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Alexander the Great and an Experiment in Government2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

G. T. Griffith
G. T. Griffith
Affiliation:
Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge
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Extract

In early summer of the year 334, only a few weeks after his crossing into Asia Minor and perhaps only a week or two after his first victory in Asia at the river Granicus, Alexander was in Sardes making arrangements for the future government of the satrapy of Lydia, the second of the Persian satrapies to be annexed in this way. Besides appointing in each case a Macedonian to be satrap in place of the former Persian official, and besides making certain special arrangements in each province, at Sardes he appointed a (probably) Greek officer Nicias to be in charge of the financial administration of Lydia. This appointment has always been recognized as a particularly interesting one, because it provides the earliest evidence suggesting an administrative experiment undertaken by Alexander, if it is true, as is usually thought, that he was introducing here something new into the government of the empire in Asia, something which is usually described as ‘the separation of the financial administration from the jurisdiction of the satraps’, or words to that effect. The object of considering it here again (it has been often considered already) is to try to make sure whether this really was an innovation; and if so, what light it throws on Alexander as an administrator in general.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 10 , 1964 , pp. 23 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1964

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References

page 23 note 3 A. 1, 17, 7 (with 17, 1)

page 24 note 1 Cf. Berve, 1, esp. 303ff.; Leuze, O, Die Satrapieeinteilung in Syrien, etc. (Halle, 1935), 407ffGoogle Scholar.

page 24 note 2 A. 3, 5, 2ff.; cf. Berve, I, 259f.; 11, pp. 210f.

page 24 note 3 A. 3, 6, 4; 16, 9; Berve, II, pp. 219, 257.

page 24 note 4 A. 3, 6, 4.

page 24 note 5 Berve, II, p. 210.

page 24 note 6 A. 3, 16, 4.

page 24 note 7 A. 3, 6, 6; 19,7. Diodorus, 17,108, 4, describes him as, in 325, .

page 24 note 8 See below, p. 26.

page 24 note 9 Professor Jones in discussion of the paper rightly stressed the importance of this fact.

page 25 note 1 A. 3, 6, 8.

page 25 note 2 E.g. Berve, I, 280; Tarn, , Alexander, I, 127ffGoogle Scholar.

page 25 note 3 Especially, there seems some reason to think that the only historian who ever had direct access to the Royal Journal, in which appointments were no doubt recorded, was Callisthenes, whose history may not have included anything later than 331 (the latest identifiable Fragment), and cannot have gone beyond 328. On the Journal in general, see especially Pearson, L., Historia, III (1955). 429ffGoogle Scholar. and Robinson, C. A. Jr., The Ephemerides of Alexander's Expedition (Providence, 1932)Google Scholar.

page 26 note 1 Bickermann, E., Les Institutions des Séleucides (Paris, 1938), 128ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 26 note 2 Diod. 19, 55,3. The reply of Seleucus shows that he had really been in charge of the financial administration.

page 26 note 3 Plut., Eum. 3, 6f.Google Scholar; 4, 1 ff. (where E. makes financial dispensations himself, in his satrapy, granting and ).

page 26 note 4 van Groningen, B., Aristote, Le Second Livre de l'économique (Leiden, 1933), pp. 37ffGoogle Scholar.(a résumé of earlier views, and a statement of his own, on date and composition).

page 26 note 5 Cf. Berve, II, pp. 76f. on the powers of Harpalus; and for Antimenes, II, p. 44.

page 27 note 1 In 34b ‘the satrap’ means ‘the hypothetical satrap, wherever this situation might arise’.

page 27 note 2 I should think this view supported by the substance of the anecdote itself (Econ. II, ii, 38Google Scholar): . The sending of agents by Antimenes to provide to troops or others in transit, to the profit of the Treasury, seems feasible if we think of him covering the four central satrapies in this way, but much less so if we think of him trying to cover (e.g.) the western sections of the Royal Road in Asia Minor; the idea of his trying to do it in (e.g.) Egypt seems ludicrous. Moreover, if his jurisdiction extended to the western satrapies, he would have achieved his aim more easily by instructing the area financial officers there.

page 27 note 3 [Aristot., ] Econ. II, i, 3–4Google Scholar (cf. Van Groningen's note ad loc.).

page 28 note 1 [Aristot., ] Econ. II, ii, 31, 33, 34, 35 (?), 38, 39Google Scholar

page 28 note 2 The crucial , too, used of the ‘examples’ collectively (Econ. II, i, 8, 1346aGoogle Scholar: see Van Groningen, pp. 37ff.), becomes just acceptable when applied to examples dating from the last years of Alexander's reign, if the work were composed only ten to fifteen years later.

page 28 note 3 Plut., Eum. 3, 6Google Scholar.

page 28 note 4 Plutarch's main source here is unlikely to have been any other than the well-informed Hieronymus of Cardia.

page 29 note 1 Diod. 19, 55, 3 (above).

page 29 note 2 Xen., Econ. 4, 9–11Google Scholar shows two separate groups of Persian officials, one civil (including finance —), the other military, both subordinate to the satrap: 11—, where refers to and . Cf. also Xen., Cyrop. 8Google Scholar, 6, 3; ibid. 16.

page 29 note 3 For origin, see Xen, . Cyrop. 8, 6, 1 ff.Google Scholar: presumably a fiction, but if so certainly a fiction designed to explain a fact that existed at the time when Xenophon wrote (ibid. 9). For examples of these appointments, in (e.g.) Lydia, Egypt, Babylonia, etc., Berve, I, 279.

page 29 note 4 Xen., Cyrop. 8Google Scholar, 1, 13 ff., describes how Cyrus the Great modelled his Civil Service on his military organization, with ranks presumably corresponding to those of the military officers mentioned here. Taken by itself, the passage seems to describe a separate financial administration (, ibid.). But the attested responsibility of the satraps for finance in their provinces is clear (note 2 above): it follows that in the provinces the lower financial officials were responsible to the satraps, while the satraps were responsible to the king or his representatives.

page 29 note 5 Hdt. 3, 128, 3, personal representatives ; Xen, . Cyrop. 8, 6, 16Google Scholar, visitations; ibid. 2, 10ff. (Hdt. 1, 114, 2; Aesch., Persae 979Google Scholar; Aristoph, . Acharn. 92Google Scholar), ‘King's Eyes’.

page 30 note 1 Tarn, , Alexander, 11, 171 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 30 note 2 S.I.G. I 3, 302Google Scholar; Berve, II, p. 227.

page 30 note 3 Arrian, Succ. F. 1,5Google Scholar (Jacoby, F., F. Gr. Hist. IIB, no. 156Google Scholar).

page 31 note 1 [Aristot., ] Econ. II, ii, 35Google Scholar.

page 31 note 2 This point was put in the discussion by Professor Jones, whose remarks led me to reconsider this question more seriously than I had done before.

page 31 note 3 A. 1, 20, 1.

page 31 note 4 A. 1, 17, 1 … .

page 31 note 5 At Sardes the officer's title is given as (A. 1, 17, 7).

page 31 note 6 See p. 29 above.

page 32 note 1 Berve, I, 279.

page 33 note 1 Theopomp. F. 224 (Jacoby, IIB, no. 115). .

page 33 note 2 Ibid. T. 7 (letter of Speusippus to Philip).

page 33 note 3 On Philip's death, see now Badian, E., Phoenix, XVII (1963), 244ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 33 note 4 Macedonia itself yields nothing, for we know nothing of its financial administration at this time. Of the Macedonian province of Thrace we know that Philip ultimately took a tribute from it (Diod. 16,71,2), and we may guess that the Thracdan subject-kings were responsible for its collection, but whether they paid it to Philip's or to another, we are not told. When Alexander sent money to Europe in 333 and 330, he sent it to Antipater (Curtius Rufus 3, 1, 20; A. 3, 16, 10); which implies that Antipater's functions in Macedonia included the financial control no less than the rest.

page 33 note 5 Isoc. (5, 120; cf. 154) politely hoped that Philip would conquer the whole Persian empire …); but the alternative (…), namely the conquest of Asia Minor (‘Asia west of Mt Taurus’) is probably what he considered likely or possible in practice.

page 34 note 1 Especially, A. 6, 27, 5 . This general statement may be taken from Ptolemy or Aristobulus, or it may be Arrian's own summing up of the impression he has received from these favourable sources. For his impression from other sources (), A. 7,4,3.

page 34 note 2 See esp. Badian, E., J.H.S. LXXXI (1961), 16ffGoogle Scholar.

page 34 note 3 A. 7, 23, 6ff.: cf. Hamilton, J. R., C.Q. III (1953), 151ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.,esp. 157; Pearson, L., Historia, III (1955). 449fGoogle Scholar.

page 34 note 4 Particularly in Lydia (A. 1, 17, 4) and Egypt (the two Egyptian ‘nomarchs of Egypt’, as Arrian calls them, A. 3, 5, 2).

page 35 note 1 On the analogy of the ‘groups’ of satrapies in the west, Harpalus might be expected perhaps to have F.O.s subordinate to him in the individual satrapies of the central group, Babylonia, Media, Susiana and Persia. The appointment of Asklepiodoros (son of Philon) for Babylonia has already been mentioned (p. 24); but as Berve showed (1, 280), Abulites satrap of Susiana was clearly held responsible for finance (or requisitions in kind) in 325 (Plut., Alex. 68Google Scholar).

page 35 note 2 For Susiana, see preceding note.

page 35 note 3 3 Berve, 1, 280.

page 35 note 4 This is still true, I think, even when allowance is made for the greater difficulty of amassing reserves in kind, and for the fact that, as Mr Sandbach has reminded me, satraps in the east had not the same easy access to mercenaries, or means of paying them in coined money.

page 35 note 5 Berve, 1, 278–9, on these titles, and instances.

page 37 note 1 A. 1, 17, 1 (Hellespontine Phrygia): we hear nowhere of increased tribute.

page 37 note 2 Persis itself was not subject to taxation, in the fifth century at any rate (Hdt. 3, 97, 1).

page 37 note 3 No explanation of the Persepolis incident as an act of policy seems to me wholly satisfactory. Personally I think it much more likely to have been an act of indiscretion undertaken on the spur of the moment in the course of one of those evening parries where one thing leads to another. Indeed this would be proved if we could accept as literally true Plutarch's statement that ‘some say that it happened thus, others as an act of policy (); but it is agreed () that he regretted it quickly and ordered the fires to be put out’ (Plut., Alex. 38Google Scholar, 4). Interpreted as decisions taken from policy, this would be vacillation unique in Alexander's career, and out of character (regret for the destruction of Thebes is not a true parallel, since it did not follow immediately or lead to the original order being countermanded or alleviated). Considered as an act of indiscretion, however, and one regretted almost instantly, it is behaviour like that which led to the death of Cleitus and followed it.

page 38 note 1 Plut., Eum. 3, 6Google Scholar, gives the impression that the appointments of Eumenes in Cappadocia extended to perhaps a dozen or two of his staff in the three categories, military, financial and judicial.

page 38 note 2 For , A. 6, 14, 3.