Alexander left Greece in 334 and left the eastern edges of the Greek world in 330. During this time, when he was physically abroad but still a palpable presence in Greece, the Macedonian hegemony stood on the treaties between Alexander and the Greeks, Alexander’s own will, and Macedonia’s real and perceived ability to enforce that will. At the center of these three was Antipater, the commander of Macedonian forces in Greece, and so a discussion of Macedonian power in Greece must begin by examining his position, duties, and actions.

When he began his invasion of Asia, Alexander had to leave someone in charge of the Macedonian troops he left behind in Europe, and Kanatsulis suggests that Antipater got this job simply because Philip had already assigned it to him, at the same time Parmenio, Amyntas, and Attalus were dispatched to lead an advanced party to the Hellespont (Diod. 16.91.1-2, 17.7.4; Justin 9.5.8).⁸⁰ Certainly the speed with which Alexander assumed his father’s position in Macedonia, waged a campaign in the north, cowed the Greeks, and launched his invasion left little time for tinkering with any parts of his father’s plan that were well settled. Antipater was also the logical choice, having served before as “regent” in Pella during the king’s absence. In 342, when Philip was campaigning in Thrace, Antipater seems to have served as the public representative of the Macedonian state. During this time, Isocrates addressed a letter to Antipater, rather than to Philip (Ep. 4.1), and the Pythian games, sponsored by Philip, were presided over by Antipater in 342Libanius mentions “the Pythian games of Antipater” (τὰ Ἀντιπάτρου Πύθια ) (Liban. Decl. 23.1.66; cf. Dem. Phil. III 9.32).⁸¹ Antipater and Alexander may actually have shared the management of Macedonia during Philip’s campaigns of 344-342 BC, for in addition to Antipater’s visibility in the public sphere we have Plutarch’s comment that “When Philip was waging war against Byzantium, Alexander was fifteen but was left as regent in Macedonia, charged with affairs and with the seal…” (Φιλίππου δὲ στρατεύοντος ἐπὶ Βυζαντίους, ἦν μὲν ἑκκαιδεκέτης ὁ Ἀλέξανδρος, ἀπολειφθεὶς δὲ κύριος ἐν Μακεδονίᾳ τῶν πραγμάτων καὶ τῆς σφραγῖδος ) (Alex. 9.1).⁸² Later, Antipater and Alexander again served together as emissaries to Athens after the battle of Chaeronea (Justin 9.4.5; Polyb. 5.10; Plut. Dem. 22; Hyp. Fr. B 19.2-5 [cols. 77-80]).

We may also assume that Antipater was in charge of Macedonia during Alexander’s march to the Danube in 335, soon after he had secured himself as Philip’s successor. Dinarchus says that the Arcadians received envoys from the Thebans, who were in revolt from Macedonia, but rejected Macedonian envoys; the orator states explicitly that this embassy was sent by Antipater (τὴν μὲν par*) Ἀντιπάτρου πρεσβείαν ) (Din. In Dem. 18). When Alexander marched southward toward Thebes, Arrian says (1.7.6): And then those leading the rebellion said that Antipater’s army was coming out of Macedonia, but they were firm in saying that Alexander himself had died, and they were angry with those announcing that Alexander himself was approachingthey said, rather, that another Alexander, the son of Aeropus, was coming. καὶ τότε δὲ οἱ πράξαντες τὴν ἀπόστασιν στράτευμα ἐκ Μακεδονίας Ἀντιπάτρου ἀφῖχθαι ἔφασκον, αὐτὸν δὲ Ἀλέξανδρον τεθνάναι ἰσχυρίζοντο, καὶ τοῖς ἀπαγγέλλουσιν ὅτι οὗτος αὐτὸς προσάγει Ἀλέξανδρος χαλεπῶς εἶχον· ἄλλον γάρ τινα ἥκειν Ἀλέξανδρον τὸν Ἀερόπου.

The Greeks assumed that in Alexander’s absence any Macedonian army must be led by Antipater.

Perhaps more important than Antipater’s previous experience is the debt Alexander owed him, for he was the first of Philip’s generals to acknowledge Alexander as successor (Arr. 25.1; Curt. 3.1.6-7; Justin 11.1.8 and 11.2.2; Diod. 17.2.2).⁸³ Antipater’s stature among Macedonians, and that of Parmenio who was also quick to hail Alexander as leader, were indispensable to the would-be king.⁸⁴

Antipater’s position of responsibility in Pella may have been at least partially a reward for his support, but the newly acclaimed king may have had a less positive reason for leaving this general behind. Alexander surrounded himself closely with people loyal, first and last, to Alexander, and he seems to have been wary of his father’s old friends whose loyalty was not personal and unquestioning.⁸⁵ It is, of course, hardly likely that Alexander would have left Antipater in Pella with an army unless he deemed him loyal. There is, however, a difference between loyal service and devotion to an individual. Both Antipater and Parmenio advised Alexander against launching his expedition in 334, reasoning that the king would do well to father an heir first (Diod. 17.62.2). This advice was clearly an expression of loyalty to Macedonia. But it also questioned Alexander’s judgment, and it might have suggested to him that these two generals had doubts about the outcome of war with Persia. Such advice shows Antipater and Parmenio to have been thinking of Macedonia in terms that did not necessarily depend on Alexander, and Alexander may not have appreciated such concern for events beyond his death; as P. Green says, “there was always a streak of après moi le déluge about him.” ⁸⁶ By leaving Antipater in Pella, Alexander could at once take advantage of his experience, reward him with an important job, allow him to work for the good of Macedonia, and keep him separate from Parmenio, thus reducing the number of potentially dissenting voices in his expeditionary force.

We have no satisfying description of Antipater’s duties or powers. There are ample precedents for a Macedonian leader’s leaving an official caretaker behind, and for a state such as Macedonia, ruled by a soldier-monarch and almost constantly at war, it is hard to imagine any other arrangement. Thucydides tells us that in 432 bc Perdiccas II left Iolaus as “leader” (Ἰόλαον a)nq*) αὑτοῦ καταστήσας ἄρχοντα ) (1.62.3), and when Philip II was warring in Thrace, 340, Alexander “was left behind in charge of matters in Macedonia and of the seal” (ἀπολειφθεὶς δὲ κύριος ἐν Μακεδονίᾳ τῶν πραγμάτων καὶ τῆς σφραγῖδος ) (Plut. Alex. 9.1).⁸⁷ Our sources for Antipater’s position are not consistent, or specific, in their terms. Diodorus says that Antipater “was left behind by Alexander as general over Europe” (ἐπὶ τῆς Εὐρώπης στρατηγὸν u(p*) αὐτοῦ καταλειφθέντα ) (Diod. 17.118.1) or as “general of Europe” (στρατηγὸς τῆς Εὐρώπης ) (18.12.1), and that Antipater “held the ἡγεμονία over the soldiers remaining in Europe” (οἱ d*) ἐπὶ Εὐρώπης ἀπολελειμμένοι στρατιῶται, ὦν Ἀντίπατρος εἶχε τὴν ἡγεμονίαν ) (17.17.5). Hammond notes that Diodorus’ description here is inconsistent with his mention of a στρατηγὸς τῆς Θρᾴκης , a general of Thrace (Diod. 17.62.5).⁸⁸ The contemporary sources, the Attic orators, refer to Antipater by name alone, and it is possible that Diodorus’ choice of στρατηγός is informed by Hellenistic terminology.⁸⁹ Arrian describes Antipater’s position without using a title: “And at the beginning of spring [Alexander] marched out to the Hellespont, having entrusted the affairs of Macedonia and the Greeks to Antipater” (ἅμα δὲ τῷ ἦρι ἀρχομένῳ ἐξελαύνει e)f*) Ἑλλησπόντου, τὰ μὲν κατὰ Μακεδονίαν τε καὶ τοὺς Ἕλληνας Ἀντιπάτρῳ ἐπιτρέψας ) (1.11.3). But Arrian’s description, while less likely to be anachronistic, is even more vague.

What were “the affairs of Macedonia and the Greeks” to include? We cannot answer this question formally or institutionally in any satisfying way, largely because Macedonian politics seem never to have been formal or institutional.⁹⁰ Nevertheless, a broad outline does emerge. The governance of Macedonia was traditionally in the hands of a “king” (who is always referred to by name, with no title), and the “Macedones”.⁹¹ This bipartite governance appears on inscriptions in the fifth-century bc, in the context of a treaty between Macedonia and Athens, c. 415.⁹² The term “Macedones” seems to refer to a citizen-assembly, probably limited to the Macedonian soldiery.⁹³ The Macedones were called to assembly by the king or some acceptable substitute, but were also the body who selected a king by acclamation (Aul. Gell. An. 15.20.10; Diod. 16.22.3; Curt. 6.8.23).⁹⁴ Given this tradition, and the evidence we have seen for Antipater’s being in some way “entrusted” with Macedonian “affairs”, we should probably assume that Antipater could call assemblies of those Macedones in Macedonia whenever necessary. Pausaniaswho assiduously uses the phrase “[the king’s name] and the Macedones” to refer to the Macedonian state⁹⁵twice describes European Macedonia during Alexander’s absence as “Antipater and the Macedones” (1.13.6; 3.10.5).

While Antipater’s role in Macedonia itself may have been based on institutional traditions, his position in Greece after 335 was utterly unprecedented. There had never before been a Macedonian “general of Europe”, nor any occasion for a Macedonian king to entrust a general with “the affairs of Macedonia and the Greeks”. Accordingly, Antipater’s position in Greece during Alexander’s absence must be described in terms of his actions. We must see his actions, in turn, against the background of the so-called “Common Peace”. This treaty-organization to a certain extent determined the relationship between Macedonia and the Greeks, although often in ways which were ambiguous and even contradictory.

In 337 BC, after his victory at Chaeronea, Philip II convened representatives of the Greek states at Corinth and persuaded, or compelled, them to join in ratifying a treaty of peace (Diod. 16.89.3). All major states of mainland Greece joined, with the notable exception of Sparta.⁹⁶ The treaty would be reaffirmed, two years later, by Philip’s son Alexander ([Diod.] 17.4; Arr. 1.1.1; Justin 11.2.5; Plut. Alex. 14.1). An inscription from Athens preserves some part of the oaths sworn on this occasion between Philip and the Greek states.⁹⁷ The treaty is commonly known as the “Common Peace”, and although the phrase does not appear on our principal inscription, the term is well attested elsewhere. Tod II 192, dated to 332, refers to ἁπασῶν τῶν πόλεων τῶν τῆς εἰρήνης κοινωνουσῶν , “all those cities sharing in the peace.” The author of the pseudo-Demosthenic speech, περὶ τῶν πρὸς Ἀλεξάνδρον συνθηκῶν , “On the treaty with Alexander” (17), mentions “the common peace” (ἡ κοινὴ εἰρήνη ), as well as “the oath” (ὁ ὅρκος ), “the oaths” (οἱ ὅρκοι ), “the convention” (ἡ συνθήκη ), “the conventions” (αἱ συνθῆκαι ), “the common agreement” (ἡ κοινὴ ὁμολογία ), “the agreements” (αἱ ὁμολογίαι ), “the things agreed upon” (τὰ ὁμολογηθέντα ), “all those sharing the peace” (πάντες τῆς εἰρήνης κοινωνοῦντες ), “the participants” (μετέχοντες ), and “the cities sharing the peace” (αἱ πόλεις αἱ κοινωνοῦσαι τῆς εἰρήνης ).

Before turning to the terms and effects of the Common Peace itself, we should note briefly how modern scholarship has been divided in interpreting it. Some would see the treaty as an effort to foster pan-Hellenic unity, and others would largely dismiss it as a tool for Macedonian domination. Ryder, for instance, offers a warm characterization of the Peace: “Philip had set up his adaptation of the Common Peace treaty form as a standard of liberality for the governing of relations between the Greeks and their Macedonian rulers.” ⁹⁸ Badian is more cautious, allowing the term “Common Peace”, “as long as we note that it was an aggressive Peace.” ⁹⁹ And Cawkwell takes a most cynical stance regarding the treaty of 338: “Philip had got himself voted by the league of Corinth στρατηγὸς αὐτοκράτωρ but in itself this could be regarded as no more than another move of propaganda, masking Philip’s real aim of dominating Greece.” ¹⁰⁰ This debate must continue as long as the argument focuses on intentions, which are inaccessible to the historian, rather than effects, which are not.¹⁰¹ No bald assertion of “liberality” or “propaganda” can adequately fit the evidence of how the Common Peace entered into discourse and acted on events from its formulation in 338 until the tumultuous final years of the Alexander’s life. We will see evidence to show that the mechanisms of the Peace did work to resolve conflicts among Greek states, and that Alexander and Antipater worked through the Council of the Common Peace where they could have acted by fiat. Smaller cities probably welcomed a “Peace” imposed by distant Macedonia as an improvement over the constant interference by the major powers of Sparta, Thebes, and Athens.¹⁰² On the other hand, Macedonia was a hegemonic power, ruling by military might, and Alexander was, finally, answerable to no one. Macedonian garrisons at Thebes, Chalcis, Corinth and Ambracia were not affected by the treaty, and clauses guaranteeing existing governments would, more often than not, work to the advantage of pro-Macedonian governments that had ridden Philip’s coattails.¹⁰³ The tension between the words and deeds of the Common Peace shapes the political history of 338-323 BC, and is particularly important for our treatment of Antipater, who stood between the institution and its ἡγεμών.

Those states who joined the Common Peace swore oaths pledging themselves to remain loyal to the peace and not to break the “treaty” ([ς]υ?νθήκας ) (Tod II 177, ll. 3-5), not to bear arms against other states keeping the treaty (ll.5-8), not to occupy any city, fort, or harbor belonging to those who have joined in the peace (ll. 8-11), not to subvert the kingdom of Philip and his descendants ([οὐδὲ τ]η?̀ν βασιλείαν [τ]ὴν Φ⁄[ιλίππου καὶ τῶν ἐκγόν]ων καταλύσω ) (ll.11-12), not to meddle with the constitutions of each other (par*) ἑκάστοις ) (12-14), to do nothing to violate the treaty but to help others keep it (15-17), anda clause which will be important to our investigation“to help in whatever way, should those being wronged request it, and make war on any transgressor of the common peace in whatever way, should it seem necessary to the common συνέδριον and should the ἡγεμών order it” ([βοηθήσω] καθότι ἂν παραγ⁄[γέλλωσιν οἱ ἀδικούμενοι] καὶ πολεμήσω τῶ⁄[ι τὴν κοινὴν ἐιρήνην παρ]αβαίνοντι καθότι ⁄ [ἂν δοκῆι τῶι κοινῶι συνεδ]ρ?ίωι καὶ ὁ ἡγεμ?ω?̀⁄[ν παραγγέλληι] ) (ll. 17-22).

The council, συνέδριον, of the Common Peace was the body which was to deal with any problems relevant to the Peace. It is tempting to see this council as a toothless instrument for Macedonian propaganda, and some of its attested decrees scarcely admit of any other interpretation, such as when the Spartans were beginning to act against Macedonia in 332, and the σύνεδροι met (under the shadow of a Macedonian garrison on the Acrocorinth) to vote a formal expression of loyalty to Alexander (Diod. 17.48.6; Curt. 4.5.11). But other actions of the council seem to be in complete accord with the oaths of autonomy, mutual assistance, and institutionalized resolution of disputes. For example, an inscription records the συνέδριον’s arbitration between Cimolus and Melos in a dispute over some islands. It begins, “The δῆμος of the Argives judged, according to the decree of the συνέδριον of the Greeks, with the Melians and the Cimoleans agreeing to abide by what the Argives decide regarding the islands” (Ἔκρινε ὁ δᾶμος ὁ τῶν Ἀργείων κατὰ τὸ δόκημα τοῦ συνεδρίου τῶν Ἑλλάνων, ὁμολογησάντων Μαλίων καὶ Κιμωλίων ἐμμενὲν αἷ κα δικάσσαιεν τοὶ Ἀργεῖοι περὶ τᾶν νάσων ).¹⁰⁴ The two states submitted their dispute to the council of the Common Peace, which by means of a decree chose a third party to settle the matter. And while the Common Peace claimed to bring the European Greeks into a loose federation, it did not disband all other, pre-existing federations. Athens and Thebes lost their confederations after the battle of Chaeronea, but we find the Boeotian, Achaean, Arcadian, and Aetolian leagues continuing to exist as formal bodies (Arr. 1.7.11; Diod. 17.3.4; Hyp. In Dem. 18; Plut. Alex. 49.14-15).¹⁰⁵

Actions of the συνέδριον are often difficult to evaluate, either because of the nature or the source of our evidence. For example, Plutarch relates this anecdote (Phoc. 16.4): When Demades moved that the city join the common peace and the συνέδριον of the Greeks, [Phocion] would not accede before he knew what Philip would demand for himself from the Greeks. But he was overruled in this opinion because of the crisis. And when, almost immediately, he saw that the Athenians regretted their decision because they had to provide Philip with triremes and cavalry, he said, ‘I opposed the idea with this very thing in mind; but since it has happened, you should not take it hard, nor be downcast, but you should remember that your ancestors led sometimes and were led at others, but having done both well, they preserved both the city and the rest of Greece.’ ¹⁰⁶ Δημάδου δὲ γράψαντος ὅπως ἡ πόλις μετέχοι τῆς κοινῆς εἰρήνης καὶ τοῦ συνεδρίου τοῖς Ἕλλησιν, οὐκ εἴα πρὸ τοῦ γνῶναι, τίνα Φίλιππος αὑτῷ γενέσθαι παρὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἀξιώσει· κρατηθεὶς δὲ τῇ γνώμῃ διὰ τὸν καιρόν, ὡς εὐθὺς ἑώρα τοὺς Ἀθηναίους μεταμελομένους ὅτι καὶ τριήρεις ἔδει παρέχειν τῷ Φιλίππῳ καὶ ἱππεῖς, ταῦτ᾽ ἔφη φοβούμενος ἠναντιούμην· ἐπεὶ δὲ συνέθεσθε, δεῖ μὴ βαρέως φέρειν mhd*) ἀθυμεῖν, μεμνημένους ὅτι καὶ οἱ πρόγονοί ποτε μὲν ἄρχοντες, ποτὲ d*) ἀρχόμενοι, καλῶς d*) ἀμφότερα ταῦτα ποιοῦντες, καὶ τὴν πόλιν ἔσωσαν καὶ τοὺς Ἕλληνας.

Plutarch’s account suggests that the Common Peace, even before Alexander, struck many Athenians as a burdensome, perhaps even tyrannical, imposition. This anecdote has been taken as an illustration of how the ἡγεμών of the Common Peace could unilaterally make a δόγμα that was legally binding on all member-states.¹⁰⁷ But we have no way of knowing whether Philip alone or the assembled σύνεδροι issued these particular demands; furthermore, the members of the Common Peace did swear oaths that enjoined them to wage war on any transgressors of the Peace, at the orders of the συνέδριον and the ἡγεμών (Tod II 177 ll. 17-22). The Athenians may have chafed at the demands put upon them, but their complaints do not necessarily mean that the Macedonians did anything strictly extra-legal.

The case of the rebellious Chians has also been interpreted as an example of autocracy, the ἡγεμών’s appropriating for himself alone the authority supposedly vested in the συνέδριον. An inscription shows that Alexander imposed a settlement, which forced the Chians to provide twenty triremes, banish the leaders of the rebellion, and admit the return of anyone recently exiled.¹⁰⁸ Because the inscribed decree contains a list of orders “from the king Alexander to the assembly of the Chians” (παρὰ βασιλέως Ἀλε?[ξάνδρ]ου Χίω[ν τῶι] δή[μ]ωι ) (Tod II 192, l. 1), it has been taken as an example of Alexander’s exercising autocratic powers.¹⁰⁹ Alexander clearly imposed the settlement, but there is reason to suspect that the συνέδριον of the Common Peace was also involved, as would be proper according to the oaths.¹¹⁰ The decree orders that those Chians who had been responsible for betraying the city to the Persians “will be exiles from all the cities sharing in the peace, and be outlawed according to the δόγμα of the Greeks” (φεόγειν ⁄ αὀτοὺς ἐξ ἁπασῶν τῶν πόλεων τῶν τῆς εἰρήνης κοινωνου ⁄ σῶν καὶ εἶναι ἀγωγίμους κατὰ τὸ δόγμα τὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ) (ll. 12-14). This is reminiscent of the arbitration between Cimolus and Melos, in which the συνέδριον chose, by means of a δόγμα, a third-party as arbiter.¹¹¹ The decree further stipulates that any other internal disputes arising from the return of exiles is be judged ἐν τῶι τῶν Ἑλλήνων συνεδρίωι , “in the συνέδριον of the Greeks.”

To argue that the Common Peace was in practice nothing more than Alexander’s tool for imposing his will on the Greeks is to take an unnecessarily and unjustifiably polemical stance, but this is not to say that the Common Peace had no interest in maintaining the authority of the ἡγεμών. He could, according to the oaths preserved on Tod II 177, intervene in member-states under certain circumstances, such as in the case of a conspiracy against Philip or Alexander, or an attack on a member statelines 11-12 of the extant inscription prevent anyone from intervening in the “rule” of Philip or his descendants ([οὐδὲ τ]η?̀ν βασιλείαν [τ]ὴν Φ ⁄ [ιλίππου καὶ τῶν ἐκγόν]ων καταλύσω ), and lines 17-22 empower the ἡγεμών to make war on any transgressor of the Common Peace. The author of Demosthenes 17 mentions “those appointed for the common safety” (οἱ τεταγμένοι ἐπὶ τῇ κοινῇ φυλακῇ ), a body apart from the συνέδριον, who were charged with seeing that the provisions of the Common Peace were carried out.¹¹²

In reference to such provisions, Badian says, “These are fair stipulations between equals. But in view of the royal commanders in the cities and the ἡγεμών’s unchangeable freedom of intervention they confer pretty wide powers: anything that the ἡγεμών disliked could easily be made to come under one of these heads, and it is clear that a great deal was (see Dem. 17).” ¹¹³ The pseudo-Demosthenic speech Badian cites offers some examples. The orator refers to the oaths of the Common Peace (10): For it has been written that, should any people overthrow the constitutions that were in effect in the participating cities when the oaths of the peace were sworn, then they will be enemies of all who participate in the peace. ἔστι γὰρ γεγραμμένον, ἐάν τινες τὰς πολιτείας τὰς par*) ἑκάστοις οὔσας, ὅτε τοὺς ὅρκους τοὺς περὶ τῆς εἰρήνης ὤμνυσαν, καταλύωσι, πολεμίους εἶναι πᾶσι τοῖς τῆς εἰρήνης μετέχουσιν.

He goes on to decry the example of Pellene, whose democratic government “the Macedonian” (probably Antipater) overthrew (νῦν κατελέλυκε τὸν δῆμον ὁ Μακεδών ) (17.10).¹¹⁴ There is no evidence that can reconcile this action with the terms of the Common Peace, and any attempt to do so must rely on a certain amount of invention.¹¹⁵

Because we are interested in Macedonian authority in Greece, a topic inseparable from Greek attitudes toward Macedonia, we do not necessarily need to determine whether Alexander or Antipater somehow abused the letter, or still less the intentions, of the Common Peace. Unlike power, which the Macedonians enjoyed through their own efforts, Macedonian authority depended on (and was limited to) Greek perceptions, oaths and treaties notwithstanding. Greek attitudes toward Macedonian hegemonyor at least the attitudes of Athenians, for whom we have the most and the best evidenceseem to have stood on an ambivalent understanding of the treaty, which they had had little choice but to enact.

Many of the Greeks saw the Common Peace as an infringement, if not an outright end, to their freedom. For this reason, according to Justin, the Spartans took no part in the proceedings at Corinth (9.5.1-3): The Spartans alone stood aloof from the king and his law, considering it to be servitude, not peace, which was not beneficial for the states themselves, but rather imposed by the victor. Soli Lacedaemonii et regem et leges contempserunt, servitutem, non pacem rati, quae non ipsis civitatibus conveniret, sed a victore ferretur. And other Greeks were clearly worried about the results of Philip’s “Peace”. Opinion at Athens was divided, or at least very cautious. Diodorus says that after the terms of the treaty were promulgated, the Athenians awarded Philip a gold crown and passed an ingratiating decree condemning anyone who plotted against him (Diod. 16.92.1-2). But at the same time, the Athenian Eucrates successfully moved a decree aimed at protecting the democratic government against perceived threats. The decree called for, among other things, penalties for any members of the Areopagus who might try to assemble after a tyranny had been established.¹¹⁶ The obvious futility of such a clause in a decreewould the imagined tyrant prosecute someone according to Eucrates’ anti-tyranny law?suggests that it was less significant as policy than as a public expression of anxiety over the Macedonian king’s new, institutionalized status. The next year, 337 bc, we find a similar juxtaposition of public stances regarding Macedonia: IG II² 240 records a decree moved by Demades to honor a Macedonian with προξενία , and at the same time Hyperides publicly attacked as unpatriotic honors paid to the Macedonians Alcimachus and Antipater (Harp. s.v. Ἀλκίμαχος ).¹¹⁷

Athenian fears were founded not so much on the treaty itselfwhich was not unprecedented in its termsbut on the circumstances under which it came into existence and was reaffirmed by Alexander. “Common Peace” was a shibboleth of 4th century political discourse, and T.T.B. Ryder has described the features held in common among the various “Peaces”, from the earliest use of the term (Andocides 3.17, in 391 BC) until the Common Peace of Philip in 338; the phrase refers to a specific treaty (something concluded, using a form or derivative of συντίθεμαι ).¹¹⁸ Furthermore:

The two features which Diodorus’ notices of the treaties show to be essential to what his source called Common Peace treaties are the following: first, that their principal clause laid down that all Greek states should be free and autonomous; second, that the treaties were made between all the Greeks, that is to say that they were not bilateral agreements limited to the two sides fighting a war, but were agreements of a general nature applicable to all Greeks equally, whether or not they had taken part in the preceding war.¹¹⁹

The Common Peace of 338 was exceptional because it was not an undertaking shared among equals, but a structure imposed by Philip after his definitive victory at Chaeronea. In this, at least, the Common Peace stood on the unprecedented military power of Macedonia, which Cawkwell calls “the central fact of this age.” ¹²⁰ Previous treaties of “common” peace had aimed at winning influence without war (or in preparation for war), while invoking the name of “autonomy” to limit competitors’ influence. In the case of the King’s Peace imposed on the Greeks by Persia in 387/6 BC, the treaty insured that powerful Greek cities would continue to bicker among themselves, rather than uniting in any way dangerous to Persia. The treaty Philip orchestrated at Corinth in 338, on the other hand, demonstrated Philip’s power as much as it may have served his plans for the future.¹²¹

Our understanding of how the Greeks viewed this treaty must take into account the widespread rebellion against Macedonian hegemony that immediately followed Philip’s death, and the complete destruction of Thebes that was Alexander’s reaction. As soon as Philip was assassinated, in 336 BC, the Athenians, Aetolians, Ambraciots, Thebans, Eleians, and Messenians immediately tried to do away with any Macedonian controls (Diod. 17.3.1-5; Dem. 16.4, 7; Plut. Dem. 22.2). But Alexander seems to have coveted his father’s office of ἡγεμών, and when he had secured his position in Macedon, had waged a swift war against his enemies to the north, and had marched south with an army to deal with the rebellious Thebans, he met with the Thessalian league and the Amphictyons, both of whom “he persuaded to give him hegemony of the Greeks by a common decree” (ἔπεισεν ἑαυτῷ κοινῷ δόγματι δοθῆναι τὴν τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἡγεμονίαν ) (Diod. 17.4.1-3; Arrian 1.1.2; also Justin 11.2.5).¹²² Alexander defeated Thebes, but left its fate ostensibly in the hands of the συνέδριον, which obliged him by voting the utter destruction of the city (Diod. 17.14.1).¹²³ Having destroyed Thebes and enslaved some 30,000 of its citizens, he was in a position to demand all the titles and honors granted his father. Again there was a meeting at Corinth, and again the σύνεδροι elected the Macedonian ruler στρατηγὸς αὐτοκράτωρ τῆς Ἑλλάδος (Diod. 17.4.9). After presenting the Greeks with this object lesson, Alexander crossed to Asia and presumably delegated at least the day to day affairs of Macedonian hegemony in Europe to Antipater.

The destruction of Thebes shows more clearly than anything else the extent to which the Common Peace was, for all its egalitarian terminology, forced upon an unenthusiastic Greece. The Greeks threw off the trappings of a Macedonian-imposed order as soon as it seemed Philip could no longer enforce it, and resumed them only in the presence of Alexander and his army. The evidence that a συνέδριον of some sort or another voted to raze Thebes changes nothing (Arr. 1.9.9-10; Diod. 17.14.1-3; Justin 11.3.8, 11.4.7; Plut. Alex. 11.11).¹²⁴

In fact, the veneer of legality covering Alexander’s revenge on that city may have undermined the subsequent authority of the Common Peace. So harsh a punishment imposed by a συνέδριονprobably meeting in Alexander’s camp and representing only those states who fought against Thebes¹²⁵must have set a grim precedent, and have shown to Greece the terrible possibilities of “legal” action under the Common Peace.

There are other reasons to think that, while serving Macedonian power in practical matters, the Common Peace was actually an impediment to Macedonian authority in Greece. The author of the pseudo-Demosthenic speech περὶ τῶν πρὸς Ἀλεξάνδρον συνθηκῶν (“On the Treaty with Alexander”)probably delivered in 331gives an interesting view of at least one Athenian’s attitude toward the Macedonian role in Europe.¹²⁶ The speech is vehemently hostile to Macedonian interference in Greek affairs. The author complains that, among other things, Alexander has installed or supported tyrannies at Sicyon, Pellene, and Messene contrary to the oaths (Dem. 17.4, 7, 10, 16). But of more immediate interest to this study is the failure of the author to attack the treaty itself. Hammond has noted correctly that Demosthenes nowhere questions the right of Macedonia to hegemony.¹²⁷ But the author’s silence is more profound than Hammond admits, for the speech never suggests that Macedonia enjoys any institutionalized privilege at all, but refers to the Common Peace throughout as if it were truly a shared enterprise among equals, of whom one has gotten out of hand. The closest he comes to granting Macedonia some special place among the signatories of the Peace is at paragraph 29: And there is no thought to what is going to happen, nor does anyone ponder how the tyrant is taking advantage of the common agreements. καὶ οὔτε πρόνοιαν περὶ τῶν μελλόντων εἶναι, οὔτε λογισμὸν οὐδένα παραγίγνεσθαι τίνα τρόπον χρῆται ὁ τύραννος ταῖς κοιναῖς ὁμολογίαις.

Even here, where he decries Alexander as a τ́ραννος, he speaks as though Alexander were simply taking unfair advantage, and not as though the κοιναὶ ὁμολογίαι represented an institutionalized Macedonian hegemony. The same treaty that gave Alexander his formal title of ἡγεμών provided Macedonia’s opponents with the language to challenge the authority of the title’s holder.

So far the discussion has treated the efficacy and legitimacy of the συνέδριον of the Common Peace, the often ambiguous relationship between the states of the Peace and its ἡγεμών, and the ways in which the treaty supported Macedonian power while undermining Macedonian authority. The mechanisms of the Common Peace operated on several occasions that we know of to resolve disputes between states or to reestablish governments that had been overthrown (as at Chios). Nor is every complaint from Greek mouths necessarily evidence of Macedonian tyranny. However, the circumstances under which Philip enacted the Common Peace and Alexander reaffirmed it showed a Macedonian will and ability to impose an order on Greece. And yet to whatever extent Macedonian power profited from Alexander’s holding the ἡγεμονία of the Common Peace, the language of autonomy, freedom, and non-interference that pervades the treaty sustained the rhetoric of those who would deny Macedonian hegemony, and the destruction of Thebes sustained their fear. When Alexander launched his expedition against the Persian empire, Antipater assumed the responsibility of managing this tense relationship while insuring that Macedonia remained powerful and secure behind Alexander’s eastward advance.

Before returning to our discussion of Antipater’s actions in Greece during Alexander’s absence, we should examine one other important aspect of the treaty: the military obligations the Common Peace imposed on its signatories. The council at Corinth that enacted Philip’s treaty-organization seems to have focused on forming an alliance of Greeks against Persia (Diod. 16.89.3): Accordingly, once the common council had been assembled at Corinth, [Philip] spoke about the war with the Persians and raised great hopes, and persuaded the council delegates to war. And finally, once the Greeks had chosen him as the commanding general of Greece, he began to make great preparations for the expedition against the Persians. Having prescribed to each city a levy of soldiers for the alliance, he returned to Macedonia. διόπερ ἐν Κορίνθῳ τοῦ κοινοῦ συνεδρίου συναχθέντος διαλεχθεὶς περὶ τοῦ πρὸς Πέρσας πολέμου καὶ μεγάλας ἐλπίδας ὑποθεὶς προετρέψατο τοὺς συνέδρους εἰς πόλεμον. τέλος δὲ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἑλομένων αὐτὸν στρατηγὸν αὐτοκράτορα τῆς Ἑλλάδος μεγάλας παρασκευὰς ἐποιεῖτο πρὸς τὴν ἐπὶ τοὺς Πέρσας στρατείαν. διατάξας d*) ἑκάστῃ πόλει τὸ πλῆθος τῶν εἰς συμμαχίαν στρατιωτῶν ἐπανῆλθεν εἰς τὴν Μακεδονίαν.

In the context of a Pan-Hellenic crusade against the Persian empire, Macedonia did enjoy “hegemony”, in the most literal sense of military leadership. Diodorus calls Philip’s office στρατηγὸν αὐτοκράτορα τῆς Ἑλλάδος , “commanding general of Greece”; the adjective implies that in military matters Philip answered to no one. Other ancient sources give varying descriptions of Philip’s position. Polybius says that “They all chose Philip, as a benefactor of Greece, to be ἡγεμών on both land and sea” ( … Φίλιππον … ὡς εὐεργέτην ὄντα τῆς Ἑλλάδος καὶ κατὰ γῆν αὐτὸν ἡγεμόνα καὶ κατὰ θάλατταν εἵλοντο πάντες ) (9.33.7; cf. Plut. Mor. [Apoph. Lacon.] 240a). Aeschines refers to Philip’s “ ἡγεμονία against the Persian” (τῆς ἐπὶ τὸν Πέρσην ἡγεμονίας ) (Aesch. In Ctes. 132). The so-called Oxyrrhynchus Historian says that the Greeks chose Philip as “supreme general of the war with Persia” (Φίλιππον αὐτοκράτορα στρατηγὸν εἵλαντο τοῦ πρὸς Πέρσας πολέμου ) (POxy. 12 [FGrH 255] 5).¹²⁸ Despite differences in wording, these sources describe a pan-Hellenic army, led by the Macedonian king, intended to wage war on Persia.¹²⁹ In addition to the testimony of literary sources, the inscription commemorating the oaths sworn at Corinth also strongly suggests a συμμαχία , a treaty of military alliance, although that phrase does not appear on the stone (it has been restored at line 4, but “very doubtfully”).¹³⁰

There is no doubt that Alexander’s forces when he crossed the Hellespont were indeed pan-Hellenic, or that the Greeks who had agreed to supply forces for the war met their obligations. But there is evidence to suggest that they did so with little enthusiasm, and that the Macedonian and “allied” forces were by no means equals in a shared undertaking. The distance between the promise of a unified Greek military force opposing Persia and the reality shows us much about the Common Peace, and will serve as an introduction to our discussion of how Antipater handled the first real crisis for Macedonian hegemony, the war with Agis III.

First of all, as Peter Green points out, there were always more Greeks fighting for the Persians than for Macedonia.¹³¹ In fact, without Greek mercenaries Darius could hardly have faced Alexander’s invasion at all, since for a century hired Greeks represented the only truly effective infantry that the Persians could put afield. Both Curtius (5.11.5) and Pausanias (8.52.5) claim 50,000 Greek mercenaries in Persian paya suspiciously round number, but one that suggests at least an order of magnitudewhile by all accounts Alexander’s invasion army in toto amounted to not much more than 30,000 infantry. Out of these 30,000, sources report only 7,000 troops from the other Greek cities.¹³² And most of these troops never appear in any battle accounts, such as the Athenian and Boeotian cavalry contingents (Plut. Phoc. 16.6; Tod II 197; cf. Diod. 17.57.3-4).¹³³

There are scholars who see all of Alexander’s “allied” troops, soldiers from the Greek states, as hostages for their native cities’ good behavior.¹³⁴ Green bolsters this argument by pointing to the long-standing tradition in the Macedonian court of having “Royal Pages”, namely sons of influential families who could both provide companionship for a young heir and serve as guarantors of their parents’ continued loyalty.¹³⁵ Hammond dismisses the idea and points to Curtius’ comment that, in 331, Alexander was “completely confident in the goodwill and trustworthiness of the Greeks.” ¹³⁶ But Hammond does not quote the whole context of this passage, which is rather more revealing (Curt. 4.10.16-17): Then letters from Darius were intercepted, in which Greek soldiers were urged to kill or betray the king, and [Alexander] wondered whether he should read them before the assembly, being completely confident in the goodwill and trustworthiness of the Greeks. But Parmenio dissuaded him, saying that the soldiers’ ears should not be tainted with such promises. Interceptae deinde Darei litterae sunt, quibus Graeci milites sollicitabantur, ut regem aut interficerent aut proderent, dubitavitque an eas pro contione recitaret, satis confisus Graecorum quoque erga se benivolentiae ac fidei. Sed Parmenio deterruit non esse talibus promissis imbuendas aures militum affirmans.

The passage says more about Alexander than about his Greek troops. The king wanted to make a bold gesture of confidence, but Parmenio stopped him from spreading Darius’ propaganda, which suggests that the veteran general had much less faith in the Greek allies than did Alexander. It might well be going too far to see the Greeks as hostages, but the weight of the evidence gives a picture of a Macedonian war in Asia, fought by Macedonian arms, with troops contributed by the Greeks being inferior in both quality and numbers.

Even at sea, the one theater of the Persian war in which the Greek allies outnumbered Macedonians, the evidence shows that Greeks participated unenthusiastically. The Athenians, in particular, seem to have had little interest in investing in the effort except on infrequent occasions when Alexander’s war directly threatened Athenian interests. In 334 BC there were 160 ships in Alexander’s fleet, of which only 20 were from Athens (Diod. 17.22.5), which we should compare to the total Athenian navy of approximately 400 ships.¹³⁷ Clearly Athens was reserving the cream of her fleet, as we can see in the episode of 333 BC described at Dem. 17.20, in which an “allied” fleet under Hegelochus was unable to escort the Athenian grain ships through the Aegean, whereupon the Athenians produced another one hundred triremes.¹³⁸ Moreover, Arrian says that in 334 Alexander was unwilling to send the fleet to fight the Persians, who were anchored off Mycale, because his own fleet was “untrained” (οὐ μεμελετηκώς ), and further, that “he was unwilling to hand over to the barbarians the experience and daring of the Macedonians in an unsafe venture” (τήν τε ἐμπειρίαν τῶν Μακεδόνων καὶ τὴν τόλμαν ἐν ἀβεβαίῳ χωρίῳ οὐκ ἐθέλειν παραδοῦναι τοῖς βαρβάροις ) (1.18.8). We have to wonder, with Green, what sort of ships the “allies” sent with Alexander, that he was so hesitant to commit them to battle, and why experienced Macedonians were mated with ineffectual Greeks at sea, especially since Macedonians had never been known for their seafaring.¹³⁹ Alexander was to disband his fleet altogether in 332, choosing to rely instead on his ability to cut off the Persian fleet’s re-supply (Arr. 1.20.1). The allied contribution to Alexander’s naval efforts, then, consisted of unreliable ships and unreliable crews, and very few of them at that, compared to the fleet docked at Athens.

A more serious problem than numbers and quality, however, was the reliability of the allies generally. When Arrian gives his account of Alexander, arguing against sending the fleet into battle with the Persians, he reports the king saying (Arr. 1.18.8): And if the naval battle were lost, there would be no small blow to the initial opinion of the war, for a variety of reasons, but especially with the Greeks poised to revolt at any news of a naval defeat. καὶ ἡττηθεῖσι τῇ ναυμαχίᾳ οὐ μικρὰν τὴν βλάβην ἔσεσθαι ἐς τοῦ πολέμου τὴν πρώτην δόξαν, τά τε ἄλλα καὶ τοὺς Ἕλληνας νεωτεριεῖν πρὸς τοῦ ναυτικοῦ πταίσματος τὴν ἐξαγγελίαν ἐπαρθέντας.

Alexander seems to have realized that only continuous demonstrations of Macedonian invincibility would maintain a hegemony of any sort over the Greeks. As we have already seen, in 335 the Greeks heard a rumor that Alexander had died, and many states immediately cast off whatever trappings of Macedonian control they could, returning to the fold only when Alexander himself arrived (Arr. 1.7.6; Diod. 17.3.1-5; Dem. 16.4, 7; Plut. Dem. 22.2) (see above, pages 35 and 46). Later, in the period 332-330, Antipater’s forces alone were not able to deter many states from joining Sparta’s war against Macedonia. Despite the oaths and structure of the Common Peace, Macedonian authority depended on a reputation for military success that needed constant, on-going reinforcement, and which any defeat or sign of weakness would undermine.¹⁴⁰

This foundation for hegemony was not to the advantage of Antipater, who represented the physical power of Macedonia in Greece, but whose position depended on Greek perceptions of Alexander’s invincibility. While Alexander’s title of ἡγεμών may have had little meaning as a formal definitionAlexander’s actions were neither determined by nor limited to his official office in the Common Peaceit nevertheless served as a token of authority and enabled him to demand and receive the Greeks’ cooperation (however grudgingly they may have given it). His general Antipater was left in Greece with no formal office of authority in Greece, in an unprecedented and therefore undefined relationship with the Greeks of the Common Peace, on the one hand, and Alexander on the other. The tensions among which Antipater worked come into view immediately upon Alexander’s departure from Europe, as Antipater had to manage both a steady supply of reinforcements for the Asian campaigns and an incipient rebellion in the Peloponnese.

Antipater commanded the Macedonian army in Greece during Alexander’s absence and was responsible for conducting any military actions that might be necessary to secure Macedonia and the Macedonian-imposed order in Greece (Diod. 17.17.5, 118.1, 18.12.1). His first test came in 331/0, when the Spartan king Agis III assembled an army and went to war with states of the Common Peace and subsequently with Macedonia itself. According to the oaths, the Greeks of the Common Peace were obliged to join in any military action deemed necessary by the συνέδριον and the ἡγεμών to enforce the peace and protect its signatories (Tod 177, ll. 17-22). Agis’ war tested this clause of the treaty, and since Alexander was busy in Asia after 334, we might expect Antipater to have assumed command of a Hellenic force; had he done so, he would also have assumed a certain authority as ἡγεμών-surrogate.¹⁴¹ But he did not. In fact, while most Greek states remained outside of this conflict, we have no indication in the evidence that the most militarily significant state, Athens, ever considered fighting for the Common Peace, or that Antipater sought Athenian help. The brief war between Antipater’s and Agis’ forces, which ended with a bloody battle at Megalopolis, decisively reinforced Macedonian power in Greece, but at the same time shows us the limits of Macedonia’s, and Antipater’s, authority.

Beginning in 335, the Persians had fought an active and largely successful war in the Aegean, under Darius’ competent commander Memnon and, after his death at the siege of Mytilene, Autophradates and Pharnabazus. Mytilene, Halicarnassus, Miletus, Tenedos, and Chios had all seen Persian victories (Arr. 2.1-2). Their efforts were no doubt helped by Alexander’s decision to disband his navy in 334 (Arr. 1.20.1). By 333, the eastern Aegean had, to use Badian’s phrase, “again become a Persian lake.” ¹⁴² In this context Agis III began organizing to face Macedonia with an army.¹⁴³ After the battle of Issus, late in 333, Agis received from the Persian Autophradates 10 triremes and 30 talents with which to hire mercenaries (Arr. 2.13.6). In 332 Agis was in Crete, having captured several cities and enrolled 8,000 Greek mercenaries, men who were unemployed after fleeing from Darius’ side at the battle of Issus (Curt. 4.1.39-40; Diod. 17.48.1). So by the winter of 332/1, Agis had profited from the new influx of mercenaries displaced by Alexander’s victories in Asia, and the Spartan was assured that Alexander would be distracted by his on-going pursuit of Darius.¹⁴⁴ So Agis went to war (Diod. 17.73.5; Aesch. In Ctes. 133).

E. Badian’s seminal article on Agis describes the coherence of his plan, which began in early 331 with a coordinated move by one Memnon (not the Persian commander but Alexander’s “General of Thrace”).¹⁴⁵ Diodorus describes what happened (17.62.6): For Memnon, who had been installed as general of Thrace, having troops and being full of zeal, incited the barbarians, and rebelling from Alexander quickly assembled a great force and showed himself openly for war. So Antipater collected his whole army and advanced across Macedonia to Thrace and carried war to Memnon. And while these things were happening, the Spartans thought it the right time to make preparations for war, and called on the Greeks to come together in the cause of freedom. Μέμνων γὰρ ὁ καθεσταμένος στρατηγὸς τῆς Θρᾴκης, ἔχων δύναμιν καὶ φρονήματος ὢν πλήρης, ἀνέσεισε μὲν τοὺς βαρβάρους, ἀποστάτης δὲ γενόμενος Ἀλεξάνδρου καὶ ταχὺ μεγάλης δυνάμεως κυριεύσας φανερῶς ἀπεκαλύψατο πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον. διόπερ Ἀντίπατρος πᾶσαν ἀναλαβὼν τὴν δύναμιν προῆλθε διὰ Μακεδονίας εἰς Θρᾴκην καὶ διεπολέμει πρὸς τὸν Μέμνονα. τούτου δὲ περὶ tau=t*) ὄντος οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι καιρὸν ἔχειν ὑπολαβόντες τοῦ παρασκευάσασθαι τὰ πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον παρεκάλουν τοὺς Ἕλληνας συμφρονῆσαι περὶ τῆς ἐλευθερίας.

Memnon’s and Agis’ moves were well-timed. At no time between the sack of Thebes and Alexander’s death was Macedonia’s military preeminence in Greece more in doubt. There was hope among the Greeks that Darius would defeat Alexander when the two finally met in battle (Aesch. In Ctes. 164).¹⁴⁶ Agis, by biding his time and staying out of trouble in 335, had avoided Thebes’ fate and gained for himself an opportunity. Alexander must have known of the trouble in Thrace, since he sent Amphoterus with a captured Persian and Phoenician fleet of 100 ships to watch the Peloponnese (Arr. 3.6.3, 3.6.9; Curt. 4.8.15). This is all Alexander did at the time. We do not know what transpired between Antipater and Memnon, but the two armies avoided battle, and Antipater clearly deemed his north-eastern margins secure enough that he could attend to Agis in the south. Badian suggests that Memnon had never anticipated facing the whole Macedonian army.¹⁴⁷ There is no clear reason why Memnon might not have expected to do so, unless he counted on Agis to act sooner and to have divided Antipater’s attention and resources.¹⁴⁸ Antipater, however, followed the strategy that Philip had so often used successfully: to buy time with negotiations and then to attack enemies one by one with all available force. By settling with Memnon, Antipater won the time he needed to increase his army. When he had gathered a force of 40,000, he marched south to face Agis (Diod. 17.62.1).

Agis went to war because Alexander seemed vulnerable, and he had reason to hope for victory because of growing dissatisfaction among the Greeks. Despite the Common Peace, the Spartan king was able to attract most of the Peloponnesian states to his side, even those who had sworn the oaths of the Common Peace. Sparta was joined by Tegea, Arcadia (excluding Megalopolis), Elis, the Achaean League (except Pellene), and probably the Aetolian League and Phocis (Diod. 17.62.7-8; Din. In Dem. 34-35; Curt. 6.1.20; Aesch. In Ctes. 165).¹⁴⁹ McQueen has described these states and their relationships with Sparta in the middle and late 4th century.¹⁵⁰ He notes that a strong Sparta under Archidamus III had led many Peloponnesian states into alliances with Athens and, later, with Philip’s Macedonia, but after Archidamus’ death in 338 and Sparta’s subsequent waning, Macedonian interference became less and less welcome.¹⁵¹ The list of Peloponnesian states is so nearly comprehensive that the omissionsthose states that did not side with Spartabeg explanation more than the inclusions. Corinth did not join Agis, but that city had a Macedonian garrison (Polyb. 38.3.3; Plut. Arat. 23). Nor did Pellene, but in 331 it was ruled by the tyrant Chaeron, a former wrestler installed by the Macedonians (Dem. 17.10; Paus. 7.27.7; Athen. 509b). Megalopolis had a long hatred for Sparta, to which fact McQueen adds, “While Megalopolis remained faithful to Antipater because she had most to lose in the event of a Spartan victory and possessed fortifications sufficiently strong to resist Spartan assaults, both the erstwhile Mantinean half of the League and Megalopolis’ former ally Tegea adhered to Agis.” ¹⁵² So the only Peloponnesian states that did not join in Agis’ war on Macedonia were those under direct Macedonian controlas opposed to those who were only members of the Common Peaceor who had long-standing hatred of Sparta.¹⁵³

Agis’ war would ultimately fail, and its failure was sealed when Athens refused to join forces with the Spartans. Antipater’s army, when it marched south, outnumbered Agis’, but clearly did not possess an overwhelming advantage; the numbers of dead on both sides show that the battle at Megalopolis was protracted and bloody, no rout and no easy victory. The numbers suggest, too, that had the Athenians taken up arms for either side they could have been a “significant minority”, fewer in number than either combatant, but sufficient to confer a decisive advantage on whomever they joined.¹⁵⁴ The Athenians were well aware of the impact they could have had. In 330 bc, after Agis had been defeated, Aeschines listed occasions on which the Athenians might have, had they acted, broken Macedonian power in Greece. The first was when Alexander had first begun his invasion of Asia, and Darius had offered the Athenians an alliance; the second was immediately before the battle at Issus, when Alexander had seemed trapped on the Cilician coast. The third was when Agis was planning his war (Aesch. In Ctes. 165): The Spartans had not only assembled a mercenary army for war, but had also destroyed the forces of [the Macedonian] Corrhagus. The Eleans had joined their side, and all the Achaeans except for Pellene, and all Arcadia except the city of Megalopolis, which was itself besieged and was expected to be taken at any time. And Alexander had passed beyond the Bear and almost beyond the whole inhabited world, while Antipater was a long time collecting his army, and the outcome was uncertain.¹⁵⁵ Λακεδαιμόνιοι μὲν καὶ τὸ ξενικὸν ἐπέτυχον μάχῃ, καὶ διέφθειραν τοὺς περὶ Κόρραγον στρατιώτας, Ἠλεῖοι d*) αὐτοῖς συμμετεβάλοντο καὶ Ἀχαιοὶ πάντες πλὴν Πελληνέων, καὶ Ἀρκαδία πᾶσα πλὴν Μεγάλης πόλεως, αὕτη δὲ ἐπολιορκεῖτο καὶ kaq*) ἑκάστην ἡμέραν ἐπίδοξος ἦν ἁλῶναι, ὁ d*) Ἀλέξανδρος ἔξω τῆς ἄρκτου καὶ τῆς οἰκουμένης ὀλίγου δεῖν πάσης μεθειστήκει, ὁ δὲ Ἀντίπατρος πολὺν χρόνον συνῆγε στρατόπεδον, τὸ d*) ἐσόμενον ἄδηλον ἦν.

Aeschines’ speech was delivered only one year after Agis turned to challenge Antipater, and less than a year after Antipater’s victory at Megalopolis.¹⁵⁶ The orator’s audience will have been familiar with whatever rumors and opinions have been current so recently, and so we have good reason to believe that Agis did seem to the Athenians to have a chance of breaking, or at least badly damaging, Macedonian power.

Athens did not, however, lend any meaningful support to Agis in his attempt to face Macedonia, to detach cities from the Common Peace, and most importantly, to inflict a defeat on Antipater’s army. Diodorus attributes Athens’ abstention to Alexander’s beneficence: “The Athenians remained quiet, who beyond all the other Greeks were favored by Alexander” (Ἀθηναῖοι μὲν οὖν, παρὰ πάντας τοὺς ἄλλους Ἕλληνας u(p*) Ἀλεξανδρου προτιμώμενοι, τὴν ἡσυχίαν ἦγον ) (Diod. 17.62.7). Modern scholarship has often adopted the view that the Common Peace and its implied alliance with Alexander and Macedonia prevented many Greeks from taking Agis’ side: “On the home front the great majority of member states, including Athens, stayed loyal to the pledges of the Common Peace and the alliance with Macedonia.” ¹⁵⁷

Mere passivity, however, hardly constitutes evidence for loyalty, and apart from Athens’ failure to take up arms against Macedonia, there is no other reason to see Alexander, Antipater, or the Common Peace playing an authoritative role as the Athenians debated their policy. The oath sworn by members of the Common Peace, and promulgated on an inscription at Athens, included a pledge “to help in whatever way, should those being wronged request it, and make war on any transgressor of the common peace in whatever way, should it seem necessary to the common συνέδριον and should the ἡγεμών order it” ([βοηθήσω] καθότι ἂν παραγ ⁄ [γέλλωσιν οἱ ἀδικούμενοι] κὰ πολεμήσω τῶ⁄⁄[ι τὴν κοινὴν ἐρ́ηνην παρ]αβαίνοντι καθότι ⁄[ἂν δοκῆι τῶι κοινῶι συνεδ]ρ?ίωι καὶ o*) ἡγεμ?ω?̀⁄[ν παραγγέλληι] ) (Tod II 177, ll. 17-22). But Athens did not lend any active support to Antipater, even though Sparta was unequivocally a “transgressor of the common peace”. On the contrary, from what evidence we have for the debate at Athens we can see the extent to which the crisis of Agis weakened Macedonian authority, both practically and rhetorically.

Athenian actions prior to 330 already contradict the idea that an expressed or implied alliance with Macedonia determined the city’s policy regarding Agis. The Athenians actively opposed Macedonian aims when they could, and when they could not, they gave the least support possible to Alexander’s efforts. Despite the oaths sworn by members of the Common Peace, to oppose anyone who should wage war on other members of the peace, the Athenians sent Iphicrates on an embassy to Darius in 333, and he remained in Asia long enough to be captured after the battle of Issus (Arr. 2.15.1-2). We cannot know the nature of his embassy, but he was in the company of representatives from the exiled Thebans and from Agis himself.¹⁵⁸ W. Will, who argues that Athens was tolerant of Macedonian authority until the last days of Alexander’s life, supposes that the Athenian had been at Darius’ court since before the war.¹⁵⁹ This might in fact make a stronger case that the Athenians were at least hedging, if not actively negotiating against Alexander, since it would mean that the Athenians had been in much more open contact with Persia before Alexander asserted the Common Peace, and that they maintained it afterward. Darius had offered Athens 300 talents to support the Theban rebellion. The offer was refused, “but everyone in Athens knew quite well whose money it was that Demosthenes now began handing out to the Theban exiles.” ¹⁶⁰ So Athenian diplomatic contact was continuous from before Alexander imposed the Common Peace through the early stages of Alexander’s war in Persia, with perhaps no change in the people involved. Once Alexander’s war in Asia got under way, the Athenians did their mandated part, but with little enthusiasm, as we have seen. They contributed some ships and some soldiers to Alexander’s initial expedition in 334, and the ships were few and likely not the pride of the Athenian navy. The extent of Athenian participation the Persian war was a one-time show of cooperation in the immediate aftermath of Thebes’ destruction.

In 331, the decision not to join either side in the war between Sparta and Macedonia was the result of a debate among various parties in Athens, with at least one vitriolic advocate of war against Antipater’s Macedonians, the author of Demosthenes 17, περὶ τῶν πρὸς Ἀλεξάνδρωον συνθηκῶν (“On the Treaty with Alexander”). The orator is reacting to the perceived arrogance with which Alexander has treated Athens, with examples such as the occasion on which the Macedonians had sailed a ship into the Piraeus without advance warning, an act of arrogance which, argues the orator, set a dangerous precedent (26-27).¹⁶¹ For our purposes, the most interesting line of argument in the speech is the orator’s invocation of the Common Peace. He accuses the Macedonians of violating the letter and spirit of the treaty (Dem. 17.4, 7, 10, 16, and passim) and urges his audience to give Alexander the very treatment that the oaths mandate for violators of the Peace (Dem. 17.6): And it is now written in the conventions that he is to be an enemy, who does what Alexander has done to those sharing in the Peace, and his land with him, and all are to wage war against him. καὶ γὰρ ἔτι προσγέγραπται ἐν ταῖς συνθήκαις πολέμιον εἶναι τὸν e)kei=n*) ἅπερ Ἀλέξανδρος ποιοῦντα ἅπασι τοῖς τῆς εἰρήνης κοινωνοῦσι, καὶ τὴν χώραν αὐτοῦ, καὶ στρατεύεσθαι e)p*) αὐτὸν ἅπαντας.

In 323, Dinarchus uses a similar rhetorical tack when describing the situation in 331. He is criticizing Demosthenes for letting slip an opportunity to fight Macedonian power in Greece, an opportunity he describes thus (In Dem. 34; cf. Plut. Mor. 818e; Aesch. In Ctes. 164): All of Greece, unhappy with the state of things because of the traitors in each of the cities, hoped for some change from the evils surrounding it. ἡ d*) Ἑλλὰς ἅπασα διὰ τοὺς ἐν ἑκάστῃ τῶν πόλεων προδότας ἀχθομένη τοῖς παροῦσι πράγμασιν ἠσμένει μεταβολήν τινα τῶν κακῶν τῶν περιεστηκότων.

The “traitors” (προδότας ) here are not traitors to Macedonian authority, but traitors to Greek freedom, that is, those who maintained Macedonia’s power over the Greek states. The orator also portrays Antipater’s army as a threat to the Greeks and a tyrannical violation of the Common Peace which had no right to continue (17.16): Now the Macedonian¹⁶² has born arms so gratuitously that he has never even laid them down, but even now goes around armed as much as he can, and indeed more so now than ever. οὕτω τοίνυν ῥᾳδίως ἐπήνεγκε τὰ o(/pl*) ὁ Μακεδὼν w(/st*) οὐδὲ κατέθετο πώποτε, a)ll*) ἔτι καὶ νῦν ἔχων περιέρχεται kaq*) ὅσον δύναται, καὶ τοσούτῳ νῦν μᾶλλον ἢ πρότερον.

Both Demosthenes 17 and the passage from Dinarchus must be taken for the polemics they are, but they are nevertheless significant for our understanding of Macedonian hegemony. At Athens in 331 the Common Peace, with its language of mutual support and autonomy, was not serving as the institutional foundation for hegemony, but was participating in political discourse independently of, and contrary to, the interests of its Macedonian sponsors.

It is ironic that the bellicose speech favoring war should come down to us in the Demosthenic corpus, since the “real” Demosthenes seems to have been instrumental in keeping Athens out of the warhe is certainly criticized for this ever after by his enemies. Our evidence for Demosthenes’ position comes from Aeschines’ legal attack on him in 330 and Dinarchus’ in 323. While this evidence is no doubt as biased as possible against Demosthenes, it is nevertheless interesting in what it shows. Aeschines’ and Dinarchus’ accusations focus on the claim that Demosthenes showed a lack of resolve when Macedonian fortunes seemed to be on the wane and Darius was expected to defeat Alexander (Aesch. In Ctes. 164).¹⁶³ Demosthenes was especially open to accusations of currying favor with Alexander, since he had probably supported an embassy to secure the return of Athenians whom Alexander had captured at Granicus; this led to claims that the orator had adopted a new attitude of reconciliation with Alexander (Arr. 3.6.2; FGrH 135 f 2; Aesch. In Ctes. 162).¹⁶⁴

Aeschines himself, however, shows us how far removed from Athenian discourse was any idea of loyalty to Macedonia. He reports Demosthenes reveling publicly in the crisis Macedonia faced (Aesch. In Ctes. 167): And again when you twirled around in a circle on the podium and said, as if you were working against Alexander, ‘I admit that I organized the Laconian uprising, I admit that I am causing the Thessalians and the Perraiboi to revolt.’ καὶ πάλιν ὅτε κύκλῳ περιδινῶν σεαυτὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος ἔλεγες, ὡς ἀντιπράττων Ἀλεξάνδρῳ· Ὀ῾μολογῶ τὰ Λακωνικὰ συστῆσαι, ὁμολογῶ Θετταλοὺς καὶ Περραιβοὺς ἀφιστάναι.’

Aeschines accuses Demosthenes of merely feigning hostility toward Macedoniaa claim we may take or leave. It is significant, though, that even a public figure opposed to joining Agis would speak favorably of the revolt in public, whether deceitfully or not. Aeschines gives further evidence that although Demosthenes opposed war with Macedonia, he was no friend of the Macedonian order in Greece. As he sums up his argument against Demosthenes in 330, after Antipater defeated Agis and Alexander’s final victory over Darius became known in Europe, Aeschines says (In Ctes. 234): And the city has been slandered because of Demosthenes’ policies during the recent crisis. If you crown this man, you will seem to be in agreement with those who are undermining the Common Peace, but if you do the opposite, you will release the people from these charges. διαβέβληται d*) ἡ πόλις ἐκ τῶν Δημοσθένους πολιτευμάτων περὶ τοὺς νυνὶ καιρούς· δόξετε δέ, ἐὰν μὲν τοῦτον στεφανώσητε, ὁμογνώμονες εἶναι τοῖς παραβαίνουσι τὴν κοινὴν εἰρήνην, ἐὰν δὲ τοὐναντίον τούτου πράξετε, ἀπολύσετε τὸν δῆμον τῶν αἰτιῶν.

The Athenians did as little as possible to help the Macedonians against Persia, and nothing to help them against Agis. The Athenians considered joining Agis, had some hope that Agis would be successful, and never (as far as the evidence shows) considered taking up arms to help Antipater. Furthermore, the evidence shows that the oaths of the Common Peace, far from helping to bind Athens to the Macedonian side, appear in the debate only as justification for rebelling with the Spartans. Even Demosthenes, who advised the Athenians to stay out of the war, seems to have been openly hostile to the Common Peace. It remains, then, for us to explain why Athens remained neutral. There are two possible explanations, and they are not mutually exclusive. The first reason has to do with the Athenians, and the second with Antipater.

It is possible, and in fact quite probable, that Demosthenes was not the only voice favoring caution in 331. The Athenian Phocion, while nowhere attested as having participated in this debate, almost certainly had something to say on the subject and, if so, almost certainly spoke for prudence. As Mitchel aptly puts it: Phocion was a most cautious general, and this caution in military matters, when translated to the βῆμα, became a policy of quietism which has been interpreted as being promacedonian. Actually, he had two basic rules, which can be deduced from all his actions and sayings: 1) Never fight until every possibility of negotiation has been exhausted; and 2) Not even then unless victory is assured or one’s back is to the wall.¹⁶⁵

No one suggests, however, that Phocion was a pacifist or a coward; he was elected στρατηγός forty-five times and, despite his repeated advocacy of negotiation, he led Athens into battle against Macedonia at Euboea (349/8 BC), at Byzantium (340/39) and for the last time to defend the Paralia in 322, when he was in his nineties (Plut. Phoc. 12, 14, 33).¹⁶⁶ Despite his opposition to Athens’ involvement at Chaeronea, the Areopagus appointed him in charge of the city’s defense, when it was feared that Philip would sweep down from Boeotia and take the city (Plut. Phoc. 16.4). Phocion opposed Athens’ joining the Common Peace, arguing that it was foolish to swear oaths without knowing how this would put the city under burdensome obligations (Plut. Phoc. 16.5; Suid. s.v. Δημάδης , 2.38), but later, when the Athenians regretted their decision, he advised them to abide by the terms of the treaty (Plut. Phoc. 16.6-7). Despite his resistance to the Common Peace, Alexander declared him φίλον καὶ ξένον , “friend and guest” (Plut. Phoc. 17.9). It is impossible to imagine that Phocion stayed out of the debate over Agis, and we might do well to consider Athens’ decision in terms of the “Phocionic rules” that Mitchel outlines.

If the Athenians had chosen to help Agis, they would have been wagering their future on two events: the defeat of Antipater by a Peloponnesian and Athenian army, and the defeat of Alexander by Darius (by the time news of Darius’ defeat at Gaugamela reached Greece, the decision had been made: see above, note 145, for the chronology I accept). If Antipater was victorious, then the Athenians would share punishment with Sparta, and they cannot have forgotten the fate of Thebes. If Alexander defeated Darius, then he would have had all the resources of the Persian Empire to bring to bear on rebellious Greek states.¹⁶⁷ On the other hand, by failing to help Agis, Athens had nothing to lose and, potentially, just as much to gain as if they had joined in a successful war on Macedonia. If Agis defeated Antipater’s army and Darius defeated Alexander, then Athens would be free to re-stake her position as a leader of the Greeks. If Agis lost, but Alexander were also defeated, Athens could always face a greatly weakened Macedonia later. And if, as it happened, both Antipater and Alexander were victorious, the Athenians would not face the razing of their city. The effect of this, for events, was to keep Athenian hoplites away from Megalopolis and insure that the armies meeting there would be almost evenly matched. The effect for this discussion is to show that there is no reason to find Athens’ decision determined by the institutional strictures that would make assistance for Agis in some sense illegal or that would oblige Athens to join in opposing Agis.

Apart from Athenian policy, we might also explain Athens’ lack of participation by noting the lack of any evidence to suggest that Antipater asked for Athenian support. Had he issued such a request or demand, we might expect the author of Demosthenes 17 to have included it in his catalogue of Macedonian outrages, or Aeschines to mention it in In Ctesiphontem as further evidence for Demosthenes’ folly. We should, of course, avoid arguing from silence. But we do find signs of Macedonian anxiety over Athens’ policy in 331, but these do not suggest that Antipater considered using Athenian troops, even though Athens was on his path to the Peloponnese and he had a Macedonian garrison in the area.¹⁶⁸ Alexander himself was sufficiently concerned about the Athenians that he sent 3,000 talents and the famous statues of the tyrannicides back to Athens (Arr. 3.16.10; cf. Diod. 17.64.5 and Curt. 5.1.43).¹⁶⁹ These lavish gifts were accompanied by no requests or instructions that we hear of and seem to have been a reward for staying idle. We should put this beside the political discourse at Athens, which grants no compelling authority to the Common Peace, and McQueen’s observation that Antipater’s only support in the Peloponnese were states that had their own reasons to hate Sparta, were under the direct control of Macedonian puppet-governments or garrisons, or (in the case of Megalopolis) came under direct attack. The only action of the συνέδριον of the Common Peace was a vote of support for Macedonia that led to no discernible action (Diod. 17.48.6; Curt. 4.5.11). We can conclude that Macedonian authority, as opposed to Macedonian coercion, neither prevented any city from joining Agis’ cause, nor gave any material benefit to Antipater’s efforts at putting down the rebellion.

In this first crisis of hegemony the Athenians granted no authority to Antipater, and he in turn assumed none over the Greeks. By failing either to ask or demand more general participation in the war from the states of the Common Peace, Antipater acted more as a Macedonian general than as a representative of the ἡγεμών of the Peace. While this was probably the more efficient course of action, it undermined Antipater’s position as General of Europe. As we saw earlier, this position was unprecedented and therefore undefined. For Antipater to exercise authority in this role, he had to act authoritatively; he might have done so by invoking the oaths of the Peace to elicit support against Sparta. Instead, he gave tacit acknowledgment of the Athenians disregard for the Common Peace and the idea that Macedonia derived any authority from it. He managed the army in Pella, while Alexander sent gifts to the Athenians. Alexander dealt with Athens by means of a bribe, and Antipater dealt with Sparta with direct coercive force, which, as we will see, he could only just afford.

The army with which Antipater faced Agis was large, large enough as events proved, and the circumstances under which Antipater prepared it are important for this study. The rapid depletion of Macedonian manpower, from its height in the 330s bc, has been the subject of extensive scholarship, much of it attributing Macedonia’s military impoverishment at the end of the 4th century to Alexander’s repeated drawing of troops to fuel his Asian campaigns.¹⁷⁰ This is not the aim of our discussion here, but Alexander’s need for Macedonian soldiers and its effect on Antipater’s war merit attention. Alexander took with him to Asia between 32,000 and 43,000 soldiers.¹⁷¹ Antipater remained behind with 12,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry (Diod. 17.17.5). As the war with Persia progressed, Alexander repeatedly called for Macedonian reinforcements.¹⁷² In the winter of 334/3, he sent the two taxiarchs Coenus and Meleager, with Ptolemy the son of Seleucus, to bring Macedonians from Greece; these men rejoined Alexander at Gordium in 333 with 3,000 infantry and 300 cavalry (Arr. 1.29.4).¹⁷³ That year, Alexander received another 15,000 soldiers, of whom 6,000 were Macedonians (Curt. 3.7.8).¹⁷⁴ In late 333 BC, 5000 infantry and 800 cavalry left Macedonia for Asia (Polyb. 13.19.2). There was another small levy that winter of 500 Thracian cavalry and 400 Greek mercenaries (Arr. 3.5.1). In 331, the same year that Antipater began collecting his army to face Agis, he had sent reinforcements to Alexander under Amyntas’ leadership (Diod. 17.49.1; Curt. 4.6.30, 7.1.37-40).¹⁷⁵

Scholars offer differing assessments of the effect of this stream of soldiers from Macedonia to Asia. Hammond and Walbank say, simply, that the removal of so many Macedonians worked to Agis’ advantage, especially since he might have expected Antipater to divide his forces between Memnon and the Spartans.¹⁷⁶ Adams goes further, suggesting that the levies caused Agis’ uprising by presenting Macedonia as an attractive target and by raising resentment among the Thracians and Peloponnesians, who themselves sent many mercenary troops to Alexander.¹⁷⁷ These arguments stand on three points. First, that only 13,500 troops remained behind in 335 (Diod. 17.17.5). Second, that Diodorus says Antipater mustered his entire army (πᾶσαν ἀναλαβὼν τὴν δυν́αμιν ) to face Memnon (17.62.6). And third, that it seems to have taken Antipater several months to gather the army of 40,000 with which he faced Agis at Megalopolis (Aesch. In Ctes. 165).¹⁷⁸ But Badian denies that Alexander drained Macedonia of its manpower, thus weakening Antipater’s army, and argues that young men newly of military age (the νέοι ) would number at least 10,000 each year.¹⁷⁹ Badian’s numbers are convincing, and lead to the conclusion that Alexander did not entirely destroy Macedonia’s ability to make war, at least not by 331/0. There remain, however, instances in which Antipater certainly seems to have suffered a dearth of manpower, and Badian’s arguments leave too much unexplained. For example, Diodorus reports a shortage of Macedonian soldiers at the beginning of the Lamian War, 323 bc (18.12.2). Badian explains this by pointing out that the number of men under arms does not necessarily include all men of military age, but in doing so undermines his own argument“men of military age” were no substitute for the trained and armed soldiers sent east to Alexander. Likewise with Agis’ war: “Since Diodorus has foreshortened the whole story of Antipater’s mustering of his army, we simply cannot tell whether he could relieve a large number of Macedonians by hiring mercenaries. But it may be conjectured that, out of obvious concern for the Macedonians, he tried to do this during the winter, and that this is why he was so slow to collect his army.” ¹⁸⁰ It seems unlikely at best that Antipater failed to face Agis immediately because, despite a sufficient pool of Macedonian men, he preferred to solicit, pay, and organize a mercenary army. It is even more unlikely that Alexander would have tolerated this approach to military management and have even endorsed it by sending 3,000 talents. The several months it took Antipater to collect his army and the money Alexander sent from Susa in late 331 suggest strongly that Macedonian military resources alone were insufficient for the task at hand. We might also note that according to Curtius’ account, when Amyntas was sent to levy Macedonian forces for Alexander in 331, the king told him that “many able-bodied young men were hiding in [his] mother’s house” (dixisse te multos integros iuvenes in domo tuae matris abscondi) and instructed Amyntas to recruit them as well (7.1.37-40); this would suggest that Alexander was taking soldiers from wherever he could, not skimming off a surplus of Antipater’s army.¹⁸¹

While it may be true that Alexander’s war against Persia did no irremediable harm to Macedonia, or at least not by 331, the steady stream of fighting men from Europe to Asia cannot have helped. In 331, Antipater faced an army larger than he could fight with the troops at hand and had to turn, as Agis had done, to mercenaries and soldiers from cities under direct and immediate Macedonian control. Megalopolis, Corinth, Argos, and Messene sent troops to the Macedonian army (Diod. 17.63.1; Paus. 1.6.4; Aesch. In Ctes. 165), but the Peloponnesian states, too, had that year sent to Alexander 4,380 soldiers who could have been used against Agis (Diod. 17.49.1; Curt. 4.6.30).

Alexander did give Antipater support, in the form of the triremes sent to Crete and the Peloponnese (Arr. 3.16.10), and the money sent from Susa. But it is questionable to what extent these measures helped Antipater. Once the triremes are sent, we never hear of them again, and since the war consisted of a single decisive battle at Megalopolis, it is not clear that they could have had any effect except to re-establish a Macedonian presence in Crete. The money would certainly have been useful, but perhaps not for Antipater’s war against Agis. Adams says in his 1984 article, “Virtually all of the aid to Antipater, then, was indirect, and if one accept the earlier chronology of the war, even the financial aid would have reached Antipater after Megalopolis.” ¹⁸² While the “earlier” chronologyaccording to which the war took place entirely in 331is no longer tenable, the force of this statement remains largely intact. For if, as Bosworth and Badian suggest, Alexander sent the 3,000 talents in the middle of December 331, they would have reached Macedonia just at the beginning of the campaigning season of 330. Antipater must have already assembled his army of 40,000 by then, using whatever resources were at his disposal, and so Alexander’s money could not have been used to pay a retainer but would have provided only severance pay once Agis was dead and the rebellion crushed. Antipater was expected to provide Alexander with his needs for the Persian wars and maintain order in Greece, and he tried to do so. At this moment, with Alexander preparing for the decisive battle with Darius and Agis organizing the Peloponnese in revolt, the resources available to him were stretched thin. Because of the ever-increasing distance between the king and Pella, it will have been more and more difficult for Alexander to take into account Antipater’s needs, should he have been interested in doing so. Also, any help Alexander could provide was inevitably indirect and untimely.

Antipater’s evident difficulties in supporting Alexander and securing Greece were added to the lack of support afforded by the institutional basis for Macedonian hegemony. These problems arose from the loose, changing, and often ad hoc structure of what we call Macedonian hegemony. The Common Peace served to bring Greeks together under Alexander’s leadership for a war against Persia, but it was clearly not effective in securing Greek passivity under Macedonian control. Antipater owed his place to Alexander, who had installed him at Pella and on whose continued success the Macedonian hegemony depended. But as the war in Asia progressed, Antipater’s needs became less and less coincident with Alexander’s. This fact appears first during the months it took Antipater to assemble his army for the war with Agis. In the final section of this chapter, we will see more serious signs that the Macedonian “General of Europe” was increasingly on his own and increasingly unable to profit from any authority derived from Alexander.¹⁸³

Badian’s 1967 article on Agis III was groundbreaking largely because it took Sparta’s efforts seriously.¹⁸⁴ Megalopolis was a major battle, the armies as big as those at Chaeronea, and it was more fiercely contested than many more famous. Diodorus reports 3,500 killed from Antipater’s army and 5,300 from Agis’ (Diod. 17.63.3; Curt. 6.1.16). Adams notes, in contrast, that Alexander’s dead at Granicus, Issus, and Gaugamela combined were only 1,200.¹⁸⁵ Despite Antipater’s months in preparation and the 3,000 talents Alexander sent him, and perhaps because of the numbers of Macedonian soldiers sent to Asia and spare support from Macedonia’s allies, the battle was both difficult and bloody. During the fighting Agis was injured and taken from the field, whereupon his army began to retreat; the Spartan king died, and Antipater was victorious (Curt. 6.1.1-17).

In the settlement after Megalopolis we see that the Common Peace, while having shown little or no currency while Antipater built his army for the war (except as rhetorical fodder for opponents of Macedonia), was still operative and could still be put to use. Diodorus, the main source for Antipater’s handling of the defeated Peloponnesians, says (17.73.5): In Europe, the Spartans, having fallen in a great battle, were compelled by this catastrophe to send an embassy to Antipater. He referred judgment to the common συνέδριον of the Greeks, and the σύνεδροι came together at Corinth and, with many speeches on each side, decided to pass the matter, undecided, along to Alexander. And so Antipater took as hostages fifty of the foremost Spartiates, and the Spartans sent ambassadors to Asia, asking him to give a pardon for their errors. κατὰ δὲ τὴν Εὐρώπην Λακεδαιμόνιοι μὲν ἐπταικότες μεγάλῃ παρατάξει διὰ τὴν συμφορὰν ἠναγκάσθησαν διαπρεσβεύεσθαι πρὸς Ἀντίπατρον· ἐκείνου δὲ ἐπὶ τὸ κοινὸν τῶν Ἑλλήνων συνέδριον τὴν ἀπόκρισιν ἀποστείλαντος οἱ μὲν σύνδεδροι συνήχθησαν εἰς Κόρινθον καὶ πολλῶν ῥηθέντων λόγων πρὸς ἑκάτερον μέρος ἔδοξεν αὐτοῖς ἀκέραιον τὴν κρίσιν ἐπὶ τὸν Ἀλέξανδρον ἀναπέμψαι. ὁ μὲν οὖν Ἀντίπατρος ὁμήρους ἔλαβε τοὺς ἐπιφανεστάτους τῶν Σπαρτιατῶν πεντήκοντα, οἱ δὲ Λακεδαιμόνιοι πρέσβεις ἐξέπεμψαν εἰς τὴν Ἀσίαν, ἀξιοῦντες αὐτοῖς δοῦναι συγγνώμην ἐπὶ τοῖς ἠγνοημένοις.

Our other accounts for these events, from Arrian, Dinarchus, Curtius, Justin, and Aeschines, generally agree, with the exception of Aeschines, In Ctes. 133. McQueen divides the settlement into four steps.¹⁸⁶ There were negotiations with Antipater, deliberation of the σύνεδροι, Antipater’s demand for 50 hostages, and the Spartan embassy to Alexander (Arr. 2.13.4-6; Din. In Dem. 34; Diod. 17.48.1-2, 17.62.1-63.3, 17.73.5; Just. 12.1.6-11; Curt. 6.1.2-21). Aeschines, In Ctes. 133, conflicts with these sources only because he suggests that the hostages were to go to Alexander, not Antipater, and makes no mention of an embassy; given the exigencies of public oratory, this should not pose a problem.¹⁸⁷ According to Curtius, the συνέδριον fined Achaea and Elis 120 talents, pardoned the Tegeans except the “ringleaders” (auctores), and refused to make a decision on Sparta (Curt. 6.1.20).¹⁸⁸

Some have argued that Antipater’s decision to hand over the rebels, except Sparta, to the council of the Common Peace is an example of institutional, or even constitutional, hegemony at work.¹⁸⁹ Certainly, the oaths sworn by members of the Peace included a vow to punish those who violate it.¹⁹⁰ The refusal of the council to rule on Sparta, too, is appropriate, since the Spartans had not sworn the oaths. This explanation may obtain, for as we have seen the συνέδριον was not altogether inactive since its founding; it arbitrated between Cimolus and Melos, it was cited as the judicial body for the resettlement of Chian exiles, and it voted a gold wreath on Alexander, “because of the things he had done for the health and liberty of Greece” (ob res pro salute ac libertate Graeciae gestas) (Curt 4.5.11).¹⁹¹ But this list is sparse, and the closest historical parallel to the situation after Megalopolis is the “settlement” of Thebes. If we make that comparison we can see how useful the συνεδρίοι might have been to Antipater in 330, as a means to deflect Greek resentment away from the Macedonians, a function the council performed for Alexander in 335.¹⁹² The συνέδριον’s decision to turn Sparta’s fate over to Alexander, in turn, can be explained as an unwillingness to repeat the atrocity inflicted on the Thebans. If Alexander wanted to destroy Sparta he could, but the deed would be on his own hands. There might, however, be yet another interpretation, one more specific to Antipater’s own position in 330. Antipater needed a speedy, non-controversial settlement. As Adams notes: “The final battle with Agis had been too costly to allow for a second one, or to grant the initiative to any other dissident force.” ¹⁹³ By involving the other Greek states in punishing Agis’ allies, Antipater could hope to defuse, at least for the moment, any lingering restlessness until he could take more permanent measures to discourage revolt.

Curtius’ account of Antipater’s caution after the battle offers still another motivation (6.1.17-19): Antipater did not fail to distinguish between the faces of those congratulating him from their actual feelings, but desiring to end the war he let himself be deceived. And although the outcome of events pleased him, nevertheless he feared because his deeds were greater than suited his station as governor. For Alexander had wanted the enemy beaten, but he was indignant, and not quietly, that Antipater had won, judging that his own glory had been appropriated. And so, Antipater, who was well aware of Alexander’s attitude, did not dare to be the arbiter of victory himself, but asked the council of the Greeks what it wished to do. Nec fallebat Antipatrum dissentire ab animis gratulantium vultus, sed bellum finire cupienti opus erat decipi. Et quamquam fortuna rerum placebat, invidiam tamen. quia maiores res erant quam quas praefecti modus caperet, metuebat. Quippe Alexander hostes vinci voluerat, Antipatrum vicisse ne tacitus quidem indignabatur suae demptum gloriae existimans, quicquid cessisset alienae. Itaque Antipater, qui probe nosset spiritus eius, non est ausus ipse agere arbitria victoriae, sed concilium Graecorum, quid fieri placeret, consuluit.

We should be wary of Curtius’ pervasive, almost programmatic, hostility toward Alexander, and certainly of any source reporting the thoughts of historical figures, but we should also avoid dismissing too hastily Curtius’ statements of Antipater’s fear and Alexander’s pique, as McQueen does.¹⁹⁴ First of all, since the states of the Common Peace had sworn to hand violators over to the συνέδριον for judgment and punishment, Curtius’ excursus on what motivated Antipater is not necessary; the historian’s narrative would be quite coherent without it. He need not have made it up, nor is it isolated in his account. Curtius’ phrase “he was indignant, and not quietly” (ne tacitus quidem indignabatur) corresponds to his assertion, later, that (10.10.14): Certainly, Alexander was often heard to say that Antipater affected the trappings of a king, was more powerful than a governor should be, and inflated by the honor of his Spartan victory appropriated all that was given him by Alexander. Saepe certe audita erat vox Alexandri, Antipatrum regium affectare fastigium maioremque esse praefecti opibus ac titulo Spartanae victoriae inflatum omnia a se data asserentem sibi.¹⁹⁵

Plutarch also suggests a mixed reaction to Antipater’s victory when he reports Alexander belittling the battle, saying (Plut. Ages. 15.4): Alexander, when he learned of the battle between Antipater and Agis, made a joke, saying, ‘It seems, gentlemen, that while we were defeating Darius here, there was a battle between mice in Arcadia.’ Ἀλέξανδρος δὲ καὶ προσεπέσκωψε πυθόμενος τὴν πρὸς Ἆγιν Ἀντιπάτρου μάχην, εἰπών· ‘Ἔοικεν, ὦ ἄνδρες, ὅτε Δαρεῖον ἡμεῖς ἐνικῶμεν ἐνταῦθα, ἐκεῖ τις ἐν Ἀρκαδίᾳ γεγονέναι μυομαχία’.

Given the scale and cost of the fighting in the Peloponnese Alexander’s joke, if we accept it, seems mean-spirited but also intelligible given the relationship between the king, his general, and the European hegemony.¹⁹⁶ Megalopolis showed that Antipater could dominate the Greeks on his own, without Alexander. Antipater will have seen this, and the Greeks will have as well. Despite the difficulties he faced, the victory over Sparta was complete and unequivocal. Aeschines gives his impression of the extent to which Sparta was humiliated (In Ctes. 133):¹⁹⁷

When the unfortunate Spartans are sent to Alexanderthey who were once worthy to be leaders of the Greeks, and who got into these problems only because they seized a temple and are now about to be hostages, archetypes of misfortunethey and their country are about to suffer what Demosthenes wished, to be judged over there by the one who defeated them and who had been wronged without provocation. Λακεδαιμόνιοι d*) οἱ ταλαίπωροι, προσαψάμενοι μόνον τούτων τῶν πραγμάτων ἐξ ἀρχῆς περὶ τὴν τοῦ ἱεροῦ κατάληψιν, οἱ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ποτὲ ἀξιοῦντες ἡγεμόνες εἶναι, νῦν ὁμηρεύσοντες καὶ τῆς συμφορᾶς ἐπίδειξιν ποιησόμενοι μέλλουσιν ὡς Ἀλέξανδρον ἀναπέμπεσθαι, τοῦτο πεισόμενοι, καὶ αὐτοὶ καὶ ἡ πατρίς, ὅ τι ἂν ἐκείνῳ δόξῃ, καὶ ἐν τῇ τοῦ κρατοῦντος καὶ προηδικημένου μετριότητι κριθησόμενοι.

There are times when a weak enemy is more useful than a dead one, and D. Mendels has suggested that Alexander may have preferred a more conditional settlement with Sparta.¹⁹⁸ He suggests that a weaker “Spartan bloc” in the Peloponnese would have acted as a check on any ambitions Antipater may have conceived. Instead, Antipater eliminated Sparta as a military presence for the time being.

But by deferring to the Common Peace, which in turn deferred at least part of the decision to Alexander, Antipater avoided “affecting the trappings of a king”. The συνέδριον’s decision not to rule on Sparta, likewise, seems better explained as an act of caution than as an expression of constitutional integrity. Achaea and Tegea were inconsequential at this point, but for the Common Peace to presume to punish Sparta could have offended Alexander. Furthermore, had the council agreed to punish Sparta, the member states would have been committed to enforcing the judgment with arms if necessary, and they had already demonstrated their unwillingness to fight a war in the Peloponnese. The συνέδριον of the Common Peace, on this occasion, served both Antipater and the Greeks as a convenient means to avoid offending Alexander.

When Antipater recused himself from the decision, though, he further undermined his authority in Greece. For the time being it would make little difference, but when we return to examine the crises of 324-323 it will be important to recall that during the critical moments of 331 and 330, Antipater had self-consciously and publicly refrained from speaking with Alexander’s voice. The message must have been clear: affairs involving both Greeks and Macedonians would be decided by either the συνέδριον or by Alexander, and Antipater’s job was limited to exercising his army in the service of Macedonian security.

Alexander could not have begun his march east from Ecbatana toward India if Antipater had not secured Greece by defeating Agis. Kanatsulis says, of the destruction of Agis’ army: Nach diesem Sieg des Antipatros war Spartas Stellung in Griechenland vollends ershüttert. Die Herrschaft Makedoniens aber war von jetzt an in Griechenland während der ganzen Zeit der Verweserschaft des Antipatros bis zum Tode Alexanders gesichert; nur durch den lamischen Krieg ist die makedonische Herrschaft unter ihm noch einmal bedroht worden.¹⁹⁹

Alexander seems to have been confident that this would be the case. He was at Ecbatana when he first heard of Antipater’s victory, and immediately upon learning this news he dismissed his Greek “allies” (Arr. 3.19.5; Diod. 17.74.3; Curt. 6.2.17). The consensus among modern Alexander-historians is that he “no longer needed the Greek allies even as hostages, and regarded his position as στρατηγὸς αὐτοκράτωρ (though not as ἡγεμών ) at an end.” ²⁰⁰ Alexander was looking east and thought himself quit of Greece.²⁰¹

Although it was Antipater’s victory that secured Macedonian power in Greece and allowed Alexander to go on to other things, the king acted to weaken further his general’s authority in Europe. Plutarch says that, “covetous of stature in the eyes of the Greeks, he announced that the tyrannies were ended and that they might live according to their own laws” (φιλοτιμούμενος δὲ πρὸς τοὺς Ἕλληνας, ἔγραψε τὰς τυραννίδας πάσας καταλυθῆναι καὶ πολιτεύειν αὐτονόμους ) (Plut. Alex. 34.2).²⁰² It is possible that Alexander dispatched this missive in response only to his victory over Darius, before he had news of Megalopolis. Even so, in Greece the announcement will have appeared in the context of Antipater’s victory.²⁰³ It may have been that from Alexander’s point of view the problems of maintaining a hegemony over the Greeks had been put to rest once and for all, that Alexander “knew that they would not risk destruction.” ²⁰⁴ The situation might have looked very different from Pella, however, to the man who would be directly responsible for intervening should any Greek state “risk destruction”. We should also remember, as Antipater can hardly have failed to do, that there was a strong possibility of Alexander’s being seriously wounded or killed during his march eastward, and that on every previous occasion when the king’s death was rumored (or even seemed likely) at least some of the Greeks had taken up arms. Antipater took steps to prevent any such uprising. In the summer of 330, he sent a force of 8,000 troops to Asia, and Curtius, who is careful to distinguish between Macedonian soldiers and Greeks, says that they were Greeks (7.10.11-12; cf. 5.1.40-41). Bosworth suggests that Antipater was trying to draw forces from potential troublemakers among the Greeks cities while at the same time retaining his own Macedonian forces.²⁰⁵ If this was his intention it failed, since at the same time as he was sending these Greek mercenaries off to Asia, Alexander was returning his Greek mercenaries to Europe. And Alexander again drew on Antipater’s military reserves, sending Sopolis, Epocillus, and Menidas from Nautaka to Macedonia to fetch still more reinforcements from Macedonia to the east (Arr. 4.18.1).

As Alexander decreed the Greeks free from tyranny and autonomous, Antipater was imposing ever harsher controls on the Greeks, to forestall further trouble. We know of his supporting tyrannies at Sicyon, Pellene, Messenia (Dem. 17.4, 7, 10, 16), and Rhodes (Diod. 18.8.1). There were pro-Macedonian garrisons at Pellene, Corinth, and the Cadmea, near the site where Thebes had once stood (close enough to Athens to serve as a reminder, if not an immediate threat). The measures Antipater took to secure Greece for Alexander were to chafe the Greeks more and more, and when the king returned from his march to India, he would be beset by embassies complaining about Antipater (Plut. Alex. 74.2; Justin 12.14.4).²⁰⁶ Whether he intended to or not, Alexander had, in the eyes of the Greeks, separated himself and his policies from Antipater and his.²⁰⁷

Whatever tensions arose between the king and his general in Europe cannot have been eased by other events during the year 330 BC. Shortly after Alexander left Ecbatana, Philotas and Parmenio were accused of plotting against the king. Philotas was executed after a hearing before the army, and Parmenio, who had remained behind in Ecbatana, was killed shortly thereafter.²⁰⁸ At the same time, Alexander arranged for the death of Alexander Lyncestis, Antipater’s son-in-law who had been held in captivity since 334/3 (Arr. 1.25.3; Curt. 7.1.6-8, 8.8.6; Diod. 17.80.2).²⁰⁹ Diodorus, speaking of later rumors that Antipater conspired in Alexander’s death, says that, “the murder of Parmenio and Philotas struck terror into Alexander’s friends” (τῆς Παρμενίωνος καὶ Φιλώτου σφαγῆς φρίκην ἐμποιούσης τοῖς φίλοις ) (Diod. 17.118.1). Plutarch, in his vita of Alexander, mentions this fear as a logical connection between his discussion of Parmenio’s death with that of Antipater’s negotiations with Aetolia (for which see below, page 108): “These events made Alexander a figure of fear to many of his friends” (ταῦτα πραχθέντα πολλοῖς τῶν φίλων φοβερὸν ἐποίησε τὸν Ἀλέξανδρον ) (Alex. 49.14).²¹⁰ Fear is an entirely internal state and as such does not go very far in helping us interpret the effect of these deaths on subsequent developments. A more useful account of Antipater’s reaction, however, appears elsewhere in Plutarch’s corpus (Plut. Mor. 183f [Reg. et Imp. Apoth.]): When Antipater heard that Parmenio had been killed by Alexander, he said, ‘If Parmenio plotted against Alexander, who can be trusted? And if he did not, what must be done?’ Ἀντίπατρος ἀκούσας τὴν Παρμενίωνος ὑπ?̓ Ἀλεξάνδρου τελευτήν εἰ μὲν ἐπεβούλευσεν εἶπε Παρμενίων Ἀλεξάνδρῳ, τίνι πιστευτέον; εἰ δὲ μή, τί πρακτέον;

These two questions, better than a description of Antipater’s emotions, suggest that the deaths of Philotas, Parmenio, and Alexander Lyncestis redefined Antipater’s position in the structure of Macedonia. R.M. Errington says that the killings were a manifestation of “the growing gulf between the king’s interest and those of his country and people”, in that they reduced any political forms or structures to a personal dependence more suited to Alexander’s needs.²¹¹ This is persuasive, and it fits well with Antipater’s subsequent actions in Greece, which show an increased interest in securing his own position without reference to a larger hegemony under Alexander’s authority. The first part of chapter V will discuss these actions.

So in 331 and 330 BC, Antipater’s relationship with Alexander suffered a series of blows, and with it the perceived unity and authority of a Macedonian hegemony. We have already seen that the military needs of Alexander’s Asian war presented difficulties for Antipater as he assembled an army to match Agis; these difficulties were probably inevitable, problems Antipater might have expected upon assuming his responsibilities in Europe. The aftermath of the war with Agis, however, was a different matter. Alexander seems to have belittled his victory, announced an “autonomy” for the Greeks that Antipater could not hope to allow, and put to death Antipater’s colleagues under questionable circumstances. This, then, was the state of affairs between the two when Alexander marched east and left Antipater and Greek affairs for what would be a five-year absence.

This chapter has examined the circumstances under which Antipater worked from Alexander’s departure from Europe until 330 BC. Nowhere is given an adequate definition of his position, apart from his status as a “general” whom Alexander charged with the “affairs” of Greece. The Greece Alexander left behind him was ostensibly bound by oaths of Common Peace, which seem to have entered into events and discourse inconsistently. The oaths were sworn at Corinth, both in Philip’s time and Alexander’s, under immediate threat of arms. The Athenians at least went straight home, voted Philip honors, and prepared to resist any attempt to overthrow their democracy. Alexander left Greece as quickly as possible, before the Greek states were entirely secured and indeed before the future of Macedonian affairs were secure, for he ignored Antipater’s and Parmenio’s advice to father an heir. While the mechanisms of the Common Peace worked to resolve disputes between states, in other regards the Macedonian-imposed order, both in its observance and its breach, elicited vocal complaints such as those in Demosthenes 17. From 335 until 331 Antipater provided levy after levy of Macedonian troops for Alexander’s campaigns, right up until the war with Sparta, for which he had to scramble and delay in order to build up an army sufficient to face Agis. Those of the “allies” that did not join in the revolt provided little help that we hear of, except for those states having their own grudges against Sparta or under direct Macedonian control. Nor was Alexander in a position to help Antipater immediately. Antipater defeated Agis, but the cost was high and the reward, as it seems, slight. At the end of this crisis we find Antipater moving in his role cautiously for fear of a jealous Alexander, summoning the συνέδριον to judge the minor participants in rebellion and sending the important decision to Alexander. Finally, we find Alexander and Antipater working at cross purposes, the former proclaiming Hellenic autonomy and freedom while returning all his Greek soldiers, while the other was setting up garrisons, changing governments, and trying to rid Greece of whatever elements might cause trouble to the Macedonians.

From these events and interactions we can see that while Antipater skillfully and effectively secured Macedonian power, he did nothing to establish himself as an authority in Greece. The Common Peace authorized Alexander to enlist ships and soldiers from the Greeks, but this authority seems to have been, in practice, limited to the Asian war and not transferred to Antipater. When Agis challenged Macedonia, anti-Macedonian voices at Athens used the language of the oaths to argue in favor of supporting Agis, while to our knowledge no one suggested that the Common Peace obliged Athens in any way toward the Peace. Alexander, in fact, tacitly acknowledged this with his gifts of gold and the long-before stolen statues of the tyrannicides. From Antipater’s conduct of the war and the settlement afterwards we can see that his position vis-à-vis Alexander further limited the authority he could claim in Europe, while adding to his difficulty in maintaining Macedonian power over the Greeks. Alexander’s war in Asia was a drain on Antipater’s resources, and Alexander’s rhetoric regarding the “autonomy” of the Greeks was largely incompatible with the practical measures Antipater took after 330 to insure continuing hegemony. From the perspectives of the Macedonians, of the Greeks, and of us students of Macedonian history, Antipater emerged from the crisis of 331-330 with unequaled (though clearly finite) power but with little or no authority in Greece.

This is an appropriate place to divide an analysis of Antipater, Alexander, and Greece. The war with Agis was the first important test of the Macedonians’ ability to turn the military and institutional foundation of their hegemony into useful authority over Greece, and it ended with mixed results. Beginning in 330 BC Alexander was increasingly distant from Europe and European affairs. This situation was utterly different from Philip’s campaign at Byzantium, or Alexander’s brief campaigns toward the Danube, when a “regent” remained behind to manage limited affairs for a limited time, and was never completely out of touch with the king. After 330 Alexander was unable to keep abreast of developments in Greece or to offer timely and practical assistance. He was moving east, would campaign in Bactria and Sogdiana the next year, then continue toward India, leaving behind, to function or fail on their own, whatever mechanisms or structures of power there were. And so the period between Agis’ destruction and Alexander’s reemergence in 325 bcwhen Antipater was left to define and secure his own position in Pella and to exercise a questionable authority in a Greece newly informed by the events of 331 and 330will be best treated not as an extension of 335-330, but rather as the immediate background to Alexander’s return from India in 325. But before we examine that final series of crises for the Macedonian hegemony, we should turn to Olympias, the other prominent Macedonian who engaged Greek affairs during Alexander’s absence.