In the context of early Roman eastern expansionism, the present article will reconsider the underestimated historiographical prominence of the Antigonid dynastic quarrel between Perseus and Demetrius in the year 182 bc, at the time of the Macedonian military spring ritual called Xanthika. Towards this end, the article will be organized in four sections: firstly, in order to assess Polybius’ and Livy's evidence for the events of 182 bc, a survey of the Xanthika military festival and its extant documentation will be presented. Secondly, for a more in-depth treatment of this historic episode, the main features of modern studies and theories regarding this ritual will be presented. Thirdly, against this backdrop, the historiographical uniqueness of both Polybius’ and Livy's versions will be reconsidered, hence allowing a clearer distinction between both versions. Fourthly, as a result, Polybius’ Xanthika of 182 bc will be proposed as a pivotal historiographic episode, introduced to illustrate the inverse trajectories of Roman rise and Macedonian fall.
The Xanthika: ancient sources regarding its origins and components
In order to appraise the meanings allotted by Polybius and then Livy to this ritual, it is essential to start by retracing what it meant in the context of Hellenistic costumes and eventual Roman receptions, since only then will it be possible to distinguish its original historic context from their conscious historiographical adaptation, especially when judging the Antigonid dynasty through Polybius’ eyes.Footnote 1 From the onset, however, any research on this Macedonian ritual has to accept two key provisions: its study will depend entirely on sparse surviving evidence in our literary sources and, consequently, it will have to be acknowledged that further discussion regarding its evolutions and adaptations throughout the Hellenistic age, in their kingdoms and regions, is insecure. Nevertheless, sufficient evidence survives in order to successfully account for its key features and their historic relevance.
In our sources, components of the Xanthika can be traced back to Alexander the Great himself. According to Plutarch, during the summer of 331 bc, the Macedonian king and his army were involved in an improvised game that would later become a central part of these military festivities: splitting the army into two factions and their recreation of a full-scale combat. According to the biographer:
the camp-followers, in sport, had divided themselves into two bands, and set a general and commander over each of them, one of whom they called Alexander, and the other Dareius; and that they had begun by pelting one another with clods of earth, then had fought with their fists, and finally, heated with the desire of battle, had taken to stones and sticks, being now many and hard to quell. When he heard this, Alexander ordered the leaders themselves to fight in single combat; to the one called Alexander he himself gave armour, and to the one called Dareius, Philotas.Footnote 2
However, this particular battle re-enactment might not have been associated with this military ritual if not for the events that followed Alexander's demise. In 323 bc, amid infightings and conspiracies raised by the empty throne, Quintus Curtius recounts that Perdiccas and Meleager faced alleged military discontent, which they both agreed required the celebration of ‘a traditional purification ceremony’. According to the Roman historian:
The customary purification of the soldiers by the Macedonian kings involved cutting a bitch in two and throwing down her entrails on the left and right at the far end of the plain into which the army was to be led. Then all the soldiers would stand within that area, cavalry in one spot, phalanx in another.Footnote 3
If the origin for such a ritual remains obscure, at the very least, an ancestral use and a widespread legitimacy can be safely attested at the time of Alexander's conquests.Footnote 4 Hence, both dog-purification and mock-battling are arguably the oldest and most clear mentions of the two main components of what would later become the Antigonid Xanthika. Although they seem to be part of traditional practices within the Argead army and monarchy, the fact remains that solid evidence on their exact origins and institutional adaptations has yet to be discovered.
Nevertheless, Polybius’ and Livy's descriptions do offer some further details that are worth exploring for the purpose of this article. Although the former has not survived but for a few excerpts, thus remaining only as a general overview, the latter kept a thorough account of the ritual and subsequent events.Footnote 5 According to the Roman historian's version, during the above-mentioned passage of the troops across a path marked by an eviscerated dog, a novel detail is then added:
At the head of the column are carried the arms and standards of all the kings from the earliest beginnings of Macedonia, then the present king, accompanied by his children, follows, next is the royal cohort and the bodyguard, and the rest, the rank and file of the Macedonians brings up the rear.Footnote 6
The parading of weapons and standards owned by the kings of yore adds an important step to the ensemble of this military festivity. Once again, evidence can be traced from Alexander's death onwards, since, according to Diodorus, Eumenes proposed to the Macedonian generals in 318/17 bc that ‘we should draw on the royal treasure and build a golden throne, and on this throne we should place all his paraphernalia, specially his diadem, scepter, and crown’.Footnote 7 Later on, the attire of past kings made regular appearances during politico-religious celebrations and processions throughout the Hellenistic world.Footnote 8
Polybius and Livy unfold more unique and critical historic details for the Xanthika of 182 bc, at a time when Philip V was aged and there were political tensions between his two sons, mainly caused by alleged Roman meddling in choosing a successor to the Antigonid throne. According to Livy, at the false battle:
The princes were assigned as commanders for this mock engagement: yet it was not the imitation of a battle, but they came together just as if it were a struggle for the throne, and many wounds were dealt by the pointless weapons, nor was anything but iron wanting to make it look like a regular battle.Footnote 9
Livy then continues and delves into the consequences at court of this simulated encounter turned real. For Perseus and Demetrius then had what seems to be a series of clashes during the following banquet – which could be considered, perhaps, as the final stage of the Xanthika rituals – causing the younger brother, Demetrius, to be accused of the Rome-backed attempt of murder of his older brother Perseus. Each brother then pleaded their case before Philip V, portrayed by Livy and Polybius as a troubled and maddening king,Footnote 10 who nevertheless opted this time for conciliatory words and an indecisive judgement until further enquiries could be made.Footnote 11 Hence, both historians offer important details and exceptional historiographical viewpoints, allowing us to pursue further study of this Macedonian institution placed in a historic context. The ritual Xanthika components, anecdotally mentioned by other sources, are combined here within thoughtful historical narratives, though their exact purpose and historiographical status in each account is highly debatable.
Overall, sufficient documentation survives in order to conclude that, by the time of Polybius’ account, the Antigonid dynasty executed this complex military ritual with at least a threefold connotation: firstly, an archaic ritual devised to unite the army under its king;Footnote 12 secondly, a symbolic display of Antigonid ancestral lineage dating back to the Argead kings through their paraded insignias; and, finally, a mock battle whose origins can be traced at least to Alexander's conquests. Only when this ritual is acknowledged as a well-established Macedonian tradition, long before Polybius decided to include it for whatever reasons, can a proper historiographical assessment move forward.
Modern studies: anthropological, historiographical and institutional debates
Throughout the twentieth century, there seem to be at least three academic approaches to the Xanthika: anthropological comparativism, historiographical commentaries, and a more recent institutionalism.
As part of the comparativist methodologies applied to myth, rituals, and institutions by scholars since the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the first academic attention to the Xanthika was mostly concerned with its purificatory attributes and, consequently, with the existence of similar rituals from Antiquity to modern times. Hence, from the works of Martin P. Nilsson to Walter Burkert, the deeply rooted anthropological significance for the qualities and stages of this canine ritual and its origins have been preferentially addressed.Footnote 13
Starting from correlations with other rites and myths throughout Greece and the Mediterranean, three distinctive theories have been proposed for the act of marching across a severed dog: on the one hand, a specific oath ceremonial, mainly acting as a retributive warning of dire consequences for those who break the covenant;Footnote 14 on the other, as an apotropaic device to ‘kill death’ by way of murdering the animal most associated with it (that is, the underworld Cerberus).Footnote 15 Finally, the most favoured theory regarding the Xanthika is that of a ‘festival of purification’: the severed canine as ‘an absorptive zone’, by which both army and king could efficiently remove any impurity that could potentially threaten the imminent military campaign.Footnote 16 The latter theory has key assistance from our sources, seeing that, alongside the explicit and specific mention by Livy and Curtius of this ritual as a ‘customary purification’ among Macedonian armies, Plutarch states in general terms that ‘nearly all the Greeks used a dog as the sacrificial victim for ceremonies of purification; and some, at least, make use of it even to this day’.Footnote 17
The three of these theories have suggested that the meaning of the Xanthika is associated with other rituals and myths, such as Boeotian, Spartan, Roman, or even Hittite cultures.Footnote 18 Nevertheless, these proposals remain rather unsuccessful in their offering of an exact historical understanding of the Xanthika, since, although they do propose meanings and goals for one of its rituals – the severed dog as a type of magical device – some other elements like the mock battle or the dynastic insignia have not been examined. Furthermore, the specific importance of the Xanthika in 182 bc for our Polybian and Livian sources is altogether ignored.
These neglected aspects are addressed in a more substantial manner by another trend: the historiographical studies involving these episodes in Polybius’ and Livy's works. Both authors consciously arranged their mentions of the Xanthika in 182 bc within larger historiographical themes, and, consequently, these have attracted modern attention to this ritual as part of a historic incident with wider meaning.
Overall, the bulk of the debates involving this particular Antigonid Xanthika are concerned by Polybius’ methods and source-material. For his account of the affairs of Macedonia in Book 23, the Greek historian begins by ascertaining the forces behind the tragedies and downfall of Philip V:
For it was now that Fortune, as if she meant to punish him at one and the same time for all the wicked and criminal acts he had committed in his life, sent to haunt him a host of the Furies, tormentors and avenging spirits of his victims, phantoms that never leaving him by day and by night, tortured him so terribly up to the day of his death…Footnote 19
The tragic and religious emphasis applied by Polybius to these events have sparked debate throughout the twentieth century, mainly by attributing this kind of ‘literary affectation’ or ‘over dramatization’ to either the historian's flawed methodology or, perhaps, his sources’ biases towards Macedonia.Footnote 20 Here, Walbank's early assessment of the subject is instructive:
He [Polybius] is not convicted of stupid incompetence in his choice of sources, of treating a tragedy or a novel as proper material for history. On the other hand, he does appear to have misunderstood Philip's position and policy, when he had in fact the material available to understand it…these factors make Polybius’ account of these last years of Philip one the least satisfying in his whole work.Footnote 21
Ever since, the ‘faulty Polybius’ argument has remained mostly unchallenged, with research more interested in the exact Macedonian source for this quarrel among courtiers rather than in the actual historiographical role played by this chapter.Footnote 22 One dissident voice, however, was Erich S. Gruen, whose critical examination of Rome's alleged interventionist agenda towards the Hellenistic East lead him to question this communis opinio: though we only possess Livy's version of Polybius’ arguably fallible account, it is not a pretext for an overcompensated modern reconstruction detached from the sources available.Footnote 23
Though anecdotal, Gruen's concern suggests that there is much to be gained from this historiographically debated episode: firstly, regardless of ‘anti’ or ‘pro’ labels, it is information that comes from deep within the Macedonian court, making it a precious testimony regarding the rituals, protocols, and dynamics of the Late Antigonid dynasty. Secondly, the quality and quantity of information obtained from this or these eyewitnesses seems to have been so important that Polybius was determined to include it in lengthy terms within his work, to the point of causing eventual disruption to his valued method. Thirdly, whether the ‘powerful and vengeful Fortune’ of Philip V is a flawed historical appraisal from our modern historiographical perspective or not, its assessment must be subordinated to the prior, essential task of accurately understanding Polybius’ overarching historical endeavour, one where exclusively ‘Romano-centric’ or ‘Peloponnese-centric’ modern analytical biases must be carefully avoided in favour of a more balanced reading of the Antigonid dynasty.Footnote 24
Conversely, attention to Livy's own treatment of this Polybian material is scarce in comparison, since most of the discussion has been devoted to the indirect issue of the level and the amount of Polybian material in Livy's own version. Here, to revisit some commonplaces on the methods applied by the Roman historian – abridgment, emotionality, and vividness – and, of course, to confirm the absence of Polybian themes – such as vengeful Tyche and silenced Flamininus’ political meddling – seems to be futile. However, there are some other aspects worthy of further inquiry.Footnote 25
Beyond Tyche and the alleged role of Flamininus in the affair, it must be recognized that, on several passages, Livy clearly shows other important reworkings from the Greek historian: criticism of Philip V's state of mind (‘fierce temper’),Footnote 26 the king's use of examples when teaching the two princes (‘hating the examples of discordia…I also set better examples’),Footnote 27 and the image of him haunted by the Furies (‘and awake the furies that avenge a brother's death’).Footnote 28 However, this is not the same as viewing the entire Livian text as ‘an imaginative, sensational and entirely untrustworthy account’,Footnote 29 especially since evidence suggests otherwise, such as when the historian portrayed the dynastic dispute among Demetrius and Perseus. Here, rather than a caricatured relation between victim and wrongdoer,Footnote 30 there is a much more nuanced portrait involving mutual use of spies, supports, appeals, and, of course, speeches conveying exaggerated self-images to impress the ruling father.Footnote 31 Hence, it is necessary to start by overriding the assumption that, because Livy's version is based on a previous one, it is forcibly tainted, simplified, and useless.
Therefore, the result is a ritual trapped by larger discussions regarding source-material, methodology, authorship, and mere style, in what is overall judged to be an emotionally driven excuse for an anecdotal episode, one severely mismanaged by Polybius and then poorly copied by Livy. However, even if the lost sections of Polybius’ original account make any exact comparison with Livy's version a convoluted task, there seems to be enough evidence to acknowledge the existence of historiographical elements ignored until now.
Finally, there is an institutional approach, mainly embodied by Miltiades Hatzopoulos’ seminal works on the structure and institutions of the Macedonian kingdom. Due to archaeological and epigraphical research, the Xanthika ritual gained considerable clarity, allowing it to be understood well beyond anecdotal stories in our written sources and filling the gaps between a mysterious archaic ritual and the late accounts provided by Polybius and Livy.Footnote 32
Institutional studies of this ritual have consolidated the theory of the Xanthika as a unifying annual ritual performance and a common training activity for the army soon to be on campaign.Footnote 33 These exercises would gain further institutionalized features during the Hellenistic period, taking the shape of competitive races and marches performed by the ephebes and young citizens in Macedonia.Footnote 34 Accordingly, as suggested by literary sources early on, the Xanthika's function and components seem to have evolved, in order to commemorate Alexander's conquests as well as to mark the beginning of a new military stage for Hellenistic youths. Nevertheless, evidence remains considerably weak, especially when we realize that most of the attested military training was devoted to light-armour fighting and not phalanx combat. Hence, there is a major information gap remaining between the gymnastic competitions and the full integration of newly trained phalangites with the Xanthika.Footnote 35
Therefore, after considering all of the evidence obtained both from ancient sources and modern studies, the Xanthika would have broadly consisted of a military itinerant gathering during each spring – in the month named after the hero Xanthos – in which a series of rituals were performed by the entire Macedonian army to integrate young recruits to the ranks of the citizen army and, simultaneously, to forge and renew through purification its legitimacy and the military bond between king and army before an upcoming campaign. Nevertheless, neither the individual analysis of ancient sources nor modern studies can currently offer a thorough review for this historic episode within a comprehensive historiographical assessment. For that purpose, the Greek and Roman historians must be the subject of further exhaustive analysis.
Polybius or Livy? On the historiographical impact of 182 bc Xanthika
Acknowledging the shortcomings of the above-mentioned modern approaches, two distinctive methodological aspects in the historians’ accounts can be newly explored: in Polybius, the tragic correlation made between the Xanthika ritual and the dynastic quarrel that followed; in Livy, the exemplary meaning attributed to the anecdote: the effects of civil discord. Although in chronological terms the former should be logically discussed first, the state of both sources makes it convenient to start by Livy's lengthier version, since decoding the Roman's personal guidelines when editing the Greek's original source will allow for a more coherent work in discriminating one from the other.
Before delving further into both particular versions for these historic episodes, it is important to mention some key historiographical assertions. Firstly, as shown above, if the Xanthika was indeed a ritual of annual recurrence, intimately bounded by military, religious, and institutional imperatives, its sole appearance in both works offers evidence for a rather exceptional historiographical attention awarded to this particular performance in 182 bc.Footnote 36 Secondly, dynastic quarrels were systemic as well as regular happenings in every Hellenistic dynasty since Alexander's demise. Hence, these struggles were quite impactful among intellectuals, making this detailed account of the Antigonid infighting a noteworthy instance.Footnote 37 Furthermore, the pairing of both of these conditions must be recognized as a rare case among our extant historical evidence, therefore supporting the need for a deeper consideration of their historiographical framing.
On Livy's didactic use of this historic episode, Lanciotti's 1982 article – devoted to the broader subject of curses in Livy's work from a narratological perspective – was decisively challenged by Briscoe's commentary on Livy's adaptation of Polybius in this particular chapter.Footnote 38 Nevertheless, Lanciotti's proposal does possess a compelling starting point when affirming a creative Livian reworking of Polybius’ account, our proposal here, however, being that attention must be brought to other passages of his narrative in order to sustain this original claim. Hence, the case can be made that Livy's structure and wording suggest a much more nuanced reworking than previously thought.
After carefully linking his presentation with an abridged Polybian tragic appraisal – ‘the mature offspring of a father blessed by fortune, had a sound mind but been his’Footnote 39 – the Roman historian presents a unique meditation on the Antigonid crisis, noting during the banquet discord among the brothers that: ‘There can be no secrets in internal strife. Each house was full of spies and traitors.’Footnote 40 The use here of discordia intestina by Livy is not vacuous phrasing, since discordia plays a critical role in his striving for an historical account capable of educating Roman readers on how to avoid civic breakdown and violence. Although in Books 21–45 discordia does play a minor role, especially compared to previous pentads regularly devoted to threats and crisis in Italy and Rome itself, they do occasionally provide opportunities to visit this important didactic theme, since the Antigonid quarrel is arguably an ideal one.Footnote 41 Throughout the speeches of Philip V, Perseus, and finally Demetrius, mutual accusations reveal the catastrophic consequences of ambition, lack of consensus, and, more notably, the absence of an institutional framework for an authority on which to rely for confident and successful decision-making.Footnote 42
Therefore, besides specific reworkings from Polybius, the Antigonid court quarrel shows distinctive signs of a more major integration inside Livy's historiographical aims than previously thought, mainly by way of emphasis on themes pertinent to his Roman audience.Footnote 43 Moreover, his conclusion for the whole Xanthika affair gains further weight if understood as an exemplar against inner discord: ‘Such, in general, were the seeds, so to speak, of the Macedonian war which were sown while Philip was still alive, but the war for the most part was to be waged with Perseus.’Footnote 44
For Polybius, this quarrel seems to converge with what is a Philip V's centred narrative and his thrice tragic downfall. According to him: ‘And while his mind was almost maddened by this thought, the quarrel of his sons burst into flames at the same time, Fortune as if of set purpose bringing their misfortunes on the stage at one and the same time.’Footnote 45 Conversely, in the case of the Roman historian, the episode deserves a rather linear attention, in order to expand on specific choices of words and arguments leading to such a powerful institutional ruin. What will follow – in Livy's perspective – is then but a natural consequence of a state hindered by a rooted civic vice, one already and thoroughly dissected by him in Rome's Republican development and, furthermore, cleverly exposed here as also a dynastic disease, wherein his Roman generation could find vivid emotions and warnings after the civil wars and the newly acquired Augustan settlement.Footnote 46
Now, since the Livian historiographical goal and source-managing for this episode has been proposed, the task of deciphering the specific Polybian use for the Xanthika of 182 bc can be properly addressed, since now it is possible to better differentiate the original story outlined by the Greek historian. As shown above, the tragic sense explicitly awarded to this episode has been a well discussed subject, but the exact Polybian historiographical role played within it by the Xanthika has been considerably neglected in comparison.Footnote 47 On this, some observations are in order.
As in many other cases, Polybius’ treatment of Philip V's unstable and vengeful character is crucial in how to read the inclusion of this ritual within this historical chapter. Throughout his work, the way in which the Antigonid king had shown himself to be an unjust (παρανόμημα) individual to the Achaean author is a recurrent theme, among which impiety (ἀσέβεια) is an especially frequent expression: at Thermus in 218 bc, after Philip V's army ravaged the Aetolian city, the act is severely judged:
And in fact, the king and his staff were fully convinced that, in thus acting, they were obeying the dictates of right and justice, by retaliating upon the Aetolians with the same impious outrages as they had themselves committed at Dium. But I am clearly of an opposite opinion.Footnote 48
Later, in 215 bc, Philip V attempted to seize Messene treacherously while sacrificing to Zeus;Footnote 49 in 205 bc, after his harsh treatment of the Cians, he allegedly ‘gained, throughout Greece, the reputation of an impious man (ἀσεβείᾳ δόξαν)’;Footnote 50 in 201 bc, Polybius again accused the Macedonian king at Pergamum of fighting ‘more against the gods than against man’;Footnote 51 and finally, just before 182 bc, he is accused of his criminal deportations and executions.Footnote 52 All of these cases portrayed the Antigonid king as a man acting completely opposite to expected religious behaviours and, more suggestive here, his figure is contrasted with the Macedonian kings and dynasties of old.Footnote 53 The episode of 182 bc is no exception, since several passages in Livy's text show similar Polybian reworked judgements.
Firstly, the starting speech made by Philip V to settle the crisis between the brothers sets the stage with a double reminder of the king's own impiety: on the one hand, he himself recognizes that ‘For a long time, indeed, I had been fearing this threatening storm, when I saw your looks at one another, looks in no wise brotherly, and when I heard certain words’.Footnote 54 And immediately after, remembering his own past efforts in trying to amend this apparently chronic infighting among them, he concludes:
Neither has the guilt of the former cases and the result, which was as horrible as the guilt, been able to deter you from your mad quarrelling nor the good feeling and good fortune which attended the latter to urge you to sanity…Nothing dear, nothing sacred, exists for you.Footnote 55
If the previous criticisms of Philip V by Polybius are taken into account here, then the story gains a poignant undertone: the Macedonian king, himself blind and deaf to his own impiety and wickedness throughout his life, seems to, simultaneously, be lucid enough to have foreseen such a crisis – by way of a cloud analogy already used at a critical point by Polybius, during an advisory speech offered to the young Macedonian king.Footnote 56 Moreover, he conveys the impression of being completely oblivious to the fact that his own life-example falls into the latter category of bad cases proposed by himself. Hence, Polybius’ tragic setting already seems coherent – if not skilled – within his own historical narrative, done here in order to efficiently convey knowledge and experience through a vivid image of a king and father utterly adrift.Footnote 57
Secondly, the king's speech, apparently aimed at explicitly unifying the whole episode with a careful character study by Polybius, is then followed by yet another historic reverberation, this time transmitting the sins of the father to his sons. For both princes exchange accusations of impiety, one having allegedly acted against the other at the sacred ritual of the Xanthika. Here, Demetrius’ words are the best to illustrate Polybius’ original emphasis:
Well, what sort of day was it? The day when the army was purified…was I, I say, then revolving in my mind murder, poisons, swords made ready for the revels – that I might find in what other rites expiation for a conscience stained with every crime?Footnote 58
This episode would have then cleverly exposed an important quality inherited by Philip V's sons: an utterly fatal impious nature.Footnote 59 By choosing that year's Xanthika as the critical outbreak of the dynastic Antigonid quarrel, Polybius could then properly follow and then relay his case against the Antigonid king, who was for him a shadow of his promising young years.Footnote 60 If, according to Demetrius’ words, such plotting and criminality were even thought to be have been planned during what was one of the most sacred rituals of their kingdom – the utmost impurity at the utmost pure celebration – then, there was no going back: Demetrius’ execution, Perseus’ failed assassination of Eumenes at sacred Delphi as well as his poisonous schemes, and, of course, the end of the entire dynasty fourteen years later. Polybius – it could then be easily inferred – would have wholeheartedly agreed with the prince's case.
Therefore, starting from past approaches applied to the Macedonian Xanthika and the above-mentioned limitations, a new historiographical appraisal of Polybius’ and Livy's versions seems to offer an enriched reading of both of these different accounts. For the former, the Xanthika would have played a key part in illustrating the historical level of tragedy and misfortune that fell upon the Antigonid royal house as a whole, leading to its unavoidable demise. For the latter, concerned at his time by a Roman audience well acquainted with the harmful effects of civic discord – as well as curious about the Roman virtuous expansionism – the Antigonid Xanthika was rehashed in order to provide an invaluable exemplar against unbridled ambition. Now, since both versions have been identified and broadly explained, it is possible to delve into yet another historiographical layer in Polybius’ version.
Inverted Imperial trajectories: the 182 bc Xanthika as a pivotal episode
Up to this point, the case has been made in favour of a neglected but rich historiographical purpose applied by both ancient historians to the Xanthika ritual and its royal consequences. However, beyond the well-defined and rather anecdotal importance sustained for both cases until now, there is still one last feature of the Xanthika in 182 bc to explore in Polybius’ wider historiographical patterns.
Among newer studies devoted to presenting a fresh take on the ancient structure and representation of the Antigonid kingdom, Emma Nicholson's work on Polybius’ historiographical perspective has recently addressed an important matter: starting from Champion's work on Polybian historiographical patterns and the construction and representation of power legitimacy in the Greek world, Nicholson has argued that the historian purposely built an interchanged correlation between Roman rise and Macedonian fall, with the ultimate goal of ideologically asserting its benefits for the safety of Greece, the success of the Achaean League, and the value of Hellenic virtues in foreign and domestic affairs.Footnote 61 Nicholson's Polybian inverse trajectories towards world dominion is most useful here, as Roman success ‘bears a reverse correlation with the key points in Philips's life and development in the Histories’.Footnote 62
Since Polybius’ cultural politics – or, perhaps, historical models of hegemonyFootnote 63 – could equate Philip V's character and kingship with the entire Macedonian politeia, the 182 bc Xanthika crisis might possess an even greater historiographical impact than previously thought, and as stated above. For there are at least three significant convergences in the Histories that allow us to expand on this proposal.
Firstly, regarding the overall Polybian correlation between individual leadership and collective, Philip V is thrice invoked as a devious example and, perhaps more importantly here, thrice accused of impiety and unbridled ambition towards the gods and men.Footnote 64 On one of these cases, when judging the alliance between Philip and the Antiochus against Ptolemy V, the historian uses a language much like that applied during the Xanthika crisis:
Who can look into this treaty as into a mirror without fancying that he sees reflected in it the image of all impiety towards the gods and all savagery toward men, as well as of the unbounded covetousness of these two kings?…as for their dynasties and successors she [Fortune] in one case brought utter destruction upon them and in the other calamities very nearly as grave.Footnote 65
These Polybian views on the Antigonid king are then to be understood within a greater historical frame deeply concerned by the collective consequences of personal statesmanship, hence furthering the idea of the Antigonid dynastic crisis of 182 bc as holding an ever more important significance in the Histories.
Secondly, in Book 6, Polybius dealt with the transition from kingship to tyranny, maintaining that security as well as luxuries give birth to excessive desires and ambitions.Footnote 66 In the same sense, already in Book 2, the historian stated that, if labelled as ‘tyrant’, ‘it would be difficult for anyone to bring a graver or more bitter accusation against a man. Why! the very word “tyrant” alone conveys to us the height of impiety and comprises in itself the sum of all human defiance of law and justice’.Footnote 67 Both tyrannical impiety and injustice seem to be key symptoms of a state gone wrong and, not surprisingly, the two are acutely present in the Xanthika crisis of 182: not only the brotherly rivalry tainted the sacred purificatory ritual of the dynasty, but it would continue by way of drunken behaviour during banquets – in itself a scenery typical of oligarchical misbehaviourFootnote 68 – and it ended in outrageous allegations against each other. Hence, Perseus’ words against his brother's alleged wickedness can clearly encapsulate Polybian theory applied here to a pivotal historic event:
You wish of course to be king. In the way of this ambition of yours stand my age, the rule of nations, the ancient custom of Macedonia, and indeed also the decision of our father. You cannot surmount these obstacles except by killing me. You try and attempt everything.Footnote 69
Likewise, Demetrius’ response offers an equally deranged depiction of Perseus, proclaiming to his father: ‘This same brother of mine has adduced, not only my influence with the Romans, but also the opinions of the Macedonians and the agreement, almost, of all gods and men.’Footnote 70 Therefore, both themes of Philip V's decaying kingdom and his tyrannical heirs appear to purposely converge in this episode.
Thirdly, in order to decisively associate the Xanthika crisis with Nicholson's thesis on the Rome–Macedonia interchanged pattern concerning world dominance, some above-mentioned elements must be now re-addressed. On the one hand, despite the ‘institutional approach’ having shown that the Xanthika was an important annual rite in the Antigonid kingdom, it is practically non-existent in Polybius’ treatment of Macedonia apart from this episode, making its lengthy detailing an exceptional decision and, as stated above, a matter of well-defined historiographical patterns and goals. Moreover, if Livy's abridged version is considered as an indication for Polybius’ original text, there would have been only three other merely anecdotal mentions in total: in 197 bc, soon before the battle of Cynocephalae, in 181 bc at Stoboi, and in 171 bc at Kyrros.Footnote 71 Among these, though practically ignored by the Roman historian, the two surrounding the dynastic crisis of 182 bc are noteworthy, since the first one is a preamble to one of the most decisive battles of the Roman eastern conquest, and the other followed the Xanthika crisis of 182 bc with yet another set of accusations, this time sealing Demetrius’ fate in his absence – again, impiously poisoned at the time of a royal sacrifice and a banquet.Footnote 72 Therefore, either considered alone or in accordance with Livy's text, by fully integrating the Xanthika crisis in his Histories, a thoughtful authorial decision by Polybius is unmistakable.
On the other hand, if the few surviving sources are to be trusted, the Macedonian Xanthika as a whole would hold great historical weight for a wide variety of Hellenic audiences. As Curtius’ account shows, the decisive discord between Perdiccas and Meleager in 323 bc erupted exactly during the Xanthika ceremonial, and ‘this proved to be both a forewarning and the commencement of civil war for the Macedonians’.Footnote 73 Consequently, the Xanthika crisis of 182 bc could be seen as a powerful historical echo and, more importantly, as Tyche's concoction, especially among the political and intellectual elite for whom the Histories was intended: like at the beginning of Macedonian world dominion, when two of Alexander's companions, moved by ambition, mistrust, and inner discord, desecrated both the ceremonial and Macedonian legitimacy, thus did Philip's heirs act at its definitive end.Footnote 74
Finally, there is the parading of arma insignia from the past kings of Macedonia.Footnote 75 Here, the historical resonance with the Xanthika of 323 bc receives an even deeper symbolical impact, since Polybius could use such genealogical display in order to further his theory of Antigonid demise as being part of an all-encompassing larger trajectory of decaying Macedonian world dominion. Already, in accusing Philip V's impiety at Thermum in 218 bc, the Greek historian shows an identical strategy, first claiming that ‘we have the material at hand for judging if I am right or not, by taking examples not from elsewhere but from the previous history of this royal house’,Footnote 76 followed by his exposing the examples of Antigonus III Doson, Philip II, and Alexander the Great, and then concluding:
though all through his life he was at great pains to prove that he was allied in blood to Alexander and Philip, he was not in the least anxious to show himself their emulator. Therefore, since his practices were the reverse of theirs, as he advanced in years his general reputation came to be also the reverse.Footnote 77
On that account, this parading of former glories was a perfect chance to remind Polybius’ audiences of the number and the calibre of royal examples against which the previous and subsequent Antigonid events would unfold. Moreover, in the same manner as in 323 bc, this symbolic march was an ideal allegorical device for synthesizing and marking the history and ending of an entire Hellenic experience under Macedonian rule, as a way of theatrically allowing a legitimate and respectable kingdom to ‘leave the stage’ before the bitter end.
Therefore, Philip V's unworthiness, his sons’ inherited tyrannical behaviour, the historical analogy with 323 bc, and the symbolic parade of an entire kingdom were all brought together there in 182 bc by Polybius as an inventive historiographical tactic; one capable of critically evoking, in this particular episode, a former glory and a subsequent crisis, hence consolidating an historiographical pattern within Philip V's kingship, his dynasty, and then the entire Macedonian empire. Conversely, with Flamininus’ victorious liberation, followed by Paullus’ ultimate victory and the festivities at Amphipolis and Rome, Roman virtuosity and constitutional excellence would have been well beyond doubt for the Achaean historian, allowing him – following Nicholson's theory – to exploit the Xanthika crisis of 182 bc as a ‘pivotal moment’ through which Polybius’ narrative strategy and ideological necessity could justify the final stages of Roman Hellenization and Macedonian barbarism.Footnote 78
Conclusions
Despite scattered sources and pronounced modern biases, the Xanthika ritual proves itself as a rich and exciting historic case study, especially when examined through its somewhat neglected historiographical implications in Polybius and Livy. Though complex, the work of deciphering the historians’ particular adaptations of the Macedonian ritual helps to further our understanding of the critical final stages of the first Roman eastern conquest, allowing us to obtain an even clearer and nuanced appraisal of its diverse actors and, most importantly, its ancient historiographical impacts for our modern readings of these dramatic and swift events. Moreover, when studying these ancient historians, it is then progressively more feasible to uncover seeming inconsistencies between narrative patterns and their expressions through particular historic events.
For Livy, the Xanthika ritual and its dynastic crisis of 182 bc played a double historiographical goal for his imperial audiences, both justifying the virtuous Roman victory over the perverted character of Perseus as well as exploiting the dynastic quarrel as a clear example of the fatal consequences of discord and ambition inside a ruling class. For Polybius, alongside his tragic overview and his detailed exposure of the eroding effects of tyrannical impiety in Tyche's favour and the punishment of Philip V and his dynasty, a third compelling historiographical layer is to be added: an episode symptomatic of a larger pattern of ideological justification of both Hellenized Roman imperial rule and barbarian Macedonian decay and fall.
There are, of course, considerable aspects with ample room for further development, such as a new approach to Fortune's well studied vengeful behaviour throughout Polybius’ work, but read as a carefully devised pattern with the 182 bc events at its core, or perhaps an extensive comparison between Perseus’ conflicting and impious character – as shown from 182 bc onwards – with Paullus’ behaviour and thoughts on concord and piety while defeating him and his kingdom. If anything, hopefully, far-reaching researchable avenues might benefit from this proposal for a modern reconsideration of a small yet distinctively powerful historic event.
