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The Historians' History of the World 04 [Greece to the Roman Conquest]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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Æropus was well able to uphold the dignity of his rank, but at his death in 392 Amyntas took possession of the throne; he was murdered by Derdas in 391 and Æropus’ son, Pausanias, became king. He was deposed in his turn by that Amyntas, son of Arrhidæus (390-369 B.C.), in whose person the oldest line of the royal house came again into its rights.
[390-360 B.C.]
The years of his reign were marked by internal disorders that made Macedonia ready to fall an easy prey to any attack. Summoned possibly by the Lyncestians, the Illyrians broke into the land and devastated it, defeated the army of the king, and forced the king himself to take flight beyond the borders. Argæus had been on the throne two years, whether he was Pausanias’ brother or a Lyncestian remains undecided. But aided by Thessaly Amyntas returned, and regained the kingdom, which he found in wretched plight, all the cities and coast lands being in the power of the Olynthians, while even Pella had shut its doors against the king.
There followed as a result of the Peace of Antalcidas, the expedition of the Spartans against Olynthus, which was joined by Amyntas, also by Derdas, prince of Elimea, with four hundred horsemen. But success was not so easy as had been anticipated, and Derdas was taken prisoner. When Olynthus was finally subdued (380 B.C.), Thebes rose in revolt, and Sparta was defeated at Naxos and at Leuctra. Olynthus renewed the Chalcidian alliance; and Jason of Pheræ, uniting the Thessalian powers, compelled Amyntas III to enter his alliance. On the threshold of a brilliant success Jason was assassinated (370 B.C.). The irresolute Amyntas had not succeeded in upholding his sovereignty, and a little later he died. He was succeeded by the oldest of his three sons, Alexander II, who was soon brought by his mother, the Elymean, to an untimely end. She had for long been carrying on a secret love intrigue with Ptolemæus, of uncertain lineage, who was the husband of her daughter. She persuaded him, during an absence of Alexander in Thessaly, to take up arms against Alexander on his return, and the Thebans rushed to join the movement, it being necessary to impair Macedonia’s power before she could gain further victories in Thessaly. Pelopidas arranged a compromise whereby thirty of Alexander’s pages were placed as hostages and Ptolemæus received a part-principality, the name of which he assumed. This compromise seemed to be effected only to hasten the downfall of the king, who was assassinated during the course of a festival dance. His mother bestowed her hand upon the murderer, also the throne, to which he acceded under the name of guardian over the two younger sons, Perdiccas and Philippus (368-365 B.C.).
Summoned from Chalcidice Pausanias, called “of the kingly line,” though to which branch of the royal family he belonged cannot be ascertained, commenced a vigorous campaign against the regent. His success was immediate; Eurydice fled with her two sons to Iphicrates, who was stationed with an Attic fleet in neighbouring waters, and he finally put down the revolt. Still Ptolemæus’ position had not been rendered more secure; the murder of Alexander was a breach of the agreement with Thebes, and the friends of the murdered king applied to Pelopidas, who advanced with a hastily gathered army. But Ptolemæus’ gold brought disaffection in the ranks, and Pelopidas was obliged to content himself with making a new agreement with the king. Ptolemæus placed his son Philoxenus and fifty hetæri as hostages for his good faith; this was perhaps the motive that brought Philippus to Thebes.
When he reached manhood Perdiccas III avenged the death of his brother by causing the assassination of the usurper. To escape the influence of Thebes he devoted himself to the cause of Athens, fighting bravely against the Olynthians by the side of Timotheus. But about this time the Illyrians, doubtless at the instigation of the Lyncestians, came pouring over the borders. Perdiccas made a successful stand against this invasion, but in a desperate battle he and four hundred others lost their lives. The whole country was now devastated by the Illyrians, and laid open to the invasion of the Pæonians on the north.
[360-350 B.C.]
This was the situation when Philippus, representing Perdiccas’ son Amyntas, who was not yet of age, took command of the army in 359. He had been established in Macedonia since the death of Ptolemæus, having received a part-principality in consequence of a compromise to which Perdiccas had been advised by Plato, and the troops he already had about him formed a nucleus of support. The Illyrians and the Pæonians had already entered the land, and added to them were the former pretenders to the throne, Argæus, and Pausanias from Athens, with the support of the Thracian princes, and three illegitimate sons of his father, who also advanced claims to the throne. Backed by the sympathy and support of the entire country, Philip was equal to the first great emergencies; by the exercise of foresight, skill, and resolution, he rescued the land from the invaders, the throne from its false claimants, and the royal line from fresh intrigues and disasters. And when the Athenians, who had committed the folly of turning their back on him as thanks for his recognition of their claims on Amphipolis, became alarmed at his successes and formed with Grabos the Illyrian, Lyppæus, the Pæonian, and Cetriporis, the Thracian, an offensive and defensive alliance aiming to break Macedonia’s might before it became thoroughly established, Philip—having already taken Amphipolis and won over its inhabitants—proceeded rapidly to the frontiers and soon brought the barbarians, who were by no means ready for the conflict, under subjection.
About 356, the frontiers were made secure against barbarian invasion for many years to come. Not long after this all the different intriguing parties had vanished from the court. Of the Lyncestians, Ptolemæus and Eurydice were dead; one of Æropus’ sons, Alexander, later became established at court by reason of his marriage with the daughter of the faithful Antipater; the remaining two sons, Heromenes and Arrhibæus, were received into favour by others high in station, and Arrhibæus’ two sons, Neoptolemus and Amyntas, were brought up at court. The two pretenders, Argæus and Pausanias, disappear about this time from historical accounts. The rightful heir to the throne, Perdiccas’ son Amyntas, in whose name Philip had at first carried on the sovereignty, was secured to Philip’s cause by marriage to his daughter, Cynane.
PHILIP THE ORGANISER
[350-324 B.C.]
Thus Macedonia, under the rule of a prince who had dexterously and systematically developed and employed her resources, had risen to the height where at last she might entertain the thought of issuing forth, and, at the head of united Greece, entering the lists against the Persian might. In the historical accounts that lie before us the forces that were actually at work to produce Philip’s astonishing success seem curiously to be lost sight of. Though the writers follow, through all its cleverly planned movements, the hand that seized and drew into its owner’s possession all the Greek states one after another, they leave us in the dark as to every detail concerning the personality to which that hand belonged, and to which it owed its strength and firmness. Gold which they always show the hand to dispense at exactly the right moment, seems to be about the only means of effecting his purposes that they attribute to Philip.
On looking closely into the inner life of the state two events stand forth that, arising from earlier causes, were made to yield their full significance by Philip, and in reality formed the basis of his power.
“My father,” said Arrian’s Alexander to the mutinous Macedonians at Opis in 324, “took you under his protection when he was king, and you, destitute and clad in skins, wandered here from your mountains where you had tended your flocks of sheep that you could with difficulty protect against the Illyrians, the Thracians, and the Triballi; he gave you the chlamys of the soldiers and led you down into the plain, where he trained you to be the equal of the barbarian in the fight.” Every man capable of bearing arms had always indeed come forward in time of war, but only to return to his hearth or plough when the need of his services was at an end. The dangers by which Philip was beset when he first assumed the rule, the attacks against which he had to protect a land that was menaced on all sides, gave rise to a measure that, already set on foot in Archelaus’ reign, might have averted much of the subsequent internal strife, had it been brought to full development. On the basis of the duty owed by every man to his country in time of war, Philip brought into existence a standing army of native forces that, constantly increasing in size and strength, finally came to number forty thousand men.