in his lifetime rather than when he was dead, and the honours would be no use to him (Arrian, Anabasis, iv, 10, 6–7).
But however attractive to Alexander, this argument went down badly with the Macedonians, as we have seen, and the plan to introduce proskynesis had to be shelved, largely in the light of Callisthenes’ speech in opposition. The final stage came with the request of 323, as a result of which several Greek cults of Alexander appeared – at Athens, probably at Sparta, and perhaps elsewhere. But Alexander’s death followed soon afterwards and any cults established seem to have been shortlived, at any rate on the Greek mainland. Cults established in Asia Minor, like the festival of the Alexandreia attested in an inscription found on the island of Thasos, seem often to date from his original campaigns of 334/3 and not to be a response to the message of 323. In their case the cult was often accompanied by the setting-up of a new dating era (as in Priene and Miletus), both being a spontaneous expression of gratitude for ‘liberation’. But the Greeks of the mainland needed no liberator and there cults were instituted only in response to pressure and soon disappeared. The difference is noteworthy. It is the Asian tradition which serves to throw light on the character of hellenistic ruler-cult during the next two centuries (see pp. 212 ff).
(e) Finally we must consider Alexander’s cities. Throughout the lands covered by his march he founded Alexandrias, not seventy, as Plutarch (On Alexander’s Fortune, 1, 5, p.328e) alleged, but a substantial number, perhaps about a score in all, mainly east of the Tigris, where hitherto urban centres were rare. Most of these foundations are merely names in lists, official names moreover, which were not always those by which they were later known. They were intended to serve a variety of purposes, some to guard strategic points, passes or fords, others to supervise wider areas; they presupposed an adequate territory to maintain the colonists and, preferably, a local population who could be pressed into agricultural work. Some were later to develop into centres of commerce, while others withered and perished. It seems certain that the bulk of the settlers were Greek mercenaries. This can be deduced from calculations based on recorded troop movements and is confirmed by remarks in our sources. To take the latter first, Diodorus reports that the Greeks whom Alexander had settled in the upper satrapies (especially Bactria)
were sick for Greek training and the Greek way of life and having been relegated to the frontiers of the kingdom they put up with this from fear so long as Alexander was alive, but when he died they revolted (xviii, 7, 1).
They were in fact 23, 000 in number and had come out East to make their fortunes – their fate was to be disarmed by the Macedonians and massacred for plunder. The picture of reluctant settlers is confirmed from a speech which Arrian put into the mouth of the Macedonian Coenus when the troops in the Punjab mutinied rather than march further east. After mentioning the sending home of the Thessalians from Bactria, he continues:
Of the rest of the Greeks some have been settled in the cities which you have founded, and they do not all remain there willingly; others including Macedonians, sharing in your toils and dangers, have in part perished in battle, while some have become invalids from wounds and have been left scattered here and there throughout Asia (Arrian, Anabasis, v, 27, 5).
Firm numbers elude us but Griffith has calculated (The Mercenaries of the Hellenistic World, pp. 20 ff.) that in the course of his expedition Alexander received at least 60, 000 (and more probably 65, 000) fresh mercenaries, and that he left behind him as garrisons or settlers a minimum of 36, 000, which together with the numbers not recorded and casualties from battle or sickness must have reached a total equal to that of the new recruits. Eventually, at Babylon,
having sent home the older of his soldiers to their native land (Diodorus (xvii, 109, 1) puts their numbers at 10, 000) he ordered 13, 000 infantry and 2000 horse to be selected for retention in Asia, thinking that Asia could be held by an army of moderate size, because he had distributed garrisons in many places and had filled the newly founded cities with colonists eager to maintain things as they were (Curtius, x, 2, 8).
The Bactrian revolt shows how far Alexander had miscalculated the temper of these settlers.
Not all, however, broke loose. And though many of the cities (like Bactra) must have incorporated a strong native element, they maintained their Greek organization and later under the Seleucids they were reinforced by the establishment of new settlements. The character of these will be considered below (pp. 130 ff.). Here we may conclude this brief consideration of Alexander’s programme, which foreshadowed the many later foundations of his hellenistic successors, by noting that his first Alexandria, that founded on the Nile in spring 331, and his only settlement west of the Tigris, survived to become one of the most famous centres of the Roman empire and indeed of later times.
3. The Formation of the Kingdoms (323–276)
On his death Alexander left an empire stretching from the Adriatic to the Punjab and from Tadzhikistan to Libya. But much of it was loosely held and parts of northern Asia Minor had never come under Macedonian control at all. Whether, had he lived longer, Alexander could have organized and co-ordinated this inchoate area effectively is a moot question. Without him even the survival as a whole seemed unlikely. The history of the next fifty years – from 323 until 276 – is of a struggle between Alexander’s generals and their sons and successors to take what they could for themselves. For a time that could have meant the whole. But the assumption of the royal title by several of the contestants from 306 onwards and the defeat and death of Antigonus at Ipsus in 301 marked two decisive steps in the process of dissolution. This proces can be traced in detail since the period down to 301 is well documented, with Hieronymus’ solid account standing behind our extant sources, especially Diodorus, whose narrative is intact down to that date.
I
Of those who were at Babylon when Alexander died the most important were Perdiccas, the senior cavalry officer and probably, since the death of Alexander’s favourite, Hephaestion, ‘chiliarch’ (in effect vizier), Meleager, the senior phalanx-leader, Ptolemy and Leonnatus (both related to the royal house), Lysimachus, Aristonous and Peucestas (who was satrap of Persis and Susiana). Others who were to play a major part later on were Seleucus, the commander of the hypaspists (a crack guards’ regiment), Eumenes of Cardia, Alexander’s secretary and the only Greek among the leading Macedonians, and Cassander, the son of Antipater. Antipater had been left by Alexander as regent in Macedonia, and Craterus, who had been sent to replace him, had already reached Cilicia. Finally there was Antigonus Monophthalmus, the One-eyed, a man (like Antipater) of the older generation, satrap of Phrygia. The struggle broke out at once and was to last in various forms until c. 270. Because the contestants, apart from Eumenes, were Macedonians, Macedonia was to play a special role in the conflict. It is perhaps not mere chance that it was the last major division of the empire to acquire a stable dynasty.
The twenty years we are now considering fall into two periods. The first, from 323 to 320, represents Perdiccas’ attempt to devise a compromise settlement which could claim legitimacy while leaving power in his hands. It ended in his violent death. The second period is longer; it covers the years from 320 to 301 and is dominated by Antigonus’ efforts to bring the whole empire, or as much of it as possible, under his control. Details are complicated. The scene shifts from Asia to Europe and back again to Asia where at Ipsus in 301 a coalition of his enemies brought about Antigonus’ defeat and death. After 301 the struggle continued with Demetrius Poliorcetes, Antigonus’ son, attempting to revive his father’s empire from a base in Greece and Macedonia but a coalition between Lysimachus and a new contestant, Pyrrhus of Epirus, brought about his fall and he died in captivity. In effect Ipsus had confirmed the existence of separate dynasties in Egypt (Ptolemy), Babylonia and northern Syria (Seleucus) and northern Anatolia and Thrace (Lysimachus). Only the fate of the homeland, Macedonia, remained undecided. Between 288 and 282 Lysimachus made a determined attempt to annex it, first in alliance with Pyrrhus and then alone but in 282 he was defeated by Seleucus at Corupedium, where he fell fighting, and after a period of near anarchy, with Gaulish invasions and rapid dynastic changes, Macedonia too at last obtained a permanent ruler in Demetrius’