038: Antigonid Macedon - A Glorious Servitude

Hi there, you're listening to the Hellenistic Age Podcast. Episode 38 Antigonid Macedon, a Glorious Servitude. In 272 BC, Antigonus II Gannatus was now firmly in control of the Macedonian throne. The death of Pyrrhus of Epirus had eliminated the last true threat that could have displaced Gannatus as king, ending a period of nearly 20 years of infighting and civil war. Although dealing with constant warfare and invasions from Epirots, Celts, and other Macedonians was a challenge in of itself, Antigonus needed to reorganize. While he would not have ample time to do this until around the 250s, I think it's important to understand Antigonus' court and rule in Macedon proper, before we proceed further with our narrative. The court of Pella under Antigonus II Gannatus was a site not too dissimilar from that of his contemporary Ptolemy II Philadelphus in Alexandria, as his retinue included some of the finest minds and writers of the era. The historian Hieronymus of Cardia, a former companion of Eumenes of Cardia, had wrote his monumental history while living in Macedon, which has unfortunately not survived, but was used extensively by later authors composing their own histories of the early Hellenistic period. The most famous resident was Aratus of Soli, not to be confused with Aratus of Sycheion, whom we will discuss later in the episode. He was a renowned poet, whose most well-known and best-preserved work was the Phenomena, a piece which discussed the constellations with a noticeably uneven accuracy, but was well-received by intellectuals like Cicero. These men would often be on the payroll of Antigonus, whether out of commissioned work, such as Aratus' ode on Antigonus' victory over the Celts, or on the basis of generous donations to flatterers. Gnatis' reputation as a fervent patron of philosophy in particular is a tradition long attested in our sources by the likes of Plutarch and others such as Diogenes Laertius and Aelian. His mother Phila was considered a well-educated woman, and supported the patronage of many intellectuals. No doubt, she was probably the main driver behind Antigonus' education in Athens, which had become something akin to a university town by the late 4th, early 3rd century BC, and hosted a number of famous philosophers and scholars, with whom Gnatis is said to have directly engaged with. One particularly notable example is Zeno of Cytium, the father of the Stoic school of philosophy, and not to be confused with the earlier philosopher of the same name who created the famous Zeno Paradoxes. Antigonus attended as many lectures of Zeno's as he could, and the two are alleged to have held a considerable and long-lasting friendship that lasted several decades. Though, interestingly, Zeno was reluctant to join Antigonus in Macedon, and excused himself on the count of his age when Antigonus invited him. Another philosopher was Manedemus, whom Antigonus deeply respected and maintained good relations with, but unfortunately this would bite Manedemus in the rear, as his loyalty to his native Eretria was questioned due to the nature of a friendship with an autocrat, and later led to either his suicide or death out of grief. These anecdotes might also be created in such a way as to frame a narrative in order to make a point or moral, but Antigonus himself frequently appears as the subject in regards to the ideal Hellenistic king. His penchant for deep reflection and interest in learning is indicated by some of the alleged sayings on the nature of his rule. In one instance, recalled by Plutarch, a boy in his service demanded extra pay on account To which, Antigonus replied, I've mentioned this quote before, and how it probably is just a reflection of Plutarch's ideal monarch, but the fact that Antigonus had a good enough reputation that would make him the moral example says a lot. Gnatsis appears to have expressed no interest in portraying himself as a larger-than-life barring a few minor references to his worship and connection to the god Pan. This would heavily contrast with his contemporaries, especially Ptolemy II, who emphasized his rule with divine cults and honors that propelled himself into an untouchable status. In one particularly illuminating anecdote, Antigonus is said to have scolded his son and heir Demetrius II for ruling too harshly, and pointed to his diadem as a mere piece of cloth, saying, That Antigonus could reach this conclusion is likely due to his exposure to the Stoic teachings he so fondly attached himself to as a younger man, and it would not be far fetched for many of you, including myself, to see Antigonus Gnatis as some sort of Proto-Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor of the late 2nd century AD who was renowned for his interest in Stoicism. However, this all needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Stoicism by its nature was attractive to the elite given its amenability towards autocracy, and it wasn't as if Gnatis was immune to the temptations of the flesh and other indulgences. He was not above enjoying the presence of dancing women, nor did he abstain from drinking parties and military operations as was required by a Macedonian king. But he certainly was nowhere near as hedonistic as his father, nor did he have any particular vice that marked him out. Of course, Antigonus was a practical man, and when the Athenians granted divine honors upon him in the mid-250s, he certainly did not try to reject them, nor did he refuse to reward members of his retinue who composed flattering, if not sycophantic, hymns in the king's honor. If the people wished to believe him as a demigod, so be it, but there was never the institutionalization of pomp and circumstance as had occurred in the Ptolemaic court. When it comes to the style of rule, Gnatis' was very casual, in the sense that it was more personal and less ceremonial. When you compare his court to that of Alexandria or the Seleucids, it is much more loosely structured and much more centered around his personal body of companions and associates, generally known as the philoi, who had a limited degree of hierarchy or bureaucracy. In addition, he retained the system of royal pages, which was a carryover from the Argeid house. This makes a degree of sense, as the Antigonids would rule over a body comprised of mostly Macedonians, and so they were more reliant on the traditions of Macedonian and Argeid kingship that emphasized a personal connection between the higher-ups and the king himself. This doesn't mean that he was anything but an autocrat, and once he settled himself into kingship proper, he ensured that the Antigonid dynasty alone would continue to rule. We have little evidence on Gnatis' actions or on the period in general, but I can only imagine that having seen no less than 10 kings of Macedon come and go, Antigonus was determined that there would be no chance for him to be kicked off the throne for a third time. Unfortunately, we just don't know much of the Antigonid monarchy at this time compared to later kings like Philip V and Perseus, but we can assume that Gnatis was the architect for much of the long-term stability of the kingdom. But the question of the stability of Macedonian control over Greece remained to be seen. I'm Jen McManamie, and I'm Jenny Williamson, and in our podcast, Ancient History Fangirl, we tell tall tales and true stories of the ancient world, misbehaving emperors, poison assassins, star-crossed lovers, and more. We go back to the original sources, dig into the latest archaeology, and get geeky about military history and mythology to bring you the ancient world like you've never heard it before. Check out AncientHistoryFangirl.com or find us at Ancient History Fangirl wherever you get your podcasts. Though all of the changes and practices of the Antigonid court would develop over the decades as Antigonus settled himself in the role as king, at the time of his last retaking of the Macedonian throne in 272, he had a number of problems bubbling beneath the surface that would soon emerge, almost entirely the result of the chaotic nature of Greece's political landscape. I think we need to step back a bit and understand the situation in Greece just prior to Gnatis' assumption of the throne, because although the affairs of Greece have appeared in our narrative to some extent, this period marks a turning point in the relationship of the Greek polis and the Macedonian monarchy. Ever since the battle of Chaeronea in 338, the relationship between the Greeks and their Macedonian overlords remained tenuous at best. One of the first major campaigns of Alexander the Great was to crush a Theban revolt, and while Alexander was in Asia, his standing regent Antipater had to deal with a rebellion led by the Spartan king August III. Less than ten years later, the Lamian War would erupt once word of Alexander's death had reached the ears of ambitious Athenians, proving to be the last major effort by the Greeks to actively assert their independence against the Macedonian yoke for several decades. The infighting of the Diadohoi had put the Greeks in a precarious situation, often caught between the vying interests of the various warlords who sought to gain control of the mainland, whether by force, coercion, or courting with gifts and bribes. The most successful of these were Antigonus I Monophthalmos and Demetrius I Polyarchates, who managed to exploit the desire for Greek autonomy and freedom to gain several footholds in the region and be honored as kings by their Greek subjects. This wasn't a totally one-sided affair, as the cities of Greece would much prefer to have the patronage of wealthy monarchs, donating expensive buildings and gifts in return for public honors, lip service, and the less likelihood of being conquered outright. Still, the lingering notions of freedom remained present, and sometimes a city would revolt, as Athens would do several times over. In an effort to present a greater front for Hellenic interest against the Macedonian kings, many city-states would organize themselves into what are often called leagues. This wasn't a new development, and had been practiced extensively in pre-classical and classical Greece, most notably the Delian League, formed by the Athenians after Xerxes' invasion of Greece. These leagues would be similar in practice as a federation, where the individual city-states would retain their autonomy, but would provide troops and representatives to discuss the overall strategy of the collective body, which organized itself into two forms. A council, known as a boule, and an assembly, an ecclesia, where we derive the later religious term ecclesiastical. This was paired with an overall commander or general, a strategos, being elected from one of the representative cities to oversee military actions that the league could undertake. These leagues didn't have equal representation, as larger and more prestigious cities were given greater weight in the decision-making of the group, but a certain degree of checks and balances were installed, such as the limiting of the term of the strategos to one year in length, and no city could be able to hold the position consecutively, not that it stopped certain ambitious figures from completely dominating their leagues, as we soon shall see. In addition, these leagues allowed for a degree of standardization among the members, whether in regards to weights and measures or coinage, and it gave the citizens of its league equal civil rights in all of the member cities. During the early Hellenistic period, there were a number of leagues that would emerge as important players in the political landscape of Greece for the next two centuries. One of them was the Aetolian League, which was founded sometime in the middle of the 4th century BC and was centered around the region known as Aetolia in central Greece. The other was the Achaean League, established in about 280-279 BC, which controlled the region of the northern Peloponnese. Of the two, the Achaean League has retained a far better reputation, no thanks to the extensive histories penned by one of its most prominent members, Polybius of Megalopolis. The Aetolians were not well respected. Even before Polybius, they appeared to have been thought of as no better than brigands and raiders, living in smaller communities than any of their neighboring Greek cities, but their reputation as talented warriors kept them up with rival powers. And during the invasions of the Celts in the late 280s, early 270s, the Aetolians were among the most responsible for their eventual defeat. At the same time, the rise of the Achaean League directly coincided with this defeat due to the gain in self-confidence and self-determination after Macedon had failed to provide any sort of assistance whatsoever when the sacred temple of Delphi was being plundered. Given that Greece was such an important region to maintain control over, Gennatius had to tread carefully in making sure his interests were upheld in the face of this newly strengthened front of Greek leagues. His time spent in Athens must have given him a relatively solid understanding of the politics of the Greek polis, much like Philip II of Macedon, who had spent a part of his childhood as a Theban hostage. And no doubt the experiences of his grandfather and father, who based much of their power in the regions of Greece, showed the value of maintaining a foothold in the Aegean and Mediterranean as a whole. You could break his policies down as either open diplomacy, whether with the cities directly or with the leagues that they were involved with, or through more direct means. Antigonus was no stranger to taking things by force, and would sometimes install tyrants to essentially act as his direct governing bodies over the cities or install military garrisons to safeguard against any sort of insurrection, leading Polybius to later claim that no other figure thrust as many tyrants upon the Greeks as Gennatius. Some regions like Corinth remained amenable to the Macedonian king, and the Aetolian League was on relatively good terms with Antigonus, refusing to take part in the conflicts that would emerge during the latter's reign. Other cities, not as much. The extent of this maneuvering was not a matter of life or death for Antigonus, but it certainly made everything much more convenient, especially when dealing with the actual threat to his throne, Ptolemy II Philadelphus. For those who listened to my episode on Ptolemy II's reign will remember that, by this stage, the Kingdom of the Ptolemies based in Egypt was arguably the most powerful state in the Hellenistic world. Though the Seleucid Empire was larger, Ptolemaic wealth had eclipsed both the Antigonids and the Seleucids by the middle of the 3rd century. The most visible demonstration of this was the great Ptolemaic fleet that dominated the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean. Philadelphus could, and did, cause significant problems for his rivals, often times by simply bankrolling the opposition in the territory of the other Hellenistic rulers. In the case of Greece, Ptolemy I and II had sought good relations with the cities of the mainland, partially to keep their rivals from gaining too much of a foothold, partially in order to make sure that a steady stream of Greco-Macedonian immigrants were able to fill up the armies and bureaucracy of the kingdom, and partially to project a general sense of majesty and power as a benefactor of Greece and maintain their status as a Hellenic or Hellenistic monarchy. The recent marriage alliance and non-aggression pact between Antigonus and the Seleucid Antioch is the first, must have understandably made Ptolemy nervous, and Antigonus was still in control of a vast army, no thanks to his kingdom being the fostering ground for the highly sought after Macedonian phalangites. After his defeat of Pyrrhus, Antigonus spent his time consolidating his control over the Peloponnese and considered the Aegean to be a part of his sphere of influence, directly intruding on what Philadelphus believed to be his naval hegemony. What was Ptolemy to do? Enter the Athenians and the Spartans. Athens had no love lost for the Macedonian king, though they were quite fond of Ptolemy's shipments of grain and donations to beautify the city, and had longed to reclaim the Piraeus. The Spartans had always thought of themselves as the unofficial leader of the Greeks, with their king Arius I likely feeling much more confident after managing to fend off Pyrrhus' attempted siege of the city. Ptolemy, the Athenians, and the Spartans would begin to coordinate in the late 270's early 260's, with the Egyptian king sending vast amounts of arms and silver to help fan the flames of the notion of Greek freedom, along with a fleet to be commanded by his officer Patroclus. In autumn of 268, an Athenian mercenary statesman named Cremonides would oversee a decree, formally announcing the alliance between Athens, Sparta, and Ptolemy II, claiming that since Ptolemy and his family had always had the Greeks' best interest at heart, believed that an alliance was necessary against Antigonus, so that, quote, In order that, a state of common concord having come to exist among the Greeks, the Greeks may be, along with King Ptolemy and with each other, eager contenders against those who have wronged the cities and violated their treaties with them, and may, for the future, with mutual goodwill, save the cities. Thus would begin the Cremonidian War, though Cremonides himself is not documented anywhere during the war actually participating. In 267, Antigonus would pass through Thermopylae, no thanks to the Aetolian League who openly declared their neutrality and let Gannatas through the hot gates, and the Macedonian king would then invade and ravage Attica. The details on the war are sketchy, like so much of this period, but from what we can tell, Gannatas spent a few years managing his garrisons along the Peloponnese, operating from Corinth in particular. At one point in 265-264, a group of Gallic mercenaries garrisoned at Megara attempted to mutiny, sacrificing several unfortunate souls as they prepared to inevitably deal with Antigonus' furious response, and were promptly slaughtered. Despite his blustering and the claims of the Cremonidian Decree, the support of Ptolemy's navy seemed to have little effect on the outcome, and Antigonus was able to successfully besiege Athens and surround the city with a naval blockade. At one point, a land army headed by King Arius had faced down Antigonus outside of Corinth in 265, culminating in a battle that left the Greek army scattered and the Spartan king dead, but at the loss of Antigonus' illegitimate son, Halcyonius. Despite this tragedy, it did not deter Antigonus, nor did it force him to make a rash decision, despite being egged on by Patroclus, who sought to distract the Antigonid siege of Athens Much like the gifts of the Scythians given to the Persian king Darius, Gnatis realized that there was an ulterior meaning behind the choice of foods. The figs were eaten by the poor, and the fish were eaten by the rich, and so, for Antigonus to be truly powerful, he must control the sea. I'll take Antigonus' word on that, but while this grandstanding is something that Demetrius Polyarchetes may have fallen for, Gnatis was no idiot. He abided his time until he was absolutely sure that he had held control over the most important areas of Greece, and chose to deal with Athens first. Antigonus' successful besieging for about two to three years had left Athens militarily and economically exhausted, and with any chance of Ptolemaic assistance now dust in the wind, Athens unconditionally surrendered in 261. As punishment for the war, Athens was now stripped of almost all autonomy, garrisoned by Macedonian troops, unable to either elect its own governing body, nor able to even mint currency in its own name. Sparta was left reeling, another blow to its power which had already waned since the Battle of Leuctra over a century prior, and would continue to crumble, despite attempts at reform by Cleomenes III, an event which we will definitely discuss in depth in the future. Now with the situation at Greece finished, Antigonus could turn his attention to Ptolemy by pursuing Patroclus and the Ptolemaic navy to the island of Kos off the eastern portion of Asia Minor in 261. Despite the impression of Ptolemy's naval supremacy and Antigonus' past limited success in all things nautical, the Antigonid king actually crushed Patroclus' larger fleet and managed to capture the flagship of the operation and dedicated it to Apollo. While Gennatus generally preferred not to overextend his reach from the Greek peninsula and the surrounding Aegean Sea, he would certainly not shy away from taking an opportunity to slap Ptolemy around and claim a few more naval bases for his own taking. Gennatus' victory in the Cremonidian War had proven the king's ability to manhandle both the traditional powers of Greece and the meddling of Ptolemy, but the biggest challenge to the Antigonid dynasty would not come from another Hellenistic rival, it would come from the Greek leagues that would begin to disturb the Macedonian hegemony with dramatic consequences. Gennatus' victory in the Cremonidian War had effectively neutered further attempts by the Spartans and the Athenians to resist for the rest of his rule. He was just about 60 years old by the war's end in 261, an old man by anyone's account in the ancient world, and it was expected that Antigonus would not have long left before he would depart to the afterlife. Surprisingly, Antigonus would be blessed with the same longevity as his grandfather and would continue to rule as king for almost another 20 years. His actions during this time period are hard to track, but they can be pieced together due to him being an ancillary character in other histories. However, they are deeply wrapped up with the rise of one man in particular, Aratus of Sicyon. Thankfully, we know quite a fair amount about Aratus due to Plutarch, who composed a biography on the man, and Polybius, a later member of the Achaean League who clearly admired Aratus to some extent, and thus his reputation was relatively well-preserved. Aratus was born in 271, where else but Sicyon, a northern Achaea, son of a magistrate named Cleinius. Sicyon at this time was subject to considerable political turmoil, operating under a number of tyrants who subsequently took power and were deposed in a rather short amount of time. Cleinius was elected once the previous tyrant, Cleon, had been killed, but in about 264, when Aratus was 7 years old, Cleinius himself was assassinated by an ambitious demagogue named Aventidus, forcing Aratus to flee for his life amidst the chaos of the city and managed to escape to Argos. Taken in by a collection of guest friends of his father, Aratus would receive his formal education while in Argos, becoming a talented speaker and athlete in his own right. At the same time, Aratus was nursing his hatred for tyrants, and bided his time before he would return to overthrow the tyranny of Sicyon and return its people to political freedom. By 251, the newest tyrant was Nicocles, who was suspicious of Aratus's intentions and fully believed the young man to be plotting with either Antigonus Gennatus or Ptolemy II, who were both on good terms with Aratus's father. In truth, both kings were preoccupied with their own issues, or were apathetic to the whole situation, and Aratus had decided to take the initiative in orchestrating a coup. While I won't focus on the details because it's a bit irrelevant, Plutarch dedicates several passages describing the planning and execution of it that would honestly be an excellent screenplay. I'm totally getting the vibe of films like The Dirty Dozen or The Great Escape. By the end of the night, Nicocles was kicked out of Sicyon without a single casualty caught in the crossfire, and Aratus had restored the property of hundreds of exiles who had been banished by previous demagogues. Though his city was now free, the change in regime was a beacon that marked out the vulnerability of Sicyon, above all else to Antigonus Gennatus, and Aratus quickly realized that alone he could not survive. So he convinced his fellow Sicyonians to join the Achaean League. This was all firmly happening on the Antigonid king's radar, who saw that Aratus's charisma and political support could potentially make him a dangerous enemy and inspire seditious movements by other Greeks. This was a concern that was totally understandable from Gennatus's point of view. At the time of Aratus's coup, Antigonus had himself been suffering an internal revolt thanks to a distant nephew named Alexander, who proclaimed himself king in 252, and took control of a number of cities in Euboea, and more importantly, Corinth. Despite being one of the so-called Fetters of Greece, Corinth was strategically important to the Antigonid cause, serving as a major site for naval operations. Alexander's father, Crateros, was a half-brother of Gennatus, who was loyal enough to oversee the garrison at Corinth, but upon his death, Alexander was denied the position and in return declared his independence. There is no concrete proof, but some believe that Ptolemy II may have had a helping hand in orchestrating the affair through financial backing, and for the next few years, Alexander kept harassing several other Greek cities through the use of pirates and other mercenaries. But by 247, Alexander died under unknown causes, perhaps through assassination via poisoning, or just simple misfortune. Alexander's widow, Nicaea, had still refused to hand over the fortress-like Acrocorinth to Antigonus, and a siege would have been time-consuming and costly to both the Macedonians and the Corinthians inside. According to Plutarch, Antigonus had devised a scheme where his son Demetrius would be using his son's good looks and the offer of a marriage alliance. Though Nicaea wouldn't give up the Acrocorinth, Antigonus arranged a sumptuous banquet and wedding party that would keep her busy in the city itself, and once he had personally escorted her litter towards the theater to hear one of the wedding singers, he sprinted from the city, up the great road leading to the fortified gates of the Acropolis with a small body of troops, and managed to trick the confused guards into letting him inside, taking it for his own. Look up an image of the Acrocorinth and the hillside that leads up to it, and hopefully you realize just how impressive it is that a man in his mid-seventies was able to sprint hundreds of yards uphill, presumably in full kit. Age is just a number, indeed. While the stories of Aratus and Antigonus' adventures are certainly interesting, this is where the destinies of the Antigonid dynasty and the Achaean League become deeply intertwined. When Aratus took control of Sicyon, he was forced to find a huge amount of cash to resettle the former exiles after their homes had been occupied by new tenants. Aratus had apparently tried to ask Antigonus for a donative, but he was granted a smaller amount than what he was expecting. Antigonus certainly had tried to appease Aratus with public compliments, but the offer of better payments came from Ptolemy Philadelphus, who bankrolled Sicyon's rebuilding program. Aratus had also become the leader of the Achaean League by the year 245, and he would hold the position of strategos no less than 17 times, proving that he was a competent commander by leading an action against the Aetolian League. The Achaean League itself also supported Alexander's revolt against Antigonus, and it was understandable that the king would be quite vexed at the behavior of Aratus, and it is no surprise that Aratus would hold resentment towards Gennatus for his use of tyrants to keep control of the Peloponnese. This whole series of events is highly fragmented, and many of the sources I'm using struggle to even piece together a consistent narrative on why things happened and when they did. What we do know is that at one point, Aratus had plotted to snatch the Acrocoranth from under Antigonus' nose. Plutarch has an excellent description of the actual event itself, but we don't get much in the way of context. From what we can gather, Aratus had been casing some of the cities of Greece to see if they would want to join the Achaean League, presumably to resist Antigonus. Antigonus himself had friendly relations with the Aetolian League, who caused resentment among the other Greeks and the Achaean League. This all leads to Aratus and Corinth. In 243 BC, according to Plutarch, Aratus had arranged a meeting with three Syrian-born brothers, who were familiar with the laity of the Acrocoranth, and Aratus paid them to Aratus' slave Technon had been sent ahead to scout the wall with one of the brothers named Erginus, and began to chat with a man whom he presumed to be his contact. He was sort of correct, because he had unwittingly ran into a fourth brother named Dionysius, who served as a mercenary in the Acrocoranth and was unaware of the scheme, until he pieced together what and who the slave was talking about. Conveniently, Dionysius and Technon ran across Erginus before the brother raised the alarm, and was kidnapped and stuffed into a house by the conspirators. In the cover of darkness, a team of over a hundred men then scaled the ladders over the wall as a group of seven disguised as travelers killed the gatekeeper and sentries. One guard managed to escape and raised the alarm, as Aratus made his way up the cliffside to help assist the now beleaguered men. Fighting occurred both in and outside of the city limits, but since the echoes of the screaming men bounced off of the cliff face and the moon was covered by the clouds, none of the garrison knew where the cries originated from or how many Achaean forces had streamed into the city. The final clincher was when the full moon revealed itself, and the light reflected off the spears and helmets of the Achaeans, casting shadows that made it seem like there were more troops than there actually were, and the garrison gave up their posts out of self-preservation. In one fell swoop, Aratus had taken Corinth and incorporated it into the League, and the cities of Megara, Trozen, and Epidaurus deserted Antigonus for the Achaeans as well. The new Egyptian king Ptolemy III Eurigetes also pledged himself as an ally to the League, being honored as the unofficial Stratagos, promising to back any further ventures against the rival Antigonids. The loss of Corinth was a damaging blow to Antigonus' interest in Greece and the Aegean as a whole. One would expect that the Macedonian king would have declared an all-out war against the Achaean League, but to our surprise, Antigonus did no such thing. In 241, Antigonus recognized the secession of Corinth and the fetters of Greece, signing a peace treaty with Aratus and the League. Perhaps the king was exhausted, or did not believe the effort to keep Corinth was worth the trouble. We simply have no explanation. In the year 239, King Antigonus II Gannatus would pass away at the age of 80 years old, having ruled Macedon for over three decades. The career of Antigonus Gannatus certainly was unique among the children of the Diadohoi. Unlike Antiochus I and Ptolemy II, Antigonus was forced to fight for his kingdom, and when he finally did become king of Macedon, he was kicked off the throne on at least two separate occasions. With a less-than-handsome appearance and moderate talent for military command, he also lacked any resemblance to his father and grandfather Demetrius and Antigonus the One-Eyed. Despite this, Antigonus was a successful and extremely competent ruler. Intelligent, modest, and with a resilient attitude, Gannatus managed to fight off some of the greatest threats of his day, such as the Celtic invaders or the warlike King Pyrrhus of Epirus through unorthodox tactics, and brought order and stability on an exhausted Macedon after 40 years of chaos. In his 30 years of rule, Antigonus revitalized the Macedonian heartland and turned a fickle populace into loyal followers of the Antigonid dynasty that would last a century, something that Demetrius I and Antigonus I failed to do after decades of attempting to capture it. Under his rule, he made Pella an intellectual hub of great philosophers and thinkers, earning the reputation as a just philosopher-king in the eyes of writers and historians, and retained a level of self-awareness that made his rule personal and affable. Gannatus was a pragmatist, however, and his dealings with Greece proved that he was not above realpolitik in order to get what he wanted, despite any notions of philhellenic or philosophical traditions. The rise of the Achaean League and Aratus of Sicyon would prove to be one of the most dramatic consequences of Antigonus' meddling in Greek affairs, and his inability or unwillingness to best Aratus would result in dramatic consequences for the Antigonid house, though this is considerably down the line. Before you go, I wanted to give a brief talk about the state and direction of the podcast. With Antiochus I's death in 261, Ptolemy II's death in 246, and Antigonus Gannatus' in 239, we have reached a bit of a watershed moment. I have now covered the narrative of almost a hundred years, from the life of Alexander the Great through the wars of the Diodohoi and the second generation of Hellenistic rulers in about 38 episodes, effectively one third of the entire timeline of the Hellenistic period. But this does not mean I am one third of the way done with the podcast itself. Far from it. From this point forward, our sources become much more detailed and much better preserved, no thanks to the likes of Polybius, Livy, and Plutarch, giving me much more to discuss than in previous episodes. At the moment, we will be taking a break from the Seleucids, Antigonids, and Ptolemies, but when we do eventually return, we're going to fully explore these kingdoms in painstaking detail instead of just focusing on a chronological retelling of their history. For at least the next five episodes, we will be returning to affairs in the Central and Western Mediterranean to bring everything to the middle of the third century. First we will be covering Agathocles, the tyrant and king of Syracuse, followed by a Then we will talk about Polybius of Megalopolis, who I think deserves a special discussion given the importance of his histories and what role they will play in discussing the Hellenistic Age. This is all building up to the outbreak of the First Punic War between the Roman Republic and Carthaginians, something which I don't think needs any justification for me to cover. From there, I have a great number of ideas regarding special topics and discussions on the intellectual, social, and cultural developments of the Hellenistic period, such as sciences, art, and or philosophy, though whether I will cover them back to back or sprinkle them in between narrative episodes is something I have yet to decide. In any case, that's all for my little discussion. If you liked what you listened to, consider subscribing and leaving a review on the podcast platform of your choice. If you want to read more about Gennatus and the early period of Antigone in Macedonia, there is a recent monograph on the man by Janus J. Geber entitled Antigonus II Gennatus, a Political Biography. And I direct you to the show notes for this episode on my website at www.hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com where you can find the bibliography and a dynastic family tree. If you want to support the show, consider donating on my Ko-fi page, a link which you will find in the podcast description among everything else. So, until next time, you've been listening to the Hellenistic Age Podcast.