Recent Research on Ancient Macedonia
Recent Research on Ancient Macedonia

Summary/Abstract: The researches based exclusively on the literary tradition could not describe satisfactorily the political, social, economic and administrative structures of the Macedonian state. New epigraphic evidence discovered on the territory of the Macedonian kingdom in the last decades, linked with the literary information, outlined a more concrete and a more detailed image on the organisation of ancient Macedonia. Remarkable progress has been made in examining the role of the urban centres in the history of he kingdom and also in defining the relations between monarchy and the communities structured after the poliadic model, founded either by the Macedonian kings or conquered and annexed to the kingdom. The inscriptions certify the granting of individual estates within the cities of Kasandreia and Kalindonia by the Macedonian kings, as well as the guarantee of some fiscal immunities. The most interesting case is that of the city of Amphipolis, where epigraphic documents certify the existence of a royal governor, epistates, probably in charge after the city was conquered by Philipp II. Besides the king’s representative, structures typical to a Hellenistic polis are certified at Amphipolis. Urban autonomy was probably allowed in certain limits, depending on the Crown’s interests and, according to some historians, every Macedonian city was supervised by an epistates. In the light of these new data, the relations between the Seleucid or Attalid kingdoms and the Asian cities have a precedent in Philipp II and Alexander’s policy and it represents, in fact, the implementation of a pre-existent model. The epigraphic sources discovered in the last years have also contributed to clarifying some very useful details on the military organisation of Hellenistic Macedonia. Three inscriptions discovered at Amphipolis, Chalkis and Kynos contain settlements on the officers’ responsibilities regarding troops, soldiers’ pay and equipping the army. A regulation for recruiting soldiers was discovered in two identical copies at Amphipolis and Kassandreia. Approximately, the document was dated at the end of the 3rd century BC, but probably it describes conditions already in use. The economic status and the age conditioned the participation of the individual in various regiments of the Macedonian army, as the two epigraphic sources demonstrate.

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