Antigonus II Gonatas

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"Antigonus II" redirects here. For the Judean prince, see Antigonus II Mattathias.

Coin of Antigonus II Gonatas. The Greek inscription reads "ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΓΟΝΟΥ"

meaning (of king Antigonus)

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.

Contents
[hide]
 1 Birth and family
 2 Demetrius's general
 3 In the wilderness
 4 King of Macedonia
o 4.1 Antigonus against Pyrrhus
o 4.2 Chremonidean War
o 4.3 Antigonus against Aratus
 5 Relations with India
 6 Death and appraisal
 7 References
 8 Notes

 9 External links

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 defence
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[citation needed], 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.

[edit] King of Macedonia

[edit] Antigonus against Pyrrhus

Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, Macedonia's Western neighbour, 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 behaviour. 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, demoralised 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 organised 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 Pelopennesian 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, realising 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
neighbour, as was sanctioned by the marriage between the regent's daughter Phthia and
Antigonus' son and heir Demetrius.

[edit] Chremonidean War

northern border at 240 bc

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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Relations with India

Antigonus is mentioned in the Edicts of Ashoka, as one of the recipients of the Indian
Emperor Ashoka's Buddhist proselytism[1]. 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[2].

[edit] 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