of the several chiefs. The most noted corps of veterans, Argyraspides
(i.e. the royal Hypaspistae) played a great part in the first
wars of the successors, and covered themselves with infamy by their
betrayal of Eumenes. As the soldiers of Alexander died off, fresh
levies of home-born Macedonians could be raised only by the chief
who held the motherland. The other chiefs had to supply themselves
with Macedonians from the numerous colonies planted before the
break-up of the empire in Asia or Egypt, and from such Macedonians
they continued for the next two centuries to form their phalanx.
The breed—at least if the statement which Livy puts into the mouth
of a Roman general can be relied on—degenerated greatly under
Asiatic and Egyptian skies (Liv. xxxviii. 17, 10); but still old names
like that of pezetaeri attached to the phalangites (Plut. Tib. 17),
and they still wielded the national sarissa. The latter weapon in
the interval between Alexander and the time of Polybius had been
increased to a length of 21 ft. (Polyb. xviii. 12), a proportion inconsistent
with any degree of mobility; once more indeed the phalanx
of the 2nd century seems to have become a body effective by
sheer weight only and disordered by unevenness of ground. The
Antigonid kings were never able from Macedonian levies to put in
the field a phalanx of more than 20,000 at the utmost (Liv. xlii. 51);
Antigonus Doson takes with him to Greece (in 222) one of 10,000 only.
The phalanx of Antiochus III. at Raphia numbered 20,000, and
Ptolemy Philopator was able at the same time to form one of 25,000
men (Polyb. v. 4). As these phalangites are distinguished both from
the Greek mercenaries and the native Egyptian levies, it looks
(although such a fact would be staggering) as if more Macedonians
could be raised for military service in Egypt than in Macedonia
itself (but see Beloch, p. 353). The royal foot-guards are still described
in Macedonia in 171 as the agema (Polyb. v. 25, 1; 27, 3; Liv. xlii.
51), when they number 2000; at the Ptolemaic court in 217 the agema
had numbered 3000 (Polyb. v. 65, 2); and a similar corps of hypaspistae
is indicated in the Seleucid army (Polyb. vii. 16, 2; xvi. 18, 7).
So too the old name of “Companions” was kept up in the Seleucid
kingdom for the Macedonian cavalry (see Polyb. v. 53, 4, &c.), and
divisions of rank in it are still indicated by the terms agema and
royal squadron (βασιλικὴ ἵλη, see Bevan, House of Seleucus, ii. 288).
The Antigonid and Seleucid courts had much valuable material at
hand for their armies in the barbarian races under their sway. The
Balkan hill-peoples of Illyrian or Thracian stock, the hill-peoples of
Asia Minor and Iran, the chivalry of Media and Bactria, the mounted
bowmen of the Caspian steppes, the camel-riders of the Arabian
desert, could all be turned to account. Iranian troops seem to
have been employed on a large scale by the earlier Seleucids. At
Raphia, Antiochus III. had 10,000 men drawn from the provinces,
armed and drilled as Macedonians, and another corps of Iranians numbering
5000 under a native commander (Polyb. v. 79). The experiment
of arming the native Egyptians on a large scale does not seem
to have been made before the campaign of 217, when Ptolemy IV.
formed corps of the Macedonian pattern from Egyptians and
Libyans (cf. Polyb. v. 107, 2; Ptolemy I. had employed Egyptians
in the army, though chiefly as carriers, Diod. xix. 80, 4). From
this time native rebellions in Egypt are recurrent. To the troops
drawn from their own dominions the mercenaries which the kings
procured from abroad were an important supplement. These were
mainly the bands of Greek condottieri, and even for their home-born
troops Greek officers of renown were often engaged. The other
class of mercenaries were Gauls, and from the time of the Gallic invasion
of Asia Minor in 279 Gauls or Galatians were a regular constituent
in all armies. They were a weapon apt to be dangerous
to the employer, but the terror they inspired was such that every
potentate sought to get hold of them. The elephants which Alexander
brought back from India were used in the armies of his successors,
and in 302 Seleucus procured a new supply. Thenceforward elephants,
either brought fresh from India or bred in the royal stables
at Apamea, regularly figured in the Seleucid armies. The Ptolemies
supplied themselves with this arm from the southern coasts of the
Red Sea, where they established stations for the capture and shipping
of elephants, but the African variety was held inferior to the Indian.
Scythed chariots such as had figured in the old Persian armies were
still used by the Greek masters of Asia (Seleucus I., Diod. xx. 113, 4;
Molon, Polyb. v. 53, 10; Antiochus III., Liv. xxxvii. 41), at any rate
till the battle of Magnesia. The Hellenistic armies were distinguished
by their external magnificence. They made a greater display of
brilliant metal and gorgeous colour than the Roman armies, for
instance. The description given by Justin of the army which Antiochus
Sidetes took to the East in 130 B.C., boot-nails and bridles of
gold, gives an idea of their standard of splendour (Just. xxxviii. 10, 1;
cf. Polyb. xxxi. 3; Plut. Eum. 14; id. Aemil. 18; id. Sulla, 16).
During the 3rd century B.C. Egypt was the greatest sea power of the eastern Mediterranean, and maintained a large fleet (the figures in App. Prooem, 10 are not trustworthy, see Beloch III. [i.], 364). Its control of the Aegean was, however, contested not without success by the Antigonids, who won the two great sea-fights of Cos (c. 256) and Andros (227), and wrested the overlordship of the Cyclades from the Ptolemies. Of the numbers and constitution of the Antigonid fleet we know nothing.[1] At the Seleucid court in 222 the admiral (ναύαρχος) appears as a person of high consideration (Polyb. v. 43, 1); in his war with Rome Antiochus III. had 107 decked battleships on the sea at one time. By the Peace of Apamea (188) the Seleucid navy was abolished; Antiochus undertook to keep no more than 10 ships of war.
For the Hellenistic armies and fleets see A. Bauer in L. von Müller’s Handbuch, vol. iv.; Delbrück, Gesch. d. Kriegskunst (1900).
To their native subjects the Seleucid and Ptolemaic kings were always foreigners. It was considered wonderful in the last Cleopatra that she learnt to speak Egyptian (Plut. Anton. 27). Natives were employed, as we have 11. Treatment of Subject Peoples. seen, in the army, and Iranians are found under the Seleucids holding high commands, e.g. Aspasianus the Mede (Polyb. v. 79, 7), Aribazus, governor of Cilicia (Flinders Petrie, Papyri, II., No. 45), Aribazus, governor of Sardis (Polyb. vii. 17, 9), and Omanes (Michel, No. 19, l. 104). Native cults the Hellenistic kings thought it good policy to patronize. Antiochus I. began rebuilding the temple of Nebo at Borsippa (Keilinschr. Bibl. iii. 2, 136 seq.) Antiochus III. bestowed favours on the Temple at Jerusalem. Even if the documents in Joseph, Arch. xii. §§ 138 seq. are spurious, their general view of the relation of Antiochus III. and Jerusalem is probably true. Even small local worships, like that of the village of Baetocaece, might secure royal patronage (C.I.G. No. 4474). Of course, financial straits might drive the kings to lay hands on temple-treasures, as Antiochus III. and Antiochus IV. did, but that was a measure of emergency.
The Macedonian kingdoms, strained by continual wars, increasingly divided against themselves, falling often under the sway of prodigals and debauchees, were far from realizing the Hellenic idea of sound government 12. Significance of Macedonian Rule. as against the crude barbaric despotisms of the older East. Yet, in spite of all corruption, ideas of the intelligent development of the subject lands, visions of the Hellenic king, as the Greek thinkers had come to picture him, haunted the Macedonian rulers, and perhaps fitfully, in the intervals of war or carousal, prompted some degree of action. Treatises “Concerning Kingship” were produced as a regular thing by philosophers, and kings who claimed the fine flower of Hellenism, could not but peruse them. Strabo regards the loss of the eastern provinces to the Parthians as their passage under a government of lower type, beyond the sphere of Hellenic ἐπιμέγεια (Strabo xi. 509). In the organization of the administrative machinery of these kingdoms, the higher power of the Hellene to adapt and combine had been operative; they were organisms of a richer, more complex type than the East had hitherto known. It was thus that when Rome became a world-empire, it found to some extent the forms of government ready made, and took over from the Hellenistic monarchies a tradition which it handed on to the later world.
Authorities.—For the general history of the Macedonian kingdoms, see Droysen, Histoire de l’Hellénisme (the French translation by Bouché-Leclercq, 1883–1885, represents the work in its final revision); A. Holm, History of Greece, vol. iv. (1894); B. Niese, Geschichte der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten (1893–1903); Kaerst, Gesch. des hellenist. Zeitalters, vol. i. (1901). A masterly conspectus of the general character of the Hellenistic kingdoms in their political, economic and social character, their artistic and intellectual culture is given by Beloch, Griech. Gesch. iii. (i.), 260–556; see also Kaerst, Studien zur Entwicklung d. Monarchie; E. Breccia, Il Diritto dinastico helle monarchie dei successori d’Alessandro Magno (1903). Popular sketches of the history, enlightened by special knowledge and a wide outlook, are given by J. P. Mahaffy, Alexander’s Empire (“Stories of the Nations Series”); Progress of Hellenism in Alexander’s Empire (1905); The Silver Age of the Greek World (1906). See also Hellenism; Ptolemies; Seleucid Dynasty. (E. R. B.)
MACEDONIUS, (1) bishop of Constantinople in succession to
Eusebius of Nicomedia, was elected by the Arian bishops in 341,
while the orthodox party elected Paul, whom Eusebius had
superseded. The partisans of the two rivals involved the city
in a tumultuous broil, and were not quelled until the emperor
Constantius II. banished Paul. Macedonius was recognized
as patriarch in 342. Compelled by the intervention of Constans
in 348 to resign the patriarchate in favour of his former opponent,
he was reinstalled in 350. He then took vengeance on
his opponents by a general persecution of the adherents of the
- ↑ For the Antigonid ναύαρχος or admiral, see Polyb. xvi. 6.
