The Macedonians of Alexander were not mistaken in seeing an essential
transformation of their national monarchy when Alexander adopted the
guise of an Oriental great king. Transplanted into this foreign soil,
the monarchy became an absolute despotism, unchecked by a proud
territorial nobility and a hardy peasantry on familiar terms with their
king. The principle which Seleucus is reported to have enunciated, that
the king's command was the supreme law (App. _Syr._ 61), was literally
the principle of the new Hellenistic monarchies in the East. But the
rights belonging to the Macedonian army as Alexander inherited it did
not altogether disappear. Like the old Roman people, the Macedonian
people under arms had acted especially in the transference of the royal
authority, conferring or confirming the right of the new chief, and in
cases of the capital trials of Macedonians. In the latter respect the
army came regularly into function under Alexander, and in the wars which
followed his death (Diod. xviii. 4, 3; 36, 7; 37, 2, 39, 2; xix. 61, 3),
and in Macedonia; although the power of life and death came _de facto_
into the hands of the Antigonid king, the old right of the army to act
as judge was not legally abrogated, and friction was sometimes caused by
its assertion (Polyb. v. 27, 5). The right of the army to confer the
royal power was still symbolized in the popular acclamation required on
the accession of a new king, and at Alexandria in troubled times we hear
of "the people" making its will effective in filling the throne,
although it is here hard to distinguish mob-rule from the exercise of a
legitimate function. Thus the people put Euergetes II. on the throne
when Philometor was captured (Polyb. xxix. 23, 4); the people compelled
Cleopatra III. to choose Soter II. as her associate (Just. xxxiv. 3, 2).
In Syria, the usurper Tryphon bases his right upon an election by the
"people" (Just. xxxvi. 1, 7) or "the army" (Jos. _Ant._ xiii. § 219).
Where it is a case of delegating some part of the supreme authority, as
when Seleucus I. made his son Antiochus king for the eastern provinces,
we find the army convoked to ratify the appointment (App. _Syr._ 61). So
too the people is spoken of as appointing the guardians of a king
during his minority (Just. xxxiv. 3, 6). Nor was the power of the army a
fiction. The Hellenistic monarchies rested, as all government in the
last resort must, upon the loyalty of those who wielded the brute force
of the state, and however unlimited the powers of the king might be in
theory, he could not alienate the goodwill of the army with impunity.
The right of primogeniture in succession was recognized as a general
principle; a woman, however, might succeed only so long as there were no
male agnates. Illegitimate children had no rights of succession. In
disturbed times, of course, right yielded to might or to practical
necessities.
The practice by which the king associated a son with himself, as
secondary king, dates from the very beginning of the kingdoms of the
Successors; Antigonus on assuming the diadem in 306 caused Demetrius
also to bear the title of king. Some ten years later Seleucus appointed
Antiochus as king for the eastern provinces. Thenceforth the practice is
a common one. But the cases of it fall into two classes. Sometimes the
subordinate or joint kingship implies real functions. In the Seleucid
kingdom the territorial expanse of the realm made the creation of a
distinct subordinate government for part of it a measure of practical
convenience. Sometimes the joint-king is merely titular, an infant of
tender years, as for instance Antiochus Eupator, the son of Antiochus
Epiphanes, or Ptolemy Eupator, the son of Ptolemy Philometor. The object
here is to secure the succession in the event of the supreme king's
dying whilst his heir is an infant. The king's government was carried on
by officials appointed by him and responsible to him alone. Government
at the same time, as an Oriental despotism understands it, often has
little in view but the gathering in of the tribute and compulsion of the
subjects to personal service in the army or in royal works, and if
satisfied in these respects will leave much independence to the local
authorities. In the loosely-knit Seleucid realm it is plain that a great
deal more independence was left to the various communities,--cities or
native tribes,--than in Egypt, where the conditions made a bureaucratic
system so easy to carry through. In their outlying possessions the
Ptolemies may have suffered as much local independence as the Seleucids;
the internal government of Jerusalem, for instance, was left to the high
priests. In so far as the older Greek cities fell within their sphere of
power, the successors of Alexander were forced to the same ambiguous
policy as Alexander had been, between recognizing the cities' unabated
claim to sovereign independence and the necessity of attaching them
securely. In Asia Minor, the "enslavement" and liberation of cities
alternated with the circumstances of the hour, while the kings all
through professed themselves the champions of Hellenic freedom, and were
ready on occasion to display munificence toward the city temples or in
public works, such as might reconcile republicans to a position of
dependence. Antiochus III. went so far as to write on one occasion to
the subject Greek cities that if any royal mandate clashed with the
civic laws it was to be disregarded (Plut. _Imp. et duc. apophth._). But
it was the old cry of the "autonomy of the Hellenes," raised by Smyrna
and Lampsacus, which ultimately brought Antiochus III. into collision
with Rome. How anxious the Pergamene kings, with their ardent Hellenism,
were to avoid offence is shown by the elaborate forms by which, in their
own capital, they sought to give their real control the appearance of
popular freedom (Cardinali, Regno di _Pergamo_, p. 281 seq.). A similar
problem confronted the Antigonid dynasty in the cities of Greece itself,
for to maintain a predominant influence in Greece was a ground-principle
of their policy. Demetrius had presented himself in 307 as the
liberator, and driven the Macedonian garrison from the Peiraeus; but his
own garrisons held Athens thirteen years later, when he was king of
Macedonia, and the Antigonid dynasty clung to the points of vantage in
Greece, especially Chalcis and Corinth, till their garrisons were
finally expelled by the Romans in the name of Hellenic liberty.