9. the CONSTITUTION the Structure of the League of the Aitolians, Born
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9. THE CONSTITUTION The structure of the League of the Aitolians, born amid the turmoil of the Macedonian conquest of Greece and which survived with some difficulty the disintegration of that empire, is never described by any ancient source. It is thus not easy to discover, though a reason able estimate of it can be made. It is possible to collect together all the references to the various institutions of the league, and thus make a reasonably tidy picture of a functioning polity'. But this is an unsat isfactory method of procedure, resorted to all too often in studies of the ancient world. It means using evidence from, say, 313 alongside evidence from the 240s and the 180s, assuming they can all be lumped together, and so paying little regard to the very great changes which took place over that period. In 313 the league was a defensive, new state; in the 240s it was one of Greece's secondary powers, only just less important than the Macedonian kingdom; in the 180s it was a defeated state, heading for civil war. The friction of events and the mere passage of time clearly had their effects on the league's institu tions. The changes in Aitolia's international position over the period, for example, undoubtedly had their effects on the league's constitu tion. We do know of one change, which will make the point. The league council originally had only one secretary (grammateus), and later, from a little before 200, it had two, one of them senior to the other2• This was no doubt due to the greater workload in later years, though allowance must also be made for the inherent tendency of a bureau cracy to expand. But the grammateus was an important official, and the doubling is a clear indication that the Aitolian polity was an adapt able organism. There is also another change, which may reasonably be postulated. The elected chief executive was the general (strategos), the earliest known being Alexandros, who commanded the Aitolian troops in 322/321 in the invasion of Thessaly3, and presumably also in the siege of Lamia earlier. He is named alone as commander, and 1 As Larsen does, in effect: GFS, 195-205. 2 The first instance of two grammateis is in 207 /206 (SEG XII, 217); in 202/20 I, though, there was only one (JG IX.1.30a), and two again by 194/ 193 (JG IX.1.187). :i Diod. 18.38.1; at least it is assumed that he was the elected strategos. 170 PART THREE: STUDIES it may be assumed that he commanded both infantry and cavalry (if there was any cavalry). Later, a second military official, the hipparchos, appears, acting as the the second-in-command to the whole army and as commander of the cavalry. In the force raised for the Thessaly campaign in 321 Aitolian cavalry was mentioned for the first time4• No hipparchos is noted, even though the cavalry force was four hun dred strong, almost the later full strength of this branch. Or it may be that Diodoros did not feel the need to mention him. Cavalry had their own particular needs, and usually operated in battle as a separate unit, and a separate commander was sensible and practical. The first Aitolian hipparchos is attested in 273/2725, but records for the next two decades are intermittent. Indeed, it would seem that the office of hipparchos may well have been at first only an intermittent office. There are ten instances between 290 and 260 where the annual set of league officials is recorded; only in five of these are there all three names, and in two of these the grammateus is named before the hipparchos; and in others the grammateus is named but no hipparchos6. By the late 260s, however, the status order strategos - hipparchos - grammateus is set (noted first in 262/261 ), and it remained unchanged from then on until the doubling of the office of grammateus. The strategos and the grammateus, head of state and secretary respec tively, were necessarily permanent officers from the very beginning; the hipparchos, as a new officer, was perhaps only elected when required in the early years, that is, when the league was at war, or when war threatened, as an emergency office. Command of the cav alry was, however, clearly an office of prestige, and ambitious men would wish to make the office a regular and permanent feature of the league's affairs, in order that they might hold it. This process would seem to have taken about two decades to work through: intermittent in the 270s and 260s, the hipparchos had become a permanent office by the late 260s. Ironically this was just the period when the league was at peace; this may be seen, if the intermittent nature of the office is accepted, as a demonstration of the inflation of offices, and as an example of the oligarchy's liking for status. These changes, in both the composition of government officials and perhaps the composition of the army, was the result of the growth of 4 Ibid. 5 JG IX.l. l 2a. " See the lists of officials in the appendix. .