Antipater

Career under Alexander the Great

Regent of Macedon and Greece

On the Alexander's departure eastward in 334 BC, Antipater was left regent in Macedonia and made "general (strategos) of Europe", positions he held until 323/2 BC. The European front was to prove initially quite agitated, and Antipater also had to send reinforcements to the king, as he did while the king was at Gordium in the winter of 334–333 BC.

The Persian fleet under Memnon of Rhodes and Pharnabazus was apparently a considerable danger for Antipater, bringing war in the Aegean Sea and threatening war in Europe. Luckily for the regent, Memnon died during the siege of Mytilene on the isle of Lesbos and the remaining fleet dispersed in 333 BC, after Alexander's victory at the Battle of Issus. More dangerous enemies were nearer home; tribes in Thrace rebelled in 332 BC, led by Memnon of Thrace, the Macedonian governor of the region, followed shortly by the revolt of Agis III, king of Sparta. The Spartans, who were not members of the League of Corinth and had not participated in Alexander's expedition, saw in the Asian campaign the long-awaited chance to take back control over the Peloponnese after the disastrous defeats at the Battle of Leuctra and Battle of Mantinea. The Persians generously funded Sparta's ambitions, making possible the formation of an army 20,000 strong. After assuming virtual control of Crete, Agis tried to build an anti-Macedonian front. While Athens remained neutral, the Achaeans, Arcadians and Elis became his allies, with the important exception of Megalopolis, the staunchly anti-Spartan capital of Arcadia. In 331 BC Agis started to besiege the city with his entire army, forcing Antipater to act.

Spartan rebellion of King Agis III

So as not to have two enemies simultaneously, Antipater pardoned Memnon and even let him keep his office in Thrace, while great sums of money were sent to him by Alexander. This helped to create, with Thessalian help and many mercenaries, a force double that of Agis, which Antipater in person led south in 330 BC to confront the Spartans. In the spring of that year, the two armies clashed in the Battle of Megalopolis. Agis fell with many of his best soldiers, but not without inflicting heavy losses on the Macedonians. Utterly defeated, the Spartans sued for peace; the latter's answer was to negotiate directly with the League of Corinth, but the Spartan emissaries preferred to treat directly with Alexander, who imposed on Sparta's allies a penalty of 120 talents and the entrance of Sparta in the league.

Alexander appears to have been quite jealous of Antipater's victory; according to Plutarch, the king wrote in a letter to his viceroy: "It seems, my friends that while we have been conquering Darius here, there has been a battle of mice in Arcadia". Antipater was disliked for supporting oligarchs and tyrants in Greece, but he also worked with the League of Corinth, built by Philip. In addition, his previously close relationship with the ambitious Olympias greatly deteriorated. Whether from jealousy or from the necessity of guarding against the evil consequences of the dissension between Olympias and Antipater, in 324 BC, Alexander ordered the latter to lead fresh troops into Asia, while Craterus, in charge of discharged veterans returning home, was appointed to take over the regency in Macedon. When Alexander suddenly died in Babylon in 323 BC however, Antipater was able to forestall the transfer of power.

Some later historians, such as Justin in his Historia Philippicae et Totius Mundi Origines et Terrae Situs blamed Antipater for the death of Alexander, accusing him of murdering him through poison. However, this view is disputed by most historians and Alexander is believed to have died of natural causes.

Role in the Lamian and Diadochi Wars

The new regent, Perdiccas, left Antipater in control of Greece. Antipater faced wars with Athens, Aetolia, and Thessaly that made up the Lamian War, in which southern Greeks attempted to re-assert their political autonomy.

Lamian War

At the onset of this struggle, the southern Greeks held an apparently decisive numerical advantage, fielding an army of some 25000 troops. Antipater's levies numbered a meager 13000; drawn from a manpower pool that had been severely diminished by the campaigns of Alexander the Great. Furthermore, the southern Greek coalition was led by a talented general and one-time mercenary named Leosthenes, who had fought under Alexander and had seen first-hand the functions of the Macedonian war machine. An initial engagement with this coalition around the historic pass of Thermopylae saw Antipater's Thessalian cavalry defect to the opposing side. Already outnumbered and now without a cavalry contingent, Antipater fought a token battle but was ultimately defeated and forced to retreat north to the Thessalian city of Lamia. Behind its stout defenses he endured a siege. By some unknown means he began desperately passing correspondence to would-be allies through the Athenian siege lines. In 322 BC he was relieved when Leonnatus, the satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, responded to his call for aid and arrived in southern Thessaly with a force to break the investment.

Although Leonnatus fell in the ensuing battle, the Athenian coalition had been forced to use the entirety of its dwindling army (many of the Aetolian and Thessalian contingents having left the siege to tend to the harvest) to face him. Leonnatus' infantry retreated into rough country where the Aetolian and Thessalian cavalry could not pursue them, and survived the debacle largely unscathed. This turn of events allowed Antipater to slip out of the walls of Lamia before striking north for Macedonia, where he awaited the arrival of further reinforcements from Asia. Along the way he assumed control of Leonnatus' infantry corps, absorbing them into the remnants of his initial army.

Craterus, another decorated general, had also received Antipater's call for aid and arrived at Pella with a force of 16000 discharged veterans who had marched and fought under Alexander. The two generals made common cause, and to cement this new alliance Antipater married his daughter Phila to Craterus. The two then led a massive, combined force south to fight a final, decisive battle against the southern Greeks. Antipater defeated them at the Battle of Crannon in 322 BC, with Craterus' help, and broke up the coalition. At a peace treaty in the ruined city of Thebes, Antipater negotiated with an Athenian delegation led by Phocion and Demades. Here he imposed a rule of oligarchy upon Athens and demanded the surrender of Demosthenes and Hypereides (the foremost instigators of the revolt), the former committing suicide to escape capture, while the latter was imprisoned before having his tongue ripped from his mouth in a brutal execution. Antipater's settlement extended across the rest of Greece, where he installed or confirmed oligarchies loyal to Macedon. He entrusted the Peloponnese to Deinarchus, a leading figure of the pro-Macedonian oligarchy at Corinth and a veteran of Timoleon's expedition to Sicily. That the post went to a Corinthian citizen rather than a Macedonian, and that Corinth escaped the imposition of a tyrant, suggests the city was left a measure of internal autonomy in recognition of its loyalty during the war.

First War of the Diadochi

Later in the same year, Antipater and Craterus were engaged in a mopping-up campaign against recalcitrant pockets of Aetolian resurgence when they received the news from Antigonus in Asia Minor that Perdiccas contemplated making himself outright ruler of the empire. Antipater and Craterus accordingly concluded peace with the Aetolians (much to the chagrin of future of Macedonian rulers) and went to war against Perdiccas, allying themselves with Ptolemy, the satrap of Egypt. Antipater married another of his daughters (Eurydike) to Ptolemy to strengthen this new alliance. Together with Craterus and his son Cassander, he then crossed over into Asia at the head of a considerable force in 321 BC. While in Phrygia, this army was divided in two; one under Craterus marching east into Cappadocia to face Eumenes, while the later under Antipater struck south to fight Perdiccas. While still in Syria, Antipater received two letters that drastically changed the power dynamic of the successor struggle at that point; firstly that Perdiccas had been murdered by his own soldiers in Egypt, and secondly that in one of the greatest upsets of the Hellenistic age, Craterus had fallen in battle against Eumenes (Diodorus xviii. 25–39).

Regent of the empire, death, and succession

In the Partition of Triparadisus (321 BC), Antipater participated in a new division of Alexander's great kingdom. He appointed himself supreme regent of all Alexander's empire and was left in Greece as guardian of Alexander's son Alexander IV and his disabled brother Philip III. Having quelled a mutiny of his troops and commissioned Antigonus to continue the war against Eumenes and the other partisans of Perdiccas, Antipater returned to Macedonia, arriving there in 320 BC (Justin xiii. 6). Soon after, he was seized by an illness which terminated his active career.

Antipater died of old age in 319 BC, at the age of 81. By his side was his son Cassander, who later became king of Macedonia. Controversially, Antipater did not appoint Cassander to succeed him as regent, citing as the reason for his decision Cassander's relative youth (at the time of Antipater's passing, Cassander was 36). Over Cassander, Antipater chose the aged officer Polyperchon as regent.

Cassander became indignant at this, believing that he'd earned the right to become regent by virtue of his loyalty and experience. Thus he appealed to general Antigonus to assist him in battling Polyperchon for the position. In 317 BC, after two years of war with Polyperchon, Cassander emerged victorious. Cassander would go on to rule Macedonia for nineteen years, first as regent and later as king, ultimately founding the Antipatrid dynasty.

Legacy

Character

Antipater's long career under three successive kings was first and foremost as a supporter of Macedon and a "caretaker of Macedonian affairs"; although his tenure as viceroy earned Antipater the fear and respect of many, it is generally agreed upon that unlike many other Successors he had little interest in the affairs of Asia and no firm claim, or interest, in supreme power. Generally, Antipater's loyalty to the Argeads and his refusal to transfer the regency to his own children is seen as proof that he was a loyal Macedonian who put his homeland before his interests.

Political legacy

Antipater's death by prolonged illness and choice of successor would lead to the Second War of the Diadochi. Olympias, when she came to power in Macedon briefly in 317 BC, opened the grave of Antipater's son Iollas and scattered his ashes. She may not have done the same to Antipater's grave due to "respect for Macedonian public opinion". Antipater's death and the transferring of the regency to Polyperchon weakened the central authority of Alexander's empire even further, as Polyperchon lacked much of Antipater's standing. Accordingly, the death of Antipater was a signal to many of the satraps and generals in Asia and Greece to start pursuing their own ambitions. Polyperchon moved rapidly against the men Antipater had placed in power, proclaiming the restoration of the cities' earlier constitutions and the overthrow of the oligarchies his predecessor had established. Among those who fell was Deinarchus of Corinth, Antipater's epimeletes of the Peloponnese, whom Polyperchon had seized, tortured and executed in 318.