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(previous pages) The modern-day ruins of Mycenae, home of Agamemnon and probably the starting point for the Trojan War expedition from Greece to Anatolia. (Iexan/ Shutterstock) (opposite) A small Minoan votive, double-headed axe brooch, in the style of a typical Minoan ceremonial weapon. Found in the Arkalochori Cave, Crete. (Wikimedia Commons)
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A classic Minoan-style, two-horse chariot painted on a limestone sarcophagus, found in a tomb north east of the Minoan villa site at Hagia Triada. (Wikimedia Commons)
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lacks any continental-scale rivers and associated extensive fertile land, but here the Minoans proved truly innovative, developing a highly successful system of intensive farming based on vines, olives and wheat. The first two grew well on the island’s rocky mountainsides, while the latter thrived on the fertile soils of the numerous small river valleys where it was increasingly the only crop grown there. Sheep were also kept in large flocks in the extensive mountain pastures for their wool. Soon the Minoan cities were producing a surplus, with, for example, woolen textile goods being shipped southeast to Egypt and north to the Greek mainland, Aegean islands and western Anatolia. The development of improved maritime technology enabled this trade to grow in the early 2nd millennium BC and soon many of the Cretan cities were rich. Evidence of their far reach
across the seas of the eastern Mediterranean can be found in Egyptian wall paintings created in a Minoan style, showing Cretans wearing their traditional kilts bearing gifts for the Egyptian king Thutmoses III. These wealthy city-states then expanded their power in their own localities, resulting in the creation of flourishing city-states featuring numerous smaller satellite cities and towns. Later, fine quality Minoan pottery and copper and bronze metalwork were added to a growing list of goods they exported. Minoan society was dominated by the huge palaces that formed the centre of each city. These are sometimes referred to as court buildings given they were all built in a similar design around a large central courtyard. The leading cities by 1,800 BC included Phaistos, Mallia, Khania, Zakro and Knossos. It is from Minos, the mythical king
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of the latter, that the name Minoan is derived. Nearly all of the cities also had easy access to the coast, reflecting the maritime nature of Minoan civilization. Writing at the end of the 5th century BC, the Athenian historian Thucydides shows this in detail, using Minos as his example, he saying (The History of the Peloponnesian War, 1.4). Minos is the first to whom tradition ascribes the possession of a navy. He made himself master of a great part of what is now termed the Hellenic sea; he conquered the Cyclades, and was the first coloniser of most of them, expelling the Carians and appointing his own sons to govern in them. Lastly, it was he who, from a natural desire to protect his growing revenues, sought, as far as he was able, to clear the sea of pirates.
Knossos in particular has become synonymous with Minoan civilization. Located on the northern coast of Crete, with a fine harbor now beneath the Katsabas district of Heraklion (the modern capital of Crete), it had unrivalled access to the Bronze Age Aegean maritime trade routes. Knossos was first controversially excavated and interpreted by Sir Arthur Evans in the early 20th century AD, who rebuilt many of the buildings there as he imagined them to have been. While
this has created a confusing situation regarding architectural interpretation, what is not in doubt is the vast wealth on display there in the archaeological data, with a wide range of high-
A Minoan bull’s head pottery rhyton (a conical container for fluids) dating to around 1,500 BC. (Wikimedia Commons)
A Minoan two-horse chariot in stylized form on a larnax (a type of small, enclosed coffin). (Wikimedia Commons)
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quality jewellery, metalwork and pottery found in situ amid the ruins. The court palaces in each major Minoan city, for example at Knossos, reveal much about the highly organized nature of Minoan civilization. Each featured enormous storehouses for agricultural produce, including grain and oil. This indicates a high level of centralized control, allowing the rulers to gather the produce from the city-state populations as a tax, and then profiting from its export. The surplus also allowed the citystates to support a highly structured network of administrators, and an equally advanced military establishment. To facilitate this complex political system the Minoans used an as yet undeciphered writing system known to us as Linear A. Already in use by 2,600 BC, this utilized a script based on conjoined lines that were used to make hundreds of different signs. The writing system, mainly used for accounting, remained in use until 1,450 BC when the Minoan Empire fell to the Mycenaeans. Warfare was endemic between the various Minoan city-states, though interestingly most cities lacked a defensive wall circuit. This indicates
that control of the sea was the most important aspect of Minoan conflict, with frescos at some sites showing amphibious assaults from monoreme (single bank of oars) galleys equipped with rams. At one time or another one of the cities would rise to dominance, but around 1,700 BC the internecine warfare peaked with many of the palaces burnt to the ground. Most were soon rebuilt, though only Knossos regained anything like its former splendor. In short order this city-state seized control of the whole island and reduced the other Cretan city-states to vassal status. It is around this time that archaeologists believe Minoan culture reached a peak of artistic achievement, with fabulous wall paintings and pottery of the highest quality created. The latter included ceramics produced using the faience technique, imported from Egypt, which used an advanced glazing technique that proved so popular in Crete that it was soon being used for mosaic inlays and jewelry. Then in 1,626 BC the palaces were again badly damaged, this time by the devastating eruption of the volcano on the Cyclades island of Santorini
The ruins of a fine Minoan villa at Amnisos, destroyed in 1,450 BC as part of the wave of deliberate sacking events which are found across Crete at this time. (Wikimedia Commons)
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that sent enormous ash clouds as far east as Cyprus. The tsunami this created would have ravaged Minoan Crete, given the coastal location of most of its key cities and towns. However, the palaces were again soon rebuilt, and this time the regional devastation presented the resilient Minoans with the opportunity to become the overwhelmingly dominant cultural influence throughout the entire eastern Mediterranean. Though Minoan colonies had appeared from around 2,000 BC on islands such as Kythera on the south-eastern tip of the Peloponnese and on Santorini, new outpost settlements now appeared (by 1,500 BC at the latest) as far afield as Melos and Kea in the Cyclades, Rhodes in the Dodecanese, and to the south at the Egyptian city of Avaris on the Nile Delta. By this time, this huge Egyptian trading settlement and military garrison was the capital of Lower Egypt under the Hyksos Dynasty. The legend of Theseus, dating to this period, may also indicate that some of the contemporary settlements in the Peloponnese and Attica in mainland Greece may also have fallen under Minoan control around this time, at least
as vassals. Theseus was the Greek mythological hero who became an early king of Athens, best known for events earlier in his life when he fought villains, slew Amazons and centaurs, and most famously killed the fearsome half-bull/half-man Minotaur of king Minos in its labyrinth beneath the royal palace at Knossos. However, this newfound post-apocalyptic prosperity was to prove short lived. Around 1,450 BC nearly all of Crete’s prosperous cities and their satellite towns were destroyed in deliberate sacking events, with even the fine country houses of the regional elites destroyed, never to be reoccupied. Only at Knossos is there evidence of any degree of urban survival, and even here the art forms on display now feature a particularly militaristic leaning, drastically at odds with earlier Minoan styles. Further, and most tellingly, a new form of script appears. This has enabled archaeologists to clearly identify the origins of the arbiters of such wanton destruction, namely the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece. Minoan armies were based around a chariotmounted nobility and dense phalanxes of
A Minoan galley depicted on a larnax. The Minoans were arguably the world’s first great sea-going culture. (Wikimedia Commons)
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The origins of the Chariot Given the importance of the chariot in the armies of the Minoans, Mycenaeans, Sea Peoples and Philistines, here I detail the origins of this most enigmatic form of Biblical-era military technology. The well-travelled Hurrians were the vector of transfer of chariot technology into the Levant and eastern Mediterranean. These were a Bronze Age people from eastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia who spoke a Hurro-Urartian language. They proved highly successful traders and farmers and soon began to expand their cultural influence south and eastwards, eventually dominating an arc of fertile farmland from the Khabur river in modern Turkey (the largest perennial tributary of the Euphrates) to the Zagros Mountains in modern Iran. They benefited in particular from the Hittite conquest of the northerly Amorite city-states in Syria. In the early stage of their expansion the first known Hurrian kingdom was that which flourished from the 3rd millennium BC around the city of Urkesh (modern Tell Mozan) in the Taurus Mountains of northeastern Syria. These were allies of the Akkadian Empire in northern Mesopotamia from the time of the latter’s king Naram-Sin who ruled there from 2,254 BC to 2,218 BC. The Hurrians also migrated further south at this time and by 1,725 BC were in parts of northern Syria, for example at the city of Alalakh. From here the mixed Amorite-Hurrian kingdom of Yamkhad is recorded in Hittite records attacking the Hittite king Hattusilis I around 1,600 BC. Hurrian influence continued to spread southwards and eventually they replaced the Semitic-speaking Amorites as the dominant culture in Canaan. Across this region, culturally now known as Syro-Canaanite, they came to rule a patchwork of prosperous and highly successful city-states, some of which became the centre of wide-ranging empires. The most successful was the
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Kingdom of Mitanni. Others included the major coastal trading city of Ugarit and its hinterland in northern Syria, today on the outskirts of modern Latakia, this covered later in this chapter in the context of the savage predations of the Sea Peoples. The original Hurrian homeland was well placed to control trade between the Central Asian Steppe and the Levant, this being one of the reasons for their success. It was in the former huge region that recent archaeological investigations have found the earliest-known chariots. These were in kurgan (burial mounds) excavated in the Sintasha-Petrovka region at the southern end of the Ural Mountains dated to between 2,100 and 1,800 BC. They have yielded the imprint of chariot wheels and other chariot-related grave goods showing a clear lineage with those of the later Levant. Such technology would have travelled south along the trade routes to the Mediterranean, first through the lands of the Hurrians and then being vectored from there south into Canaan and later Egypt, and west through the lands of the Hittites and ultimately on to the Balkans through western Anatolia and the Aegean. The arrival of the chariot had a major societal impact in the Levant, with the introduction of a new class of chariot-mounted hereditary warrior nobility called the Maryannu. The name is first mentioned in the Amarna letters, a clay tablet administrative archive written between 1,360 BC and 1,332 BC by Egyptian scribes in this Upper Egyptian town who were corresponding with the northerly Egyptian outposts in Canaan and Syria. The word comprises the singular Sanskrit marya, meaning ‘young warrior’, with a Hurrian suffix. Though service as Maryannu differed in each individual state, such troops were usually hereditary landholders. There could also be more than one grade of service in the Maryannu, and to confuse matters not all Maryannu owned chariots, and not all charioteers were Maryannu. Based on evidence from the Mitanni empire, the term Maryannu only detailed the chariot owner who is often referenced as the driver, with the bowman and chariot groom (the latter known as a kizy in Hurrian) being separately assigned crewmembers. The Hurrians were also known in the region as expert horsemen, over and above their introduction of the Maryannu system of chariot warfare. A Hurrian manual on this subject written by one Kikkuli was found at Hattusa written in Hittite cuneiform. It details that for both chariot and cavalry horses training began at one year old, though the former didn’t pull chariots until they were three years old. Those with the required skill would then be assigned to a chariot unit from the age of four, serving there until they were nine. Kikkuli’s manual indicates that the horses were fed on barley and were regularly exercised by being driven or ridden a prescribed distance daily.
The ultimate evolution of the Maryannu chariot. New Kingdom Egyptian chariots featuring the pharaoh Tutankhamen in action. (wikicommons)
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Minoan spearmen depicted on the ‘Expedition Frieze’ wall painting found in Akrotiri, Santorini. Note the tower shields and long spears. (Wikimedia Commons)
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spearmen. The first chariots appear on Crete and across the Aegean from around 1,600 BC. This technology was introduced after contact with the coastal regions around the eastern Mediterranean. They were initially direct copies of the light chariots used by the various Maryannu there (see detail on pages 30–31), though in Crete they gradually became heavier with a larger fighting platform. To help the horses pull this more substantial design an additional pole was added
to the yoke pole, mounted horizontally with the first. It has been argued that this second pole actually went into the cab, dividing it into two fighting compartments. The crew of these chariots differed substantially from their near-eastern counterparts. This was because instead of the fighting crewman being a bowman, here he was armed with a long thrusting spear. This could be used either like a lance, or once the warrior had deployed on foot a spear, indicating that the aristocratic chariot owner was this time the fighting crewman rather than the driver as was often the case with the Maryannu. The earlier chariot designs are known as boxchariots in a Cretan context, while the heavier later ones are called dual-chariots. It has been argued that these later designs were more akin to battlefield taxis rather than being used as a fighting platform. Over time the warrior in the chariot came to wear heavy armour, certainly by the time of the Minoan/Mycenaean transition. A fine example is provided by the Dendra panoply found at the village of that name in the Argolid, Greece. This was the location of the royal cemetery of the city of Midea. The armour dates to the end of the 15th century BC (though the type was seemingly in use earlier) and features a cuirass of hoops of overlapping bronze plates from the chest to the knees, with substantial three-piece bronze plates covering the shoulders and with a large tubular turret neck protector sitting atop them. This ingenious corselet, called a torake (thorax), was assembled in two halves, with the plates backed with leather and held together with a series of loosely fastened leather thongs. The individual plates were called opawota. The noble warriors equipped in this way also wore bronze lower arm protectors called qero and bronze greaves, and a boar’s tusk helmet with bronze cheek pieces. The chariot driver was less well protected. They are commonly shown wearing a padded quilt tunic. Meanwhile, Minoan spearmen are also widely depicted across Crete and the Aegean, for example on frescos from Santorini and later on a silver crater and decorated dagger from Mycenae. They carried a very long spear called an eka-a. This
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was held two handed above the chest in a similar manner to the way pikemen carried their weapons in the European Renaissance. For protection the spearmen are shown with boar’s tusk helmets and very large body shields held in place by a leather strap given both hands were being used to fight with the spear. Archaeologists call these tower shields. Given the size of this shield, few spearmen are depicted in any armour as, provided they kept their formation, there would be no need, with most simply wearing a loincloth. They formed up in a shield wall, with archers and javelinmen often shown skirmishing out from their ranks. Interestingly many of the spearmen are depicted armed with elaborate bronze swords, indicating they were supplied from state-run armouries based in the major Minoan cities. Given the maritime nature of Minoan culture across the eastern Mediterranean, sea power played a significant role in their military capability. This is considered in detail below in the context of their Mycenaean vanquishers and successors, where we have specific detail in the written and archaeological records about contemporary naval warfare.
The Mycenaeans The Balkans Peninsula has always been a place of transit for ideas entering Europe from the east, through Anatolia and across the Aegean Sea. It has also been a frequent route through which migrating peoples have travelled to Europe, either again from the east, or more frequently from the northeast having looped round the Black Sea from as far afield as the Central Asian Steppe. Mesolithic hunter-gatherer sites are well recorded in Greece, for example at the Franchthi Cave site overlooking Kiladha Bay in the Peloponnese. Here artefacts associated with a male burial have been dated to 8,500 BC, including fine-quality obsidian tools. The latter indicates a high degree of economic sophistication given the nearest source for this fine-quality lithic material was the Cyclades island of Milos and that, even with the prevalent lower sea levels at the time, this would have still required a significant maritime
journey by either the cave’s occupants, or those they were trading with. Later, Neolithic farming arrived in the Balkans around 6,000 BC from Anatolia. It was initially thought this was mainly through the transfer of ideas to the indigenous Mesolithic population there. However, recent archaeological data increasingly suggests this may actually have been through the migration of entire peoples to the Balkans, bringing with them early farming expertise. The causal factor behind such extensive migrations may have been a climate change event in the Levant. With the arrival of the Neolithic, the first settlements also appear in the Balkans. A fine example is found at Sesklo in coastal Thessaly, north of the later key religious site at Delphi. Here, a sizeable site mound of a type called a tell in Arabic, huyuk in Turkish and tepe in Persian, indicates a lengthy period of occupation. In its earliest phase this was a sizeable village, featuring simple houses of timber and sub-dried mud, with the inhabitants growing primitive wheat and barley on the nearby hillsides and keeping goats and sheep. It proved highly successful and soon grew to a settlement over 32 acres in size, with modern estimates indicating a population of around 500. A key find there amid the archaeological data is a small clay model of a contemporary house, showing them to be roughly square with rectangular openings on all four sides which corresponds with the foundations of early structures found there. As time went on the buildings at Sesklo got bigger, with more formal societal organization evident by the beginning of the fourth millennia BC when a large building with extensive stone foundations, mud-brick walls and a timber roof was erected in the centre of the site. This may be associated with the onset of the Chalcolithic period here, given two copper axe-heads have been found amid the ruins dating to this period, which was a precursor to the arrival of the earliest phases of the Bronze Age around 3,000 BC. By this time proto-Greek speakers had arrived in the northern Balkans, having travelled from the Pontic Steppe north of the Black Sea. Speaking their Indo-European language (see Chapter 2 for full detail of the development of the Greek
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Mt Olympus
Mt Parnassus Gulf of
Cori nth
Gla
GREECE
Mycenae
Ionian Sea
Peloponnese
Pylos
The Minoan and Mycenaean Empires 0 0
100mi 100km
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Mediterranean Sea
Mycenaean civilization Minoan civilization
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Lesbos
ANATOLIA
Aegean Sea Chios Samos
Athens
Cyclades Is.
Thera
Melos
Sea
Rhodes Knossos CRETE
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Mycenae, the centre of the Mycenaean world. Panoramic view across the citadel. ( Jekatarinka/Shutterstock)
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Hunting dogs chase down a wild boar in a hunting scene from the Mycenaean palace at Tiryns in the Peloponnese. (Wikimedia Commons)
language), they had begun to settle by 3,200 BC and may have been the vector by which bronze metallurgy arrived in Greece. These were the ancestors of the Mycenaeans, whose culture first appears in the archaeological record around 1,900 BC. Far more warlike than their early Greek and Minoan neighbours, by 1,650 BC they ruled the entire Balkans Peninsula through a series of large cities. Reflecting their martial nature, by 1,500 BC these all featured extensive cyclopean wall circuits which, built from huge unworked blocks of local limestone, included complex defended gateways. Major examples included Mycenae itself (which, as the largest city gave the culture its name), Dendra, Pylos, Athens and Tiryns, with over 20 cities ultimately existing over the period of Mycenaean dominance in Greece. While many had earlier Neolithic and Chalcolithic origins, for example Athens, it was under the Mycenaeans that they first rose to dominate their respective regions of control. We have real insight into the lives of those who lived there through the works
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of the Greek poet Homer, who names Mycenae as home to the Mycenaean over-king Agamemnon. Through trade with Crete and the Aegean, the Mycenaeans adopted the Minoan Linear A script for use with their own proto-Greek language. By 1,450 BC this had evolved into their own bespoke syllabic script called Linear B, the earliest written form of actual Greek. We are fortunate that this script, featuring around 200 signs, has been deciphered. At a number of sites, for example Pylos, thousands of court records have been found on clay tablets which were baked when they were destroyed. These provide great insight into the daily workings of Mycenaean Greek government. For example the rulers were called wa-na-ka, an archaic form of the later Greek word anax meaning ‘master’ or ‘lord’, while the leading members of the aristocracy in each city-state were called lawagetas. A key feature of each city’s royal court were the large numbers of craftsmen present, particularly metal-smiths, with the ruler of Pylos known to have employed over
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400 bronze-smiths alone. In this way the ruler of each Mycenaean city-state controlled the supply of this most important material in their respective regions. Thousands of slaves, mostly women, were also an important feature of each royal court. Further understanding of this warrior-centered society comes from the large number of richly furnished shaft graves excavated at their key settlements. These show great wealth, with the grave goods including gold, silver and electrum jewelry and tableware, gold face masks (including the famous ‘Mask of Agamemnon’ found at Mycenae) and bronze weapons and armour. From the 15th century BC such burials evolved into even finer affairs, featuring vaulted tholos (beehive-shaped tombs). As with the Minoans, the kings of Mycenaean cities lived in large palaces that formed the centre of urban life, with the rulers often the centre of cult worship. Warfare between the cities over control of regional agricultural produce and metallic
raw materials was a frequent occurrence, and from the beginning of the 15th century BC such competition for resources began to drive Mycenaean expansion across the Aegean. This proved highly successful and by 1,450 BC they had conquered all of their major regional rivals, including the Minoans, with Mycenaean colonies appearing as far afield as the Ionian coast of western Anatolia. As with their Cretan predecessors, the Mycenaeans enjoyed a thriving maritime trade across the eastern Mediterranean. A startling example of this has been found off Cape Uluburun, 8 km away from the modern holiday resort of Kaş in southwestern Turkey. Here a Mycenaean wreck dating to 1,300 BC has been the subject of a meticulous investigation. Its hold was found to be carrying 10 tons of copper ingots and a ton of tin, the key ingredients to make bronze. The metal originated from Cyprus and the vessel was almost certainly on its way back to Greece when it founded trying to sail round the headland.
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Later Mycenaean warriors depicted on a krater found in Mycenae. Note the boar’s tusk helmets. (Wikimedia Commons)
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The prosperous Mycenaean culture came to a shattering end sometime after 1,250 BC when all of the key cities were burnt to the ground. A common explanation for this event has until recently been the arrival of the so-called Sea Peoples as seaborne raiders. However, similar collapses are now known to have occurred elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean at this time, for example at the Hittite capital at Hattusa 320km to the east of Ankara in modern Turkey which was similarly destroyed. Archaeologists have now turned to climate change once more to provide an explanation for this region-wide catastrophic event, with pollen samples from cores taken from the bed of Lake Galilee showing a sharp rise in plants that thrived in desert terrain occurring between 1,250 BC and 1,100 BC. This may have particularly affected Greece and Anatolia, with the Egyptian king Merenptah reporting in hieroglyphic inscriptions that he had ‘… sent grain in ships to keep alive the Hatti [Hittites].’ This indicates a major famine. The results in Greece itself were dramatic, with violent conflict between the cities on a scale previously unseen breaking out over diminishing resources as the fragile long-range maritime trading networks collapsed when the climate change event took hold. Soon Mycenae and the other cities were deserted, with the palace culture and the Linear B script abandoned. A true dark age then descended over the Greek mainland, before the arrival of the Dorian Greeks who from 1,100 BC brought a new culture to the region, which saw the use of iron occurring for the first time (see Chapter 2). A final note here in this historical narrative on the Mycenaeans concerns the Trojan Wars. These are detailed in the Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, both most likely written in the late 8th century BC. The poems have an Ionic dialect, indicating they were written down among the Greek-speaking peoples of western Anatolia, the eastern Aegean Sea or the large island of Euboea just off the eastern Greek coast. They are amalgamations of many earlier oral stories and are often dated towards the end of the Mycenaean period. The poems recall the abduction of queen Helen of Sparta by prince
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Paris of Troy, and the resulting Greek crusade to rescue her led by Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. This conflict, as portrayed by Homer, is of a different type to that normally waged by the various Mycenaean city-states when fighting each other until the time of the Late Bronze Age Collapse. Given it was economically far less viable to destroy a neighbouring state than to reduce it to vassalage, such earlier conflicts fitted the classic description of a war of choice, certainly until regional desperation set in with the collapse. However, when the conflict-hungry Mycenaeans fought others, the story was very different. We have already seen the fate that befell the Minoans, as they found themselves on the losing side of a war of survival. The same was true of Agamemnon’s campaign against Troy, who the Mycenaeans viewed as foreigners and thus fair game for their predations. Further, given the abduction of Helen as detailed by Homer, this war had a particularly savage quality. One can imagine that, as soon the Mycenaean vessels arrived off the coast of Troy, its king and inhabitants knew the fate that awaited them if they succumbed. Certainly Homer leaves us in no doubt, having Agamemnon say to his brother Menelaus when the latter asked how he should treat his prisoners (Iliad, 6.57–9): No: we are not going to leave a single one of them alive, down to the babies in their mothers’ wombs – not even they must live. The whole people must be wiped out of existence, with none to shed a tear for them, leaving no trace.
That seems pretty clear, an order to kill everyone the Mycenaeans could get their hands on, prisoners or not. Such was the power of these words that they were later used by Classical historians keen to emphasize brutal intent, with for example Cassius Dio having the great warrior emperor Septimius Severus quote them to his massed troops before his AD 210 campaign in Scotland when its seems, based on archaeological data, his words led to a genocide (Roman History, 76/77.15.1–4). Ancient Troy, which sits in the northwestern corner of Anatolia, is an interesting site in the wider context of Mycenaean regional power given it demonstrates the true reach of their maritimebased military might. The city commanded a
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strategic point at the southern entrance to the Dardanelles, the narrow strait linking the Black Sea with the Aegean via the Sea of Marmara. It was first settled in the early Bronze Age around 3000 BC, and by the mid-second millennium BC was by far the most important settlement in the area given its pre-eminent location. The city appears in the records of the Hittites to the west under the name Wilusa, this thought to relate to a clumsy Hittite translation of the ancient Greek name for lion. As the Bronze Age progressed Hittite interest in western Anatolia saw Troy become a place of interest to the imperial power in the east, and soon the regional cities around Troy formed a confederation called Assuwa by the Hittites to resist the latter’s attempts at regional conquest. This ultimately proved futile, with Troy quickly finding itself a Hittite vassal state. It is unclear where in this narrative Homer’s tale of the Mycenaean crusade to rescue Helen and punish Troy fits, but we are very fortunate that his detailed account provides much detail about the military establishments of the various Mycenaean kingdoms of the time, even down to a fairly exact numbering of the chariots, men and ships available to each ruler. Early Mycenaean armies were very similar to those of the Minoans, with the warrior nobility (called eqeta in a military context, or followers) riding to war in increasingly substantial twowheeled, two-horse chariots backed by dense phalanxes of spearmen. An early carved Mycenaean gem shows the fighting warrior on the back of a chariot still equipped with a long thrusting spear, as with those of the Minoans. The chariots were still used en masse, with specific detail on the numbers each state could afford additionally being provided by Linear B tablets preserved in the archaeological record at various key sites. For example Mycenaeanera Knossos could muster 400, while Pylos on the Greek mainland could field 82. The tablets also list the muster of individuals who would provide a whole chariot, or part of one. One major change in early Mycenaean armies is noticeable however, and that is with regard to the infantry. On frescos dating to this period depictions of Mycenaean spearmen show the
increasing use of a body-length, figure-of-eight shield as opposed to the earlier tower shield. This would have allowed the long spear to be used at waist level rather than held two handed at shoulder height, and also eased the use of the sword. It may indicate that the spearmen in Mycenaean armies had begun to utilize a more individualistic fighting style. This was certainly the case by the time of the Trojan Wars. If the work of Homer is taken as fact, and this conflict is placed in the late Mycenaean period, then it is clear that later armies had evolved considerably from those of their Minoan and early Mycenaean forebears. Heroic charioteers still formed the elite core of these Homeric armies. However, as depicted on frescoes and other artwork, the fighting warrior in the cab had now replaced the long spear used as a lance with short spears and javelins. The Iliad also provides us with specific detail on how these chariots were actually utilized. This is in the context of the forces of Nestor of Gerenia, the Mycenaean king of Pylos. The poem details how the ageing though wise leader drew his chariots up en masse in front of his spear line. They were ordered not to get involved
A Mycenaean king in battle, note the high-quality armour and weaponry. (75 mm figure painted by the author)
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in a melee with the enemy, indicating they were now being used as hand-thrown missile platforms. Specific orders were given to the chariots not to break ranks, and one gets an impression of the chariots hurtling towards the enemy line, hurling a massed volley of javelins and then wheeling away. Eventually the foot troops of each army would engage each other, with the chariotry then falling back to the protect the flanks. Many of the noble chariot warriors would no doubt dismount at this point to lead their foot warriors in combat. By the very end of the Mycenaean period, the change of chariot tactics evident here had begun to transform the actual design of the chariot to a lighter and less substantial model called the ‘rail chariot’. This may have had completely open sides and was built specifically with speed in mind. Meanwhile the infantry of this late period changed even more than the chariot nobility in terms of their equipment and tactics. Gone once more were the long spears, these again replaced by short spears and javelins. The more individual fighting style afforded by the figure-of-eight shield clearly led to the adoption of looser formations, and by the end of the period these shields had themselves been replaced by simple round designs, faced with leather or occasionally bronze. This led to an increase in the use of body armour in the form of leather or (again occasionally) bronze cuirasses, while bronze greaves also make their first appearance. The boar’s tooth helmet remained ubiquitous. Interestingly, in the Iliad the literary device used to portray Nestor as very conservative is to describe his Pylian spearmen as still adopting the antique Minoan spear phalanx formation. Indeed, this is the first time the word phalanx is used in literature, by Homer in plural form to detail ‘ranks’ of soldiers. This was clearly to differentiate the formal and more oldfashioned organization of Nestor’s troops when compared to the looser organization of the troops commanded by his fellow Mycenaean leaders. Both Homer and the archaeological record also show that missile troops formed a key but subsidiary component of Mycenaean armies. During the siege of Troy both the Greeks and Trojans are described as using bow-armed
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specialist archers, either supporting the speararmed troops or as skirmishers. Slingers were also used, though it was considered a lowly weapon. One particular depiction shows these various missile-armed troops in action. This is on the so-called silver ‘siege-rhyton’ found at Mycenae. This conical drinking vessel shows large numbers of naked archers and slingers reducing a group of cowering infantry bearing large shields outside a walled city. One interpretation is that it shows inhabitants from the city fighting off sea-borne raiders. This was clearly a common occurrence among the cities of Mycenaean Greece. We have great insight into the naval capabilities of the Mycenaean cities, both in the early and in the late period. For example the epic Catalogue of Ships in Book 2 of the Iliad (2.494–759) lists the contingents of the Greek army that sailed to Troy. This not only includes the names of the leaders of each contingent, but also the number of ships required to transport their men to Troy. For example Menelaus of Sparta required 50 vessels, the Cretans under their leader Idomeneus 80 and Pylos under Nestor 80. Given there were 29 contingents in all, this would have been a huge fleet. Late period Linear B tablets from Pylos actually detail how a fleet as large as theirs (in the Catalogue of Ships it was second only to that of Agamemnon from Mycenae) was manned. The tablets include a muster of 600 rowers needed for the part of the fleet based at Navarino Bay near the city, with the 20 ships there requiring 30 rowers each. Other ships needed larger crews, for example frescoes from Santorini showing vessels with a complement of 42. The war galleys and other vessels such crews manned were long and narrow, with a shallow draught to enable them to be beached easily in sandy bays. They featured a single triangular steering oar, and often a mast with sail, though by design they were predominantly rowing vessels. It is likely these ships were less sturdy than the later penteconters described by Homer, this the predominant war vessel in his own day. The preferred method of operation for Mycenaean navies was to stay in the littoral zone within sight of the coast rather than operate in the open
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ocean, given their vulnerability to the fierce squalls that could quickly develop in the eastern Mediterranean. With such naval prowess on regular display, the Mycenaean cities took coastal defence very seriously. The Pylian tablets again provide a good example. This city had a long coastline to defend and so divided this up into 10 sectors. Each was allocated units of watchmen conscripted from local settlements, these in multiples of 10, with the maximum number being 110 for the longest sectors. The units were commanded by an officer with a second-in-command called a ‘follower’ who was equipped with a chariot. It was the latter’s duty to travel inland at speed to report any menacing vessels approaching the coastline to much larger forces based there. As such, this can be seen as a sophisticated system of defence in depth. It is likely that it was only set in place during the sailing season from late spring to early autumn, given the date on the Pylian tablet is in the month of Poroweto, meaning ‘sailing time.’
The Sea Peoples As detailed above, the arrival of the maritimeraiding Sea Peoples across the eastern Mediterranean was originally thought to be the causal event behind the collapse of the Mycenaean and other regional cultures from 1,250 BC. However, that is now not the case and their appearance is currently linked to events following the Mycenaean downfall. In effect, the societal collapse of Mycenae and elsewhere dislocated the regional economy to such an extent that soon whole peoples were on the move from Greece, the Aegean and Anatolia, heading east and south for a new life in the Levant and North Africa. The Sea Peoples are first recorded in 1,231 BC, arriving en masse in the eastern Mediterranean where they began carrying out large-scale raids. They initially travelled in two waves, one advancing across northern and central Anatolia from the northwest, the other along the southern coast from the southwest. Egyptian records from the time give great detail about what happened next, saying:
… the northerners were disturbed in their islands. All at once nations were moving and scattered by war. No land stood before their arms, from Hatti, Kode, Carchemish, Arzawa and Alashiya, they were wasted.
The Hittite Empire, already suffering from the destruction of their capital city Hattusa in the event that caused the initial collapse of regional order, was hard hit by the new migratory waves and soon overwhelmed. Many of the rich coastal cities of Syria sent troops north to try to bolster their neighbour, with the Hittites effectively acting as a bastion soaking up pressure from the advancing Sea Peoples. Stripped of their troops, this only left the cities open to attack and soon they fell one by one to the Sea Peoples themselves. Hurrian Ugarit provides one example. Here, a final desperate letter from the king asking for assistance from as yet uncommitted neighbours is chilling. This was found baked onto clay tablets in the burnt ruins of the royal palace, saying: Thus speaks the king of Ugarit … Ships of the enemy have come, some of my towns have been burned and they have done wicked things in our country … seven enemy ships have appeared offshore and done evil things.
Other cities known to have fallen to the Sea Peoples here include Askelon and Hazor. Egyptian records show their own first experience of Sea Peoples’ raiding was in association with an enormous attack by the Libyans. These had been forced east by a series of poor harvests related to the changing climate, their aim being a land grab in the fertile Nile Valley. Egyptian records say the Libyans were aided by five tribes of Sea Peoples, these called the Ekwesh, Teresh, Lukka, Sherden and Sheklesh. These tribes were part of the southern wave of migrants, having travelled across the Mediterranean from the southern Anatolian coast. The Egyptian king Merenptah beat off the attack, but only just. Back in the north, further Egyptian records show that with the fall of the Hittite Empire and the frontier defences in Syria, the two Sea Peoples’ waves (given not all of the southern Anatolian wave had crossed to Libya) quickly moved on again, meeting up in Syria. Those that gathered
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(opposite) Sea Peoples’ warriors coming ashore, a terrifying sight across the eastern Mediterranean after the Late Bronze Age collapse. ( Johnny Shumate)
there were called the Tjekker, Denyen, Weshwesh, Sheklesh and Peleset tribes. They initially settled in the land of the Amorite Amurru, which they decimated in short order. They then moved southwards and in 1,186 BC mounted an assault on Egypt from the northeast. This was finally halted at the Egyptian frontier itself, and only after a major national effort. Given their absence here, the Ekwesh, Teresh, Lukka and Sherden most likely remained in Libya after participating in the failed attack there. Egyptian records give us specific details about each of the major individual tribes. These were: § The Ekwesh, most likely Mycenaean migrants from Greece. They are described as unusually fair skinned. § The Teresh, who originated in northwestern Anatolia, perhaps in the region of Troy, and were part of the northern migratory wave of Sea Peoples. § The Lukka, heavily referenced in clay tablet correspondence between Ugarit and the eastern Mediterranean state of Alashiya in Cyprus. They are first mentioned in the 14th century BC when they are called renowned pirates and raiders. It seems likely they took advantage of the arrival of the Sea Peoples from further west to join in the mass raiding. One record from Hittite archives indicates they may not have had a choice, saying they themselves were the subject of early Sea Peoples’ raiding. Their homeland was in southern Anatolia and today gives us the name for this region, Lycia. § The Sherden, thought to have originated in eastern Anatolia and perhaps a Hittite people given the cosmopolitan nature of the Hittite empire. They too would have been caught up in the general raiding taking place west to east. Some Sherden later raided Egypt from Libya after the initial period of massed Sea Peoples’ migration, with many of their warriors subsequently recruited into New Kingdom Egyptian armies in large numbers. They are usually depicted with leather-faced shields studded with bronze discs, long bronze swords
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§
§
§
§
§
and horned helmets. The Sherden, clearly experienced seafarers, eventually moved to Cyprus and later settled in the island of Sardinia to which they gave their name. The Sheklesh, also originating in Anatolia. Much later, at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, they travelled to Sicily where they founded the indigenous Sikel culture later encountered by the Greeks and Carthaginians. Here they also gave their name to their new home. The Tjekker, whose origins are unknown. They are later recorded settling in northern Canaan along the coast above the Peleset in Gaza. An Egyptian text called the Report of Wenamun, dating to the end of the New Kingdom period in the late 12th century BC, records they were still active as pirates. A specific raid is referenced against the iron age port site at Tel Dor on the Carmel coast of modern Israel. They are often depicted wearing crowned, leather helmets. The Denyen, who came from the land of Danuna in southwestern Anatolia. These were also caught up in the southerly migratory wave along with the Lukka and Sherden. In an event prior to this, the Iliad records an Anatolian tribe called the Danaeoi fighting on the side of the Greeks in the Trojan War, indicating they may originally have been Mycenaean colonists. After the Sea Peoples’ invasions, some of the tribe returned to their homeland. We know this because in the 8th century BC a Hittite successor state called Danuniyim is recorded in Anatolia. The Hebrew tribe called Dan has also been connected with the Denyen. As with the Tjekker, the Denyen are also depicted wearing crowned leather helmets. The Weshwesh, also called the Washwasha. These are one of the least recorded of the Sea Peoples. A link has been suggested with the Bronze Age city of Wilusiya in western Anatolia, where they again may have originally been Mycenaean colonists. The Peleset, one of the better-known Sea Peoples. They have been connected with
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The Dead Sea seen from the fortified mountain top refuge of Masada, showing the route taking by many of the Sea Peoples as they moved southwards to attack Egypt from the east. Note the much later Roman marching camp bottom right from the Roman siege at the end of the First Jewish Revolt around AD 73. (Steve Tibble)
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the Pelasgians who are detailed in the list of Trojan allies in the Trojan War. These may also have been Mycenaean colonists from mainland Greece given the term was later used by Classical Greek writers to describe the indigenous population of Balkans Peninsula prior to the later Dorian invasions (see Chapter 2). After the defeat of the Sea Peoples’ attack on the northeastern Egyptian border, they remained in the region, settling in Gaza and over time setting up the Philistine kingdom. Personal names from here are linguistically linked with Luwian, an ancient language from western Anatolia. This seems to confirm the link with the Pelasgians. Meanwhile, the Hebrew kingdoms believed the Philistines originated from an island called Caphtor, this associated with Crete in modern interpretations. If true this shows that the routes taken by the Sea Peoples in their migrations were often complex, with under this hypothesis the Peleset travelling to Crete from the Balkans or Anatolia, before then heading back eastwards through Anatolia into the Levant. Under another hypothesis, if they did originate in Crete as believed by the Hebrew tribes, that would place them as the descendants of the Mycenaean colonists who replaced the Minoans there, they later travelling to the Balkans and then on to Anatolia. As with the Tjekker and Denyen, the Peleset are usually depicted wearing crowned leather helmets. The Sea Peoples’ tribes are often shown or described as arriving in a given theatre of operations by sea. They were led by kings and a warrior nobility who fought in Syro-Canaanitic style two-wheeled, two-horse chariots. These are often shown with three crewmen, this comprising two warriors with javelins and shields and the driver. They were fewer in number though than those in the armies of their regional opponents, reflecting the often chaotic nature of the mass migrations. Two-wheeled wickerwork carts pulled by four oxen are also depicted in association with the Sea Peoples, but these probably illustrate migratory
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transports. Meanwhile foot warriors, which made up the vast majority of Sea Peoples’ armies, were armed with a variety of short spears, javelins, swords and hand axes. They were renowned for their fierce charge. As a relevant aside here, the Sea Peoples also played a key role in the story of the Hebrew tribes. Originally from Canaan, these had found themselves well settled in the Nile Delta where had they had thrived under the cosmopolitan Hyksos dynasty then ruling Lower Egypt. However, after 1,532 BC when the last Hyksos king Khamudy was defeated, they increasingly found themselves exposed to Egyptian predation. This peaked in the long reign of Ramesses II who ruled from 1,279 BC to 1,212 BC. He decided to build a new fortified residence city in the eastern delta named after him, together with a satellite ‘storage’ city called Pithom. These needed vast quantities of mud bricks to be made, mortar to be mixed and heavy labour for the actual construction process. This required a huge amount of manpower, with the Hebrew tribes in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was at this time that the Egyptian ‘taskmasters’ detailed in the Bible were appointed over them to aggressively oversee their forced labour, and in this context that the Hebrew tribes under Moses later managed to escape Egyptian dominance, eventually arriving back in Canaan. The Bible records this was through a very circuitous route, around the Sinai Peninsula, and this may actually have been to avoid the warlike Peleset then settling in Gaza after the failed Sea Peoples invasion of Egypt from the northeast. This supports one theory that it was the Egyptians themselves who settled the Peleset in Gaza, to act as a barrier state to protect its northeastern frontier from any further incursions from Canaan.
The Philistine Pentapolis Given their Peleset Sea Peoples origins, and therefore potential links with the Mycenaeans, here I finally consider in this chapter the Philistine city-states in Gaza. These are very well known given that for much of the period covered by the
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Hebrew tribes’ United Monarchy (from 1,050 BC to 920 BC, covering the reigns of Saul, David and Solomon) they were the principal threat in the region and are thus frequently referenced in the Old Testament. After their initial settlement in Gaza, the Peleset quickly prospered, with the Egyptians seemingly gifting them five cities there as going concerns, this again reinforcing the view that their settlement in the region was a deliberate act of Egyptian foreign policy. Soon the cities became the centres of thriving city-states. Three were strategically well placed along the Via Maris, the modern name for the ancient coastal trade route linking Anatolia and Syria with Egypt. The first of these, Ashkelon, had a fine harbor, while both Gaza and Ashdod were important emporia for regional trade. The latter was also a major fortress, as were both Gath and Ekron further inland. Ekron later also became an important centre for olive oil production. Together the five were known as the Pentapolis. Later, a further important harbour was founded to the north of Philistia (as the region became known) at Tell el-Qasile. The five Philistine city-states were oligarchies, each ruled by a leader called a Seren who was also sometimes referred to as a prince. They ruled over both the Philistine and native populations in their areas of control, which were organized along feudal lines. Each Seren maintained a professional military class who held fiefdoms granted by the leader, for example that gifted to David by Achish of Gath. In return they performed military duties as required by the Seren. The foreign policy of the Pentapolis was determined by an annual council of the five Seren (together, the Seranim) called the Sarney. This came into its own after the death of Ramesses III when Philistia (as the region was styled) embarked on a vigorous policy of commercial expansion, developing trade routes by both land and sea. Soon the Philistines were a thriving economic power in the region. The Seranim also appointed a military leader when the armed forces of all five city-states were deployed together. In that event, the gathering place for the combined force was at Aphek to the east of the Jordan River.
When this happened it was usually in the context of protecting commercial interests rather than putting an army in the field for pure territorial gain. For example, the reason for most of the conflicts with the Israelites was over control of key trade routes and centres. In addition to the Via Maris, this included the retention of strategic centres in the Plain of Esdraelon, and at Succoth and Beth-Shean in the Jordan Valley. These allowed caravans of expensive goods from the east to reach Philistia by caravan. In terms of their military organisation, the Philistines were early adopters of the chariot, based on the Syro-Canaanite Maryannu model with two horses, an armoured archer and a driver in a small cab. They were renowned for their skill in its use, for example at Mount Gilboa when chariot-mounted archers shot down the fleeing Israelites. Over time the five city-states of Philistia built up significant chariot corps which, when combined, were the largest in the region. As with the Israelites and Judeans, the Philistines also later adopted cavalry for scouting and communications purposes, though they played little role on the battlefield. The foot soldiers in Philistine armies were initially based on the traditional Sea Peoples’ model of charging warriors armed with a variety of edged weapons, for example the ubiquitous sickle-sword. At this time, they are often shown wearing crowned leather helmets, as with their Peleset forebears. Later however, through continuing contact with Egypt to the south, they adopted spear wall tactics using deep formations of armoured foot armed with a short spear and shield. Goliath, the infamously oversized champion of Gath, is described as such when fighting David. They also made extensive use of allies and mercenaries, with David and his gibborim again providing a good example. The Philistines were well trained and used sophisticated tactics on the battlefield. For example, when the Israelites ejected them from Michmash at the end of the 2nd millennium BC they were formed into three columns and a rearguard, the latter to cover their line of retreat. On that occasion, this was needed.
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CHAPTeR 2 ClASSI C Al GR eeC e
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his chapter covers Classical Greece, a truly glittering period of history which still illuminates our modern world. It is a story of juggernaut empires, warring factions, squabbling poleis (city-states), mighty conquests and scandalous treachery, featuring some of the greatest statesmen and military leaders of the ancient world. Think of Leonidas, Mardonius, Themistocles, Pericles, Alcibiades and Lysander, leading their warriors on both land and sea in wars and battles that still grab our attention today.
(previous pages) Parthenon atop the Acropolis of Athens, cultural heart of the Classical Greek world. (Lambros Kazan/ Shutterstock)
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Given the nature and complexity of the period, I have chosen to break down this chapter into easily accessible sections for the reader’s convenience. I begin with a background discussion detailing the nature of the polis (city-state), the political entity so central to the story of Classical and later Hellenistic Greece. I then set out the geography of Classical Greece and its various language families. The chapter then covers the transition period between Mycenaean Greece and the Classical period. This is traditionally broken down into two sections, namely the Dark Age/Geometric and Archaic periods. The latter is particularly important as it is at this time written ancient Greek appears for the first time, the poleis first emerge, and the new citystates begin the process of colonial growth that would see Greek culture expand to the farthest reaches of the Mediterranean and Black Sea. I then move on to the Greco-Persian Wars where the Ionian Revolt, First Persian Invasion of Greece and Second Persian Invasion of Greece are covered. Finally I detail the complex story of the Peloponnesian War, where the Archidamian War, Sicilian Expedition and Ionian War phases are detailed. The subsequent rise of Thebes in the early 4th century BC is then covered in the next chapter in the context of the rise to dominance of the Kingdom of Macedon under Philip II and his illustrious son Alexander the Great.
Background to classical Greece The city-states of Classical Greece, and the various regions under their control, were set out in a patchwork across the southern and central Balkans, the various island chains of the Aegean Sea, and down the western Ionian coast of Anatolia. Their colonies also thrived around the Black Sea, in Magna Graecia in southern Italy and Sicily, in Cyrene in modern Libya, and along the Mediterranean coasts of Gaul and Spain (see below for detail). Poleis were the dominant type of large-scale settlement in the ancient Greek world. Larger than their Mycenaean predecessors (though often in the same locations), those we know well first emerged in the Archaic period, likely developing because of the physical geography of their Mediterranean region. The landscape there featured rocky, mountainous land and many islands. These physical barriers caused the population centres to be relatively isolated from each other, with the sea often the easiest way of moving from place to place. Each then strove to maintain their independence, and to unseat any potential tyrants around whom a region-wide monarchy might develop. Each polis featured an urban centre and surrounding countryside, the
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latter providing the produce to feed the wider population and much of the manpower for their armies and navies. The chief features of each city were outer walls for protection, an agora (market), a public space featuring temples and government buildings (the latter often built atop a steep sided hill called an acropolis), theatres and gymnasia. There were over 1,000 such city-states in ancient Greece and around the Mediterranean, featuring many different systems of government. For example, Sparta was for much of the Classical period ruled by two kings and a council of elders and featured a powerful army, while Athens valued education and art, is seen as the birthplace of democracy, and was for the most part a maritime power. The key regions in the Classical Greek world in the eastern Mediterranean, running clockwise from the south, were: § Crete. § The Peloponnese, featuring Sparta in the south, Arcadia in the centre, Elis to the west, Achaea to the north, and Corinth (one of the access-controlling ‘fetters’ of Greece) and Argos to the east.
§ Moving across the narrow Isthmus of Corinth, Attica. Here Athens, Laurion and Megara could be found. § To the north of the Peloponnese and Attica, Central Greece. This featured, in the east, the island of Euboea with its key cities of Oreos, Chalcis (another ‘fetter’) and Eretria, these home to many of the earliest Greek colonial adventures across the breadth of the Mediterranean, including to Magna Graecia in southern Italy and Sicily. Moving westwards, Boeotia and its key city of Thebes, then to its north and west Phocis where the Temple of Apollo at Delphi with its famed oracle could be found. Finally, to the west Lokris and Aetolia could be found. The northern region of Central Greece is very mountainous and was difficult to traverse for armies campaigning north to south, giving the resident Phocians and Aetolians much power there. § To the northwest, Acarnania and Epirus, featuring broad coastal plains that, heading east, soon rose to become the north–south Pindos Mountain range. Off the coast here were the key Ionian Sea island city-states
Butrint in modern Albania, a major Epirot coastal city then called Bouthroton on the Gulf of Corfu.
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of Zakynthos, Kephallenia and Corcyra (respectively modern Zante, Kefalonia and Corfu), traditionally with four others they called the Heptanese. § Across the Pindos Mountains and above eastern Central Greece, the broad plains of Thessaly, the key horse-breeding region in the Balkans Peninsula. Here was also located Mount Olympus, home of the Olympian Gods. § To the north of Thessaly, the Kingdom of Macedon and its royal cities of Aegae (modern Vergina) and Pella. At its southeastern tip sat the three-pronged Chalcidice Peninsula (today, the Halykydiki Peninsula), home to many Greek colonial cities, this region finally conquered by Philip II in 349 BC. § Ranging above Macedonia, Illyria in the far northwest of the Balkans (where a key tribe, often in conflict with the Macedonians, were the Dardanians), then moving eastwards Paeonia, and finally heading into the region of modern Bulgaria Thrace. All were famed in the Classical world for their fierce warriors.
The Straits of Corfu, a key waterway both in the ancient world and today.
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Above Thrace, along the Black sea coast, could then be found the many Greek colonies established there from the 7th century BC onwards. Key examples included Tomis (modern Constanta in Romania), Istria and Boristhenis (modern Odessa). § Crossing into Anatolia, the Greek colonial cities running down the Ionian coast and its hinterland. These included some of the leading cultural centres in the entire Greekspeaking world, for example Pergamon, Ephesus, Priene, Miletus and Halicarnassus. By the time of Alexander the Great, these poleis had long been vassal city-states of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. § The various island chains of the Aegean Sea and beyond, including the large islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos in the northern Aegean, the Sporades off Euboea, the islands in the Saronic Gulf south of Athens, the Cyclades in the south-central Aegean, and in the southeastern Aegean the Dodecanese featuring the large island polis of Rhodes, one of the Greek world’s leading naval powers.
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A key point to note here, given the focus of this work on the ancient Greeks at war, is how much the terrain of the Balkans Peninsula and Anatolia impacted armies campaigning there, with much activity taking place along the coast and its hinterland, and down the valleys of the major river systems. In particular, control of the ‘fetters’ proved vital, the two detailed above later joined by the city of Demetrias on the Pagasaean Gulf in southeastern Thessaly which was founded in 294 BC by Demetrius Poliorcetes (the ‘Besieger’). Additionally, the famous eastern-coastal pass at Thermopylae in Central Greece was the scene of frequent conflict as the poleis in the Peloponnese and Attica strove to keep out northern invaders. Most famously, it was the scene of the heroic defence by the Spartan king Leonidas I against Xerxes I’s vast Persian army in 480 BC at the battle of Thermopylae. Confusingly, the spread of the various dialects of ancient Greek spoken across the region didn’t correspond with the geographic distribution detailed above. This was because of the vibrant pattern of colonial settlements throughout the eastern Mediterranean, and also because of the frequent conflicts there as the leading city-states strove for dominance. In terms of the arrival of the ancient Greek language, as detailed in Chapter 1, the Balkans Peninsula was always a place of transit for ideas and peoples entering Europe from the east and north. The first known speakers of proto-Greek were the Mycenaeans, their dramatic demise ushering in the Dark Age/Geometric period of ancient Greek history. This lasted through to the advent of the Archaic period which began in the 9th century BC. This Dark Age phase was crucial in the development of the ancient Greek language given it featured the Dorian invasions from northeastern Greece which began around 1,150 BC, bringing with them the Doric dialect which was the earliest dominant form of true ancient Greek and soon replaced most forms of protoGreek. The various later dialects developed from this base, with writing in ancient Greek appearing in the 8th century BC for the first time through interaction with Phoenician traders in the Levant. By the Classical Greek period, from this small base
ancient Greek had spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean and evolved into many different dialects. These included: § The Western Group, featuring the oldest dialects, comprising: w North-western Greek, including (north to south) Epirus, Ambracia, Acarnania, and Phocis. This dialect was also spoken in the western Peloponnese, for example in Locris. w Doric, by this time spoken only in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, including the key city-states of Sparta, Argos and Corinth, and also on Crete. w Achaean Doric, an antique form of the language spoken in the northern Peloponnese and the Ionian Sea islands. § The Aeolic Group, comprising: w Aegean/Asiatic Aeolic, spoken on the northern Aegean Sea islands and along the northern Ionic coast of Anatolia. w Thessalian, spoken in Thessaly. w Boeotian, spoken in Boeotia in Central Greece. § The Ionic-Attic Group, comprising: w Attic, spoken in Attica and in the colonies of Athens in the northern Aegean, including the islands of Skyros and Lemnos. w Ionic, spoken around the Aegean. This subdialect was broken down into three specific groups: Euboean, also spoken in the Chalcidice Peninsula and in many of the colonies of Magna Graecia in Italy and Sicily. Cycladic, spoken among the islands in the southern Aegean. Asiatic Ionic, spoken in the poleis along the southwestern Anatolian coast and its hinterland. § The Arcadocypriot Group, the most primitive of the ancient Greek language groups, comprising: w Arcadian, spoken in the mountainous interior of the Peloponnese. This dialect retained strong links with the earlier protoGreek spoken by the Mycenaeans and may have been a direct descendent.
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The Second Temple of Hera, Paestum, Italy. Originally the Magna Graecian city of Poseidonia.
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w Cypriot, very similar to Arcadian with additional influences from the various language groups in the Levant given the Cypriot maritime trading network in the eastern Mediterranean. § Ancient Macedonian, this either a northern dialect of ancient Greek (with strong Euboean influences given the kingdom’s proximity to the Chalcidice Peninsula), or less likely a separate Hellenic language. This dialect gradually fell out of use in elite circles in Macedon in the 4th century BC through interaction with Athens, and by the time of Philip II and Alexander
Attic Greek was the dominant dialect there. This proved a hugely important development as it formed the basis of Koine Greek, the lingua franca of the Hellenistic world following the conquests of Alexander.
Dark Age (Geometric) and Archaic Greece The total destruction of the Mycenaean citystates amid the ravages of the Late Bronze Age Collapse ushered in a true Dark Age across
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the eastern Mediterranean, also triggering the predations across the region of the Sea Peoples as detailed in Chapter 1. It then took centuries for civil society to recover to anywhere near the same level of cultural and economic sophistication in the region, though when it did it marked the onset of the Classical period when Greek culture began an ascendency that still shines brightly in our world today. The periods between the end of the Mycenaean period and the arrival of what we now identify as Classical Greece are called the Dark Age/Geometric period, from 1,250 BC through to 900 BC, followed by the Archaic
period through to 500 BC, when the focus of the Greek world then turns to the ambitions of the Achaemenid Persian Empire in the east. The onset of the Greek Dark Age/Geometric period was grim indeed. With the collapse of the Mycenaean city-states, construction of fine public buildings and cyclopean wall circuits across the region ended abruptly, with cities and towns mostly abandoned. Similarly, use of the Linear B script also ceased, as did the long-range maritime trading links across the eastern Mediterranean that had underpinned much of the economic success of the region. Importantly, given the disappearance of the native writing system, the majority of regional data for this period comes from the archaeological record, and written references from the Levant and Egypt. In terms of the former, the lack of any cohesive regional aesthetic is shown by the wide variety of pottery styles visible, with those from Dark Age Athens simple and conservative while those from contemporary Knossos are far more eclectic. The same was true of burial customs, with for example tholos tombs still used in Thessaly but the practice abandoned elsewhere, while similarly as new settlements emerged across the region they lacked any particular cultural linkage. The picture this paints is one of severe economic dislocation, which each locality taking their first tentative steps back to any degree of societal sophistication slowly and in isolation. Some areas of the Balkans, particularly Attica, Euboea and Crete, recovered more quickly than their neighbours, but the archaeological record shows that broadly life for those living below elite levels across the region remained unchanged for centuries, with population levels far lower than the preceding period of Mycenaean dominance. Farming, metalworking, pottery manufacture and weaving did continue, but with output and quality levels far below those that had existed previously. The first signs of any post-Mycenaean embryonic recovery occurred around 1,050 BC when proto-geometric art first appeared, by which time Dorian migrants had been resident in the Balkans peninsula for over a century. It is likely, though unproven, that the two events were connected, especially given decorations on the
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The development of hoplite warfare in Greece in the Archaic period was not replicated in the Levant. Here, contemporary wall reliefs show Neo Assyrian heavy chariots, a form of military technology long gone in the Balkans.
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newly appearing pottery were completely different to any used by the Mycenaeans. While the latter favoured visual narratives on their ceramics as decoration, the new proto-geometric style was instead based on complex and repeated abstract patterns, the new style soon so prevalent it gave this period of Greek history its alternative name. As time progressed proto-geometric art developed through the use of new technology, for example a quicker potter’s wheel that allowed more substantial vase shapes to be made, and a primitive drawing compass which enabled perfect
circles and semicircles to be drawn on the pottery for decoration. The latter in particular added to the complexity of the abstract designs that now became common across the region. Later, higher temperatures in the firing process of the ceramic then allowed better glazes to be used. Finally, true geometric art emerged around 900 BC, with even larger pottery vessels now evident featuring more complex abstract decorations. Later in the Dark Age/Geometric period, the first post-Mycenaean colonisation events from Greece occurred around the eastern
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Mediterranean. This is evident in the distribution of Ionian Greek dialect in place names, while later literature referencing this time indicates that hardy groups of sea-faring colonists were once more beginning to follow the old and newly re-opened long-range trading routes through the Aegean to the western coast of Anatolia. There, Dark Age/ Geometric settlements appear as early as 1,000 BC in Ephesus, Miletus and Colophon. Slightly later the earliest evidence of proto-geometric pottery is found in both Crete and the easternAegean island of Samos, indicating either cultural
transfer through colonisation or long-range trade, while geometric pottery has been found in Cyprus dating to around 900 BC. Even more impressive, an Ionian colony was established on the Syrian coast at Al Mina by colonists travelling from Euboea, soon to become the pre-eminent place of departure for many of the new wave of Greek colonists. Al Mina was the name given by British archaeologist Leonard Woolley in the 1930s to this ancient trading post on the Phoenician coast on the estuary of the Orontes river. Such sites have often been cited as the vector of cultural transfer that saw the Phoenician alphabet adopted by the Euboeans and later other Greeks to become the first ancient Greek writing system. Meanwhile, towards the end of the Dark Age/Geometric period, new Greek colonies began to appear on the north-western Anatolian coast at sites such as Kyme. The settlers here, and others in this newly colonised region, came from the Aetolian region of Central Greece, and possibly Thessaly. One key result of this renewed regional connectivity was the spread of iron as a replacement for bronze. Iron smelting first appears in the eastern Mediterranean in Cyprus and the Levant in this period, with settlements there making use of local iron ore deposits previously overlooked by the Mycenaeans. From around 1,050 BC, many small local iron industries began to appear more widely across the Balkans and Aegean, and around the Anatolian coast. Such was the success of the new technology that by 900 BC nearly all weapons found in grave contexts were made from iron. More broadly in terms of military capability in the period, chariots still appear in contemporary art, though infrequently, and always with the warrior dismounted to fight on foot. Any infantry depicted are equipped with javelins and swords, the latter initially made from bronze though later iron, though it should be noted depictions of such troops in artwork are few in number given the dominance of geometric designs on the pottery of the period. One fine, though rare, example can be found on a Geometric-style krater (a large vase used to dilute wine with water) excavated in Attica which depicts funerary scenes. This is now
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Dark Age/Geometric Greek warriors fighting. Note those carrying the classic Dipylon shield.
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on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Even with this limited number of representations of warriors of the period, it is clear that a significant downgrading of the defensive panoply of all troops took place in the aftermath of the Mycenaean collapse. For example, the large but flimsy Dipylon (or Boeotian) shield quickly replaced the far sturdier Mycenaean shields previously used. Dipylon shields are characterized by their oval shapes with lateral notches cut into the sides, and were made from animal hide stretched over a wicker frame. Fine depictions can be seen on the above-mentioned krater, where both elite dismounted chariot warriors and line of battle troops carry them. The Archaic period that followed the Dark Age/Geometric period saw a dramatic rise in the fortunes of Greek settlements across the eastern Mediterranean. It was marked by the game-
changing advent of the polis, a new and associated wave of colonial expansion out of mainland Greece that soon spread across the whole Mediterranean basin, and an associated population explosion. The name for the period is a simple derivative of the Greek word archaios meaning ‘old’, and it includes a seminal event in world sporting history, namely the first Olympic Games which were first held at the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia (initially as a foot race) in 776 BC. Homer is a key source of insight here given that, while his writings focus on events in the later Mycenaean period, they are told through the eyes of someone living in Greece in the late 8th century BC. A good example is his description of the Homeric war galleys in the Greek armada that descended on Troy. In reality what he details here are the Penteconters of his own day. Other than Homer, little other contemporary historical sources survive from this early stage of the Archaic
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Dark Age/Geometric Greek soldiers depicted on a terracotta krater, once more with Dipylon shields. (Wikimedia Commons)
period, with much of our hard data instead coming from an increasingly rich archaeological record, and from historical references in later accounts. As detailed above, the first poleis date to this time. By the end of the Archaic period there were over 1,000, with most retaining the tribal structure of the earliest settlements in each location, for example in Athens. Details of the constitutions and histories of most are known, though only a few very well. However, the in-depth detail we have for this minority radiantly illuminate this period of Greek history. In particular, as we shall see, the stories of the likes of Athens, Sparta, Thebes and Corinth still resonate today in popular culture. Of all the poleis, Athens still shines the brightest in terms of Classical Greek cultural significance, then and now. The city’s name originated from its patron deity Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warfare in the Olympian pantheon. This name is actually derived from the pre-Greek language of Attica given the original settlement there is Neolithic, with the first signs of habitation there dating to 5,000 BC, a millennia after the arrival of farming in the Balkans. As detailed in Chapter 1, given its preeminent position in Attica, Athens became a leading Mycenaean city-state, faring better than most after the Late Bronze Age
Collapse. Following the Dorian Greek invasions, and the subsequent realignment of regional power, it then became the leading Ionian-dialect city-state, this reflecting a growing naval prowess later to define the polis. Though originally a monarchy, Athens is better known for its association with varying degrees of oligarchy and later democracy. An attempted coup there by Cylon of Athens in 636 BC is the first event detailed in the later historical record, by which time the monarchy had ended. Its replacement was the archonship, an oligarchic system based on the appointment of nine senior magistrates called archons. These between them controlled military, religious and civic affairs. However, appointment as an archon was only allowed for senior members of the Athenian aristocracy, called eupatridae. It would be some time before this system was challenged. Athens’ first recorded legislator was Draco, whose 620 BC law on homicide survived into the Hellenistic period. This replaced a system based on private revenge, differentiating between spontaneous and pre-meditated murder. Though the exact prescribed punishments haven’t survived through to our day, the word we now use to describe extreme punishment is Draconian. This
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The Acropolis of Athens at dawn. Many of the Greek cities which grew in the Archaic period had a similar acropolis at their heart.
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gives a sense of what might await an Athenian felon in the Archaic period. Despite attempts by the Athenian aristocracy to address the tensions in their society between rich and poor, for example through the appointment of legislators like Draco, serious mistrust between those with wealth and those without remained. These were first addressed in detail by the archon Solon who instituted Athens’ earliest democratic reforms in 593 BC. In particular, his series of radical constitutional amendments replaced noble birth as a requirement to hold public office with an individual’s income. Even so, only the pentacosiomedimni (the richest class) could still hold the post of city treasurer, while the thetes (the poorest in society) were still barred from holding office. Solon also set up the Council of 400, a gathering of individuals responsible for discussing any motions placed before the wider assembly of Athenian citizens. Finally, before he died, Solon reduced the powers of the archons by allowing citizens the right of appeal.
Towards the end of the Archaic period the Athenian lawgiver Cleisthenes then instituted a second wave of constitutional reform, redividing the then existing four tribes of Athens into ten, from which he then instituted a new Council of 500. These reforms gave the wider body of Athenian citizenry a communal sense of responsibility that was previously lacking. It was these two waves of reform, first by Solon and later Cleisthenes, that set Athens on the way to becoming the Classical world’s (sometime) leading democracy. Meanwhile, for much of its existence Sparta was the diametric opposite of Athens. Located in Laconia in the south-eastern Peloponnese, the settlement was originally the centre of a Mycenaean city-state built on the banks of the Eurotas River, the main waterway in the region. The Spartan name for this area was Lacedaeamia, named after a mythical king of Laconia who also gives the present-day administrative region its name. The valley of the Eurotas is a natural
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fortress, bounded to the west by Mount Taygetus, to the east Mount Parnon and to the north by hilly uplands rising to 1,000 m in altitude. These natural defences worked to Sparta’s advantage and contributed to the city never being sacked in the Classical period, with marauding armies in the region instead preferring to ravage its hinterland. Though landlocked, Sparta utilised a fine harbour at Gytheio to the south on the Laconian Gulf. Sparta was traditionally ruled by two hereditary kings of the Agiad and Eurypontid dynasties, both supposedly descendants of Hercules and each equal in power, such that one could not act against the other. Spartan society was highly militaristic, featuring Spartiate citizens (with the leading members of society called hippeis, or knights), periokoi (free but not citizens, usually from the Laconian hinterland and neighbouring Messenia) and helots (slaves). The number of the latter in relation to Spartan citizens varied over time, but at the beginning of the Classical Greek period Herodotus says they numbered seven to every one Spartan (The Histories, 9.10). This is a very high ratio, given for example in the Roman
world it was unusual to have more than one slave per three citizens. This explains why the Spartan state was always very nervous of potential slave revolts, dealing with them very harshly when they occurred. Thebes was the principal city in Boeotia in Central Greece, and again a Mycenaean founding originally with cyclopean walls, the site later abandoned as part of the Late Bronze Age Collapse. It was re-founded during the Dark Age/ Geometric period, and then settled by incoming Ionian Greek settlers around 800 BC, after which it soon began to thrive. Thebes was famous for its highly defensible citadel called the Cadmeia, named after Cadmus who was the mythological founder of the original city. Cadmus, son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of the Phoenician city of Tyre, was the original Greek mythological hero who, alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, was a renowned slayer of monsters in the years before Hercules appeared as the ultimate Olympian hero. Gradually Thebes came to dominate Boeotia, and additionally Aetolia and Thessaly to the north. It then played a crucial role in both the
The Agora of Athens, with the Stoa of Attalos in the background and Acropolis of Athens and Parthenon at right.
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The view from the top of the citadel of the Acrocorinthus, with the Peloponnese stretching into the distance. (Ben Kane)
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Greco-Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War, initially being part of the Delian League in the latter. However, ultimately it sided with Sparta, though in true polis fashion it then fell out with its new ally after the end of the conflict at the end of the 5th century BC. Thebes then fought two battles against Sparta at Haliartus in 395 BC and Coronea in 394 BC where, despite holding their own against the then military superpower in the region, they lost the initial conflict and their hold on Boeotia. However, as Spartan power began to diminish in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, Thebes filled the emerging power vacuum and came to dominate the region. The polis then played a crucial formative role in the military revolution later instituted by the Macedonian king Philip II after his time as a teenage hostage there. Meanwhile Corinth was located at western end of the crucial Isthmus of Corinth which linked the northeastern Peloponnese with Attica. Only 80 km from Athens to the east, its position at the eastern end of the Gulf of Corinth on a terrace 90 m above sea level made it one of the key ‘fetters’ of Greece. The ancient city grew up at the base of the citadel of the Acrocorinthus, a Gibraltar-like eminence that still rises 575 m above sea level and sat precipitously above the city, from where any military force could command the land route into and out of the Peloponnese. Corinth was founded at the beginning of the Bronze Age in Greece around 3,000 BC, though its early history is obscure. By the Archaic period it had expanded to dominate the northeastern Peloponnese, crucially securing control of the isthmus there by 700 BC. At this time the new polis was ruled by the Bacchiad family, though these were soon overthrown by the leading aristocrat Cypselus who, later followed by his son
Periander, ruled the city as tyrants from 657 BC through to 550 BC. It was the latter who built the famous stone roadway between the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs to allow ships and cargoes to be hauled from one to the other, thus negating the need for travel around the entire Peloponnese by sea. Corinth was one of the major colonizing powers in the Archaic period. For example it established early colonies at Corcyra in the Ionian Sea, and Syracuse on Sicily, later followed by new colonies around the Adriatic and up the Macedonian and Thracian coasts. Their success soon led to other poleis setting up their own new colonies in competition as part of a new wave of colonial expansion, with Ionian (particularly Athenian and Euboean) and Doric centres established around the Black Sea coast, the Anatolian coast, Cyprus, Cyrene in modern Libya (where the later Roman pentapolis of five Cyrenean cities, namely Ptolemais, Barca, Berenice and Belagrae, were all Archaic Greek foundings), Magna Graecia in central/southern Italy and elsewhere in Sicily, the Mediterranean coast of Gaul (including the key centre of Massilia (modern Marseille), and the eastern and southern coast of Spain. As detailed above, the successful growth of the Greek poleis and their new colonies in the Archaic period saw a massive increase in the population of the Balkans peninsula as the region recovered from the depredations of the Dark Age/Geometric period. Together with the advent of written ancient Greek, this set the scene for the incredible flowering of Greek culture in the subsequent Classical period, but also for the poleis’ inevitable clash with the mighty power to the east with whom they were increasingly coming into contact, Achaemenid Persia.
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The Greco-Persian Wars The Classical Greek period traditionally began with the Greco-Persian Wars, waged between the Greek poleis and the Achaemenid Persian Empire from 499 BC through to 449 BC. It is usually broken down into three specific phases, namely the Ionian Revolt, the First Persian Invasion of Greece and the Second Persian Invasion of Greece. These are sequentially covered below after I first detail the Persian kingdom of Darius I and Xerxes I.
The Achaemenid Persian empire The Persians were a nomadic Iranian people who by the 7th century BC had settled in the southwestern region of the Iranian Plateau in an area later named Persis, this soon to become their homeland. The first Persian empire was founded by Cyrus the Great, its first king who usurped against his former Median masters around 550 BC. This rebellion proved highly successful, with Cyrus not only defeating the Medes but also their Lydian and Neo-Babylonian allies. Soon his newfound kingdom had grown into a vast conglomeration of peoples and territories that eventually ranged from the Balkans in the west through to the Punjab in the east. We are fortunate here that Herodotus provides much detail about the origins of the Persians, saying that their most important clans were the Pasargadae (containing the Achaemenid royal line), Maspii and Maraphii, who between them had settled in huge territories where they exercised regional control on behalf of the king. These clans were so powerful that all other Persian tribes depended on them for security (The Histories, 1.101). Of these other tribes, by Herodotus’ time the Derusiaei, Germanii and Panthialaei had also settled alongside their larger tribal neighbours, while the Dai, Mardi, Dropici and Sargarti were still largely nomadic (The Histories, 1.125). The early Achaemenid kings deliberately built on the fearsome reputation of their former Median masters. This was well illustrated by the Biblical prophet Isaiah who painted a grim picture of Median martial prowess when describing their
turning on their former Babylonian allies after jointly defeating the Neo-Assyrian Empire at the end of the 7th century BC. He says (Holy Bible, Isaiah, 13.18): Behold, I am stirring up the Medes against them, who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold. Their bows will slaughter the young men: they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb: their eyes will not pity children. And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendour and pride of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them. It will never be inhabited or dwelt in for all generations: no Arab will pitch his tent there, no shepherds will make their flocks lie down there. But wild beasts will lie down there, and its houses will be full of howling creatures.
Cyrus’ successors inherited this terrifying reputation, with the Persians time and again shattering the armies of their enemies and razing their cities to the ground as they expanded Persian territorial control. It is in this context that one should view the genuine jeopardy faced by the various Greek poleis as they viewed the gradual western expansion of the Persians at the end of the 6th century BC. By this time Achaemenid monarchs were styled ‘the Great King, King of Kings (Shahanshah), King of peoples with many kinds of men, King of this great earth far and wide.’ This title, if nothing else, spelled out to the Greeks what awaited them in the future if they weren’t prepared to fight for their independence. Early Achaemenid Persian kings maintained very tight control over their sprawling territories through an administrative system based on provincial satrapies governed by satraps. These were often Achaemenid family members, or close friends of the king. The whole was knitted together by a fine system of royal trunk roads, with the key nodal point being the religious city of Arbela (Erbil in modern Iraq), near the former Assyrian capital Nineveh in the Tigris valley. Here, the main trunk road between Bactria in the east and Anatolia in the west linked with the main north–south route from Armenia to the Arabian frontier.
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Massilia (Marseille)
IBERIAN PENINSULA
Ad ria tic
Emporiae Alalia
Corsica
Tamentium
Neapolis Hemeroscopium
Se a
Sybaris Croton
Sardinia
Himera
Carthage
Sicily
Zancle (Messina) Syracuse
Ancient Greek settlement across the Mediterranean by 500 BC 0 0
300mi 300km
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Parent cities Major colonies Areas of Greek settlement
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Tanais
Cheronesus
Black Sea Trapezus
Sinope
Byzantium
ea
Epidaurus Pella
ASIA MINOR
m
Ephesus Miletus
ea
Corinth
Phocaea
nS
Zancle Messina) cuse
gea Ae
GREECE Chalkis Megara
Tansus
Athens
Sparta
Rhodes
Thena
Cyprus Tyre Crete
Mediterranean Sea Cyrene Naucratis
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The Temple of Athena in Paestum, originally Magna Graecian Poseidonia, an early Greek colony on the western coast of Italy.
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The Achaemenid Persians ruled with a comparatively light touch, providing conquered territories overtly acknowledged vassalage to the King of Kings, paid their taxes on time and responded to any calls for local levies to muster in the king’s service. In addition, those with wealth (either through land ownership or position) were also expected to provide public service to the empire. This could be through military activity, the building and maintenance of roads, or the maintenance of the extensive system of canals used to irrigate large tranches of the empire, at their most visible in Mesopotamia. The privileged were also expected to fund the building of monumental
public structures to celebrate the success of their king, for example satrapal palaces and huge temples. Such temples were visible in every corner of the empire, with religion its great cultural linking theme allowing the king to exercise his authority without question. The principal Persian deity was the great Zoroastrian God of Light Ahura Mazda. His worship was a crucial homogenizing link across the empire, with the Achaemenid monarch his earthly representative. The importance of the religion for both king and empire is shown by the famous multilingual cliff-relief inscription found at Mount Behistun in the Kermanshah province
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in modern Iran. This dates to the reign of Darius I, and given its use of multiple languages later allowed cuneiform to be translated for the first time. Specifically, the inscription says: Ahura Mazda is a great God, who created this earth, who created the sky, who created man, who created happiness for man, who made Darius king, he king among many, one lord among many.
The Persian king’s court was highly elaborate, inheriting many of the traditions of earlier empires in the region. This included a hierarchy of officials with a variety of titles which may, or may not, have reflected their actual responsibilities.
Examples included a spear bearer, bow bearer, staff bearers, cup bearer (a role fulfilled for Artaxerxes I by the Old Testament scribe and priest Ezra), a grand vizier, and large numbers of court eunuchs who managed everything from the day-to-day activities of the royal court through to the delicate task of controlling the king’s harem. However, the most important individuals in the orbit of the King of Kings were, in descending order: § His seven special counsellors, all leading noblemen and usually close Achaemenid family members. § The Royal Judges. § The Chief Priests of Ahura Mazda. § His advisory group of Honoured Equals, King’s Friends and Royal relations. All helped him run his immense empire, broadly in the interests of his Persian subjects, who were clearly favoured over and above the huge number of other cultures and peoples within the empire’s far reaching borders. The Persian king was also commander-inchief of the empire’s vast military resources. Persian armies tended to operate on two levels. First, at the upper end the royal army was commanded physically by the king, who would position himself in the dead centre of his multitude when the army was deployed for battle. From an early date, he only fought if absolutely necessary. Second, at the lower end there were regional armies commanded by individual satraps. The resources available to each usually depended on the region in which a campaign was taking place, but generally they comprised various combinations of central army troops, mercenaries, regional troops and local levies. Royal armies tended to have a far larger contingent of central army troops, particularly guard units, while satrapal armies comprised a larger percentage of regional troops and levies. In terms of the central army troops, at their core in early Achaemenid armies were the Immortals, select warriors armed with short spears and bows. As with most Persian warriors who could afford them, side arms included short swords, hand axes
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A Persian Immortal on glazed brick from the royal palace at Susa.
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and war picks. The front rank in Immortal units were equipped with large, pavise-style, wicker body shields that gave their Old Persian name to this style of warfare, sparabara. Here, the front rankers used their pavises to form a physical barrier behind which the other Immortals (often in deep formations) used their bows to reduce their opponents to a state of disorder, after which the front ranks then discarded their pavises to engage hand to hand, followed by those behind. This pavise barrier-tactic proved particularly effectively when defending against aggressive cavalry, though was much less effective against the hoplite phalanxes of the Greek poleis in the Greco-Persian Wars. In early Achaemenid Persian armies the Immortals numbered 10,000 troops, with the Greek city-states wrongly thinking they were always kept at this number through the use
of central reserves, hence the guard unit’s name. It was also from within the ranks of the Immortals that the 1,000 picked elite warriors who formed the king’s personal bodyguard were chosen. These were sometimes called ‘apple bearers’ after the counterweight that featured on the base of their spears. Although contemporary writers often referred to the Immortals as the glamour component of early Achaemenid Persian armies, most of the line of battle infantry comprised other Persian and Median sparabara, and similarly equipped foot soldiers from the wider Iranian plateau and Scythia who tended to lack armour and helmets. Later in the 5th century BC, many sparabara were replaced by another ubiquitous infantry troop type, these uniformly equipped with short spear or bow (sometimes both) and a new crescent-shaped shield.
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However, the key battle winning arm of Persian royal armies were the huge numbers of Iranian cavalry that formed the main strike force. These ranged from the elite mounted kinsmen of the king (including another guard unit numbering 1,000) through to Iranian levies. All were armed broadly in the same way with short spears and a missile weapon, the latter usually a javelin though sometimes a bow if from further east. The better off wore fine armour including bronze scale-male coats adopted from those worn by the Scythian nobility, and bronze cuirasses imitating those of the Greeks. Some mounts also featured horse armour, again copied from the Scythians and other horsemen of the Central Asian Steppe, while most wore helmets. Many mounted troops also carried traditional round Persian cavalry shields. Notably, by the early Achaemenid period cavalry of this type had begun to charge to contact rather than skirmish from a distance as did contemporary Greek cavalry. Meanwhile, to bolster their mounted capability, early Persian armies also featured four horse chariots of the heavier variety, their crews armed with spears and bows which enabled them to operate both as a missile platform and also a shock weapon. Such chariots disappear from Persian armies around 480 BC. They most likely had their origins in the chariots operated by the Babylonians who were one-time enemies of the Persians. Xenophon in his Cyropaedia also speaks of another type of chariot in service with the armies of
the Achaemenid Persian kings, these the fearsome scythed variety (7.2.17). The Greek mercenary strategos details that 100 were built to serve in the army of Cyrus the Great (who he attributes with inventing the type), with 200 more additionally constructed by his allies, or converted from other styles. These were used in the conflict against the Lydian king Croesus at the inconclusive battle of Pteria in 547 BC. Xenophon provides a terrifying description of their use here, saying (Cyropaedia, 7.2.17):
The upper register of the tomb of Xerxes I at Naqsh-e Rustam, showing the truly multi-national nature of the Achaemenid Persian army. (Wikimedia Commons)
And again, what would you have done, if you heard that chariots are coming which are not, as before, to stand still facing back as if for flight, but that the horses harnessed to the chariots are covered with mail, while the drivers stand in wooden towers and the parts of their body not defended by the towers are completely panoplied in breast-plates and helmets; and that scythes of steel have been fitted to the axles, and that it is the intention to drive these into the ranks of the enemy?
Herodotus also wrote of this battle, though doesn’t mention the scythed chariots, leading many to doubt they were actually used there. However, he does say that Cyrus’ army used another wonder weapon to great effect, namely camels with two armoured riders armed with short spears and bows, the beasts frightening the opposing cavalry given their mounts found the smell of the camels intolerable (The Histories, 1.80). However, in favour of Xenophon’s account regarding scythed chariot use in early Achaemenid
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Scythed chariots in a Later Achaemenid Persian army. (15 mm figures, author’s collection)
Persian armies is the fact he was personally aware of their capabilities. This was in the context of the remarkable story of his leading 10,000 Greek mercenaries to fight for the Achaemenid usurper Cyrus the Younger against his elder brother Artaxerxes II (both sons of Darius II) in the former’s ill-fated challenge for the throne at the end of the 5th century BC. As retold by Xenophon, although Cyrus lost the decisive encounter in 401 BC at the battle of Cunaxa given he died on the battlefield, Xenophon’s Greek hoplites defeated all they encountered there (The Persian Expedition, 1.8). This included any scythed chariots they faced, with Artaxerxes fielding 200 in the encounter (Cyrus himself had 20). Once more Xenophon, clearly fascinated by this glamorous though flawed military technology, provides a detailed description of them in action (The Persian Expedition, 1.8): These had thin scythes extending at an angle from the axles and also under the driver’s seat, turned toward the round, so as to cut through everything in their way.
Whether they proved any use at Cunaxa or not, scythed chariots remained popular in Achaemenid
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Persia through to the end of the empire, given they were still a feature of the army of Darius III when he was defeated by Alexander the Great at the battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC (see Chapter 4). Meanwhile, all Achaemenid Persian armies also included huge numbers of local levies recruited from the many peoples of the empire. Here there was a clear differential between east and west in terms of those available. Those recruited to serve in the former included large, mounted contingents. These featured Bactrians, Saka, Dahae, Paphlagonians and Arachosians, often lightly equipped missile cavalry. Additionally, eastern armies also often included a contingent from the Indian kingdoms of the Punjab, for example war elephants as again later encountered by Alexander the Great in the employ of Darius III. Meanwhile, levy contingents from the western satrapies included remnant Assyrian and Chaldean troops, Lydian or Ionian Greek hoplites (often poorly trained and motivated), Thracians, Armenians, Scythian and Dahae horsemen, and various hillmen from the tribes of the Levantine interior. Lightly equipped, bowarmed camel riders were also recruited from the Arabian interior.
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Achaemenid Persian Kings from cyrus the Great to Darius iii Cyrus The Great Cambyses II Smerdis Darius I Xerxes I Artaxerxes I Xerxes II Sogdianus Darius II Artaxerxes II Artaxerxes III Artaxerxes IV Darius III
559–530 BC 530 –522 BC March–September 522 BC 522 BC–486 BC 486–465 BC 465–424 BC 424 BC 424 BC 424–404 BC 404–358 BC 358–338 BC 338–336 BC 336–330 BC
ionian revolt The Greco-Persian Wars began with the revolt of the Ionian Greek cities in western Anatolia against Achaemenid Persian vassalage in 499 BC, the main source for this being Herodotus. In this region, as detailed above, significant Greek settlement had taken place in the Archaic period, principally by those speaking Aeolian and Ionian Greek dialects. The latter, principally from the poleis of Attica (mainly Athens) and Euboea, had settled along the coasts of Lydia and Caria in western and southwestern Anatolia, founding the 12 cities there that made up what contemporaries called Ionia (as opposed to the Ionian Sea with its islands which stretched down the western coast of the Balkans). These cities were Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Clazomenae, Phocaea and Erythrae in Lydia, Miletus, Myus and Priene
(left and overleaf ) Ancient Ephesus, the key Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia and one of the centres of the Ionian Revolt.
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in Caria, and the large settlements on the Aegean islands of Samos and Chios. Although the Greek poleis of Ionia were independent of each other, they often gathered in a league named after the region and always celebrated their common Ionian heritage. This included gathering to debate key issues in a common meeting place called the Panionion, a sanctuary which featured a fine temple to Poseidon where they gave thanks for the success of their colonizing forebears. This was located on Mount Mycale, 100 km south of modern Izmir. Herodotus provides detail here, saying (The Histories, 5.101): The Panionion is a sacred ground in Mycale, facing north; it was set apart for Poseidon of Helicon by the joint will of the Ionians. Mycale is a western promontory of the mainland opposite Samos; the Ionians used to assemble there from their cities and keep the festival to which they gave the name of Panionia.
The meeting place, sanctuary and temple there were controlled by the nearby polis of Priene whose magistrates and priests presided over the meetings
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and worship that took place there. The other key Ionian Greek religious site at this time was the sanctuary to Apollo at Didyma (modern Didum) which dated back to the Dark Age/Geometric period and was adopted by the incoming Ionian colonists. The cities of Ionia remained independent of foreign control until conquered around 560 BC by the Lydians under their king Croesus. They then remained under his vassalage until Lydia itself was conquered by the nascent Achaemenid Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great, with the Ionian Greek cities finding themselves with new masters overnight. However, this initially proved an altogether better experience for them given Cyrus’ desire to consolidate his new-won empire in the region by granting them considerably more freedom than they had enjoyed under Croesus. Sadly though, by the beginning of the following century matters had changed dramatically. Now, the new king Darius I was keen to impose his will far more overtly over his subjects as he sought to expand his empire both to the east and, most relevantly here, west.
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It was in these circumstances that the Ionian Revolt broke out, with several of the Ionian Greek poleis rebelling against Persian rule. The immediate cause was the simmering dissatisfaction felt by many of the Greek cities there with the tyrants appointed by Darius to rule them. This came to a head in 499 BC when Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus in Caria, launched a joint expedition with the Persian satrap Artaphernes (ruler of Lydia and brother of Darius) to conquer the island of Naxos while attempting to bolster his prestige at home. The mission proved a debacle, and sensing his imminent removal from power by Darius, in Miletus Aristagoras chose to incite most of Greek Ionia into rebellion against Persian rule. In 498 BC, supported by troops from Athens and the key Euboean polis of Eretria, the Ionians (mostly from Lydia) marched against Artaphernes, capturing and burning his regional capital Sardis and its royal palace. Though a short-term victory for Aristagoras, this proved disastrous for the Greeks in the long run given for the first time they were now seen as a threat by the Persians. Indeed, Herodotus says that when Darius I heard of sack of his western capital he asked who the Athenians were, and then swore vengeance on them, tasking a court retainer to remind him three times a day of his vow by saying ‘Master, remember the Athenians’ (The Histories, 5.105). The Ionian invaders paid a heavy price for their audacity, with a large Persian cavalry force soon tracking them as they returned to Ionia. Given they mostly comprised citizen hoplites on foot, the Greeks were unable to shake off their pursuers and were soon cornered and decisively beaten at the battle of Ephesus late in the campaigning season. Many were killed, including the Eretrian general Eualcides. Those Ionians who managed to escape the slaughter made straight for their own cities, while the remaining Athenians and Eretrians swiftly returned to their war galleys and sailed back to Greece on the first tide. Now stripped of their mainland allies, the Ionian Greeks quickly went on the defensive, with repairs carried out on their city wall circuits and the main gateways barred shut.
Predictably, the Persians decided to make an example of those Ionian poleis that had rebelled and responded in force. In early 497 BC they launched a three-pronged offensive aimed at occupying the hinterlands of the cities that had risen against Darius. However, just as their campaign began, the revolt spread south to Caria, meaning Darius’ main army had to divert there instead. This was under the command of the general Daurises, and though at first his offensive went well, the huge Persian force was wiped out when ambushed during a night march at the battle of Pedasus, with Daurises himself killed. This resulted in a stalemate for the 496 BC and 495 BC campaigning seasons. However, by 494 BC the Persian army and navy had regrouped, and as soon as the campaigning season began they made straight for the epicentre of the rebellion at Miletus. Here the Ionian fleet sought to defend the city by sea, but was defeated decisively at the battle of Lade. Miletus itself was then besieged, captured, and its population enslaved. This double defeat, on sea and then land, effectively ended the revolt, with the remaining Ionian cities and settlements in Caria quickly surrendering as a result. The Persians spent 493 BC reducing the Ionian cities along the western coast of Lydia that still held out against them, before finally agreeing to peace talks with the now defeated and cowed Ionian leaders. Here, the victorious Lydian satrap Artaphernes was in the mood for reconciliation, knowing if he imposed too harsh a settlement the Ionians would likely revolt again. Given the wealth they delivered to the empire in the west in the form of tribute, a severe punishment made no sense. The
Hoplite re-enactors wearing high-quality reproductions of hoplite arms and armour. Note the highly accurate doru (spears) and aspides (shields).
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satrap therefore set out to re-establish a workable relationship with the Ionian cities, summoning representatives from each to Sardis where he told them that from then on disputes with both the empire and between the individual cities would be resolved through the arbitration of a panel of judges. Further, he ordered that the hinterland of each poleis be re-surveyed to re-determine the amount of tribute it should pay dependent on its size. Artaphernes had also learned the hard way how much the poleis disliked tyrannies. He therefore reconsidered his position on how the Ionian cities should be governed, and the following year Darius’ leading general and kinsman Mardonius arrived in Ionia with orders from the king to abolish the tyrannies governing the poleis there and replace them with democracies (Herodotus, The Histories, 6.43). Mardonius is a key figure in the Greco-Persian Wars. He was the son of a leading Persian nobleman called Gobryas who played a important role in helping Darius claim the Achaemenid Persian throne. Darius then married Gobryas’ daughter, while the latter married Darius’ sister. Finally, Mardonius married another of Darius’ daughters. The king was therefore, at the same time, Mardonius’ uncle, father-in-law and halfbrother-in-law. More important here was the reason for his visit in 492 BC, to lead the First Persian Invasion of Greece to punish Athens and Eretria for their earlier support for the Ionian Revolt.
First Persian Invasion of Greece As soon as Mardonius was appointed by Darius, he set about gathering a huge army in Phrygia, which he then led across the Hellespont into Thrace in 492 BC using an equally large fleet. His force largely comprised satrapal troops, which the Persians felt would easily be capable of brushing aside the Greeks. Once in Thrace, Mardonius quickly set about subjugating any tribes there still holding out against Achaemenid rule, these few in number given the region had been part of the Persian Empire since 513 BC. His rear secure, Mardonius, then led his army westwards along the coast,
with half ashore and half embarked. Soon the Kingdom of Macedon was reached. There, through a combination of threat and bribery, its king Alexander I agreed that Macedon would become a client kingdom of the Persians. All now seemed set for a swift Persian descent through Central Greece into Euboea and Attica. However, further progress in this first campaign was hindered when the Persian fleet was wrecked in a violent storm off the coast of eastern-most promontory of the Chalcidice Peninsula, where the Mount Athos monastery now sits. Given the importance of its vessels in carrying troops and supplying the Persian advance, this severely restricted Mardonius’ ability to meet his objectives. Then, shortly afterwards, he was wounded in a raid on his camp by local Thracians. After this he decided to consolidate his gains and return back east to Anatolia with the army for the winter. Despite this setback, Darius chose to view this first phase of the initial Persian invasion of Greece as a success, given an inscription on his tomb at Naqsh-e Rustam near the Achaemenid capital Persopolis called the territories of Thrace and eastern Macedonia a single European satrapy called Skudra (Macedon proper remaining a client kingdom). However, this was the high point of his regional ambitions given the tribulations that followed. He knew Athens and Eretria remained at large, and so in 491 BC sent an ambassadorial delegation to tour the poleis in the Central Greece, Attica and the Peloponnese, demanding ‘earth and water’ as a means of their submission. This he received from all except Athens and Sparta who rejected the Persian overtures in the most brutal fashion, executing the ambassadors out of hand (the Spartans first, the Athenians following suit). The two recalcitrant poleis then accused their fellows of medising, a contemporary derogatory term meaning they were sycophantically favouring the Persians. Darius, almost certainly expecting this response, though perhaps not the shocking treatment of his ambassadors, took the actions of Sparta and Athens as a declaration of war and responded accordingly. Soon, royal army troops
(opposite) Tomb of Darius I at Naqsh-e Rustam, resting place of the first Achaemenid nemesis of the Classical Greeks in the Greco-Persian Wars. (Wikimedia Commons)
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Ad ria tic
ILLYRIA Eio Epidamnus
Se a
Apollonia
M
E AC
D
Pella Therma Methoni Olynthus Aegae Pydna Potidaea
I N O
A
Kasthanaia Larissa Pherae
Dodona Kassope
Pharsalus Ambracia
Thermopylae 480
Anactoriun Delphi Calydon
Theb
Plataea 479
The Greco-Persian Wars Ionian revolt Main battle Greek opponents of Persia Greek neutral states Persian empire Persian vassal states Ionian rebels (498BC) Mardonius (492BC) Artapherus/Datis (490BC) Xerxes/Mardonius (480BC) 0 7 8 • A n c I e n t0G r e e k s
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Patras Corinth Elis Olympia Argos Tegea Sparta Messene Methoni
100km 50km
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Odryses
T PROPON
IS
Thasos
Cyzicus
Lampsacus Abydos MYSIA Ilium Antandrus Adramyttium Assus
Torone
Lesbos Mytilene Phocae
gea Ae
Thebes
Pergamon Pitane
Sardis 498
Tralles
Ephesus
Mycale 479
Miletus
Karystos
Athens
Lade 494
DO
DE
CA
480 Salamis L CYC
S ADE
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LYDIA
Smyrna Colophon
ea
Chalcis
PERSIAN EMPIRE
IONIA
nS
480 Cape Artemision
Marathon 490
BITHYNIA
Aenus Sestos
s
a 479
Astakos
Maronea Doriskos
Abdera
e
Chalcedon
Perinthus
THRACE
Eion
Byzantium
CARIA Mylasa
NE Cnidus SE
Physcus
Lindos
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were ordered to western Anatolia to join the satrapal troops already there, and when this bigger army was ready, the king ordered a new invasion to commence in the spring of 490 BC. The second campaign of the First Persian Invasion of Greece, this offensive was led by the experienced generals Datis and Artaphernes, both sons of the Lydian satrap Artaphernes who was still in high royal favour after his defeat of the Ionian Revolt. The fleet carrying the majority of the royal army troops had already been in action at the beginning of the year, having set sail for Phrygia from Cilicia in southern Anatolia on the king’s orders to join the invasion army for Greece. On the way it had landed troops on the island of Rhodes, where they had unsuccessfully besieged Lindos. Next it sailed to Naxos, aiming to punish the Naxians for their resistance to a failed expedition the Persians had mounted there a decade earlier. Many of the inhabitants there fled to the mountains, with those that were too slow to escape being caught and enslaved by the Persians who then burnt the city and temples there. This was a deliberate act to send a clear message to the Ionian poleis. Behave while the Persians were away campaigning in the Europe, or else. Once the fleet arrived in Phrygia the two forces then combined and the campaign against Greece began. This time the whole force was embarked aboard ship, the fleet island-hopping across the Aegean Sea direct to Eretria rather than tracing the Thracian and Macedonian coastline. As they passed each island, they took hostages, again as a means of protecting their lines of communication. The task force soon arrived off Euboea and immediately attacked Eretria. The city’s inhabitants made no attempt to stop the Persians from landing or advancing, allowing themselves to be besieged in the hope their strong city fortifications would hold out the attackers. For six days the Persians tried to force the walls, with heavy losses on both sides. However, on the seventh day, two of Eretria’s leading citizens turned traitor, no doubt aided by the promise of Persian gold. In the dead of night, they opened the city gates and the Persians, ready in the shadows, poured through into the metropolis. Soon Eretria
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was ablaze from end to end, and by morning was a smoking ruin. All of the surviving citizens were then enslaved excepting those related to the two turncoats. The Persians next took time pacifying the rest of Euboea before the army was again embarked aboard the fleet for the short journey to Attica. It landed in the Bay of Marathon, only 40 km from Athens. Datis now assumed overall command, disembarking the army across the fine wide bay there which had been named after the large amounts of wild fennel growing in the region (the ancient Greek word for fennel was marathon, the herb associated with endurance). Today, the battle of Marathon is often viewed as one of the most important battles in world history given it effectively stopped in its tracks the Persian imperial juggernaut’s encroachment into Europe, with both Greek and Persian culture now going their separate ways despite one final mighty attempt by the Persians to stamp out the independence of the poleis. The battle is also famous because it gives us the name for the Marathon long-distance race that is such a key feature of modern athletics. This is in the context of the Greek messenger Philippides and his fatal run taking news of the victory over the Persians back to Athens, or from Athens to Sparta, depending on the legend believed. In either narrative, after delivering his remarkable message, he collapsed and died from his exertions (see overleaf ). Meanwhile, as soon as the Persian survivors had put to sea, the Athenians and their allies marched swiftly back to Athens. They arrived just in time to prevent Artaphernes, who now had command of the Persian army and fleet, from securing a landing there (Herodotus, The Histories, 6.115). The younger brother may have been in control because, according to the Greek physician and historian Ctesias of Cnidus, Datis was among the dead at Marathon, with the Greeks refusing to hand over his body. However, Herodotus earlier claimed he had survived. That being the case, perhaps he was instead wounded at Marathon, or simply fell out of favour with the other leaders in the Persian army after the debacle there.
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Battle of Marathon Given the fate of Eretria and the other settlements of Euboea, the Athenian leadership were keenly aware of the fate that now awaited them. Soon a hastily assembled army of citizen hoplites, together with a few skirmishing light troops, had gathered under the command of 10 Athenian strategoi. In true democratic fashion, each was given operational command of the army for one day at a time. However, the leaders were evenly divided on whether to wait for the Persians to attack Athens, or to take the offensive against the invaders at their landing site in Marathon. The stalemate was only broken when a senior magistrate called Callimachus opted in favour of attack. He was the polemarch in Athens, this ancient title derived from the words polemos meaning ‘war’ and archon (leader). While this indicates the holder’s original function was command of the army, by this time the post was more akin to a modern Secretary for War, a senior politician with oversight on all matters military excepting command in the field. Callimachus’ intervention proved decisive, and soon four of the strategos agreed to ignore convention and cede overall command to the experienced Athenian general Militiades for the forthcoming battle. This was a wise choice given he had the most experience fighting the Persians. Militiades moved quickly, ordering his army to block the two main exit routes from the plain of Marathon and the Persian landing site. This led to a five-day stalemate before Datis finally decided to bypass the blockade of Greek heavy infantry and continue onwards to Athens by sea. Soon the Persians began to load their troops back onto the ships, starting with their battle-winning cavalry. This continued into the night. As dawn broke the following morning Militiades’ scouts brought him word the Persian cavalry had been removed from the field of battle. These were the troops the Greeks feared the most. Further, the strategos was informed that the Persian foot soldiers were also about to embark aboard ship. This presented him with a unique opportunity to tackle the Persian troops, knowing his own hoplites were far superior to most of their opponents. He lost no time, ordering a general advance of the now deployed Greek phalanx, this comprising 10,000 Athenian and 1,000 Plataean hoplites. These rapidly closed on the 15,000 remaining Persians, pinning them on the beach with their backs against the sea. Just prior to contact Militiades then ordered some of his rear rank hoplites from the Greek centre and reserve to bolster his two wings, knowing the weaker Persian foot soldiers would be opposite them given the Immortal contingent was deployed in the Persian centre. Here he aimed for a double envelopment, with his centre holding the best Persians while his wings shattered the lesser troops on the flanks. They could then turn inwards from left and right into the Persian centre. This proved a master class in hoplite warfare, with the Persian sparabara unable to withstand the doru (spear) and shieldwielding Greek heavy foot soldiers smashing into them. Soon the Persian wings routed. Then, seeing they were about to be surrounded, the Persian centre broke. By the time the terrified survivors reached their ships they had lost 6,400 men, with the Greeks losing only 192. Sadly the latter included the polemarch Callimachus whose earlier intervention had proved so crucial in the Greeks fighting there at all.
Artaphernes was certainly pragmatic, quickly deciding his opportunity was lost to defeat the stubborn Athenians and ordering his fleet to return back to Asia. The period between the two Persian invasions of Greece is called the Interbellum and lasted from 490 BC to 480 BC. In Persia, Darius reacted with predictable frustration, furious that his invincible army had been halted by the bronzeclad citizens of Athens. He began to raise a huge
new royal army, aiming not just to destroy Athens but to subjugate the whole of Greece. However, it was not to be. In 486 BC his Egyptian satrapy, always a recalcitrant addition to the Achaemenid Persian Empire, rose in revolt and forced the king to divert his forces there instead. This led to an indefinite postponement of any Greek expedition in the west. Darius himself then died while readying his army to march on Egypt, with his son Xerxes I succeeding him.
(overleaf ) The burial mound of the Plataeans at the site of the battle of Marathon.
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Xerxes proved far more aggressive than his father, keen to prove his worth as the new King of Kings to the always difficult to impress Persian nobility. He quickly crushed the Egyptian revolt with great slaughter, and then swiftly resumed preparations to invade Greece, aiming to gather one of the largest armies the Persians had ever fielded. This required long-term logistics planning, including stockpiling materials and mustering regional levies on a vast scale, the whole plan being delayed yet again by more unrest in Egypt and also Babylonia. However, by 481 BC and after four years of preparation, Xerxes was ready and turned his attention westwards again with menacing intent.
Second Persian Invasion of Greece On the Greek mainland, in the aftermath of the mighty victory at Marathon, the poleis in Attica and Euboea were keenly aware that for the Persians their western adventures were unfinished business. However, in their next attempt at the conquest of Greece, the Persians would face not one but both of the leading military powers there. These were again Athens, but this time also Sparta. The latter had been unable to come to Athens’ aid in 490 BC due to their studious observation of the religious festival of Apollo Karneios, despite their murder of Darius’ ambassadors. Now, no doubt shamed by Athens’ solitary stand at Marathon (excepting their Plataean allies), the Spartans would play a full part in the new campaign, religious festival or not. Following Darius’ earlier example, in the summer of 481 BC Xerxes sent ambassadors to the citystates throughout Greece, once more demanding ‘earth and water’ as tokens of their vassalage to Persia. However, they deliberately avoided both Athens and Sparta (perhaps wisely given the result a decade earlier) who soon found out about Xerxes’ plans. Once more some of the poleis were coerced (or more likely bought off ) by Persia, but this time many rejected the king’s overtures. Soon those city-states opposed to Persia’s western ambitions began to coalesce around Athens and Sparta, with a congress meeting at Corinth in the
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late autumn of 481 BC. Here a confederation of like-minded poleis was formed. This had powers to send envoys to summon military support from member city-states to help reinforce Greek defensive positions in the mountainous north of Central Greece and down the eastern coast in the event of a Persian invasion. Herodotus doesn’t give the confederation a name, simply calling them ‘the Greeks’, with 70 city-states sending representatives. Meanwhile Xerxes was ready to begin his offensive. By early 480 BC, he had gathered a vast army from across his empire, with contingents from 46 satrapies and vassal states. This mustered at Abydos in Phrygia, with Xerxes himself leading the troops arriving from the east in person, including his Immortals and cavalry guard troops. Contemporary sources say his army numbered one million, though recent estimates indicate it was somewhere between 60,000 and 300,000 strong. Xerxes’ careful planning for this campaign now began to pay off. Mindful of Mardonius’ tribulations during his offensive in 492 BC when the Persian fleet had been badly damaged in storms off the Chalcidice Peninsula, the king had earlier ordered an enormous canal to be built through the eastern-most prong of the peninsula. This provided safe access to the calmer waters in the Pagasetic Gulf off Thessaly, and was now ready. Xerxes quickly shipped his troops across the Hellespont to Europe via another mighty feat of engineering, the 1.3 km long twin pontoon bridges the king had ordered built across the waterway. Once ashore his huge army then maintained a swift advance along the Thracian coast, before embarking for passage through the king’s canal, and soon the whole force was ashore in the broad coastal plains of northern Thessaly. The success of Xerxes’ colossal logistics operation quickly concentrated the minds of the Greek poleis still holding out against the Persians. They now had no doubt of the brutal vengeance the King of Kings planned to inflict on them. The allied confederation was again summoned to consider their options, meeting in the late spring of 480 BC, the poleis present agreeing to defend the
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narrow Vale of Tempe on the borders of Thessaly where they aimed to block the Persian advance. However, when the advance force arrived, they were warned by the Macedonian king Alexander I of Macedon, nominally a Persian client monarch, that the vale could be bypassed. Given the size of Xerxes’ force, the Greeks therefore decided to retreat further south to make their stand. The next choice of the allies was the pass of Thermopylae (meaning ‘hot gates’ in ancient Greek, this based on the sulphur springs there) on the Malian Gulf, this a narrow passage on the eastern coast of Phocia in Central Greece that the Persians would need to navigate. Meanwhile Xerxes was making quick progress through Thessaly, only hindered by the size of his force. News of the imminent Persian approach eventually reached Central Greece in August, thanks to a Greek spy. Once more, given the time
of year, the Spartans were celebrating the same religious festival that had prevented them from joining the Athenians and Plataeans at Marathon. Further, it was also around this time of year that the Olympic Games took place, and with it the Olympic truce. For the strictly ordered Spartan society, it was therefore doubly sacrilegious for its main army to march to war. Fortunately for the Greek confederation, a compromise was reached whereby it was decided the urgency of the situation was sufficient to justify an advance guard led by a Spartan contingent be sent to block the pass at Thermopylae under one of its two kings, Leonidas I. The legend of what became the battle of Thermopylae, as told by Herodotus, has it that the Spartans had earlier in the year consulted the Oracle at Delphi to determine their response to any Persian invasion. The Oracle is said to have
The battlefield site of Thermopylae today, with the road at right broadly running along the line of the ancient shoreline.
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made the following prophecy (Herodotus, The Histories, 7.220): Ye men who dwell in the streets of broad Lacedaemon! Honour the festival of the Carneia! Otherwise, either your glorious town shall be sacked by the children of Perseus (The Persians), or in exchange, must all through the whole Laconian country mourn for the loss of a king, descendant of great Hercules!
Thus to the Spartans, as Leonidas marched off to war ignoring religious convention, his fate was already sealed and a heroic martyrs death awaited. Meanwhile, the Greek poleis still opposing the Persians prepared to defend the Isthmus of Corinth, demolishing the single road there and then building a wall across the land bridge. At the same time, the combined Greek fleet deployed to challenge the Persian navy as it tried to force its way south through the Saronic Gulf. The initial plan here was to mount a simple blockade, but the Athenian leader Themistocles now intervened. Convinced that his own fleet was superior to that of the Persians, and that their local knowledge would counter the disparity in numbers, he persuaded his allies to go further and seek a decisive victory against the Persian fleet. Themistocles knew the Persians well, and indeed
may have been one of the 10 Athenian strategoi at Marathon where he had certainly fought. The Greeks therefore lured the Persian navy into the Straits of Salamis where, in late September, the battle of Salamis took place. The specific details of this crucial naval engagement are unclear, though we do know that the Greek fleet was commanded by the Spartan Eurybiades, a surprising choice given Athens was the major naval power in the region. Themistocles and Adeimantus of Corinth were his subordinate commanders. Themistocles initially tried to convince some of the Persian fleet to defect, given many of its ships were manned by Greeks, and indeed two Ionian Greek ships did change sides. The Persian fleet then opened the battle, fielding up to 1,200 ships compared to the Greeks 400. Most of the vessels were triremes, with a few biremes. Xerxes had sourced his fleet from across the eastern Mediterranean, with Phoenician ships facing the Athenians on the Greek left, Ionians set against the Spartans on the Greek right and more Phoenician and Levantine ships in the Persian centre. Behind the main Greek battle line, a contingent from Aegina (one of the islands in the Saronic Gulf ) and a few Athenian ships were held back in reserve.
(opposite) The Spartan-led Greek hoplite phalanx holds off Persian sparabara (foot soldiers) at the fateful clash at Thermopylae. (Peter Connolly © Greece and Rome at War, Greenhill Books)
Classical triremes depicted on plaster wall paintings in Pompeii. Most of the ships which fought at Salamis were of this type.
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Battle of thermopylae Leonidas took with him the 300 men of the royal bodyguard, knights called the hippeis. These were the elite warriors within the Spartiate contingent of the Spartan army, so effectively the best hoplite warriors in the whole of Greece. He aimed to gather additional troops from fellow poleis as they marched through the Peloponnese, Attica and Boeotia to Thermopylae. There they would then await the arrival of the main Spartan army after the conclusion of the religious festivities there. By the time the king reached Thermopylae, his force had grown to over 7,000, mostly hoplites. Once there he chose to camp at the ‘middle gate’, this the narrowest part of the pass where the local Phocians had earlier built a defensive wall. It was here Leonidas determined to make his initial stand against the Persians. However, while setting out the camp news reached him from a messenger sent from the nearby city of Trachis that there was a little-used mountain track which could be used to outflank the pass of Thermopylae. Therefore, if the Persians could navigate the trackway, his position would be outflanked. The Spartan king therefore ordered a 1,000 strong contingent of Phocians to climb the heights above the path to guard it against any Persian attempt to force it. In mid-August, the Persian army was sighted across the Malian Gulf, snaking along the coast in a vast column, with the fleet in support nearby. As it arrived ahead of the Greek camp Leonidas held a council of war. Now aware of the vast size of their opponent’s force, some of the Peloponnesians present suggested they withdraw to the Isthmus of Corinth, arguing it was a more defendable position. However, at the suggestion the Phocians and Locrians present became indignant, given the strategy would have meant abandoning Central Greece and Attica to the Persians. They argued they should remain in place and defend the pass, eventually winning the day when Leonidas finally agreed with them. A stand would be made at Thermopylae. Seeing the Greeks readying for battle, Xerxes sent a Persian emissary to negotiate with Leonidas. The Greeks were offered their freedom, the title ‘Friends of the Persian People’ and the opportunity to re-settle on land better than that they already possessed. It is unclear what Xerxes actually meant by the latter, as it seems highly unlikely the Spartans would choose to leave their homelands. More likely it was an attempt to divide the various poleis present. Whatever the truth, that tactic failed as the Greeks remained united, with Leonidas refusing the terms out of hand. The ambassadors then sought a private audience with him, where they presented the king with a written message direct from Xerxes which asked him to ‘Hand over your arms’, to which the Spartan king replied ‘Come and take them’ (Plutarch, Plutarch’s Morals – Leonidas the Son of Anaxandridas, 1). Diplomacy over, Xerxes now delayed for four days, still expecting at least some of the Greeks to disperse given the size of his army. Finally, he concluded he would have to fight and the battle of the ‘middle gate’ began. First, he ordered 5,000 elite archers forward to loose a barrage of arrows at the Greeks, now deployed for battle behind the Phocian wall. However, the hoplites maintained their discipline and held their ground. Xerxes then sent 10,000 Medes and Cissians forward to force the Greeks back, Leonidas responding by leading his phalanx forward to deploy in front of the wall where they could operate offensively. A great slaughter followed, the sparabara no match for the bronze-clad Greeks. So many were killed that Xerxes stood up three times from his seat in the tent set up to allow him the view the battle, doubting what he was seeing with his own eyes (Herodotus, The Histories, 7.212). Frustrated by the failure of these first attempts to force the ‘middle gate’, Xerxes now sent forward his 10,000 Immortals. However, even his elite foot troops failed to force the hoplites back, the Greeks brutalising the Persian king’s best troops. Here Leonidas and his hippeis led by example, causing mayhem amid the ranks of the Immortals. After this setback, Xerxes withdrew back to his camp for the night to reconsider his strategy. On the second day of the battle, Xerxes again sent in his infantry to attack the Greeks holding the ‘middle gate’, assuming the hoplite losses had been as severe as his. The Persians had no more success on the second day than on the first though. As time passed and his casualties continued to mount, he was again forced to halt the attack, perplexed at the lack of success against such a small opposing force. Once more he withdrew to his camp. However, while there, fate now intervened in his favour. This was in the form of Ephiates, a citizen of the nearby poleis of Trachis, who arrived to tell the Persians of the mountain path that circumvented the pass before them.
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Herodotus says Xerxes acted immediately, sending a leading general called Hydarnes with the remaining Immortals to force the pathway and encircle the Greeks guided by Ephiates (The Histories, 7.215). The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus provides even more detail, saying that the column actually numbered 20,000 of Xerxes best warriors (Library of History, 8.5). The stratagem proved a masterstroke as at dawn on the third day the Phocians guarding the path above Thermopylae were suddenly surprised by the approaching Persian troops, the rustling of oak leaves giving away their approach. The startled Phocians retreated to a nearby hill to make a stand rather than guard the path, expecting the Persians to deal with them first. However, Hydarnes had orders to stay on the move no matter what the opposition, ordering a single volley of arrows be fired to pin the Greeks in place. His troops then continued down the pathway, arriving to the rear of the Greeks defending the ‘middle gate’. Leonidas and his men were about to be encircled. The Spartan king quickly learned of his ill fortune when runners arrived to say the Phocians had failed to hold the pass and the Persians were about to outflank him. He swiftly called another council of war as dawn broke, countering calls by some of the Greeks to withdraw by saying he and his Spartans would stay, his aim to buy time for the main Spartan force to arrive if he could. He then told his allies that they could leave if they wished, with many of the Greek allies taking up the offer, 3,000 escaping before they were finally encircled. The remainder chose to stay and fight with the Spartans, knowing they would likely perish. These were mostly Thebans and Thespians. Soon the Persians began deploying to the rear of Leonidas’ ‘middle gate’ defensive position. Knowing that the end was near, the remaining Greeks now marched into the open field ahead of the Phokian wall again, once more to meet the Persians head-on. Xerxes now ordered his troops to move in for the kill. First, 10,000 cavalry and light foot soldiers charged the front of the Greek formation to fix it in place. The Greeks responded by sallying forth even further from the Phokian wall into the widest part of the pass, their aim to slaughter as many Persians as they could before being overwhelmed. Leonidas died in this assault, shot down by Persian archers, with the two sides fighting over his body, the Greeks eventually taking possession. The Immortals and other troops now approached the Greeks from the rear, with the hoplites withdrawing to make their final stand on a hill behind the Phokian wall. Some of the Thebans now surrendered, but the remaining Spartans stood their ground and were shot down amid a massive barrage of arrows, javelins and slingshot until all were dead. His victory complete, Xerxes now spent a few days consolidating his position, before leading his army through the now-opened pass. He then proceeded to sack many of the Boeotian cities in Central Greece, before marching into Attica where he found Athens abandoned. The king burnt it to the ground, in full sight of the thousands of Athenian refugees seeking shelter on the nearby island of Salamis.
Early Classical Greek hoplite in a panoply worn by many at Thermopylae, with helmet, aspis shield, layered-linen armour, leg greaves and doru long thrusting spear. (wikicommons)
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Xerxes set up a command post near Piraeus with a fine view across the Saronic Gulf towards Salamis. Here he would have seen the two fleets deploying for battle, the Greeks two vessels deep along a frontage of some 3 km, the Persian line longer and three ships deep. Soon his war galleys had closed to within missile range of the Greeks and a lively exchange of fire began, with bowmen, slingers and javelinmen on both sides launching
barrage after barrage. However, as Persians continued to close, their superior numbers now played against them. Trying to align with the narrower Greek frontage, the Persian war galleys were drawn into an ever-tighter confine. Gradually, their advance slowed to a stop as they lost the ability to maneuver, which each galley’s oars now interfering with those of their neighbours. At this point the Greeks pounced, their triremes and
Battle of Plataea When Mardonius heard that the Spartans were on the march, he retreated from Athens back to Boeotia, basing himself near Plataea where he tried to draw the Greeks into the open terrain there. Here he could best use his more numerous cavalry. By this time the Greek army, now bolstered with contingents from the various poleis it passed through along the way (including Athenians), had nominated the Spartan regent Pausanius its commander. An experienced strategos, he immediately saw the trap being set by the Persians and wisely decided to camp on the high ground above Plataea where his force would be better protected against marauding cavalry. There they remained through the August heat, with Mardonius gradually gaining the upper hand with his horsemen pouncing each time the Greeks sent parties to gather water from nearby wells. Pausanius now realised his position was becoming untenable as, despite his hoplites remaining secure atop the hills, his lines of supply south were being cut one by one by the wily Mardonius. The Spartan regent decided caution was the best course of action and ordered a night-time retreat towards a more secure position with better water supplies. However, in the darkness the manoeuvre went awry. Soon the Spartans, Athenians and some Tegeans found themselves isolated on separate hills, with the other Greek contingents scattered even further afield nearer to Plataea. Seeing his opportunity to secure a great victory, Mardonius now ordered his whole army forward to attack the isolated pockets of hoplites. However, in directing his troops onto the offensive, he inadvertently played straight into Pausanius’ hands given his troops now found themselves facing the Greeks uphill, where the hoplites knew they were fighting for their lives. Again, the Persian foot soldiers proved no match for the heavily armoured Greeks, and soon the Spartans had broken through the troops to their front. Briefly halting to reorder their ranks, they saw Mardonius and his bodyguard ahead of them and charged. The general’s guardsmen were shattered, with Mardonius himself killed in the onslaught. Seeing this, the Persian army panicked and soon dissolved in rout, only 40,000 troops managing to escape back to Thessaly (it is unclear how large the Persian army actually was, but some sources speak of a 50% casualty ratio). Most of the survivors were cavalry, with the foot soldiers butchered in their thousands. In particular, a large force fled back to the Persian camp near Plataea where they were trapped and slaughtered by the Greeks. Herodotus improbably claims that the Greeks as a whole lost only 159 men in the entire engagement (The Histories, 9.70).
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biremes smashing into the stationary Persian ships with their rams, sinking many. Meanwhile, Greek marines now began to board the jammed enemy vessels, capturing ship after ship as Persian morale collapsed. With more Persian ships pressing in from the rear, unaware the forward vessels were already engaged, the fleet had no means of retreat. By early afternoon Greek victory was assured, with any remaining Persian ships breaking out for the open sea through the gaps in their own ranks. Most headed back directly to Anatolia. Overall, the Greeks lost around 40 ships to the Persians’ 300. Meanwhile, in the final stage of the battle, a Greek hoplite force was transferred from Salamis back to the mainland where they destroyed any remaining Persian land forces in the vicinity. By this time, Xerxes had long fled the scene of battle, fearful that after this loss the Greeks might sail northeast to the Hellespont and destroy his pontoon bridges there. He therefore followed his fleet back to Asia. However, his general Mardonius volunteered to remain in Greece to complete the conquest there with a picked force of the best Persian troops. This was the same leader who had
tried in vain to invade Greece 12 years earlier under Darius I, now looking to complete the task. Mardonius chose to overwinter in Boeotia and Thessaly, with the Athenians thus able to return to their destroyed city which they spent the winter months rebuilding. Then in the spring of 479 BC the Persian leader headed south again, this time trying the buy the Athenians off with a generous peace offer. However, the latter were in no mood to back down given the destruction in their city and made sure a Spartan delegation was on hand to hear them reject the proposal. Athens was then evacuated again, with the Persians marching south through Attica to re-take it once more. Mardonius then repeated his offer of peace to the Athenian refugees, many of whom were back on Salamis. At this point the Athenians sent emissaries to Sparta, demanding assistance and threatening to accept the Persian terms if they were not aided immediately. In response, the Spartans mustered a large army featuring its own Spartiates and periokoia, and large numbers of citizen hoplites from the other Peloponnese cities. They marched at once to meet the Persians.
After Athens fell following the defeat of Leonidas at Thermopylae, Xerxes I razed the city. This included the complete destruction of all of the structures on the Acropolis of Athens, including the original Temple of Athena and the Older Parthenon. The current building is its replacement.
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A classic hoplite phalanx. (15 mm wargaming figures from the collection of Robin Spence)
Things continued to go badly for the Persians as their second invasion petered out. The Greek victory at Plataea was quickly followed by another, this an amphibious engagement known as the battle of Mycale. Here, a Spartan-led fleet had sailed to Samos off the Anatolian coast to challenge the remnants of the Persian fleet where it had retreated after the defeat at Salamis. Led by the Spartan king Leotychides, on arrival the Greeks found the Persian vessels in a very poor state of repair. The Persian admiral decided not to risk a fight, instead choosing to beach his ships in a cove at the foot of Mount Mycale on the mainland. There, an army of 60,000 men left by Xerxes to keep an eye on the Ionian cities joined them, building a ditch and palisade around the land-bound ships to protect them. Nevertheless, Leotychides still decided to attack the camp with his hoplites. Initially surprised given the Greek force was much smaller, the Persians again chose to engage what they thought were an inferior or disadvantaged enemy. Just as at Plataea, they were again confounded by the Greek heavy infantry and once more routed. The Persian ships were then abandoned, with the victorious Greeks burning the whole fleet. In the short term, this crippled Xerxes’ sea power in the eastern Mediterranean. With these twin victories at Plataea and Mycale following hot on the heels of the naval victory at Salamis, the Second Persian invasion of Greece ended in a crushing defeat for Xerxes. Indeed, given the scale of his humiliation, the king now
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abandoned any further plans to invade Attica or the Peloponnese. Future Persian kings decided that, at least in the short term, their ambitions with the Greeks were instead best served by shrewd diplomacy and bribery, turning the poleis against each other. As will be seen, this proved an astute move.
The Peloponnesian War With the immediate threat from a common Persian enemy removed, Athens and Sparta gradually reverted back to their earlier policies regarding domestic and foreign affairs. The former was once more the expansionist colonial superpower spreading its maritime interests out from Attica, the latter the introvert militaristic superpower brooding from the south-central Peloponnese. This divergence of interests inevitably set them against each other, ultimately in the conflict known as the Peloponnesian War, where Athens led the Delian League and Sparta the Peloponnesian League. This struggle lasted from 431 BC to 404 BC. The result was an inevitable drain on the resources of both, setting the scene in the 4th century BC for, in the first instance, the rise of Thebes as the new dominant power in the region, and later the unheralded ascendency there of the Argead dynasty in Macedon. The latter events are covered in detail in Chapter 3. Traditionally, historians have divided this complicated conflict into three phases, which I set out in brief here to help the reader track the
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detailed narrative that follows. The first was the Archidamian War, when Sparta launched a series of repeated invasions of Attica trying to limit Athenian power. The second was the disastrous Sicilian Expedition when Athens tried and failed to expand its influence into the central Mediterranean. The final phase was the Ionian War which ended in AD 404 after the destruction of the Athenian fleet at the battle of Aegospotami a year earlier.
the Archidamian War The event which provoked the outbreak of the Archidamian War was an Athenian decree issued in 433/2 BC, imposing stringent trade sanctions on the city of Megara in western Attica, a key Spartan ally. At the request of the nearby Corinthians, worried by what they saw as Athenian aggression, the Spartans summoned members of the Peloponnesian League to Sparta in 432 BC. There a debate took place in the assembly where those with complaints against Athens made their cases. Matters were complicated when an uninvited Athenian delegation arrived. Hearing speaker after speaker setting out their grievances against them, the latter then asked to speak. By this point Athens was a true maritime empire, controlling many of the most profitable marine trading routes across the region. This annoyed many of its regional rivals given their inability to compete, particularly the Corinthians, hence the complaints against them. The Athenians responded in measured tones, reminding the Spartans of their record of military success together in their earlier opposition to Persia. They ultimately urged the Spartans to seek arbitration regarding the grievances, as provided by an earlier peace agreement between the two. However, swayed by the Corinthians and others, the Spartan assembly ruled against the Athenians in what was essentially a declaration of war. Spartan strategy during the Archidamian War, named after Sparta’s king Archidamus II, aimed at depriving the Athenians of their productive agricultural land around the city, while avoiding the cost of a lengthy siege. This involved frequent, short-lived invasions of Attica, with the Athenians
increasingly relying on the import of grain through Piraeus to feed its population. Here it was well served by the ‘Long Walls’, parallel twinfortifications linking the port to the city. The land between the two walls also served to house the many Attican refugees who fled there each time Sparta invaded. Meanwhile Athenian strategy at the beginning of the conflict was guided by the statesman, orator and strategos Pericles. He advised they avoid open battle on land, relying instead on the Athenian fleet. This soon won two naval actions against the Peloponnesian League, firstly at Rhium and later Naupactus. However, in 430 BC a serious plague hit Athens, the city always vulnerable to pandemics given its widespread maritime trade network. This ravaged the densely packed city, especially given the mass of hinterland refugees resident between the ‘Long Walls’. As the plague took hold it soon wiped out over 30,000 citizens, sailors and soldiers, including Pericles himself and his sons. The loss of Pericles in particular proved costly, given his firm hand on Athenian foreign policy had to that point proved essential to Athenian success, with its later lack a key factor in Athens’ subsequent misfortunes in the Peloponnesian War. Some have estimated that eventually up to two thirds of the Athenian population died during the pandemic, with Athenian military manpower reduced correspondingly. Even foreign mercenaries refused to hire themselves to a city beset with such a terrible plague. Indeed the fear of the pandemic was so widespread that even the Spartan invasion of Attica at the time was abandoned, their troops unwilling to risk contact with a diseased enemy. As the city began to recover from the pandemic, leading politicians in Athens argued they should now take the war to Sparta. By this time, a new hawkish leader had emerged in the assembly called Cleon. His great rival was a fellow strategos called Demosthenes, with the latter the first to get a chance to make a name for himself. Looking for a low-risk target in the Peloponnese, the Athenians alighted on the city of Pylos on the southwestern coast. Here, Demosthenes outmanoeuvred the Spartans in
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The Panathamaic Way, Agora of Athens. This key route way through the heart of the classical city was named after the procession that wound its way from a city gate to the Acropolis and the Propylaea monumental gateway during the festival of Panathenaia before stopping at the Parthenon’s alter of Athena.
The Temple of Hephaestus, Agora of Athens. Built in the aftermath of the GrecoPersian Wars.
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The Nike Bastion at the entrance to the Acropolis of Athens.
The Erechtheion on the Acropolis of Athens, with the porch of the Caryatids at left. This temple was associated with some of the most sacred relics in classical Athens, including the Palladion wooden carving of Athena.
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(opposite) Tombs at the Kerameikos cemetery dating to the Classical period.
A Spartan hoplite shield captured by the Athenians at the battle of Pylos, now displayed in the museum of the Stoa of Attalus, Agora of Athens.
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the naval battle of Pylos in 425 BC, trapping 420 Spartan hoplites on the nearby island of Sphacteria. They had been deployed there under the strategos Epitades with direct orders from the Spartan king Agis II to resist any Athenian attempt to take the atoll. Demosthenes was convinced they would surrender quickly given the lack of water there, but as time passed it became evident the Spartans planned to hold out as long as possible. The Athenian assembly now grew restless, finally sending the less experienced Cleon there to finish the Spartans off. In the ensuing battle of Sphacteria, Cleon won an unlikely victory, using light troops called peltasts and psiloi to great effect. In total 292 Spartans surrendered, including 120 Spartiates. After this campaign the Spartans decided to go on the offensive once more, with the strategos Brasides raising an army of allies and helots which he marched the length of Greece to target the Athenian colony of Amphipolis. Founded in 436 BC, this was located to the immediate east of the Chalcidice Peninsula in Thrace and controlled several nearby silver mines that supplied Athens with much of its wealth, in particular those around Mount Pangaion. Seeing the jeopardy, the Athenians
despatched the strategos Thucydides with a force to intercept Brasidas. Sadly for the Athenians it arrived too late and the Spartans promptly captured Amphipolis. Thucydides was then exiled as punishment for his failure, later changing careers to become the famous historian and our key narrator for Peloponnesian War. The fate of Amphipolis now became the focus of the conflict between Athens and Sparta. After an intense struggle, both Cleon and Brasidas were then killed in an engagement later called the battle of Amphipolis. With Sparta’s lines of supply badly stretched, the polis now agreed to exchange hostages in return for the towns captured by Brasidas. A truce was signed shortly afterwards, with the Peace of Nicias following in 421 BC.
the sicilian expedition Both sides now consolidated, knowing the showdown between the two Greek superpowers was unfinished business. In the interim, Agis II won a significant victory at the first battle of Mantinea in 418 BC against a coalition of the poleis of Argos, Mantinea and Elis who were being financed by Athens. This went some way to restoring Sparta’s martial reputation after their failure to hold Amphipolis. Then, in 415 BC word reached Athens that its allies in Sicily were under attack by the powerful polis of Syracuse there. The Syracusians were Dorian Greek speakers and so naturally aligned with Sparta, while the allies of Athens were Ionian Greek speakers. Athens therefore felt obliged to help, its assembly voting to mount an expedition led by the strategos Alcibiades. The latter was an ambitious man with visions of conquering all Sicily for the Athenians, though historians are divided as to whether he was a great military leader or one of history’s great chancers. Sadly for the Athenians, in the final stages of preparation for the expedition’s departure the sacred hermai (religious statues) in Athens were badly vandalised, with Alcibiades targeted as the unlikely culprit. He was soon charged with committing religious crimes and demanded he be put on trial immediately so that he might defend himself before leading the expedition.
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Warriors from Magna Graecia in Italy. At left an Oscan, at right a Greek colonist with aspis. Note both wear bronze leg greaves.
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However, the Athenian assembly allowed him to set off before the trial began, with many contemporaries believing this was a deliberate ploy by his opponents to remove him from his Athenian powerbase. Confusion reigned as soon as the Athenian fleet arrived in Sicily, with Alcibiades immediately recalled to Athens for trial. Fearing he would be condemned out of hand, he then defected to Sparta, with the strategos Nicias taking his place. After his defection, Alcibiades told the Spartans the Athenians planned to use Sicily as a springboard for the conquest of all Italy and Carthaginian North Africa. The Spartans then tipped off the Syracusians who were already alarmed by the arrival of the Athenian fleet. Athens’ expeditionary force featured over 100 war triremes and transport vessels, these carrying some 5,000 hoplites, peltasts and psiloi, though only 30 cavalry. The latter immediately set the Athenians at a disadvantage against the Syracusans given the former had far less mounted troops. This allowed them to scout the Athenian positions at
will once Nicias’ force was ashore, and also to pursue any opponents who routed in battle. At first the Athenian expedition went well, with several Sicilian Greek cities siding with them as soon as they landed. However, Nicias procrastinated and the Athenians lost the initiative, with the 415 BC campaigning season ending with Syracuse and its hinterland effectively untouched. Indeed, far from being on the back foot, the poleis had begun to recruit mercenaries from the other cities in Magna Graecia for use the following year. Meanwhile, the Athenians were now forced to withdraw into winter quarters, where they gathered allied troops of their own for the next season’s campaign. However, the delay over the winter allowed the Syracusans to send for additional help from Sparta itself, who dispatched the strategos Gylippus to Sicily with reinforcements. Arriving at the beginning of the campaigning season in 414 BC, he gathered a force from several Sicilian cities to join his Spartans and went to the relief of Syracuse. There he took command of the Syracusan troops, and
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then in a series of battles defeated the Athenian forces in Sicily, ensuring the safety of Syracuse. Humiliated, the indecisive Nicias now sent word back to Athens asking for reinforcements of his own. There, the back in favour Demosthenes was chosen to lead another fleet to Sicily where his new troops joined forces with those of Nicias. However, in the ensuing series of engagements the Syracusans and their Spartan and other allies repeatedly defeated the Athenians. Demosthenes argued for a retreat back to Athens, but again Nicias wavered and at first refused. After more setbacks, Nicias then agreed to a retreat, only to change his mind when his troops interpreted a lunar eclipse as a bad omen. This further delay proved immensely costly, forcing the Athenians into a major sea battle in the great harbour of Syracuse where they were resoundingly defeated. Now desperate, Nicias and Demosthenes marched their remaining troops (now including the defeated ship’s crews) inland in search of friendly allies to help bolster their fortunes. However, their lack of cavalry proved a massive hindrance, as the superior Syracusan cavalry were now able to ride them down mercilessly, eventually killing or capturing the entire Athenian force. Demosthenes was the first to surrender with around 6,000 men, with Nicias later personally surrendering his 1,000 now starving men to the Spartan strategos Gylippus. All of the prisoners were then held in horrendous conditions in stone quarries near Syracuse, with the two Athenian leaders quickly executed, against the expressed orders of the Spartans. After 10 weeks of captivity all but the Athenians and their Italian and Sicilian allies then were sold into slavery, the rest left to slowly starve to death in the quarries. Only a few escaped, to bring news of this epic disaster back to Athens.
the ionian War The final Ionian War phase of the Peloponnesian conflict followed hot on the heels of this spectacular failure of Athenian foreign policy. Determined to win the conflict once and for all, in 413 BC the Spartan assembly resolved to take the war to the Athenians in Attica. Soon, on the advice
of the treacherous Athenian strategos Alcibiades, the Spartans targeted the town of Decelea near Athens itself, capturing and fortifying it to prevent the Athenians making use of the agricultural land there. This proved a severe blow to the Athenians given its proximity to the city itself, and once more forced the Athenians to import much of the grain needed to feed its citizens. This proved very expensive, especially given the number of refugees from the Athenian hinterland now once more seeking sanctuary between the ‘Long Walls’. Even worse, the supply of silver from the nearby silver mines was also severely disrupted when the Spartans advanced out of Decelea to free 20,000 slaves there. This had a dramatic impact in Athens where the financial reserves in the treasury, and an emergency levy of 1,000 talents of silver had slowly been dwindling away. The new disruption to the silver supply now meant the Athenians were forced to demand even more tribute from their allied poleis and colonies, leading to rebellions across its maritime empire. Sparta sensed Athens was now at its mercy if it acted quickly, but when it requested Corinth and Syracuse send their fleets to help further destabilise Athens’ interests in the Aegean, they arrived too late to force the city’s immediate surrender. Even when their ships did arrive in theatre, the Ionian states that had rebelled against Athenian rule demanded protection from their new Peloponnesian sponsors. When this wasn’t immediately forthcoming, due to the stretched nature of Sparta’s maritime assets, many re-joined the Athenian side. The Persians also proved tardy in furnishing the huge sums of wealth they had promised to Sparta and its allies, further frustrating their campaign against Athens. With this unexpected breathing space, Athens now turned to its final military reserve to act as the core of a major military rebuilding programme. These were 100 triremes set aside at the end of the Sicilian Expedition to act as a last resort, circumstances the poleis certainly now found itself in. The vessels were quickly released for use and served as the fulcrum of Athenian military capability for the rest of the conflict. However,
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Adriatic Sea
ILLYRIA
ITALY Epidamos
Neapolis
Taras
427 Thurioi
425
Lokroi
Ionian Sea
Kephallenia 1 43 Zakynthos 43 0
Himera Naxos
Selinunt
SICILY Gela
Katane Leontinoi
413 Kamarina
0
43
Syracuse
The Peloponnesian Wars Athens and allied states Sparta and allied states Neutral Greeks Non-Greeks Persian Empire Conflict point 0
200km
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Athenian expedition or fleet Spartan expedition or fleet Annual Spartan expedition to Attica (431–404BC) March of Brassidas Battle
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N AR AK
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Mexene Segesta
Rhegion
Amb
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Kroton
4 431 28
Tyrrhenian Sea
Eryx
EPIROS
415–413
Black Sea
IA THRACE
Byzantium
422 Amphipolis
Aigai
Pella
411
Eion
410 Kyzikos
Stageira
CHALKDIK
MACEDONIA
E
Aigospotamoi 405
Polideia Dion
Lampsakos
42 2
432 –29
422
S
41 1
424
Torone
THESSALIA Pharsalus
Aegean Sea
AR
EU B
AETOLIA
BO
OE
MESSENIA
SPARTA
2
Notion
Ephesos
Samos Milet Delos
430
Naxos
Halikarnassos
42
4
6
LAKONIA
Phokaie
407
41
41
5 42 Pylos
PERSIAN EMPIRE Sardis
406
412
Hermione Prasiai
428
Arginusae 406
Chios
Chalkis Naupaktos Delphi A Delion Theben 424 Plataeae ATT ICA ACHAIA Megara Korinth ATHENS ELIS 0 43 418 Pheia Mantineia Epidauros AR GO ARKADIA Argos LIS PELOPONNESE
Mytilene
IA
431
42424 6
EO TI
Lesbos
431
hos 43 0
Herakleia
Astakos Oiniadai
431
4 431 28
AK
n
NA N
ION
Ambrakia
Melos
431
426 Thera
Kythera
Rhodes
429
Kydonia
CRETE
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just when Athens was beginning to regain the initiative, an oligarchical revolution occurred there, with 400 leading aristocrats seizing power. They immediately approached Sparta with a view to agreeing a peace settlement. However, by this time the navy with its newly released warships had redeployed to Samos off the Anatolian coast and refused to accept the new government back in Athens. Then, under the leadership of the strategos Charminus, the fleet engaged a Spartan fleet in 411 BC at the battle of Syme. This was an indecisive affair due to poor weather, with many of the Spartan ships initially separated from their main fleet. After the battle, Charminus withdrew to Halicarnassus. Next, in another dramatic turn of events, the Athenian fleet appointed the renegade Alcibiades as its strategos, he then continuing the war in Athens’ name. While still condemned as a traitor in Athens by the oligarchs, he still carried weight among popular classes. Boyed by this, he then helped restore democracy there through subtle pressure. Next, he led the Athenian fleet to victory against the Spartans at the battle of Cyzicus in the Hellespont in 410 BC where, aided by his fellow strategoi Thrasybulus and Theramenes, he wiped out their fleet. This victory allowed the Athenians to regain control of a number of cities around the Hellespont, giving them safe access once more through this crucial waterway linking the Mediterranean with the Black Sea. This dramatic success led to a continuous string of Athenian victories over the Spartans and their allies between 410 BC and 406 BC, with the poleis regaining much of its former glory and reputation, in no small part due to Alcibiades. However, by this time Athens’ long-term nemesis had begun to resent the polis’ growing recovery. As early as 414 BC, the Persian king Darius II had ordered covert operations around the Aegean to thwart any chance of Athens regaining its former glory. Then, as it became evident that Alcibiades was leading the city-state to a true renaissance in its fortunes, he decided to interfere directly. First, he ordered the Lydian satrap Tissaphernes to negotiate an alliance
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with Sparta, which the Persians then used as an excuse to reconquer any of the Ionian Greek cities that had regained their independence under Athenian patronage. The satrap also began to siphon significant funding to support the Spartan fleet operating in the Aegean. However, with Alcibiades winning victory after victory against the now apparently hapless Spartans in the region, Darius decided to intervene even more overtly. First, he moved Tissaphernes sideways to take charge of the less important satrapy of Caria, having received word the satrap had fallen under the influence of the crafty Alcibiades. Next, he then appointed his own son Cyrus the Younger to take broad control of events in Ionia, giving him control of the satrapies of Lydia, Phrygia and (to the east, presumably as a recruiting ground) Cappadocia. He was also given control of all of the Persian forces in the region. Once in theatre, Cyrus then allied himself with the new Spartan strategos Lysander. It was around this time that Cyrus began to formulate his plans to usurp his elder brother Artaxerxes after his father’s death, given the king was by this time gravely ill. In Lysander he found a man willing to help him become king in return for the Persians helping the strategos to become the leading military figure in Greece. Cyrus now put all his military resources at Lysander’s disposal, and when the prince was recalled to Susa by the dying Darius, also gave Lysander access to the revenues from all of the key cities in Anatolia, including the regional capital Sardis with its royal treasury. Meanwhile in Athens, Persian foreign policy was also in play, with a faction hostile to Alcibiades now moving against him, bolstered by Lysander’s minor naval victory at the battle of Notium in 406 BC. After this, Alcibiades was not re-elected strategos by the Athenian assembly and once more exiled himself from the poleis, never to lead the Athenians in battle again. Things now began to go badly for Athens again. Though its fleet was victorious against the Spartans at the battle of Arginusae in later 406 BC off the Ionian coast, where the Spartans lost 70 ships, bad weather prevented the Athenians
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from destroying the remaining Spartan vessels, they even failing to rescue the crews of the 25 ships they had lost in the engagement. The failure to destroy the whole Spartan fleet went down very badly in Athens, and soon a controversial trial was conducted where the six leading Athenian naval strategoi were, to the astonishment of many, condemned to death and executed. Now leaderless, the Athenian fleet became demoralised. Lysander seized the opportunity immediately and, gathering a new Spartan fleet, blockaded the Hellespont, shutting off the Black Sea grain supplies to Athens again. Threatened with starvation, the polis ordered its dispirited fleet back into action. However, trying to bring Lysander to battle, it sailed into a carefully laid trap and was wiped out at the battle of Aegospotami in 405 BC, losing 168 ships and 4,000 crew. With its fleet destroyed and no way to reopen the imported grain supply, Athens was forced to
surrender in 404 BC, bringing the Peloponnesian War to a close. The subsequent peace agreement was particularly harsh on the Athenians, with its terms including the destruction of the ‘Long Walls’ and any remaining war galleys scattered throughout its colonies. Sparta now became the dominant power in the Aegean, establishing an empire of its own. However, crucially it then made two decisions that led directly to a decline in its fortunes early in the following century. First, despite the demands of Corinth and Thebes, it refused to destroy Athens itself, allowing the latter to later re-emerge as a leading polis. Secondly, and crucially, Sparta also failed to share the spoils of its victory with its Peloponnesian and Boeotian allies. This created friction, particularly with Thebes, which later challenged and then defeated Sparta in battle to become the new leading military power in Greece by the 370s BC.
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CHAPTeR 3 PHIlIP II And TH e KIn G doM o F MAC edon
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he Kingdom of Macedon, later the traditional heart of the Hellenistic world, was until the mid-4th century BC the unloved northern neighbour of the celebrated Greek poleis to its south and east. However, the ‘barbarian’ kingdom underwent a remarkable rise to dominance not only in the Greek-speaking world, but also across the entirety of the then known world, first under the rule of Philip II, and later his son Alexander the Great. This chapter sets out the background to Macedonia’s extraordinary ascent to power, effectively in just two generations, built on the chaos in the Peloponnese, Attica and Central Greece in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War. In the first instance I detail the Argead dynasty, of which Philip and Alexander were its brightest shining stars. I then consider the reign of Philip as he gradually rose to dominate the world in which he lived, setting the scene for the remarkable exploits of his son in the next chapter.
the Argead Dynasty
(previous pages) The ruins of Philippi, the major city founded by the Thracians as Crenides which was later eponymously renamed by Philip II in 356 BC. (Leonid Andronov/ Shutterstock)
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Macedonia lay to the north of Thessaly, its ancient language either a northern dialect of Greek or less likely a separate Hellenic language, as detailed in Chapter 2. This largely fell out of use in the 4th century BC through contact with Athens. Thus, by the time of Philip II and Alexander, Attican Greek was the dominant dialect spoken in the kingdom, certainly in elite circles. Then, through its evolution as Koine Greek, it became the lingua franca of the Hellenistic world after the remarkable conquests of Alexander. However, the stories of Philip and Alexander begin much earlier. In the wider family of Classical Greek poleis, Macedon was long regarded as an uncouth northern outsider, with its mixed population of Macedonians, Greeks, Illyrians and Thracians. At best, the aloof Greek city-states to its south thought it a useful buffer to keep the uncouth ‘barbarians’ in the far north
out of ‘civilised’ Central Greece, Attica and the Peloponnese. The early kingdom was split into two natural parts, a lowland/coastal region ruled by the Argead dynasty, and the highlands above reaching northwards to Paeonia. This upland zone featured tribal regions including Orestis, Lyncos and Elimaia, ruled by semi-independent dynasties that occasionally acknowledged the Argeads to their south as rulers. By the time of Philip II, many of these highland kingdoms had been fully conquered by their more powerful lowland neighbour, a process he concluded. However, this did give the kingdom of Philip, Alexander and their Hellenistic successors a particular brittleness that continually required military success to maintain the authority of the monarch. In Macedon proper, the Argeads had ruled unchallenged as kings since the 7th century BC when the dynasty had been founded, such longlasting monarchical rule one of the key points
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of difference with the Greek poleis to the south. The Argead name gives a clue to its origins, the word deriving via the Latin Argīvus from the Greek Ἀργεῖος, meaning ‘from Argos’. This was the ancient Doric Greek-speaking city in the southern Peloponnese, first mentioned by Homer in the Iliad. Here, the Argead creation myth had a nobleman who claimed descent from Temenus, the great-great-grandson of the Olympian demi-God Hercules (himself the son of Zeus, head of the Olympian pantheon), who set out north from Argos to conquer a new kingdom which became Macedon. This link to Hercules and Zeus was heavily exploited by the Argeads, hence the local aristocracy rarely challenging the dynasty’s hegemony. This connection to the Olympian pantheon, exploited to extremes by Alexander himself, was writ through every aspect of Macedonian kingship. For example, every day in the king’s court began with the monarch personally sacrificing a beast by slitting its throat, wherever he was resident, even in the field. To that end, it was also the king’s religious as well as royal duty to lead his army on campaign and in battle if at all possible, and to lead from the front by example at that. Given the kingdom was beset by potential enemies on all sides, with Epirots to the west, Illyrians and Paeonians to the north, Thracians to the east and the Greek poleis to the south, there was never a shortage of opportunity to do so. This Argead dominance of elite rule in Macedon should have seen political stability quickly settle in northern Greece, but this proved not to be the case. There was a simple flaw in the system of Argead hegemony, namely the size of the wider royal family. To that end, any male member of the Argead line could make a bid for power if they had enough support from the wider nobility and population. Although it was usual for an elder son, if of age and capable, to succeed his father to the throne, there was no legal requirement that this should take place. Indeed, with the Argead tradition of polygamy, there was never a lack of candidates for the throne given the profligacy of their offspring, hence the sense of jeopardy when Alexander himself succeeded his father Phillip. The candidate simply had to put himself before
his Macedonian subjects high and low, most often in the form of the nobility and army, to gain their acclamation. If he succeeded he became king, and if he failed he would die well before his time. The earliest Macedonian rulers included the first Philip, though it is only by the late 6th century BC that we begin to get real insight into the kingdom and its rulers. The first king of whom we know any real detail is Amyntas I who ruled from 540 BC to 498 BC. He was the first ruler to have diplomatic relations with other states, including Athens. However, he is best known for allowing Macedonia to fall under the influence of Persia and its ruler Darius I in the context of the build up to the Greco-Persian Wars. These early Macedonian rulers reveled in their sense of difference when compared to their (as they saw them) physically weaker southern city-state neighbours. However, by the early 5th century BC the gradual osmosis of Greek culture from south to north had begun to change things substantially. To that end, Amyntas’ son and successor Alexander I was able to participate in the Olympic Games, this based on his Temenid Argead lineage. Cleverly balancing the interests of the Persians and the Greek poleis during the Greco-Persian Wars, he then benefited from the collapse of Persian interest in Europe following the latter’s defeat at Plataea in 479 BC by annexing the territories to the north of the Chalcidice Peninsula between Amphaxitus and Strymon river, formerly part of the short-lived Persian satrapy of Skudra (Thrace and eastern Macedonia). This gave Macedon access for the first time to the gold and silver mines of Mount Dysoron, second only in terms of precious metal productivity to the gold and silver mines of Mount Pangaion to their south, near to where Athens much later founded Amphipolis. By the time of his grandson Perdiccas II, the Macedonian court had an even more overtly Greek flavour, enjoying a short-lived treaty with Athens in the context of the Peloponnesian War. With the accession of his son Archelaus I (whose mother was a slave, again showing the eccentric nature of Macedonian royal succession) this leaning towards Greek culture increased even more with the sweeping changes the new king
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made to state commerce, administration and the military. One major switch was to move the Macedonian capital from its traditional home at Aigai northwards to a new location at Pella, located next to a lake with river access to the Aegean, though the former location remained the ceremonial and religious centre of the kingdom. Archelaus I also modernised Macedon’s principal source of income alongside its rich timber resources, increasing productivity at the gold and silver mines on the slopes of Mount Dysoron. Crucially, he now also had occasional access to the vast wealth available in terms of the gold and silver ore extracted from the mines of Mount Pangaion to the northeast of the Chalcidice Peninsula, after expanding Macedonian interests in the region at the expense of the local Thracians and the Athenian colony at Amphipolis. The new influx of gold and silver enabled him to start minting coins with a far higher precious metal content, such wealth proving a great attraction to the great and the good from the Greek poleis to the south, particularly Athenians fleeing Spartan revenge after the former’s loss in the Peloponnesian War at the end of the 5th century BC. Soon Archelaus’ new court had acquired a thick veneer of Attic sophistication, with many resident Athenians supplanting earlier Greek inhabitants from elsewhere in the Greek-speaking world. These newcomers included the leading playwright Eurypides, with the historian Thucydides saying the king did more to modernize Macedon’s state and military infrastructure that all of his predecessor’s combined (The Peloponnesian War, II.100). However, Archelaus’ assassination in 399 BC plunged the kingdom into a period of chaos which saw four monarchs reigning in six years, all but one murdered. Little is known about this turbulent period until Amyntas III killed the previous incumbent and became king in 393 BC. Immediately he was forced to flee his kingdom when a massive Illyrian invasion from the northwest penetrated as far south as Thessaly. He soon returned with the help of Thessalian allies and secured his throne once more, remaining there until 370 BC. His reign
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(opposite) The ruins of Pella, the new capital city of the Kingdom of Macedon. (Wikimedia Commons)
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(previous pages) Clash of the phalanxes at the battle of Leuctra in 371 BC. ( Johnny Shumate)
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was one of frequent conflict, which suited his nobles and subjects given that, while the court had an increasingly ‘Greek’ feel to it, the aristocracy remained sub-Homeric. Largely comprised of over ambitious barons, their chief interests remained hard drinking and fighting. Amyntas III was later nearly overthrown by an invading army from the Chalcidian poleis of Olynthos, but he recruited the strategos Teleutias (brother of the Spartan king Agesilaus II) to lead the Macedonian army. In the subsequent campaign Olynthos was defeated in detail, the city forced to surrender and dissolve the Chaldician League it had set up in 379 BC. When Amyntas died in 370 BC he was succeeded by Alexander II, his eldest son by Eurydice I, the first of his two wives and possibly the daughter of an Illyrian tribal leader given her father’s name was Sirras. Alexander’s short two-year reign was again dominated by conflict given he immediately invaded Thessaly, targeting Alexander of Pherae who was the tagus (supreme military leader) in the region. The Macedonians quickly captured the key city of Larissa. However, far from being intimidated, the Thessalians determined to fight back, at the same time looking to unseat the unpopular Alexander of Pherae. To achieve their twin aims they turned to Thebes, the Boeotian city commanding the northern approaches to Attica and the Peloponnese. By this time Thebes had grown to become the leading military power in Greece in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, defeating Sparta in battle at Tegyra in 375 BC and, much more comprehensively, at Leuctra in 371 BC. Led by the strategos Pelopidas, the victor at Tegyra, a Theban army was soon in the field, recapturing Larissa and forcing the Macedonians into a humiliating peace that saw Alexander II’s youngest brother Philip (later Philip II) taken back to Thebes as a hostage along with 30 other sons of leading Macedonian noblemen. As detailed later in this chapter, this was an event that was to have major repercussions not just for Macedon and Greece, but the wider known world. Paying the usual Argead price for military failure, Alexander II was assassinated in 367 BC.
The rather gruesome event occurred during a religious festival when the king was participating in a ritual war dance called a telesias. There, a number of the participants stabbed him to death as part of a conspiracy led by his brother-in-law Ptolemy of Alaros. The latter then established himself as an overbearing epitropos (regent) for Perdiccas III, another younger brother of the former king. Ptolemy quickly had to deal with yet another intervention by Pelopidas who led an army of Thebans and mercenaries to challenge the regent after Alexander II’s assassination. However, the wily Ptolemy bribed the mercenaries and Pelopidas quickly came to terms, taking a further 50 hostages back to Thebes including a son of the regent. A further intervention proved more problematic though, with a pretender called Pausanias mounting a campaign from the Chalcidice Peninsula. An exiled Argead from another branch of the royal family, he led a force of mercenaries and was soon gathering substantial support in the east of the kingdom where Ptolemy was viewed more as a usurper than the legitimate epitropos. Lacking the strength to defeat Pausanias, Ptolemy turned to an unlikely source of support. This was the great reforming Athenian strategos Iphicrates who had spent much of his life leading Athenian armies in the northern Balkans. At the time he was in command of a squadron of Athenian war galleys off the Chalcidice Peninsula and saw an opportunity to further Athenian interests in Macedon. Accepting Ptolemy’s request, he soon chased Pausanias out of the kingdom. This was an interesting campaign given it may have been the first time the Macedonians, including Philip who had returned to the royal court by this time, were introduced to Iphicrates’ greatest military reform. The Athenian general was already well known across the Greek world for the use of more peltast and psiloi than usual when leading in battle, for example when defeating the Spartans at Lechaeum in 391 BC in the Corinthian War. Building on this success, he later began to arm his peltasts as pseudo-hoplites, though with a lighter panoply than the normal front-line hoplite warrior. This provided the dual function
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of giving the Athenians more line-of-battle troops to bolster the traditional citizen hoplites, but with the Iphicratean hoplites also able to deal more effectively with the lighter troops becoming more prevalent in Greek city-state armies. The most visible differences were the use by the new lighter hoplites of the smaller round pelte (a variant of the usual peltast crescent-shaped version with a leather facing), and a longer thrusting spear up to 3.6 m long. This weapon was effectively a proto-pike, used two handed. To provide added mobility over the battlefield warriors armed in this manner were also equipped with iphicratid (long leather boots), these also named after the strategos. Despite Ptolemy’s early successes in defending his regency, as soon as Perdiccas III came of age in 365 BC, normal Argead succession politics immediately returned and the young king soon had Ptolemy executed. The remainder of Perdiccas III’s reign was marked by financial and political stability until an Athenian invasion of southern Macedonia captured the cities of Methone and Pydna, and an Illyrian invasion once more penetrated deep into northern Macedonia. The latter proved the most damaging given that, according to Diodorus Siculus (Library of History, 16.2), Perdiccas III and 4,000 Macedonian troops were killed in 360 BC in a disastrous campaign of reconquest. Perdiccas was succeeded by his infant son Amyntas IV under the regency of Philip, by now returned from Thebes. However Philip, a young man with a true sense of destiny, soon usurped the throne in true Argead style to become Philip II in 359 BC.
Philip II Amyntas III had three sons with his wife Eurydice I, Alexander, Perdiccas and Philip, the latter born in 382 BC. They also had a daughter called Eurynoe, while Amyntas also had three further sons called Archelaus, Arrhidaeus and Menelaus with another wife called Gygaea. Given the latter three weren’t considered serious candidates for the Macedonian throne until much later it seems likely they were younger than Amyntas’s children with Eurydice. The boys were ultimately
eliminated by Philip when king because of their claim to the throne, as detailed below. While he was the youngest of the three sons of Amyntas and Euydice, Philip was still raised with the expectancy that one day he might be king. Mortality rates in the ancient world were high among all classes of society, with the kingdom of Macedon particularly known for malaria given its extensive marshland. Therefore second and third sons were seen as key insurance policies to ensure a given Argead royal lineage had the best opportunity to thrive. Philip’s upbringing was slightly unusual for a Macedonian royal court, given his mother Eurydice had a greater influence there than was usual for an Argead queen. She is the first royal Macedonian woman to leave any trace of a public presence, this in the form of two inscriptions at Aegae in the temple dedicated to Eucleia, the goddess of good reputation. This may have been related to the Argead association with Hercules given the goddess was sometimes styled the daughter of the demigod. Further, Plutarch (The Education of Children, 20.12) says that although illiterate when she married Amyntas (supporting the idea she was originally Illyrian), she chose to learn to read and write alongside her children. One of the perils of being the youngest son in a royal dynasty was being sent as a political hostage to a foreign power as part of a peace agreement. That was certainly the case for Philip. Even before he was sent by Alexander II to Thebes, he had already been the political hostage of a Dardanian Illyrian tribal leader called Bardylis, who would later as a 90-year-old defeat Perdiccas III in the battle which cost the king his life. However, it was Philip’s time in Thebes that was to prove so important to the future of his country. By 369 BC, the year Philip arrived there, Thebes had become the dominant military power in Greece and was in the midst of what became known as the Theban-Spartan War. By this time the city was already famed for its elite heiros lochos (Sacred Band of 300) paired warriors. However, the polis had earlier also begun experimenting with the deployment of its hoplite spearmen in deeper formations than usual. For example, at the
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battle of Delium against the Athenians in 424 BC they deployed their phalanx 25 deep against their opponent’s 12-deep formation. Victory quickly ensued. Later, against the Spartans, they took this tactical innovation to extremes under their great strategos Epaminondas, forming their right flank 50 deep at the crucial battle of Leuctra in 371 BC to smash the Spartan’s 12-deep left wing. Another Theban innovation here was to deploy their phalanx obliquely in echelon such that the over-deep right flank impacted the Spartan battle line first. These twin stratagems led to total victory in this decisive encounter. Meanwhile, throughout its conflicts with Athens and later Sparta, Thebes and its Boeotian League allies also made increasing use of light troops and cavalry to support their hoplites. A prime example of the latter was the deployment by Pelopidas of mounted troops to delay the formation of the Spartan phalanx at Tegyra, where again the Thebans were victorious. The culmination of this ongoing success against Sparta was a Theban-led invasion of the Peloponnese in 370 BC under Epaminondas. Thus, by the time Philip arrived in Thebes, Sparta’s military stranglehold across the Greek world in the wake of the Peloponnesian War had been broken, with the Boeotian city now pre-eminent. Philip was 13 when he arrived in Thebes. He was to stay there for three years. The future king spent most of his time there as a guest in the house of a well-connected and wealthy aristocrat called Pammenes, where he was very well treated. It was completely normal among the Greek poleis for diplomatic hostages to be treated in this way, the hope being such benevolent treatment would foster mutual respect between individuals and states in the future. While there he received the same education as the other sons of the Theban societal elite, but crucially his relationship with Pammenes also gave him access to the very top level of the Theban military hierarchy, given his host was a highly experienced military officer (and indeed a strong advocate of the Theban Sacred Band). Pammenes was also on very good terms with Pelopidas, the victor at Tegyra and protagonist behind Philip being a hostage given
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his earlier success against Alexander II. However, and much more importantly, Pammenes was a close confidant of Epaminondas. It is from the latter many believe Philip learned much about the latest military thinking regarding strategy, tactics and technology, and also about diplomacy. The late 1st-century AD Greek orator and historian Dio Chrysostom reflected the classical world’s view of how Philip benefited from his relationship with Epaminondas, saying (Orations, 49.5): Philip … witnessed the deeds of Epaminondas and listened to his words; and it was not mere accident that Epaminondas had acquired such power among the Greeks and had wrought so great a change in Greece as to overthrow the Spartans …. This, I fancy, explains why Philip was far superior to those who previously had become kings of Macedonia.
The lessons that Philip learned from Epaminondas and his fellow Thebans were many, and played a key role in the military reforms that underpinned the meteoric rise of Macedon as a political and military force under his later rule. This included the much wider use of combined arms at a strategic and tactical level, and battlefield innovations including oblique deployment and a new, deeper phalanx. With regard to the latter, Macedonian pezetairoi (phalangites) in the armies of Philip and Alexander were armed with the long sarissa (pike) held two handed rather than the standard long thrusting spear, this facilitated by the use smaller round pelte (shield). Both these innovations were clearly influenced by Philip’s exposure to the lighter Iphicratean hoplite. All of the above points are detailed in full in Chapter 6, where the Macedonian military establishment is covered in depth. Back to the chronological narrative, Philip left Thebes and returned to Macedonia when he was 17, just before Ptolemy’s assassination. Soon, with the regent dead, he was in the service of his elder brother Perdiccas III. At some point, Philip was then given charge of a Macedonian province, almost certainly in the east where he held the frontier against the Thracian tribes there. By this time, Perdiccas had a young son of his own called Amyntas, with Philip now once-removed from the official Argead line of succession, though
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there is nothing to suggest he was anything but a loyal supporter of the king. However, his sense of destiny soon came to the fore when, out of the blue, Perdiccas was slain fighting the aged Bardylis and his Illyrians. This was a particularly shocking event for the Macedonians given Perdiccas was their first king
to die in battle. In addition, the 4,000 men who died with him were most likely from the Royal Army which by that time numbered 12,000 men, gathered to the king’s standard to counter Bardylis. Their crushing defeat left the kingdom wide open, the Illyrians plundering deep into Macedonian territory and their many other enemies suddenly
Stylized representations of Macedonia at left and Persia at right in this very descriptive painting on wall plaster from Boscoreale, Roman Bay of Naples. The Macedonian pelte (shield), here with its very clear decoration, is the typical shield of the sarissa-armed phalangite from the time of Philip II. Also note the warrior’s traditional Macedonian broad-rimmed kausia (hat).
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sensing weakness. The Macedonians reacted with predictable Argead decisiveness, in the first instance appointing Perdiccas’ infant son Amnytas as king, but with Philip as the epitropos (regent). There is a possibility, and only that, that he may have been proclaimed king immediately, bypassing Amnytas entirely, but this seems unlikely. Even the Argeads, that most martial of dynasties, knew that an element of formality was important in the succession of their kings. Our only remotely near contemporary source is the later Latin historian Justin who wrote his Epitome summary of the kings of Macedon in the reign of the first Roman emperor, Augustus. His narrative indicates Philip served as regent for two years (Epitome, 7.5.9–10). However long Philip remained regent, soon external threats forced his hand. Once more the usurper Pausanias appeared on Macedon’s eastern border, this time backed by a Thracian king. Then another challenger appeared called Argaeus, backed by Athens. Humbled by Sparta at the close of the Peloponnesian War, Attica’s leading poleis had responded at the end of the 5th century BC with yet another change of leadership and political system, with for a short time the Thirty Tyrants ruling (these with the support of Sparta) before this new oligarchy was overthrown, with democracy then returning under the strategos Thrasybulus. A slow recovery then began which was to see a revival of Athenian fortunes such that they were well set by the early 350s BC to challenge the new political leadership in Macedon. In Pella, in late 359 BC, an ecclesia (assembly) of the great, good and soldiery was called and Philip was swiftly declared the full basileus (king). This was no time for the niceties of succession. An experienced leader of the Argead line was needed, and Philip was elected the man to lead the kingdom against its enemies, and back to political and financial stability. It is worth noting here that although only 22 at the time, Philip had already been the governor in an eastern province where he’d seen active service leading troops against the Thracians there. He also had his experiences while a hostage in Thebes to call on, the Boeotian city still – though not for long – the leading military
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power in Greece (its fortunes had earlier begun to fade after the death of Epaminondas at their victory at Mantinea in 362 BC). He was therefore as fully informed as possible on the latest military developments among the Greek poleis. Contemporary descriptions of Philip at this time are non-existent, though later accounts indicate he was stocky man, around 1.7 m tall. This was the average height for a well-to-do Macedonian or Greek man of the time. We have no indication of his complexion or hair colour, though one specific physical feature is always associated with the older king. This is the loss of his right eye during the siege of Methone in 354 BC, the last city on the Thermaic Gulf in the northwestern corner of the Aegean then controlled by Athens. Here, while leading an assault from the front in true Argead fashion, the king was hit by an arrow in the face that injured the eye, it later being removed by surgery. The subsequent scarring gave him a fearsome countenance, communicated to modern audiences by lifelike facial reconstructions based on a remarkable modern archaeological discovery. This was the finding in 1977 at the ancient Macedonian burial grounds at Aegae near modern Vergina of three royal tombs hidden beneath a great burial tumulus. Strikingly, the bones buried in a golden larnax (a small, closed coffin) in Tomb II featured the skeleton of a man of Philip’s height with a serious injury to his right eye, and also an injury to the right leg. The latter is a particularly important piece of correlating evidence given the king also suffered a near fatal injury fighting the Thracians when a spear had been thrust through his thigh, penetrating through to his horse which was killed by the savagery of the blow. Based on an analysis of the remains, and the extremely fine grave goods also contained in the tomb (which included intricately decorated armour and weaponry), many have argued this is indeed the burial of Philip II. The finery of this martial panoply would certainly have been on display as Philip led his armies from the front to tackle the growing number of threats to his kingdom. No sooner were Pausanias and Argaeus dealt with, the latter’s 3,000 Athenian hoplites almost wiped out, than
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the Paeonians in the north started infringing on Macedonian territory sensing easy plunder. Philip moved north to deal with this new threat, quickly ejecting them, before finally turning his attention to Bardylis and his Illyrians still plundering Upper Macedonia. These were also defeated in short order, with any recalcitrant regions in this highland zone now formally bought under Macedonian hegemony. Philip’s swift military success firmly cemented him in power, his newly won reputation as a young, dynamic military leader soon spreading throughout Greece. A period of political and financial stability followed in Macedon, with any potential rivals to the throne quickly eliminated. This included Archelaus, his eldest stepbrother through Amyntas III’s second wife Gygaea. However, his former charge Amyntas IV was judged harmless, later thriving in the new king’s court. He was ultimately to marry Philip’s daughter Cynane, though was later murdered in the immediate aftermath of Alexander the Great’s accession in the purges following the assassination of Philip. Philip’s real skills as a political leader and innovator now came to the fore. Building on the reforms of Archelaus I, and those planned in the short reign of Philip’s eldest brother Alexander II, he first turned to his kingdom’s principal source of wealth – gold and silver mining from Mount Dysoron, and occasionally Mount Pangaion. Archelaus I had already modernized the former in the late 5th century BC, but given the foreign policy tribulations in the reign of Alexander II, under the stewardship of Ptolemy, and later in the reign of Perdiccas III, the kingdom had become impoverished, with access to Mount Pangaion increasingly problematic given Athens’ continuing control of nearby Amphipolis. The result was very few silver coins produced in Macedon in this period, let alone gold, the majority minted being bronze issues. By contrast, in the same period Bardylis was freely minting thousands of silver coins using his own mines in his native Illyria. With his borders now secure, Philip swiftly remedied this, setting his kingdom’s finances on a secure footing once more. Firstly,
ignoring Athenian protestations, he formally annexed the territory around Mount Pangaion, ensuring permanent access to the gold and silver mines there, which he further modernized. Soon these were producing an enormous 1,000 talents of precious metal a year. At the same time, Philip modernized Macedon’s many iron-ore extraction operations, using the latest technological innovations through the recruitment of the finest mining and metallurgy experts from across Greece to help increase the output. Meanwhile, the ever-inquisitive Philip also sought advice on how to increase the agricultural produce of his kingdom. Unlike the regions in which the poleis to the south flourished, the climate of Macedon was more akin to that of continental Europe than the Mediterranean. It therefore enjoyed more rainfall, and was less prone to drought, with Philip soon ensuring that farms across his territory, great and small, were operating at full capacity. For the first time in generations, Macedon began exporting arable produce and olive oil, adding to the wealth in the royal treasury. It was this increased revenue that enabled Philip to initiate the series of reforms for which he is best known, namely those of the Macedonian army. This created the finest military machine in the known world at the time, and one which his son Alexander the Great later used to such great effect. The modernization programme is discussed in full in Chapter 6, but for context, the key changes were to increase the size of the royal army, further increase the importance of the cavalry arm, innovate something entirely new in the form of the Macedonian pike-armed phalanx, and significantly improve Macedon’s ability to engage in siege warfare. In the first instance, the army roughly doubled in size in the period from 359 BC to 352 BC, it now also benefiting from regular training introduced by Philip. Next, until the beginning of the 4th century BC, Macedonian cavalry had been armed in a similar fashion to their Greek counterparts, though with a longer spear in addition to the usual javelins. However early in the 4th century BC, these mounted troops, particularly the hetairoi (companion close bodyguards of the king), were re-armed as pure
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Philip II’s great revolution in Classical warfare, the sarissa-armed phalanx. (15 mm wargaming figures from the collection of Bob Amey)
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shock cavalry, now equipped with a long xyston (lance) often over 4 m in length and fighting in a wedge-shaped formation designed to crack an enemy battle line. A key factor enabling this dramatic transition to such aggressive tactics was access to the finest horses and grazing land now provided by the wealth flowing into Philip’s kingdom. This change proved so successful that, to increase their numbers, early in his reign Philip opened their ranks to anyone who could meet the wealth qualification, including nonaristocratic Macedonians and even Greeks. These new companions were then granted large estates in newly conquered territory, initially to the west, north and east, to ensure their absolute loyalty to the king. This was a bold move by Philip given, in Macedonian court tradition, the companions were allowed to address the king freely, including disagreeing with him, without fear of reprisal. Increasing their number only a short while after becoming king showed both Philip’s selfconfidence and his ambition.
However, it was Philip’s final military reform that was to revolutionize warfare in the Greekdominated world for the next 200 years. This was to re-equip the foot component in his armies with the sarissa (two-handed pike), the warriors now fighting in highly trained deep phalanxes, initially 10 deep and later 16. This hugely transformative development followed Philip’s exposure to the latest military developments in Thebes, and also the innovations of Iphicrates. Some have discussed whether the Macedonian pike-phalanx could have been introduced earlier, for example under Alexander II. However, it was Philip who history shows was the proven innovator here, and to my mind it was he who initiated the change. Soon his phalanx was defeating all before it, with the king developing a specific combined-arms tactic where the phalanx would first pin the enemy battle line. His lance-armed companions then charged in at the crucial moment when a weak spot in the enemy battle line was exposed to deliver the coup de grâce. Hammer and anvil indeed. Additionally, and crucially as it turned out given most Greek cities had long had extensive wall circuits for their protection, Philip also acquired a modern siege train as good as any in the entire peninsula. To ensure he was able to make maximum use of it, he then hired one of the finest military engineers of the day to oversee its many siege engines, Poleidus of Thessaly. It is also likely that it was under Philip’s auspices that the use of torsion in siege artillery was discovered, with sinew or horsehair springs innovated for the first time. This doubled the range of the recently invented arrow-catapult. With military matters now in hand, Philip briefly turned to domestic matters, marrying the first of his seven wives in early 358 BC. This was Audata, great-granddaughter of Macedon’s one-time nemesis Bardylis, venerable king of the Dardanian Illyrians. She took the name of Philip’s mother after the wedding, Eurydice. Soon the queen was pregnant, giving birth to a daughter called Cynane (later a noted warrior in her own right) in 357 BC. However, the king’s happy matrimonials didn’t get in the way of renewed conflict between Macedon and Illyria, once more over disputed border
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territory, and later in 358 BC Philip marched again against Bardylis and his Illyrians in a preemptive strike. His successful campaign ended in 357 BC with a crushing Macedonian victory over the combined Illyrian tribal armies in an unnamed battle where 7,000 Illyrians died. Here, Philip used his new army for the first time, and to great effect. In particular, this was the first time we see the combined-arms approach to battlefield tactics which he and later Alexander became famous for. First, he circled his cavalry around both flanks of the Illyrian spear-armed battle line, forcing them into a defensive square formation, thus negating their offensive capability. He then ordered his light troops forward to shower the Illyrian warriors with arrows, javelins and slingshot, while his phalanx pinned them in place. Finally, once a gap appeared in the square due to missile casualties and a subsequent collapse in morale, Philip’s companion cavalry charged through, the king leading from the front as was the Argead way. This broke the enemy formation which then routed in disarray, with Illyrian warriors discarding their weapons as they fled. This total victory against the once mighty Bardylis not only secured the territories of upper Macedonia once and for all, but also allowed Philip the opportunity to annex the Illyrianspeaking regions even further north. Additionally, and equally importantly, his success against Bardylis removed the threat of an Illyrian invasion into Epirus in the west. This earned the favour of the Epirote king Neoptolemus I, not only securing Macedon’s western borders but also freeing Philip to turn his attentions to the troublesome Greek poleis in the south, particularly Athens. In that regard, to the south the Athenians were growing increasingly wary of Philip’s martial success. For generations, whether in ascendency among the city-states or not, the ever-ambitious poleis had played a key role in keeping Macedonian ambitions in check, intervening in Argead dynastic troubles at every opportunity. However, having been defeated by Philip when supporting the usurper Argaeus at the cost of 3,000 hoplites, in 357 BC they turned their attention again to Amphipolis, recently captured by Macedon after a siege in the context of the Social War between the
Second Athenian League, and the allied poleis of Chios, Rhodes, Cos and Byzantium. Here Philip showed his growing skill as a statesman, leasing Athens access to the city rather risk another conflict. In return the Athenians ceded Pydna to Macedon, this the key one-time Macedonian port on the Thermaic Gulf, earlier lost in 363 BC. Sensing Athenian weakness, Philip then rescinded access to Amphipolis once he had placed a garrison in Pydna. Predictably Athens then declared war against him, though Philip easily countered this by forming an alliance with the latest incarnation of the Chalcidian League, established by the poleis of Olynthus. Together the new alliance conquered Potidaea, the Corinthian colony controlling the westernmost spur of the Chalcidice Peninsula. Philip now felt so secure in his newly won position of regional superiority that he promptly ceded sole control of the city to his league allies, confident they would stay true to their word and protect this coastal region against Athenian predations. He then turned his attention south, to the broad coastal planes of Thessaly. There, the nobility had long set themselves apart as a mounted aristocracy, distinct from their hoplite citizen warriors. The poleis in Thessaly were therefore more susceptible to the rule of tyrants than the city-states further south. Such rulers always needed military success to maintain their rule, this often in the form of incursions into Macedon to the north. Philip now determined to stop this once and for all, though cannily not as martial conquest. Instead, he sequentially wed Nicesipolis of Pherae and then Philinna of Larissa, both from the leading aristocratic families in Thessaly. The new brides were his third and fourth respectively, the king having earlier married his second wife Phila who was the daughter of a leading upper Macedonian noble. It is noteworthy here that Philip had, in just a year and a half, married four wives. Clearly diplomacy through marriage was playing just as large a role in securing Philip’s kingdom and its borders as was military campaigning. However, it was Philip’s next marriage that still resonates to this day, for in later 357 BC he married Olympias, daughter of the late Molossian king Neoptolemus I, niece of the then current
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ruler Arybbas, and future mother of Alexander the Great. This tribe traditionally associated itself in its origin myths with Achilles, greatest of the Greek heroes in the Trojan Wars, the match therefore linking this mighty warrior with the Argead dynasty’s association with Hercules and Zeus. This was an auspicious match indeed, and so it proved. More practically, given the Molossians were the largest of the three tribes of Epirus alongside the Chaonians and Thresprotians, Neoptolemus I (formerly) and now Arybbas were also the de-facto kings of Epirus, the marriage therefore further securing Macedon’s western flank. We have no detail of Philip’s wedding to Olympias, or indeed of life at court where (unless Philip’s mother Eurydice I was still alive) there appears to have been no hierarchy among the wives. Notably there were fewer slaves in Macedon than in the Greek poleis to the south, though no doubt the royal palaces at both Pella and Aigai featured thousands of servants, all onerously employed to ensure the Argeads resident there lived a life of luxury. Even more so than the royal courts of his immediate predecessors, Philip also ensured his court had a distinctly Greek feel to it, Macedon proving a natural home for the many city-state intellectual exiles falling foul of the ever-changing poleis ruling classes in the south. However, one thing in Philip’s court that would have jarred with his visitors from Greece was his continuing adherence to the Macedonian royal tradition whereby the young sons of the nobility, called paides (pages), served him at table, guarded his tent when on campaign and hunted with him. Philip allegedly had numerous young men as lovers, including a number of pages, but certainly continued to pay the closest attention to his wives, and in 356 BC Olympias gave birth to Alexander. It is because of his remarkable later exploits that we know more about his mother than any of Philip’s other wives, or indeed any other woman at the Macedonian court earlier or later. Plutarch says that her real name was Polyxena, Olympias being a nickname, and that she was also variously called Myrtale and Stratonice, the former possibly adopted before her marriage as part of a mystery rite and the latter a much later sobriquet (Lives,
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Alexander, 3.4–5). Given Alexander’s later career, classical historians attached many religious portents to his conception and birth after the event, including dreams by both Philip and Olympias, and the famous fire which allegedly destroyed the great temple of Artemis in Ephesus on the day he was born. However, at the time of his birth he would have just been yet another royal delivery, the new baby joining the ever growing number of Philip’s infant offspring in the nursery at court. In addition to Audata’s daughter Cynane, these also included Nicesipolis’ daughter Thessalonike (named after ‘victory in Thessaly’, which given Philip had yet to win one means it was a later name) and Philinna’s son Arrhidaeus. The latter, born in 357 BC and later given the royal title Philip III, was Alexander’s elder brother and the only other legitimate male offspring. Notably, he wasn’t taken seriously as a potential heir to Philip given he suffered from a learning difficulty of some kind, clearly an issue for the Macedonian nobility in an unkinder age. Despite fulfilling his royal matrimonial duties at court, like any Macedonian king Philip spent most of his time on campaign. It was vital to the continued success of his reign that he could show his fellow Argeads, and the wider Macedonian nobility, that he was not only virile in the bedroom but also on the battlefield. Thus his first move after the birth of Alexander was to invade Thrace on his eastern border, there swiftly conquering the city of Crenides between the rivers Strymon and Nestos. This Greek colony was close enough to Mount Pangaion to present a threat to the king’s vital gold and silver mines if controlled by an enemy, and he celebrated his success by renaming it Philippi, then installing a large garrison there. Showing the growing size of Macedon’s military establishment, at the same time the king also ordered his leading strategos Parmenion to invade Illyria where the latter also quickly achieved victory. This is the first time we hear of this leading man of Macedon who would later become Philip’s most trusted military leader and advisor, and for much of his reign that of Alexander too. Philip was never one to rest on his laurels and in 355 BC turned his attention to Thessaly where he besieged the city of Methone which fell early
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in 354 BC, despite the Athenians sending two fleets to try to break the blockade. Here Philip displayed a trait that he and later Alexander used to great effect, namely the willingness to campaign out of season by continuing his siege over the winter when it was much harder to supply his own troops. His strategy evidently wrong-footed the Athenians, with Methone’s fall setting up a lengthy period of Macedonian hegemony over much of Thessaly. However, it came at a price for Philip, as it was here he lost his right eye leading an assault. The injury clearly healed quickly despite its severity, allegedly because of the skill of his physician Critoboulus, as later in 354 BC and into 353 BC the king once more switched his attentions to Thrace where he attacked the cities of Abdera and Maronea on the coast there.
Approaching the Argead Zenith in Greece By the later 350s BC, the growing size of Philip’s military establishment was outstripping his finances, despite the huge wealth mined in precious and other metals around Mount Pangaion and elsewhere. He was therefore increasingly looking to foreign booty to make up the difference. This cast into sharp focus his relations with Illyria, Paeonia, Thrace, and the Greek poleis to the south. With Philip’s new, highly successful army, and the personal drive and ambition now evident in the king and his court, Macedon was no longer the victim. Instead, it was the protagonist, casting its gaze farther and farther afield in its desire for military conquest. Philip was soon looking for a cause that would legitimately allow him to intervene in Central Greece, Attica and the Peloponnese. He found one in the Third Sacred War. This broke out in 356 BC when the Phocians, dominating the mountains in the north of Central Greece, shocked the wider Greek world by seizing the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, using the vast treasure accumulated there to fund a series of mercenary armies. These they set against the Delphic Amphictyonic League, led by the leading Boeotian city of Thebes, this
a pan-Hellenic ‘council of neighbours’ that had traditionally overseen Delphi, and with whom the Phocians had a grievance over an earlier imposed large fine. This was just the sort of cause Philip had been looking for to legitimise his interests in the south, and in 353 BC he invaded Thessaly where he defeated a marauding army of 7,000 Phocian mercenaries. However, as soon as Philip’s attentions were diverted elsewhere, the Phocians went on the offensive again, defeating him when he returned in two encounters, one where they famously used concealed stonethrowing catapults against his army. The Macedonian king responded with massive force, knowing he couldn’t afford another failure. He re-invaded Thessaly with an army of 20,000 foot soldiers and 3,000 cavalry, this including many Thessalian horsemen and hoplites. The size of this army, which he fielded only five years after coming to power, is noteworthy, and he easily crushed the Phocians at the battle of Crocus Field in late 353 BC. Over 6,000 Phocians fell, with 3,000 more captured. Many of these later drowned as they were being marched back to Macedon after being forced to cross a river in flood, with the remainder enslaved to work in Philip’s gold and silver mines. Such was the price of failure when standing up to the rising power of the Macedonian king. Philip’s success earned him immense prestige among the Greek poleis, given he was representing a common cause with them against the Phocians, the latter now viewed as ‘beyond the pale’ after their seizure of the Temple of Apollo and its treasure. He was immediately recognised as the tagus in Thessaly, at the same time acquiring for Macedon the city of Pherae. More broadly, he also laid claim to the south-eastern Thessalian region of Magnesia, with its important harbour of Pagasae. Despite the goodwill Philip was enjoying with the Greeks in the south, this did set him against Athens, given the port was in their sphere of influence and a vital maritime staging post for their exploits in the northern Thermaic Gulf. However, they were late in raising a naval force to intervene and instead opted to occupy the pass at Thermopylae. If Philip had intended to
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A silver tetradrachm of Philip II of Macedon, found in the Thessalonica Hoard. (Wikimedia Commons)
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march further south, this was the route he would have taken. The way south blocked for now, he therefore decided to consolidate his position in Thessaly, leaving garrisons in key towns before marching north back to Macedon again. He now turned to diplomacy to increase his influence among the Greek poleis, using his wealth to establish pro-Macedonian parties in the towns and cities of Euboea where they could threaten mainland Attica if required. He then switched campaigning theatres again, and from 352 BC to 346 BC campaigned sequentially against the Illyrians, Paeonians and Thracians, all the time looking for new territorial conquest, not least to provide estates for his growing number of companion shock cavalry. When campaigning in the east, Philip once more targeted the Greek colonial cities along the coastal regions of the northern Thermaic Gulf, and also the Thracian Sea as far as the River Maritsa in modern Bulgaria. Many of these considered themselves to be in the Athenian sphere of influence, further alienating Philip with the leading city in Attica, which increasingly viewed him as their new chief rival for dominance across the Aegean. By 349 BC, the remaining major Greek colony in the region holding out against Philip was Olynthus on the Chalcidice Peninsula. Although
the city had originally sided with Philip when fighting against the Phocians in Thessaly, by this time Athens had invested much diplomatic and financial capital in convincing its rulers to ensure it would remain a pressure point in the Macedonian rear should Philip campaign in the south again. The dynamic Philip could not let this remain unchallenged and in 349 BC he began an extensive siege that saw Olynthus fall within a year, the city and any nearby settlements raised to the ground. As an added bonus, Philip also captured Arrhidaeus and Menelaus, his remaining two step-brothers through Amyntas III’s second wife Gygaea. In true Argead fashion, he promptly had them killed. Athens lost further face here as the expedition it had planned to relieve Olynthus instead got diverted to Euboea to counter a revolt led by the various political factions set up with Macedonian gold and silver to support Philip. The Athenians never forgot, and from this point until his death Philip was at war with Athens more often than not, even if only through proxies. By 348 BC Philip could feel satisfied that in the decade since becoming king he had first secured Macedon’s borders, and then significantly increased the amount of territory under its control at the expense of the Illyrians in the west, Paeonians to the north, the Greek cities
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in the Chalcidice Peninsula and Thrace to the east. Further, Macedon was now the dominant power in Thessaly to the south, where it had also seized and garrisoned a number of key Greek cities. To celebrate, in the early autumn he hosted Macedon’s own Olympic-style games at Dium on the foothills of Mount Olympus, specifically in honour of Zeus given the Argead link with the head of the Olympian pantheon. Philip’s offer of huge prizes and generous hospitality attracted leading athletes, artists, actors (one named in contemporary sources as Satyrus of Athens), and writers from across the Greek-speaking world. Philip was clearly now riding high, though late in 347 BC he was again dragged back into the Sacred War which was still rumbling on between the Phocians and the Amphictyonic League. The former were behaving belligerently again in Central Greece and southern Thessaly and, at the behest of Thebes and Boeotia, the Macedonian king began to gather his army to march south. Both Athens and Sparta reacted with alarm, horrified at the prospect of Philip’s ultra-modern army campaigning in Greece proper. The former voted to raise a force of citizen hoplites and sent a squadron of trireme war galleys to patrol the Thessalian coast, while the latter sent 1,000 of their Spartiates, periokoi and supporting helots
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north to block the pass at Thermopylae. However, events now overtook the Spartans. A change in leadership among the Phocians saw a faction in favour of ending the Sacred War take charge. These turned the Spartans away and, according to Justin (Epitome, 8.4), sent gifts to Philip who responded positively by sending an Athenian captive from his Olynthus campaign with a message home to open peace negotiations (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 16.59.2–3). The Athenians, still unclear if the Phocians themselves would block the pass at Thermopylae, decided to send 10 ambassadors to Philip including a young Demosthenes, later one of the king’s and Alexander’s main protagonists. Eventually a peace agreement was reached, known as the Treaty of Philocrates (the latter the chief Athenian negotiator), with Philip receiving Athenian and other Greek delegations at the Macedonian capital of Pella in 346 BC. This clearly showed to all Greece who the major power in the Balkans Peninsula now was. Crucially, Athens also now abandoned any claim to its former colony Amphipolis, though begrudgingly given the wealth of the silver mines in nearby Mount Pangaion. By this time, Philip had also secured an alliance with Thebes in the context of the ending of the Sacred War the same year, securing his army’s passage through Boeotia into
Trireme depicted in painted wall plaster, Pompeii. Naval power played an increasingly important role in Philip’s campaigns as he moved to counter Athenian maritime ascendancy in the eastern Mediterranean.
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(opposite) The famous Sanctuary at Delphi, frequently the scene of conflict in the Classical Greek world.
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Attica and the Peloponnese whenever he desired. This sobering fact was not lost on Athens and Sparta, who while now at peace with Philip, could clearly see the writing was on the wall for future conflict with Macedon if the king’s ambitions weren’t checked. While in Pella, Philip had time to visit his children by his various wives, including the young Alexander who was now 10. The court there was by now one of the most cosmopolitan across the Greek world, with the wealth of the gold and silver mines on Philip’s eastern border attracting the finest academic, theatrical and artistic minds from poleis across the region. However, this mattered not to Alexander’s mother Olympias who single-mindedly pursued her son’s future success. It is clear from all the primary sources that Olympias had a profound impact on his upbringing, especially with his father permanently on campaign in the child’s early years. Olympias is portrayed by classical historians as ambitious and ruthless, with a passionate nature which found an outlet in the Cult of Dionysius, the Greek god of the grape-harvest and wine, fertility, festivity and theatre. This cult had a strong association with the use of tame snakes in its religious ceremonies, in imitation of the Maenad female companions of Dionysius. These serpents occasionally made their way into contemporary narratives regarding the seemingly tumultuous relationship between Philip and Olympias, with Plutarch for example saying that Philip’s ardour in the marriage bed was on one occasion cooled when he entered Olympias’ sleeping chamber to find her with a snake stretched out at her side (Lives, Alexander, 4). Despite such setbacks, their marital relationship did result in the later birth of Cleopatra, Alexander’s younger sister, in 355 BC or early 354 BC. In the royal household, Alexander was raised by his nurse Lanike, sister of leading royal companion Cleitus ‘the Black’. Three of her sons would later go on to serve and die on campaign with Alexander. Meanwhile his teachers included Lysimachus of Acarnania, well known at court for his flattery of Philip and Alexander, and Olympias’ relative Leonidas who was a strict disciplinarian.
By the time Philip visited his son in 346 BC, there is no doubt the boy was the heir apparent, with his elder step-brother Arrhidaeus already displaying the symptoms which were to side-line him as a serious candidate for the Argead throne until much later in his life. Like many other key figures in world history, Alexander’s early years are shrouded in hagiography, in his case perhaps more so than most. However, what is clear is that here was a young man who had definitely inherited his father’s sense of destiny and ambition. This soon manifested to the point of precociousness, he excelling in the liberal Greek education that had long been the norm for male Argead children in the Macedonian court, including the young noble syntrophus (companions) selected to become his educational peer group. Many of these as young men would accompany him on his later astonishing campaigns of conquest, including Ptolemy, Cassander and Hephaestion. Alexander’s education specifically included a focus on the natural sciences, mathematics, music, rhetoric and literature. The latter was particularly important in that, with its focus on Homer and Athenian literature and drama, it emphasised Macedon’s cultural association (whether a conceit or not) with the Greek poleis across the region. True to his nature, Philip spared no expense in the education of his younger son, later famously recruiting Aristotle to become Alexander’s tutor as he grew to early manhood. There was precedent here, in that Aristotle’s father had been a physician to Philip’s father Amyntas III at Pella, and Philip had been friendly with Aristotles’ former patron Hermeias, so perhaps the recruitment wasn’t so unusual. Aristotle certainly benefited. Not only was he well paid, but also as part of his payment Philip agreed to rebuild his hometown of Stagira on the northeastern coast of the Chalcidice Peninsula after Macedon had earlier sacked it. Meanwhile, for this later stage in Alexander’s education, Philip chose the Temple of the Nymphs in Mieza as the classroom for the young man and his peers, one of the elite religious sites in the whole of northern Greece. However, more importantly for an heir to the Argead throne, Alexander’s education also
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featured a major focus on martial prowess. When later king, he often quipped that Leonidas, tasked with his physical education, thought that breakfast should be a hard night’s march and supper a light breakfast. Interestingly, Alexander showed fewer proclivities early in his education for the physical side of his tutelage, favouring the learning of Hellenic culture and music, but once he began his martial training he excelled with sword, bow and lance. He was soon an accomplished hunter, and at some stage in his early teens killed a boar single-handedly which allowed him to recline at table in an adult dining room when eating, an event no doubt stage-managed for his safety, even if unbeknownst to him. He was also famously a fine horseman, later taming the headstrong charger Bucephalas in front of his father and the king’s companions. Here we have one of the most famous anecdotes about Alexander, with Plutarch saying that on seeing Alexander’s bravery with the headstrong horse, Philip said apocryphally (Lives, Alexander, 6.5): My boy, you must find a kingdom big enough for your ambitions. Macedon is too small for you.
This fine stallion would be associated with Alexander throughout most of his adult life, even having the city of Alexandria-Bucephalous in the Punjab later named after it in 326 BC. The young heir’s growing self-confidence is evident in a number of insightful vignettes detailed in classical literature. For example, Plutarch sets the scene for Alexander’s later adult encounters with the Achaemenid Persian empire, saying (Lives, Alexander, 5.1): On one occasion some ambassadors from the king of Persia arrived in Macedonia, and since Philip was absent, Alexander received them in his place. He talked freely with them and quiet won them over, not only by the friendliness of his manner, but also because he did not trouble them with nay childish or trivial inquiries, but questioned them about the distances they had travelled by road, the nature of their journey into the interior, the character of the king, his experience in war, and the military strength and prowess of the Persians. They came away convinced that Philip’s celebrated astuteness was as nothing compared to the adventurous spirit of his son.
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Through Plutarch’s obvious ‘after the event’ flattery, we can see here that Philip and the Argead court were grooming an heir fit to succeed a king who by this time was beginning to dominate the Greek-speaking world in the eastern Mediterranean. Next, in 346 BC Philip turned his attention back to Sparta which he correctly identified as the major land-based military threat to him (given his treaty with Thebes), not only in the Peloponnese but Attica too, given the polis had recently sided with Athens. Here we have yet another anecdotal story about Philip, though one rather more ignominious. Before attempting any military intervention, the king apparently tried to intimidate Sparta into accepting Macedonian hegemony, his message bluntly stating, ‘If I win this war, you will be slaves forever.’ The Laconian reply was a suitably succinct ‘If.’ Sparta’s concise reaction worked in the short term as Philip chose to leave the city alone for now. Philip’s focus on Sparta was short-lived. Soon his attention was pulled back towards more trouble along his eastern border with Thrace. He invaded in 342 BC, conquering the fortified settlement of Eumolpia which he renamed Philippopolis (modern Plovdiv in Bulgaria). Then, in the winter of 340–339 BC, Philip turned his attentions to the north and the Scythian allies of the Thracians. These Indo-European nomads had settled the Asian Steppe above the Black Sea and were renowned horsemen, noted for their skill with the bow. Their armies largely comprised skirmishing light horse and were notoriously difficult to bring to battle, and so it initially proved for Philip. However, ever the strategic innovator, he quickly deployed a small flying column of veteran cavalry to trap his Scythian opponents unexpectedly on their home territory. Here they were faced with confronting Philip’s more experienced troops in a set-piece battle, or fleeing and leaving their families to the king’s mercy. They instead chose to submit, with Philip heading back to Macedon with a huge number of fine horses to add to the royal stables in Pella. However, it seems Philip’s luck then failed him as he mistakenly chose to
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head home along a swifter route through the territory of the Thracian Triballi tribe. This tribe, sensing the opportunity for loot, refused the Macedonians passage through the Haemus Mountains unless they received a share of the king’s Scythian booty. Unsurprisingly Philip refused and tried to force his way through, in the process receiving the right thigh injury detailed earlier in this chapter. Though again suffering a dreadful wound, he quickly recovered, with the Triballi then swiftly subdued. In 340 BC, conflict broke again with Athens. Rather than target Attica directly, Philip again headed east, this time to besiege the Athenian coastal colony of Perinthus on the Sea of Marmara in modern European Turkey. Philip’s modernised army was highly proficient in siege warfare and he had no qualms about investing such a difficult fortified settlement, even though it stood on a peninsula connected to the mainland by a heavily defended 180 m isthmus and was surrounded by cliffs. Despite the city being repeatedly supplied during the siege by
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the Athenian fleet, the Macedonians eventually broke through the outer walls. However, much to the king’s dismay, he then found a new and far more substantial wall had been built inside the original fortification, and after sporadic attempts to penetrate this, decided it best to withdraw with his forces intact. Philip was back in the east a year later, with his target this time Byzantium, another of Athens’ key regional supporters. However, again he failed to capture his objective, though the event is better known for coinciding with Alexander’s coming of age. The youth’s education with his friends under Aristotle had ended on his 16th birthday, and this time when Philip went off to war, he left his heir in charge in Pella as regent. Alexander quickly had the chance to test his skills in battle as, in Philip’s absence, the Thracian Maedi tribe rebelled against Macedonian rule. Alexander, no doubt well guided by the council of nobles appointed by the king to advise him, responded quickly. Leading a force to the northeast, he drove the Thracians out of Macedonian territory and
A section of the Themistoclean city walls of Athens, originally built in 479 BC but much upgraded later, including by Demosthenes as the Macedonians began to increasingly threaten the polis and its interests.
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then colonised the region they had previously occupied with Greek settlers, founding a city there. This he famously named Alexandropolis, the first of his many foundings.
chaeronea and After While Philip had returned to Pella empty handed from Perinthus and Byzantium, his wider campaigns in the east were broadly successful and he happily resumed rule in the royal capital, dispatching Alexander back to Thrace to get further experience of command and battle. However, to the south real trouble was brewing. In later 339 BC Philip’s erstwhile allies Thebes reneged on their treaty with him. Though now fading as the leading military power in mainland Greece following the death of Epaminondas and his heirs apparent at the hands of the Spartans at Mantineia in 362 BC, the polis still occasionally flexed its muscles among its city-state neighbours. On this occasion though it went too far, deciding to supplant the Macedonian garrisons Philip had left behind to support the Thessalianbacked regime in the stronghold of Nicaea, one of the fortresses guarding access to the pass of Thermopylae. Though not a direct declaration of war, this was a warning to Philip that to pass further south into Central Greece, and onwards into Attica and the Peloponnese, he would now require the permission of Thebes. For Philip to do so would mean a huge loss of face at home and among the city-states, the latter now all wary of his growing power but also mindful of his recent setbacks in Perinthus and Byzantium. The king cast around looking for cause to campaign in southern Greece to test Theban resolve. He found it in an obscure dispute in the polis of Amphissa in Phocis where many of the regional powers, including Athens and Thebes, were being drawn into a post-Sacred War dispute over agricultural land being worked there which belonged to the recently re-consecrated Temple of Apollo at Delphi. This quarrel involved the Amphictytonic League once more, they being the accuser, and Phocian Amphissa, the accused. Philip sided with the former, Thebes
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the latter, with the Athenians officially remaining uncommitted though clearly favouring Amphissa and the Thebans. There are differing accounts of how the king acted next. One school of thought has Philip ordering Alexander to muster an army to campaign in southern Greece, with the heir to the throne cannily disguising his preparations to appear as though Illyria was his actual target. This narrative says the plan backfired, with the Illyrians taking the Macedonians at face value and attacking first, only to be expelled by Alexander. This could of course be pure hagiography, written well after the event to show the future world-conqueror as a vigorous and cunning leader even in his youth. The other school simply has Philip completing his recuperation from his thigh wound while his army gathered under his auspices on the southern borders of Macedon. Whatever the truth, when Philip’s troops were ready, he marched south in the late autumn of 339 BC, cleverly wrong-footing the Thebans by completely avoiding Nicaea and the pass at Thermopylae. Instead, he chose to risk a crossing through the passes of mountainous Central Greece, swiftly capturing Cytinium near the high Gravia Pass above Amphissa itself. With this route open, he then descended onto the border of northern Boeotia where he occupied the city of Elatea, situated on the narrows of the Cephissus River below Amphicleia. This was well placed to command any of the lowland access points through Central Greece into Attica and onto the Peloponnese. Philip now consolidated, awaiting a large contingent of Thessalian allies who promptly arrived in good order. The wily king also ensured the local Phocians were well treated, mindful that at any time he might have to retreat from whence he came at short notice. With Philip now poised above Attica like a sword of Sword of Damocles, panic gripped the city-states of southern Greece. In Athens, pandemonium erupted among the ruling classes when news of the king’s arrival to the north reached them, with magistrates hurriedly leaving their dinner tables to set up an emergency meeting of the great and the good the following
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day at the Pynx place of assembly. It was here that Demosthenes, the Athenian statesman and orator now at the height of his powers and styling himself the spokesman for a Greece free from Macedonian interference, convinced those eligible to vote to seek an alliance against Philip with Thebes. Both Athens and the king then sent embassies to Thebes to win the Boeotian city’s favour, with Athens winning the diplomatic contest. A Greek–Macedonian conflict was now inevitable, and this time it wouldn’t be fought out in Macedon’s back yard in Thrace, the Chalcidice Peninsula or Thessaly, but in southern Greece for the first time. Philip now deployed another stratagem to wrong-foot his enemies, making it known he planned to head back north to deal with a rebellion in Thrace. He then sent some of his army back towards the Gravia Pass to give the impression he was following this through. However, as soon as the mercenaries hired by the Athenians and Thebans to keep an eye on his camp at Elateia relaxed, he doubled his troops back south where, joined by the rest of his army, they swiftly occupied Amphissa. From this position he could threaten the lines of supply of the combined armies of
the Athenians, Thebans and their allies who by now were gathering in northern Boeotia. They quickly withdrew out of Philip’s immediate reach, setting up a new camp near the Boeotian city of Chaeronea. Both sides now paused for breath, with Philip sending envoys to Athens and Thebes to ask for peace. He probably thought his point had been made, making it clear to the poleis that if he wanted to campaign in southern Greece as he had earlier in the Peloponnese then he could at will. However, in Athens, Demosthenes was in no mood to do a deal with the ‘barbarian’ Philip and again his fine oratory won the day in rejecting the Macedonian offer, this then stiffening the resolve of Thebes. Battle was now inevitable and by the beginning of August, Philip again moved towards the allies. Soon the two armies were camped a few kilometres apart near Chaeronea. Battle was finally joined on 2 August, with the Greek allies occupying a strong defensive position with their right flank covered by a marsh near a stream impassable for all but the lightest foot soldiers, and their left flank protected by rocky hills and the walls of Chaeronea itself. Their army totalled around 35,000 men, with the 12,000 far more experienced Thebans on the right including
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A mythological scene painted on wall plaster, Pompeii. Note the styling of the warriors in the background as hoplites, these still the principal heavy infantry type of the Greek poleis during Philip II’s reign.
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the 300-strong elite Sacred Band, then the Theban and Athenian allies positioned in the centre, and finally the 10,000 Athenian citizen levies deployed on the left. It is unclear if the army featured any cavalry at all on the day, with the best Boeotian cavalry absent. Philip’s army deployed opposite, numbering 30,000 foot soldiers and 3,000 horse, mostly battlehardened veterans of his recent campaigns. He divided his battle line into two, he commanding the right and the 18-year-old Alexander the left. The king clearly had a detailed battle plan from the outset, based on his by now well-tried pike and shock cavalry ‘hammer-and-anvil’ tactics. In this context it seems likely he himself commanded the majority of his phalanx, with units of experienced Thessalian allied cavalry covering his extreme right flank. This left Alexander with a small part of the phalanx to act as a fulcrum, perhaps with the guard infantry, and the companion elite xyston (lance-armed) cavalry. Alexander’s extreme left flank then featured more allied cavalry, including more Thessalians and some Thracians. The frontage of both armies was screened with light troops using bows, slings and javelins, and given weight of numbers and experience, their early skirmishing would likely have seen the Macedonians clear the enemy screen first. Philip then initiated a well-thought-out plan as the Greek allies gazed across the dusty battlefield, wondering what fate awaited them. First, he advanced his right wing, creating a battle line extending obliquely from right-front to left-rear. Then he played his tactical masterstroke, reversing the manoeuvre by slowly withdrawing his now forward-deployed right wing back behind the main frontage of the line to create a reverse of the original oblique position, this time extending left-front to right-rear. It cannot be emphasised how complicated a manoeuvre this was, the king’s right-wing phalanx moving first forward to challenge the Athenian hoplites, then seemingly withdrawing. This was clearly done in good order and on purpose, with the phalangites slowly marching backwards, pikes forward to create the reverse oblique. However, from the Athenian point of view, given the clouds of swirling dust
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created by thousands of Macedonians marching first forward then back, they had no idea they were being lured by a cleverly devised feint and took the bait. Urged on by an Athenian general called Stratocles, the part-time warriors gave up their secure position and surged forward to pursue what they thought was a fleeing enemy. They were soon proved wrong as Philip’s phalangites promptly halted the ‘withdrawal’ as soon as the Athenians were proud of the Macedonian front line, the pikemen’s front five ranks then stabbing viciously with their long pikes as soon as the Athenians were in range, the latter’s front ranks pushed forward by those at the rear unaware at the sudden change of fortune. Here the Macedonians now had a huge advantage, given the pikemen could reach their hoplite opponents but, unless the latter could push aside the opposing sarissa heads, the Athenian hoplites couldn’t harm their enemies. The allied hoplites in the Greek centre and the Thebans to their right viewed the Athenian impetuous charge and subsequent discomfort with horror, and as the left wing began to crumple and surviving stragglers staggered back to their start line, the precariousness of their own position became evident. This was because a massive gap had opened in the Greek line where the Athenians had once been. The Macedonian ‘hammer and anvil’ was about the snap shut with great force. Either Philip, or Alexander himself, immediately saw the opportunity and the heir to the Macedonian throne now charged his companions into the exposed left flank of the allied hoplites in the centre, smashing them into the Thebans on their right who were already pinned to their front by a sharp advance by Alexander’s foot. A massacre ensued, with Plutarch saying that Alexander was (Lives, Alexander, 9.29): … the first man that charged the Theban’s Sacred Band …. This bravery made Philip so fond of him, that nothing pleased him more than to hear his subjects call himself their general and Alexander their king.
Diodorus Siculus, in his formal account of the battle, is more graphic, saying (Library of History, 16.86):
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Macedonian companion cavalrymen at the charge in classic embolus (half-rhomboid, wedgeshaped) formation. (15 mm wargaming figures from the collection of Robin Spence)
Alexander, anxious to give his father proof of his valour … was the first to break through the main body of the enemy, directly opposing him, slaying many; and bore down all before him – and his men, pressing on closely, cut to pieces the lines of the enemy; and after the ground had been piled with the dead, put the wing resisting him in flight.
Engaged to their front by Alexander’s foot, the Theban Sacred Band were butchered where they stood and died to a man as Alexander’s lancers slammed into their left flank. Seeing this, the allied army then broke, leaving 2,000 dead Thebans and Athenians on the field, with around 4,000 taken prisoner to later be sold into slavery. Only the fallen Sacred Band were accorded full funerary honours, with the Macedonians burying them in a mass grave known as the polyandrion (Plutarch, Lives, Pelopidas, 18.5). This was excavated in 1879–80 and found to contain 254 skeletons, most of which had visible unhealed wounds. These included several with puncture wounds to the skull, clearly caused by the sauroter (butt-spikes) of Macedonian sarissa as phalangites carried out a coup de grace on the fallen hoplites. Meanwhile, Demosthenes and many other fugitives (mostly Athenians) fled over the nearby Kerata Pass to make their way swiftly south to Attica. Philip’s victory at the battle of Chaeronea was total, with any Greek opposition shattered. The king and Alexander now marched unopposed through southern Boeotia into Attica, and then on to the Peloponnese. By this time the ever-ambitious Philip had his eyes on an even greater prize, namely Achaemenid Persia. He therefore needed to leave a stable Greece to his rear before he looked eastwards. This meant first dealing with the main protagonists against him at Chaeronea, and then winning over the other city-states in southern Greece. He first marched on Thebes which immediately surrendered, its leaders expecting the worst. However, instead of sacking his former home when a hostage, he simply expelled those Theban leaders who had opposed him, recalling any exiled pro-Macedonian Theban leaders and installing a Macedonian garrison. He also ordered the Boeotian cities of Thespiae and Plataea, destroyed
by Thebes in previous conflicts, to be re-founded, and made the city pay for the return of its prisoners and to bury their dead. He treated Athens even more leniently. Although he abolished the Second Athenian League confederation of Aegean citystates, the leading city in Attica was allowed to keep its colony on Samos, and its own prisoners were freed without ransom. Perhaps here Philip hoped to make use of Athens’ still powerful navy in the future campaign he was planning against the Persians. Meanwhile, most of the other poleis in southern Greece were treated well, with Philip and Alexander welcomed in each city they visited except Sparta. Not having taken part in the earlier campaign against Philip, its military establishment was largely intact and clearly the Spartan leadership saw the demise of its recent nemesis Thebes and long-term enemy Athens as an opportunity to further its own ends. Still living on the reputation of their Greco-Persian War and Peloponnesian War exploits, the Spartans were emboldened to refuse Philip’s invitation to engage in dialogue. The king therefore ravaged Lacadaemonia in the southern Peloponnese, though not Sparta itself which he left well alone. Philip next gathered the great and the good from across southern Greece at Corinth, where in 337 BC he established his Hellenic Alliance (called by modern scholars the League of Corinth), modelled on the old anti-Achaemenid Persian alliance dating back to the Greco-Persian wars, with the members agreeing never to wage war against each other unless to suppress a revolt. The alliance included all of the
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(overleaf ) Philip II’s newly created hammer-and-anvil tactics. Here he leads his companion cavalry, with his sarissa-armed phalanx behind. ( Johnny Shumate)
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leading city-states in Central Greece, Attica and the Peloponnese except Sparta, which remained aloof from Philip’s now otherwise unchallenged Macedonian hegemony in Greece. The king was soon declared the hegemon (supreme leader) of all Greece, and quickly turned his attention to the one subject he knew could unify all of the Greeks, namely his planned war with Persia. Philip had long had an interest in the vast Persian Empire, and ever the careful planner, knew his future enemy well. He was involved in Persian court intrigue from early in his reign, and by 353 BC at least three leading opponents of the Persian king Artaxerxes III were resident in his court. These were Artabazos II (the former satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia), the nobleman Amminapes, who Alexander the Great later made the satrap of Parthia and Hyrcania, and another leading nobleman called Sisines. Through these, other frequent Persian visitors, and his extensive network of spies in the Persian court, Philip had a good understanding of the Persian state and its military establishment. He also understood the myriad of issues faced daily by the Persian king. As detailed earlier, Alexander soon followed in the king’s footsteps in this regard, getting to know his future Persian opponents from a young age. In early 336 BC, Philip appointed his righthand man Parmenion as strategos to command an initial invasion force, with orders to cross the Hellespont into Persian-controlled Anatolia. Comprising 10,000 veterans, and also featuring the experienced commanders Amyntas, Andomenes and Attalus, the force landed in Asia where it met minimal Persian resistance. Soon many of the Greek Ionian cities along the western Anatolian coast rebelled against Persian rule again, once more throwing out the trappings of satrapal rule and this time welcoming the Macedonians. However, back in Macedon, events suddenly took a dramatic turn for the worse. As so often with the Argeads, this had earlier begun with another royal marriage. Philip had already taken a sixth wife after marrying Olympias, the Thracian princess Meda of Odessa (who later committed suicide after the king’s death). However, the primary sources say that when Philip
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later returned to Pella in 338 BC he fell in love with Cleopatra Eurydice, niece of Attalus, his general from one of the leading Macedonian aristocratic families (and shortly to accompany Parmenion to Anatolia). They married soon after, the event making heir to the throne Alexander feel less secure, as if Philip and Cleopatra had a male child the boy might become the preferred candidate as next king, given Attalus’ pure Macedonian lineage and popularity at court. This insecurity was on full view when the wedding took place, the event ending disastrously for both Philip and Alexander. Plutarch provides specific detail of the occasion, saying (Lives, Alexander, 9.1): At the wedding of Cleopatra, whom Philip fell in love with and married, she being much too young for him, her uncle Attalus in his drink desired the Macedonians would implore the gods to give them a lawful successor to the kingdom by his niece. This so irritated Alexander, that throwing one of the cups at his head, ‘You villain’, said he, ‘What, am I then a bastard?’ Then Philip, taking Attalus’ part, rose up and would have run his son through; but by good fortune for them both, either his over-hasty rage, or the wine he had drunk, made his foot slip, so that he fell down on the floor. At which Alexander reproachfully insulted over him: ‘See there’, said he, ‘… the man who makes preparations to pass out of Europe into Asia, overturned in passing from one seat to another.’
Context is important here. In Macedonian highsociety feasts, whether at weddings or otherwise, there were always drunken events where kings could be praised but also mocked, particularly by those close to them. Angry and drunken exchanges were common, though usually forgiven and forgotten the following morning providing things didn’t get too out of hand. In that regard, the king always had his companions (at least those remaining vaguely sober) and pages to look after his best interests. There is no doubt Philip was both proud and fond of Alexander, often expressing this publicly, but occasionally would remind the ambitious young man that he wasn’t yet the king. Perhaps, in his cups, that was his intention here. However, given events at the wedding ended in humiliation for the king, Alexander’s position in the Argead court was now in jeopardy, even if only in the short term.
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The Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, Athens, built around 334 BC, shortly after the battle of Chaeronea.
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The heir now fled west with Olympias and his close friends. He left his mother in the safe hands of her brother Alexander I who was now the king of Epirus in Dodona, the Molossian capital. Alexander then escaped northwest to Illyria where he sought refuge, perhaps with the tribal leader Glaucias of the Taulantii. Here he and his entourage were treated as honoured guests. However, given the years Philip had spent grooming Alexander for the throne, and his genuine affection for his son, it seems unlikely that Philip ever intended to severely punish him, let alone remove Alexander as heir. Accordingly, he soon returned to Macedon after a six-month, self-imposed exile. Alexander was quickly back in favour with the king, but was soon in trouble again. The following year Pixodarus, the Persian satrap of Caria, offered his eldest daughter to Alexander’s elder step-brother Arrhidaeus in marriage. Several of Alexander’s close friends, together with the ever-wary Olympias, suggested this indicated Philip now intended to make the ill-favoured Arrhidaeus his heir. Predictably the young Alexander overreacted and sent an actor called Thessalus of Corinth to suggest to Pixodarus that he should offer his daughter’s hand to himself instead. However, when Philip heard of this he reacted with anger, deciding to nip things in the bud immediately. He visited Alexander in his quarters in the royal palace at Pella, taking with him Parmenion’s son Philotas in the hope someone of his son’s generation might make him see sense. There Alexander was told that arranging royal marriages was the prerogative of the king only, and that a match for him with a mere local dynast’s daughter was beneath the heir to the throne of Macedon. Such words may have come as a relief to Alexander, though the king still felt he needed to teach his heir a lesson. He therefore banished Alexander’s close friends Ptolemy, Nearchus, Harpalus and Erigyius (the latter three notably Greek). He also ordered Thessalus to be brought before him in chains, though the actor shrewdly eluded capture to pursue his career elsewhere. Pixodarus later married his daughter to another Persian satrap,
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wisely choosing to avoid any further engagement in Argead court politics. One can sense an uneasy peace now descending in Pella, with Alexander on best behaviour in the hope Philip would allow his friends to return. However, for the king, disaster loomed. In October 336 BC, at the same time as Parmenion was winning Ionian Greek hearts and minds, the great and the good from all over Greece gathered in Aegae to celebrate the wedding of Alexander I of Epirus with Alexander’s sister (and Alexander I’s own niece) Cleopatra. As part of the celebrations the 46-year-old Philip entered the town’s theatre at the culmination of a procession of 12 statues of the key Olympian Gods, and one of himself. Philip was unarmed, wearing a simple tunic bleached pure white. He had no close protection with him, the king’s seven personal bodyguards ringing the arena at a distance. As he reached the centre of the arena, one of them suddenly ran towards him before anyone else could react. This was Pausanias of Orestis, a young man recently promoted to the post as recompense for very rough treatment (which may have included rape) at the hands of Philip’s now father-in-law Attalus and his cronies. Pausanias, also a lover of Philip when a youth, felt Attalus hadn’t been punished enough for his abuse. From that point, even as a close royal guard, he nursed a sense of grievance against the king. This was certainly encouraged by those in court who were set against Attalus, including Alexander and Olympias. Now, as Pausanias reached the king, he dropped his ceremonial javelin and drew a long dagger hidden beneath his cloak. He struck immediately, stabbing Philip viciously between the ribs before anyone could react. The hegemon of all Greece, set to lead the Greeks on their crusade against the Persians, died within seconds, his corpse bleeding into the sand of the arena. After a shocked silence, pandemonium broke out. The assassin immediately tried to escape, racing towards associates waiting for him with horses near the arena entrance. However, closely pursued by three fellow guards, he tripped on a vine root and was quickly killed with javelins, his corpse subsequently crucified. Many have since speculated that Pausanias was part of a much
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wider conspiracy, potentially including Alexander and Olympias. However, at the time most commentators including Aristotle (The Politics, 1311b) concluded this was a tragic case of a former lover motivated by a sense of deep personal grievance against a close associate of the king. Matters moved quickly from that point. The leading Macedonian noble Antipater, with Parmenion away, quickly presented Alexander to an assembly of the nobility and army as Philip’s successor. Given the kingdom’s many foreign policy commitments, all knew the last thing Macedon needed at that point was a contested Argead succession. The massed gathering swiftly acclaimed Philip’s second legitimate son Alexander III of Macedon, who in short order thanked them by ensuring that any soldier whose salary had fallen into arrears while on campaign was paid in full. However, by this time the income from the gold and silver mines of Mount Pangaion and elsewhere was now only enough to pay a third of the cost of the enormous Macedonian army going forward, while opportunity for local booty in Greece to make up the difference had dried up with the establishment of the Hellenic Alliance. Indeed, just to pay the arrears,
Alexander had to borrow from the Macedonian aristocracy to make up the difference, having already abolished direct taxation as his first act as king to boost early acceptance of his rule. Alexander shared Philip’s ambition when alive to lead a crusade of all the Greeks against the Persian Empire, and he immediately turned his attention to his father’s planned campaign. He soon had cause to personally engage there as, when word reached the Persians that Philip had been murdered, they quickly moved to crush the newly free cities on the Ionian coast of Anatolia. Further, the Achaemenids then defeated a Macedonian force under Parmenion near Magnesia, the Persians led by the mercenary strategos Memnon of Rhodes. Taking this in, Alexander realised that to have a remote chance of success in Asia, he needed to gather the largest possible army he could from across Greece, and then lead his anabasis eastwards in person. He was also aware that the vast wealth available there as plunder would solve once and for all the problems his father and now he was having in paying the army. First though, as with any king of Macedon, he had to secure his borders at home.
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I
n the annals of ancient history the light of Alexander the Great shines brighter than any other, inspiring generations of dynasts and despots. Thus we have Julius Caesar reduced to tears on seeing a statute of the Macedonian king and feeling diminished. In true Argead fashion, Alexander was the embodiment of the Homeric warrior hero. A regent at 16, cavalry commander at 18, king at 20 and conqueror of the biggest empire the world had ever known at 26. The explorer of mythical India at 30 where he reached the ends of his known earth, but wanted more. The man for whom achievable was never enough, and who later thought himself a god.
In this chapter, I provide a concise biography of Alexander from his accession as Macedonian king in 336 BC through to his dramatic death in Babylon in 323 BC at the age of 32, just a month shy of his 33rd birthday. In the first instance, to provide context and set the scene for the astonishing story that follows, I detail his key opponent Darius III and the later Achaemenid Persian Empire. I then chronologically consider each phase of Alexander’s anabasis eastwards, including an analysis of his Indian opponents as his conquests concluded in the Punjab. Finally, I detail his traumatic journey back to Babylon where he finally met his fate, his death there ushering in the Hellenistic Age.
(previous pages) Detail of a lion hunt on the so-called Alexander Sarcophagus, originally found in a necropolis near Sidon in the Lebanon and now in Istanbul Archaeology Museum. (Firdes Sayilan/ Shutterstock)
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The Achaemenid Persian empire of Darius iii The empire ruled by Darius III, while not as powerful as that of his predecessors, was still mighty indeed. However, the last Achaemenid King of Kings was one of the great unfortunate figures of world history, forever remembered as the unworthy opponent of Alexander the Great. Born around 380 BC to a subsidiary branch of the royal
family, he was originally called Artashata (and later Codomannus by the Greek city-states). His pathway to power was unusual, even for an eastern despot. His grandfather was one of the younger sons of Darius II, while his mother was a daughter of the Artaxerxes II. Therefore, while he certainly had royal lineage, this was well removed from the normal line of succession for an Achaemenid Persian monarch. Darius’ early career reflected this, serving as the satrap of the Persian province of Armenia, then leading campaigns against the distant Cadusii tribe in the mountainous district of Media Atropatene on the south-western shores of the Caspian Sea, before ultimately being given charge of the royal postal service that made use of the extensive network of royal trunk roads to link all corners of the empire. This last posting was key to his later rise to power as it gave him a leading place in the royal court where he was improbably elevated to the throne after the royal grand vizier Bogoas poisoned the then king Artaxartes III, with whom he had fallen out of favour, and then also killed his son and successor Arses (also known as Artaxerxes IV). The main issue inherited by Darius III on his unlikely accession, aside from the instability of his rise to power, was the gradual eroding of the
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Alexander the Great, riding Bucephalus. ( Johnny Shumate)
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authority of the Achaemenid Persian kings over the satrap governors in the Empire’s many far-flung provinces. While still styled ‘slaves to the king’ by the Greeks, by the mid-4th century BC many ruled semi-independently of royal authority, especially in the most distant provinces. Some had even begun to institute a system of hereditary succession within their own territories. Additionally, from the 4th century BC some satraps had also started to keep a certain amount of the tribute collected from native peoples, usually paid directly to the king, for local defence, this further increasing their autonomy. Nevertheless, even a weak king like Darius III still had enormous symbolic and institutional buttressing, and remained a mighty opponent for Alexander. By the time of Alexander’s campaigns against Darius III, the Achaemenid Persian soldiery still fought in either royal or satrapal armies, each comprising a mix of central army or levy troop types, with a far higher percentage of the latter in satrapal armies. However, by then all troop types had significantly evolved following the frequent Persian defeats at the hands of the Greek poleis in the 5th and early 4th centuries BC. In terms of central army troops, in the first instance a major change had taken place in the panoply of the Persian royal foot guard. Long gone were the Immortal sparabara with paviseequipped front rankers. By this time, the infantry guard tended to be equipped with the finest equipment available, including helmets and armour in the style of Greek hoplites. There is also some debate about whether some were also equipped with Greek-style aspis (shields), though the likelihood is most were still equipped with the traditional smaller Persian crescent or round shield. The core weapons remained the same as with earlier Immortals, a short spear and bow. The foot guard troops of Darius III also numbered far less than those of his predecessors, perhaps the original 10,000 reduced to the core 1,000 close infantry guards of earlier times. Another key central army troop type in later Achaemenid Persian armies were the west Iranian cavalry which still formed the main strike force. As earlier, these ranged from the elite mounted
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kinsmen of the king including the cavalry royal guard unit of 1,000, through to the Iranian levies that had provided much of the cavalry for earlier Persian armies. These were still broadly armed in the same way with short spears and a missile weapon, either a javelin or bow. Notably, cavalry of this type had begun to charge to contact against their opponents by the time of Darius III rather than skirmish from a distance, particularly in the west of the empire. Cavalry guardsmen operating in this way had also begun to adopt the lance, perhaps copied from the xystons used by Macedonian companions. Scythed chariots also remained a very visible central army component of royal armies when led by the king. Meanwhile, by the 4th century BC, Persian kings had increasingly begun to rely on Greek hoplite mercenaries (some later armed in the Iphicratean fashion) to form the core of their heavy foot troops. Despite the evident decline of the empire by the time of Darius III, the king could still call upon the vast cash reserves of the royal treasury to fund such recruitment. To provide context here, when Alexander the Great captured Darius’ various treasuries in his anabasis eastwards, the total amount accounted for was 180,000 talents of silver, weighing 4,600 tonnes and amounting to almost $4 billion in today’s money. However, later Achaemenid Persian armies paid a psychological price for this reliance on the infantry tactics and technology of the Greek poleis. Specifically, they now knew they could be beaten by the Greeks, even when the number of troops available was heavily in their favour. This lesson was emphasized by the story of Xenophon and his 10,000 Greek mercenaries fighting for Cyrus the Younger who, after the defeat at Cunaxa in 401 BC, were able to extricate themselves from the heart of the Persian Empire northwards to the safety of the Greek colonies on the southern shores of the Black Sea, defeating any opponents they encountered. Meanwhile the bulk of later Achaemenid Persian armies, whether royal or satrapal, were still composed of local levies of varying quality. By the time of Darius III, just as with the guard foot soldierss, the Persian and Median sparabara
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levy foot soldiers had also evolved. These now comprised a new troop type called kardakes, their units formed through a regional muster when needed. Initially armed in the same manner as the crescent-shield troops in earlier Achaemenid Persian armies, many now believe that by the mid-3rd century BC most kardakes had been re-equipped to fight in a similar manner to the warriors fielded by their Greek poleis opponents. These included both those trained to fight in the line of battle as pseudo-hoplites, and also lighterarmed warriors similar to Greek peltasts and psiloi. However, it seems likely that troops equipped in the normal crescent-shield manner also continued, fighting alongside these Hellenised troops, especially in the east. Meanwhile, another traditional line of battle troop type called the takabara are also referenced in the primary sources fighting in later Achaemenid Persian armies, again appearing more commonly in eastern armies. These fought in a similar manner to Greek peltasts. Later Achaemenid Persian armies also continued to field huge numbers of other local levies, recruited from all of the peoples of the huge empire, who were armed in their native fashion. Finally, there has been much debate about the size of later Achaemenid Persian armies, particularly those faced by Alexander. Unsurprisingly, the primary sources emphasise the size of the multitude deployed by Darius, for example at Gaugamela, which I use here as my example. At this crucial battle, Plutarch says the King of Kings fielded 1,000,000 troops (Lives, Alexander, 31.1), with Diodorus Siculus having the same total, breaking this down as 800,000 foot soldiers and 200,000 cavalry (Library of History, 17.53). Meanwhile Arrian goes slightly further, having 1,000,000 foot soldiers and 40,000 cavalry (Anabasis Alexandri, 3.8). The only ancient world source to give a more reasonable figure for the size of the Persian army at Gaugamela is the 1stcentury AD Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus who argued Darius fielded 45,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry (The History of Alexander, 4.12.13). Most modern sources settle for a figure between 250,000 and 300,000 in Darius’ army.
crossing to Asia At the time Alexander became king, all contemporary commentators describe his striking appearance. For example, Plutarch says (Lives, Alexander, 4.10): Alexander possessed a number of individual features which many of his successors and friends later tried to reproduce, for example the poise of the neck which was tilted slightly to the left, or a certain melting look in the eyes ….
Though shorter in height than the average Macedonian man of the time, Alexander stood out among the older warriors at court by choosing to remain clean-shaven rather than grow the traditional beard. He is described as having a fair complexion with a ‘ruddy tinge’ (Plutarch, Lives, Alexander, 4.11), and with tawny brown hair often likened to a lion’s mane. Notably, his eyes were also differentially coloured through a condition called heterochromia iridium, with one brown and the other blue grey, giving him an unsettling stare that he used to great effect when needed. This disorder can be caused by trauma, either at birth or later in life, or very rarely by genetics. Alexander was already an accomplished warrior when he acceded to the throne, having commanded the elite companion cavalry for his father at Chaeronea in 338 BC where he’d led the charge that cracked the allied Greek line. Now king, he knew that before he turned his attention eastwards, he had to secure his rear, especially given the wretched circumstances of Philip’s death. Alexander therefore quickly marched south to ensure the loyalty of Thessaly. Then, at a hastily convened assembly of the League of Corinth, he replaced his father as the hegemon in charge of the planned Greek campaign against the Persians. The new king then returned north to campaign against the Illyrians and Thracians to secure his borders there, before again heading south when rumours of his death prompted Thebes, urged on by Athens, to revolt against Macedonian rule. Alexander arrived after a forced march, sacked the city and then razed it to the ground after it refused to surrender. In total 6,000 Thebans lost their lives, with the rest of the population sold into slavery.
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Thessalian heavy cavalry played a key role in nearly all of Alexander’s campaigns. ( Johnny Shumate)
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Alexander’s actions as a military leader in dealing with this Theban revolt show a number of traits that came to define him as a military leader. First, the speed with which he acted at a strategic level, catching all by surprise when returning to Boeotia. Next the brutality he employed when required, here destroying the city his father had lived in as a youth. Finally, a towering level of self-confidence, later manifest in an overt sense of destiny as he pursued his anabasis eastwards. The destruction of Thebes cowed any further insurrection in Greece. However, from that point, an ever-deeper sense of distrust existed between the Macedonians and Greeks, verging on enmity in the case of Athens and Sparta. Alexander then left garrisons in Corinth, Chalcis and the Cadmea citadel of Thebes (which he had left still standing) before finally turning his attention to his father’s planned Persian expedition. In the first instance, Alexander further increased the size of his military establishment, despite the
strain already being placed on his treasury by the planned campaign. His own invasion army would now comprise 1,800 companion shock cavalry, 1,800 Thessalian cavalry, 600 Greek cavalry and 900 light cavalry. The latter included a mix of javelin-armed Greeks, bow- and javelin-armed Paeonians and Thracians, and Macedonian prodromoi. The latter, fully detailed in Chapter 6, were lance armed and principally employed to protect flanks from other light troops, perform a scouting function and pursue a defeated enemy. Meanwhile, his infantry force comprised 12,000 Macedonians, 7,000 allied Greek warriors, 5,000 Greek mercenaries, 7,000 Thracian and Illyrian irregulars and 1,000 skirmishers. Of the Macedonians, 3,000 were hypaspists (guard troops) and 9,000 pezetairoi (line phalangites) organized in six, provincial, 1,500-strong taxeis (again, see Chapter 6). Meanwhile, most of the Greek troops were hoplites, either equipped in the Iphicratean
Alexander the Great leads his companions across the Granicus River in May 334 BC. (Peter Connolly © Greece and Rome at War, Greenhill Books)
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Black Sea
THRACE Granicus River Troy
MACEDONIA
ARMENIA
Gordium
ASIA MINOR Athens
Issus Gaugamela
MEDIA
MESOPOTAMIA
Mediterranean Sea
ASSYRIA Tyre
Alexandria
Babylon
Susa
BABYLONIA
Gaza Memphis
Ammon
ARABIA Red Sea
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The Campaigns of Alexander the Great
Aral Sea
Alexander’s route Alexander’s empire Battle 0
an spi Ca
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150km 75km
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SOGIANA
BACTRIA
la
EDIA Ecbatana Susa Hydaspes
ARIANA Persepolis
Pe rsi an
PERSIS
Gu lf
INDIA
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fashion or with the more traditional panoply. As a final comment here on Alexander’s invasion army for his Persian campaign, it is worth noting how unusual it was for its time, given its very deliberate combined-arms nature, with a far higher complement of both cavalry and light/ rough terrain troops than usual. It also included Philip’s sophisticated siege train. Finally, as a statement that this invasion was far more than a simple punitive expedition, Alexander was also accompanied by large numbers of surveyors, architects, engineers, scientists, historians (including Callisthenes, Aristotle’s great nephew) and court officials. Clearly Alexander intended to make his mark wherever he conquered Persian territory and elsewhere. This was ‘Spear Won’ land he had no intention of giving up. Gazing across the Hellespont towards Asia ready to set out on his anabasis, Alexander now displayed the attention to detail in logistics, intelligence gathering and communications that were to be other key hallmarks of his military career. Philip had already initiated this level of planning with his earlier expedition under Parmenion. To determine the lessons the latter had learned in his initial campaign, Alexander called him home, leaving his troops in place at Abydos on the Asian side of the Hellespont. Once debriefed, Alexander then promptly appointed him second in command of his anabasis, securing the loyalty of the Macedonian high command. In the spring of 334 BC, all was ready and Alexander launched his full invasion force into Asia where they quickly joined the remainder of Parmenion’s earlier army there. Setting sail from the port city of Sestos on the Thracian Chersonese Peninsula to cross the short distance to Abydos on the Helespontine Asian coast, he was accompanied by the cast of characters, some the same age and some older, who would go on to shape the future of the Hellenistic world. These included Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus, Eumenes, Antigonus Monophthalmus, Perdiccas, Craterus, Leonnatus and Peithon. A lively debate continues as to the scale of Alexander’s ambitions at the point he embarked on his anabasis. Some argue that Philip’s initial
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plan was to only secure Asia Minor through to Cilicia, today the southern Anatolian coast. Control to here would have completed Philip’s mastery of the Aegean and provided him with an additional 1,760 talents a year for the royal treasury, useful given the cost of maintaining his army. However, Alexander clearly wanted more, his goal, I believe, to conquer the whole of the Persian Empire. The primary sources are clear regarding his Panhellenic and Homeric intent in that regard. For example Diodorus Siculus has him standing in the prow of his ship in full armour as it approached the Achaean harbour at Rhoeteum on the southern coast of the Hellespont (Library of History, 17.17.2.). This was home to the tomb of Ajax, a highly symbolic location. Here, making his landfall, the king threw a spear ashore and declared his acceptance of Asia from the Gods. Arrian goes further, having the young king taking the helm of his ship for the crossing, sacrificing a bull to Poseidon and the Nereids mid-channel, then disembarking in full armour and setting up alters to Zeus, Athena and Hercules (Anabasis Alexandri, 1.10.7). He then has Alexander travel the short distance to Troy. There, the king first visited the local temple of Athena. Arrian says he dedicated his armour to the goddess, taking in its place an antique set dated to the Trojan Wars. He next sacrificed to the Trojan king Priam in the temple of Zeus. Finally he laid a wreath on the tomb of Achilles, his closest companion Hephaestion doing likewise on the tomb of Patroclus. It seems clear that all of these vignettes are evidence that Alexander’s intentions were far grander than those of his father, even noting the obvious hagiography. Alexander moved quickly once in Asia. He sought battle with the local Persian army immediately when he learned it was gathering, especially given his force was only equipped with supplies for 30 days. The key engagement occurred at the Granicus River in May 334 BC. Here Alexander was confronted by the combined forces of a number of regional Persian satraps (see opposite). Though the Granicus River engagement was a small battle by the later standards of Alexander’s anabasis, it was a crucial victory as it set the tone
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Battle of the Granicus river Persian military activity operated on two levels, royal and satrapal. In the first instance, usually in wars of conquest or to tackle existential threats, an army was gathered from across the wider empire and led by the king in person. In the latter case, the army was more regional in nature, led by one or more of the king’s satraps. In 334 BC, as Alexander crossed into Asia, Darius’ initial response was to rely on his local satraps in Anatolia to deal with the upstart Macedonian king. Only if they failed, which he thought highly unlikely, would he then become directly involved with the full royal army. Here, having been caught out by Parmenion’s earlier Macedonian expedition, Darius now moved with unusual speed. Using the empire’s sophisticated system of royal trunk roads, the king’s royal couriers swiftly delivered his orders to the satraps ranged across Anatolia. By early May, these and their military commanders had gathered to consider their campaigning strategy at Zeleia, the Homeric town in the Troad at the foot of Mount Ila. Darius placed the local regional governor Arsites in charge of the gathering, and also the subsequent campaign, he being the long-standing satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia. This region covered the north-western coast of Anatolia where Parmenion’s expedition had earlier campaigned, and where many of the latter’s troops still remained. Arsites was already known to Alexander as the satrap who had been the first Persian leader to send aid to Perinthus when Philip II had besieged the city in 340 BC. Arsites was joined at Zeleia by the leading nobles from the Persian west, all keen to show their metal against Alexander and impress Darius. Foremost were two more key satraps, Arsames of Cilicia and Spithridates of Lydia and Ionia. The latter had a particular interest in stopping the Macedonian advance at the earliest opportunity, given it was in his satrapy where resided many of the leading Ionian Greek cities that Alexander was hoping to liberate. These included Ephesus, Miletus and Priene. This key satrapy also included Sardis, Darius’ regional capital where the king had an imperial palace and treasury. Meanwhile, other key noblemen arriving at Zeleia included Spithridates’ brother Rhoesaces, Darius’ son-in-law Mithridates, Rheomithres whose son Phrasaortes was later appointed satrap of Persis by Alexander, and the cavalry commanders Petenes and Niphates. However, the key figure attending the gathering at Zeleia was Memnon of Rhodes, the mercenary Greek strategos who had earlier defeated Parmenion and his expeditionary force near Magnesia. We know far more about him than any of the other leaders at Zeleia, not surprising given all of our primary sources are Greek. Born around 380 BC, he had served the Persian Empire for most of his life, alongside his brother Mentor. Indeed, their sister had married the Phrygian satrap Artabazos II. Memnon knew the Macedonians well, having accompanied Artabazos into exile in Philip II’s court at Pella after the satrap’s failed rebellion against
Boeotian helmets were the most common type used by Alexander’s shock cavalry at the Granicus River and elsewhere. (wikicommons)
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Artaxerxes III in 352 BC (the two taking their 11 sons and daughters with them). However Mentor had stayed loyal to the then Persian king, later distinguishing himself in Persian service fighting the last native Egyptian pharaoh Nectanebo II, the Greek playing a key leadership role in the decisive battle of Pelusium in 343 BC. Eventually, Mentor persuaded Memnon to return to Persian service after four years in Macedon. Mentor died in 340 BC, after which Memnon married his brother’s wife Barsine (a daughter of Artabazos), she later becoming the lover of Alexander the Great and mother of Hercules, the Macedonian king’s supposed illegitimate son. In 339 BC, Memnon helped the city of Byzantium defend itself against Philip’s siege, and subsequently led the Persian campaign against Parmenion’s expeditionary force. Then, when the Macedonian king was assassinated, Memnon urged Darius to foment a rebellion against Macedonian hegemony in Greece, knowing the difficulty Alexander faced in securing his hold on the throne. Now, as the Persians gathered at Zeleia to tackle the new king’s invasion, Memnon became one of the leading commanders of the combined satrapal army. The speedy response of Darius to Alexander’s invasion wrong-footed the young king who quickly changed his invasion strategy. Instead of heading southwards along the western coastline of Anatolia where he had planned to quickly liberate the Greek cities one by one, he now headed northwest along the coast of the Hellespont and Phrygia to meet the Persian challenge. To ensure a speedy advance he left much of his invasion force behind, taking just 18,000 troops overall. This included most of the cavalry including the companions and prodromoi, all of the hypaspists and available phalanx, and his Agrianian javelinmen and archers, the latter including the highly experienced Cretans. At this point Memnon advised a scorched earth policy to buy time for a royal army to be gathered under Darius which he felt would guarantee victory. However, the Persians were reluctant to further damage the regional economy given the severe disruption caused by Parmenion’s earlier campaign. They therefore decided to challenge Alexander directly instead. Having been forewarned by Memnon, and then fought Parmenion, the Persians were keenly aware of the Macedonian pike phalanx’s fearsome reputation. Therefore, they moved their army away from the open plains around Zeleia where the terrain was more suitable for Alexander’s army. Heading westward, soon the Persians found themselves among the hills and streams on Mount Ida’s western slopes. There they built a large camp on the eastern side of the Granicus river. They then prepared to defend the waterway against any attempt by Alexander to cross. This river gently meanders northeast to the Sea of Marmara through the plains of Phrygia, and while not a significant waterway at the time of year (at its deepest it was only 1 m in depth), the Granicus did feature steep muddy banks, making it eminently defendable. Soon Alexander’s scouting prodromoi and light foot soldiers arrived at the river. Here they found the Persians arrayed for battle on the far bank. Informed an engagement was imminent, the king first consulted his senior officers, with Parmenion advising he wait until the following morning before engaging, given their lengthy march that morning. Alexander, eager for the first victory of his crusade against the Persians, rejected the advice and swiftly deployed his column on the west bank where they prepared for battle. Confusion surrounds the size of the Persian army, with some ancient historians giving improbable numbers once more. For example, Diodorus Siculus talks of 100,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 cavalry (Library of History, 17.19), the former clearly incredible, though the latter is oddly more believable. The most commonly accepted figures are those detailed by Arrian who speaks of 20,000 cavalry (these comprising mostly the retinues of the various satraps and nobles in attendance, so with an usual preponderance of high-class troops) and 20,000 foot soldiers, the latter mostly mercenary Greek hoplites (Anabasis Alexandri, 1.14.4). I use Arrian’s figures here. Further confusion relates to the actual events of the Granicus river battle given there are two very different descriptions by the ancient sources. In the first instance both Arrian and Plutarch say Alexander, eager for battle, attacked directly across the Granicus (Anabasis Alexandri, 1.13, and Lives, Alexander, 16). Meanwhile, Diodorus Siculus (Library of History, 17.19.3) says the Macedonians crossed the Granicus during the night and attacked the Persians before dawn the following morning on the flat ground beyond the river. Given the Persians usually sacrificed before sunrise, this sounds a good stratagem as they would have been unprepared and off guard. However, most commentators then and now follow the first narrative, with Arrian providing a little more insight in saying Alexander scouted the safe fordable crossings of the river first (Anabasis Alexandri, 1.13). I, therefore, broadly follow that description of the engagement here.
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Infantry Cavalry Persians Greeks The battle of Granicus River, Alexander the Great’s first victory over the Persians. (Nigel Emsen)
In terms of deployment, Alexander positioned six ilia (wings) of the companions on the extreme right under Philotas, including his own 300-strong hetairoi guard ile (see Chapter 6 for unit size descriptions), with Agrianian javelinmen and archers in support. Next in line came the prodromoi, now taking their place in the line of battle, the Paeonian light horse and the remaining single ile of companions all under the command of Amyntas, son of Arrabaeus. Hard against these in the right centre were the hypaspist, then the phalanx, and finally on the left wing the Thessalian and Greek allied heavy cavalry and the Thracian light horse. Alexander took command of the Macedonian right wing and right centre, Parmenion the left centre and left wing. Arrayed against them on the eastern bank, the Persians deployed in an unusual formation given their plan was to defend the steep-sided riverbank. Most contemporary sources suggest that instead of positioning their heavy infantry atop the steep riverbank, as one would expect, they instead deployed the entirety of their cavalry across the front of their battleline, with the hoplite foot soldiers relegated to a position atop a hill to the rear. Many have speculated one reason for this might be the Persians being wary of the Greek mercenaries’ loyalty, especially when fighting compatriots (this certainly the case with Alexander’s Greek allied cavalry). However, another reason was the desire of the various foremost Persian noblemen leading their regional retinues to achieve glory on the battlefield. Certainly, their disposition indicates this, as all played a prominent role in the ensuing battle, leading from the front and with many seeking to confront Alexander in person. In that regard, facing Alexander on the Persian left were Memnon with his sons and Arsames, each with their own cavalry contingent. Next, moving left to right, were Arsites with his Paphlagonia horsemen and Spithridates with his elite Hyrcanian guard cavalry who together commanded the Persian centre. Finally, on the right wing, Rheomithres led a large contingent of Median and Bactrian horse. As Alexander looked across the Granicus it quickly became clear the Persians were refusing to advance. Diodorus Siculus describes the scene, saying (Library of History, 17.19): The Persians, resting on high ground, made no move, intending to fall upon their foe as he crossed the river, for they supposed they could easily carry the day when the Macedonian phalanx was divided [the last a reference to the expected disruption as it crossed the river].
By now it was late afternoon and Alexander decided to take the offensive. First, he ordered the prodromoi, Paeonian light horse, their supporting companions and a unit of hypaspists to force the river under Amyntas, targeting the extreme left of the Persian line. By this time, having rode up and down the Macedonian line making final dispositions, Alexander had arrived back to take his position on the extreme right wing with the remaining companions alongside Philotas. Positioned at the apex of the wedge of his own 300-strong hetairoi guard ile he now gave the command for a general advance, the primary sources saying he plunged into the water first.
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Meanwhile, his lighter horse spearhead, targeting Memnon and Arsames, had already waded through the river and reached the far bank where they were targeted by the javelins and bows of the Persian horse. Many unarmoured prodromoi and Paeonians were cut down, and the Macedonian advance quickly wavered. Sensing an easy victory, the Persians on the left wing now surged forward down the muddy bank, including Memnon himself, with more and more drawn into the engagement from the centre. Soon, with weight of numbers increasingly in their favour, the Persians began to push the Macedonians back over the river, leaving 25 companions dead on the eastern riverbank. However, urgent help was on the way. Alexander now unveiled a tactical masterstroke from the extreme right flank. Having led the majority of the companions into the Granicus, they now passed behind the initial spearhead, crossing right to left where they then charged at full speed up the eastern riverbank into Memnon and Arsames’ surging Persian left-wing cavalry. This positioned them at the juncture of the Persian left and centre. A desperate melee ensued, with the Macedonians having the advantage given their long xyston. Soon the Persian cavalry in the river and atop the bank broke, with the companions then forcing the eastern shore of the Granicus to pursue into the flank of the Persian centre. The primary sources now focus entirely on Alexander as he led his companions from the front. Arrian says the king deliberately made himself as conspicuous as possible through the ‘brightness of his arms’ and the brilliant white plume atop his helmet (Anabasis Alexandri, 1.13). This certainly attracted the attention of the Persians, many of whom now sought to engage Alexander directly. This included Mithridates who was in Arsites’ command in the Persian centre. Darius’ son-in-law headed directly for Alexander who, seeing the danger, counter-charged with his close guard. A desperate fight ensued, with the Macedonian king shattering his own xyston and borrowing another from Demaratas of Corinth, a Greek companion recruited by Philip. With this he impaled Mithridates in the face, killing him instantly. However, there was no respite for the Macedonian king, with another Persian nobleman charging into the melee. This was Mithradates’ brother Rhoesaces who aimed a blow at Alexander’s head, the king dodging the savage strike just in time, with the Persian’s sword slicing off part of his plume and cracking his helmet. Alexander ran him through with the same xyston. By this time Spithridates had closed on the king with his Hyrcanian guard, the Lydian satrap aiming another blow at Alexander’s head. However, Cleitus the Black, Alexander’s close bodyguard in the battle, attacked the Persian first and severed his arm, saving Alexander’s life. By this time Alexander’s centre and left had begun to surge across the eastern bank of the Granicus. Seeing this, especially after the loss of so many leaders in the savage cavalry fight, the Persians began to fall back. Then, when Parmenion charged the Persian right wing with his Thessalians and Thracians, the Persian cavalry broke and began to flee the battlefield, along with any of the surviving Persian leaders. This left just the Greek hoplite mercenaries on the hill at the rear, no doubt bemused at the sudden change in Persian fortunes. Alexander now rallied his troops to prevent a headlong pursuit of the Persian cavalry. He then turned his attention to the Greek heavy foot soldiers. Their leaders first tried to negotiate a truce with Alexander and, when this was turned down, begged for mercy. However, the Macedonian king was infuriated by what he saw as their treachery fighting with the Persians and ordered a general attack. First Parmenion with the Thessalians and Thracians circled to the left of the Greek line. Then Alexander with the companions positioned himself on the right. Finally, the phalanx drew up to pin the Greeks in place to their front. When all was in place, the Macedonian king ordered a general assault, and a terrible slaughter began. Though the Greeks fought desperately, with nothing to lose, the engagement was short and one sided. Plutarch has Alexander leading the way and charging headlong into the fray, with his charger (not Bucephalus) killed from under him when a doru (spearhead) was driven into the horse’s ribs (Lives, Alexander, 16.14). However, the end was never in doubt and soon 18,000 hoplites were slain, with the surviving 2,000 sent back to Macedon in chains where a short future working as slaves in the mines awaited. As to other casualties, if one takes the primary sources at face value, 2,500 Persian cavalry were slain, while the Macedonians lost 85 cavalry and 30 infantry, most when fighting the doomed Greek foot soldiers. Though the latter figures for Alexander’s losses are improbable, they do show the scale of his victory. Meanwhile, of the surviving Persian leaders, Arsites made good his escape though later committed suicide, while Memnon chose not to fall with his Greek compatriots but also fled. Shortly afterwards, Darius made him the governor of all of the western satrapies, he later leading the failed defence of Halicarnassus and finally being killed during the siege of Mytilene.
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for his later campaign. Darius now knew he was facing the kind of existential threat that required his own presence with the royal army and started planning accordingly. Meanwhile, seeing the Macedonian victory and Alexander’s harsh treatment of the Greek mercenaries in Persian employ, many of the cities in western Anatolia now opened their gates to the king as he arrived, for example Sardis and Ephesus. Tyrants were expelled and democracies installed. This underlined Alexander’s Panhellenic goals. The only serious exceptions were Miletus, which was encouraged to hold out by the close proximity of the Persian fleet, Halicarnassus and Mytilene. All were stormed using specialist troops, Alexander then quickly moving on. This was a young man in a hurry. The king advanced to Perga in modern Antalya in the spring of 333 BC, sticking to the coast where he could rely on his fleet for supply. The region pacified, he then headed inland to Gordium where he famously cut the eponymous knot. This was a local tradition which it was said could only be performed by the man who would rule Asia. Alexander then advanced to Ancyra (modern Ankara) before turning south again, passing through Cappadocia and the Cilician Gates. This was the vital pass through the Taurus Mountains that provided access from the Anatolian plateau to the coastal lowlands of Cilicia and Syria. Following the failure of his satraps at the River Granicus, and the subsequent fall of the Ionian Greek cities, a chastened Darius now determined to stop this Macedonian upstart once and for all. Gathering his royal army, bolstered by levies from his western and central empire (though not the east), he manoeuvered to interdict Alexander’s lines of supply to their north, cutting the Macedonians off from their route home. This forced Alexander to turn back and force a battle with Darius at Issus in a narrow plain between the sea and mountains, given a retreat inland with the Persians so close wasn’t an option (see overleaf ). To contemporary audiences, such a victory for Alexander and his Greek allies was astounding, especially given the asymmetry of numbers
involved in the battle where the Macedonians had been so heavily outnumbered. The young king lost no time in spreading the word of his triumph across the Greek-speaking world, with Parmenion then capturing the satrapal capital of Damascus with a flying column of cavalry before the Persian treasury there could be evacuated. Here the Macedonians also captured Barsine, the wife of Memnon who had earlier died at Mytilene. Parmenion sent her back to Alexander, and she soon became one of his long-term mistresses, allegedly bearing him the illegitimate son Hercules. Also caught in Damascus were Theban, Athenian and Spartan envoys who had been there to seek audience with the King of Kings, clearly expecting a Persian victory over the Macedonians. All were brought before Alexander who first freed the Thebans, saying that as they had no city to return to, they were right to seek help wherever possible. He then decided to keep the Athenians in his entourage, though treated them with honour, this not surprising given the delegation was led by the son of Iphicrates. However, the Spartans he arrested. Here the king had learned the polis was not just indifferent to his crusade against Persia, but had begun to act with hostility towards Macedon. This included Agis III, one of its two kings, sailing to meet a Persian fleet off the island of Siphnos (modern Sifnos) in the Cyclades in the hope of obtaining vessels to raid Macedonian territory. However, while there word reached the gathering of Darius’ shattering defeat at Issus, and the plan came to naught. Alexander next marched south again, through Syria and Phoenicia. Here the king aimed to isolate the Persian fleet from its bases there. The cities of Arados and Marathos submitted quickly, after which the Persian king made a peace offering, this brusquely rejected by Alexander. Biblos and Sidon then fell as Alexander continued south. However, the important port of Tyre held out. This was subject to a famous siege where Alexander’s specialist engineering troops played a leading role building a mole out to the island city which was so substantial it is still visible today. While this investment was underway, Darius made another
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Battle of issus Many view the later battle of Gaugamela as the crucial engagement in Alexander’s anabasis. However, that near Issus in the northern Levant in November 333 BC is to my mind equally, if not more, important. Here, for the first time, Alexander and the Macedonians fought the King of Kings in person, the latter commanding a full-scale royal army. Yet, despite facing a huge disparity in numbers and relying on highly vulnerable lines of supply, the Macedonian victory was so total that from that point, Alexander’s eventual victory seemed the most likely outcome of his campaign. This was a true epic battle in every sense of the word, and one we know much more about than the Granicus River engagement given the primary sources go into much more detail. Sadly for Darius, the high point of his engagement was the pre-battle strategic manoeuvring detailed above, as he then made three tactical errors to confound his earlier seizing of the strategic initiative. First, he killed his best general. This was the Greek strategos Charidamus who, on learning of the Macedonian countermarch to intercept the royal army, advised the king to divide his army in two. One, under the Greek general, would tackle Alexander directly, while the other, under Darius, would be held in reserve. However, with his prestige at stake after the Persian defeat at Granicus River, Darius ignored the advice and determined to continue onwards to fight the Macedonians with his entire force. Unfortunately Charidamus then made the mistake of saying a few ill-chosen words in Greek about the Persians while in Darius’ presence. The king, who spoke Greek perfectly, was instantly offended and had the general executed out of hand. In the long run, this clearly proved a major error as, with Memnon already dead after the failed defence of Mytilene, the King of Kings was running out of reliable military advisers. Then, as his enormous army meandered towards the Macedonians, Darius made his second error. At one point, still some distance from Alexander, he called a halt near a badly positioned Macedonian camp his Bactrian scouts had found. However, far from it being Alexander’s main base, it turned out to be a field hospital for those Macedonians still wounded from the Anatolian campaign or suffering from illness. Darius showed no mercy, ordering the execution of many recuperating soldiers, with any allowed to live having their right hand severed. Alexander, already determined to defeat the Persians in a winner-takes-all battle, was infuriated and vowed revenge. Darius’ final error was his choice of battlefield. Faced with Alexander’s advance northwards to force an engagement, he chose a defensive position similar to the satrap’s failed defence of the Granicus. This time Darius arrayed his huge army along the Pinaros River, which bisected the coastal plain near Issus. This was a small stream running from the mountains to the north before turning westwards as it met the coastal plain, its route broadly tracking the border today between Turkey and Syria. At first glance, defending the bank of a waterway, however small, against an aggressing opponent certainly gave the Persians a defensive
Alexander the Great at the charge, battle at Issus, 333 BC, as depicted on the Alexander Sarcophagus. (Wikimedia Commons)
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Infantry Cavalry Persians Macedonians
The battle of Issus, Alexander’s first defeat of Darius in person where he captured the Persian royal family. (Nigel Emsen)
advantage. However, Darius should already have been aware that the Granicus had proved no real obstacle in that engagement given the determination and training of the Macedonians. Further, his key advantage at Issus was weight of numbers, and here the waterway was naturally bounded by the sea to the west and the coastal mountains to the east. Therefore, an envelopment of the Macedonians wasn’t an option, and the battle would become a straight fight based on the quality of the various troop types in each army. That gave Alexander an enormous advantage, with Plutarch saying ‘Fortune certainly presented Alexander with the ideal terrain for the battle …’ (Lives, Alexander, 20). When Alexander’s scouts found the Persians ready for battle, the Macedonian king immediately moved to deploy his army out of its column of march into battle array. By this time, he had his full campaigning force with him, totalling over 40,000 men. However, when considering the size of the Persian army, we are again faced with incredulous numbers as detailed by the primary sources. For example, Arrian says Darius fielded 600,000 men (Anabasis Alexandri, 2.8.6). Meanwhile, Diodorus Siculus opts for an equally outrageous 400,000 (Library of History, 17.19). However, most modern commentators opt for between 60,000 and 120,000. Whatever the actual Persian numbers, Alexander was certainly heavily outnumbered. This engagement is also notable for the late time of year in which it was fought in November, reflecting Alexander’s propensity for campaigning out of season. In that regard, conditions were notably cold and wet. In terms of deployment, Alexander followed his by now standard pattern, with himself on the right with the ilia of companions deployed in their embolus (wedge) formations, then moving right to left the hypaspists, then the phalanx (at least partially under the command of Craterus, promoted after his success commanding a taxis of pezetairoi at the Granicus river), and finally Parmenion on the left with the Thessalian and Thracian cavalry. Light troops, including Thracians, Agrianians and Cretans, supported both flanks, while the Macedonian centre was bolstered by allied and mercenary Greek, Illyrian and more Thracian infantry. The Macedonian phalanx deployment here is particularly interesting. As Alexander approached the Pinaros river it was 32 deep, but the king then reduced it to 8 deep on arrival at the waterway as he sought to extend his centre so as not to leave the extreme flank of the companions on the right exposed. This meant the bristling deployment of the pezetairoi and other heavy foot soldiers alone stretched for over 1.6 km. Meanwhile, Darius deployed his heavy cavalry next to the coast on his right flank where they could make best use of the broad expanses of flat beach next to the Gulf of Issus, then kardakes (Hellenised Persian foot) and next the Greek mercenaries deployed in two large bodies of 15,000 men (both commanded by the strategos Thymondas), and finally more kardakes and a small number of Median and Hyrcanian cavalry extending the Persian line to the high ground on its extreme left. There Darius stretched his line even further, with (despite Alexander’s best efforts to extend his own line) some kardakes wrapping around the Macedonian extreme right flank in the foothills. This forced Alexander to match them there in the rough terrain with some of his own elite Agrianian javelinmen. The Persians then deployed a second line comprised of levies behind the troops along the riverbank, no more than
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a disorganized throng in reality. Finally, Darius positioned himself with his elite guard cavalry between the two bodies of Greek mercenaries to the front. It is noteworthy here that that a number of the surviving Persian nobles who’d fought at the Granicus river were also present. These included the former Cilician satrap Arsames and also Rheomithres, both deployed with Darius and his guard, they both later falling in the ensuing battle. Meanwhile, as a final comment on the Persian deployment at Issus, Arrian adds that the foot across the centre (presumably both the Greeks and kardakes) reinforced their riverbank defence with ‘stockades’ where the shoreline was particularly gentle, which he describes elsewhere as ‘precipitous’ (Anabasis Alexandri, 2.10). Polybius describes the same defended riverbank as covered in thorny bushes (The Rise of the Roman Empire, 12.22). Clearly, we are talking here about a significant natural and, with the stockades, man-made obstacle. Both armies now faced off across the Pinarus river. Here Arrian makes a further interesting observation, saying the security of the Persian position actually counted against Darius’ army psychologically, with Alexander believing it indicated inaction, and that therefore Darius was already ‘in spirit a beaten man’ (Anabasis Alexandri, 2.10.2). This seems harsh, given this was a battle Darius in reality simply needed not to lose, rather than achieve a crushing victory. The Macedonians were already cut off from their lines of supply to the north, and a loss at Issus would have forced Alexander to effect a maritime evacuation across the eastern Mediterranean in waters under Persian control, or head inland or south even further away from safety. However, Alexander was clearly emboldened by Darius’ reticence to engage as he now ordered a general attack across his entire line. One factor here may have been the Macedonian line coming under missile fire from the Persians as soon as it came into range while deploying along the southern riverbank. Again, Alexander led the way, either at the head of a thunderous charge across the Pinaros with his companions on the right wing, or dismounting with his close guard and leading the hypaspists. Interestingly, the word used by Arrian to describe Alexander’s initial advance here is dromo, meaning at a run. This might suggest he was on foot. However, this seems unlikely given Alexander’s swift success on the right, where he quickly broke through the kardakes to threaten the Persian centre. The primary sources certainly indicate Darius’ left wing was terrified by the speed of Alexander’s advance, especially after his Agrianian javelinmen moved to prevent any envelopment by the kardakes on the Persian hanging left flank. However, elsewhere things did not go as well for the Macedonians, with the phalanx unsurprisingly struggling to keep its formation as it crossed the river and navigated the far bank, which as detailed had been fortified where not steep. Here Arrian describes gaps forming between individual phalanx units (Anabasis Alexandri, 2.10.1), presumably the 1,500 strong taxeis (see Chapter 6 for detail), with the eight-deep pezetairoi suffering at the hands of the Greek mercenary hoplites and Hellenised kardakes atop their bank. Indeed, it was only the length of the Macedonian sarissas that allowed the pikemen to engage the enemy at all. Soon Arrian says 120 Macedonians ‘of note’ had been slain, this usually interpreted as officers (Anabasis Alexandri, 2.10.3). Meanwhile, any Persian troops armed with missile weapons continued to pour fire into the Macedonian phalanx at point bank range and, denied the almost unstoppable impetus they enjoyed when on open ground, the pezetairoi began to fall back slowly over the Pinarus. Diodorus Siculus says this initial phase of the infantry encounter only lasted a short time (Library of History, 17.33), with one interpretation being the Macedonian foot soldiers now began the difficult manoeuvre of disengaging from an enemy to their front. The likelihood of this increases when one considers that the Greek mercenaries and kardakes defending their bank were unlikely to pursue given the security of their position, especially with stockades deployed in places across their front. On the Macedonian left, Parmenion was fairing little better, his outnumbered Thessalian and Greek cavalry rebuffed time and again as they tried to counter Darius’ main body of horse. Soon their casualties began to mount and the Persians cavalry began to press them back, Parmenion’s horsemen only just holding their line. However, swift and brutal relief for the Macedonian centre and left was at hand as, just when momentum had been lost there, Alexander smashed through the kardakes to his front with the companions and hypaspists and, again showing true leadership on the battlefield, instead of pursuing his beaten foe turned left to hammer the now exposed flank of the Greek mercenaries. Little resistance was offered given the latter were engaged to their front with the pezetairoi, and soon individual men and then small groups of hoplites broke and ran to the rear. Once the
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integrity of the Greek phalanx was lost, it quickly folded under the combined assault of Alexander’s troops and now resurgent pikemen. A savage slaughter ensued, with Alexander then spying Darius and his close guards. Knowing this was his chance to bring the campaign to a swift end, he immediately charged the Persian king. This is the scene some believe is shown in the Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun in Pompeii, where the Macedonian king thunders towards Darius in his chariot, xyston levelled at the Persian king, the whole montage set against a hedgelike backdrop of waving sarissas. However, Darius’ brother Oxyathres now intervened, with Quintus Curtius Rufus saying (The History of Alexander, 3.11.8): Oxyathres saw Alexander charging Darius and moved his own cavalry right in front of the king’s chariot. Oxyathres far surpassed his comrades in the splendour of his arms and in physical strength, and very few could match his courage and devotion to Darius. In that engagement especially he won distinction by cutting down some Macedonians who were recklessly thrusting ahead and putting others to flight.
This bought time for Darius to flee the battlefield with his bodyguard, leaving the Persian army to its fate. This now quickly disintegrated, the better troops to the front hampered in their escape by the levies to their rear. Alexander and the Macedonians pursued until nightfall, with the Persians massacred wherever they were found and little quarter given. Plutarch says that at one point Alexander himself captured Darius’ chariot and bow, though the king made good his escape on horse with around 4,000 cavalry including Oxyathres (Lives, Alexander, 20.2). The primary sources indicate that the Persians lost up to 100,000 men in the battle (an unlikely figure given the overall size of the army, though certainly Persian losses were very high), with some 8,000 Greek survivors escaping by ship. Meanwhile, Alexander lost 450 dead with around 5,000 wounded. This was a stupendous victory indeed, that set the tone for Alexander’s forthcoming conquest of Darius’ empire. Highlights in the aftermath included his capture of Darius’ camp, which included the royal family, with Plutarch enigmatically describing the scene (Lives, Alexander, 20.2): Darius’ tent, which was full of splendid furniture and qualities of gold and silver, they [his soldiers] reserved for Alexander himself, who, after he had put off his arms, went to bathe himself saying, ‘Let us now cleanse ourselves from the toils of war in the bath of Darius.
However, despite the scale of his defeat, Darius was still abroad with the vast resources of his remaining Empire to call upon. He now resolved to fight on, this time through his surrogates, with Alexander’s next major engagements taking place on the Levantine coast.
Hypaspists (foot guards) in battle at Issus, 333 BC, as depicted on the Alexander Sarcophagus. (Wikimedia Commons)
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peace offer, this including a ransom of 10,000 talents for his captured family, and the ceding of all Persian land west of the river Euphrates to the Macedonians. However, Alexander rejected the offer once more, despite Parmenion’s advice to accept. Tyre was then stormed in July 332 BC, with 8,000 Tyrians losing their lives in the assault and 2,000 more crucified on the sea front. A further 30,000 were enslaved. Alexander’s actions here in the aftermath of the siege show that, once more, he was never afraid of using brutality when he deemed it necessary. The Macedonian king left Parmenion to mop up resistance in Syria, continuing south down the Levantine coast where he was held up at Gaza for two months before finally capturing the city. Brutality followed yet again, all the men in the city being killed and the women and children enslaved. By November, Alexander had reached Egypt. The population there welcomed him as a saviour from Persian rule, with the satrap Mazaces quickly surrendering. The king then travelled to Memphis where he sacrificed to Apis, the Greek name for the sacred Egyptian bull Hapi. He was next awarded the double crown of the pharaohs and spent the winter setting up his own administration across the country. Early the following year he founded the city of Alexandria and then marched along the coast to Paraetonium. From there he headed inland on his famed visit to the desert oracle of Zeus Ammon at Siwa. This god was the Greek appropriation of the well-known Egyptian deity Amun-Ra. Here Alexander consulted on the success of his expedition. He revealed the answers to no one. However, from this moment, he always associated himself with the god, gradually beginning to claim descent from Zeus. Alexander returned to Tyre in early 331 BC, having conquered the whole eastern Mediterranean. He appointed a Macedonian satrap for Syria and then advanced eastwards into Mesopotamia. Here he now faced two choices of route to take. He knew that Darius was somewhere to his east, and that the Macedonians needed to force a meeting engagement as quickly as possible, given the vulnerability of their lines of supply.
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The quickest route to get to Babylon, capital of this key satrapy and one of the great cities of the ancient world (and where the Macedonians knew more untold wealth awaited in Darius’ treasury there), was to follow the Euphrates as it meandered slowly through its enormous flood plain towards the Persian Gulf. This route would also greatly ease Alexander’s logistics operation since the river itself could be fully utilized to transport the huge amounts of material needed to keep his army in the field. However, that route also meant his troops would have to endure the intense summer and autumn heat in the riparian lowlands of modern Syria and Iraq, with daytime temperatures in the region of 49°C and over. Further, many of the key cities in the region were threaded along the Euphrates, and each would have to be invested along the way to ensure there were no remaining threats to the rear of the Macedonian advance. Given the time lost the previous year besieging the likes of Tyre and Gaza, Alexander knew this would further delay his advance and allow Darius time to gather even more troops from the east. Alexander’s second option was to follow a much longer route through northern Mesopotamia. This was north up the valley of the Balikh River, and then eastwards through the headwaters of the Little Khabur River before finally arriving at the upper Tigris. From there the Macedonians could then loop back southeast towards Babylon once the temperatures were more agreeable later in the year. Although Alexander knew this route would present real challenges for his baggage train and lines of supply, Arrian says it was this course he eventually chose given the respite it would give his men in the sweltering heat of high summer (Anabasis Alexandri, 3.7.4). Travelling over 400 km in forced marches the Macedonians soon reached the Tigris, travelling via Harran (Roman Carrhae, site of the later disastrous defeat of the leading Roman triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus by the Parthians) and Nisibis (modern Nusaybin in south eastern Turkey). However, unbeknownst to Alexander, his northern route was also steadily drawing him directly towards Darius. This was because, having belatedly received intelligence
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that Alexander had chosen not to follow the Euphrates route, the Persian king had moved northwards himself, travelling 480 km up the Tigris to Gaugamela, a vast dusty plain between Arbela (modern Irbil) and the old Assyrian capital of Nineveh in the upper Tigris valley. Having learned his lesson at Issus, the Persian king chose this as his likely future battlefield site because he knew it would allow his vast army the chance to envelope the Macedonians. The location was named after the Semitic word gammalu meaning dromedary, given it sat below a large low hill shaped like a camel’s hump. With his army camped at Gaugamela, Darius set up his command centre in Arbela 75 km away, a regional stronghold famous across the region as home to the fertility goddess Ištar. Given the Persian name for the city meant ‘city of four gods’, it was also clearly home to a number of other religious cults. Much more importantly, it was also here the royal trunk roads from Armenia in the north and the eastern satrapies converged. At this point, neither Alexander nor Darius knew the other was close, the only tell-tale sign of any Persian activity the crops in the fields on the far bank of the Tigris being torched each day as the Macedonians progressed to prevent their use by Alexander. By September, the Macedonians had reached a suitable fording point on the river and crossed over, entering the satrapy of Assyria on the far shore where they met little Persian resistance. Alexander now gave his men two days to rest and recover from their exhausting march, though all were troubled by a lunar eclipse on the night of 20/21 September. The king promptly offered sacrifices to the sun, moon and earth, with his diviner Aristander declaring the omens were only bad for Darius. With no real opposition to impede their movement, the Macedonians now continued their advance down the line of the Tigris. Soon, the prodromoi at the head of the column encountered Persian cavalry to their front. Thinking this was the whole Persian army, Alexander began to deploy for battle. However, reinforced with the Thracian and Paeonian light cavalry, the prodromoi determined there were
only 1,000 Persian cavalry blocking their advance. Alexander then joined his light horse brigade, reinforcing them with an ila of companions, and together they drove off the Persians. Crucially, they captured some stragglers who revealed that Darius’ main force was nearby at Gaugamela. Alexander now halted, knowing the crucial battle would take place shortly (see pages 156–59). That evening he gathered his army and built a substantial fortified marching camp, wary of any surprise night attacks by Darius. Meanwhile the Persian king had travelled to join his own army from Arbela, and on the 24th sent a messenger to Alexander with a third peace offer. This included proposals to grant the Macedonians all of the land to the west of the Euphrates, and also the hand of one of his daughters who had been captured by Alexander at Issus in marriage. The primary sources say that once more Alexander rejected the offer, and that the Persian heralds then returned to Darius not only with this bad news, but also details of Alexander’s army. A few days now passed while both armies gathered themselves for what all knew would be a titanic struggle. However, by the evening of 30 September, all was ready in both camps, with Darius keeping his troops awake into the early hours of 1 October, reviewing them by torchlight. Meanwhile, the primary sources say Alexander was far more relaxed in his camp, allowing the Macedonian troops to rest, though he himself spent much the night outside his campaign tent with Aristander performing religious rights and making offerings. Here Plutarch then has the king disagreeing with his senior officers and advisors on the means of engaging Darius and his vast army. This is an important passage, given the light it casts on Alexander as a military leader, and also on Parmenion. Plutarch says (Lives, Alexander, 31.1): Meanwhile, some of the older of his companions and Parmenion in particular looked out over the plain between the River Niphates and Gordyaean mountains and saw the entire plain agleam with the watch-fires of the barbarians, while from their (Persian) camp there arose the confused … murmur of myriads of voices, like the distant roar of a vast
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The famous Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun in Pompeii showing Alexander and his companions closing on Darius III at the battle of Issus (though some say it actually shows the battle of Gaugamela). Note the sarissae in the background.
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ocean. They were filled with amazement at the sight and remarked to one another that it would be an overwhelmingly difficult task to defeat an enemy of such strength by engaging them that day. They therefore went to Alexander … and tried to persuade him to attack at night, so as to conceal from his men the most terrifying element of the coming struggle … the odds against them. It was then that Alexander gave them his celebrated answer, ‘I will not steal my victory.’ Some thought this an immature and empty boast on the part of a young man who was merely joking in the presence of danger. But others interpreted it as meaning that he had confidence in his present situation and that he had correctly judged the future. In other words, he was determined that if Darius were defeated he
should have no cause to summon up courage for another attempt; he was not to be allowed to blame darkness and night for his failure on this occasion, as at Issus he had blamed the narrow mountain passes and the sea.
Continuing his advance east, Alexander next captured the Persian capital Susa, releasing a huge amount of treasure totalling 50,000 gold talents. No more would the army go unpaid, with the king again showing his generosity by distributing much of the wealth among the army and sending more home to Macedonia. He also installed Darius’ family in Babylon to live in luxury.
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Next Alexander moved against the Ouxian mountain tribe to the east, before pressing on over the Zagros Mountains into the Persian heartland itself in modern Iran. Here he forced the pass at the famous Persian Gates held by the local satrap Ariobarzanes, and then advanced rapidly to capture Persepolis, the spiritual heart of the Persian Empire. Here Alexander ceremonially burned down the palace of Xerxes to symbolise the end of the Panhellenic war of revenge. While in Persepolis, many in the Macedonian high command tried to convince Alexander that his father’s envisaged mission was now
accomplished and they should return home to a deserved hero’s welcome. However, the king would have none of it. Even if he hadn’t initially planned to capture the entire Achaemenid Empire at the outset of his anabasis, that was now exactly his plan. He sensed destiny calling and determined to hunt Darius down and force a final decisive meeting engagement to settle matters once and for all. Thus he marched north into Media in the spring of 330 BC, while there sending many of his Thessalian and Greek allies home, increasingly replacing them and others with local Persian recruits. This is the first
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Battle of Gaugamela With Alexander’s response to Parmenion and the other senior leaders given, all was now set for the final encounter between Alexander and Darius, which took place on 1 October. In terms of the armies engaged, Alexander fielded the full 47,000 available to him, this proportionally similar to his earlier though smaller armies at the Granicus River and Issus, with his companions, prodromoi, Thessalian and Greek heavy horse, Thracian and Paeonian light horse, hypaspists, pezetairoi, Greek allied and mercenary foot troops, Thracians, Illyrians, Agrianians and Cretans. However, as usual, there is far more debate about the size of Darius’ army among the primary sources, and subsequently. Most modern sources settle for a figure between 250,000 and 300,000 in Darius’ army. In particular, given much of the Persian army was recruited in the east, Darius had a huge advantage in the number of cavalry. This disparity in mounted troops certainly precluded a Macedonian disengagement once battle was joined, a fact which clearly influenced Alexander’s approach to the battle. Further, the Persian army also included 200 scythed chariots, while its Indian contingent also had 15 elephants. In terms of the Macedonian order of battle, Alexander was at the height of his tactical genius here, ordering a particularly complex deployment only possible for the most disciplined and motivated of armies. His centre was deployed in echelon in two lines to prevent an encirclement, the Macedonian phalanx to the fore under Craterus, with the hypaspists the furthest forward on their right under Parmenion’s son Nicanor, with the Greek allies and mercenaries then deployed to the rear. The latter were positioned to allow an about-face if the army was enveloped. Meanwhile, Alexander once more commanded his own shock cavalry to the right of the hypaspists, including all six ilia of the companions in their wedge formations. Meanwhile, Parmenion again commanded the left. His wing, deployed furthest from the Persians in the oblique set up, included the Thessalian and Thracian cavalry, and more heavy foot soldiers. Additionally, floating units of cavalry and light troops covered the flanks and rear of both wings, with the prodromoi on the extreme right. The exact deployment of Darius’ vast army eludes us today, though it likely comprised a rolling front of various types of cavalry stretching from horizon to horizon, intermingled with the better foot soldiers, and with the huge numbers of levies to the rear. Once more, as the battle unfolded, the latter’s main role would be to obstruct Darius’ better troops once his army broke. We do have some detail here and there from the primary sources that give a flavour of the colourful composition of the King of Kings’ army. For example, Darius in his chariot positioned himself in his accustomed position in the exact centre, with his close relatives, royal guard cavalry and royal foot guards in attendance. Either side were the Greek mercenaries, with 100 of the scythed chariots deployed across their front. Nearby were some of the Indian contingent including the 15 elephants, Carians (presumably refugees from the region in Anatolia) and Iranian cavalry. Meanwhile, behind Darius in a hollow could be found the Babylonian and Red Sea contingents, these most likely levy foot soldiers given their position to the rear. Mazaeus, the former satrap of Cilicia, commanded the right-wing cavalry, including large contingents of Syrians, Mesopotamians, Medes, Parthians, Saka, Tapurians, Hyrcanians, Albanians (from the Caucasus), Sacasinians, Cappadocians, Armenians and 50 scythed chariots. Meanwhile Bessus, satrap of Bactria and a close relative of Darius, commanded the Persian left wing facing Alexander on the Macedonian right, his force including more members of the royal family, Bactrians, Dahae and more Saka, together with 50 more scythed chariots. Less is known about the actual battle, though most primary sources suggest Alexander opened the engagement with a general advance which maintained his oblique formation, with the centre still deployed in its two lines. This placed the hypaspists and companions furthest forward on the right, with the king to the fore.
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This makes sense given the huge disparity in numbers, with Alexander knowing time was against him and that his quickest route to victory was to target Darius directly. It also replicated his success at Issus, with his plan to use the best troops under his own leadership to punch through the enemy battleline while the latter was pinned by the pezetairoi in true later Argead ‘hammer-and-anvil’ fashion. One can envisage the Macedonians here advancing in an offset rhomboid, with the front right corner furthest forward, moving at speed towards a seemingly endless line of Persians to their front. Darius responded quickly, matching Alexander’s aggression with a general advance of his own. This meant that soon both of his wings easily overlapped the Macedonian formation. However, he quickly realized that the companions and hypaspists were moving so quickly that they would likely impact his
Infantry Persians Greeks
Cavalry
Chariots
The battle of Gaugamela, arguably Alexander’s greatest victory where he smashed Achaemenid power against huge odds. (Nigel Emsen)
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battleline near his own position before his army could effect the planned envelopment. He therefore ordered Bessus and his eastern horsemen on the left wing to speed their own advance so as to wrap around the Macedonian right wing to slow them. This managed to push back the Macedonian rightwing flank cover, with more and more Persian cavalry then joining Bessus to reinforce his initial success. Meanwhile in the centre, Darius now launched his scythed chariots against the pezetairoi, hoping to at least disrupt the Macedonian pikemen before they could impact the Persian battleline. However, as usual the chariots proved a spectacular failure, with most shot down by Alexander’s skirmishers and those reaching the phalanx refusing to charge the hedge of pikes, instead being driven down lanes deliberately opened between the units of pezetairoi to their doom. Soon the phalanx resumed its advance and began pressing the mercenary hoplites and foot guards to Darius’ front. The ‘anvil’ was now in position. On the Macedonian right wing, Alexander noted the thinning of the Persian left wing as more and more of Bessus’ cavalry, and now mounted troops from the Persian centre, began to lap around his extreme right wing. Soon a gap had opened up in the Persian line and Alexander pounced, the ‘hammer’ charging through at full pelt with the king at the head of the companions, supported by those units of the hypaspists who could keep up and unengaged units of the phalanx. This attack punched through the Persian royal guard cavalry, exposing Darius himself. The King of Kings then fled again, rather than stand and fight. Alexander pursued vigorously, wanting the finish things there and then. However, on the Macedonian left Parmenion had been under pressure for some time with Mazaeus’ huge cavalry wing attacking in repeating waves. Indeed, some Persian cavalry had actually reached the Macedonian baggage camp where they killed the camp guard and freed a large number of Persian prisoners. The strategos now sent word to Alexander, requesting support to prevent his wing being overrun. The primary sources differ here on the Macedonian king’s response, with Diodorus Siculus saying the courier couldn’t find Alexander who was too far ahead in his pursuit of Darius (Library of History, 17.53). However, Arrian says Alexander received the report and, hugely frustrated, broke off his pursuit and headed back to help Parmenion (Anabasis Alexandri, 3.8). On the way though, his force met some returning Persian cavalry including Parthians and Saka, and a desperate melee ensued. According to Arrian, this was some of the heaviest fighting Alexander experienced in the entire battle, with 60 companions killed and many more wounded including Hephaestion. Anticlimactically, by the time they reached Parmenion, his left wing had been secured, and it seems likely the cavalry Alexander met if Arrian is correct were Mazaeus’ troops withdrawing after word reached them of Darius’ wretched escape. By this time, the Macedonian success on the right had enabled the rest of the army to roll up what remained of the demoralized Persian centre. The vast army now finally broke, with Alexander again in the van leading a vigorous pursuit. Once more a huge slaughter ensued, with various contemporary reports saying the Persians lost between 40,000 and 300,000 dead depending on the source, and the Macedonians an equally unlikely 100 to 500. Sadly for Alexander, Darius escaped with some Bactrian cavalry and Greek mercenaries, fleeing northeast to Media. The Macedonians pursued for a number of days until they lost contact. Alexander then occupied Babylonia and reinstalled Mazaeus as the regional satrap in Babylon (alongside a Macedonian commander), recognising the Persian’s leadership and bravery at Gaugamela. Thus ended Alexander’s greatest battle, and soon his anabasis was underway once more, with India beckoning after the later death of Darius.
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manifestation of the vision many commentators then and now suggest he began to contemplate at this time, of an empire of equals uniting all of its component cultures and peoples. The reappointment of Mazaeus in Babylon shows how his views on the future of the newly won empire were changing. This was to cause a growing schism with his closest advisors and the army, first manifest at this point when he decided to leave Parmenion in Media to control communications. Although a sensible move – it replicated his earlier similar positioning of his strategos Antigonus Monophthalmus in Phrygia – the Macedonians interpreted it as favouring the king’s newfound Persian friends. Alexander set out again at high speed in the summer of 330 BC, heading northeast. He travelled via Rhagae near modern Tehran through the Caspian Gates into the Caucasus Mountains. There he learned that Bessus had deposed Darius. Then later, as the Macedonians closed on the Persian column after a skirmish near modern Shāhrūd in northeastern Iran, the usurper had Darius stabbed. The King of Kings, earlier the richest man in the known world, was left to die in the mud next to a pool where he was found by a Macedonian soldier. Alexander, shocked, sent the body back to Persepolis for burial with all due honours in the royal tombs there. The Macedonian king was now unchallenged, with a Rhodian inscription from this time calling him the ‘Lord of Asia’. This remarkable statement highlights the astonishing success of his anabasis to date, as he had conquered the mighty Achaemenid Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great, Darius I and Xerxes I in just four short years. However, no doubt to the dismay of many of the Macedonians in his entourage and the army, his ambitions for further conquest were undimmed, with the ends of the known world beckoning.
onwards to India Alexander defined the phrase ‘not resting on one’s laurels’. Consolidating briefly to ensure his lines of supply were secure, he then set off eastwards once again in 327 BC. Crossing the Elburz Mountains in northern Iran he arrived at the Hyrcanian
Ocean, today’s Caspian Sea. He seized Zadracarta in Hyrcania where he received the submission of the remaining Achaemenid Persian satraps and nobles. Again, as with Mazaeus in Babylon for example, he re-confirmed the most capable in their offices, knowing that as he headed ever further east on his anabasis stability in his rear was key. The king then briefly turned westwards to modern Amol, reducing a mountain people there called the Mardi in the Elburz Mountains. Here he also accepted the surrender of the last Greek mercenaries who had been in Persian employ. Alexander continued east, advancing rapidly again and crossing into modern Afghanistan where he founded Alexandria in Ariana near modern Herat. However, next disaster struck at Phrada in Drangiana. Here the king discovered a plot to assassinate him. Worse, Parmenion’s son Philotas, who by now commanded the companion cavalry, was implicated. He was tried and condemned by the army, and then executed. Alexander knew that Parmenion would seek revenge for his son’s death and sent a secret message to Cleander, Parmenion’s second in command back in Media. This ordered him to assassinate his superior, which Cleander duly did (Plutarch, Lives, Alexander, 49.121). All of Parmenion’s close colleagues were also quietly despatched. This episode once again shows the ruthless brutality of Alexander when confronted with a threat to his ambitions. These actions caused widespread horror among the Macedonians given Parmenion’s high standing. However, they also strengthened Alexander’s position with the older officers who had served under Philip as their cards had now been marked. From now on, anyone who crossed the king knew that no matter how senior they were, a miserable end was the likely outcome. Another result was the reorganisation of the companion cavalry into two sections. Each now contained four new hipparchia squadrons (see Chapter 6 for detail), with one group commanded by the ultra-loyal Hephaestion and the other by Cleitus ‘the Black’, one of the army’s most seasoned warriors. From Phrada, Alexander next marched ever further east, through the winter of 330 BC into 329 BC. Advancing up the valley of the
(overleaf ) The key component of the Macedonian line of battle, the sarissa-armed phalanx. As seen here, this was a fearsome sight for any opponent. ( Johnny Shumate)
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Helmand River through Arachosia, he passed the site of modern Kabul. The king then entered the territory of the Paropamisadae where he founded Alexandria by the Caucasus. Bessus, murderer of Darius, was now in Bactria trying to raise a revolt in the eastern satrapies. Taking the title Great King, he styled himself Artaxerxes V. Alexander acted with his usual efficiency, crossing the Hindu Kush via the 3,850 m high Khawak Pass, and then heading north with his full field army. Despite bitter cold and food shortages, the army soon arrived at Drapsaca in Afghanistan north of Kabul. Bessus, outflanked, fled again. He crossed the River Oxus heading back west, with Alexander in hot pursuit after appointing loyal satraps in Bactria and Aria to secure his rear. By the time Alexander again neared the fugitive, the Sogdian warlord Spitamenes had deposed Bessus. Captured and flogged, Bessus was handed to the Macedonians and then sent back to Bactria. There he was mutilated in the Persian manner, losing his nose and ears, and was then publicly executed at Ecbatana in western Persia (Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, 4.7.3). Things also ended badly for Spitamenes, who was later killed by his wife who sent his head to Alexander. Alexander now turned north again, reaching Maracanda (modern Samarkand) by way of Cyropolis. In short order he reached the River Jaxartes, the modern Syr Darya River, which was the most northerly border of the former Persian Empire. Here he fought the battle of the Jaxartes against the local Scythian nomads. The site of this campaign straddles the borders of modern Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, lying southwest of Tashkent (the modern capital of Uzbekistan). In the battle, Alexander used catapults to clear the Scythians from the north bank of the river. They were unused to such long-range firepower, one warrior being impaled through body and shield (Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, 4.4.4). Alexander then forced the crossing, pursuing the Scythians northwards into central Asia. Dispersing them, he then returned south to the Jaxartes. Here he founded Alexandria Eschate (meaning ‘the farthest’) on south bank on the site of the modern city of Khodjend in Tajikistan.
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Meanwhile, the emboldened Spitamenes (prior to his demise at his wife’s hand) had raised Sogdiana in revolt to Alexander’s rear, also recruiting the Massegetai tribe to his cause. Alexander spent the next year through to the autumn of 328 BC crushing the uprising. He next attacked the remaining nomadic warlords resisting his rule in the hills of Paraetacene in Sogdiana near modern Tajikistan. One was the Bactrian Oxyartes who had established a fortress on a high crag dubbed the Sogdian Rock. The Macedonians captured it with a stratagem using volunteer mountaineers. Among the prisoners was Roxanna, Oxyartes’ daughter. Alexander, ever the pragmatist, married her. He knew this was the quickest way to pacify a region so far from the centre of his growing empire, and ever likely to be a cause of trouble. Back at Maracanda, another incident occurred which radically widened the schism between Alexander and his Macedonians, particularly those of Philip’s generation. This was the murder of Cleitus ‘the Black’ in a drunken quarrel. Arrian (Anabasis Alexandri, 4.8.9) says in his detailed account of the incident that the actual cause of the feud was unknown, though Plutarch (Lives, Alexander, 50.126) lays some of the blame with Cleitus for taking advantage of the king’s anger and intoxication. Others have argued more recently that Cleitus took offence at the older officers being insulted by the king’s supporters. It seems Cleitus then accused Alexander of taking personal credit for the feats of all of the Macedonians, including previously his father. The result was fatal. Alexander impaled him with a pike. The king was full of remorse after the event. His public mourning led to the army passing a decree convicting Cleitus of treason posthumously. However, the damage had been done, with the split between Alexander and his troops widening. This was further manifest when Alexander started wearing Persian royal dress, a very visible expression of the eastern absolutist form of rule he was beginning to adopt. Shortly afterwards, he tried to impose a Persian court ceremonial routine which involved proscynesis, a form of prostration. Normal for Persians when entering the king’s presence, it implied an act of worship. The Macedonians and
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Greeks refused point-blank, even his most loyal supporters. In the short term at least, the multicultural experiment was put on hold. Another plot against the king was soon uncovered which involved the royal pages. Callisthenes, Alexander’s historian and Aristotle’s great nephew, was also implicated. Tried and convicted, he either died of disease in captivity or was tortured on the rack and hanged, with the pages stoned to death (Plutarch, Lives, Alexander, 55.136). Relations between the king and his men worsened yet again. Alexander now targeted India to the south. Before he did, we have another of those curious incidents which the primary sources record with such relish. This was his order for the army to destroy the carts in the Macedonian baggage train laden with the soldiers’ loot. The aim here was clearly to allow a speedier advance into new enemy territory, unencumbered by plunder. Given the strain now being felt between the king and his men, one might expect this to cause a further schism. However, Plutarch says that the great majority cheered the fires being lit, with Alexander burning his own plunder first, and with only a few resenting it (Plutarch, Lives, Alexander, 57.138). Despite recent tribulations, the bond between the king and his men was clearly still strong when it needed to be. Alexander left Bactria in the summer of 327 BC with the whole field army, less the garrisons left to secure his rear. He re-crossed the Hindu Kush through Bamiyan and the Ghorband Valley and then divided his forces into two columns. Hephaestion and Perdiccas took charge of half of the army and the baggage train, heading through the Khyber Pass. The king himself led the remainder south. As they cleared the foothills of the Himalayas they now saw spread out before them the broad forested expanse of the Punjab. Fabulous India beckoned, one more stop on Alexander’s road to destiny and greatness.
Porus and the Indian Kingdoms Alexander’s experience fighting the Indian kingdoms was very different to that when campaigning in Achaemenid Persian territory.
There he had one clear opponent in Darius who, despite the latter’s vast numerical superiority, provided a target for Alexander’s campaigning strategy. Further, the set-piece battles against the Persians tended to be on terrain that was agreeable to his army, with its reliance on the phalanx and shock cavalry. India was a very different story. Here, instead of one dominant power, there were a patchwork of kingdoms spread out across often inhospitable terrain, most of whom at one time or another were capable of tenuously uniting their neighbours to fight against an invader. So it proved against Alexander, who initially sought to subdue those kingdoms which opposed him, often dealing with them brutally to send a message to others that the price of confronting the Macedonians was high indeed. However, soon he came up against a ruler and kingdom that had the critical mass to rally real Indian resistance against him. This was Porus and his eponymous kingdom of Paurava, one of the largest Indian states. This was located between the rivers Jhelum and Chenab, the former a tributary of the latter which itself was a tributary of the mighty Indus. Given Alexander’s final set-piece victory in battle was against Porus at the Hydaspes river, the primary sources all speak very highly of this Indian king, clearly aiming to portray Alexander as heroically as possible. Arrian for example says Porus was well over 2 m tall (Anabasis Alexandri, 29.2), while Plutarch talks of his ‘size and huge physique’ (Lives, Alexander, 60.42). All comment on his prowess and courage when fighting Alexander and the Macedonians from the back of his war elephant. This certainly impressed the Macedonian king who, in the aftermath of victory, treated him more as an ally than enemy after his vanquished foe told him he expected to be treated like a fellow king. In fact, Alexander, ever the romantic, expanded Porus’ territory such that by the time of the Macedonian king’s death the Indian kingdom included all of the Sind. This vast territory stretched all the way from the Punjab through to the Indus Delta and Arabian Sea. Sadly, after Alexander’s demise, Porus failed to hold onto his expanded territories and the collapse
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of his kingdom opened the way for the rise of Chandragupta, founder of the Mauryan Empire. Indian warfare was very stylised in nature, with a chivalrous code of rules aimed at preserving the integrity of a defeated kingdom, even if only as a vassal. We have great insight into its various component parts thanks to the Arthaśāstra treatise on military strategy, statecraft and economic theory, this dating to after the time of Alexander (the first sections were written around 150 BC) but still relevant to the earlier Indian armies of his day. Classical Indian armies featured four main constituent parts, these being elephants, chariots, cavalry and foot soldiers. The former were the elite shock troops, relying on their psychological impact and huge size to fracture an opposing battle line. As a weapon of war, they are discussed in full in Chapter 6 which follows their evolution as a weapon of war from the time of Alexander to the later Roman Republican period. At the time of Alexander’s engagement with the army of Porus at the Hydaspes river they were deployed in traditional Indian fashion, his 200 beasts set out in a long line 30 m apart in front of his central infantry battle line. Elephants had been in use in Indian armies from at least the 6th century BC, with those aged around 60 thought best suited for warfare given their maturity and therefore suitability for training. This is notably late in the life span of an elephant, they rarely living beyond 80 years of age. Indian war elephants were covered in highly decorated hattatthara (cloth caparisons), often with a paristara (padded covering) atop. The latter, secured with ropes and straps, provided secure seating for the beast’s fighting crew. This included the mahout driver sitting between the elephant’s ears who, in addition to his thotti (bull hook), valiya kol (long pole) or cheru kol (short pole) used for controlling the animal, also carried javelins. In addition, up to three further crew were also carried. The latter, sitting astride the elephant’s back, were armed with bows and javelins, with one crew member often shown in art also carrying a parasol or other form of standard. Indian war elephants could also be
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accompanied by supporting missile-armed light infantry, though there is no mention of this in the accounts of Alexander’s victory at Hydaspes. A final point to note here is that the noise and smell of elephants could prove particularly unsettling to cavalry horses if they were unused to them, as Alexander found in his campaigns in the Punjab. Chariots were also a feature of Indian armies at the time of Alexander, though less so later. Most were of the shock variety, sometimes used to bolster battle lines when elephants weren’t available in any quantity, they also frequently used to support the cavalry as at Hydaspes. Indian chariots were heavy, two-wheeled vehicles pulled by four horses, with large crews armed with bows and javelins. Though this gave them plenty of momentum and impetus when well underway, it meant that otherwise they were slow and clumsy, especially in the soft soils of the Punjab. In such circumstances they were easy to pick off, as by Alexander’s Macedonians, again at the Hydaspes. Some argue Indian chariots were of the smaller, more manoeuvrable two-horse variety (and indeed the Arthaśāstra mentions seven different sizes of vehicle), but I have opted here to stick with the traditional interpretation given their performance against the Macedonians. Indian cavalry were the least effective arm in the military establishments of the various Indian states according to contemporary sources. Most often unarmoured, at best they carried shields of various shapes, and for offensive weaponry used javelins, though the Mahābhārata Sanskrit epic mentions mounted warriors throwing prasa (barbed spears). For a side arm, cavalry also carried a short sword if wealthy enough. Their battlefield role appears to have been the seizure of key terrain features for foot troops, flank protection and the pursuit of defeated enemies. Interestingly, they were only infrequently employed in a scouting role, probably reflecting the inhospitable hilly or forested terrain in much of the Punjab. Meanwhile, the vast majority of classical Indian armies comprised infantry which were usually so subsidiary to the other arms that the Arthaśāstra provides little detail about them. The majority facing Alexander at Hydaspes were archers
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carrying a long, bamboo self-bow that fired a heavy 1.4 m arrow made of reed or cane. These weapons were particularly effective at short range, though at Hydaspes the rain and slippery ground greatly reduced their effectiveness. The bowmen were usually totally unarmoured, lacking even a helmet, carrying their arrows in a long quiver set down the centre of their backs. Some of the better foot troops also carried a short sword as a side arm, while elite warriors are often depicted in sculpture fielding a 1.4 m long, straight, twohanded slashing sword. Some foot troops are also described by the primary sources carrying a short spear and long, raw oxhide shields rather than a bow. These may have formed a front rank for the better-trained bowmen formations, or may have been deployed in separate units interspersed with units of bowmen, though the primary sources are unclear on this. Plutarch says that the best Indian warriors, of whichever arm, were mercenaries who served their masters loyally wherever they were hired, adding it was these troops that gave Alexander the most problems as he progressed slowly and sanguineously through the Punjab (Lives, Alexander, 59.141). The Macedonian king’s solution here was again brutal, he first buying them off and then annihilating them when they were marching away from his camp. They were thus denied to Porus for use in the Indian king’s army at Hydaspes. A further observation on the Indian military establishment at the time of Alexander relates to another manifestation of their stylised form of warfare, namely the use of formal camps when on campaign. These were in many ways similar to later Roman marching camps, built every night when in enemy territory. In that regard, at the beginning of a campaign the Indian army would gather in a skandhāvāra (base encampment), these called a jaya-skandhāvāra if the king was present. Such camps featured extensive defensive ditches, banks and palisades, with an inner bastion for the army’s command staff. Then when on the march, a similar though smaller fort was built each night, these continuing to be manned as the campaign progressed to ensure that the army had a line of
retreat given the often hostile nature of the terrain. A final comment here relates to the size of Indian armies. Unlike Darius with his all-encompassing empire, which enabled him to field his vast armies, those of the Indian states were far smaller. Thus we have the key primary sources all emphasising the smaller scale of Porus’ army at Hydaspes. For example, Arrian says he fielded 200 elephants, 300 chariots, 4,000 cavalry and 30,000 foot soldiers (Anabasis Alexandri, 5.15.4), while Diodorus Siculus details 130 elephants, 1,000 chariots and 50,000 foot soldiers (Library of History, 17.87.2), and Plutarch talks of 2,000 mounted troops and 20,000 foot troops (Lives, Alexander, 62.2). Taking these numbers into account, it seems likely Alexander’s army at Hydaspes was actually larger than that of Porus, with Diodorus’ 1,000 chariots seeming particularly unlikely.
end of the Anabasis and the Road Home Alexander’s assault on India began with an advance through Swāt and Gandhara, deploying his force in multiple columns with the spearheads again led by Hephaestion and Perdiccas. Following the strategy detailed above, he gradually fought his way south and east through the Punjab, fighting multiple small-scale engagements on the way, mostly short sieges of regional fortified towns and citadels. The Macedonian king continued to lead from the front when needed, and in the winter of 327 BC was wounded fighting the Aspasioi in the Kunar Valley by a dart striking his shoulder and penetrating his linen armour, though he soon recovered. Eventually Alexander forced a route to the Indus, then storming the supposedly impregnable pinnacle of Aornos (modern Pir-Sar). This was within a day’s march of the Indus itself, which he crossed in the spring of 326 BC near Attock, the army then entering Taxila. Here the ruler, Taxiles (also called Ambhi), gave the king elephants and Indian troops in return for his support against his rival Porus. This was the context for Alexander’s last great victory, fought on the left bank of the Hydaspes (see pages 178–81).
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Thus ended Alexander’s last great victory in set-piece battle, a spectacular affair which even if smaller in scale than the engagements at Issus and Gaugamela, made up for it in its setting and splendour. The battle of the Hydaspes River also marked the high point in his campaign in the Punjab, and soon he would begin his fraught march back to Babylon, there to meet his destiny in June 323 BC. In triumph, Alexander next founded two cities near the site of the battle to celebrate the victory. These were Alexandria Nicaea and Bucephala, the
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latter named after his horse Bucephalus which died there. After founding the latter, Alexander sacrificed to the Sun, showing his determination to continue ever eastwards on his anabasis. Fighting his way further into the Pubjab, he soon reached the River Hyphasis (the modern Beas river) in late August 326 BC. However, here his exhausted and homesick army finally mutinied in the tropical rain, refusing to go any further. Alexander made a determined effort to change their minds, using fine oratory and calling specifically on the honour and reputation of his senior leaders, but finally
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had to accept the inevitable. He then erected 12 altars to the Olympian gods, and built a fort he named Alexandria Hyphasis on the western bank of the river near modern Amritsar. This last was an interesting initiative, Alexander perhaps hoping he could one day return east and resume his anabasis. However, for now he realised that dream was over. The Macedonian king headed back to the Hydaspes where he built a fleet of 1,000 ships on which he embarked half the army, the other half marching alongside in three columns. The whole
headed southwest towards the confluence with the Acesines river, from where he knew they could continue along the Indus and the coast. This was through particularly hostile territory. On the way, any riparian communities Alexander came across were faced with the usual choice when confronted by the arriviste Macedonians, subjugation or conflict. Most chose the former, given Alexander’s reputation in the region for violent reprisal, but one chose the latter, nearly costing Alexander his life. These were the Mallians, based near the confluence of the Hydaspes and Acesines
Light troops such as these peltasts and psiloi played a key role in all of Alexander’s battles. ( Johnny Shumate)
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A Macedonian hypaspist, at centre with the king’s image on his shield, and pezetairoi either side. ( Johnny Shumate)
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who, with no king of their own, formed a loose confederacy with their Oxydracan neighbours. When the Mallians refused to submit, Alexander formed a sizeable campaigning force with half of the companion cavalry, his hypaspist, two regiments of the phalanx, his Agrianian light foot soldiers and locally recruited mounted and foot bowmen. He ordered the rest of his riverine fleet and any troops remaining in the three columns to continue on their way. With typical aggression Alexander then headed inland at speed, dividing his force into smaller flying columns to best negotiate the forbidding terrain. He soon caught a Mallian force against the walls of the nearest city which his troops massacred, then killing another 2,000 when assaulting the settlement. Seeking a short campaign so his force could re-join the fleet and the columns on foot, Alexander pressed on, burning numerous local villages as he pursued the native Mallians towards the nearby ‘city of the Brachmanes’ (Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, 6.6.6). This was quickly stormed, with Alexander leading from the front, the many Mallians seeking shelter there butchered or enslaved. Pressing on, the Macedonians next caught a Mallian army against the banks of the Hydroates river. Here Alexander pinned them in place with his cavalry which was then almost overrun before his foot soldiers arrived, forcing the Indians to flee. He pursued them to the nearby town of Malli which he quickly invested, storming it the following day. It was here, leading the assault in person, that he was hit by at least two of the long Indian arrows. The second proved a serious wound, causing a thoracic trauma that was for a short time life threatening, the shaft’s large iron barb penetrating the king’s left lung and leading to a significant period of convalescence. However, he survived and, although weakened, finally led his army down to the Indus Delta, building Alexandria on the Indus on the way. Once on the coast, Alexander constructed a new stone-built harbour and dockyard, and then divided his army once more for the journey home. One column, under Craterus, was sent through the Mulla Pass, Quetta and Kandahar into the
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Battle of the Hydaspes River Porus responded swiftly to Alexander’s support for Taxiles and quickly moved against the Macedonians. In typical fashion Alexander immediately countered, seeking a meeting engagement as soon as possible. He built a fortified camp near a local town, thought to be modern Jhelum, as his base of operations. In the spring he learned that Porus had drawn up his army on the south bank of the nearby Hydaspes to counter any crossing by the Macedonians. This was a significant waterway, deep and fast enough to prevent any crossing attempt except by a significant ford. Arriving at the river, Alexander began to scout the north bank each night with his mounted troops, looking for a suitable ford. However, every time they found a candidate site to cross, Porus arrived to deter them. Finally, in early May, the Macedonians found a suitable crossing 27 km downstream of their camp where a forest-covered island (some sources call this Admana island) sat in the middle of a meandering bend in the river. The current here was unusually sluggish, allowing Alexander to use the transport vessels his pioneers had ready to assemble to ferry his army across when all was ready. However, he knew that transporting such a huge force across the river would quickly draw Porus’ attention. Then, if the Indian army arrived before he could get his army fully across to the southern bank, he’d be forced to fight a defended river-crossing battle yet again. This would most likely spell disaster given the Hydaspes, even here at the island meander, was a far more significant waterway than either the Granicus or Pinarus. Alexander now employed a stratagem to put Porus off his guard. Instead of crossing directly, he noisily paraded mounted troops up and down the northern bank of the Hydaspes each evening within earshot of Porus’ troops. The Indian king took the bait, on successive nights deploying for battle much of his army including his elephants in case the Macedonians really did cross. Eventually, after repeated nighttime false alarms, Porus relaxed his guard and stopped responding to the Macedonian cavalry on the far bank given, as Arrian details, he was ‘no longer expecting a sudden attempt under cover of darkness, and was lulled into a sense of security’ (Anabasis Alexandri, 5.15). Then Alexander pounced. On the appointed night, the assembled ferrying fleet was readied on the northern bank of the Hydaspes by the engineers, this comprising 30 oared galleys, smaller vessels ‘cut in half ’ and skins filled with hay (Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, 5.18). Alexander was now faced with a dilemma, knowing he couldn’t ferry his entire army over in one night, and that the following morning Porus would quickly become aware of the crossing and counter it. The Macedonian king therefore devised a classic pincer tactic strategy, first leading much of his cavalry and some foot troops across to pin the Indians in place while, later, the rest of his army would cross to effect the victory. The latter were split into in two divisions. The first, under Craterus, featured two taxies of pezetairoi, 5,000 Indian allies and some allied cavalry. These initially stayed in the Macedonian camp. Meanwhile the second division, under Meleager, featured three taxeis of the phalanx and some mercenaries. Deployed a few kilometres upstream from Alexander, but short of the camp and Craterus, Meleager’s command had orders to cross the Hydaspes first when the king sent word, with Craterus to follow after. Attalus and Gorgias acted as the key subordinates. Alexander’s assault force comprised 5,000 cavalry and 6,000 foot soldiers. The former included the four hipparchies of companions (the first including the king’s 300 agema [royal guards] as the hetairoi were now commonly known), plus newly recruited allied and mercenary cavalry from Bactria, Sogdiana, the Saka and the Dahae. Meanwhile his foot soldiers comprised the argyraspides (as the hypaspists were now known), two taxeis of the phalanx, his Cretans and the Agrianians. Alexander now began his crossing to south bank of the Hydaspes, bypassing the island to his immediate west, with the cavalry mounts on the galleys and boats, while many of his foot soldiers waded across. The king himself led the way standing in the prow of a triaconter, the smallest class of war galley, though the largest he had available. Plutarch here makes reference to the atrocious night-time conditions of the crossing, saying (Lives, Alexander, 60):
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The battle of Hydaspes River, Alexander’s toughest battle where he fought Porus and his Indian war elephants. (Nigel Emsen)
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Here he was overtaken by tremendous bursts of thunder and lightning. Although he saw that a number of his men were struck dead by the lightning, he continued the advance and made for the opposite bank. After the storm, the Hydaspes, which was roaring down in high flood, had scooped out a deep channel, so that much of the stream was diverted to this direction and the ground between the two currents had become broken and slippery and made it impossible for his men to gain a firm footing. It was on this occasion that Alexander is said to have exclaimed, ‘O Athenians, will you ever believe what risks I am running just to earn your praise.’
However, on landing on the opposite shore, the Macedonians realised they had made a mistake, because far from landing on the southern shore they found that instead they had arrived on the banks of a smaller, though still treacherous, branch of the Hydaspes, this error showing how heavily wooded the banks actually were. This meant yet another crossing to actually reach Porus’ side of the river. This Alexander achieved, though not without a huge amount of effort, and by the time he had gathered his crossing force
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ready for action the sun was high in the sky and Porus had had time to respond. This was in the form of an armed reconnaissance comprising 120 heavy chariots and 4,000 cavalry under the command of his son. However, as they approached Alexander, they came under sustained mounted bow fire from the Bactrians, Sogdians, Saka and Dahae light horse, followed by a headlong charge by Alexander leading the agema and other companions (Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, 5.15). The Indian force was completely routed, with many of the chariots abandoned in the soft mud along the shoreline. Plutarch says they left 400 dead behind, including the king’s son (Lives, Alexander, 60). Soon news reached Porus of the death of his son and the failure of the chariots and cavalry to push Alexander back over the Hydaspes. Aware the main engagement was now imminent, he deployed his army accordingly. This followed the standard practice as detailed in the Arthaśāstra treatise on military strategy, with the Indian cavalry on the wings, fronted by heavy chariots, and the infantry in the centre with the elephants stretched across their front. The Indian king, clad in chainmail and riding his tallest war elephant (described by Plutarch as highly intelligent and paying great attention to Porus’ safety, Lives, Alexander, 60), chose a broad riparian plain for the engagement to allow his chariots the best chance of success given their earlier issues facing Alexander’s crossing force. He also left behind a small force of elephants and poor-quality infantry to face Craterus if he attempted to cross the Hydaspes from the Macedonian camp. Finally, it seems Porus also kept to his rear a reserve of poor-quality foot soldiers, most likely local levies. The primary sources all detail the bright spectacle on display across the ranks of the Indian front-line troops, with multi-coloured shields, hauberks, cloaks and scarves, the bowmen poised with long iron-tipped arrows at the ready. One can also imagine the cacophony of noise from the elephants, and the trumpets and bells used to signal Indian troop movements across the battlefield. As detailed earlier, the primary sources all emphasise the smaller scale of Porus’ army at the Hydaspes compared to the enormous forces earlier deployed by Darius. We have more insight into the size of the army Alexander fielded in the main engagement, if only because we have detail about individual unit sizes in the Macedonian army. This included the troops Alexander had initially led across the river and Meleager’s force that had by this time crossed the Hydaspes, most likely after the king had engaged the younger Porus’ blocking force, though it is unclear where the crossing was actually made. Craterus’ troops in the Macedonian camp set out to join Alexander when battle was about to be joined but arrived too late to participate, later joining in the pursuit of the Indian army. Some estimate that Alexander’s overall force for the main engagement was around 18,000 strong, though given the king’s total force for his invasion of the Punjab numbered around 52,000, his army at the Hydaspes was probably considerably larger, and certainly bigger than that of Porus. Piecing together the various isolated details of Alexander’s deployment at the Hydaspes in the primary sources, a reasonable recreation places the king with the agema, companions, allied and mercenary cavalry on the right wing, then the argyraspides, phalanx and Greek allies and mercenaries in the centre (in that order right to left) and the Thracian and Paeonian light horse on the left wing. A cloud of light foot soldiers, including the Cretans (to the right) and Agrianians (to the right centre), were deployed across the front of the army. It is unclear where the prodromoi were positioned, though most likely they were with Alexander and the companions. Finally, in the last minutes before battle commenced, the king detached a unit of companions under Coenus (it is unclear how many, though no more than a hipparchia) from his right wing to support his left-wing light cavalry, having seen more Indian cavalry arrive opposite them at the last minute. Battle commenced in the sweltering Indian afternoon with Alexander ordering his allied cavalry on the right, led by the Dahae, to harass the Indians to their front. A thundering charge by the companions led by Alexander himself then followed, which left the Indian left-wing chariots and cavalry on the point of breaking. Seeing this, Porus countered by sending some of his right-wing chariots and horse to support his left wing. However, as they arrived, the newly approaching Coenus on the Macedonian left
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spurred his companions to follow the departing Indians opposite and soon the reinforced Indian mounted troops on the left found themselves fighting Alexander to their front and Coenus to their rear. The Indian cavalry tried to form a double-facing line to tackle the dual threat but lacked the training and soon the whole left wing broke under the Macedonian onslaught. Some of the Indian horse fled to the safety of the elephants deployed across the front of the Indian centre. Seeing this, Alexander ordered the argyraspides, phalanx and Greek allies and mercenaries in the centre to advance, aiming to taken advantage of the state of confusion to their front, caused by the retreating Indian cavalry as they mingled with the elephants and Indian foot soldiers. Porus then ordered his elephants to charge en masse though the milling Indian cavalry, and soon a titanic clash ensued as they smashed into the Macedonian heavy foot soldiers in the centre. At first the powerful beasts caused heavy losses among the pikemen and spearmen, their armour-clad tusks impaling many men. Others were tossed in the air, only to be crushed under foot by the elephants when they landed. However, under great duress, the Macedonian centre held and soon their pikes and spears were causing heavy casualties among the Indian elephant crews. Meanwhile, the Cretan, Agrianian and other Macedonian skirmishers began harassing the beasts with their bows, javelins and slings, aiming at the eyes of the elephants, and again their crew. Then re-armed pezetairoi emerged from the ranks of the heavy infantry equipped with heavy axes, bravely weaving in and out of the stamping elephant feet to chop at their hamstrings. Soon many of the wounded and crewless beasts were panicking, with one after another fleeing back towards their own lines. There chaos ensued as the elephants ran amok among their own cavalry and infantry. The Macedonian heavy foot troops now reformed, with the argyraspides and pezetairoi adopting the synaspismos (locked-shield formation) and advancing on the confused, thrashing mass of elephants, horses and men to their front. Once more the ‘anvil’ was set in place as they drove all before them backwards, advancing step by step. Meanwhile, Alexander led the companions and other Macedonian cavalry in a devastating charge into the rear of the Indian centre, with the ‘hammer’ once again winning the battle. The Indian army quickly broke, with Craterus and his men then arriving to join the pursuit. Porus himself was soon captured, though he only agreed to surrender when overcome by thirst, with Alexander riding out to meet him and treating him as a celebrated and worthy foe. In terms of losses, Arrian says the Indians lost around 23,000 men (Anabasis Alexandri, 5.18), while Diodorus Siculus details 12,000 dead and 9,000 captured (Library of History, 17.89.1). Porus also lost another son, while his ally Spitakes was also killed, and most of his nobles. Alexander captured 80 elephants on the battlefield, and intercepted 70 more as they arrived to reinforce Porus’ now defeated army. Meanwhile, Arrian adds Macedonian losses amounted to 80 infantry, 20 companions, 10 allied horse archers and 200 other horse troops (Anabasis Alexandri, 5.18). Diodorus Siculus gives a more reasonable 1,000 Macedonian dead, this easily believable after the initial clash between Porus’ elephants and the Macedonian centre (Library of History, 17.89.1).
A silver dekadrachm, possibly struck in Babylon, showing Alexander the Great fighting Porus atop his elephant. (Wikimedia Commons)
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The Macedonian pike phalanx is tested to its limits by the thunderous charge of Porus’ elephants at the battle of the Hydaspes River. (Peter Connolly © Greece and Rome at War, Greenhill Books)
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Helmand Valley, and then onwards to Drangiana with the aim of re-joining other elements of the main army on the Amanis River in Carmania in south-eastern Iran. This force included the baggage train, three battalions of the phalanx, the king’s newly acquired elephants and the sick and wounded. Meanwhile another force, under the Cretan admiral Nearchus, set sail in September 325 BC in 150 ships for the Persian Gulf. Alexander himself led the rest of the foot soldiers along the coast through Gedrosia (modern Baluchistan in
south-western Pakistan). Some argue Alexander actually planned for Nearchus’ fleet to supply this column, but it may have sailed too late due to the prevailing winds. In any event, the land force was soon forced inland away from the coast by the mountainous terrain, and the march west through the Gedrosian Desert became a disaster given the serious shortage of food and water. Additionally, many of the camp followers in the column died in a sudden monsoon that flooded their encampment in a wadi. Finally, after much
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suffering, the survivors re-joined Nearchus and the fleet on the Amanis. Such were the privations of Alexander’s journey through the Gedrosian Desert that Plutarch says when Alexander finally returned to Babylonia it was with only a quarter of the force that had originally left for India, a large number of the casualties occurring in this final phase of the campaign as he travelled home (Lives, Alexander, 60.149). Alexander was back in Susa in western Iran by the spring of 324 BC. There he made his boldest
gesture to date regarding his desire to see the fusing of Macedonian and Persian culture. This was the mass wedding of he and 80 of his senior officers who were married to Persian wives in the context of a feast to celebrate his conquest of the Persian Empire. Alexander certainly set a precedent here, taking not one but two new wives, these being Darius III’s eldest daughter Stateira, and Parysatis, youngest daughter of the earlier Persian king Artaxerxes III. At the same time, 10,000 of his line soldiers with native wives were given substantial dowries. Yet despite this generosity, his policy of racial fusion continued to go down badly with the Macedonians. Most had no sympathy for his concept of a cosmopolitan empire. In particular, his determination to add even more Persians into the army on an equal basis was bitterly resented. He pressed on with the plan anyway. Examples included 30,000 native youths who received Macedonian military training, and the introduction of Bactrians, Sogdians and Arachosians into the hipparchies of the elite companion cavalry. Persian nobles were also accepted into the royal cavalry bodyguard. Only Peucestas, the new governor of Persia, gave the policy his full support. However, most Macedonians viewed it as a direct threat to their own privileged position. Things came to a head later that year in the ancient Babylonian city of Opis on the Tigris. Here Alexander announced his plan to send home, under the veteran phalanx leader Craterus, 10,000 of the eldest or least fit phalangites. This was a sensible plan but caused uproar among the Macedonians who mutinied again. The reaction should be seen in the context of the schism that, as we have seen, had continued to grow ever since the king had sent home the Thessalians and other Greeks in Media, followed by the execution of Philotas, assassination of Parmenion, demise of Callisthenes, murder of Cleitus ‘the Black’ and the ‘mutiny’ at River Hyphasis. Most recently, with the overt introduction of Persians into all ranks of the field army, the Macedonians were clearly feeling unloved by Alexander. This new development was now the final straw. Nagle (1996, 151) says it was a far more serious mutiny
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than that on the Hyphasis, with only the royal bodyguard remaining loyal. Alexander reacted with fury, with Arrian having him quicker to anger as he grew older (Anabasis Alexandri, 7.8.3). The king arrested the 13 ringleaders there and then, pointing them out personally. He then withdrew from all contact with the army and began substituting even more Persians for Macedonians, also giving Macedonian military titles to Persian units. The army was aghast, and the mutiny collapsed. An emotional scene of reconciliation followed outside the royal quarters, after which a vast banquet with 9,000 guests was held to celebrate the ending of the ‘misunderstanding’. The 10,000 veterans were then sent back to Macedonia with gifts, and the crisis abated. Alexander next tackled the problem of the thousands of mercenaries wandering throughout the empire. Many of those from the Greekspeaking world who had accompanied the Macedonians at the beginning of the anabasis were political exiles from their own cities. He therefore
sent the ‘Exiles Decree’ to be read at the Olympic Games in September 324 BC. This required the Greek cities of the League of Corinth to receive back all exiles and their families. He also indicated at this point his desire to replace Antipater as regent back in Pella with the returning Craterus, viewing the latter as a more loyal supporter than Philip’s old friend. However, disaster struck again for Alexander before the year was out when his favourite Hephaestion died in Ecbatana. The king was griefstricken and indulged in extravagant mourning. A royal funeral was held in Babylon with a pyre that cost 10,000 talents. The king then gave a general order for all Greeks to honour the deceased Hephaestion, this linked with a demand that he himself be given divine honours. With this he was finally asking his troops to call him a living god. Alexander next carried out a brutal punitive expedition against the Cossaeans of Luristan in the Zagros Mountains. The following spring, he received embassies from the Libyans, Bruttians, Etruscans and Lucanians, showing his fame was spreading to the western Mediterranean. Representatives from the Greek poleis also came, acknowledging his divine status for the first time. The king then began to plan his next major campaign, this time to Arabia where he intended to build new settlements on the Persian Gulf. He also established an Alexandria at the mouth of the Tigris, with plans to improve sea communications with India. Fully recuperated from his injuries and the brutal transit through the Gedrosian desert, at least ostensibly, and with his plans for further conquest well set in train, the future looked bright for the king. However, all was to come to naught as within a month Alexander the Great, conqueror as his known world, was dead.
the Death of Alexander Alexander the Great died in the sweltering heat of a Babylonian summer in 323 BC. The king was taken suddenly ill after a prolonged banquet that featured the usual bout of Macedonian heavy drinking. Arrian has him imbibing late into the night, this an increasingly frequent occurrence (Anabasis Alexandri, 7.24.4).
A Macedonian hypaspist (foot guard). (54 mm figure painted by the author)
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He then suffered from a serious fever for 10 days which gradually got worse, eventually succumbing on 10 June. The cause of death is uncertain to us today, with the symptoms as described indicating a ruptured ulcer or perhaps malaria, made worse through prodigious alcohol consumption early in the illness. To contemporary audiences, poison was also a candidate for his untimely demise, with some accusing Antipater’s son Cassander of bringing it to Babylon, with his younger brother Iollas (the king’s cup bearer) then administering it. Alexander’s enemies in Athens certainly believed foul play was involved, later voting Iollas honours. Whatever the cause, his alleged last words had huge ramifications for centuries to come. First, when asked to whom he left his vast empire, he allegedly said to the strongest. Ambiguous indeed, this made his final utterance highly prophetic, with Diodorus Siculus (Library of History, 18.1) having him at the last say ‘I foresee that a great combat of my friends will be my funeral games.’ In the ancient world, such games were the athletic events held in honour of a recently deceased dignitary, the more senior the grander. Thus those of Alexander appropriately set the world he had
created, an empire stretching from the Balkans to India, alight for three decades. The king’s unexpected death caused a huge outpouring of grief across most, if not all, of his recently won empire. In the immediate aftermath his future plans of conquest, for example in Arabia, were quietly shelved, as were the building projects he had spent so much time on since returning to Babylon. Most importantly though, the king left no obvious heir. His first wife Roxanna was six months pregnant with the future Alexander IV, while another candidate was Alexander’s elder though ill-fated half-brother Arrhidaeus. A more distant prospect was Hercules, the king’s supposed bastard son with Barsine, and a small boy at the time. However, all each potential heir offered was the prospect of favour for those who championed them, and soon the band of brothers who had helped Alexander conquer the known world fractured. The Wars of the Successors soon followed, with the subsequent collapse of Alexander’s empire as a single entity. This was a bitter end indeed for a man whose ambitions when alive knew no boundaries, though his legacy still shines brightly through to our world today.
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CHAPTeR 5 THe H ellen ISTIC AG e A n d THe RISe oF RoM e
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G
iven the specific focus of this book on the ancient Greeks at war, the emphasis to this point has principally been on Classical Greece through to the death of Alexander. Traditionally this marks the end of the Classical period and the beginning of the Hellenistic period. The latter is the last phase of Greek dominance in their known world before the denouement of the various post-Alexandrian successor kingdoms at the hands of the rising might of Rome in the west and Parthia in the east, bringing the book to its chronological conclusion in 146 BC with the Roman destruction of Corinth.
(previous pages) The ruins of Alexandria today, Alexander’s great founding and mighty capital of Ptolemaic Egypt. (Cortyn/Shutterstock)
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Greek dominance of the eastern Mediterranean, Middle East and western Asia reached its climax in the reign of Alexander. Therefore much of the focus of this chapter is on the immediate aftermath of his death and the initial wars of his successors. This period is particularly important as it set in place a political settlement across the Hellenistic world that lasted for the next 150 years. This provided the backdrop for the spread, and later dominance, of Greek culture across this vast region in ways still visible today. As such, the first third of this chapter covers events in the generation after the death of Alexander the Great, including the First War of the Diadochi, the Partition of Triparadisus and the Second War of the Diadochi. The middle third of the chapter then covers subsequent events as the wars of the successors reached their conclusion, including the Third War of the Diadochi and Antigonus Monophthalmus’ Decree of the Macedonians, the Fourth War of the Diadochi, and the rise of Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms. The final third of the chapter then covers the rise of Rome and related events in the eastern Mediterranean. This includes the campaigns in Italy of Pyrrhus of Epirus, the six Syrian Wars fought between the Seleucid Empire and
Ptolemaic Egypt, the four Macedonian Wars fought between the Kingdom of Macedon and Rome, the Roman-Seleucid War and the Achaean War. Given the huge chronological and geographic reach of this chapter, note the focus is largely on macro-events across the wider Hellenistic world rather than my forensically analysing developments in one specific region, for example, Greece.
Funeral Games When Alexander the Great died in June 323 BC, many of the key players from the years of conquest were already gathered in Babylon, including his seven bodyguards. These were Aristinous, Lysimachus, Peithon, Leonnatus, Ptolemy, Peucestas and Perdiccas. We also know of several other leading figures from the military leadership there at the time, including Attalos, Demephon, Cleomenes, Menidas and Seleucus, given they all joined Peithon and Peucestas in spending the night before Alexander died praying for his recovery, unsuccessfully as it turned out, in the temple of Serapis. However, other key figures were absent at this crucial moment, most notably Antipater (regent in
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Macedonia), Antigonus Monophthalmus (in his satrapy of Greater Phrygia in central Anatolia with the key task of keeping open the lines of communication with Babylon) and Craterus (on his way to Macedon with the returning veterans). Meanwhile, as all the above weighed their options in the immediacy of Alexander’s death, the Macedonian army was split into two sizeable parts. These were the ‘home army’ in Macedon under the regent Antipater (still in place given Craterus was still on the march), and Alexander’s ‘field’ army based in Babylon. These would gradually evolve as the Hellenistic period progressed into three generic types of Hellenistic military force, namely: § The ‘home armies’ of Macedon itself, which were able to call upon the Macedonian levy and were the most ‘Greek’ in their composition. As the age progressed these armies proved particularly vulnerable to an increasing lack of manpower from this levy, with dramatic results for Macedon itself (see Chapter 6 for detail). § The armies in Asia, initially based on Alexander’s ‘field army’ and garrison troops, bolstered increasingly by settled veterans, mercenaries and (particularly) localised native troops. Thus, while yet again the Macedonian pike phalanx continued to be a central feature of these armies, from the outset they began to develop the particularly unique features so noticeable in the later armies of the Seleucid, Ptolemaic and GrecoBactrian/Indo-Greek kingdoms. § The armies of lesser-known figures, for example Alexander’s former general Arrhidaeus of Hellespontine Phrygia in his conflict with Antigonus Monophthalmus, who lacked access to any Macedonian troops and so had to rely on mercenaries. However, in the first instance, Alexander’s strategoi and companions in Babylon had one immediate task at hand. Who would wear Alexander’s seal ring, the great symbol of Macedonian kingship, and in what capacity?
Partition of Babylon Lacking an obvious candidate to be the new monarch, in the immediacy of Alexander’s death his close bodyguards summoned all of the leading nobles and commanders in Babylon to a council to determine a way forward. This also included the main hetairoi cavalry officers and senior line infantry officers. Such a move was firmly in keeping with strict Macedonian tradition, despite their location far to east on the Euphrates. Perdiccas rapidly emerged as the main player among those gathered. As chiliarch in charge of the first regiment of 1,000 companion cavalrymen (which included the king’s 300 agema) he was already Alexander’s de facto second in command. It was also to him that Alexander probably whispered his final two, famous apothegms detailed at the close of Chapter 4 regarding to whom he would leave his kingdom, and his funeral games (Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, 17.26.3). Further, it was also later claimed that it was to Perdiccas that the dying king handed the royal seal ring for safe keeping. Perdiccas quickly suggested he be regent until Roxanna’s child was born. A counter suggestion that Hercules should be king was shouted down in the council, given he was illegitimate (important to the gathered Macedonians) and also a ‘barbarian’, the latter a reference to his Persian mother. The xenophobic nature of those assembled is noticeable here, it being clear they had no intention of sharing any power with the locals, save perhaps the more even-minded Peucastas who’d taken to Persian ways more readily than the rest. Perdiccas’ supporters now interjected on his behalf, with matters seemingly settled in his favour until at the last minute he hesitated before putting the seal ring on his finger. This was a crucial error, allowing his opponents time to lobby against him. By now the meeting had been gatecrashed by many of the common foot soldiery, also keen to have their say (one of Perdiccas’ main opponents, the phalanx commander Meleager, was already there and may have encouraged them to join). One unnamed phalangite then suggested Alexander’s ill-fated half-brother Arrhidaeus should be made king as he was the nearest available kin, this quickly gathering support from the foot troops,
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shouting acclamation of the new ‘king’. However, the nobles and cavalry still supported Perdiccas’ proposal and the two sides broke up with the future of the Argead line still undecided. They later came to blows over Alexander’s body as it lay in state. Chaos ensued, the foot troops having the advantage at first given their number, chasing the nobility and cavalry out of the city. However, the latter quickly regrouped and put Babylon under siege. Soon the foot soldiery began to run out of food, and eventually a compromise was reached which featured Arrhidaeus remaining ‘king’ (it is at this point that he received the added regal name Phillip III, though I stick with Arrhidaeus in my narrative), but sharing the throne with Roxanna’s child if it was a boy. Perdiccas was then confirmed as regent, sharing this with Antipater in Macedon who would himself then share his own regency with Craterus given Alexander had sent the latter on his way back to Pella to seemingly replace him. Craterus was also given the title ‘Protector of the Kings’, though it is unclear if this actually had any meaning (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 18.3.4). To formally recognise this strange settlement, a traditional purification ceremony was arranged, to feature a bitch being cut in half with its entrails then scattered. However, the event was hijacked in advance by Perdiccas, who had no intention of honouring the agreement reached. For the occasion it had been arranged that the foot troops and cavalry would stand on separate sides of the field chosen, but when Perdiccas arrived he also brought Alexander’s newly formed elephant corps with him, a new addition to the ‘field army’ following the campaigns in India. Perdiccas seized control as soon as the ceremony began, ordering the execution of the phalangite leaders who had supported Arrhidaeus. The offenders were all seized except Meleager who escaped, they then being trampled to death by the elephants in front of the whole gathered Macedonian soldiery. Meleager was later captured as he sought sanctuary in a temple and quickly murdered. Quintus Curtius Rufus is clear here on the significance of these events, saying (The History of Alexander, 10.9.19):
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… this proved both to be a forewarning and the commencement of civil war for the Macedonians.
Perdiccas next convened a new council where he set out an agreement more favourable to his own ambitions. Under this the two ‘kings’, if the baby were a boy, would remain. However it was officially acknowledged that, given his mental state, Arrhidaeus was not fit to rule, and so Perdiccas as regent was now given the same powers as a monarch himself and began to wear Alexander’s seal ring. Perdiccas’ first act was aimed at providing shortterm political stability, and to shore up his own reputation given his earlier hesitation. This was to officially distribute control of the key regions and satrapies of the empire. Those individuals either reconfirmed or newly appointed to govern the kingdoms and satrapies, running broadly west to east across the vast empire, included: § Antipater, given sole regency once more in Macedon, overturning Alexander’s plan regarding Craterus. His key strategos, and later initial successor as regent, was Polyperchon, while his ultimate successor was his son Cassander who founded the Antipatrid dynasty by proclaiming himself king of Macedon in 305 BC (having earlier exterminated the Argead line). § Lysimachus, given Thrace. § Eumenes, given Paphlagonia and Cappadocia. § Leonnatus, given Hellespontine-Phrygia. § Antigonus, reconfirmed in Phrygia (a separate territory to Leonnatus’ satrapy), also being given control of Pamphylia and Lycia. § Asander, given Caria. § Menander, given Lydia. § Philoxenus, given Cilicia. § Laomedon of Mytilene, given Syria. § Ptolemy, at his own request, given control of Egypt. § Neoptolemus, given Armenia. § Peucestas, reconfirmed in Babylonia (where he commanded the 20,000 Persian troops recruited under Alexander). § Arcesilas, reconfirmed in Mesopotamia. § Antigines, reconfirmed in Susiana.
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§ Peithon, given Media, including all of the territory up to the Caspian Gates. § Tiepolemus (one of Alexander’s agema) reconfirmed in Carmania. § Nicanor, given Parthia. § Stasanor, given Aria and Drangiana. § Archon, given Pelasgia. § Phillip, reconfirmed in Hyrcania. § Sibyrtius, reconfirmed in Arachosia and Gedrosia. § Amyntas, reconfirmed in Bactria. § Scythaeus, reconfirmed in Sogdiana. § Peithon, son of Agenor, reconfirmed in the satrapy of the Indus. Meanwhile Craterus was given control of the royal treasury, while Seleucus was given command of the companion cavalry, including the agema. This settlement was dubbed the Partition of Babylon, with Alexander’s body now finally given its funeral rites and then preserved (by means unknown) for transport back to Macedon, despite the king himself having wanted his final resting place to be at the Egyptian oasis at Siwah. This partition brings the key protagonists in the future Wars of the Successors into the historical spotlight proper for the first time, and it is useful here to consider the most important given their significance to the future narrative. Though nominally loyal to the Argead throne (and particularly Alexander), these men weren’t motivated by philanthropic desire when accepting these enormous new positions of geographic, political and military power. What most wanted was colonial authority, and the incredible fringe benefits that came with it. In the first instance, Antipater was the elder statesman entrusted with the regency in Macedon while Alexander led his anabasis eastwards. Born around 397 BC, little is known of him before 342 BC when he was first appointed regent by Philip while the king campaigned in Thrace and Scythia to the north and west. Then, as later, he was a loyal and active strategos for the Argeads, sending Macedonian troops to Euboea later that year to suppress Athenian interference in the poleis there. The trust placed in Antipater by the Argeads is
next shown when he was sent by Phillip to Athens after Chaeronea to become the king’s ambassador for two years, his task to negotiate a peace treaty with a city that still viewed its northern conqueror as brutish and uncouth. Showing the wisdom of experience, Antipater won over local support by arriving with the bones of those who had fallen in the battle. Next, when Philip was assassinated, Antipater acted as the key steadying force in the kingdom, aiding Alexander in his succession struggle as detailed in Chapter 3. He had long championed the boy and, when the new king headed to Thrace in 335 BC on his Danubian campaign, Antipater was appointed regent a second time. Shortly afterwards, Antipater joined Parmenion in advising the young king against setting out on his anabasis until he had secured the Argead succession by marrying a Macedonian bride of noble lineage and having a son. This was sound advice given what was to follow. While such guidance was ignored, Antipater was still held in high enough regard to be appointed regent a third time in 334 BC when Alexander’s great campaign began. Further, in addition to running the king’s government in Pella, Antipater was also made strategos of Europe, an additional position he still held when Alexander died. Meanwhile Polyperchon was born in western Macedon at Tymphaea near the Epirot border. He served with Alexander for most of the anabasis east, initially as a bodyguard and then being given command of the Tymphaean regiment of the phalanx after Issus. Polyperchon held this post until 324 BC when he returned to Macedon with Craterus’ veterans. He then served as deputy to Antipater’s son Cassander during the Lamian War against Athens and the Aetolian League, after which he held the post of governor in Pella. His reputation was one of steadfast loyalty, not intellect. Of Cassander, little is known about his early life other than Aristotle taught him alongside Alexander and the other companions. He first rises to prominence when representing his father in Babylon in 323 BC where Alexander treated him with open hostility, allegedly smashing his head
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into a wall after Cassander laughed at the eastern ways of the court. Pausanius says Alexander’s animosity for Antipater’s son was reciprocated, explaining that (Guide to Greece, 9.7.2): Cassander was mainly influenced by hatred of Alexander. He destroyed the whole house of Alexander to the bitter end.
The ruins of a basilica in the Macedonian capital Pella where Polyperchon became regent after the death of Antipater in 319 BC. (Wikimedia Commons)
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After Alexander’s death, Cassander was appointed senior cavalry commander of the ‘home army’, a position he still held at the time of his father’s death. The primary sources portray him as impetuous and ambitious. Athenaeus adds that Antipater’s son had to sit upright at banquets when a grown man as he had failed to spear a wild boar as a youth and so was banned from reclining at table (The Learned Banqueters, 1.18). Whether or not such a negative reputation was deserved, Cassander is often viewed today as a Herod-like figure, forever damned for wiping out Alexander’s line. Meanwhile, Perdiccas was the clear winner in this first stage of the post-Alexandrian world. The son of a nobleman called Orontes from
the leading Macedonian house of Orestis (a mountainous tribal district in upper Macedonia), he was of similar age to Alexander. As a young man he was given command of his native battalion in the phalanx and accompanied Alexander in his campaigns in Illyria in 335 BC, and then a year later in Greece when he was severely injured during the siege of Thebes. However, he quickly recovered and then accompanied the king throughout his campaigns in the east, becoming one of the seven bodyguards in 330 BC. His seniority is shown by the fact that when Alexander ordered his leading generals to marry Persian wives at Susa in 324 BC, only four Macedonians married actual princesses, these being the king himself, his favourite Hephaestion, Craterus and Perdiccas. Well thought of as a military leader, Perdiccas then replaced Hephaestion as chiliarch of the first regiment of the companions when the latter died. This role also included being the king’s vizier, his highest-ranking political adviser. Thus he was best placed among the future successors to become regent when Alexander died.
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Moving on, Ptolemy was to become one of the great figures of the Hellenistic world, and founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt where he died as Ptolemy I Soter (Saviour) in 282 BC. Born around 367 BC, much is known about his life both before Alexander’s death and as a successor, given he was a prolific historian in his own right and founder of the great library in Alexandria where he spent much of his later life preserving Alexander’s memory. The son of a noble called Lagus, though rumoured to be a bastard son of Phillip II, he was 11 years older than Alexander with whom he became a childhood friend and later a trusted confidant. Ptolemy served with the king from his first campaigns, and then played a key role in the later anabasis in the east. At the battle of Issus in 333 BC, he commanded troops on the left flank under Parmenion along with Craterus, and later accompanied Alexander on his journey to the oracle at the Siwa oasis. During the Persian campaign he also became one of the king’s bodyguards and his personal food taster. Ptolemy’s first independent command was in
the upper satrapies during the campaign against Bessus whom he captured, handing him over to Alexander for execution ( Justin, Epitome, 13.4). Later, during Alexander’s campaign in India, Ptolemy commanded the advance guard at the siege of Aornos, and then fought at the battle of the Hydaspes River. Next, Lysimachus was born in 361 BC into a high-ranking noble family in Pella, later being the founder of the short-lived Thraco-Macedonian dynasty in Thrace. He was the second son of Agathocles, a close friend of Philip II who shared control of the king’s council and was an Argead court favourite. Lysimachus was appointed a royal bodyguard to Philip prior to Alexander’s accession, and later to the latter in 328 BC. He played a leading military role in Alexander’s eastern campaigns, particularly in India where he led a maritime operation during the Hydaspes battle aboard a 30-oared vessel, later sailing down the Indus to the Indian Ocean. Next we have Eumenes, Greek by birth and a native of Cardia in the Thracian Chersonese who,
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Ptolemy I Soter as a Pharaoh of Egypt, the diadochi who seized the body of Alexander. (Wikimedia Commons)
(opposite) The bust of Lysimachus, originally from the Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum in the Roman Bay of Naples, showing one of the most important diadochi.
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at an early age, was employed as Philip II’s private secretary, a role he continued under Alexander. A royal favourite, he was given military command in the last year of Alexander’s life with responsibility for a hipparchia of companion cavalry. However, despite his undeniable skills as an administrator and soldier, he never enjoyed the full support of the Macedonians in court, given his ethnicity and royal familiarity as secretary. Later as a successor, this developed into outright hostility to him by many of his contemporaries. Antigonus Monophthalmus meanwhile was a giant of a man, both physically and in his importance to the early part of this post-Alexandrian narrative. Born in 382 BC, little is known of his early life save his father was called Philip (this based on an inscription found in Priene, Ionia, dated to 334 BC), with Aeilan claiming he was of humble origins, his father a labourer or farmer (Historical Miscellany, 12.43). This Philip seems to have died young (though fathering two other sons, Ptolemaeus and Demetrius), Antigonus’ mother
then marrying a second time and having another son called Marsyas who was one of the syntrophus of the young Alexander. This perhaps gives the lie to the suggestions of Antigonus’ humble birth, along with the fact that both he (in charge of the allied Greek troops) and Ptolemaeus held field command at the battle of the Granicus in 334 BC. Justin says that Antigonus was a companion to both Philip and Alexander, and was a key member of Alexander’s inner circle (Epitome, 16.1). His appointment as governor of the satrapy of Phrygia in 333 BC supports this, its location vital to keep open the supply routes through Anatolia. There he won three battles against Persian refugees after the Macedonian ‘field army’ had moved on, Alexander leaving him with 1,500 mercenaries for the task. Here his physical presence certainly came to the fore, the big and burly general with a booming voice leading his men from the front, though some contemporaries felt he was arrogant and loved power too overtly. Meanwhile, Craterus was the son of a Macedonian nobleman called Alexander of Orestis, and the brother of Amphoterus. The latter was the maritime strategos who helped subdue the eastern Mediterranean for Alexander in 333 BC. Craterus is first recorded in high office commanding the phalanx and other infantry on the left wing at Issus in 333 BC. Later, after the removal of Philotas and Parmenion, he was trusted with independent commands by Alexander, the first being in Hyrcania (south east of the Caspian Sea in modern Iran) on a mission against the Tapurians. Later, at the Hydaspes, he commanded Alexander’s reserve, joining the battle during the final pursuit phase. His favour with Alexander is shown by the fact that, like his fellow Orestian Perdiccas, he was one of the four Macedonians allowed to marry a princess (Amastris, daughter of Darius III’s brother Oxyathres) at Susa in 324 BC. He was also the one trusted with leading back the veterans to Macedon the same year, with Alexander set to have him replace Antipater as regent in Pella. Finally we have Seleucus, like Ptolemy, destined to emerge from the successor wars as a giant of the age. Born around 358 BC in Europos in northern
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Macedonia, he was the son of one of Philip II’s generals called Antiochus. Also one of Alexander’s syntrophus and later a paides (page), he fought throughout the eastern campaigns with the king (including in Anatolia, Persia, Bactria, Sogdiana and India), rising to become the commander of the argyaspides in 327 BC (as the hypaspists were by then known) and later being promoted to the royal bodyguard. He remained close to the king and was one of the friends who attended the temple of Serapis the night before Alexander died.
First War of the Diadochi These key players and many others were soon embroiled in the First War of the Diadochi, testing friendships to breaking point and renewing old enmities. At first, the turmoil in the immediate aftermath of Alexander’s death seemed to settle, with Craterus (a seeming loser in the partition) keeping a low profile in Cilicia. Meanwhile, in Macedon Antipater readily accepted the new status quo and offered Perdiccas the hand of his daughter Nicaea in marriage. However, the regent in Pella was soon embroiled in the Lamian War against opportunistic Athens, the polis leading a rebellion against Macedonian hegemony in Greece with its ally the Aetolian League. Both Leonnatus in Hellespontine-Phrygia and Craterus came to Antipater’s aid. The former had by then been ordered by Perdiccas to help Eumenes secure troublesome Cappadocia, but given Antipater’s conflict in Greece, had a legitimate excuse for not doing so. Interestingly, Antigonus in Phrygia was also ordered to Cappadocia as part of the same campaign, but ignored the order too, though in his case without an excuse. Plutarch says this is the first real sign of the independence and ambition that would later put Antigonus within touching reach of Alexander’s crown (Lives, Eumenes, 3). With Leonnatus and Antigonos disregarding his orders, Perdiccas himself led the ‘field army’ into Cappadocia in later 322 BC, defeating and executing its king Ariarathes who had been resisting Eumenes’ accession. Perdiccas then revealed the scale of his ambition by opening negotiations to marry Alexander’s sister Cleopatra, having already accepted Antipater’s
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daughter Nicea as his bride. Diodorus Siculus is blunt about his scheming for the actual throne, saying (Library of History, 18.23): Perdiccas had formerly planned to work in harmony with Antipater … but when he gained control of ‘field army’ and the regency of the ‘kings’ [Alexander IV had been born by this time], he changed his calculations. For since he was now reaching out for the kingship, he was bent upon marrying Cleopatra, believing that he could use her to persuade the Macedonians to help him gain the supreme power. But not wishing as yet to reveal his design, he married Nicea for the time, so that he might not render Antipater hostile to his own undertakings.
However, the Babylonian regent then overplayed his hand, trying to prevent Arrhidaeus marrying Philip II’s granddaughter Eurydice. Perdiccas sent a mission to intercept the girl, but in the process her mother Cynane was killed, the ‘field army’ then revolting and forcing him to back down. Arrhidaeus’ marriage proceeded. Next, open conflict broke out among the successors for the first time. Irked by Antigonus’ refusal to help Eumenes, Perdiccas also believed (rightly as it happened) that Antigonus had learned of his ambitions to marry Cleopatra and informed Antipater back in Pella. A real enmity was now building between the two and the regent determined to move against the Phrygian governor. Perdiccas decided to build a case against Antigonus before acting. In the first instance, he demanded the latter provide accounts for his stewardship of the satrapy, then charged him with multiple counts of mis-administration. Antigonus then fled to Antipater in Europe in late 321 BC, knowing his days were numbered if he stayed put in Phrygia. Once there he convinced the regent in Pella that Perdiccas planned to seize the Macedonian throne. This led to Antipater and Craterus (the latter still in the Balkans after the successful conclusion of the Lamian War, though Leonnatus had died in the conflict fighting the Athenians) writing to Ptolemy in Egypt to ask for his support. Antigonus now returned to Asia, landing with a large force of 3,000 troops provided by Antipater at Halicarnassus in southwestern Anatolia.
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There Asander and Menander, the governors of Caria and of Lydia, immediately joined him. Securing the Greek Ionian cities, Antigonus now learned that Eumenes (by this time also appointed governor of Phrygia by Perdiccas given Antigonus’ absence there) was in Sardis acting as a message bearer between Cleopatra (based there) and Perdiccas. Antigonus tried to ambush Eumenes with 2,000 of his best troops as Antigonus left Sardis, though this failed, allowing Eumenes to flee back to Perdiccas. Antigonus then captured Sardis itself, and by the end of this short campaign had secured the whole western seaboard of Anatolia, opening the way for his return to Phrygia. Shortly afterwards, Antipater and Craterus landed in Anatolia with more troops to support him. Here Perdiccas’ unpopularity was evident given the troops he sent to oppose the landing, under the command of the Armenian governor Neoptolemus (another of Alexander’s former strategoi), deserted en masse to Antigonus. However, Perdiccas had no time to tackle this threat in Anatolian as his attention quickly turned to Egypt where Ptolemy had already annexed wealthy Cyrenaica. The new satrap of Egypt shocked the Hellenistic world with a stunning coup de main, seizing Alexander’s body in its grand catafalque as it crossed the Syrian border on its way to Macedonia. Ptolemy then skillfully diverted it to Egypt where the king’s body was laid to rest in Memphis in a lavish pharaoh’s burial. This bold move is often taken as the point at which the die was cast for the break up of Alexander’s empire, though Ptolemy’s intentions are open to a variety of interpretations. He later claimed it was to protect Alexander’s legacy, with the king’s last resting place the grand Soma mausoleum in Alexandria, which was later built by his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Here, it was set on permanent display in a gold coffin from around 274 BC, contemporaries treating it as a quasi-magical good-luck charm and legitimiser of power. However, there is a distinct pattern to all of Ptolemy’s actions around this time, given they were all clearly designed to buttress his own rule in Egypt, in this case in the most spectacular way possible. The man who was fiercely loyal to
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Alexander in the latter’s lifetime could now claim he had inherited responsibility for maintaining the memory of his former monarch, a claim he followed up by building his library in Alexandria. Beneath such claims though, Ptolemy clearly foresaw the break up of Alexander’s empire, hence his desire to secure himself in wealthy and defendable Egypt before the inevitable collapse took place. In that regard, being custodian of Alexander’s body gave him an immense degree of credibility with both the Macedonians and Greeks in Egypt and elsewhere, and perhaps more importantly with the native Egyptian population too. With impeccable timing, his seizure of Alexander’s corpse also gave him considerable support amongst those seeking to counter Perdiccas’ growing power, these including Antipater (another of his daughters was married to Ptolemy) and Craterus, hence them reaching out when they did. Perdiccas, now justifiably paranoid, tried to convince the leaders of the ‘field army’ to condemn Ptolemy, arguing that the Egyptian satrap was trying to set himself up as the king (in fact the last thing Ptolemy wanted at the time). This failing, he then turned to Ptolemy’s deputy Cleomenes, trying to convince him to betray the Egyptian governor. This was easier than it sounds given Cleomenes had been demoted from the governorship in Egypt to make way for Ptolemy after the Partition of Babylon. However, Ptolemy quickly got wind of this and the unlucky Cleomenes was soon executed. Perdiccas now determined to deal with the Ptolemaic threat once and for all. In the spring of 320 BC, he left the defence and government of Asia in Eumenes’ hands and marched south to Egypt. However the campaign was a fiasco, perhaps aided by Ptolemy’s agents undermining him amongst the ranks of the ‘field army’ troops, especially after 2,000 drowned while trying to cross the Nile Delta. Perdiccas’ demoralised army now turned against him and he was assassinated around 20 May 320 BC by his own officers, the first blow struck by Antigenes, commander of the argyraspides (guard regiment). Such was the anticlimactic end for the man who would be king.
Ptolemy, waiting on the western bank of the River Nile, now crossed and entered the ‘field army’ camp to wide acclamation from the troops, not least because of his lavish provision of food for Perdiccas’ by now starving soldiery. Again showing immense political wisdom, Ptolemy avoided taking any responsibility for the two ‘kings’, with Peithon and another general called Arrhidaeus made their short-term regents. Ptolemy could be satisfied at this point that all was going in his favour. However, fate now intervened when word reached the ‘field army’ that Craterus had been killed fighting Eumenes in battle at the Hellespont in Anatolia. The troops reacted with fury at the death of their old champion, with Perdiccas’ sister Atalante (wife of his general Attalus) and his supporters in the ‘field army’ camp now massacred. In a mass assembly, the troops then voted to condemn Eumenes and 50 of his chief supporters to death. With matters threatening to get out of hand, Ptolemy decided to escort the ‘field army’ back to Syria (excepting some troops who chose to join him), where events soon took another unexpected turn.
The Partition of Triparadeisos When the ‘field army’ arrived at Triparadeisos in upper Syria in the late summer of 320 BC it was in a volatile mood, having marched north without pay and only been fed due to Ptolemy’s largesse. There Peithon and Arrhidaeus summoned Antipater, Antigonus and Seleucus (who appears as a prominent successor here for the first time) to join themselves and Ptolemy with a view to working out a new partition settlement. However, high drama intervened first. This was in the form of the ‘king’ Arrhidaeus’ ambitious wife Eurydice who saw an opportunity to advance her husband’s cause. She stirred the army up to demand an immediate cash payment, at which point Peithon and the general Arrhidaeus resigned, with the 80-year-old Antipater being appointed the guardian of the ‘kings’ even before he had arrived (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 18.39). Once at Triparadeisos, accompanied by Antigonus, he then wisely set up a camp for his own ‘home army’ troops away from the mutinous ‘field army’,
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forewarned of events. He then entered the latter’s camp, only to be met by demands for immediate payment again, with Eurydice whipping the troops up once more. The ageing regent tried to calm them with a promise to search the royal treasuries for their pay, but this was rejected. Matters quickly worsened and a riot ensued in which Antipater was almost stoned to death. At the last minute Antigonus saved the day, with the 2nd-century AD rhetorician and author Polyaenus providing vivid detail of what happened next (Stratagems, 4.6.4): Antigonus, who advised Antipater to leave the camp … undertook to assist his escape. Antigonus accordingly crossed the bridge in full armour, and rode directly through the phalanx, thereby dividing it; he turned first to one division, and then to the other, as if he was going to harangue them. The Macedonians paid every attention due his rank and character; and followed him with great interest, to hear what he had to offer. As soon as they formed around him, he began a long harangue in defence of Antipater; promising, assuring, and urging every consideration to induce them to wait patiently, until he should be in a situation in which he could satisfy their demands. During this harangue, Antipater crossed the bridge with some horsemen; and thus escaped the soldier’s resentment.
Seleucus may also have been involved here, given it was the cavalry who were next sent to put down the rebellious ‘field army’, this indicating the most troublesome troops were again the phalangites (indeed, the parallels here with the period immediately after the death of Alexander are pronounced). They quickly succeeded, and once the rebellion was crushed and Eurydice frightened into silence, Antipater called a new assembly. Here he was officially appointed supreme regent of the whole empire (with specific control of Greece), and named guardian of both Arrhidaeus and Alexander IV. He then carried out a new partition of the satrapies, with the key appointments as follows (again broadly west to east, noting this time I don’t include developments in Macedon): § Lysimachus, reconfirmed in Thrace. § Nicanor, given Eumenes’ old satrapy of Cappadocia.
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§ The general Arrhidaeus, given HellespontinePhrygia. § Antigonus, reconfirmed in Phrygia, Pamphylia and Lycia, and appointed the new commander of the ‘field army’ in Asia, an enormous advancement making him the second most powerful figure of the era after Antipater. § Asander, reconfirmed in Caria. § Cleitus, given Lydia. § Philoxenus, reconfirmed in Cilicia. § Laomedon of Mytilene, reconfirmed in Syria. § Ptolemy, remaining in Egypt, where Diodorus Siculus describes him as already immovable, as though he had won ‘land by spear’ (Library of History, 18.39.5). § Seleucus, given Babylonia, beginning his rise to power in the region from this point. § Amphimachus, given Mesopotamia and Arbelitis. § Antigenes, given Susiana. § Peucestas, given Persia, having been moved from Babylonia to accommodate Seleucus. § Peithon, reconfirmed in Media. § Tiepolemus, reconfirmed in Carmania. § Philip, given Parthia. § Stasander the Cypriot, given Aria and Drangiana. § Sibyrtius, reconfirmed in Arachosia and Gedrosia. § Stasanor, moved to Bactria and Sogdiana, a post none of the Macedonians at this time would accept ( Justin, Epitome, 41.4). § Peithon, son of Agenor, reconfirmed in the satrapy of the Indus. We see in this settlement Indian kings also appearing for the first time, with Alexander’s old opponent Porus being confirmed king of the nonMacedonian Indian territories including his own capital of Patala, and ‘Taxiles the Indian’ being confirmed as king of the territories between the Indus and Hydaspes in the Punjab.
second War of the Diadochi The two leading successors were now Antipater and Antigonus, sealing their political alliance through the marriage of Antipater’s daughter Philo (Craterus’ widow) to Antigonus’ son Demetrius. The event shows Antipater was fully
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aware of the growing ambitions of Antigonus, seeking through marriage to add an extra safeguard to his regency. This is also our first mention of the glamorous Demetrius, later dubbed Poliorcetes (the ‘Besieger’). Born in 336 BC, Demetrius was raised in his father’s court in Phrygia, fleeing with him to Antipater and Craterus in Europe in 322 BC and staying by his side from that time. Antigonus was now tasked by Antipater with hunting down Eumenes and the surviving Perdiccans, finding an unlikely ally in the regent’s son Cassander who persuaded his father to leave a large proportion of the ‘home army’ which had accompanied him to Triparadeisos with the ‘field army’ in Asia. This amounted to a substantial reinforcement of 8,500 foot soldiers, 8,500 allied cavalry and 70 elephants. Cassander joined the force as a cavalry chiliarch, though according to Diodorus Siculus, was really there to keep an eye on events for his father (Library of History, 18.39.7). Antipater then set out for home and Pella. Antigonus was soon in action, with Perdiccas’ brother Alcetas gathering an army in Pisidia in southeastern Anatolia. Meanwhile Eumenes occupied Hellespontine Phrygia, while Attalus (husband of the murdered Atalante, Perdiccas’ sister) attacked Rhodes with the royal fleet, much of which had stayed loyal to the Perdiccans. However, this was soon defeated at sea by the Rhodians, then fleeing to join Alcetas who was more successful, defeating the Carian governor Asander who Antipater had sent to challenge him. With this setback, the regent changed his route home to travel through Sardis with its royal treasury, reconciling there with Alexander’s sister Cleopatra. Next Eumenes invaded Aeolia in western Anatolia, extorting the Ionian Greek cities there and raiding the royal horse stud at Mount Ida. He then marched on Sardis, the scene of his failed brokering of a marriage between Perdiccas and Cleopatra, now intent on winning her over in his own right. However, his path was blocked by Antipater, who was reverting to a guerrilla campaign against the regent which proved highly successful, with Antipater finally returning to
Pella in the winter of 320 BC after suffering many casualties. Significantly, the regent also took both ‘kings’ and their respective royal families with him at the suggestion of Cassander (they were never to set foot in Asia again), though some of the ‘home army’ continued to remain with Antigonus. At this juncture, with their fortunes on the up, the Perdiccans crucially failed to unite, not surprising given Eumenes’ divisive reputation with the Macedonians. Here Antigonus showed his strategic skills once again, now opting to pick them off one-by-one. His first target was Eumenes, by this time wintering in Cappadocia (Alcetas and Attalus were still in Pisidia), given reports of desertions among the former royal secretary’s ranks. This news proved well founded, with Eumenes having to execute the leaders of his 3,000 skilled phalangites before the troops would rejoin his army. Antigonus now forced an initial engagement near the Cappadocian town of Orcyni. Here he found himself outnumbered, with 10,000 foot soldiers (including a veteran Macedonian pike phalanx of 5,000), 2,000 cavalry and 30 war elephants against Eumenes’ 20,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry. Here, Antigonus’ experience shone through once more. In the first instance, he bribed one of Eumenes’ cavalry commanders called Appollonides to desert once the engagement began. Polyaenus then says he deployed two brilliant stratagems (Stratagems, 4.6.19). The first was to have a messenger arrive covered in dust during an embassy with Eumenes’ herald to announce that ‘allied reinforcements’ were close by, to which Antigonus acted with mock delight (undermining Eumenes’ confidence when the news reached him). Next, in the prelude to battle the following morning, Antigonus deployed his phalanx eight-men deep instead of the usual 16 (thus doubling his frontage) to give the impression the allies had already arrived. Eumenes fell for the trick, acting cautiously when the advantage really lay with him, and only engaging with his light troops. Then, at a crucial moment when Eumenes decided to commit to battle, Appollonides defected as planned and attacked his own side, winning the day for the Antigonids.
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The result was a decisive victory for Antigonus, capturing Eumenes’ supply train and killing 8,000 men while the latter fled towards Armenia. Antigonus now sensed a campaign victory and mounted a vigorous pursuit, though was hampered by Eumenes again resorting to guerilla warfare. However, the Greek strategos again suffered from large-scale desertions, and so decided to make a stand with his 600 most loyal troops at the mountain fortress of Nora in southern Cappadocia. The two protagonists met outside its walls, with Antigonus keen to avoid a lengthy siege and bloodshed if at all possible. However, in the first instance he had to protect his former friend from the Macedonians in his army angered by the earlier death of Craterus at the Hellespont. Offers and counter offers were then made, with Antigonus having the upper hand given he had control of most of Eumenes’ territory. In the end, Antigonus offered to lift the siege if Eumenes acknowledged him as his superior, while the latter demanded Cappadocia be given back to him and his death sentence lifted. Antigonus referred this potential settlement back to Antipater, keen to move on. Diodorus Siculus paints a vivid picture of the growing ambitions of Antigonus at this point, saying (Library of History, 18.41): He aspired to greater things: for there was no longer any commanders in all Asia who had an army strong enough to compete with him for supremacy. Therefore, although maintaining for the time a pretense of being well disposed toward Antipater, he had decided that, as soon as he had made his own position secure, he would no longer take orders from either the ‘kings’ or from Antipater.
This was clearly an old man in a hurry, and he acted accordingly. Thinking Eumenes was for the minute contained in Nora while they awaited Antipater’s blessing for their settlement, Antignous marched 450 km in seven days to force a meeting engagement with Alectas at what became known as the battle of Pisidia. Here he vastly outnumbered his Perdiccan opponent, with 40,000 foot soldiers (including many Macedonian deserters from Eumenes, doubling the size of his phalanx), 7,000 cavalry and 70 elephants. This huge force surprised Alcetas by occupying the high
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ground above his camp, forcing the Perdiccan to rashly charge his 900 cavalry uphill to try to buy time to deploy his 16,000 foot soldiers (including 6,000 Pisidian light troops). These were beaten in quick time, Antigonus then charging his phalanx and elephants downhill to smash through Alcetas centre while the cavalry marauded around his opponent’s flanks. Total victory soon followed, many of Alcetas’ Macedonians deserting to Antigonus, with the Perdiccan fleeing to nearby Termessos with his bodyguard and Pisidians. Here the local town elders eventually murdered Alcetas despite the younger Pisidians wanting to stay loyal. Antigonus then took his body and decided to make a statement with it to all those opposed to him, with Diodorus Siculus saying (Library of History, 18.47): He … maltreated it for three days: then as the corpse began to decay, he threw it out unburied and departed from Pisidia.
The corpse was eventually buried by the young men of the town, the tomb of Alcetas still visible today in the ruins of Termessus. Meanwhile, victorious Antigonus now returned to Phrygia to see out the winter, his growing prowess not lost on his successor competitors. However, new challenges soon came to the fore. First, in 319 BC, word reached Antigonus that Antipater had died of old age at the age of 81, an event which dragged Macedon and Greece into the Second War of the Diadochi proper, this triggered when Antipater’s son Cassander refused to accept his father’s nomination of the old strategos as his father’s successor. The regent’s death left Antigonus pre-eminent among the successors, especially in his Asian powerbase where he now fielded an immense force of 70,000 men including the sizeable elephant corps. Further, he had access to the largest treasury of any of the successors. This meant that if more troops were needed, then hiring mercenaries wouldn’t be a problem. Sadly for Antigonus’ regal ambitions, though, his success now began to attract a hostile response from a broader range of his successor compatriots, and not just the remaining Perdiccans. The first to act was the general Arrhidaeus in HellespontinePhrygia, the crucial stepping-stone from Asia to
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Europe. Fearful of Antigonus flexing his muscles and re-distributing control of the satrapies, he decided to garrison the Ionian Greek cities in his realm. Knowing they would protest, he marched on Cyzicus, determined to make an example, his army comprising 12,000 men and a large siege train. On arrival he demanded the city’s surrender, though was rebuffed, with the Greeks manning the city walls. Characteristically, Antigonus now reacted with lightening speed, selecting his best 23,000 troops and force-marching to Cyzicus where he found the locals had already beaten off Arrhidaeus. Antigonus then charged the general with rebellion, ordering him to surrender, but Arrhidaeus refused and sent a force to free Eumenes, still within the fortress of Nora. As before, Antigonus decided to pick off his opponents one by one, in the first instance targeting Eumenes’ ally Cleitus in Lydia who, realising his position was hopeless, fled to Pella after garrisoning his cities. Antigonus, ascendant, was now unstoppable, quickly capturing Ephesus where he seized a convoy in the harbour carrying 600 talents of silver. The other Lydian cities fell soon after, with Antigonus at this point engaging with Cassander
in Greece where he was campaigning against Polyperchon, the new regent in Pella. As another successful campaigning season drew to a close, he then withdrew to Phrygia to winter his army. Early in 318 BC, Antigonus determined to secure his position, reaching out to Eumenes still besieged in Nora (the result of Arrhidaeus’ attempt to free him is unrecorded but clearly failed), offering peace for loyalty. According to Diodorus Siculus (Library of History, 18.53), his former friend readily accepted, keen to escape its dank walls, giving an oath-bound pledge to be Antigonus’ ally, though Plutarch says the last Perdiccan in Asia changed the wording of the oath to include the joint ‘kings’ and Olympias, Alexander’s mother (Lives, Eumenes, 12). Whatever the truth, Eumenes seems to have returned to Cappadocia with Antigonus’ good will. Unfortunately for both this was not to last, for later in the year Polyperchon, casting around for allies to help him secure the Macedonia regency left to him by Antipater, alighted on Eumenes. He wrote to him, saying that in the ‘king’s’ names the Greek strategos had been reappointed to his original satrapy, and offering him troops and 500 talents of silver from the treasury in Cilicia. The former,
The tomb of the successor strategos Alcetas, Termessos in Anatolia. (Wikimedia Commons)
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crucially, included the 3,000 argyraspides (silver shield guard) phalangites. Eumenes was torn here, having made his peace with Antigonus and enjoying the novelty of new-found security. However, ever a loyalist to the royal cause, he finally sided with Polyperchon, launching his last attempt at fame. Antigonus, betrayed, reacted with cold fury. As Eumenes bolted for Cilicia and Polyperchon’s treasure, Antigonus tried to arrest him but his troops arrived three days too late. Once in Cilicia, Eumenes was joined by the argyraspides’ commander Antigenes, governor of Susiana, the scene now set for the campaign leading to the first two great set-piece battles of the Wars of the Successors. However, almost immediately Eumenes had difficulties with the loyalty of the Macedonians in his army again, including Antigenes who Plutarch says feigned his allegiance to the Greek strategos (Lives, Eumenes, 13). Eumenes therefore resorted to a stratagem of his own to keep control of his disparate army, claiming to have had a dream where Alexander had appeared to him, telling him no business was to be carried out in the name of the kings unless in a royal tent to be called the Pavilion of Alexander (Polyaenus, Stratagems, 4.8.2). He then produced a golden throne and from that moment received all visitors and held counsel only in that tent and on that throne. In effect, he was claiming to be acting on behalf on the ghost of Alexander, a ruse which in the short term worked. Eumenes then started recruiting more troops using his newly gathered treasure, eventually amassing a force of 18,000 including the elite argyraspides. There is some debate here about how effective the silver shields would have been given their age, many having been members of Alexander’s original hypaspists. Most of these veterans would have been at least 60 by this time, though their ranks would have been filled with younger recruits as the older warriors retired. Further, the unit also clearly had very stable internal leadership, though this was to prove a double-edged sword as we shall see. It is at this point that Ptolemy reappears, no doubt encouraged by Antigonus, with his fleet anchoring off the Cilician coast. Here it landed a delegation
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which reached out to Eumenes’ army to encourage its defection. However, the attempt failed, with the Greek strategos’ subterfuge regarding Alexander keeping the troops in line for now. Next, Antigonus tried a subterfuge of his own, sending his friend Philotas to bribe Antigenes away from Eumenes with the argyraspides. Faced with a difficult choice, the Susian governor chose the lesser of two evils and stayed loyal to Eumenes. Philotas then tried to persuade the other Macedonians in the army to seize and kill the Greek strategos, this time with the threat of Antigonus himself arriving with the whole ‘field army’ if they did not. However, Eumenes himself intervened, once more convincing the army to remain loyal, citing his appointment by Polyperchon in the name of the ‘kings’ again. Polyperchon, sensing Antigonus’ growing interest in crossing into Europe, now sent the Macedonian fleet against him under Cleitus, the latter once more returned to Asian waters. Antigonus deployed his own fleet, bolstered by ships sent under Nicanor by Cassander, its combined strength including 130 war galleys of all sizes. The two naval forces met off Byzantium where Cleitus’ better experience as a naval strategos told, as he inflicted a heavy defeat on the Antigonids and captured 70 vessels. However, once more Antigonus responded to a reversal quickly. That night he gathered his light troops around the bay near Byzantium where the victorious Cleitus had beached his ships. Polyaenus takes up the story here, saying (Stratagems, 4.6.8): At day break a shower of javelins and arrows was poured upon the enemy. While they were just arising, and scarcely awake, they were seriously injured, before they realized where the attack was coming from. Some cut their cables, and others weighed their anchors: while nothing prevailed but noise and confusion. Antigonus at the same time ordered the sixty ships [he had left] to bear down upon them. Under attack both from the sea, and from land, the conquerors were obliged to yield their victory to the conquered.
Only Cleitus’ own ship escaped this catastrophe, Antigonus once more seizing the initiative. The Perdiccan was captured shortly afterwards by troops in the army of the Thracian satrap
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Lysimachus and executed, another successor strategos now dead. Antigonus, deciding to leave the war in Europe to Cassander, now marched on Eumenes with 20,000 foot soldiers, his fleet tracking their progress along the Anatolian coast. Eumenes learned of his approach and again fled with most of his loyal troops, including at this point the argyraspides. His plan was to reach the Levantine coast of Phoenicia where he could then open a new front in the war against the Antigonids, specifically against Ptolemy. However, again he failed, and now took the fateful decision to march eastwards into the heart of the empire to seek new support. Here Peithon, satrap of Media, had been defeated by his neighbouring satraps while trying to expand his power base, fleeing to Babylon where he tried to convince Seleucus to side with him. Their chief opponent was Peucestas, satrap of Persia and no friend of Seleucus given the latter had forced him out his original satrapy in the Partition of Triparadisus. Eumenes knew that if he could win over one faction it would give him access to a new source of troops and decided to reach out to Peithon and Seleucus with their 23,000 men and 120 war elephants. He marched to Babylon and went into winter quarters there, sending embassies to the Median and Babylonian governors. However they rebuffed him, trying in their own right to convince Antigenes and the argyraspides to again turn against Eumenes. Once more they remained faithful, if only to see how events developed. Meanwhile, Antigonus had set off in hot pursuit of Eumenes and by this time had set himself up in winter quarters in Mesopotamia, determined to bring matters to a conclusion once and for all. However, he soon learned he would have to continue even further east as in the spring of 317 BC Eumenes made for Peucestas after reaching a deal with Seleucus to cross through Babylonia. Arriving in Persia, he was met by the combined armies of the eastern satrapies who, probably for fear of Peithon and the oncoming Antigonus, joined him. This gave Eumenes an army of 34,000 foot soldiers and 8,000 cavalry, including the argyraspides. Aware of his continuing issues with
the loyalty of the Macedonian troops, he cannily secured their short-term allegiance by paying them six-months salary in advance. Antigonus waited until the summer to march after Eumenes, enlisting Peithon and Seleucus on the way who provided additional troops, particularly infantry and elephants. Eumenes himself was bolstered by the arrival of the new Indian satrap Eudamos, a general in the service of Porus who had assassinated the Indian king the year before and taken control of much of his territory. He bought with him 125 well-trained Indian war elephants (see pages 207–10). This brought an end to the Second War of the Diadochi, a conflict that had spanned the entirety of Alexander’s empire, with the final defeat of the dogged Eumenes leaving Antigonus undisputed master of all of the Asian territories, and with Cassander now the master in Europe after the fall of Polyperchon.
Wars of the successors: Finale By this time two dramatic events had occurred in the Balkans that changed the Hellenistic world forever. These were Olympias’ murder of the first of the ‘kings’, Alexander’s elder brother Arrhidaeus (now styled Philip III), and then the subsequent murder of Olympias herself by Cassander. In the first instance, Polyperchon succeeded Antipater as regent when the latter died in 319 BC. However, Antipater’s son Cassander quickly maneuvered to replace Polyperchon and by 318 BC had established Arrhidaeus as the sole Macedonian ‘king’. This forced Polyperchon out of Macedonia, he fleeing to Epirus with Alexander IV (the other regal candidate) and his mother Roxanna who had previously been left in the care of Alexander’s mother Olympias. She had originally stayed purposely distant from the clash between Polyperchon and Cassander, but soon realised the latter was intent on replacing her grandson and establishing a new Antipatrid dynasty. This would ultimately mean death for any Argeads Cassander perceived standing in
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Hellenistic pikemen at the time of the Wars of the Successors. (15 mm wargaming figures from the collection of Robin Spence)
his way. The Macedonian soldiery, always loyal to the memory of Alexander, came to the same conclusion and vocally supported Olympias’ return. Soon Polyperchon and Olympias invaded Macedon with a combined force of loyalists and Epirots, successfully driving Cassander out from power. Olympias then convinced any troops who remained loyal to Arrhidaeus and his wife Eurydice to side with the Argeads, handing the latter two into her custody. She promptly had them executed in October 317 BC. However, Olympias then initiated a brutal proscription of Cassander’s family and supporters, horrifying many of the Macedonian nobility who had never forgotten her Epirot origins. Suddenly the Antipatrid cause was given renewed momentum, and soon Cassander had gathered an army and besieged Olympias in Pydna on the Thessalian coast. In the negotiations that followed, Cassander guaranteed the lives of Olympias, Alexander IV and Roxanna (the latter two besieged with her). However, he quickly reneged on this regarding Olympias and ordered the army to kill her. When they refused, he instead gathered the families of the victims of her earlier proscriptions who stoned her to death with the approval of Cassander, then denying her the usual rites of burial. Cassander then continued to reign as regent over Alexander IV and Roxanna, but in 309 BC felt secure enough to have them murdered, extinguishing the Argead line forever. He finally proclaimed himself king in 305 BC, establishing the shortlived Antipatrid dynasty.
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third War of the Diadochi Back in Asia, after the final demise of Eumenes, Antigonus now controlled nearly all of Anatolia and most of the eastern satrapies, Cassander controlled Macedon and the majority of Greece, Lysimachus still controlled Thrace and had remained largely aloof from the early phases of the Wars of the Successors, and Ptolemy controlled Egypt, Cyrene, Cyprus and most of Syria. However, soon many of Antigonus’ Asian satraps began to question his dominant position, particularly Seleucus in Babylonia. With the support of Cassander and Lysimachus, the satraps now demanded he break up his newly acquired empire. Specifically, in 314 BC they demanded Antigonus cede control of Lycia and Cappadocia in Anatolia to Cassander, Hellepontine Phrygia in Anatolia to Lysimachus, the remainder of Syria to Ptolemy, and finally to give Seleucus independent control of Babylonia. Finally, given Antigonus now controlled all of the treasuries Alexander had captured from Darius III across the breadth of Achaemenid Persian Empire, they also demanded he share this immense wealth evenly among them. Antigonus’ answer was typically succinct, simply telling them to be ready for war. This initiated the Third War of the Diadochi, a conflict between Antigonus and his son Demetrius on one side and Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy and Seleucus on the other. At stake was the integrity of Alexander’s empire, this being the final time there was a chance it might remain largely whole. The conflict began in the spring of 314 BC when Antigonus invaded Ptolemaic Syria, besieging
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Battles of Paraitacene and Gabiene Eumenes now reviewed the situation based on his intelligence of Antigonus’ army. Realising he was still outnumbered in terms of phalangites, he determined to head even further east. There he hoped for further reinforcements from Bactria and Sogdiana. However, these failed to materialise, most likely because of diplomatic outreach by Antigonus. Finally, in the autumn of 317 BC, Antigonus’ dogged pursuit paid dividends when he at last cornered his rival at Paraitacene, north east of Susa in modern Iran. A titanic clash ensued. Eumenes’ army here had a particularly eastern flavour, not surprising given the sourcing of much of it in the eastern satrapies. It included a 17,000-strong phalanx (the argyraspides forming its core), 18,000 light foot troops (a huge proportion of the overall force for a Hellenistic army, these including 10,000 Persian archers and slingers of dubious loyalty), 6,300 cavalry and Eudamos’ elephants. Antigonus meanwhile fielded a larger phalanx of 28,000 (probably including a few light troops), and up to 11,000 cavalry. However, he had fewer elephants, perhaps just over 60. Eumenes occupied a position with his left flank resting on high ground where he deployed a force of cavalry, mostly light and commanded by Eudamos. In the centre he deployed the phalanx in a solid line (the argyraspides to the left), the light troops ahead and on either side, while on the right he deployed his shock cavalry under his own command (though he himself was ill during the battle and was carried in a litter on the day). His large elephant corps was deployed across the front of his entire line. Meanwhile the wily Antigonus positioned himself on even higher ground and was able to observe Eumenes’ entire deployment. He acted accordingly, deploying his force obliquely, with the right wing (including most of the lance-armed shock cavalry and elephants) in the lead under his own command. His son Demetrius, now 17 and fighting his first battle, was at his side. On the left he deployed most of the light cavalry under Peithon, these Tarentines armed with javelins (see Chapter 6) and Medians and Parthians with bows, with the phalanx in oblique steps across his centre. The engagement began with Peithon’s light cavalry skirmishing forward to engage Eumenes’ force across its entire front, with orders to avoid frontal contact. The aim here was to screen Antigonus’ rightflank-led oblique attack. However, Eumenes reacted quickly, his own light horse dispersing Peithon’s troops with a flanking attack and then pursuing them off the battlefield, though in doing this they left their own left flank dangerously weakened. This then stepped back ahead of Antigonus’ now advancing right flank to avoid contact until reinforced. Next the phalanxes engaged where, despite their numerical inferiority, Eumenes’ troops proved superior, particularly the highly skilled agyraspides who easily pushed back Antigonus’ phalangites. Then, just at the point when the battle was turning against Antigonus, fate intervened in the form of the silver shields themselves. This was because their success opened up a large gap between themselves and Eumenes’ weakened left wing that had already stepped backwards. Antigonus, seeing this, lost no time in charging his right-wing cavalry and elephants through the gap in classic Macedonian ‘hammer-andanvil’ style, hitting Eumenes’ phalanx on its exposed inner flanks and rear and causing much bloodshed. Units of Antigonid cavalry then wheeled left through the gap and behind the phalanx to hit Eumenes’ own right flank cavalry in the rear. At this point, Eumenes with difficulty recalled his own light cavalry pursuing Peithon, giving Antigonus time to rally his own light cavalry and the units of his phalanx falling back. With night coming, Eumenes now decided it was better to fight another day rather than perish, withdrawing his remaining troops, including the agyraspides, back to his fortified camp. Antigonus claimed victory, given he remained on the battlefield, though in reality he’d lost more men (3,700 foot and 54 horse to 540 foot and a small number of horse according to the primary sources). Knowing this would cause morale problems with his army, he then deployed one final stratagem to disguise this loss to Eumenes, with Polyaenus saying that after the battle (Stratagems, 6.4.11):
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Eumenes sent a herald to Antigonus, to arrange with him a mutual agreement to bury their dead. Antigonus, who had been informed that his own loss exceeded that of the enemy, to conceal the fact, detained the herald, until his own dead had been cremated. After they had been buried, he let the herald go, and agreed to the proposal.
No fool, Antigonus knew the battle in reality was a draw. In fact, for the most part, the disparate and supposedly disloyal army of Eumenes had actually fought better than his own, led by the example of the argyraspides. His men knew it too, and with winter approaching he now retreated back to Media, while Eumenes advanced to Gabiene in central Persia. Both now settled in for the winter, fated to renew their campaigning early the following year when a final, fatal encounter awaited the two protagonists. At the end of 317 BC, word reached Antigonus that mutiny had broken out in Eumenes’ army once more. His agents told him that, contrary to orders, the Greek strategos’ troops had decided to camp far and wide across the hinterland of Gabiene rather than concentrate. Indeed, some of the camps were six days’ march apart. Eumenes’ subsequent orders for the troops to assemble where they could mutually support each other were ignored. This presented a unique opportunity to surprise Eumenes, and Antigonus eagerly grabbed it. Gathering his army again, he once more showed true strategic skill by approaching Gabiene from an unexpected direction, this across a desert plain littered with bogs and sulphur mines, avoiding an easier but more obvious route patrolled by Eumenes’ scouts (Polyaenus, Stratagems, 6.4.11). To ensure maximum surprise, before setting out Antigonus gave orders that all of his troops should only take food which required no cooking. Then, to maximise the element of surprise, he deployed yet another stratagem. This was to announce loudly his intention of retiring northwards to Armenia. This was duly reported to Eumenes by the latter’s spies. Then, on the winter solstice in December 317 BC, Antignous set out, issuing further orders that no fires were to be lit at night. Antigonus’ troops suffered much hardship during this march, given it took place in the freezing cold of a desert winter. By the fifth night, some troops had had enough and disobeyed orders, lighting fires which were soon seen by Eumenes’ agents. The latter now sought to buy time while he swiftly gathered his army from its disparate camps, now using a clever stratagem of his own. This involved lighting thousands of campfires at the edge of the desert to give Antigonus the impression his opponent’s full force had already gathered. Antigonus plunged on regardless through the frosty landscape, only discovering the ruse as he reached the desert’s edge. He then plundered the surrounding countryside, before next trying to capture Eumenes’ sizeable elephant corps that had been too slow to join the rest of his army on time. Here Antigonus only just failed, and both sides now decided to settle the issue there and then rather than head into winter quarters again, camping 7 km apart on either side of a salt-encrusted, dusty plane. On the day of the battle, Eumenes had foreknowledge of Antigonus’ deployment through careful reconnaissance and positioned his best-mounted troops on his left opposite Antigonus and Demetrius. This included the majority of his 6,000 cavalry, including his own guard cavalry and those of the eastern satraps, together with 60 of his elephants and some supporting light troops. His foot soldiers, numbering 36,700 including a large proportion of light troops again, formed his centre, while on his right the Parthian satrap Philip commanded the remainder of the cavalry. The rest of his 114 elephants were deployed in line across his centre and left. Meanwhile Antigonus had a phalanx of 22,000, some light troops, 9,000 cavalry and 65 elephants. His best xyston (lance-armed) shock cavalry were deployed on his right as Eumenes had correctly determined, nominally under the youthful Demetrius though in actual fact he commanded the wing himself (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 19.41). His phalanx was deployed in his centre, while Peithon again commanded the light horse troops on the left flank. His elephant corps was this time spread out across his whole frontage. Thus both armies had their strongest wings opposite each other. Before the battle opened, Antigenes, the argyraspides’ commander, crossed the battlefield on his charger to heckle the Antigonid phalanx, saying (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 19.43):
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Wicked men, are you sinning against your fathers, who conquered the whole world under Philip and Alexander?
The morale of Antigonus’ phalanx suffered at this turn of events, while Eumenes’ phalangites raised a great cheer. The Greek strategos saw his opportunity and began a general advance, with the elephants and light troops of both sides opening the battle with a general exchange. The rutting beasts, fighting tusk to tusk, kicked up a large dust cloud which Antigonus now used to his advantage, ordering his left flank light horse troops under Peithon to carry out a wide flanking movement to Eumenes’ rear, dramatically capturing the latter’s baggage train (with the Tarantines in the lead). Meanwhile, on the right and again using the dust cloud as cover, Antigonus and Demetrius rode around the engaged elephants across their front and struck Eumenes’ own left-wing cavalry in the flank, causing mayhem. After a short, stiff fight, Eumenes’ ally Peucestas was routed along with his 1,500 Persian cavalry, only halting when they reached a secure position to the rear. However, the battle of the phalanxes was a different matter. Led by the argyraspides, Eumenes’ phalanx smashed into the Antigonid centre and drove straight through it. Diodorus Siculus colourfully reports that the silver shields (Library of History, 19.43): … were not to be checked in their charge and engaged the entire opposing phalanx, showing themselves so superior in skill and strength that of their own men they lost not one, but of those who opposed them they slew over 5,000 and routed the entire force of foot soldiers, whose numbers were many times their own.
While this might seem at first sight unlikely, one interpretation is that the argyraspides turned through 90 degrees once they had routed the troops opposite their initial charge and then rolled up the Antigonid centre. Whatever the truth, Eumenes now saw his chance. Though bested on both left and right he had now secured the centre and quickly ordered Peucestas to exploit the gap there with his cavalry. However, to Eumenes’ horror, the Persian governor refused to move. Antigonus, seeing this, then ordered Peithon’s horse, just returned from plundering Eumenes’ camp, to attack the argyraspides in the rear. The veterans calmly ceased their pursuit of the Antigonid centre and formed a huge square with their attached light troops in the centre, safely marching from the field of battle. This
The Pilos helmet was one of the most common types used by rank and file pikemen and hoplites during the Wars of the Successors. (wikicommons)
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effectively marked the end of the engagement, Antigonus again claiming possession of the battlefield but with both sides effectively fighting each other to a standstill. That evening, Eumenes attempted to convince his commanders that Antigonus should be engaged anew the following morning, but they were reluctant given their families were among the captured baggage train. Both armies now stood off each other for three days, the Macedonians in Eumenes’ army eventually reaching out to Antigonus to demand the return of their families and baggage. Polyaenus says Antigonus responded with a proclamation, saying (Stratagems, 4.6.13): … he would let every soldier recover his property without a ransom. After this many of them (Eumenes’ troops) immediately revolted to his side, these not only Macedonians, but also 10,000 Persians under the command of Peucestas. For as soon as he saw that the Macedonians inclined to Antigonus, he followed their example.
Pandemonium now broke out in Eumenes’ camp, with his troops streaming away to join Antigonus. The Greek leader tried one final time to rally his soldiers to his cause. Remarkably though, given their prominent role in his battles to that date, Eumenes’ fate was sealed by the elite argyraspides who now saw how things would end. Plutarch has them say (Lives, Eumenes, 18): Pay no attention to his babbling; for it was not so dreadful a thing … that a pest from the Chersonesus should come to grief for having harassed Macedonians with infinite wars, as that the best of the soldiers of Philip and Alexander, after all their toils, should in their old age be robbed of their rewards and get their support from others, and that their wives should be spending the third night now in the arms of their enemies.
With that they grabbed Eumenes, wrapped him in chains and dragged him to the Antigonid camp. There, after a few days of deliberation during which Antigonus removed Eumenes’ chains and allowed his friends to visit him, Antigonus had him executed. He was not alone, for Eudamos and the silver shields’ commander Antigenes met a similar fate. Meanwhile the rest of the argyraspides, far from being rewarded for their treachery, were then sent by Antigonus to the far-off satrapy of Arachosia in modern Afghanistan where the governor Sibyrtius was given specific orders to send them out on dangerous missions to ensure they didn’t return. Wisely, Antigonus didn’t trust those who’d betrayed their commander, with Plutarch saying he called them ‘impious and bestial’ (Lives, Eumenes, 19).
Tyre. Cassander and Ptolemy then prompted the Carian satrap Asander to move against Antigonus’ territories in Lycia, Lydia and Phrygia. Antigonus responded cannily, forcing Cassander to focus on the Macedonian homeland by sending his old friend and strategos Aristodemus of Miletus to the Peloponnese with 1,000 talents of silver to raise a mercenary army to fight Cassander in the north. Once there, Aristodemus allied himself with the usurped regent Polyperchon who still controlled territory in Greece. With the new front opened in Greece, Antigonus then sent another loyal strategos, his nephew Ptolemaeus, through Anatolia to the Hellespont with the aim of cutting Asander off from his Lysimachid and Antipatrid allies in Europe.
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Ptolemaeus’ lightning strike was highly successful, securing the whole of northwestern Anatolia for Antigonus. He then trapped Asander in Caria, though proved unable to drive his opponent from the satrapy. Antigonus now decided to campaign against Asander himself, leaving Demetrius in Syria. Ptolemy and Seleucus (who’d made his way westwards from Babylon) immediately saw the opportunity here, with the Antigonid army now split in two. They invaded Syria from the south with an army of 22,000 and defeated Demetrius at the battle of Gaza in late 312 BC. In the aftermath, Seleucus headed back east once more to secure control of the eastern satrapies, establishing what later became the Seleucid Empire.
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Back in southwestern Anatolia, Antigonus finally defeated Asander and then sent Ptolemaeus and another nephew called Telesphorus to Greece to support the fight against Cassander. When word reached him of Demetrius’ defeat at Gaza, he returned to the Syrian front where he united his army again and drove off Ptolemy. While there, outside the city of Tyre he delivered his famous ‘Decree of the Macedonians’ (note some argue this may have taken place slightly earlier in the conflict, but I believe my chronological interpretation is correct). In the first instance this demanded Cassander hand over Alexander IV and Roxana into Antigonid protection, and also destroy Thebes and Olynthus where Antipadrid support was strong. However, the next part of the proclamation was aimed directly at the other Greek city-states and was to have huge ramifications for the governance of the poleis there for the next 15 years, setting the tone for the future Antigonid and Antipadrid rivalry in the Balkans. Crucially, he declared that under him the citystates would be free and ungarrisoned, beyond any form of direct Macedonian control. In effect this was a return to the pre-Chaeronea status quo and set the democratic factions within each polis against any pro-Antipadrid oligarchs and tyrants being propped up by the existing Macedonian garrisons. To make sure that his words were spread far and wide, Antigonus distributed copies of the proclamation across the Hellenistic world, particularly in Greece. The ‘Decree of the Macedonians’ unleashed democratic fever across mainland Greece, with drastic consequences. In Argos, one of the first city-states to react, the democratic faction revolted and asked for Antigonid assistance. Cassander’s men arrived first and burned 500 rebels alive after they’d gathered in their city hall. A spiral of bloody civil wars followed as, polis by polis, Antigonid democratic factions fought Antipadrid oligarchs and tyrants. Back in Asia, Antigonus sent Demetrius east to pursue the ambitious Seleucus. Gradually this campaign became the focus of Antigonus’ attention and he soon decided the exhaustive conflict against the other successors should conclude. In short order peace treaties were then
signed with Cassander, Lysimachus and Ptolemy, though he continued the war with Seleucus while attempting to recover his eastern satrapies. With peace settled in the west, in 310 BC Antigonus then headed east himself, though was unable to defeat Seleucus and was forced to finally give up his former territories there. It was Antigonus’ focus in the east that gave Cassander the free hand he needed back in Macedon, allowing him to murder Alexander IV and Roxanna in 309 BC. The Third War of the Diadochi petered out around this time, leaving just five of Alexander’s immediate successors still at large. These were Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, Seleucus (the true winner of this conflict) and Antignous.
the Fourth War of the Diadochi The stakes remained very high for all of the protagonists across the Hellenistic world, and war again broke out around 307 BC. Emboldened by Antigonus’ inability to defeat Seleucus, Ptolemy had by this time expanded his region of control in the eastern Mediterranean to include Cyprus and much of the Aegean. Meanwhile, in the east, Seleucus decided to carry out his own anabasis, aiming to secure control of his newly acquired eastern satrapies. Seeing his former opponents acting with impunity, Antigonus now realised he had to act or risk losing authority over his remaining territories. His first target was Greece, the soft under-belly of Antipatrid Macedon, where he decided to send Demetrius on his first campaign. When Antigonus set his sights on Greece in 307 BC, he aimed high. Not for him the Peloponnese, Aetolia or Euobea. Only Athens would do, the polis still far outshining its rivals despite declining fortunes. At this time, it was back in Cassander’s control and a cornerstone of the latter’s strategy to dominate all of Greece. The city was ruled by the tyrant Demetrius of Phalerum, a notable statesman set in place by Cassander. Athenaeus describes him as a man infamous for lavish feasts, affairs with youths and women, and a blatant narcissist who erected 360 statues in his own honour around the city (The Learned Banqueters, 524B). In reality he was also a noted rhetorician, historian and legal reformer.
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Antigonus knew that seizing the city and its harbour Piraeus would provide the perfect strategic platform, giving him the choice of striking Cassander to the north or south, and by land or sea, thus keeping Antipatrid forces second guessing his plans. The ‘Decree of the Macedonians’ remained the centrepiece of Antigonid foreign policy in Greece, enabling Antigonus and Demetrius to portray themselves as champions of liberty for the poleis. Diodorus Siculus says that when he appointed Demetrius to lead the Antigonid campaign in Greece, Antigonus specifically gave him the order to ‘free all the cities throughout Greece’ and remove their Antipatrid garrisons propping up oligarchs and tyrants (Library of History, 20.45). Already assured the support of the democrats in Athens, Antigonus and Demetrius settled on a very bold plan involving securing Piraeus in a lightning strike to diminish the authority of Demetrius of Phalerum. Antigonus gave his son 5,000 talents and a fleet of 250 ships for the campaign, this sailing from Ephesus to Cape Sumium (the eastern most point of Attica) in June 307 BC. On arrival, he then deployed a stratagem which completely wrong-footed his Athenian namesake. His ships safely assembled, Demetrius sailed 20 of his best vessels northwards towards the Corinthian port of Cenchreae. Polyaenus says the Athenians fell for the bluff completely, standing down their guards as they assumed the ships belonged to their existing foe Ptolemaeus (Stratagems, 4.7.6). Then, as soon as Demetrius received word of this, he changed course immediately and bolted for Piraeus, the oarsmen in his galleys rowing at maximum speed. They arrived unopposed, Demetrius telling the startled audience of dockworkers and locals from the bow of his war galley that he had arrived to set the Athenians free from tyranny and restore democratic government. He received a genuinely warm reception from the dockworkers, with Piraeus always a centre of democratic support, though the town itself kept its gates closed. Encouraged by his immediate support on arrival on the dockside, Demetrius jumped ashore to begin his crusade to free the Greeks. He then
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unleashed his remaining ships on Piraeas itself, its defences led by Demetrius of Phalerum in person, the latter clearly more than the dandy Athenaeus describes above. However, soon the town walls were breached and the remaining garrison fled, while the Athenian tyrant sped back to Athens. There, having been duped by Demetrius and defeated, his position proved untenable, with Plutarch saying he was ‘more afraid of his fellow citizens than of the enemy’ (Lives, Demetrius, 9). He departed for Thebes under a guarantee of safe conduct, ultimately finding his way to Ptolemy’s court in Alexandria, and later dying of a snakebite in the southern Egyptian desert. Meanwhile, back in Athens the population was jubilant their tyrant had been overthrown, destroying all but one of his statues, their remains then made into chamber pots. This was a mighty fall indeed. Demetrius now focused on reducing the nearby fortress of Munchyia which still held out against him, using artillery and sappers to great effect, opening a breach in its strong walls within two days. The garrison then immediately surrendered. Demetrius next levelled the stronghold to remove this potent symbol of Antipadrid control. He then entered Athens itself in triumph, restoring democratic government there with the leading democrat Stratocles initially in charge. Binding themselves tightly to the Antigonid cause, as a first act the Athenian assembly voted to set up statues of Antigonus and Demetrius in a victory chariot among other lavish acts of overt gratitude. Such were the extraordinary rewards for the victors, the statues allegedly being made of gold. While some Athenians challenged such sycophancy, having only just seen off one oppressor, most accepted it as a price worth paying for keeping the hated Cassander out of their affairs. Antigonus, taken aback at such immediate success, responded warmly to the Athenian plaudits, gifting the city timber to build 100 ships, 6,000 tonnes of grain and giving back control of the island of Imbros in the northeastern Aegean. The democrats back in power, notable exiles then began to return to Athens, including Zeno of Citium, the founder of stoicism. However, one jarring note during
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this period was the ruling council banning the founding of any new schools of philosophy in Athens without their consent. Demetrius next moved on nearby Megara in western Attica, capturing it and expelling Cassander’s garrison with seeming ease. Then, in a foreign policy twist, Antigonus decided to change the point of attack against his opponents and in the spring of 306 BC ordered Demetrius to conquer Ptolemaic-controlled Cyprus. By this time, the Egyptian ruler had already installed garrisons of his own in Corinth to close off land access to the Peloponnese, and also in Sicyon southwest of Athens, and was likely using Cyprus itself to raid Anatolia. To reassure his new Antigonid allies in Greece, Demetrius called together counsellors from all of the cities under their protection, with Plutarch saying he was reluctant to leave given he believed the war for the liberation of Greece was nobler than fighting Ptolemy in in Cyprus (Lives, Demetrius, 9). Following his father’s orders, Demetrius departed nevertheless, to win a great naval victory at Salamis off the north coast of Cyprus in 306 BC. In the same year, Antigonus
himself attempted to lead a large army against Egypt itself, but bad weather prevented Demetrius supplying his father’s army by sea and Antigonus was forced to withdraw. References in the primary sources are thin for the next two years regarding the conflict, though the archaeological evidence suggests that the Antigonids did maintain a significant presence in mainland Greece. For example, an Athenian inscription from this period records a donation of 140 talents of silver from Antigonus, while another thanks the friends of Demetrius for ‘sharing the struggle for freedom and democracy’. The conflict in Greece spluttered on throughout this time, with the Athenians winning some early victories until Cassander directed his full attention south from Pella again. The Antigonids then lost the initiative, with the Antipatrids gaining fresh momentum as it is around this time that Cassander crowned himself king for the first time. The Macedonians then attacked Athens directly, capturing the border forts that guarded the passes between Boeotia in Central Greece and the city, and then taking it under siege. By the
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The modern entrance to the harbour at Piraeus where Demetrius Poliorcetes surprised Demetrius of Phaleron with his stratagem during the Fourth War of the Diadochi.
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Classical trireme war galleys in their ship sheds where they were maintained while in harbour. Maintaining a sea-worthy fleet was a costly and time-consuming business for Hellenistic kingdoms.
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summer of 304 BC, the situation in Athens had become desperate. However, the Antigonids now came to the rescue once more, newly freed from their abortive siege of Rhodes where Demetrius had a year earlier earned the new nickname Poliorcetes. He sailed directly from the island with 330 ships and a large army, landing to Cassander’s rear at Aulus in Boeotia and thus threatening the king’s lines of communications back to Pella. Demetrius then quickly took Chalcis and reformed the Antigonid alliance with the Boeotians and the Aetolians, together securing Central Greece. Demetrius next mounted one of his characteristic lightning strikes, targeting the Antipadrid forces besieging Athens to the south. Cassander, fearful of being cut off from the north, fled back to Macedon, pursued by the Antigonids all the way. The Macedonian king finally reached Thessaly and relative safety, but not before Demetrius had captured Heraclea on the southern border there, where 6,000 Macedonians deserted and joined him. This was a significant force given the estimate for the size of the whole ‘home army’ at this time was some 25,000. Diodorus Siculus now says that Demetrius began to consider targeting Macedonia itself
(Library of History, 20.45). His first objective was Sicyon, still held by Ptolemy’s garrison and the latter’s last foothold in Greece. He stormed the city’s walls in a night attack and drove the defenders into the citadel where they soon surrendered and returned to Egypt. The citizens then outdid even Athens in their thanks to the Antigonids, renaming the city Demetrias in his honour. He then moved on to Corinth, the vital link between Attica and the Peloponnese, where his democratic supporters opened a gate allowing his forces to take the city unopposed. The Antipatrid garrison then retreated to man the Acrocorinth citadel towering over the city, and the Aisyphium fort on its lower slopes. Demetrius lived up to his Poliorcetes nickname, deploying his siege engines to soften up the defences of the citadel and fort before storming the latter. This quickly fell, with the Macedonian troops atop the citadel surrendering soon after. Impressed, the Athenians responded to these victories by voting for annual sacrifices to Athena Nike and Fortune, and of course their saviours Antignous and Demetrius. Demetrius’ campaign continued into the summer, next invading the Argolid Peninsula in
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the north-western Peloponnese. In short order he took the cities of Troezen, Epidaurus and Argos where, in June, he then presided over the festival of Hera. At this time, Demetrius also married Deidameia, the sister of Pyrrhus, the exiled king of Epirus. This was a shrewd diplomatic move given the latter had been removed from his throne by allies of Cassander. Demetrius’ lightning campaign continued, marching into Achaea in the north-western Peloponnese where he stormed a number of towns before arriving at Orchomenus. Here, the Antipatrid garrison was commanded by one Strombichus, originally appointed under Polyperchon. The ‘Besieger’ again lived up to his name and the city fell, with 2,000 mercenaries who made up the bulk of the garrison joining the Antigonids. Sadly for Strombichus he wasn’t so lucky, he and eight other officers being crucified. Such brutality, not uncommon in this Antigonid and Antipatrid fight to the death in Greece, had the desired effect and from that point until the end of the campaign, every time Demetrius approached a city with his ‘great army and with overwhelming engines of war’, the garrison surrendered immediately (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 20.103). Demetrius then returned to Athens to spend the winter, content in the knowledge that in just two campaigning seasons he had effectively destroyed Cassander’s hold on mainland Greece. Sadly for the Antigonids, Demetrius now displayed the more debauched side of his personality. He personally acquired the rear chamber of the Parthenon atop the Acropolis in Athens as his living quarters, where he set up his prize collection of courtesans under the command of an ageing madam called Lamia. From there he spent the winter months in a wild round of parties and orgies. He also had coins struck featuring his image on one side and Athena on the other, though then overstepped the mark when he intervened personally in a legal case. The Athenian assembly acted against him for the first time, forbidding him from doing so again, but reversed the decision when he lost his temper with them. His critics in the city said this was far from the freedom they had been promised, though he lost no time in
reminding them that such was the cost of keeping the Antipatrids out of Athenian affairs. Next, in 302 BC, Demetrius and his father resurrected Philip II’s old League of Corinth, the former henceforth acting as its commander. Cassander knew by this point that he was beaten, and sent envoys to Antigonus. However, the latter was in no mood to compromise and the Macedonian king’s terms were rejected out of hand. Cassander then panicked and renewed his offensive against the Antigonids, aware he was beginning to appear weak to the unforgiving Macedonian aristocracy. First, he turned in desperation to Lysimchus, then campaigning against Antigonus in Caria in south-western Anatolia. Here the Antipadrid king again hoped to distract Antigonus’ attention away from matters in Greece, sending his strategos Prepelaus with a small army to aid the Thraco-Macedonian king. Back in Europe, the war ground on, Cassander aggressive once more while his ally Lysimachus continued to press Antigonus in Caria. With the remaining troops of the ‘home army’, Cassander then marched through Thessaly, occupying the passes to the south. Demetrius countered with typical rapidity, gathering his army and fleet at Chalcis from where he sailed to the port of Larisa Cremaste, located north of the pass of Thermopylae. There he quickly took the city, disembarked his full force and marched north into Thessaly where he captured more cities. Cassander decided to make a stand at the city of Pherae where he strengthened the garrison and then deployed his full field force, by now comprising 29,000 foot soldiers (including many mercenaries) and 2,000 cavalry. Demetrius could deploy 56,000 foot soldiers and 1,500 cavalry against this force, an enormous size for the period. The Antipadrid king was no fool and wisely decided to remain in his nearby fortified camp, where the two sides faced off against each other for two weeks. Demetrius used the time well, convincing the citizens of Pherae to surrender the city, the garrison also surrendering on good terms. It was at this moment of dramatic impasse, with Demetrius seemingly poised to make his killer blow against Cassander and seize the Macedonian
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When Demetrius Poliorcetes returned to Athens in the winter of 304 BC, he lived a debauched lifestyle, using the rear chamber of the Parthenon as his living quarters.
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throne, that the wheels of fate again spun, and this time against the Antigonids. For it was now that Antigonus, on the back foot against Lysimachus, dramatically recalled Demetrius to join him again. The Antigonid heir swiftly came to terms with Cassander, once more reassuring the Greeks he would return as soon as fortune permitted, and then left with his fleet and much of the army for a date with destiny few could have foreseen. On arrival in Caria, Demetrius found his ageing father in trouble. By this time Lysimachus had overrun much of western Anatolia, and although Demetrius strove to turns things around for Antigonus, by 301 BC the forces of Lysimachus and Cassander (not there in person) had isolated them near Ipsus in Phrygia. The Antigonids now went on the offensive one last time, their combined forces finally driving back their opponents in a short campaign when suddenly Seleucus appeared from the east with his son Antiochus and a large force of reinforcements (many supplied by
Cassander) to support Lysimachus. The latter now forced a decisive meeting engagement, this one of the final major battle in the Wars of the Successors. Here, the Antigonids fielded 70,000 foot soldiers, 10,000 cavalry and 75 elephants against the combined armies of Lysimachus and Seleucus with 64,000 foot soldiers, 15,000 cavalry (many arriving from the east with Seleucus), 400 elephants and 100 scythed chariots. The battle of Ipsus opened with Demetrius charging at the head of the Antigonid right-wing cavalry against Antiochus who commanded the allied left wing. Demetrius’ assault shattered all before him and soon the entire allied left wing had been driven from the field. However, instead of halting his pursuit in true Alexandrian fashion and then turning this huge success to the advantage of the wider army, his exuberant troops pursued their routing opponents far from the battlefield. Meanwhile, Antigonus’ phalanx
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monarchy in their own territories and turning their backs on the all-encompassing ambitions of the former great conqueror.
Hellenism Ascendant
charged the allied heavy foot soldiers and started to make good headway. However, given the lack of any cavalry from either side now on the Antigonid right and allied left, both phalanx flanks there were completely exposed, and it was Seleucus who was the first to react. Gathering a reserve of allied cavalry, he now moved to threaten the exposed right flank of Antigonus’ phalanx, with the pikemen there quickly surrendered en masse. This put the wider Antigonid cause in great peril, Antigonus sending messenger after messenger to demand his son return. However, when at last Demetrius did respond he was too late. By this time Seleucus had deployed a line of elephants on the allied left to prevent Demetrius’ return. Antigonus, isolated, fought to the last, dying bravely with his guard phalangites while still awaiting the return of his wayward son. So ended the last attempt to reunite the empire of Alexander, with the surviving successors now adopting the paraphernalia of
Each successor kingdom now went their own way, dealing with foreign policy and domestic issues in isolation rather than acting collectively. Most military engagements over the next decade took place in the context of the future of the Macedonian throne. There, Cassander had died of a cerebral edema in Pella in 298 BC, and though his two sons Antipater II and Alexander V succeeded him, they both proved weak kings. They soon fell out, with the younger then calling on Demetrius for assistance. Despite the disaster at Ipsus, the latter had retained control of Cyprus, much of the Peloponnese and many of the Aegean islands. Moving with his usual speed, he quickly seized control of Cilicia and Lycia. This set him against the Epirot king Pyrrhus, soon to make his name in Italy, with the latter seizing Ambracia on the western borders of Macedon. In response, an emboldened Demetrius now invaded Macedonia, soon killing his initial sponsor Alexander and seizing control of the kingdom himself by 294 BC. However, while Demetrius was distracted there, the ageing Lysimachus to the east now invaded his outlying territories with the support once more of Seleucus and Ptolemy. Soon Lysimachus had recovered any of his territories in western Anatolia previously lost to the Antigonids which still held out against him, while Seleucus took most of Cilicia and Ptolemy recovered Cyprus, eastern Cilicia and Lycia. At this turn of events, Demetrius’ support in Pella quickly evaporated, his rapid demise there no doubt aided by diplomatic and financial interventions by Lysimachus and Pyrrhus. He was then forced to flee as rebellion broke out, with control of the kingdom divided between Lysimachus and Pyrrhus. Demetrius re-emerged in Greece where he remained popular and, setting his son Antigonus Gonatus in place to control Antigonid interests there, he then set out
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(below and opposite) The Temple of Apollo, Didim in modern Turkey, the classical sanctuary of Didyma on the Ionian coast. Here Seleucus came to pray before making his fateful crossing to Europe where he was assassinated by Ptolemy Ceraunus.
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on a new anabasis of his own to the east in 287 BC. Though initially successful, despite often fearful odds, at the last this most glamorous of Hellenistic leaders was captured by Seleucus in 286 BC. He drank himself to death two years later. Back in Greece, with Demetrius now gone, Lysimachus and Pyrrhus launched a campaign to the south, driving Antigonus Gonatas out of Thessaly and eventually out of Athens. However, when word reached them of Demetrius’ capture by Seleucus, they fell out over who should have the spoils of final victory over the Antigonids in Greece. Lysimachus then turned on Pyrrhus and drove him out of Macedon, taking control of the entire kingdom. However, dynastic struggles in Egypt now intervened. The elderly Ptolemy had made his younger son Ptolemy Philadelphus his heir rather than his elder son Ptolemy Ceraunus (an appropriate epithet meaning thunderbolt). The latter promptly fled to join Seleucus in the east who was then dragged into the succession squabbles of the Ptolemies after Ptolemy himself died peacefully in 282 BC. This soon set him against Lysimachus, the two meeting in battle at Corupedium in Lydia in 281 BC, with Seleucus
emerging the victor and Lysimachus dead. This proved the last battle between Alexander’s successors, and although victory gave Seleucus nominal control over most of Alexander’s empire except Egypt, his ascendancy was short lived. This was because when he crossed the Hellespont to take possession of Lysimachus’ European territories in Thrace and Macedonia, he was promptly assassinated by Ptolemy Ceraunus who then seized the Macedonian throne, this an extreme example of Hellenistic real politik. However, the latter’s success was equally short lived as, after defeating an initial challenge from Antigonus Gonatus, he himself fell in battle against the most unexpected of enemies, the Galatians amid the Gallic invasion of the Balkans. The Galatians were the eastern Gauls who had migrated through the Balkans from the 280s BC and eventually founded the Galatian kingdoms in central Anatolia. Their arrival on the borders of Macedon coincided with similar Gallic migrations in the west. They proved to be fearsome warriors with a military system featuring a chariot-riding aristocracy (later replaced with cavalry) and line-of-battle infantry
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Detail from the Temple of Apollo at Didim showing a Medusa.
Galatian foot warriors, known in the Hellenistic world for their ferocious charge. (15 mm wargaming figures from the collection of Robin Spence)
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armed with short spears and long slashing swords who were renowned for the fearsome charge. After the demise of Ptolemy Ceraunus, they were eventually driven out of the Balkans by the Macedonians and Greek poleis, hence their arrival in Anatolia. Back in Macedon, a short period of instability followed their passage through the region, with Antigonus Gonatus finally emerging as the new king in 277 BC. He proved a capable monarch, providing the stability to allow the kingdom to recover from decades of strife during the Wars of the Successors and, most recently, the Galatian invasions. It was he who established the longestlasting iteration of the Antigonid dynasty, set to last through to the kingdom’s final, catastrophic defeat by Rome.
The final development to record here regarding the evolution of the Hellenistic kingdoms concerns the most easterly satrapies once again. There, around 250 BC, the Bactrian satrap Diodotus declared his independence by issuing coins which featured his own portrait. Although he was later forced by the Seleucids to submit to their rule once more, this new Greco-Bactrian kingdom soon regained its independence again, maintaining home rule either as one kingdom or a number until the much later invasions of the Saka and Yuehzhi steppe peoples around 140 BC. At some stage during this period, the Greco-Bactrians conquered Arachosia (certainly by 200 BC), and later invaded north-western India where they took advantage of the collapse of the Mauryan empire to set up an Indo-Greek kingdom. In the following decades, the kings there expanded their region of territorial control even further south and east, their power peaking under Menander in the 150s BC when Greek rule in the region extended to the Swat valley and Ravi river, as well as down the valley of the Ganges (though how far is not clear). After Menander’s death, his kingdom disintegrated into a number of smaller states. Some of these may have survived through to the 1st century BC
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in almost complete isolation from developments back in the Mediterranean world. For there, back in the mid-3rd century BC, a new power had risen in Italy that was to eventually prove the nemesis for the kingdoms that had succeeded the empire of Alexander. This was Republican Rome and its mighty legions, now set to clash with the Hellenistic pike phalanx for the first time.
clash of empires To this point, the Hellenistic kingdoms established after the collapse of Alexander’s empire had dominated their known world. However, the rise to dominance in Italy of Rome now fundamentally changed that dynamic. Founded on the eastern banks of the River Tiber in the early 1st millennium BC, this small town had grown rapidly and through grit and determination come first to dominate its own Latium locale, then Etruria to the north, next much of Magna Graecia to the south, and finally found itself (in the context of these latter conquests) coming into regular contact with the Hellenistic world. Here I consider the various stages of Rome’s encroachment eastwards as, one by one, the Hellenistic kingdoms fell into its growing sphere of insidious influence.
south when word reached the city that Pyrrhus was gathering allies from Rome’s enemies across Italy, which by this time there were numerous, many holding grudges against earlier defeats by the Romans. A major battle ensued at Heraclea. This was the first time the Romans, with their Camillan legions organized into maniples of hastati, principes and triarii legionaries, fought a Macedonian-style phalanx. It proved a bruising experience, with Pyrrhus winning narrowly. Two further battles occurred at Asculum in 279 BC, another narrow Epirot victory, and
Pyrrhus of Epirus, a key challenger to Demetrius Poliorcetes’ plans to dominate Macedonia and Greece.
Pyrrhus of epirus in Italy Rome’s first real contact with the Hellenistic world was in the context of the Italian campaigns of Pyrrhus, the swashbuckling Epirot king last detailed above in his earlier ambitions to rule Macedon. He was drawn westwards across the Adriatic Sea by Rome’s gradual encroachment of Magna Graecia in southern Italy and Sicily. Ultimately this forced Taranto, the leading naval power on the peninsula, to appeal for help to Pyrrhus on the north western coast of the Balkans. The Epirot king responded positively and in 280 BC crossed the Adriatic with a 25,000-strong army. These crack troops fought in the classic Hellenistic military tradition with pike-armed phalangites, xyston-armed shock cavalry and war elephants. A Roman army quickly marched
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(right) Hellenistic inscriptions on the wall of the theatre in Butrint, ancient Epirot Bouthroton, listing the names of manumitted slaves and dating to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. Over 403 freed slaves are named.
(below) The 4.7 km long wall circuit of Paestum, built when still the key Magna Graecian city of Poseidonia.
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Beneventum in 275 BC, when the Romans were finally victorious. The war then ended with Pyrrhus’ withdrawal back to the Balkans, though it had been a close-run thing and made a lasting impression on the Romans. One result was the evolution of the Camillan manipular system into a more streamlined form known as the Polybian system, this form of legionary organisation now set to confront the Hellenistic kingdoms on their home territories.
the syrian Wars In the first instance, warfare in the eastern Mediterranean was dominated throughout much of the 3rd century BC by a series of conflicts fought between the Seleucid kingdom and Ptolemaic Egypt, these known as the Syrian Wars. The major issue at stake was control of southern Syria, with the first war taking place between Antiochus I and Ptolemy II from 274 BC to 271 BC. This was a major success for Egypt given the kingdom rested control of Phoenicia, most of Anatolia and the Cyclades islands from the Seleucids and their allies. The second war from 260 BC to 253 BC
then saw a gradual re-conquest of many of these regions by Antiochus II and his ally Antigonus Gonatus of Macedon, particularly in Phoenicia and Anatolia. The third war (also known as the Laodicean War) broke out in 245 BC when Ptolemy III moved north to enforce the terms agreed at the end of the second conflict which had proved particularly disadvantageous to the new Seleucid king Seleucus II, despite the earlier successes of his father. Seleucus was beset by issues in Cappadocia and Pontus in eastern and northern Anatolia, and after the conclusion of his conflict with Egypt in 241 BC, then had to cede many of his remaining Anatolian territories to his brother Antiochus Hierax in the so-called War of the Brothers. The latter then lost these to Attalus I of Pergamon, while Seleucus himself failed to stop the break away of his furthest eastern satrapies in Bactria and Parthia. In particular, the latter had proved a particular problem from the moment its satrap Andragoras had usurped there in 245 BC. This isolated Hellenistic interests in this far northeastern corner of the Seleucid Empire,
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The ancient acropolis of the later Epirot capital Phoenice, near Saranda in modern Albania. It was to here the Epirots moved their capital after the time of Pyrrhus.
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(opposite) A Pyrrhic guard cavalryman charges a Roman cavalryman at the battle of Heraclea in 280 BC. (Graham Sumner)
always vulnerable to raiding given it abutted the Central Asian Steppe. Soon, the tribes on the borders there sensed an opportunity, with a warrior called Arsaces coalescing power to make a direct challenge to Andragoras. The former was a leader of the Parni, an Iranian people from the Tajen/Tajend River valley southeast of the Caspian Sea. He soon invaded Parthia at the
head of a huge army featuring armoured lancers and (mainly) unarmoured horse archers, quickly seizing control of Astabene, the northern region of the satrapy. From that point Parthian interests expanded westwards, eventually proving just as dangerous a threat to the Seleucids as the Romans. Next, in 221 BC the new Seleucid king Antiochus III (later styled ‘the Great’) initiated
Battle of raphia The battle of Raphia was one of the largest battles of the Hellenistic period, with up to 150,000 men engaged. The clash followed two years of campaigning by Antiochus III in Coele-Syria (northeastern modern Syria, abutting the Arabian Desert) where he expelled most of the Ptolemaic garrisons there. Ptolemy IV realised that, give his military commitments elsewhere, his forces in the region were too few in number to challenge Antiochus directly. He therefore tasked his advisor Sosibius with raising new troops to bolster his field army in the north, which the latter did by creating a 20,000-strong phalanx of native Egyptian phalangites (styled machimoi) to fight alongside the ‘ethnic’ Macedonian phalanx. The latter traditionally comprised Macedonian, Greek and Jewish settlers and mercenaries. Soon Ptolemy’s newly reinforced army was ready for action, comprising 70,000 foot soldiers including the enormous dual-sourced phalanx, 5,000 cavalry and 73 elephants. The latter were of the smaller African forest type, sourced in the Horn of Africa (see Chapter 6 for detail). Meanwhile Antiochus’ army featured 62,000 foot soldiers, 6,000 cavalry and 102 of the larger Indian elephants. The two armies finally clashed south of Raphia in Coele-Syria, both deploying in the traditional Hellenistic manner. This featured phalanxes in the centre, flanked by cavalry and light troops. Ptolemy positioned himself on his left flank, with Antiochus opposite on the Seleucid right. The battle began when the Seleucid king led his cavalry in a successful charge that chased Ptolemy’s left wing from the battlefield. Meanwhile, on the other wing the Egyptians made gradual progress. Now however, Antiochus’ inexperience proved his undoing, for instead of halting his pursuing horse on the right he instead engaged in a lengthy pursuit, much like Demetrius at Ipsus. Just as there, this now exposed the rest of his army given the cannier Ptolemy had managed to extricate himself from the wreckage of his left wing and moved to command his phalanx. Bolstered by the Egyptian machimoi, this was far larger than that of the Seleucids. Ptolemy now led his massed pikemen in a rolling charge that soon broke Antiochus’ centre, this then fleeing back in panic towards Raphia and the Seleucid camp. Antiochus, by now far from the battlefield and still pursing the beaten Ptolemaic left wing, only found out the battle was lost when his officers pointed out the vast dust clouds kicked up by his routing phalanx as it streamed from the battlefield. In this crucial engagement Antiochus lost over 10,000 infantry and 300 cavalry, with 4,000 men captured, while Ptolemy lost significantly less, perhaps 1,500 infantry and 700 cavalry (the balance here reflecting his victory in the centre but defeat on the left).
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a new policy of restoring Seleucid power in both west and east. Initially this proved a great success, but soon brought the Seleucids into conflict with Egypt again. Thus began the Fourth Syrian War in 219 BC, which culminated in the titanic battle of Raphia on 22 June in 217 BC. This clash is a textbook example of a battle between two later successor armies (see page 224). In the aftermath of Raphia, Antiochus fled north with his remaining troops, knowing he had been well beaten. Once back in northern Syria he opened peace negotiations, these leading to a yearlong truce with Ptolemy. Their eventual long-term agreement acknowledged Seleucid control of Antioch on the Orontes and Seleuceia in Pieria, while Ptolemy regained control of most of CoeleSyria. Both kings were then distracted by internal rebellions, Antiochus in Anatolia and Ptolemy by his newly empowered machimoi as part of the wider and long-lived Egyptian Revolt. The Fifth Syrian War broke when Ptolemy IV died in 204 BC, after which Egypt suffered a period of civil war among the political elites over the regency of his heir Ptolemy V, then just a child. With members of the royal family and their senior advisers assassinated on a regular basis, the regency was passed from one strategos to another in a state of near anarchy. Seeing an opportunity to recover Coele-Syria, Antiochus III staged a new invasion there, convincing the Macedonian king Philip V to invade the Ptolemies’ territory in Anatolia in support. On the eastern front Antiochus swept all before him, and after a brief setback at Gaza defeated the Ptolemaic army in 200 BC at the battle of Panium near the headwaters of the Jordan River, after which he captured the key port city of Sidon. By 198 BC, all of the Ptolemaic garrisons in the region, including those providing refuge for the survivors of the engagement at Panium, had surrendered and Antiochus was able to complete the subjugation of Coele-Syria. The war then ended in 195 BC when continuing problems at home forced the Egyptians to sign a conciliatory treaty with Antiochus. One notable event in this conflict was the intervention of the Romans in the Syrian Wars for the first time after the battle of Panium, with their emissaries warning Antiochus
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and Philip against any plans to invade Egypt given the growing importance of the export of grain from there to Rome. Finally, the Sixth Syrian War began in 170 BC when the regents of the young Ptolemy VI Philometor declared war on the Seleucid Empire, now ruled by Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Military operations began in 169 BC when Antiochus seized the key strategic town of Pelusium on the eastern fringes of the Nile Delta. The Egyptians now realised their mistake in declaring war and new regents were appointed who quickly negotiated a peace treaty with Antiochus, the Seleucid king then taking Ptolemy VI (also his nephew) under his guardianship. This gave him effective control of Egypt in all but name. At this point, Antiochus could have been forgiven for thinking he had succeeded where all of his predecessors had failed, namely in subjugating the Egyptian homeland. However, the always volatile population of the capital Alexandria disagreed, and promptly crowned Ptolemy VIII Physcon (Ptolemy VI’s younger brother) as the sole ruler. Antiochus then besieged Alexandria but proved unable to cut communications given its fine harbour and the large Ptolemaic navy, and so as 169 BC drew to a close, he withdrew, leaving Ptolemy VI behind. However, the latter’s advisors then quickly made their peace with those of the younger brother. This angered Antiochus who invaded again. At this point events took a new and dramatic turn, with the Egyptians asking Rome for direct help. The Senate there then sent the statesman and envoy Gaius Popilius Laenas to Alexandria. There, at nearby Eleusis on the coastal outskirts of the city, the Seleucid king met the Roman diplomat. He expected a warm reception given the friendship he had developed with the man when earlier staying in Rome. However, instead the Roman gave Antiochus a frosty ultimatum from the Senate, namely to leave Egypt and Cyprus immediately or face the consequences. When the Seleucid king played for time, Popilius Laenas famously drew a circle around him in the sand with his staff of office. He then told him in no uncertain terms to decide on whether to obey the will of the Senate, or not, before he stepped
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outside of it. Antiochus, having seen the military might of Rome first hand, chose to obey and departed with his army and fleet. This dramatic event, known as the ‘Day of Eleusis’, brought the sixth and final Syrian War to an end.
The Macedonian Wars Rome’s growing engagement with the Hellenistic world was most evident in its four wars against the Kingdom of Macedon in the late 3rd and early-to-mid 2nd centuries BC. The first occurred in the context of Rome’s 2nd Punic War against Hannibal’s Carthaginian Empire when, at the height of the latter’s success in Italy, the ambitious Macedonian king Philip V set out to interfere with Rome’s client states in Illyria. He was then caught out rashly trying to agree a treaty with Hannibal when the latter was still in Italy. Soon the First Macedonian War began, which lasted from 214 BC to 205 BC. Here, Rome’s first intervention in the Balkans against Macedonian interests was half-hearted, understandable given its focus on defending its Italian home territories from Hannibal, and eventually the Peace of
Phoenice ended the conflict on terms favourable to the Macedonians. Emboldened, Philip now began to harass some of the Greek poleis in the Aegean and Anatolia who were allies of Rome. This was a direct challenge to Roman interests and the Second Macedonian War broke out in 200 BC. At the outset, the Romans landed in force in the eastern Balkans, fighting a minor campaign there in 199 BC before invading Thessaly in 198 BC. The major engagement of the war then took place at Cynoscephalae in 197 BC, the first crushing defeat of a Hellenistic army at the hands of the legions of Rome (see overleaf ).
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A silver tetradrachm coin issue of Philip V. Note the main image is set within a representation of a Macedonian pelte (shield). (Wikimedia Commons)
The actual battlefield site of Cynoscephalae where the legions of Rome first shattered the Hellenistic phalanx. (Ben Kane)
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Battle of cynoscephalae As campaigning began in 197 BC, Philip was very much on the back foot, his interests across the eastern Mediterranean greatly diminished through Roman military action the previous year. He therefore decided to force a meeting engagement with the Romans, aiming to kick them out of the Balkans for good. For this he deployed his full home army of 25,500 men, including 18,000 Macedonian heavy foot soldiers and 2,000 cavalry. His opponent was the Roman statesman Titus Quinctius Flamininus who fielded 26,000 men, his army comprising two legions supported by 6,000 infantry and 400 cavalry from the Aetolian League, and a further 1,200 men under Amynander of Athamania (the border region between Epirus and Thessaly). His force also included 20 African forest elephants. Philip advanced his army into Thessaly and camped near Larisa, with Flamininus then advancing towards him through Pherae to the south. The two advance guards met in an initial engagement, after which Philip broke camp and moved westwards towards Scotussa. There he hoped to find both supplies and a suitable battlefield where he could fully deploy his phalanx, confident this would defeat the Roman legions. Flamininus again moved towards him, with the two armies marching in parallel for two days, both completely unaware of the other’s proximity. On the morning of the third day, Philip decided to delay his advance due to dense fog. To cover his flanks, he then sent out light troops to occupy the summits of the nearby hills that, unbeknownst to him, were separating the two armies. These were locally called ‘Cynoscephalae’, meaning ‘dogs’ heads’, referencing their physical form. Meanwhile Flamininus also sent out scouts – 10 squadrons of light cavalry and 1,000 skirmishing foot soldiers. This force encountered the Macedonian light troops atop the hills and fighting soon began. Philip’s troops had the best of this initial encounter, but soon Flamininus reinforced his troops with 500 more cavalry and 2,000 more infantry, forcing the Macedonians from the peak of the largest of the hills. Realising the importance of the crest, Philip now sent a force of heavier cavalry and infantry to reclaim the high ground, which they did. Buoyed by another success, Philip now determined to force the meeting engagement, despite the lack of a flat plain on which to deploy his phalanx. He divided this into two wings, deploying both in columns of march and leading the first himself up and over the hillside where it then deployed ready for battle as his right wing. His strategos Nicanor commanded the left-wing phalanx, which for some reason was late in setting off. Thus as the battle opened, Philip was fully deployed with his right-wing phalanx uphill of the Romans, but Nicanor was way behind still in column of march. On the other side of the hill, Flamininus responded to the defeat of his skirmishers by deploying his legions and their allies ready for battle. He then personally led his left wing, including the battle-hardened legionaries there, back up the hillside where he drove the Macedonian screening troops back up the hill. By this time, Philip’s right-wing phalanx was over the crest and fully deployed, the king immediately ordering a fierce downhill charge against Flamininus’ legions to their front. The pikemen slammed into the Roman battle line at the full charge, 16 deep and with the first five ranks of pikes deployed at waist level. With the momentum of the downhill charge behind them, Philip’s phalanx now quickly began to push the Romans back. Sensing impending disaster, with his legions only just holding their cohesion against the momentum of Philip’s phalanx charge, Flamininus now acted quickly. He moved over to his unengaged right wing and, seeing no Macedonians before them, ordered a swift advance up the hill with his elephants deployed in a line before his legionaries. Then, as Nicanor’s as yet undeployed left wing crested the hill, Flamininus ordered an immediate attack, led by the elephants. Here the Romans quickly bested the Macedonians, with many routing from the field even before the Romans reached them. Most of the Roman right wing was now drawn into lengthy pursuit of the fleeing Macedonians. However, in a battle-winning move, a single tribune there noticed that although the Roman left wing was still struggling against Philip, it was
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The battle of Cynoscephalae, where the might of the Roman legions crushed the Macedonians for the first time. (Nigel Emsen)
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still holding its cohesion. This meant that Philip’s phalangites now had their backs to the Roman right wing above them. The tribune therefore ordered 20 maniples of legionaries at the rear of the Roman right to about face and charge downhill into the rear of Philip’s phalanx. A massacre followed, with the helpless pikemen butchered. Soon the Macedonian right also broke, with Philip fleeing with his close guard to make his escape. His army lost 8,000 dead in total, with another 5,000 captured. The Romans lost only 700, with Philip’s shattering defeat sending shockwaves throughout the Hellenistic world. It proved a sure sign of things to come.
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Macedonia, The Seleucid Kingdom and Rome City (date of capture) Macedonian garrison Major battle Kingdom of Macedonia States under Macedonian influence Roman Protectorates Kingdom of Pergamum Seleucid Kingdom Independent states Possessions of Lagides 0 230 • Ancient Greeks
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Aigon Megara Patras Sicyon Dyme ACHEAN Corinth LEAGUE Elis Orchomene Olympia Tegea Megalopolis Messene
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Ephesus Priene Miletus CARIA Halicarnassus
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Philip’s defeat at Cynoscephalae ended the war, the Macedonian king realising he now had no chance of ultimate victory. He agreed peace with the Romans on the most onerous of terms, including the loss of most of his navy, the payment of a huge indemnity and the permanent loss of any Macedonian territories abroad. An uneasy peace now settled on the Balkans. However, when Philip died in 179 BC, he was succeeded by his son Perseus, an ambitious young man who quickly moved to restore Macedon’s international influence. Sadly for the new king, his aggressive actions against the neighbouring Greek poleis in Thessaly soon drew the attention of Rome, and when Perseus was implicated in a plot to assassinate a Roman ally, the Senate declared war. This began the Third Macedonian War. Here, though Perseus was initially successful, on 22 June 168 BC the Macedonian phalanx and Roman legions (this time under the command of Lucius Aemilius Paullus) met once more at the battle of Pydna. In this engagement the flexibility of the Roman legionary maniples proved the decisive factor after the phalanx was drawn onto rough ground, and soon another massacre occurred, with the Macedonians crushed once more. After the end of the conflict, the Romans decided to end Macedonian resistance once and for all, with Perseus taken back to Rome in chains where he either died in captivity or received clemency, depending on the source. Much more importantly, the Roman decided to break up the Kingdom of Macedon permanently into four nominally independent republics, all of which were required to pay tribute to Rome. The Romans clearly expected this arrangement to stabilise northern Greece, but instead it produced a state of chronic disorder. Then, in 152 BC a pretender to the Macedonian throne called Andriscus emerged who claimed to be a son of Perseus. His misguided attempts to re-establish the Macedonian monarchy under the guidance of ambitious nobles there provoked the Fourth Macedonian War, this only lasting a year when in 148 BC the Romans under Quintus Caecilius Metellus crushed the rebellion with ease. The
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entire geographic area of the former Kingdom of Macedon was then finally made into a Roman province.
the roman–seleucid War This conflict began in 192 BC after the everambitious Antiochus III sought to fill the power vacuum in the Balkans following the earlier defeat of Philip V at Cynoscephalae. He had first begun campaigning along the Ionian coast of Anatolia against Macedonian interests there in the immediate aftermath of their defeat, before then deciding to cross to Europe. In advance, to secure his rear he besieged the Ionian cities of Smyrna and Lampsacus, both of which then appealed to Rome for help. Leaving troops to carry on the sieges, Antiochus then crossed to Thrace where he re-founded the city of Lysimacheia, only recently destroyed by the Thracians. It was here that a 10-strong Roman delegation of officials, in the region to oversee the settlement there after the end of the Second Macedonian War, tracked him down. Four eventually secured an audience with Antiochus, demanding he leave Europe and agree not to attack Greek interests in Anatolia again. In particular, they were keen he leave their long-standing ally Pergamon alone, its new king Eumenes II having only recently acceded to the throne. However Antiochus would have none of it, telling them they had no right to intervene in the region, particularly in Asia. The meeting ended without agreement when a rumour, incorrect as it turned out, reached the gathering that Ptolemy V Epiphanes had died. Things were then left as they were, with both sides wary of the other but unwilling to commit to full conflict. Then, in the summer of 194 BC, the last Roman troops left mainland Greece, leaving Antiochus to campaign in Thrace unchecked, though in Ionia, Lampsacus and Smyrna continued to hold out. Now left to his own devices, the Seleucid king decided it was in his best interests to come to terms with the Romans and in early 193 BC he sent envoys to Rome. Unfortunately, they arrived just as similar delegations arrived from the various Greek poleis most opposed to him. The latter united to
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lobby the Senate against Antiochus’ campaign in Thrace, and this time the Romans bluntly insisted he both withdraw from Europe, and also respect the Greeks in Ionia, or face the consequences. Then, to emphasise their resolve, the Romans sent three officials to Anatolia later in 193 BC to insist Antiochus obey the instructions of the Senate. This time Antiochus attempted to negotiate, but the Romans were in no mood to talk. They returned to Rome reporting Antiochus’ intransigence, and although there was no mood in the Senate at that time for an immediate conflict, it was clear this would be the inevitable outcome if Antiochus now intervened directly in mainland Greece. Back in Asia, the Seleucid king now resolved to call the Romans’ bluff. Opportunity came in 192 BC when the Aeotolian League asked Antiochus for help in mainland Greece, he duly obliging as the self-proclaimed defender of the Greeks and arriving in Boeotia with an army. However, the Romans were ready and immediately sent their own force there, with Antiochus then suffering a
shattering defeat at the pass of Thermopylae on 24 April 191 BC, when a much larger Roman army followed Xerxes’ earlier example and outflanked the Seleucid king’s defences. In the process, Antiochus’ infantry were wiped out, despite a heroic stand by his elephants. The Romans then determined to take the war to Antiochus and crossed into western Anatolia, finally forcing a meeting engagement late in 190 BC at Magnesia (see pages 236–7). In the aftermath of this crushing defeat, the shattered Antiochus realised his war with Rome was over and sued for peace. In the subsequent Peace of Apamea, he abandoned all territorial claims north and west of the Taurus Mountains, just as the Romans had originally demanded, and also had his military capabilities severely curtailed. This included his entire surviving elephant corps being hamstrung, and his fleet disbanded. Most of the Greek cities in Ionia were then given their freedom by the Romans, who at this point didn’t have any long-term ambitions of conquest there. This was a situation that was not to last.
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A Mediterranean merchant vessel from the Classical period, so important to transporting land-based forces around the region, for example Lucius Cornelius Scipio’s Republican Roman army across the Hellespont in 189 BC prior to the battle of Magnesia. This later example from Ostia Antica, Italy.
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(right) The reconstructed Stoa of Attalos, the impressive portico spanning the length of the ancient Agora of Athens. Built by the Pergamene king Attalos II around 150 BC. Pergamon proved Rome’s most enduring ally in the eastern Mediterranean when fighting the various Hellenistic kingdoms there.
(opposite) The 8.9 m tall pedestal atop the Acropolis of Athens, known today as the Agrippa Pedestal. Built in honor of Eumenes II of Pergamon in 178 BC in the aftermath of Rome’s victory at Magnesia, specifically to commemorate the king’s victory in the Panathenaic Games chariot race. It originally featured a life-size bronze statue of a chariot on its top.
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the Achaean War The final conflict between the mainland Greeks and Romans was the Achaean War, an uprising led by the Achaean League, the long-standing alliance featuring the Achaean and other Peloponnesian poleis. The war broke out in 146 BC in the aftermath of the Fourth Macedonian War. Frustrated by repeated demands to commit its legions to deal with such insurgencies in Greece, and the internal squabbles of the poleis, the Romans decided to deal with the Achaeans and their allies harshly, sending the Consul Lucius Mummius there with an army of 27,000 men. This quickly destroyed the Achaean army at the battle of Corinth, where a force of 14,000 infantry and 600 cavalry was destroyed in detail. After his victory, Mummius entered Corinth under arms, putting all of the men there to the sword before selling the women and children into slavery. Then, in a pattern set to be repeated time and again over the next century, all of the city’s statues, paintings and works of art were seized for shipment to Rome. The once mighty city was then raised to the ground, in the same manner as Carthage in the same year at the close of the Third Punic War. Mummius’ behaviour here is perhaps anachronistic, given he was generally thought a moderate. However, clearly here he was acting on the instructions from the Senate to make an example of Corinth, with a view to ensuring there was no further trouble in Greece. On his return to Rome, he celebrated a triumph and gained the title Achaicus, using the wealth derived from his Greek campaign to erect a theatre in his name which was noted for its improved acoustics and seating, features modelled on examples he had seen in Greece. The Achaean War marked the effective end of Greek political independence, with the Romans eventually deciding to annex much of mainland Greece. This initially became part of the Roman province of Macedonia, though some cities including Athens and Sparta retained a degree of self-rule. In the 1st century BC, a final attempt to remove Roman influence there in the context of the Mithridatic Wars dramatically failed.
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Battle of Magnesia
Late Hellenistic phalangite in travelling attire. (Wikimedia Commons)
The Roman army campaigning in Asia was under the command of Lucius Cornelius Scipio, whose brother Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (the nemesis of Hannibal at Zama in 202 BC) was also in camp as an advisor. With the assistance of the Pergamene navy, and also squadrons of war galleys from Rhodes, the Romans had won a series of naval victories as they planned their invasion of Ionia. Then Philip V, knowing the consequences of challenging Rome after his earlier defeat, allowed the Romans to march through Macedonia and Thrace unmolested to the Hellespont where they crossed to Asia. Seeing how determined the Romans were to force him to battle, Antiochus then made a series of attempts to negotiate with his opponents. However, by this time the Romans were in no mood to compromise and demanded he abandon all territorial claims north and west of the Taurus Mountains. This included all of Anatolia, leaving him with little choice but to fight. Antiochus launched his campaign in the autumn of 190 BC. Heading for the Ionian coast, he sought a battlefield where he could use his huge phalanx to best advantage. This he found at Magnesia ad Sipylum, a city in Lydia on the Hermus river at the foot of Mount Sipylus. The Seleucid king had by far the larger army, this numbering at least 70,000 men, made up of up to 54,000 foot soldiers including his phalanx and Galatian and Thracian mercenaries, 12,000 cavalry including his elite agema lancers and cataphract fully armoured cavalry, camel-mounted Arabian archers, 54 Indian war elephants and a large number of scythed chariots. However, much like the earlier Asianbased armies of the Achaemenid Persians, most of the vast Seleucid army comprised poor quality local levies. Meanwhile Lucius Scipio’s army was 30,000 strong, with a core based around two legions together with Italian and Pergamene allies, and around 2,800 cavalry. Antiochus deployed his army on the banks of the nearby River Phrygius, with his phalanx in the centre (unusually 32 deep, see Chapter 6) and cavalry and light troops on each flank. His elephants were also unusually deployed, with most in pairs between units of the phalanx, and then a larger single unit deployed on his right wing. The scythed chariots were deployed in front of his left wing. He took personal
The unique combined phalanx and elephant deployment as used by Antiochus III at the battle of Magnesia. (15 mm wargames figures from the author’s collection)
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command of the shock cavalry on the right, closest to the river. Lucius Scipio deployed his army with its entire cavalry force on the right, together with the Pergamene contingent, the whole wing under the command of the Pergamene king Eumenes II. Meanwhile the legions and other allies formed the Roman centre and left. The battle itself was effectively a tale of two wings. On the left, the Seleucids opened the engagement with a massed scythed chariot charge that completely failed, the disciplined Pergamene foot soldiers routing them back through their fellow warriors including units of the camel-riding Arabs and some cataphracts supporting them. The Roman right then counterattacked and broke the now disorded mass of troops opposing them, with the Seleucid left wing fleeing in confusion. Eumenes had the self-control to halt his pursuing troops and turn them inward towards Antiochus’ phalanx. Meanwhile, on the Seleucid right, the king’s guard lancers and cataphracts charged at speed into a Roman legion which quickly broke under the impetus of the heavy cavalry onslaught, fleeing the field with Antiochus in hot pursuit. However, the Seleucid king followed the examples of Demetrius and his own earlier performance at Raphia and maintained his pursuit all the way the Roman camp. Here he was then delayed returning to the main engagement by a fierce defence of the camp by the Macedonian and Thracian guards there, these led by the camp tribune Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. These developments left Antiochus’ phalanx dangerously exposed, with Eumenes on the left now deploying to threaten its flank there, and the Romans moving troops to threaten its newly exposed right flank given Antiochus’ absence. The phalangites resolved to move in good order back to their own camp and formed a huge hollow square with the elephants in the centre. However, the Romans then targeted the lumbering beasts with long-range missile fire, causing them to panic and charge through the phalangite square, smashing the pikemen out of the way. Soon the entire Seleucid centre was in rout, following hot on the heels of their left-wing comrades. The Romans pursued closely, and a massacre ensued, with Antiochus losing around 50,000 men, just over two thirds of his entire army. The Romans claimed they lost only 350 dead.
Seleucid cataphracts charge through the Roman left wing at the battle of Magnesia, 189 BC. (Graham Sumner)
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Seleucid Tarantine and Galatian cavalry ride down Roman velite (skirmishers) at the battle of Magnesia, 189 BC. (Graham Sumner)
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After this, Macedonia and Greece became a key battleground in the later civil wars of the Roman Republic. When the latter concluded, with Octavian (later the first emperor Augustus) the last man standing, the entirety of the Balkans peninsula was over time finally incorporated into the world of Rome as the provinces of Macedonia, Epirus and Achaea. The end of the Achaean War also saw the rest of the Hellenistic world in sad decline. The only
significant remaining power in the Aegean was pro-Roman Pergamon, whose last king Attalus III bequeathed his kingdom to Rome in his will when he died in 133 BC. Meanwhile the Seleucid Empire was slowly collapsing under pressure from Roman interests in the west and Parthian aggression in the east, while Ptolemaic Egypt was finally subsumed into the world of Rome as the province of Aegyptus after the dramatic death of Cleopatra VII Philopater in 30 BC.
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(above) The Horologion of Andronikos Kyrrhestes, or Tower of the Winds, the octagonal Pentelic clock tower made from marble in the Roman Agora in Athens. Though the market place was built around 50 BC, the tower dates from the 2nd century BC.
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CHAPTeR 6 THe MIlITARy SySTeMS oF ClASSICAl And HellenISTIC GReeCe
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T
hroughout the main narrative of this book, I have considered the military history of the ancient Greek world from the time of the Minoans through to the final decline of the Hellenistic world. The military establishments of the various early cultures covered here are set out in Chapter 1. However, this chapter specifically details those of the Classical Greek and Hellenistic periods, beginning with the rise to dominance of hoplite warfare in ancient Greece.
Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece
(previous pages) Leonidas I, the king of Sparta who led the Spartans and their Greek hoplite allies in the heroic stand against the Achaemenid Persians at Thermopylae in 380 BC. (Anastasios71/ Shutterstock)
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The term phalanx is used ubiquitously today to describe any dense body of organized spear or pikearmed infantry. However, it is most commonly associated with the hoplites and phalangites that came to dominate conflict in the Classical Greek and Hellenistic worlds. Homer was the first to use the term, in plural form to detail the ‘ranks’ of soldiers of earlier times when highly organized dense bodies of spearmen had formed the core element of Minoan and Mycenaean armies, in stark contrast to the individual duals he so often describes in the Iliad and Odyssey. Organized line-of-battle warfare in the Greek world only reappears in the Archaic period when the term phalanx re-emerges again. This time it is in the singular form we know today, being used to describe a totally new kind of warfare based on the newly emergent proto-hoplite. The first true Greek phalanx formations then appear in artwork and literature after 700 BC, playing a key role in the armies of the emerging Greek poleis whose origins are detailed in Chapter 2. This very specific formation had its origins in two developments, one economic and one political.
§ First, the re-opening of long-range trade routes after the Greek Dark Age/Geometric period. This led to the renewed establishment of colonies in the Archaic period, for example in Italy, Anatolia and the Aegean, increasing prosperity and thus the number of men within a city-state able to afford the full panoply of hoplite armour and weaponry. At this early stage, such equipment was principally (if affordable by the individual) bronze body armour and helmet, the aspis (large, round body shield) and the doru (long thrusting spear). Early proto-hoplites could also be armed with javelins, perhaps reflecting the transition from the Dark Age/Geometricstyle of individualistic combat to the far more organized form of warfare associated with the phalanx. § Second, the actual emergence of the polis (self-sufficient autonomous state). This bound citizens more closely together within their communities than previously. Given the first duty of the polis was to defend itself in time of war, this development was the catalyst to organize the now more numerous fully armed hoplites into what became the classic Greek hoplite phalanx.
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In such a formation, the front-rank troops usually fought with their long spears held in an overarm thrusting position (see discussion below), covered by interlocking aspides. Those at the rear added their weight to the formation, replacing those falling in battle at the front. In terms of hoplite equipment, the most essential item was the aspis. This highly successful design had its origins in the bronze-faced and centrally gripped shields originating in the Urnfield culture that dominated central Europe from 1,300 BC to 700 BC. Here, the vectors of cultural transmission were the Dorian invasions of mainland Greece in the Geometric period. It therefore seems likely that the mature aspis design predated its use by hoplites in the traditional phalanx, with the first to carry them being the proto-hoplites in the later Archaic period. The hoplite aspis was a shallow bowl between 80 cm and 100 cm wide. A wooden design covered completely with bronze and with an offset rim, it featured a double grip made from a metal or leather strap across the centre through which the left forearm was inserted, and a leather grip on the outer rim held in the left hand. Though seemingly a simply design, the hoplite aspis is actually a complex piece of military technology, being expensive to make and requiring a variety of craftsmen skilled in different trades to complete. Further, while surviving examples are broadly the same design, they are made in a variety of different ways and materials depending on what was available in a given locality. The characteristic domed shape of the aspis was vital to the successful functioning of the hoplite phalanx. Such shields were often brightly decorated, either to identify a given nationality/ unit (the lambda (upturned V) worn on the shields of Spartan hippeis and Spartiate-class hoplites is the best known example) or to display martial valour and wealth. Shields could also be fitted with leather or cloth skirts to protect lower legs from arrows, these again often decorated. Hoplite aspides were so successful that they continued to be used until the disappearance of the traditional hoplite in the later 3rd century BC, the only major change being its later replacement by the smaller,
leather-faced, round pelte used by Greek line-ofbattle troops equipped in the Iphicratean fashion. For armour, those proto-hoplites and early hoplites who could afford it wore a bronze cuirass known simply as a thorax, usually comprising a breast plate and back plate which gave significant protection to the warrior from the neck to the hips. Early designs were comparatively primitive, the best known being the ‘bell cuirass’ which dated to the later Archaic period. This was so called because of the distinctive bell-shape marking across the pectorals. By the Classical period, these early designs had significantly evolved, with the most popular being the muscled cuirass made from hammered bronze plates, designed to replicate the muscles of the upper-body. Boiled leather was also sometimes used to create the muscled cuirass design. However by the time of Philip II and Alexander, only cavalry, officers and elite foot units wore such expensive armour,
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An Oscan warrior from Paestum in Italy, originally Magna Graecian Poseidonia. Note his aspis, an adaption from interaction with the Greek colonists there.
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A bronze muscled cuirass as worn by better-off hoplites and officers.
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with, for example, the foot guards of Agathocles of Syracuse being so equipped. By this time, most hoplites who could afford armour had long worn a stiff linen or leather thorax made from layers of material glued together to form a stiff shirt up to 5 cm in thickness. Bronze or iron plates and scales could also be added to protect vital areas, for example the pectoral region or down the left and right sides where the chest and back plates were strapped together. Protective corselets made in this way often featured pteryges (feathered) layered linen or leather strips hanging from the base of the cuirass down to the thighs, designed not only to provide additional protection
for the lower abdomen and groin but also allow ease of movement. As with the aspis, corselets and pteryges were often brightly decorated, the former frequently with the head of a medusa to ward off the ‘evil eye.’ A fine example is that worn by Alexander in the Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun in Pompeii detailed in Chapter 4. Meanwhile, a final cuirass type had begun to appear from the beginning of the 4th century BC, this a lighter, quilted design of padded wool or cotton. This latter type was most commonly associated with Iphicratean hoplites and other lighter armed troops. Hoplite warriors also wore additional forms of armour, especially early on. These included hand, arm, thigh and foot guards, all made from bronze. However, by the Classical period the most common type of additional armour was the bronze or iron greave sprung on the calf to protect the knee and lower leg. Later, many hoplites replaced these with high leather boots, for example the Iphicratid footwear detailed in Chapter 3 in the context of the reforms of Iphicrates. The other key item of hoplite protection was the bronze (or less frequently iron) helmet, this evolving over time into a variety of popular designs. The earliest complex post-Mycenaean type found in Greece was excavated in a late Dark Age/Geometric-period grave from Argos in the Peloponnese, and was dubbed the Kegelhelm type. It comprised five pieces that together formed a cone shape covering the head and cheeks. Though the design had disappeared by the beginning of the 7th century BC, it had evolved into two further types called Insular and Illyrian. These, and their later developments, survived in use with hoplites through to the 5th century BC, mainly in the Peloponnese and the islands of the eastern Mediterranean. However, by far the most successful Greek helmet design was the Corinthian type, whose lineage led directly to the many fine forms of head protection common by the time of Philip II and Alexander. The earliest Corinthian design comprised a bronze, domed bowl cast in two halves that provided full protection from crown to neck, with eyeholes either side of a nose guard and
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A painting on wall plaster, Pompeii, showing a mythological scene. Here the hero is depicted wearing a fine hoplite panoply, including muscled cuirass.
opening for the mouth. As with the Kegelhelm type, these early designs also dated to the late Geometric period, though from slightly later. This initial Corinthian design finally fell out of use in the eastern Mediterranean in the later 5th century BC, though it continued in use in Magna Graecia in Italy for much longer. There, it developed into a very specific type of head protection called the Italo-Corinthian helmet. This featured the eyeholes moving much further back towards the scalp to become decorative features, with the design remaining in use until the 1st century BC. The main failing of all early Greek helmet designs was the lack of ear apertures to enable hearing. Because of this, the Corinthian design eventually evolved into the Chaldicean helmet after 500 BC, when the first of these new types start appearing on vase paintings. This featured a much-revised bowl with earholes and elongated cheek guards that were sometimes hinged and sometimes not. The former later evolved into a further design called the Attic helmet that lacked a nose guard, this appearing from the 4th century BC and seeing extensive use in Magna Graecia.
The final evolution of the classic Greek hoplite helmet emerged at the beginning of the 4th century BC and is today called the Thracian (or Phrygian) type. This combined design features of the leather cap associated with Thracian warriors of all types with the Chaldicean helmet it resembled. The most notable difference was the use of even more pronounced cheek guards that often met at the chin to resemble a beard, and the appearance of a central ridge to provide additional protection across the crown of the head. Additionally, two further types of helmet were worn by hoplites. Both were very popular by the time of Phillip II and Alexander, evolving completely separately from the design lineages detailed above. The first was the Boeotian helmet, a protective development of the classic petasos (wide-brimmed Greek sun hat), with the sides folded down. This was an open design allowing good peripheral vision and unimpaired hearing, with a domed skull surrounded by a wide, flaring, down-sloping brim which at the rear came down to protect the back of the neck. Downward pointing folds either side provided minimal cheek
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An early hoplite musician, note the distinctive ‘bell cuirass’. (54 mm figure painted by the author)
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The classic Corinthian helmet design, as featured on so much contemporary artwork. (Wikimedia Commons)
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protection. The Boeotian helmet was much used by Theban hoplites, and was also very popular as a cavalry helmet in Macedonian armies given the excellent vision and hearing it provided. Meanwhile, the pilos helmet was a very simple conical design, based on the pilos brimless Greek felt skull cap. A bronze version began to appear at the beginning of the 5th century BC and by the time of Philip II and Alexander it was one of the most common forms of hoplite and phalangite head protection given its cheapness. Greek hoplite helmets were often decorated with striking and distinctive crests. These served the dual purpose of adding to the height of the warrior, helping to intimidate opponents, and also to distinguish him or his unit. Their depiction in contemporary artwork on pottery and in sculpture, and descriptions in literature, testify to
their ubiquitous use. Such crests were most often made from horsehair tied in bundles which were slotted into holes cut into a crest box atop the helmet, they then being dyed as required. As a closing comment here on hoplite defensive body armour, it should be noted that in the citizen-levy armies of many of the poleis, most hoplites (perhaps excepting front-rankers and officers) would be unarmoured except for their aspis and helmet. The primary weapon of the hoplite was the doru (long thrusting spear). This could be anything from 2.5 to 4.5 m long, the shaft (usually made from ash) tapering towards a small leaf-shaped blade of bronze or iron. At the rear was mounted the bronze sauroter (spear-butt), this often spiked for use if the primary blade was broken or to set the spear in the ground. This usually weighed around twice as much as the blade, moving the point of balance about two-thirds down the shaft where a grip was then fitted. Such weight distribution extended the reach of the spear and reduced its overhang at the back to prevent the warrior behind the front-ranker being stabbed as the weapon was drawn back. As detailed below in the descriptions of the hoplite experience of battle, the doru was most often held in the right hand above the shoulder to enable it to be thrust over the rim of the large aspis, though could also be used to thrust underarm or set in the ground to receive a charge. The most powerful and deadly thrust was that used overarm with the thumb pointed backwards, the spear being stabbed forward in an almost overarm throwing action. Meanwhile, some hoplites armed in the Iphicratean fashion may also have held their longer spears two handed, these effectively proto-pikes given their likely later evolution into the Macedonian sarissa. Usually only one spear was carried by the hoplite, though spares were common in the baggage train. A sidearm, usually a sword made from bronze or iron, complemented the hoplite’s doru. These included the vicious looking kopis or machaira that featured a forward-curving 60 cm blade that was used for slashing, the ziphos (short stabbing sword), and the dagger-like Spartan enchiridion
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whose popularity spread to other regions in mainland Greece, particularly Boeotia. Earlier, simple leaf-shaped sword blades were also popular. The size of the actual weapon fielded by the hoplite depended on the region of its manufacturer, with those made in Macedonia (even before the time of Philip II) being potentially twice the length of those manufactured in the Peloponnese and Attica. Each polis used the hoplite phalanx in differing ways. Sparta, the most militaristic, treated its entire male citizen population as lifelong conscripts forbidden from any other work except soldiering. As detailed in Chapter 2, at the most elite level were the hippeis (knights) and Spartiate citizens, followed by the periokoi who were recruited from the city’s hinterland. Even Athens at its most democratic required all male citizens between to 17 and 59 to serve in times of war. Other poleis also had elite units within their wider hoplite formations, for example Thebes with the Sacred Band. The depth of the hoplite phalanx was a matter of city-state preference and tactical expediency. Thucydides (The Peloponnesian War, V.68) says the Spartan phalanx at the first battle of Mantinea in 418 BC, when they and their allies defeated Argos, Athens and their allies, was eight deep. This was also the standard depth for Athenian phalanxes, though other states such as Thebes often deployed their phalanxes much deeper as detailed in Chapter 2, for example at the battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, this later clearly making an impression on the young Philip II when a hostage there. Leuctra also illustrates the increasing use of tactical innovation in phalanx warfare, with the Thebans deploying obliquely and withholding their centre and left flank while using their extradeep right flank to such great effect. This tactic of attacking with a strong wing, most often the right as set out above, while refusing another, was one which was readily adopted by Philip II and Alexander and continued to be a major tactical feature on the battlefield throughout the Hellenistic period. In terms of unit organisation, hoplites formed up with a frontage and depth of some 90 cm per
man, with each hoplite’s right side protected by the neighbouring projecting aspis. All of the above various depths detailed were created by multiples of four men deep, though there is little evidence of any particular sophistication here outside of the Spartan army. However, in the case of the latter we have much detail thanks to Xenophon and his Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, dating to the beginning of the 4th century BC. This most organized of hoplite phalanxes was divided into six morai, each commanded by a senior officer called a polemarch. Below him were various officers of decreasing seniority, starting with four lochagai, then eight pentecosters and finally 16 enomotarchs, the latter commanding a platoon-sized enomotia
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A pilos-style helmet showing very clear battle damage.
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Later Greek hoplites showing doru and aspis in a mythological scene from Pompeii.
of 36 men. These were divided into three files of 12, the enomotarch commanding the right-hand file with his ouragos (second-in-command) at the rear of the same file. The idea here was to ensure that every Spartan unit, no matter how small, had its own commander. The much less complicated Athenian system from the same period featured 10 regiments called taxeis of variable size, one drawn from each of the tribes of Athens and commanded by a taxiarch. The experience of battle fighting as a hoplite is vividly described by the Spartan elegiac poet Tyrtaeus who wrote in the mid-7th century, saying (Greek Elegiac Poetry, 21–38 of fragment 11): Let each man stand firm with his feet set apart, facing up to the enemy and biting his lip, covering his thighs and shins, his chest and shoulders with the wide expanse of his shield. Let him shake his spear bravely with his right hand, his helmet’s crest nodding fiercely above his head. Let him learn his warfare
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in the heat of battle and not stand back to shield himself from missiles, but let him move in close, using his spear, or sword, to strike his enemy down. Place feet against the enemy’s feet, press shield against shield, nod helmet against helmet, so that the crests are entangled, and then fight your man standing chest to chest, your long spear or your sword in your hand.
This highly descriptive passage provides great insight into phalanx combat as experienced by the individual hoplite, weighed down carrying their aspis and perhaps wearing heavy armour, with their visibility and hearing impeded by their helmet. Hoplite engagements, whether against other hoplites or opponents armed differentially, usually began with a steady advance towards the enemy line by one or both combatants. The common practice for the citizen hoplites of most poleis was to advance in a fairly loose order (the actual organization dependent on the individual state and circumstances) until in missile range of
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the opposing army when close battle order was adopted. Crowd psychology would then take over, no matter how well trained the warriors, with the speed of advance increasing given the desire of most hoplites to get the engagement over as quickly as possible (especially if advancing under missile fire). At this point, a key feature of hoplite combat would then become evident, this a prominent drift to the right as each warrior tried to take advantage of the protection offered by the adjacent aspis. This was exacerbated by the normal ancient world practice of deploying the better troops on the right flank.
Unless adopting a defensive posture, for example against a cavalry opponent, at around 200 m from the opposing battle line the hoplites charged, usually shouting their battle cry. If at this point there was a clear disparity between the two sides, the one with inferior morale and training might break. Assuming neither did, the primary sources then seem to indicate the hoplites would now slow down to redress their ranks, giving the better-trained troops a clear advantage from this point. Once the line was under control again, the final move to contact was then carried out and combat finally joined. Against most
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The Lucianian Vase from Magna Graecia showing Greek hoplites, note the hand grip for the aspis. (The New York Public Library)
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(opposite) Later Hellenistic troop types, here a Thureophoros, with agema cavalry behind. ( Johnny Shumate)
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contemporary opponents, the tactics, and weapons and armour technology of the hoplites gave them a clear advantage, unless against another hoplite force or, later, Macedonian pikearmed phalangites. In the case of the former, when two hoplite battle lines clashed, a spear-duel ensued called by contemporary commentators the othismos (translating literally as ‘to push’). Spears were thrust, aiming for the exposed faces and arms of opponents, with swords only drawn if the doru shattered. One puzzle here regarding the othismos and other forms of hoplite combat is how those pressing forward in the rear ranks didn’t asphyxiate those fighting at the front. A modern rugby scrum is only three-men deep for good reason, to preserve the physical integrity of those in the front row. Given the depth of hoplite phalanxes, some very deep in the later period as detailed, one would think the additional weight of amour and the press of each aspis into the backs of those in front would make serious injury unavoidable. The key factor here is that human beings need a minimum amount of space around their thorax to expand their chests and breathe. To explain how the hoplite overcame this in the crush of phalanx combat, we can turn to experimental archaeology. Using re-enactors where an increasingly deep line of ‘warriors’ pushes against a sports compression sensor, this has shown that the dome of the convex aspis when positioned against the back of the man in front leaves sufficient space to permit the man pushing to expand his thorax and breathe. Interestingly, the pressure sensor used in the experiments shows the extra pressure added by each new man in the file falls off sharply after eight ranks when the point of diminishing returns takes over. It is therefore probably no coincidence that eight men was the original preferred depth of a hoplite file. At some point in the othismos, or other type of hoplite engagement, one side would weaken and tire, with those towards the rear stumbling into a newly exposed space in the front rank to likely be slaughtered if not fully aware of the situation to their front. Soon those at the very back, sensing the loosening cohesion at the front, would begin
to flee, often discarding their weapons as they did. It is in this crucial phase of combat that the training, experience and morale of those fighting really came into play. Modern research into the behaviour of an average citizen as opposed to a professional soldier shows that most of the fighting and killing in combat is carried out by as few as 10% of the those engaged. Once these are thinned through natural wastage in the fighting, the outcome is increasingly inevitable. The losing side will break. Meanwhile, light troops formed an increasingly significant component of the armies of the Greek poleis as the age of the hoplite progressed. These are first recorded in use in Greek armies as early as the Persian invasion of Greece in 490 BC. Later, Athens is recorded as deploying 800 archers at the battle of Plataea in 479 BC during Xerxes’ subsequent invasion. Such troops can be categorised into two specific types, peltasts and psiloi. The former had their origins in the servants of hoplites who carried and maintained the former’s panoply when on campaign, their role then evolving into also providing a light foot function armed with javelins. This troop type then continued to evolve into the classic battlefield peltast, these much better equipped with a wicker crescent-shaped version of the pelte (giving the troop type their common name) and sometimes a light helmet. Their primary weapon remained the javelin which could be used at ranges of up to 60 m, carried in bundles to pepper an enemy battle line. Increasingly peltasts were also equipped with a side arm, such better-equipped light troops more suitable for close combat than psiloi. In that context, though initially used in ambushes and to drive away enemy skirmishers, by the age of Philip II and Alexander their use in the line of battle had become increasingly common. Indeed, it was an upgrade of Athenian peltasts that gave rise to the Iphicratean hoplite. As the Hellenistic age progressed after Alexander’s death a further innovation of the peltast troop type was the advent of the thureophoroi, these named after their thureos (oval shield), a development of the Gallic infantry
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shield. This was smaller and less substantial than the hoplite aspis but, like the Iphicratean shield, more flexible. Armed with a long thrusting spear and javelins, but unarmoured except for a helmet, thureophoroi were initially heavily armed peltasts, better equipped for close combat. However, given their ubiquity in contemporary epigraphy and artwork, they seem to have eventually become a standard line-of-battle troop type, fighting alongside the later pike phalanxes of the various Hellenistic kingdoms. They were also ideally equipped for garrison duties. In some armies, thureophoroi were used as a transitional stage between the traditional hoplite and the pike-armed phalangite, for example Boeotia which switched from hoplite to thureophoroi by 270 BC and then on to the pike by 245 BC. A further development of the thureophoroi was an armoured variant known as the thorakitai (cuirassier), wearing a light version of the Gallic chainmail shirt. These are mentioned by Polybius in the Achaian and Seleucid armies (Rise of the Roman Empire, 15.5 and 10.29.6) and were used to bolster the staying power of the less well-armoured thureophoroi. Meanwhile, one specific type of peltast stands out above all others, from both the Classical Greek and Hellenistic periods, namely those recruited as allies and mercenaries from Thrace. These are most often depicted in their distinctive Thracian caps (which, as detailed above, gave rise to the Thracian style of helmet), and were renowned by contemporaries not just as expert skirmishers but also for their fierce charge, especially when armed with the vicious-looking rhomphaia (two-handed cutting polearm). Moving on to the psiloi, this became a catchall term for all other Classical Greek and Hellenistic light infantry. Such troops could be armed with javelins (as originally), bows, slings and, in extremis, anything that came to hand. In the armies of Philip II and Alexander, the former was the most important, with all types deployed in loose formations that could be up to eight deep and sometimes more. Such skirmishers were used for scouting and controlling rough ground, while in open battle they were usually deployed ahead the main battle line, phalanx or otherwise, to open
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the engagement. Once hand-to-hand combat was imminent, they then withdrew behind the battle line. They were also used to control flanks and the rear, and occasionally to support mounted troops including elephants (see below). Some nations had an association with a particular psiloi type, for example Alexander’s Agrianian javelinmen and Cretan archers, while Rhodian slingers had an equally high reputation among contemporaries. Tyrtaeus, in his elegiac poetry, vividly describes the role played by such light troops in battle, saying (Greek Elegiac Poetry, 21–38 of fragment 11): And you, the light armed men, hiding behind the shields, launch your sling-stones and javelins at them, giving good support to the heavy infantry.
Turning to cavalry fighting in age of the hoplite, these were very much an inferior component of Classical Greek armies, excepting in the poleis in Thessaly. Thus, for much of this period, the role of cavalry was largely relegated to scouting and skirmishing, though as part of the general trend towards the poleis fielding more balanced armies their role had increased by the beginning of the 4th century BC. A good example can be seen with the Boeotian cavalry in the Theban army at the battle of Delium against the Athenians in 424 BC when the appearance of two squadrons from behind a hill panicked the victorious Athenian right wing, causing their whole army to break. This indicates the Athenian hoplites expected the Boeotian cavalry to charge to contact. In contemporary artwork, for example on pottery, cavalry in the early hoplite period are generally shown equipped wearing a light panoply with little armour, perhaps having helmets and shields. For offensive weaponry, short spears and javelins were ubiquitous, with a side arm if the mounted warrior could afford it. As time progressed this panoply improved, and by the beginning of the 4th century BC better off cavalry are shown wearing much improved protective equipment. For example a late 5th-/early 4thcentury BC relief found at Thespiai in Boeotia shows a trooper in a bronze muscled cuirass (flaring at the hip to allow free hip movement in the saddle) with leather pteruges, a Boeotian
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helmet and Thracian-style tall leather boots. The weapons of this much-better protected cavalryman remained the short spear and javelin, together with a side arm, though few are shown in artwork at this time with a shield. The ultimate example of these better-equipped cavalry were those from Thessaly, where access to its fertile coastal plains gave rise to a significant industry breeding fine-quality cavalry horses in wealthy stables. These mounts were much sought after regionally, particularly in Macedon. Given the larger horses available to the cavalry of
the Thessalian poleis, and their greater quantity, their mounted troops comprised a much greater component of Thessalian armies. Additionally, they were far more likely to charge to close combat with an opponent than those of other poleis. For example, coin evidence shows Thessalian cavalry thrusting their spears underarm in a similar manner to xystonarmed Macedonian companions and prodromoi. These heavier cavalry in the later hoplite period were organized in a variety of ways dependent on each individual polis. For example, the Greek allied cavalry that accompanied Alexander on
Heavy cavalrymen from a funerary relief, from Paestum in Italy, originally Magna Graecian Poseidonia. Many Greek mounted troops in the hoplite era were equipped in this way.
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the earlier stages of his anabasis were formed in five ilia of 128 men each. These deployed on the battlefield in a square formation 16 wide and eight deep. Given their prowess, Thessalian cavalry were noted for the more complex formations they were able to utilize on the battlefield, for example the 1,800 who accompanied Alexander often deployed in a rhomboid formation led by their ilarch commander at the point closest to the enemy. Even at this later stage, lighter-armed cavalry still remained a component in the armies of the various poleis, either indigenous poorer troopers or allies and mercenaries. The latter two categories included specialist Thracian and Paeonian javelin- and bowarmed cavalry, and highly sought-after Scythians known for their prowess firing their bows from the saddle. The latter played a particularly prominent role supporting the Greek colonial poleis around the Black Sea coast, and later still in the Hellenistic period when they supplied allies and mercenaries to the various eastern successor armies, much in the manner they had earlier provided vassal contingents for Achaemenid Persian armies (who called them the Saka). The Scythians were a nomadic people comprising hundreds of different tribes who thrived in a vast territory stretching across the Central Asian Steppe ranging from the northern reaches of the Black Sea through to modern Siberia and eastwards to the borders of China and Mongolia. Their success was founded on their exceptional horsemanship and the technological innovations they introduced to the manufacture of the bow. While composite bows comprising alternate layers of wood and sinew, which provided much greater springing and so penetrating power, had been in use in the Near East since the Mesopotamian Akkadian period, the Scythians developed this technology to a new level. In particular, they were renowned for the use of the gorytos (combined case for bow and arrows). This could carry up to 279 arrows, with experimental archaeology showing that a single mounted warrior could fire 30 arrows in three minutes while mounted, so 150 in a single 15-minute concentrated arrow shower.
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Hellenistic Armies The composition of early Macedonian armies, for example those of Alexander I, Achelaus I and Anyntas III, reflected the kingdom’s diverse geography and social structure. Thus, when on campaign and in battle, the principal arm comprised the king’s retainer-based hetairoi (companion cavalry) and other mounted nobility. These, and other Macedonian and allied mounted troops, are considered later in this chapter. In terms of the foot component of early Macedonian armies, these tended to be a fairly unorganized collection of units based on tribal structure, comprising either lowland peasants or highland herdsman who were called to arms as required. Such troops were armed in a similar fashion to early Greek poleis’ peltasts and psiloi. Alexander I created the first regular foot unit in the early 5th century BC with his pezetairoi guard regiment who were trained and equipped in the same manner as the city-state hoplites of the Greek poleis. From this point, an increasing number of Macedonian foot soldiers were trained as hoplites, though they proved less capable than their poleis counterparts, excepting the pezetairoi. Macedonian rulers made up for this by employing increasing numbers of experienced Greek mercenary hoplites when state finances allowed. However, it was with the accession of Philip II in 359 BC that a true revolution occurred with the foot component of the Macedonian army, and one which played a crucial role in setting the kingdom on track to conquer the then known world. This was the advent of Macedonian sarissa-armed phalanx, with all of the pikemen now known as pezetairoi (foot companions). Its exact origins have long been debated, with many suggesting that as a new monarch Philip would have struggled to initiate such a dramatic change so early in his reign. Not only did he have to contend with the loss of the 4,000 warriors who died with Perdiccas III fighting Bardylis and his Illyrians, but additionally the cost of replacing the hoplite doru with the much longer sarissa (on average 850 g of wood compared to 4,070 g) would have added to the financial strain on a
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Macedonian economy already struggling under the impact of war with the Illyrians. Indeed, some have argued that the switch from hoplite to phalangite began earlier, for example under Alexander II. However I disagree and think that, given the parlous state of the Macedonian army and treasury when Philip became king, his only option to remain militarily competitive was to innovate from the very beginning of his reign, his pike phalanx being the ultimate example. Indeed, it was Philip who uniquely was best placed to facilitate the integration of all of the key lessons he’d learned when a Theban hostage, and later from the Macedonian association with Iphicrates. Further, Philip as a ruler proved to be skilled at managing his kingdom’s finances from the very beginning of his reign. I therefore think it likely he swiftly found the means to raise the revenue to implement his reforms. The archaeological record backs this up too, with no sarissa heads found from early in his reign, but many later. A final reflection here concerns who Philip employed to advise him as he finessed what was arguably the most radical change in the nature of Greek poleis warfare since the advent of the hoplite. Though bright, and clearly experienced in all things military in the world in which he lived, the changes Philip initiated were so dramatic that in one generation he set the Macedonian army on a level well above any of its opponents. Indeed, this Hellenistic method of warfare went on to dominate conflict across the known world for the next 200 years. Component parts not only included his pike phalanx, but also improvements to Macedonian cavalry, and crucially the interplay between all of the arms of his military establishment. For example, note here the ‘hammer-and-anvil’ interplay between Philip and Alexander’s shock cavalry and phalanx, and his army’s greatly increased capability in siege warfare. These were such significant changes that I believe it must be the case the young king, with his embryonic ideas ready to come to fruition, must have gathered a brain trust around him of the leading military thinkers of the age to advise him. Sadly, the names of these unknown strategos and technologists are now lost to us excepting the siege
specialist Poleidus of Thessaly. Specifically on equipment, the key change in the defensive panoply of the Macedonian phalangite was with his shield. Gone was the aspis that prevented the use of a two-handed weapon. Its replacement was a development of the Iphicratean hoplite’s pelte that retained the same name, though was usually faced with bronze rather than leather. The new shield’s core was made from solid wood using whatever suitable type was locally available, producing a substantial shield providing good protection for the phalangite. This new pelte was some 66 cm in diameter, based on examples found in archaeological excavations at Staro Bonče in the modern Republic of North Macedonia. Unlike the hoplite aspis it was rimless, though retained the slightly concave shape. It was hung on the left shoulder and held in place with a central arm grip for the left arm and a strap around the neck given both hands were needed to wield the sarissa. We can track the iconographic development of Macedonian pelte decorations from their depiction on coins. In that regard, the early shields of Philip and Alexander and their immediate successors
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Later Macedonian agema phalangite. Note the shorter sarissa used by such troops. (75 mm figure painted by the author).
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featured torches, thunderbolts, gorgoneia (amulets featuring a gorgon head), the heads of gods and heroes, and the classic Macedonian star design which radiated from the centre of the shield. It was only later that they began to feature a portrait of a given monarch, for example in the reigns of Demetrius Poliorcetes, Pyrrhus of Epirus and Antigonos Gonatas. The armour of the Hellenistic pikeman was similar to that of the later Classical hoplite, with front-rank troops the most likely to wear such protection, based on the fines levied on warriors who misplaced equipment. This was most often of the linen variety, again sometimes reinforced with bronze or iron plates or scales. Bronze muscled cuirasses were worn by those who could afford them, usually officers. Meanwhile, very late in the Hellenistic period and well after the age of Philip and Alexander, contact with the Galatians and Rome also saw the introduction of the chainmail shirt. The helmet of the sarissa-armed phalangite was again similar to those of later hoplites, with the advanced Thracian type dominating for front rankers in the armies of Philip and Alexander and the simple pilos another popular design, especially for those at the rear of the pike phalanx. The traditional Macedonian broad-rimmed kausia was worn when on the march. Front-rank troops were also the most likely to wear additional armour, for example leg greaves. Aside from the pelte, it was the sarissa that most clearly differentiated the Macedonian pikeman from the hoplite with his doru. Between 4.5 m and 5.5 m long when first introduced, this had grown to 7.3 m by the time the Macedonians fought the Romans. The pike was usually made from ash, with sarissa fittings from a tomb in Vergina in northern Greece indicating the shaft was made in two pieces, with a 17 cm-long iron tubular sleeve locking them together. This allowed the weapon to be dismantled for ease of carrying on the march. As with the doru, the sarissa featured a leaf-shaped iron blade (usually 0.51 m in length) and a slightly shorter iron butt spike, both secured with hot pitch. The latter was significantly heavier than that used on hoplite
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spears given the role it had in helping balance the weapon, as the pike was held using a handgrip towards the rear. The butt spike usually featured four ‘wings’ to steady the weapon when set in the ground. Meanwhile, again as with the hoplite, most pikeman also carried a sword, having access to the same range as hoplites. The original sarissa-armed phalanxes of Philip II were formed in files 10 deep, each known as a dekad. However, by the time of Alexander’s accession, the usual file depth had increased to 16 (despite the name’s reference to a unit of ten). Alexander’s expeditionary force of 12,000 Macedonian foot soldiers who accompanied him in 334 BC as he began his anabasis included 3,000 hypaspist guard troops, these covered later, and 9,000 pezetairoi phalangites. The latter were organized into six regionally-recruited taxeis, this representing around half of the overall total available in the Macedonian army. It seems likely that other taxeis of pezetairoi from Parmenion’s original expeditionary force then joined Alexander after he arrived in Asia Minor, though we have no detail of their number. Any remaining taxeis formed the core of the home army under the command of Antipater in Pella. Later, three of Alexander’s taxeis were honoured with the title ashhetairoi after showing great bravery at the battle of Issus in late 333 BC. Then, as Alexander’s campaign against Persia continued, a further taxeis of pezetairoi was added to his army in 330 BC, likely built around a core of veterans from existing units. Two further taxeis may have been added even later for his Indian campaign, bringing the final total of taxeis at the time of Alexander’s death to 15, or around 22,500 pezetairoi. In Alexander’s army each taxis, of roughly 1,500 men depending on unit strength at a given time, comprised dekads as with Philip’s original phalanx, though now 16 deep. An intermediate unit strength between taxis and dekad existed called the lochos, though we have no clarity as to its exact strength. Some argue that as the commander of each lochi was senior enough to attend Alexander’s staff briefings when on campaign, lochi must have been significantly larger than a dekad, with likely six per taxis.
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Later Hellenistic phalangite with chainmail shirt, and a standard Hellenistic speria 16-by-16 unit of 256 pikemen. (Peter Connolly © Greece and Rome at War, Greenhill Books)
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After Alexander’s death, the organization of the phalanx continued to evolve, not surprising given its complexity and the numerous individuals and kingdoms vying for superiority from the Wars of the Successors onwards. This generated a true arms race that lasted through to the later 2nd century BC. An early change was the introduction of the speria that featured two taxeis in the better-trained formations. Much later, the Macedonian phalanxes of Philip V and Perseus that faced Rome in the Second and Third Macedonian Wars featured four such speiriai that were formed into a chiliarchia of around 1,000 men, commanded by a chiliarch or hegemon. Four chiliarchia were then formed into 4,000 men-strong strategiai commanded by a strategos. While the standard deployment of this phalanx was still 16 deep, the formation was still flexible enough to deploy in shallower or deeper formations as with those of Philip II and Alexander. Thus at Issus in 333 BC, Alexander deployed the phalanx eight deep to maximize his frontage, while at the battle of Magnesia in 190 BC Antiochus III deployed his pikes 32 deep, as did Philip V when deploying his phalanx (though not in the actual battle) at Cynoscephalae in 197 BC. Within the phalanx of a given army, different units had different standings based on their seniority. Aside from the ashhetairoi, after Issus we have little insight here into the phalanx of Alexander. However, by way of analogy, we have much more detail about the Antigonid Macedonian phalanx. Here, for example, there featured the peltastoi who had a lighter panoply and shorter sarissa than their counterparts elsewhere in the phalanx. Within their ranks sat the ultimate elite among the foot troops of this later army, the agema. Meanwhile, the main body of the phalanx at this time was called the chalkaspides, the ratio between the senior troops and main phalanx at the battle of Sellasia against the Spartans under Cleomones III in 222 BC being 3,000 (including the agema) to 10,000. This breakdown of elite and line phalangites was common across all Hellenistic armies, though the units sometimes had different names. For example, the guard phalangites in the Seleucid armies retained the argyraspides’ (silver shields)
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name by which Alexander’s hypaspists had been known from the time of the campaign against Porus. Polybius (The Rise of the Roman Empire, 5.79.4) says these were specifically armed ‘in the Macedonian manner’, reflecting their principal weapon being the sarissa. Meanwhile Livy details their elite nature by styling them ‘regia cohors’ when deployed near Antiochus III at the battle of Magnesia (The History of Rome, 37.40.7). When arrayed for combat the Macedonian sarissa phalanx featured the front five ranks with pikes lowered. These were held level at the waist, providing an impenetrable hedge of spear points. Those in the rear ranks then added their weight to the phalanx during the charge, replacing fallen comrades at the front just as with the earlier Greek hoplite phalanx. These rear rank troopers, with their hedge of raised pikes, also broke up the impact of missiles fired at the phalanx. It is this Macedonian pike phalanx that led Polybius to comment on its imperviousness if tackled frontally in good conditions, saying (The Rise of the Roman Empire, 18.28–32): So long as the phalanx retains its characteristic form and strength nothing can withstand its charge or resist it face to face…we can easily picture the nature and the tremendous power of a charge by the whole phalanx, when it advances 16 deep with levelled pikes.
We know much more about the organisation of the Macedonian pike phalanx than the Greek hoplite phalanx due to the late Hellenistic Tactica, the military manual of Asklepiodotos. Dating to the 1st century BC, this may actually be a reproduced, long-lost work by Posidonius of whom Asclepiodotos was a pupil. The latter was a sophist and historian who Plutarch (Lives, Aemilius, 19) says was a contemporary of the Macedonian king Perseus and who described the crucial battle of Pydna in 168 BC. Asclepiodotos’ work is particularly useful given its focus not only on the phalanx but also other ancillary arms such as cavalry, light infantry and elephants. The work was heavily utilised in later Roman military manuals. The Tactica and later manuals indicate the Macedonian pike phalanx was a step-change in complexity compared to earlier Classical Greek
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examples, featuring three densities of formation that were almost certainly extant earlier in the phalanx of Alexander. These were: § Open order, with a frontage and depth per man of 1.8 m and with no special name. This was the natural formation when deploying or maneuvering. § Pycnosis, with a frontage and depth half of that above and the usual battle formation. § Synaspismos, the locked-shields formation with a frontage and depth half of that used for pyknosis. This was a purely defensive formation, being used for example against Darius III’s scythed chariots at the battle of Gaugamela in in 331 BC and in the later stages of the battle of the Hydaspes in 326 BC. One key point to consider regarding the Macedonian pike phalanx was the sheer number of men required to make the formation work effectively. While this was less of an issue for Philip II and later Alexander on his anabasis, phalangite recruitment became increasingly problematic as the Hellenistic period progressed. This had more of an impact on Macedon than the other kingdoms, it arguably being a lack of manpower rather than inferiority in military technique that sealed Macedon’s fate in the Second and Third Macedonian Wars. Thus, by the end of Alexander’s reign he could likely muster 22,500 pezetairoi in 15 taxeis (plus his 3,000 by then sarissaarmed hypapsists). However, by the time of the Cynoscephalae campaign in 197 BC, Macedon could raise only 18,000 phalangites (including 2,000 peltastoi), and this by conscripting 16-yearolds and retired veterans. This total had risen to a phalanx of 21,000 by the time of Perseus’ Third Macedonian War, but only through an emergency socio-economic policy of requiring native Macedonians to beget more children. One of the reasons for this decline in the number of trained phalangites was the vast geography of the Hellenistic world following the astonishing success of Alexander’s anabasis. The world the successors inherited from Alexander after his death in Babylon in 323 BC spread from the western Balkans to the Punjab, with his active
troops, military settler veterans, mercenaries and allies spread across this huge global landscape. The biggest concentrations were in Babylonia, where the royal army was based, and the Macedonian homeland. Once Alexander’s empire began its break up, these troops were more or less locked in place unless their leader suffered a major defeat – as with the successor strategos Eumenes’ argyraspides at the battle of Gabiene – or for some reason mercenaries were unable to be paid. The overall effect was to dilute this core feature of armies fighting in the Macedonian manner across all the territories of the Hellenistic world. A number of methods were used to compensate. At first veteran troops were often ‘run on’ for as long as possible, with again Eumenes’ argyraspides a good example. At the same time, native troops from the conquered territories were recruited and trained to fight in the Hellenistic military tradition, for example the Persians equipped as phalangites under Alexander. Later, both Antigonus Monophthalmus and Eumenes used similar pantodapoi phalangites in their conflict, while the Ptolemies used the native machimoi Egyptians trained as phalangites from the time of Ptolemy IV Philopator, recuited in the build up to the Raphia campaign. Finally focusing back on Alexander’s pezetairoi, they showed a degree of training and flexibility perhaps lacking in those of his later successors. This is best illustrated by the fact that certainly in the later part of his anabasis as he campaigned in the north-eastern region of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, many of his phalangites were temporarily re-equipped with short spears and javelins. Troops armed in this way, which enabled them to operate much more effectively in difficult and inhospitable terrain, were later called euzenoi. Meanwhile, Alexander’s elite foot companions were called hypaspists (shield bearers), the king taking 3,000 of them on his anabasis. Within the Macedonian military they were the only force not raised on a regional basis, this to ensure loyalty to the monarch given the feudal nature of the Macedonian state. Their exact origins are unknown, though it seems likely they evolved from Alexander I’s original pezetairoi guards
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when the latter were greatly expanded by Philip II to become his new foot companion phalangites. A key point of difference seems to be the way they were armed, they initially retaining the aspis and doru rather than re-equipping with pelte and sarissa as did the pezetairoi. Meanwhile, in
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contemporary imagery and history they are often shown and described wearing the finest defensive panoply, with Thracian helmets and high-quality cuirasses common, together with greaves. The hypaspists were organized into three units of 1,000, with Arrian saying that later in
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Alexander’s reign these were styled chiliarchia (Anabasis Alexandri, 4.30.5 and 5.23.7), presumably the origins of this unit size in the later Antigonid, Seleucid and Ptolemaic phalanx. This corresponds with the origins of the title chiliarch which Quintus Curtius Rufus says came into use after 331 BC (The History of Alexander, 8.1.3).
One of the thousand-strong units was the senior, providing the king’s bodyguards along with the seven close personal guards chosen from the companions and the royal pages. This unit of the hypaspists was additionally known as the agema, and for the early part of Alexander’s anabasis was commanded by Hephaestion.
Alexander sometimes deployed his pikemen in lighter armour as depicted here, called euzenoi. Seen here with a Cretan archer, the elite bowmen of his army. ( Johnny Shumate)
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From 327 BC, a new term comes into use in the primary sources referencing the hypaspists, this the argyraspides based on their silver-plated shields (Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, 7.11.3). Under this name, after Alexander’s death they then became the most sought-after units in the Macedonian army as the successors fought for
A Thracian helmet, providing excellent protection for phalangites and hoplites.
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control of his empire, finally fighting for Eumenes as detailed above. Following the latter’s defeat by Antigonus Monophthalmus and his son Demetrius at Gabiene, where they proved a twoedged sword given their own success in the battle but subsequent betrayal of Eumenes, they were broken up as a unit and sent to the furthest corners of Alexander’s empire to live out their days as outof-favour border guards. By the time of Gabiene in 315 BC, they were armed as elite phalangites with sarissa and pelte, and it seems likely they were also so equipped in the later campaigns of Alexander as his anabasis concluded. Given their ubiquity on many of Alexander’s campaigns it also seems very likely that for much of the time they were also armed, as required, in the lighter fashion of the euzenoi. Regarding other foot troops in the armies of Philip and Alexander, these very much reflected those available to the Greek poleis. For example, when Alexander crossed into Asia to begin his anabasis, his army included 7,000 allied Greek warriors and 5,000 Greek mercenaries (mostly hoplites though including peltasts and psiloi), 7,000 Thracian and Illyrian irregulars armed in their native fashion, and 1,000 other skirmishers. Among the psiloi and other skirmishers, the elite troops remained the Agrianian javelinmen, Cretan archers and Rhodian slingers. Later, as Alexander progressed on his anabasis, his battle line was additionally bolstered by allied and mercenary foot troops armed in their own traditional manner. This included Persians and other Iranians (though soon many of these were being equipped in the Macedonian manner), Bactrian and other Asiatic hillmen, and Indians. The extensive use of allies and mercenaries continued in the later armies of the successors, some by now settled colonists, with for example 3,000 Thracian and 5,000 Galatian troops (the latter recruited from their later homeland in central Anatolia) participating in Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ famous military parade at the
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Games at Daphnae in 166 BC (Polybius, The Rise of the Roman Empire, 30.25.3–11). Meanwhile, further east, indigenous Indian foot (and indeed horse) contingents continued to make up a significant proportion of the armies of the GrecoBactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms. The final evolution of Hellenistic line-of-battle infantry occurred after the shock of successive defeats by the armies of Macedon and the Seleucid Empire at the hands of the manipular legions of mid-Republican Rome. By this time, with pikemen available in fewer and fewer numbers, thureophoroi and thorakitai had already begun to form a significant component of the heavy infantry compliment of Hellenistic armies, rather than just playing a supporting role to the phalanx. However, after the shattering defeats at Cynoscephalae in 197 BC, Magnesia in 190 BC and Pydna in 168 BC, line-of battle troops armed and equipped as ‘Romans’ began to appear in Seleucid, Ptolemaic, Pontic (under Mithridates VI) and Armenian (under Tigranes the Great) armies. They are first referenced in Antiochus IV’s Daphnae parade where 5,000 of the elite argyraspides were armed and equipped as Romans with heavy throwing javelins, stabbing swords and chainmail shirts. This amounted to 50 % of the guard troops in attendance. The main organizational difference between these Hellenistic ‘legionaries’ and their Roman progenitors was the size of the smaller units of organization of the infantry formations. The Polybian legions of Rome, with their hastati, principes and triarii, had evolved from the original manipular legions instituted by the warrior statesman Marcus Furius Camillus at the beginning of the 4th century BC after the defeat of Rome by the Senones Gauls at the battle of Allia in 390 BC and the subsequent sack of Rome. Here, the basic legionary building block was the contuburium of six men (this later increasing to eight men after the reforms of Gaius Marius at the end of the 2nd century BC). However, this was at odds with the 16-man dekad of the phalanx, and it was along the lines of the latter that the Romanised infantry of the later Hellenistic kingdoms were organized. This was less flexible than the Roman system, with one consequence
being that the maniples of the Hellenistic armies could only be deployed in a double or single line of maniples rather than the standard Roman acies triplex (three rows of maniples). Meanwhile, the key mounted arm in the armies of Philip II and Alexander were the companion shock cavalry. Originally recruited from the leading aristocratic families in Macedon and numbering around 800 horsemen, they initially fought in a similar manner to the mounted troops in the armies of the Greek poleis. However, from the early 4th century BC, the primary sources indicate they had begun to charge to contact using long xyston up to 4 m in length, with the king’s hetairoi the first to make the change. Soon all squadrons of the companions followed, with the weapon later giving its name to such cavalry in the armies of Alexander’s successors, these elite warriors called xystophoroi. However, it was the widespread military reforms of Philip II that really set the companions aside as a crucial battle-winning component of Macedonian armies. His key change was to significantly expand their number using the wealth from his reforms of the Macedonian economy, particularly once he had regular access to the extractive resources of Mount Pangaion. This facilitated newfound largescale access to the finest cavalry horses in Greece, principally from Thessaly, and also financed a new and deliberate policy of opening up recruitment into the ranks of the companions for anyone who could meet the wealth qualification. As detailed in Chapter 3, this included non-aristocratic Macedonians and even Greeks. Thus, by the time of Alexander, there were 3,300 companions, all xyston-armed and organized into ilia. Here we are fortunate that the primary sources provide much detail regarding Alexander’s companions as he began his anabasis in 334 BC. These included the king’s own 300-strong hetairoi bodyguard, and seven other ilai of 200 horsemen. The remaining companions stayed in Macedon under the command of the Antipater, presumably all organized along the same lines (eight ilai of 200). Alexander’s companions were then increased in number in 329 BC following the demobilization of his Thessalian cavalry. Then, following the
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328 BC failed plot against the king involving Parmenion’s son Philotas (the commander of the companions at the time), they were reorganized into four new hipparchia squadrons with one group initially commanded by the ultra-loyal Hephaestion and the other by Cleitus ‘the Black’, one of the army’s most seasoned leaders. The subdivisions of these new formations are unknown, excepting that Alexander’s 300 agema sat within the first. All of these squadrons eventually became part of the later Seleucid army after the end of the early Wars of the Successors. The companions of Philip and Alexander were highly disciplined on the battlefield and could adopt a number of formations, though their key shock tactic was to deploy in the embolus. It was this formation that was used to such great effect by both kings as the hammer to the phalanx’s anvil. After the death of Alexander, all of the major Hellenistic kingdoms replicated his army’s use of what became known as xystophoroi, with the elite still called agema. The importance of cavalry in Hellenistic armies was most manifest in the east where a few battles were actually cavalry-only affairs. The most notable example was in 208 BC at the Arios River in western Afghanistan when the Seleucid king Antiochus III defeated the Bactrian-Greek king Euthydemus I. However, as the Hellenistic Age progressed, the importance of cavalry in their armies, particularly in the west, diminished. Indeed, by the time Macedon faced the growing might of Rome, many Hellenistic line-of-battle cavalry had diminished to a skirmishing force once more as with their hoplite-era predecessors, using light spears and javelins. These only engaged enemy cavalry in hand-to-hand combat when necessary. Such a change in role is often associated with the introduction of the large cavalry shield in the 3rd century BC. This followed Pyrrhus’ campaigns in Italy where he was suitably impressed by their use. The Galatian invasion of Greece in 279 BC was another catalyst. The advent of these shields made using the long xyston problematic for cavalry using the saddle technology of the day. The diminishing capability of the Hellenistic cavalryman was also matched by a decrease in
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their size as a percentage of the army. A key factor here was the need for mounted military settlers to have large estates. This was fine while Alexander and his immediate successors were gathering larger and larger tracts of land through imperial expansion. However, once such opportunities became less common as the Hellenistic world began its geographic regression from the mid-3rd century BC, the ability of rulers to parcel out such land reduced significantly. This led to an overall reduction in available mounted troops, particularly those fighting in the Hellenistic tradition. This can be seen with Philip V’s ‘conscription’ decree, found in the Kassandreia and other diagrammata (ordinance) documents. These recorded emergency efforts to expand his cavalry force in the context of the Second Macedonian War. However, it failed, as he could only field 2,000 mounted troops against the Romans. After even more aggressive recruitment methods, his son Perseus could still only field 3,000 in the Third Macedonian War. A key outcome of this general diminishing in the quality and quantity of the Macedonian and other Hellenistic cavalry was an increasing reliance on the phalanx as the key battle-winning arm in a given army. Thus, by the time Philip V and Perseus fought the Romans, long gone was the highly successful ‘hammerand-anvil’ companion and phalanx combination of Philip II and Alexander, with the performance of the Macedonian army diminishing accordingly. The decreasing role for cavalry continued right through to the end of the Hellenistic period, with only the eastern kingdoms bucking the trend. Here, in the armies of the Seleucid Empire and Greco-Bactrian kingdoms not only did lance-armed cavalry persist for longer, but the cataphract emerged. Troops equipped in this way, featuring fully armoured cavalry fighting in deep formations with long thrusting spears, originated among the Dahae, Massagetae and Saka Central Asiatic Steppe peoples, then becoming a key feature of Parthian armies, this the vector of transfer to the Seleucids and Geco-Bactrians. In the eastern successor kingdoms, it was also more common to see cavalry armed in their native styles, for example Persians and Indians.
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Meanwhile, Phillip II and Alexander’s armies featured one further type of indigenous Macedonian cavalry type, prodromoi (light cavalry). These were also equipped with the xyston, and were sometimes called sarissaphoroi. Such cavalry wore a light and often non-existent defensive panoply, although they could take their place in the line of battle when required. However, they were mostly used to protect flanks, drive off enemy light cavalry, for scouting and to pursue a defeated enemy. Alexander’s campaigning force for his anabasis included four small ilai of 150 prodromoi that, together with the allied and mercenary Thracian and Paeonian horse, formed the king’s brigade of light cavalry. The armies of Philip II and Alexander also featured significant numbers of Thessalian and other Greek heavy cavalry fighting as allies and mercenaries. These were armed and fought in the same manner as those detailed earlier in this chapter when discussing the hoplite era. Meanwhile, as his anabasis continued eastwards, Alexander also increasingly recruited Iranian cavalry into his army, especially when the steady flow of replacement troops from Macedonia and Greece began to slow due to the increasing distance. Though their numbers were marginal as the king completed his campaign against Darius, Arrian says their numbers were more significant by the time the king was leading his army into central Asia (Anabasis Alexandri, 4.17.3). Here they were joined by other locally recruited cavalry including Bactrians, Sogdians and Arachosians. Some of these were later recruited into the hipparchies of the companions after Alexander had returned to Babylon, where he also accepted Persian nobles into his personal bodyguard cavalry, much to the consternation of many Macedonians. Prior to incorporation into Macedonian units, these native cavalry units were armed in their native manner, as were the Indian allied cavalry who served with Alexander in India. Meanwhile, just as with the Greek poleis around the Black Sea coast, Alexander also made use of Scythian allies and mercenaries, especially when campaigning against their neighbours. Continuing with light cavalry, after Alexander’s time, skirmishing mounted troops continued to
be a key component of Hellenistic armies. Again, like their foot equivalents, specialist types later emerged, armed mainly with javelins and bows. As earlier, such troops were more common in the east. Meanwhile, in the west a particular light cavalry troop type emerged in the later 4th century BC whose name became synonymous with skirmishing javelin-armed cavalry at the time. These were the Tarantines, named after Taras (modern Taranto) in southeastern Italy. Such was their ubiquity that 2,300 signed on as mercenaries to fight with Antigonus Monophthalmus in his conflict with Eumenes for control of Alexander’s Asian territories. Here they played a pivotal role in the battle of Gabiene when they sacked Eumenes’ baggage camp, bringing the battle to an end despite the success of the latter’s argyraspides elite phalangites. Such was the success of the Tarantines in the Antigonid army that they are later recorded still fighting for Antignonus’ son Demetrius Poliorcetes at the battle of Gaza against Ptolemy in 312 BC, and later still were part of his expeditionary force to Athens in 307 BC. Finally (noting that the scythed chariots of the Seleucid empire are detailed in Chapter 2 in the context of Achaemenid Persia) I come to elephants, the most glamorous component of Alexander’s army, albeit it very late on. These huge beasts made a big impression on the king and later became a key component in many Hellenistic armies given their size and shock value on the battlefield. A key factor here was the prestige an elephant corps bestowed on a respective monarch. Alexander first came across elephants at Gaugamela in 331 BC where the Persian army included 15, though whether they were used in the battle or not is debatable. Parmenion then captured these when sacking the Persian camp after the battle, while 12 more came into Macedonian possession when they later captured Susa (Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, 3.15.5, and Quintus Curtius Rufus, The History of Alexander, 5.2.10). However, there is no evidence any of these were incorporated in the Macedonian army at this time. Elephants then became a regular opponent of Alexander when campaigning in the Punjab
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against his various Indian opponents, for example playing a prominent role at the battle of the Hydaspes in the army of Porus in 326 BC. By that time, Alexander had already received the first elephants officially incorporated into his army, these from Porus’ rival Taxiles of Taxila, though they took no part at the Hydaspes engagement. By the time the king returned to Babylon, from this small beginning a fully-fledged elephant corps had been established in the Macedonian
A later Hellenistic war elephant with fighting tower. (Peter Connolly © Greece and Rome at War, Greenhill Books)
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army with 200 of the beasts. Their importance is well illustrated by a series of large silver coins thought to have been minted in Babylon around this time which one side featuring Alexander on horseback fighting Porus and his mahout atop an elephant, and on the reverse Alexander holding a thunderbolt and spear, with Nike hovering towards him with a wreath. Alexander’s early elephants retained their full Indian fighting crews, though by the time of his death the bowmen may have been replaced by a fully armed Macedonian pikeman. This latter interpretation is based on the description by Diodorus Siculus of panels depicting Macedonian war elephants on Alexander’s funeral carriage, though others have interpreted this passage as referencing the pikemen following the elephants rather than riding atop them (Library of History, 18.27). Two different elephant types were used in Hellenistic and later Classical armies. The first was the Indian variety first encountered and then employed by Alexander. The Macedonian elephant corps he created used such beasts, these then distributed throughout the early successor kingdoms after his death, with those remaining in Macedonian service lasting until mid-way through the reign of Antigonus Gonatus (277 BC to 239 BC). The Seleucid Empire and those further east were more fortunate, proximity to India allowing frequent resupply of the elephants. Meanwhile, the second type was the smaller African forest elephant used by Ptolemaic Egypt, these also used in Numidian, Carthaginian and Republican Roman service. These elephants were sourced from the Horn of Africa after the Ptolemies were cut off from supplies of Indian elephants by the Syrian Wars, being imported into Egypt and then onwards across North Africa through the key Greco-Roman Red Sea port city of Berenike Trogodytica (founded by Ptolemy II in 270 BC). The third type of elephant was today’s African bush elephant. This was the largest of the species, though proved impossible to train for war given its natural aggression. We have much insight into the organization of Hellenistic elephant units thanks to contemporary commentary on the extensive Seleucid elephant
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corps. This was called the elephantarchia, commanded by an elephantarchos who was a key figure in the royal court. Its elephants were organized into units of one, two, four, eight, 16 and 64 animals, with Antiochus I using units of four and eight when fighting the Galatians. Meanwhile, as detailed in Chapter 5, some of those in the army of Antiochus III at the battle of Magnesia in 189 BC were organized in pairs deployed between the units of his phalanx. By this time, given what had been over the past century an arms race between the elephant corps of the various Hellenistic kingdoms, the fighting crew of the beasts had been significantly increased, depending on their size and training. In addition to the mahout controlling the animal, a fighting tower was now added featuring two or three crew
armed with pikes, bows and javelins. Such towers were first used by Antigonus Monophthalmus when he fought Eumenes at the battle of Paraitacene in 317 BC in modern Iran. In Macedonian and later Hellenistic armies, elephants were used in a variety of ways, most frequently deployed in line abreast across the front of the main line of battle in the centre, flanks or both, though they could also form a very effective reserve (as on the right wing at Magnesia). Later Hellenistic elephants were often deployed with a guard of light troops to screen them from missileequipped enemy infantry and to prevent them being hamstrung, even when wearing banded bronze and leather leg armour. Elephants are also naturally nervous, and were targeted by opponents in a variety of novel ways to make them
Coin of Antigonus Gonatas, one of the more successful Antigonid kings of Macedon. (Wikimedia Commons)
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panic. If this happened, they became as much a threat to their own side as their opponents. Some went to extreme lengths here, for example the use of squealing pigs by the Romans against Pyrrhus, and by the Megarians against Antigonus Gonatus. In the latter example, as an added flourish, the Greeks covered their pigs with tar and set them alight. The Romans also allegedly fielded 300 ‘anti-elephant wagons’ against Pyrrhus at the battle of Asculum in 379 BC. These were of the larger four-wheel variety and featured poles fitted with mobile horizontal beams that were equipped with large blades, tridents and grapnels wrapped in pitch-daubed tow that was then set alight. They were initially successful in slowing an Epirote breakthrough of the Roman battle line led by Pyrrhus’ elephants, but were then overwhelmed by light infantry. When deployed and commanded well, elephants could be very effective. In the engagement detailed above in the context of elephant unit size, those used by Antiochus I in Asia Minor against the Galatians in 273 BC were so successful that a swift victory followed an elephant charge of the Galatian chariots and cavalry. It became known as the ‘Elephant Victory’. However, maintaining an effective elephant corps proved a significant logistical exercise given each beast typically eats up to 7 % of its own bodyweight in food per day. Therefore huge amounts of forage were needed to sustain the elephants when on campaign. Foraging on this scale proved a dangerous task in enemy territory, with the gathered elephant forage then proving the most onerous of loads to transport.
siege Warfare in classical and Hellenistic Greece Although highly specialized siege warfare featuring sophisticated siege engines and tactics had been a key feature of conflict in the later Biblical world, for example in the armies of the Neo-Assyrians, such expertise was notably lacking among the poleis in Classical Greece. There, each key city featured significant wall circuits and often
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citadels, as with the Cadmea in Thebes, many based on the much older cyclopean fortifications of their Mycenaean predecessors. To counter these, aside from the traditional use of primitive rams, mining, firing or ladders, the technology available to each poleis was, certainly early in the hoplite era, notably lacking. That changed dramatically from the time of Philip II who realised that the key to success in his campaigns against the poleis was to defeat their wall circuits. The earliest type of Greek artillery was the gastraphetes (belly bow), a simple crossbow-like device too powerful to be drawn by hand that could fire a heavy arrow up to 250 m. The military engineers of Dionysios I of Syracuse invented this at the turn of the 4th century BC, with the bow itself comprising a composite of wood and sinew. This technology proved very scalable, and soon larger versions were developed. These were mounted on stands that used a windlass to draw the bow. Named katapeltes in ancient Greek, they give us the word catapult today. Further developments led to the specialized bolt or dart-shooting oxybeles, and the stone shot-firing lithobolos or petrobolos, these giving us the Latin name ballista. The latter stone-throwing engines tended to be larger than their bolt and dart-firing counterparts, with a good example that designed by Charon of Magnesia which had a 2.7 m wide bow that could throw stone shot weighing almost 3 kg. It was engines of this scale that were used so successfully by the Phocians against Philip II in the Sacred War (see Chapter 3). At the larger end, Isodorus of Abydos built a huge stone thrower that featured a 4.6 m bow which could fire stone shot weighing up to 18 kg. While such technology became increasingly available to the Greek poleis as the Classical period progressed, the defensive wall circuits of the key cities largely remained in the ascendency. However, this all changed with the advent of Philip II and his military reforms. Many have rightly focused here on the creation of the sarissa-armed Macedonian pike phalanx and the new ‘hammer-and-anvil’ tactics combining this with the king’s shock cavalry. Equally important though was his revolutionary development of
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Hellenistic cyclopean fortifications at Butrint in modern Albania, the key Epirot city of Bouthroton overlooking the Gulf of Corfu.
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the Macedonian siege train that, over time, allowed both he and later Alexander to invest even the best-defended cities and fortresses with confidence. In the first instance, Philip hired Poleidus of Thessaly to take charge of his greatly expanded siege warfare capability. First, he built large numbers of arrow, dart and stone throwers using existing technology. Then his engineers began to innovate, for example building the 35 m high siege towers used when besieging Perinthus in 340 BC that were higher than the defensive towers on the town wall. These, together with the use of newly developed advanced rams mounted on rollers and skilled mining, soon ensured the walls fell to the Macedonians. Siege towers of this scale later became a favourite technology used by Alexander on his anabasis, these often mounting artillery. The two huge towers he built at the end of his maritime mole when besieging Tyre are good examples. Later, as the Hellenistic period progressed, extreme examples of such enormous siege towers became commonplace, these best illustrated by Demetrius Poliorcetes and his helepolis (a 40 m high iron-clad siege tower) which he built to invest Rhodes in 305/304 BC. However, Philip’s II true legacy regarding siege warfare, and also the use of artillery on the battlefield, was the innovation in his reign of the torsion dart or arrow-firing catapult, and later the torsion stone thrower. Here the composite bow of the engine was replaced with two vertical springs made from sinew or horsehair set in wooden frames, with iron levers used to tighten them at the top and bottom. The springs were then further tightened as the arms were winched backwards, springing sharply forward into their original position once the trigger was released. Overnight this technology doubled the range of existing dart and arrow throwers, and was soon being used with stone shot-throwing catapults too. Such weapons proved so successful that designs of all scales were soon created for use in siege warfare and on the battlefield, and by the mid-3rd century Ptolemaic engineers had created a set of calibrated formula that set out the most effective dimensions for a torsion catapult firing a given size of dart, arrow or
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stone, and the respective dimensions for each part of the weapon. By this time, the acknowledged ideal size of stone ball for use against stonebuilt fortifications was 26 kg, though the largest engines could throw a stone shot three times this size. Weapons of this scale proved to be the elite military technology of the Classical world and weren’t surpassed until the Byzantine adoption of the Chinese-developed trebuchet in the 6th century AD.
naval Warfare in Classical and Hellenistic Greece Most campaigning theatres in the ancient Greek world were dominated by access to the sea, with control of the open ocean, coastal littoral and the riparian zone down major river systems vital to the success of military operations. Corresponding naval capability dated back to at least 2,000 BC and the Minoans, with Thucydides saying it was they who first mastered naval warfare (see Chapter 1). However, it was in the Dark Age/Geometric period that a new maritime technology emerged that revolutionised naval warfare in the eastern and later western Mediterranean. This was the use of locked mortise and tenon plank fastenings which enabled true Mediterranean-style war galleys to be built for the first time, a technology that in the much later form of galleasses lasted into the Renaissance period over 2,500 years later. The first such war galleys were monoremes featuring a single bank of oars, these called pentaconters, with a ram on the waterline in the bow as the main weapon alongside its fighting crew. By the time of the Greco-Persian Wars at the beginning of the 5th century BC, the principal line-of-battle ships had grown to include biremes and triremes, the latter invented by the Corinthians around 530 BC. These were so called because they featured two and three banks of oars either side respectively, with Athenian ships standardizing on 27 thalamites,
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or rowers, each side on the lower level. By this time, the vessels were large enough to carry additional weaponry, for example artillery. It was ships of this design and size that dominated the fleets used by Alexander, and indeed those of his eastern Mediterranean opponents. One should note here that the key role they played in his anabasis was in the early part of the campaign when he was campaigning in the littoral coastal regions of Anatolia and the Levant, particular supporting siege operations and interdicting Persian lines of supply. Indeed, a key feature of his eastern Mediterranean strategy was to increasingly deny Darius III the use of the vassal fleets the latter relied on in the region, with Alexander’s strategy to capture the key regional ports one by one. As the Hellenistic period progressed following Alexander’s death, larger and larger polyremes appeared, including quadriremes (the ‘4’, and so on), quinqueremes (first used by the Syracusian dictator Dionysius 1 in 399 BC), hexaremes, septiremes, octeres, enneres and deceres. As one can see, the pattern here was for the vessels to get larger and larger, clearly a symptom of an arms race in the fairly symmetrical conflicts between the Hellenistic kingdoms, and then later during Rome’s expansion across the western and eastern Mediterranean. In the case of the wars
in the eastern Mediterranean in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, the successor kings Demetrius Poliorcetes and Ptolemy IV built even larger ships, the latter apparently a ‘40’. However the larger vessels were much fewer in number, serving principally as flagships and platforms for heavy artillery, with the main line-of-battle ships at the time of the Second and Third Macedonians Wars being the quinquereme, and the main scout ship the trireme. In terms of the naming of the vessel types by size, the larger polyremes derived their names not from the number of banks of oars but from the number of men rowing on each over and above the third bank of the trireme. In this context, a quinquereme would feature a trireme arrangement but with two oarsmen rowing the top two tiers of oars. Whatever their size, the vessels also came with various degrees of protection. These were aphract (with the oarsmen unprotected by deck planking, as with the allied Greek fleet that defeated the Persians at the crucial battle of Salamis), semicataphract (oarsmen partially protected) and cataphract (oarsmen fully protected), with the larger line-of-battle ships in the Hellenistic period usually being the cataphract type. It was the latter that went on to dominate naval warfare through to the onset of the Roman Empire at the end of the 1st century BC.
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I
n this work on the ancient Greeks at war, we have covered a vast chronology and geography, referencing many events that still resonate in our world today. Think for example of the difference in the narrative of world history if the Achaemenid Persians had won any of the key stages of their conflicts in the Greco-Persian Wars against the Greek poleis, if Philip II had not been sent as a hostage to Thebes as a teenager, or if the Hellenistic kingdoms in the eastern Mediterranean had been able to hold off the growing might of the Roman Republic for at least a few generations.
However, the best example of a truly startling legacy from this period is that of the mighty Alexander the Great. This was truly the ultimate young man in a hurry. A leader who, in his own lifetime, came to believe he was a demi-God, the conqueror of his known world. A warrior who always led from the front, the very idea he should hold back an affront to his visceral martial nature. As Plutarch says (Lives, Alexander, 41): Alexander made a point of risking his life … both to exercise himself and to inspire others to acts of courage ….
(previous pages) The Parthenon atop the Acropolis of Athens. The city remained a key centre of culture in the Roman world, and remains so to this day. (Paul Shark/ Shutterstock)
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Yet, interestingly, his immediate legacy in the aftermath of his death was one of failure, given he neglected to set in place a succession plan fit to maintain the integrity of his vast conquests. Indeed, one can easily imagine the key players at the very birth of the Hellenistic world staring uneasily at each other over the dying king in the smoky dimness of his bedchamber in Babylon, Alexander’s alleged last words only fuelling uncertainty over the future. Most of these characters were to play a leading role in the subsequent Wars of the Successors that ran through various phases from 322 BC to the assassination of Seleucus I in 281 BC by Ptolemy Ceraunus. When this succession of conflicts ended, Alexander’s empire was no more, split
asunder into various Hellenistic kingdoms striving to maintain his legacy, at least in name, until the Romans in the west and Parthians in the east in turn defeated them. Fortunately for Alexander, this failed Hellenistic attempt at imperial longevity proved a distraction in terms of his legacy, given subsequent generations saw it very differently. This was because his astonishing conquests were later viewed with awe, truly capturing the imagination of millions and creating a legend that set the bar impossibly high for all future conquerors, kings and military leaders. All such aspirants failed in comparison, at least in the eyes of their contemporaries, and often themselves. The many we could list in the ancient world include Antiochus III (himself a key participant in many of the events detailed in this book), Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar (who wept at the statue of Alexander in Cadiz), Augustus, Nero, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, Alexander Severus, and later Justinian the Great and Charlemagne. There have been far more subsequently, all striving to emulate the success of the boyish world conqueror, but failing. Thus Alexander’s conquests, for good or ill, have become a metaphor for imperial over-achievement. However, if we move forward in time to today, at this chronological distance it is difficult to
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determine the legacy of Alexander in our own world. Individual views tend to be bi-polar, based on one’s personal politics and geographical origin. The king is either eulogised or demonised, with the popular trend today towards the latter. Indeed, for many today the over-arching importance of Alexander lies more in the minefield of philosophical and moral debate than in the practical politics of the age. This modern view totally ignores a vast swathe of contemporary nuancing. Foremost was the unending threat perceived by the Greek-speaking world from the Achaemenid Persian Empire, so evident in the Greco-Persian Wars. Challenging this provided both Philip II and Alexander with their primary motivation as they sought glory in the east. Alexander’s success here cannot be underestimated. It lifted forever the eastern threat to the Greek-speaking world. It also removed
the main barrier preventing the spread of Greek culture and settlement eastwards. For the first time, the Mesopotamian frontier became part of the Greek world, while in Bactria and India Hellenistic settlement was profligate. Thus, the combined results of his conquests in halting the spread of Persian influence westwards, and spreading Greek culture eastwards (for good or ill) as far as India for the next 500 years, is Alexander’s most tangible historical achievement. Yet this is just one example I chose, admittedly the most high profile from the ancient Greek world, to set out how the legacy of the likes of Leonidas, Themistocles, Pericles, Alcibiades, Lysander, Epaminondas, Philip II, Olympias, Antigonus Monophthalmus, Ptolemy, Seleucus and Antiochus III still resonates in our world today, with their stories continuing to inspire each new generation.
Most war galleys in the Classical world and Hellenistic world, of any size, were equipped with substantial rams. This example is from a trireme.
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The Agora of Athens. The commercial centre of the Classical city.
Wider view of the Agora of Athens, as seen from there summit of the Acropolis of Athen. Stoa of Attalos at right, Temple of Hephaestus at left.
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Acknowledgements I would like to thank those who have helped make Ancient Greeks at War possible. Firstly, as always, Professor Andrew Lambert of the War Studies Department at King’s College London, Dr Andrew Gardner at University College London’s Institute of Archaeology and Dr Steve Willis at the University of Kent. All continue to encourage my research on the Classical world military. Next, my brilliant publisher Ruth Sheppard at Casemate Publishers and her wonderful team including Isobel Fulton and Declan Ingram. Also the fabulous artists Graham Sumner and Johnny Shumate for the kind use of their full colour plates, and Michael Leventhal of Greenhill Books for allowing access to the artwork of the late and great Peter Connolly. Additionally, Nigel Emsen for providing the lovely battle maps. Next, my patient proofreader and lovely wife Sara, and my dad John Elliott and friend Francis Tusa, both companions in my various escapades to research this book. As with all of my literary work, all have contributed greatly and freely, enabling Ancient Greeks at War to reach fruition. Finally I would like to thank my family, especially my tolerant wife Sara once again and children Alex (also a student of military history) and Lizzie. Thank you all. Dr Simon Elliott May 2021
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select Bibliography Ancient sources Aelian, Historical Miscellany, 1997. Wilson, N. G., Harvard: Loeb Classical Library. Apuleius, The Golden Ass, 2008. Walsh, P. G., Oxford: Oxford World Classics. Aristotle, The Politics, 2009. Sincair, T. A., Oxford: Oxford University Press. Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters, 2007. Douglas Olson, S., Harvard: Loeb Classical Library. Julius Caesar, The Conquest of Gaul, 1951. Handford, S. A., London: Penguin. Marcus Cato, De Agri Cultura, 1934. Ash, H. B. and Hooper, W. D., Harvard: Loeb Classical Library. Dio Chrysostom, Orations, 2010. Russell, D. A., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcus Tullius Cicero, The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, 1891. Yonge, C. D., London: George Bell & Sons. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 1925. Cary, E., Harvard: Loeb Classical Library. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History: Complete and Unabridged, 2011. Crusé, C. F., Seaside, Oregon: Merchant Books. Flavius Eutropius, Historiae Romanae Breviarium, 1993. Bird, H. W., Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace), The Complete ‘Odes’ and ‘Epodes’, 2008. West, D., Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks. Sextus Julius Frontinus, Strategemata, 1969. Bennett, C. E., Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann. Gaius, Institutiones, 1946. De Zulueta, F., Oxford: Oxford University Press. Herodian, History of the Roman Empire, 1989. Whittaker, C. R., Harvard: Loeb Classical Library. Herodotus, The Histories, 2003. De Selincourt, A., London: Penguin. Historia Augusta, Life of Pertinax, 1921. Maggie, D., Harvard: Loeb Classical Library. The Holy Bible, King James Version.
(opposite) Finely decorated Cretan bronze helmet, late 7th century BC. Gift of Norbert Schimmel Trust, 1989, The Met.
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Homer, The Iliad, 1950. Rieu, E. V., London: Penguin. Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, 1994. Yardley, J. C., Oxford: Oxford University Press. Justinian, The Digest of Justinian, 1997. Watson, A., Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Livy, The History of Rome, 1989. Foster, B. O., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press/Loeb Classical Library. Pausanias, Guide to Greece:Central Greece, 1979. Levi, P., London: Penguin. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 1940. Rackham, H., Harvard: Harvard University Press. Pliny the Younger, Epistularum Libri Decem, 1963. Mynors, R. A. B., Oxford: Oxford Classical Texts, Clarendon Press. Plutarch. The Education of Children, 1878. Ford, S., Boston: Little, Brown and Co. Plutarch. Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, 2013. Clough, A. H., Oxford: Benediction Classics. Plutarch, Plutarch’s Morals, 1874. Goodwin, W. W., Cambridge: Little, Brown and Company. Polyaenus, Strategems, 2010. Shepherd, R., Andover: Gale ECCO. Polybius, The Rise of the Roman Empire, 1979. Scott-Kilvert, I., London: Penguin. Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory, 2015. Selby Watson, J., Scotts Valley, California: Create Space Independent Publishing Platform. Quintus Curtius Rufus, The History of Alexander, 1984. Yardkey, J., London: Penguin. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Volume 3, 1939. Oldfather, C. H., Harvard: Loeb Classical Library. Strabo, The Geography, 2014. Roler, D. W., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, 1957. Graves, R., London: Penguin. Cornelius Tacitus, The Agricola, 1970. Mattingly, H., London: Penguin. Cornelius Tacitus, The Annals, 2003. Grant, M., London: Penguin. Cornelius Tacitus, The Histories, 2008. Fyfe, W. H., Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks. Thucyides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, 2000. Warner, R., London: Penguin. Tyrtaeus, Greek Elegiac Poetry, 1999. Gerber, D. E., Harvard University Press/Loeb Classical Library. Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus, 1994. Bird, H. W., Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Xenophon, Cyropaedia: The Education of Cyrus, 2017. Dakyns, H. G., Scotts Valley, California: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Xenophon, The Persian Expedition, 2017. Warner, R., London: Penguin.
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Modern Sources Bar-Kochva, B. 1976. The Seleucid Army. Cambridge: Cambrdge University Press. Bosworth, A. B. 1993. Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buckler, J. 1989. Philip II and the Sacred War. Leiden: Brill. Cartledge, P. 2004. Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past. London: Macmillan. Connolly, P. 1988. Greece and Rome at War. London: Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd. Connolly, P. 1989. The Early Roman Army. In: Hackett, J. ed. Warfare in the Ancient World. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 136–148. Craven, B. 1980. The Punic Wars. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson. Devine, A. 1989. Alexander the Great. In: Hackett, J. ed. Warfare in the Ancient World. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 104–129. Elliott, S. 2018. Roman Legionaries. Oxford: Casemate Publishers. Elliott, S. 2019. Julius Caesar: Rome’s Greatest Warlord. Oxford: Casemate Publishers. Elliott, S. 2020. Old Testament Warriors. Oxford: Casemate Publishers. Elliott, S. 2020. Romans at War. Oxford: Casemate Publishers. Fields, N. 2008. Tarantine Horsemen of Magna Graecia. Oxford. Osprey Publishing. Fields, N. 2012. Roman Republican Legionary 298 BC–105 BC. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. Golvin, J. C. 2003. Ancient Cities Brought to Life. Ludlow: Thalamus Publishing. Goldsworthy, A. 2020. Philip and Alexander. London: Head of Zeus. Green, P. 1990. Alexander to Actium. London: Thames and Hudson. Green, P. 1992. Alexander the Great, 356–323 BC: A Historical Biography. Berkeley: University of California Press. Green, P. 1998. The Greco-Persian Wars. Berkeley: University of California Press. Green, P. 2007. Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson. Haywood, J. 1998. Atlas of the Classical World. London: Cassell. Haywood, J. 2009. The Historical Atlas of the Celtic World. London: Thames & Hudson. Head, D. 2016. Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars. Cambridge: Wargames Research Group. Heckel, W. 2002. The Wars of Alexander the Great 336–323 BC. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. Hornblower, S. and Spawforth, A. 1996. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lane Fox, R. 1986. Alexander the Great. London: Penguin. Lane Fox, R. 2006. The Classical World. London: Penguin.
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Lazenby, J. 1989. Hoplite Warfare. In: Hackett, J. ed. Warfare in the Ancient World. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 54–81. Matthew, C. 2015. An Invincible Beast: Understanding the Hellenistic Phalanx at War. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. Matyszak, P. 2003. Chronicles of the Roman Republic. London: Thames & Hudson. Matyszak, P. 2009. Roman Conquests: Macedonia and Greece. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. Morkot, R. 1996. The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece. London: Penguin. Murphy, K. 2020. The Role of Elephants in the Seleucid Army. Ancient Warfare, V.14, Issue 1, 26–33. Nagle, D. B. 1996. The Cultural Context of Alexander’s Speech at Opis. Transactions of the American Philological Association, V.126, 151–172. Nikonorov, V. P. 1997. The Armies of Bactria 700 BC–450 BC: Volume 1. Stockport: Montvert Publications. Pietrykowski, J. 2009. Great Battles of the Hellenistic World. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Rodgerds, N. and Dodge, H. 2009. The History and Conquests of Ancient Rome. London: Hermes House. Sabin, P. 2007. Lost Battles. London: Hambledon Continuum. Sekunda, N. 1994. The Seleucid Army. Stockport: Montvert Publications. Sekunda, N. 1995. The Ptolemaic Army. Stockport: Montvert Publications. Sekunda, N. 2012. Macedonian Armies after Alexander 323–168 BC. Oxford: Osprey Publishing Sekunda, N. 2019. The Army of Pyrrhus of Epirus. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. Sheppard, R. 2011. Alexander the Great at War: His Army – His Battles – His Enemies. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. Simpson, S. J. 2017. The Scythians: Discovering the Nomad Warriors of Siberia. Current World Archeology, V.7, Issue 84, 14–19. Wary, J. 1980. Warfare in the Classical World. London: Salamander. Wilcox, P. 1986. Rome’s Enemies (3): Parthians and Sassanid Persians. Oxford: Osprey Publishing.
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index Achaean League, 7, 235 Achaean War, 235 Achaemenid Dynasty, 19, 54, 57, 68–9, 84, 133, 142, 167 Achaemenid Persian Kings, 73 Acropolis of Athens, 52, 62, 64, 91, 95, 234 Aegae, 54 Aegean Sea, 9, 15, 25, 32, 35, 44, 52, 150, 211–12 Aegospotami, Battle of, 103 Aelian, 194 Aetolian League, 191, 195 Agamemnon, 38, 40 Agema, 191, 234, 255, 258, 261, 264 Agrippa Pedestal, 234 Alcibiades, 52, 96, 99, 102, 274 Alcetas, 201, 203 Alexander I, 107 Alexander III the Great, 7, 11–12, 52, 106, 120, 132, 136, 142–3, 145, 149 Accession, 12, 138 Birth, 11, 120 Death, 12, 184, 274 Gordium Knot, 155 Legacy, 274 Alexander V, 217 Alexandria, 13, 128, 160, 167, 170, 174 Alexandria Arachosia, 197 Alexandria Eschate, 197 Amphipolis, 96 Amphipolis, Battle of, 96 Amphoterus, 194 Amyntas III, 109
Anabasis, Alexander’s, 139, 142, 173 Antigenes, 190, 206 Antigonid Dynasty, 201, 204, 210 Antigonus Gonatus, 217, 267 Antigonus Monophthalmus, 190, 194, 200 Antiochus III the Great, 224, 226, 234, 258, 264, 267, 274–5 Antiochus IV Epiphanes, 13, 226, 262–3 Antioch, 226 Antipater, 190, 202–3, 205 Antipater II, 217 Antipatrid Dynasty, 206, 210 Apollonides, 201 Arabia, 69 Arabian Sea, 171 Arachosia, 170, 183, 200, 210, 220 Arbela, 197 Arcesilas, 190 Archelaus I, 107 Argead Dynasty, 106 Arginusae, Battle of, 102 Argolid Peninsula, 214 Argos, 53, 55, 96 Argyrapsides, 178, 195, 203 Ariarathes, 195 Aristinous, 188 Aristodemus of Miletus, 210 Armenia, 202 Arrhidaeus, (Philip III), 120, 124, 126, 138, 184, 205, 211 Arrhidaeus, general, 189, 200 Asander, 190, 200, 210
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Aspis, 8, 15, 144, 242–3 Atalante, 199 Athens, 29, 38, 56, 61, 64, 74, 80, 84, 91, 211 Founded, 9 Attica, 15, 25, 74, 77 Augustus, Roman emperor, 13, 20, 116, 274 Babylon, 197, 210 Bactria, 149, 170 Bessus, 167, 170, 193 Bireme, 90–1, 270 Bithynia, 288 Boeotia, 52, 55, 64, 91, 103, 116, 121, 213 Butrint, 269 Camillus, Marcus Furius, 263 Cappadocia, 102, 155, 190, 202, 206 Caria, 190 Cardia, 193 Carrhae, 196 Carthage, 13, 66, 235 Caspian Gates, 167, 191 Cassander, 126, 185, 190, 202, 210 Cassius Dio, 40 Chalcidice Peninsula, 15, 119, 124, 126, 130 Chalcis, 215 Chalcolithic period, 33, 38 Chaeronea, Battle of, 133–4, 191 Chiliarch, 189, 192 Chiliarchia, 15, 258 Cleitus ‘the Black,’ 126, 167, 170 Cleopatra, sister of Alexander the Great, 126, 197 Cleopatra Eurydice, 136 Composite bow, 254, 270 Corinth, 7, 53, 55, 61, 64, 84, 90, 99, 133 Corinth, Battle of, 235 Corupedium, Battle of, 218 Corsica, 66, 196 Craterus, 192, 194, 200–2 Crocus Field, Battle of, 121 Ctesias of Cnidus, 81 Cuirass, 71, 243
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Cunaxa, Battle of, 144 Cyclades Islands, 29 Cynane, 129, 198 Cynoscephalae, Battle of, 228 Cyrenaica, 197–8 Cyrus the Great, 65, 68–9 Cyrus the Younger, 144 Dark Age/ Geometric Greece, 57–8, 60 Darius I, 10, 65, 69, 71, 77 Darius III, 142–3, 145, 206, 259 Born, 142 Death, 167 Dekad, 15, 256 Delphi, 53, 85, 121, 126, 130 Demetrias, 214 Demetrius of Phaleron, 211 Demetrius Poliorcetes, 55, 201, 211–12, 214, 265, 270–1 Democracy, 15, 52, 116 Demosthenes, 5th Century BC, 93 Demosthenes, 4th Century BC, 124, 129, 131, 133 Derusiaei Persian Tribe, 65 Diodochi, 15 Diodochi, Wars of, 188 First, 188 Second, 202 Third, 206 Fourth, 211 Dipylon Shield, 59 Dodecanese Islands, 29 Dorian Invasion, 57 Doru, 11, 15, 75, 246 Ecbatana, 197 Egypt, 25, 198–200 Elephants, 266–7 Embolus, 133, 264 Ephesus, 73–4, 120 Epaminondas, 11, 114, 130, 274 Epirus, 52, 55, 119–20, 138 Epitades, 96 Equites, 16
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Euboea, 211 Eudamos, 210 Eumenes, 190, 193, 205 Eurypides, 109 Eurydice, 136, 198–9 Eurydice I, 113, 120 Euthydemus I, 264 Euzenoi, 259, 261 Fetters of Greece, 53, 55, 64 Gabiene, Battle of, 207 Gaugamela, Battle of, 164 Gaza, Battle of, 210 Gedrosian Desert, 182–4 Germanii Persian Tribe, 65 Geometric Art, 57–8 gladius Hispaniensis, 16 Gordium, 155 Granicus, River, 150 Granicus River, battle of, 150–1 Greave, 32, 244 Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, 188–9, 200 Greco-Persian Wars, 65, 274 Ionian Revolt, 74 First Persian Invasion of Greece, 77 Second Persian Invasion of Greece, 84 Halicarnassus, 102 Hannibal, 227, 236 Harmosia, 197 Hasta, 16 Hastati, 221, 263 Helot, 16, 63, 96, 123 Hephaestion, 126, 150, 167, 192 Hercules, 155, 185 Hetairoi, 189 Hipparchia, 167, 194, 266 Hippeis, 63, 243, 267 Hittites, 29, 44 Homer, 40–1
Hoplite, 7, 15, 71, 72, 75, 81, 96, 99, 114 Hoplite Warfare, 242 Horologion of Andronikos Kyrrhestes, 239 Hydaspes, River, 177–8 Hydaspes River, Battle of, 178, 193 Hypaspist, 16, 147, 177, 195 Ilia, 254 Immortal, 16, 70 India, 193 Indian Ocean, 197 Indo-Greek Kingdom, 188–9 Ionian Sea, 53, 55, 64, 74 Iphicrates, 112, 118, 155 Ipsus, Battle of, 216 Issus, Battle of, 155, 194 Jerusalem, 10 Julius Caesar, 13, 142, 274 Knossos, 27–9, 33 Kopis, 246 Krater, 16, 39, 59 Laeomedon of Mytilene, 190 Lambda, 243 Lamian War, 191 Larnax, 29 Late Bronze Age Collapse, 7, 16, 25, 40, 56 League of Corinth, 133, 145, 215 Legate, 16 Legion, 221, 223 Legionaries, 17, 223, 232, 263 Leonidas I, 10, 55, 85, 241 Leonnatus, 190 Leuctra, Battle of, 114 Long Walls, Athens, 93, 99, 103 lorica hamata, 17 Lycia, 206 Lysander, 52, 102, 274 Lysimachus, 188, 193–5, 200, 206, 211
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Macedonia, Kingdom of, 7, 64, 80, 122 Macedonian Wars, 188, 226 First, 226 Second, 226 Third, 232 Fourth, 232 Magna Graecia, 7, 52, 53 Magnesia, Battle of, 236 Mahout, 266 Mantinea, 96 Mantinea 418 BC, Battle of, 96, 247 Mantinea 362 BC, Battle of, 116 Marathon, Battle of, 84 Maraphii Persian Clan, 65 Mardonius, 77, 90, 91 Maryannu, 17, 32 Mask of Agamemnon, 7, 39 Maspii Persian Clan, 65 Medes, 65 Meleager, 189 Megara, 212 Memnon of Rhodes, 139, 150–1 Menander, 190, 220 Miletus, 75 Minoans, 25 Minos, 29 Minotaur, 29 Mount Ida, 201 Mount Mycale, 74 Mount Pangaion, 109 Mytilene, 190 Mycenaeans, 33 Naval Warfare, 270 Nearchus, 182–3 Neoptolemus, 190, 197 Nicaea, 195 Nicanor, 191, 200, 204 Nisibis, 160 Nora, 203 Notium, Battle of, 102 Numidia, 266
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Oligarchy, 61, 116 Olympias, 11, 119, 126, 136, 138, 203, 205, 274 Death, 206 Wedding to Philip II, 120 Paides, 195 Panthialaei Persian Tribe, 65 Paraitacene, Battle of, 207 Parmenion, 194 Parthenon, 52, 65, 91 Parthia, 223, 234, 239 Partition of Babylon, 189, 191, 199 Partition of Triparadisus, 188, 199, 205 Pasargadae Persian Clan, 65 Patala, 200 Pavise, 17, 71 Peithon, 191, 200 Peithon, son of Agenor, 191, 200 Peleset, 45 Pella, 108, 203 Peloponnesian War, 92 The Archidamian War, 92 Sicilian Expedition, 96 The Ionian War, 99 Peltast, 17, 96, 250 Pelte, 17, 113–14, 243 Pentaconter, 270 Perdiccas, 62, 188–9, 191 Perdiccas II, 107 Pergamon, 231–2, 234, 239 Pericles, 93–4 Periokoi, 92, 125 Perseus, 232 Persian Gulf, 197 Persopolis, 197 Peucestas, 183, 188, 190, 200 Pezetairoi, 176 Phalangite, 176 Phalanx, 7, 17, 71, 194 Philip I, 107 Philip II, 7, 11, 54, 64, 106, 113 Assassination, 138 Philip V, 226–7
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Philistines, 48 Philo, 200 Philoxenus, 190 Phyrgia, 194 Pilum, 17 Piraeus, 211 Pisidia, Battle of, 202 Plataea, Battle of, 90 Poleis, 7, 52, 54, 191 Polyperchon, 190, 203, 205 Porus, 171–2, 200 Principes, 221, 263 Prodromoi, 253, 265 Psiloi, 20, 96, 112, 175, 250 Pteruges, 20, 232 Ptolemaeus, 194 Ptolemaic Dynasty, 20, 194 Ptolemy I, 194, 200, 206, 210–11 Ptolemy Ceraunus, 274 Pydna, 206 Pydna, Battle of, 232 Pylos, Battle of, 93 Pyrrhus of Epirus, 18, 215, 217–18, 221 Raphia, Battle of, 224 Rhodes, 201, 214 Roman Empire, 20, 271 Roman Republic, 20, 172, 239 Roman-Seleucid War, 188, 232 Rome, 7–8, 10, 188, 200, 221 Roxanna, 189, 211 Rhyton, 20, 27 Sacred Band, 113–14, 132 Sardinia, 45, 66 Sardis, 201 Salamis, Battle of, 90–2 Santorini, 29 Sarissa, 114, 118, 132, 246, 254–5 Sarrisaphoroi, 20, 265 Sauroter, 246 Scutum, 20
Scythed Chariot, 72 Sea Peoples, 44 Seleucia, 197 Seleucid Empire, 188, 210, 226, 233, 239 Seleucus I, 14, 194, 206, 211 Seleucus II, 223 Sibyrtius, 210 Sicily, 52–3, 55, 64, 96–8 Sicyon, 215 Siege Warfare, 268 Siwah, 191 Sparabara, 71 Sparta, 42, 62–4, 80, 83, 85, 92–3, 95, 98 Spartiates, 91, 98, 125 Speria, 257 Sphacteria, Battle of, 96, 98 Stasanor, 200 Stoa of Attalos, 62, 234 Straights of Corfu, 54 Strategos, 200 Susa, 192, 197 Syme, Battle of, 102 Syntrophus, 126, 151, 194 Syrian Wars, 223 First, 12, 223 Second, 12, 223 Third, 12, 223 Fourth, 12, 226 Fifth, 13, 226 Sixth, 13, 226 Tarantines, 20, 209, 265 Tarquin the Proud, 8, 10, 20 Taxila, 173, 265 Temple of Apollo, Didyma, 219–20 Temple of Serapis, 188, 195 Thebes, 52, 61–2, 64, 92, 103, 112–13, 116 Themistocles, 52, 87, 128 Thermopylae, Battle of, 84 Battlefield Site, 85 Thessaly, 121 Thorakitai, 20, 252
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Thraco-Macedonian Dynasty, 193 Thureophoroi, 20, 252 Thureos, 20, 252 Thrace, 190 Tissaphernes, 192 Triarii, 221, 263 Tribune, 21 Trireme, 91, 270 Trojan War, 41, 45 Tyre, 210
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velite, 239 Vergina, 54, 166 Xenophon, 72, 144 Xerxes I, 55, 65, 69 Xyston, 21, 118, 132, 253, 263 Xystophoroi, 21, 253, 263 Zama, Battle, 13, 235 Zeno of Citium, 212
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