Ancient Civ: Fractured Greece and Republican Rome

Now that Alexander has died and his empire fractured, we see the Peloponnesian and Attican Greeks breaking away from the Antigonid realm. Sparta is in a pinch, thanks to the severe lack of landed Spartiates. A mere handful of families are left and these own all the land, so any new recruits from the Spartan’s other subject peoples cannot get that fundamental necessity for citizenship. Athens has her own problems. Seeing the growing power of Syracuse, the Antigonids return to Athens to revitalize her strength at sea, accomplishing this by forcing an aristocratic government upon the city-state. After an enraged uprising, yet another league is formed (the first of several) to maintain independence. These are largely ineffectual as tyrannies slowly take center stage, pushing oligarchies and aristocracies into the background.

To the west, Rome has expelled her kings and is rising as a power in Latium. But with the kings gone, the Romans must determine who shall have Imperium, that all-important power. Imperium becomes divided into several different offices: Consuls are granted power over the military and Comitia Centuriata and act as supreme judges, the Senate controls social and economic power, the Rex Sacrorum watches over the state’s religious life while the Pontifext Maximus represents all the gods before the government, and in the case of public danger a Dictator is granted total power until the threat is passed. To consolidate power, the growing Roman state forms the Latin League to defend trade from the marauding hill folk. However, once the Romans advance into the southern Po valley, they become the most powerful force in Italy overnight, alarming their neighbors. Seeing a group of uneasy Latins to their south, the Romans set about dividing and conquering the other states by making individual treaties with them and requiring only a tithe of soldiers for their armies. Moreover, the Roman strategy of building settlements in the uninhabited lands between cities further break up the unity of their allies. At last, Rome is master of the peninsula, leaving only the Greek southern boot outside their influence. But once they are weakened by Alexander’s havoc rousing in the Greek homeland, they will be open to Roman control.

But there are costs to this strategy as the lines between aristocracy and commoners blur. Patricians close the “box” of aristocracy to protect their longtime status, but the rising plebeians are furious and seek an outlet for their own voice. They find this voice on Aventine Hill, where the guards discover that they can be the patrons to the new movement and facilitate easy and safe meetings. The Senate finally recognizes the new assembly and allows for elected Tribunes to sit in on Senate meetings, each one armed with a veto that may be applied to those actions taken by the consuls that directly affect the city of Rome. In addition, it is established that one of the consuls must be a plebian. And finally, in 287, the new Hortinsian Laws recognize the council of Plebs as the legislative body of Rome.

This concludes the Ancient Civ shorts!

World Civ: Alexander and the Hellenistic Influence

The actions of Phillip II have gained for the Macedonians recognition in Greek society. The ‘barbarian’ king has united most of the Grecian states under the banner of one League of Corinth. Its supposed purpose is to punish Persia, an idea that is welcome to Greek pride. But some are not of that mind and Phillip is assassinated upon returning home, leaving his new kingdom to his son, Alexander.

Alexander is young and untried, so the cities of the League attempt to break away. Bu the new king will not allow it, so he marches south again and whips them back into line, striking especially hard at Thebes. This done he takes up his father’s banner and crosses over into Asia Minor to punish the Persians for their arrogance of the previous generations – despite the Macedonian removal from the conflict. No matter, Alexander represents Greece, now, and as he marches through Ionia he is declared a savior. But he is still young and untried against the mighty empire of the world, that is, until Grannicus River. There a daredevil attack shatters the Persian defense and carves out a landing sufficient to land the Macedonian phalanx in their ordered ranks, and with the rout of the Persian army, Alexander is master of Asia Minor. He moves through the countryside, setting up his own governors in the place of the Persian satraps, but the Ionians do not mind so much, because these are Greek satraps under a Greek king, so that makes all the difference. But at a point, Alexander discovers that the Greek influence only extends so far. In the hills of old Lydia, there is a people that is set apart from the rest of the country. They are an entity independent of the Ionians and have no such link to that culture. So Alexander creates a new strategy for conquering: he reestablishes a traditional family as royalty and has the new queen adopt him into the royal line. Now Alexander is king of the Greeks and the new-Lydians.

Darius III is the emperor of Persia at this time, and he has become alarmed by the progress made in the north. So he determines to personally crush the uppity Greeks at Issus. Unfortunately, he chooses open ground, the very thing for a successful phalanx deployment. The Persians are smartly put to flight and their entire supply train taken. But what is this? It was not mere supplies but a collection of the most noble of Babylon’s aristocracy, brought out to watch the brilliant spectacle, along with the queen mother. Oh dear.

Following this most humiliating defeat, Darius sues for peace in exchange for the hostages – in return, Alexander shall rule Asia Minor. But the young king has bigger plans now that he has won and Palestine and the Egyptian Delta are in view. He rebuffs Darius’ messengers and proceeds south, conquering all the way into Libya. While in Egypt he makes sure to get adopted into the Pharaonic line.

After another battle at Gaugamela – ironically on the same plains as Nineveh – Darius is killed by one of his generals, which gives Alexander an excuse to go gallivanting off into Bactria and across the mountains into India. But on the way he takes Babylon, establishing a permanent government there, indicating his desire to stay on as emperor of the east. His weary and wary soldiers press on loyally, but at last get fed up in the Indus valley, turning back for home while their king is deathly ill. Back in Babylon, Alexander suddenly makes everyone equal in his kingdom, punishing corruption wherever he can find it, even amongst the Greek immigrant nobles, who had assumed that they would be privileged. Worse still, the new emperor plans to train Persian boys to fight in a phalanx, previously a Macedonian secret weapon.

But Alexander suddenly dies, on the very eve of a planned invasion of Arabia. His kingdom is divided three ways amongst his generals: Antigonid Greece, Ptolmaic Egypt, and Seleucid Persia. But though the kingdom of one the world’s great conquerors fails to outlast its founder, the Hellenistic legacy carries over into the Roman future.