WAR IN THE HELLENISTIC WORLD

THE DISCOURSE OF WAR
turning on the very persons who lit it, beyond reasonable expectation. So it is
with war. Once it has been kindled by anyone, at times it destroys in the first
place its authors and at times it advances destroying without any just cause
everything it meets with, ever revived and ever blown anew into a blaze, as if
by winds, by the folly of those who come near it.
(Polyb. 11.4.4–5; trans. W. R. Paton)
Consequently, references to peace are always understood in relation to a
preceding war. When Hellenistic kings are praised for establishing peace,
they are praised for defeating an enemy and thus putting end to a war. The
same idea – that successful war against an enemy establishes peace – explains
why the Rhodians named one of their warships Eirene (“Peace”; IG XII
Suppl. 210 + SEG XXXIII 683). Peace treaties were concluded in order to
end particular hostilities between two or more communities. Although the
experience of war in the late fifth and early fourth century had led in the
fourth century, before the campaigns of Alexander the Great, to the idea
of a “common peace” (koine eirene) among the Greeks and to the cult of
Eirene, the personification of peace (Jehne 1994; Perrin-Saminadayar 1999),
this idea hardly played any part in the Hellenistic period. Hellenistic peace
treaties were valid with regard to particular areas and were usually concluded
“for all time” (e.g., Staatsverträge 428, 516), but this book would
not have a subject if this clause had been taken literally. A general and
unconditional renunciation of war and violence, like that pronounced by
the Mauryan King Ashoka in the late third century (Thapar 2002), is
unknown in Hellenistic public life.
This limited scope of the Hellenistic Greeks when referring to peace does
not of course mean that peace was not regarded as a preferable condition –
at least when the quick victory of one of the parties did not seem realistic.
In such situations it was regarded as a great service if a friendly community
(or a king; see chapter 4, section 4) intervened and attempted to arbitrate.
This is what Magnesia on the Maeander in Asia Minor did on several
occasions in the numerous Cretan wars. It successfully arbitrated in the
Lyttian War (ca. 219 BC), the greatest war of Cretan history, possibly again
in a war between Knossos and Gortyn (184 BC), and in wars between Itanos
and Hierapytna (140 BC and 112 BC). The importance with which this service
was regarded can be best seen in the fact that when Magnesia on the Maeander
sent envoys to the Greek cities and leagues in order to promote the local
festival of Artemis Leukophryene and to have the inviolability of the sanctuary
recognized (208 BC), the successful appeasement in Crete was included
among the great achievements of the Magnetes. It was mentioned in one
breath with their contribution to the defense of Delphi during the Galatian
attack of 278 BC (I.Magnesia 46; Bagnall and Derow 2004: no. 155).
Two fragmentary decrees of Gortyn and Knossos which refer either to
the arbitration during the Lyttian War (Magnetto 1997: no. 43) or to the
185