MÁS SOBRE LAS HEREJÍAS

Archelaos’ successors continued his practice of inviting well-known and useful Greek visitors to Pella. Amyntas III established a link that would last through much of his reign and into those of Philip II

and Alexander III when he brought Nikomachos and his wife Phaestris of Stageira to his capital. Stageira, located in the northeast Chalkidike, was originally colonized in the Archaic Age by people from the island of Andros off the southern coast of Attica. Over time, Greeks from other regions joined the original settlers. Its loca-tion drew it into larger alliances that we have discussed above – the Delian League, the Peloponnesian League, and the Chalkidian League – and with Macedonian expansion eastward, it would be a target for the Argead kings.

Nikomachos is described as both the physician and friend of the king; thus his practice of medicine seems to account for his move to Macedonia with Phaestris and their young son, Aristotle (b.384).

Accounts indicate that both parents died while Aristotle was young;

he then became the ward of a relative named Proxenos. It is unclear whether Aristotle remained in Pella or returned to Stageira on the death of his parents. In his eighteenth year, he moved to Athens to become a member of Plato’s Academy, and he remained in Athens for 20 years. Aristotle’s subsequent writings reveal the influence of Platonic thought. Another influence came from the rhetorician Isokrates, whom we have seen petitioning Philip to assist in effect-ing peace in Greece.

A decision to leave Athens in 348/7 can be explained by two events: the death of Plato, followed by the recognition of his nephew Speusippos as his successor, and rising anti-Macedonian emotions after Philip’s capture of Olynthos, a major Athenian ally in the Chalkidike. Aristotle’s earlier ties with Pella may well have made withdrawal from Athens a sensible action. He spent the next three years in northwestern Asia Minor, where Hermias, a former fellow student, had carved out a small kingdom in the Troad during the struggles between the western satraps and the Great King of Persia.

Other students of Plato lived in Atarneos at the same time, forming a small circle of intellectuals, a situation that would increasingly be the practice of rulers after the death of Alexander III. The relations of the philosophers with Hermias seem to have been close; the ruler was attracted to Platonic views, and the students of Plato can be

seen as following in the steps of their master, who advised the ruler of Syracuse. And in the case of Aristotle, there was a personal close-ness demonstrated by Aristotle’s marriage to Pythias, the niece and adopted daughter of Hermias.

It has been argued, in particular by Anton-Hermann Chroust, that Aristotle’s connection with Hermias was linked to Aristotle’s role as an agent and informant of Philip. Hermias’ small kingdom was strategically placed for a Macedonian incursion into the north-western realm of the Persian Empire. In fact, one of the residents at Pella from 353 or 352 was Artabazos, a satrap of Anatolian Phrygia, whose revolt against the Great King had been defeated.

With his family, Artabazos remained in Macedonia for some ten years.

Figure 4.4 Modern statue of Aristotle in his home-town of Stageira. Photo-graph by Mr T. Voreinos

Three years later, however, Aristotle moved to Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, perhaps within Hermias’ sphere of influence.

Aristotle’s biological studies are associated with this period of his life. After two years, he was to move again, back to Pella; he was summoned, accounts tell us, by Philip to educate his son, Alexander. Plutarch records that Philip

[s]ent for Aristotle, the most famous and learned of the philosophers of his time . . . Aristotle was a native of the city of Stageira, which Philip himself destroyed. He now repopulated it and brought back all the citizens who had been enslaved or driven into exile . . . He gave Aristotle and his pupils the temple of the Nymphs near Mieza as a place where they could study and converse . . . It was Aristotle, I believe, who did more than anyone to implant in Alexander his inter-est in the art of healing as well as that of philosophy . . . He regarded the Iliad as a handbook of the art of war and took with him on his campaigns a text annotated by Aristotle. (Alexander VII and VIII) Not only the nature of this education but even the accuracy of describing Aristotle as Alexander’s tutor is debated by scholars. Its validity may be strengthened by the list of Aristotle’s writings, which included a book On Colonies and another On Monarchy purportedly written for Alexander, as well as by the records of Aristotle’s letters:

to Philip, to Alexander (four books), to Olympias (one book), to Hephaistion (one book), and to Antipatros (nine books), the last-named one of Philip’s most influential aides who was last-named by Aristotle as the executor (epitropos) of his will. Aristotle was closely associated with the most important figures in Pella during the late 340s, and that association rested on some basis or perhaps multiple bases.

In his life of Aristotle, written probably in the third century ce, Diogenes Laertios quotes the philosopher’s belief that a wise man would fall in love and take part in politics; moreover he would marry and live at a king’s court (Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers XXXI). That a philosopher might teach others while living at a king’s court is unsurprising in light of the activities of

other wise men. Mounting enthusiasm for and knowledge of Greek culture on the part of the Argead kings would surely indicate the value of instructing potential heirs to power in Greek subjects.

Philip’s invitation to Aristotle may have rested on personal acquain-tance between the two men, first from the period of their youth when Aristotle lived at Pella with his parents, and more recently through their mutual contacts with Hermias of Atarneos.

Little is known of the nature of Aristotle’s mode of education, whether in Macedonia or later in his own school. Diogenes Laer-tios provides a clue by listing the philosopher’s definition of the qualities essential to proper education as natural endowment, study, and constant practice (Lives and Opinions XVIII). The later writer also states that Aristotle taught his pupils to speak on a set thesis together with practicing rhetorical ability. Judging by the quantity of Aristotle’s own written works – Diogenes lists 400 items as genuine – it is safe to assume that students were trained in writing as well. Scientific research may well have been another component if the story is true that Alexander ordered Macedonian hunters, fowlers, and fishermen to provide information about the animals, birds, and fish that they had observed or caught. One other feature of Aristotle’s method of education can be added on the basis of the nature of the school he established in Athens in the mid-330s: acqui-sition of knowledge was a collegial affair both in terms of its aca-demic routine and with respect to its social aspects. Situated in a grove dedicated to Apollo Lyceios, the school also contained a gym-nasium, a building with space for lectures and collections of books, maps and objects, and a place for common meals. The tradition that Aristotle instructed a number of youths at Mieza may well have been a precursor to the practices at the Lyceum in Athens.

By 340, when he acted as regent for his father, Alexander’s life precluded devotion to education. Just where Aristotle lived between 340 and 335 is unclear; he may have returned to Stageira. By 335, he was back in Athens to found his own school, described above.

It may not be coincidence that his return took place at the time of Athens’ submission to Alexander. Thebes had just been taken and

razed after revolting against Macedonian hegemony, and the Athe-nians feared similar retaliation. Instead, Athens was treated diplo-matically through treaty rather than through military retaliation.

Aristotle remained in Athens to 323, when he moved to Chalkis on the adjacent island of Euboia. Once again, his connection with Macedon may have provided the impetus. Alexander had died and Antipatros, to whom he had entrusted his affairs, had been recalled to Asia. A person with strong connections to these traditional enemies of Athens might well fear for his life. Later sources report that shortly before his death Aristotle wrote to Antipatros about the danger of living in Athens if one were an alien. This would be espe-cially pronounced in the situation of Aristotle with Alexander dead

Figure 4.5 Site of the Nymphaion at Mieza. Courtesy of Dr E. Kafalidou, Archaeological Museum of Thessalonike

and Antipatros presumably en route to the east. It is no great sur-prise to learn that the Athenian assembly voted for war against Macedon on learning of Alexander’s death. A new alliance with Aitolia, Sikion, Thessaly, northwest Boiotia, Messenia, Argos, and parts of the island of Euboia agreed to secure the freedom of the Greeks. After initial success, the return of 10,000 veterans with the Macedonian general Krateros defeated the coalition in 322. Surely Aristotle was wise to have departed Athens. He died of illness in Chalkis in 322.

In sum, the association of Aristotle with Macedonia reveals several characteristics of Macedonian culture – at least the culture of Argead Pella. The recruitment of notable Greeks to Macedonia from the reign of Alexander I through that of King Archelaos slowed but did not cease during the troubled reign of Amyntas III. Expertise espe-cially appropriate to a realm constantly at war was found in the physician Nikomachos of Stageira, who moved to Pella with his wife and young son, Aristotle. The association was ended by the deaths of Nikomachos and Phaestris at a relatively young age – there is no indication of foul play. Although Aristotle did not continue to abide in Macedonia, he would return after his 20 years as a student in Plato’s Academy in Athens. The education of Alexander III is the usual explanation for Aristotle’s return in 343/2, and while his role as educator is questioned by a few modern scholars, his concern with education is illustrated by his founding of his own school in Athens in 335. Other responsibilities may well have been given to this philosopher. As we have noted, he lived at the center of the small kingdom of Atarneos in Anatolia from 348/7 to 345/4 and, for the next two years, on the island of Lesbos off the Anato-lian coast. It is interesting to note Philip’s own interest in Atarneos as the Macedonian king became increasingly active in the Propon-tis and the Black Sea, namely the northern boundaries of the Persian Empire. During this same period of time, a rebel Persian satrap from Anatolia resided with his family in the Macedonian capital.

On his return to Athens, Aristotle was in a position to assist Philip with the terms of settlement of Greek affairs following the

Macedonian victory at Chaironeia: as mentioned above, the bound-aries of individual Greek states are said to have been determined by Aristotle and his students. His return may also point to abiding links with the ruling Argead king, Alexander III. On Philip’s murder, tra-ditional enemies of Macedon determined that the situation was pro-pitious for revolt from Macedonian control. While Alexander was drawn to deal with northern enemies, several Greek states rebelled.

On his return, Alexander dealt quickly with the rebels. Thebes was razed while Athens, in spite of its contributing to the Theban revolt, was generously treated, a consequence, perhaps, of Aristotle’s inter-cession on its behalf.

The case for Aristotle’s role as envoy, intermediary, and agent is not foolproof but gains support from the role of philosophers of the same and the next generations. Xenokrates, head of the Academy from 339 to 314, was a member of an Athenian embassy sent to negotiate with Philip. Later he was an envoy to Antipatros to urge the release of prisoners taken in the war that erupted on Alexan-der’s death in 323. Kallisthenes, who was the nephew of Aristotle, Anaxagoras, and his pupil Pyrrho, known as the founder of the Skeptic School of philosophy, accompanied Alexander on his cam-paign. Theophrastos, Aristotle’s successor as head of the Lyceum, was invited to Egypt by Ptolemy I. Stoics were part of the court of Antigonos Gonatas, king of Macedon in the early third century.

Later in that century the Stoic Sphairos played a role in a program of the Spartan kings, while the Cynic philosopher Kerkidas acted as an ambassador to the then Macedonian king in an effort to halt the Spartan success. An Epicurean mathematician served three Seleukid kings in the second century, and in the middle of that century an embassy of three philosophers representing three differ-ent schools was sdiffer-ent to deal with the Roman senate.

Aristotle’s role is important not merely in disclosing the political involvement of intellectuals but also in testifying to the intellectual acumen of the Argead kings. They understood Greek culture well and actively used it for both its inherent value and for their own purposes. The individual connections also provide clues to the true

nature of life in the land where, according to Demosthenes, one could not even buy a decent slave. Eumenes, the son of a guest-friend of Philip from the Greek town of Kardia on the Thracian Chersonese, was brought to Pella to serve as head of the secretariat for seven years. He continued in this capacity under Alexander, but in India was appointed to a command position, and, at the marriage ceremony of Alexander and his companions in Susa in 324, Eumenes was wed to a sister of Alexander’s mistress, Barsine. Rising to this elevated status indicates the importance of record-keeping in Macedonia by the reign of Philip, if not before. Greeks may have had greater literacy skills but one Marsyas of Pella, a contemporary of Alexander III, wrote an account in 10 books of the history of Macedonia from the origins of the kingship to summer of 331 bce.

An Argead king was well advised to appreciate the skills of the Greeks – and others, of course – and incorporate skills and per-sonnel into his kingdom. Greek states and leagues were bothersome pests, but the tools of the Greeks were essential to Macedonian vital-ity. In the fullness of time, those tools and customs became integral to Macedonian culture. Lines of distinction between Macedonian and Greek cultures were blurring long before the Hellenistic Age.

5

The descriptions of the region of Macedonia and the kingdom of Macedon in preceding chapters have disclosed vulnerability as well as latent potential in its location, resources, and elements of its culture. As a map reveals, it is situated between the Greek penin-sula – part of the larger Mediterranean world – and the continent of Europe. Macedonians were but one of many groups of people endeavoring to create and maintain a secure state in part of this larger region. As we have seen, the task was not easy.

The physical features of Macedonia were of some aid, but they did not offer complete protection: mountains, perennial rivers, and the Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean were deterrents to would-be infil-trators, but passes through the mountains, riverbeds, and ships pro-vided openings to the interior of the kingdom that were regularly discovered and utilized by others. What is more, the impressive resources of Macedonia could serve as strong incentives for others to use these routes for their own advantage. We have seen that hostile incursions were as frequent as peaceful trading exchanges, if not more so.