Antigonus I Monophthalmos

Macedonian king (r. 306-301 b.c.e.)

• Born: 382 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Probably Macedonia (now in Greece)
• Died: 301 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Ipsus, Phrygia, Asia Minor (now in Turkey)

One of Alexander the Great’s successors, Antigonus failed to reunite Alexander’s conquests, but he did establish an eponymous dynasty (the Antigonids), which was to rule Macedonia and exert a great influence on Greek affairs elsewhere until the Roman victory at the Battle of Pydna in 168 b.c.e.

Early Life

The father of Antigonus (an-TIHG-uh-nuhs) was an aristocrat named Philip. Beyond this fact, nothing of significance is known about Antigonus’s life before his service in Alexander’s army and his appointment to the governorship of Phrygia in 333 b.c.e. at the age of forty-nine.

Antigonus is known to have been a tall man; his appellation, Monophthalmos (mahn-uhf-THAL-muhs), meaning one-eyed, or Cyclops, referred to his having lost an eye. It is not known whether this blinding occurred in battle or by some other means. To conceal the handicap, Apelles, the famous artist at the Macedonian court, departed from custom and painted a portrait of Antigonus in profile.

Life’s Work

Before attention is turned to the course of Antigonus’s life and work, it is helpful to survey the situation immediately following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 b.c.e. Alexander left no arrangement for succession. The assembly of the Macedonian army determined that rule be given to Alexander’s half brother, Philip III, and his unborn son, Alexander IV, but the real control of Alexander’s empire lay in the hands of Antipater, in Greece, and Perdiccas, in Asia. In the struggle for power that ensued (in the year 321), Antigonus sided with Antipater against Perdiccas. After Perdiccas was assassinated, Antigonus was given command of Antipater’s army in Asia and continued the war against Perdiccas’s brother, Alcetas, and Eumenes, satrap of Cappadocia. Antipater died in 319. Antigonus continued fighting against Eumenes until 316, when, through intrigues and deceit, he managed to have him executed. Eumenes’ remains were cremated, placed in a vessel, and returned to his wife and children. Among Alexander’s successors, Antigonus was now in the strongest position to reunite the lands conquered by Alexander.

Antigonus was unquestionably desirous of sole rule, and his ambition was immediately recognized by his regal adversaries, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, Cassander, and Seleucus, all of whom allied themselves against Antigonus in a war lasting from 315 to 311. The war had no clear resolution; its temporary end came after Antigonus’s son, Demetrius Poliorcetes, was defeated by Seleucus and Ptolemy at the Battle of Gaza in 312. Peace was made between Antigonus and all of his adversaries except Seleucus. Still, the ambitions of all involved could not be suppressed, and war broke out again one year later and lasted until Antigonus’s death in 301.

In the first war, most of the fighting had taken place in Asia Minor; in the war of 310-301, the final resolution would be reached in Asia Minor at the Battle of Ipsus in Phrygia, but mainland Greece was the scene of many of the most important battles. Antigonus came to recognize, perhaps a bit too late, the importance of support from the Greek cities on the mainland. In 307, Antigonus’s son, Demetrius Poliorcetes, took control of Athens from Cassander’s representative, Demetrius of Phaleron, and a democratic constitution was reestablished in Athens. As an expression of gratitude, the Athenians granted divine honors to Antigonus and Demetrius. Antigonus’s intervention on behalf of the Athenian democracy impressed many other Greek city-states, and by 302 most of mainland Greece had rallied in his support. Highlights of the war on mainland Greece are vividly recounted by Plutarch in his “Life of Demetrius,” written in the early second century c.e. and found in Plutarch’s Bioi paralleloi (c. 105-115; Parallel Lives, 1579).

In spite of some major military and naval successes in Asia Minor, the war on that front was, for Antigonus, indecisive. It was his successes against Cassander on mainland Greece, more than anything, that forced his opponents to realize that their positions would be secure only with the elderly Antigonus out of the way. Attacks on Antigonus’s positions in Asia came from all sides, and the situation became so serious that he recalled Demetrius, together with his army, from mainland Greece to stand with him. The decisive battle was fought at Ipsus in 301, and Antigonus, now about eighty years of age, died in this battle. Thus, at the time of his death this great general was pursuing the same course that he had pursued throughout his life: a military resolution to a political problem.

Significance

Antigonus fell between two worlds. Born and educated amid the fragmented politics of competing Greek city-states, he could have had no idea, even as a mature man, of the profound changes Alexander was to bring about. In this new world, the only exemplar of success available was Alexander’s, and that was primarily military and not political. Alexander’s early death prevented him from demonstrating whether his political leadership was as adept as his military leadership.

Antigonus was not alone in following Alexander’s lead; all the diadochoi (successors to Alexander) were as quick as Antigonus to rely on the sword as the means of obtaining the power that they sought. It was Antigonus, however, who had the means to consolidate Macedonian conquests, for he was the most successful of Alexander’s successors militarily. His ultimate failure to unite Alexander’s conquests through force, in spite of his most advantageous situation, should have shown the futility of such an approach in the face of a coalition of equally determined, although individually less powerful, dynasts. This lesson was not learned, and the result was almost constant warfare among Hellenistic monarchs who continued to present themselves as Alexander’s rightful successor until Rome’s final victory in the Greek East at the Battle of Actium in 31 b.c.e. Thus, it was the ambitions and methods of Antigonus, almost as much as those of Alexander, that served for some two hundred years as an example for those who sought to control the Greek world.

Major Kings of the Antigonid Dynasty

306-301

• Antigonus I Monophthalmos

294-287

• Demetrius I Poliorcetes

276-239

• Antigonus II Gonatas

239-229

• Demetrius II

229-221

• Antigonus II Doson

221-179

• Philip V

179-168

• Perseus

Bibliography

Austin, M. M. The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest: A Selection of Ancient Sources in Translation. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Offers translations of and introductions to many important documentary sources, primarily epigraphical, which are not generally available. This collection of primary source material contains a number of documents that bear directly on Antigonus’s attempts to unify Alexander’s conquests.

Bar-Kochva, B. The Seleucid Army. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Describes and interprets the changes in the strategy and tactics of land warfare that led to Antigonus’s military successes and the continuing domination of the Macedonians over the art of warfare until Rome’s victory at Pydna in 168 b.c.e.

Billows, Richard A. Antigonos the One-Eyed and the Creation of the Hellenistic State. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. An examination of the Macedonian leader and his role in the spread of Hellenism.

De Ste. Croix, G. E. M. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982. Presents a Marxist view of the decline of Greek democracies. This volume is the masterpiece of a very distinguished ancient historian; it is particularly valuable for its focus on the role of political factions in Antigonus’s struggle for the support of city-states on mainland Greece and Asia.

Gardner, Jane F. Leadership and the Cult of Personality. London: Samuel Stevens, 1974. Emphasizes the importance of controlling armies and populations through the projection of a royal personality. It discusses both leadership theory and the concrete ways in which Alexander and those who followed him manipulated regal propaganda.

Gruen, Erich S. The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. A revisionist interpretation of the course of Roman expansion in the Greek East. Gruen presents a view of Roman Imperialism that is more sympathetic to the Roman position than the position taken by most scholars. This volume contains a good review of the battle among Alexander’s successors. Includes a helpful bibliography.

Simpson, R. H. “Antigonus the One-Eyed and the Greeks.” Historia 8 (1959): 385-409. This article presents a detailed account of the relations between Antigonus and the city-states on the Greek mainland, alliances that played a decisive role in convincing Antigonus’s opponents to unify against him.

Smith, R. R. R. Hellenistic Royal Portraits. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1988. An account of the visual image of kingship that Hellenistic dynasts chose to present. This study is lavishly illustrated. Includes reproductions of portraits in varied media (including coins and marble). A valuable archaeological complement to the literary and documentary evidence.

Walbank, R. W. The Hellenistic World. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981. The best general account of the period, by a scholar who devoted his life to its study. It combines a narrative account of military and political events with sections on the rich and varied cultural life of the Hellenistic world.