Part I The Rise and Fall of the Hellenistic States-System

Elias's observation about the ‘social dynamic’ that has driven successive quests for political supremacy and empire was central to his overview of key features of international politics in the ancient world. He described the struggle for hegemony in which Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes competed for domination. The ensuing military stalemate was followed by the unification of reluctant city states under Macedonian rule (Elias 2010c: 119–20). A similar dynamic was evident in Alexander's relentless conquest to subdue ever more distant peoples that was undertaken in the belief that, at some future time, on the edges of the empire, armies would acquire total control over an ‘absolutely secure frontier’ (Elias 2010c: 93–4). A parallel orientation explained Rome's domination of neighbouring groups that, by their very existence as independent societies, were portrayed as endangering the imperial peace (Elias 2010c: 91–5). Elias's argument was that struggles for security and ‘hegemonic intoxication’ entangled states in geopolitical rivalries that could only be resolved – or so they believed – by violence. The three international systems described above collapsed for that reason. The stalemate between the major Greek city states, following a series of debilitating wars and the conflict with Persia, left the Hellenes entirely at the mercy of a new territorial concentration of power – Macedon. Alexander's empire collapsed because rapid expansion created a sprawling empire of diverse peoples that could not be unified symbolically, ruled effectively from a central administrative point, or guaranteed security from external threats (Elias 2010c: 93–4). Rome's initial expansion responded to what it regarded as challenges to its ‘physical security and integrity’ but, gripped by ‘hegemonic intoxication’ and convinced of its ‘superiority and invincibility’, it proceeded to launch a wave of military campaigns to subdue outlying groups.