In this article, the author intends to study the inner relationship of the powerstructure and policy, especially with regard to the Greeks, of Antigonus Monophthalmos whose kingdom "formed at once a bridge and a zone of division" (V. Ehrenberg) between the empire of Alexander and the Hellenistic states. The kingdom of Antigonus which was mainly in Asia Minor, seems in itself far from being "absolute Militarmonarchie" as U. Kohler once said. It was on more than an insecure body politic, lacking in national unity and the traditional foundation of central rule. In spite of his military aggrandizement, the main part of the military power he had to get from the soldiers of fortune, and this, too, added to the weakness of his kingship as "the mercenary kingdom". From B. C. 315 on, "the anti-Antigonus Front" of the other Successors (Diadochoi) (i. e. Ptolemy, Cassander and Lysimachus), notwithstanding the temporary truce of B. C. 311, was strengthened with time, and Antigonus, giving up finally his long-held idea of imperial re-unity, may have tended towards the consolidation of his territorial state. This was followed by a change in his Greek policy. Mere friendly relationship (φιλια) alone was no more satisfactory to him, and firm as well as active symmachy (συμμαχια) which would take final form in the Hellenic League of B. C. 302, was more and more required. A great mercenary force and the symmachy with the Greeks were thus, in fact, the two mainstays of Antigonus' "Kingdom of Asia Minor". His confederate policy towards the Greeks in support of their liberty and autonomy, was one vitally necessary for the fatal vulnerability of his kingdom itself, and he may have intended to form an inseparable "symbiotic" relation, primally military, between his kingdom and the Greek states in opposition to the Allied Front. The mercenary army and the symmachical confederates have some peculiar resemblance to each other. Both were highly unreliable and insecure, and both attached themselves to the present powerful leader (ηγεμων) only for gain. Antigonus' situation, definitely dependent on these two factors, no matter how brilliant his military successes were, made his kingship substantially floating and his kingdom inevitably ephemeral as well as transitional.
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