The Regnal Years of Antigonos Gonatas

A BSTRACT Although the decline of Demetrios I Poliorketes’ rule and the succession by his son Antigonos II Gonatas are well known in principle, inconsistencies in the ancient sources have so far obscured the dynastic chronology. However, difficulties can be overcome, if an inclusive count is applied persistently and if the Armenian version of Eusebios’ Chronicle (Porphyry FGH / BNJ 260 F 3), is preferred over the Greek version: the former ascribes Gonatas 43 regnal years, the latter 44. It can be shown that the latter is part of a tradition implying that Gonatas died in 239/38 instead of 240/39 BC. As a result, Demetrios I began his final campaign in Asia Minor in 286 or 285, was captured in spring 284, and died in 283/82 BC, whence Gonatas began counting his regnal years. The latter died in 239 BC, probably in the later summer, yielding the throne to his son Demetrios II.


I. INTRODUCTION
Thanks to the combined evidence of Plutarch's Life of Demetrios and Porphyry's Chronography, which is preserved in a shortened version in Eusebios' fragmentary Chronicle (FGH / BNJ 260 F 3) 1 , the approximate stages of the decline of the rule of Demetrios I Poliorketes and the staggered succession of his son Antigonos II Gonatas have always been known to a certain extent. Despite some uncertainty regarding the chronology, the timeline established by William Tarn and Mortimer Chambers was the standard until most recently: escaping the joint attacks by Pyrrhos and Lysimachos in Macedon in 288 BC, Demetrios I reorganized his forces in central Greece before launching an attack on Karia in the next or over-next year; he was arrested by Seleukos I Nikator in 286 or 285 and died in captivity in 284 or 283 BC. Gonatas had been in control of the central-Greek and Aegean remnants of the kingdom since Demetrios had turned east, but he had himself hailed king only when news of his father's passing reached him in 284 or 283 BC. Moreover, the same Porphyry-Eusebios account reports the death of Gonatas and the succession of Demetrios II in the first year of the 135th Olympiad (240/39 BC). So far runs a fair account of the traditional sequence of events 2 .
The uncertainty about Gonatas' first regnal is mirrored by the fact that the Armenian version of the Chronicle numbers the total as 43, whereas the Greek specifies it as 44. Since some level of imprecision thus appeared unavoidable, it appeared futile to consider in more detail the possible implication of the use of Olympiad years, which started in the course of July, and of the Macedonian year, whose first month normally fell into September / October. Scholars hence believed to have three choices all of which yielded nearly the same result: a) Gonatas became king in ca. 284, counted his regnal years (exclusively) as of the next calendar year starting in 283 and died in his 44th year that began in 240 BC.
b) Gonatas became king in ca. 283, counted his regnal years (exclusively) as of the next calendar year starting in 282 and died in his 43th year that began in 240 BC.
c) Gonatas became king in ca. 283, counted his regnal years immediately (inclusively) and died in his 44th year that began in 240 BC.

II. THE MAIN SOURCE FOR GONATAS' BIOGRAPHIC DATES: PORPHYRY-EUSEBIOS
As mentioned above, our most detailed source for the chronology of Gonatas' rule comes from the fragments of Porphyry's Chronicle that detail the succession of the kings of Macedon after Alexander. The relevant sections provide several Olympiad years, which will form the basis of a solid timetable, although we should not forget that Macedonian kings obviously counted their regnal years following the domestic Macedonian calendar. Porphyry's text has survived in the Armenian translation of Eusebios' Chronographia, which I here quote in David Toye's English translation of Felix Jacoby's German translation 9 : "(6) For the sons of Kassandros, the years of their reigns were numbered from the fourth year of the 120th Olympiad until the third year of the 121st Olympiad; and for Demetrios' reign (sc. the reign of Demetrios I in Macedon proper), six years from the fourth year of the 121st Olympiad (293/92 BC) until first year of the 123rd Olympiad (288/87 BC). (7) Pyrrhos … (8) … Lysimachos … (9) Immediately after Seleukos' victory, Ptolemy, who was named Keraunos or Thunderbolt, the son of Lagos and Eurydike, the daughter of Antipater, murdered him, who had been his benefactor when he had come to him as an exile; and Ptolemy himself ruled over the Macedonians. When he gave battle to the Galatians, he was killed after he had ruled for one year and five months, so that the time of his reign would be recorded from the fourth year of the 124th Olympiad (281/80 BC) to the fifth month of the first year of the 125th Olympiad (280/79 BC). (10) Meleager, Ptolemy's brother, … Antipater, Kassandros' nephew, (the "Etesian") …Sosthenes … (11) And the Macedonians would be without a ruler, because the followers of Antipater, Ptolemy, and Arrhidaios 10 , were competing for control, but there was not anyone to be appointed to manage their affairs. From the reign of Ptolemy (Keraunos) to the end of this period of anarchy is from the fourth year of the 124th Olympiad (281/80 BC) to the 126th Olympiad (276/75 BC) -six years 11 . Therein one finds Ptolemy Keraunos with a reign of one year and five months, Meleager, with two months, Antipater with 45 days, Sosthenes with two years, and the remaining time being recorded without a ruler. (12) When Antipater was plotting to seize the state, Antigonos (II), the son of Demetrios the City-Besieger and Phila, the daughter of Antipater, became the master of the kingdom. He was named Gonatas as he happened to be raised in Gonnos in Thessaly. Around 43 (or 44) years would be numbered to him. He had already been king before; the Macedonians had made him their king for a total of 10 years. He had been hailed as king in the second year of the 123rd Olympiad (287/86 BC), but by the Macedonians in the first year of the 126th Olympiad (276/75 BC). He was the one who subjugated the Greeks with a strong hand. He lived altogether for 83 years and he died in the first year of the 135th Olympiad (240/39 BC).
(13) His son Demetrios succeeded him and he seized all of Libya and made himself master of Kyrene 12 . Demetrios renewed entirely the monarchical dominion of his father; and he ruled for 10 years. ..."

III. THE END OF DEMETRIOS I AND THE BEGINNING OF GONATAS' KINGSHIP
It is immediately obvious that Porphyry drew on heterogeneous sources, meaning that the totals he provides are (at least in part) deriving from a diverse literary tradition and not from either a single consistent source or from a calculation based on the absolute year dates given in the extant narrative itself. This becomes apparent in § 11, which is dedicated to the Macedonian anarchy after the death of Lysimachos in 281 BC: the author drew on most detailed information, which he integrated into a chronologically consistent narrative, even though he was not able to specify every single timeslot within those six years. External information from Babylon provides a welcome confirmation of the precision for at least part of the dates 13 . The same section of the Chronographia also reveals that Porphyry's standard was to apply an inclusive count: the period of anarchy falls into six Olympiad years, so that he gives the total as "six years".
The situation is different for the account of the regnal years of Gonatas ( § 12): while also detailed and taken from a variety of sources, Porphyry fails in fully integrating the pieces of information. The first problem we should concern ourselves with is not the fact that the Armenian and Greek versions differ in specifying the total of "counted" regnal years as 43 and 44 respectively; we shall return to this question of textual transmission below. For now, it is more important to notice that neither total of regnal years is compatible with either the year in which Gonatas is said to have been acclaimed king (287/86 BC) or the year in which he first seized the throne of Macedon (276/75 BC). As already observed by Tarn and Chambers, the official count at the court of Gonatas started only after the death of his father 14 . This detail escaped Porphyry or at least Eusebios, although we should still appreciate the diligence of Porphyry's scholarship, or at least the reliability of most figures that Eusebios adduces. The specific formulation for the regnal year count, at least in the available translation, seems to imply an awareness of the discrepancy. Both ancient scholars would have known that differences between an effective and a counted timespan were not unusual, whether for ideological or calendaric reasons 15 . Likewise, the fragmentary account maintained the information that Gonatas had ruled for a decade before his arrival in Macedon. This figure must derive from a written source, since an 12 The account conflates Demetrios Kalos (the 'Fair'), the brother of Gonatas, who briefly ruled Libya with Apama and her daughter Berenike, and Demetrios II, but this does not affect the present chronological discussion. 13 The Babylonian King List (obv. ll. 6-8, ed., e.g., DEL MONTE 1997, 208f.) dates the murder of Seleukos I to the 6th month (Ululu) of his 25th regnal year, which, counted from 305/4 BC (Babylonian style), yields ca. August/September 281 BC. Porphyry Chron. FGH / BNJ 260 F 3.9, 11 implies that Keraunos began his rule in the first month of the Olympiad year 124.4, hence July/August 281 BC. 14 TARN 1913[1969], 112 n. 3 and 434 n. 6, and CHAMBERS 1954bcf. BURASELIS 1982, 151f.: "Aus dynastischem Kontinuitätsgefühl und seiner auch sonst bezeugten Loyalität gegenüber seinem Vater, hat Antigonos erst von dessen / Tod (283) an die Jahre seines eigenen Königtums zählen lassen, woran auch die spätere Gewinnung des makedonischen Throns… nichts änderte"; also see HAMMOND-WALBANK 1988, 582;RIGSBY 1996, 107 n. 6. 15 Compare, e.g., the experiments with the satrapal, regnal and era years during the rule of Seleukos I, on which see KOSMIN 2018, 26-30. For the construed and at times experimental nature of the Seleukid, Mithradatid and Prusiad time counts, see COŞKUN 2022. inclusive count of the calendar years would have yielded thirteen, if we calculate on the basis of the explicit Olympiad year in which Demetrios fled from Macedon in 288/87 BC ( § 9). However, further down in his account, Porphyry tells us that Gonatas' "kingship" (or rather rule, as we must correct him here, if we take the lower number of regnal years as a more reliable indicator of his status) began in 287/86 BC ( § 12). But not even this year yields a match, since Porphyry dates Gonatas' first seizure of the Macedonian throne to 276/75 BC, hence a timespan of twelve years, if counted inclusively. We are left with a couple of options here: a) The decade of early rule before counting regnal years ( § 12) may be a rounded or simply an inaccurate figure, and thus useless for our attempt to further specify the chronology. I hesitate to accept this.
b) The formulation (at least of the translated version) allows for the possibility that the original wording emphasized the completeness of the ten years, which would then allow for an exclusive count: ten full years plus a few days (or weeks) of the preceding and the following years. This remains a remote possibility.
c) If, however, we prefer to view the duration of ten years as correct, then we must count back (inclusively) from Gonatas' conquest of Macedon in 276/75 ( § 12), which will result in 285/84 BC as the beginning of his effective rule. In this case, "the second year of the 123rd Olympiad (287/86 BC)" would pertain to a different event that might have been understood as the right occasion for Gonatas' status upgrade. However, the importance of the year 287/86 BC should be connected with a piece of information in Plutarch, namely that "he left back his son in charge of Greece, while he himself aided Macedon and first attacked Lysimachos" (my own translation) 16  But there is another problem to account for, before a final decision can be made. Porphyry ( § 12) dates the death of Gonatas and hence the succession of Demetrios II to 240/39 BC. He adds ( § 13) that Demetrios II ruled for ten years. This timeframe is confirmed by Polybios, who also reveals that Demetrios II died around the same time the first Roman-Illyrian War began (2.44.1-2), namely in early spring 229 BC 20 . It should be obvious, however, that the period from 240/39 to 230/29 BC comprised not ten, but eleven years, at least if counted inclusively. Is there a way to reconcile these discrepancies?
The best solution I see is that the Polybian tradition (on which also Porphyry drew for the ten-year duration of Demetrios II's rule) actually dated the death of Gonatas and the ensuing succession to 239/38 BC. This would explain both the 44 years assigned to Gonatas ( § 12) and the ten years given to Demetrios ( § 13), each number counted inclusively. We can only speculate how this variation came about in the ancient years in the Syrian Chersonese, through inactivity and surfeit of food and wine, fell sick and died, in the fifty-fifth year of his life". In a footnote (ad locum), Perrin comments: "From 386 to 383 BC". 19 See above, nn. 2, 5 and 8 for references; also BURASELIS 1982, 108: "Obendrein dauerte ja bekanntlich das Königtum des Gonatas von 283 bis 239 (= 44 Jahre) und seine Regierung in Makedonien von 276 bis 239 (= 37 Jahre)". 20 For references to Demetrios II, see above, n. 2. There was no official co-rule before 239, despite distinguishing him with the marriage of Stratonike, the sister of Antiochos II (pace GABELKO-KUZMIN 2020, who regard her as his daughter), in the 250s and his leading some operations in the 240s; see ERRINGTON 1990, 171-173 (with 288 n. 42 against co-rule) and GABBERT 1997, 56-60. I only mention in passing that KUZMIN 2019, 64-66 claims two alternative regnal year counts for Demetrios II, one starting in 239 BC, the other in ca. 256 BC, the terminus ad quem for which Kuzmin surmises official co-rule with Gonatas (thus already WILL 1979, 344). But this view is based on attributing a manumission document (EKM 1.Beroia [=GOUNAROPOULOU-HATZOPOULOS 1998] 45, ll. 2-3: βασιλεύοντος Δημητρίου ἑβδόμου καὶ εἰκοστοῦ ἔτους, μηνὸς Περιτίου κτλ:) to Demetrios II. Since this is conflicting with the entire remaining evidence (unfolded by Kuzmin himself), we should rather identify the king with Demetrios I, whose regnal count thus seems to have begun with his effective co-rule with his father sometime in the 310s BC. historiographic tradition, but the most likely cause is a confusion between Macedonian and Olympiad year counts. If, for instance, Gonatas died in the late summer of 239 BC, this would still have fallen into the Macedonian year 240/39 BC, and thus yielded the total of 43 regnal years, as counted at the royal court of Pella; but to Greek historiographers who applied an Olympiad chronology, the death of Gonatas would have occurred in 239/38 BC, resulting in the aforesaid 44 and ten regnal years respectively.

V. EPILOGUE
It remains impossible to decide where exactly in the composition and transmission of Antigonid dynastic chronography such confusions happened or perhaps deliberate adaptations were made that might have been accurate in their original context, but misleading in the compiled context of Porphyry or fragmentary account of Eusebios. Be this as it may, we should regardless infer with a high level of confidence that the official succession from Demetrios I to Antigonos Gonatas occurred in 283/82 BC (both Macedonian and Olympiad). Moreover, we have the choice between accepting the 43year count in combination with the Macedonian year 240/39 BC for the passing of Gonatas and the alternative 44-year-calculation, which depends on 239/38 BC being the Olympiad year for the succession of Demetrios II 21 . Either way, Gonatas' 41st regnal year equals 243/42. The Koan theoroi hence visited the Greek cities through summer 242 BC.