A History of the Hellenistic World

This deeply felt desire for self-determination had always involved diplomatic contact with other states and the regulation of disputes by negotiation, or by force if necessary.

The royal family that had ruled in Macedonia for as long as a Macedonian state existed – the Argeadai, who assertively claimed descent from none other than Herakles himself

officers who happened to be gathered together at Babylon set out to consider the future of the Macedonian empire, but all those present had been socialized in the army of Alexander, and as Macedonians they were used to a monarchic system of government.

Some of them, however, also enjoyed a centuries-old contact with the Greek world: Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt were the main areas for this, whereby the coastal zones of Asia Minor had been scattered with self-governing Greek settlements for centuries, and the long Syrian coast, known to the Greeks as “Phoinikia,” was settled with a recognizably similar type of city-state structure to that of Greece itself.

The Hellenistic period is thus ushered in with a heightened tension between one of the traditionally leading Greek cities (Athens), one of the late-developing “new states” of western Greece (the Aitolian League), and the Macedonian monarchy.

Under the circumstances, their claim that the coming war was a war for “Greek freedom” was morally distinctly ambiguous.

Athenians were dissatisfied with Alexander’s response, and as soon as they heard the news of his death they made open moves together with the Aitolians towards resistance to Antipater.

In the 360s the Athenians had captured the island of Samos from the Persian satrap Mausollos, but instead of simply binding the Samians to them in gratitude for their being freed from the Persians, the Athenians chose to expel the inhabitants ruthlessly and to replace them with their own citizen settlers. The Aitolians had acted similarly more recently – though the precise date and circumstances are not known – with the important Akarnanian harbor town, Oiniadai.

Two politically important states felt especially affected by it, the city-state Athens and the federally organized Aitolian League in mountainous central western Greece, since both had committed serious offenses against Greek tradition and practice and currently still enjoyed their fruits.

At the Olympic Games in August 324 BC an envoy from the Macedonian king made an epochal announcement to the participants and visitors, assembled from throughout the Greek world.