Hello, and welcome to Western SIEV. Today, I'm giving you a sneak
peek or a little taste of what we have going on in the Patreon podcast
page, which is our listener supported page. This is an episode from Western
Civ two point zero. If you go back to the Way Way, Way,
Way Way, a long time ago original feed, I did one episode
on the Successors to Alexander the Great. This episode kind of illustrates the difference
with Western CIV two point zero. This is one of my episodes on the
Successors. It's the last one and it's talking about sort of the end of
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It'll take it right there. Perhaps the most important consequence of the Battle of
Ipsus was that it Lefttolomay and Seleucius in firm control of their respective kingdoms.
Tlamaic Egypt's borders would remain essentially unchanged between Ipsus and Augustus's annexation of Egypt in
thirty BCE. Seleucius's empire was a different story. Its borders tended to vary
throughout the century as various incursions swept away large provinces, which in some cases
were reconquered. Then, as was the case with Ptoloma's kingdom, the Romans
gobbled up the whole in sixty two BCE, when the hard border between Rome
and Parthia became the Euphrates river, which would be this case for the next
several centuries, with one brief exception during Trajan's reign in the second century of
the Common Era. Now, in terms of the overall structure of these kingdoms,
we have a lot more evidence for Egypt, thanks to the preservation of
papyri in the dry heat, than we do for Asia. Almost half of
this evidence, however, dates from later than the first forty years of the
Hellenistic period. It may be legitimate in some cases to project what we know
from a later period back onto an earlier one, but this is guesswork in
the end, As the history of early modern Europe shows, which is where
we are in the main show, the processes whereby states become increasingly centralized,
territorialized, and have efficient bureaucracies are really common, iplicated, and they develop
over a long period of time. We just don't have enough evidence for early
Ptolemaic and Seleucid history to see this process in detail. Certainly, one thing
we can say is that both Ptolome and Selucius spent a lot of time at
war or preparing for war, and therefore it is likely that their first administrative
measures were designed mainly to ensure that their kingdoms were internally stable enough to guarantee
them sufficient income to continue to make war. In each case, one would
expect the administration would blend Macedonian and local institutions. Now, of course,
in Asia, local meant Achemenid, since Antigonus's regime had hardly left a mark,
But the Persians themselves had worked with local subsystems in further flong parts of
the m Empire and had a developed bureaucracy that had lasted for centuries. When
Alexander showed up and conquered the whole Egypt held a mix of ancient Egyptian and
then also acumend systems. It had intermittently been under Persian control and administration for
about two centuries. In each case, the Macedonians came as conquerors with their
own way of doing things, but in order not to ruffle too many proverbial
feathers and to keep their lives easy, they simply co opted local structures.
It follows that we would expect to find both similarities and differences between the administrations
of these two kingdoms, with the similarities being due to Macedonian backgrounds and the
differences to inherited local practices or local conditions. Egypt was, of course a
relatively self contained unit, both geographically and ethnically. It consisted of the Nile
Delta and a thin strip of one thousand kilometers about six hundred and twenty miles
up the river. But it's important to note that on each side of the
river, this was never wider than about twenty miles on either side, bounded
by impenetrable desert to the east and the west. Egypt, if you look
at its borders today, is obviously much much broader, and if you cook
on a map of even Roman provinces or let's say, Byzantine province of Egypt,
it looks quite wide. But the reality is that only the area directly
around the Nile River was ever occupied to any sort of density whatsoever. Now,
seleuciad Asia was a sprawling empire, consisting of huge territories and varied peoples,
each with their own traditions and subcultures. In modern terms, Seleucia at
Asia would have been Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran,
Afghanistan, bits of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikstan, so a huge area.
Selucius and his son achieved the remarkable feat of coming as conquerors and holding
all this together for fifty years before it started to break up to the further
east. The size of the empire meant that wherever the king happened to be
at the time was of course the center of the empire. In Ptolomeay's case,
after three point thirteen, the center was Alexandria. But Selusius was itinerant,
that is to say, he had palaces and residences all over his kingdom.
Most likely Selucian kings ruled from Antioch, but he could also rule from
Susa, Selucia, on the Tigris, Klanae, and Sardis. As conquerors
and as Macedonian kings, Selusius and Ptolemy owned their kingdoms as private estates.
These were what they would call quote spear one end quote land. It was
theirs to dispose of as they wanted. Tax and taxes paid to the king
was essentially rent paid to a landlord. Of course, huge swaths of land
were owned by the king. All their profits, not just a taxed percentage,
went directly into the royal treasury. All resources were concentrated in the hands
of the king and then redistributed. Neither Ptolemy nor Selusius was ever quite an
autocrat or a despot. However, their power was diffused through hierarchical structures that
were beneath them at the top of the pyramid. Nor were they simply smash
and grab bandits. They took time and thought about the future. They wanted
their sons and grandsons to succeed in functioning and have profitable kingdoms after that,
and large I think we have to say they succeeded. One of the redistributions
the kings made was to give away some of their land to temples, cities,
and even deserving individuals, who, depending on the size of the donation,
could thus become I guess we'd say barons within the kingdom. That's an
anachronistic term, but I'll use it anyway. These estates might encompass several villages,
many tied to serfs, another anachronistic term for those keeping score at home.
This was a way for the kings to attract the loyalty of powerful men,
and at the same time it brought more land into production and into the
taxation system. The villages and farmers on the estate paid tax to the estate
owner, who passed on what he owed to the royal treasury. These estates
were not always heritable. They often remained crown territory, and in certain circumstances,
presumably extreme ones, like when somebody was disloyal or turned trader, the
king could and did repossess the land. The king could therefore assure himself of
the continued loyalty of the Greek and Macedonian elite within his kingdom. Both Seleusius
and Ptolemy also settled their troops on the land in the Macedonian fashion. These
soldiers and then their descendants owed military service to the crown and always formed the
core of the kingdom's armies. This was an economical policy. It was expensive
then as it is now to maintain a standing army, but a pool of
soldiers was needed for emergencies, and the royal cofferers would profit from the taxes
paid by such people as farmers. The policy also made these men grateful to
their king, and hence their sons or grandsons be more likely to respond to
a call to arms. A typical allotment consisted of two or three pieces of
land to be used for different agricultural purposes. The size of said allotment depended
on the land's fertility and on the rank of the settler. Officers and cavalrymen.
Higher up the social scale, as usual, got more Talame settled mercenaries
throughout Egypt, wherever such a settlement might help develop agriculture, police a district
or secure trade route. Above all, he drained the Fayum marshes southwest of
Memphis specifically for the purpose of settling his mercenaries, thousands of them during his
reign alone. The draining of these marses shows like one small example of the
combination of local and Macedonian expertise. The Egyptians had long been expert at irrigation,
and the Macedonians brought new developments in drainage engineering. It was a huge
project, as great in its way as the building of Alexandria. The later
level of Lake Morse was lowered by radical canonalization, and these new canals served
to irrigate the reclaimed land. The amount of land in use around Memphis literally
tripled. Many of the new settlers, however, preferred to live as absentee
landlords in the various Greek cities that were founded around the same time. Memphis,
too, had long had a substantial Greek population. After the Battle of
Apsus, the settling of mercenaries on allotments was extended throughout Greater Egypt to Cyreniki,
Cyprus, and Phoenicia. Ptolemy now felt that these were more securely his
possessions. Size of Seleucius's territory meant that he had many more trouble spots and
trade routes to police and protect. He established far more mercenary settlements, ranging
from fortresses to cities. Perhaps as many as twenty cities were founded in the
first two generations of Seleucian rule. Well the cities would attract further immigrants and
help to cohere the districts in which they were founded. In Egypt, only
ptolomais really served the same function, since it was founded in the Theba district
of southern Egypt. Selusius two founded his cities in agriculturally rich areas, which
could then be exploited in tax to the maximum. Intermarrying with the local population
was encouraged. Selusius offered incentives such as paying removal costs, grants of grain,
and relief from taxation. For the first few years to help immigrants get
started, and as soon as he felt it was feasible, he allowed the
land to be alienated, not just passed down from father to son with the
implicit renewal of tendency at each break, but actually you could now sell the
land outside your family. Tlomee was ultimately forced to follow suit, or he
risked losing out on the market for mercenaries. Mercenaries felt themselves well rewarded by
being set up as farmers, and gave their loyalty Accordingly. Many of them
had left home in the first place because there was insufficient land for them to
prosper there. They had won their share of the booty taken in war,
and now they and their sons who had financial security for life. In Selusius's
case, the fact that Greek settlements were spread thinly over a vast empire meant
that he had to take steps to ensure that this loyalty endured. He had
some of the sons of his settlers trained at his military headquarters. The culture
of this military school shaped the loyalty to the king In this regard. However,
Talomay felt no need for such provisions, not unnaturally the settlement of foreigners
on this scale could disturb local sensibilities, so both Talamay and Seleucius took care
to confiscate land only from those who were too weak and scattered to organize armed
resistance, or where it was scarcely used, hence, for instance, the
draining of the marshland around Fayoum, and wherever possible, they simply gave away
crown land. Resentment was all offset by the fact that the new cities increased
the demand for agricultural products and increased local farmers profits. Many of the immigrants
were content to let former owners continue as tenant farmers, and they increased productivity
by introducing new crops and new techniques wherever possible, such as double cropping and
the use of iron in plowshares. The extensive irrigation systems of Egypt and Babylonia
were serviceable and therefore extended. They were essential in these regions which could not
rely on rainfall. But the newcomers also learned the seeding plow, which placed
seeds in regular furrows, had long been and used in Babylonia, but had
never been used in mountainous Greece, where only the small amount of good arable
land was always sown by hand. Overall, the coming of the Greeks and
Macedonians did not make as much of a difference as might be thought, even
in a remote area like Bactria. Recent archaeology has shown that the incoming Greeks
expanded land use by only around ten percent. Plame's kingdom was about twenty three
thousand square kilometers or about nine thousand square miles in size. He had a
population of about four million people, so Lucius's was of course much larger.
His empire at its largest extent occupied over three million, seven hundred and fifty
thousand square kilometers. This is about one million, five hundred thousand square miles,
and he had a population of fifteen million people. In either kingdom,
the immigrant population was never more than ten percent. Thus they were heavily outnumbered,
so they took more radical measures to avoid displeasing at least the more powerful
among the native populations, the merchants, the landowners, and especially the priests,
who were in effect the only political group in both Egypt and Babylonia.
If resistance was going to emerge, it would most likely be fomented by the
priests, as leaders of their people. A king who did not have the
support of the priesthood would not last long, and in fact, in Egypt
you would not even be considered a true pharaoh. Now, First, as
defenders of their realms and successful at that, the kings brought peace and prosperity,
which went a long way toward mitigating any hatred their arrival might have caused.
Second, existing temple run lands, which could be massive estates by the
way, and large privately owned estates, generally stayed in place, which is
to say that the king graciously granted back much of his spere won land to
the temples and the landowners. Their side of the bargain was loyalty or at
the very least neutrality. Ptolomy and Seleusius also both undertook programs of refurbishing old
temples or building new ones, and made certain to take part in the appropriate
local ceremonies and celebrations. There are Persian predecessors had rarely acted with such tact
and diplomacy, especially toward the Egyptian priesthood, which made smooth salan for old
Ptolomy. Now, of course, both of them also employed natives and responsible
positions in the administration. They had to. They needed collaborators, people who
spoke the language and were familiar with the way things worked at a local level.
They needed to guarantee a smooth transition to the new dispensation so the taxes
could flow in as quickly as possible. But they fell far short of Alexander's
dream of an empire governed by both Macedonians and natives. Under Ptolemy and Seleucius,
natives rarely rose very high in the administration. Few provinces of Asia,
and none of the forty two counties or gnomes as they were called of Egypt,
for instance, ever had a native governor. The top jobs and positions
at court were reserved for Greeks and Macedonians. Nevertheless, as the years and
decades passed, the native elite became more and more Hellenized in the familiar colonial
processes. To this extent, the upper levels of society were permeable by natives.
Otherwise, in both states, Hellenism was superficial. People were proud of
their traditions and were encouraged in that pride by their priests. The gymnasia that
sprang up all over Egypt and Asia and resources such as the Museum in Alexandria
were intended primarily for Greek use, not to Hellenize the natives. Just as
the gymnasia in classical Greece had been for the aristocratic elite, so the gymnasia
of every town an even large village in the New World were for the new
elite. As in many colonial societies throughout history, there were formidable barriers to
full assimilation. Also, Selusius and Ptolemy interfered as little as possible in native
traditions to keep the peace. Both Egypt and Seleucia Asia were janas estates in
which local religious practice, artistic conventions, and so on and so forth continued
unabated alongside newly reduced Greek forms. Successor imperialism was happily unaccompanied by the phenomenon
familiar from later empires of missionary conversions of natives to a quote unquote bet her
religion. Greek religion, we have to remember, was not uniform and hardly
dogmatic, and like polytheists from all times, its practices were tolerant, and
it was easy to identify their gods with existing native gods, which the name
keep going. No worries In both Egypt and s lucient Asia, two sets
of laws, native and Greek ran in parallel for the two populations. The
language of the case documents determined in which case it would be heard. The
kings were likely to intervene in local law only if their revenues were threatened.
Both kingdoms used two official languages, Greek and Aramaic Greek and Demotic Egypt,
and even had the double calendar system. Year one of the New Era that
was ushered in by Seleucius' recovery of Babylon began on the Babylonian New Year,
but also on the Macedonian New Year, which fell about six months earlier.
In Egypt, the gap was considerably greater. Tlam began to count his regnal
years in Greek from his first gaining the province in three twenty three, but
native Egyptians kind of from three zo five, when he formally became an Egyptian
pharaoh. He was first king of Macedonians, but also Pharaoh of the Egyptians,
the first pharaoh of the thirtieth, final and longest lasting dynasty of the
Ancient Kingdom of Egypt, Tallamaic Egypt and Seleucia Asia were not fully Greek states,
but in other words, more like awkward amalgrims. The fact that local
systems were allowed to run in parallel to the conqueror's preferences indicate a considerable degree
of local autonomy. More in Asia, of course, because it was just
so big, there were plenty of crossover points, but the Greek speakers kept
themselves apart as much as possible. The toleration of continuation of local administrative institutions
mirrored their cultural isolation from the native populations. The separation between conquerors and subjects
was the most marked in the founding of new Greek enclaves, and best epitomized
by the fact that the full title of the city of Alexandria, distinguishing it
from all the other Alexandria's around the world, was not Alexandria in Egypt,
but Alexandria by Egypt. This title reeks of supremacism inherent in imperialism. It's
often repeated but still telling fact that Cleopatra the Seventh, the Famous One,
was also the first to learn learn the Egyptian language. Despite these measures,
though the fact that there was little trouble, at least for a good long
while was due as much to anything to the long history in both Egypt and
Asia of foreign occupation. Many of these native populations, especially in Asia,
were just so remote from the king, their lives never changed. They simply
exchanged one distant master for another. And I think this is a key point
in kind of understanding. While oftentimes there's just not massive unrest, we have
to remember nationalism isn't really a thing yet, and it's not going to be
for a really long time. Who you paid your taxes to didn't really matter
as long as that amount of the taxes do stayed the same. Ptolome and
Selusius's regimes were authoritarian in nature, backed up by a strong military presence.
Their appeasement measures could do no more than prevent passive acquiescence. In Asia,
where the Persians had been the top dog, Seleucius tactfully let their heartland Persis,
retain a greater degree of autonomy than other provinces of his empire. Macedonians
were described in one document as quote the demons with disheveled hair of the race
of wrath end quote. In Egypt, Ptolomee took the precaution after the battle
of Gaza in three twelve of not employing a native Egyptian contingent in his army.
His great grandson Ptolome fourth took the moment to step over a century later
of re arming native troops, and the cost of that decision was the first
native rebellion Intolomae. At times, the core of the Seleucid army, however,
was made right up from the start of native troops armed and trained in
the Macedonian manner. This idea of appeasement was, of course self interested.
What kings were interested in was the generation of income. Both Selusius and Ptolemy
employed a large number of forms of taxation, from percentages of agricultural produce different
percentages for different products, to a monetary tax on certain other products, and
sometimes even forms of what we would call a poll tax. Order tolls and
harbor dues were imposed. Seleucias took tribute from the Greek cities within his realm
and also imposed a tax on slaves. In short, the kings taxed everything
that wasn't nailed down and many things that were. In general, central government
interfered less in the lives of Greeks and other non natives who came to be
classified as Greeks anyway, and they were taxed at a lower rate. This
policy naturally risked increasing resentment, but it also encouraged heleonization, since to become
Greek you needed to get a Greek education, and so it helped to ensure
an efficient and educated bureaucracy. Privileged organizations such as temples received the same kind
of preferential treatment, at least for a while. The hands off approach taken
by Ptolemy and Selusius was gradually diluted by later kings, who were able to
bring the temples more fully into the royal bureaucratic systems. Now Alexander the Great
had looted or liberated, whichever way you want to look at it, something
in the region of let's say, five thousand tons of gold and silver bullion
from the Achemenid Empire, comparable to all the weight of all the gold currently
stored in Fort Knox. A great deal of this had continued to be turned
into coins. The money was used for a whole range of royal expenses,
from paying troops and building ships to founding cities, and, especially in Alexandria,
maintaining a splendid in fact, one would say a fantastically splendid court.
The income generated by taxation was enormous, but so were the king's expenses,
and in addition to taxes, they raised money by selling surpluses abroad and by
profiting in the trade and luxuries that passed through their kingdoms spices from Arabia,
gems from the East, gold and ivory from Sudan and across the Sahara.
Both kingdoms had been to a degree monetized before the coming of the Macedonians,
but now this process increased at a rapid rate. Along with founding cities.
It was one of the main ways in which the kings asserted their kingship and
marked the regime change. The natives had to learn to sell at least some
of their goods for cash, and to accept their wages in cash. Because
not all their taxes could be paid in kind, some had to be paid
in coins. In due course, both the Ptolemes and the Seleucids developed state
run banks whose primary purpose was to receive cash payments of tax and thus to
act as the equivalent of royal granaries, where tax in kind was stored.
Selucius even encouraged the payment of taxes on cereal crops in cash rather than kind.
City building was an important plank in this program, since the surrounding rural
population could sell their goods in towns for cash, which then they could use
to pay their taxes. Both Ptolome and Selusius minted gold and copper and bronze
coinage, but silver was always the preferred metal. It was rare enough for
coins to have value, but common enough for even people on low down let's
say the economic totem Pole, to participate in a monetary economy. The relatively
small size of Egypt meant the Tallam could control revenue collection much more than Selusius.
Cereal grain farmers, for instance, were given their seed grain every year
from royal granaries, and by accepting it, they accepted the obligation to repay
a fixed percentage the following year. Every year, once the flood had subsided,
a land survey was undertaken to determine how much good soil the flood had
left that year, so that the ptolms knew roughly how much income to expect
and could plan ahead. A vast and complex royal bureaucracy was put in place
more likely than not most of it already existed from the court all the way
down to the villages. To process this information and ensure the regular collection of
taxes, it was quite frankly, amazingly modern. Within each nome or county,
three separate officers, each at the head of his own pyramid of assistance,
were responsible for agricultural production, finances, and record keeping, all of
them reported to the king's finance minister. In Alexandria, a guy called the
Diacates. Census were carried out to determine who was to pay the poll tax
and at what rate. The efficiency of the system of the first to Ptolemy's
meant that Egypt was religularly the wealthiest of the successor kingdoms and Ptolome the first
time it had an estimated annual revenue of about fifteen thousand talents of servile it's
about nine billion dollars and about eight million arabatas a wheat, that's maybe about
seventy two million US gallons. Selusius took in more about thirty thousand talents a
year, but the natural defenses and small size of Egypt meant that Talamy could
spend far less on armed services, which along with city building, was the
biggest drain on Selusius's finances. As a result, Selusius's capital city, Antioch,
glittered far less brilliantly than Alexandria. He just had more urgent demand on
his resources. Another economic measure Ptolome put in place before the end of the
fourth century was to break away from the monetary standard that had been adopted following
Alexander's lead all over the empire. Egyptian coins were minted to a considerably lighter
standard, and no other coinage was allowed within the realm. All foreign coin
brought into Egypt by commerce was surrendered and then re minted to the Talamaic standard.
This somewhat isolated Egypt from the rest of the world, but it also
established a royal monopoly on exchange, and it made sure that everything in Egypt
was truly standard. Imports were thereby discouraged, while exports could be sold abroad
for a profit. Egypt was naturally short on silver anyway, so either way
you look at it, this was one of Tolomay's master strokes. But there
was a limit, even in bureaucratized Egypt, to the degree of certain control
that could be exercised, and more flexible systems were put in place that accommodated
existing native institutions. Alexander intervened more directly into the lives of the new settlements
in Fayoum and around new cities like Talamaeis than it did elsewhere where. Taxation
was locally organized, as it had always been. A lot of the complaints
that one reads in the pyri from native farmers were complaints against petty Greek prejudice
and local corruption, never really against the king in Alexandria. As long as
the taxes came in, Tlo May was content to let things carry on in
the time honored fashion, and after all, time was something the Egyptians were
very used to. The Collection of taxes was also decentralized, in keeping with
the usual Greek system, or rather the Greek system was just grafted upon local
systems. Sometimes this was a little awkward contract for the years taxes in a
specific product was put up for sale, exactly what's going to happen in Rome.
By the way, tax farmers who were wealthy men could then post a
large surety bond and then just kind of operated as independent tax collectors. If
what they collected fell short of the bid, the farmers were bound to pay
the difference, but if there was the expected surplus, then they retained it.
So the rich guy won either way. But in Egypt and probably also
in Asia, but we're not sure, they were not responsible for the actual
collection of the taxes in at least some non Greek areas, which remained in
the hands of local agents. In Egypt, the crown similarly licensed the sale
of certain key products like flax, beer, salt, some oil crops.
As with tax farming, this served to protect the Ptolemese from unforeseen variations in
revenue. The size of Seleucius's kingdom meant that he could not exercise even the
limited degree of control the Ptolome sawt. He inherited workable systems, and he
let them continue in Asia minor. In Syria, Antigonus had replaced the Persian
satrapies with smaller, more manageable units that would not give their administrators great wealth
power or let's say, ambition. Seleucius was therefore able to exert more administrative
control there than farther east, where he retained the old satrapil system of the
Achemenids satrapies. And even cities were allowed to retain many of their own institutions.
A city in Syria would not even necessarily feel itself part of the same
empire as a city on the borders of Afghanistan or even Asia Minor. Just
as in Ptolemaic Egypt, a hierarchical pyramid spread out under Seleusius. The first
layer was occupied by trusted family members who were awarded special commands. The second
layer was occupied by his friends men we would call his ministers of state,
maybe his cabinet members. The broad financial responsibilities. For such an enormous empire,
there were actually very few dedicated ministers. The third layer was occupied by
the military and financial administrators of satrapies or other regions and city authorities. Each
of these layers of officials had considerable power within their domains, while being answerable
to the next level above. Each officer had a considerable network of junior officials
under him. As in Egypt, the jobs of all officials within the hierarchy
were chiefly to ensure security and the smooth collection of taxes. Collenistic kingdoms were
collaboration regimes in that Ptolomagne Selucius were both conquerors who were seeking control over conquered
people. This is never an easy trick to pull off, even in modern
times. Of course, in both cases we're talking about relatively primitive agricultural society.
The change in leadership didn't mean much for the peasant class. It never
did. They just owed their taxes to someone else. Both Ptolome and Selucius
could have been more authoritarian. They could have chosen to become despots, but
neither did. Both were smart men who chose a simpler path of appeasement.
They made deals with their collaborators, local elites that made their jobs a lot
easier. As a consequence, their kingdoms survived everything except the Roman legions.
That is, Ipsus did not end the endemic warfare between the successors, but
it did slow it down to an extent. Ipsus is only interesting in a
counterfactual sense. If Antagonus had won, if he had not died that day,
then he might have ruled all of Alexander's empire, or the very least
he might have bequeathed that empire to his son Demetrius. But he did die
and Demetrius did flee, so there could be a sort of balance of power
for the first time since Alexander's death some twenty two years prior, but certainly
few gave up on the dream of ruling all the satrapies and European kingdoms which
the Great Conqueror had once stitched together, least of all the defeated Demetrius.
After the battle, the victorious kings sliced up Antigonus's domain like an enormous carcass.
The prisoners of war and the three thousand talents Antigonus had brought from Cilicia
were divided amongst the victorious kings, but it was by partitioning the Antigonet realms
that they really made significant gains. Lysimachus, who had commanded the coalition forces,
was the biggest winner, since he was awarded all of Asia Minor up
to the Hollis River in modern day Turkey. Asia Minor was not a whole,
however, there were independent cities such as Heraclea and little princelings like in
Cappadocia, which had taken advantage of the constant warfare to gain a kind of
independence. The countries on the south coast of the Black Sea, protected by
the sea on one side and formidable mountains on the other, had never fully
been under Macedonian control. Frankly, if at all, Bithynia had always been
independent. Moreover, a noble Persian named Mithradates had recently established himself in Pontus.
Note this is not the famous Mithradates that's going to give the Romans so
much trouble in a couple of years hence, but this is the region,
and this is his great grandfather. Both Bithynia and Pontus turn out to be
successful kingdoms, which lasted respectively until seventy four and sixty three BCE. Paphlagonia
too had attained a similar kind of independence, but Lysimachus was soon able to
bring it under his control. All of these dynasties valued their independence, but
they had to accept the fact that they were surrounded by larger and more prosperous
kingdoms than themselves. Essentially, Lysimachus now held, in addition to Thrace,
pretty much the same territory Antigonus held in three eighteen before his expansion eastward.
It had been the foundation of Antigonus's power. It could do the same for
Lysimachus too. He was only sixty or a little over, so we still
had some time. His most valuable new possessions were the Asiatic Greek cities,
famed for their wealth and rich in manpower Ipsus. Many cities were cowed into
surrendering of their own accord, but antaken at garrisons still remained in key cities
like Ephesus, Militis, and elsewhere. Many cities had built or repaired their
walls over the past few years of peace in their land in preparation for just
such an emergency. Lysimachus's first job was the subjugation of these cities to consolidate
his hold over Asia Minor and gain the ability to exploit its wealth. It
took him a few years of almost unrelenting effort. Cassander, who traveled from
Masadon to Asia Minor to attend the post battle conference, gained nothing, but
Greece was left vulnerable by Demetrius's departure and the collapse of the hellen Nic League
he had revived a few years later. Cassander clearly expected now to be able
to recover Greece, and just as he clearly expected no inter appearance from the
others while he did so. In other words, Cassander really just expected recognition
of his kingship of Masadon, even after eliminating the last of the Argiads to
obtain it. He got this, but nothing more. I mean, why
should he, after all, he hadn't even been present on the battlefield.
By the same token, Palome officially gained nothing either, but there was no
resentment against him on the part of the others for his meager part that he
played in the final campaign against Antigonus. He had done his bit by fighting
off the Antigonate invasion of Egypt a few years earlier. Now, Cassander's brother
Plastarkus, however, who had taken part of the battle, was given Celicia
as a personal little kingdom. This may have been at Cassander's insistence, since
he looked out for his family's interests. Lucius, for his part, added
Mesopotamia and Syria to his growing kingdom. The stretch of the Mediterranean coastline he
gained was critically important, but he still wanted more. Northern Syria was a
relatively undeveloped region at this point. The small population was relatively prosperous, but
almost entirely rural, with only one city, and this was Antigonus's half built
Antigonea, and a few scattered trading towns. Moreover, Selucius had rivals to
the north and the south. Now, the second problem Selucius faced was that
cities on the coastline south of the Eurythius River were currently Intolomey's hands. With
the extra anomaly that Demetrius, as we'll find out in a second was still
holding on to tire and Seaton. After having finally re established himself in the
region, Tolomey was disinclined to make way for the new owner. Trouble therefore,
once was brewing for Phoenicia, but post war fatigue on both sides gave
talome the chance to settle in. So Lucius made out that he refrained from
attacking Tlomey out of friendship, but everyone knew the real reason was that he
was in no position to challenge Tolomey at sea. The known world as it
emerged from this most recent settlement appeared relatively stable. All the kings had core
territories and sons who seemed destined to become kings after them. Venetia, Greece,
and the western seaboard of Asia Minor were the most likely trouble spots in
the short term, as the kings sought to gain firm control of the areas
they had been allotted, but such consolidation was never the only focus of a
Hellenistic king. Everyone was always looking for opportun unities to expand. What emerged
after Ipsus was not so much a balance of power as a balance of fear.
They also reverted to the default successor position of helping one's neighbor only in
the diarist of emergencies, and then only if significant gains could be made from
that assistance. But what about Demetrius, Well, he was not ready to
give up, not in the least. The defeated antiket had still held Ephesus,
tire Seedon, and the island of Cyprus. He had a formidable fleet.
Sure he was probably finished on land, but he could certainly make a
nuisance of himself at sea. After Ipsus, Demetrius fled first to Ephesus,
and then he set sail for Athens. However, while docked at the island
of Delos, an Athelian delegation approached the defeated Demetrius Athens. They told him
was tapping out. The Athenians no longer wanted to be a part of these
endless wars Athens would be strictly neutral from then on. Demetrius, likely fuming
but with little recourse, accepted this decision. In stride. He asked for
the return of a few warships, which the now neutral Athenians dutifully gave back.
Then he collected his remaining family members from Piraeus and sailed to Cyprus.
His plan was pretty simple. He knew as well as anyone that peace treaties
between successor kings never last. His enemies would soon be at each other's throats,
and then he might have an opportunity. For the moment, he would
bide his time. He spent the years after Ipsus consolidating his empire. He
built five new cities in the center of his kingdom, all ringed with the
latest and Hellenistic defensive fortifications. He hoped by founding these cities he could improve
his tax base significantly. In northern Syria, Selusius was particularly successful. Babylon
never really recovered from Seleucius's war with Antigonus that ended way back in three Zho
nine, so he built a new city, Seleucia, intended partly to replace
Babylon as a critical stopping point for trade caravans. It was remarkably successful and
to a large extent, increased trade throughout the region, so much so that
even along the Persian Gulf, new trade connections developed. These economic initiatives appeased
not only the native population, but newly arrived Greek and Macedonians settlers. Plus
wealth breeds wealth, and this investment led to even more private investments. These
were all economies that Rome would happily gobble up in the first century. By
three hundred BCE, the pace between the remaining successors was already starting to wear
thin. In response to what looked like aggression by Selucius, Polome reached out
to Lysimachus for an alliance. Lysimachus, who needed Tolome's navy to help him
crush Demetrius, was only too happy to accept. They sealed the deal when
Lysimachus married Tolome's daughter Aresne, who, as we will see, was as
ruthlessly ambitious as any of the successors themselves. Selucius now felt threatened, so
he decided to reach out to his old enemy Demetrius. Demetrius was only too
happy to a plo. He would put his ships at Selucius's disposal if that
meant an alliance. I mean, after all, what choice did he have.
It was the only way to get back in the game. They likewise
sealed the deal with the marriage. So now there were two clear sides in
any coming conflict. It would be talome Lysimachus versus Selucius Demetrius. The only
person not involved in the alliance making was Cassander. He had a new issue
in Boetia to deal with, plus his entire life he had been plagued by
tuberculosis and it seemed like it was flaring up. Regardless, he sat on
the sidelines for now. But for the moment there would be no direct conflict.
Ptolomy assumed rightly that Selucius wanted more time to consolidate his realm, So
when Ptolome proposed peace, Selucius accepted. War had been averted for now.
Now. Just because there was no direct conflict, that doesn't mean that there
weren't fighting on the fringes. Demitrius tried to use Cilicia as a piggybank to
build up his strength, but his extortion rule was far from popular. Sure,
he was able to wrench it away from Cassander's little brother easy enough,
but by two ninety six, Demetrius was forced to abandon Cilicia for Cyprus.
Selusius was the big winner. He just moved in and took Silicia, never
intending to give it back to Cassander's brother by the way, and added it
to his massive domains. Demitrius honestly didn't care. He was looking toward an
unstable situation in Greece as the place for his next expansion, and now the
cause of said unstable Greece. In two ninety seven, Cassander died of tuberculosis.
His son Philip died of the same disease a few months later. For
as brutal as the start of his reign had been, Cassander had kept Macedonia
at peace for twenty years. The situation after him would be different. Meanwhile,
to the South and Athens, neutrality had not gone well. A few
bad harvests resulted in a pro Macedon faction coming to power. You see,
it was all well and good to say you didn't want the king, but
then you didn't have the insurance when you needed it. The factionalism got so
bad that Athens and Piraeus effectively split into two cities. This created all the
instability Demetrius needed to wonder whether Greece might yet be his Making matters worse.
Cassander's two teenage sons, Alexander and Antipater, were supposed to be ruling jointly
under their mother's regency, but the two hated each other and quickly divided Macedonia
into factions for their own petty civil war. Demetrius sailed to Athens in late
two ninety six and placed the city under siege. By two ninety five,
things looked dire. Famine had started the city, and the philosopher Epicurus was
in charge of the rationing in a super ironic turn of events, But philosophical
intervention aside, there was little the Athenians could do to resist Demetrius, and
he was quickly back in control of the city. The situation in Macedonia was
too uncertain for anyone in Pella to intervene, and Lysimachus had troubles of his
own, so for the moment, Demetrius was free to move against the Greek
cities of the Peloponnese, which he did. Antipeter, the elder of the
two teenage kings in Macedon, believed he should be the sole ruler when he
attained the age of majority. His mother disagreed and told him to continue ruling
with his brother, so he had his mother killed, a rare crime even
for the bloodthurstay in Macedonian royal house. This began the aptly named War of
the Brothers, which Demetrius immediately intervened in, joining the side of Alexander the
younger brother. Years earlier, Demetrius had forged an alliance with Pyrus, the
king of neighboring a Pyrus, which was where Alexander's mother, Olympius, had
been from. Pyrus now joined the War of the Brothers on Alexander's side and
easily drove Antipater out of western Macedonia. The only reason he did not go
further was that he didn't want Lysimachus to enter the fray. Lasimachus was presently
dealing with a rebellion in Greece, but it would likely intervene if a Pyrus
looked likely to conquer Macedonia. Once Demetrius arrived in Macedonia, Alexander told him
his services were no longer needed. Of course, it had been on Demetrius's
behest that Pyrus had invaded. Demetrius was furious, but he pretended not to
care. Instead, he invited Alexander to a banquet. At the end of
said banquet, the two men were walking out past Demetrius's guards, to whom
Demetrius muttered, quote, kill the man who follows me. End to quote.
Alexander died on the spot, proving the old adage minnows ought not swim
with sharks. Antipater almost immediately abandoned his half of Macedon to Demetrius and fled
to Thrace. There Lysimachus convinced the teenaged king that resistance was futile. He
signed a piece deal with Demetrius in which Demetrius was acknowledged as the regent of
Macedon, and Lysimachus was acknowledged as the Greek cities of Asia Minor had had
fallen to him after Ipsus. It was the end of Antipater's line, a
line which had ruled Macedon for forty years. Demetrius was now the king of
Macedon and the effective ruler of Greece save Thrace, But for the moment Demetrius
did not press any claims outside Greece. Plome retook Cyprus in two ninety four,
which his successors would hold until the Romans arrived. And if you're getting
tired of me saying that, I'm good to say it a couple more times.
Back in Thrace, things were going badly for Lysimachus. He was beaten
soundly by the tribal Gettai and taken prisoner for the better part of a year.
Demetrius tried to invade Thrace, and only the intervention of Pirrius, who
now opposed his old ally, pushed him back. Between two ninety four and
two ninety eight, Demetrius and Pyrus fought a series of inconclusive wars that did
little other than wear out both sides. In two eighty eight, the two
exhausted foes signed a treaty that recognized the status quo. Still few could fail
to be impressed by Demetrius's incredible turnaround. Perhaps he might revitalize his claims to
all of Alexander's empire. After all, in Plutarch's lives, Demetrius is the
poster boy for wasted talent, and indeed he is what we would call a
show voter. He demanded his subjects bow obsequiously before him, and insisted on
flamboyant but practically speaking, pointless ceremonies. While Demetrius was demanding that people Kawatau
and Bao, Tlome was conquering his Agean islands, and in two eighty five,
Talome finally evicted Demetrius's garrisons from Tire and Seaton, solidifying his control over
Phoenicia. But that would be the last action Alexander's friend would ever take.
That same year, Ptolomae abdicated in favor of his son ptolomy the second.
Two years later, he died peacefully in his bed, something of an anomaly
for a successor. Despite these setbacks, Demetrius still yearned for conquest. He
decided he would launch an all out attack on Asia. But Demetrius was no
Alexander. The Macedonian nobles were not interested in sending what remained of their youth.
Macedonia was already depopulated to fight so that Macedonia could just be on the
periphery of some Asian empire. Demetrius and his haughty style of leadership, was
neither feared nor loved. Hence he violated both of Machiavelli's principles, Yet he
continued to prepare for the invasion as though that was what his subjects wanted.
He even began preparing a massive fleet with new warships that allegedly had up to
sixteen rows of oars where Trirems had three. The scale of Demetrius's build up
indicated ambitions that threatened all the remaining kings, and so they formed a coalition
against him for what we might call the Fifth War of the Successors. Once
more an antaking it was the enemy of all who united against him. Pyrus,
bombarded by letters by Lysimachus, Ptolomy and Selucius, drugged off the peace
treaty he had made with Demetrius and joined the coalition. Frankly, it was
clear that Demetrius didn't stand a chance. Early into eighty eight, while Admiral
Seld for southern Greece with the intention of stirring up the Greek cities to rebellion,
Lysimachus and Pirus attacked Macedon from respectively the east and west. Pyrus employed
the old successor tactic of claiming that Alexander the Great had appeared damn in a
dream and promised his aid. Demetrius learned just how popular he was in Macedonia
when his Macedonian troops deserted first to Lasimachus and then to Peris. When Demetrius
heard of his invasion and turned to confront him, it was the most effective
coup imaginable. Demetrius was thrown out of his kingdom by the army or senior
officers after six years on the throne, but Macedon was left to endure for
a second time the uncertainty of dual kingship. Pirrus justified his ruleship by citing
his kingship to Alexander the Great. They were actually second cousins, by the
way, and took Western Macedon and then Besley. A few years later,
Leasimachus gained the Eastern kingdom, a significant gain for him given the wealth of
Macedon's natural resources. There Demetrius, believe it or not, actually put on
a disguise and fled to Casadrea. From Casadrea, Demetrius headed to southern Greece.
He was reduced once more to his fleet, his companion cavalry, and
however many mercenaries he could afford to keep. For the moment, Demetrius was
relatively secure in Corinth, and over the next two years he even built up
his land army again. Athens seized the moment, however, and rose up
against him in the spring of two eighty six. Those of the Antickene at
garrison, who refused inducements to defect, were simply defeated in battle. Demetrius
came back with a larger army than expected, and the besieged Athenians sent help
to Pyrus. But then a Ptolemaic fleet appeared off Piraeus, so that Demetrius,
who was in any case still insanely anxious to take the war to Asia,
could see that he would be tied up in Athens forever he came to
terms with Ptolomy and Peirus, who appeared to have been just as anxious not
to fight. Athens would remain ungarrisoned, but Demetrius was allowed to keep his
other garrisons in Piraeus and fortresses nearby. As far as the Athenians were concerned,
this was a truce, not a treaty. When Pius arrived is said
to have recommended that the Athenians never admit a king within their walls again.
Perhaps it was a warning against his own ambitions. Demetrius left his remaining European
possessions in the hands of his subordinates and set out immediately for Asia Minor.
Disturbingly, for Lysimachus, Ptoleme's Egean fleet made no attempt to impede the invasion.
Militus defected to Demetrius, and at Mylitus he was met by Eurydice,
Ptolomae's ex wife. She brought her daughter, Ptolemaeus, to whom Demetrius had
been betrothed way back in two ninety eight, and now they were married.
But this marriage was no sort of coming to terms with Ptolomy. Things had
changed in the twelve years since the couple were first betrothed. Euryticity was now
in exile and estranged from Ptolomy, and she had plans of her own.
She saw an alliance with Demetrius as a way to give her son a chance
at power, since his prospects in Egypt were not good. Ptolomy had long
favored one of his other wife and her offspring. In fact, as I
mentioned before, the very next year, Ptolomy abdicated in favor of the son
by this woman, who became Ptolomy. The second Eurydices son was actually called
Ptolomy Serranius, the Thunderbolt named not for his unpredictable character, but for the
power he wielded. The campaign season of two eighty five started well for Demetrius.
He regained a few coastal towns in including Ephesus, and subsequently Lysimachus's governors
in Lydia and Karia surrendered their territories wholesale. There is no way, really
to explain these rapid successes except by assuming that he was welcomed before Ibsus.
Remember, Asia Minor had been under antigonet rule for a very long time and
it had prospered. Meanwhile, Pierris invaded Thessaly, which drew some of Demetrius's
subbordinates attention northward, and Athens made an attempt to dislodge the anticketed garrison in
Piraeus, but it didn't work an Asia Minor. Despite his first successes,
Demetrius was losing the initiative. Lysimachus's son Agathles was demonstrated that he had inherited
his father's skills as a general. He drew Demetrius ever farther inland, while
cutting him off from the coast by retaking territories now in his rear that he
had just taken himself, including Sartis and Militus. Demitrius's fleet at Militus either
fled to safe refuges farther down the coast, or it just surrendered. With
their supply lines cut and their hopes rapidly fading, Demetrius's mercenaries began to desert
him. Their commander claimed to be unconcerned, on the grounds that he could
always find more men to recruit in Media, which he planned to reach via
Armenia. By now, he seems decidedly unbalanced, Not content with being defeated
by Agateles, he was threatening Selusius too, but with diminished forces. Demetrius
was perhaps intending to encourage the often restless Eastern satrapies to rise up with his
help and overthrow Selusius. But this was quite frankly an unlikely scenario, to
say the least, not the least because Selusius had elevated his son Antiochus to
the joint kingship in two ninety four to ninety three, and had already sent
him to the East to quell any storm. In the longer term, it
made more sentence to have a co ruler for such a vast kingdom. For
the East, one who was half Iranian, had been brought up in Babylon,
so no uprising took place in the eastern Satrapies to aid Demetrius's plans.
Instead of heading for Armenia, he turned south, with disease and desertion,
decimating his numbers. Agathlees let him cross the Tars Mountains into Cilicia and strengthen
the fortresses on the passes against his return, effectively locking the door behind him.
He was Selucius's problem now. Seleucius tolerated Demetrius's presence for a while,
but had to take steps in the spring of two eighty four to contain him
in the mountains. Demetrius reacted with some vigorous guerrilla warfare and even threatened to
enter Syria until he was once more brought down by an illness. While Demetrius
lay sick, more of his men deserted. Even so, after he recovered,
he kept pushing for a decisive battle that frankly hid no chance of winning.
Selucius refused to meet Demetrius in battle, there was no point. He
just waited for low morale in Demitrius's camp to finish him off, and so
in the end it came with a whimper and not a bang. The two
armies were close by, and Selucius is said to have walked bearheaded himself up
to Demetrius's lines and appealed to his men to just lay down their arms.
Recognizing that Selucius was doing his level best to spare everyone's lives, they finally
abandoned Demetrius. So Lucius put his former father in law under comfortable but closely
guarded arrest on a town called Empeia on the banks of the Orontes River.
Well the su and It's back in Greece petitioned Selucius for Demetrius's returned Lysimachus begged
him to have the man just put to death. Selucius refused both requests.
He actually accused Lysimachus of behaving like a barbarian. In reality, however,
he wanted Demetrius alive and in his keeping in case he could in some way
use him against his remaining adversaries. Humiliated by becoming no more than a pawn
in others games, Demetrius wrote to Greece abdicating his kingship such as it was
in favor of his son there By March two eighty two, alcoholism, and
perhaps the illness that had been plaguing him for some time finally brought Demetrius down.
He wasn't much over fifty years of age. His ashes were released,
and in due course of time they were returned to Macedonia. I suppose in
the end it was nothing more than restless greed for imperial power that undid Demetrius.
He could have simply consolidated a kingdom in Macedonia and Greece, but he
always had more grandiose dreams. He never truly had an opportunity for world conquest.
And that's the thing that I think he was missing. It wasn't just
Alexander's talent that gave him the ability to conquer the known world. It was
also timing, and he just didn't understand that. By the late two eighties,
Lysimachus was once again resurgent. He fought another series of on again,
off again wars against Paris before the latter finally had enough and turned his attention
toward the West instead. There he would intervene in southern Italy on behalf of
the Greek city states, which found themselves increasingly beleaguered as a result of the
expansion of a city called Rome. Paris won a series of battles against Rome,
but the Romans always had more resources. Piaris won the battle, but
he lost the war, which is why the word peric today means a victory
that amounts to defeat. So Macedonia had a new king, It's fifth in
ten years, and times were not stable. A massive earthquake hit the region
into eighty seven into eighty five, when Macedonia was still recovering, A failed
coup launched brief civil war between Lysimachus and his eldest son. We have almost
no records for the conflict, but we can say that Lysimachus won and had
his son executed. This brief episode was emblematic of a bigger issue in the
Macedonian court. Because Macedonian rulers practiced polygamy, Macedonian kings always found themselves with
too many heirs and nothing productive to do with them. The chaos within Lysimachus's
realm attracted Selusius. He had spent the years since Ipsus stabilizing and securing his
empire, and he was now ready to extend it. Any of his successors
would have done the same if they had the resources of Seleucius and were handed
such an opportunity, even if, like him, they were closer to eighty.
As far as they were concerned, the whole point of having resources was
to use them to gain more resources, and Selucius's propagandist had paid the wave
for his grand imperialism. He had been born the same year as Alexander,
they said, and at once rescued Alexander's diadem after an accident and briefly warn
him. Selusius mustered his army, elephants and all, and in July to
eighty two he set out for Asia Minor Ptalomade. The second nominally Lysimachus's ally
didn't do anything, perhaps in the hope that Selucius would, at the same
time rid him of his troublesome half brother. Selusius crossed the Taurus well before
winter set in and spent some time in winter camp on the Asia Minor side
of the Tarus, within Lysimachus's kingdom. There was no opposition. At the
end of January two eighty one, Selusius took to the field, and at
the same time sent his fleet on ahead to the west coast to help lend
his supporters in Greek cities he had so often the cities up by means of
generous benefactions and used the old antignet strategy that would find him a more congenial
king than Lysimachus. A few cities did erupt into factional strife, though more
of them waited for the outcome to see which way to throw in their chips.
Selucius's progress continued unimpeded. Lysimachus had chosen to wait for him in Western
Asia Minor. This may have been a tactical decision in order to be able
to maintain some kind of control over the Asiatic Greek cities, but at the
same time it was clear that Lysimachus was now plagued by desertion and growing increasingly
helpless. The decisive battle of the sixth and final War of the Successors was
fought at Corpendium called the Plane of Plenty, west of Sardis, in February
two eighty one. We have absolutely no details for the battle, but I
don't think we need them. It was a complete victory for Selusius. The
age of Lysimachus died on the battlefield. Seleucius was the last of Alexander's successors,
and he was poised to become his true and only heir. He now
held all of Asia from the Aegean to Afghanistan, apart from Greater Egypt and
the lands he ceded to the Indian king Chandragupta. That same year, he
marched on Europe, aiming to finish the job, but it was not to
be. One of his subordinates murdered him in the summer of two eighty one.
Selucius had already made his son Antiochus his joint king, so the transition
was secure, But in two eighty one, the last of the true successors,
the men who had written and fought with Alexander the Great, were all
dead. In fact, our major players died within two years of each other
in the end Plome in two eighty three, Demetrius and two eighty two,
and both Lisa Auchus and Selucius in two eighty one. The effect of all
of this was the permanent division of Alexander's domains, though that may not have
been clear at the time. Essentially, from this point on until the arrival
of Rome, three different kingdoms ruled the East. Tolomay's house in Greater Egypt,
a variety of rulers in Macedonia and Greece, and the Seluciate House in
Asia. These would be the borders for about a century and a half until
Rome swept them all away. That does not mean that there wasn't more fighting.
There was, but it seems that none of these rulers wanted to challenge
for each other's domains at this point. So I've talked about Rome and alluded
to Rome about a million times in this episode, and guess what. That's
where we're headed next. It's time for everyone's favorite empire, the Romans. Boyne