sense of how these ancient royal economies operated. Paul Millett has
recently explored the role of plunder in the Macedonian economy,
referring to the predatory powers of medieval European states as a
stage in the evolution offiscal mechanisms.^89 Plunder was certainly
always an option, and one that delivered easy pickings, sometimes on a
breath-taking scale—700T raised following the capture, by Philip II, of
180 Athenian grain ships at Hieron, on the northern approach to the
Bosporus, in 340bc(Theop.FGrH115 F115; Philoch.FGrH328 F162);^90
or 440T raised from the sale of prisoners, captured by Alexander III in
the sack of Thebes in 335bc(Diod. 17.14.1–4); and, most spectacularly
of all, the 180,000T (equal toc.235 tons of gold and 2,350 tons of
silver),^91 which is the sum of gold and silver acquired by Alexander III
from the Persian treasuries and temporarily stored at Ecbatana. The
sums recorded by historians were spectacular for the time, but their
very notoriety made these monies hard to hide. Much of this revenue
was sucked into the Roman treasury with the indemnities required by the
Roman authorities after the defeats of Philip V, Perseus, and the Seleukid
king, Antiochos III.^92 The military machine of the Argead kings, Philip II
and Alexander III, was formidable, but it was not equivalent to thefiscal
economy of the kingdom, or of the overall economy of classical and
Hellenistic Macedonia, or of neighbouring areas. Here we must distin-
guish between regional economies and the revenues acquired by extra-
territorial wars, even if part of those revenues didfind its way back to the
state treasury or to royal coffers. For many non-Macedonians, pillage
may have been a prominent concomitant of Argead military endeavours,
but it was not necessarily the most important or the most enduring one.
John Davies has proposed that plunder should be subsumed under a
(^89) Millett 2010, 503 n.119, citing Bonney and Ormrod 1999, 1–21, and Millett’s general
discussion of plundered revenue, 488–504.
(^90) HMII, 576 n.3; Gabrielsen 2007; Archibald (forthcoming b/); see further Ch. 5.
(^91) De Callataÿ 2012 has corrected the equivalent sum of 4,680T of silver, which would
produce an unlikely gold–silver ratio of 10:1.
(^92) Bresson 2005a, 56–66 for discussion; Alexander’s acquisitions at Persepolis: de
Callataÿ 1989 and de Callataÿ et al. 1993; Aemilius Paullus found 6,000T in Perseus’
treasury but the overall sum acquired in booty was far greater: 120,000,000 sesterces (=
5,000T) according to Livy; 210,000,000 according to Velleius Paterculus (Plb. 18.35.4; cf.
Livy, 45.40.1ff. (citing Valerius Antias) Vell. Paterc. 1.9.6); Plutarch,Aemilius32.8 refers to
750 vessels, each containing 3T of coined silver (= 2,250T) as a component of the triumphal
procession (de Callataÿ 2006a, 73 for detailed discussion); Antiochos III was ordered to pay
15,000 talents, 2,000 of which were spaced over twelve years, as part of the negotiations that
resulted in the Treaty of Apamea (Plb. 21.17.1–6; 42.19–21; Liv. 37.45.4–21; 55.1–3; 38.38;
App.Syr.38–39), as well as 500,000medimnoiof grain, which Bresson calculates as
equivalent to the value of 333 1/3 T (Bresson 2005a, 60 and n.14; cf. Bresson, 195–6); de
Callataÿ 2006a, 70–4, for a conspectus of triumphal booty.
78 Herdsmen with golden leaves—narratives and spaces