LXIII. End as of 12/6/95
A. Finally, divide and conquer
1. Ada and Caria (Plu. Alex. 22)
2. Separate and reduce Phoenicia
3. Egypt and Siwa--the new Pharoah,(p. 398)
4. Babylon--newest king, appropriate courtesy
5. New "Great King," Darius's mother, wife, and family (Plu. Alex. 21)
6. In Afghanistan (330-27) tried that, married Roxane, but had to go back to "wretched homes" strategy and blockhouses columns. It wasn't fun.
7. India--beat and pardon Porus at the Hydaspes (326), carve him out, then go on to the next petty ruler. Shame the army had had enough.
B. Retreat and death, Final Plans?
1. Arabia, spice trade and route to Indian holdings
2. The legend was that he was going to head West against Carthage (another traditional enemy of the Greeks since Battle of Alalia, 535; Helorus, in 492) via Cyrene, which had surrendered itself to him, then to Gibraltar, Spain, Italy and Home.
3. Supposedly (after entering Babylon, at the priests' instructions, through a malarial swamp), dying, when asked who would be his heir, he said, "the strongest."
LXIV. The Final Gasp of the Polis and the End (?!) of Greek History
1 Demosthenes made his last great effort after the dead of Alexander in 323,the Lamian War.
A. Antipater had had a horrible time keeping everybody obedient and Olympias from killing most of Macedonia.
B. Alexander's army still in Persia, while the Athenian general Leosthenes trapped Antipater briefly at Lamia near Thermopyle over the winter of 323-2.
C. The Athenian navy crushed by Macedonian/Phoenican fleet at Amorgos, 322
D. Leosthenes killed in siege, reinforcements arrive from Asia
E. Alliance collapses after failure to keep Hellespont open at Crannon, 322
2 Splat--the Permanent End of Polis-Based Greek Culture. The big empires are here to stay.
LXV. Very Brief Survey of the Hellenistic Age
1 The Wars of the Diadochi: 322 (Murder of Perdiccas) - 281 (Corupedion)
A. Rhodes and Demetrius, the "Great Game" mentality (305-4), death in 283
B. Ipsos, 305. The Empire will not be Reunited. Alexander's strategy of "divide and conquer" had worked too well.
2 The Wars of the Epigoni: 281-246
A. Pyrrhus in Italy (280-75), Cineas's anecdote and the Great Game, Gonatas anecdote
B. Antiochus I stabilizes Seleucid Empire (Pompey, in 62), Gonatas the Macedonian (Pydna, 169), Ptolemy II dies in 246 (First Arms Race, cold war, Egypt goes down in 31 at Actium).
C. The independent powers survive by being too difficult to conquer:
1. Pergamon with its walls, Darius's treasure, location (133 B.C. bequest to Rome)
2. Rhodes with its walls, the finest navy in the world, and its democracy (Cassius's sack in 43 B.C.
3 The Romans end up with the pie.
LXVI. Final Why:
1 We've tried to teach you reasoned inquiry, in its purest form from its primal source.
2 The University still (we hope) believes in keeping the memory of what happened in our period alive--for otherwise, it was all in vain, if we don't understand it.
3 But again, a great deal of our culture traces itself back to what we've discussed here. Isn't it important to know what actually happened when you listen to someone else telling you why we're where we are today?