The new world created by Philip, Alexander, and the Successors stretched from Ionia and Egypt to Afghanistan, and it was highly varied in culture. And in the chaos after 323 it was not only Macedonian generals who founded large royal regimes: so did powerful indigenous dynasts among the Bithynians, the Pontians, the Parthians, and eventually the Jews. Among the indigenous kings, customs and internal balances of political power created monarchies differing from the absolutist ideal propagated by Alexander. Thus the Parthian king, whose realm eventually included Iran and Mesopotamia, confronted a powerful aristocracy that imposed significant constraints on his rule (Wiesehofer 1996). The Hasmonean kings after 140 bc were themselves constrained by a powerful Jewish priesthood that demanded royal adherence to the precepts of God and the Torah; nothing like this existed among the Greeks (Rajak 1996). Moreover, the great Greek monarchies differed among themselves. The Ptolemies’ kingdom, based in Egypt, was quite homogeneous ethnically, had one great capital at Alexandria, and there the king could usually be found; but the Seleucids constantly traveled around their far-flung and ethnically diverse dominion, and they had two capitals, at Antioch in Syria and at Seleucia-on-the-Tigris.4 The Attalids of Pergamum had wealth and ambition but their geographical scope was limited to western Asia Minor. The Antigonids, though militarily powerful via their hold on the old Macedonian homeland, led a far less extravagant lifestyle than the Ptolemies or the Seleucids, because of Macedonian custom and comparative lack of wealth. One can understand why some scholars conclude that ‘‘no singular formula existed for a Hellenistic king’’ (Bilde et al. 1996b: 11).
Nevertheless, F. W. Walbank is closer to the mark when he argues that the various monarchies did come to resemble each other significantly. This makes it possible to discuss ‘‘hellenistic monarchy’’ as a specific political category.5
First, all these monarchies originated as usurper-states.6 Macedonian royal legitimacy ceased with the murder of Alexander’s 12-year-old son in 311, and the end of the Argead line. This allowed various Macedonian warlords to proclaim themselves kings in their own right. Antigonus the One-Eyed and his son Demetrius, ruling western Asia, began the process (306), and they were soon followed by Ptolemy’s proclamation of kingship, Seleucus’ proclamation in Mesopotamia, and the proclamations of several others. A great victory won against the Celts allowed Antigonus Gonatas, the grandson of Antigonus the One-Eyed, to proclaim himself king over a disordered
Macedon in 277? Similarly, a victory over the Celts in 241 led Attains, the local warlord of Pergamnm, to declare that he, too, was a king; and the continued victories of his descendants kept them in that status.8 The indigenous monarchies were themselves nsnrpatory in nature. Victory over Macedonian forces in 297 led the Thracian warlord Zipoetes to declare himself king in Bithynia (northwest Asia Minor). In the same period the Persian aristocrat Mithridates of Cius became a king by seizing Pontus (north-central Asia Minor).9 This ruthless principle of usurpation, with successful violence as justification for rule, is put straightforwardly in the Suda, a text of Byzantine provenance but based on an early-hellenistic precursor: ‘‘Kingship [basileia] does not derive either from royal descent or from formal legitimacy, but rather from the ability to command armies and to govern effectively. We see this with the Successors of Alexander.’’
Usurpers themselves, it was natural that kings were often threatened by usurpers. The main threat came from talented men from minor branches of the royal family, and any sign of weakness at the center could bring it forth. The Seleucids were especially bedeviled by this, and internal divisions after 150 would destroy the dynasty entirely. But it was a problem faced by many royal families, including the Hasmoneans. The Greek historian Polybius, writing about 150, praises the Attalids of Pergamum for an nnnsnal tradition of mutual loyalty (18.41.9-10).10
Again, because the fundamental justification for rule was personal military success, there was a similarity in the official depiction of the monarch. All the kings of the hellenistic period, of realms large and small, Greek or indigenous, were portrayed in military attire. The official symbol of monarchy was the Macedonian diadem, a white or purple-and-white headband with two long loose ends behind. Even the descendants of non-Greek kings appear on their coinage wearing this quintessential hellenistic symbol of royalty.11 But military regalia was the official royal attire of all these men: we have no statues of hellenistic kings dressed as civilians.12
Similarly, the extent of the royal realm was based on successful military violence. Powerful armed forces were central to these regimes not merely because they existed in a brutal anarchy of states characterized by the absence of international law (that was true of the hellenistic republics and democracies as well), 3 but also because, in the absence of inherited legitimacy, sheer conquest was the greatest justification for large territorial power. Hence kings tended to describe their territory by the term doriktltos chora, ‘‘spear-won land.’’ This was a brutally direct claim, prominent in the generation of the Successors.14 And though monarchs of later generations could also make claims to territory on the basis of inheritance, or marriage dowry, conquest remained the strongest claim to the land. Thus Antiochus III, whose wars reestablished Seleucid power from Afghanistan all the way to the Hellespont, claimed northwest Asia Minor and Thrace as spear-won land in 196 because of his own victories in the region as well as those of Seleucus I a century before (see Polyb. 18.51.3-6). His son Antiochus IV said as he prepared to invade Egypt in 170 that he ‘‘regarded possession through warfare as the surest claim and the best’’ (Polyb. 28.1.6).15
To sum up: hellenistic monarchy, whether large or small, whether Greek or indigenous, was above all a uniquely military and personal monarchy, with an origin in usurpation, a military character of great intensity, and an explicit justification in successful violence both for the rule of the dynasty and the extent of its possessions.
Of course, because of Alexander the Great’s legitimacy as a member of the traditional royal family of Macedon, his military achievements, and his eventual reputation as a superhuman figure, any link with Alexander himself could also be a powerful legitimating principle. None of the men who created the Successor kingdoms had a kinship tie with him. Nevertheless, a claimed link to Alexander was a common feature among hellenistic monarchies. Ptolemy I seized Alexander’s corpse in 321 and built a gigantic tomb for it in the Ptolemaic capital of Alexandria; Alexander’s portrait appeared on Ptolemaic coinage; Ptolemy wrote a famous memoir of his campaigns with Alexander; and Alexander eventually became a central figure in the religious cult of the dynasty, and thus a putative ancestor.16 Seleucus claimed to have had a dream in which Alexander promised him monarchy (Diod. Sic. 19.90.3-4); his descendants issued coinage with Alexander’s image; and eventually they falsely claimed a blood tie.17 The Antigonids were probably the first falsely to claim the kinship, so that their rule over Macedon could be seen as a continuation of the rule of the Argeads.18 Even indigenous monarchs relied on Alexander to prop up their legitimacy: the Thraco-Iranian Mithridates VI of Pontus proclaimed himself the New Alexander, while the Syrian Antiochus I of Commagene declared himself his descendant.19
Beyond their common origins as usurper-states and their common ways of seeking legitimacy, the hellenistic kingdoms also employed similar institutions of royal governance. The first was the court, the royal headquarters. Its surroundings were often luxurious - though Antigonid Macedon was restrained in this respect, whereas the Ptolemies were extravagant. In general, the court’s absolutist atmosphere and detailed protocol was an adaptation from Achaemenid Persia. Situated in a palace complex which was often magnificent, here was to be found an elaborate system for caring for the personal needs of the king (doctors, eunuchs, slaves, concubines). But no king could rule a kingdom by himself, and so here at court was also situated the central governing bureaucracy. This included not only the military chiefs, but the men responsible for handling the flood of correspondence and petitions that was always coming in to the king (Walbank 1984: 68).
Within every court, a crucial institution was the Friends (philoi) of the king. These were men of talent whom the monarch appointed to important military or administrative positions. The title of Friend was employed by all the monarchical regimes. The Friends often came from the king’s territorial realm, but equally often not from within his territorial realm at all.20 Monarchs customarily convened councils of these Friends to give advice on serious matters. They constituted a corps of professional administrators and military men, and - for the sake of the efficacy of his regime - one of the central tasks of a king was to keep them satisfied.2
One way to keep the Friends satisfied was to invite them to royal banquets. The royal feast and drinking party (the basilikon symposion) was typical of all hellenistic courts. These banquets were often given for hundreds of people, and they symbolized, in a world where simply getting enough to eat was a problem for many, the power and benevolence of the monarch (Tondriau 1948). The banquets of Antigonus II were famous for their philosophical conversation; and one source depicts Ptolemy II discoursing over a several days’ feast on issues of political philosophy with 70 Jewish elders.2 We need not believe that things were always so staid, for Antiochus IV had a fine time indeed at the huge feast he organized at Antioch in 166.23 Nor, once again, was the basilikon symposion limited to the Greco-Macedonian courts; Mithridates VI of Pontus, surrounded by Greek philosophers and poets, turned banquets into seminars.2 The symposium allowed the king to appear on a more amiable and open level with his high-ranking lieutenants and Friends than was usual under court etiquette, and thus helped solidify the personal ties that were crucial to running the regime (O. Murray 1996).
As already noted, the king and his court were to be found in the capital city. The capital was often a brand new foundation artificially designed to be the seat of government, and huge funds were lavished on it for palaces and administrative buildings. Alexandria of the Ptolemies and Antioch of the Seleucids were the most famous, but Seleucia-on-the-Tigris must have been a sight to see, and Pergamum of the Attalids, on its great mountain, was a tremendously impressive place. Again, the Greeks were not alone in this: in the 260s King Nicomedes I, son of the Thracian warlord Zipoetes who had seized Bithynia, founded a great new Greek-style capital city on the coast of the Propontis; a typical hellenistic monarch, he named it after himself - Nicomedia. Half a millennium later it was still suitable as an imperial residence for the Roman emperor Diocletian (Hannestad 1996: 75).
These capital cities came with wonderful public amenities. Alexandria was famous for its two huge libraries, its temples, the museum, and the medical school; and Seleucid Antioch and Attalid Pergamum were not far behind. In all three cities the great libraries were presided over by well-paid intellectuals.25 Thus the king displayed himself both as an exemplar and a patron of Greek culture - and his enormous wealth was proclaimed. For just as a weak king was a contradiction in terms in this world, so was a poor one (Austin 1986: 459). Hence an important and enjoyable political event in any capital city was the great royal procession, such as that of Ptolemy II in 279/ 278 in Alexandria, with its dozens of floats and 80,000 troops.2
Hellenistic monarchies, whether large or small, Greco-Macedonian or indigenous, always spent a huge amount of attention and money on their armed forces.27 This was not only because of the military nature of hellenistic monarchy and its direct foundation on force (see above), but also because of the harsh nature of the interstate environment (see below). Armies were often huge: the citizen field-army of Athens in 431 had numbered about 13,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry, but the Ptolemaic army at Raphia in 217 numbered about 75,000 men and it confronted a Seleucid army numbering 68,000; the Seleucid army at Magnesia in 189 numbered some 60,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry. As for the navies of the kings, they were sometimes comparable in numbers of ships to the famous fifth century Athenian fleet, but the warships were themselves larger, with the quinquireme having replaced the trireme (Leveque 1968: 273-4).
In all these usurper-states, it was natural also that the new royal houses sought legitimacy through claims to special protection from the divine (Leveque 1968: 85). Sometimes the royal family and its individual members were merely declared to be under a divinity’s special protection. Thus the Attalids claimed a special relationship with Athena-Bringer-of-Victory, and each year organized a spectacular parade of thanksgiving for her at Pergamum; the Seleucids claimed the special protection of Apollo of Miletus, who (they said) had prophesied that the original general Seleucus would become a king.29 Indigenous dynasties followed suit: the Mithridatic kings in Pontus claimed the special protection of Zeus Stratios.3
A stage beyond this was the direct assimilation of kings to divinities. The Ptolemies identified themselves with Dionysus. Coins of Antigonus II of Macedon have on the obverse the head of the god Pan - bearing the features of Antigonus himself (Walbank 1984: 86). Some regimes also encouraged placing a great statue of the monarch in a temple shared with a divinity, so that the king became ‘‘a temple-sharing god’’ (synnaos theos). Thus Attalus III of Pergamum during his own lifetime shared a temple with the god Asclepius. Indigenous monarchs again followed suit: in the 80s bc the Persian dynast Ariarathes V, king of Cappadocia in east-central Asia Minor, was sharing a temple with Zeus the Savior.3
The next step was the king as a god in his own right. When Alexander demanded that he receive worship in 324 and 323, it was a turning point; Greek states granted him divine honors (cult statues, a sanctuary, a priest, animal sacrifices, incense, an annual festival) - for who could resist his mighty power?32 The Successors, seeking ways to legitimate their regimes, happily accepted the cult images, sanctuaries, altars, priests, and festivals offered in their honor by their allegedly grateful subjects. Most often, this was indeed in celebration (or expectation) of acts of royal benevolence. Antigonus the One-Eyed and his son Demetrius allowed themselves to receive divine honors at Scepsis in Asia Minor as early as 311 (OGIS 6) and then famously at Athens in 307, where, following their liberation of the city from their rival dynast Cassander, they were worshiped as Savior-Gods. Other monarchs soon imitated them: thus there were cults throughout the northern Aegean in the 280s to King Lysimachus the overlord of Thrace, when Lysimachus’ power was at its height; and after Seleucus I defeated him, then Seleucus, too, was worshipped as a god in the region.33 Indigenous rulers again followed the Greeks; Antiochus I of Commagene (northwest Syria) established a cult for himself in the mid-first century bc (Dorner 1967).
One should not imagine that most Greeks thought of monarchs as gods in the same sense as Zeus or Apollo, and intellectuals sometimes protested the worship ceremonies.3 But as with monarchy itself, the ultimate rationale for giving kings divine honors was their benevolent efficacy in the real world. The famous Athenian hymn to Demetrius the Besieger ca. 290 makes the main point: Demetrius has accomplished good things for Athens and will accomplish still more, whereas ‘‘other gods are either far away or have not ears, or do not exist, or heed us not at all.’’35 Eventually the entire royal dynasty could itself be worshiped as divine, precisely for this reason - legitimacy indeed!3
The most important aspects of the monarchies that came to dominate the eastern Mediterranean after Alexander were thus widely shared, common both to Greco-Macedonian and indigenous royal regimes, common to realms large and less so. All these regimes possessed a common problematic origin (usurpation), similar organization, political structure, and capital cities, a shared focus on militarism, regime display, and religious justification. It is for these reasons that we can speak of ‘‘Hellenistic Monarchy’’ as a specific political category of monarchy - a category subject to its own historical analysis.
World History
