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183 Chapter 5 Political Ideas in the Hellenistic Age: Cynicism, Stoicism, Epicureanism It seems that the fourth century Greeks did not foresee the historical evolution that finally condemned the political formula of the city-state. True, they considered uniting Hellenic countries against the kings of Macedonia and, later, against the Roman Empire, or at least to create political entities of a sufficient, critical size. But either they designed their federations on the model of symmachies without political integration, which were therefore extremely fragile, or whenever they tried to create large federal states, they failed. Obviously, the most effective political model appeared to be that of the Macedonian conqueror’s, that is, monarchy. And so, just as leading thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle were formulating comprehensive theories of the state and government for the first time, the polis itself was being overtaken by history (which does not mean that it disappeared: the institutions of the Greek polis and the Greek civic spirit endured for centuries). But another reality was emerging. I. The Hellenistic World The new model took shape after Alexander the Great’s conquests (336–322 BC), which resulted in the creation of the great monarchic states. Alexander’s successors (called the “Epigones” or “Diadochi”) founded three kingdoms: Egypt, governed by the Lagide dynasty, founded by one of Alexander’s generals, Ptolemy, the son of a Macedonian nobleman by the name of Lagos (numerous Egyptian kings were named Ptolemy; the Ptolemaic dynasty lasted until Cleopatra and the reduction of Egypt into a Roman province in 30 BC with Alexandria as its capital); Syria, governed by the Seleucids, after another of Part One: Ancient Greece 184 Alexander’s generals, Seleucus (many Syrian kings bear the name Antiochos; its capital was Antioch); Macedonia, governed by the Antigonid dynasty, after Antigonus Gonatas; Pella was its capital. After 262 BC, a fourth Hellenistic kingdom was created in Asia Minor: the kingdom of Pergamon (governed by the Attalid dynasty; its kings took the name Eumenes or Attalus); Pergamon became a great cultural center, the rival of Alexandria. No sooner were they created than these kingdoms engaged in endless wars that soon placed them in a position of inferiority against the rising power of Rome. In theory, Greece came under the rule of the Antigonid kingdom of Macedonia, which created garrisons at strategic locations like Piraeus. Still, each city preserved its local government. Some managed to break free by inciting rivalries and wars throughout the kingdom, changing sides according to the dictates of interest. Moreover, they managed to create or maintain real federal states in Boeotia (11 “districts” around Thebes), Etolia (northwestern continental Greece), and the Peloponnesus (the “Achaean League” around Megalopolis). These political entities tried to re-create the “republican” institutions of the classical Greek polis: elected federal magistrates, councils with delegates pro rata to the population size of the federated cities, and even large people ’s assemblies. But these creations lacked internal harmony and continuity in diplomacy and war. In the end, they were unable to overturn the situation created by Alexander’s conquests. In many respects, the Hellenistic kingdoms remind us of the ancient sacred monarchies of the Near East (see the introduction to this volume). At the same time, they are something entirely new. They prolong the old monarchies because the king exercises absolute power without restraint and because his person is deified or quasi-deified. But they can no longer be “sacred monarchies” in the sense that ancient Egypt and the kingdom of Hammurabi were because they are basically multiethnic states (Macedonians, Greeks, Egyptians, Syrians, Persians, and the like), and their social bond is constituted essentially by Greek civic and scientific culture. The creation of the Hellenistic kingdoms brought about an unprecedented mingling of peoples throughout the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East. Alexander himself pursued a policy of interethnic mingling (he initiated this with his own marriage to the Persian princess, Roxane; he imposed such mixed marriages on his officers as well). Thus, a new “Hellenistic” culture was forged that conquered ethnic groups could assimilate. We have already quoted Isocrates on this process of acculturation: “[Our city] has brought it about that the name Hellenes suggests no longer a race but an intelligence, and that the title Hellenes is applied rather to those who share our culture than to those who share a common blood” (Panegyricus 48). Philosophy, in Greece and in the new cultural centers throughout the Hellenistic world, records this evolution and contributes to its strengthening. II...

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