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Some Macedonian offices c. 336–309 BC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

N. G. L. Hammond
N. G. L. Hammond
Affiliation:
The University of Adelaide, South Australia
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Extract

The contention of this paper is that the Macedonians had their own names for the offices in their state; that Hieronymus, who spent a long life in the Macedonian administrative service, used those names in his history; and that some of the names have come through to us—not always consistently—in the accounts which were derived from the history of Hieronymus. Those accounts are in Diodorus, Justin and Photius' epitomes of Arrian and Dexippus. The account in Curtius is not inspired by Hieronymus; it is therefore not discussed here.

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Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 105 , November 1985 , pp. 156 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1985

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References

This paper owes much to M. B. Hatzopoulos, T. A. Martin, G. T. Griffith and F. W. Walbank, the Editor's advisers, members of a seminar at Brisbane on August 27–29, 1984, and Evelyn Smith who made a fair copy at Adelaide.

1 See recently Schachermeyr, F., Alexander in Babylon und die Reichsordnung nach seinem Tode (Vienna 1970) 104–30Google Scholar: ‘Wir haben … mit zweierlei Uberlieferungssträngen zu tun … Die andere Version [i.e. other than that in Curtius] geht auf Hieronymos.’ Stadter, P. A., Arrian of Nicomedeia (Chapel Hill 1980) 148Google Scholar: ‘the congruence with Diodorus suggests that they both [Arrian and Diodorus] used the same source, Hieronymus of Cardia’. Hornblower, J., Hieronymus of Cardia (Oxford 1981) 64Google Scholar 5 (for Justin), 39 (for Diodorus), 87 f. (for Plut. Eumenes).

2 Bengtson, H., Die Strategie in der hellenistischen Zeit i (Munich 1937, repr. 1964) 15 ffGoogle Scholar.

3 Otherwise Bengtson (n. 2) 81, ‘das Amt des Krateros hat sich jedoch m.E. nicht speziell auf Makedonien … bezugen’; and 80, ‘das eigentliche Wirkungsfeld des Krateros Asien sein sollte’. This despite Arrian cited above, and (from a different tradition) Curt, x 7.9, in Europa Craterus et Antipater res administrarent! He held that the king's treasury (Just, xiii 4.5) was in Cilicia (75 with n. 2, 120) but the money was brought to Cilicia only three years later (Arr., Succ. F 9.38Google Scholar). He proposed also to delete Κρατερῷ as a ‘Randnote’. Such arbitrary expedients are to be rejected. For the geography see my article in CQ XXX (1980) 471 ffGoogle Scholar.

4 See Hammond, N. G. L. and Griffith, G. T., A History of Macedonia ii (Oxford 1979) 155Google Scholar.

5 See Hammond, N. G. L., Epirus (Oxford 1967) 460 ff.Google Scholar, 479.

6 See Cross, G. N., Epirus (Cambridge 1932) 16Google Scholar with n. 1, 18 with n. 2; and Hammond (n. 5) 501.

7 When the monarchy fell, a general took the king's place: e.g.PAE 1969, 35, στραταγου̑ντος . . . προστατεύοντος δέ . . . For the inscriptions of 370–368 BC see D. Evangelides, Eph.Arch. 1956, 1 ff. and Hammond (n. 5) 525 ff. For the forms of noun and verb see the Glossary of constitutional terms in Hammond (n. 5) 818 f. and Cabanes, P. in The Ancient World viii (1983) 9Google Scholar.

8 Schachermeyr (n. 1) 116, saw that this office ‘muss bei Hieronymos gestanden haben’, but he went on to talk of ‘mitregenten’ and ‘eine Fluchtigkeit des Photios’.

9 See C. F. Edson OCD 2 634. Court ceremonial was also important.

10 For an infant king being taken into battle see Just. vii 2.8–12.

11 The MSS have rerum pecuniae. This was emended to regum pecuniae by Madvig and to regiae pecuniae by Rühl. The meaning anyhow is clear; see Schachermeyr (n. 1) 126 f. with n. 58. The word pecunia meant probably ‘property’ rather than coined money (see LS s.v. l).

12 I owe these and other statistics (below) to the kindness of Prof.C. Rubincam.

13 So Bengtson (n. 2) i 36; ‘der asiatischen βασιλεία… die dem χιλιάρχης Perdikkas unterstanden hat’. For the Kingdom of Asia see Hammond, N. G. L., Alexander the Great: King, commander and statesman (New Jersey 1980) 258 fGoogle Scholar.

14 He sought Antipater's favour to gain recruits (Just, xiii 6.6). For him to come to Europe was to seek the throne for himself (Diod. xviii 25–3).

15 Thus Peithon and Arrhidaeus resigned τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν (Diod. xviii 39.2). I see no justification for the view of Walbank, F. W., A historical commentary on Polybius (Oxford 1957) i 533 f.Google Scholar and Hornblower (n. 1) 13, that an epimelētēs was ‘a military governor’; and the passages they cite—X. Hell. iii 2.11 and Plb. iv 80.15 are of no help because command of troops is not mentioned. Rather ‘a military governor’ was ἐπιμελητὴς καὶ στρατηγός, as examples in Diodorus show (e.g. i 17.3, xviii 48.4).

16 Yet Bengtson (n. 2) 81 more or less equated the two: ‘Krateros’ Stellung ist vielmehr in gewisser Weise der später von Perdikkas usurpierten Würde des ἐπιμελητὴς τω̑ν βασιλέων gleichzusetzen.

17 So Jacoby, F., FGrH ii B 548Google Scholar: ‘so wäre Arrhidaios ohne weiteres auch Vormund des jungen Alexander’. For uncle nephew guardians in the royal house see Diod. xiv 37.6 (Aëropus Orestes), Schol. to Aeschin. ii 29 (Ptolemy-Perdiccas and Philip), Just. vii 5.9 (Philip Amyntas).

18 Otherwise Nearchus as brother-in-law to Heracles would have been more appropriate (Arr., An. vii 4.6Google Scholar).

19 Rostovtzeff, M., Social and economic history of the Hellenistic World i (Oxford 1941) 4Google Scholar.

20 Cary, M., A history of the Greek world from 323 to 146 B.C.2 (London 1951) 3, 11Google Scholar.

21 Tarn, W. W., CAH vi (1927) 461Google Scholar.

22 Errington, R. M., JHS xc (1970) 67Google Scholar. German scholars use theterm Reichsverweser.

23 Pace Bengtson (n. 2) 75, who argued that Perdiccas took from Craterus not only the office of προστάτης but also the command of the ‘Reichsheer’ in Asia, and Will, E., Histoire politique du monde hellénistique i (Nancy 1966) 31Google Scholar ‘Perdiccas… prostatès des rois’.

24 Alexander took to Asia at least three members of the royal house (Arrhidaeus, Leonnatus and Perdiccas) and probably a fourth, namely Alexander Lyncestes, as I argued art. cit. (n. 3) 457 ff.

25 Hammond (n. 3) 461 ff.

26 At Diod. xviii 16.5, 18.7, 24.1, 25.4; Plut., Phoc. 26.3–4Google Scholar.

27 The second translation is preferred by Fredricksmeyr, E. A., ‘The ancestral rites of Alexander the Great’, CPh lxi (1966) 180Google Scholar, with the comment ‘i.e. on his, Alexander's behalf and interest’. This would define one aspect of the function of the προστάτης τη̑ς βασιλείας—an office which Fredricksmeyr did not have in mind.

28 This inscription destroyed the theory of H. Berve and others that Olympias was head of the Molossian state or ‘Herrin von Epeiros c. 331–0’; see Hammond (n. 3) 471 ff.

29 Hamilton, J. R., Plutarch, Alexander: a commentary (Oxford 1969) 190Google Scholar, saw that Plutarch meant the year 324 BC but disbelieved him. The new inscription (n. 28) shows that Plutarch was correct. Olympias and her daughter Cleopatra acted together not only in opposing Antipater (Plut., Alex. 68.4Google Scholar, πρὸς Ἀντίπατρον Ὀλυμπιὰς καὶ Κλεοπάτρα στασιάσασαι) but also in approaching Perdiccas (Arr., Succ. F 9.21Google Scholar, Ὀλυμπιάς . . . ἔπεμπε παρ᾿αὐτὸν κατεγγυωμένη τὴν θυγατέρα Κλεοπάτραν).

30 See Plut., Eum. 3.5Google Scholar for Leonnatus; Diod. xviii 23.1–3, Just, xiii 6.4 (non aspernante Olympiade) and Arr., Succ. F 9.21Google Scholar for Perdiccas.

31 So too Cassander was recognized as ‘general of Europe’ in 311 BC (Diod. xix 105.1).

32 Ferguson, W. S., Hellenistic Athens (London 1911) 47Google Scholar n. 3, observed that epimelētēs here was an official Macedonian term.

33 In his first book Arrian seems to have used Macedonian terms which he had found in his sources, Ptolemy and Aristoboulus.

34 R. M. Geer (Loeb edition) translated it ‘regal dignity’. For its meaning in Polybius see Walbank (n. 15) ii (1967) 93 and iii (1979) 177.

35 Or as Geer translates, ‘to hold first place in the kingdom’. The words can also mean ‘to be prostatēs of the kingship’, as the verb had this meaning in the tribal states of Epirus: see Hammond (n. 5) 819. The aorist tense favours the interpretation I have given in the text.

36 Just, xiv 5.2, abutens valetudine viri, cuius officia sibi vindicabat. Diodorus did not say how she came to power; he simply introduced her at xix 11.1 as already ‘at the head of the kingship’ (τη̑ς βασιλείας προεστηκυι̑α). Diodorus uses this word often, especially in the form προεστώς.

37 Seleucus made the point that it was the ‘Macedones’ who had given him his satrapy (Diod. xix 55.3); he was responsible to them and not to Antigonus.

38 This is the reading of RX. It is superior to the other reading έλόμενος, with which one has to take τοῦ πλήθους to mean not, as at Diod. xviii 4.3, ‘the masses’ (viz. the Assembly), but ‘the whole’ (so Geer in the Loeb), and because τοὺς ἀποκληρωθέντας at the end of the sentence becomes unnecessary. For another example of a general being elected see Plut., Eum. 13.5Google Scholar, 14.1, 14.4.

39 It was dominated at that time by the veteran soldiers of Alexander, who favoured elderly commanders like Polyperchon (πρεσβύτατον σχεδὸν ὄντα τω̑ν Ἀλεξάναδρω̨ συνεστρατευμένων καὶ τιμώμενον ὐπο τω̑ν κατὰ τὴν Μακεδονίαν) rather than men of the younger generation like Cassander.

40 The Assembly asserted its rights from the day of Alexander's death. These rights were not novel or invented then but had been traditional, as I have indicated (n. 3) 461 ff. They existed before and after this period. See now for the later period Papazoglou, F., in Ancient Macedonia iii (Thessalonike 1983) 195 ffGoogle Scholar. For the opposite theory, that the Assembly exercised rights only for a limited period after Alexander's death, see Errington, R. M., ‘The nature of the Macedonian state under the Monarchy’, Chiron viii (1978) 116Google Scholar. For Alexander's veterans see my article in GRBS xxv (1984) 51–61Google Scholar.