The History of Rome, Book III - Theodor Mommsen
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Egypt
In marked contrast to Asia, Egypt formed a consolidated and united
state, in which the intelligent statecraft of the first Lagidae,
skilfully availing itself of ancient national and religious precedent,
had established a completely absolute cabinet government, and in which
even the worst misrule failed to provoke any attempt either at
emancipation or disruption. Very different from the Macedonians,
whose national attachment to royalty was based upon their personal
dignity and was its political expression, the rural population
in Egypt was wholly passive; the capital on the other hand was
everything, and that capital was a dependency of the court. The
remissness and indolence of its rulers, accordingly, paralyzed the
state in Egypt still more than in Macedonia and in Asia; while on
the other hand when wielded by men, like the first Ptolemy and Ptolemy
Euergetes, such a state machine proved itself extremely useful. It
was one of the peculiar advantages of Egypt as compared with its two
great rivals, that its policy did not grasp at shadows, but pursued
clear and attainable objects. Macedonia, the home of Alexander, and
Asia, the land where he had established his throne, never ceased to
regard themselves as direct continuations of the Alexandrine monarchy
and more or less loudly asserted their claim to represent it at least,
if not to restore it. The Lagidae never tried to found a universal
empire, and never dreamt of conquering India; but, by way of
compensation, they drew the whole traffic between India and the
Mediterranean from the Phoenician ports to Alexandria, and made Egypt
the first commercial and maritime state of this epoch, and the
mistress of the eastern Mediterranean and of its coasts and islands.
It is a significant fact, that Ptolemy III. Euergetes voluntarily
restored all his conquests to Seleucus Callinicus except the seaport
of Antioch. Partly by this means, partly by its favourable
geographical situation, Egypt attained, with reference to the two
continental powers, an excellent military position either for defence
or for attack. While an opponent even in the full career of success
was hardly in a position seriously to threaten Egypt, which was almost
inaccessible on any side to land armies, the Egyptians were able by
sea to establish themselves not only in Cyrene, but also in Cyprus
and the Cyclades, on the Phoenico-Syrian coast, on the whole south
and west coast of Asia Minor and even in Europe on the Thracian
Chersonese. By their unexampled skill in turning to account the
fertile valley of the Nile for the direct benefit of the treasury,
and by a financial system--equally sagacious and unscrupulous
--earnestly and adroitly calculated to foster material interests,
the court of Alexandria was constantly superior to its opponents even
as a moneyed power. Lastly, the intelligent munificence, with which
the Lagidae welcomed the tendency of the age towards earnest inquiry
in all departments of enterprise and of knowledge, and knew how to
confine such inquiries within the bounds, and entwine them with the
interests, of absolute monarchy, was productive of direct advantage to
the state, whose ship-building and machine-making showed traces of the
beneficial influence of Alexandrian mathematics; and not only so, but
also rendered this new intellectual power--the most important and the
greatest, which the Hellenic nation after its political dismemberment
put forth--subservient, so far as it would consent to be serviceable
at all, to the Alexandrian court. Had the empire of Alexander
continued to stand, Greek science and art would have found a state
worthy and capable of containing them. Now, when the nation had
fallen to pieces, a learned cosmopolitanism grew up in it luxuriantly,
and was very soon attracted by the magnet of Alexandria, where
scientific appliances and collections were inexhaustible, where kings
composed tragedies and ministers wrote commentaries on them, and where
pensions and academies flourished.
The mutual relations of the three great states are evident from
what has been said. The maritime power, which ruled the coasts and
monopolized the sea, could not but after the first great success
--the political separation of the European from the Asiatic continent
--direct its further efforts towards the weakening of the two great
states on the mainland, and consequently towards the protection of the
several minor states; whereas Macedonia and Asia, while regarding each
other as rivals, recognized above all their common adversary in Egypt,
and combined, or at any rate ought to have combined, against it.
The Kingdoms of Asia Minor
Among the states of the second rank, merely an indirect importance,
so far as concerned the contact of the east with the west, attached
in the first instance to that series of states which, stretching from
the southern end of the Caspian Sea to the Hellespont, occupied the
interior and the north coast of Asia Minor: Atropatene (in the modern
Aderbijan, south-west of the Caspian), next to it Armenia, Cappadocia
in the interior of Asia Minor, Pontus on the south-east, and Bithynia
on the south-west, shore of the Black Sea. All of these were
fragments of the great Persian Empire, and were ruled by Oriental,
mostly old Persian, dynasties--the remote mountain-land of Atropatene
in particular was the true asylum of the ancient Persian system, over
which even the expedition of Alexander had swept without leaving a
trace--and all were in the same relation of temporary and superficial
dependence on the Greek dynasty, which had taken or wished to take
the place of the great-kings in Asia.
The Celts of Asia Minor
Of greater importance for the general relations was the Celtic
state in the interior of Asia Minor. There, intermediate between
Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, and Phrygia, three Celtic tribes
--the Tolistoagii, the Tectosages, and Trocmi--had settled, without
abandoning either their native language and manners or their
constitution and their trade as freebooters. The twelve tetrarchs,
one of whom was appointed to preside over each of the four cantons in
each of the three tribes, formed, with their council of 300 men, the
supreme authority of the nation, and assembled at the "holy place"
(-Drunemetum-), especially for the pronouncing of capital sentences.
Singular as this cantonal constitution of the Celts appeared to the
Asiatics, equally strange seemed to them the adventurous and marauding
habits of the northern intruders, who on the one hand furnished their
unwarlike neighbours with mercenaries for every war, and on the other
plundered on their own account or levied contributions from the
surrounding districts. These rude but vigorous barbarians were the
general terror of the effeminate surrounding nations, and even of the
great-kings of Asia themselves, who, after several Asiatic armies had
been destroyed by the Celts and king Antiochus I. Soter had even
lost his life in conflict with them (493), agreed at last to pay
them tribute.
Pergamus
In consequence of bold and successful opposition to these Gallic
hordes, Attalus, a wealthy citizen of Pergamus, received the royal
title from his native city and bequeathed it to his posterity. This
new court was in miniature what that of Alexandria was on a great
scale. Here too the promotion of material interests and the fostering
of art and literature formed the order of the day, and the government
pursued a cautious and sober cabinet policy, the main objects of
which were the weakening the power of its two dangerous continental
neighbours, and the establishing an independent Greek state in the
west of Asia Minor. A well-filled treasury contributed greatly to the
importance of these rulers of Pergamus. They advanced considerable
sums to the kings of Syria, the repayment of which afterwards formed
part of the Roman conditions of peace. They succeeded even in
acquiring territory in this way; Aegina, for instance, which the
allied Romans and Aetolians had wrested in the last war from Philip's
allies, the Achaeans, was sold by the Aetolians, to whom it fell in
terms of the treaty, to Attalus for 30 talents (7300 pounds). But,
notwithstanding the splendour of the court and the royal title,
the commonwealth of Pergamus always retained something of the urban
character; and in its policy it usually went along with the free
cities. Attalus himself, the Lorenzo de' Medici of antiquity,
remained throughout life a wealthy burgher; and the family life
of the Attalid house, from which harmony and cordiality were not
banished by the royal title, formed a striking contrast to the
dissolute and scandalous behaviour of more aristocratic dynasties.
Greece
Epirots, Acarnanians, Boeotians
In European Greece--exclusive of the Roman possessions on the west
coast, in the most important of which, particularly Corcyra, Roman
magistrates appear to have resided,(1) and the territory directly
subject to Macedonia--the powers more or less in a position to pursue
a policy of their own were the Epirots, Acarnanians, and Aetolians
in northern Greece, the Boeotians and Athenians in central Greece,
and the Achaeans, Lacedaemonians, Messenians, and Eleans in the
Peloponnesus. Among these, the republics of the Epirots, Acarnanians,
and Boeotians were in various ways closely knit to Macedonia--the
Acarnanians more especially, because it was only Macedonian protection
that enabled them to escape the destruction with which they were
threatened by the Aetolians; none of them were of any consequence.
Their internal condition was very various. The state of things may
to some extent be illustrated by the fact, that among the Boeotians
--where, it is true, matters reached their worst--it had become
customary to make over every property, which did not descend to heirs
in the direct line, to the -syssitia-; and, in the case of candidates
for the public magistracies, for a quarter of a century the primary
condition of election was that they should bind themselves not to
allow any creditor, least of all a foreign one, to sue his debtor.
The Athenians
The Athenians were in the habit of receiving support against Macedonia
from Alexandria, and were in close league with the Aetolians. But
they too were totally powerless, and hardly anything save the halo
of Attic poetry and art distinguished these unworthy successors of
a glorious past from a number of petty towns of the same stamp.
The Aetolians
The power of the Aetolian confederacy manifested a greater vigour.
The energy of the northern Greek character was still unbroken there,
although it had degenerated into a reckless impatience of discipline
and control. It was a public law in Aetolia, that an Aetolian might
serve as a mercenary against any state, even against a state in
alliance with his own country; and, when the other Greeks urgently
besought them to redress this scandal, the Aetolian diet declared that
Aetolia might sooner be removed from its place than this principle
from their national code. The Aetolians might have been of great
service to the Greek nation, had they not inflicted still greater
injury on it by this system of organized robbery, by their thorough
hostility to the Achaean confederacy, and by their unhappy antagonism
to the great state of Macedonia.
The Achaeans
In the Peloponnesus, the Achaean league had united the best elements
of Greece proper in a confederacy based on civilization, national
spirit, and peaceful preparation for self-defence. But the vigour
and more especially the military efficiency of the league had,
notwithstanding its outward enlargement, been arrested by the selfish
diplomacy of Aratus. The unfortunate variances with Sparta, and the
still more lamentable invocation of Macedonian interference in the
Peloponnesus, had so completely subjected the Achaean league to
Macedonian supremacy, that the chief fortresses of the country
thenceforward received Macedonian garrisons, and the oath of
fidelity to Philip was annually taken there.
Sparta, Elis, Messene
The policy of the weaker states in the Peloponnesus, Messene, and
Sparta, was determined by their ancient enmity to the Achaean league
--an enmity specially fostered by disputes regarding their frontiers
--and their tendencies were Aetolian and anti-Macedonian, because
the Achaeans took part with Philip. The only one of these states
possessing any importance was the Spartan military monarchy, which
after the death of Machanidas had passed into the hands of one Nabis.
With ever-increasing hardihood Nabis leaned on the support of
vagabonds and itinerant mercenaries, to whom he assigned not only the
houses and lands, but also the wives and children, of the citizens;
and he assiduously maintained connections, and even entered into an
association for the joint prosecution of piracy, with the great refuge
of mercenaries and pirates, the island of Crete, where he possessed
some townships. His predatory expeditions by land, and the piratical
vessels which he maintained at the promontory of Malea, were dreaded
far and wide; he was personally hated for his baseness and cruelty;
but his rule was extending, and about the time of the battle of Zama
he had even succeeded in gaining possession of Messene.
League of the Greek Cities
Rhodes
Lastly, the most independent position among the intermediate states
was held by the free Greek mercantile cities on the European shore of
the Propontis as well as along the whole coast of Asia Minor, and on
the islands of the Aegean Sea; they formed, at the same time, the
brightest elements in the confused and multifarious picture which was
presented by the Hellenic state-system. Three of them, in particular,
had after Alexander's death again enjoyed their full freedom, and by
the activity of their maritime commerce had attained to respectable
political power and even to considerable territorial possessions;
namely, Byzantium the mistress of the Bosporus, rendered wealthy and
powerful by the transit dues which she levied and by the important
corn trade carried on with the Black Sea; Cyzicus on the Asiatic side
of the Propontis, the daughter and heiress of Miletus, maintaining
the closest relations with the court of Pergamus; and lastly and
above all, Rhodes. The Rhodians, who immediately after the death
of Alexander had expelled the Macedonian garrison had, by their
favourable position for commerce and navigation, secured the carrying
trade of all the eastern Mediterranean; and their well-handled fleet,
as well as the tried courage of the citizens in the famous siege of
450, enabled them in that age of promiscuous and ceaseless hostilities
to become the prudent and energetic representatives and, when occasion
required, champions of a neutral commercial policy. They compelled
the Byzantines, for instance, by force of arms to concede to the
vessels of Rhodes exemption from dues in the Bosporus; and they did
not permit the dynast of Pergamus to close the Black Sea. On the
other hand they kept themselves, as far as possible, aloof from land
warfare, although they had acquired no inconsiderable possessions on
the opposite coast of Caria; where war could not be avoided, they
carried it on by means of mercenaries. With their neighbours on
all sides they were in friendly relations--with Syracuse, Macedonia,
Syria, but more especially with Egypt--and they enjoyed high
consideration at these courts, so that their mediation was not
unfrequently invoked in the wars of the great states. But they
interested themselves quite specially on behalf of the Greek maritime
cities, which were so numerously spread along the coasts of the
kingdoms of Pontus, Bithynia, and Pergamus, as well as on the coasts
and islands of Asia Minor that had been wrested by Egypt from the
Seleucidae; such as Sinope, Heraclea Pontica, Cius, Lampsacus, Abydos,
Mitylene, Chios, Smyrna, Samos, Halicarnassus and various others. All
these were in substance free and had nothing to do with the lords of
the soil except to ask for the confirmation of their privileges and,
at most, to pay a moderate tribute: such encroachments, as from time
to time were threatened by the dynasts, were skilfully warded off
sometimes by cringing, sometimes by strong measures. In this case the
Rhodians were their chief auxiliaries; they emphatically supported
Sinope, for instance, against Mithradates of Pontus. How firmly
amidst the quarrels, and by means of the very differences, of the
monarchs the liberties of these cities of Asia Minor were established,
is shown by the fact, that the dispute between Antiochus and the
Romans some years after this time related not to the freedom of these
cities in itself, but to the question whether they were to ask
confirmation of their charters from the king or not. This league of
the cities was, in this peculiar attitude towards the lords of the
soil as well as in other respects, a formal Hanseatic association,
headed by Rhodes, which negotiated and stipulated in treaties for
itself and its allies. This league upheld the freedom of the cities
against monarchical interests; and while wars raged around their
walls, public spirit and civic prosperity were sheltered in
comparative peace within, and art and science flourished without
the risk of being crushed by a dissolute soldiery or corrupted
by the atmosphere of a court.
Philip, King of Macedonia
Such was the state of things in the east, at the time when the wall of
political separation between the east and the west was broken down and
the eastern powers, Philip of Macedonia leading the way, were induced
to interfere in the relations of the west. We have already set forth
to some extent the origin of this interference and the course of the
first Macedonian war (540-549); and we have pointed out what Philip
might have accomplished during the second Punic war, and how little
of all that Hannibal was entitled to expect and to count on was really
fulfilled. A fresh illustration had been afforded of the truth, that
of all haphazards none is more hazardous than an absolute hereditary
monarchy. Philip was not the man whom Macedonia at that time
required; yet his gifts were far from insignificant He was a genuine
king, in the best and worst sense of the term. A strong desire to
rule in person and unaided was the fundamental trait of his character;
he was proud of his purple, but he was no less proud of other gifts,
and he had reason to be so. He not only showed the valour of a
soldier and the eye of a general, but he displayed a high spirit in
the conduct of public affairs, whenever his Macedonian sense of honour
was offended. Full of intelligence and wit, he won the hearts of all
whom he wished to gain, especially of the men who were ablest and most
refined, such as Flamininus and Scipio; he was a pleasant boon
companion and, not by virtue of his rank alone, a dangerous wooer.
But he was at the same time one of the most arrogant and flagitious
characters, which that shameless age produced. He was in the habit of
saying that he feared none save the gods; but it seemed almost as if
his gods were those to whom his admiral Dicaearchus regularly offered
sacrifice--Godlessness (-Asebeia-) and Lawlessness (-Paranomia-). The
lives of his advisers and of the promoters of his schemes possessed no
sacredness in his eyes, nor did he disdain to pacify his indignation
against the Athenians and Attalus by the destruction of venerable
monuments and illustrious works of art; it is quoted as one of his
maxims of state, that "whoever causes the father to be put to death
must also kill the sons." It may be that to him cruelty was not,
strictly, a delight; but he was indifferent to the lives and
sufferings of others, and relenting, which alone renders men
tolerable, found no place in his hard and stubborn heart. So abruptly
and harshly did he proclaim the principle that no promise and no moral
law are binding on an absolute king, that he thereby interposed the
most serious obstacles to the success of his plans. No one can deny
that he possessed sagacity and resolution, but these were, in a
singular manner, combined with procrastination and supineness; which
is perhaps partly to be explained by the fact, that he was called in
his eighteenth year to the position of an absolute sovereign, and that
his ungovernable fury against every one who disturbed his autocratic
course by counter-argument or counter-advice scared away from him all
independent counsellors. What various causes cooperated to produce
the weak and disgraceful management which he showed in the first
Macedonian war, we cannot tell; it may have been due perhaps to that
indolent arrogance which only puts forth its full energies against
danger when it becomes imminent, or perhaps to his indifference
towards a plan which was not of his own devising and his jealousy of
the greatness of Hannibal which put him to shame. It is certain that
his subsequent conduct betrayed no further trace of the Philip,
through whose negligence the plan of Hannibal suffered shipwreck.
Macedonia and Asia Attack Egypt
When Philip concluded his treaty with the Aetolians and Romans in
548-9, he seriously intended to make a lasting peace with Rome, and
to devote himself exclusively in future to the affairs of the east.
It admits of no doubt that he saw with regret the rapid subjugation of
Carthage; and it may be, that Hannibal hoped for a second declaration
of war from Macedonia, and that Philip secretly reinforced the last
Carthaginian army with mercenaries.(2) But the tedious affairs in
which he had meanwhile involved himself in the east, as well as the
nature of the alleged support, and especially the total silence of the
Romans as to such a breach of the peace while they were searching for
grounds of war, place it beyond doubt, that Philip was by no means
disposed in 551 to make up for what he ought to have done ten years
before. He had turned his eyes to an entirely different quarter.
Ptolemy Philopator of Egypt had died in 549. Philip and Antiochus,
the kings of Macedonia and Asia, had combined against his successor
Ptolemy Epiphanes, a child of five years old, in order completely
to gratify the ancient grudge which the monarchies of the mainland
entertained towards the maritime state. The Egyptian state was to be
broken up; Egypt and Cyprus were to fall to Antiochus Cyrene, Ionia,
and the Cyclades to Philip. Thoroughly after the manner of Philip,
who ridiculed such considerations, the kings began the war not merely
without cause but even without pretext, "just as the large fishes
devour the small." The allies, moreover, had made their calculations
correctly, especially Philip. Egypt had enough to do in defending
herself against the nearer enemy in Syria, and was obliged to leave
her possessions in Asia Minor and the Cyclades undefended when Philip
threw himself upon these as his share of the spoil. In the year in
which Carthage concluded peace with Rome (553), Philip ordered a fleet
equipped by the towns subject to him to take on board troops, and to
sail along the coast of Thrace. There Lysimachia was taken from the
Aetolian garrison, and Perinthus, which stood in the relation of
clientship to Byzantium, was likewise occupied. Thus the peace was
broken as respected the Byzantines; and as respected the Aetolians,
who had just made peace with Philip, the good understanding was
at least disturbed. The crossing to Asia was attended with no
difficulties, for Prusias king of Bithynia was in alliance with
Macedonia. By way of recompense, Philip helped him to subdue the
Greek mercantile cities in his territory. Chalcedon submitted.
Cius, which resisted, was taken by storm and levelled with the ground,
and its inhabitants were reduced to slavery--a meaningless barbarity,
which annoyed Prusias himself who wished to get possession of the town
uninjured, and which excited profound indignation throughout the
Hellenic world. The Aetolians, whose -strategus- had commanded
in Cius, and the Rhodians, whose attempts at mediation had been
contemptuously and craftily frustrated by the king, were
especially offended.
The Rhodian Hansa and Pergamus Oppose Philip
But even had this not been so, the interests of all Greek commercial
cities were at stake. They could not possibly allow the mild and
almost purely nominal Egyptian rule to be supplanted by the Macedonian
despotism, with which urban self-government and freedom of commercial
intercourse were not at all compatible; and the fearful treatment
of the Cians showed that the matter at stake was not the right of
confirming the charters of the towns, but the life or death of one and
all. Lampsacus had already fallen, and Thasos had been treated like
Cius; no time was to be lost. Theophiliscus, the vigilant -strategus-
of Rhodes, exhorted his citizens to meet the common danger by common
resistance, and not to suffer the towns and islands to become one by
one a prey to the enemy. Rhodes resolved on its course, and declared
war against Philip. Byzantium joined it; as did also the aged Attalus
king of Pergamus, personally and politically the enemy of Philip.
While the fleet of the allies was mustering on the Aeolian coast,
Philip directed a portion of his fleet to take Chios and Samos. With
the other portion he appeared in person before Pergamus, which however
he invested in vain; he had to content himself with traversing the
level country and leaving the traces of Macedonian valour on the
temples which he destroyed far and wide. Suddenly he departed and
re-embarked, to unite with his squadron which was at Samos. But the
Rhodo-Pergamene fleet followed him, and forced him to accept battle in
the straits of Chios. The number of the Macedonian decked vessels
was smaller, but the multitude of their open boats made up for this
inequality, and the soldiers of Philip fought with great courage.
But he was at length defeated. Almost half of his decked vessels,
24 sail, were sunk or taken; 6000 Macedonian sailors and 3000 soldiers
perished, amongst whom was the admiral Democrates; 2000 were taken
prisoners. The victory cost the allies no more than 800 men and six
vessels. But, of the leaders of the allies, Attalus had been cut off
from his fleet and compelled to let his own vessel run aground at
Erythrae; and Theophiliscus of Rhodes, whose public spirit had decided
the question of war and whose valour had decided the battle, died on
the day after it of his wounds. Thus while the fleet of Attalus went
home and the Rhodian fleet remained temporarily at Chios, Philip, who
falsely ascribed the victory to himself, was able to continue his
voyage and to turn towards Samos, in order to occupy the Carian towns.
On the Carian coast the Rhodians, not on this occasion supported by
Attalus, gave battle for the second time to the Macedonian fleet under
Heraclides, near the little island of Lade in front of the port of
Miletus. The victory, claimed again by both sides, appears to have
been this time gained by the Macedonians; for while the Rhodians
retreated to Myndus and thence to Cos, the Macedonians occupied
Miletus, and a squadron under Dicaearchus the Aetolian occupied the
Cyclades. Philip meanwhile prosecuted the conquest of the Rhodian
possessions on the Carian mainland, and of the Greek cities: had he
been disposed to attack Ptolemy in person, and had he not preferred to
confine himself to the acquisition of his own share in the spoil, he
would now have been able to think even of an expedition to Egypt. In
Caria no army confronted the Macedonians, and Philip traversed without
hindrance the country from Magnesia to Mylasa; but every town in that
country was a fortress, and the siege-warfare was protracted without
yielding or promising any considerable results. Zeuxis the satrap of
Lydia supported the ally of his master with the same lukewarmness as
Philip had manifested in promoting the interests of the Syrian king,
and the Greek cities gave their support only under the pressure
of fear or force. The provisioning of the army became daily more
difficult; Philip was obliged today to plunder those who but yesterday
had voluntarily supplied his wants, and then he had reluctantly to
submit to beg afresh. Thus the good season of the year gradually drew
to an end, and in the interval the Rhodians had reinforced their fleet
and had also been rejoined by that of Attalus, so that they were
decidedly superior at sea. It seemed almost as if they might cut off
the retreat of the king and compel him to take up winter quarters in
Caria, while the state of affairs at home, particularly the threatened
intervention of the Aetolians and Romans, urgently demanded his
return. Philip saw the danger; he left garrisons amounting together
to 3000 men, partly in Myrina to keep Pergamus in check, partly in
the petty towns round Mylasa--Iassus, Bargylia, Euromus and Pedasa
--to secure for him the excellent harbour and a landing place in
Caria; and, owing to the negligence with which the allies guarded the
sea, he succeeded in safely reaching the Thracian coast with his fleet
and arriving at home before the winter of 553-4.