Diadoch peace
With the Diadoch peace in 311 BC Chr. The third Diadochenkrieg ended and generally made the attempt to v since the 321st To end ongoing battles of the successors ( Diadoches ) of Alexander the great among themselves. For the first time in the history of antiquity , the Diadochian Peace was intended to establish a peace order that was valid for the states of the entire eastern Mediterranean area, although this did not last for a long time. Instead, he contributed to the collapse of the Alexander Empire and the establishment of the Diadochian Empire.
background
The Diadochi
Since the death of Alexander in 323 BC Its generals, called "successors" (Diadochi), found themselves in a relentless struggle for supremacy in its world empire. Since 315 BC The third Diadoch war was fought in which Antigonos Monophthalmos ( Asia ) fought against a coalition of the last independent Diadochs Kassander ( Macedonia ), Ptolemy ( Egypt ) and Lysimachos ( Thrace ). Antigonus claimed the succession to the throne of the entire Alexander empire, which was denied by his opponents, who sought a division of the empire.
The old Macedonian royal house had been in existence since the end of the Second Diadoch War in 316 BC. In fact disempowered and heavily decimated. Only the underage King Alexander IV. Aigos and his mother Roxane lived , who were kept in custody in Amphipolis , strictly sealed off from the public by Kassander . In addition, the half-brother of the king, Heracles , who until then had hardly been noticed in Pergamon, lived in the domain of Antigonus.
The freedom of the Greeks
Closely connected with the battles of the Diadochi was the question of the "freedom of the Greeks". Since the time of King Philip II of Macedonia († 336 BC), the Greek pole-ice world was under the constant hegemony of Macedonia, manifested in the Corinthian League . Under the leadership of Athens some Greek city-states had attempted after the death of Alexander to shake off this hegemony, were lamian war v 322nd But inferior. The then Macedonian ruler Antipater then installed followers as rulers in the Poleis, imposing oligarchic ( Phokion in Athens) or even tyrannical forms of government, which consequently suppressed liberal-democratic aspirations.
Already during the first Diadoch war (321-320 BC) the then regent Perdiccas had proclaimed the proclamation for the "freedom of the Greeks" in which he promised them the restoration of democratic constitutions and the liberation from all Macedonian garrisons if they could join his fight against the antipater, who is his enemy. Perdiccas was ultimately defeated in the war and died, but his proclamation of freedom became a popular propaganda instrument in the ensuing disputes as a justification for political or military engagement in Greece . The death of Antipater in 319 BC Chr. Led to the Second Diadoch War because his son Kassander had opposed the successor to Polyperchon as regent of the empire. Because the rulers of the Greek cities followed the dynastic principle and opted for the Kassander side, Polyperchon issued a call for freedom that even briefly led to some democratic overturns. But ultimately, cassander was able to survive until 316 BC. To decide the war for himself and to keep most of the Greek cities under his control by means of his own followers ( Demetrios of Phaleron in Athens).
As Antigonos Monophthalmos 315 BC When he reached for sole rule in the Alexander Empire, he found one of his most powerful opponents in Kassander. To weaken it, he followed the example of Perdiccas and Polyperchon and issued a freedom decree for the Greeks during the siege of Tire . In the coming years of the war he sent contingents of troops to Greece several times to fight Kassander, especially in 313 BC. His nephews Telesphorus and Ptolemaios , who were able to free almost the entire Peloponnese from the followers of Kassander. Under the guise of the protector of the Greek Demos , Antigonos was anxious to establish his own rule in Greece, in which he granted the Poleis a more far-reaching political autonomy than Kassander was prepared to give. Also in 313 BC BC Antigonus had united the Aegean Islands in the Nesiotenbund , of which he became the hegemon .
The contractual partners and their motivation
By 311 BC The fighting of the Third Diadoch War had continued without one of the parties involved being able to reach a decision in their own favor. Antigonus was able to expand his position of power especially in Syria and Phenicia against Ptolemy and in the Aegean Sea and some parts of Greece against Cassander. Even in the course of the fighting there had been diplomatic attempts to end the war. In the autumn of 313 BC, Antigonus had himself First at the Ekrhegma of the Sirbonian lake with Ptolemy and in spring 312 BC. At the Hellespont I met Kassander and probably also Lysimachos for personal talks, which, however, were fruitless. The only warlord who was able to benefit decisively from the war was Seleucus , who, with the help of Ptolemy , took control of Mesopotamia and Babylonia after the victorious battle of Gaza (312 BC) and thus became one of the leaders Diadochen could rise. This happened at the expense of Antigonus, who was no longer the sole ruler of Asia, to whom he had once been able to soar with his victory over Eumenes (316 BC).
But in the end Antigonus had proven to be strong enough to be able to defend himself against the coalition of his opponents, but at the same time he was not strong enough to be able to oust them from their positions of power. His superior military strength was mainly neutralized by the war on two fronts , with his opponents Cassander and Ptolemy in Greece and Egypt. With the rise of Seleucus, a third front threatened to grow up in Asia. Under these conditions, Antigonus was 311 BC. Ready to accept the peace offers made by Kassander and Lysimachus. Because with their departure from the war Ptolemy lost his two most important allies and thus threatened to be isolated, he did the same with them and also tried to find peace with Antigonus. The between these four rulers in the winter of 311 BC. Agreements made in BC resulted in the Diadoch peace.
negotiations
The two most important sources for the peace of the Diadochi are, on the one hand, the tradition of the ancient historian Diodor , and on the other hand, a letter from Antigonus addressed to the residents of Skepticism (today Kurşunlu Tepe in Turkey), which was preserved as an inscription discovered by Walther Judeich .
While Diodorus kept himself very brief in his report on the treaty and did not go into detail about the processes involved in its creation, the Antigonos letter, even if it is not completely preserved, offers some details on the conclusion of the treaty. Accordingly, it was Cassander and Lysimachus who first took the diplomatic initiative and each sent an envoy, Prepelaos and Aristodemus, to the court of Antigonus. With them Antigonus agreed on the (unspecified) conditions for an armistice, which was immediately concluded.
Ptolemy responded to the news of this peace agreement by sending a negotiator to Antigonus, through whom he expressed his own will for peace, which should include the conditions of the previous treaty. Antigonus insisted on the inclusion of the allied with him Polyperchon in the treaty that ruled the Peloponnese , in return he accepted the Ptolemaic rule over the cities of Libya and Arabia. Thereupon the negotiators, Aristodemus, Aeschylus, and Hegesias, were sent to Egypt, who negotiated the contract in detail with Ptolemy. Then the Ptolemaic ambassador Aristobulus appeared at Antigonus to seal the treaty.
Contract conditions and their implementation
The negotiated contractual conditions are only listed in full at Diodor, who leaves them entirely uncommented except for one point. Accordingly, Cassander, Ptolemy, Lysimachus and Antigonus recognized each other as rulers in the positions they held, and the Greeks' right of autonomy should continue to be respected. The condition introduced by Kassander was also accepted, according to which the young King Alexander IV Aigos should be given full power of government over the kingdom of his father, Alexander the Great, when he soon reached the age of majority. The Antigonos letter provides more detailed information on the point of the autonomy of the Greeks.
Recognition of domination
Probably the most important point for the contracting parties was their mutual recognition of their rule in the positions of power they held, i.e. Cassander in Macedonia, Lysimachus in Thrace, Ptolemy in Egypt and Antigonus in the Asian part of the Alexander Empire. This great empire, which had only just been founded fifteen years earlier by Alexander the Great's Asian campaign , found its de facto constitutional dissolution with this clause, since the four contracting parties mutually recognized their sovereignty, which had been established at the outbreak of the Third Diadoch War and, due to the stalemate, of none of the warring parties could be reversed. Since 316 BC The nominal ruler of the Alexander empire, Kassander, renounced his authority over his fellow rulers, thus abolishing the only central state institution that had sought to preserve the unity of the empire since Alexander's death.
The kingship
The idea of a unity of the Alexander empire only survived in the person of the young king Alexander IV Aigos, the son and heir of Alexander the great. The bloody self-tearing of the royal family during the Second Diadoch War had resulted in the fact that the kingship as a power-political factor was effectively eliminated. In addition, there was the minority of the surviving king and the Asian origin of his mother Roxane, who therefore had no sympathy or authority over the Macedonian warrior caste. For years, Kassander had sealed off mother and son from the public as prisoners, without anyone taking offense. The king no longer existed for the Macedonians.
The decision taken to transfer full power of government to King Alexander IV Aigos when he reached maturity must appear to be almost contrary to the agreed recognition of power. For the Diadochi this would have meant giving up their positions of power, which had almost assumed an autonomous character. Diodorus finally reported that Kassander gave one of his officers the order to murder the king and his mother, who both were then quietly disposed of. Modern historical research has therefore come to the conclusion that the intention to transfer rule to the king was in fact nothing more than a covert invitation from the contracting parties to Kassander to take on this problem. Later, Heracles was also eliminated under similar circumstances and the family of Alexander was completely destroyed.
With the extinction of the traditional Macedonian kingship, barely having achieved world domination a few years earlier, the Diadochi themselves have come to legitimize state rule in a form that was previously unknown to either the Greek Occident or the Asian Orient. The basis of their position of power was originally the kingship, as its governor or military commander they actually officiated, which, however, had become obsolete with its end. Since none of them now accepted the royal diadem themselves, the proto-state structures created by the diadochi remained as military rule, the owners of which based their positions of power primarily on the loyalty of their warriors, who in turn was dependent on their abilities as military leaders. Here, too, Diodorus was able to report on the principle of the "land won by spears", on which the Diadochi knew how to legitimize their rule, which was simply tantamount to a right of conquest. Only with the acceptance of the title of king a few years later and by connecting with previous rulership structures did the diadochi and their descendants begin to expand the legitimacy of their rule.
With the end of the kingship, however, the idea of the unified Alexander Empire was not completely given up. Above all, Antigonos Monophthalmos pursued the goal of gaining royal rule in an undivided kingdom, but without it, despite the acceptance of the royal title in 306 BC. Ever to be able to attain. It was not until its end in the battle of Ipsos in 301 BC. BC marked the final end of the Alexander empire.
Greek autonomy
As Antigonos explains in his letter to the skeptical, it was a particular concern of his during the peace negotiations to have the "freedom of the Greeks" propagated by him contractually fixed. To this end, the Greek Poleis should be directly integrated into the treaty of the Diadochic Peace, in that the representatives of each of them should swear a fixed (not preserved) oath and thus give the peace beyond the territories of the Diadochi a general, transnational legitimation. Antigonus had informed the Greek cities of the agreements by means of letters like the one to Skepticism and sent them the formula of the oath. The details of the structure of this autonomy cannot be read from the surviving sections of the letter, but Antigonus assured that the treaty contained his essential concerns regarding the Greeks and that it should connect them with one another and guarantee the protection of their autonomy. If one takes the Antigonid proclamation of freedom of Tire from the year 315 BC. As a yardstick, then these main concerns must have included nothing more than the withdrawal of all Macedonian garrisons from Greek cities and the guarantee of self-determination of their governments without interference from outside.
In realizing the right to autonomy for the Greeks, there was indeed a wide gap between claims and reality. If anything, a certain degree of freedom was only granted to those cities that were within the Antigonid sphere of influence, i.e. mainly the cities on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, on the islands and the Peloponnese. It is almost impossible that Kassander was even prepared to make the withdrawal of the Macedonian garrisons an object of the contract. The general political situation at that time was too uncertain and fragile for him to willingly give up his position of power in Greece. Diodorus also did not report any troop withdrawals from Greece. When the fourth Diadoch War broke out just a few years later, a large number of cities were still under the control of Cassander, especially Athens.
But Antigonus himself was only then ready to grant the Greeks their autonomy as long as they nevertheless followed his interests or at least behaved neutrally. He secured the loyalty of strategically important cities to him by holding hostages. Cities that openly opposed him, regardless of whether they invoked the rights he had propagated, were punished by military means, for example the siege of Rhodes (305–304 BC) .
lifespan
With the Diadochian Peace, of course, no all-encompassing period of peace was reached, because a decisive Diadoche of his time was not involved at all. Seleucus had in the winter time from 312 to 311 BC. Mesopotamia was conquered and then defended against an Antigonid counterattack. Antigonus was unwilling to accept this loss and let another enemy grow up directly in Asia. It is noteworthy that Seleucus was once a close confidante of Ptolemy and whose support was largely due to the taking over of Babylon . Through the peace of 311 BC Chr. Seleucus was abandoned by his friend and now had to fight alone against Antigonus, who was superior to him, which ultimately marked the beginning of the mutual alienation of Ptolemies and Seleucids , which was to determine their entire history.
Relieved by the peace with Cassander and Ptolemy on his western front, Antigonus could now concentrate fully on fighting Seleucus. But in the so-called Babylonian War he should not succeed in destroying his adversary or regaining the lost territories. After Antigonus was in the end militarily defeated against Seleucus, he had to recognize him as the new independent ruler east of the Euphrates and give him half of his territory (see map).
Antigonus was urged to make this disadvantageous peace with Seleucus, primarily because of developments in the west, because the Diadochian peace had ultimately proven to be short-lived. Since the year 309 BC Ptolemy of Egypt had shown presence in the Aegean Sea with his fleet and tried to gain his own positions there, which could only be achieved at the expense of Antigonus. Shortly thereafter, the Antigonid position in Greece collapsed instantly when the local general and Antigonos nephew, who was also called Ptolemy , went over to his Egyptian namesake. This now felt strong enough to resume the military exchange of blows and attacked the Antigonid Halicarnassus , which Demetrios Poliorketes could successfully defend. Nevertheless, these actions meant the resumption of acts of war among the Diadochi, whose fourth war began, which was to be waged in the constellations of the third, i.e. Antigonus against all others.
meaning
The peace of the Diadochi was of comparatively little importance within the political developments triggered by the early death of Alexander the Great. Neither could he establish peace after more than a decade of war, nor could he establish peace until 311 BC. Stabilize the conditions that occurred. It gave the contracting parties, and with them the eastern Mediterranean world, only a short two-year respite, after which they began to plunge again into war.
Accordingly, Diodorus dealt briefly with the peace work in his universal story and connected it with what he saw as the only relevant subsequent effect, namely the downfall of the family of Alexander the Great. The historical significance of the Diadochian Peace lies in the will of almost all contracting parties, expressed in it for the first time and once in writing, to divide the Alexander Empire among themselves and thus to establish a state system based on its remains in the eastern Mediterranean. Overall, this goal was achieved with the establishment of the so-called Diadoch Empire, even if one of the contractual partners, Antigonus Monophthalmos, believed he was strong enough to reverse the emerging development and restore the Alexander Empire. With its end at Ipsos in 301 BC Then it was finally history.
literature
- J. Arthur R. Munro: A Letter from Antigonus to Scepsis, 311 BC In: The Journal of Hellenic Studies . Volume 19 (1899), pp. 330-340 ( digitized version ).
- RH Simpson: The Historical Circumstances of the Peace of 311 . In: The Journal of Hellenic Studies. Vol. 74 (1954), pp. 25-31.
- HH Schmitt : The state treaties of antiquity . Volume III. 1969, no.428.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Diodor 19, 64, 8 and 75, 6. For dating, see RM Errington: Diodorus Siculus and the Chronology of the Early Diadochoi, 320-311 BC In: Hermes 105 (1977), pp. 478-504.
- ↑ For the dating see Edward M. Anson: The Chronology of the Third Diadoch War , in: Phoenix Vol. 60, No. 3/4 (2006), pp. 226-235
- ↑ Diodor 19, 105, 1-4; J. Arthur R. Munro: A Letter from Antigonus to Scepsis, 311 BC In: The Journal of Hellenic Studies . Volume 19 (1899), pp. 330-340 ( digitized version ) = Wilhelm Dittenberger , Orientis Graeci inscriptiones selectae (OGIS), No. 5 ( digitized version ; PHI Greek Inscriptions ).
- ↑ The identity of Lysimachus' negotiator, Aristodemus, is unclear. Assuming that he was identical to the Antigonid henchman Aristodemos of Miletus who was active in Greece , it is not unlikely that the actual peace initiative had come from Antigonus and that Aristodemos of Miletus acted as a middleman between him and Lysimachus.
- ↑ The exact date of death of Alexander IV Aigos cannot be determined exactly. Diodorus placed it in the tenure of the Archon of Athens Simonides (311/310 BC), the marble Parium (FGrHist 239 B18) in that of the Hieromnemon (310/309 BC). He was probably born in 310 BC. Killed.
- ↑ Diodorus 19, 61, 3.