Chapter Ii. the Successors of Alexander.

DIVISIONS OF THE EMPIRE.--Alexander left no legitimate children. The child of Roxana, Alexander the Younger, was born after his father's death. The empire naturally fell to his principal generals, of whom Perdiccas, having command of the great army of Asia, had the chief power. He was obliged to content his military colleagues, which he did by giving to them provinces. The principal regents, or guardians, were soon reduced to three,--Antipater and Craterus in Europe, and Perdiccas. The government was carried on in the name of Roxana's son, and of Arrhidaeus, the half-brother of Alexander. But Perdiccas soon found that each general was disposed to be in fact a king in his own dominion. He formed the plan of seizing the empire for himself. This combined the satraps against him. Perdiccas was supported by his friend Eumenes, but had against him Antipater and Craterus, the other regents, and the powerful governors, Ptolemy Lagi in Egypt, and Antigonus in Phrygia, Lycia, and Pamphilia (322 B.C.). There followed a series of wars lasting for twenty-two years, involving numerous changes of sovereignty, and fresh partitions of territory. The rebellious satraps triumphed over the royalists, whose aim was to keep the empire intact for the family of Alexander. The ambition of Antigonus to make himself the sole ruler, led to a league against him (315 B.C.). In a treaty of peace, Cassander, the son of Antipater, was to retain the government of Macedonia. By him Roxana and the young Alexander were put to death. In a second war against Antigonus, in which, as before, he was supported by his son, Demetrius Poliorcetes, they were completely defeated in the battle of Ipsus, in Phrygia (301 B.C.). Antigonus was slain: Demetrius fled to Greece. The result of this protracted contest was, that the Macedonian empire was broken into three principal states,--Macedonia under the Antigonidae, the descendants of Antigonus; Egypt under the Ptolemies; Syria under the Seleucidae. Besides these, there were the smaller kingdoms of Pergamon and of Bithynia. Other states broke off from the Syrian realm of the Seleucidae.

I. THE KINGDOM OF THE PTOLEMIES.

PTOLEMY LAGI (323-285 B.C.).--When Alexander transferred the seat of power in Egypt from Memphis to Alexandria, he accomplished results which he could not at all foresee. The Greek element became predominant in Egyptian affairs. A great stimulus was given to commerce and to foreign intercourse. The Egyptians themselves entered zealously into industrial pursuits. Ptolemy Lagi (Soter), the first of the new sovereigns, was wise enough to guard his own territory, and even to establish his rule in Palestine, Phoenicia, and Coele-Syria, but to avoid extensive schemes of conquest. Cyrenaica, on the west of Egypt, and the intermediate Lybian tribes, he subdued. Ptolemy was an absolute monarch, but he retained prominent features in the old Egyptian administrative system, gave offices to Egyptians, and protected their religion. The most important civil stations and all military offices were reserved for Graeco-Macedonians: Alexandria was a Greek city. From the beginning he fostered learning and science. He set to work to collect a great library in a building connected with his palace. He founded the Museum, which was a college of professors. It attracted a great body of students, and became the university of the eastern world. Under the patronage of Ptolemy, mathematicians, poets, and critics of high repute flourished. Among the structures raised by him were the lighthouse of vast height on the island of Pharos, which was connected with the shore by a mole, or causeway, a mile in length; the Soma, or mausoleum, containing the body of Alexander; the Temple of Serapis, completed by his son; and the Hippodrome.

PTOLEMY PHILADELPHIA.--Ptolemy II., surnamed Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), with less talent for war than his father, did much to encourage commerce, and was especially active in his patronage of learning. In this last province he did a greater work than his father. He greatly enlarged the library. He drew learned men to his court from all directions. In his time the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek, in the version called the Septuagint. Under his auspices Manetho composed his History of Egypt.

PTOLEMY EUERGETES.--Ptolemy III. (247-222 B.C.), surnamed Euergetes (the benefactor), was the most enterprising and aggressive of this line of monarchs. Most of his conquests were not permanent, but some of them were. He was a patron of art and of literature. He raised Egypt to the highest pitch of prosperity that she ever enjoyed. The first three Ptolemies whose reigns had covered a century, were followed by a series of incompetent and depraved kings, nine in number.

Ptolemy IV. (Philopator) (222-205 B.C.) was a weak and dissolute prince. In war with Antiochus III. (the Great) of Syria, he saved his kingdom; but his own subjects were rebellious and disaffected. Ptolemy VI. (Philometor) (181-148 B.C.) was a boy at his accession. His guardians engaged in war with Syria, which would have conquered Egypt but for the interposition of the Romans in his behalf (170 B.C.).

II. MACEDON AND GREECE.

When Alexander was in the far East, the Spartan king, Agis III. (330 B.C.), headed a revolt against Antipater; but Agis was vanquished and slain. The death of Alexander kindled the hope of regaining liberty among patriotic Greeks. Athens, under Demosthenes and Hyperides, led the way. A large confederacy was formed. Leosthenes, the Greek commander, defeated Antipater, and shut him up within the walls of Lamia (in Thessaly). But the Greeks were finally beaten at Crannon. Favorable terms were granted to their cities, except Athens and Aetolia. Twenty-one thousand citizens were deported from Athens to Thrace, Italy, and other places. The nine thousand richest citizens, with Phocion at their head, the anti-democratic party, had all power left in their hands. Demosthenes, Hyperides, and other democratic leaders, were proscribed. Demosthenes took refuge in the temple of Neptune, on the little island of Calaurea. Finding himself pursued by Archias, the officer of Antipater, he took poison, which he had kept by him in a quill, and died. Thus closed the life of an intrepid statesman who had served the cause of liberty and of his country through the direst perils and trials with unfaltering constancy. The democracy again acquired power temporarily, and Phocion was condemned to death.

Cassander, excluded from the Macedonian throne by his father, Antipater, supplanted Polysperchon, the regent (316 B.C.). He placed Demetrius of Phaleron in power at Athens over a democracy with restricted prerogatives. He was driven out by Demetrius Poliorcetes, who was helped by Athens to possess himself of Macedonia and of the most of Greece, but was compelled (287 B.C.) to give up his throne, which, however, was gained by his son, Antigonus Gonatas (277 B.C.).

THE ACHAEAN LEAGUE.--In 279 B.C., there occurred an irruption of the Gauls into Greece, "one of those vast waves of migration which from time to time sweep over the world." The Macedonian king, Ptolemy Ceraunus, was defeated by them in a great battle, captured, and put to death. It was two years before these marauders were driven out, and Macedonia acquired a settled government. This episode in history favored the growth of two leagues--the Achaean League and the Aetolian League. In these leagues the several cities gave up to the central council much more power than Greek cities had been in the habit of granting in former unions. The Achaean League was at first made up of ten Achaean cities. About 240 B.C. Aratus of Sicyon, who had brought Sicyon into the league, delivered Corinth from the Macedonians. To free Greek cities from subjection to them, was long a great object of the league. Peloponnesus, except Sparta, with Athens and Aegina, joined it.

THE AETOLIAN LEAGUE: WAR OF THE LEAGUES.--The rough Aetolians north of the Corinthian Gulf, semi-barbarous in their mode of life, formed another league, and got command of Phocis, Locris, and Boeotia. A praiseworthy attempt at reform was made in Sparta by the king, Agis IV. (240 B.C.), who was opposed by the rich, and put to death. Cleomenes, his successor, who had the same spirit as Agis, engaged in conflict with the Achaean League, which then called in Macedonian help (223 B.C.). It had to give up to Macedon the Corinthian citadel. Sparta was overthrown. Soon a war between the two leagues broke out, when the Achaeans again called on the Macedonians for aid. These conflicts were followed by the interference of the Romans.

THE EVIL OF FACTION.--The bane of Greece, from the beginning to the end of its history, was the suicidal spirit of disunion. Her power was splintered at many crises, when, if united, it might have saved the land from foreign tyranny. Her resources were drained, generation after generation, by needless local contests. She owed her downfall to the desolating influence of faction.

III. THE SYRIAN KINGDOM.

Seleucus I. (Nicator) (312-280 B.C.) was the founder of the Syrian kingdom. From Babylon he extended his dominion to the Black Sea, to the Jaxartes, and even to the Ganges, so far as to make the Indian prince, Sandracottus, acknowledge him as suzerain. From Babylon he removed his capital to Antioch on the Orontes, which he founded,--a city destined to be the rival of Alexandria among the cities of the East. The effect of this removal, however, was to loosen his hold upon the Eastern provinces of his empire. Seleucia, on the west bank of the Tigris, he likewise founded, which became a great commercial city, but was outstripped later by the Parthian city opposite, Ctesiphon. The provinces beyond the Euphrates he committed to his son, Antiochus. With him (Antiochus I.) begins the decline of the empire through the influence of Oriental luxury and vice. Under him Syria lost the eastern part of Asia Minor through the invading Gauls, who converted northern Phrygia into Galatia, while north-western Lydia became the kingdom of Pergamon. Antiochus II. (261-246 B.C.) could not hold the provinces in subjection. The Parthian and Bactrian kingdoms began under his reign. Antiochus III. (the Great) (223-1876.0.) checked the Parthians and Bactrians, and expelled the Egyptians from Asia, but prepared for the downfall of the Syrian Empire by provoking the hostility of the Romans.

BACTRIA, PARTHIA, PERGAMON, GALATIA.--Bactria, after it broke off from Syria, was under Greek princes until, having been weakened by the Parthians, it was conquered by the Scythians (134 B.C.). The Parthians issued, as marauders, from the north border of Iran (256 B.C.), under the Arsacidae. They gradually acquired civilization from contact with Greek culture, especially after they established the trading-city of Ctesiphon. About 200 B.C. the rulers of Pontus made the Greek city of Sinope their residence, and attained to a high degree of strength under Mithridates VI. (the Great). Pergamon became a flourishing state under the Greek rule of Attalus I. (241 B.C.). It was famed for its wealth and its trade. Eumenes II. (197-159 B.C.) founded the library at Pergamon. For him parchment was improved, if not invented, the Egyptians having forbidden the exportation of papyrus. Galatia was so named from the swarm of Gallic invaders (about 279 B.C.), who, after incursions in the East, which were continued for forty years, settled there, and by degrees yielded to the influences of Greek culture.

PALESTINE: THE MACCABEES: THE IDUMAEAN PRINCES.--Palestine fared comparatively well in the times when the Ptolemies had control. Not so after it fell under the permanent sway of Syria. The Jews were surrounded and invaded by Gentilism. On three sides, there were Greek cities. The perils to which their religion was exposed by the heathen without, and by a lukewarm party within, made earnest Jews, the bulk of the people, more inflexible in their adherence to their law and customs. The party of the Pharisees grew out of the intensity of the loyal and patriotic feeling which was engendered in the periods following the exile. The synagogues, centers of worship and of instruction scattered over the land, acted as a bulwark against the intrusion of heathen doctrine and heathen practices. The resistance to these dreaded evils came to a head when the Syrian ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes, embittered by his failures in conflict with Egypt, resolved to break down religious barriers among his subjects, and, for this end, to exterminate Jewish worship. In 168 B.C. he set up an altar to Jupiter in the temple at Jerusalem, and even compelled Jewish priests to immolate swine. Then the revolt broke out in which the family of Maccabees were the heroic leaders. Judas Maccabees recovered the temple, but fell in battle (160. B.C.). Under his brother Simon, victory was achieved, and the independence of the nation secured. The chief power remained in the hands of this family, the Asmonaean princes, until their degeneracy paved the way for Roman intervention under Pompeius. His adviser was the Idumeaean, Antipater, a Jewish proselyte, whose son Herod was made king (39 B.C.).

PHILOSOPHY: THE STOICS AND THE EPICUREANS.--In the Greek world the progress of investigation and reflection tended to produce disbelief in the old mythological system. Social confusion and degeneracy tended to undermine all religious faith. Pyrrho (about 330 B.C.) brought forward the skeptical doctrine, that the highest wisdom is to doubt every thing. Euhemrus (315 B.C.) interpreted the whole mythology as an exaggeration, by imagination and invention, of historical events which form its slender nucleus. With the loss of liberty and the downfall of the Greek states, philosophy became, so to speak, more cosmopolitan. It no longer exalted, in the same narrow spirit, the Greek above the barbarian. It looked at mankind more as one community. This was a feature of the first of the two principal sects, the Stoics, of whom Zeno (about 330 B.C.), and Chrysippus (280-207 B.C.) were the founders. They taught that virtue is the only good; that is consists in living according to nature; that reason should be dominant, and tranquillity of spirit be maintained by the complete subjugation of feeling. The emotions are to be kept down by the force of and iron will. This is the Stoic apathy. The world is wisely ordered: whatever is, is right; yet the cause of all things is not personal. Mankind form on great community, "one city." The Epicureans, the second of the prominent sects,--so called from Epicurus, their founder (342-370 B.C.),--made pleasure the chief good, which is to be secured by prudence, or such a regulation of our desires as will yield, on the whole, the largest fruit of happiness. They believed that the gods exist, but denied Providence.

CULTURE.--In the Greek cities which were founded by the Macedonians, the political life and independence which Greece had enjoued did not exist. The "Hellenistic" literature and culture, as it is called, which followed, lacked the spontaneous energy and original spirit of the old time. The civilization was that of people not exclusively Greek in blood. Alexandria was its chief seat. Poetry languished. It was prose--and prose in the form of learned inquiries, criticism, and science--that flourished. The path was the same as that marked out by Aristotle. Theocritus, born in Syracuse, or Cos, under Ptolemy I. (about 320 B.C.), had distinction as a pastoral or bucolic poet. Euclid, under Ptolemy Soter, systemized geometry. Archimedes, who died in 212 B.C., is said to have invented the screw, and was skillful in mechanics. Eratosthenes founded descriptive astronomy and scientific chronology. "The Alexandrian age busied itself with literary or scientific research, and with setting in order what the Greek mind had done in its creative time." After Greece became subject to Rome (146 B.C.) the Graeco Roman period in Greek literature begins. The Greek historian Polybius stands on the border between the Alexandrian age and this next era. He was born about 210 B.C., and died about 128 B.C.

LITERATURE.--Works mentioned on p. 16: Histories of Greece by GROTE (12 vols.) (democratic in his sympathies), E. CURTIUS (5 vols.), THIRLWALL (8 vols.), W. Smith (1 vol.), G. W. Cox. Busolt, Griechische Geschichte; Fyffe, History of Greece (primer); Duncker, History of Greece [separately published]; Abbott (2 vols.); Holm (4 vols.); Bury; Oman.

On special periods: The writings of the ancient authors,--Herodotus (Rawlinson's translation, 4 vols.), Xenophon, THUCYDIDES (Jowett's translation, 2 vols.), Polybius, Plutarch's Lives. Schäfer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit (3 vols.); DROYSEN, Geschichte des Hellenismus (3 vols.); E. A. FREEMAN, History of Federal Government (vol. i.); FINLAY, History of Greece from the Conquest of the Romans (7 vols.); G. W. Cox, History of Greece from the Earliest Period to the End of the Persian War (2 vols.), and Lives of Greek Statesmen (1 vol.); Freeman, History of Sicily (4 vols.).

On special topics: BOECKH, The Public Economy of Athens; Coulanges, The Ancient City, etc.: Gõll, Kulturbilder aus Hellas und Rom (3 vols.); Guhl and Koner, The Life of the Greeks and Romans, etc.; Green, Greece and Greek Antiquities (primer); J. P. Mahaffy, Social Life in Greece, also Rambles in Greece, Old Greek Education, and History of Greek Literature (2 vols.); Becker, Charicles (a story illustrative of Greek life); F. A. Paley, Greek Wit (2 vols.); Church, Stories from Homer; Black, The Wise Men of Greece; Neares, Greek Anthology [in Ancient Classics for English Readers], Chief Ancient Philosophies [Stoicism, etc.] (1 vol., 1880); Müller and Donaldson, History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (3 vols.); Mure, A Critical History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece (5 vols.); Jebb, Attic Orators (2 vols.); Symonds, The Greek Poets (2 vols.); G. F. Schömann, The Antiquities of Greece; Gladstone, Studies on the Homeric Age and Homer; Lübke, Outlines of the History of Art; FERGUSSON, History of Architecture; D'Anvers, Elementary History of Art; Botsford, Development of the Athenian Constitution; W. W. Fowler, The City-State of the Greeks and Romans; Gilbert, Constitutional Antiquities of Sparta and Athens; Greenidge, Handbook of Greek Constitutional History; H. N. Fowler, History of Greek Literature; Marshall, Short History of Greek Philosophy; Gardner, Handbook of Greek Sculpture; Tarbell, History of Greek Art; Tozer, Primer of Classical Geography; Kiepert, Atlas Antiquus; Cunningham, Western Civilization (vol. 1); Smith (Wayte & Marindin), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (2 vols., 1890); Seyffert (Nettleship and Sandys), Dictionary of Classical Antiquities_.

MACEDONIAN ROYAL HOUSES

A.--House of Alexander the Great.

(1) AMYNTAS II. | +--(4) PHILIP, m. | 1, Olympias; | | | +--ALEXANDER THE GREAT, m. | 1, Roxana; | | | +--(7) ALEXANDER. | | 2, Concubines. | | | +--Hercules. | | 2, Cleopatra; | | 3, Concubines. | | | +--(6) PHILIP ARRHIDAEUS, m. Eurydicé. | | | +--Thessalonica, m. Cassander. | | | +--Cynané m. Amyntas. | +--(2) ALEXANDER II. | +--(3) PERDICCAS III. | +--Amyntas, m. Cynané | +--Eurydicé, m. Philip Arrhidaeus.

B.--House of Antipater.

ANTIPATER. | +--(8) CASSANDER, m. Thessalonica. | | | +--(9) PHILIP II. | | | +--(10) ANTIPATER II. | | | +--(11) ALEXANDER. | | +--Philip. | +--Eurydicé, m. Ptolemy Lagi, | +--Phila, m. | 1, Craterus; | 2, Demetrius Poliorcetes. | +--Nicaea, m. Perdiccas.

C.--House of Antigonus.

Antigonus I. | | +--(12) DEMETRIUS I (Poliorcetes), m. | Phila, daughter of Antipater. | | | +--(13) Antigonus II (Gonatas), m. | | Phila, daughter of Seleucus Nicator. | | | | | +--(14) Demetrius II, m. | | 1, Stratonice; | | | | | +--(16) PHILIP III. | | | | | | | +--(17) PERSEUS, m. | | | | Laodicé, daughter of Seleucus Philopator. | | | | | | | +--Demetrius | | | | | +--Apama. | | | | 2, Phthia. | | | +--Craterus. | | | | | +--Alexander | | | +--Demetrius the Handsome. | | | | | +--Antigonus III (Doson), m. | | | Phthia, widow of Demetrius II | | | | | +--Echecrates, | | | | | +--Antigonus. | | | +--Stratonice, m. | | 1, Seleucus Nicator; | | 2, Antiochus Theus. | | | +--Phila. | +--Philip.