WAR IN THE HELLENISTIC WORLD

HOW WAR SHAPED THE HELLENISTIC WORLD
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BREAKING BOUNDARIES:
HOW WAR SHAPED THE
HELLENISTIC WORLD
The invasion of foreign territory is one of the most frequent forms of
Hellenistic warfare. Precisely this aspect, the crossing of a (natural) boundary,
is underlined in the res gestae of Ptolemy III (see chapter 4, section 1; OGIS
54; Bagnall and Derow 2004: no. 26, ca. 241 BC): “he crossed the River
Euphrates and subdued Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Sousiane, Persis, Media and
the rest of the land as far as Baktria . . .” Naturally, one of the consequences
of this practice was the continual change of frontiers among states, which is
often mentioned by historians and equally often recorded in delimitations.
War broke boundaries in a very physical sense: through invasion, through
the destruction of fortification walls, and through the occupation of forts
which made the boundary between a community and the next neighbor
visible. Invisible boundaries – legal, social, cultural – are more difficult to
break, but once broken the results are both more fundamental and more
lasting than those of territorial expansion or external rule. This final chapter
summarizes precisely these indirect, slow, but lasting effects of war on social
and cultural mobility.
In times of crisis, hierarchies and social positions tend to be confirmed
and strenghthened, as both groups and individuals are asked to fulfill different
duties assigned to them by law or custom. In war, the young and the
old, the officers and the ordinary soldiers, men and women, foreigners and
citizens, free men and slaves not only play different parts, but their lives can
also be affected in different ways. If defeat means for men the loss of life –
and if they are fortunate, the loss of freedom and property – for women it
means captivity, and for slaves either a change of master or a chance to run
away. A victory may be welcome to all, but the symbolic and material gain
it will bring to a victorious general will be substantially higher than that of
an ordinary soldier.
The way in which wars confirmed social roles can be best seen in the case
of women, whose powerlessness becomes even more evident when they are
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