INTRODUCTION in the Late Fourth Century, Athens Came Under The

INTRODUCTION In the late fourth century, Athens came under the spell of one of the more colourful and complex fi gures of her history: Demetrius of Phalerum. A dilettante who bleached his hair and rouged his cheeks, a man whose luxurious banquets were conducted in perfumed and mosaic-clad rooms, Demetrius was also a product of Aristotle’s philo- sophical establishment, the Peripatos, and a remarkably accomplished scholar in his own right. Th is erudite and urbane fi gure rose from political obscurity to rule his native city for the decade 317–307. His regime occupies a vital transitional period of Athenian history. In temporal terms, it provides the link between the classical Athens of Lycurgus and the emerging Hellenistic city of the third century. It was a time at which Athens was still held fi rmly under the suzerainty of Macedon, the dominant world power of the day, as it had been already for three decades, but the very nature of that suzerainty was being re-defi ned. For much of the previous three decades, Athens had been but one of numerous Greek states subordinated to the northern super-power by a web of treaties called the League of Corinth. By the time of Demetrius, both Philip and Alexander, the greatest of the Macedonian kings, were gone and the Macedonian world itself was fragmenting. Alexander’s subordi- nates—the so-called Diadochoi—were seeking to carve out kingdoms for themselves in Alexander’s erstwhile empire, and in the resulting confusion, individual Greek states were increasingly becoming infl u- ential agents and valued prizes in the internecine strife between war- ring Macedonian generals. Th e rise and fall of Demetrius himself is inextricably linked to these Macedonian struggles. He was elevated to power in Athens at the behest of one such Macedonian marshal, Cassander, a man soon to become ruler of Macedonia itself; he was ousted when the control of the Greek mainland was seized in turn by Cassander’s enemies, the famous (or perhaps infamous) Demetrius Poliorcetes, and his father Antigonus Monophthalmus. Phalerean Athens off ers an unusually rich avenue of exploration for historians interested in Greek politics within this crucial period aft er Alexander. Th e history of individual Greek cities from the late fourth century has, until recently, suff ered a measure of neglect, a neglect 2 introduction caused in no small part by the rival attractions of the histories of the Diadochs themselves. Certainly, narrative accounts covering the late fourth century—notably books 18–20 of Diodorus’ histories, and some lives of Plutarch, especially his Demetrius (Poliorcetes rather than the man from Phalerum)—focus on the battle for power among Alexander’s marshals. But Athens’ fate in this early Hellenistic period can be documented and explicated through the combination of oft en fragmentary details, to a degree not possible for many other individual poleis. In no other city can the impact of Macedonian hege- mony, and the eff ects of the struggles of Alexander’s successors, be traced in such detail. Th e comparative wealth of Athenian material is, of course, no accident. Already in antiquity the primacy of Athens among the Greek cities was recognised, and acknowledged indeed by the Macedonians themselves. Antigonus Monophthalmus, sending his son Poliorcetes to liberate Greece from Cassander in 307, stipulated Athens as the fi rst target because, as he famously claimed, that city was “the watch tower of the whole world,” a city which could “beacon forth his deeds to all mankind” (Plut. Demetr. 8.1). Athens remains that beacon, shedding a unique and special light onto the Greek world during the disintegration of Alexander’s empire. Demetrius’ Athens has much to off er also to those with interests cultural and religious. While the city was increasingly marginalised in military terms, and her once formidable navy largely quiet aft er the loss to Macedon in the Lamian War,1 Athens remained cultur- ally and intellectually the foremost city of a Greek mainland in the throes of cultural and intellectual upheaval. Social and religious val- ues were being tested by the confrontation with a Macedonian élite newly imbued with ideas from the East. Attitudes to the worship of mortals off er a case in point. In 324/23, Alexander the Great’s desire that he himself be recognised as a god, and his beloved Hephaestion as a hero, was greeted in many Greek circles with debate and out- rage. Less than two decades later, when Poliorcetes liberated Athens from the rule of Cassander and Demetrius of Phalerum, the city was to shower trappings of divine cult upon her mortal saviour. Further, 1 Although Green 2003, 2 cautions against any overstatement of Athens’ naval losses, arguing that the reduction in her rowing manpower may have been more the problem than a direct loss of ships..

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