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The King and the Land in the Macedonian Kingdom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

N. G. L. Hammond
N. G. L. Hammond
Affiliation:
Clare College, Cambridge
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Extract

Two recently published inscriptions afford new insights into this subject. They were published separately and independently within a year or two of one another. Much is now to be gained by considering them together. The first inscription, found at Philippi in 1936, published by C. Vatin in Proc. 8th Epigr. Conf. (Athens, 1984), 259–70, and published with a fuller commentary by L. Missitzis in The Ancient World 12 (1985), 3–14, records the decision by Alexander the Great on the use of lands given by his father, Philip II, and in some cases confirmed by himself. The second inscription, found at the site of ancient Kalindoia (Toumpes Kalamotou) in 1982, was published with exemplary speed and an excellent commentary by I. P. Vokotopoulou in Ancient Macedonia 4 (Thessaloniki, 1986), 87–114. It records the names of the priests of Asclepius on a stele dedicated to Apollo; and in the preamble it mentions the name of Alexander, being Alexander the Great. Philippi and Kalindoia were both within the limits of the kingdom of Philip and Alexander (Str. 7 fr. 35).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , December 1988 , pp. 382 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1988

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References

1 It was in my opinion an exact record of Alexander's arrangements, of which the original was kept in the King's Journal. Missitzis, , p. 4Google Scholar, considered that it was ‘a summary or epitome of the original’; but this view is hard to square with Plu, . Eum. 2.3Google Scholar, where the officials were ordered to supply copies (ἀντίγραϕα) of the original documents which had been destroyed by a fire. With regard to the nature of the King's Journal see my article in Historia 37 (1988), 129ffGoogle Scholar.

2 The lack of patronymics, especially with a name as common as that of Philotas, is striking. The same lack causes ambiguity in Arrian's references to ‘Philotas’ at 1.2.1 and 1.2.5, as P. A. Brunt points out in the Loeb ed. 1.9 n. 2. The probable explanation is as follows. Alexander did not need to record the patronymic in the original record in his Journal, because it was known at the time which Philotas was involved. Ptolemy, on whose account Arrian drew for the campaign in the Balkans (see my article in JHS 94 [1974], 331ff.Google Scholar), did not find patronymics in the Journal, from which he was deriving his own account of that campaign.

3 Vatin, p. 262, dated the (first) embassy probably after summer 335, and Missitzis ‘either before the Triballian campaign in 335 or before the Persian campaign in 334’. In this article I use the dates as listed in my book, Alexander the Great: King, Commander and Statesman (New Jersey, 1980), pp. 331fGoogle Scholar.

4 Missitzis, p. 11 n. 2, drew a distinction between ‘enjoying the fruits of’ and ‘to have the usufruct’, which I do not understand. Vatin, p. 269, drew the contrast between cultivating and possessing, as I do.

5 For the restoration one may compare the words in inscription B τὰ χωρία τὰ περὶ Καλίνδοια. I take the meaning of νέμεσθαι to be ‘reap the fruits of’ as in LSJ s.v. νέμω A II 2.

6 Missitzis, p. 12, restored ‘on Dysoron’ and judged the restoration ‘pretty safe’ but it is geographically very improbable, since Herodotus located that mountain to the west of the Strymon basin (5.17.2, a passage discussed in HM 1.193f.).

7 It was probably a place name, as for instance in a Roman Itinerary (see HM 1.48f.); in any case we reach the crossing of a river as the limit of the marshes.

8 Missitzis, p. 7, quotes the passsage, which is discussed in HM 2.659.

9 IG IV2 295, cited and discussed in HM 2.193.

10 Vatin, p. 269, prefers the Angites. A suitable place for a bridge on the Angites is at Symbole on sheet ‘Serron’ of the map of the Greek National Statistical Service, 1:200,000.

11 Or ‘an estate’. See PhPetsas, M. on the meaning in Ancient Macedonian Studies in honor of Charles F. Edson (ed. Dell, H. J., Thessaloniki, 1981), p. 297Google Scholar.

18 In Greece and Rome 12 (1965), 136Google Scholar and HM 2.361f.

13 See my discussion in CQ 30 (1980), 462Google Scholar.

14 It is to be noted that the inscription gives the definite article with ‘the Thracians’ in lines 18 and 19.

15 HM 2.361. Philippi was still a Greek city in 242 (see Papazoglou, F. in Anc. Mac. 3.203Google Scholar).

16 Variants of the name are given by Missitzis, pp. 6f.

17 See HM 2.661. Bosworth, A. B. in CQ 23 (1973), 250CrossRefGoogle Scholar held that Philip planted new cities only in Thrace, but that is not the meaning of Justin at 8.5.7, who was writing of the kingdom itself and moved on to its frontiers at 8.6.1. Bosworth argued also that there was a lack of cities in Upper Macedonia; but he relied on the argumentum ex silentio, which is invalid in a country so little explored archaeologically. Ellis, J. R. in Makedonika 9 (1969), 9–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar had a better understanding of Just. 8.5.7.

18 For the site of this city see Vokotopoulou, p. 105. It is by Nea Apollonia, near the middle of Lake Bolbe's southern shore, and not at Toumpes Kalamotou, as was supposed by Ch Makaronas, in Anc. Mac. 2 (1973), 189f.Google Scholar, writing before the discovery of inscription B.

19 The squadron of Companion Cavalry ‘from Bottiaea’ was in action in spring 335 (Arr. 1.2.5). Whether that squadron came from the coastal plain of Lower Macedonia known as ‘Bottiaea’ or from the land of the Bottiaeans called ‘Bottike’, has been much discussed. Griffith, G. T. in HM 2.368Google Scholar favoured the former, and Bosworth, A. B. in A Historical Commentary on Arrian's History of Alexander 1 (Oxford, 1980), 59Google Scholar favoured the latter. Inscription B tends to suggest that the large-scale presence of Macedonian settlers in Bottike is to be dated after spring 335 and that the view of Griffith is therefore more likely to be correct. See also Oberhummer, E. in RE 3 (1899), col. 795Google Scholar.

20 The word προστελοῦσι in line 5 indicates that some payment was made by the Philippians, presumably to Alexander.

21 The word δίδωμι is used constantly in inscriptions recording gifts of land (for example, thrice in inscription A, and in SIG 332), which were called δωρεαί in literary sources (e.g. in Diod. 20.28.2).

22 It has often been held either that there was no Assembly of Macedones, or that, if there was, its performance was ‘largely a formality’ (Cawkwell, G., Philip of Macedon [London, 1978], 28Google Scholar). An extreme form of that view has been expressed by Errington, R. M. in Chiron 8 (1978), 131Google Scholar ‘Macedonia had no formal or regular assembly of people or army with rights acquired by tradition and acknowledged by the nobles and the king’ and in his book Geschichte Makedoniens (Munich, 1986), 197Google Scholar ‘dem Volk ein formales politisches Organ vorenthalten war’.

23 For this later period inscriptions provide examples of King and Makedones: for example together in Inscr. Cret. 2 no. 20 πρὸς Ἀντίγονον καὶ Μακεδό[νας], Antigonus being probably Gonatas (as in Paus. 1.7.3 ἐπ' Ἀντίγονον καὶ Μακεδόνας), and as separate entities in SIG 575 τὸ κοινὸν Μ[ακε]δόν[ων] βασιλἑα Φίλιππον, being Philip V. Papazoglou and I were unaware of each other's views, because I did not attend the Conference in 1977 and she delivered her paper for publication before my article appeared in CQ in 1980.

24 This claim is discussed by me in Antichthon 20 (1986), 75fGoogle Scholar.

25 The source of Diodorus here was Hieronymus, a dependable contemporary historian. On ‘spear-won’ land see Mehl, A. in Anc. Soc. 11/12 (1980–1981), 173fGoogle Scholar.

26 For this transplantation see HM 2. 656.

27 This inscription ends the long controversy over the use of the title basileus; for it goes against the view of Griffith, G. T. in HM 2.387Google Scholar, summarising the conclusion of Errington, R. M. in JHS 94 (1974), 20–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar, that ‘the Macedonian kings did not call themselves basileus or expect I to be called this by their people’.