Greek Imperialism

Part 1

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GREEK IMPERIALISM

WILLIAM SCOTT FERGUSON

Professor of Ancient History Harvard University

Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company The Riverside Press Cambridge

Copyright, 1913, by William Scott Ferguson

All Rights Reserved

Published September 1913

TO MY MOTHER

PREFACE

This book contains seven lectures, six of which were delivered at the Lowell Institute in Boston during February, 1913. In the first of them the main lines of imperial development in Greece are sketched. In the others I have tried to characterize, having regard rather to clearness than to novelty or completeness, the chief imperial growths which arose in Greece during the transformance of city-states from ultimate to constituent political units. I hope that these discussions of the theory and practice of government in the empires of Athens, Sparta, Alexander, the Ptolemies, Seleucids, and Antigonids will be found useful by the general reader, and especially by the student of politics and history. The idea I wish particularly to convey, however, is that there was continuity of constitutional development within the whole period. The city-state, indeed, reached its greatest efficiency in the time of Pericles, but the federation of city-states was being still perfected two hundred years afterwards. In government, as in science, the classic period was but the youthful bloom of Greece, whereas its vigorous maturity--in which it was cut down by Rome--came in the Macedonian time.

Briefly stated, my thesis is this: The city-states of Greece were unicellular organisms with remarkable insides, and they were incapable of growth except by subdivision. They might reproduce their kind indefinitely, but the cells, new and old, could not combine to form a strong nation. Thus it happened that after Athens and Sparta had tried in vain to convert their hegemonies over Greece into empires, a cancerous condition arose in Hellas, for which the proper remedy was not to change the internal constitutions of city-states, as Plato and Aristotle taught, but to change the texture of their cell walls so as to enable them to adhere firmly to one another. With a conservatism thoroughly in harmony with the later character of the Greek people, the Greeks struggled against this inevitable and salutary change. But in the end they had to yield, saving, however, what they could of their urban separateness, while creating quasi-territorial states, by the use of the federal system and deification of rulers. These two contrivances were, accordingly, rival solutions of the same great political problem. Nothing reveals more clearly the limitations of Greek political theory than that it takes no account either of them or of their antecedents.

Cambridge, Mass., June, 1913.

CONTENTS

I. IMPERIALISM AND THE CITY-STATE

I. DEFINITIONS 1-5

1. Of empire, 1.

2. Of emperor, 3.

3. Of imperialism, 4.

II. THE CITY-STATE 6-19

1. Its origin, 6.

2. Its characteristics, 9.

a. Fusion of agricultural, trading, industrial, and commercial classes, 9.

b. Theory of common descent of citizens, 13.

c. So-called worship of the dead, 14.

d. Educative power of the laws, 16.

e. Municipality and nation in one, 17.

Part 2

III. MEANS OF OBSCURING IMPERIALISM 19-25

1. Symmachia the basis of the Peloponnesian league, 20.

a. Support of oligarchies, 21.

2. Stasis, or civil war, 22.

3. Symmachia the basis of the Athenian empire, 23.

a. Support of democracies, 23.

b. Maintenance of the union, 24.

IV. FAILURE OF HEGEMONIES 25-30

1. The idea of proportionate representation, 27.

V. MEANS OF EVADING IMPERIALISM 30-34

1. Grant of Polity, or citizenship, 30.

2. Grant of Isopolity, or reciprocity of citizenship, 31.

3. Grant of Sympolity, or joint citizenship, 32.

VI. MEANS OF JUSTIFYING IMPERIALISM 34-37

1. Deification of kings, 35.

II. ATHENS: AN IMPERIAL DEMOCRACY

I. ORIGIN OF THE IMPERIAL DEMOCRACY 38-41

1. Themistocles, 39.

2. Pericles, 41.

II. SIZE AND POPULATION OF ATHENS AND ITS EMPIRE 42-43

III. THE FUNERAL ORATION: THE IDEALS OF PERICLEAN DEMOCRACY 43-48

IV. THE INSTITUTIONS OF DEMOCRACY 49-65

1. Ecclesia and heliæa; their conjoined activity, 49.

2. The council of the 500 and the committees of magistrates, 51.

a. The ten prytanies, 52.

b. Election by lot; annual tenure of office; rotation, 52, 53, 55.

3. The ecclesia an assembly of high-class amateurs, 57.

a. Its use of experts, 58.

Part 3

b. Its choice of a leader: ostracism, 60.

4. The economic basis of democracy, 61.

a. The place of slavery: simply a form of capital, 61.

b. The object of indemnities: political equality, 64.

V. THE EMPIRE 65-78

1. The advantages of sea power, 66.

2. The demands of the fleet, 68.

3. The complaints made against Athens, 70.

a. Misuse of tribute money, 71.

b. Misuse of judicial authority, 72.

c. Seizure of land in subject territory, 73.

d. Extirpation of the best, 74.

4. The destruction of the empire, 75.

III. FROM SPARTA TO ARISTOTLE

I. SPARTA IN HISTORY 79-97

1. Crushing of early Spartan culture, 81.

2. The military life of the Spartans, 84.

3. The effect of the Perioec ring-wall, 85, 88.

a. The Peloponnesian league: 550-370 B.C., 88.

b. The Hellenic league: 405-395 B.C., 89.

4. The hollowness of the Spartan hegemony, 90-95.

a. Cinadon, 91.

5. The age of reaction, 96, 97.

a. Urban particularism, 96.

b. The ancestral constitution, 96.

II. SPARTA AND ATHENS IN POLITICAL THEORY 97-114

1. Plato, 99-107.

a. Neglect of History, 99.

Part 4

b. Plato's hatred of democracy, 102.

c. His idealization of Sparta, 107.

2. Aristotle, 107-114.

a. Relation to history, 108.

b. Aristotle's hatred of imperialism, 110, 113.

c. Comparison of his Politics with the Prince of Machiavelli, 111.

d. Aristotle's failure to let "strength" operate in international politics, 114.

IV. ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND WORLD-MONARCHY

I. IDEAS RECEIVED BY ALEXANDER FROM HIS PARENTS AND HIS TUTOR 116-123

a. Alexander and Philip, 116.

b. Alexander and Aristotle, 119, 135, 147.

II. ACTS BY WHICH ALEXANDER DISCLOSED HIS POLICIES 123-148

1. The destruction of Thebes, 123.

2. The visit to Troy, 124.

3. The Gordian knot, 125.

4. The visit to the oasis of Siwah, 126, 139.

5. The burning of the palace of the Persian kings, 129.

6. The discharge of the Greek contingents, 130.

7. Proskynesis, 131.

8. The great marriage at Susa, 136.

9. The proskynesis of the city-states, 147.

V. THE PTOLEMAIC DYNASTY

I. HISTORY OF THE PTOLEMIES 149-160

1. Third period of Ptolemaic history: 80-30 B.C., 151.

a. Ptolemy the Piper, 152.

b. Cleopatra the Great, 152.

2. First period of Ptolemaic history: 323-203 B.C., 155.

a. Ptolemy I. Soter: 323-283 B.C., 150, 155.

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b. Ptolemy II. Philadelphus: 285-246 B.C., 156.

c. Ptolemy III. Euergetes: 246-222 B.C., 159, 179.

d. Ptolemy IV. Philopator: 222-203 B.C., 160, 179.

II. EMPIRE OF THE PTOLEMIES 160-182

1. Grounds of the imperial policy of the early Ptolemies, 160.

a. Pride of possession, 160.

b. Checkmating enemies, 161.

c. Commercial advantages, 161.

d. Domestic policy, 162.

2. Triple theory of Ptolemaic state, 162.

a. For Egyptians, 162.

b. For Greek city-states, 163.

c. For Macedonians, 166.

3. The Ptolemaic army, 167.

a. Origin, 168.

b. Distribution of, in Egypt, 172.

c. Influence of, upon natives, 176.

d. Becomes immobile, 242-222 B.C., 179.

e. Opened to Egyptians, 180.

4. Second or domestic period of Ptolemaic history, 200-80 B.C., 180.

a. Absorption of Greek by native population, 181.

VI. THE SELEUCID EMPIRE

I. HISTORY OF THE SELEUCIDS 183-194

1. Antigonus the One-eyed, creator of the realm, 183.

2. Century and a half of progress, 184-190.

a. Seleucus I: 312-281 B.C., 184.

b. Antiochus I, Soter: 281-262 B.C., 185.

c. Antiochus II, Theos: 262-246 B.C., 185.

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d. Seleucus II, Callinicus: 246-226 B.C., 186.

e. Seleucus III, Soter: 226-223 B.C.

f. Antiochus III, The Great: 223-187 B.C., 187.

g. Seleucus IV: 187-175 B.C.

h. Antiochus IV, The God Manifest: 175-164 B.C., 190, 213.

3. Century of decline: 164-163 B.C., 190.

4. External agents of destruction, 190.

a. Rome disarms Seleucids, incites revolt, and keeps alive dynastic struggles, 190.

b. Indo-Scythians (Yue Tchi) occupy East Iran, 192.

5. Internal agencies: revolt of Jews, Parthians, Armenians, 191, 192.

II. POLICY AND PROBLEMS OF THE SELEUCIDS 195-214

1. Seleucus I, heir of Alexander's ideas, 195.

2. Founding of city-states, 196.

3. Priestly communities and feudal states, how treated, 197.

4. Royal villages, how managed, 203, 205.

5. Land either property of king or of city-states, 204.

6. City-states, how far they Hellenized Asia, 206.

7. Relations of king to city-states, 208.

8. Comparison of Syria and Italy, 210.

9. Policy of Antiochus IV: conflict with Jews; submission to Rome, 212.

VII. THE EMPIRE OF THE ANTIGONIDS

I. RELATION OF MACEDON TO HELLAS 215

II. MACEDONIAN CONTRIBUTION TO ROME 215-216

1. War, 215.

2. Government--a constitutional and not an absolute monarchy, 216.

3. Culture, 216.

III. MACEDONIAN OPPOSITION TO ROME 217-218

IV. EARLY HISTORY OF THE ANTIGONIDS 218-222

Part 7

1. Antigonus I--the exponent of unity in Græco-Macedonian world, 218.

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