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Greek coin of
Macedonian Kingdom
Antigonos II Gonatas
– Macedonian King: 277-239
B.C. –
Bronze 17mm (3.93 grams) Struck 277-239 B.C.
Reference: SNGCop 1223
Macedonian shield, ANTI monogram in center.
BA – ΣI, Macedonian helmet, monogram in field to right.
Son of Demetrios Poliorketes, Antigonos Gonatas claimed his father’s throne
after achieving a notable victory over the Gallic invaders in Thrace. The
Macedonian kingdom prospered again under his long and enlightened rule.
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Antigonus II Gonatas (Greek:
Αντίγονος B΄ Γονατᾶς “knock-knees” 319 BC—239 BC) was a powerful ruler
who firmly established the
Antigonid dynasty
in
Macedonia
and acquired fame for his victory over the
Gauls who had
invaded the Balkans
.
//
Birth
and family
Antigonus Gonatas was born around 319 BC, probably in
Gonnoi
in
Thessaly
or
his name is derived from an iron plate protecting the knee (Ancient
Greek: gonu-gonatos, English: knee;
Modern
Greek
: epigonatida, English: kneecap). He was related to the
most powerful of the
Diadochi
(the generals of
Alexander
who divided the empire after his death in 323 BC). Antigonus’s
father was
Demetrius Poliorcetes
, who was the son of
Antigonus
, who then controlled much of Asia. His mother was
Phila
, the daughter of
Antipater
.
The latter controlled Macedonia and Greece and was recognized as regent of the
empire, which in theory remained united. In this year, however, Antipater died,
leading to further struggles for territory and dominance.
The careers of Antigonus’s grandfather and father showed
great swings in fortune. After coming closer than anyone to reuniting the empire
of Alexander, Antigonus Monophthalmus was defeated and killed in the great
battle of Ipsus
in 301 BC and the territory he formerly controlled was
divided among his enemies,
Cassander
,
Ptolemy
,
Lysimachus
,
and
Seleucus
.
Demetrius’s
general
The fate of Antigonus Gonatas, now 18, was closely tied with
that of his father Demetrius who escaped from the battle with 9,000 troops.
Jealousy among the victors eventually allowed Demetrius to regain part of the
power his father had lost. He conquered
Athens
and much
of Greece and in 294 BC he seized the throne of Macedonia from
Alexander
, the son of Cassander.
Because Antigonus Gonatas was the grandson of Antipater and
the nephew of Cassander, through his mother, his presence helped to reconcile
the supporters of these former kings to the rule of his father.
In 292 BC, while Demetrius was campaigning in
Boeotia
, he
received news that Lysimachus, the ruler of
Thrace
and the
enemy of his father had been taken prisoner by
Dromichaetes
, a barbarian. Hoping to seize Lysimachus’s territories in
Thrace and Asia, Demetrius, delegated command of his forces in Boeotia to
Antigonus and immediately marched North. While he was away, the Boeotians rose
in rebellion, but were defeated by Antigonus, who bottled them up in
Thebes
.
After the failure of his expedition to Thrace, Demetrius
rejoined his son at the siege of Thebes. As the Thebans defended their city
stubbornly, Demetrius often forced his men to attack the city at great cost,
even though there was little hope of capturing it. It is said that, distressed
by the heavy losses, Antigonus asked his father: “Why, father, do we allow these
lives to be thrown away so unnecessarily?” Demetrius appears to have showed his
contempt for the lives of his soldiers by replying: “We don’t have to find
rations for the dead.” But he also showed a similar disregard for his own life
and was badly wounded at the siege by a bolt through the neck.
In 291 BC, Demetrius finally took the city after using siege
engines to demolish its walls. But control of Macedonia and most of Greece was
merely a stepping stone to his plans for further conquest. He aimed at nothing
less than the revival of Alexander’s empire and started making preparations on a
grand scale, ordering the construction of a fleet of 500 ships, many of them of
unprecedented size.
Such preparations and the obvious intent behind them,
naturally alarmed the other kings, Seleucus, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and
Pyrrhus
, who immediately formed an alliance. In the Spring of 288 BC
Ptolemy’s fleet appeared off Greece, inciting the cities to revolt. At the same
time, Lysimachus attacked Macedonia from the East while Pyrrhus did so from the
West. Demetrius left Antigonus in control of Greece, while he hurried to
Macedonia.
By now the Macedonians had come to resent the extravagance
and arrogance of Demetrius, and were not prepared to fight a difficult campaign
for him. In 287 BC, Pyrrhus took the Macedonian city of
Verroia
and Demetrius’s army promptly deserted and went over to the enemy
who was much admired by the Macedonians for his bravery. At this change of
fortune, Phila, the mother of Antigonus, killed herself with poison. Meanwhile
in Greece, Athens revolted. Demetrius therefore returned and besieged the city,
but he soon grew impatient and decided on a more dramatic course. Leaving
Antigonus in charge of the war in Greece, he assembled all his ships and
embarked with 11,000 infantry and all his cavalry to attack
Caria
and
Lydia
, provinces
of Lysimachus.
By separating himself from his son and departing into Asia,
Demetrius seemed to take his bad luck with him, but in reality it was the fear
and the jealousy of the other kings. As Demetrius was chased across
Asia Minor
to the
Taurus Mountains
by the armies of Lysimachus and Seleucus, Antigonus
attained success in Greece. Ptolemy’s fleet was driven off and Athens
surrendered.
In
the wilderness
In 285 BC, Demetrius, worn down by his fruitless campaign,
surrendered to Seleucus. At this point he wrote to son and his commanders in
Athens and Corinth
telling them to henceforth consider him a dead man and to ignore any
letters they might receive written under his seal. Macedonia, meanwhile had been
divided between Pyrrhus and Lysimachus, but like two wolves sharing a piece of
meat, they soon fought over it with the result that Lysimachus drove Pyrrhus out
and took over the whole kingdom.
Following the capture of his father, Antigonus proved himself
a dutiful son. He wrote to all the kings, especially Seleucus, offering to
surrender all the territory he controlled and proposing himself as a hostage for
his father’s release, but to no avail. In 283 BC, at the age of 55, Demetrius
died in captivity in Syria. When Antigonus heard that his father’s remains were
being brought to him, he put to sea with his entire fleet, met Seleucus’s ships
near the Cyclades
, and took the relics to Corinth with great ceremony. After this,
the remains were interred at the town of
Demetrias
that his father had founded in
Thessaly
.
In 282 BC, Seleucus declared war on Lysimachus and the next
year defeated and killed him at the
battle of Corupedium
in Lydia. He then crossed to Europe to claim Thrace and
Macedonia, but
Ptolemy Ceraunus
, the son of Ptolemy, murdered him and seized the Macedonian
throne. Antigonus decided the time was ripe to take back his father’s kingdom,
but when he marched North, Ptolemy Ceraunus defeated his army.
Ptolemy’s success, however, was short lived. In the Winter of
279 BC, a great horde of
Gauls descended on
Macedonia from the northern forests, crushed Ptolemy’s army, and killed him in
battle, starting two years of complete anarchy in the kingdom. After plundering
Macedonia, the Gauls invaded Greece. Antigonus cooperated in the defense of
Greece against the barbarians, but it was the
Aetolians
who took the lead in defeating the
Gauls
. In 278 BC, a Greek army with a large
Aetolian
contingent resisted the Gauls at
Thermopylae
and Delphi
, inflicting heavy casualties and forcing them to retreat.
The next year (277 BC), Antigonus, sailed to the
Hellespont
,
landing near
Lysimachia
at the neck of the
Thracian Chersonese
. When an army of Gauls under the command of
Cerethrius
appeared, Antigonus laid an ambush. He abandoned his camp and beached his ships,
then concealed his men. The Gauls looted the camp, but when they started to
attack the ships, Antigonus’s army appeared, trapping them with the sea to their
rear. In this way, Antigonus was able to inflict a crushing defeat on them and
claim the Macedonian throne. It was around this time, under these favorable
omens, that his son and successor,
Demetrius II Aetolicus
was born.
King
of Macedonia
Antigonus
against Pyrrhus
Pyrrhus
, king of
Epirus
, Macedonia’s Western neighbor, was a general of mercurial ability,
widely renowned for his bravery, but he did not apply his talents sensibly and
often snatched after vain hopes, so that Antigonus used to compare him to a dice
player, who had excellent throws, but did not know how to use them. When the
Gauls defeated Ptolemy Ceraunus and the Macedonian throne became vacant, Pyrrhus
was occupied in his campaigns overseas. Hoping to conquer first
Italy
and then
Africa, he got involved in wars against
Rome
and Carthage
, the two most powerful states in the Western
Mediterranean
. He then lost the support of the Greek cities in Italy and
Sicily
by his
haughty behavior. Needing reinforcements, he wrote to Antigonus as a fellow
Greek king, asking him for troops and money, but Antigonus politely refused. In
275 BC, the Romans fought Pyrrhus at the
Battle of Beneventum
which ended inconclusively, although many modern
sources wrongly state that Pyrrhus lost the battle. Pyrrhus had been drained by
his recent wars in Sicily, and by the earlier Pyrrhic victories over the Romans,
and thus decided to end his campaign in Italy and return to Epirus.
Pyrrhus’s retreat from Italy, however, proved very unlucky
for Antigonus. Returning to Epirus with an army of eight thousand foot and five
hundred horse, he was in need of money to pay them. This encouraged him to look
for another war, so the next year, after adding a force of Gallic mercenaries to
his army, he invaded Macedonia with the intention of filling his coffers with
plunder. The campaign however went better than expected. Making himself master
of several towns and being joined by two thousand deserters, his hopes started
to grow and he went in search of Antigonus, attacking his army in a narrow pass
and throwing it into disorder. Antigonus’s Macedonian troops retreated, but his
own body of Gallic mercenaries, who had charge of his elephants, stood firm
until Pyrrhus’s troops surrounded them, whereupon they surrendered both
themselves and the elephants. Pyrrhus now chased after the rest of Antigonus’s
army which, demoralized by its earlier defeat, declined to fight. As the two
armies faced each other, Pyrrhus called out to the various officers by name and
persuaded the whole body of infantry to desert. Antigonus escaped by concealing
his identity. Pyrrhus now took control of upper Macedonia and Thessaly while
Antigonus held onto the coastal towns.
But like the dice player who wasted his good fortune, Pyrrhus
now wasted his victory. Taking possession of
Aegae
, the
ancient capital of Macedonia, he installed a garrison of Gauls who greatly
offended the Macedonians by digging up the tombs of their kings and leaving the
bones scattered about as they searched for gold. He also neglected to finish off
his enemy. Leaving him in control of the coastal cities, he contented himself
with insults. He called Antigonus a shameless man for still wearing the purple,
but he did little to destroy the remnants of his power.
Before this campaign was finished, Pyrrhus had embarked upon
a new one. In 272 BC,
Cleonymus
, an important
Spartan
,
invited him to invade
Laconia
.
Gathering an army of twenty-five thousand foot, two thousand horse, and
twenty-four elephants, he crossed over to the
Peloponnese
and occupied
Megalopolis
in
Arcadia
.
Antigonus, after reoccupying part of Macedonia, gathered what forces he could
and sailed to Greece to oppose him. As a large part of the Spartan army led by
king Areus
was in Crete
at
the time, Pyrrhus had great hopes of taking the city easily, but the citizens
organized stout resistance, allowing one of Antigonus’s commanders, Aminias, the
Phocian
, to
reach the city with a force of mercenaries from Corinth. Soon after this, the
Spartan king, Areus, returned from Crete with 2.000 men. These reinforcements
stiffened resistance and Pyrrhus, finding that he was losing men to desertion
every day, broke off the attack and started to plunder the country.
The most important Peloponnesian city after Sparta was
Argos
. The two
chief men,
Aristippus
and
Aristeas
were keen rivals. As Aristippus was an ally of Antigonus, Aristeas
invited Pyrrhus to come to Argos to help him take over the city. Antigonus,
aware that Pyrrhus was advancing on Argos, marched his army there as well,
taking up a strong position on some high ground near the city. When Pyrrhus
learned this, he encamped about
Nauplia
and
the next day dispatched a herald to Antigonus, calling him a coward and
challenging him to come down and fight on the plain. Antigonus replied that he
would choose his own moment to fight and that if Pyrrhus was weary of life, he
could find many ways to die.
The Argives, fearing that their territory would become a war
zone, sent deputations to the two kings begging them to go elsewhere and allow
their city to remain neutral. Both kings agreed, but Antigonus won over the
trust of the Argives by surrendering his son as a hostage for his pledge.
Pyrrhus, who had recently lost a son in the retreat from Sparta, did not.
Indeed, with the help of Aristeas, he was plotting to seize the city. In the
middle of the night, he marched his army up to the city walls and entered
through a gate that Aristeas had opened. His Gallic troops seized the market
place, but he had difficulty getting his elephants into the city through the
small gates. This gave the Argives time to rally. They occupied strong points
and sent messengers asking Antigonus for help.
When Antigonus heard that Pyrrhus had treacherously attacked
the city, he advanced to the walls and sent a strong force inside to help the
Argives. At the same time Areus arrived with a force of 1.000 Cretans and
light-armed Spartans. These forces attacked the Gauls in the market place.
Pyrrhus, realizing that his Gallic troops were hard pressed, now advanced into
the city with more troops, but in the narrow streets this soon led to confusion
as men got lost and wandered around. The two forces now paused and waited for
daylight. When the sun rose, Pyrrhus saw how strong the opposition was and
decided the best thing was to retreat. Fearing that the gates would be too
narrow for his troops to easily exit the city, he sent a message to his son,
Helenus
, who was outside with the main body of the army, asking him to break
down a section of the walls. The messenger, however, failed to convey his
instructions clearly. Misunderstanding what was required, Helenus took the rest
of the elephants and some picked troops and advanced into the city to help his
father.
With some of his troops trying to get out of the city and
others trying to get in, Pyrrhus’s army was now thrown into confusion. This was
made worse by the elephants. The largest one had fallen across the gateway and
was blocking the way, while another elephant, called Nicon, was trying to find
its rider. This beast surged against the tide of fugitives, crushing friend and
foe alike, until it found its dead master, whereupon it picked him up, placed
him on its tusks, and went on the rampage. In this chaos Pyrrhus was struck down
by a tile thrown by an old woman and killed by Zopyrus, a soldier of Antigonus.
Thus ended the career of the most famous soldier of his time.
Alcyoneus, one of Antigonus’s sons, heard that Pyrrhus had
been killed. Taking the head, which had been cut off by Zopyrus, he rode to
where his father was and threw it at his feet. Far from being delighted,
Antigonus was angry with his son and struck him, calling him a barbarian and
drove him away. He then covered his face with his cloak and burst into tears.
The fate of Pyrrhus reminded him all too clearly of the tragic fates of his own
grandfather and his father who had suffered similar swings of fortune. He then
had Pyrrhus’s body cremated with great ceremony.
After the death of Pyrrhus, his whole army and camp
surrendered to Antigonus, greatly increasing his power. Later, Alcyoneus
discovered Hellenicus, Pyrrhus’s son, disguised in threadbare clothes. He
treated him kindly and brought him to his father who was more pleased with his
behaviour. “This is better than what you did before, my son,” he said, “but why
leave him in these clothes which are a disgrace to us now that we know ourselves
the victors?” Greeting him courteously, Antigonus treated Helenus as an honored
guest and sent him back to Epirus.
This was not the end of Antigonus’ problems with Epirus:
shortly after
Alexander II
, the son of Pyrrhus and his successor as king of Epirus,
repeated his father’s adventure by conquering Macedonia. But only a few years
after Alexander was not only expelled from Macedonia by Antigonus’ son
Demetrius, but he also lost Epirus and had to go into exile in
Acarnania
.
His exile didn’t last long, as the Macedonians had at the end to abandon Epirus
under pressure from Alexander’s allies, the Acarnanians and the
Aetolians
. Alexander seems to have died about 242 BC leaving his country
under the regency of his wife
Olympias
who proved anxious to have good relations with Epirus’ powerful
neighbor, as was sanctioned by the marriage between the regent’s daughter
Phthia
and Antigonus’ son and heir Demetrius.
Chremonidean
War
With the restoration of the territories captured by Pyrrhus,
and with grateful allies in Sparta and Argos, and garrisons in Corinth and other
cities, Antigonus securely controlled Macedonia and Greece. The careful way he
guarded his power shows that he wished to avoid the vicissitudes of fortune that
had characterized the careers of his father and grandfather. Aware that the
Greeks loved freedom and autonomy, he was careful to grant a semblance of this
in as much as it did not clash with his own power. Also, he tried to avoid the
odium that direct rule brings by controlling the Greeks through intermediaries.
It is for this reason that
Polybius
says, “No man ever set up more absolute rulers in Greece than Antigonus.”
The next stage of Antigonus’s career is not documented and
what we know has been patched together from a few historical fragments:
Antigonus seems to have been on very good terms with
Antiochus
, the
Seleucid
ruler of Asia, whose love for
Stratonice
, the sister of Antigonus, is very famous. Such an alliance
naturally threatened the third
successor state
,
Ptolemaic Egypt
. In Greece, Athens and Sparta, once the dominant states,
naturally resented the domination of Antigonus. The pride, which in the past had
made these cities mortal enemies, now served to unite them. In 267 BC, probably
with encouragement from Egypt, an Athenian by the name of
Chremonides
persuaded the Athenians to join the Spartans in declaring war on
Antigonus (see
Chremonidean War
).
The Macedonian king responded by ravaging the territory of
Athens with an army while blockading them by sea. In this campaign he also
destroyed the grove and temple of Poseidon that stood at the entrance to
Attica
near the
border with Megara
.
To support the Athenians and prevent the power of Antigonus from growing too
much,
Ptolemy II Philadelphus
, the king of Egypt, sent a fleet to break the
blockade. The Egyptian admiral,
Patroclus
, landed on a small uninhabited island near
Laurium
and
fortified it as a base for naval operations.
The Seleucid Empire had signed a peace treaty with Egypt, but
Antiochus’s son-in-law,
Magas
, king of
Cyrene
, persuaded Antiochus to take advantage of the war in Greece to attack
Egypt. To counter this, Ptolemy dispatched a force of pirates and freebooters to
raid and attack the lands and provinces of Antiochus, while his army fought a
defensive campaign, holding back the stronger Seleucid army. Although
successfully defending Egypt, Ptolemy II was unable to save Athens from
Antigonus. In 263 BC, the Athenians and Spartans, worn down by several years of
war and the devastation of their lands, made peace with Antigonus, who thus
retained his hold on Greece.
Ptolemy II continued to interfere in the affairs of Greece
and this led to war in 261 BC. After two years in which little changed,
Antiochus II
, the new Seleucid king, made a military agreement with
Antigonus, and the
Second Syrian War
began. Under the combined attack, Egypt lost ground in
Anatolia
and Phoenicia
,
and the city of Miletus
, held by its ally,
Timarchus
, was seized by
Antiochus II Theos
. In 255 BC, Ptolemy made peace, ceding lands to the
Seleucids and confirming Antigonus in his mastery of Greece.
Antigonus
against Aratus
Having successfully repelled the external threat to his
control of Greece, the main danger to the power of Antigonus lay in the Greek
love of liberty. In 251 BC,
Aratus
, a young nobleman in the city of
Sicyon
expelled
the tyrant
Nicocles
,
who had ruled with the acquiescence of Antigonus, freed the people, and recalled
the exiles. This led to confusion and division within the city. Fearing that
Antigonus would exploit these divisions to attack the city, Aratus applied for
the city to join the
Achaean League
, a league of a few small
Achaean
towns
in the Pelopennese.
Preferring to use guile rather than military power, Antigonus
sought to regain control over Sicyon through winning the young man over to his
side. Accordingly, he sent him a gift of 25
talents
, but, Aratus, instead of being corrupted by this wealth, immediately
gave it away to his fellow citizens. With this money and another sum he received
from
Ptolemy II Philadelphus
, he was able to reconcile the different parties in
Sicyon and unite the city.
Antigonus was troubled by the rising power and popularity of
Aratus. If he were to receive extensive military and financial support from
Ptolemy, Aratus would be able to threaten his position. He decided therefore to
either win him over to his side or at least discredit him with Ptolemy. In order
to do this, he showed him great marks of favour. When he was sacrificing to the
gods in Corinth, he sent portions of the meat to Aratus at Sicyon, and
complimented Aratus in front of his guests: “I thought this Sicyonian youth was
only a lover of liberty and of his fellow-citizens, but now I look upon him as a
good judge of the manners and actions of kings. For formerly he despised us,
and, placing his hopes further off, admired the Egyptians, hearing much of their
elephants, fleets, and palaces. But after seeing all these at a nearer distance,
and perceiving them to be but mere stage props and pageantry, he has now come
over to us. And for my part I willingly receive him, and, resolving to make
great use of him myself, command you to look upon him as a friend.” These words
were readily believed by many, and when they were reported to Ptolemy, he half
believed them.
But Aratus was far from becoming a friend of Antigonus, whom
he regarded as the oppressor of Greek freedom. In 243 BC, in an attack by night,
he seized the
Acrocorinth
, the strategically important fort by which Antigonus controlled
the
Isthmus
and thus the Pelopennese. When news of this success reached Corinth,
the Corinthians rose in rebellion, overthrew Antigonus’ party, and joined the
Achaean League. Next Aratus took the port of
Lechaeum
and
captured 25 of Antigonus’s ships.
This setback for Antigonus, sparked a general uprising
against Macedonian power. The
Megarians
revolted and together with the
Troezenians
and Epidaurians
enrolled in the Achaean League. With this increased strength,
Aratus invaded the territory of Athens and plundered
Salamis
. Every Athenian freemen whom he captured was sent back to the
Athenians without ransom to encourage them to join the rebellion. The
Macedonians, however, retained their hold on Athens and the rest of Greece.
Relations
with India
Antigonus is mentioned in the
Edicts of Ashoka
, as one of the recipients of the Indian Emperor
Ashoka
‘s Buddhist
proselytism.
No Western historical record of this event remain.
Ashoka also claims that he encouraged the development of
herbal medicine
, for men and animals, in the territories of the Hellenistic
kings
Death
and appraisal
In 239 BC, Antigonus died at the age of 80 and left his
kingdom to his son
Demetrius II
, who was to reign for the next 10 years. Except for a short
period when he defeated the Gauls, Antigonus was not an heroic or successful
military leader. His skills were mainly political. He preferred to rely on
cunning, patience, and persistence to achieve his goals. While more brilliant
leaders, like his father Demetrius, and Pyrrhus his neighbour, aimed higher and
fell lower, Antigonus achieved a measure of mediocre security. By dividing the
Greeks and ruling them indirectly through tyrants, however, he retarded their
political development so that they later fell an easy prey for the
Roman
conquest. It is also said of him that he gained the affection of his
subjects by his honesty and his cultivation of the arts, which he accomplished
by gathering round him distinguished literary men, in particular philosophers,
poets, and historians.
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