INTRODUCTION

Problems of method and evidence make it particularly difficult to write a history of Persia in the fourth century B.C., or rather, an account of Persia which will fit satisfactorily into a general history of a century whose study has traditionally been dominated by Greek evidence, or evidence perceived as Greek.

There are two main, related, difficulties. The first is the risk of ‘hellenocentricity’ – that is, the adoption of an unduly Greek viewpoint. This fault is easier to identify than to avoid. Nor would it be right to avoid it in all areas, for instance the military: the extensive Persian use of Greek infantry soldiers means that there will always be one Greek dimension to the study of fourth-century Persia. To the general charge of hellenocentricity, the traditionalist might reply that the dominance, in the relevant modern studies, of Greek evidence is the result not of cultural bias, but of a recognition of the quantity and quality of that evidence. In the same way the existence of Thucydides’ text makes it possible to talk about the Peloponnesian War in far greater depth and detail than about the eighth-century Lelantine or the third-century Chremonidean Wars, for neither of which is a text as rich as Thucydides available. This does not prove scholarly ‘bias’ against the eighth century, or the third. Students have tended to fasten on the Greek evidence because the Persian period seems in some respects (for instance, in the archaeological record) curiously invisible. On the other hand, it can be argued that in the relevant areas of study, which include art and iconography, the very distinction between ‘Greek’ and ‘Persian’ evidence needs to be re-assessed, and that the apparently meagre impact of Persia on the culture of the western satrapies was the result of deliberate policy: the Persians deliberately tried to play down their own power.

In the period between the Peloponnesian War and the accession of Philip of Macedon, it is perhaps the events in Sicily which carry the greatest potential interest. Although in the eastern Mediterranean the military and political battle for the Greeks of Asia Minor continues, Greek civilization there is not in cultural danger; in fact, it continues to expand despite its political subjection. In Sicily it remains unclear whether Greeks, the semitic power of Carthage or some Italian people will come out on top. Politically, Sicily offers a chance to see in operation a possible solution to the Greek political dilemma. The Athenian democracy has failed to expand political control beyond the city state, and Sparta will show that oligarchy is no more successful. In Sicily, monarchy has its chance, and operates on a larger scale than the city state. Dionysius I, with his one-man rule over a large territory, his professional army, and his technological resourcefulness, prefigures the hellenistic period with some clarity. On a different level, it is arguable that much of Plato's political experience is Sicilian experience and that understanding Sicily is a prerequisite for understanding him.

That study of these matters is relatively undeveloped compared to the amount of effort put into mainland Greece in the same period is attributable to the nature of the evidence. A very few references in Xenophon and Athenian orators, three Athenian inscriptions, and the controversial letters under the name of Plato practically exhaust the fourth-century evidence for us, and then we have a long gap until the first century B.C. Even then, the once useful evidence provided by Pompeius Trogus is hopelessly obscured for us by his epitomator Justin.

SOURCES AND APPROACHES

The two centuries of the history of Carthage with which we deal are crucial: in this period the Tyrian colony becomes a city state important both for the expansion of her African territory to an area of about 30,000 sq.km. (equal to Roman territory in about 300 B.C.), and for her empire of the seas which is practically identical with the western Mediterranean coastal area, except for the much smaller sphere of influence of Marseilles. The acquisition and maintenance of empire were the cause of terrible wars, especially against the Sicilian Greeks. Within the city state, this period corresponds to a change from a monarchical regime to a complex aristocratic one. This evolution has been variously interpreted by modern historians; many think that monarchy was the result of an irregular concentration of power in the hands of a few noble families; others, with whom I agree, consider monarchy an inheritance from the Phoenician colonists. From the religious point of view, the most important cult, which had direct ties with the city state, gave to the goddess Tanit a place at least equal to that held by her partner, Ba'al Hammon, who had previously been named alone in dedications. At the same time, Demeter and Kore were borrowed from the Greeks at the very moment of the most intense struggle between the two cultures.

We discern all these facts through a kind of mist, the result of the great weakness of our sources, composed of very diverse elements of unequal value and often contradictory. No interpretation is entirely sure; we have to appeal to hypotheses in the search for coherence. We first deal briefly with the literary and epigraphic evidence.

THE FOUNDING RULERS OF THE ODRYSIAN KINGDOM – TERES AND SITALCES

Following the three and a half decade occupation of its southern flanks by Persian troops, the post-war history of Thrace in the fifth century is marked by a rapid development of tribal political power, with the emergence of elite military hierarchies, distinct regional centres of authority and the assumption of regular political and trading relations with Greek cities. Precisely what role the Persian campaigns played in this crystallization is disputable. The scarcity of contemporary literary references makes it difficult to assess the chronological relationship between given tribal entities and specific geographical regions. Nor is it easy to integrate historical facts with the archaeological material, which becomes increasingly more abundant from the second quarter of the fifth century onwards.

The most significant tribal group to emerge on the international stage was that of the Odrysians. Much of what is known of the founder of their ruling dynasty, Teres (Thuc. II.29.2–3) is anecdotal, whether it be his longevity (Lucian Macr. 10) or the rustic character of his preferred lifestyle (Plut. Mor. 174 D). The only detailed incident recorded from his reign, a surprise night attack by the Thyni during which Teres was deprived of his baggage train and his troops suffered heavy losses, is reported in the reminiscences of a later ruler, Seuthes II (Xen. An. VII.2.22). The dates and duration of Teres’ reign are unknown and Thucydides does not make it clear whether it was he or his son Sitalces who extended Odrysian power towards the Aegean on the south and the Danube on the north (II.29.2; Diod. XII.50.1).

A speaker in Xenophon's Hellenica describes Temnos, a small city north of Smyrna (Izmir) in the Aeolid, as a place in the Persian King's Asia ‘where one could nevertheless live without being one of the King's subjects’ (IV.8.5: 390s). This is a paradox: how could a city escape ‘subjection’ to the king in whose territory it lay? The solution lies in the nature of Persian control of Asia Minor in the fourth century. That control was indirect, respectful of (or indifferent to) local autonomy, and, by the standards of ancient imperialism, light. Because of the amount of documentary evidence, chiefly inscriptions on stone, from fourth-century Asia Minor, we are better informed about Persian rule in that part of its empire than about any other group of satrapies (which is not to say that Asia Minor conditions were reproduced elsewhere). By far the greatest part of the evidence comes from the south-west corner of Anatolia, the satrapy of Caria. This region was ruled in the two generations between 400 and Alexander by a vigorous native dynasty, the Hecatomnids. The dynasty's best known member was Mausolus. But Lycia, and the area round Dascylium on the sea of Marmara (Propontis), are also rich in remains from the 200-year period of cultural confrontation with Greece (546–334), as are parts of Lydia further into the interior.

The Greek city states clustered about the shores of the Mediterranean like ‘frogs on a pond’, as Plato put it (Phd. 109b). And the centres of greatest economic importance – not only Greek but Phoenician as well – were by and large seaports: Tyre, Miletus, Byzantium, Athens and its Piraeus, Syracuse, Carthage, Marseilles. There was good reason for this. The shortest and least arduous way of getting from one distant point to another was most often by the body of water that lay so conveniently at the centre of the Greek and Roman world. Men learned to sail on it as early as the eleventh millennium B.C. and were doing so regularly by the seventh (CAH 1.1, 570–1).

COMMUNICATIONS BY LAND

Travel by sea, to be sure, had its disadvantages, as we will note in a moment, but they were far less grave than those by land. There the very possibility of movement depended squarely upon the existence of roads, and its speed on the nature of the terrain. In the flat plains of southern Mesopotamia, by the second millennium B.C., there were roads between the major city states, like those from Nippur to Ur or from Babylon to Larsa, and the international route that ran from Egypt north along the Levantine coast to Beirut dates back at least to the late second. Minoan Crete had roads between its important points, and so did Mycenaean Greece. The Assyrian empire, in the years of its greatness, c. 900–600 B.C., maintained an efficient government dispatch service and the network of roads that this required; both were taken over and improved by the Persians.

When seeking an example of a lowly category of men whose failure to recognise and greet him the philosopher should bear with equanimity, the younger Seneca thought naturally (de Constantia 13.4) of the slavedealers who plied their trade near the Temple of Castor in the Roman Forum. The choice was appropriate enough, for as in later history slavedealers were notorious in antiquity for their sharp business practices and unscrupulous devotion to profiteering.

But what especially catches the attention in Seneca's observation is the reference to a particular spot in the heart of the city that was known as the place for slaveowners to go when they wished to buy new slaves. It was not the only spot where slaves were available: if for example buyers had something exotic in mind the upscale shops of the Saepta Julia were the place to look. But the shops of the dealers in the Forum teemed with slaves – slaves of the meanest sort, the pessimi, Seneca called them – and his readers were clearly expected to be familiar with the fact. Men of Seneca's station of course would not always have had the time or inclination to scout the market themselves. Advice from friends acting as agents would then come into play. But where did the merchandise itself come from when slaveowners were ready to buy?

This chapter was planned independently from CAH III.2, ch. 31, to which the reader may also refer for the period of the Restoration. It is, however, intended to be complementary to CAH IV ch. 3b. That chapter looked at Judah as a part of the Achaemenid empire; here we try to consider its internal development during the period.

The Old Testament books which are relevant are inevitably controversial. It is here assumed (see below, p. 292) that the book of Ezra-Nehemiah was put together, long after the time of the events, from the ‘building blocks’ which included much contemporary documentary material, including a first-person narrative by Nehemiah himself; how much Ezra had to do with his own narrative is more doubtful. The compiler did not aim at a chronological composition, and he tends to build his narrative round the major personalities; gaps and a certain amount of confusion result. We do not believe that this compiler was the same as the author of the Book of Chronicles (below, p. 293), although that used to be the dominant view.

There is little other literary material to help us. Josephus’ survey of the period in the Jewish Antiquities is largely dependent on the edited version of the book of Ezra-Nehemiah in some form or another, and most of his variations are in general likely to arise from his attempts to resolve contradictions than from independent information. Much more help comes from contemporary material, the Elephantine papyri, the Samaria papyri from Wadi Daliyeh, ostraca, coins, seals and other remains of material culture.

No guide comparable to Thucydides exists for the fourth century. This means that we have no firm framework for political and military events, and this lack is a serious obstacle to one sort of knowledge. Thucydides’ mind, however, was limited as well as powerful, or perhaps we should say its limits were the price of its power; and in the fourth century certain types of history which he had treated only selectively, particularly social, economic and religious topics, can actually be better studied than was possible in the Thucydidean period. Xenophon, for instance, has glaring faults when judged as a political reporter but is a prime source for the modern historian of religion. In general, fourth-century literary sources (Xenophon, Aeneas Tacticus and others) are less preoccupied than Thucydides had been with the polar opposites, Athens and Sparta. This probably reflects the new multi-centred reality. But we should recall that Thucydides, especially in books IV and V, had allowed us peeps at the politics of Argos, Macedon, Thessaly and Boeotia. A history of the Peloponnesian War written by Xenophon might have told us more about second-class and minor city states than Thucydides did: compare the remarkable detail about the minor cities Sicyon and Phlius at Xen. Hell. VII. 1–3. But a Xenophon with only Herodotus, not Thucydides, for a predecessor and model would have looked very different anyway.

INTERNAL HISTORY

The domestic history of Egypt during her last age of independence was dominated by power struggles both within dynasties themselves and between great families of the Delta each jealous of the other and anxious to gain possession of the crown. These dissensions were greatly exacerbated by the sectional interests of the native Egyptian warrior class or Machimoi, the priesthood, and the greed and jealousy of foreign mercenaries.

Initially, however, the major problems confronting Amyrtaeus, the sole king of the XXVIIIth Dynasty, were the expulsion of Persian forces from the kingdom and consolidation of his position as an independent ruler. It would appear that his credentials for this role were impeccable. He was certainly a Saite and probably a descendant of the brilliant and prosperous XXVIth Dynasty; it has also been plausibly suggested that he was the grandson of the Amyrtaeus who succeeded Inarus as the leader of the great but abortive revolt of Egypt against Artaxerxes II. For all that, his task was no easy one. His accession date can be located c. 404, but he was certainly not in complete control of the country until some time later; for in the Jewish colony at Elephantine Artaxerxes II was still recognized as late as 401 whilst the first document in the name of Amyrtaeus does not appear until regnal year 5 (c. 400). Of the details of his reign virtually nothing is known. However, the Demotic Chronicle speaks at iii. 18–19 of violation of the divine law in his reign and states a little later (IV. 1–2) that he was deposed as a result of this and his son not permitted to succeed.

If slaves were able to find individual purpose and common support in the households in which they found themselves, the complaisant slaveowner who believed himself attentive to his slaves’ needs would not have been surprised, for the household was like a miniature state, he would have said, and a sense of Community was thus a natural expectation. But what did it mean to be attentive to slaves’ needs? On the material plane Roman slaveowners were under a strong obligation to provide their slaves with the basic necessities of life – food, clothing and shelter (cibaria, vestitus, habitatio) – and the equation between good treatment and good performance was easily made. But material necessities were one thing, luxuries another, and as the law made clear it was only reasonable that there should be limits to what owners expended on maintaining their complements of slaves. What then were slaves’ living conditions generally like at Rome? Under what sort of material regime did Roman slaves spend their lives? It is with these questions that this chapter is now concerned.

To judge from conventional descriptions, the food rations (cibaria) that slaves were allotted were meant to be functional and little more. The term ‘cibaria’ meant most of all the lower-grade bread that seems to have constituted the principal element of the slave diet, or simply the grain from which the bread was made, if it was not alternatively converted to a form of porridge.

The fifteen decades which elapsed between the expedition to Sicily of the Athenians during the Peloponnesian War and the war between Pyrrhus of Epirus and the Romans are something of a heroic age in Italian history. It was a time of trial during which the success or failure of communities was constantly at stake, and in which the patterns of the preceding centuries were often obliterated and those which were to endure until the late imperial period formed. The trial took the form of almost unceasing warfare, confused by continuous changing of sides according to a mutable diplomacy and the exigencies of more or less mercenary manpower. Overall, the losers were the already ancient apoikiai, the city states of the Greek diaspora, whose champions, whether leaders from within the body politic or condottieri summoned from the east, all failed to establish their power sufficiently for either their descendants or their successors to share in it. The victory went to the Italic communities, whose elites in this period provided the forebears of long lines of city aristocrats whose tradition endured until the Roman empire. That such continuity came out of this period reminds us that it was no Dark Age. The victors were not usually in a position to despoil or obliterate completely; the fighting was not genocidal. This was partly because the warfare of the time was promoted and fuelled by background social and economic conditions which were tending, despite the dangers of the time, in positive directions: demographically, Italy was regarded at this time as a place with relatively abundant manpower, and the rewards of the integration of local production systems into Mediterranean-wide networks of distribution and consumption were becoming generally more palpable.

In the three quarters of a century between Lysander of Sparta and Alexander the Great – the period covered by this volume – the classical world had expanded and changed spectacularly, above all by the overthrow of the Achaemenid empire. The aim of this Epilogue is to put that, the biggest single change, into historical context.

Much of the present volume may seem to have been, in one way or another, preparation for Alexander the Great, who has himself filled the two preceding chapters. Philip, the subject of chs. 14 and 15, most obviously invites comparison with Alexander. Alexander's army was Philip's and so were its commanders, that is, Alexander's initial advisers. The deification of Alexander had a precedent in Philip's, and Philip the city-founder was, together with the Elder Cyrus, Alexander's likely model. Most important of all, it is arguable that Alexander conquered the Persian empire only because Philip had planned its conquest. (See further below.)

And behind Philip stand some autocrats of an earlier, but still fourth-century, generation. Dionysius I of Syracuse is the prototype (see ch. 5 above). He was a forceful military despot who concentrated power in his own hands and was effective simply by knowing where he was going – the secret of political power and success in all periods and under all forms of government. Both Philip and Dionysius had features in common with yet other fourth-century rulers such as the Bosporan kings of south Russia (ch. 9f) or Mausolus the semi-autonomous satrap of Caria (ch. 8a).