The Historians' History of the World 04

The history of the twenty years which followed the death of Pyrrhus is little known. We have no guide but Justing who is not always very reliable, and some scanty indications in Polybiush and Pausanias.i All we know is that these twenty years were not an epoch of repose for Greece, and still less of liberty. The death-blow of Greek liberty had been struck at Chæronea, and the weapon had been left in the wound. The Macedonian monarchy clung to Greece like the shirt of Nessus. Though they had been compelled to renounce Alexander’s heritage the kings of Macedon were still the heirs of Philip and determined to continue his work of subjugating Greece. This policy was persistently followed by Antigonus Gonatas, who bequeathed it to his successors. After the death of Pyrrhus he had no competitors for the throne of Macedon. The greater part of the army of the king of Epirus was composed of Macedonians and Galatæ who passed without difficulty into Antigonus’ service. His rule in Greece extended over Thessaly and Eubœa, over Corinth and a part of the Peloponnesus, exactly which part is not known: Justin says vaguely that the Peloponnesians were delivered into his hands by treachery. Sometimes he put garrisons into the cities, sometimes he set up tyrants: “Most of the tyrants in Greece,” says Polybius, “date from this Antigonus.” The isolation of the cities, their mutual jealousies and the rivalry of the political factions, everywhere raised up interested accomplices for the Macedonian usurpation.

Following the example of his predecessors, Antigonus Gonatas was especially eager for the conquest of Athens. He burned the temple of Poseidon at Colonus and the sacred wood which surrounded it. The war lasted six or seven years. A revolt of Antigonus’ hired Galatæ scarcely interrupted hostilities; Areus, king of Sparta, and a lieutenant of Ptolemy Philadelphus who had been sent to the aid of Athens and might have taken advantage of this diversion, remained inactive and the Athenians, deserted by their allies, were obliged to receive a Macedonian garrison (268). Antigonus also sent garrisons to Megara, Salamis, and Cape Sunium.

But about the same time Alexander, king of Epirus, made an incursion into Macedonia to avenge the death of his father Pyrrhus, and the phalanx went over to him, thus giving a fresh example of the facility with which military monarchies change masters. Antigonus was absent; his son Demetrius, who was still very young, soon recovered possession of Macedonia. Alexander, in his turn despoiled of Epirus, took refuge amongst the Acarnanians, who subsequently reinstated him in possession of his kingdom. This did not prevent him from treating with the Ætolians for the partition of Acarnania, for gratitude is by no means a royal virtue. Antigonus kept the throne of Macedonia till his death in 243, and his dynasty maintained itself there for more than a century, prosecuting the conquest of Greece up to the last, till that country, exhausted by the ceaseless struggle, finally threw itself into the arms of the Roman people.b

[272 B.C.]

Inglorious as was this termination of a career like that of Pyrrhus, the closing scene of his life was not without some points of resemblance to its general character. He was undoubtedly one of the nobler spirits of his age, though it would seem that it could have been only in one which was familiar with atrocious crimes, that he could have gained the reputation of unsullied virtue, more particularly of probity, which we find attached to his name. With extraordinary prowess, such as revived the image of the heroic warfare, he combined many qualities of a great captain, and was thought by some to be superior even to Alexander in military art. But his whole life was not only a series of unconnected, mostly abortive, enterprises, but might be regarded, with respect to himself, as one ill-concerted, perplexed, and bootless adventure. From beginning to end he was the sport, not so much of fortune, as of desires without measure or plan, of an impetuous, but inconstant will. His ruling passion was less ambition than the love of action; and he seems to have valued conquest chiefly because it opened new fields of battle. But viewed as subservient to higher ends, both his life and his death were memorable and important. He contributed to adjust the balance of power among Alexander’s successors in the West. He exercised the Roman arms with a harder trial than they had ever before undergone; and inspired the people with a confidence in its own strength which nerved it for the struggle with Carthage, and prepared it for the mastery of the world. His death forms a momentous epoch in Grecian history, as it left the field clear for the final contest between the liberty of Greece and the power of Macedon, a contest which was only terminated by the ruin of both.f

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