History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [133]
There was widespread social discontent and fear of revolution. The wages of free labour fell, presumably owing to the competition of eastern slave labour; and meantime the prices of necessaries rose. One finds Alexander, at the outset of his enterprise, having time to make treaties designed to keep the poor in their place. 'In the treaties made in 335 between Alexander and the States of the League of Corinth it was provided that the Council of the League and Alexander's representative were to see to it that in no city of the League should there be either confiscation of personal property, or division of land, or cancellation of debt, or liberation of slaves for the purpose of revolution.'7 The temples, in the Hellenistic world, were the bankers; they owned the gold reserve, and controlled credit. In the early third century, the temple of Apollo at Delos made loans at ten per cent; formerly, the rate of interest had been higher.8
Free labourers who found wages insufficient even for bare necessities must, if young and vigorous, have been able to obtain employment as mercenaries. The life of a mercenary, no doubt, was filled with hardships and dangers, but it also had great possibilities. There might be the loot of some rich eastern city; there might be a chance of lucrative mutiny. It must have been dangerous for a commander to attempt to disband his army, and this must have been one of the reasons why wars were almost continuous.
The old civic spirit more or less survived in the old Greek cities, but not in the new cities founded by Alexander—not excepting Alexandria. In earlier times, a new city was always a colony composed of emigrants from some one older city, and it remained connected with its parent by a bond of sentiment. This kind of sentiment had great longevity, as is shown, for example, by the diplomatic activities of Lampsacus on the Hellespont in the year 196 B.C. This city was threatened with subjugation by the Seleucid King Antiochus III, and decided to appeal to Rome for protection. An embassy was sent, but it did not go direct to Rome; it went first, in spite of the immense distance, to
Marseilles, which, like Lampsacus, was a colony of Phocaea, and was, moreover, viewed with friendly eyes by the Romans. The citizens of Marseilles, having listened to an oration by the envoy, at once decided to send a diplomatic mission of their own to Rome to support their sister city. The Gauls who lived inland from Marseilles joined in with a letter to their kinsmen of Asia Minor, the Galatians, recommending Lampsacus to their friendship. Rome, naturally, was glad of a pretext for meddling in the affairs of Asia Minor, and by Rome's intervention Lampsacus preserved its freedom—until it became inconvenient to the Romans.9
In general, the rulers of Asia called themselves 'Phil-Hellene', and befriended the old Greek cities as far as policy and military necessity allowed. The cities desired, and (when they could) claimed as a right, democratic self-government, absence of tribute, and freedom from a royal garrison. It was worth while to conciliate them, because they were rich, they could supply mercenaries, and many of them had important harbours. But if they took the wrong side in a civil war, they exposed themselves to sheer conquest. On the whole, the Seleucids, and the other dynasties which gradually grew up, dealt tolerably with them, but there were exceptions.
The new cities, though they had a measure of self-government, had not the same traditions as the older ones. Their citizens were not of homogeneous origin, but were from all parts of Greece. They were in the main adventurers like the conquistadores or the settlers in Johannesburg,