The king was the key figure in the royal administration. To him were addressed petitions by individuals and communities, and all major decisions were represented as emanating from the king himself. Not that the king stood
alone. The Seleucid king had an official in charge of the royal finances and also one general aide 'in charge of affairs'. To return to the Second Book of the Maccabees, the successor of Antiochus IV decided to reverse his father's
policy of forcible Hellenization of the Jews and wrote to 'his brother Lysias' to that effect. Lysias was not in fact the king's brother, but his assistant, holding various titles: 'brother', 'cousin', and 'in charge of affairs'.
Outside the court the king could act through a hierarchy of officials. The Seleucid kingdom was divided into a number of provinces (seventy-two in the time of Seleucus I), each under a governor; Lysias, for example, was
governor of southern Syria and Phoenicia when Antiochus IV died. Through the governors the king could carry out plans, specific or general. Antiochus III was responsible for initiating a cult of himself and his ancestors
throughout his kingdom; he later wrote to the governors of each province, informing them of the appointment of high priestesses of the queen in each province and instructing them to make the necessary arrangements. (There
happen to survive three copies of Antiochus' letter, from western Turkey and Iran. For the very different royal cults organized by cities see below, p. 336.) The governors then issued instructions to their deputies to carry out the
royal provisions.
In Egypt the royal administration was larger and more elaborate; the Ptolemies, in contrast to the Seleucids, had only three Greek cities in Egypt to provide a basic administrative framework. They therefore adopted the Pharaonic
organization of the country: Egypt was divided into about forty 'districts', each subdivided into 'areas' and 'villages'; each unit of each tier was the responsibility of a specific official. The Ptolemies added to this Pharaonic system
a new military organization with soldiers stationed throughout Egypt and a more complex taxation system.
The administration of both the Ptolemies and the Seleucids was staffed largely by Greeks, not by natives. The Seleucid ruling class completely excluded subject populations for about two generations; even after that it never
included more than about 2.5 per cent of non-Greeks. One exception shows how non-Greeks might be admitted in peculiar circumstances. The First Book of the Maccabees recounts how two rivals for the Seleucid throne
(Demetrius I and Alexander Balas) contended for the support of Jonathan, the Jewish leader. Alexander gave Jonathan a whole series of titles normally accorded only to Greeks - 'friend of the king', 'brother', 'first friend' - and
finally a gold brooch 'of the kind customarily presented to the cousins of the king'. Jonathan thus reached the highest grade of court dignitaries, and for a time he did indeed support Alexander Balas. Similarly in Egypt the forms
and language of the administration became Greek, and Egyptians were employed only so long as they learned Greek. The systems of royal administration thus served to reinforce both the dominance of Greek culture and the
power of the king. But courtiers and administrators stood on the backs of the soldiers.
Warfare was basic to the Hellenistic world, in two ways. First, the legitimacy of the Hellenistic king rested in part on his military prestige (contrast the individual city-state where authority rested on tradition). The king, like
Alexander and the Homeric heroes, was expected to take part in the hardships of campaigns and even in the dangers of combat. On one occasion the appearance of the king in battle inspired his men with courage and struck terror
into the enemy. Victory also justified the assumption of the title of king, as we have already observed. A successful military expedition to the East even allowed the Seleucid Antiochus III to be called 'the Great King'.
Secondly, the scope of warfare was enlarged. When conflict was simply between two neighbouring cities over disputed territory the implications of warfare were limited; by contrast, in the Hellenistic period there was everything
to fight for. Huge areas of land were regularly in dispute, even if the heartlands of each of the kingdoms remained secure throughout the period. The whole of mainland Greece, the Aegean islands, western Turkey, and southern
Syria were fought over by various kings. The greater scale of the prizes, in comparison with the classical period, was responsible for an increased brutality. The total destruction of cities and the enslavement of their citizens by
the kings became more common; the scale of Roman brutality towards Greece was even greater. The actual size of battles also increased. Whereas the decisive battle of Philip of Macedon against the Greeks at Chaeronea saw
forces on each side of about 30,000, the Hellenistic kings could range 60,000 to 80,000 troops against each other. This was the maximum size of army thought possible as late as the eighteenth century.
The fundamental importance of warfare for the kings entailed major changes in military organization. Even those features of warfare that went back into the fourth century were given a new importance. (See above, pp. 142f. for
the earlier developments.) Heavy-armed infantry (hoplites) had long been the basic fighting force of Greece; Philip's reorganization of the Macedonian army created an improved heavy-armed infantry (the phalanx) which
differed from the old primarily in replacing the short thrusting spear with a long pike (about 5.5 m. in the time of Alexander; about 6.5 m. a century later). This type of force, along with an important cavalry arm, formed the core
of the Hellenistic armies.