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Anaximenes and King Alexander I of Macedon1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

P. A. Brunt
P. A. Brunt
Affiliation:
Brasenose College, Oxford
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Extract

Ἀναξιμένης ἐν ᾶ Φιλιππικῶν περὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου λέγων φησίν ἔπειτα τοὺς μὲν ἐνδοξοτάτους ἱππεύειν συνεθίσας ἑταίρους προσηγόρευσε, τοὺς δὲ πλείστους καὶ τοὺς πέζους εἰς λόχους καὶ δεμάδας καὶ τὰς ἄλλας ἀρχὰς διελὼν πεζεταίρους ὠνόμασεν, ὄπως ἑκάτεροι μετέχοντες τῆς βασιλικῆς ἑταιρίας προθυμότατοι διατελῶσιν ὄντες.

This fragment of Anaximenes of Lampsacus, a historian contemporary with Philip II and Alexander, cited by Harpocration and the Suda to explain the use of pezetairoi in Demosthenes ii 17, alleges that some Alexander not only accustomed the Macedonians of highest repute to serve in the cavalry but also organised the foot in lochoi, decads and ‘other commands’, apparently those of the writer's own day, and entitled them pezetairoi. Since that title already existed, and was known by both Anaximenes and the lexicographers to have existed, in the reign of Philip, the Alexander named cannot be Alexander III. Taking the information offered seriously, most scholars either suppose Alexander I (c. 495–50) or Alexander II (369–8) to be meant, or refer the innovations to Archelaus (c. 413–399) or even to Philip II (359–36). Emendation can of course only be based on the assumption that the excerptors misunderstood the text of Anaximenes before their eyes.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 96 , November 1976 , pp. 151 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1976

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References

2 Momigliano secluded the last three words as a gloss on the ground that καί cannot mean in effect ‘i.e.’. But cf. Denniston, J. D., The Greek Particles, Oxford, 1934, 291Google Scholar.

3 Jacoby, FHG no. 72 F 4. Book I of the Philippica no doubt began with introductory matter and not with Philip's assumption of the government in 359, cf. F 5–6, 27.

4 Lochoi and decads: Arr. vii 23.3; Berve, H., Das Alexanderreich, Munich, 1926, i 119–21Google Scholar. As decads were surely the smallest subdivisions, did the author have in mind the taxeis (ib. 113 ff.) by τὰς ἄλλας ἀρχάς, or was he thinking not of units but of officers and NCOs (e.g. the dimoirites and decastateros)? I assume that ἱππϵύϵιν means ‘serve in the cavalry’ rather than ‘ride’; Anaximenes would hardly have held the quaint belief that Macedonians did not even ride before Alexander I, cf. Hammond, N. G. L., History of Macedonia i, Oxford, 1972Google Scholar, index, s.v. ‘horses’ for early archaeological evidence.

5 Cf. Ath. Pol. 7.1 and 3; 21.5; 42.4; 43.3 f.; 47.1. 48.1; 51.4; 53.4; 56.1; 57.1 ; 58.3; 59.3 (twice in Harp.); I omit the many passages in which Harp. merely alludes to or summarises Ath. Pol. without pretending to quote. The texts of Harp. are cited in modern apparatuses of Ath. Pol.

6 Geyer, F., Makedonien bis zur Thronbesteigung Philipps II, Munich, 1930Google Scholar, is the best account of this period.

7 For early Lyncestis see Hammond (n. 4) 102 ff. Upper Macedon was to furnish Alexander with 3 of the 6 phalanx regiments he took to Asia (Diod. xvii 57.2).

8 Hdt. ix 31.5 says that the Macedonians and Thessalians were among the Persian troops facing the Athenians at the battle of Plataea, but does not specifically mention their conduct in the fighting (67 f.), and we cannot tell if they served on horse or foot, cf. also vii 185; viii 34.

9 Contra Geyer (n. 6) 85 ff.

10 In 382 the Spartan general, Teleutias, bade his ally, King Amyntas, hire mercenaries (Xen., Hell. v. 2.38). Both Amyntas and the Elimian prince, Derdas, were able to supply cavalry (ib. 40). In 381 we hear again only of Derdas' cavalry (ib. 3.1). This evidence doubtless indicates that the Macedonians still specialised in cavalry fighting, but does not prove that they still lacked heavy infantry.

11 The revolt of Pydna under Archelaus (Xen., , Hell. i 1.12Google Scholar; Diod. xiii 49), and again in 364–56—it offered strenuous resistance to Philip (Diod. xvi 8; Dem. i 5 and 9)—betokens, like its issue of coins in the 380s, that it sought the status of an autonomous Greek city; some scholars in fact regard it as a Greek colony (Danoff, , RE, Suppl. ix 833Google Scholar ff). Yet Xen., , Hell. v 2.13Google Scholar, calls Pella the greatest of the Macedonian poleis, and though that term sometimes refers to mere fortified places of refuge (as in Diod. xvi 4.4 and 7), Pella at least is likely to have been subject to Hellenic influence and, as the capital, to have become a genuine town, even before Philip enlarged it (Strabo vii 330 fr. 20). Some urbanisation might be conjectured at Dion and Therme. The increase in trade, reflected in the doubling of revenue from harbour dues in 361/0 (Ps-Arist., Oec. 1350a 16 ff., cf. Beloch, , Gr. Gesch. 2 iii 1.327Google Scholar) should have had an effect of this kind. Arrian vii 9.2 is rhetoric, at best applicable to Upper Macedon.

12 κατασκϵυήν, perhaps ‘equipment’.

13 FHG no. 115 F 225 = Athen. 261 A. The number of 800 is at once too large for councillors and probably too small at any date for Philip's Companion cavalry; I suspect that it relates to the Greeks and others whom Philip enfeoffed in return for cavalry service, cf. SIG 3 332, including these who served in the squadrons recruited from newly won Greek lands, Arr. i 2.5; 12.7; ii 9.3.

14 So already in 358, Diod. xvi 4.

15 For hetairoi in Alexander's time cf. Berve (n. 4) 30 ff.; 104 ff.; Tarn, W. W., Alexander the Great, ii, Cambridge, 1948, 137Google Scholar ff. Berve supposes that the term first denoted the philoi and was extended to the cavalry, Granier (n. 1) 7, that it was originally used of all the knights and then used in a more pregnant sense of the philoi. For Homeric hetairoi see Nilsson, M. P., SB Berlin 1927, 28Google Scholar ff. Aelian, , VH xiii 4Google Scholar (Archelaus), and Plut., , Pelop. 27Google Scholar (368 B.C.), mention hetairoi before Philip, probably philoi. Arrian vii 11.7 gives us a certain instance of an honorific title (syngeneis) being extended by a Macedonian king from a small circle (courtiers) to all the soldiers. Carrata, F., Il problema degli heteri nella monarchic di Alessandro Magno, Turin, 1955Google Scholar, has re-examined all the evidence on hetairoi.

16 Hignett, C., Hist. of Athen. Const., Oxford, 1952, 18Google Scholar f.

17 Rep. ii 39 f. It is immaterial if the centuriate organisation in its first form did go back to Servius.

18 v 17–22; vii 173; viii 121; 136–9; ix 44–6.