11.5.19
This is going to be a shorter entry, since I mainly have 2.5 points to hit on.
One is that apparently people/persons named Phocus have issues. Between the Byzantine emperor who disempowered the MILITARY (while facing invaders) because he was worried about a mutiny to whoever had the bright idea of taking all of Delphi’s money. Yikes. But then again, no one would say anything if it had gone well (i.e. Heraclius (I think) who took the churches fine objects to get some liquid currency).
Also, I think it’s funny that Greeks (at least of those I’ve encountered) pretty much claim Macedonia only in regards to Alexander the Great. Two summers ago we had the whole thing with letting Macedonia into the EU and Greece was not for it. My cousins thought it was ridiculous and when we drove up to Poteidaia a lot of things were named for Macedonia since apparently that matters. Then again, looking at the map, Macedonia was partly within modern Greece’s soldiers.
Speaking of Greeks claiming Macedonia to be Greece exclusively in the context of Alexander the Great when my dad came to the states and started working, his boss wound up ripping him off (something shady with payments for seeing patients) and my dad’s response to him, upon finding out, was “Alexander the Great did not leave Greece to go and conquer most of the known world for me to come here and be a slave to you.”
That cracks me up.
And because apparently it wouldn’t be one of my blog posts if I didn’t have a ????????????? about women’s role in ancient times (since we need to piece together how they were viewed not by writing since that doesn’t even tell half the story when you account for illiteracy and lost texts): Polygamy.
So. We have some issues here.
If women are property, i.e. status symbols, having many wives is good, yes? Although you may run into issues where having too many children (if each woman averaged eight pregnancies) and dividing your wealth among too many people, from a status view it should be good.
However, a woman’s, shall we say, owner (i.e. father) shouldn’t want his daughter to be one of many wives because as just discussed, there goes any chance of grandchildren holding substantial influence.
So why did Macedonian aristocrats go for this? I could see polygamy for poor women-->rich men (not aristocrats, just those who had money and wanted more status symbols). That would make sense.
But for aristocrats, whose daughters should be valuable tools, that’s odd. Marriage alliances make sense because theoretically one only takes so many spouses. One, maaaaybe two, three if you’re really desperate, and four if you want the pope to spit on your grave (I know Christianity isn’t around but do I get a pass since Nagel keeps mentioning God?) My point stands. So sending off a daughter to make peace is okay, because your dynasty gains influence in a generation or so. But that guarantee is gone if a man can take as many wives as he wants. There’s no incentive to send off “quality” women since you’re effectively diminishing the importance of your aristocratic family. There’s no “cost” to the man marrying.
Anyway, I’m unclear on why polygamy was a viable strategy for Philip, and since it was, why the heck didn’t the Greeks do that sooner, if, the sentiment at the time, was women were something less than independent thinking creatures.