Alexander the Great, paranoia, power struggles at court: some thoughts

Posted on by Josh Nudell

This is me thinking publicly about a hangup that I have about one of the major scholarly debates surrounding aristocratic politics at the Macedonian court. There is no research beyond what I have done in the past and it relates right now to a single line in a nineteen page paper. Nonetheless, it is a pivotal concern because it basically dictates how the Macedonian court is perceived.

Ernst Badian wrote his classic article “Alexander the Great and the Loneliness of Power,” in which he defaults to some of the Romantic notions about the nature of genius and ambition, but concludes that Alexander’s relationship with the aristocracy hinged upon Alexander’s paranoia and lust for power. He describes Alexander as being increasingly unstable, approaching ever closer to madness. Alexander became king as the pawn of several older aristocrats from whom he consistently rebelled, always trying to actually be king in his own right. He goes so far as to call Alexander’s removal of Parmenion in 330 a “coup d’etat.” For Badian, Alexander’s compulsion to achieve first genuine kingship, then ultimate power, shaped his further actions and caused him to be increasingly hostile towards any member of the aristocracy who opposed him.

In her doctoral dissertation, Elizabeth Carney claims a similar setup of the Macedonian court, with there being a competition between the aristocracy and the king, and Sabine Mueller provides a clever construction in her book Massnahmen der Herrschaftssicherung genegüber der makedonischen Opposition bei Alexander dem Grossen in which she argues that the conflict between aristocracy and king was an ongoing tension at Alexander’s court rather than something that was a result of Alexander’s increasing paranoia. The tension, she claims stems from Alexander’s control not being unlimited, which brings her back to Badian’s basic point that Alexander desired ultimate power unrestrained by any constitution or aristocracy.

These arguments have roots in two related places: the cult of personality surrounding Alexander the Great and the narrative record that we have. Basically, everyone has their own opinion of Alexander the Great, who he was, his behavior, and his motivations. This perception then dictates how credulous each person will be in regard to Alexander’s actions, and, say, whether his cause of death was alcoholism, poison by any number of suspects, or repeated injuries and illness, or some combination thereof. This is not a problem with history of Alexander per se because there is no solution to it. Instead, I consider this the most fundamental fact to the history of Alexander the Great, and believe that it is the reason that so many people are drawn (professionally or otherwise) to this larger than life figure.

Then we have a varied historical record that describes a repeated pattern of conflict between Alexander and the aristocracy, though usually in the form of Alexander ordering the deaths of people or stabbing people himself. It is at this point that people usually put on their tinfoil hats and claim Alexander was executing a long-term plan to eliminate any potential threat to his throne. It is also this record that is hard to argue against.

I believe that Alexander was prone to paranoia, perhaps to a greater degree that your run-of-the-mill autocrat (somewhere less than Pol Pot and Stalin, and probably Nixon, but greater than Napoleon, Ghengis Khan, and his father Philip), but I also believe that he was no fool. In this light, I am not convinced that he had a grand plan to eliminate any of his many talented followers simply because they were talented, and there are plenty of instances in which he gave second and third chances. Nevertheless, when presented with evidence of treason or a threat to his life, Alexander was more apt to believe it because of his paranoia. Alexander was also notoriously rash/audacious, so, when presented with a threat or a problem, his wont was to deal with it immediately and directly (see: Mallian Fortress, Philotas, Attalus, Gaugamela, etc). Even those people who believe Philip greater than Alexander and those people who believe Alexander to be dangerously unstable do not deny that he was an incredibly talented individual. We also have only a few accounts of Alexander becoming uncontrollably angry, with many more claiming that he had a temper, but was remarkable in part for his control over it. Coming full circle, whether you believe in the calm, rational instances, or the ones wherein Alexander does his best Hulk impressions, or a little of both, relates directly back to what type of individual you believe Alexander was.

My take is that a degree of paranoia is possible in even the most calm and rational people, something that would only be exacerbated in a position of power, with a mother like Olympias, a father like Philip, and an adult life entirely consumed by war, drinking, and sex–particularly when the latter two are sometimes punctuated by people trying to kill you.

There is also a tendency to make Alexander out to be younger than he was. He was about twenty years old when he took the throne. Young, yes, but still a grown man, and old enough that he would likely have been beyond Ephebe status at Athens. He also would have needed to have aristocratic support to be king whether he was twenty or forty. It might have been easier to directly appeal to the soldiers were he older, but aristocrats played a key role in supporting the king, and other than the instances such as this one where someone raised a rebellion (in this case Attalus, who was doing so on behalf of his niece and her child), the aristocracy necessarily chose sides. In this case the choice was the talented young man who had first taken the regency upon himself at sixteen, his mentally deficient half brother, or an unborn child, and I suspect that Alexander’s inheritance was not actually threatened as much as some people believe, particularly if he rallied his supporters quickly. This depended as much or more on Alexander than it did on the aristocrats who (supposedly) were the main reason for his accession. Basically aristocratic support was a fundamental part of the Macedonian kingship, but he did not really have rival claimants.

I also suspect that there is more at work in terms of geopolitics, human realities, and ideologies that caused the conflicts between Alexander and the aristocracy. The first “conflict” was Alexander’s having a legitimate threat (the uncle of his father’s last wife) executed, but he was attempting to foment rebellion against Alexander. There were certain minor incidents at points during the next six years, but it was not until 330 that there was another major incident (at which point Justin claims that Alexander began acting as though he was an enemy toward his followers). It was then that he had Philotas put on trial, and then had Parmenion, Philotas’ father, executed. I believe that the former was the victim of a coup in the Macedonian court, but prompted by the lower ranked aristocrats who coveted his position. Parmenion was executed because Philotas was found guilty of treason, which also extended to family members under Macedonian law. Thus, Alexander was not to blame for this action. Other people suffered from the fallout, but it was all related to the perceived treason of Philotas–which was cunningly linked to an actual plot to kill Alexander.

Then there was the murder of Cleitus, for which Alexander cannot be exonerated since he physically held the spear. This is the one incident in which Alexander became incoherent with rage, but he was also drunk. Moreover, there is an episode from his father’s reign where, at a similar banquet, he threw his cup at another aristocrat at an off word. Yet, even in this instance, there was some provocation in that the two men were at odds over a song or poem, with Cleitus defending some Macedonians. Alexander is to blame, but it does not seem to be a product of a long-standing plan so much as a momentary rage for which Alexander reputedly repented.

The next death attributed to this plan was Coenus, the man who spoke out against Alexander’s drive to conquer the entire world on the Hyphasis. Coenus died on the return from India and there was some supposition that Alexander poisoned him for his opposition. Of course there is no proof. Does this at all change if he wasn’t alone in opposing Alexander, much less if the confrontation at the Hyphasis is pure fiction (i.e. that Alexander decided to turn around on his own)? How does this change our interpretation of Alexander? Of course, the histories are riddled with such incongruities and fictions.

Then there is his “reign of terror” where, by all accounts, Alexander replaced and punished governors and officers who had misbehaved. Rather than punishing people who threatened him, he was punishing misrule. There were other issues, of course, and at various points Alexander threatened genocide because his horse had wandered off, slaughtered and enslaved the city of Tyre, and had done any number of other reprehensible things. Conquerors usually do. But the fact is that Alexander make rather feeble attempts to establish rule over a huge swathe of land in a period when the speediest messages went by horse. Without enough oversight, the opportunities for mischief were too great. The most notorious criminal of the bunch was Harpalus, Alexander’s treasurer who took off with (supposedly) 5,000 talents —somewhere on the order of 2.5 billion dollars or more. Yet Alexander is often portrayed as the megalomaniacal monster for punishing these actions. Perhaps he is at fault for not doing more to establish infrastructure, but by most accounts these actions are not those of a madman or of someone hellbent on freeing himself from the aristocracy. They are the actions of a talented, if paranoid and driven, individual who put himself in a position to eventually fail because he tried to do too much. Scholars then try to present a case of Alexander and the aristocracy being at odds that is not borne in the sources.

The problem that I have with this is that it is an easy and compelling case to make that Alexander and the aristocracy were at odds. I hope my present work can beat back some of the of those claims. But as cathartic as this was, I’m not sure that it makes my case as well as I’d like, or that it is really that pertinent to my current inquiry.

Pity, really

Posted on by Josh Nudell

It has taken me a lot of years, but I think that I have finally found someone who I truly feel sorry for in the ancient world. Usually people aren’t well enough known or have too much personal capacity to simply pity them. Sure, individual things that happen to them I feel bad, but not the entirety of their life.

This person is a nameless anonyma with her birth, death and child situation entirely unknown. I speak of the daughter of Parmenion, the great Macedonian general.

Following the most common chronology for her life, she married Attalus, the uncle of Cleopatra (Philip II’s last wife) in 337/6 when he would have been around 45 years of age. Attalus was then sent to Asia Minor with Parmenion to lead the advance force for Philip’s planned invasion. We do not know whether Attalus brought his wife with him, but within the year Philip had been assassinated; the new king, Alexander ordered the execution of Attalus, which was accomplished with the aid of Parmenion. Sometime in the next two years, though likely within a year, our young heroine was married again, this time to Coenus, one of Parmenion’s adherents. Between 336 and 334 Coenus actively campaigned with Alexander in Europe, and then in 334 crossed into Asia. Later in 334 Coenus returned home with a detachment known as the newlyweds– supposedly in order to see his wife, though he apparently spent a portion of this leave in the Peloponnese recruiting.

Coenus never returned to his wife. In fact, in 330 Coenus was the most vocal opponent of his brother in law Philotas in a treason trial that ended with the conviction of Philotas and Parmenion. Coenus died in India in 326.

Parmenion’s daughter is entirely unknown beyond the sketch above. No children are known and every man that she was married to or related to died. Life for women at the time was not easy, even for aristocratic women, but this one went through two husbands effectively within three years–possibly having spent as little as three months with them as they would have been on campaign the rest of the time.

Macedonia was far from civilized.

I should add a historiographic note that further complicates and perhaps ameliorates some of the horrors visited upon her (though adding others).

The most basic point is that Parmenion may have had two daughters, with one marrying each man. I cannot entirely discount this possibility, but generally point to Occam’s Razor in this. By the time Coenus married, Attalus was dead, and remarriage seems rather common, so there doesn’t need to be a second daughter. In the lack of any actual evidence I am quite comfortable to have one daughter.

The second issue is the chronology. There is a school of scholarship that suggests that the Attalus marriage took place as much as a decade before Philip’s murder, in which case she would have known Attalus much better–for good and for ill. My only quibble with the earlier date for the wedding is that there are no known children. If the kings of Macedonia are to be any judge, men wasted little time in impregnating their brides. and if Attalus was (as the sources claim) a threat to Alexander’s throne with a kid of 5-10 years old, I think that it would be mentioned. Every other scandalous child murder was.

I realize there are any number of reasons that she may have not had a child, so this is in no way conclusive. It is just to my mind the primary consideration unaccounted for in claiming that Attalus married so early.

Parmenion – Birth in camera, death in the spotlight

Posted on by Josh Nudell

Parmenion led Philip’s advance force in Asia Minor. Parmenion’s son Philotas was the commander of Alexander’s Companion Cavalry; his son Nikanor led the Hypaspists; Parmenion held the left wing at Issus and Gaugamela, as well as the military governorship in Syria during the siege of Tyre. In 330 Alexander ordered the execution of Parmenion.

This is most of what we know as fact about Parmenion, arguably the greatest general of his age, architect of Philip and Alexander’s greatest victories.

Unraveling the mystery of where Parmenion came from will further the study of Alexander. Scholars have placed his birthplace from Thessaly to Upper Macedonia, to Lower Macedonia to Paeonia and inevitably use this “fact” as the cornerstone for their theories on Alexander’s behaviour throughout his reign. Now, as thousands of years ago, Parmenion’s actions and personality and influence are seen to affect Alexander’s decision making processes. Yet without knowing more about Parmenion himself, the logic that follows is inherently flawed.

Two aspects of the Alexander history pop out in this vein. The first is that Parmenion plays the literary foil to the brilliant young king in all of the histories. This works because, in some ways, it is true. Alexander is young, dashing, impetuous; Parmenion is old, wise, cautious. There are not two men, other than perhaps Antipatros and Alexander, who make such a marked contrast while both excelling at the same profession. Due to his success, his position under Philip and, depending on who you believe, his loyalty to Alexander or his indispensability to Alexander,1
Parmenion was a prominent enough figure to balance the aura that surrounds Alexander.2 Thus whenever Parmenion said this or that or contradicted the king, it may well be accurate, but it may also be that he represents a faction within the Macedonian Kingdom that would otherwise be passed over.

The second is that the murder of Parmenion and execution of Philotas stem from different motives depending on where Parmenion was from and his relationship with Alexander. If Parmenion was from Upper Macedonia and had a major devoted following and hesitated to join and was dragging his heels, then Alexander may have resented him and wanted to eliminate his influence. If Philotas was truly that insufferable and belittling Alexander’s accomplishments, and Parmenion was resented, outside of the Lower Macedonian Aristocracy, then Alexander may have attacked the son to get at the father. However if he was from Lower Macedonia and simply getting old–not resented, then it may be (as I claim) that Alexander’s inner circle attacked Philotas, not to get at Parmenion, but to get at higher ranks. Parmenion died from this because Alexander could not let him go free after killing his son; there was just too great a chance he would rebel. I could continue spinning situations for quite some time, but the above gives the general idea of the range that these theories can take.

In the end, Parmenion’s influence on the Macedonian army, his decision making, his place in society and ultimately his death rest in some measure on his birth, a “fact” that has not yet been sufficiently argued.

1 There is some suggestion that Parmenion had to be bribed to join Alexander with positions for his sons and then only joined reluctantly.
2 My own claim is that the Parmenion portrayed in the Alexander histories is a mouthpiece and representative of the aristocracy or some large portion therein.

Macedonians: Greek or other?

Posted on by Josh Nudell

As I tossed back at my advisor in my thesis defense, this question in short comes down to the eye of the beholder. To Greeks, the Argead king may have been Greek, but usually just when he insisted upon this right. To Macedonian kings they sure were Greeks, to the Macedonians themselves they were not. Yet they are notably included in the Iliadic tradition of Greeks. Philip married women who clearly were barbarians, yet also a woman who traced her lineage to that great Greek hero Achilles and lived in the same mixed state as he, all the while holding a majority vote on the Amphyctonic council through his position as tagus of the Thessalian League. Although this quagmire of evidence leads nowhere or in circles quite quickly, there is much that suggests that Macedonia was in fact Greek-esque, but resembled the less civilized, Homeric kingdoms of Greece, rather than truly civilized peoples.

One of the leads I would like to know more about is marriage practice in Macedonia. By all accounts men were permitted to have multiple wives if they could take care of them and Philip went so far as to marry in order to solidify his conquests and allies. There was differentiation between prostitutes and wives, but other than that I have been unable to make out much. In contrast, each Greek group had their own practices, and while some were eccentric, they were also largely monogamous. From this angle, Macedonians were not Greek.

A second, non-Greek, aspect to the Macedonian identity was the distinct lack of poleis. There were some of these city-state units, but they were usually reduced solely to the city limits, while the surrounding farmland, which was always the second constituent piece of a polis, became property of the king who then distributed that land amongst his supporters. Such was the case with Amphipolis and the Olynthian League on the Chalcidice. Macedonia did have limited representation in the form of the Army Assembly and the King often yielded to the political wisdom that consulting and heeding advisors often resulted in smoother function of the kingdom, but he didn’t have to.

In short Macedonians were not Greek, but they were Greek enough to push that identity when it suited their needs. All of this took place while keeping a distinct ethnic identity.

Alexander Essay no. 1

Posted on by Josh Nudell

The series of Alexander Essays is taken courtesy of a course taught by Professor Waldemar Heckel at the University of Calgary. The list of topics may be found here

Evaluate Darius III as a political and military leader. Is he rightly depicted as cowardly and incompetent?

I feel obliged to preface this essay with a warning about expertise; I am not an expert on Ancient Persia. I do not know the customs well, nor am I as familiar with the political system as I should be. I am somewhat of a Greek history buff, although I stop short of expert, and am intimately familiar with the reign of Darios III through the Greek and Macedonian point of view, with the image of an incompetent, cowardly leader who tries to surrender half of his empire and twice allows his forces to be slaughtered as he flees to protect his royal hide. Then again, in battle the defeated had two options: give in and die in battle or flee and attempt to salvage a semblance of victory from the ruins o. The following is entirely generated from this knowledge, only afterward corroborated and edited with a review of Wikipedia.

Darios himself was only tenuously related to Cyrus the Great and the Achaemenid dynasty; one of hte reasons for the Persian weakness when Alexander invaded was that Darios had just securted the throne from the usurper Bagoas, and re-centralized the state after a series of local rebellions, including one in Egypt. Just when stability seemed neigh, the Macedonian invasion began.

In the histories and biographies Darios appears as a character four times: the Battle of Issus, in a letter to sue for peace, at the Battle of Gaugamela and in a death scene after Bessos stabbed him. In each of these appearances he appears a failure, especially in contrast to the daring of Alexander.

Greek kings and generals fought with their soldiers, often on the front lines and when the troops broke and ran, it was often a given that the commander had fallen. This was the contrast between Leonidas and Xerxes at Thermopylae as much as it was between Alexander and Darios. Persian aristocracy and the royal family risked themselves, but the Great King was something entirely; instead of fighting on the front, he was to lead the entire heterogenous force. Thus at both Issos and Gaugamela, Darios did not fight. Further, Darios did not stay to rally (i.e. die with) his troops. On one hand this is the mark of a coward, but on the other he had responsibilities to more than ust those soldiers on the field.

Upon close inspection, life would have been simpler for Darios to die or flee into ignomity, but he did not. The reason for flight became apparent ad Darios raised a second force; no doubt he would have done so, or attempted to do so again after Gaugamela if given the chance. This is the mark of a fighter.

In the letter sent to Alexander, Darios played a shrewd card in that many of Alexander’s men prefered to stop, too, so Darios sought to “grant” Alexander those territories he had already won, which also happened to be those most unruly provinces. While this would be an enormous hit to the Persian prestige, the empire and all of the Capitols would remain intact.

Lastly we have an account of Darios’ death. This often is used to portray a failed and defeated King, which it does, but also implies incompetence. Darios had been defeated, but this does not imply that he had made huge mistakes or that the betrayal of Bessos was anything more than a play to curry favor from the new victor–or a power play of his own. Behind the scenes Darios had funded a Spartan insurrection and launched his own counter in Memnon of Rhodes, an officer who had out-maneuvered Parmenion in the last years of Philip’s reign. The persistence of Alexander, the death of Memnon and the betrayal of Bessos were all beyond the control of Darios. That he played the game and lost does not preclude his incompetence, merely his unluck and that Alexander outdid him.

“North” is not “Up”

Posted on by Josh Nudell

Just a quick note here:

An annoyance when it comes to geographical discussion is the concept of “north” and the basic assumption that that direction will also be referred to as “up” or “upper”. The two best examples I know of both refute this assumption: Egypt had an “upper” and a “lower” kingdom. The Upper Kingdom was south and the Lower Kingdom was north since the Upper Kingdom was higher in elevation and up the Nile River; Macedonia had “upper” and “lower” regions as well, with the Upper Macedonian cantons being “up” in the mountains and upriver, but to the west, while lower was on the plain and centralized. North in the Macedonian kingdom was Palioura.

“Up” is a spacial term that is also used for rivers and the basic meaning, elevation.

“North” is a geographical concept of where the needle in the compass points.

Please do not confuse these again.

Hammond: Still wrong, but with some good points

Posted on by Josh Nudell

So I have come down off of my high horse and realize that Hammond actually has a point when talking about the Macedonian aristocracy as though it did not exist, just that it did exist. The following is now a piece of my thesis, but could be an entire book/thesis/article on its own and may seem odd, so bear with me.

Philip II caused the creation of the Hellenistic kingdoms. Alexander’s father died in 336 BCE, Alexander followed in 323, and when Alexander’s heirs finally died in 305, members of the Macedonian Aristocracy took the title of basileus (king). Even then, the final shape of the kingdoms was not established until around 280 BCE when Seleukos Nikator defeated Lysimachos, which allowed Demetrios Poliorketes (then Antigonos Gonatos) retake Macedonia. So the real question is how did Philip, who had died 31 years before the coronation and 56 years before the final shape of the kingdoms was established cause their creation?

Prior to Philip the aristocracy was quite independent, especially in Upper Macedonia, but they never seriously threatened the king beyond an occasional assassination because the Argead family had so much more power. The king controlled a monopoly on all metal mines (gold, silver, iron, tin, copper, etc), as well as timber resources. With these resources firmly in his grasp, the king was the state, plain and simple. Further, the king was the military commander at every battle and there was an instance of an infant king arriving at the battlefield for no other reason than that the the king had to be there.

The Macedonia Philip inherited (or stole from his nephew, however you want to read that), was weak, surrounded by enemies and not in control of all its own territory. Early in his reign Philip won victories militarily, but also diplomatically and financially (one of his most famous sayings was that no fortress is impregnable if he could get a donkey cart full of gold into it). Previously the kingdom had been small enough that the king was able to command every military venture, but as Philip expanded it and campaigned elsewhere, he was no longer able to lead all of the soldiers. Gradually more and more aristocrats rose to command segments of the army. Alexander continued this trend since he campaigned even further afield than did Philip, and had to leave troops behind to protect areas, such as half of the available military remained in Macedonia with Antipatros.

Another of Philip’s policies that strengthened the aristocracy was that as the kingdom expanded, he also increased the number of aristocrats and strengthened the ones already in existence by giving out land grants in the conquered territories, and incorporating the Upper Macedonian noble families. While Philip kept the usual monopolies of the Macedonian aristocracy, expanding land grants meant that other families grew in strength vis a vis the Argead dynasty. Alexander then took a massive leap by giving away all land owned by the king in Macedonia in favor of whatever he could take in Asia, though he probably kept the mines and timber monopolies intact. Then in Asia land, treasure and honor was given to various aristocrats in the same way that Philip had distributed such prizes.

Finally in 305 the token fealty given to Alexander IV evaporated and the young man was killed. Afterwards the aristocracy took the provinces that they ruled and declared themselves kings over that territory. The obvious answer is that Alexander caused this divide by not providing an heir before leaving on campaign–if he had, the young man would have been around 12 when Alexander died and may have been old enough to grow into the kingship while loyalty to Alexander still existed, considering that it took nearly 18 years without a proper heir.

My contention, however, is that Philip caused the eventual creation of the Hellenistic kingdoms because he strengthened the aristocracy. Even for a 12 year old things could have easily degenerated into the same situation because there was no other Argead and the Macedonian aristocracy was so strong. Going down a contrafactual thread, even if the Hellenistic kingdoms didn’t immediately emerge, the moment the Argead king suffered military setbacks the aristocracy could have killed him, or the first heir could have done well, but would have needed the aristocracy that they would have grown increasingly in strength until they removed the king in a generation or two.

Partly this is the nature of the Persian state Alexander transformed Macedonia into because the empire was so expansive that aristocrats had virtual autonomy in most places, but Alexander also tried to incorporate Persians who were used to the system. Philip started the trend of empowering the nobility and with so much of what he did, Alexander was not so much innovating as continuing the policies of Philip.

Why NGL Hammond is wrong.

Posted on by Josh Nudell

In his book, The Macedonian State: Origins, Institutions, and History, N.G.L. Hammond makes an astounding error. He argues that Macedonia had no aristocracy (much less landed aristocracy) and that claims to the contrary mistakenly superimpose medieval feudalism on the Macedonian kingdom. Instead, his theory is that the Macedonian king was effectively all powerful and the royal family was the only aristocracy. The king had a monopoly on material resources, land and so on, and that there were no hereditary posts or lands, but people rose and fell on the whim of the Argead king. Each king then chose from a pool of eligible “hetairoi” or companions to supply advisers, officers and so on. Lucky hetairoi had their children at the head of the list for acceptance into the paides (royal pages), who then were educated with the royal princes and may have had a leg up for higher office under the next king.

Ignoring the consensus of EVERYONE other than Hammond and that his several paragraphs nullifies at least one dissertation, I am going to explain why Hammond is wrong.

1) The Argead kings ruled Macedonia for over 200 years by the time of Alexander, so even if the Argead family were the only aristocracy initially, their family had to marry outside of it. Of course many of these marriages would have been with Greeks, Illyrians, Upper Macedonians and Thracians, but some would have been Macedonians (Philip II had a Macedonian wife). Presumably the royal family would have married people in some way distinguished and not the shepherd’s daughter. Further, after 200 years, even with the royal family being the only aristocracy, they would have been a broad group that would have constituted a broad aristocracy on their own.

2) The strength of Macedonia was it’s cavalry. In ancient warfare, cavalry was a distinct sign of nobility as people had to supply their own equipment. In “Greece” one had to supply their own arms and armour and the same was true in Macedonia, or it would not have been as big a deal that Philip II reformed the army in part so that the cost was less and in part by supplying some of the equipment, allowing for the rise of the pike phalanx. Still, the greatest cost of this warfare was borne by the soldiers themselves. If this was true for the infantry, it could have been no less true for the cavalry, and only the aristocracy could afford the cost of weapons, armor and a horse. Since horses also required large amounts of land to breed on, the aristocracy probably also owned land.

3) In promoting some people over others, an imbalance was automatically created in the system. Since there were no assurances that someone would easily step down from his post when asked to by the new king and many are recorded serving more than one king, this by nature creates powerful families.

4) The Macedonian aristocracy *loved* hunting. Hunting was an activity only available to people who had free time, which probably meant that the aristocracy owned land. True, some of this is accounted by the king providing for his companions, but with the all encompassing nature of hunting for all hetairoi (they could not recline at meals until they had slain a boar), it is probable that they all owned land.

5) If land was redistributed under each king, there would have been even greater upheaval. A system that operated by regularly disenfranchising some while enfranchising others could not have lasted. Further, if this were true, then Philip taking the land around Amphipolis would not have been such a big deal. This land he distributed to hetairoi, including making new companions, but he did not redistribute huge amounts of land withing Macedonia proper.

6) Upper Macedonia had its own set of royal houses, but when the cantons merged with Lower Macedonia, the Lower Macedonian hetairoi still held a higher position than did these royals. The only way to explain this was that the hetairoi were an aristocracy and that the royalty from Upper Macedonia joined their ranks in the merge.

The paides were an institution for young nobles, an education and exposure to the Argead princes, but to enter the children had to be from families of some importance. The king was still the first amongst these nobles, but they had to have existed. Before the Persian campaign, Alexander gave away all the royal land, which was an enormous amount, but was not the entire kingdom. To think otherwise it utter nonsense. To call the system a form of feudalism is somewhat anachronistic, but yet is quite apt. The aristocracy owed an oath of fealty to the king and it was kept to with surprising regularity, but these men were far from tame.

I will go on more later, but words are escaping me. For now I will put my ego back in the box and let this simmer for a while in my head.