Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire (42 page)

Chapter 8

1
. The main ancient sources are DS 18.58–63, 73, 19.12–5, 17–32, 34.7–8, 37–44; Plutarch,
Life of Eumenes
13–9. My discussion is indebted above all to Bosworth 2002, ch. 4.

2
. DS 19.12.3–13.5 contains more details of Eumenes’ departure, or escape, from Babylonia.

3
. DS 19.41.1.

4
. Curtius 4.15.7.

5
. DS 19.46.1.

6
. DS 19.48.3.

7
. Details of Chandragupta’s administration may be found in Mookerji 1966/1999.

8
. They are preserved as
FGrH
715.

9
. If it was a drunken rampage. The destruction of the palace may have been an act of policy; archaeology has revealed that the rooms were emptied of their treasures before the fire was set. See e.g. Fredricksmeyer 2000, 145–9.

10
. Phylarchus fr. 12 (
FGrH
81 F 12).

11
. The evidence for Antigonus’s administration of Asia is exiguous. Billows 1990, chs. 7 and 8, has made the most of it.

12
. Arrian,
Anabasis
2.4.8–9; Curtius 4.1.13–14.

Chapter 9

1
. DS 19.56.2.

2
. Ps.-Aristotle,
Oeconomica
1345b–1346a; for the assignation of this passage to Antigonus’s times, see Billows 1990, 289–90; for further discussion of the passage, Aperghis 2004b, 117–35.

3
.
SIG
³
344 = Welles 3, Ager 13, Austin 48.

4
. Theophrastus,
Inquiry into Plants
4.8.4.

5
. DS 19.90.4; see also Appian,
Syrian History
56.

6
. Text at DS 19.61.1–3 = Austin 35.

7
. DS 19.63.2.

8
. DS 19.63.4.

9
. An inscription has survived,
IG
II
²
450, that places Asander in Athens in the winter of 314/313, but whether his visit preceded or followed Prepelaus’s expedition to Caria is uncertain.

Chapter 10

1
. Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
6.1.

2
. Details of the Nabataean campaign can be found in DS 19.94–100.2.

3
.
The Devil’s Dictionary
(1911), s.v.

4
. Text in Austin 38–9; Bagnall/Derow 6; Harding 132.

5
. Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
7.3.

6
. AD (Astronomical Diaries) 1–309, obv. 9, available at
http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/bchp-diadochi/diadochi_06.html
.

7
. ABC (
Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles
) 10: rev. 23–25, available at
http://www.livius.org/di-dn/diadochi/diadochi_t23.html
.

8
. Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
19.4

Chapter 11

1
. DS 19.105.4.

2
. As late as 305 in Egypt:
P.Dem. Louvre
2427, 2440.

3
. Plutarch,
On Spinelessness
530d. There has been speculation in the press that the new royal grave discovered at Aegae/Vergina in 2009 is that of Heracles (see e.g.
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_0_31/08/2009_110269
), but it is far too soon to tell.

4
. “A monument to the rewards of carefully limited ambitions” is Green’s description (quoted in Ellis 1994, 66).

5
. DS 20.37.2.

6
. See Dixon 2007, 173–75.

7
. For more on Cleopatra, see Carney 2000a, and Meeus 2009.

8
. DS 20.106.2–3.

9
. Habicht 1997, 153–54.

10
. Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
10.3.

11
. On the library, see Canfora 1990; Collins 2000; Erskine 1995.

12
. The definitive account of Alexandria is Fraser 1972; Green 1990, ch. 6, is considerably shorter.

13
. On the Septuagint, see Collins 2000.

14
. The famous earlier fire, in the time of Julius Caesar, did not, as is usually thought, damage the main library. See Canfora, 66–70.

15
. P.-A. Beaulieu in Briant and Joannès 2006, 17–36.

16
. See e.g. Plato,
Timaeus
22a–23b.

17
. Theocritus’s
Idyll
17 in praise of Ptolemy II is a prime example.

18
. “In the populous land of Egypt there is a crowd of bookish scribblers who get fed as they argue away interminably in the birdcage of the Muses,” said the satirist Timon of Phlius (fr. 60 Wachsmuth; fr. 12 Diels).

Chapter 12

1
.
IG
II
²
469.9–10. A photograph of this decree is available, thanks to the Oxford University Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, at
http://www.csad.ox.ac.uk/CSAD/Images/200/Image286.html
.

2
. See P. Anderson, “The Divisions of Cyprus,”
London Review of Books
30.8 (April 24, 2008), 7–16; or online at
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v 30/n 08/perryanderson/the-divisions-of-cyprus
.

3
. Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
17.5; see also Appian,
Syrian History
54; DS 20. 53.2.

4
. Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
25.4; see also Plutarch,
Precepts of Statecraft
823c–d; Phylarchus fr. 31 (
FGrH
81 F 31). For discussion, see Hauben 1974.

5
. Bosworth 2002, 246.

6
. The nature of Hellenistic monarchy is, naturally, much debated. See especially Austin 1986; Bosworth 2002, ch. 7; Bringmann 1994; Beston 2000; Chamoux 2003, ch. 7; Gruen 1985; Ma 2003; Smith 1988; Walbank 1984.

7
. Niccolò Machiavelli,
The Prince
, ch. 14 (trans. N. H. Thomson).

8
. Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
42.3.

9
. Plutarch,
Whether Old Men Should Engage in Politics
790a.

10
. Appian,
Syrian History
61.

11
. Durrell’s
Reflections on a Marine Venus
(London: Faber and Faber, 1953) contains a spirited account of the siege, in a chapter perhaps unfortunately titled “The Sunny Colossus.” Durrell is not unsound, but Berthold (1984, 66–80) is better.

12
. Polybius,
Histories
12.13.11. On Hellenistic technology in general, Lloyd 1973, ch. 7, but for technical details, see Oleson 2008. Demetrius’s snail was reconstructed in theory by A. Rehm, “Antike Automobile,”
Philologus
317 (1937), 317–30.

13
. Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
24.1.

14
. e.g. DS 22.92.3, Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
2.2.

15
.
The Flatterer
, fr. 4 Arnott; Athenaeus,
The Learned Banqueters
587d. The line is addressed to a soldier, who in Menander’s comedies of the period was often a Demetrius look-alike. See S. Lape,
Reproducing Athens: Menander’s Comedy, Democratic Culture, and the Hellenistic City
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 61–3.

16
. Heckel 1992, 188.

17
. A fragmentary constitution of the league survives:
IG
IV
²
1.68 = Austin 50; Harding 138; Bagnall/Derow 8; Ager 14.

18
. Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
3.

Chapter 13

1
. Studies stressing or discussing Seleucid continuation of Achaemenid practices: Aperghis 2008; Briant 1990, 2010; Briant and Joannès 2006; Kuhrt and Sherwin-White 1988, 1994; McKenzie 1994; Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993; Tuplin 2008; Wolski 1984. For continuity in Ptolemaic Egypt: Manning 2010.

2
. Curtius 9.1.1–2.

3
. This paragraph skates over considerable debate about the degree of constitutionalism in early Macedon. See especially Adams 1986; Anson,1985, 1991, 2008; Borza 1990 (ch. 10); Carlier 2000; Errington 1974, 1978, 1990 (ch. 6); Greenwalt 2010; Hammond 1989, 1993, 1999, 2000; Hammond and Walbank 1988; Hatzopoulos 1996; Lock 1977; Mooren 1983, 1998; O’Neil 1999, 2000.

4
. Leriche in Cribb and Herrmann 2007, 131, 134.

5
. Some idea of the increasing importance of gymnasia, and the increasing civic power wielded by their directors, is given by a second-century inscription from Macedon: Austin 137 = Bagnall/Derow 78.

6
. Eddy 1961, 19.

7
. More detailed studies of taxation in early Ptolemaic Egypt: Bingen 2007 and Thompson 1997; in early Seleucid Asia: Aperghis 2004b.

8
. e.g. Polybius,
Histories
30.26.9 on Antiochus IV (175–64).

9
.
P.Tebt
. III 703 (= Bagnall/Derow 103, Burstein 101, Austin 319) gives a good impression of what a minor official was expected to do to ensure the system’s smooth and profitable running.
P.Rev.
(= Bagnall/Derow 114, Austin 296–97) is another vital document for understanding the Ptolemaic taxation system; commentary in Bingen 2007, 157–88.

10
. It is, of course, hard to be exact about such figures. See Manning 2010, 125–27.

11
. Jenkins 1967, 59.

12
. e.g.
P.Col.Zen
. II 66 = Bagnall/Derow 137, Austin 307;
P.Ryl
. IV 563 = Bagnall/Derow 90;
P.Lond
. 1954 = Austin 302;
P.Cairo Zen
. 59451 = Austin 308.

Chapter 14

1
. Will 1984, 61.

2
. Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
30.1.

3
. Athenaeus,
The Learned Banqueters
98d.

4
. Polyaenus,
Stratagems
4.12.1. See Bosworth 2002, 248–49, for dating this episode during the raids described by Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
31.2.

5
. See Grainger 1990a.

6
. Polybius,
Histories
5.46.7, 54.12.

7
. Most of the story of this remarkable woman lies outside the period covered in this book, but see Carney 2000a, 173–77; Macurdy 1932/1985, 111–30; S. Burstein, “Arsinoe II Philadelphos: A Revisionist View,” in W. L. Adams and E. N. Borza (eds),
Philip II, Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Heritage
(Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982), 197–212.

8
. Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
33.1.

9
. Where, in typical Successor fashion, he renamed the city he made his seat: Heraclea became Pleistarcheia. The defensive walls built probably by Pleistarchus are among the best preserved early Hellenistic fortifications: see McNicoll and Milner 1997, 75–81.

10
. Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
34.2.

11
. A stoa was a building containing offices and/or meeting rooms, but consisting most prominently of a long, covered colonnade designed for shelter from the elements; the stoas were therefore popular meeting places. The reconstructed Stoa of Attalus in the Athenian agora gives the best impression.

12
. The therapeutic aspect of Hellenistic philosophy has only recently become more accepted within scholarly circles, thanks especially to Hadot 2002; Sharples 2006 is a good product of the new thinking.

13
. Antiphon, Andocides, Lysias, Isocrates, Isaeus, Demosthenes, Aeschines, Lycurgus, Hyperides, and Deinarchus.

Chapter 15

1
. Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
36.12.

2
. The expression was coined by a later Macedonian king, Philip V (222–179), according to Polybius,
Histories
18.11.5.

3
. Delev 2000.