Cities and Kingdoms in Alexander’s Empire

As Alexander the Great spread his empire (the Hellenistic empire) from Macedon and Greece over a large swath of southwestern Asia and northern Africa, he established a number of Kingdoms that became subjects of the empire. One of the major developments of these new kingdoms was the resurgence of monarchy, which had many repercussions. For most Greeks, monarchs were something out of the heroic past, something found in Homer’s mythical epic the Iliad but not in daily life. Furthermore, most Hellenistic kingdoms embraced numerous different peoples who had little in common. Hellenistic kings thus needed a new political concept to unite them. One solution was the creation of a ruler cult that linked the king’s authority with that of the gods. Thus, royal power had divine approval and was meant to create a political and religious bond between the kings and their subjects. These deified kings were not considered gods as mighty as Zeus or Apollo, and the new ruler cults probably made little religious impact on those ruled. Nonetheless, the ruler cult was an easily understandable symbol of unity within the kingdom.

Monarchy also included royal women, who began to play an active part in political and diplomatic life. Some of them did so in their own right, others in collaboration with their husbands. For the most part they served as examples that women too were capable of shouldering vast responsibilities and performing them successfully. Although Alexander’s generals created huge kingdoms, the concept of monarchy, even when combined with the ruler cult, never replaced the ideal of the polis (the ancient Greek city-state).

Consequently, the monarchies never won the deep emotional loyalty that Greeks had once felt for the polis. Hellenistic kings needed large numbers of Greeks to run their kingdoms. Otherwise royal business would grind to a halt, and the conquerors would soon be swallowed up by the far more numerous conquered population. Obviously, then, the kings had to encourage Greeks to immigrate and build new homes. The Hellenistic kings thus confronted the problem of making life in the new monarchies resemble the traditional Greek way of life. Since Greek civilization was urban, the kings continued Alexander’s policy of establishing cities throughout their kingdoms in order to entice Greeks to immigrate. Yet the creation of these cities posed a serious political problem that the Hellenistic kings failed to solve.

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