LECTURES) ANCIENT HISTOR PROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE TAKING OF ALEXANDRIA BY OCTAVIANUS. COMPRISING THE HISTORY OF THE ASIATIC NATIONS, THE EGYPTI GREEKS, MACEDONIANS, AND CARTHAGINIANS. BY Bb. G. NIEBUHR. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN EDITION OF DR. MARCUS NIEE BY Dr. LEONHARD SCHMITZ, F.R.S. E., RECTOR OF THE HIGH SCHOOL OF EDINBURGH. WITH ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS FROM HIS OWN MS. NOT IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. PHILADELPHIA: BLANCHARD AND LEA. 1852. tThis book tells the ‘Aneient Macedonis tory of the relations between the and the “Greeks” (Hellenes). ‘The author at the very beginning explains why some historians wrongfully regard the Ancient Macedonians as “Greeks”, and why should not. He says that some ancient chroniclers called “Greeks” all those who earried on their bi the Coine language, which was the universal in the antiquity. That is wrong, beeause many facts prove that “Macedonians and Greeks were two ‘most different nations,” as he states. About Philip II of Macedonia, the author explicitly claims that he was a stranger to the Hellenes, a foreign enemy... A sophisticated “barbarian of powerful intellect,” who spoke the Hellenic language, just as in modern times (mid-19" century), “noble barbarians speak French”... Or English. Today, not everyone who speaks or understands English, is an Englishman. Speaking about Alexander the Great (Alexander IIL of Macedonia), the author says, he was a foreigner to the Greeks, although they now see him like the French see Napoleon Bonaparte. He was Italian-b but the Frenchmen consider him a French national hero.The condition of Thebes, in a material point of view was still prosperous; but after the battle of Mantinea it again be- came powerless. The downfall of Greece was thus irresistibly approaching. Its existence against foreign enemies was pos. sible only Thueyd. ii. 99.ORIGIN OF THE RULING FAMILY. 295 therefore, were Epirots: Pelasgians, Siculians, Tyrrhenians, and by whatever name you like to call them; but they were no more Hellenes than the other Epirots. But as the ruling yong of the Pyrrhidae among the Molottians in Epirus, traced its origin to the ancient heroic families of Greece, so the rulers of Macedonia, in its narrower sense, traced their family to Heracles. There are two different accounts about this point: the one adopted by Herodotus‘ places their arrival in Mace- donia in later times ; it represents the archegetes Perdiccas as migrating with two brothers from Argos to Macedonia, where they were kindly received by a native prince. The other account, which I believe to be of native origin, occurred in ‘Theopompus, and was adopted from him by Diodorus, Justin, and Velleius, and passed over also into the sketch of Dexippus, which is preserved in Syncellus.’ According to this latter account, the kingdom of Macedonia was founded by Caranus, who is connected with Pheidon, the last prince of Argos, being called by some his brother, and by others his son; this Pheidon is described by some as the tenth, and by others as the twelfth, descendant of Heracles. The one as well as the other ac- count, therefore, traces the origin of the Macedonian kings to Argos; but I believe that we can show, step by step, how this derivation from Argos arose from mere speculation. There was in Macedonia a royal race in the same manner as we find the government exercised by certain families among all the tribes akin to the Greeks. This royal race of the Macedo- nians, as we know from Theopompus, was called the Argeads, and nothing is more natural than to infer from the name of these Argeads, that they were descended from Argos. This, however, does not render it necessary to look to Peloponnesus, the Pelasgian Argos being nearer at hand; but after they were once traced to Peloponnesus, it was no Jonger a bold step to regard them as Temenids, and thus they at once became Heracleids: that they were then connected with Pheidon, the * Herod. viii, 137, § Diod. Fragm. ; Justin, vii. 1; Vell. Pat. i. 6; Syncell. i. 495, ed. Bonn.296 EXTENSION OF THE MACEDONIANS. latest and most celebrated of the Argive Heracleids, is like- wise no more than might be expected. ‘“ We cannot be sur- prised to find that the names of the kings are genuine Dorie, as they had once declared themselves to be Heracleids, and as people everywhere felt a pride in representing everything as Greek.” The most ancient seat of these Macedonian kings, setting aside Lyncestus and Elimiotis, was in Lower Macedonia, “ while the other tribes dwelt in the mountains.” The ancient capital of this country was Aegeac, which had formerly been called Edessa, and was afterwards again so called. In like manner, ancient names reappear in Asia, as Edessa, for example, is still called Edessa.* Now where ancient cities have two different names, it is always a proof, that they have been inhabited by different nations: thus Terracina and Anxur, the former being the Tyrrhenian and the latter the Volscian name ; the an- cient name, New Amsterdam, has been obscured by that of New York. This double name of the Macedonian capital shows the truth of the ancient tradition, that Edessa was eon- quered by the advancing Macedonians. Hence it is altogether probable, that the Macedonians did not advance into Lower Macedonia at a later period, since Thucydides also supposed, that they had expelled other tribes; he represents the Thra- cians as driven from Aemathia, and the Pierians from Pieria, and as having thus descended into the plains. “© part of the Macedonian tribes, therefore, had descended from the mountains, and taken possession of Aemathia and the fertile Thracian districts about Salonichi.”” On that occasion, the place called Edessa was conquered, and received the name Aiysws, although that of Edessa was never entirely lost. I repeat this name for the sake of philologers, because they have taken offence at its foreign appearance, and because it is one of those names of places which have always been ill-used by the editors of ancient authors. It has been imagined, without reason, that the true name was Aiyaia (which is the name of © Isnot this perhaps a slip for Amida ‘—En. i ftAMYNTAS I. 297 an Acolian city), because Alyse looks strange ; and Aiyai arose only as an abbreviation from Aiyaia, This erroneous name has been introduced into maps, and I believe that the correct name is found in no map at all. ‘That city was for a long time the residence of the Macedo- nian kings. The Lyncestians and Elimiotans, who had re- mained in the hills, were governed at the same time, and even during the Peloponnesian war, by princes of their own, and of the same race, it is said, as all the Pelasgian tribes originally had their own kings. Nothing is known of Macedonian his- tory before the reign of Amyntas I., a contemporary of Darius. Under him, the Macedonians descended into the plain as far as the Axius; but on the sea coast they possessed only a small district of from five to ten miles, about the mouth of the Axius, whereby they were enabled to keep up intercourse with the Greeks. All the rest of the coast was oceupied by Greek cities, excepting, perhaps, a place like Dium in Pieria, which belonged to the Macedonians. We can form a tolerable esti- mate of the Macedonian kingdom at that time; it was small and very narrow, and seems to have extended a little beyond the Axius. The common manuals erroneously describe the kingdom of Amyntas as extending as far as the river Nestus ; but the Macedonians for a long time did not advance even as far as the Strymon. The gradual extension of the kingdom is very well described by Gatterer in two maps, in the transac- tions of the Society of Gittingen ;’ modern books are full of mistakes on this subject. We possess silver coins, with the name of Amyntas, of very ancient coinage, and it cannot be doubted that they belong to this Amyntas ; the coinage is too antique to regard it as made under Amyntas IT., the father of Philip.* We accordingly see that even as early as that time 7 Comment, Goetting, ann, 1781, tom. vi. ® “The coins of Sybaris are of very ancient date, the writing being still from the right to the left. They are more ancient than any Greek coin extant. The fact that we have no ancient Athenian coins, probably arises from the circumstance that Solon reduced the ancient standard, and that then all the earlier coinage was melted down.” [This passage298 ALEXANDER. the Macedonians had coins with Greek inscriptions, as was, in fact, the case with most of the barbarians within the reach of Greece. Few only had a different mode of writing; in Pam phylia, eg., very beautiful coins, with peculiar writing, were made; but the rule is, that barbarians employed Greek writing, The fact that the Macedonians at that time coined such money, shows that they had Greek civilization. Amyntas, who was king of Macedonia in the reign of Darius, was obliged to do homage to the king of Persia. An insult committed by the Persian envoys at his court was avenged by his son, Alexander, who murdered them; but this T have already mentioned before. This crime had afterwards to be atoned for by the payment of a large sum of money, Subsequently, however, when Alexander saw that the affairs of the Persians turned out ill, he took his revenge ; making it appear as if he were anxious to be of service to the Grecks, he gave them information about the Persians, and afterwards the Macedonians boasted, that he had destroyed the remnants of the Persian army on its retreat after the battle of Plataeae, Even Demosthenes’ concedes this praise to the hated Macedo- nians, but with a remarkable confusion of persons, which shows that he was not accurate in his historical knowledge. But the historians Herodotus and Thucydides do not mention anything about it. It is possible that they may have killed some Persians fleeing by themselves, and that afterwards they converted such a base act into something for which they claimed gratitude. This Alexander attached great importance to his being a Heracleid, and to his belonging to the Greek race, and he endeavoured to hellenise his people. He obtained for himself, though not for his people, the right of admission to the Olympie games, because, according to his own state- ment, he was a Heracleid descended from Argos ; but there was, at the time, considerable opposition, and the Hellanodicae occurs in one MS. of the course of 1829-30, written in the margin, and is, probably taken from the Lectures of 1826, but this is not quite certain.— Ep] ° De Ord. Rep: p. 173; c. Aristocr. p. 687, ed. Reiske.PERDICCAS—ARCHELAUS. 299 in that case were certainly not over serupulous. The part, however, which he plays in history is very obscure; and from Thueydides we only know, that the Macedonians extended their dominion, more and more, by driving the Dlyrians and Thracians from the country, and settling in the parts which thus became evacuated. The boundaries of the Macedonian Kingdom, however, were still extremely narrow; Upper Mace- donia did not yet belong to it, and the whole of the coast, ex- cept the small district about the Axius, was Greek. Shortly before the Peloponnesian war, and during the dis- turbance which led to it, Macedonia, under king Perdiceas, first appears in the history of Greece (Olymp. $1, 3). Tt then shows a state of weakness which is hardly conceivable; small as the kingdom is, its weakness cannot but excite our astonish- ment. Its cavalry was pretty considerable, but it had no regu- Jar infantry, or hoplites. ‘‘ We see the Macedonian king just as powerless as the Epirot princes, without money and without authority.” Perdiccas distinguished himself by his fickle and untrustworthy character ; he hated and mistrusted the Atheni- ans, and wanted to deprive them of the possession of the towns on the coast; but he did not trust the Chalcidian cities either, which, on his advice, had united into one Olynthian state. Afterwards, he fell out with Brasidas, became reconciled to the Athenians, and thenceforth remained on tolerable terms with them. He was succeeded (Olymp. 91, 3) by Archelaus, his natural son, who is universally believed to have murdered his brother, the legitimate heir of the throne, or at least to have derived advantages from the murder. It cannot, however, be denied, that tbe murderer was useful to his country and nation. ‘ Hi- therto, the Macedonians had been protected against their neighbours, the Paeonians and Illyrians, only by their moun- tains, and by the “deserted state of the frontiers.” It was Archelaus, as Thucydides says, that founded and fortified the Macedonian towns deserving of the name: he did for Mace- ” Thueyd. ii, 100.300 AMYNTAS IT, donia what king Henry did for Germany. He was the first that built towns; the Pelasgian tribes having before lived in little open places, from a dislike of towns surrounded by walls, Archelaus already transferred his residence from Aegeae to Pella, which, in his reign, continued to increase, though, even under Philip, it was only a small place. You must conceive all those Macedonian towns to have been extremely small, as, for example, Ziirich at its beginning, or St. Gall, which, in the fourteenth century, contained only one hundred houses; or, like our Bonn, where, in the twelfth century, the Britcken- strasse formed the boundary, and only the district round the minster was inhabited. Such also was the case with Pella; in the time of Herodotus, it was still a woddwn, Archelaus also dvew Greeks towards his court, and endeavoured to en- lighten the Macedonians. These attempts bear a remarkable resemblance to those of Peter the Great and his successors, Thus the Academy of Sciences, which was instituted at Peters- burg, consisted only of foreigners; and Peter's own barbarians were only honorary members. Archclaus likewise instituted something resembling an Academy of Sciences: he drew to his court Greek poets and philosophers, to whom he gave resi- dences and the means of living, among whom I may mention Euripides, who ended his life there. These Greeks, moreover, were treated by the Macedonian grandces, who were yet fear- fully rade, in the same brutal manner as the foreign savants were in Petersburg by the Russian courtiers of Peter the Great. Euripides also experienced such treatment at the hands of a noble Macedonian. ‘They were obliged to accept the favours from a fratricide, and in addition to this, to bear the insolent pride of the Macedonian nobles. But notwithstanding all this, Archelaus did very much for his country, and his reign is the beginning of a new era. The reign of Amyntas II. (Olymp. 96, 3), the father of Philip IL, was altogether unfortunate. He has already been mentioned in the history of the war with the Olynthians, when he solicited the assistance of the Spartans against them. In the vicinity of Macedonia a state had been formed, ofBARDYLIS. 301 which historians take no notice, and which the ancients men- tion only in passing. I allude to the state of the Taulantians in Iyrieum, which had been founded by one Bardylis." “The Ilyrians had from early times been in a very divided condition ; every tribe formed a state by itself, without any strong point of union. But Bardylis began to draw the separate tribes to- gether. We know for certain, that “he began as a robber, like Ali Pasha, and all the celebrated Albanese of the eighteenth century, genuine and true descendants of the ancient Illyrians, “who enter upon their career as highway robbers, and then form a state by subduing their neighbours.” Such a man was Bardylis: we must not, however, imagine that he lived with his companions as a common robber in the woods; but he was like the proprietor of a strong castle, who gradually assembled round himself a large number of followers, consisting both of men of his own race and of foreigners. ‘In those countries, the robbers are the admired class; and the exploits of these bandits are the great feats and wars which engage their inte- rest, for they know nothing else.” In this manner Bardylis also excited admiration, and he was especially celebrated for the extraordinary love of justice, with which he managed his band: and being the leader of a body of highwaymen, he was gradually recognised as king by the Illyrians and Taulantians, and established a real kingdom. I thinkit very probable, that the latter Illyrian kings were his descendants. History has decided otherwise ; but personally he is certainly not less de- serving of consideration than Philip. The natural tendency to unite in larger states, which was then so general among the Greeks, also drew together several Illyrian tribes. “Thus united, Iyricum was too powerful for the Macedonians.” Although the Ilyrians fought in separate bands as robbers, yet they were then, and they are now, particularly fit for the strict service in the line, and were regularly organized. Bardylis “Whether the name is to be pronounced Burdglis or Bardylis cannot be decided, as it does not occur in any poet: but it was probably Bardglis, because several authors spell it Bardyllis.”802 PHILIP. thus formed for himself an army, with which he invaded Mace. donia, overpowered king Amyntas, conquered a part of his kingiom, and rendered Amyntas tributary for the rest. Amyntas had many sons, and the history of Macedonia after his death (Olymp. 102, 3) is a great chaos, the unravelling of which is perhaps impossible, and after all of little use. The immediate successor of Amyntas was probably Alexander; and it seems that it was he who, during the feud with Thessaly, sent his younger brother Philip as a hostage to Thebes. The account of Diodorus, that Philip was educated there in the same house with Epaminondas, is inconceivably absurd, and is made without any regard to the respective ages of the two men. ‘Theopompus certainly did not make such a statement, But it is probable that Philip was actually sent as a hostage to insure the protection demanded by the king of Macedonia; and it is very credible, that Epaminondas afforded him an entirely Greek education, so that Philip afterwards had every reason to bless the period spent at Thebes.” Alexander was murdered (Olymp. 103, 1) with the knowledge of the queen-mother Ewrydice; and her paramour ascended the throne as regent. After his death (Olymp. 103, 4) Perdiceas III. succeeded to the throne. The question now is, whether Philip had then already returned to Macedonia, and lived there confined to a small district; or whether, until the murder of his brother, he remained at Thebes, and then made his escape, as Demetrius escaped from Rome to Syria. I believe the former to be more probable—an opinion supported by a story of Speusippus in ‘Athenacus;" it is diffieult to believe that Speusippus should at that time have boldly invented it, if there had not been some truth in it. Perdiccas fell in a battle against the Illyrians (Olymp. 105, 1). The condition of Macedonia after his death was one of the most complete dissolution. A certain Pausanias, whose con- nection with the royal family is unknown, claimed the throne, = In 1826, Niebuhr doubted Philip’s residence at Thebes altogether. —En. ® Athen. xi. p. 506, ¢ and f.NEIGHBOURING STATES OF MACEDONIA. 803 and was supported by the Thracians. Another pretender, Argaeus, a grandson of Archelaus, was supported by the Athe- nians with a fleet, and an army of three thousand men, under the command of Mantias. Against these two pretenders, Philip came forward. That period too may be compared with several epochs in the history of Russia during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when several pretenders fought against one another, and hordes of robbers traversed the country. Philip, therefore, had to contend with great difficulties. LECTURE LXVI. Wen Philip ascended the throne, Macedonia was pressed and threatened not only by the Illyrians, and the great king- dom of the Taulantians, but on the other side also, by the great Paeonian kingdom, the extent of which cannot now be determined, and the very situation of which is not accurately known. It is, indeed, stated, that the Paeonians dwelt about the Strymon above Aemathia; but whether all the Paeonian tribes formed one state, or whether many stood by themselves, these are points concerning which we can form no conjectures. Beyond the Paeonians, there was the Thracian kingdom of the Odrysians, of large extent, but with very varying boundaries ; it did not, however, touch upon Macedonia. On the sea-coast, the Macedonian kings had as yet no possessions, except the narrow tract on the Thermaie gulf, and some points in Pieria, Methone and Pydna being the most important cities in that part, governed, it would seem, the country of Pieria quite in- dependently and without any connection with Olynthus. ‘This last city exercised the supremacy over the towns on the Ther- maic Gulf, as far as the second bay between Sithonia and Athos, which separated the state of Torone from that of Olyn- thus. ‘These towns, with the exception of a few places under the supremacy of Athens, especially Potidae, formed the Olyn-304 CONDITION OF ATHENS. thian state. Acanthus and Apollonia, further east, were not connected with Olynthus. The most distant Greek city towards Thrace was Amphipolis, which Sparta, in the last treaty of peace, had expressly conceded to Athens. But the city itself, though ceded by Sparta, was not on that account inclined to submit to the Athenian supremacy. ‘ With the view of re. pelling the Athenians, it had even before thrown itself into the arms of Macedonia ;” and it was the constant endeavour of the Athenians to recover their authority at Amphipolis. “ Some places on the coast of Thrace and Macedonia, however, had submitted to Athens at the time of the reconstitutio imperti by Chabrias and Timotheus, and’’ she probably ee also Potidaea and the surrounding country. During that period, and even for some time aa it, Athens was managed most sadly. It had no leading man; there were indeed some, comparatively speaking, not combatants com manders, but in the first place, they were no statesmen, and secondly, the best among them, like Iphicrates and Chabrias, had become old, and the youthful vigour so necessary to a military commander, had become extinct in them. But inde- pendently of this, they could not be compared with first-rate generals; they were distinguished only among second-rate commanders, like those in Europe after the death of Frederick the Great. The two old men, Iphicrates and Chabrias, were setting stars; the brilliant period of Timotheus was likewise past, although he was not so old as the former two. The younger generals at Athens were not only men of the greatest mediocrity, but some of them were undeserving of any confi- dence whatever. If Leosthenes had then been in the vigour of life, the fate of Athens would have been decided differently. The foremost among the young men at Athens was Chares, although as a general he was of very inferior talent; he was, moreover, altogether reckless, and his unprincipled character rendered him worthless. “He was a common condottiere, who had no other good quality but that the troops liked to be engaged by him.” ‘The next was a stranger, Charidemus of Oreus, whom the Athenians had taken into their service against their ownCONDITION OF ATILENS, 805 interest, as his native town was hostile to them, But he, too, was altogether an unprincipled condottiere, as ready to serve any one who engaged him, even for the most desperate under- takings, provided money was to be made, as he was ready to desert the cause which he had undertaken and to lend himself to others. With the exception of the single Callistratus, the com- manders were worth nothing. He was an able and skilful man, a good orator, anda man of principle, though not of first-rate qualities. With this single exception, the statesmen of that time cannot be spoken of with pleasure. ‘The warlike spirit of the republic had become quite extinct ; the mode of warfare now prevalent in Greece was the same ag that which Machiavelli, in his time, found at Florence. No war was carried on except by hired mercenaries; the ancient personal service of the citizens in the armies was altogether out of the question. The wealth of the Athenians, compared with what it had been during the period immediately pre- ceding, had been immensely inereased. Although, at the beginning of Philip's reign, the city was still in a state of great decay, as we sce from the small treatise of Xenophon (ep! wipwy, ii. 6), who says, that within the walls there were a great many places for building unoccupied, so that the population must have greatly decreased, yet the state appears to have become extremely wealthy. If we consider, that about Olymp. 100, the Athénians had great difficulty in equipping a small fleet, that afterwards great armaments were got ready with facility, and that Athens kept large fleets and armies, we can easily see to what an extraordinary degree she must have re- covered her strength. The causes of this increasing prosperity cannot be very distinetly stated, and we can only form con- jectures about it. My belief is, that the restoration of the commerce with Persia and Egypt contributed most to it; great advantages must have been gained by it, for there could be no navigation between Asia Minor and Egypt, and Athens, as a neutral power, mediated between the two countries, and carried on their commerce. The trade with the Euxine also appears then to have been much more extensive than before. This Vou. 11. 20306 AUTHORITIES FOR THE MHISTORY OF PHILIP. much only is elear, that Athens had recovered id fortunate ainly the main eause which pro- commercial junctures were ce duced this recovery. With these resources, Athens stood alone in Greece; Sparta was no longer spoken of, and was engaged only in feuds with her neighbours. No one placed any eonfidenee in her, and Thebes had lost her soul in Epaminondas. But Vhilip united in his person every danger with which all the other states had formerly, each in its turn, threatened Athens. Tt is well known, that the history of Philip was written by Theopompus with great minuteness, and with an immense number of digressions and episodes. This history is no longer extant, but has formed the basis of all the accounts which we have of Philip; and its very minuteness may be the reason why we now have such a meagre history of him. We know it only very imperfectly, and for the most part only from tho passionate speeches of Demosthenes and his adversary. The connected historieal narrative in Diodorus is and wretched: he is not struck by the most gl tions, and there are many works referring to this subject which he had not even read, such as the speech of Acse Ctesiphon; many things are recorded by him without any meaning and at random. The first period of the history of Philip down to the siege of Porinthus, had been written also by Ephorus. “Some ascribe his last (the 30th) book, from the end of the Phocian war down to this period, to his son De- mophilus.'’ But if he wrote it himself, why did he leave of there? I answer, because he was a man, and a Greek of the right sort; for the relief of Perinthus was the last successful effort of the free Grecks. Iere accordingly the patriotic Greck closed his history, while the capricious Theopompus, dis satisfied with himself, wrote the history of the subjugation of his country.” Polybius? charges Theopompus with contradieting himself, In 1825, Niebuhr, with reference to Diodorus, xvi. 74, expressed him- self in favour of this opinion. * vill. 1PHILIP'S CHARACTER. 307 because he said he had chosen an historical subject richer and more interesting than any other, the greatest revolution of the age effected by Philip (he wrote under Alexander), and after- wards spoke of Philip in the most derogatory manner, relating of him acts of the greatest baseness, e. g., that his court was the rallying point of the most abject creatures from all parts of Greece, and that the baser they were, the more kindly were they received by Philip. I am surprised at Polybius attaching so much importance to this contradiction ; for it is not so great as he thinks, and the two statements may be easily reconciled. We must distinguish in Philip the natural phenomenon and the moral being. Philip was unquestionably an uncommon and extraordinary man, and the opinion of several among the ancients, that by the foundation of the Macedonian state he did something far greater than Alexander by the application of the powers he inherited, is quite correct. If we consider the strength with which, first as the guardian of his nephew, who soon disap- pears, and then as king, he took up the reins of government ; the firmness with which, under the cireumstances, when the kingdom was almost destroyed, he took the crown; how he persuaded and soothed some enemies, and made war upon others; how he secured his successful undertakings by the establishment and improvement of standing armies, and by the introduction of new tactics :—if we consider all this, and if we read how Demosthenes himself describes his qualities with horror, how he was unwearied in his endeavours to gain his end, how he endured both in summer and in winter every kind of hardship and illness, and how then again he came forward in full vigour; how every success incited him only to make greater efforts, and nothing deterred him; how every failure only served him as a lesson that the time had not yet come, but did not lead him to give up his plans: we cannot do other- wise than look with amazement at his extraordinary qualities. When we regard him as the creator of his state, by uniting the most different nations, Macedonians and Grecks: when we see with what discernment he coutrived to discover and win over to