Collected Papers on Alexander the Great 0415711398, 9780415711395

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Collected Papers on Alexander the Great
Copyright Page
Contents
List of illustrations
Foreword by Richard Stoneman
Introduction: Eugene N. Borza
1. ‘Alexander the Great and the Unity of Mankind’. Historia 7 (1958), 287–306
2. ‘The Eunuch Bagoas’. Classical Quarterly n.s. 8 (1958), 144–52
3. ‘The Death of Parmenio’. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 91 (1960), 324–338
4. Review of L. Pearson, The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great. Gnomon 33 (1961), 660–67
5. ‘Harpalus’. Journal of Hellenic Studies 81 (1961), 16–43
6. ‘Alexander the Great and the Loneliness of Power’. Australasian Universities Modern Languages Association (1962), 80–91
7. ‘The Death of Philip II’. Phoenix 17 (1963), 244– 250
8. ‘The Date of Clitarchus’. Proceedings of the African Classical Association 8 (1965), 5–11
9. ‘Orientals in Alexander’s Army’. Journal of Hellenic Studies 85 (1965), 160–161
10. ‘Alexander the Great and the Greeks of Asia’. Studies in Honour of V. Ehrenberg (Blackwell 1966), 37–69
11. ‘Agis III’. Hermes 95 (1967), 170–192
12. ‘A King’s Notebooks’. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 72 (1968), 183–204
13. ‘Nearchus the Cretan’. Yale Classical Studies 24 (1975), 147–170
14. Review of K. Kraft, Der ‘rationale’ Alexander. Gnomon 47 (1975), 48–58
15. ‘The Battle of the Granicus’. Ancient Macedonia 2 (1977), 271–293
16. ‘The Deification of Alexander the Great’. Studies in Honour of Charles Edson , Institute of Balkan Studies (1981), 27–71
17. ‘Greeks and Macedonians’. Studies in the History of Art 10 (Symposium series 1) (1982), 33–51
18. ‘Alexander at Peucelaotis’. Classical Quarterly 37 (1987), 117–128
19. ‘The Ring and the Book’. Festschrift G. Wirth, ed. W. Will (1988), 605–625
20. ‘Agis III: Revisions and Reflections’ in I. Worthington (ed) Ventures into Greek History (Oxford University Press 1994), 258–292
21. ‘Alexander the Great between Two Thrones and Heaven’ in A. Small (ed) Subject and Ruler; Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement 17 (1996), 11–26
22. ‘The King’s Indians’. Antiquitas 46 (1998), 205– 224
23. ‘A Note on the “Alexander Mosaic”’ in F. B. Titchener and R. F. Morton Jr (eds), The Eye Expanded (University of California Press 1999), 75–92
24. ‘Conspiracies’ in A. B. Bosworth and E. J. Baynham (eds), Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction (Oxford University Press 2000), 50–95
25. ‘Darius III’. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 100 (2000), 241–67
26. ‘Plutarch’s Unconfessed Skill’ in Th. Hantos (ed) Laurea Internationalis, Festschrift. J. Bleicken (Franz Steiner Verlag 2003), 26–44
27. ‘Once More the Death of Philip II’ in Ancient Macedonia VII, Institute of Balkan Studies (2007), 389–406
Index

Citation preview

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COLLECTED PAPERS ON ALEXANDER THE GREAT

Professor Ernst Badian (1925–2011) was one of the most influential Alexander historians of the twentieth century. His first articles on the subject appeared in 1958, and he continued for a full fifty years to reshape scholarly perception of the reign of Alexander the Great. A steady output of articles was reinforced by lectures and reviews in his own formidable style. Badian’s earliest work transformed understanding of aspects of the Roman Republic, and he continued to work on that area throughout his career; but his series of studies of Alexander the Great (which he deliberately never summed up in a synoptic work) demolished the hero of his predecessors such as Droysen and Tarn, whom he regarded as starry-eyed heroworshippers, and created an Alexander on the model of a twentieth-century tyrant. The Alexander who was a ruthless killer of his rivals and those who disagreed with him, a mass-murderer in his conquests, and perhaps even an incompetent imperialist, has superseded the Alexander whose mission it was to bring Greek civilization to the ends of the earth. These essays and articles provide a new layer in the interpretation of a figure who has not ceased to fascinate since his death in 323 BC. Many of these articles were published in out-of-the-way journals and conference volumes, and are brought together here for the first time in a collection which will provide student and scholar with a view of the full range of Badian’s work on Alexander. Certain ephemeral pieces and all reviews except one have been excluded, by the wish of the author. The twenty-seven articles included were all revised by the author before his death, but there has been no other editorial intervention. The volume also includes a portrait, and an introduction by Eugene Borza surveying Badian’s career and contribution. No one who works on Alexander the Great can afford to be without this book. Ernst Badian was John Moors Cabot Professor of History (Emeritus) at Harvard University, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 1999 he received the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art. In 1974 he was instrumental in founding the Association of Ancient Historians, the largest and most influential society for the study of ancient history in North America. Eugene N. Borza is Professor Emeritus, the University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Ernst Badian at the Macedonian capital of Pella, 1973. Photo courtesy of Eugene N. Borza.

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COLLECTED PAPERS ON ALEXANDER THE GREAT

Ernst Badian

This collection first published 2012 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2012 The Estate of Ernst Badian. The right of Ernst Badian to be identified as the author has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Badian, E. Collected papers on Alexander the Great / Ernst Badian. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Alexander, the Great, 356–323 B.C. 2. Greece—History— Macedonian Expansion, 359–323 B.C. I. Title. DF234.B284 2012 938'.07092—dc23 2011036811 ISBN: 978-0-415-37828-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-12526-7 (ebk) Typeset in Baskerville by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

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To Richard Stoneman Scholar and Promoter of Scholarship

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CONTENTS

x xi

List of illustrations Foreword RICHARD STONEMAN

xiii

Introduction EUGENE N. BORZA

1 ‘Alexander the Great and the Unity of Mankind’. Historia 7 (1958), 287–306

1

2 ‘The Eunuch Bagoas’. Classical Quarterly n.s. 8 (1958), 144–52

20

3 ‘The Death of Parmenio’. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 91 (1960), 324–338

36

4 Review of L. Pearson, The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great. Gnomon 33 (1961), 660–67

48

5 ‘Harpalus’. Journal of Hellenic Studies 81 (1961), 16–43

58

6 ‘Alexander the Great and the Loneliness of Power’. Australasian Universities Modern Languages Association (1962), 80–91

96

7 ‘The Death of Philip II’. Phoenix 17 (1963), 244–250

106

8 ‘The Date of Clitarchus’. Proceedings of the African Classical Association 8 (1965), 5–11

113

vii

CONTENTS

9 ‘Orientals in Alexander’s Army’. Journal of Hellenic Studies 85 (1965), 160–161

120

10 ‘Alexander the Great and the Greeks of Asia’. Studies in Honour of V. Ehrenberg (Blackwell 1966), 37–69

124

11 ‘Agis III’. Hermes 95 (1967), 170–192

153

12 ‘A King’s Notebooks’. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 72 (1968), 183–204

174

13 ‘Nearchus the Cretan’. Yale Classical Studies 24 (1975), 147–170

193

14 Review of K. Kraft, Der ‘rationale’ Alexander. Gnomon 47 (1975), 48–58

211

15 ‘The Battle of the Granicus’. Ancient Macedonia 2 (1977), 271–293

224

16 ‘The Deification of Alexander the Great’. Studies in Honour of Charles Edson, Institute of Balkan Studies (1981), 27–71

244

17 ‘Greeks and Macedonians’. Studies in the History of Art 10 (Symposium series 1) (1982), 33–51

282

18 ‘Alexander at Peucelaotis’. Classical Quarterly 37 (1987), 117–128

311

19 ‘The Ring and the Book’. Festschrift G. Wirth, ed. W. Will (1988), 605–625

325

20 ‘Agis III: Revisions and Reflections’ in I. Worthington (ed) Ventures into Greek History (Oxford University Press 1994), 258–292

338

21 ‘Alexander the Great between Two Thrones and Heaven’ in A. Small (ed) Subject and Ruler; Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement 17 (1996), 11–26

365

viii

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CONTENTS

22 ‘The King’s Indians’. Antiquitas 46 (1998), 205–224

386

23 ‘A Note on the “Alexander Mosaic”’ in F. B. Titchener and R. F. Morton Jr (eds), The Eye Expanded (University of California Press 1999), 75–92

404

24 ‘Conspiracies’ in A. B. Bosworth and E. J. Baynham (eds), Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction (Oxford University Press 2000), 50–95

420

25 ‘Darius III’. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 100 (2000), 241–67

457

26 ‘Plutarch’s Unconfessed Skill’ in Th. Hantos (ed) Laurea Internationalis, Festschrift. J. Bleicken (Franz Steiner Verlag 2003), 26–44

479

27 ‘Once More the Death of Philip II’ in Ancient Macedonia VII, Institute of Balkan Studies (2007), 389–406

496

Index

512

ix

ILLUSTRATIONS

18.1 21.1 22.1 22.2 22.3 22.4 22.5 22.6 23.1

23.2

The Indus region Plan of Pasargadae Persepolis, Apadana, Eastern Stairway. Procession no. XIV: The Gandarans(?) Persepolis, Apadana, Eastern Stairway. Procession no. XVIII: The Maka Persepolis, Apadana, Eastern Stairway. Procession no. XXIII: The Ethiopians Persepolis, Façade of Artaxerxes I. Indian Delegation from Hindush French drawing of the Indian Delegation from Hindush Herzfeld’s drawing of the Indian Delegation from Hindush The ‘Alexander Mosaic’. Originally from the House of the Faun, Pompeii, now in the Museo Archeologico-Nazionale di Napoli. © Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library / Alamy Alexander pursuing Darius. Apulian amphora from Ruvo, attributed to the ‘Darius Painter’, c. 330 BC, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (3220). © The Art Archive / Alamy

x

312 377 393 394 395 396 397 397

405

408

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FOREWORD

Professor Ernst Badian (1925–2011) was one of the most influential Alexander historians of the twentieth century. His contribution began with the publication of two articles in 1958, ‘Alexander the Great and the Unity of Mankind’ and ‘The Eunuch Bagoas’. He continued for a full fifty years to reshape scholarly perception of the reign of Alexander the Great.1 A steady output of articles was reinforced by lectures and reviews in his own formidable style. I had been aware of his work since undergraduate days, and when I was working as an editor at Routledge I conceived the idea that it would be useful to bring together between two covers his many contributions to this subject, which were published often in relatively inaccessible places, such was the demand for his work. Professor Badian was a founding father of the Association of Ancient Historians, which I joined in the 1980s; at one of its meetings I was able to talk with him about my idea, and over the years (perhaps decades) it matured in his mind (with, I believe, gentle prodding from me) until he professed himself ready to sign an agreement with Routledge for such a volume. The contract was signed in January 2005. Professor Badian made a selection of articles which excluded certain categories of writing, in particular all reviews except one, which he regarded as having independent scholarly value. He also omitted contributions to survey volumes2 and a number of shorter, often polemical pieces, many of them published in ZPE. Professor Badian originally proposed both to update and revise the articles and to add short introductory paragraphs to each piece. The latter plan was dropped but the updating proceeded steadily, though slowly. The task of updating, and of assembling the illustrations, was complete a few months before his death. His handwriting, cramped but carefully formed, provided an interesting challenge to the copy-editor. Because of these revisions (which are numerous but in most cases not very extensive) no attempt has been made in this book to indicate the original pagination of the articles. No other scholar’s hand has touched these articles, and there has been no editorial intervention to add anything beyond what the author chose to add. However, anyone referring to Badian’s 1965 piece on ‘The Date of Clitarchus’ xi

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will want to be aware of the publication in 2008 of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 4808, which appears to mention the historian as a tutor to Ptolemy IV (244–205 BC). Professor Badian had intended to write an introduction to the volume, though in letters to me and my successor he expressed doubt as to what should go into such an essay. The Fates removed the necessity that he should make a decision. Professor Gene Borza’s introduction provides the facts without the shading that modesty would have given to an autobiographical treatment. I was extremely proud that, on May 28, 2008, Professor Badian wrote to me that he wished to dedicate the volume to me in the terms indicated on the halftitle. It is the last book with which I have had any editorial involvement at Routledge, and I could not have chosen a better conclusion to my work. Richard Stoneman

Notes 1 It goes without saying that Badian was equally formidable as an historian of the Roman Republic. A count of his bibliography on JSTOR gives a total of 197 items, across both fields of study. It is only his work on Alexander that concerns us here. 2 ‘The Administration of the Empire’, Greece and Rome 12 (1965), 166–82; ‘Alexander the Great 1948–1967’, Classical World 65 (1971), 37–56 and 77–83; ‘Some recent interpretations of Alexander the Great’, Entretiens Hardt 22 (1976), 279–311; ‘Alexander in Iran’, Cambridge History of Iran II (1985), 420–501. He also omitted ‘The First Flight of Harpalus’, Historia 9 (1960), 245–6, no doubt as having been superseded by his JHS article of 1961 on the same subject.

xii

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INTRODUCTION

On February 1, 2011, Ernst Badian died as the result of injuries suffered in a fall in his Quincy, Massachusetts, home. He was 85. In the scholarly community the news of Badian’s death was greeted with shock and dismay. Students and colleagues alike mourned the passing of a major force in Greek and Roman historical scholarship during the second half of the twentieth century. He is survived by his wife, Nathlie, whom he met and married after having settled in Canterbury, New Zealand. His immediate family includes a son, a daughter and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Badian and his parents had escaped the persecution of Jews in his native Austria, and eventually found a haven in New Zealand where they settled in 1939. His undergraduate and master’s degree were taken at the University of Canterbury, and he then moved to University College, Oxford, where he earned additional bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Following a period of study abroad, he returned to Oxford, where he was awarded a doctor of philosophy degree in 1956. Badian held academic positions at several universities in the United Kingdom and United States, eventually settling into Harvard, where he taught from 1971 until his retirement in 1998. Badian’s doctoral work was published (1958) as Foreign Clientelae (264–70 B.C.), a work that many scholars still consider to be his magnum opus. In Foreign Clientelae Badian applied a principle long understood as a basic component of Roman political life—the patron–client relationship—to the study of Roman foreign policy. Briefly put, patrons were those in positions of power and influence and thereby able to assist clients who needed help in dealing with the upper reaches of the political and social order. In return for their patrons’ assistance the clients agreed to support the ambitions and policies of their patrons. At its most functional, it was a mutually beneficial situation. Badian applied the principles of the patron–client relationship to an understanding of Roman foreign policy during the period of rapid Roman expansion. Foreign states and peoples became clients of prominent Roman individuals or of the Roman state itself. Foreigners were given the benefits of Roman protection in return for which they offered loyalty and assistance to Rome in military and administrative matters. Badian’s extension of the internal dynamics of the patron–client relationship to the spread of xiii

INTRODUCTION

Roman power in the Mediterranean world had an immediate and dramatic effect on our understanding of Roman history. His work on the Roman Republic continued with the publication of Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic (1967; 2nd ed. 1968) and Publicans and Sinners (1972), thereby marking 1958 to 1972 as an unusually productive and influential period of scholarship on Roman history.1 While his monographs deal mainly with the history of the Roman Republic, a full bibliography of hundreds of his articles, technical notes, and reviews reveals an interest in many diverse aspects of the ancient Mediterranean world. In the same year that marked the publication of Foreign Clientelae two articles on Alexander appeared (nos. 1 and 2 in the present collection), suggesting that he had been thinking about Alexander-related matters for some time. These 1958 articles were destined to create a revolution in Alexander studies. The first half of twentieth-century scholarship on Alexander had been dominated by—roughly speaking—two streams of thought. One was centered in Germany, and had evolved from the powerful portrait of Alexander provided in 1833 by Johann Gustav Droysen, widely regarded as the father of the modern critical historical method. Droysen had worked on behalf of German national unity, and he saw parallels between the fractious politics of the ancient Greek states and the modern German states. For Droysen, the Macedonian king Philip II was—through war and diplomacy—the great unifier of the Greek city-states, and his son, Alexander, the agent for the spread of Greek civilization. Droysen vigorously propounded Alexander as the agent of Hellenism, first by bringing unity to Greece, and then by enacting a fusion between Greek and Asian cultures east of the Aegean. It was a vision rooted in Droysen’s promotion of the unification of the German states and the power of German culture. While many of the details of Droysen’s argument have been modified or rejected, the main idea of Alexander as a world-mover has remained. The residue of Droysen’s arguments, his Prussian nationalism, and his monarchist beliefs influenced generations of German scholars. The other major force was William Woodthorpe Tarn. Tarn was trained as a lawyer but poor health forced him to retire from practice. He settled onto his Scottish estate and devoted himself to a full career of scholarship with major publications on the Hellenistic era. He produced an account of Alexander that appeared in the first edition of the Cambridge Ancient History (1926). Many of Tarn’s views were controversial, especially among German scholars, and he responded to his critics by producing a two-volume study of Alexander (1948). The first volume is little more than a reprint of his 1926 Cambridge Ancient History chapters on Alexander, while the second is an impressive detailed series of scholarly studies supporting his views. Tarn argued that two major ancient traditions about Alexander underlie the surviving narrative sources. One was hostile, having grown—as Tarn put it—out of the resentment of the philosophical schools which saw Alexander as a good king who had gone bad. He called this the ‘Peripatetic School.’ Tarn argued that this tradition was untrustworthy, and xiv

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INTRODUCTION

he attempted to replace it with an idealized portrait of Alexander, a king who, as one modern critic put it, ‘was gentlemanly and sporting . . . with the extreme views toward life and death and honor, and temperance in love and wine which are associated with the English gentry.’ Tarn thereby rejected as hostile the ancient evidence that Alexander possessed an inordinate fondness for drink, was bisexual, was devious in policy, and often displayed a cruel and sometimes deadly temper. He argued that, in addition to displaying his military genius—a view which up to this day seems beyond dispute—Alexander’s goal was nothing less than the establishment of the ‘Brotherhood of Man’ in which citizens of a universal State would be led by a coalition of the two ruling peoples of Europe and Asia: Macedonians and Persians. Tarn’s was a grand vision and it permeated the popular consciousness because, one supposes, it was presented in the immediate aftermath of World War I, whose carnage had disillusioned so many persons. This idealistic portrait found its way into schoolbooks and the popular literature on Alexander, and it became the most widely accepted image of Alexander until Badian’s arrival on the scene.2 Badian’s work began to modify the standard German interpretation, not by denying the importance of Alexander as a major historical figure, but rather by examining in detail the views of Tarn and others who promulgated a vision of Alexander as a philosopher-king. Badian’s two 1958 articles on Alexander were the foundation blocks of a revolution in scholarship on Alexander. Badian’s method is clear: he examined in detail the ancient evidence upon which Tarn built his case promoting Alexander’s plan to establish (to use Tarn’s phrase) the ‘Brotherhood of Man.’ Badian showed that Tarn’s views often misrepresented the evidence, were sometimes self-contradictory, and were without support in the ancient evidence. Badian showed that Tarn’s use of the evidence was marked by ‘mistranslation . . . misdirection . . . free imaginative interpretation where its restrictions and precision are irksome, and vague use of words charged with emotion—those, so far, have turned out to be the methods by which the image of Alexander the universalist philosopher are built up.’ In his article on Bagoas, Badian described how Tarn went to extraordinary lengths to propose that the ancient evidence alluding to a sexual relationship with the Persian eunuch Bagoas is the result of the so-called ‘Peripatetic’ tradition of hostility toward the king. In a closely reasoned argument Badian revealed numerous flaws in Tarn’s use of evidence, even while admiring the ‘brilliance and integrity of scholars like Tarn.’ That is, Badian limited his adverse criticism precisely to the subject at hand, and not ad hominem. This proved to be one of the hallmarks of Badian’s writing, that he rarely permitted his often stern criticism of his colleagues’ scholarship to mar otherwise respectful and even sometimes friendly relationships.3 In the end, Badian’s most enduring legacy was the precision with which he wielded his intellectual scalpel, bolstered by unusual competence in both ancient and modern languages, a powerful intellect, and a formidable memory both for what he himself had written and for what he had read of others’ work. His scholarship has had a profound influence on the methodology used in the study of ancient history. xv

INTRODUCTION

One of the least-known articles produced by Badian appeared in the same year as his Unity of Mankind and Bagoas articles. It was published in the popular British magazine, History Today, and it seems to have been largely overlooked by scholarly audiences.4 While it cannot be claimed that ‘Creation of an Empire’ produced the revisionist revolution of the other two 1958 articles, it is of interest for two reasons. The first is that it lacks the straightforward and elegant style that characterized its two 1958 companion pieces and all of Badian’s subsequent writing, and one can only speculate that either it was an early work or that he had modified his style for the sake of a largely non-academic audience. The second is that it is the only one of Badian’s writings that attempted a synthesis of Alexander’s career, unlike the bulk of his work that concentrated on intense examinations of the methodological and evidentiary details related to specific issues. In his History Today article Badian stripped Alexander of the philosophical and cultural goals that were so dear to many scholarly and popular writers about the king. Badian downplayed Alexander’s Hellenism as a strong motivating factor in his career. Badian’s Alexander emerges as a superbly talented leader for whom military success was the prime motivation. The result of Badian’s scholarship was to set new standards for the criticism of evidence and to establish more rigorous rules for the historical method.5 Badian’s views on the Hellenism of the ancient Macedonians are laid out in detail in ‘Greeks and Macedonians’ (no. 17 in the present collection), the published version of a paper he gave at a symposium that opened the ‘Search for Alexander’ exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1980. It is one of the most misunderstood (and, in some quarters, reviled) pieces ever to emerge from his pen. The opening paragraphs of this paper reveal Badian’s plan. He disclaims any attempt to deal with either the anthropological or linguistic issues that might define Macedonian (as opposed to Greek) ethnicity in antiquity, a matter that remains one of the most contentious issues in Balkans history down to this very day, as we shall see. Rather, he concentrates on examining the ancient evidence about ‘how Greeks and Macedonians were perceived [his italics] by each other.’ He concludes that, until the age of Alexander, Greeks and Macedonians were regarded by contemporaries as distinct and separate peoples, even while being ruled by a Hellenized court. The reign of Alexander, however, marked the beginning of a process of homogenization that eventually resulted in the absorption of Macedonia into the general Hellenic cultural milieu.6 Badian’s ‘Greeks and Macedonians’ created a firestorm in modern Greece, and reached threatening proportions at the international conference, ‘Macedonia from the Iron Age to the Death of Philip II,’ held in Thessaloniki in October, 2002. Badian’s Thessaloniki paper, a re-examination of the death of Philip II (no. 27 in the present collection), was on the whole non-controversial, that is, it was not Philip II who caused a near riot in the lecture hall that day.7 Rather it was ‘Greeks and Macedonians,’ published twenty years earlier. A wellorganized protest greeted the session in which Badian and two others presented xvi

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INTRODUCTION

papers found by many in the audience to be controversial. But it was Badian who was the main object of the protest, as what has been described as a ‘gang of toughs’ entered the lecture hall and proceeded to harass the speakers. They had either evaded the police guard that presumably was in charge of security, or there was police complicity in the protesters’ actions. The next two hours were chaotic, with the whole melee recorded by television and newspaper reporters. Badian, feeling much threatened by the prospect of physical violence, wrote ‘It strongly reminded me of my childhood experience of Kristallnacht, when the mob was let loose on the streets . . .’ Finally, the lecturers were taken by bus under police escort back to their hotel. The organizers of the conference were mortified by the public demonstration, and on the next day presented formal apologies, but the damage was done. History dies hard in the Balkans and the combination of Greek antagonism toward their new northern neighbor bearing the name of Macedonia (widely regarded by modern Hellenes as proprietary) and their hatred of any suggestion that the ancient Macedonians were not Greek—which, of course, was not the point of Badian’s paper—were enough to precipitate a near riot. Badian’s technical mastery of source criticism and historical method were on full display in his ‘Unity of Mankind’ and ‘Eunuch Bagoas’ articles8—a revolution in Alexander scholarship, as I have stated—but he also seemed to be reaching for a synthesis. Badian vowed to all within earshot that he would never write a biography of Alexander, preferring rather to address specific historical issues and autopsies of the evidence. Badian understood what a bios entailed and he would have none of it. Most biographers discern patterns in their subjects’ behavior sufficient to create a rounded portrait. Badian rarely seemed interested in that, preferring rather to deal with Alexander in terms of his actions. Perhaps he recognized that one of the risks of biography is that the biographer, having created a portrait of his subject, courts the danger of forcing his subject to conform to the pattern he has developed. There is, however, in ‘Alexander the Great and the Loneliness of Power’ (no. 6 in this collection) a clue to what he might have produced in a biography. This piece, the outgrowth of a lecture given in New Zealand and the United States, probes Alexander’s character more acutely than perhaps any other of Badian’s work, and he reaches a place where he is very close to writing a bios of which Plutarch might have approved. Badian’s thesis is simply put: when Alexander, the favored son of Philip II, was made king by the Macedonians he had as yet neither proved himself adequately as a commander nor was he secure enough on the throne to resist the intrigues of his senior staff, a powerful coterie of Macedonian nobles. Badian saw Alexander’s career as a process by which he struggled to assert his own independence and thereby become King in his own right. In Badian’s view, Alexander’s own talents as a military commander emerged as uncontestable, but he needed as well to gain his Macedonians’ fear, if not respect. Conspiracies flourished in the Macedonian court, some directed against the king and others hatched by Alexander himself. Badian— who was attracted by conspiracies and their effect on historiography—wrote xvii

INTRODUCTION

several articles in which plots and intrigue were major themes.9 His is a portrait of Alexander as a loner struggling to free himself from the constraints of a powerful group of Macedonian nobles. The result of Alexander’s success in eliminating perceived threats emanating from the court was to find himself ‘on a lonely pinnacle over an abyss with no use for his power . . . Alexander illustrates with startling clarity the ultimate loneliness of supreme power.’ It is a compelling psychological portrait, and, in some respects, quite unlike anything else that Badian would ever write about Alexander. Little in Badian’s formidable list of scholarly accomplishments, however, captures the personality and spirit of the man, especially his whimsy and the selfdeprecating humor that marked his personal relationships with friends and colleagues. Ernst Badian was an inveterate letter and postcard writer. For years after he edited and published my article on ancient malaria10 I received from him postcards from many parts of the world illustrated with photos or drawings of mosquitoes, and he nurtured my philatelic interests by sending unusual stamps purchased in foreign countries. And once, just after I had checked into a San Francisco hotel for philological meetings, Badian approached me in the lobby and announced that we were going into the bar, where he promptly ordered two Brandy Alexanders. (My pleasure at his gesture of comradeship prevented me from ever revealing to him that I detest Brandy Alexanders, a sickening concoction of cream, brandy, and crème de cacao.) More to my taste, however, was our mutual affection for good Burgundy, and I treasure the memory of a wonderful dinner he treated me to in Oxford, the focal point of which was an exquisite bottle of red wine from the Côte d’Or. At professional meetings he delighted in the company of his companions, and could often be found at the core of a small and lively group of students, colleagues, and acolytes. Perhaps the ultimate expression of his interest in the company of his fellow ancient historians was his foundation in 1974 of the Association of Ancient Historians. In the late 1960s Badian visited my home institution, The Pennsylvania State University, where he gave a seminar and a public lecture. As we sat in our garden one evening, he described to me a plan to organize an annual meeting of ancient historians from southern Ontario and the neighboring U.S. states, based on a regional model in the U.K. He expressed the hope that, if successful, it might serve as the basis for a permanent association of ancient historians in the U.S. and Canada. He then outlined a structure that would be managed by a handful of elected officers and whose annual meetings would be a mix of scholarship and social life in equal parts. In 1969 Badian joined two Canadian colleagues, George Paul and Togo Salmon, to host a regional meeting of ancient historians at McMaster University. This was followed by several other regional meetings held annually at other universities. Then, in 1974, Badian organized a meeting at Harvard. Those in attendance voted to form the Association of Ancient Historians. Badian drafted a Constitution, which became the enabling document and guide for the Association. The annual meetings of xviii

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INTRODUCTION

AAH have remained true to the spirit of scholarship and social interaction that marked his original plan, and it is worth noting that Badian’s Constitution has worked so well that, after more than four decades, it remains unaltered except for small details.11 The Association of Ancient Historians, whose members number several hundred, is today the largest society of ancient historians in North America, sponsoring publications, granting subventions for graduate students and younger scholars to attend annual meetings, and, of course, providing a venue for the presentation of and discussion about research. Not long after Badian’s passing, my contemporary and long-standing friend, Erich Gruen, wrote to me regarding Badian’s ‘great generosity and support for younger scholars, as you and I both know well.’ I am among those in whom Badian took an interest, even though I was not his student. He encouraged me as a young historian and provided opportunities to test my mettle in professional circumstances. Those of us who observed him marked how often he took young scholars aside, queried them about their work, and offered advice. And not only the fledglings, but also those mid-career and senior historians to whom he unsparingly gave his time to read what they had written, to edit their work, and to provide criticism—favorable and not—of their scholarship. In 1970 I presented a paper as part of a panel that included Charles Edson, Harry Dell, and Badian. My paper in part included a challenge to Badian’s published views regarding Alexander’s response to the rebellion of King Agis III of Sparta. I presented my revised chronology with trepidation, for, glancing at the audience, I was dismayed to see Erich Gruen nervously slump into his seat, as Badian had, only minutes before, humiliated another young historian who had challenged his views. I was relieved when Badian’s response to me consisted mainly of an admission that, having heard my paper, he would consider changing his mind. For Ernst Badian regarded his scholarship as work in progress, subject to revisions proposed by colleagues and to his own reconsiderations. And so it was that nearly a quarter of a century later he returned to the chronology of Agis III’s rebellion and Alexander’s response to it. Any comfort I had taken in having persuaded him to abandon his original views was shattered by the publication in 1994 of a detailed reconsideration of Agis III’s rebellion in which Badian offered some further challenges to my work on the matter. I regret that his death precludes any possibility of continuing the debate.12 We shall miss his intellectual vigor and his personal companionship. Eugene N. Borza Professor Emeritus of Ancient History, The Pennsylvania State University

Notes 1 In addition to his monographs, Badian authored nearly a dozen articles on Rome, many of which are reprinted in his Studies in Greek and Roman History (1964).

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2 Among Tarn’s critics was the great German scholar, Ulrich Wilcken. In 1931 Wilcken produced his Alexander der Grosse, shortly followed by translations into French and English. Wilcken rejected on general grounds Tarn’s portrait of Alexander as a virtually flawless philosopher-king, while he retained the German tradition of the Great Man Theory, emphasizing Alexander’s plan to integrate the cultures of East and West in a grand cultural and political fusion. 3 Of course, Badian could on occasion be sharp and unsparing in his views, e.g., his devastating review of Robin Lane Fox’s unfortunate Alexander the Great (New York, 1974), in The New York Review of Books, September 19, 1974. 4 ‘Alexander the Great and the Creation of an Empire,’ History Today 8:6–7 (1958) 369–76 and 495–502 5 Not the least of these methodological standards was apparent as early as 1958. For example, one of Badian’s methodological rules: In choosing between two irreconcilable versions of an event, the historian is obligated not only to explain why the valid version is acceptable but also to explain how the unreliable version came into existence. 6 For more on the evidence for this process see my ‘Ethnicity and Cultural Policy at Alexander’s Court,’ The Ancient World 23.1 (1992) 21–25. 7 For a description of what happened at this conference I am indebted to two first-hand accounts: one is a statement by Badian himself which he circulated among a number of colleagues. The other is a memorandum to me from Professor W. L. Adams, who, as one of the co-chairs of the session at which Badian appeared, was in an excellent position to observe the sequence of events. It must be noted for the record that these two accounts, each written without knowledge of the other, and from two different perspectives, agree in both substance and detail about what happened that day. It was perhaps inevitable that Badian would become a pariah to some segments of Greek society, especially those who had never read or understood his views. 8 To which one might add (inter alia) his ‘Harpalus’ (no. 5), ‘Alexander the Great and the Greeks of Asia’ (no. 10), ‘A King’s Notebooks’ (no. 12), and ‘Greeks and Macedonians’ (no. 17, all in this collection). 9 Among these articles are nos. 3, 5, 6, 7, 12, and 24 in this collection. 10 ‘Some Observations on Malaria and the Ecology of Central Macedonia in Antiquity,’ American Journal of Ancient History 4 (1979) 295–303. 11 Among some veteran members of the association Badian is affectionately referred to as ‘The Founder.’ 12 Agis III’s rebellion and its effect on Alexander is a fascinating story. Badian’s work can be found in nos. 11 and 20 in the present selection, and my views are in ‘The End of Agis’ Revolt,’ Classical Philology 66 (1971) 230–35, and ‘Fire from Heaven: Alexander at Persepolis,’ Classical Philology 67 (1972) 233–45.

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1 ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE UNITY OF MANKIND

Twenty-five years ago Sir William Tarn delivered a Raleigh Lecture on History to the British Academy,1 to which he gave this challenging title and in which he created the figure we may call Alexander the Dreamer: an Alexander ‘dreaming’2 of ‘one of the supreme revolutions in the world’s outlook’, namely ‘the brotherhood of man or the unity of mankind’. He did not claim to have given proof – only ‘a very strong presumption indeed’. Perhaps no one, in a subject of this nature, ought to ask for more. Yet six years later Tarn could write: ‘It is now, as I see it, certain.’3 Ten years ago, in his great work on Alexander, certainty was apparently a little abated.4 But if there was less pretension, there was no more ability to think himself mistaken, and no more civility in dealing with opposing views. And the conclusion reached was described by its author as ‘the most important thing about [Alexander].’5 The matter is indeed important. That the ‘revolution in the world’s [i.e. the Greek world’s] outlook’ did take place is a fact; and that it prepared that world for the spiritual climate of the Roman Empire and Christianity – helping to make first one and then the other possible and generally accepted – makes it one of the decisive revolutions in the history of Western thought. Ever since 1933, Tarn’s figure of Alexander the Dreamer has explicitly claimed the credit for this re-orientation: the phantom has haunted the pages of scholarship,6 and even source-books and general histories of philosophy and of ideas – at least in this country – have begun to succumb to the spell.7 Perhaps a quarter of a century is long enough for the life-span of a phantom: it is clearly threatening to pass into our tradition as a thing of flesh and blood. It is the aim of this article – an aim in which it can hardly hope to be immediately successful – to lay the ghost.8

‘The Fatherhood of God’ According to Tarn, Alexander developed ‘an idea which had three facets or aspects’; and, to avoid misrepresentation, it is best to quote his own exposition of them: ‘The first is that God is the common Father of mankind, which may be called the brotherhood of man. The second is Alexander’s dream of the various races of mankind, so far as known to him, becoming of one mind together and 1

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living in unity and concord, which may be called the unity of mankind. And the third . . . is that the various peoples of his Empire might be partners in the realm rather than subjects.’9 Let us examine these ‘facets’ in turn. The first is not logically relevant to the other two: it is only by playing with imagery that we arrive from the idea of God as ‘the common Father of mankind’ at that of the ‘brotherhood of man’ in any ethically important sense. In fact, for reasons that nowadays need hardly be set out at length, the idea of God as ‘the common Father of mankind’ is ethically neutral. On it, or on similar foundations, equalitarian and universalist ethics have in fact been founded – but also systems of chosen peoples, of lawful slavery, and all the class and race distinctions with which we are so familiar. To keep within the bounds of the image: God may still have all manner of favourite children, including the exponent of the theory advanced. This seems so elementary as to be hardly worth stressing. Yet it seems to have escaped Tarn’s notice, as is clear from his exposition. Citing from Plutarch the report that Alexander ‘said that God was the common father of all mankind, but that he made the best ones peculiarly his own,’ he comments: ‘This, on the face of it, is a plain statement that all men are brothers.’ (And he goes on to say that it is the first.)10 On the face of it, it is hard not to see in it something quite different. Nor does scrutiny belie the first impression. Plutarch11 has been talking about Alexander’s visit to Ammon and telling some of the stories that collected round the oracle’s replies to him; in particular, he has stressed the revelation to Alexander that he was to regard Zeus-Ammon as his father. It is after this that the story of ‘Psammon’ – in which the quotation occurs – is introduced as a further λεγμενον: there can be no doubt that its point, precisely like that of the preceding ones, is Alexander’s close relationship to the god. The implication of the context is confirmed by the wording of the Greek: Psammon says that all men are ruled by God; but Alexander, speaking ‘more philosophically’, says ς πντων μν ντα κοινν νρπων πατρα τν εν, δους δ ποιομενον αυτο το!ς ρστους. It is here that Tarn persuades himself that the μν clause is what really matters, while the δ clause ‘seems . . . not to affect the matter in the least’:12 the structure of the sentence, like that of the context, must be distorted or ignored in order to fit it into a preconceived theory. In fact, as has often been noticed, the first clause is simply an adaptation of the Homeric tag πατ#ρ νδρ$ν τε ε$ν τε (in which, as the Greeks knew and Tarn recognises, πατ%ρ means ‘father’ in a social-hierarchic and not in a physical sense): far from being important in itself, it is merely a way of picking up ‘Psammon’s’ statement – in a manner that would come natural to a man educated in the Greek tradition – in order to qualify it with the addition (μν . . . δ) that Plutarch calls ‘more philosophic’.13 Alexander, as we saw, had just been told that he was a son of Zeus-Ammon. So much for the story as Plutarch tells it: it is not intended to, and it does not in the least, portray Alexander as believing in the brotherhood of man in any sense in which Greeks, ever since Homer, had not. Moreover, even Tarn is doubtful about the person of Psammon – a name not found again – and the 2

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anecdote follows a particularly silly one that no one has ever thought genuine, and it is the culmination of a chapter in which practically nothing can be accepted as undoubted fact. Meetings between Alexander and philosophers – treated, according to what one wanted to prove, to his credit or to theirs – are one of the stock subjects of legend: we need only mention Diogenes and (though here a meeting did at least take place, and we can almost watch its elaboration) the Gymnosophists.13a It is indeed surprising that such an elaborate house of cards should be built on a distortion of a reported saying – but even more so that anyone should try to build anything at all upon the shifting sands of the appropriately named Psammon.

The banquet at Opis The other two ‘facets’ – far more important – are fashioned out of the Opis banquet, which we must now investigate.14 The scene is reported only by Arrian (anab. vii 11, 8–9: all our references to Arrian are to this work), and, considering the importance it has in Tarn’s elaborate structure, we must give Arrian’s account in full: (8) ’Aλξανδρος δ 'π( τοτοις υσαν τε ει το)ς εο)ς ο*ς α+τ-ω* νμος κα( ονην δημοτελ/ 'ποησε, κα%μενς τε α+τς κα( πντων καημνων, μφ1 α+τν μν Μακεδνων, 'ν δ τ-ω* 'φεξ/ς τοτων Περσ$ν, 'π( δ τοτοις τ$ν 4λλων 'ν$ν 5σοι κατ1 ξωσιν 6 τινα 4λλην ρετν πρεσβευμενοι, κα( π το α+το κρατ/ρος α+τς τε κα( ο8 μφ1 α+τν ρυμενοι 9σπενδον τ:ς α+τ:ς σπονδς, καταρχομνων τ$ν τε ‘Eλλ#νων μντεων κα( τ$ν Μγων. (9) εμνοιν τε κα( κοινωναν τ/ς ρχ/ς [το)ς τε ?] Μακεδσι κα( Πρσαις. . . . It is clear that to Arrian (i.e. to his source) the whole affair is not of outstanding importance. It is a tailpiece ('π( τοτοις) of merely two sections to the Opis mutiny, which is an important event and has taken up chapters 8 to ii, 7; and it is immediately followed (12, 1) by the dismissal of the Macedonian veterans. This had been planned and announced before the mutiny and had been immediately responsible for its outbreak; and after its settlement it could at last be executed. The banquet, as we can see, just like the sacrifice that precedes it, marks the formal settlement of the dispute that had led to the mutiny; and it follows upon the account of the details of that settlement. The mutiny, as we are repeatedly and unanimously told, was due to the Macedonians’ jealousy of the favour Alexander was showing to the ‘Persians’.15 The reconciliation, therefore, might be expected to be between (a) Alexander and the Macedonians, whose quarrel was the mutiny; (b) the Macedonians and the ‘Persians’, whose differences had caused it. This interpretation, which follows from the context, will be seen to be fully confirmed by analysis of the passage itself. That the banquet marked ‘a 3

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greater reconciliation’ or even the official conclusion of peace16 is neither stated nor implied in the source. Tarn’s scene-setting is at once splendid and misleading: it is thus that the foundations for his theory are established before proper discussion even begins. Ptolemy says that at Alexander’s own table were seated Macedonians, Persians, some Greek seers, some Magi . . ., and those representatives of ‘the other peoples’ . . . who . . . ranked highest in dignity; that is, the most prominent men from every race in his Empire and from at least one people not in his Empire, Greeks, sat at his own table. . . . No witness of the scene could ever have forgotten the sight of that great krater on Alexander’s table and people of every nationality drawing wine from it for their common libation.17 It is a fit setting for a ceremony of international brotherhood. What, in fact, does Arrian (and we must agree with Tarn that that means Ptolemy) say? There is nothing about tables – how many were used and who used them – and certainly nothing about Alexander’s own table; there is merely the statement that everyone was seated: apart from other reasons that might plausibly be conjectured, there were presumably too many people for everyone to be able to recline. Even a large refectory table could hardly have accommodated the crowd that Tarn wishes to place at it. The source merely tells us how the guests were grouped within the area given over to the banquet – there is no implication that each group had only one table, and indeed numbers make it impossible. If Alexander had a table to share, he presumably shared it, on this occasion as on others, with a handful of high-ranking officers and courtiers. On the grouping, however, the source is precise: around Alexander (μφ1 α+τν) were Macedonians, next to them in order ('ν τ-ω* 'φεξ/ς τοτων) ‘Persians’, next to them ('π( τοτοις) the rest. Thus, when ‘those around’ Alexander join him in the libation from his krater, the emphatic repetition of the same phrase (μφ1 α+τν) within a few words makes it clear that only the Macedonians are meant. No doubt the ‘Persians’ and the rest poured the ‘same’ libation – in an extended sense – from their own bowls: Arrian goes on to tell us that it is said 9000 people did so. But the sharing of Alexander’s own krater was limited to the Macedonians. The inspiring ceremonial of an international lovefeast is purely imaginary and due to misinterpretation of an unusually precise source. In fact, as we have seen, treatment is carefully graded according to nationality – so far is it from being equal and cosmopolitan. Though we do not know whether the grouping by nationalities was confined to the Macedonians and ‘Persians’ (who, as we shall see, probably alone mattered) or extended to the ‘other peoples’,18 it was clearly maintained as between these two chief races. This fits in with what we have seen to be the purpose of the banquet and with the account of the mutiny and its settlement. Eager to regain the loyalty of his Macedonians (who were still his best soldiers and would be needed for his 4

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further plans of conquest), Alexander had called them συγγενε)ς and thus made them – every common soldier of them – equal to the noblest of the ‘Persians’. For he could be sure of the latter and their submissiveness, while the Macedonians had to be courted. He now reinforced this timely act of flattery by seating them μφ1 α+τν at the banquet and letting them, and them only, use his own krater for the libation.19 After the banquet, of course, he proceeded to carry out his plans precisely as he had made them before the mutiny, and there was now no further protest: tact meant no surrender of principle. But the flamboyant gesture – as always, carefully calculated for political effect – reveals the unmistakable Alexander of history, who did not gain his Empire by well-meaning muddle-headedness. The setting, then, is not that of an international love-feast. Having escaped from the initial misdirection, we are now free to look at Alexander’s prayer, as given by our source, without prejudice. It is on this prayer that Tarn’s view of Alexander the Dreamer is chiefly founded. ‘Two translations of the prayer as given by Arrian’, he writes, ‘are grammatically possible, and both are equally true to the Greek.’20 One – which used to be the accepted version – takes ‘Μακεδσι κα( Πρσαις’21 as applying to both ‘>μνοιαν’ and ‘κοινωναν τ/ς ρχ/ς’; the other – that proposed by Tarn and, as we have seen, widely accepted – makes ‘Homonoia . . . stand alone as a substantive thing and not only be tacked on to the words “Macedonians and Persians” ’. That both are ‘grammatically possible’ cannot be denied; that both are ‘equally true to the Greek’ can and must be. The natural interpretation, for the reader who is not defending a thesis, must be the one rejected by Tarn: ‘>μνοιαν’ and ‘κοινωναν τ/ς ρχ/ς’ are carefully linked by ‘τε κα(’ in order, as it were, to bracket them together: ‘he prayed for . . . (both >μνοια and κοινωνα τ/ς ρχ/ς) (for Macedonians and Persians).’22 In fact, ‘>μνοιαν’ badly needs a dative to define it: if we had no dative with it, we should have to invent one. And that, oddly enough, is exactly what Tarn next finds himself forced to do! ‘It is hard to believe’, he goes on to say, ‘that in the actual prayer [as distinct from the version we have in our source] Homonoia was not defined; for it is Homonoia between all men . . .’ This is the reduction to the absurd of the weird game that has been played before our eyes with our only good source: by violent distortion of the Greek we sever Homonoia from the object to which Arrian has carefully attached it and thus arrive at Homonoia ‘as a substantive thing’ (as we are told) – i.e., left floating unattached in a notional void; then, discovering that it badly needs attachment, we proceed to moor it to whatever best fits in with our preconceptions; and if this flatly contradicts the source, we then accuse the source of misrepresentation. Unfortunately history – and the history of ideas perhaps more than any other kind – is too often written like that. Finally, ‘κοινωναν τ/ς ρχ/ς’. Wilcken, Berve, and others, are again ‘guilty’ of accepting the natural meaning and translating ‘partnership in rule’. This, says Tarn, is meaningless: for Alexander alone was ruler of the Empire and Macedonians and Persians could not be said to ‘rule’ it.23 Strictly speaking, this is 5

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incorrect. There is undoubtedly a sense of ‘rule’ in which Macedonians and Persians could ‘rule’ the Empire, even though Alexander was its king. (Whether they in fact did so is not to the point.) It is the sense in which the Germans ‘ruled’ the European Continent during the War, even though Hitler was Dictator, and the sense in which the Graeco-Macedonians were a ‘ruling class’ in Ptolemaic Egypt. We shall have to return to this later. But admittedly, alternative interpretations of the phrase should not be denied a hearing. What is Tarn’s alternative? He translates ‘partnership in the realm’ and thus arrives at his third ‘facet’ of Alexander’s Dream: that all ‘the various peoples of his Empire might be partners in the realm rather than subjects’. We can now deal with this quite briefly: it is at once clear that there is no longer even any pretence to be following the source: whatever juggling ‘>μνοιαν’ may allow, ‘κοινωναν τ/ς ρχ/ς’ is firmly limited to Macedonians and Persians. Thus we are here invited to move freely in the realm of the historical novelist. Yet, in any case, what can Tarn’s phrase mean? As he himself has just pointed out, Alexander was sole ruler. If there is (as we saw) a sense in which Macedonians and Persians might perhaps be said to ‘rule’ his Empire, there is none in which they might be said to be his ‘partners’ in it: they were his subjects. If men cannot be partners of Zeus in his power,24 neither can they be partners of Zeus’ son in his. And Alexander, almost at the very time when these events were going on, was forcing the Greek cities to worship him as a god – against the outraged protests of sincere and pious men like Lycurgus25 – and was writing to the Athenians as the son of Zeus.26 That man certainly did not intend to become the figure-head of a free Commonwealth of Nations.

Eratosthenes and Plutarch Mistranslation in the crucial passage, misdirection in its setting, free imaginative interpretation where its restrictions and precision are irksome, and vague use of words charged with emotion – those, so far, have turned out to be the methods by which the image of Alexander the universalist philosopher is built up. But there is another passage in which Tarn seeks corroboration for his theory and, in particular, for his views on the Opis banquet: he claims the explicit support of Eratosthenes. Now Eratosthenes, of course, was far from being a contemporary of Alexander – so far that he could hardly even know any of his contemporaries; and though we admire him as a great scientist and mathematician, we have no means of assessing him as a historian or judging his skill in weighing historical evidence. When, therefore, Tarn tries to dismiss Ptolemy’s version of the banquet, as preserved by Arrian – as we have seen, a mere tailpiece to the Opis mutiny –, and appeals from Ptolemy to Eratosthenes for a true evaluation of its importance,27 the procedure is at once suspect and must be carefully scrutinised. Yet Ptolemy was quite capable of misrepresenting the truth for political reasons;28 and a contrary view expressed by Eratosthenes would deserve serious – though critical – consideration.29 6

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Strabo, in the first book of his Geography, engages in a running fight with Eratosthenes and other predecessors: he announces his polemical intention – in a tone of respectful difference – at the beginning of section 2, and its execution carries over into later books. Sometimes his objections are solidly based on later additions to knowledge or sounder reasoning; more often they are merely footling. Among the latter is his polemic – dragged in for the sake of objecting, as it has little to do with geography – against a statement by Eratosthenes about Alexander. It is this statement, at the end of the first book,30 that concerns us. We are told that towards the end of the second book of his Geography31 Eratosthenes disapproved of those who divided mankind into Greeks and barbarians and of those who advised Alexander to treat Greeks as friends and barbarians as enemies: it would be more reasonable, he says, to make a division according to virtue and vice;32 for some Greeks are bad, some barbarians civilised; this was why Alexander disregarded all such advice and received, and conferred benefits upon, all men of good repute.33 On this Strabo makes his usual puerile comment, to the effect that that was precisely what those who gave Alexander such advice had really meant!34 So far there is no hint of Opis. But Tarn next brings in a passage in Plutarch’s first speech de Alexandri fortuna: there, in chapter 6,35 Alexander is indeed credited with a cosmopolitan philosophy – as, indeed, it is the purpose of the speech to show that Alexander was a true philosopher. Plutarch first says that Zeno is much admired for the cosmopolitanism of his Republic,36 but that his ideal was translated into fact by Alexander: for Alexander, believing that he had a divine mission to unite the whole world under his beneficent rule, distinguished men only according to virtue and vice, uniting races by physical and cultural amalgamation. This chapter was long ago connected by Schwartz with Strabo’s quotation and consequently assigned to Eratosthenes; and since then it has tended to appear among the fragments of the philosopher.37 Tarn is not so naive. The whole passage is so highly rhetorical that it is immediately obvious that Eratosthenes could hardly have written all of it. Tarn divides the chapter into three almost equal parts: the introductory piece on Zeno he assigns to Plutarch himself – and whatever we think of his reasons, there is certainly the very good one that nothing entitles us to believe that Eratosthenes dragged in a depreciation of Zeno’s Republic; the middle section Tarn assigns to Eratosthenes; and the last third is ‘Plutarch mixing up Eratosthenes with other matter’. Then, ‘having thus got the limits of the Eratosthenes fragment’, he proceeds to ‘consider what it comes to’. It all seems precise, scholarly, and methodical. We need not (for the moment) trouble about the ‘other matter’ that Tarn has sifted out: it is the ‘Eratosthenes fragment’ that we are concerned with. But we must look all the more carefully at that fragment and its limits; and in view of the importance of the wording it will be best to quote it in full (textual variants are unimportant).38 On what evidence is all – or any – of this assigned to Eratosthenes (who, we must remember, is not once named in the chapter)? Almost entirely (we are told) on the strength of the Strabo passage that we have 7

ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE UNITY OF MANKIND

discussed. That Plutarch is here actually drawing on the same passage that Strabo there criticised seems to Tarn ‘quite certain’, and he knows of no one who has contested it.38a Yet evidence must come before authority, and in view of the cardinal importance of the identification for Tarn’s whole theory we might perhaps have expected some discussion. As Tarn does not give any, let us set out in parallel columns what we know Eratosthenes wrote (for Strabo may have shortened it, but we have no reason to believe that he falsified it) and what Plutarch gives us. If we put it vaguely enough, choosing our words with special care, we can find a common train of thought in the two passages: we may say it is to the effect that Alexander, despite advice to the contrary, did not discriminate between Greeks and barbarians as such. As soon as we go beyond this vague formulation, the differences become far more striking than the similarities. The very advice he is said to have received is differently reported; the author’s reasons for disagreeing with it are different; and there is no mention in Strabo of Alexander’s divine mission or of the mixture of races and cultures. Nor is this due to abbreviation: Strabo does not merely fail to mention these two important matters, but he puts something positive and different in their place; and in one important part – the ‘civilised barbarians’ – he gives a philosophical reason (though a little tarnished, it seems, in the re-telling), backed by examples that are just what we might expect of Eratosthenes; while Plutarch has neither. Now, if Tarn had ascribed merely the general train of thought in the Plutarch passage (i.e., what we have tried to disengage as common ground) to Eratosthenes, we might well concede it. But that is just what he does not do: having ‘got the limits of the Eratosthenes fragment’, he uses precisely the last part – the part where the differences between Strabo’s citation and Plutarch are manifold and striking –, with its

Eratosthenes (ap. Strabo)

Plutarch

Alexander was advised to treat Greeks as friends and barbarians as enemies.

Aristotle advised Alexander to treat Greeks as a leader, barbarians as a master; to care for Greeks as for friends and kindred and behave towards barbarians as towards animals and plants.

This is silly, because some Greeks are bad and some barbarians civilised. (Eratosthenes here gives four instances of ‘civilised’ non-Greek states.)

This would have led to constant wars, banishments, and revolutions.

For this reason Alexander, ignoring the advice, received and favoured all men of good repute.

But Alexander, feeling that he had a divine mission to unite the world, brought all men together by persuasion or force and mixed together, as in a loving-cup, their ways of life, marriages, etc.

8

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divine mission and its loving-cup, as being genuine Eratosthenes, saddling the philosopher with the ascription of these ideas to Alexander and even with the use of these actual words. It is then only a small step to the assertion that Eratosthenes’ loving-cup did actually exist; it was the great krater on Alexander’s table at Opis.39 It follows that Eratosthenes had before him an impressive eyewitness account of the banquet, which gave him the ideas he ascribes to Alexander – a much more impressive one than Ptolemy’s account (ap. Arrian), which is said to be deliberately falsified and played down. It should now be clear that none of this is solidly based. We shall see that there may be a grain of truth in it that gives the tale what plausibility (in parts) it has. But we must firmly assign to the realm of fantasy any attempt to connect Eratosthenes with the enunciation of Alexander’s divine mission, with the simile of the cup, or even with Plutarch’s reference (noted by Tarn) to the race mixture of the Susa marriages between Graeco-Macedonians and Iranian brides. As for the Opis banquet, there is not a shred of evidence that Eratosthenes had ever heard of it (though of course he quite possibly had), and certainly none that he thought it more important than Ptolemy did. Perhaps strict Quellenforschung will not take us much further; but literary criticism may be permitted to supplement it. We must start by considering the nature of the speeches de Alexandri fortuna. It is again easy to disguise the lack of evidence by producing historical romance: ‘Plutarch in youth had written Part I of the De Alexandri Fortuna with all the fervour of a young man bent on righting what he considered to be a great wrong [i.e. the philosophers’ condemnation of Alexander]; but by the time that the elderly Plutarch, with his comfortable sinecure at Delphi, wrote Alexander’s Life, the fire had burnt low and was half swamped by his much reading.’ Thus the modern worshipper of Alexander.40 What is the evidence? We do not know for certain at what period of his life Plutarch wrote either the de Alex. fort. or the Life of Alexander (or, for that matter, any of his other works, with few exceptions: there is no external evidence, and internal evidence only occasionally suggests an approximate date). It is known that the Lives were not written as a continuous whole after the Moralia, and any reconstruction of the chronology of Plutarch’s works must be very tentative.41 In fact, however, there is good reason – better than in most other cases – for believing the two speeches de Alex. fort. to be very early: together with two similar effusions on the Romans and the Athenians (none of them preserved in their complete form), they are epideictic display-pieces – ill-planned, confused in thought, and full of extravagant rhetoric – which (as most scholars agree) the older Plutarch would have rightly disdained.42 Of the fervour of a high-minded young man there is not a trace. The first speech begins with the words: ‘ο?τος > τ/ς Τχης λγος. . . 'στν. . ., δε) δ’ ντειπε)ν Bπρ φιλοσοφας’, showing that it is the second of an antithetical pair of speeches of a kind common in the schools and in professional rhetorical practice. If the first of them (the speech on behalf of Τχη) had survived, there would be less temptation to make unfounded statements about the second (i.e., the first we have).43 Yet at the time when he 9

ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE UNITY OF MANKIND

wrote these speeches, Plutarch’s reading on the subject of Alexander was already immense. Nor is this surprising: the orator had to be a polymath, and this requirement was – in Plutarch’s actual lifetime – being tightened into the rigorous discipline of the ‘second sophistic’.44 In addition to Eratosthenes (cited later in the speech, in chapter 8) the author also cites Onesicritus, Aristobulus (twice), Ptolemy, Anaximenes, Duris (de Alex. fort. i), and Phylarchus and again Aristobulus (ibid. ii). It is clear that he had read many more whom he does not cite. Moreover, it can be seen from (literally) scores of close – mostly verbal – parallels between these speeches and the Life45 that, whatever the dates of composition, his reading and notes for the one served as the basis for the other. Perhaps he had read a little more before embarking on a full-scale Life; but the change in his attitude to Alexander is not due to this – or even to a genuine maturing of judgment –, but simply to the different exigencies of the two genres. As we have seen, it is quite possible that Plutarch, in our passage, did have Eratosthenes in mind. He cites him a little later for the statement that Alexander wore compound Persian and Macedonian dress, spurning that of the Medes and other extravagant barbarian fashions (which he describes); and though it is difficult to find a mooring for a fragmentum incertae sedis within the works of one of the most voluminous writers of antiquity – and we can never claim certainty for the result –, this extract will fit well enough into the Geography.46 Eratosthenes was bound to be interested in fashions of dress. Moreover, in chapter 6 itself – though in the part that Tarn has to classify as ‘mixed up with other matter’ – there does seem to be a genuine reminiscence of the passage cited by Strabo: Plutarch says that Alexander distinguished Greeks from barbarians, not by dress or armament, but by the criterion of virtue and vice.47 It may have been a commonplace of the later cosmopolitanism; but the verbal echo of Eratosthenes, reinforced by the later citation on a different matter and by the similarity in the broad outline of the trains of thought, makes Eratosthenes as the ultimate source of this not unlikely. However, a reminiscence is not a quotation, even for this small piece – as comparison with Strabo makes clear enough. Although Plutarch had read many sources before composing these speeches, he did not consult them during the composition: that, of course, would have been quite contrary to the rules of the game. The orator, like our examination candidate, had to rely on memoria. Consequently, we do find an occasional inaccuracy.48 Perhaps we may go further and admit, with Tarn, that Plutarch was indeed thinking of a banquet. That he had read about the Opis banquet (and others) is certain: he had read Ptolemy, who does record some. Indeed, certain verbal echoes later in the speech (which Tarn has pointed out)49 seem to be genuine reminiscences of Alexander’s prayer at Opis. We know that some of the romancing sources, unlike Ptolemy, dwelt on the splendour and magnificence of such scenes:50 even without the philosophical implications that Tarn has found at Opis, banquets were a subject that – like massacres – some minds could not resist. No wonder that Plutarch should remember the scene and the prayer. Yet we must note that, although it would have been very much to the point to mention the banquet at 10

ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE UNITY OF MANKIND

Opis (as Tarn does, for the sake of a similar thesis), if it indeed had the meaning that Tarn suggests, Plutarch does not anywhere explicitly mention it: we can trace nothing but reminiscence. It seems clear that he – and his sources – did not dream of interpreting it in Tarn’s sense. It had merely left the two words ‘>μνοια’ and ‘κοινωνα’ (both of them, of course, well-known philosophical terms in their own right) in his mind, connected with each other and with an idea of reconciliation, to emerge again when he wanted a striking phrase to sum up his thesis. Similarly the krater of chapter 6: the great krater in which Alexander is said to have mixed the customs and races of mankind. It probably goes back – as Tarn is again right in pointing out – to the magnificent krater of Darius, which Alexander captured at Susa and used on state occasions.51 In this case a description – probably genuine, by a man struck by its magnificence – actually survives, and we can understand that such descriptions must have impressed Plutarch. Yet again we must shed prejudice: the mention of the krater in chapter 6 not only has nothing to do with Eratosthenes – it has nothing to do with the banquet at Opis. Plutarch is here speaking of Alexander’s race mixture (the ‘policy of fusion’, as modern scholars call it – a matter, as Tarn repeatedly insists, quite distinct from Alexander’s ‘dream’ at Opis); and this policy found its chief expression in the Susa marriages, when Alexander and a large number of his Greek and Macedonian courtiers and commanders married noble Iranian brides – a scene also celebrated by means of a splendid banquet.52 It is quite clear to the unprejudiced reader that, if the krater of Plutarch’s simile does go back to a real vessel, it will be, not at Opis, but at the celebration of the Susa marriages, that its use will have been recorded by an observer, so that to Plutarch it became connected with, and symbolical of, that occasion: it is thus that he arrived at his image of the loving-cup (the κρατ#ρ φιλοτ%σιος) in which Alexander amalgamated the races. In fact, Alexander may well, at the Susa banquet, have ceremonially mixed the loving-cup,53 as a fit symbol for the mixture of the two ruling races there officially inaugurated.54 But it has nothing to do with Alexander the Dreamer, in Tarn’s sense. To sum up: Plutarch drew on a variety of sources – far more than we can ever hope to have – and adapted and combined them freely for his epideictic purpose; fortunately we have just enough evidence to be able to form an idea of his method and use of material. Eratosthenes’ Geography is probably one of those sources; but it supplied him, beyond an acknowledged citation, only with a train of thought and some verbal associations that he used in his own manner. Similarly the banquet at Opis – picked up from Ptolemy and others – may have impressed itself on his mind and produced the words to describe Alexander’s aims at the beginning of his career. And the banquet at Susa – at least as important, and far more widely reported and stressed in our extant literature – provided him with a striking image of Alexander as the mixer of races, which he applied far beyond the limited purpose of the original occasion in order to produce the effect demanded by his thesis and by an orator’s audience. This 11

ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE UNITY OF MANKIND

image – characteristic of the ‘starke Bildlichkeit’ of these rhetorical exercises –55 is as unlikely to come from Eratosthenes’ (or anyone else’s) treatise on geography as the bravura sentence of 140 words in which it occurs. Whether we should also give Plutarch the credit for the whole idea of ‘Alexander the Harmost’ or ascribe it to an unknown model now matters very little; though the former is methodically preferable, in view of the merited suspicion that – after over a century of Quellenforschung – is nowadays aroused by the hypothesis of the unknown model. In any case, the fragments of Eratosthenes, few though they are, are well rid of their accretion of Early Empire rhetoric.56

Aristotle and the barbarians Among the fragments of Aristotle, as well as among those of Eratosthenes, our Plutarch passage has long been bracketed with the Strabo citation. Thus Aristotle is regarded as having both described barbarians as natural enemies and assimilated them to animals and plants.57 This is not the place to examine – if there is any profit to be derived from new examination – the whole of Aristotle’s confused views on slavery.58 But something must be said of his attitude to barbarians. In a well-known passage in the first book of the Politics Aristotle clearly implies that barbarians are by nature slaves:59 he has just defined the ‘φσει =ρχον’ as ‘τ . . . δυνμενον τ/ διανο-α προορCν’; and its opposite, the ‘φσει δολον’, is ‘τ . . . δυνμενον τ-ω* σματι’: one therefore cannot be without the other. He goes on to say that barbarians lack the φσει =ρχον, which must here (of course) mean what it has just been defined to. And he goes on to quote the line that it is fit for Greeks to rule barbarians and brings out its implication: ‘ς τα+τ φσει βρβαρον κα( δολον ν’. In this he is clearly following – rather thoughtlessly, we must suspect – a commonplace of Greek ‘popular philosophy’.60 On the next occasion when barbarians are mentioned61 there are distinctions among them: despotic kingship is only found among ‘some’ of them, and although barbarians as a whole are still δουλικτεροι τ: 6η φσει than Greeks, those of Asia are more so than those of Europe. This is revised in book vii:62 those in Europe and the colder regions have υμς, but lack δινοια and τχνη – therefore they tend to remain free, but cannot form cities or empires; while those of Asia have the opposite endowment – therefore they remain in a state of slavery. Thus, although it is still only the Greeks who combine the virtues of both, we are far indeed from the sweeping condemnation of book i. The chronology of the composition of the Politics is one of the stock puzzles of Aristotelian scholarship63 and I have no desire or competence to enter that field; but to one considering the passages here listed – without making assertions about the books in which they occur – it seems obvious that the statement in book i cannot have been written by a man who had devoted to the problem the detailed consideration that appears in the other passages: it can only have been produced by a priori considerations (based on popular philosophy) and amended after further study. Further evidence shows the respect that empirical study gave Aristotle for what 12

ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE UNITY OF MANKIND

Eratosthenes was to call ‘civilised barbarians’, such as the Egyptians64 and especially the Carthaginians, who had an admirable πολιτεα.65 Whether or not we agree with Jaeger’s view of Aristotle’s philosophical development as a whole, we may regard it as certain that Aristotle’s views on barbarians changed away from the popular philosophical concept under the influence of his – and his pupils’ – empirical studies, which produced the νμιμα βαρβαρικ and the πολιτε)αι.66 It would be interesting to know when this change took place; and although certainty on this is unattainable, there is perhaps some evidence directly relevant to our present enquiry. There is no reason to think that the broadening of the horizon that is traditionally ascribed to Alexander’s conquests had anything to do with it; and certainly there is none that the king’s own ideas (whatever they may have been) were in any way responsible. Even though, as is known, at least part of the Politics was written after Alexander’s accession,67 there is not a word in Aristotle that suggests any such influence. Indeed, as our evidence has shown, it was not a case of getting to know better barbarians, but one of getting to know barbarians better; and Alexander’s own ideas were centred on the Iranians,68 in whom Aristotle shows no particular interest as ‘admirable barbarians’. We must now return to the Plutarch citation, which is the immediate object of our enquiry. It will be clear, as a result of what we have seen, that, whenever it was in fact written, it was not Aristotle’s final view. Unfortunately the precise source of the citation is a matter of some doubt. We know that there existed, in Hellenistic times, a collection of Aristotle’s letters to Alexander, divided into four books;69 there was also a treatise on kingship, which we are told Aristotle wrote at Alexander’s request; and there was, finally, a dialogue (or so it seems) entitled ’Αλξανδρος F Bπρ ποκων’ (?).70 This last, to which the fragment concerned is often assigned without argument, is perhaps the least likely source: being a dialogue, it did not strictly have the function of συμβουλεειν (which is Plutarch’s word); though it is in any case worth stating that the dialogue is probably much earlier than is commonly thought.71 Cicero, as it happens, applies the very word ‘συμβουλευτικς’ to what appears from the context to be a letter of Aristotle to Alexander: he thus describes a projected letter of his own to Caesar, and he quotes ’Αριστοτλους πρς ’Αλξανδρον as an example of the kind.72 Thus, although the περ( βασιλεας remains possible, the Letters – which we know were really philosophical treatises –73 are the most likely source. Now, the treatise on kingship must have been written on Alexander’s accession.74 For the Letters, of course, we have no dates of composition; but if our passage does indeed come from a letter, then the letter concerned must also be of an early date, and so must others (i.e., at least one whole book of them) of a similar nature. For Cicero found these letters – and similar ones by other authors – ‘ipsis honesta et grata Alexandro’:75 they were written to an ‘adulescentem incensum cupiditate uerissimae gloriae’ who wanted good advice.76 Yet in Cicero’s opinion (at the very time when he was writing these words) Alexander completely degenerated after his accession.77 Our citation, therefore, if it is genuine, must come from a work written about fourteen years before the philosopher’s death. Now, it is 13

ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE UNITY OF MANKIND

known that letters of famous men were a favourite field for the Hellenistic forger;78 but as far as our evidence goes, we have no reason to doubt the genuineness of at least the passage to which Plutarch refers. For it coincides to a remarkable degree with the opinions that we saw Aristotle express in the first book of the Politics. There, as we saw, Aristotle had equated the βαρβαρικν and the δολον; moreover, there we also find the statement that the difference between natural master and natural slave is as great as that between man and animals, and that it is for the advantage of the natural slave, as of domestic animals, to be ruled.79 Thus Aristotle, at the time when he wrote this, genuinely believed that barbarians should – even for their own good – be ruled δεσποτικ$ς and that they differed from those who had τ φσει =ρχον as animals do from men. And this is just what Plutarch reports him as saying in his advice to Alexander.80 Thus the fragment, as far as we can see, will be genuine and date from the period before Aristotle’s change of mind. We may say, then, that Aristotle did advise Alexander – probably in a letter and certainly about the time of his accession – to treat barbarians as slaves and like animals – advice that he considered, at the time, to be as much for their own good as for the ruler’s; that the passage in the first book of the Politics shows the same attitude; but that, under the influence of empirical study during the last years of his life, he came to change his mind about this. It remains to consider the Strabo citation of Eratosthenes, also – as we have seen – usually assigned to the same ultimate source. As we saw, Alexander was there advised (the author is not named) to treat barbarians as enemies and Greeks as friends. It should be clear enough now that this differs widely from the view that Plutarch cites as Aristotle’s; and we have no evidence whatever for ascribing that anonymous advice to Aristotle.81 We have already seen in some detail that Plutarch was not actually citing Eratosthenes; and our discussion, besides ridding Aristotle of an odious view that he quite probably never held, has now incidentally helped to confirm that conclusion, which is so vital for the accurate investigation of Alexander’s ideas.

Notes 1

PBA xix, 1933, 123f. (cited ‘Tarn, PBA’). He had hinted at the view, but not discussed or developed it, in CAH vi, 437. 2 For this word, and the passages here quoted, see op. cit., 148. 3 AJP IX, 1939, 69 (cited ‘Tarn, AJP’). 4 ‘Proved as clearly as a difficult question of this sort in antiquity is ever likely to be proved’ (Alexander the Great (1948), vol. ii, 447: this will be cited ‘Tarn, Alexander’, without indication of volume, as practically all references will be to vol. ii; references to vol. i are marked as such). 5 Tarn, Alexander, vii and 400. 6 See Tarn’s select bibliography, up to the War (op. cit., 399, n. 3). The most important post-War additions are Schachermeyr, Alexander der Grosse (1949) [In his very different biography of 1973, still idealising Alexander, this part of the picture is rejected. I must also here acknowledge the very interesting and basically admirable

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7

8

9 10 11 12 13

13a 14 15

16 17 18 19

treatment of Alexander by F. Hampl in La Nouvelle Clio 6 (1954), 91 ff., not known to me when I wrote this essay] 490 and n. 300 (accepting Tarn’s view in outline) and Robinson, Alex. the Great, 224 (accepting it in toto). Cf. Andreotti’s bibliography (Historia v, 1956, 157, n. 1). There have been protests – cautious (Meiggs in Bury, Hist. of Greece3, 898) and forthright (Burn, Alex., 246; Bengtson, Gr. Gesch. 338); but only detailed examination can settle the matter. Sinclair, Hist. of Gr. Pol. Thought, 240f. (keeping an open mind); Barker, Fr. Alex. to Const., 1f. (full acceptance); The European Inheritance (ed. Barker) i 184. The appearance of this view in the two last-named works makes its examination a matter of urgent general importance. It shows that the optimism of C. B. Welles (Gnomon xxii, 1950, 53) is unjustified. Tarn’s definitive exposition is that in Alexander, 399f.; passages from the earlier formulations still regarded as valid by the author are freely incorporated in it. I shall therefore not, on the whole, cite the earlier formulations (for which, see nn. 1 and 3, above). Modern works other than Tarn’s cannot be given much space: we must return to the sources. Naturally, I have profited greatly from the Masters, especially Berve, Wilcken, and Schachermeyr. That Alexander was the first to develop this view has often (and rightly) been denied; e.g. Merlan, CP 1950, 161f.; Buchner, Hermes lxxxii, 1954, 383f. Alexander, 400. Ibid., 435. Al., 27, 3f. On this, see Andreotti, op. cit., 289f., arriving at similar conclusions to mine in a rather different way. But he does not seem to see that the concept of the ‘fatherhood of God’ is, in fact, quite irrelevant to the question in any case. Alexander, 437. Tarn says that if Alexander had wanted to quote Homer, he would have ‘quoted correctly and not inserted the word κοινς’ – but the Greeks were as familiar as we are with adapted quotations: Alexander has deliberately inserted the word ‘κοινν’, to point the coming contrast to –‘δους1. Tarn also makes much of a supposed difference between regarding God as King and as Father; but this is a Christian view. For a Greek view (with which Alexander would be familiar), see Ar. pol. i, 12, 1259b. Cf. Andreotti, l.c. and see, e.g., Finley, The World of Odysseus, 90f. See Andreotti, l.c. Wüst has discussed this in Historia ii, 1954, 418f. But my ideas of source analysis differ fundamentally from his. See also Andreotti, op. cit., 279f. (not always clear) – rightly stressing the political (i.e., not in the least mystical or visionary) nature of the scene. In the story of the banquet, as throughout that of the mutiny (of which we have seen it forms a small part), the word ‘Persians’, of course, includes other Iranians (at least those akin to the Persians). This is obvious enough and, as is known, is Arrian’s general practice – and that of other sources – where precision is not required. Moderns will often speak of ‘Russia’, meaning the U.S.S.R. Tarn, Alexander, 440. Ibid., 442. The ‘table’, with its consequences, has found its way into Barker’s translation (Fr. Al. to Const., 5–6). This, perhaps, is what Arrian’s language suggests. It would certainly facilitate conversation. It should not need to be stated – were not the opposite implied or expressed even by scholars like Tarn and Wilcken – that only the most distinguished of the Macedonians and Persians, as of the ‘other nations’, were invited: in Arrian’s account ‘ 5σοι . . . πρεσβευμενοι’ goes with ‘Μακεδνων’ and ‘Περσ$ν’ as well as with ‘τ$ν =λλων 'ν$ν’. (Rightly Wüst, op. cit.) This is clear beyond doubt from the numbers involved. (On the size of the Macedonian contingent alone, see the figures given by

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20 21

22 23 24 25

26

27 28 29 30 31 32

Curtius and Diodorus in their accounts of the mutiny and dismissal). The figure 9000 – as we have seen, only a λγος in Arrian and probably (like most such) a vast exaggeration – could not include them all. This explains how all the Macedonians present could draw wine from Alexander’s bowl. I can see no basis in the source for Andreotti’s statement (l.c.): ‘I soldati costituiscono, per così dire, il pubblico.’ Alexander, 443. If that is the right reading (see Roos’ apparatus, ad loc.). Fortunately the uncertainty does not seriously affect interpretation. If (as I believe) ‘Μακεδσι’ and ‘Πρσαις’ were also linked by ‘τε κα(’, the point I am about to make becomes much stronger; but I am not insisting on that. See last note. Alexander, 444. I cannot accept Andreotti’s artificially restricted translation of ρχή (p. 280) as ‘l’antico impero di Ciro il Grande’, nor the corresponding restriction in the application of the prayer. Ar. pol. iii, 13, 1284b. Who summed up the matter of Alexander’s deification for all time: ‘κα( ποδαπς =ν εGη > ες, ο? τ 8ερν 'ξιντας δεήσει περιρρανεσαι;’ ([Plut.] vit. Lyc., 22, 842d). [I must add that I do not now believe this Alexander actually demanded deification] The Etoboutad Lycurgus agreed in this with the enlightened philosopher Callisthenes (ap. Arr. iv, ii) and Alexander’s own viceroy Antipater (Suda, s.v. ‘Antipatros’). Modern scholars too often seem unable to understand the sincerity of Greek religious feeling: like that of the Middle Ages, it was often none the less genuine for going with what to us seems blasphemous light-heartedness. (For an extreme example of this blindness, see Tarn, Alexander, vol. i, 114, on the deification.) See Hamilton, CQ, n. s. iii, 1953, 115f. (giving other instances of Alexander’s megalomania at this time). On the other side, see Balsdon, Historia i, 1950, 383f. – too sceptical of Alexander’s desire for deification, though undoubtedly right in firmly dissociating the whole problem from the ‘exiles decree’. Alexander, 443. In fact, much more so than Tarn usually admits, where Ptolemy’s account favours Alexander! See my forthcoming article in CQ, n. s. viii, 1958 [no. 2 in this collection]. As usual, I cite Tarn’s final view. He also discusses the matter in PBA (126f.) and AJP (65f.), but seems to regard those discussions as superseded. i, 4, 9, C 66–7. Cf. i, 4, I (init.), C 62; ii, I, I (init.), C 67. ο+κ 'παινσας. . . το!ς ’Aλεξνδρ-ω παραινοντς το)ς μν HEλλησιν ς φλοις χρ%σαι, το)ς δ βαρβροις ς πολεμοις, βελτον εIνα φησιν ρετ/ κα( κακ-α διαιρε)ν τατα.

33

μελ%σαντα τ$ν παραινοντων 5σους οGν τ1 Jν ποδχεσαι τ$ν ε+δοκμων νδρ$ν κα( ε+εργετε)ν.

34

It might seem incredible that anyone could regard this addition (contradicting Eratosthenes in direct speech, after reporting him in indirect!) as a further quotation from Eratosthenes. Yet great scholars have done so (Tarn, Alexander, 438, and Schwartz, there cited), and the point must be mentioned in order to rescue Eratosthenes from this puerile addition to his fragments. Cursory reading of the passage in its context – and familiarity with Strabo’s method – puts the matter beyond doubt. (Rightly Andreotti, op. cit., 269, with careful analysis.) Mor. 329a–d. Tarn will not admit that this is the famous treatise (op. cit., 417f.); but his suggestion that Zeno wrote two works by that name is no more felicitous than the earlier one, which it supersedes, that Plutarch does not mean Zeno’s Republic, but Zeno’s State as

35 36

16

ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE UNITY OF MANKIND

37 38

38a 39 40 41

42 43

44 45 46

47 48 49

50

it emerges from other works (AJP 62f.). The difficulty is probably on the whole an artificial one, due to the fragmentary nature of the surviving snippets and the quality of our chief direct sources (Plutarch and Diogenes Laertius). For the fragments of the Republic, see Arnim i, p. 72. Discussion in Merlan, op. cit. (n. 8). Tarn, Alexander, 438f. (with short bibliography). ο+ γρ, ς ’Aριστοτλης συνεβολευεν α+τK$, το)ς μν HEλλησιν Lγεμονικ$ς, το)ς δ βαρβροις δεσποτικ$ς, χρμενος, κα( τ$ν μν ς φλων κα( οκεων 'πιμελομενος, το)ς δ’ ς ζKοις F φυτο)ς προσφερμενος, πολμων πολλ$ν κα( φυγ$ν 'νπλησε κα( στσεων Bπολων τ#ν Lγεμοναν. λλ: κοινς Nκειν εεν Oρμοστ#ς κα( διαλλακτ#ς τ$ν 5λων νομζων, οPς τK$ λγKω μ# συν%γε το)ς 5πλοις βιαζμενος, ες τ α+τQ συνενεγκRν τ: πKανταχεν, Sσπερ 'ν κρατ/ρι φιλοτησω , μεξας το!ς βους κα( τ: 6η κα( το!ς γμους κα( τ:ς διατας. . . (The sentence continues for another 60 words!). Andreotti (op. cit.) has since done so; but there is perhaps room for another approach. Alexander, 440. Ibid., 296–7. Even Andreotti (op. cit., 274f.) takes Plutarch’s speech far too seriously as philosophy. Ziegler (RE, s.v. ‘Plutarchos’, coll. 708f.) does as much as can be done and more than any of his predecessors; yet he is far from claiming certainty. [See C.P. Jones, JRS 56 (1966)ff, putting Alexander-Caesar after 96 and before 116. The article ‘Plutarchos’ in Der neue Pauly gives only a relative chronology of the Lives (after 96).] See Ziegler, op. cit., coll. 716–7, 721–4, and (on the mature Plutarch’s attitude to rhetoric) 928f. Our second speech (i.e. de Al. fort. ii, Mor. 333df.) seems to be an alternative to the preceding speech: the latter answers Tyche on behalf of Philosophia, the former on behalf of Aretê. This helps to make it certain that the two speeches are παγνια of rhetoric. [On these speeches see J. R. Hamilton, Plutarch, Alexander, A Commentary (1969) xxiii ff., regarding them as ‘rhetonical exercises’ (p. xxx). He dates the Life between 110 and 115.] On this, see, e.g., Croiset’s appreciation (Hist. de la litt. gr., v, 557–8). There is no reason whatever to believe – as hypercriticism has sometimes alleged – that Plutarch’s citations are never at first hand and his claim to erudition is an imposture. They are noted in the Loeb edition of the Moralia (iv, 832f.). But Tarn’s unargued implication that it must come from the very context of the Strabo citation goes beyond legitimate conjecture. Andreotti denies that it could possibly be from that work at all (p. 278), but gives no reason. It is hardly worth arguing about. (προσταξε . . .) τ δ1 ‘Eλληνικν κα( βαρβαρικν μ# χλαμδι μηδ πλτῃ. . . διορζειν, λλ: τ μν ‘Eλληνικν ρετ-/, τ δ βαρβαρικν κακ-α τεκμαρεσαι. E.g. i, 2: Ptolemy for Peucestas and probably Limnaeus for Leonnatus; i, 7: the Susa marriages number 100; i, 10: the Bacchic rout is transferred from Carmania to beyond the Hindu-kush. i, 9, init.: >μνοιαν κα( ερ#νην κα( κοινωναν (cf. Arr. vii, 11, 9, cited above). That this – Plutarch’s rhetorical summary of Alexander’s supposed ideas on undertaking the expedition to Asia! – ‘must, it seems, be from Eratosthenes and therefore ultimately from one who heard [the prayer at Opis]’ (Tarn) is a statement of faith, not of reason. Andreotti denies the existence of any connection whatever – but perhaps attention to Plutarch’s method of composition suggests its true limits. Arr., l.c.: a λγος – i.e., Arrian will not be responsible – gives the number who attended the Opis banquet as 9000. Cf. Duris (ap. Athen. I, 31, 17f.) – an author whom Plutarch had read. See n. 52 (below).

17

ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE UNITY OF MANKIND

51 52 53 54

55 56 57

58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

66

Alexander, 441. There is, of course, no reason to identify the banquet in the description of which the krater occurs as that at Opis: it will naturally have been used on other occasions of state, e.g. at Susa. Plut. Alex. 70: it cost 9870 talents. Clearly some authors specialised in this kind of thing; cf. the account by the Court Chamberlain Chares (ap. Athen. xii, 54, 538f.). Why debit this to the great Eratosthenes? On the ceremony, see Tarn, Alexander, 440. Cf. Andreotti, op. cit., 279 (but see next note). This will have to be discussed at greater length. Note that the rare word φιλοτ%σιος recurs in ch. 7, again (explicitly) in connection with the Susa marriages (φιλοτ%σιον 'π-δων μλος): in Plutarch’s mind it had clearly become attached to that scene. Possibly he had picked it up from one of his sources dilating upon the scene; but we have seen how he transmutes and adapts his material. Schmid-Stählin, ii6, 504. The indiscriminate equation of Plutarch and Eratosthenes seems to have led to some odd results in philosophical works: for an instance (known to me only from a review), see Gnomon xxiv, 1952, 381–2. Fr. 658 (Rose3). See (most recently) Ross’s Fragmenta Selecta, pp. 61–3. Cf. Tarn, Alexander, 402; Jaeger, Aristotle2, 259. Again Andreotti is an honourable exception and his careful discussion a compulsory antidote. The points on which I cannot agree with him will be clear from what follows. The evidence is almost confined to the Politics. It is clear that, as practised, he found slavery hard to justify. See Newman i, 144f.; Susemihl-Hicks, 24f.; and these commentators’ notes on relevant passages. Cf. Andreotti, op. cit., 258f. Pol. i, 2, 4, 1252b. I do not see how Andreotti (l.c.) can be in doubt about Aristotle’s attitude in pol. i. Cf., e.g., ibid. i, 6, 5f., 1255a. For the sentiment, see Isocrates, passim. iii, 14, 6, 1285a. vii, 7, 1f., 1327b. This, of course, applies – and characteristically adapts – the old Hippocratic view of climatic influence: Aristotle had begun to devote serious study and attention to the matter. Jaeger’s view (Aristotle2, 263f.: iv – vi a later insertion and i a preface to the whole) has been much discussed. (See, e.g., Nuyens, L’év. de la psych. d’Arist., 194f.) Perhaps discussion has been too prone to regard individual books as monolithic. vii, 10, 6f. (note ‘νμων δ τετυχ%κασι κα( τξεως πολιτικ%ς’). Rejection of this passage as spurious is rather arbitrary (as indeed Newman’s discussion shows: see op. cit. i, 573f.). ii, 11, 1, 1272bf.: ‘πολιτεεσαι δ δοκοσι κα( Καρχηδνιοι καλ$ς . . .’. The Carthaginian constitution was known and admired before; and even Plato, in old age, had found out something about the Carthaginians (perhaps in Sicily?) – see Laws ii 674a. But that Aristotle, while holding this opinion, could write the passage in book i, simply passes belief. On Carthage see also pol. iv, 7, 4, 1293b; vi, 5, 9, 1320b; vii, 2, 10, 1324b. This last is perhaps the most interesting, as it seems (with its context) to come straight out of the νμιμα βαρβαρικ. On all this (and its relation to the statement about barbarians in book i) it is interesting to compare Jaeger’s views on Aristotle’s ‘self-polemic’. That the constitution of Carthage (at any rate), in addition to Greek constitutions, was included in that collection appears certain from the passage quoted in the last note. Cf. also the use made of Hanno as parallel to Pausanias (v, 6, 2, 1307a). On the use made of the collection in the Politics (at least at some stage of its composition) see Eth. Nic., ad fin. (1181b) – in which there may again be a trace of ‘self-polemic’.

18

ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE UNITY OF MANKIND

67 68 69 70 71

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

81

See v, 8, 10, 1311b. This matter also needs re-examination (after Hampl’s remarks in Robinson Studies ii, 827f.). They appear in the lists (see Ross’s discussion in his Introduction to vol. xii of the Oxford translation) and Cicero seems to have known them (Att. xii, 40, 2 – see below), as did ‘Demetrius’ (de eloc. 234). See Ross, l.c., and his Fragmenta Selecta, pp. 61–3. We do not know what the title of the dialogue means. Ross, while believing (as is generally held) that the dialogues as a whole are early, specifically excepts this one, which he connects (as all other students of the problem do) with Alexander’s colonising activity in Asia and Egypt. But by that time it is very doubtful whether Alexander would have asked Aristotle’s advice (as the sources tell us he did) on colonising; and in any case, it is most reasonable to suppose that the treatise was written on the first occasion when Alexander founded a colony. That, however, was neither late nor in Asia (or Egypt), but in Europe and about 340 B.C., well before his accession to the throne (‘Alexandropolis’ – Plut. Alex. 9, 1). This incident, generally overlooked by those discussing the point, seems to provide an unexceptionable setting for the treatise. Cic., l.c. (n. 69). (Cf. ‘suasiones’: ibid. xiii, 28, 2.) This is stated by ‘Demetrius’, l.c. See Jaeger, op. cit., 311. Cic., l.c. (n. 69). Cic., Att. xiii, 28, 2. Ibid., 3: on this passage see my discussion in CQ, n.s. vii, 1958 (no. 2). See especially Pearson, Historia iii, 1954, 443f. – whose criteria make it a priori impossible to accept any letter as genuine! i, .2, 13, 1254b. Cf. Buchner, op. cit. (n. 8), 381f. Having analysed Plutarch’s manner (in this speech) of using his sources, we may surely reject the phrase ‘F φυτο)ς’: it would seem impossible in Aristotle (being contrary to his psychology) in any serious sense; and, as we have seen, Aristotle was here writing serious philosophy. It is Plutarch who is writing rhetoric – caring more for heightened emphasis than for accurate quotation. (Andreotti’s conclusion, reached in a different way, is similar.) Rightly Andreotti, l.c. (n. 58, above). The view is a commonplace: Isocrates is full of it, and Eratosthenes may have got it from anywhere – or from nowhere in particular. (Cf., e.g., Dem. Meid. 49.) We must not, however, equate it with the view that Aristotle expresses and then conclude that Aristotle also held it. He may, of course, have done so, since it was his master Plato’s view; but there is no evidence. As for Plato, some scholars deny that he held it, despite rep. v 469f. (see especially 470c); but, at least right up to the Laws, there is nothing to set against these passages: long lists of references sometimes given (e.g. Andreotti, op. cit., 263, n. 29) melt away – sometimes into nothing more substantial than the phrase ‘Greeks and barbarians’! – on checking. Those who (like Andreotti, op. cit., 262 – but it is an old argument) want to use Polit. 262cf. to show that Plato did not think the division of mankind into Greeks and barbarians fundamental, must maintain that he thought the division of animate creation into men and animals equally unimportant: the two cases are cited as parallel by the Eleatic stranger. Not that it matters very much: it is not the division, but the difference, that is the chief point.

19

2 THE EUNUCH BAGOAS A study in method

The stage of Alexander’s great drama is thronged with minor characters playing their walk-on parts or acting as heroes or villains in their own little scenes. Their names, often unknown to—or ignored by—our main sources, have been gathered with monumental diligence by Berve,1 who has provided a basis for some akribeia in a study traditionally befogged with generality and prejudice. In this country the study of Alexander is necessarily under the spell of Tarn’s masterly work,2 based on a thorough discussion of the sources.3 To agree or to disagree, we must always come back to him; and disagreement, in the main, has been confined to details.4 But it is on detailed study that a general interpretation must be based, especially in the case of such a vast subject; and an investigation of that minor villain, the eunuch Bagoas, may turn out to be not devoid of general interest. ‘Bagoas’, in eastern lands, was a common name for a eunuch, and more particularly for a eunuch of the Great King.5 The best-known bearer of the name was the treacherous friend of Artaxerxes Ochus,6 who, more than any other individual, may be said to have been responsible for the downfall of the Achaemenid Empire. A eunuch by that same name appears three or four times in the story of Alexander; it is he—whom ‘some modern writers have taken for a real person’, but whom Tarn has argued out of existence7—with whom we shall be concerned.

(i) Of the chief incidents in connexion with which he is mentioned, two are reported by Curtius and one by Plutarch and Athenaeus.8 Each of these incidents is individually discussed and rejected by Tarn, and we must examine them, and his arguments, in detail. The first, reported by Curtius, deals with the beginnings of Alexander’s friendship for Bagoas: among the gifts by which Nabarzanes hoped to buy safety and favour was Bagoas, formerly Darius’ favourite and in due course Alexander’s; and it was mainly his entreaties that made Alexander pardon Nabarzanes.9 It is, says Tarn, ‘a silly story’; and he gives three reasons for rejecting it: first, that Alexander would have made up his mind 20

THE EUNUCH BAGOAS

at once (for such was his character); next, that Curtius, ‘in his usual careless fashion’, has forgotten that Nabarzanes surrendered accepta fide anyway; finally, that Alexander ‘put no one to death for Darius’ murder (which after all relieved him of the difficulty of dealing with his rival)’ and that Nabarzanes therefore did not need Bagoas’ intercession. The first argument does not carry much weight: Alexander is in fact, like lesser men, known to have put off decisions or even changed his mind. Moreover, as we shall see, it is based on a misunderstanding of what Curtius actually said. The second deserves some comment, as it shows in paradeigmatic fashion the havoc wrought by prejudice in source criticism. Careless Curtius undoubtedly can be—though not, perhaps, as often as Tarn asserts;10 but it would take a good deal to make us believe that he has flatly contradicted himself within two sentences (i.e. thirty words). For the whole Bagoas incident—so far from being ‘featured’—takes up precisely one sentence of twenty-six words, and the giving of the fides is mentioned immediately before. There must surely be limits to the stupidity that we may be asked to impute to ancient authors; and though they may sometimes be in doubt, there can be no doubt here; for Curtius, with all his faults, is no mere chatterbox or even compiler. When these limits seem to be transgressed, it is time to examine our premise and the text. In fact there is neither contradiction nor even difficulty. A little earlier11 Curtius quotes a letter from Nabarzanes offering surrender. It is not the sort of document that invites belief; but that is beside our point. In this letter Nabarzanes asks for Alexander’s fides, which he says he will trust; and he receives the promise ‘inuiolatum, si uenisset, fore’.12 This clearly was the fides on the strength of which he surrendered. However, even if he could indeed trust Alexander (and we shall consider this presently), inviolability was surely not the same as forgiveness. The different degrees of treatment possible are well illustrated by the case of Artabazus, who, just before Nabarzanes’ arrival, is sent home ‘geminato honore quem Dareus habuerat ei’.13 What Curtius has told us is that, after Nabarzanes has come in under promise of life and freedom (if it does extend to this), Bagoas’ entreaties not only confirm his safety, but gain him complete pardon. We may now add that this probably happens straight after their arrival, so that Tarn’s first argument is beside the point: Curtius does not say that Alexander only made up his mind ‘mox’;14 but, mentioning in passing that Bagoas had been Darius’ favourite and in due course (‘mox’) became Alexander’s, he says that it was chiefly the beautiful boy’s entreaties that made Alexander take his decision about Nabarzanes. There is nothing to tell us when this happened, but the inference is surely that it was at once; Bagoas, clearly brought along for the purpose of capturing Alexander’s heart, had no doubt been carefully coached in his role of suppliant. Curtius’ account of this incident, therefore, is quite self-consistent. Nor need we wonder that Arrian omits it in his account; for there Nabarzanes’ surrender merely gets a brief mention, apparently in the wrong place, before Alexander’s entry into Hyrcania—i.e. where Curtius reports the offer of surrender by letter. 21

THE EUNUCH BAGOAS

Berve15 saw that this will not do and that Curtius is more plausible; though, oddly enough, he then concluded that Nabarzanes was probably put to death! Nabarzanes indeed is not heard of again; but we need not doubt his pardon: the forgiveness obtained for him by the beautiful Bagoas did not extend to entrusting him again with a position of power. It is noteworthy that Nabarzanes was the first of Darius’ murderers who surrendered, at a time when the others were still dangerous. Alexander never sacrificed policy to emotion, and we may well believe that he intended to pardon the traitor at once, to encourage the others; but his lot, henceforth, was cum dignitate otium. We come to Tarn’s last argument—that none of Darius’ murderers were executed for the murder, because Alexander did not mind it very much. This statement needs separate investigation, which must be left for another occasion. Here we need only notice that, in two cases out of the three concerned, Tarn has simply rejected the source (which in both cases happens to be Arrian) for the sake of a priori construction. Bessus, the organizer of the deed,16 was later, after his capture, asked by Alexander why he had betrayed and killed his king; when his answer was unsatisfactory, he was flogged in public, with a herald proclaiming that this was his punishment for the crime with which Alexander had charged him. It could hardly be made clearer, both to those present and to posterity, that his plot against, and murder of, Darius were the reason for his punishment. And when we are next told that he was thereupon sent to Bactra for execution—though the precise form of his trial may not be quite clear—it is surely flying in the face of the evidence to deny that he was executed for the murder of Darius.17 Who, we might ask, is this source that is so nonchalantly brushed aside? None other than Ptolemy18—who, apart from his other claims to belief, was the officer who actually captured Bessus and had no reason whatever to misreport the facts of his reception. After this it comes almost as an anticlimax when Arrian’s explicit statement that Barsaentes, another of the murderers, was later executed for the deed is simply denied.19 The capture of Bessus and that of Barsaentes came after the surrender of Nabarzanes: there was no one to encourage and clemency was pointless. Thus it may not be said that Nabarzanes was frightened by their fate. Yet Alexander’s eagerness to take Darius alive, the honours paid to his dead body, and indeed Alexander’s claim to be the successor of the Achaemenid kings,20 already augured ill for the murderers: Barsaentes, despite the example of Nabarzanes’ pardon and the hopelessness of further resistance, would not take the risk of surrendering and preferred flight into uncertainty that proved to be death.21 It is quite possible that Alexander had announced his intentions towards the murderers; but in any case it is clear from the facts that Nabarzanes had good reason to be afraid, perhaps even after the accepta fides: a despicable traitor himself—at least in Alexander’s official view—he might well wonder whether perfidy would be deemed a fair weapon against him. The choice and the fate of Barsaentes provide a fitting commentary on the hesitation of Nabarzanes. Thus closer investigation completes the vindication of Curtius: Nabarzanes’ dona ingentia and the 22

THE EUNUCH BAGOAS

entreaties of Bagoas indeed seemed necessary, not only to secure a full pardon, but to insure himself against the treachery that he must suspect because he deserved it. In fact he was the only one of those concerned in Darius’ murder who gained his pardon.22 Curtius is not only consistent, but credible. Only misrepresentation of what he says, and the rejection of Arrian where he is based on Ptolemy at his most reliable, can turn his account into ‘a silly story’. It is interesting that such methods should be necessary, and that they should be adopted.

(ii) The second incident is more important and no less instructive. I cannot improve upon Tarn’s summary:23 The other story which Curtius has to tell about Bagoas is that Orxines, for long satrap of Persis and the noblest of the Persians, visited Alexander and gave presents to all his friends except the eunuch Bagoas; Bagoas in revenge accused him of robbing Cyrus’ tomb, and Alexander thereupon put him to death. Now comes the commentary: This story is an even clearer fabrication than the other. Orxines indeed existed, but he was very different from Curtius’ account of him.24 There follows a summary of Arrian’s account of Orxines (vi. 29–30), which indeed is very different. This leads Tarn to the conclusion: ‘In face of these considerations, the whole of Curtius’ account of Bagoas falls to the ground.’ The account is then said to be a lie due to the Peripatetics—a point to which we shall have to return. It is a perfect example of petitio principii in source criticism: it must be obvious that, if we start with the assumption that Arrian’s account is true, then Curtius’ is indeed a fabrication. In the same way, if we were to start with the assumption that Curtius has the truth, then Arrian’s story might be called a fabrication. The odd thing is that, as we saw in our discussion of the first incident, the discrediting of Curtius was there achieved by means involving the complete rejection of Arrian (and Arrian at his best); while here the same result is brought about by taking Arrian, without discussion, as gospel. It is evidently the desire to discredit Curtius, in the whole matter of Bagoas, that has fashioned the appropriate means. The way to arrive at a useful result is surely different. This may be one of those numerous cases where the historian must despair of arriving at certainty. But, given two contradictory accounts, we must start by asking: ‘If one of them is true, how and why did the other come into being?’ Bona fide error is here impossible, and Tarn, knowing this, feels that he must make some attempt to 23

THE EUNUCH BAGOAS

answer—or anticipate—the question. Curtius, according to him, was a moralist following the Peripatetic view of Alexander; in fact, he was the first to write it up into a unified account; and the Peripatetics, for purposes of their own, did not stop at any lie to discredit Alexander. We shall have to return to this in the next section. But as far as Curtius’ account is concerned, we have already seen that rejection here is a priori: the question asked is not ‘Which account is true?’, but ‘How did Curtius come to write this lie?’ And it is clear that the answer will not satisfy anyone not already convinced. Orxines’ death was one of a series of punitive measures against satraps and commanders that began when Alexander was still in India25 and extended over the whole period of his return. To the historian they present an interesting mixture of motives (not always easy to disengage) as well as of persons—Iranians, Macedonians, and even a Thracian. The simple tale of the just king punishing those who had transgressed in his absence belongs to romantic biography and to official apologia. Let us look at one or two of these cases. Apollophanes, the satrap of the Oreitae and Gedrosia, perhaps provides the clearest illustration. He had been recently appointed to his post; yet on Alexander’s arrival at his capital Pura he was deposed.26 The reason given was that he had failed to execute his orders, clearly in connexion with Alexander’s march through the Gedrosian desert. (Thus Arrian, in a list of satrapal appointments that bears the stamp of the official source.) Yet in another connexion27 Arrian reports that Apollophanes, still as satrap, fell in the battle in which Leonnatus defeated the rebellious Oreitae; and he actually refers back to his Anabasis, where the battle is mentioned in passing.28 How can the seeming contradiction be resolved? That Arrian has made a mistake in reproducing the changes made at Pura29 is most unlikely; nor is it easy to see how or why he should have falsely introduced the obscure satrap into his account of Leonnatus’ victory.30 But we have, in fact, no reason to reject either of Arrian’s statements: it is a false dilemma. On his arrival at Pura, after the terrible march through the desert, the King at once announced the deposition of the satrap in whose territory the disaster had been suffered: Alexander himself had, for once, been at fault, and a scapegoat had to be found immediately.31 The absurdity of this hasty measure was demonstrated before long: Apollophanes had in fact, as we have seen, been fighting rebellion on his eastern borders and had died in action; and Alexander received Leonnatus’ dispatch while still at Pura.32 It seems that this mishap was not the end of the search: Abulites, satrap of Susiana, and his son Oxathres, governor—probably under him—of Paraetacene, were later executed for maladministration.33 That is all Arrian gives us: he, in the context, is dealing only with satrapal maladministration and presenting the classic picture of Alexander’s wrath at it. Plutarch adds some graphic details that Arrian’s silence by no means disproves: that Alexander personally killed Oxathres; and, above all, that Abulites was charged with having sent money instead of supplies and that this was at least one important reason for his punishment. It is clear that the search for a scapegoat had continued. 24

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More might be said about other victims of Alexander’s anger, suspicion, or policy; but that would take us too far. It should now be clear, however, that it is possible to add to Arrian’s simple account of these matters. We may thus return to the question with which we started. Tarn’s theory of the ‘Peripatetic lie’ will not serve the purpose for which it was advanced: it invites the further question of why, of all the Macedonians, Persians, &c., affected by these measures, it should be, not a Macedonian noble like Cleander, brother of the great Coenus, but— Orxines, a Persian about whom we know practically nothing and who (if Tarn’s view be true) was in fact proved genuinely guilty of tomb-robbery, sacrilege, and mass-murder—why it should be he, of all men, who should become the hero of a myth invented by Greek philosophers, as the just man nobly defying the tyrant’s vile creature. Perhaps some answer could be found: it is said that even Ptolemy’s astronomy could be sustained by means of a sufficient number of ad hoc hypotheses. But there is no reasonable explanation of why a philosopher should have dug up the name of Orxines and coupled him with a wholly imaginary eunuch in a moral tale. Thus, if Arrian’s account is true, we are confronted with an insoluble puzzle. It would not be the only one in history; but there is no need to leave matters at that, if we can help it. For if we turn our question round, the puzzle disappears. Supposing Curtius’ account is, in outline, true—can we say how and why Arrian’s departure from the truth originated? It has long been recognized that Arrian, where—as, probably, most of the time—he is following Ptolemy, has both the merits and the faults of an ‘official version’. The merits are great and well known; but with them we are not concerned just now. The faults, oddly enough, no one has seen and characterized more clearly than Tarn. Speaking about figures of Macedonian and enemy losses, he says (unanswerably): ‘Ptolemy used his figures for the honour and glory of Alexander (and of himself as one of his principal lieutenants); that is all.’34 And he shrewdly adds that we are accustomed to this type of propaganda today. Yet he fails to extend this to political matters. That Ptolemy’s retouching of facts, in the king’s interests or his own, can pass the bounds of mere suggestio falsi, he will not recognize even where no other conclusion is possible from evidence he himself advances.35 That Ptolemy, giving the official or his own version of highly important political controversies, can be taken to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, is almost an article of faith for him. We need only mention the obscure and discreditable affair of the ‘conspiracy of Philotas’.36 Admittedly Ptolemy’s history was not an apologia of the type of Chares’ or Aristobulus’.37 But there is not a single case, in Alexander’s numerous political conflicts with his victims, where the king is clearly in the wrong and his opponent’s point of view admitted as valid—any more than there is a case where military incompetence is freely admitted. If, then, the story of Orxines, such as we find it in Curtius, did happen to be (in outline) true, can we seriously imagine that Arrian would have found it in Ptolemy? It is only from Plutarch and Curtius that we get some circumstantial details—certainly not, on this account, to be disbelieved—of the intrigues round 25

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Philotas; and, though we find it in Arrian, it is not from Ptolemy that we get some information about the proskynesis affair.38 It is only thus that we can dispel Ptolemy’s myth—which is usually Arrian’s—of the perfectly integrated machine that made up Alexander’s Court and General Staff. It is not Arrian who helps us form a picture of that redoubtable family, the sons of Polemocrates: advancing to high positions under the special protection of Parmenio, whose daughter Coenus married39 and under whom Cleander served;40 the first to turn against their protector when it seemed expedient, with Coenus outdoing most of the others in demonstrating hostility to Philotas, and Cleander murdering Parmenio himself—a deed for which his own soldiers never forgave him;41 advancing thereby, Cleander to Parmenio’s place, Coenus ultimately to a hipparchy;42 until misfortune and miscalculation in the end mysteriously destroyed them. Even the character and intrigues of the sinister Hephaestion are not illuminated by Arrian–Ptolemy.43 If, then, it was true that Orxines came to grief through the intrigues of Bagoas, we know precisely what Ptolemy would tell us: he would report the official version, listing the crimes for which Orxines was officially said to have been executed; and he would describe him as proved guilty, just as he had described Philotas.44 This, of course, is precisely what we do find in Arrian. Thus, while Curtius’ account is not reasonably explicable on the hypothesis that Arrian’s is true, Arrian’s is—not only explicable, but (we may say) inevitable, if we assume the truth of Curtius’. For the unbiased historian the conclusion is obvious: there is no shadow of a reason why Curtius’ account should not be accepted as (in outline) true. Not, of course, in every detail: the short speeches, in Curtius’ usual manner, are certainly invented; and it is, though, from what we have seen, not impossible, yet at least doubtful whether Orxines was in fact used as the official scapegoat for the violation of Cyrus’ tomb,45 or whether Curtius has touched up and pointed, by a well-known specific reference, the general charge of tombrobbery which was certainly advanced. These details, however, though not unimportant in themselves, do not matter for our present purpose: the general conclusion must stand. [I now think that I overstressed the part of Bagoas in the story of Orxines: see Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction (ed. Bosworth and Baynham) 92–93, no. 24 in this collection.]

(iii) We have seen that in the two incidents reported by Curtius there is no good reason for doubting the existence of Bagoas and, on the whole, the part he is said to have played in important events. There remains the incident reported by Plutarch and Athenaeus:46 that Alexander, during a contest in a theatre, kissed Bagoas amid the applause of the audience. This story Tarn indignantly dismisses on two grounds: one—on which he does not insist—that Plutarch is demonstrably wrong in localizing the incident; the other—which, he says, ‘damns the story completely’—that it is said to have taken place in a theatre, while it is certain that 26

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at this time there was no theatre in those Eastern regions: this is said to show that the story was invented by a Greek, who could not imagine a city without a theatre.47 To the unbiased reader it seems almost incredible that such an argument could be seriously advanced as decisive. For one thing, we have the story (at best) only at second hand: Plutarch gives no source for it, while Athenaeus quotes Dicaearchus.48 In a case of this kind very little depends on a word. However, is the word really inappropriate? If we assume that Alexander did hold choral or scenic contests before a Graeco-Macedonian audience,49 we can be sure that it would arrange itself in the shape of a ‘theatre’—the only arrangement familiar to the men—and that Alexander would choose a place naturally suitable for such an arrangement. If so, why should it be wrong—so wrong as to be ‘completely damning’—to call that place, at least for the duration of the contests, a ‘theatre’? It might be thought that our hypothesis—that Alexander would hold such contests in those eastern regions—is a little far-fetched. This brings us to Tarn’s other point: where, in fact, is the incident alleged to have occurred? Dicaearchus, in the version we have in Athenaeus, does not tell us; nor need we ascribe that to Athenaeus: we may safely assume, from what we know about the use he makes of it, that he was not interested.50 Plutarch—wherever he got it from—seems to place it clearly enough: he puts it in the capital of Gedrosia, i.e. at Pura.51 But Tarn rightly insists that this will not do: the arrival in the capital of Gedrosia follows the Bacchic procession through Carmania, while in fact Alexander entered Carmania from Gedrosia, to which he never returned. However, even Tarn, eager to discredit the story, does not insist on this. Indeed, the answer is obvious: Plutarch has, by a mere slip, written ‘Gedrosia’ for ‘Carmania’—a kind of mistake that is common and well known.52 In fact, Plutarch knows well enough that Alexander entered Carmania from Gedrosia: he has just told us so himself.53 Let us correct the lapsus calami—using, as we have seen, Plutarch’s own indication of how to do it—and see where this leads us. It leads us to a fact which, if mere coincidence, would be astonishing: in the capital of Carmania Alexander did hold choral contests.54 Now, most of the authors recording these contests do not give the Bagoas story; so no one can accuse them of inventing the games for the sake of it. Indeed, in the case of the apologist Aristobulus, who is Arrian’s main source for the games, such an imputation would be absurd. Thus the games must be accepted as genuine. Plutarch, not interested in the games as such, but in Alexander’s character, mentions them in passing as the setting for the characteristic anecdote: this lack of interest in the historical background is common enough in the Lives—and often excruciating to the modern reader, whose interests are different—and it helps to explain how the geographical slip could occur and pass unnoticed. In Dicaearchus, even less interested in the history and chronology of Alexander’s marches, the setting, as we have seen, is sketched even more lightly. However, there is no doubt that the story of Alexander’s kissing Bagoas was originally attached to the games that Alexander 27

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gave in the capital of Carmania. We can still, if we want to, say a priori that the anecdote is of such a kind that it does not merit belief. But we cannot argue it out of existence by examination of its wording and setting; for the former is unexceptionable, the latter recognizably and incontestably historical. Perhaps we cannot easily get much farther than this: picturesque anecdotes, though often easy enough to disprove with finality, can never be ‘proved’ against those who simply refuse to believe them. Nor is even a source easily discovered. In Plutarch the story appears connected, by the motiv of drunkenness, with the Bacchic procession through Carmania; Diodorus, without mentioning Bagoas, gives both the procession and the games; Arrian gives the procession as a tale he rejects, and the games (without Bagoas) as a fact he quotes from Aristobulus; Curtius gives the procession and does not mention the games.55 Clearly the mention (or the acceptance) of either the procession through Carmania or the games, or both, does not necessarily lead to that of the eunuch. The case of Curtius is rather remarkable. The precise chronology of the events at Pura, the march through Carmania, and the stay in its capital cannot be disentangled with certainty.56 In Curtius they are divided, for fairly obvious reasons of composition, between the end of Book ix and the beginning of Book x: in ix. 10 he concludes with the Bacchic procession, and in x. 1 comes the story of Orxines, to which we have already referred. Thus at this very point in his narrative Curtius is using a source that dwells on Alexander’s feasting and drunkenness and one that knows Bagoas. Yet these elements do not appear combined into the story we have in Plutarch. Can we tell whether this is due to the source or to Curtius? Whoever it was, was clearly interested only in the eunuch’s political influence (whether or not he actually knew this particular story): incidents (i) and (ii) unmistakably show the same interest and mind. Curtius, however, was far more interested in Alexander’s character than in political history as such:57 riotous drinking and loving are prominently featured, and there is no reason why in this instance they should be deliberately dropped. Curtius cannot have found the incident at the Carmanian games—which he does not mention at all—in the source that gave him the story of Bagoas and Orxines. We can now consider the important question of the sources of these Bagoas incidents. For Tarn all is too easy: Dicaearchus, wanting—for reasons that we shall have to discuss—to prove that Alexander was homosexual, and having no genuine evidence, ‘invented for him a minion, the eunuch Bagoas’; and this theory ‘had a long run’.58 It is again an interesting study in method. Starting with the emotionally satisfying theory that Bagoas must be a libellous invention, we must, of course, find someone who invented him. Dicaearchus is the earliest source named in connexion with a Bagoas incident; as, therefore, the invention cannot be more recent, it must be due to Dicaearchus. It is too easy, though, to accuse Dicaearchus, whom Cicero thought 8στορικτατον,59 of deliberate lying; and it is quite unjustified. That worthy philosopher, like Theophrastus and Aristotle himself, may have lacked training in modern historical criticism; he may have lacked the intuition that enables modern scholars infallibly to tell a 28

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true story from a spurious one; but we have no justification for simply calling him a liar. Moreover, it is hard to see how he could have lied: he had, after all, a considerable and serious reputation; and he lived at a time when Alexander was still a familiar figure.60 What would his readers among Alexander’s veterans— what would the surviving Successor Kings themselves—have thought of one who not only invented an incident like the one we are considering, but stupidly made it up about a character whom both he and they knew to be imaginary? We have already seen61 that there is no reason to think that Dicaearchus is Plutarch’s source for the incident which they both report; there is certainly none to believe that he wholly made it up—much less that he made up the other two (those in Curtius), written from quite a different point of view and not traceable to the same source as the third. Yet Dicaearchus, though no mere gossip-writer, might have had a serious reason for the invention—one that might make him take all the attendant risks of ridicule. So the invention now becomes part of the ‘Peripatetic attack’ on Alexander: the lie was invented by one whose philosophical creed and personal connexions made him hate Alexander; and it was meant to explain (a) Alexander’s supposed indifference to women; (b) his deterioration in his later period—neither of which was in fact true.62 To use Tarn’s own words: we cannot help feeling that his ‘explanations . . . are mutually exclusive and therefore presumably both untrue’. But worse follows: to make all this plausible, Dicaearchus has to be linked with the main tradition of the Peripatetics and described as ‘associated with the rule, after Alexander’s death, of his enemy Cassander’. For such an association no evidence is cited. Cassander is known to have been a friend of several Peripatetic philosophers of Dicaearchus’ generation;63 but Dicaearchus is not one of them. He, in fact, was fundamentally opposed to the philosophy of Theophrastus, who succeeded Aristotle as head of the School,64 and he seems to have quarrelled with Aristotle himself and certainly resented the Master’s appointment of Theophrastus as his successor.65 What, however, was this Peripatetic tradition about Alexander, which Dicaearchus is said to have followed and graced with his inventions? It is a theory that Tarn takes from Stroux (who based it on the views of others) and describes as founded on Ciceronian evidence and generally accepted.66 The ‘Peripatetic portrait’ is said to be that of a man well educated and trained by Aristotle, but spoiled by Fortune. It is said to have been invented by Theophrastus in vindication of Callisthenes, then taken over by the School as a whole, thereby becoming influential at Alexandria, and finally written up into an historical account by Curtius in the first century A.D.67 What is the evidence for this elaborate theory, which serves as a foundation for such charges of malice, misrepresentation, and even—as we have seen—prurient invention, brought against the most distinguished disciple of Aristotle? Cicero tells us that in his Callisthenes Theophrastus was grieved at Alexander’s good fortune and said that Callisthenes had come up against a most powerful and most fortunate man, who did not know how to bear his good fortune; and in 29

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another passage he tells us in passing that Theophrastus in that work approves of the saying that it is fortune, not wisdom, that rules human life.68 These are—to my knowledge—the only two references, in Cicero or anywhere else, to any possible judgement on Alexander passed by a Peripatetic philosopher after Aristotle. Theophrastus’ Callisthenes was subtitled Or about Grief.69 It was not primarily about Fortune, not at all about Alexander. Theophrastus’ Callisthenes, like—to take two of the most familiar examples—Cicero’s Laelius and Cato, was a disquisition on a philosophical subject dedicated to the memory of a great man: the philosopher’s own grief at his friend’s death would make it poignant and fitting. About the man himself something would no doubt—as in the examples we know—be said in the introduction, and as he would be the principal speaker, casual allusions might be made elsewhere. Nothing said in such a work can be assumed—unless we have inescapable evidence to the contrary—to be a philosophical theory about Alexander. If we read Cicero’s two citations with the name and purpose of the work in mind, we can see clearly enough that it is Callisthenes’, not Alexander’s, wisdom and fortune that interests his friend: we must not be blinded by the fact that a modern historian’s chief interest will be different. It is Callisthenes whose misfortune is said to have brought him into contact with Alexander (‘incidere in’ is the phrase used), and it is clearly he whose life illustrates, for his friend, the truth of the old tag about wisdom and fortune. Having paid this tribute to his own feelings and to pietas, the author could no doubt pass on to the chief philosophic purpose of the work.70 As for Alexander, surely no one would deny that he was most powerful and most fortunate: that hardly amounts to a philosophical theory. And the view that his character did not show up too well under good fortune can hardly be called unreasonable or far-fetched even by those who—like Tarn—do not share it. In any case, it was the natural and spontaneous view for the friend of one of his victims; and it was probably shared, without attaining the dignity of being called a philosophical portrait, by the friends of Parmenio. To Theophrastus Alexander was merely a natural hazard for his friend Callisthenes.71 We have, indeed, another Ciceronian testimonium on Alexander in a letter to Atticus, written in May 45 B.C.72 It is one of a series in which he discusses the abortive plan of writing a ‘symbouleutic’ letter to Caesar, which was to restore him to Caesar’s favour. The project has by now fallen through, and he refuses to start again, because he does not really know what to write: he knows similar works addressed to the young Alexander,73 but that was different. Then (section 3) comes a passage we must quote in full: quid? tu non uides ipsum illum Aristoteli discipulum, summo ingenio, summa modestia, posteaquam rex appellatus sit, superbum crudelem immoderatum fuisse? quid? tu hunc de pompa, Quirini contubernalem, his nostris litteris laetaturum putas? This is, according to Tarn, a good summary of the ‘Peripatetic portrait’: it is said to tell us that ‘Aristotle turned out a perfectly good and virtuous pupil, but he 30

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was ruined by his own fortune and became a cruel tyrant’.74 One can only wonder where all this comes from. What Cicero is saying is that even Alexander, though a promising young man and a pupil of Aristotle (i.e. a man who had had the best possible moral education) became a tyrant after he obtained the title of ‘king’ (i.e. after his accession to the throne). [It must be clearly stated that Cicero is referring to Alexander’s becoming king, not to his (later) becoming King of Persia.] The word rex was, as is known, a common term of abuse in Roman politics:75 it was obviously not far from men’s minds in May 45—a little later Cicero explicitly applies it to Caesar.76 That it was in his mind in our context is clear; for he here refers to Caesar’s becoming σνναος of Quirinus, who was the deified Romulus—a step that, as Cicero had gleefully hinted at the time,77 suggested the traditional end of the founder-king. Caesar, already rex and σνναος θεου̑ , would have no use for advice; for even Alexander, who had had plenty of it, and of the best, had become a typical rex as soon as he obtained the title. Surely this Alexander has nothing to do with Theophrastus and the Peripatetic School: he is the Alexander of a Roman aristocrat chafing under the regnum of Caesar. We might as well call Schachermeyr’s Alexander the typical Peripatetic portrait. That Theophrastus disapproved of the king who had killed his friend we may well believe; especially as he was too sensible and too honest to preach the traditional philosophers’ comfort that the wise man is happy even under torture.78 But that this disapproval was ever worked up into a philosophical portrait, much less into a ‘doctrine of Chance, which was applied to Alexander’,79 and that such a view became canonical in the Peripatetic School ever after—that, as far as our information goes, is pure modern invention, unsupported by any evidence whatsoever. The ‘Peripatetic portrait of Alexander’ must disappear from discussions of his reign—it has bedevilled them long enough. And though Dicaearchus may undoubtedly be called a Peripatetic, he had no connexion—that we know of— with Cassander and his circle, no reason to avenge the death of Callisthenes (the friend of his rival Theophrastus), and none but common decency to share Theophrastus’ opinion of the man who killed him. It follows that we cannot find a shadow of a motive that would make Dicaearchus invent the eunuch Bagoas—an invention, as we saw, as improbable psychologically as it was factually implausible. We must conclude that Dicaearchus probably told his story—used in its context only incidentally— not as a new anecdote that he was trying to put into circulation, but as a well-known one that he had got either from an early written account or— quite as probably—from eyewitnesses; that Plutarch got the same story probably from a characterizing source; and that the incidents related by Curtius, both unexceptionably plausible, derive from a serious writer interested in Court intrigue—probably the same one to whom we owe what little we know about the background to the Philotas trial and similar matters. That Ptolemy’s official version and Aristobulus’ apologia do not mention Bagoas at all is relevant, not to the problem of his existence, but to that of their adequacy and veracity. We may now, moreover, also identify Bagoas with Alexander’s host in Babylon 31

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just before his death: Berve long ago saw that this identification is almost inevitable.80 As for Curtius, we must give up the simple theory of a ‘Peripatetic account’ which he, three or four centuries later, was the first to write down coherently. Not that this theory was ever much of a help—it only disguised our ignorance by means of an impressive label, and it led to the rejection, on a priori grounds, of much that is good in the tradition. The sources for the history of Alexander cannot be usefully investigated from the premise that the favourable accounts are generally authentic, while unfavourable ones are malicious later concoctions.81 This criterion, convenient as it would be, may be satisfying to some admirers of Alexander, but is only the rationalization of prejudice. It would be more true and useful, in view of the known tendencies of Ptolemy and Aristobulus (not to mention men like Chares), to maintain the opposite: that the unfavourable accounts are prima facie more plausible because they have not passed through the censorship of the Court Chancery or of admiring apologia. But no one has ever claimed—and no one, we may hope, ever will—that the facts are as simple as that. Much detailed analysis is necessary before such assertions are made; and we have seen by means of one example of such analysis how prejudice can lead to unscientific methods in order to explain away the inconvenient fact. Of the brilliance and integrity of scholars like Tarn there can be no doubt. The former, in Tarn’s case, appears from the very nature of his tour de force; the latter can be seen, in a most moving instance, where he discusses the death of Parmenio.82 Much of his detailed investigation will remain an invaluable starting-point for the future historian of Alexander; but the facts will have to be sorted without bias. Perhaps, with what materials we have, a proper history of Alexander cannot be written at all—certainly not for a long time yet.83

Notes 1 Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage, vol. ii, München, 1926. 2 Alexander the Great, 2 vols., Cambridge, 1948. (All references to Tarn are, unless the contrary is stated, to this work.) Many of his views had been known and influential for years, having appeared in the Cambridge Ancient History and in periodicals. 3 Vol. ii, part i. 4 e.g. J. R. Hamilton, C.Q., N.S. iii (1953), 151 f.; v (1955), 219 f. Abroad reaction has at times been more vigorous (e.g. Wüst, Historia, ii (1954), 418 f.; and Hampl, Robinson Studies, ii. 816 f.). 5 Cf. Ov. am. ii. 2. 1; and—an incredible farrago—Pliny n.h. xiii. 41. 6 R.E. s.v. ‘Bagoas’, no. 1. 7 Op. cit. ii. 319–22. 8 Thus Tarn’s statement that ‘the only one of our extant writers who features Bagoas is Curtius’ (p. 320) must be called misleading. We shall see the importance of that later. 9 Curt. vi. 5. 23. 10 Op. cit. ii. 96. 11 vi. 4. 8 f. 12 vi. 4. 14. 13 vi. 5. 22 (inaccurate).

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14 Which, incidentally, does not mean ‘soon’ (thus Tarn), but ‘in due course’, ‘later’. 15 Op. cit. 269. 16 This, implied by Arrian (see next note), is stated by Diodorus (xvii. 73. 2) and Curtius (v. 13. 13 f.). Cf. also Plut. Al. 43. 2. 17 The passage (Arr. iii. 30. 4 f. [references to Arrian are, unless otherwise marked, to the Anabasis]) is so important that it must be quoted in full (only Bessus’ unsatisfactory excuse is omitted, as the details are not relevant to this question): ’Aλξανδρος δ δRν τν Βη̑ σσον 'πιστ%σας τ Wρμα 6ρετο νθ’ 5του τν βασιλα τν αBτου̑ κα( Wμα οκει̑ ον κα( ε+εργτην γενμενον Δαρει̑ ον τ: μν πρωτα ξυνλαβε κα( δ%σας Y̑ γεν, 9πειτα ̑ πκτεινε . . . ’Aλξανδρος δ 'π( τοι̑ σδε μαστιγου̑ ν 'κλευεν α+τν κα( 'πιλγειν τν κ%ρυκα τα+τ: 'κει̑ να 5σα α+τς τKω̑ Β%σσKω 'ν τ˛η̑ πστει [νεδισε. Bη̑ σσος μν δ# ο τ του̑ ‘Αλεξνδρου σω̑ μα φυλσσων, παρ: γνμην α+τ Περδκκου λαβν, πρς Πτολεμαι̑ ον παραγνεται τν Λγου, π Βαβυλω̑ νος δι: Δαμασκου̑ 'π1 ΑGγυπτον 'λανων.

31 Thus Schubert (above, n. 13) 182 (citing Droysen): Hieronymus meant that Perdiccas distrusted Arrhidaeus from the start and had opposed his being appointed to take charge of the body! On this, see Diod. 18.3.5, giving Arrhidaeus’ appointment to this task among Perdiccas’ own arrangements (in consultation with the other marshals). 32 FgrHist 156 F 10.1: του̑ σματος δ του̑ ‘Αλεξνδρου κρατη̑ σαι. 33 Ptolemy’s enticement of Arrhidaeus is well attested, most clearly by Paus. 1.6.3. On Ptolemy’s ambitions (often misunderstood, and perhaps shedding light on his History of Alexander), see (e.g.) Diod. 20.37, and cf. (briefly) Gnomon 33, 1961, 665f. 34 Polemo and Attalus: Arrian (FgrHist 156) F 10.1. Photius (Arr. succ. 25) mentions only Polemo and suggests military action on his part. Perdiccas, at the time, had to deal with unsettled conditions in Asia Minor (for the chronology, see references n. 27) and could clearly not send a large force. Perhaps, by the time he heard of what was happening, it was too late to equip one. Though the poor state of the evidence makes certainty impossible, the outlines are clear enough. Attalus and Polemo, mentioned together here, must surely be the sons of Andromenes (Berve, Alexanderreich II, nos. 181 and 644). Attalus was married to Perdiccas’ sister and was later in charge of the fleet supporting Perdiccas’ attempted invasion of Egypt (Diod. 18.37.2). Their choice for this mission confirms the importance that Perdiccas attached to it. 35 Diod. 18.38 mentions Ptolemy’s advance to ‘escort’ the body — and has usually been disbelieved, since Schubert (above, n. 13) 186f, who objected that such a move on Ptolemy’s part would be illegal! Discussing the mission of Polemo and Attalus in a totally different connection, he states (p. 183) that they failed to catch up with Arrhidaeus — which plainly contradicts the account in Arrian-Photius and is not based on anything in any source. So much for Quellenforschung.

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36 The question of the transposition of lines, noted by Wilcken, does not matter here: these plans obviously belong together. 37 Tarn, Alex. II 387f (Curtius 10.1.19); Schachermeyr (above, n. 8) 133: Pliny, n.h. 7.208. For the 1,000 warships, see Arr. anab. 7.19.4. 38 Arr. anab. 7.19.3; IG II2 1629, 808f; 1631, 172f. 39 Arr. anab. 7.1.2f. 40 Strabo 13.26.593C, mentioning a letter to the city. It was Lysimachus who actually took the work in hand. 41 Schachermeyr attacks Tarn’s attempt to show that Diodorus’ wording of the reasons for these measures shows the influence of philosophical commonplaces developed by Peripatetics after Alexander’s death. But since the reasons were surely not given (or even alleged to be given) in Alexander’s document, but must be explanatory additions either by Diodorus himself or by his source (writing well after Alexander’s death, even if it was Hieronymus), Tarn’s argument is futile and no attack on it is needed. 42 Hampl’s long demonstration (821–825; see above, n. 6) that Alexander did not regard Philip as his father in the months before his death is a splendid example of elaborate documentation of the obvious and generally accepted on a point of detail, without thought of general principles of criticism. Schachermeyr has no difficulty in showing its absurdity. 43 Pages 126f (see above, n. 8). 44 On the πυρ of Hephaestion, see Schachermeyr’s detailed discussion (ibid. 121f), making it quite clear that it was not a mere funeral pyre. Arrian (anab. 7.14.8) gives the order to build the monument as an item he found in all his sources (including, by implication, Ptolemy and Aristobulus: the latter, who was interested in monuments, may well, therefore, be the ultimate source for the details of the design which we have in Diod. 17.115). That was straight after Hephaestion’s death (probably October 324: see Berve, Alexanderreich II 173). Though preparations for such things were slow (cf. the ‘nearly two years’ it took to prepare Alexander’s funeral cortège), yet quite a bit of progress must have been made in the eight months before the king’s own death. 45 Hampl (above, n. 6) 817f, following an earlier argument of Tarn’s. 46 Ibid. 827 (not very firmly). 47 Alexander II 379f. 48 Pages 123f (above, n. 8). 49 Thus Schachermeyr, ibid. 50 Notably Granier, Die makedonische Heeresversammlung (1931), and Hampl’s early work, Der König der Makedonen (1934). [The most recent and most scholarly description of Macedonian Staatsrecht will be found in various chapters of N. G. L. Hammond, The Macedonian State (1989).] 51 Cf. Curtius 8.2.12. 52 The Hyphasis ‘mutiny’ (as we rightly call it) was not treated as such by Alexander, either at the time or later. The absence of any reference to a later attempt to punish the ringleaders — such as is characteristic, in antiquity, of situations where a commander has temporarily been helpless in the face of his men — is particularly noteworthy: Alexander knew the limits of his power. 53 Hardly any of the Susa marriages long survived Alexander’s death. 54 At least originally. We have few details about later levies; but there is no reason to think that they seriously affected that proportion. Cf. Brunt, JHS 1963, 36f. 55 Dio 44.53.2f gives a general account. Cicero supplies some details, in bright colours (e.g. Att. 14.12.1; fam. 12.2.2; Phil. 1.2; 2.92f, and passim). 56 Plut. Eum. 13; Diod. 18.60.4–61.3. 57 There is no need for detailed demonstration: see Berve, Alexanderreich II, nos. 317, 383. 58 Arr. anab. 7.12.1–2.

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59 On this, see Schachermeyr (above, n. 8) 127. 60 Tarn, trying to disprove the authenticity of the ‘plans,’ noticed (Alex. II 382) that this ‘can hardly be called a plan’; but, overlooking his best argument, he went on to say that it ‘is quite immaterial.’ 61 Curtius 10.9–10; Arr. succ. 3f. 62 Schachermeyr (above, n. 8) 121f. It may avoid confusion to summarise the probable order in Hieronymus: (1) the mutiny and reconciliation; (2) the lustration and punishment; (3) (?) the reading of the hypomnemata; (4) (?) the division of commands; (5) the death of Meleager. Diodorus, who — as so often — has torn the context to shreds, gives (4) before (3). Since no other source mentions (3), he cannot be positively proved wrong; but it is difficult to imagine that the division of commands could in fact precede the cancellation of Alexander’s ‘plans,’ since a settlement — one way or the other — of the latter would surely have to be arrived at before one even knew what commands were to be distributed. But this must remain uncertain. It is worth mentioning that a trace of what I regard as the original order still seems to survive: it is after the affair of the hypomnemata and the execution of the trouble-makers and of Meleager that Diodorus gives us (chs. 5–6) an extensive descriptio imperii, which logically ought to go with the distribution of commands. 63 Arr. succ. 5. 64 On Craterus and Antipater, see (briefly) JHS 81, 1961, 40f [no. 5]. Cf. also Gnomon 34, 1962, 383f. 65 Plut. Eum. 3, init. 66 Schachermeyr (above, n. 8) 119. 67 I should like to thank Dr. G. W. Bowersock, Dr. R. M. Errington and Mr. G. T. Griffith for helpful comments on this article, at various stages of production.

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13 NEARCHUS THE CRETAN1

The reputation of Nearchus, the Cretan from Amphipolis, shines like a good deed in the admittedly naughty world of Alexander historians.2 A loyal friend of Alexander’s since youth, he was among those banished as a result of the Pixodarus affair,3 and he retained an honest and sincere admiration for the king,4 yet without indulging in reprehensible flattery.5 An eminent historian, known chiefly for topographical and military researches, waxes rhetorical:6 The description going back to him of his reunion with Alexander the Great after his voyage over the Indian Ocean is a unique pearl of world literature, which in loyalty and depth of penetration into a human personality (here that of Alexander the Great) is unsurpassed by any other description surviving from antiquity, and which can be compared – and that only at a considerable distance – to very few passages in ancient literature. Nearchus the writer is matched by Nearchus the great man: he is the only one of Alexander’s subordinates who has any major achievement of his own to show, and who, ‘as it were, provides a complement by sea to the conqueror of the earth’.7 It is rare to find the mild protests of a perceptive scholar like Truesdell S. Brown: ‘A more careful examination shows that . . . Nearchus was not exclusively concerned with painting an accurate picture of events, particularly events in which he had himself played a part.’8 Lionel Pearson studied Nearchus against his literary background,9 showing not only the obvious imitation of Herodotus, but the more surprising epic elements borrowed from the Odyssey. It should not be necessary, by now, to demonstrate that Nearchus was not a detached scientist trying to present an objective record of the results of his voyage of exploration for the instruction of his readers. Not only was he, as even Berve had to acknowledge,10 insufficiently critical of the mirabilia that he heard from local sources: we know that he reported his own wonders where he must have known better, to impress rather than to instruct; thus the whale 90 cubits long that was measured by his own men,11 or the skins of large ants of which he personally saw a considerable number brought into the Macedonian camp,12 or the savages with hair all 193

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over their bodies and claws like beasts’, who dressed in the skins of fishes,13 or shadows falling towards the south at a time well after the autumn equinox.14 The fanciful travelers’ tales may be forgiven: they were expected by the public, and duly provided for its delectation. What will interest us here is the image of himself and, in particular, of his relations with Alexander that Nearchus builds up, and his remarks on his rivals, particularly Onesicritus. The fact of Nearchus’ close and early connection with Alexander is clear. He belonged to the select group of Alexander’s friends exiled after the Pixodarus affair,15 and he was one of the first of that group to receive his reward and his chance to prove himself, when he was put in charge of a greatly enlarged Lycia as his satrapy.16 We next find him, unaccountably, at Bactra-Zariaspa. There the king spent part of a winter and dealt with various administrative matters, in ways unfortunately not clear from our sources. He was met there by various satraps and commanders, among them Nearchus, who brought him a force of Greek mercenaries, we do not know from where.17 After this he again disappears from historical record for about two years. We do not know either the reason for his recall from Lycia or the way or ways (if any) in which Alexander employed him after that recall. His satrapy seems to have been joined to Antigonus’ Phrygia, and it has even been argued that the need for a separate Phrygian province disappeared with the dissolution of the Persian fleet.18 Yet it remains puzzling that Antigonus, whose task in his own province was by no means an easy one, should have been burdened with an area known throughout antiquity for its warlike mountain tribes: one must suspect that Nearchus had not proved up to expectation in his arduous assignment.19 If he got another command – a question we cannot answer – it was at any rate not a major one: had he played an important part in Alexander’s vicinity, as he does just before the king’s death, we could not have failed to hear. For an ex-satrap it must in any case have been demotion. Nothing prepares us for the later appearance of Nearchus in command of a fleet. In fact, the next occasion on which we meet him, in Assacenia, is one where he commands land forces on reconnaissance. We are suddenly informed that Nearchus and Antiochus, chiliarchs of the hypaspists, were entrusted with this mission, the latter taking three regiments of hypaspists, the former the Agrianes and the light-armed.20 Whether Nearchus at the time really held this lowly officer’s rank – Antiochus is otherwise quite unknown – must remain somewhat doubtful. It would be a unique appointment for a man of Greek birth; and it must be noted that on the actual occasion he does not, like his colleague, command hypaspists or any other Macedonian troops. Nor do we ever, during the rest of his service under Alexander, find him doing so. The fact that he takes temporary charge of the Agrianes – one of Alexander’s favorite units21 – would not of itself mark him out as more than one of the hetairoi, available for temporary commands whenever Alexander required them.22 It must be suggested (though it cannot be proved) that Arrian, unsatisfactory as so often, has misunderstood his source, and that the description he applies to both commanders 194

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rightly belonged only to the second, Antiochus, who is found actually commanding hypaspists on this occasion.23 Whatever he had been doing since his recall from Lycia, nothing (as we noted) prepares us for the very next occasion on which we hear about him: his appointment to command the fleet that was to sail down to the Indus and then to the sea.24 There is no good reason to think that the plan of sailing down to the sea in ships was ever thought of before Alexander was forced by his men to turn back at the Hyphasis: not a mention of it in the better sources, nor – in the light of Alexander’s attested and incompatible desire to penetrate much further east – the slightest historical plausibility.25 Diodorus (17. 89. 4f.) and Curtius (9. 1. 3) ascribe to him both a desire to conquer all of India and a plan to sail down the Indus to the Ocean, and they claim this as his motive for allegedly building a fleet on the Hydaspes after his victory over Porus. Strabo (15. 1. 29) mentions the building of a Hydaspes fleet without specifying the time, but makes it clear that it took place ‘near the cities he had founded ('κτισμναις Bπ’ α+το) on either side of the river’. Thus Strabo puts the building at a time when the cities had already been founded, i.e. after Alexander’s return to the Hydaspes from the Hyphasis, just where Arrian also reports it, and where alone it makes historical sense. The source, in both cases, may be Aristobulus, and since both the attestation and the plausibility are superior to the other version, this one ought to be believed. The variant in Curtius and Diodorus may be due to mere confusion in their source, but also possibly to a desire (which is clear in Curtius, but may, of course, be his own contribution) to illustrate the boundless ambition that Alexander had by this time developed. In any case, it does not belong to history. It follows that one cannot logically expect Alexander to have started training Nearchus for his future naval responsibilities before the thought of those responsibilities had itself entered his mind.26 We are compelled to assume that that decision was almost as sudden as it appears in our sources. The reasons for it cannot be known. But as we have seen, there is no sign of Nearchus’ having distinguished himself in his military assignments up to this point. This new task was largely an organizing assignment, requiring no fighting ability: the fighting was to be done by Alexander himself and a few trusted Macedonian commanders, with the land forces. As regards knowledge of ships, the Cretan may be presumed to have had some early connection with ships. Perhaps Alexander wanted to give an old friend, of whose loyalty there was no doubt, but for whom no niche had so far been found, a chance in another sphere. In any case, one must not exaggerate the responsibilities ex post facto – nor the success. Alexander was never far away and kept tight control, and his personal intervention was necessary to salvage what he could after a far from brilliant performance (for which the commander of the fleet must surely bear the blame) at the junction of the Hydaspes and the Acesines.27 Alexander now took good care to arrange that the next likely trouble-spot – the junction of the Acesines and the Hydraotes – should not be negotiated until he was himself present to take command (and, we may add, though no one bothers to mention it, until his own 195

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pilot Onesicritus could take charge of the actual navigation).28 While Alexander was recovering from his dangerous wound, we duly find the fleet and the army waiting at the junction,29 which they passed only when he was fit to take personal charge.30 It is clear that Nearchus had again failed to distinguish himself, and that Alexander was aware of it. His organizing ability may have been irreproachable, but his actual navigational control had been less successful; while military action had – perhaps fortunately – not been needed. This must be borne in mind when we next consider the famous scene in which Nearchus describes how he suggested himself as commander for the voyage of exploration along the southern coast. It is, of course, this story of his which has contributed much to the common view of his naive loyalty.31 That the king was by now hoping such an expedition would prove possible may be accepted; also that Nearchus, after his command of the Indus fleet, was the obvious candidate. But that is not all. It must first be noted that there is a chronological puzzle regarding this conversation, which might seem to throw immediate doubt on Nearchus’ veracity. Arrian’s summary of Nearchus in the Indica (20.1) starts at this point and gives no precise chronological setting. At the end of his account, one of the reasons Nearchus gives for the troops’ confidence about the outcome of the expedition is that Alexander had explored the mouths of the Indus and had offered sacrifice to Poseidon and to other gods. This ought to mean that the appointment came after the king’s return from that expedition. In Anabasis 6. 18f. the exploration of the Indus mouths is told in great detail, and in 19. 5 we hear that Alexander sacrificed to Poseidon on behalf of the safety of the expedition which he was proposing (5ντινα 'πενει) to send under Nearchus. This account (not from Nearchus) ties the sacrifice to the proposed expedition under Nearchus, which the account in the Indica does not do, and implies that the appointment had already been made, i.e. it puts the appointment (on a reasonable interpretation) before the exploration of the Indus mouths and appears to contradict Nearchus. And though it must be noted that the relative clause giving Nearchus’ name is an addition by Arrian himself (as is clear from the imperfect), and that its subjectmatter may not have come from the source, the basic facts as recorded in this fuller account should be accepted. The expedition was not officially constituted – and thus sacrifices on its behalf were impossible – until Nearchus had been appointed to command it; and though the abbreviated account in the Indica does not actually say so, it should be understood that the sacrifices there referred to were indeed those on behalf of the expedition, which Nearchus himself must also have put after his own appointment. The appointment therefore preceded the voyage to the mouths of the Indus, and both sources must have agreed on this. It is perhaps only the nature of Arrian’s brief summary in the Indica that creates an appearance of contradiction. Nearchus himself must have made the distinction in time between the two reasons for the men’s confidence much clearer: first, immediately after his appointment, the fact of the appointment itself; then, after Alexander’s exploration of the mouths of the Indus, his sacrifices there, on behalf 196

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of the expedition. Here, at any rate, there is no good reason to doubt Nearchus, or, for that matter, to accuse the source of the account in the Anabasis of error. But the part of the dialogue between Alexander and Nearchus, in which the king makes a candid survey of various (unnamed) commanders who might be considered for the appointment, needs further scrutiny. With the possible exception of the steersman of his own ship, no other commander could surely have been seriously considered for the task, since none of them had anything like the requisite experience. Indeed, in part the passage must be read as depreciation of Onesicritus, whose name would at once come to mind. That he was considered and rejected may well be believed. It is clear that Alexander had confidence in him as a navigator: he must have saved the remnants of the fleet after its narrow escape from disaster, and he must have helped to prevent the recurrence of such a disaster, especially (as we saw) at the next river junction. But his undoubted merits were those of a technician: he had, as far as we know, no experience of high command or major organization, and a task such as the expedition along the coast would be beyond any merits he had shown. What is more interesting, perhaps, is how Nearchus cleverly uses his account of the conversation to imply rejection, on various specified grounds, of numerous other leaders, who must have been of some eminence. Yet a conversation such as he describes – Alexander mentions various leaders and, one by one, charges them with lack of loyalty or lack of courage! – is surely remote from any probability. Who, after all, were all these great men whom Alexander would consider for this major responsibility, but whom he found lacking in one of these essential qualities? And would he really confide his thoughts of that nature to Nearchus? Finally (as we know) the solution appears: Nearchus offers his own services, and Alexander, after long hesitation because he does not want to expose one of his own friends to such dangers, at last accepts the offer and appoints Nearchus to the command of the fleet. Again, there is obviously a kernel of truth. But we must note the elaboration. Had none of the numerous leaders previously mentioned and rejected as unsuitable been friends of Alexander’s? It is surely as strange that the supposed confidential discussion should have included only men not among his friends as we found the idea of the discussion as a whole, and the grounds allegedly given for their rejection. What Alexander’s real worry was is in fact casually mentioned by Nearchus a little earlier: he was afraid of losing the whole expedition – not so much because of the large loss of human life involved, although Nearchus seems to imply this too in a rhetorical repetition of this idea on the occasion of his pathetic reunion with the king,32 as for the more characteristic reason that the effect of his victories would be wiped out by such a major disaster (κηλ(ς αδο τ/ς 'π( θλασσαν 9ξω πνου 'γνετο (36. 8). The events surrounding the execution of Astaspes, the satrap of Carmania, whose death provides a gruesome and effective climax to Alexander’s Bacchic rout and thereby to Curtius’ ninth book (C 9. 10. 21; cf. 29), and the appointment of Tlepolemus to the satrapy cannot be disentangled with sufficient certainty to provide a check on Nearchus. If Arrian is right, Nearchus is mistaken in his report of the change of governor in Carmania; and the execution of Astaspes is not mentioned by any other source. [I have since come to see the execution of Astaspes as an important instance of Alexander’s treatment of Iranian nobles whom, after his return from India, he regarded as dangerous. See no. 24 in this collection, where Astaspes is listed as the first of the rebels.] 43 C 10. 1. 10; P 68. 1. 44 Thus, e.g., C. B. Welles in his Loeb edition of Diodorus vol. 8, p. 429, n. 2 and p. 431, n. 3. 45 See E. Badian, CQ 52 = N.S. 8 (1958), 150f. [no. 2 in this collection]. 46 He was regarded even in antiquity as a typical kolax (see F. gr. Hist. 139 T 5), and the judgment can be confirmed. (See E. Badian, CW 65 (1971), 37ff.) 47 See the discussion in CQ 52 = N.S. 8 (1958) (cited n. 45 above). 47a [I have suggested that there may be a connection between the Bacchic procession and the execution of Astaspes, and that this took place while Nearchus was with Alexander. See op. cit. in addition to n. 42 above.] 48 A 6. 28. 5 might tip the balance in Nearchus’ favor, if we could be sure that Arrian is not here too drawing on Nearchus, to whom he refers by name straight after. 49 A 7. 5. 4f. Jacoby’s attempt to deny Onesicritus his crown on a priori grounds is rightly rejected by scholars (see, e.g., Pearson, p. 84).

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50 Ind. 23. 4f. 51 On the relationship between Alexander and Barsine, I (like most scholars) see no reason to accept Tarn’s arguments (last Alexander the Great, vol. 2, pp. 330f.) against its existence. 52 A 7. 25.4, misrepresented as a positive report of his appointment to the command by Berve, Lehmann-Haupt and others. 53 P 76. 1f. (20 Daesius: he died on the 28th). 54 P 75. 4f.; cf. A 7. 24. 4 (Nearchus not named); 25. 1. 55 See CW 65 (1971), 50f.; A. B. Bosworth, CQ 65 = N.S. 21 (1971), 117ff. 56 Eumenes: F. gr. Hist. 113 T 13b. The report that it was Nearchus who passed the Chaldaeans’ warning to Alexander not to enter Babylon on to the king (P 73. 1; D 112, 3f.) suggests some interesting possibilities, unfortunately beyond serious investigation. It could itself come from the Ephemerides (on any interpretation of their nature), since the event concerns both the king and Babylon. Whether or not it does, it may show a connection between Nearchus and the Babylonian priests, which – in so far as the Ephemerides might be based on a document compiled by them: see A. E. Samuel, Historia 14 (1965), 1f. – could help to account for his prominence in that account. 57 C 10. 6. 10f. 58 Justin 13. 4. 14f. is the only source reporting that he received a satrapy (Lycia) in the first distribution at Babylon. This must be rejected as an error based on his first appointment under Alexander, as is generally recognized. Jacoby, F. gr. Hist. II D, p. 448, collects massive evidence disproving it (though he then inclines to accept it!). On Polyaen. 5. 35, sometimes used in support (thus Jacoby), see Lehmann-Haupt, p. 137. 59 Lehmann-Haupt, p. 116 (presumably taken from Capelle, RE, s.v. ‘Nearchos’, col. 2152: ‘schlichte Darstellung’; cf. col. 2153). 60 Capelle, ibid.: ‘Es tritt aber der Autor und damit der Mensch N. . . . durchaus hinter seinem Gegenstand zurück.’ 61 Berve, p. 272. 62 [On Nearchus as a source for Arrian’s account of Alexander in India, see A. B. Bosworth, Alexander and the East (1996), passim.]

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14 REVIEW OF KONRAD KRAFT Der ‘rationale’ Alexander

This posthumous work, important on account of its author’s name, was edited by Dr. H. Gesche. She explains that she persuaded K. to string these essays together into a book; that after his death she rewrote much of the book from his notes and drafts, and from opinions she had heard him express; that she added the last few pages (duly marked), and that throughout ‘eigene Ergänzungen und Formulierungen’ too numerous to be marked or distinguished have been used, though always ‘in some form’ based on K.’s notes, or his words as remembered and interpreted by her. What we have, therefore, is ‘in some form’ K.’s book, though no one will ever know how much of it he would have published if he had lived, how much changed after more checking, and how much discarded as unworthy of publication. The book will now act on scholarship as it stands, and it is thus that we must take it. But in all that will have to be said about it the exceptional circumstances of its production should constantly be borne in mind. The book is presented as having a unified theme: the ‘rationality’ of Alexander the Great (henceforth ‘Al.’) is to be defended against what K. seems to regard as a conspiracy by a list of ‘irrationalist’ interpreters as diverse in their approach as (to mention only the worst sinners) Ehrenberg, Hamilton, Hampl, Schachermeyr, Strasburger and myself. The first essay, and one of the longest, ‘Die Ermordung Philipps’, is in fact totally irrelevant to the theme. The other four (on the ‘Ammonssohnschaft’, the Egyptian campaign, Pothos and the plans for the conquest of the West) show the required unity. But coming as they do to less than 90 pages, they were presumably felt to be too short for a book. Hence, on Dr. Gesche’s advice, the first had to be included, and the attempt to acquit Al. of all responsibility for Philip’s death somehow made relevant to the theme announced. The required relevance can be shown only by legerdemain. K. admits (13) that even if A1. were conceived as ‘noble’, danger to his life or his succession would make participation in the murder conceivable. The admission is clearly somewhat ‘schief’ (to use one of his own words): a ‘noble’ Al. would not have killed his father even if in real danger – only a coldly ‘rational’ Al. would have done so. Hence if there was danger to Al., his complicity in the murder would be wholly rational. But K., of 211

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course, cannot admit this: it would at once show that his essay, concentrating on proving that there was no such danger, is irrelevant to his announced theme of Al.’s rationality. An ‘irrationalist’ interpretation would be one that believed in the complicity without believing in the danger. But my point in Phoenix 17, 1963, 244–50 (the chief object of K.’s attack) was precisely to show that Al. was in very real danger, hence acting very ‘rationally’ if he took part in the plot against Philip. K. is entitled to argue (as he tries to do) that I was mistaken in believing in the danger. But he really cannot have it both ways – arguing that I was wrong on the danger and then condemning me as an ‘irrationalist’ for believing that it drove Al. to action. In fact, K. evinces an uneasy feeling that all is not well with his argument. A new charge, repeated with strident insistence, is needed to make his case: namely that, far from really basing my case on Al.’s danger, I based it on two ‘irrational’ grounds (12; cf. 43 et al.): first, that I allocated a ‘determining role’ to my (imagined) knowledge of Al.’s character – what K. calls ‘psychologisierende Beweisführung’ and himself frequently practises; next, that I based my view of Al.’s complicity (‘praktisch als Hauptbeweisstück’ – the connection is ‘fast zwangsläufig’) on my assumption that he believed in his ‘Ammonssohnschaft’. Now, the second point is difficult to make even prima facie plausible: if, years later, A1. came to believe himself a son of Ammon, how can this be evidence for the behaviour of a worried crown prince in 336? K. actually admits the non sequitur (43); but is the reader not entitled to some evidence that anyone ever presented such an odd case? None is given. As for the first point, my references to A1. were purely in behaviourist terms: I referred to the ‘pattern’ [note the word] of his actions against Parmenio, against Alexander of Lyncestis and Callisthenes, and of the liquidation of the satraps and commanders on his return from India. K. is again free to prove that these events do not show the pattern that I see in them (this he does not attempt to do); but he can hardly call the argument ‘psychologisierend’. However, both charges are actually pure fiction, necessitated by K.’s frantic quest (‘verkrampftes Bemühen’, to use a phrase characteristic of his references to others) for a way of making my case appear irrational (and not merely mistaken), hence a fit subject for this volume. For the references to the ‘pattern’ and the ‘Ammonssohnschaft’, such as they are, are both to be found in the last ten lines of my article cited – clearly a footnote, not part of my argument. Neither plays the least part in my actual argumentation trying to establish that Al. must be somehow connected with the plot against Philip. (More than that I never did claim to have established; cf. TAPA 91, 1960 [no. 3 in this collection], 325: ‘It paid no one to speak or write the truth after the event.’) 212

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This is misrepresentation on the grand scale. Throughout the book, it is the chief weapon employed in dealing with opposing arguments, until the reader who happens to check references rubs his eyes in astonishment at such techniques in a scholarly work. A list of selected instances must be given: the reader will easily find more examples and, in the light of the case I have treated in detail, be on his guard throughout. 16, note 11: K. supports his guess that Olympias was reconciled to Philip and was present at their daughter’s wedding at Aegae (!) by pointing to the ‘Philippeum’ at Olympia, where the Greeks set up a statue of Olympias next to those of Philip and Al. ‘nach der Schlacht von Chaeronea’. Momigliano’s dating of these statues to after Philip’s death is ‘bezeichnend für das verkrampfte Bemühen [my emphasis], dies um keinen Preis gelten zu lassen’; his reason for thus dating it is said to be that the action is inconceivable in the time of tension between Philip and Olympias near the end of his life. In fact Momigliano reports that the excavators at Olympia found a building set up as a ‘treasury’ and only later remodelled to receive the statues (also those of Philip’s parents); and he argues that the setting up of two chryselephantine cult statues to two queens [we might add: even one to Al. himself] is unlikely before the last year of Al.’s life. 24: ‘Konsequenterweise wird . . . laut Badian für den Fall von Philipps Tod die Be seitigung Alexanders vorgesehen.’ Inspection of my article reveals that I foresaw that possibility precisely if Philip continued to live, long enough to begin training the expected son of Cleopatra for the succession. 25: ‘Badian . . . behauptet, daβ . . . keine Bestätigung des Nachfolgerechts Alexanders erolgt sei’ [on his return from exile]. Inspection reveals – in addition to other inaccuracies in K.’s presentation of my case at that point – that I continue to refer to Al. as ‘the Crown Prince’ and explicitly state (Phoenix, cit. 246) that he was still officially regarded as the successor. 32: It is alleged that all those who regard Al. or Olympias as implicated in a plot ‘must deny’ that Pausanias acted from purely personal motives. Notes 58–59 show that K. was well aware that at least two scholars escaped that necessity. In fact, all I can recall (including myself) did. It is only A. B. Bosworth, not believing in the guilt of Al. or Olympias, who has recently tried to present Pausanias as a misunderstood Upper Macedonian Freedom Fighter (CIQu 21, 1971, 93f), [a view he no longer holds]. 43: ‘Für Hamilton . . . liegt der Hauptbeweis für die Mißachtung von Philipps Vaterschaft [in the letter ap. Plut. Al. 28, 2] in dem angeblich völlig gesicherten [my emphasis] Glauben Alexanders an seine Ammonssohnschaft: “In the first place the view . . . that Al. believed 213

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himself to be the son of Ammon is proved correct beyond reasonable doubt.”’ (Sim. 44.) Inspection reveals that it is in fact Hamilton’s own argument that is claimed to prove the belief correct: Hamilton’s very next sentence (naturally omitted by K.) starts: ‘The other evidence for this view is . . . scanty.’ His own argument proceeds without any reference to that view. K.’s treatment of this precisely parallels that of my argument regarding Philip’s death (see above). 44: Hamilton, who translates ‘το πατρς 'μο προσαγορευομνου’ as ‘my so-called father’, is charged with having, for his own purposes, rejected the Loeb translation, ‘[who] was called my father’, as making no sense. (An erudite discussion on the meaning of the verb follows.) Inspection reveals that H. does not even bother to discuss that part of the translation, since (as will be clear to any reader) it means, in the context, precisely the same as his own. What he claims does not make sense is three other words, carefully marked by him. 60: This time it is Hampl’s turn: a reasonable argument is selectively excerpted and twisted so as to make it appear ridiculous. Demonstration would take too long, but the case is flagrant, and readers, once warned, will easily be able to check it. 70: K. claims that Ehrenberg regards the visit to Siwah and the securing of Al.’s status of divine sonship there as ‘irrationally’ explaining Al.’s Egyptian campaign. (This is frequently repeated, in K.’s usual manner of Lewis Carroll’s Bellman: ‘What I tell you three times is true.’) As students of Al. well know, E.’s argument is in fact totally different, relating to the rounding off of Al.’s ‘first empire’. The charge is pure fiction. But the truth would again fail to establish a relevance to ‘irrationalism’. 110: Near the end of his splendid article on Al.’s march through the Gedrosian desert (Hermes 80, 1952, 488 – another of K.’s main objects of attack) Strasburger compares the attitude of those who simply refuse to believe well-attested horrors in history to the attitude of Hecataeus. K. reveals Strasburger’s nefarious purpose: ‘Der Verweis [to Nearchus] . . . samt der Androhung, . . . mit Hekataios auf eine Stufe gestellt zu werden, hat die Funktion [my emphasis], mit der Autorität Nearchs die modernen Urteile, die nicht an 60–70000 Beteiligte . . . in der gedrosischen Wüste glauben, als unhaltbar und nicht quellenkritisch zu disqualifizieren’. He goes on to say that Nearchus does not provide evidence for the figures. Of course (as K. later admits), Strasburger had in fact just carefully stated (op. cit. 486) that the figures are based on Plutarch, and in the whole of the context from which K. quotes there is no reference to the figures, merely to the severity of the suffering. K.’s revelation consists in (as a German phrase aptly puts it) ‘offene Türen einrennen’. But it is rather worse. For as the instance just quoted shows, he is too ready wantonly to impute dishonesty to those he attacks: thus 214

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Strasburger’s alleged ‘Vertuschung’ of an important text (107) – which Strasburger in fact faithfully translates (op. cit. 481); or the same scholar’s referring ‘geflissentlich’ to 60 days in the desert, when on K.’s argument there were fewer (112, note 63); or the suggestion that Hamilton may have deliberately included an explanation by Plutarch within quotation marks as part of Al.’s letter, because this suits his case (44, note 4 – it is hard to see how it would do so): K. ‘geflissentlich’ fails to inform the reader that, while the misprint appears in the English translation, the corresponding Greek is correctly printed on the same page. These instances will amply suffice. In each case, the author attacked may be mistaken in fact or in argument, and anyone is entitled to demonstrate this. But it is quite another thing to imply dishonesty in one’s opponents, while distorting their arguments with selective quotation in order to set them up as targets for easy attack. Still, the ethics and tactics of debate are important only in that the reader must be warned of what is here being practised. Once this is done, what ultimately matters is the author’s positive contribution. Here, one coming from a distinguished background in numismatics and epigraphy and their historical application might in principle have much to offer. K. once made a major contribution to the study of Al. portraiture, which may well be what led him into this field. That he had read very little of recent (not to mention older) interpretations need not have been a disadvantage: it might promise an approach unencumbered by traditional impedimenta.1 Unfortunately the promise is not fulfilled. Not only wishful thinking, but at times lack of real proficiency in the ancient languages, prevents his close attention to the texts – very necessary in Al. studies – from being successful. The two faults are difficult to separate, and perhaps the distribution is unimportant. Most of the texts, of course, have been translated many times, and major blunders are not to be expected. But, from one cause or another, much misunderstanding is still possible, and it must be demonstrated in selected cases. 51: The priest of Ammon greets Al. π το εο ς π πατρς (Plut. Al. 27, 5). This is properly rendered ‘im Namen des Gottes als seines Vaters’. But after that last word, still within quotation marks, K. inserts what he appears to regard as the literal meaning of the Greek: ‘(wie wenn dieser sein Vater wäre)’! The Silver Latin ‘uelut’, precisely rendering this ς, causes similar trouble: Justin’s ‘uelut stupri compertam’ (of Olympias) becomes ‘wie wenn sie des Ehebruchs überführt wäre’. (In fact, of course, read ‘als d. E. überführt’.) In each case, no unreality is implied by the ancient author. 57: Curtius reports the motive for Al.’s visit to Ammon: ‘sed ingens cupido animum stimulabat adeundi Iouem, quem generis sui auctorem . . . aut credebat esse aut credi uolebat.’ That the relative clause has (grammatically) no 215

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final meaning will not be denied. K., not content with stating this obvious fact in an odd form (‘schon das Fehlen des Konjunktivs’ shows this – did he consider the possibility of ‘quem . . . crederet aut credi uellet’ to express purpose?), states that the clause ‘nur kausal aufgefaβt werden kann’ – forgetting that technically this also requires a subjunctive. But the whole argument about purely grammatical finality or causality is surely pointless in view of the actual meaning of the words. 61: Al.’s prayer, εGπερ ντως Διεν 'στ( γεγονς, is a ‘conditional clause not quite excluding certain doubts’. In fact, εGπερ in this use is, of course, so far from showing doubt that it has even – with some exaggeration – been described as being a mark of ‘confidence’ (see Denniston, Greek Particles2, 488). A long argument is thus invalidated. 83: Arrian 1, 3, 5 (as K. quotes it, with the omission only of a parenthesis): 9να δ# ’Αλξανδρος παγαγRν τ:ς νας 9γνω διαβανειν τν kΙστρον 'π( το! Γτας το!ς πραν τοϋ kΙστρου ᾠκισμνους, 5τι τε συνειλεγμνους ρα πολλο!ς 'π( τ/ χη το kΙστρου, ς εGρξοντας ε διαβανοι . . . κα( Wμα πθος 9λαβεν α+τν 'π’ 'κε)να το kΙστρου 'λε)ν τ$ν μν δ# νε$ν 'πβη α+τς.

K. claims that the pothos is ‘klar geschieden’ from the decision to cross the river: the latter is motivated only by a military reason, while the pothos extends solely to Al.’s crossing in person, which he need not have done. Few readers will take 9γνω διαβανειν as a ‘clear’ reference to the ‘Übersetzen eines Teils der Armee’ without the king. But it is easy enough to see where K. has gone wrong. He ends his quotation with the μν δ% sentence about Al.’s personally crossing on shipboard, which he clearly took to be the conclusion of the pothos argument: i.e., the result of the pothos was that Al. himself crossed on board ship. However, he has in fact quoted the last sentence in mutilated form. The continuation (not quoted) supplies a δ for the μν and tells us that, while Al. himself crossed on board ship, the rest of the force (those he had not taken with him on the ships, no doubt) crossed on improvised ferries, up to the maximum he could get across. Arrian never thought of limiting the pothos to Al.’s personal crossing. 89: In connection with his attempt to establish a Persian plan later abandoned (see below) for a Persian offensive in central Asia Minor, K. states: ‘Ferner ist . . . zu sehen, daβ der Tod Memnons tatsächlich eine Änderung der Operationspläne herbeiführte. Curtius 3, 2, 1 sagt es ausdrücklich: At Dareus nuntiata Memnonis morte . . . quae per duces suos acta erant cuncta damnabat.’ It is difficult to refer ‘acta erant’ to ‘Operationspläne’; and in case there were a suspicion that ‘Pläne’ might at least be included, the continuation (not quoted by K.) makes the reference to the past clear: ‘ratus pluribus curam, omnibus afuisse fortunam.’ Even where there is no linguistic difficulty, K. can distort a text by what one can only call ‘wishful translation’, as when (in the context of 216

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the journey to Ammon) τ: . . . παρ: το εο βοη%ματα becomes ‘die Götter halfen’ (51 – carefully removing Ammon himself). At other times K. perhaps does not know the sources as well as he should for work like this. But one cannot help feeling that, at least unconsciously, he preferred not to look too closely where the results might have been embarrassing. For in one or two cases he would not have had to look very far. It is said to be ‘sicher’ (29) that Attalus negotiated with the Greeks after Philip’s death, preparing to make a bid for the throne. Such a bid is surely inconceivable in the light of Macedonian history. But K. pontificates: ‘Nur wenn man diese antiken Nachrichten beiseite schiebt, kann man mit Welles . . . behaupten: ‘Attalos . . . fiel einem Meuchelmord zum Opfer’.’ Now, Diod. 17, 3, 2, on the strength of which K. makes his assertion, mentions only Athens (not ‘the Greeks’), and Demosthenes in particular. But ibid. 5, 1 further clarifies (while still accepting the official version of Attalus’ guilt): the sole evidence against him was one letter from Demosthenes, which Attalus duly handed over to the authorities! And as for ‘Meuchelmord’, Diod. 17, 5, 2 uses δολοφονε)ν. Did K. fail to read as far as chapter 5? At any rate, it is not cited. Again, a reconciliation between Philip and Olympias ‘steht ausdrücklich’ (19) in Plut. mor. 179c, where after a conversation with Demaratus Philip ‘coming to his senses abandoned his anger and became reconciled to them’ (Olympias and Al.). However, one might inspect Plut. Al. 9, 13, where the same anecdote is used in the same words, with one exception: it ends: ‘coming to his senses Philip sent and let Al. return, persuading him through Demaratus.’ In the Life, as in the Moralia, Plutarch is well aware that Olympias also was in exile: the fact is mentioned just before the anecdote. But here ‘steht ausdrücklich’ that only Al. was allowed to return. As so often, in fact, the anecdote in the Moralia has to be complete in itself, not historically accurate: reconciliation with ‘them’ is the obvious ending. In the Life, on the other hand, Plutarch is concerned with the facts: only Al. came back, even though it spoils the point of the story. The odd thing is that K. actually quotes the end of the story from the Life on p. 25, where he wants to prove that Philip made positive efforts to get Al. back from exile. He chose not to mention it where the other version was more useful. Next, and more important: the story of Pausanias, Philip’s assassin. K. has read his main source with surprising carelessness. He creates inextricable confusion between the two men called Pausanias in Diod.’s story (36), even though Diod. clearly distinguishes them; he describes the murderer as recently promoted to the bodyguard and the other Pausanias as a bodyguard already before this, when 217

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in fact Diod. 16, 93 introduces the murderer as a bodyguard at the very beginning and says nothing of the other Pausanias’ status. Of course, he has no difficulty in ‘proving’ (what no one has ever denied) that Diod. (i.e. his source) conceived of the action as continuous from the insult to Pausanias to Philip’s death, and all belonging to Philip’s last year or so. How reliable that source was is shown by the fact that Attalus is called Cleopatra’s nephew instead of her uncle. It would be neither unparalleled nor surprising if that patently late and ill-informed source had inserted the well-known details of Philip’s last marital entanglement simply to provide an answer to the puzzling question of why Philip did not punish Attalus. The key (as Beloch saw long ago) is the isolated mention of the Illyrian king ‘Pleurias’ as the enemy in the war in which the first Pausanias fell: this adds no background or ‘explanation’, hence must surely be genuine. K. is quite incurious about ‘Pleurias’: the more we look at him, the worse for K.’s case. ‘Pleurias’ is not an Illyrian name. As is generally recognised, the name must be ‘Pleuratus’, which appears in an Illyrian royal family in the early third century (Polyb. 2, 2, 4). But Philip did fight a war against Pleuratus, indeed one of his best-known wars. It was then that he received a serious leg injury (and 150 hetairoi were killed). The injury – one of his three major wounds – is dated by Didymus (ad Dem. 12, 64f) between the loss of his eye at Methone (c. 353) and the fighting against the Triballi (339). Since an Illyrian war cannot easily be fitted into the years 342–40, it is thus almost certain that it is indeed the war of 344, mentioned in its place by Diodorus (16, 69, 7f) in a cursory manner, and the last one attested under Philip. K., of course, needs one in 337 or so: Al.’s flight to the Illyrians thus becomes evidence for this as at least ‘möglich’ (33f). In fact, the flight (and Demaratus’ mission to bring Al. back) will suffice to make it ‘unmöglich’ in that year. Of course, an argument from silence is in principle irrefutable. That does not make it a good argument. The fact that we cannot conclusively prove that every week of Philip’s time after 344 was too fully occupied to permit an Illyrian war (though most of it clearly was) does not make the hypothesis of a totally unattested second war against the same king, in which Philip himself was again in serious personal danger, one to be ardently embraced, for the sake of retaining a late reconstruction of the story of Pausanias by an ill-informed source. It was easy to ignore ‘Pleurias’ (stressed by Beloch) and accept that reconstruction as unimpeachable fact. But perhaps the single most illuminating instance of misinterpretation of sources concerns the affair of Pixodarus. K.’s principal argument (it will be recalled) is that Al. had no rational motive for killing his father. Hence all hinges on the interpretation of this incident, after his return from exile in Illyria. 218

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Our information comes solely from Plutarch (Al. 10). The details do not matter here (though K.’s handling is at times eccentric and arbitrary). What matters is the result of the affair. Here Plutarch is explicit: ‘Thessalus [Al.’s go-between, who had apparently fled to Corinth] he [Philip] asked the Corinthians by letter to deliver up to him in chains, of the other companions he banished from Macedonia Harpalus and Nearchus, and also Erigyius and Ptolemy . . .’ Nothing could be more straightforward. Now, Arrian treats of the whole of Al.’s conflict with his father in a flashback of a single section (3, 6, 5: 50 words, 15 of them proper names!), merely to provide some background to Harpalus’ promotion in spring 331 and (incidentally) to introduce us to some of Al.’s more important friends in an artistically acceptable manner. He may not have known of the Pixodarus affair (as Ptolemy probably did not relate it); or if he had read it in a minor source, he decided to omit it, whether for artistic reasons or (as in the case of other legomena he must have known and chose to omit) because it showed Al. in too bad a light. In any case, he omits Pixodarus and thus has to define the time of the exile of Al.’s friends without reference to him, as ‘when Philip was still king . . . because Al. was suspect in Philip’s eyes when Philip had married Eurydice [i.e. Cleopatra] and had inflicted disgrace on Olympias, Al.’s mother.’ It is obvious, as I put it (Phoenix, cit., 246, n. 12), that Arrian is giving us ‘a flashback with less precise chronology’ than Plutarch, who is careful and specific. (Cf. Hamilton, Commentary, 27.) But not for K., committed as he is to proving that Al. was now, after his return from exile, serenely at peace with his father. For him, it is true that Plutarch 10, 2 relates the banishment of Al.’s friends only after the affair of Pixodarus, but from Arrian 3, 6, 5 ‘ergibt sich eindeutig eine andere zeitliche Zuordnung. Bei Arrian steht nämlich, daß Harpalos und andere Freunde nach und wegen Philipps Heirat . . . flohen’. [My emphasis.] Comment is superfluous, except that ‘nach und wegen Philipps Heirat’ deserves attention, as once more characteristic of K.’s treatment of recalcitrant source evidence. There is no need to continue along this painful path. But what must finally be noted, though it merges into features already discussed, is K.’s apparent claim, despite his constant appeals to reason and scholarly method, to some special private intuition of ‘facts’ not attested by any source, and often improbable in the light of what sources do exist. This is a pervasive and obtrusive feature of the book, and only summary illustration is required. Thus Aristotle (like Olympias, after her ‘reconciliation’ – see above) was ‘probably an eyewitness of the assassination’ (of Philip) – this to bolster the case that his account of the affair proves that the motives for the murder were purely personal. On this, by no means a new argument, see 219

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my refutation Phoenix, cit., 247, n. 20, which K. (who cites that article in 17 of his footnotes on this essay) chooses not to mention. This intuition appears most often in military matters. Thus he knows (74) the greatest possible size of the forces Al. took with him to Egypt, and he also knows that Parmenio stayed behind at Gaza to organize the building of a fortress there, merely because Curtius fails to mention him after his son Hector’s death (4, 8, 7f). K. does not ask whom Al. left in charge of Egypt and the main army when he visited Siwah – a question to which we have no firm answer, but there are not many candidates. He knows (85) that one version of the Gordium oracle said that the man who untied the knot would rule only Phrygia; and this version is ‘der Sache nach die wahrscheinlichere’ – he does not vouchsafe the information where (outside of this book) it is to be found. But this does not prevent him from proceeding to censure Fredricksmeyer for stating that ‘an oracle identified Al. as the destined ruler over Asia’: that is ‘durch den Arriantext in keiner Weise berechtigt’. (A few lines before, he had quoted Arrian’s τοτον χρ/ναι =ρξαι τ/ς ’Ασας and correctly translated it.) He knows (88) that a Persian counter-attack along the line Ancyra-Gordium was expected by Al. in 333 (see also above), and finds confirmation in the fact that Al. allowed the garrison of Celaenae 60 days to wait for aid, after which they would surrender if none came. (Would Al. have granted a strategic fortress this chance of relief unless he had been reasonably sure that no relief was coming?) He even knows that such a campaign was being advocated by Memnon and Charidemus (90), and that the plan was abandoned only after Memnon’s death – in evidence he cites Diod. 17, 30, 1, where it is plainly stated that the possibility of sending an army ‘down to the coast’ (by what route we are not told) first came up for discussion after Memnon’s death, since earlier Memnon had been expected to take the war to Europe. He knows (112 f) that no senior officers died in the Gedrosian desert (hence the total losses cannot have been high), since the sources do not name any and ‘one can hardly say that the deaths of prominent men are not, or are too rarely, mentioned in our tradition’. Yet unless we confine the term to half a dozen men like Coenus and Erigyius (and how many did Al. have with him on that march?), it is well known that we know nothing about the fate of the majority of Al.’s officers, even those of quite high rank. (E.g., quite at random, Berve, Prosopographie, nos. 47. 68. 165. 201. 256. 623. 775. 784. 803.) Worse still, he knows (116 f) that the figure of ‘rund 30000’ men that can be obtained for the size of Al.’s army in spring 324 consists entirely of Macedonians who had served under him; though this is stated only for Diod.’s figure (18, 16, 4) and is highly unlikely for that in Curtius 10, 2, 8 (see Berve 1, 183 f, actually cited by K. [!]; and, for a different explanation, Brunt, JHS 83, 1963, 38, unknown to K.). As a result of this knowledge, it is 220

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‘irreführend’ to compare that figure with whatever figure one chooses for the whole army in India, and (of course) it follows that practically all Macedonian soldiers must have survived the march through the desert. For this K. then finds welcome confirmation in Arrian’s failure to specify that men actually died (on which, see Strasburger, Hermes, cit., 491, with a striking modern parallel to support what will be any unbiased reader’s conclusion). Most curious of all, he seems to know precisely which units Al. took with him on the march through the desert: four units (including ‘die Hipparchie der Hetairenreiterei’ [sic]) are listed and (for unfathomable reasons) supported with a reference to Arr. 6, 21–22 (‘sichtlich ziemlich genau und vollständig’), where the puzzled reader will in vain search for anything more precise than ‘most of the army (for Hephaestion had arrived bringing him those left behind)’ – and ‘the army’, for Arrian, is (as a glance at his story will show) the whole force that had been at Pattala, less those who had gone with Nearchus and those left to garrison the Oreitae: neither an exceptionally large contingent. It is on the strength of this piece of fiction (after suggesting, as ‘probable’, that parts even of those four units were left behind!) that K. finally produces his figure of ‘kaum über 15000’ out of his hat, assigning it (‘letzten Endes’) to Ptolemy and Arrian. The reader will not be surprised to learn that a force of this size was precisely appropriate for the necessary task that only a land army could perform: the totally reasonable undertaking of ‘Bereitstellung von Wasser und Verpflegung’ for Nearchus’ fleet. This, of course, has been said before, notably by Tarn (not cited for it by K.); and like Tarn, K. fails to enlighten us on some puzzling details of those tasks. Nor are Arrian 6, 23, 1 (on which the view is based) and Strabo 15, 2, 3f more illuminating, though both are explicit on the rivalry with Semiramis and Cyrus, which K. naturally plays down. If the men dug wells, how were they to be preserved for the use of the fleet? Would the fleet know where to put ashore for them, and (above all) would they still be there? Who was to provide markets in a desert? And if there were inhabitants (or for that matter, if the wind and the sand were the only enemies), was it intended to leave guards of adequate size to protect the water and the food? Could small forces be left like this, surrounded by desert and perhaps nomads? Was the fleet to pick them up as it went past? We certainly do not hear that anything of this sort was done, and it is all difficult to imagine. In fact, the vagueness of the apologetic sources in our accounts is gladly seized upon by modern apologists and transmuted into ‘reasonable’ and ‘necessary’ verbiage of their own. Exculpatory fiction is presented, without a word of discussion or evidence of a moment’s thought, as historical explanation. After this we shall no longer be astonished at K.’s masterpiece in the genre of historical fiction: the firm belief that there was no mutiny on the Hyphasis, but that Al. never meant to go any further. This time the sources have 221

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to be completely abandoned, for they obstinately refuse to encourage this desirably ‘rational’ version of events (105 f). This finally raises the question: is K. really after a ‘rational’ Al., or is he deceiving himself in this as in so many instances of detailed interpretation? A ‘rational’ Al. was, of course, sketched some years ago, and strict principles for a ‘minimalist’ interpretation of the sources laid down, by R. Andreotti, in a series of three articles, which K. unfortunately shows no sign of knowing.2 This is a pity, for Andreotti dealt with many of the individual points that K. discusses, and his interpretation and its canons are backed by infinitely greater mastery of the sources and the literature than is found in this book, and infinitely more scholarship in their interpretation, though unfortunately as infinitely below K. in clarity of verbal exposition and style. That interpretation, one of the principal interpretations of Al. advanced in modern times, would have provided a useful aid to K., and a useful touchstone of his own approach. It would have been most illuminating to see what he would have made of the most truly ‘rational’ Al. of modern (or perhaps of all) times. For it will be remembered that Andreotti came to the conclusion that Al. was merely a great soldier and conqueror; that men have been given to looking for compensating virtues and compensating benefits, simply because it becomes unbearable to accept the massive human suffering he caused without such compensation. For K., on the other hand, Al. is precisely the embodiment of a kind of ‘reason’ and ‘moderation’ that was clearly his ideal: embodying it in the strange shape of the Macedonian conqueror, he clung to it amid a disintegrating world around him, and – a veritable Don Quixote – marched out to do battle with the giants and the sorcerers besetting it. K.’s Al., in fact, is closest (among modern interpretations) to Tarn’s – perhaps the least reasonable of all (whatever its ‘rationality’) in its failure to allow for the historical background of the man and his age. It is not surprising that Tarn is so often mentioned with approval, and even more often followed without a mention. It is this deep emotional commitment to an ideal that underlies and explains many of the faults we have had to catalogue. Dishonesty was clearly quite foreign to K.’s character. The eager grasping at the apologetic version as ‘sicher’; the failure to read or cite sources that might suggest unpleasant possibilities; the misinterpretation of so many sources (where not due to linguistic inadequacy), culminating (at the Hyphasis) in cutting adrift from the sources altogether, where they could not be twisted to yield the required picture; finally, the thread of distortion of opposing arguments and personal attacks on their propounders that runs so shockingly through this volume – all these demonstrate a state of (clearly) quite irrational self-delusion and total emotional involvement remarkably close to that of W. W. Tarn. Perceptive scholars like Hampl and Andreotti have often noted this effect of the Alexander image on otherwise rational historians. It is my own belief that, had K. lived, this book would not have been published; certainly not in its present form, where the very first essay proclaims (as we saw) the unconscious purpose of the whole work. The author’s distinguished 222

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name has necessitated a long and reluctant analysis: the conclusion, regrettably, must be that there is no genuine contribution in this work. Even where (as in the case of pothos) the general conclusion is right, a glance at an Al. bibliography such as Seibert’s will show that nothing new has been said. The pietas of a wellmeaning disciple would have been better employed in producing, by careful (even ruthless) revision, checking and pruning, one or two short articles rebutting modern views – if that were regarded as a worthy memorial to a distinguished scholar. As it is, she has produced a work whose only importance in the history of scholarship is that of another warning example in a field strewn with them already.

Notes 1 On K.’s brilliant article in JNG 15, 1965, 7 ff, see my comments in my survey of recent Al. scholarship, ClW 65, 1971, 41 and 53. For his lack of acquaintance with scholarly work on Al., compare the editor’s bibliography pp. 129–32 (containing many items which K. clearly did not know, or at least use) with that survey – not to mention Seibert’s recent survey of the whole field, Alexander der Große (1972 – see this journal 46, 1974, 517–518). 2 See my Alexander bibliography, ClW 65, 1971, items 171. 178. 182 (pp. 80–81) with p. 45. Items 178 and 182 are in fact cited in the very first note of the first essay, item 178 also in the first note of the last essay. But it is clear that these are additions by the editor: the text contains no trace of acquaintance with these works. It is interesting to see, in the first note, a reference to N. J. Burich’s bibliography (see Bibliography, p. 129, for details). It is certain that the author would never have admitted this work to this bibliography, and I suspect even the editor had not actually seen it.

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15 THE BATTLE OF THE GRANICUS A new look

This was delivered as a double paper, intended to give a complete survey of the subject. Professor Clive Foss, an expert on ancient Asia Minor, delivered the first part, on the topography of the site. My paper deals with the actual battle.

The battle The problems surrounding the battle of the Granicus, Alexander’s first battle in Asia, are in part literary and in part military. The latter cannot even be approached until the former have been discussed.1 The first and principal aspect of the literary problem is the fact that Arrian and Diodorus, our two main sources, give entirely different accounts of the way battle was joined. In Arrian I 13, Alexander, on approaching the river Granicus, finds the enemy on the other side and is advised by Parmenio to rest his army overnight and to attack in the morning; he refuses to wait, attacks at once (late in the afternoon), and battle is joined as he tries to cross the river. In Diodorus XVII 19, Alexander waits overnight (the altercation with Parmenio is not mentioned), crosses at dawn without opposition, and the battle develops on the other side of the river.2 It has traditionally been held that Arrian is basically right and that Diodorus has to be rejected. This seems to me the right view. But detailed attention to the point is necessary, since Diodorus’ error is — inevitably — from time to time revived and defended by modern paradoxographoi.3 K. Lehmann was the first scholar to hail Diodorus’ description as ‘innerlich glaubwürdig und in sich harmonisch’ (p. 243) and to suggest that it deserves preference over Arrian’s wherever they differ. He does not carry this out consistently: e.g., he admits that Diodorus should not be followed in his statement that the Persians had at least 100,000 infantry, who were not allowed to engage because the Persian command thought that the cavalry would suffice to defeat the Macedonians — even though these statements differ from Arrian’s. In fact, however, Diodorus cannot be followed at all, and even his defenders have serious difficulties over making sense of his statements. For consider: the Persians

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occupy the bank, just across a narrow river from Alexander, intending to fall on his forces as they cross the river (s. 2). But what happens? At daybreak Alexander not only crosses the river, but actually deploys in full battle order, before the Persians even take any notice.4 This is passing strange. Diodorus does not enlighten us as to how such a miracle of tactics came to be performed, against an experienced enemy. How a river crossing in fact had to be prepared and planned, in order to deceive such an enemy, is demonstrated very clearly in Arrian’s account of the complicated feints and manoeuvres which, after (it seems) weeks of preparations, enabled Alexander to achieve an almost — not quite — unobserved dawn crossing of the Hydaspes: a far wider and more complex river, which (fortunately for him) afforded far more chances of concealment than the simple and narrow bed of the Granicus.5 Diodorus’ story cannot be taken very seriously, as an account of an actual battle, even though it is not entirely clear in detail how and by whom it came to be written. It seems too complex a literary effort for his own invention, even though it will here be convenient to refer to him (purely as a conventional device) as its author.6 What has often been seen is that it must be based on a version that made Alexander adopt Parmenio’s plan (here not mentioned as such) instead of rejecting it. In Arrian, Parmenio is made to opine that ‘the enemy, being far inferior in infantry, will not dare to camp near us overnight, and so they will easily let us cross the river at dawn’. In Diodorus, of course, the Persians are in fact greatly superior in infantry; but it is explained that the infantry were posted in the rear and not allowed to fight, and so the result is the same. What is not explained is why inferiority in infantry should prevent the Persians, who were hoping to fight a cavalry battle, from camping where they could guard the river bank: they need hardly have feared a night crossing by heavy infantry, and indeed not even Parmenio (in Arrian) is made to suggest such an unreasonable course. Diodorus’ story merely implies that the Persians omitted to watch the river they were proposing to defend, and (more surprising still) that Alexander had been able to count on such negligence. These postulates should not lightly be conceded. One interesting feature of that account is that, having made his transposition and having got the two sides lined up, implausibly, for an orthodox battle on the right bank of the river, he had to invent enough of the battle itself to produce his ‘credible and harmonious’ account. Fortunately, we can see how he did it. He had recourse to a rhetorical formula for an Alexander battle, which served for both the Granicus and Issus. One of the difficulties was that the standard version, which Arrian presumably followed, apparently had nothing to say about Parmenio and the Thessalians on the Macedonian left wing.7 Diodorus’ formula supplied the want, to the admiration of Beloch,8 who sees in the heroic resistance on that wing the chief reason for Alexander’s victory. But the same description is found, in part verbatim, in Diodorus’ account of Issus,9 and so — just as clearly, indeed with striking verbal echoes — is the reference to Alexander’s main attack, in which he led the Macedonian cavalry on the other wing.10 As a final comment 225

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on the true nature of this formulaic account, we must note that in the battle of Issus Diodorus also fails to mention the fact that Alexander attacked across a river. There, no Beloch has expected us to believe it. However, having thus set the scene for an orthodox Alexander battle, Diodorus could breathe a sigh of relief, forget about the action itself and proceed to follow basically the same ‘heroic’ account that we have in Arrian. That brave Thessalian cavalry that so impressed Beloch merely receives rhetorical and non-specific praise at the very end, in phrases recalling those used to introduce it at the beginning, both here and at Issus11 — again evidence of a polished rhetorical genesis for the whole story. To invent plausible details of an action was beyond the powers of the romancer, or beyond what he considered necessary. This should dispose of the difference between our main sources. We may now go on to Arrian’s account. This, as has often been seen,12 presents a literary problem of its own: it is hardly an account of a battle at all. It is most disappointing to find a historian like Arrian — perhaps an experienced military commander himself, and certainly awarded high praise by his modern admirers for his military reporting — unable to give a coherent description of what must have been a relatively simple battle.13 Admittedly, if we may judge by Diodorus and by Plutarch, who wrote before Arrian, the tradition on the battle must already have been very defective: centred on Alexander’s personal deeds of prowess and those of his immediate companions. This is not to deny that the action around Alexander’s person was a (perhaps the) decisive part of the whole battle: there is much merit in Judeich’s idea that the Persian nobles made a determined effort to kill Alexander,14 who, as befitted a descendant of Achilles, heroically and conspicuously exposed himself to personal risk. But that element is taken out for sole attention — and, as Plutarch’s and (no less) Diodorus’ pathetic efforts show, must have been so already in the tradition available to Arrian — at the expense of the battle as a whole. The pattern becomes unrecognisable in consequence. Arrian cannot be blamed for being unable to give us more than he found. He must be blamed for accepting what he found and reproducing it without scruple or question, indeed with complacent self-satisfaction at his literary skill in doing so; and above all, for spreading further confusion where the facts may still have been recognisable when he found them.15 What was the basic source for the heroic portrait of Alexander and the totally non-military account of his battle? Once the problem is defined, a conjectural answer is not difficult; indeed, we may claim a fair approach to certainty. It must surely be Callisthenes, who may well have been the only author of an original eyewitness account of this battle, on which later versions are based.16 Whether or not this is so, we can certainly link him to Arrian’s account. As is well known, there is a strand of comments and stories hostile to Parmenio, which can be traced from the beginning of the Asian campaign to the battle of Gaugamela and possibly beyond it: much of the time, as here, Parmenio gives advice which merely serves as a foil to set off Alexander’s superior insight. Callisthenes is known to have been hostile to Alexander’s second-in-command,17 an attitude 226

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which no doubt fitted in with Alexander’s wish to rid himself of his overpowerful general.18 Hence it is a very plausible suggestion that the cycle of these stories goes back to Callisthenes. In this instance, where (as we have seen) Callisthenes is in any case a very likely original source for the battle, the anecdote gains special weight. And the reasoning attributed to Parmenio shows, just like the account of the battle itself, the mind of a man such as Polybius describes Callisthenes to be — a man devoid of any military knowledge, interests or comprehension.19 It is, unfortunately, characteristic that Arrian does not even pause to wonder or to query.20 From such an ultimate source we could hardly expect an account to satisfy the modern reader. Callisthenes did not see his purpose as that of a Thucydides; nor, indeed, would he have been qualified for such a task. His writing was in the heroic style, his aim to glorify Alexander.21 Unfortunately Arrian — despite what his modern admirers have often managed to believe — saw his own purpose in similar terms22 and would be only too ready to follow his predecessor in this instance. In the case of this battle, the cumulation of two writers of this kind has caused such difficulties that some scholars have despaired of any understanding. Nevertheless, while in general one cannot hope to penetrate beyond the evidence, it is worth trying to gain some understanding regarding some crucial aspects of the battle. First and above all, there is the description of the terrain. Arrian (I 13.4) does not really bother to give us one, except to note that both the banks were Bπερψηλοι κα( κρημνδεις and that the land above the right bank was Bπερδξια (14.4).23 We do not properly find out how this terrain was used by either side. The Persian command had drawn up its cavalry forces, i.e. presumably along the bank of the river, with the heights somewhere behind. In so far as Arrian had any clear conception, he seems to have regarded the mercenary infantry as stationed on those heights:24 they stand behind the cavalry, and the statement about their location is linked to that about the elevation of the terrain by means of κα( γρ.25 However, we later find the Macedonians, on emerging from the river, trying to push the enemy cavalry down from the bank into the plain ('ξ$σαι . . . π τ/ς χθης κα( ες τ πεδον βισασθαι); while the mercenaries, when Alexander attacks them after the main battle, seem to have no positional advantage whatever (16.2). In fact, it looks as if Arrian was simply uninterested in the terrain; he had certainly not formed any clear idea of it for himself, and thus cannot convey one to the reader. How far this was already the state of his immediate source, we cannot say. Diodorus has the Persians occupy ground at the foot of the heights (the Bπρεια) on the right side of the river (19.2),26 i.e. there was rising ground behind them — which seems to fit in with the general picture sketched by Arrian, and also corresponds, up to a point, to the actual terrain.27 The battle itself, in Diodorus, is (as we saw) fought on entirely imaginary ground, and as might be expected, no actual topographical features are given for it. Plutarch has the Greek mercenaries make their last desperate stand πρς τινι λφ-ω (16.13). This is most probably a misunderstanding 227

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of a description of the same kind of terrain (i.e. rising ground behind the Persian cavalry) that we find in Arrian.28 Plutarch’s account (Alexander 16), though highly rhetorical, seems basically to be derived from the same source. Where he offers more (e.g., above all, the renaming of the month), this may well have been merely omitted in Arrian, for reasons one might conjecture. He certainly describes a battle fought at once after arrival at the site, and he has the Parmenio anecdote (in an abbreviated and rhetorically pointed form, which shows his own literary technique). But he brings the difficulty of the terrain into new prominence. He stresses the steepness (τπους πορρ$γας) of the right bank and its uneven and rocky surface (νωμαλαν κα( τραχτητα) — so far parallel to Arrian’s description.29 He then represents it as wet and slippery with mud. In Arrian, Parmenio, trying to discourage a crossing, mentions ‘many deep patches’; but that this is an ex parte statement is shown by the fact that, once enemy opposition is broken, the Macedonians have no difficulty at all in crossing (ο+ χαλεπ$ς 6δη). Arrian clearly did not picture the river itself as a major obstacle: the pull of the current is mentioned merely in passing (14.7), with no implication that it caused trouble. Plutarch makes ‘most’ of the Macedonians (this is what has been developed out of Parmenio’s observation) fear the depth of the river, and in describing the prospect of crossing it he becomes inebriated with his own rhetoric: where, as we saw, Arrian has the pull of the current merely as an incidental feature, used only to define the direction of the flow, Plutarch’s Granicus becomes a torrent sweeping men off their feet and swirling around them (δι: jεματος παραφροντος κα( περικλζοντος). It is clear that he has spun this out of the common source for the purpose of the rhetorical point which provides his climax: Alexander must have appeared mad to cross such a river at all. We cannot tell with any precision what Arrian and Plutarch found in their source regarding the terrain. Arrian, however, though as interested in Alexander’s heroic achievement as anyone, shows no special interest in the topography in general and does not exaggerate its difficulties. This, therefore, ought to correspond to the basic attitude of the source itself. Plutarch, drawing on the same materials, makes the facts as he found them mere raw material for his rhetorical fireworks (or rather, waterworks) which he chooses to present at this point: after all, we ought not to forget the famous statement at the beginning of this very Life, in which he informs us that he has no great interest in facts as such.30 Yet — such are the vagaries of scholarship — even though nothing in Arrian suggests that the river was swollen, or that it was dangerously deep or rapid, it is Plutarch’s rhetorical description of the Granicus that has become the accepted fact in many modern accounts.31 As far as this elaboration of the source, for rhetorical effect, is concerned, Plutarch must simply be ignored. Janke’s comments showing that the river, in May, is shallow and easily fordable have long been available,32 and Professor Foss’s observations and analysis fully bear this out. Nor does anything in Arrian, outside Parmenio’s deliberately tendentious picture, contradict this interpretation. 228

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As regards the banks, no source mentions the steepness of the left bank, or its muddiness, as an obstacle in the battle. Yet, as Professor Foss has pointed out, the two banks are alike in all significant respects. Modern commentators have not, on the whole, shown sufficient awareness of this fact. Of course, the descent into the river-bed was not within accurate range of Persian missiles, since (as we shall see) the Persians cannot be assumed to have been posted on their riverbank.33 Yet, even if we admit that a jump of about three metres might just be feasible for the light forces in the first attack, it surely cannot have been for horses carrying fully armed Macedonian cavalry, however well trained the animals and disciplined the men. As for mud: there must obviously have been some, around the edge of the actual stream within the river-bed. But even within that bed — not to mention the banks — anything like a deep and widespread covering of the treacherous mud of the Middle East must be totally excluded. It would have been a major obstacle for the cavalry and even for heavy infantry, and it is inconceivable that it should not have rated a mention in our sources, concerned as they are with Alexander’s difficulties, except for a reference by Plutarch in a highly rhetorical context outside the actual battle. For the cavalry battle to have taken the form it did, we must in fact assume that there had been no rain for some time — hence the slippery banks (which assume a full river-bed) in Plutarch are as imaginary as the raging torrent. It is interesting that Janke reported no mud,34 and Professor Foss again confirms this. The jump of three metres or more into the river-bed, difficult to conceive of as possible for cavalry, was quite impossible for heavy infantry. If there was vegetation growing along the banks (as there is today), it would by no means be an improvement. Horses would be caught in it, and infantry disorganised. Nor could anyone climb up an overgrown bank on the other side under enemy fire. Alexander was no lunatic, such as Plutarch’s rhetoric makes him appear. All this must have been instantly clear to him. The principal, if not the only, points of entry into, and exit from, the river-bed must have been the flache Kiesbetten reported by Janke and now fully described by Professor Foss. This simple technical fact is surely an important clue to the battle-plans of both sides, and it must be kept in mind in any attempt to evaluate those plans. It is interesting — and characteristic of the quality of our literary sources — that those gently sloping stretches of gravel are nowhere mentioned in them: a striking aspect of their failure to describe the battle for us in real terms. What is more surprising, however, is the fact that modern attempts to explain the battle, even those long after Janke’s report, have taken no real notice of the gravel-beds either. Indeed, Janke himself, when he came to sketch the course of events (admittedly in a brief and hasty way: that was not his main task or interest), took little enough notice of his own discovery.35 After copious references to the swollen river, the steep banks and the mud, the actual course of the battle is usually described (by those who do attempt a description) almost as though there had not been a river separating the two armies at all. While this is reasonable in the case of those who follow 229

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Diodorus (mistakenly, as has been argued above), it is totally incomprehensible in those who reject him. In fact, since the river has apparently not changed its course since antiquity,36 it might even ultimately prove possible, by detailed study of the gravel-beds, to find a more precise location for the battle, since it has been estimated that the space available for the battle is only between 3 and 3½ km,37 and the amount needed for the two armies (and particularly for Alexander’s) can to some extent be worked out.38 We have Polybius’ authoritative estimate that about three feet should be allowed for each cavalryman in close formation.39 Alexander’s battle-line is described by Arrian, though with characteristic carelessness. He makes a major error in the arrangement of the pezetairoi, naming Craterus’ and Philip’s battalion twice, once in his account of the right wing and then in that of the left.40 What is worse: we hear no more about how most of these units were used.41 Yet even this is a relatively minor matter, compared with his description of the Persian lines. The Persian battle-order is so inadequately described that we simply cannot be sure of the facts; and that although it is perfectly possible that the source here had more adequate information. According to Arrian, the Persians drew up their cavalry along the bank, with the mercenary infantry behind them, apparently on higher ground (see above). Apart from the vagueness over the terrain, which we have noted, this is a very poor account. We are not told how close to the bank the cavalry were: modern views, using different parts of Arrian’s presentation, have differed. The great majority of scholars, however, seem to assume that they were drawn up teetering on the water’s edge, and the Persian command is habitually reprimanded for ignorance of the most elementary principles of cavalry warfare.42 It has even been suggested, on the strength of this and other Persian errors, that there was no proper commander on the Persian side and that they were in fact suffering from ‘government by committee’.43 Yet that can very simply be disproved. The battle was being fought in the satrapy of Arsites: it was he who rejected Memnon’s bold plan, and it was he who, after the disaster, took his own life ‘because it appeared that he was responsible for the Persian defeat’.44 There is no evidence of polykoiranie — at least, no more so (and perhaps rather less) than in other battles when a commander has to consult with important officers and persuade them, which was the usual picture among Greeks. In the absence of the king or his personal representative, it must have been true whenever one noble Persian had authority over others. Judeich deserves full credit for recognising, over sixty years ago, that commanders standing in a tradition that had for two centuries regarded cavalry as its principal arm should not be accused, from the vantage point of a scholar’s study, of gross ignorance regarding its use. Even were it unambiguously attested in our very unsatisfactory source, it would be better to correct the source. Yet Arrian, as Judeich found, is merely vague and ambiguous. Judeich rightly postulated an arrangement that set the cavalry back some distance from the river, so that they could charge the enemy as he emerged from the river-bed. Indeed, in principle 230

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there is no alternative.45 Lehmann did argue that Arrian put the cavalry ‘unmittelbar’ by the bank (pp. 235 f.); though he later had to admit that parts of Arrian’s account contradict such a view. As we have seen, all that one can say about Arrian is that he regards the facts of the battle as a mere backdrop to Alexander’s heroic deeds and neither formed an accurate picture of it for himself nor tried to convey one; nor must we forget the fact that his source, already suffering from the same disposition, may in this instance have been no more reliable. Lehmann further tried to refute Judeich from probability (p. 233), claiming that a charge from a distance would only have made the Persian horsemen plunge down the steep bank of nearly 4m into the bed of the river. He was, of course, well aware of the Kiesbetten, which had entered modern literature long before he wrote, but (like practically all his successors) he forgot about them when it came to the point, even though Arrian actually describes Persian cavalry chasing the advance force sent by Alexander right down into the water (15.1). It is unfortunate that this misguided attack on Judeich, on one of the points where Judeich was obviously right, seems to have been totally successful. The worst confusion, however, arises over the matter of the Asian infantry. Delbrück (p. 182) long ago noted, and Lehmann reiterated, the fact that one would expect such forces to be there, however inadequate in the actual battle. Indeed, their presence may help to explain the origin of Arrian’s figure of 20,000 for the Greek mercenaries — a figure rightly rejected by scholars as fantastic. Although Persian figures are often quite arbitrarily inflated in Arrian, this one may have originally been an estimated total for the enemy infantry (and, as such, might not be unreasonable), which, for the greater glory of Alexander, was at some stage turned into a force wholly consisting of fully-armed Greeks. What even Delbrück and Lehmann failed to notice is that native infantry seem to put in a belated and somewhat mystifying appearance in Arrian’s account: they seem to get in the way of their own cavalry, as the latter began to retreat before the Macedonians. If this is the correct interpretation, they were presumably stationed behind the cavalry, which is in any case the most likely place for them.46 Plutarch (probably, as we saw, using the same source as Arrian) mentions native infantry as engaging the Macedonian phalanx, but quickly taking to flight (as would be expected) while the cavalry battle was going on (16.12).47 He has been disbelieved; but he may well be describing what happened on another sector of the front: we can unfortunately get nothing out of Arrian about any part of the battle not immediately concerning Alexander. If the interpretation of Arrian here attempted is correct, we may take it that Arrian’s source did have a statement placing some native infantry behind the cavalry. It may well have been Arrian himself who eliminated it, making all the infantry into Greek mercenaries. Whether this was due to mere carelessness, to some desire for artistic concentration, or to an attempt to add to Alexander’s glory, we cannot tell. But in view of the rest of his performance, mere carelessness should perhaps not be altogether excluded. If there is one thing, however, which Arrian has tried to make clear and on which he concentrates, it is Alexander’s movements. We ought to be able to tell 231

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what Alexander was aiming at and how he accomplished it. Before we start analysing our text with this in view, we might try to gain some idea of how the problem of the coming battle would have presented itself to him. When he arrived at the Granicus, he must at once have been aware of the principal topographical facts: the river itself was no obstacle, but the banks would be manageable only where the gravel slopes offered an easy means of access and exit. The Persian cavalry would in effect have to watch the gravel slopes on their side and, as the Macedonians emerged from the river-bed, would charge them and, with the impetus of the charge, drive them back into the river. If they caught the Macedonians before they could spread out along the bank, they would not have to risk what Lehmann rightly saw they could not: the likelihood of following the enemy they were over-running in a death leap into the river-bed. This was the compelling reason (which modern scholars seem to miss, owing to their failure to take the known topography into account) why the Persian plan was to charge the Greeks as they emerged and not wait for them to be lined up on the bank. (There were, of course, other advantages, especially that some disorganisation might be expected at that moment, if the Persians’ timing was right.) Alexander had to devise an answer to that obvious enemy plan. And here it is not entirely Arrian’s fault if some scholars have been too preoccupied with their own theories to try to understand his description: he does, up to a point, make it clear enough how Alexander crossed the river. He entered the river-bed (about 20–25m wide, as we know) and advanced λοξ#ν ε( παρατενων τ#ν τξιν -w παρε)λκε τ jεμα (I 14, fin.). The reason for this is at once given: ‘in order that the Persians should not attack his wing as he came out of the river’. Ever since Judeich first advanced the view, it has normally been supposed that this means a movement taking Alexander and his force across the river diagonally instead of at right angles; and even though Lehmann at once protested, Judeich’s elaborate theory of Alexander’s tactics in the battle, based on this interpretation of his movements, has been almost universally followed.48 In fact, such a view cannot be reconciled with Arrian’s general picture of the battle, any more than with general probability. Arrian tells us, as indeed one would expect, that the Persians had massed their cavalry on their left wing, opposite where they could see Alexander (14.4); and Alexander reaches that bank just where the cavalry is massed and the Persian nobles waiting (15.3 — explicitly). And this is confirmed by the details of the duels that follow, and it agrees with the social realities and the code of the world that Alexander shared with the Persian barons.49 Yet the diagrams, in all the books that provide any, meekly follow Judeich in pointing their arrows to the left, diagonally, and making Alexander emerge far from the massed Persian leaders and horse. Of course, a slight movement to the left would not be surprising: that would depend on where one could enter the river-bed and where leave it; and the Persians would be just as much aware of this as Alexander himself. But the important point made perfectly clear by Arrian is that Alexander attacked just where he was expected to — accepting the challenge as a true descendant of Achilles had to 232

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do.50 What he is described as doing is to go through a tactical evolution, which increases the length of his front by the time he emerges from the river-bed, thus presenting what Arrian calls a ‘phalanx’ to the enemy. This was perhaps recognised by Grote, and the right idea appears in the translation of K. Abicht, in his school edition of Anabasis i (1871), on which Judeich and his disciples were presumably not brought up. He renders Arrian’s text as follows: ‘Alexander trabte in den Fluß, indem er seine Linie stromabwärts schräg ausdehnte, damit ihm nicht die Perser auf den Flügel . . ., d.h. auf den schmalen Kopf der Marschcolonne fielen, sondern er gleich in Linie . . . mit ihnen handgemein würde.’51 In other words, Alexander started, above one of the flache Kiesbetten (which need not have been very wide), at whatever short distance from the actual bank he thought suitable. His initial formation would naturally be the Macedonian wedge formation introduced by Philip II.52 This would have brought him out of the river on a narrow front, subjecting his flanks to Persian attack, unless there happened to be a gravel slope of precisely the right size on the other side for the wedge to fill it. It is quite likely that the Persians, who had, of course, observed him as he formed up his army, were expecting just this kind of thing. Since there was no gravel slope of precisely the right size on the other side (it would have to be a very narrow one, to offer safety to a wedge formation), he lengthened his front while crossing the river-bed by sending men over to the left — in the direction of the current, as Arrian tells us — so as to emerge with a front that precisely filled the width of the gravel slope for which he was making, thus neutralising any advantage of numbers that the massed cavalry might give to the Persians. Whether the whole unit moved to the left or not would depend on the exact location of the gravel slope on which he wanted to emerge: in any case, as we have seen, it cannot have been very far from the part of the bank facing him, since the Persians were there to meet him just where both they and he expected to join battle. If there was any diagonal movement, it was slight, dictated by the topography, and obvious to both sides. It is ignored by Arrian, and rightly so. When Alexander and his force emerged from the river-bed, they seem to have found a Persian force awaiting them on the gravel slope. And this brings us to the preliminary manoeuvre with which he initiated the battle. He began by sending light cavalry across, reinforced with one squadron of hetairoi and one battalion of Macedonian infantry — Arrian does not tell us who these were, but presumably hypaspists, who were next in the battle-order as he gives it.53 The infantry are not mentioned again: as we have seen, Arrian does not mention an infantry battle at all. It would be idle to speculate on their assignment and whether they ultimately carried it out, possibly initiating the infantry engagement of which Plutarch tells us: as we have seen, the plan and development of the battle as a whole simply cannot be discovered. The cavalry, however, does hold Arrian’s interest. They crossed the river, apparently without being attacked by enemy missiles (the enemy appear only when they are trying to climb out of the river-bed); but as soon as they came to the other bank, they had to bear the full weight of attack by ‘the best of the Persian cavalry’ from its 233

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higher positions.54 The enemy, as we saw, had duly been stationed at some distance from the river — hence no chance of shooting at the men as they were crossing — but had come charging as soon as the Macedonians emerged, in order to prevent them from establishing a bridgehead. As the engagement developed on the gravel slope we find some of the Persians riding right down to the water (i.e. well into the river-bed), while others, taking up stations on the steep bank, showered the enemy with palta. Arrian’s account clearly locates the action — once we know the topography — on one of the gravel slopes. All this time — and the fighting described by Arrian around the first attempt to win a bridgehead must have taken a considerable amount of time — Alexander was holding back. Arrian (14.6f.), and perhaps even his source, tries to present his crossing as nearly simultaneous with that of the advance force. But he does not succeed in disguising the fact that the latter fought unsupported for some time, suffering heavy casualties in a hopeless situation, until the survivors (we are told) fell back towards Alexander who — then and only then — ‘was already near’. Obviously, his delay, if perhaps less than heroic and thus not fit to be truly acknowledged by his eulogist, had been intentional. It was the key to his plan. By the time Alexander himself came on the scene, the situation was, in fact, much more favourable to him: it was ready for his intervention. The advance force had lured the Persians right up to the edge of the bank and even down into the river-bed along the gravel slope. Those who stood on the bank had shot their missiles (we do not hear of a shower of palta meeting Alexander, as had been the fate of the advance force), and they blocked the way of others who might have come up, fresh from the rest of the line. Moreover, they were now what they had previously not been — even though it is generally assumed that they had: stationary along the bank, just where Alexander wanted to charge them. It was Alexander who was now charging them, though (of course) not with as much momentum as he could have developed on a wide plain; and thanks to his manoeuvre in the river-bed, he was meeting them with a front as wide as their own, and in conditions where it would not help them to bring up reinforcements. The fate intended by the Persians for Alexander had, in fact, been discharged upon the advance force, leaving Alexander himself in the best position he could obtain. No wonder that the hetairoi who had been sacrificed in order to make it possible were later honoured with statues by Lysippus.55 The impetus of the charge, limited though it was, now made up for the fact that Alexander was attacking up the slope: against men reduced to immobility (and deprived of their missiles), he was at a decided advantage. There was another important advantage, which had no doubt played a major part in his calculations: the enemy were fighting with the low evening sun in their eyes, while the Macedonians had it behind them. This was the really striking argument (on what was presumably the usual bright May afternoon) for a late afternoon attack; it is difficult to believe that the experienced Parmenio can have advised waiting for the morning, when the positions would in this respect be reversed, and the Macedonians would have to attack right into the morning sun. 234

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Of course, one might hope that morning cloud would possibly mitigate that. But irresponsible optimism about a vague future is a poor guide to military decisions: the decision had to be taken there and then, and the present advantage was palpable. To hope that there might be no morning sun was on a par with hoping that the enemy would not oppose a morning landing — it shows a mind more akin to Callisthenes or Diodorus than to Alexander or Parmenio. In the fighting that now developed at close quarters, the superior discipline and (we are told) the superior cornel-wood spears of the Macedonians helped to thrust the enemy back, until the Macedonians emerged on to the open ground at the top of the gravel slope. Alexander’s tactical decision had left the Persian command no real choice from the start. They had assumed a defensive role, leaving the tactical initiative to the enemy, and they had to pay the usual price, as — even more strikingly — Darius was again to do, at Issus and especially at Gaugamela. They could not attack Alexander’s advance force without ending up in the position in which they in fact found themselves. Yet they could not afford to let that force seize a secure bridgehead and enable the whole Macedonian army to cross without opposition. Choosing the less dangerous alternative, they faced the consequences with what seems to have been calm discipline. If Alexander had hoped that, following a natural impulse, they would rush reinforcements towards the fighting, he was at least in part disappointed. That, of course, would have done little good. The gravel-bed largely cancelled out the advantage of numbers, and a fresh supply of missiles would be of little use when fierce hand-to-hand fighting was going on. The Persians seem to have held at least some of their forces back in reserve — a most difficult thing to do, psychologically, but obviously correct. When Alexander finally broke through the force immediately opposing him, we find he has open space in front of him, and on the other side of that space Mithridates, son-in-law of Darius, comes leading a charge at the head of his men. The discipline with which the Persians had watched the initial fighting on the gravel slope can be gauged from the fact that, seeing the charge approaching, Alexander could even form his men into the Macedonian wedge and ride up to meet it. Since (as we have seen) he had emerged from the river-bed precisely where he was expected, and where the leading Persian barons were waiting for him, the distance cannot have been lateral: it marks the distance from the bank at which — contrary to all modern opinion but Judeich’s — the Persians had kept their main forces, not only before the battle, but even during the struggle for the bridgehead. In fact, they had, given the circumstances of the defensive for which they had opted, found the only feasible answer to Alexander’s move. The epic duels that developed and that nearly cost Alexander his life are lovingly described for us by all our sources. They are a tribute to that Persian command that has often been regarded, by armchair critics, as ineffective or even non-existent. As so often, Alexander had fortune on his side: he was saved from being killed. After that crisis, the splendid military instrument that Philip II had forged and Alexander himself honed in his early campaigns could not be 235

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held. As he had learnt to do at Chaeronea, Alexander forced his way through the enemy line at its strongest point, and the enemy, apparently driven back on their own infantry, broke. Arrian perhaps adds one last blunder to his catalogue of carelessness, telling us (16.1) that the line broke in the centre first. Since we know that the Persian leaders had been stationed, and had been facing Alexander, on their left, that must be where Alexander broke through their line. But Arrian, once more, simply had no clear picture of the battle in his mind.56 As we have seen, we cannot make up for the basic inadequacy of our main source. The details of the battle on the remainder of the front — where Alexander was not personally involved — cannot be disengaged. It is even possible that, contrary to what our sources assert, that was where the battle was decided.57 As so often, the heroisation of Alexander has made it impossible for us to make a proper assessment of his plan, and therefore of his success: here as elsewhere, it has made it difficult for us to recognise his real greatness, and perhaps impossible to do him full justice in human terms. But at least his own actions can be reconstructed, and with them the plan in so far as it affected his own force; and the Persian plan thus also becomes more intelligible than it has usually turned out to be. We need not despair of all understanding.58 Once we strip away the embellishments — the raging torrent and the mud-soaked banks; the textbook heroism of the immediate charge — a picture of his real qualities begins to appear: the unerring eye for terrain and its possibilities, which enabled him to see on the spot how a river he had never seen before could be crossed in such a way as to nullify the enemy’s advantage at the crossing-point and to prepare the attack on the strongest point of the enemy line which he had learnt to aim at; the immediate apprehension of the advantages of an afternoon battle, which would compensate for any fatigue his men must have been feeling after their march — finally, his full confidence in his superb Macedonians, as they had been fashioned by his father’s leadership and by his own: both those who had to be sacrificed to make the crossing possible and those who had to perform a complicated evolution in mid-stream before charging up the bank; and, of course, his confidence in his luck, which would in the end have to see him through, and did. His first battle in Asia is worthy of the young Alexander, and it deserves to be retrieved, as far as this can be done, from mythopoeia, ancient and modern.59

Notes 1 A full bibliography can now be found in J. Seibert’s useful volume Alexander der Große (1972), with notes. (The work of J. Keil cited by him in n. 14 was not accessible to me.) For unfortunate attempts to discuss the military problem without any awareness of the literary problem, see (especially) J. F. C. Fuller, The Generalship of Alexander the Great (1958) — a work without any originality (though not given to acknowledging its sources), which is often cited in English-speaking contries — and E. W. Davis, ‘The Persian battle plan at the Granicus’, James Sprunt Studies in History and Political Sciences XLVI (1964) 34–44: a work at an altogether different level, containing many shrewd comments in detail, but neglecting the source problem.

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THE BATTLE OF THE GRANICUS

2 The account in Plutarch Alexander 16, seems (as we shall try to show) to be based on the same source as Arrian’s and preserves one or two details obscured in Arrian. But it is rhetorically inflated and has no other independent value. That in Justin may be entirely ignored, and Curtius (unfortunately) does not survive for this period. I do not see on what grounds Judeich believes (Klio VIII [1908] 388) that the accounts in Arrian, Diodorus and Plutarch go back to independent primary sources. He gives no evidence or discussion in support of this, and it would be hard to think of three independent primary sources on this battle. (See n. 16 below.) 3 The case was first, and most fully, argued by K. Lehmann, Klio XI (1911) 230 ff. Inevitably, the paradox was ardently embraced by K. J. Beloch, Gr. Gesch. III2 1 (1922) 624 ff., without further discussion. It was then forgotten, but has just been revived by P. Green, in his well-written Alexander the Great (1970) 95. See now Green’s full statement of his case in his Alexander of Macedon (1974) 489–512, which readers must be left to compare with mine. 4 περαισας τ#ν δναμιν 9φθασε το!ς πολεμους 'κτξας τ#ν δναμιν Lρμοσμνως πρς τν γ$να. 5 Arr. v 8–14. Green, while claiming to be following Diodorus, in fact has to rewrite him completely. According to him, Alexander quietly moves downstream during the night, leaving camp-fires burning to deceive the enemy, and crosses at a ford lower down. None of this is even hinted at in Diodorus. Green realises that it must have been difficult to avoid the Persians’ noticing such a move (for they were no fools in military matters and were watching the enemy), across a river only 25m. wide at most. He therefore inserts a belated attempt to stop the crossing with an insufficient force, of which there is again no trace in Diodorus (or any source). This should make it clear that Diodorus can only be ‘followed’ by being rewritten. 6 In fact I regard it as practically certain that he found it in his source. Not only does it seem too complex for Diodorus himself, but he mentions Parmenio at the Granicus, but not at Issus. Had he made the story up himself, in the way I shall try to demonstrate this was done, it is unlikely that there would have been that difference. Professor Bosworth has pointed out to me that the account may also be implied in Diod. xvii 23.2 — which would not be surprising, in any case, since Diodorus frequently remembers his own accounts. (Actually the passage is so vague that it does not necessarily imply the earlier account.) Also, that the Itinerarium Alexandri (20) puts the battle sub luce: Clitarchus has long been recognised as one source of that tract (R. Merkelbach, Die Quellen des gr. Alexanderromans [1954] 179 ff.) and, whether directly or indirectly, as a principal source of Diodorus. 7 This is rightly noted by Lehmann, 235. 8 Beloch, 624, stressing their achievement and ascribing the victory largely to them. We should not, of course, deny that the Thessalians fought heroically: they quite possibly did. It would merely be unwise to assume that the original author of Diodorus’ conventional rhetoric had any evidence for it. 9 Diod. xvii 33. Compare τ δ’ ε+νυμον μ'ρος 'πε)χον οx τ$ν Θετταλ$ν 8ππε)ς, πολ! τ$ν λλων διαφροντες τα)ς τε νδραγαθαις κα( τα)ς 'μπειραις (33, 2) with τ μν ε+νυμον μρος 'πχοντες ο8 τ$ν Θετταλ$ν 8ππε)ς Παρμενωνος Lγουμνου τεθαρρηκτως 'δχοντο τ#ν 'πιφορ:ν (19,6) and ο8 τ$ν Θετταλ$ν 8ππε)ς . . . διαφρως γωνισμενοι μεγλην 'π’ νδρε α δξαν 9σχον (21,4). 10 Α+τς δ προηγομενος το δεξιο μρους π%ντα το)ς πολεμοις 9χων μεθ’ αυτο το!ς κρατστους τ$ν 8ππων (33,2); Aλξανδρος δ το!ς ρστους τ$ν 8ππων κατ: τ δεξιν κρας 9χων μεθ’ αυτο τρ$τος 'φππευσε το)ς Πρσαις (19,6).

11 See n. 9 above.

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THE BATTLE OF THE GRANICUS

12 Particularly well by Lehmann, spurred by his effort to prove Diodorus superior. It is a pity that, having his paradoxical thesis to defend, he failed to subject Diodorus to similar critical scrutiny, from which he emerges considerably worse than Arrian. 13 This follows the communis opinio on Arrian’s life and work, as (e.g.) in G. Wirth, ‘Anmerkungen zur Arrianbiographie’, Historia XIII (1964) 209 ff. (with bibliography). A. B. Bosworth has suggested (CQ n. s. XXII [1972] 163 ff.) that Arrian was not yet an experienced commander when he wrote the Anabasis. 14 Judeich 394 ff. (Followed, without acknowledgment, by W. W. Tarn, Alexander the Great [1948] I 15.) 15 Lehmann (238) picks out some of the literary artifice, e.g. the description of the mercenary infantry — the mainstay of so many fourth-century battles — standing their ground after the defeat of the Persian cavalry from astonishment at that disaster rather than from rational and calculated courage. There will be more to say about Arrian’s defects. 16 It is difficult to think of many eyewitness accounts of the battle. Ptolemy can have taken part only in a junior position, and there is no reason to think that, when he started to write, some decades later, he had notes of the detailed development of the early part of the campaign. (The view that he had authentic ephemerides in front of him—popularised by C. A. Robinson—may surely be regarded as buried.) He is not mentioned as an agent in the battle by any surviving source. Ptolemy is too often assumed to be a ‘primary source’ on the whole campaign or even on earlier events. It must not be forgotten that he wrote (whenever he did) after many accounts had already been published, and that he was a highly literate monarch. Aristobulus, who was not a military man and who demonstrably wrote about half a century later, cannot seriously be regarded as a ‘primary source’ on any battle. Clitarchus, whatever the date of his account, was certainly not with Alexander at the time. Minor figures might be thought of, e.g. Anaximenes of Lampsacus (if he was already with Alexander, who had by-passed his city: Arr. i 12.6); but they are mere names to us. That Callisthenes presented a heroic portrait of Alexander is recognised: for a clear exposition, see, e.g., L. Pearson, The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great (1960), 33 ff. 17 See Plut. Al. 33,10, quoting Callisthenes as positively charging Parmenio with disloyalty approaching treason at Gaugamela. 18 See my ‘Alexander the Great and the loneliness of power’, Studies in Greek and Roman History (1964) 192ff. [no. 6 in this collection]. 19 See F gr Hist 124 F 35. On the quality of the Parmenio story, see p. 235. 20 Judeich finds Parmenio’s remarks ‘durchaus glaublich’ and also accepts Alexander’s rhetorical reply as true and important (390ff.). For the ‘interpretation’ that has to be applied in order to get some sense out of it, see (e.g.) Fuller 149, who makes Parmenio hope that the Persians would ‘decamp during the night’. There is no evidence that Fuller had actually read Parmenio’s words as quoted by Arrian. What he had read (though he does not cite it) was G. Grote, History of Greece (I cite from the second edition, 1851) XII 108, where Alexander is resolved not to allow the Persians to ‘decamp during the night’. Grote, however, very properly does not connect this with Parmenio’s words. 21 Cf. his remarks ap. Arr. iv 10.1 f. 22 See his famous statement on his purpose in writing the Anabasis: to fill the need, in the corpus of Greek literature, for a work to celebrate Alexander as Homer, Pindar and Xenophon celebrated the exploits and the sufferings of their respective heroes (i 12, especially ss. 2–5; the words recall Callisthenes). This clear statement of his aims is usually ignored in modern evaluations of Arrian as a historian. 23 The word Bπερδξια — not particularly common — recurs in Polyaenus iv 3.16, fortunately enabling us to attach his account (which in other respects has few indications

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THE BATTLE OF THE GRANICUS

of a source genealogy and is too vague and too brief to help in reconstructing the battle) to the tradition followed by Arrian. His statement that Alexander outflanked the Persians with his cavalry looks as if it was based on a misunderstanding of something like Arr. i 14.7 (on which see below). 24 The preparations for the battle of the Centrites (Xen. Anab. iv 3) provide an obvious parallel, clearly refuting scholars who will not believe that Persian armies could try to stop a river crossing with cavalry. See s. 3: the Greeks >ρ$σιν 8ππας που πραν το ποταμο 'ξωπλισμνους ς κωλσοντας διαβανειν (nothing could be clearer!), πεξο!ς δ’ 'π( τα)ς =χθαις παρατεταγμνους =νω τ$ν 8ππων ς κωλσοντας ες τ#ν ’Aρμεναν 'κβανειν. (This latter aim, of course, is relevant in that it shows the infan-

try conceived as a back-up line, on higher ground, in case the cavalry failed in its purpose of preventing the crossing.) Unfortunately for us, that battle did not develop in a way at all comparable to the battle of the Granicus.

25 το!ς δ πεζο!ς κατπιν τ$ν 8ππων κα( γ:ρ Bπερδξια Jν τ: Bπρ τ#ν =χθην χωρα. Cf. Janke, op. cit. (n. 32 below) 139, 142, reporting a slight rise, of only a few metres, at a distance of 300–400m from the river on the Persian side. (His map, to which he refers, is unfortunately quite unilluminating in this respect.) This is confirmed by Professor Foss, above. 26 Strangely mistranslated by C. B. Welles, in his Loeb edition (Diodorus vol. viii, p. 169) as ‘resting on high ground’. 27 Presumably the slight rise mentioned n. 25 above. 28 Janke, op. cit. (n. 32 below) 140 ff., points out that the rise can hardly be called a λφος. But a reference to rising ground could easily be rendered in this way by a writer who had never seen the terrain. 29 In Arrian, Parmenio makes both banks out to be ‘very high and in parts cliff-like’ — which corresponds to the basic topographical facts, but (for purposes of Parmenio’s argument) naturally omits the Kiesbetten. This does at least realise that the banks are basically similar. Plutarch, however, is simply not interested in the bank occupied by the Macedonians. 30 Alex. 1.2: ο δ’ ’Aντμαχος χθεσθε(ς Lφνισε τ ποημα. Πλτων δ νος …ν ττε κα( θαυμζων τν ’Aντμαχον 'π( τῇ ποιητικῇ, βαρως φροντα τ#ν Jτταν νελμβανε κα( παρεμυθε)το, το)ς γνοοσι κακν εἶναι φμενος τ#ν 4γνοιαν, oσπερ τ#ν τυφλτητα το)ς μ# βλπουσιν. 'πε( μντοι > κιθαρῳδς ’Aριστνους ξκις Πθια νενικηκRς 'πηγγλλετο τῷ Λυσνδρῳ φιλοφρονομενος, 4ν νικ%σῃ πλιν, Λυσνδρου κηρξειν αυτν, «J δολον;» εἶπεν.

14 See, e.g., Hamilton, Plutarch, Alexander xlix f. for the new approach and refutation of the traditional myths of Quellenforschung. Compare, perhaps, though it does not deal with a passage from the Lives, Historia 7 (1958) 434 ff. 15 See Cic. Brut. 191 (‘Plato, for me, is as good as a hundred thousand’). 16 For Powell’s putative ‘Variorum Source’—the reductio ad absurdum of this kind of criticism—and for its refutation, see Hamilton, l.c. (note 14 above).

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17 For some cases rightly ignored by Habicht see n. 11 above. 18 One might also compare the way in which Augustus skirted deification, conspicuously avoiding it, by the veneration of detached imperial virtues and of his genius. In this he followed the precedent set (at least at one time) by and for Caesar. The temple of Iuppiter Iulius and Clementia Caesaris voted to Caesar in 44 (Dio XLIV 6, 4) must be seen in this light, because of the very terminology used, even though Dio, after centuries of unquestioning acceptance of imperial cult, reports it as actual deification of Caesar, with a cult title. In this he has unfortunately been unquestioningly followed by some scholars unaware of the pitfalls of anachronism, e.g. recently and extravagantly by S. Weinstock, Divus Iulius (1971), ch. 14. (I am not asserting that Caesar was in fact not deified towards the end of his life: my comments are limited to the particular temple).—On the Hellenistic cults, see A. D. Nock, Essays on Religion and the Ancient World (ed. Zeph Stewart, 1972) 156 f. (cf. 241 n. 246). Apollo Pasparius may be connected with Diodorus Pasparus (on whom, see C. P. Jones, Chiron 4 (1974) 183–205, with corrected dating and further references), extravagantly honoured at Pergamun after the First Mithridatic War. 19 See Habicht, op. cit. (n. 5 above) 9 f. The two accounts, in Diodorus and Plutarch, are too contradictory to be seen as ‘supplementing each other’ (thus Habicht). The variety of guesses on Diodorus’ source shows how little we can really be sure of. That his report ultimately goes back to an eyewitness, as sometimes alleged by Quellenforscher, is pure myth: it is no less likely to have been rhetorically elaborated by one of the highly rhetorical sources that have been suggested, on the basis of an originally non-specific account. That was the technique of dramatic history. For all we can tell, the details may be fiction, in the known manner of such historical writing, and the actual wording can certainly not be relied upon as authentic or used in serious historical interpretation. 20 Arr. III 4, 5 and Plut. 27 were correctly interpreted by U. Wilcken to the effect that no one but Alexander heard the god’s communication. (See Wilcken, SB Berlin 1928, 586 ff.) But Wilcken went astray in positing Callisthenes as the ultimate source of the version giving the facts: it is clear from Strabo that he claimed to have heard far more than he could have. That the auspicous lapsus linguae († πα) Δις for † παιδον) is authentic should not need refutation, were it not sometimes believed and retailed as fact. The priest, even if it was proper for him to address the king as παιδον, would presumably know enough Greek for his job, at an oracle that had long been frequented by Greeks. The auspicious lapsus linguae (or its opposite) is a well-known topos in Greek and Roman antiquity. On Ammon as identified with Zeus, and on the status of the oracle in Greece, we have Pindar’s k 1Αμμων ’Ολμπου δσποτα; see C. J. Classen, Historia 8 (1959) 349–55 (353 for Herodotus’ quite extensive treatment). On Alexander and Ammon, see the thorough treatment by A. B. Bosworth in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean in Ancient History and Prehistory (Studies presented to Fritz Schachermeyr, ed. K. H. Kinzl, Berlin/New York, 1977), pp. 51–75. 21 See Bosworth, op. cit. 73 ff. 22 [Fredricksmeyer, op. cit. (n. 9) 60 n. 58, mentions ‘inscriptions’ that have ‘proved Ps.-Call. right’ on Alexander’s coronation as Pharaoh. He gives no details or references.] 23 See n. 20 above for references. Only Tarn denies the identification, in pursuit of a private thesis regarding Alexander. Professor Edson, in addition to drawing attention to a cult of Ammon attested in Macedonia about a century earlier (IG X 2,1, *112), has pointed out to me that Alexander’s oath as reported by Nearchus (ap. Arr. Ind. 35,8) ‘by Zeus of the Greeks and Ammon of the Libyans’ implies that Ammon was not at this time identified with Zeus. In view of the long attested previous history of this identification, going back at least to Pindar, it is difficult to believe that it was not at least

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24

25 26 27 28 29 30

30a 31 32

popularly made at this time as at others. The Ionian oracles discussed in the text, coming straight after the pronouncement at Siwah, must be thought relevant. We cannot be quite certain that Arrian’s text here precisely reproduces the words of Nearchus (which are not actually quoted, as the preceding sentence is). Nearchus may well have had a phrase that positively asserted the indentification (to the effect: ‘By Zeus of the Greeks who is also Ammon of the Libyans’) and that has been abbreviated by Arrian. A slight alteration in Arrian’s text would give the same meaning: τν Δα τ$ν }Ελλ%νων τν κα( kAμμωνα . . . (I am not advocating emendation—merely showing how slight the difference between a phrase implying distinction and a phrase implying identity in fact is). Since Nearchus probably made the whole story up (cf. YCS 24 (1975) 147 ff., esp. 162 ff.), the words ascribed to Alexander are even less to be trusted. Charisma I 197 f. We should note that the Erythraean priestess suddenly blessed with the gift of prophecy was not a sibyl: there had not been one at Erythrae for some time (see text). Strabo XIV 1, 34,665 explicitly calls her the priestess of the sibyl’s sanctuary (no doubt kept up as such when the succession of sibyls ceased). Had there been a sibyl, it would undoubtedly have been she who would have uttered the pronouncement. The Milesian oracles have at times been regarded as a later forgery, as they are said to have also foretold the victory of Gaugamela, the death of Darius and the war in Peloponnese. It is difficult to believe that Callisthenes would have invented them as late as a time when these events were over (i.e. late 330 at the earliest). On the other hand, no supernatural powers need be assumed if these prophecies were made in the winter of 332/1: a great victory and the death of the enemies’ leader are the common coin of flattering prediction to a king at war: no oracle could do less. (We are not told that precise details were predicted, and it is unlikely that any were.) And the war with Agis was common knowledge already: by the spring of 331 we find Alexander not only aware of it, but taking action against it (Diod. XVII 48, 1; Arr. III 6, 3); and we know (Curt. V 8, 15: cf. J. E. Atkinson’s Commentary 372 f.) that Agis’ offensive in Crete had been reported to him precisely at Memphis. On Hephaestion see Arr. VII 23, 6; Plut. Alex. 7, 2. (Diodorus, as often, gets it wrong.) Cf. Section IX below. On the plans for burial, see my discussion HSCP 72 [no. 12 in this collection] 186 f. This does not mean that Radet’s excesses need be followed. Lowell Edmunds (n. 4 above) shows laudable judgment in this respect. See my comments on this topic in Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt 22 (1975), esp. 293 ff. Arr. IV 10, 5 ff.; Curt. VIII 5, 5 ff.; Plut Alex. 54, 3 ff. (Others add little.) Plut. 55, 1. See the careful discussion by Bickerman, PP 18 (1963) 241 ff. I agree with Hamilton, op. cit. (n. 2 above) 150, that, as far as the King of Persia (hence in this case Alexander) was concerned, it involved prostration. That seems clear from the Greek sources describing the ceremony at an earlier time. But it is likely that blowing a kiss entered into it: see the argument of ‘Callisthenes’ in Arr. IV 11, 3. The details of what was done are, of course, assumed as known by all sources and were known to this one. [See further discussion of this in no. 21 in this collection pp. 373 ff.] Cf. n. 3 above. The list could easily be extended. The fact was recognised by Lily Ross Taylor, The Divinity of the Roman Emperor (1931) 256 n. 1. Perhaps this inconspicuous location is responsible for the fact that it has been generally ignored. Hamilton’s brief denial (op. cit. 151, without a word of argument) is typical—except that he was at least aware of the statement. Admittedly, Taylor presented no argument in support: hence the need for this full discussion. She no doubt assumed that anyone reading the passage would notice the obvious truth of her discovery. I believe this is true, but not enough of those who comment have read it. I append the text of Plut. Alex. 54, 3: λλ: τ%ν γε

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THE DEIFICATION OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT

πρσσκνησιν σχυρ$ς πωσμενος κα( φιλοσφως κα( μνος 'ν φανερῷ διελθRν e κρφα πντες ο8 βλτιστοι κα( πρεσβτατοι τ$ν Μακεδνων Yγανκτουν, το!ς μν HΕλληνας ασχνης π%λλαξε μεγλης, κα( μεζονος ‘Αλξανδρον, ποτρψας τ#ν προσκνησιν, αBτν δ’ πλεσεν, 'κβισασθαι δοκ$ν μCλλον F πε)σαι τν βασιλα.

33 For a summary of these specimens of the pathology of scholarship, see Hamilton, op. cit. 150 f. Whether Chares meant that the kiss was mutual we cannot tell. But it is very likely that he did, thus causing the variation in our sources. 34 In this account he appears to have been followed by Aristobulus, known even in antiquity as a kolax (FGr Hist 139 F 33; cf. T 5: Brunt’s attempt to controvert this (CQ 24, 1974, 65 ff.) is not entirely successful). Arrian only gives a short summary of Aristobulus. 35 Curt. VI 1, 19 f.; Diod. XVII 73, 5. 36 See J. R. Hamilton, CQ 49 (1955) 219 ff., showing that the letter to Craterus, Attalus and Alcetas (Plut. Alex. 55) must be genine. 37 See n. 5 above. 38 Curtius, as so often, gets the name wrong, substituting Polyperchon. Even in point of character, the colourless Polyperchon is a poor candidate for the story. As usual, too, Curtius is guilty of wild rhetorical exaggeration. 39 See TAPA 91 (1960) [no. 3 in this collection] 337 f. 40 Thus, in effect, Balsdon, op. cit. (n. 10 above) 371 ff., followed without discussion of principles by Hamilton. 41 The debate has been the subject of a long study by K. T. M. Atkinson, Athenaeum n.s. 51 (1978) 310 ff. I agree with her on several points, especially on Athenian law regarding ‘new gods’ and on the crucial nature of the evidence furnished by the orators. But it seems to me unacceptable, even as a basis for discussion, to conclude (331 f.) that ‘to have admitted Alexander as a “new god” . . . would have had the effect of completely enslaving every individual Athenian citizen to the will of the Macedonian ruler’ (sic). Reasoning that produces such absurd exaggeration must be faulty and need hardly be refuted in detail. In particular, I do not see why she has so much difficulty in explaining Demosthenes’ change of mind and has to resort to such extravagance of argument. Cf. n. 44 below and text. [See further no. 21 in this collection, pp. 378 f.] 42 Athen. VI 251 b. 43 Din. I 94. Hyperides reports his quip: ‘Let him be the son of Zeus and of Poseidon too, if he wishes’ (In Dem. 31). I.e., Demosthenes at this point was (ironically) willing to go so far as to recognise his divine sonship. Sons of Poseidon were conventionally regarded as disreputable characters (Gellius XV 21: not referring to this incident, hence good background evidence). Unfortunately there is a gap of 13 lines of 15–20 letters each in the Hyperides papyrus, at this point, before the next securely legible part (‘He wished to set up a statue to King Alexander, God Invincible’). Although, strictly speaking, we cannot prove that there had been no change of subject, i.e. that the statement still concerns Demosthenes, this is the obvious conclusion when the passage is read together with Dinarchus (1.c.), where it is reported that Demosthenes, still in Alexander’s lifetime, in the end said: ‘The demos must not dispute the grant of celestial honours to Alexander.’ Atkinson produces a version of this sentence (‘the demos has no right even to discuss the matter of celestial honours . . .’) that is impossible as a translation of the Greek. She later partly abandons it, preferring to interpret the phrase as meaning that the gods would look after their own interests and it was not for the demos to worry about this. If this is what Demosthenes meant (and it is certainly possible, though not explicitly said), then he was undoubtedly supporting the grant in no uncertain manner, just as Dinarchus says.

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44 Val. Max. VII 2, ext. 13. Once this became clear, many who had opposed the grant might quite legitimately change their minds. There is no need for a frantic ‘defence’ of Demosthenes. 45 See JHS 81 (1961) [no. 5 in this collection], 16 ff., especially 31 ff. and 41 ff. Such national hysteria has recently become only too intelligible to any resident of the United States, even though in the Watergate affair the causes and the underlying situation were trivial and factitious, as compared with the case of Athens in 324/3 B.C. 46 The key passage is Hyperides’ Epitaphios 21 (322 B.C.), written when Athens was temporarily free. It has been analysed with characteristic acumen by Bickerman, Athenaeum n.s. 41 (1963) 70 ff. He concludes that the wording implies a cult of Hephaestion, but does not imply (or, for that matter, disprove) a cult of Alexander. Habicht, in his second edition, accepts this, withdrawing his theory of a Kultgemeinschaft of Alexander and Hephaestion. (He admits this was founded, essentially, on a misunderstanding of the word paredros). Unfortunately he does not substitute anything positive for the original interpretation, which is thus voided. His chronology, in particular, was based on that interpretation (see esp. pp. 33–35) and must now be abandoned. But he does not explicitly face that conclusion or find a basis for a new chronology. 46a [No. 21 p. 379 will shown that I have changed my mind on this.] 47 Plut. Mor. 219e. Taeger, op. cit. (n. 11 above) 216 f., collects all the reported sayings on the subject. We cannot tell how many of them are genuine. 48 AJAH 4 (1979 [1980]) 3–5, with notes. 49 δ/θεν hardly occurs in Attic prose, except for five instances in Thucydides (notoriously refractory): see J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles (21954) 265. He describes its meaning as ‘implying that a supposition is mistaken’—which, as will be seen from the instances here discussed no less than from Thucydides, is not very helpful. 50 The supposed connection between the two was thoroughly investigated by Balsdon, op. cit., which is required reading on the subject. Cf. also my treatment of the period concerned, op. cit. (n. 45 above) 16 ff. 51 Op. cit. (n. 11 above) 207 f. (with notes 45–46). On Megalopolis, see Habicht, op. cit. (n. 5) 29 n. 3; but cf. now Fredricksmeyer, op. cit. (n. 48 above) 1–3, arguing that it was a shrine, perhaps dedicated in 324. However, he gives no good reason why it need have been any more than a building honouring Alexander as son of Ammon (which does not imply cult): the verdict, I think, remains: ‘ungewiss’ (Habicht). 52 He merely states (251): ‘Schwerlich hat man damit bis nach dem Tode des Königs gewartet’. (Why not?) Tegea: see Tod, GHI II 202, and now A. J. Heisserer, Alexander the Great and the Greeks (1980) 205–29. 53 Habicht, op. cit. 17. He admits that the date of the festival is uncertain. 54 CQ 38 (1944) 65 ff. 55 Despite the sweeping claims in his text, Jacoby very fairly sets out the actual evidence in his Appendix (p. 74). 56 Habicht adds an argument from eras of cities to deification (taken up again and stressed in his second edition, p. 245). But he does not attempt to show that city eras are always and necessarily connected with a ruler’s deification—indeed, this is surely not so. Hence that argument is invalid. He considers Ephesus a certain case of deification straight after the conquest, relying on a quip reported by the geographer Artemidorus (c. 100 B.C.) as reported by Strabo, a generation or two later still, to show the courageous piety of the Ephesians. Though the cult is not actually attested before Trajan, he argues that the anecdote establishes its immediate foundation. But the anecdote is poor evidence—one of those that cannot be either proved or disproved. They can only be judged in the light of the known background. (Habicht does not cite my discussion of Ephesus in Ancient Society and Institutions (1966) 45 f., trying to show that

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relations between Alexander and Ephesus were bad at the start and even much later.) The main tradition (Arr. I 17, 10–18, 2), in a detailed account of Alexander’s welcome in Ephesus and his actions there, has not a word about deification. Had it been immediate (i.e., if the anecdote were true), it could hardly have been overlooked: at this stage of the campaign, it would have been positively startling. I am inclined to accept the possibility of the institution of a cult in Ephesus before Alexander’s death, perhaps connected (though it need not be) with the setting up of his portrait with the thunderbolt (Pliny, n.h. XXXV 92), but I do not feel sure. It depends on whether Habicht’s argument from the use of the word ‘king’ in the cult title is sound (see text, above). At any rate, it is the only serious argument in this case. If a cult was established, it was presumably at some time between that action and the first century B.C. that the original Ephesian resistance to Alexander was crystallised in the reported bonmot. 57 Healy, NC 2 (1962) 65 ff., suggests an early date for Mytilene. But that is not securely established. Nor, as far as I can see, especially in the light of discussion at the Fondation Hardt (see n. 27 above: the discussion is found pp. 272–6), is the suggested transformation of the Heracles portrait on the ‘imperial’ coinage into an Alexander portrait during Alexander’s lifetime. If this was done (as was apparently later thought to be the case), it was clearly sporadic and spontaneous. See (still) Bellinger, Essays on the Coinage of Alexander the Great (1963) 16 ff. (His comments on the canons and language of ‘aesthetic criticism’ (p. 18) are worth bearing in mind, both in this discussion and elsewhere). The great numismatist was rightly sceptical, and though some of his lesser colleagues have not been, no relevant new facts have emerged in this field to encourage confident assertion. In the Fondation Hardt discussion, Cahn tried to assign Heracles coinage at Alexandria, supposedly showing Alexander’s features, to as early as 325 (he also ascribes it to an eminent engraver, specially called to ‘Alexander’s court’—which he presumably envisages as being at Alexandria); Dürr pointed out that none of that coinage is found in a hoard at Babylon shortly before Alexander’s death (and fairly securely dated), but drew attention to what may be the development of Alexander portraiture in Babylonian issues in the very last months of Alexander’s life. In connection with the later copying of Alexandrian issues as supposedly Alexander portraits (by no means proven in itself), Schwarzenberg pointed out (275 f.) that Renaissance numismatists also ‘recognised’ Alexander portraits in the Heracles coinage. That is no evidence as to contemporary intention. (He, of course, has been very active in ridding us of the numerous facile ‘recognitions’ of portrait heads with the anastole as Alexander heads: see BJ 167 (1967) 58–118).— Taeger discusses the imperial coins at length (though his discussion is now outdated), but does not deal with the city coins. 58 See Heisserer, op. cit. (n. 52 above) 143 ff., 156–68. Until recently one could have added the letter to Chios (Tod, GHI II 192), but Heisserer has argued for the date 334, which would make it too marginal (see 79–116). Mytilene, though not Ionian, might be an interesting case: Ionian and Aeolian cities had been closely connected since the sixth century. Unfortunately the date of the Mytilene decree (Tod, GHI II 201, Heisserer, pp. 118–39) is also uncertain. Heisserer seems to prefer 332 (131– 41), but at one point (136) offers 334, as fitting in with his reading of the Chios document. At the end (137–9) he seems to offer a date after Alexander’s death, only to reject it again on what are not totally convincing grounds. However, if Mytilene is relevant, it is evidence against early deification: Heisserer shows that an old supplement, conjecturally introducing an allusion to it, is unsound. 59 We do not know when Apelles’ painting of Alexander bearing the thunderbolt was set up in the temple of Artemis at Ephesus (see n. 56 above). But it is certainly during those last few years that we find Philoxenus exercising at least quasi-satrapal authority over the Greek cities of Asia. (See my discussion, op. cit. (n. 56 above) 56 ff.).

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60 P. Green, The Shadow of the Parthenon (1972) 61. 61 See my comments op. cit. (n. 27 above) 287–93, on Tarn, Stier and Kraft (with further references) and my review of Kraft in Gnomon 47 (1975) 48 ff. The same attempts to defend such views irrepressibly turn up. Thus Kraft suggested that, by using εῐπερ with a conditional clause with reference to his divine sonship in the prayer before Gaugamela, Alexander showed some uncertainty about it. The same comment (whether independently or picked up from reading of Kraft) was made by one of the participants in the discussion at Berkeley, after I had already pointed out (Gnomon, cit., 52) that, according to Denniston, op. cit. (n. 49) 488, this use of ε9περ is a mark of ‘confidence’. 62 χRρ οIς πρ τε jει μακρεσσι θεο)σι (E 340). On Dioxippus see Berve, Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage (1926) II 146–7, no. 284. On this incident, cf. T. S. Brown, in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean (n. 21 above) 83–87. 63 Athenaeum n.s. 41 (1963) 70 ff. 64 Plut. Alex. 28, 2; see Hamilton, CQ 3 (1953) 151 ff. Although the genuineness of the letter ought to be accepted (on total a priori rejection of Alexander letters, as advocated by Brunt, see CP 75 (1980) 281 f.), there is room for doubt as to its date. Plutarch puts it in a context not connected with the end of Alexander’s life; but (of course) that is not decisive. 65 Two articles, written independently, appeared in Chiron 5 (1975): one by Habicht (pp. 45–50) and one by R. M. Errington (pp. 51–58). Habicht does not comment on the letter. Errington cites the discussion on it, but does not take it into account in his historical reconstructions. Other points regarding this period also need reconsideration: see, e.g., ZPE 23 (1976) 289–94. See now Rosen’s long discussion of Samos in Chiron: he rejects the authenticity of the letter in Plutarch (see last note); but his argument for this is entirely based on his reconstruction of the events. 66 Cf. also Taeger, op. cit. (n. 11 above) 195 f. 67 See n. 25 above with text. 68 Fredricksmeyer does not know the interesting (though, I think, unacceptable) treatment of the question by M. P. Nilsson, Gesch. d. gr. Rel. II 142, or the absurd discussion by H. S. Versnel, ‘Philip II and Kynosarges’, Mnemosyne4 26 (1973) 273–79, who thinks that ‘Athenians of the fourth century regarded the deification of a human being during his life as irresistably [sic] comic’!

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This paper does not propose to bring up the much-debated old question of whether the ancient Macedonians ‘were Greeks.’ From the anthropological point of view, if suitably reworded, it could no doubt be answered; I suspect that, to the anthropologist, remains found in the areas of ancient Greece, Macedonia, and surrounding parts would not show significant differences. However, this is of no historical importance: no more so than it would have been to point out in the 1930s (as I am told is the fact) that there is little anthropological difference between Jewish communities and the non-Jewish populations among whom they happen to live. From the linguistic point of view, again, if suitably reworded (i.e., ‘Did the ancient Macedonians speak a form of ancient Greek?’), the question seems to me at present unanswerable for the period down to Alexander the Great. We so far have no real evidence on the structure of the ancient Macedonian language; only on proper names and (to a small extent) on general vocabulary, chiefly nouns. This is not a basis on which to judge linguistic affinities, especially in the context of the ancient Balkan area and its populations.1 Let us again look at the Jews—those who in the 1930s were living in Eastern Europe. Their names were Hebrew with a slight admixture of German and Slav elements; their alphabet and their sacred writings were Hebrew. Yet their vocabulary was largely, and the structure of their vernacular language almost entirely, that of a German dialect. As a precious survival of a prenationalist world, they are of special interest in such comparisons. One wonders what scholars would have made of them, if they had been known only through tombstones and sacred objects. [Few would have guessed that their language was basically German.] In any case, interesting though the precise affinities of ancient Macedonian must be to the linguistic specialist, they are again of very limited interest to the historian. Linguistic facts as such, just like archaeological finds as such, are only some of the pieces in the puzzle that the historian tries to fit together. In this case, unfortunately, as every treatment of the problem nowadays seems to show, discussion has become bedeviled by politics and modern linguistic nationalism:2 the idea that a nation is essentially defined by a language and that, conversely, a common language means a common nationhood—which is patently untrue for 282

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the greater part of human history and to a large extent even today. The Kultursprache of ancient Macedonians, as soon as they felt the need for one, was inevitably Greek, as it was in the case of various other ancient peoples. There was no feasible alternative. But as N. G. L. Hammond remarked, in the memorable closing words of volume I of his History of Macedonia, ‘a means of communication is very far from assuring peaceful relations between two peoples, as we know from our experience of the modern world.’3 It is equally far (we might add) from betokening any consciousness of a common interest. What is of greater historical interest is the question of how Greeks and Macedonians were perceived by each other. We have now become accustomed to regarding Macedonians as ‘northern Greeks’ and, in extreme cases, to hearing Alexander’s conquests described as in essence Greek conquests. The former certainly became true, in Greek consciousness, in the course of the Hellenistic age; the latter may be argued to be true ex post facto. But it is an important question whether these assertions should properly be made in a fourth-century B.C. context. Not that Greeks abstained from ruthless fighting among themselves. But as is well known, there was—in the classical period and above all since the great Persian Wars—a consciousness of a common Hellenism that transcended fragmentation and mutual hostility: of a bond that linked those who were ‘Hellenes’ as opposed to those who were ‘barbarians,’ and (by the fourth century at any rate) of certain standards of behavior deemed to apply among the former that did not apply between them and the latter.4 The question of whether the Macedonians, in the fourth century B.C., were regarded as Greeks or as barbarians—a question which, as I have indicated, is not closely connected with the real affinities that a modern scholar might find—is therefore of considerable historical interest. Of course, any answer we might tentatively give must be one-sided at best. The average Macedonian (as distinct from the royal family and the highest nobility) has left us little evidence of what he thought—or indeed, whether he cared. But on the Greek side, fortunately, there are far more records. An answer can and should be attempted. There is no evidence whatsoever of any Macedonian claim to a Greek connection before the Persian War of 480–479 B.C. Amyntas I had long before this recognized the suzerainty of Darius I; his daughter had married an Iranian nobleman, and his son Alexander I loyally served his suzerain, continuing to profit by Persian favor and protection, as his father had done.5 However, being a shrewd politician, Alexander I took care to build bridges toward the Greeks, giving them good advice that would not harm his overlord;6 and when at Plataea it became clear to anyone who would look that a decisive Greek victory could not be long delayed, he came out in full support of the victors, rendering them services that were appreciated. In fourth-century Athens a record of this appears to have survived—and it is of a certain interest that this great Macedonian king, the first of his line to have serious dealings with the Greeks and a friend of Athens in particular, was later confused with his successor Perdiccas.7 In any case, with Persian overlordship gone for good, cooperation with his southern neighbors became an essential aim of policy. It was no doubt at this 283

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time, and in connection with his claim to have been a benefactor of the Greeks from the beginning, that he invented the story (in its details a common type of myth) of how he had fought against his father’s Persian connection by having the Persian ambassadors murdered, and that it was only in order to hush this up and save the royal family’s lives that the marriage of his sister to a Persian had been arranged.8 It was also probably at this time that he took the culminating step of presenting himself at the Olympic Games and demanding admission as a competitor. (The date is not attested, but 476, the first opportunity after the war, seems a reasonable guess.) In support, he submitted a claim to descent from the Temenids of Argos, which would make him a Greek, and one of the highest extraction. With the claim, inevitably, went a royal genealogy going back for six generations, which (again) we first encounter on this occasion. We have no way of judging the authenticity of either the claim or the evidence that went with it, but it is clear that at the time the decision was not easy. There were outraged protests from the other competitors, who rejected Alexander I as a barbarian— which proves, at the least, that the Temenid descent and the royal genealogy had hitherto been an esoteric item of knowledge. However, the Hellanodikai decided to accept it—whether moved by the evidence or by political considerations, we again cannot tell.9 In view of the time and circumstances in which the claim first appears, and the objections it encountered, modern scholars have often suspected that it was largely spun out of the fortuitous resemblance of the name of the Argead clan to the city of Argos:10 with this given, the descent (of course) could not be less than royal, i.e., Temenid. However that may be, Alexander had clearly made a major breakthrough. He seems to have appreciated the Argive connection and cultivated it. Professor Andronikos has suggested that the tripod found in Tomb II at Vergina, which bears an Argive inscription of the middle of the fifth century, was awarded to Alexander I at the Argive Heraea, to which the inscription refers.11 Moreover, the official decision by the Hellanodikai won wide recognition. We find it recorded in Herodotus, as proof of the Macedonian kings’ Argive descent, and Thucydides accepts the latter as canonical. As might be expected, it was by no means the only version. Flatterers accepting the king’s hospitality might extend the pedigree to Temenus himself;12 and by the fourth century we find that a version extending the royal line by several generations, to make it contemporary with Midas (a known historical figure of considerable importance), had won general acceptance, indeed seems to be official:13 the first king’s name is now the very suitable Caranus (Lord).14 By the time Herodotus picked up the story of the verdict by the Hellanodikai, a graphic detail about Alexander’s participation had been added. Unfortunately the meaning of his words is not perfectly clear, but the most plausible interpretation is that Alexander in fact came first equal in the race.15 In any case, it is clear that Herodotus’ version comes, directly or ultimately, from the Macedonian court. One might have thought that the historic decision would have encouraged other Macedonian kings to follow Alexander’s example. His successors, Perdiccas and 284

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Archelaus, certainly continued to be involved in the international relations of the Greek states and patronized Greek culture. Yet we have no evidence of any participation by Perdiccas and only a late and unreliable record of an Olympic [and for good measure, a Pythian] victory by Archelaus, which is difficult to accept.16 With the exception of that single item, no Macedonian king between Alexander I and Philip II is in any way connected with the Olympic or indeed with any other Greek games. There is not (so far, at any rate; though this may change) even another Argive tripod. Another item deserves comment in this connection. It is said to have been Archelaus (and here the evidence is more reliable) who founded peculiarly Macedonian Olympics at Dium. We might call them counter-Olympics, for everyone knew where the real Olympic Games were celebrated. It is possible that Archelaus, trying to revive Alexander’s claim at Olympia (and Euripides’ development of his lineage perhaps was intended as further support), either had difficulties in gaining acceptance or was even rejected, despite the precedent. Such decisions might change with political expediency, and there were certain to be some Greeks who would challenge his qualifications and provide a reason for a new investigation. The suggestion is not based only on the establishment of the counter-Olympics. As it happens, even Euripides’ manufacture of an older and unimpeachable Temenid descent did not convince everyone. When Archelaus attacked Thessalian Larisa, Thrasymachus wrote what was to become a model oration On Behalf of the Larisaeans. Only one sentence happens to survive: ‘Shall we be slaves to Archelaus, we, being Greeks, to a barbarian?’17 Ironically, it is based on a line by Euripides. Now, that is an odd piece of rhetoric, as applied to Archelaus. Its significance is not merely to demonstrate that as late as c. 400 B.C. the official myth of the Temenid descent of the Argead kings could be derided. What makes it really surprising is that Archelaus seems to have done more than any predecessor to attract representatives of Greek culture and to win their approval—which, like representatives of culture at all times, they seem, on the whole, to have willingly given to their paymaster, even though he had both won power and was ruling by murder and terror.18 As we have already noted, Euripides wrote for him and produced a myth of direct descent from Temenos; a host of other poets are attested in connection with him; and Zeuxis painted his palace (giving rise to a suitable witticism ascribed to Socrates) and gave him a painting of Pan as a gift. It is really remarkable that this king, of all Macedonian kings, should be described as—not a tyrant, which would be intelligible, but a barbarian. It may add up to a declaration at Olympia that either reversed the judgment of Alexander’s day or, at least, confirmed it against strong opposition: our decision on these alternatives might be influenced by whether or not we regard the late report of Archelaus’ Olympic victory as authentic. In any case, Thrasymachus’ description of Archelaus should be seen in close connection with the counterOlympics founded by him and (in whatever way) with that report of his Olympic victory. 285

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As a matter of fact, there is reason to think that at least some even among Alexander I’s friends and supporters had regarded the Olympic decision as political rather than factual—as a reward for services to the Hellenic cause rather than as prompted by genuine belief in the evidence he had adduced. We find him described in the lexicographers, who go back to fourth-century sources, as ‘Philhellen’—surely not an appellation that could be given to an actual Greek. No king recognized as Greek, to my knowledge, was ever referred to by that epithet. On the other hand, the epithet cannot come from his enemies; they (surely) would have had other tales to tell: of what he had done when the Mede came and before, perhaps. It may be, therefore, that we can trace a tradition that interpreted the decision on his Temenid descent as a political gesture back to at least some of Alexander’s own Greek friends. Once we notice this, it becomes even less surprising that, as far as we know, his successor Perdiccas did not tempt fate and the judges again, and that the next king, Archelaus, may have run into trouble when he did. Of course, as is well known, the claim to Hellenic descent is, as such, neither isolated nor even uncommon. Alexander’s is perhaps the earliest we know of. And no other monarch had the imaginative boldness of Alexander I in having it authenticated, at the right political moment, by the most competent authority in Hellas. (Perhaps no other monarch ever found such an opportunity.) But by the fourth century, certainly, the rulers of Macedonian Lyncestis prided themselves on descent from the Corinthian Bacchiads—a royal dynasty fully comparable with the Temenid claims of their rivals at Aegae. The kings of the Molossi (another people not regarded as fully Hellenic) were descended from Achilles himself, via Pyrrhus son of Neoptolemus: their very names proved it. And if not fully Hellenic, then at least equally ancient and connected with Greek myth. The distant Enchelei in Illyria were ruled by descendants of Cadmus and Harmonia, not unknown in the heart of Greece itself.19 Whether aristocratic families in Italy and Sicily were at this time also claiming descent from Greek heroes—or if not Greek, at least Trojan—does not at present seem possible to discover. We have no literature or ‘family’ art going back to such an early period. On the other hand, it is known and uncontested that, long before the fifth century, Sicilian and Italian tribes and peoples were linked by Greek speculation, and had learned to link themselves, to Greeks or Trojans. The two were by no means clearly distinguished at the time, but conferred common legitimacy and antiquity as properly Homeric. Odysseus as ktistes seems in fact to have preceded Aeneas, at least in central Italy.20 This makes it very likely (one would think) that the ruling families of the peoples concerned took their own descent back to the mythical ancestor, thus legitimizing their rule. If so, they would precede Alexander I by several generations. This, as I have had to admit, remains speculation, since relevant evidence is simply unknown. But what we do thus attain is a certain and extensive cultural background to the claim of the Greek origin of the Macedonian people (as distinct from the kings). That claim, too, first appears in Herodotus. It makes the 286

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original Macedonians identical with the original Dorians.21 When it first arose, we cannot tell. It is almost certainly later than the royal family’s Temenid pedigree: had Alexander I known of this assertion, he would presumably have advanced it, like the details of the royal lineage, in support of his own contention. Yet in Herodotus it appears as a separate issue, and it is clear that (by his day, at any rate) it had never been submitted to the judgment of the Hellanodikai, presumably because supporting material could not be found and (as we have seen) Macedonian influence at Olympia was never again such as to make acceptance of this much wider claim probable. Certainly, no Macedonian appears on the lists of Olympic victors that have survived (a fair proportion of the whole) until well into the reign of Alexander the Great. Yet one would have thought that Macedonian barons, who thought highly of physical prowess and who certainly had the resources needed, would have been able to win one of the personal contests, or at least a chariot race—a feat that, by some time early in the fourth century, even a Spartan lady could perform.22 As we have seen, by the end of the fifth century counter-Olympics had been established in Macedon, and Macedonians were free to indulge their competitive ambitions without undergoing the scrutiny of the Hellanodikai. We may confidently assert that the claim to Hellenic descent, as far as the Macedonians as a whole were concerned, was not officially adjudicated for generations after Herodotus and Thucydides. The origin of this claim (as an unofficial myth) can be dated to some time between the admission of Alexander I and the middle of the century (when Herodotus must have picked it up: i.e., it presumably does still go back to Alexander I himself). As I have already implied, it may be looked for in the search for further support for the authenticity of the king’s own Hellenism, which was (as scrutiny of the scant evidence has suggested) not entirely undebated. Like the principal issue itself, it soon developed further. By the time of the Caranus myth (noted above) it had been supplemented by an actual migration of Peloponnesians. This was clearly a more specific event than a claim (to identity with the Dorians) that might arouse both disbelief and even opposition; and it fits in well with the way in which ‘ancient history’ was conceived of in the case of most peoples in the Graeco-Roman world—all but the few who, like the Athenians, laid claim to being (within limits that had to be recognized) ‘autochthonous.’ The claim to Greek origin of the Macedonians as a people, therefore, can be seen arising and developing within the fifth and (possibly) early fourth centuries, at a time when similar claims were familiar and indeed commonplace in the West. In fact, the historian Hellanicus, at some time late in the fifth century, seems to be the earliest literary source that makes Aeneas the founder of Rome.23 The first half (approximately) of the fourth century was a sorry time for Macedonia.24 Between the assassination of Archelaus about 400 B.C. and the accession of Philip II, the gains of the able and long-lived kings of the fifth century seem to have been largely lost, and Macedon was weakened by civil war and foreign invasion to the point where, by 359, the kingdom seemed close to 287

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disintegration. Philip’s mother and her intrigues (whatever the truth about that obscure and much-expanded topic) had not improved matters.25 When Philip’s brother and predecessor Perdiccas III was killed in a military disaster in Illyria, Philip (who took over, whether or not as protector of Perdiccas’ young son26) was faced by several pretenders, each supported by a foreign power.27 That had become the pattern in several changes of monarch in the Argead kingdom. In this as in other respects, Philip’s achievement deserves to receive full justice. During the long-drawn-out anarchy and regression, the Macedonian claim to ‘Hellenism’ cannot be expected to have made much progress. As we have seen, no Macedonian (king, baron, or commoner) appears in the Olympic victor lists. Nor do we find the Macedonian people ever regarded as a political entity, transacting business with Greek states. It is the kings that make alliances and (at least on one attested occasion) take part in panhellenic congresses.28 The Macedonians as such do not appear, any more than, for example, the Persians or the Thracians do. We have to wait until the time of Antigonus Doson, it seems, before the Macedonians are attested as a people in the political sense.29 This in itself, of course, may not be relevant to the issue of their presumed ‘Hellenism,’ any more than the king’s presence at a congress was to his. For obvious reasons, congresses were political meetings, and attendance at them would be ruled by political needs and convenience. The King of Macedon would be asked to send representatives, just as the King of Persia did, when the Greek states thought this desirable or even when he himself did. There is no record of tests by Hellanodikai at such meetings. It does, however, show that for political purposes no difference was seen between Macedonians and (say) Thracians and Persians, i.e., other nations under monarchical rule. This may have been a contributing factor in unwillingness to recognize Macedonians as Greek. Whatever the truth (and I repeat that I am not concerned with the issue of fact), they would easily be assimilated to barbarians, and it seems that indeed they were. It is well known that, when Philip II, after winning the Sacred War, was rewarded by Apollo with the places of the defeated Phocians on the Amphictyonic Council, the seats went to him personally. His representatives are Philip’s men; they have nothing to do with the Macedonians.30 There is no question here, as there might be in the case of international relations, of his acting as the empowered ruler of his people. He is acting in his own behalf, just as 130 years earlier Alexander I had acted at Olympia. A claim for admission of ‘the Macedonians’ to the Amphictyony would have been much harder to enforce. Philip was far too good a diplomat to advance it. We have seen that earlier Macedonian kings had been ‘philhellenic’ and had attracted and patronized Greek culture. The precise results of this within Macedonia cannot at present be documented. It is to be supposed that such outstanding works as Zeuxis’ paintings on the walls of the royal palace had some effect on the tradition (obviously a long one) that we have now seen exemplified in the Macedonian tomb paintings. But the missing links have not yet been found. It is to be hoped that they will be. However, if there ever was any really 288

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deep penetration even into the circle of the court and the nobility, that presumably regressed in the first half of the fourth century. It is only with Perdiccas III that we for the first time find a demonstrably genuine attachment to an aspect of Greek culture: in this instance, philosophy. We are told extravagant tales of his expecting his nobles to share those interests, and of his excluding from his company (and that may mean from the very title of hetairoi) any that did not conform.31 At any rate, he had links with the Academy and appointed what appears to have been a court philosopher from that school, Euphraeus of Oreos. The stories we have about him and his influence are overlaid with later amplification, and the facts in any case do not matter here.32 But as has been rightly observed, the demonstrably false and tendentious account of his death as due to the nobles’ revenge may be taken as attesting their hatred for him and his influence.33 Philip himself learned his lesson—if he needed to: he cannot be shown to have had any cultural interests himself, as his brother (and later his son) did. But he certainly lost no time in reinstating the Macedonian king’s claim to Temenid descent as a practical matter. We have no Herodotus to tell the details. (Perhaps Theopompus did, but his account is unfortunately lost.) What is certain—and it cannot be accident—is that for the first time since Archelaus, and for the first time ever reliably, we hear of a Macedonian victory at Olympia: needless to say, the king’s own. And it comes, significantly, at the very first games (356 B.C.) after his accession to power. The story of his victory in the chariot race, which was announced to him at the same time as the birth of a son and one or two military successes, must in its essentials be believed.34 And since such victories did not come easily or spontaneously, we can see that he had considered what in modern terms we may call the image of the Macedonian monarchy in Greece as important, and as immediately important, as the restoration of Macedonian military power. This, of course, does not mean that he at once developed his plans for winning hegemony over Greece. We have no good evidence on when and how those plans developed, and it would be unrealistic to put them as early as this. But it clearly shows that he had ambitious plans for his relations with the Greek international community: he knew that those relations would be based on actual military strength (of course), but greatly assisted by recognition of his standing as a Temenid and (now) an Olympic victor. Philip was never one to underestimate propaganda and the importance of his image. In the light of our investigation so far, we can trace this trait back to his accession. In due course, as we know, he did see the opportunities presented by the apparently incurable mutual wars and hatreds of the Greek states. The response of some Greek intellectuals to this (it cannot be shown to have had much effect on practicing politicians, or any at all on ordinary Greeks) had been a call for a Hellenic crusade against the Barbarian in the East. As the hope of having a citystate (Sparta or Athens) lead it faded, they were willing to accept even a monarch as leader in this crusade.35 Jason of Pherae had been cut off before he could attempt the task.36 By the time Philip was ready to consider it, the Persian 289

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empire was tearing itself to pieces in satrapal rebellions: if one could only overcome the first hurdle, the union of the Greek states, the rest seemed almost easy. After his victory in the Sacred War, at the latest, his plans seem to have been ready. By 342, he took the first step toward the military goal by invading Thrace in order to make the invasion of Asia strategically possible.37 About the same time he invited Aristotle to become the teacher of his son and designated heir Alexander. Apart from all else, the invitation was a political masterstroke. As was brilliantly recognized by Werner Jaeger, it secured for Philip an alliance (secret for the time being, of course) with the philosopher-tyrant Hermias of Atarneus, Aristotle’s patron and relative by marriage, who could provide both a bridgehead and connections with other potentially disloyal subjects of the king.38 It also resumed, after a necessary interruption, the Macedonian king’s connection with the Academy; but this time cautiously. The Greeks who mattered would obviously be impressed, but the Macedonian barons need fear no repetition of the Euphraeus episode. For one thing, Aristotle was the son of a man who had been court physician to Philip’s father.39 This not only ensured personal loyalty: it meant that he knew the Macedonian court and (we might say) he would know his place. Moreover, it was at once made clear that he was not coming as a court philosopher. He was installed with the young prince in a rustic retreat at a safe distance from the court and the capital. It is to be presumed that Aristotle was as happy to be at Mieza as the courtiers were to see him settled there. At Philip’s court, Greeks and Macedonians seem to have been completely integrated: there is no observable social difference among the hetairoi. But as contemporary observers noted, the social tone was far from lofty, as it had been under Perdiccas. Indeed, Theopompus has left us his famous satirical description, culminating in the epigram that the hetairoi might more suitably have been called hetairai: not courtiers but courtesans.40 The satirist should not be taken too literally. Philip’s court was no Bacchic thiasos, nor a collection of runaway criminals. His own success and (under his direction) that of his commanders and diplomats suffices to prove it. But it is clear that it was better for Aristotle to be at Mieza. Alexander, in fact, was to be the living symbol of the integration of Greeks and Macedonians, embodying its perfection. Unlike any of his predecessors, Philip seems to have planned far ahead. The integration of his court was a sample of what would some day come, led (he hoped) by his son—who, we ought perhaps to remember, had been born at the very time of Philip’s Olympic victory. What Aristotle taught Alexander, we do not know and probably never shall. The facts were soon overlaid with historical romance, as it turned out (and this could certainly not be foreseen at the time) that the greatest philosopher of the ancient world had taught its greatest king. Romantic speculation must be resisted. In fact, were it not attested, there would be nothing in the future career of either man to enable us to guess the association, although it would be clear enough that Alexander had had an excellent Greek teacher.41 They must have 290

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read the classics, like Herodotus and Xenophon.42 Above all, however, Aristotle inspired the prince with a love of Greek literature, especially poetry, and with the ideal of emulating the Homeric heroes. Aristotle or Aristotle’s relative Callisthenes presented him with a text of Homer, which (we are told) Alexander later put in a valuable casket found among the spoils of Darius. Characteristically, he is said to have kept it under his pillow at night, next to his dagger.43 Characteristically: for Alexander, despite his thorough Greek education and obviously genuine interest in Greek literature, was nevertheless a Macedonian king. Romance about the ‘Idyll of Mieza’ (in Wilcken’s famous phrase) has tended to obscure the obvious fact that Alexander’s contact with Aristotle was not the sole educational experience he had between the ages of thirteen and fifteen. It must inevitably have been during that time that he acquired the more obvious skills essential to a Macedonian king: skills physical, administrative, and political. It was presumably only to a small extent Aristotle’s political theory (if he got so far as to study it) that enabled Alexander, at the age of fifteen to sixteen, to act as regent of Macedon in Philip’s absence and (necessarily with the help of experienced advisers, but nonetheless in his own name) to win a major victory;44 though when, with Philip’s permission, he founded a colony and named it after himself, his teacher wrote a treatise for him on how to do it.45 Throughout, Greek culture and Macedonian reality must have proceeded alongside each other. That, indeed, was the point. Alexander grew up in a circle that included Greek and Macedonian friends. Our best evidence on his early friends comes in the list of those exiled after the Pixodarus affair.46 We have the names of two Macedonian nobles and of three Greeks who had settled in Philip’s refounded Amphipolis. The point is variously noteworthy. First, although (as we have seen) Philip seems to have made no social distinction between Greeks and Macedonians among his hetairoi, Greeks never commanded his armies. As we shall see, it would have involved technical difficulties and might have caused resentment among the Macedonian soldiers.47 Yet Alexander, right from the start, entrusted commands to some of his Greek friends. Indeed, Erigyius received an important cavalry command in the first winter of the expedition and, when he died in 327 after a distinguished career, is described by Curtius as ‘one of the renowned commanders.’ Nearchus, another of these Greeks, ultimately rose to even greater fame, enhanced by the fact that he could also write.48 Promotion, though naturally helped by personal contact with Alexander and services to him, depended more on talent than on nationality.49 What is also worth noting is that these Greeks, of various origins, had become ‘Macedonians from Amphipolis.’50 We have no detailed knowledge of Philip’s administration, but it is clear that annexed Greek cities, including those founded by himself, counted as parts of the Macedonian kingdom, not (like those of the Hellenic League) as allies. That, indeed, was why they had not become members 291

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of the Hellenic League.51 Yet, while Macedonian subjects of the king, they nonetheless retained some sort of civic identity which put them on a level with (most obviously) the districts of Orestis or Eordaea within old Macedonia. Whatever it was, it was a political masterstroke, for which Philip should receive due credit. There is no trace of it among any of his predecessors, and it foreshadows what was to become characteristic, centuries later, of the cities of the Roman Empire. It is also clear that these cities had attracted able and adventurous Greeks from the less prosperous parts of the Greek world as settlers. And some of them (a very select body) moved on to Pella, to become royal hetairoi.52 To these Greeks, the question of whether to regard Macedonians as Greeks or as barbarians would have been simply irrelevant. It was perhaps far more relevant to a rather important class of Greeks who must not be omitted in any discussion such as this: Greek mercenaries. At the beginning of his campaign, Alexander had very few Greek mercenaries: he could not afford many and, at that point, did not need many. The Persian King, on the other hand, seems to have had a large number.53 Alexander’s first contact with them was at the Granicus: those who were captured were sent to forced labor in the Macedonian mines, as traitors to the cause of Hellas.54 Clearly, this piece of terrorism, comparable with the destruction of Thebes, was intended pour encourager les autres. It turned out to be a mistake. Not only did Greek cities ask to have their citizens back (not, it seems, frightened into acquiescence by the implication that they were supporting or condoning treason),55 but the effect on the king’s mercenary forces was the opposite of what had been intended. Seeing no hope in surrender, they prepared to fight to the death—as Alexander soon found out. Once he did, the policy was as quietly dropped as it had been flamboyantly started. To obtain their surrender, he was happy to promise them safety.56 Once the new policy had been established, fear for their own fate no longer guided the mercenaries’ actions. Their true feelings can now be seen and assessed. After the battle of Issus, eight thousand of them refused to surrender, made their way down to the coast, and escaped by sea. We are not concerned with the details of their later fate, conflictingly related in our poor sources, except to note that they all fought against Macedon again when they had the chance. But the mercenaries (not many of them) who fought in the Persian ranks at Gaugamela seem to have escaped and remained with Darius. In fact, they remained loyal almost to the end, and when Bessus could not be stopped, joined Artabazus in preparations to continue the war in the mountains. It was only when Artabazus himself surrendered, in exchange for very honorable treatment, that they had to give up. Alexander seems to have used the occasion for another resounding sermon on collaboration with the national enemy, but when they surrendered, he in fact treated them well, releasing those who had been in the Persian service since before war was declared on Persia and merely taking those who had joined the Persians since (i.e., the real ‘traitors’) into his own service.57 Of course, it must by no means be thought that all Greek mercenaries hated Alexander: by the time these events were concluded, he himself had enrolled far 292

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more Greek mercenaries himself than were by now fighting against him. But the loyalty of those Greeks to Darius is nonetheless striking, both because it illustrates the persistent division of opinion among Greeks about the Macedonian conquest and the fact that some continued to prefer Persian barbarians to acquiescence in that conquest, and (although this is not relevant to us here) because it throws unexpected light on the character of Darius III, consistently maligned in the literary sources, as at least some men saw it. [See no. 25 in this collection.] As for Alexander, once he was the only possible employer for their labor, his relations with Greek mercenaries continued to be uneasy. We shall come back to them. As we have seen, it was Alexander who in himself symbolized, and who ultimately inherited, Philip’s policy of integrating Greeks and Macedonians. Indeed, it is probably not fanciful to suggest that this may be remotely connected with his own later policy of attempting a limited integration of Greeks and Macedonians with Iranians: the famous ‘policy of fusion.’ That policy, as is well known, aroused anger and resistance among the Macedonian forces near the end of Alexander’s life.58 Yet after politic concessions he persisted, and at the very end of his life he is even reported to have initiated a rather mysterious military reform, which combined Macedonians and Persians in small tactical units on a permanent basis.59 In the light of this it is particularly interesting to notice that he never—either before or at that time—tried to integrate Greeks into the Macedonian infantry.60 We cannot really tell why. Presumably, during most of the campaign he simply did not want to upset the well-trained Macedonian units that were his best military asset, either in the tactical or in the emotional sphere; while at the very end, both for tactical and for political reasons, integration of Macedonians and Iranians was important, while integration of Greeks with either was not. The fact as such, however, seems quite certain and has really been known for a long time, although it has not always been adequately noted. It is worth documenting once more, without reference to various late sources on the history of Alexander, where the evidence on the point is not worth much. Unfortunately these sources have at times been irresponsibly used in this context, and this has obscured the issue and the facts.61 Alexander himself, as we have seen, like any first-generation product of integration, in a way stood between two worlds not yet perfectly merged, rather than in a world that could be regarded as unified and Greek. Conflicts between the Greek and the Macedonian elements occasionally emerge, especially where, in our sources, conflicts between actual Greeks and Macedonians are allowed to appear: thus, most prominently, at the banquet that led to the death of Clitus, where Alexander, according to our tradition, sided with his Greek courtiers against his Macedonian officers and denigrated Macedonians as such in comparison with Greeks.62 At least the outline of that story must be believed, since the killing of Clitus did occur, as a result of a drunken altercation: that part is made clear by the official account, which used the fact to ascribe the event to the wrath 293

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of an accidentally neglected god.63 Although the end is variously told, and at least one of the versions is clearly distorted in the interests of exculpation of Alexander, in the development of the quarrel we not only do not get alternatives, but it is hard to conceive of it as having been essentially different from what is described. However, although the whole of the argument had turned to a comparison of Greeks and Macedonians, with Alexander favoring the former, at the end he is said to have called for his guards in Macedonian (Μακεδονιστ) when he felt his life threatened. It has often been argued that this was a reversion to a more primitive part of his psyche, under stress. This could be taken as overpowering his expressed intellectual preference for the Greeks, i.e., the Greek part of his own nature.64 But the answer is probably simpler than that. He used the only language in which his guards could be addressed. An interesting papyrus fragment, known for some time, seems to be the only good source to reveal the fact.65 It tells of a battle, early in 321 B.C., in which the Greek Eumenes, with cavalry and light arms only, faced the Macedonian noble Neoptolemus with his Macedonian phalanx. Wanting to avoid battle and, if possible, to take over the opposing infantry rather than fight them, he set out to convince them of the hopelessness of their position—successfully, as we can gather elsewhere, though our fragment breaks off before we see the outcome. I quote the part that is of interest for our problem: When Eumenes saw the close-locked formation of the Macedonian phalanx . . ., he sent Xennias once more, a man whose speech was Macedonian, bidding him declare that he would not fight them frontally but would follow them with his cavalry and units of light troops and bar them from provisions. Now, Xennias’ name at once shows him to be a Macedonian. Since he was in Eumenes’ entourage, he was presumably a Macedonian of superior status, who spoke both standard Greek and his native language. He was the man who could be trusted to transmit Eumenes’ message. This clearly shows that the phalanx had to be addressed in Macedonian, if one wanted to be sure (as Eumenes certainly did) that they would understand. And—almost equally interesting—he did not address them himself, as he and other commanders normally addressed soldiers who understood them, nor did he send a Greek. The suggestion is surely that Macedonian was the language of the infantry and that Greek was a difficult, indeed a foreign, tongue to them. We may thus take it as certain that, when Alexander used Macedonian in addressing his guards, that too was because it was their normal language, and because (like Eumenes) he had to be sure he would be understood. We may also take it as certain that educated Greeks did not speak the language, unless (presumably) they had grown up with Macedonians and had learned it, as some of Alexander’s Greek companions clearly must have. 294

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That these facts (fortunately for us) can be documented, for the period just after Alexander’s death, by a late but reliable source is variously helpful to the historian. First, it throws much-needed light on the difficulties that Greeks had in commanding Macedonian infantry. Philip II, we remember, is not known to have employed any. Presumably, the first-generation Greek immigrants into his cities had not learned the language. Eumenes, however, is notorious for the trouble he repeatedly had in getting Macedonian infantry to fight for him, even though he was one of the ablest of the Successors. We can now see that his disability was not only his Greek birth, as has always been realized, but the simple fact that he could not directly communicate with Macedonian soldiers. His alien culture and provenance were not only obvious in an accent: it was a matter of language.66 In the end, he therefore lost his bid for power and his life.67 We also learn—and this is where this discussion started—that although Alexander’s Greek companions (or at least some of them) did know the language, having come to Macedonia at an early age, Alexander never tried to impose Greek on his Macedonian infantry or to integrate it with Greek units or add Greek (‘foreign’) individuals to it. Above all, however, this helps to explain how, half a generation after Philip’s revival of the Macedonian king’s claim to eminent Greek descent had been accepted at Olympia and his efforts to integrate his court had been bearing fruit, Greek opponents could still call not only the Macedonian people, but the king himself, ‘barbarian.’ In this respect, nothing had changed since the days of Archelaus. The term is in fact more than once used of Philip by Demosthenes, most notably in two passages. In one, in the Third Olynthiac (3.24), he claims that a century ago ‘the king then in power in that country was the subject [of our ancestors], as a barbarian ought to be to Greeks.’ In the second, a long tirade in the Third Philippic (9.30 f.), he claims that suffering inflicted on Greeks by Greeks is at least easier to bear than that now inflicted by Philip, ‘who is not only not a Greek and has nothing to do with Greeks, but is not even a barbarian from a place it would be honorable to name—a cursed Macedonian, who comes from where it used to be impossible even to buy a decent slave.’ This, of course, is simple abuse. It may have nothing to do with historical fact, any more than the orators’ tirades against their personal enemies usually have. But as I have tried to make clear, we are not concerned with historical fact as such; we are concerned only with sentiment which is itself historical fact and must be taken seriously as such. In these tirades we find not only the Hellenic descent of the Macedonian people (which few seriously accepted) totally denied, but even that of the king. It is not even mentioned merely in order to be rejected: the rejection is taken as a matter of course. Now, the orator clearly could not do this, if his audience was likely to regard his claim as plain nonsense: it could not be said of a Theban, or even of a Thessalian. The polite acceptance of the Macedonian kings as Hellenes ruling a barbarian nation was still not totally secure: one would presumably divide over it on irrational grounds, according to party and personal sentiment—as so many of us still divide, over issues that are inherently more amenable to rational treatment.68 295

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As regards the Macedonian nation as a whole, there was (as far as we can see) no division. They were regarded as clearly barbarian, despite the various myths that had at various times issued from the court and its Greek adherents, perhaps ever since the time of Alexander I, and demonstrably ever since the time of Perdiccas II. This comes out most clearly in a well-known passage by one of Philip’s main supporters, that apostle of panhellenism, Isocrates. The passage is so important that it must be quoted in full in a note.69 Some time not long after the Peace of Philocrates, the orator congratulates Philip on the fact that his ancestor, having ambitions to become a ruler, had not attempted to become a tyrant in his native city (i.e., Argos), but ‘leaving the area of Greece entirely,’ had decided to seize the kingship over Macedon. This, explains Isocrates, shows that he understood the essential difference between Greeks and non-Greeks: that Greeks cannot submit to the rule of a monarch, while non-Greeks actually cannot live without it. It was this peculiar insight that enabled Philip’s ancestor to found a firmly established dynasty over a ‘people of non-kindred race.’ He is described (with pardonable exaggeration, for it is unlikely that Isocrates was deliberately contradicting similar claims by other dynasties that had by then arisen: see note 19 and text) as the only Greek who had ever done so. Whether Philip was entirely happy about this, we cannot know. As we have seen, he had made every effort to reconcile and integrate upper-class Greeks and Macedonians. But the passage provides the necessary background to the fact that even Philip had not tried to pass off his Macedonians as Greeks and had been perfectly content to accept membership of the Delphic Amphictyony as a personal gift, just as, in due course, he never tried to make his Macedonians members of the Hellenic League. Meanwhile, he was hoping to leave the final settlement of the problem to the future: Alexander was to prepare the way for fuller integration than could at present be attempted or claimed.70 We have no idea of what Macedonians, on the other side of this fence, thought of this whole issue: no Macedonian oratory survives, since the language was never a literary one. But that the feeling of a major difference (obviously, the Macedonians would not cast it in terms of ‘Greeks’ versus ‘barbarians’), of their being ‘peoples of non-kindred race,’ existed on both sides is very probable. For one thing, the language barrier would keep it alive, even though the literary language of educated Macedonians could only be Greek. That fact was as irrelevant to ordinary people (and perhaps even to those above the ordinary level) as was the Hellenic cultural polish of the Macedonian upper class that has been revealed to us in recent years. The artistic and cultural koine¯ of much of eighteenth-century Europe was French; indeed, aristocratic German ladies might confess that it was the only language they could write.71 Yet not all of them, by any means, were even Francophile, and none of them felt that they were French. The reaction to a Greek ‘court philosopher,’ or perhaps—if we can believe at least the outline of the story—the anger of Clitus: these help to document feelings in the very class that, as we now know, was culturally conspicuous for Hellenism. But like many prejudices, these feelings of antagonism are most 296

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clearly seen among ordinary people—whether the Athenians, who applauded Demosthenes’ tirades, or ordinary Macedonian soldiers, and not only those who deserted Eumenes.72 Alexander himself, with that basic tact that (at times surprisingly) links him to his father, had not tried to force military integration on his Greeks and Macedonians. Both were useful to him as they were. Having monopolized the market in Greek mercenaries, he forced them to settle in the northeastern frontier region of the empire, in a ring of colonies that was to ensure its military safety.73 Even before his death, when he had disappeared into India and there were apparently rumors circulating that he would never return, some of the conscripts in those colonies started on the long migration home, and at least some of those who did were successful.74 As soon as he was safely dead, many thousands of them banded together for the long march back, through areas held by hostile Macedonians and inhabited by natives perhaps equally hostile to both. Of course, this movement had little to do with national antagonism on the mercenaries’ side. It was a revolt against Alexander’s despotism, which in this instance had happened to be aimed at Greeks. The fact that in the final battle a large contingent betrayed their comrades and deserted to the Macedonians shows that (as centuries before in the battle of Lade75) national antagonism was by no means pervasive, and was perhaps not at all prominent. However, a Macedonian army under Pithon did defeat the rebels. Pithon, no doubt recognizing their immense value for the empire as a whole, persuaded them to go back to their posts, assuring them personal safety in return. Yet, contrary to his oath, seventeen thousand Greeks were cut down, after surrendering their arms, by the enraged Macedonians, and Pithon could not stop them.76 The patent needs of the empire and the oath of their commander were swallowed up in the explosion of what we can only regard as the men’s irrational hatred for their Greek enemies. The effect of the massacre on the later history of the region cannot be assessed, but it must have been considerable. The rebellion at the eastern extreme of the empire thus helps us document Macedonian antagonism toward Greeks. Correspondingly, rebellion at the other end documents Greek feeling about the Macedonians. Perhaps rebellion had been brewing even before.77 But it was in any case the immediate result of Alexander’s disappearance. Once more Athens rallied the Greeks to freedom, and once more she found many followers. The war, known to us (and to some ancient sources) as the Lamian War, was described by its protagonists as ‘the Hellenic War.’ The term speaks for itself, at least concerning the feelings of those who used it.78 In a wider Greek theater, where love of Greek freedom was not easily given up, and where (just as in the days of Isocrates, a generation earlier) despotism was still equated with barbarian rule, the spirit we find in Demosthenes’ oratory is thus confirmed. In fact, these two rebellions at the two extremes of the empire were the only ones for a long time. It was (significantly) only Greeks, whether professional soldiers or mere Greek citizens, who showed enough spirit to challenge what they 297

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felt to be the foreign domination. [I fear that, misled by many modern treatments, I completely failed to see the Iranian rebellion clearly attested. See now no. 24 in this collection, pp. 440 ff.] But that they in fact did so shows that at this time the gap between Greeks and Macedonians was by no means bridged. The work of the Argead kings who had long tried to work toward bridging it, and the work of Alexander who was himself the result of that long process (though, as we saw, he did not try to force it on beyond what was acceptable), was to take perhaps another century to reach fruition. Perhaps it was not fully completed until both parties became conscious of their unity, as it had by then developed, in contrast to a conqueror from the barbarian West.79

Notes 1 The most thorough study by a trained linguist is by J. N. Kalleris: Les anciens Macédoniens, I (Athens, 1954); II 1 (Athens, 1976). It clearly shows the nature of the evidence. Discussion of individual words, especially the ancient glosses, takes up a large part of the work (I, 57–288). It constantly shows the difficulty of studying words in isolation from structure. Many of the words Kalleris regards as dialectal Greek have been taken by eminent predecessors as non-Greek; and this is not to be refuted by his repeated imputations of anti-Greek prejudice (an idea that would never have occurred to most of them). His success, much of the time, in finding Greek dialect forms that may be related only points up the difficulty of placing an isolated word firmly in the context of one Indo-European language rather than another—especially when those languages were in constant contact, in an age totally devoid of linguistic nationalism or exclusiveness. In most cases, even the distinction between centum and satem languages will not help. All that can usually be offered is an alternative explanation. Where this is not possible, Kalleris tends to resort to emendation of the text—in most cases legitimately, perhaps: emendation is often needed in difficult texts. But it again helps to underline the uncertainty of the whole business in the present state of our knowledge. 2 It is the one advantage of the foreigner that he can more easily avoid this distraction—though (alas) not the imputation of it by those themselves affected (see notes 66 and 68). 3 N. G. L. Hammond, A History of Macedonia. I: Historical Geography and Prehistory (Oxford, 1972), 441. 4 The basic survey is still by J. Jüthner, Hellenen und Barbaren, ‘Das Erbe der Alten,’ n.s. 8 (Leipzig, 1923). Indeed, on the problem here discussed Jüthner is brief, decisive, and (within his set limits) unsurpassed (see 28–32). 5 See Hammond in N. G. L. Hammond and G. T. Griffith, A History of Macedonia. II: 550–336 B.C. (Oxford, 1979), 58–60, 61–65, 99–101, documenting Alexander’s trimming. 6 See Hammond (cited note 5). The advice to the Greeks to withdraw from Tempe (Herodotus 7.173) was obviously very welcome to Xerxes, as was Alexander’s advice to the Athenians to give up the struggle and accept Xerxes’ offer (Hdt. 8.140–141): this account no doubt came to Herodotus from an Athenian source (cf. Hdt. 8.143, ad fin., with its frank assessment of Alexander’s role), not from the Macedonian source at Alexander’s court. The advice at Plataea (Hdt. 9.44–45) was certainly useful to the Greeks, but if they were even moderately alert, they would not have failed to notice Mardonius’ preparations for battle, which took place only after dawn; it therefore made little effective difference. Still, this service was remembered in his favor (see note 7).

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7 Hammond notes that there is no evidence in Herodotus of any attacks by Alexander on the retreating Persians after Plataea (op. cit., note 5, 101). But Herodotus simply does not mention Alexander. Alexander could not have got back to Macedonia in time to attack the main retreating forces under Artabazus, who naturally made all possible speed (Hdt. 9.89), but he may well have harried the rear of the army and cut off stragglers. (He did not stay behind for the council of the Greeks, which is reported in detail.) He would have been foolish not to do so, at this stage. In the fourth century, there was a (confused) tradition of his doing a great deal at this juncture (see next paragraph). But though that cannot be used as real evidence, it seems to follow from the Greeks’ later gratitude to him, and the fact (see note 6) that he had not done much for them during the war itself, that some services were rendered at this stage. As we have seen, Herodotus does not seem to have had Alexander’s own account of the war, though he had a report going back to Alexander on other matters. The fourth-century version appears in Demosthenes 23.200: there ‘Perdiccas’ (carefully described as the Macedonian king at the time of the Persian invasion) is said to have received Athenian citizenship as a reward for ‘having destroyed the retreating barbarians and completed the disaster to the King.’ The confusion with Perdiccas is startling, and the suggestion that he received Athenian citizenship does not fit in with anything we know about Athenian practices at the time. The passage follows one (Dem. 23.199) detailing an award of citizenship to a Meno of Pharsalus, ‘when [he] had given us twelve talents of silver for the war at Eion near Amphipolis and had come to our assistance with three hundred cavalry of his own penestae.’ There is a slight complication: the two examples are repeated, almost verbatim, in [Demosthenes] 13.23–24, except that there it is explicitly claimed that not citizenship but ateleia was granted. However, it may be regarded as certain that the author of that compilation of uncertain date had no source other than Demosthenes, whom he adapted to his own purposes. We must treat Demosthenes 23.199–200 as we find it. The Meno episode could conceivably belong to the Peloponnesian War, where a Meno of Pharsalus did aid Athens at one time (Thucydides 2.22.3). But it is not likely that Thucydides, of all men, would not have mentioned his aid at Eion suo loco. Moreover, Demosthenes seems to assign the two grants to the same general period: the time of the Persian Wars. Hence Meno belongs to the capture of Eion in the 470s. The precise specification of the benefits conferred, in return for which the grants were made, suggests an actual document as a source; they would be thus detailed in the 'πειδ% clause introducing the resolution. And the error about the person of the Macedonian king (and perhaps also the specification of Eion as, anachronistically, ‘near Amphipolis’) would suggest composition in the fourth century, when fifthcentury history was much more appealed to by the orators than known. We should at least consider whether we may here have specimens of a further class of documents (citizenship awards) that belong within the context of what Christian Habicht noted twenty years ago: the engraving, in fourth-century Athens, of fictitious documents allegedly reproducing fifth-century originals of the age of the Persian Wars. See Chr. Habicht, ‘Falsche Urkunden zur Geschichte Athens im Zeitalter der Perserkriege,’ Hermes 89 (1961), 1–36. 8 For the story of the assassins disguised as female companions, see Herodotus 5.19–21. It is rightly disbelieved by Hammond (note 5), 98 f., and must be later apologetic invention. 9 Herodotus 5.22 tells the story in detail, with a reference to his later account of the genealogy of the Macedonian king (8.137–139). Oddly enough Hammond, rightly critical of Herodotus’ ‘Macedonian’ interpretation of Alexander’s part in the war (op. cit. note 5, 98 f. et al.), accepts the story of the Argive descent and its associated kinglist without hesitation (ibid., 3 ff.), as he seems to accept the wording of Herodotean

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10

11

12 13 14

speeches as precise and reliable historical evidence (101, note 4, not citing the actual source). It is in those speeches and nowhere else that we get Alexander’s claim, already at the time of the war, to be of Greek descent and a benefactor of the Greeks, and that the Athenians (Hdt. 8.143, ad fin.) confirm that he is their friend and benefactor. It is perhaps worth pointing out that it was precisely in 476 that Themistocles received an ovation at the Olympic Games (Plutarch Them. 17.4); also that at another panhellenic center, soon after the war, Themistocles propounded a policy of forgiving Medizers and keeping them within the Greek community—as an insurance against Spartan domination (Plut. Them. 20.3; cf. perhaps Pausanias 10.14. 5–6: heavily encrusted with legend, but presumably built on a true report of a Delphic embassy). It was most probably in 476 that Sparta showed Thessalian ambitions (Hdt. 6.72; cf. Paus. 3.7.9). That date for Leotychidas’ expedition has been argued by many, best perhaps by K. J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte II2 2 (Berlin, 1916), 191–192 (though his argument for a two-year campaign, 477–476, is not convincing). It might be comforting, in that year, to have that benefactor of Athens, Alexander I, within the Greek community. It was from Alexander’s territory that Themistocles later sailed to Asia (Thucydides 1.137.1–2). The ancients had two strictly etiological etymologies for the Argeads: from Orestian Argos or from a putative Argeos, son of Makedon: see Hammond (op. cit., note 3), 431, for the references. Hammond’s elaborate story of the migrations of the Argead Macedonian tribe (430–440 and passim), remote from ancient literary sources, forces him to reject the Argead name as the royal dynasty’s (433, giving some of the evidence for this and adding: ‘But the dynasty was a foreign one. . . .’). His justification for his acceptance of the (to our knowledge) relatively late claim to descent from the Temenids, in this context, must be quoted (cf. also ibid. note 15): ‘. . . the fact that the claim was accepted without question by Herodotus and Thucydides alike makes its authenticity practically certain.’ (That it was not accepted by the competitors at Olympia when they first heard it, nor—as this paper will try to show—by many Greeks after, is perhaps relevant). Hammond’s argument would authenticate the hegemony of Agamemnon, the return of the Heraclids, and much more that is not (like the Argead story) merely common to Herodotus and Thucydides, but agreed on by many other sources as well, indeed never questioned by Greeks of the classical age. The Argive tripod, displayed in the exhibition at Thessaloniki (1978), was not shown in the exhibition in Washington (1980–1981). Professor Andronikos’ suggestion was made in a lecture in Washington. Professor Habicht has drawn my attention to REG 64 (1951), 173, no. 137: a silver phiale originally dedicated at Megara, but found in a third-century Macedonian tomb, and perhaps brought to Macedonia as booty. The Argive tripod could be a recently captured item, deposited in the royal tomb because of its obvious sentimental value to an Argead king. This was done by Euripides: see Hyginus, Fabulae 219 and, for the papyrus and the right interpretation, Hammond (op. cit. note 5), 5, 11. On the Caranus story, known in several variants, see the extensive discussion by Hammond (note 5), 5–14 (Justin’s version translated, 12); for the meaning of the name, 11–12. Hammond does not regard the story as authentic. The Caranus story, of course, reinforces the claim to Dorian affinity by turning the Dorian element into an actual band of invaders from Peloponnesus. As such, it might well fit the time of Archelaus, whose attempt to reinforce and confirm the decision obtained by Alexander (possibly with mixed success) will occupy us below. Hammond suggests that time for its invention, since he believes that its connection with the founding of Aegae places it before the capital was moved to Pella ([note 5], 5–6, concluding: ‘most probably within the years c. 407–c. 400’). The time of Archelaus

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remains possible and suitable, but his argument is weak. Aegae was never forgotten as the original capital; and the condition that the first king and all his line must dwell there could be deemed to be perfectly satisfied by its remaining the ritual capital and containing the royal burial places. 15 Herodotus, after reporting the decision, continues with a phrase that has been debated ad infinitum (5.22): κα γωνιζμενος στδιον συνεξπιπτε τ-$ πρτ-ω. There can be no irrefutable interpretation, since Herodotus nowhere else uses the verb in anything like a comparable phrase. However, the translation ‘. . . and ran a dead heat for the first place’ (Godley in the Loeb edition), despite objections that were raised (against its models) in the last century and have at times been raised since, seems the only acceptable one. It is based on the fact that Plutarch Moralia 1045d quotes Chrysippus’ propounding a hypothetical case in a contest for the judge to decide and discussing the way the decision should be reached. The case is described as follows: Bποθμενος δο δρομεις >μο συνεκππτειν λλ%λοις. Although this was written two centuries after Herodotus, technical language tends to survive; and it is clear that, at any rate by Chrysippus’ time, the verb was a technical term of the agonistic vocabulary. Since Herodotus uses it in an agonistic context, it should therefore be taken to have the same meaning. This would also explain why it is nowhere else used in a comparable sense: Herodotus had no similar scene to describe, and the occasions for its use were naturally very limited. [The story of Alexander’s tying with the victor in the race, when unquestioningly accepted, would probably imply a date earlier than 476 for the scene at the Games. Whether the anecdote is authentic, each reader must decide for himself]. It is inconceivable that a king, attaining that success, should be denied the verdict by the judges. Yes it is a fact that Alexander’s name does not occur in the list of victors for the stadion, which survives complete well beyond the relevant period. This has considerable bearing on the veracity of the whole of the ‘Macedonian’ tradition transmitted by Herodotus. Strangely enough, Hammond (note 5) seems to be ignorant of the fact that the victor list survives in the first book of Eusebius. See his comment, p. 3, note 1, in giving reasons why the Macedonian kings’ claim to Temenid descent should be accepted: ‘The Hellanodicae were convinced; Herodotus and Thucydides had no doubts in the matter; and it was easy to check in the list of Olympic victors that Alexander won the stadion . . . in a particular year’ (italics mine). On the first two points see note 10 with text. The third can be taken as decisive against Hammond, who failed to perform the ‘easy check’ for himself. 16 Solinus 9.16 is the only attestation, some time between c. A.D. 250 and 390. (See H. Walter, Die ‘Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium’ des C. Iulius Solinus, Hermes Einzelschriften Heft 22 [Wiesbaden, 1969], 73–74.) The passage on Archelaus is so extraordinary that the whole of it must be quoted if the reader is to appreciate it. ab hoc Archelaus regnum excepit, prudens rei bellicae, navalium etiam commentor proeliorum. hic Archelaus in tantum litterarum mire amator fuit, ut Euripidi tragico consiliorum summam concrederet: cuius suprema non contentus prosequi sumptu funeris, crinem tonsus est et maerorem quem animo conceperat vultu publicavit. idem Pythias et Olympiacas palmas quadrigis adeptus, Graeco potius animo quam regali gloriam illam prae se tulit. The creation (apparently) of the Macedonian navy; the love of literature that made him appoint Euripides his chief adviser and mourn the poet’s death by shaving his head; finally the Pythian and Olympic victories displayed as befitted a Greek rather than a king—one can only wonder as much where all this stuff came from as what, in detail, some of the language means. There is a modicum of known fact: his prudentia rei

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17

18

19

20

21

bellicae comes, remotely, from Thucydides’ famous characterization, his patronage of Euripides was common knowledge. Whether this suffices to make the otherwise unattested two panhellenic victories credible, each reader must decide for himself. It should perhaps be added that in what precedes the succession of Macedonian kings is explicitly listed as Caranus–Perdiccas–Alexander–Archelaus. Hammond (note 5), 150, accepts the victories without discussing the context. Thrasymachus F 2 (H. Diels, ed., Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6th ed., by W. Kranz [Dublin-Zurich, 1951]). For the Macedonian ‘Olympics’ see Diodorus 17.16. 3–4, putting the sacrifice and the contest to Zeus and the Muses at Dium; Arrian 1.11.1 says that the games to Zeus were held at Aegae and seems to put the sacrifice in the same place; the games to the Muses are added as a logos. Dium, the traditional sanctuary of Zeus, seems the more likely site, and Arrian may be mistaken. On Archelaus see also the two preceding notes. For his technical achievements, the locus classicus is Thucydides 2.100.2. On his character, see especially Plato Grg. 471 and passim: Socrates makes him the type of person who has become rich and powerful through crimes and is therefore wrongly regarded as happy by the ignorant; but after his wicked life he will be punished by the judges of the underworld (ibid. 525). It is a neat touch that he is among those judged by Rhadamanthus, who judges ‘those from Asia’ (524a and e), like the Great King – not by Aeacus, who is in charge of Europeans (524a). That Plato was, at any rate, not misrepresenting Socrates’ opinion of Archelaus is shown by an anecdote in Aristotle, Rhet. 2.1398a, where Socrates explains why he refuses to visit Archelaus: he implies that he does not want to risk finding himself helpless in the king’s power. Aelian VH (we do not know from what source) reports a witticism by Socrates against Archelaus in connection with his having his palace painted by Zeuxis. (Socrates says that people will now go to see the palace, though not Archelaus.) For Zeuxis and the various poets at the court, the references are assembled in RE, II (1895), 447 (cf. 445); add Zeuxis’ making the king a gift of his painting of Pan (Pliny NH 35.62). Alexander ‘Philhellen’: see the evidence assembled by Hammond (note 5), 101, note 3. As he says, it is all late; but as it includes Harpocration, there is good reason to think that the term was found in fourth-century sources. Further than that we cannot trace it, and it is possible that it was in fact coined in the fourth century and does not derive from any contemporary source. Hammond’s idea that the term was coined ‘to distinguish Alexander from his greater successor of the same name’ is unlikely, unless we assume that it came from circles that wanted to ascribe anti-Hellenism to the latter. Kalleris has promised a treatment of this matter, which will no doubt appear in the second part of his vol. II (see note 1). For the Lyncestians, Molossians, and Enchelei, see Strabo 7.7.8.326. The original date of these claims is unknown, but Neoptolemus I, an early member of the Second Athenian Confederacy, must have been born and named in the fifth century. It is likely that the Lyncestians and Molossians were in fact imitating their Argead neighbors. The evidence on this is complex and cannot be discussed at length here. See G. Karl Galinsky, Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome (Princeton, 1969), chaps. II–III. Galinsky shows that Odysseus actually precedes Aeneas, both in Sicily and among the Etruscans. Even apart from the Aristonothos krater, of the seventh century, Aeneas is demonstrable c. 525 (p. 121). See also P. J. Riis, in Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique 13 (1967), 70–71 (Aeneas at Vulci c. 520), 83 (Aeneas at Veii in the second quarter of the fifth century). Herodotus 1.56, 8.43: the Lacedaemonians, Corinthians, Sicyonians, Epidaurians, and Troezenians are of ‘Dorian and Macedonian’ stock. (1.56 repeats the idea.) There is no reason to think that Thucydides accepted it: he resolutely puts Macedonian contingents

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22 23

24

25

26

among barbarians, e.g., 2.81.6; 4.124.1. It is difficult to follow Hammond (note 5), 45, in claiming that this referred to a stage of culture: ‘The question of language was entirely separate.’ (He also applies this to Thrasymachus’ remark, quoted in note 17 and text.) He does not attempt to prove that Thucydides, or Greeks of his generation, used the term barbarian to indicate any people whom they considered speakers of a Greek dialect; while we know from the very etymology of the word that ‘barbarians’ were people whom Greeks could not understand. Cynisca (see Plutarch, Ages. 20.1; Xenophon Ages. 9.6). On Archelaus’ reported victory, see note 16. Hellanicus, FGrHist 4 F 84. But the story, current in Italy even earlier, may well have appeared in earlier Greek writers, as the Odysseus myth quite probably did. (See note 20.) It was essentially the Greeks who furnished ambitious barbarian peoples with the materials of their ‘ancient history,’ especially as they had long been given to mythological speculation linking peoples by common descent. For one such, the common origin of Aeolians, Ionians, and Dorians—i.e., confined to Greeks—see the discussion by Hammond (note 3), 271 f. He believes that the ‘names indicate the common origin in Thessaly of three tribally and dialectically distinct groups of the Greek-speaking people.’ (He has to admit that the story is not quite adequate: we have to add the north-west Greeks, not put into the family as a separate line by the ancients.) The speculations that derive the Persians from Perseus and relate them to the Spartan kings and the Egyptians (via Acrisius) are detailed for us in Herodotus (6.53). They give us the measure of the worth of the information we find on the kinship of nations in the Greek myths. Hammond (note 5) rightly calls the period covered by his chapter IV (pp. 167–200). ‘A Period of Instability.’ The chapter covers the years from the death of Archelaus to the accession of Philip II (399–359). A very unfortunate typographical error in the exhibition catalogue The Search for Alexander (Yalouris, Andronikos, and Rhomiopoulou; Boston, 1980) has accidentally suppressed this period and thereby not only distorted the whole development of Macedonian history, but cheated Philip of the credit he deserves. On page 23 of the catalogue, in the list of Macedonian kings, the date of Archelaus’ death appears as 359 instead of 399, so that Philip becomes his immediate successor. It is to be hoped that this error will be corrected in any new edition. Rarely has a misprint conveyed so much misinformation! See the royal soap opera narrated in Justin 7.4.7, 7.5.4–8; cf. scholia on Aeschines 2.29. Obviously, the story has been embroidered by Hellenistic fiction. But it cannot be treated as cavalierly as it is by Hammond (note 5), 183, who writes the whole of it off as ‘poppycock,’ for the reason that ‘it bears no relation to the procedure in the Assembly of the Macedones against those who were detected in a treasonable plot.’ Fortunately this kind of staatsrechtliche fundamentalism has now been dealt two blows from which it will not soon recover. See R. A. Lock, ‘The Macedonian Army Assembly in the Time of Alexander the Great,’ CP 72 (1977), 91–107, and R. M. Errington, ‘The Nature of the Macedonian State under the Monarchy,’ Chiron 8 (1978), 77–133. (Neither of these articles could yet be known to Hammond.) Justin 7.5.9–10 says that Philip was for a time the guardian of young Amyntas, son of Perdiccas. Diodorus (16.1.3) calls him king from the start and gives him twenty-four years on the throne, which is certainly false. Neither of these sources, on its record, inspires much confidence. But since Justin has an explicit statement, difficult to regard as later fiction, it has usually been believed. J. R. Ellis (‘Amyntas Perdikka, Philip II and Alexander the Great,’ JHS 91 [1971], 15–24) has argued against it, proposing (very implausibly, in view of the political circumstances) that IG VII. 3055 (Lebadeia), calling Amyntas king, belongs in the context of a conspiracy against Alexander after

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27 28

29 30

31

32

33 34

Philip’s death. I suspect the argument may be misconceived. It is quite possible that Philip was from the start entitled to be called king, but was originally expected to let Amyntas come to the throne (perhaps only as his successor) in due course. I do not want to give the impression that I believe Macedonian Staatsrecht provided for such cases, but there may have been an expectation of what was appropriate (a νμος); and we might compare the case of Antigonus Doson and Philip V (the only parallel I know of, though later). I still find it difficult to believe that Justin’s statement is pure fiction. He does not exploit it as a weapon against Philip, as one would expect if it were—far from it: it contributes to Philip’s glory. Yet it is unlikely to have been invented for that purpose. For a summary and discussion see Griffith (note 5), 210–211. Aeschines 2.32, claiming documentary evidence, therefore probably to be believed. Of course there is no reason why a Macedonian king should not be represented by an envoy at an international congress. It is only Aeschines, in 343, who gives the impression that it was an exclusively Greek congress. The date of the particular meeting has been difficult to establish. It may even be that Amyntas was represented as a member of the Second Athenian Confederacy, if (as is the most common view) the congress was the one of 371. (See Hammond, note 5, 179.) In any case, the incident has no bearing on the kings’ claim to ‘Hellenism,’ let alone the Macedonians’. Under Antigonus Doson: see E. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, I (Oxford, 1957), 256. See Griffith (note 5), 453–454: ‘There was no question of the Macedonian ethnos achieving membership now in place of the Phocians. . . . It was on Philip personally and on his descendants that membership was conferred.’ The whole context is to be highly recommended for an excellent discussion of some of the problems treated in this paper. See Griffith (note 5), 206 ff. The story about the restriction imposed for admission to hetairic status comes from the anecdotalist Carystius of Pergamum, one of Athenaeus’ favorite sources. The term used, at any rate, is that Euphraeus συνταξε τ#ν ταιρεαν in such a way as to forbid participation at the king’s meals to those who did not know geometry and philosophy. Carystius is a mere gossip, though he must have had good sources. The ‘letter of Speusippus’ has for fifty years been recognized as genuine, almost alone in the corpus of philosophers’ letters, ever since the eloquent defence and analysis by E. J. Bickermann and J. Sykutris, Speusipps Brief an König Philipp, Ber. über die Verh. der Sächsischen Akad. der Wiss., Phil.-hist. Klasse 80.3 (Leipzig, 1928). The case is by no means decided, and most of the learned editors’ arguments were irrelevant. As Bickermann himself put it (31): ‘Zum grösseren Teil sind die im Briefe enthaltenen Nachrichten und Notizen für die Echtheitsfrage nichtssagend.’ The same applies, even more strongly, to the linguistic analysis. Fortunately the letter makes little contribution to our present purpose. (But it does elsewhere: see e.g., Griffith, cited note 31.) Griffith (note 31). The story is a favorite of anecdotalists; see (best) Justin 12.16.6 and Plutarch Alex. 3.5 (adding, to the Illyrian success, the fact that he had at that moment just taken Potidaea). The chronology is difficult to check in detail, and for Parmenio’s Illyrian campaign we have no controls at all. But Alexander was probably born on 6 Hecatombaeon, whereas the Olympic victory was about July 26: see S. G. Miller, ‘The Date of Olympic Festivals,’ AthMitt 90 (1975), 229–230. This makes the approximate coincidence of the items credible. I do not want to digress into discussion of the well-known problems of the Athenian calendar. But it is generally agreed that Hecatombaeon was the first lunar month that began after the summer solstice. (See, in general, A. E. Samuel, Greek and Roman Chronology: Calendars and Years in Classical

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35 36 37

38

39

40 41

42

43

Antiquity. Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft 1.7 [1972], 64, with note 1.) In 356, the new moon phased in Athens about 7:30 p.m. on July 14. (For the precise time, see E. J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World [Ithaca, N.Y., 1968], 115, given, of course, in GMT.) If that day was 1 Hecatombaeon, Alexander was born on July 19. The difference, in any case, will not be more than a day or two. All of this, incidentally, decisively proves that these were not the Macedonian ‘Olympics,’ but the real ones. The Macedonian festival was between campaigning seasons, not in summer (see the sources cited in note 17: we do not know even an approximate date, but the season as such is certain). This vast topic has been interminably discussed. For a good survey, see G. Dobesch, Der panhellenische Gedanke im 4. Jh. v. Chr. und der ‘Philippos’ des Isokrates (Vienna, 1968). Xenophon, Hell. 6.1. The invasion is discussed in all the standard works: see, e.g., Harry J. Dell in Philip of Macedon, eds. M. B. Hatzopoulos and L. D. Loukopoulos (Athens, 1980), 98–99 (unfortunately without notes). For more detailed discussion of the facts (not of the purpose), see Griffith (note 5), 554–566 and continuing, in part, to 584. I have discussed this in an article, ‘Philip II and Thrace,’ Pulpudeva 4. See W. Jaeger, Aristotle2 (Oxford, 1948), 112–120, on Hermias and Aristotle’s appointment to Macedon. (On the political nature of the appointment, especially 120.) Whether Aristotle was still a member of the Academy at the time, or whether his departure from Athens went along with ‘secession,’ cannot be discussed here. But as Chroust has pointed out, it is likely that his departure was caused by political events; and there is a late tradition, in a well-informed source, that Speusippus later invited him to become head of the Academy. On this, see A. H. Chroust’s collection of essays, Aristotle (London, 1973), 117–124. Nicomachus (Diogenes Laertius 5.1), who traced his ancestry to Asclepius himself (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Epistula ad Ammaeum 1.5; D.L. 5.1; and various late biographies). Aristotle, born in 384/3 (ibid.), must have spent much of his youth at the court of Pella, but we do not know when Nicomachus went from Stagira to Pella, nor when he died. FGrHist 115 F 224–225. (For the Thessalians, see F 162.) But it probably goes too far to deny the association altogether. (Thus Chroust [note 38], 125–132.) Along with some rather poor arguments, Chroust does make it clear that most of the attestation is late and heavily embroidered, and that contemporary sources do not mention it where we might expect them to. But the various forged Hellenistic letters dealing with the association were no doubt based on a tradition that it had existed, and the treatises On Kingship and On Colonists, recorded as addressed to Alexander, are no doubt genuine. (On the latter see note 45.) These would be required reading, especially in view of Philip’s Persian campaign, but also in view of Alexander’s practical interests: see the anecdote in Plutarch, Alex. 5.1 (perhaps not wholly credible as it stands). For Herodotus we have better evidence, not usually noticed. There can be little doubt that Alexander’s plan for crossing the Danube (Arrian 1.3.3—mistranslated in the second Loeb edition), involving ships sent from Byzantium up the Danube, must be inspired by Darius’ famous crossing (Hdt. 4.89, 4.97). Of course, he may have read this with Lysimachus. On his emulation of Homeric heroes, see, e.g., L. Edmunds, ‘The Religiosity of Alexander,’ GRBS 12 (1971), 363–391, esp. 372–374. (Page 368: ‘He slept with the Greek language and a Macedonian weapon under his pillow.’) For the Homer of the casket, see especially Plutarch, Alex. 8.2; cf. 26.1–2. The other sources are collected by J. R. Hamilton, Plutarch Alexander. A Commentary (Oxford, 1969), 20–21. Plutarch assigns the ‘recension’ to Aristotle, and the details vary. Note Edmunds’ conclusion (370): ‘If

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44

45 46

47

48 49

50

51

52

Alexander gained anything from his study with Aristotle besides an admiration of Pindar and Homer, not a trace of it is reflected in his life.’ (Cf. note 41 with text.) Plutarch, Alex. 9.1. The regency must include the time of the siege of Perinthus, earlier in 340, although it is not mentioned in Plutarch (who is not concerned with historical akribeia, as he tells us): Philip did not return home between the two sieges, which followed closely upon each other, and cannot have made new provisions. Plutarch (note 44). The site of Alexandropolis has not been identified. On the foundation, see Hamilton (note 43), 22–23; add (on Aristotle’s treatise) my note in ‘Alexander the Great and the Unity of Mankind,’ Historia 7 (1958), 442, [no. 1 in this collection]. Arrian 3.6.5; Plutarch, Alex. 10.4 (omitting Laomedon, even though he tells the story in great detail). The surprising omission in both sources is that of Hephaestion. We must surely conclude from this that Hephaestion was not among Alexander’s earliest friends, despite the attested intensity of the friendship later on. (See W. W. Tarn, Alexander the Great [Cambridge, 1948], 2.78.) In fact, the only source (apart from the Romance) that makes them childhood friends is Curtius (3.12.16), in an elaborately written introduction to the scene with Darius’ mother (cf. the logos in Arrian 2.12.6). Apart from this logos, the earliest mention of Hephaestion in Arrian is in another logos, regarding Alexander and Hephaestion at Troy (1.12.1). See below. Professor Mylonas suggested in the discussion after my paper at the symposium in Washington (November 1980) that Philip perhaps refrained from employing Greeks because he had good reason to distrust them, since they had so often betrayed him. This does not seem to me a likely motive. Philip did use Greeks on various diplomatic missions (e.g., various Athenians to carry messages to Athens and, best known, Python of Byzantium in 344/3). However, embassies sent from the court on official state business, e.g., the one to Athens in 346 (see Theopompus, FGrHist 115 F 165), consisted of prominent Macedonians. On Erigyius see H. Berve, Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage (Munich, 1926), 2.151–152; on Nearchus, ibid. 269–272, and cf. my article, ‘Nearchus the Cretan,’ YCS 24 (1975), 147–170 [No. 13 in this collection]. Laomedon, Erigyius’ brother, obviously lacked military ability, but had linguistic talents unusual in a Greek of his day. See Berve (note 48), 231–232. These young men, who had grown up in Philip’s kingdom and were described as ‘Macedonians,’ will have acquired an adequate knowledge of the Macedonian language (see below). Note particularly the arrangement of the list of trierarchs in Arrian, Indica 8.18: Amphipolitans are put among Macedonians and contrasted with ‘Greeks.’ On all this, see the complicated speculations on the Macedonian ‘law of citizenship’ by Hammond (note 5), 647–652, rightly describing the result of his system as a ‘complex state.’ As in other respects (see note 25), such schematic elaborations of fourth-century Macedonian Staatsrecht are entirely modern and academic. Hammond makes many useful points and collects the main sources (though he nowhere warns us that reference to autonomous Macedonian ‘cities’ is not found before Philip II; indeed, he implies the opposite). But we should not picture Philip’s state as provided with a Department of Immigration and Naturalization, or its citizens as carrying identity cards. On Hellenistic Macedonian cities, where the evidence is better, see A. Giovannini, Untersuchungen über die Natur und die Anfänge der bundesstaatlichen Sympolitie in Griechenland, Hypomnemata 33 (Göttingen, 1971), 76–83 (see 80 on the ‘gradual Hellenization’ of the country and its administrative consequences). It is possible, of course, that some of the men whom we know as courtiers had come to Pella straight from Greece and had been given estates elsewhere that gave them polis citizenship. Thus Nearchus was ‘a Cretan by birth, but resident at Amphipolis on the Strymon’ (Arrian Indica 18.10). Hammond (note 5), 648, rightly connects citizen-

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53

54 55 56

57

58 59

60 61

ship with a grant of land, but does not notice that Nearchus was exiled as early as 336 (sources, note 46). He cannot have ‘resided’ at Amphipolis at any time after this, and presumably not for some time before, [when he was at Pella with Alexander]. For Alexander’s mercenaries, see Diodorus 17.17.3 (probably to be accepted). The number serving under the Persian King is (as with all such figures) never reliably stated. Pausanias’ figure of 50,000 (11.25.5) shows us what to expect, as does the figure of ‘nearly 20,000’ (Arrian 1.14.4) at the Granicus. (They take no part in the fighting, and all but 2,000 are later massacred!) At Issus 30,000 are reported (Arrian 2.8.5); there is no way of reasonably conjecturing the true figure. On the other hand, the 8,000 said to have escaped from Issus (see note 57 with text), presumably a fair proportion of all who fought there, may be accepted, as their story is unconnected with battle figures and is given in detail (though not without its own contradictions). Since there must have been mercenaries in other parts of the empire, the king certainly had many more—probably several times more—than Alexander. Arrian 1.16.6. Whether he had a right to do so, as hegemon, without consulting the Council of the Greeks (cf., e.g., Plutarch, Alex. 55.9), was not a question that would greatly trouble him. Thus the Athenians got their citizens back in the spring of 331 (Arrian 3.6.2)— precisely when Alexander first heard about the beginning of a rebellion in Peloponnesus (Arr. 3.6.3). The two events cannot be unconnected. First at Miletus (Arrian 1.19.6): ‘But when he saw that those on the island were prepared to fight to the end, he was seized with pity for the men, because they seemed noble and loyal men to him, and he made an agreement with them on condition that they should fight on his side.’ Issus: I have discussed these 8,000 in ‘Harpalus,’ JHS 51 (1961), 26 [no. 5 in this collection] with source references. Gaugamela: Arrian 3.16.2 mentions the escape of 2,000 mercenaries (Curtius has a different figure), but we have no figures for those who took part in the battle. Their final departure from Darius: Arr. 3.21.4. (They were unsuccessfully pursued by Craterus: Arr. 3.23.6.) Their surrender after being deserted by Artabazus and his sons: Arr. 3.23.7–9. (By that time there were about 1,500 left.) Terms: Art. 3.24.5. References to the ample modern treatments are unnecessary. The main sources: Arrian 7.6 and 8; parallel treatments in the other sources. Arrian 7.23.3–4. Though the details are very specific and must be accepted, Arrian does not tell us (and presumably did not know) how many men and units were involved in the reform. Berve (note 48), 1.121, takes it as a reform embracing the whole army. But in view of the highly experimental nature of the proposed combination of different armaments and mobility in small units, it is almost inconceivable that Alexander was intending to dismantle the whole of the Macedonian phalanx (the best infantry in the world) in order to change over to this completely untried system on the eve of a major campaign. Were there solid evidence for such a plan, there would be no escape from concluding that Alexander was by then insane. As far as I can see, we have no information about cavalry. What will henceforth be said about separation of Greeks and Macedonians in the army should be taken as applying to infantry, even where this is not explicitly repeated. Kalleris (note 1), II 1, 473–478, quite rightly insists that the rhetoric of Curtius cannot be regarded as evidence, though his quotation of Tarn at his worst (477, note 1) and a serious methodological confusion over Polybius do not help his case. As regards Polybius, he insists on the authority of Polybius as superior to that of Curtius, ignoring the fact that Polybius’ testimony refers to his own time, more than a century after the events described in Curtius. In the same way, Plutarch cannot be used as a reliable source on this point.

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62 We cannot here analyze the complicated tradition on the death of Clitus. See Hamilton (note 43), 139–145, with references to earlier discussion. Nothing particularly useful has been added since. 63 Arrian 4.9.5. (Cf. 4.8.1–2, preparing for it.) 64 The word is used in Plutarch, Alex. 51.6. It is not in Arrian, who has (no doubt by design) a much abbreviated and less flamboyant account based (in this part) on the same source. See Kalleris (note 1), II 1, 478–479; 485–486 (with long discussion of the verb μακεδονζειν in between). He explains it as ‘un signe que le roi se trouvait dans une situation extrêmement critique’ (486), quoting Plutarch’s own interpretation as evidence. He forgets what he himself rightly had to say about the opinions of late authors as evidence. In fact, but for the evidence of the papyrus (see note 65 with text), the word in Plutarch would have been impossible to interpret accurately, as is shown by attempts made before 1950 and by some since. Hammond carries the basic error to extremes: ‘The use of the Macedonian language was an indication of a civil commotion for which military intervention was needed’ (note 5, 46, note 2). Plutarch would have been as surprised as the original actors by this overinterpretation. In his discussion of this passage Hammond shows no awareness of the papyrus. 65 Editio princeps by Bartoletti in PSI, XII 2 (1951), no. 1284. It was at once recognized by K. Latte as a fragment of Arrian’s Successors; see (now) Kleine Schriften (Munich, 1968), 595–599. Recently, A. B. Bosworth has republished it and put it in its proper historical setting: ‘Eumenes, Neoptolemus, and PSI XII 1284,’ GRBS 19 (1978), 227–237. 66 Kalleris (note 1), II 1, 486–487, has a brief comment on the papyrus, apparently added after he had completed his main treatment. He describes the speaker as ‘un Grec nommé Xénias’ and ‘capable d’imiter parfaitement la prononciation et les idiotismes du macédonien’ and, on this basis, tries to explain why the man was used by Eumenes. For this interpretation he cites the support of Jacoby. The whole interpretation is unfortunately invalidated by a piece of carelessness. The man’s name (actually copied correctly by Kalleris in his transcription of the Greek text, 487, note 2) is Xennias, not Xenias. Now, Jacoby did not know, but Kalleris himself did and indeed amply illustrates (I, 293), the fact that consonantal gemination is a characteristic of ancient Macedonian, though it is also found sporadically in various Greek dialects. In our particular context, the obvious interpretation must be accepted. In view of the defined purpose of this paper, I am not concerned with the argument (again of interest to linguistic specialists, but not to historians) as to whether Macedonian was a ‘dialect’ or a ‘language’—not that we know enough about it to be able to discuss the point. I have been told by native speakers of various Slav languages (including some rather distantly related) that they can understand each other’s native language for many ordinary purposes. Yet these are rated as separate languages. The decision in such cases often depends on political factors; as, e.g., when Afrikaans became a separate language after being regarded for generations as a despised dialect of Dutch. In antiquity, where there was no linguistic nationalism, Greek became the Kultursprache of many tribes, especially in the Hellenistic age, without their being closely related to Greeks. What is important in our context, at any rate, is not this rather abstract question, but the much simpler (although, of course, more subjective) one of mutual intelligibility, [highly relevant to the distinction between Greeks and ‘barbarians’]. 67 On Eumenes we have the biased, but nonetheless valuable, account of his kinsman Hieronymus of Cardia, transmitted in various degrees by Diodorus and Plutarch. His difficulties can therefore be followed in some detail. Note that he never became a ‘Macedonian’ (Arrian, Indica 18.7). 68 Kalleris’ work, scientifically of high quality, is often made unacceptable in its conclusions by precisely this intrusion of nonacademic motives and methods—oddly enough, after he has charged various eminent German-speaking scholars with (of

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all things) the political motive of ‘pan-Illyrianism.’ Political sentiments based on the survival of nineteenth-century nationalism ought to have no place in academic discussion. We are all guilty of enough errors without them. 69 Isocrates 5 (Philip) 106–108: 5 τε κτησμενος τ#ν ρχ%ν, με)ζον φρον%σας τ$ν αBτο

πολιτ$ν κα( μοναρχας 'πιθυμ%σας, ο+χ >μοως 'βουλεσατο το)ς πρς τ:ς τοιατας φιλοτιμας >ρμωμνοις. O8 μν γ:ρ 'ν τα)ς αBτ$ν πλεσι στσεις κα( ταραχ:ς κα( σφαγ:ς 'μποιοντες 'κτ$ντο τ#ν τιμ#ν τατην, > δ τν μν τπον τν ‘Eλληνικν 5λως εGασεν, τ#ν δ’ 'ν ΜακεδονKα βασιλεαν κατασχε)ν 'πεθμησεν· Yπστατο γ:ρ το!ς μν HΕλληνας ο+κ εθισμνους Bπομνειν τ:ς μοναρχας, το!ς δ’ =λλους ο+ δυναμνους =νευ τ/ς τοιατης δυναστεας διοικε)ν τν βον τν σφτερον α+τ$ν. Κα γρ τοι συνβη δι: τ γν$ναι περ( τοτων α+τν δως κα( τ#ν βασιλεαν γεγεν/σθαι πολ! τ$ν =λλων 'ξηλλαγμνην· μνος γ:ρ τ$ν ‘Eλλ%νων ο+χ >μοφλου γνους =ρχειν ξισας, μνος κα διαφυγε)ν Yδυν%θη το!ς κινδνους το!ς περ τ:ς μοναρχας γιγνομνους. Το!ς μν γ:ρ 'ν το)ς HΕλλησι τοιοτν τι διαπεπραγμνους εpροιμεν 4ν ο+ μνον α+το!ς διεφθαρμνους, λλ: κα τ γνος α+τ$ν 'ξ νθρπων Yφανισμνον, 'κε)νον δ’ α+τν τ’ 'ν ε+δαιμονKα τν βον διαγαγντα τ-$ τε γνει καταλιπντα τ:ς α+τ:ς τιμ:ς Wσπερ α+τς εˆχεν.

On this, see also Griffith (note 5), 453, following and explaining the natural implication of the passage. Indeed, this seems to be the only major point of interpretation on which Griffith differs from Hammond. 70 We have seen that Alexander himself marks an as yet imperfect fusion of Greek and Macedonian. It is legitimate to suggest that it was Philip’s policy, as embodied in himself, that gave Alexander the idea for his own extension of it to Iranians when he had conquered them—particularly since in the end, as the Susa marriages and the adoption of the children of the Macedonian soldiers’ children show, he too seems to have settled for the next generation to solve the problem that for the present had turned out insoluble. 71 Thus in the salons of the German aristocracy at the court of Copenhagen, French was the language spoken, as is amply attested. The Schimmelmanns, who presided over the most resplendent of the salons, took a serious interest in German literature; yet in a letter to the count’s young secretary, Barthold Georg Niebuhr, who had just announced his engagement, the countess, writing in German, complains that she has no practice in doing so. (I copied the letter in the Royal Archive in Copenhagen.) Indeed, her German (known also from some other letters) is awkward and full of mistakes, unlike her French. The count himself frequently wrote in German. An interesting correspondence with Niebuhr (which I also copied there) survives, as yet unpublished. His German, though better, is also far from perfect. In fact, when, as a young man, he had tried his hand at literature, he wrote in (excellent and classical) French. We tend to look at ancient problems in artificial isolation. 72 Not surprisingly, Arrian had great difficulty in dealing with this antagonism or, even at the best, felt difference between Greeks and Macedonians that he found in his sources. P. A. Brunt has usefully collected the relevant passages (in his Loeb edition of Arrian, 1. xxxvii, note 33). If we consider the ones in the Anabasis (the ones in the Indica are of a different nature: see note 51) we shall find that nearly all are in speeches, clearly written by Arrian himself. One that is not (2.10.7) describes the fighting between the Macedonian phalanx and Darius’ Greek mercenaries at Issus: κα τι κα τοιˆς γνεσι τ-$ τε ‘Eλληνικ-$ κα τ-$ Μακεδονικ-$ φιλοτιμας 'νπεσεν 'ς λλ%λους. Closely following his source (it is at once followed by the almost ‘lapidary’ prose recording the death of Ptolemy son of Seleucus and about 120 eminent Macedonians), the passage illustrates the kind of thing that must have given Arrian the inspiration for the speeches. In the speeches he solves his problem (for, as Brunt rightly points out, an ethnic difference between Greeks and Macedonians was in Arrian’s own day so remote as to be practically beyond understanding) by making the Macedonians into a kind of tertium corpus,

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73 74 75 76

77 78

distinct from both Greeks and barbarians. (See, most clearly, 2.7.4–5; 4.11.8—not successful!) It should perhaps be added that where Brunt sees an inconsistent view (2.14.4: ες Μακεδοναν κα ες τ#ν =λλην ‘Eλλδα), including Macedonia in Greece, there is no need to do so. There is a well-known Greek idiomatic use of =λλος in which it means (roughly) ‘as well.’ See R. Kühner, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, 3rd ed. by B. Gerth, II. 1 (Hannover-Leipzig, 1898), 275, note 1, citing (i.a.) Thucydides 7.61 and, perhaps more important in assessing Arrian, Xenophon Hell. 2.4.9, as well as numerous other passages, starting with Homer. (They refer to a similar use of alius in Latin and parallels in some modern languages.) In view of the unanimous testimony of the other passages collected by Brunt, this one must surely be taken in the same way, as ‘pleonastisch zur Hervorhebung des Gegensatzes.’ See my discussion (cited note 57), 26–27 (with sources and the principal modern references). See note 73. The main account is in Curtius 9.7. Diodorus (17.99.5–6), as so often, is guilty of confusion. Herodotus 6.13–14. Diodorus 18.7. The elaborate story that Perdiccas had ordered the massacre, out of fear that Pithon would form the rebels into a private army, is absurd on its face. Perdiccas, more than anyone, must (as regent) have been concerned about the safety of the frontier, which these men guaranteed. Their promise to return to their stations must have been precisely what Perdiccas would want. One can only presume that this tale of Perdiccas’ responsibility for the slaughter is part of the anti-Perdiccan propaganda that is so prominent through large sections of our sources on the time between the death of Alexander and the death of Perdiccas. It may be relevant to recall that Pithon, who had most explaining to do in this connection, was later the leading conspirator in the assassination of Perdiccas. (See Diodorus 18.36.5.) See my discusison, cited note 57, 36–40. IG II2 448, lines 43–45; 505, line 17; 506, line 9. In view of occasional attempts to interpret the phrase ‘the Hellenic War’ in a politically neutral sense, the explicit statement of the first of these documents (the nearest in time: honors for Euphron of Sicyon, 318/7) should be quoted in full: ['π το πολμο]υ το ‘Eλληνικου- öν '[ν]ε[στ%σατο > δ/μος > ’Aθηναων B]πρ τ$ν ‘Eλλ%νων. Cf. also Hyperides 6 (Epitaphios), full of references to Athens’ defense of the freedom of the Greeks. Note especially the parallels between the defense of Greece against the Persians in 480 and against Antipater and the Macedonians now: 6.12 ’Eντεθεν δ’ 'λθRν ες Πλας, κα καταλαβRν τ:ς [παρ]δους δι’ ω‰ν κα

πρτερον 'π το!ς HΕλληνας ο8 βρβαροι 'πορεθησαν, τ/ς μν 'π( τ#ν ’Eλλδα πορεας ’Aντπατρον 'κλυσεν, . . . 6.37 Λγω δ() το!ς περ( Μιλτιδην κα( Θεμιστοκλα κα( το!ς =λ|λους, οx, τ#ν ‘Eλλδα 'λευθερσαντες, 9ντιμον μν τ#ν πατρδα κατστησαν, 9νδοξον ‹δ› τν αBτ$ν βον 'ποησαν· 38 ν οBτος τοσοτον Bπερσχεν νδρεKα κα( ϕρον%σει, 5σον ο8 μν 'πελθοσαν τ#‹ν› τ$ν βαρβρων δναμιν Yμναντο, > δ μηδ’ 'πελθε)ν ποησεν. ˘

79 Cf. Polyaenus 5.104 (speech of Agelaus of Naupactus). I should like to express my thanks to the Institute for Advanced Study, where this paper, both in its original version as delivered at the symposium in Washington, D.C., and in its full version for publication, was written during my stay as a visiting member; also to Professor Christian Habicht, who read the final version and gave me some useful bibliographical references.

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18 ALEXANDER AT PEUCELAOTIS*

In an excellent survey of Alexander’s campaign in western Pakistan, P. H. L. Eggermont has done a great deal to clarify local topography and toponymy and Alexander’s movements, and has improved on Sir Aurel Stein’s classic investigations and on the work of Sir Olaf Caroe on which he chiefly bases himself.1 However, he is less familiar with the critical use of Greek and Roman sources, and of Arrian in particular [henceforth cited as A.],2 than he so admirably is with the Indian sources. This has led to one or two errors in interpretation and especially in chronology, some of which are due to his following what specialists working on Alexander would regard as outdated scholarship. Since his work has opened up sources, and a point of view, hitherto unfamiliar to standard Alexander scholarship, and will remain of basic importance to our interpretation of Alexander, the chronology of this brief campaign, which has not received much attention from Alexander specialists, and the events surrounding the city of Peucelaotis3 are worth a more detailed investigation in the light of his discussion.

I Peucelaotis stands at the centre of the whole story, and although the first part of this investigation will be devoted to the chronology of the campaign, we must start by giving an outline of the facts concerning it as reported by A. After crossing the pass from Afghanistan, Alexander divided his forces. The greater part of the army, under Hephaestion and Perdiccas, was sent ahead, roughly along the Kabul route, to reach the Indus and prepare for the crossing of the whole army when Alexander rejoined them. Taxiles ‘and the other hyparchs’ (A.’s term for local rulers, in this context4) went along with them. No details of what happened to them during their march are given at this point: they merely arrive at the Indus and carry out their orders.5 We next hear that one Astis, ‘hyparch’ of Peucelaotis (here taken as a region), rebelled and thus ended up by destroying both himself and the town to which he had fled.6 (The identity of the town is not mentioned by A.; that question will occupy us in the second part of this study.) Hephaestion besieged the town for thirty days and then 311

Figure 18.1 The Indus region

ALEXANDER AT PEUCELAOTIS

captured it. In fact, despite what A. had said about its being ‘destroyed’ along with the rebel, it does not seem to have suffered any serious harm after its capture. It is said to have received an Indian governor loyal to Alexander, a man in Greek named Sangaeus, and this implies that it was at least left standing and worth governing. The first point to observe is that the revolt of Astis comes after (we are not told how long after) the army corps had reached the Indus.7 Not only is the story told after their arrival there has been mentioned, and after the remark that they were carrying out their orders at the Indus, but it is Hephaestion alone who conducts the operation against Astis; Perdiccas is not mentioned. He no doubt remained behind to guard the crossing at Und and complete preparations for it, while the commander-in-chief took on the more exacting and more responsible task of dealing with the rebellion by a native prince.8 Recognition of this basic fact regarding the chronology of the revolt, which is made quite clear in A.’s account, is important. Eggermont, failing to see it, was led to develop a hypothesis that Astis’ rebellion must have been against Taxiles (i.e. the younger king of that title, who is named for us as Omphis); from this (and from an attempt at finding an etymology for Omphis’ name, which in itself would not be worth much as an argument) he arrived at the conclusion that Omphis controlled Gandhara, west of the Indus, at the time of Alexander’s arrival.9 In fact, in A. The revolt is clearly against Alexander: to be precise, against the generals to whom Astis must have submitted as, on their way to the Indus, they were carrying out their orders to take over all the cities on their route. There is nothing anywhere in A.’s text that gives us any grounds for believing that Omphis ruled any territory west of the Indus. Having briefly dealt with this important rebellion. A. next turns his attention to what was of far greater interest to him and to his sources: the actions of Alexander himself and the part of the army with him. During all this time, Alexander was conducting a campaign in the northern mountains, capturing various towns. As so often, we are not given any precise indication of how long this took, and not enough detailed information to be able to work it out for ourselves with any real assurance. Eggermont followed Sir Aurel Stein’s view, which has won wide acceptance, that it took ‘half a year . . . at least’.10 I think it can be shown with some probability that this view considerably exaggerates the time the operation will have taken. We must start with what was in fact the second part of the campaign, the invasion of Assacenia. Our evidence is much better here, and modern scholars seem to have reached valid topographical conclusions on the basis of it. Chronology can probably follow. The first city captured was Massaga (in the Katgala pass, as Caroe has shown11), ‘the largest of the cities there’; it fell in four days, and the garrison was massacred after a promise of safety, for reasons which A.’s sources do not seem to have succeeded in making fully acceptable (4.26.1–27.4). Next, two detachments were sent against two smaller cities, Bazira and Ora, at the same time, no 313

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doubt in the hope that what had happened at Massaga would terrify them into surrender. It turned out to be a mistake (27.5–8), obviously wasting some time. Alexander himself had to intervene, and he captured Ora 'ξ 'φδου, whereupon Bazira was at once abandoned to him. We are not told how many days all this took. But the distance from the Katgala pass to Ora (Udegram) which is the distance Alexander actually marched (without meeting any opposition on the march), appears on the map to be about 60 km: surely no more than five days’ march, even in winter, especially since it was important that the initial defeat should be quickly avenged. If we assume that the unsuccessful first march and the attempt to mount a siege had taken about as long, we should allow (perhaps) two weeks for the whole of this little campaign, from the crossing of the Guraeus, just before the ascent to Massaga, to the surrender of Bazira as soon as Ora was taken. After this success, Alexander decided to attack ‘Aornus’; but before he could attempt this major operation, a proper settlement of the conquered area was necessary. The first part of this was the decision to make Bazira into a fortified city and Massaga and Ora into forts (φρορια: 28.4), if A. has got it right.12 Obviously, this was done by means of instructions which were implemented after he had moved on. It is difficult to see how even a generous estimate of the time taken by this part of the campaign can go beyond adding another week for these decisions and preparations, i.e. a total of three weeks for the whole of the Assacenian campaign to this point. If we can (fortunately) work out a reasonably secure upper limit for this part of the Assacenian campaign, there are not enough data to enable us to arrive at a reasonable figure for the whole of the first part of the campaign in the north. There are fewer indications of time, and the topographical data are also less precise, so that the routes of the army’s marches have not been established with any confidence. Although the actual distances seem to have been even shorter, the terrain was rough and there was some fierce fighting, far more of it than we hear of in Assacenia. On the other hand, what time intervals are mentioned are very short – perhaps chiefly because the sources picked out precisely the parts where they could stress Alexander’s speed. After crossing a river, Alexander engaged in his first action, moving ahead σπουδη ͺ̑ (23.2), with mounted forces, in order to surprise the barbarians who had scattered to various mountain strongholds. The force holding the first of them he attacked ς ε̑ χεν 'ξ 'φδου, and it fell on the next day. No prisoners were taken. He proceeded to take over the next stronghold by surrender, presumably at once. (There is no indication of distance.) Craterus was installed there, with orders to mop up the rest and take over the whole area: we may gather that it was a small one, with not many barbarians left to be rounded up. Alexander himself, after crossing another river (so it seems: the text is defective), took a town ‘on the second day’, killing most of its inhabitants. There followed a more protracted march, for which no indication of time is given. We can form some idea of time from the fact that at the end of it he was 314

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joined by Craterus, who had in the meantime completed his commission in the first area invaded. Presumably, however small that area, we must allow a week for this. He was now told to fortify and settle a place recently captured by Alexander. Next (we do not know when, but it looks like a matter of several days) Alexander caught up with a larger barbarian force and defeated it. It is clear that this kind of information does not allow us to form a reasoned estimate of time. Yet in view of the indications we have, and of the apparently much smaller size of this whole area, we ought hardly to allow a significantly greater amount of time than for the Assacenian campaign where we have better evidence. We must make allowance for a period of rest, which would obviously be needed at some stage, in the course of a strenuous campaign in difficult terrain.13 But I cannot see that more than two months should be allowed for the whole of the northern campaign up to this point, i.e. to the completion of the conquest of Assacenia to where we have followed it. The next part of the campaign clearly took some time. First, there were administrative arrangements to be made (which we shall note below). Then came the siege of Aornus; and although it did not take as long as Alexander had expected, the account we have in A. allots ten or eleven days to the siege itself, not including the marches.14 This was followed by renewed fighting in Assacenia and the need to build a road for the army’s march (4.30.7). Curtius, who gives more details of the fighting (though little that is precise and looks reliable), provides an actual figure for the march during which this road-building was necessary, that from Embolima to the Indus crossing (8.12.4): it took sixteen days. Diodorus (17.86.3) adds a stay of thirty days before the crossing of the Indus. That is improbable, and perhaps due to confusion with the lengthy stay at Taxila that followed the crossing. Such confusion would be easy if his account was based on one that did not distinguish the two; and indeed, it seems that Aristobulus failed to do so. His time-table is summarised for us by Strabo 15.1.17. He put the departure from Paropamisadae for India after the (cosmical) setting of the Pleiades, i.e. in the first half of November.15 He reports that the army spent the winter in the mountains on campaign and arrived ‘in the plains and the city of Taxila’ (as quoted by Strabo, who himself seems well aware of the location of Taxila) ‘at the beginning of spring’. Diodorus’ amalgamation of the arrival at the Indus crossing and that at Taxila, a few days later, is likely to go back to Aristobulus. However, some time must be allowed for a rest and some festivities when the Indus crossing was reached, for this is reported by A. (5.3.6): presumably a few days, as on similar occasions. A difficult campaign had been completed, yet there was no real cause for major celebration. Perhaps Alexander used the time to begin reconnaissance beyond the Indus (for the bridge had long been finished when he arrived: A. 4.30.9) and discover Taxiles’ intentions. However, an important corollary follows from the siting of the celebration before the crossing: the river itself cannot have been giving cause for hurry by showing obvious signs of the spring rising. This is welcome confirmation of Aristobulus’ time-table, which puts these 315

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events ‘at the beginning of spring’. In the Punjab, this can hardly be later than early March, and is probably earlier. If this was the time when the Indus was crossed and Taxila reached, then Aornus must have been captured in early February and the settlement of Assacenia should be assigned to mid-January. Our evaluation of the inadequate data for the campaign seems to be confirmed by Aristobulus’ statement.16

II The fortification of the three towns in Assacenia leads A. back, by association of topic, to the army that had been sent to the Indus under Hephaestion and Perdiccas. We now learn (4.28.5) an important item that he had not told us in his earlier, entirely general, account of their mission, when (as we saw) he and probably his sources must have been eager to get on to Alexander’s own actions: we now hear that, on their way, they had fortified and garrisoned the town of Orobatis, which (as Eggermont has shown) lay well away from the Kabul route to the Indus: in fact, well north of the Kabul (Cophe¯n) river, at a point about halfway between Peucelaotis and the Indus crossing at Und. We cannot tell whether they had to besiege the town and capture it, and if so, how long that operation took. But their decision to fortify it as a bastion for Alexander, which is nowhere mentioned in his earlier instructions to Hephaestion, and which is what causes A. to relate the story at this point, straight after the fortification of the three Assacenian towns by Alexander’s own order, must surely, together with the very fact that the army corps went so far out of its way to take the city over, suggest opposition and fighting, perhaps quite serious. But this kind of thing, when not done by Alexander himself, was not of sufficient importance for Alexander historians to make clear for us. In this instance, the fact that both A.’s main sources were with Alexander provides a more acceptable reason why Orobatis is mentioned only at this point and without details of what had happened there: that it had been made into a fortress for the king was, of course, precisely what Alexander and his army (including the two later historians) found out when, straight after the order to fortify the Assacenian towns, they arrived at Orobatis. In any case, the item is here added as a flashback: we are not told any more than that the whole army corps apparently stayed until the place had been fortified and then continued its march to the Indus, to carry out its instructions there.17 Having thus repaired his earlier omission, A. continues to pursue the same topic of Alexander’s network of strongpoints in the area with a reference to the most important of all the towns there, Peucelaotis. (The appointment of a satrap for the whole area intervenes.) Before undertaking the siege of Aornus, expected to be long and difficult, Alexander received the surrender of Peucelaotis (28.6 τ: μν πρω̑ τα ς 'π( τν ’Iνδν ποταμν Y̑ γε κα( πλιν τε Πευκελαω̑ τιν, ου͗ πρρω του̑ ’Iνδου̑ ᾠκισμνην, >μολογᾳ παρεστ%σατο) and put a Macedonian commander and garrison in it, before moving on to take some (unnamed) smaller places by the Indus. A. at this point makes no mention of the revolt of Astis. 316

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This is certainly puzzling.18 At 22.7 Hephaestion and Perdiccas had been sent ‘into the region of Peucelaotis towards the river Indus’, with instructions to bring all the places on their route under their control. As we have seen, we hear no details of what they did, not even their long detour to capture and fortify Orobatis. But since we are told that they reached the Indus and there carried out their instructions, it seems to be implied that they had done so along the way as well. The later flashback about Orobatis fits in with this, showing us the care taken over establishing control, presumably even in the face of difficulties. At some time after they reached the Indus, Astis rebelled. It is clearly implied that he had earlier submitted. The city into which he threw himself was (as we have seen) taken after a siege of thirty days by Hephaestion, and a governor called Sangaeus was installed. Since Astis was described as prince of Peucelaotis, the city would naturally be taken to be Peucelaotis, the city homonymous with the district already mentioned by A. Yet A. not only shows no awareness of what had gone before, reporting that Alexander took it over by surrender and put a garrison in it, but – more surprising still – the manner in which he introduces the city implies that it is not yet known to the reader. It is introduced by means of the phrase ο+ πρρω του̑ ’Iνδου̑ ᾠκισμνην, and Alexander leads his army towards it ς 'π( τν ’Iνδν ποταμν – a phrase repeated almost verbatim from the instructions to Hephaestion and Perdiccas at 22.7, when they were first sent into the region of Peucelaotis. But that phrase, correct in the earlier context where the army was at the head of the pass from Afghanistan and just entering ‘India’, is now wrong, since Alexander was now between Peucelaotis and the Indus, and he would in fact have to march away from the river, from Orobatis, in order to reach the city. Before we try to sort this out, it is worth mentioning that the usual favourite explanation of such cases by the Quellenforscher – the hypothesis of a change of source – will not do in this instance. Indeed, it is one of the most instructive features of this puzzle, whatever the correct answer, that it shows the inadequacy of that facile device, which most of the time cannot be strictly disproved, however uneasy we may feel about it. A. nowhere gives any indication that he has followed anything other than his two main sources for any part of this story. Yet Ptolemy and Aristobulus cannot be responsible for this confusion, for both of them can be documented as being with Alexander during the mountain campaign. Aristobulus, as we saw, is cited as saying so and commenting on the chronology of the campaign and its natural phenomena, while Ptolemy appears in several of the actions during the campaign (e.g. 4.24.3ff.; 25.8ff.). Moreover, Aristobulus, with his special interest in geography, and Ptolemy, with the resources of Alexandria available to him in addition to his own soldier’s memory and notes, are most unlikely to have made this error, even years later. Nor is it plausible to assume that one of them discovered the facts about Astis’ revolt and wrote about it, while the other never found out, and that each of them had a detailed account, incompatible with that of the other, of how the city was actually secured. No change of source from one of these participants in the action to the other can have produced A.’s manifest confusion. 317

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This is precisely the puzzle: the basic facts, coming from one or other of these participants, must be assumed to be correct, since they had no motive for falsifying. We ought therefore to accept both Astis’ revolt, with its defeat and the appointment of Sangaeus, and Alexander’s appointment of a Macedonian commander named Philip (whoever he was) to command a garrison at Peucelaotis. How is this to be done? Berve (Alexanderreich 2, no. 174) followed Droysen and Anspach in assuming that the town in which Astis was besieged was not Peucelaotis: they made it Orobatis, which is about the only alternative and which, prima facie, can be fitted into the narrative. Although none of them discusses the point in detail, assuming rather than arguing, this hypothesis offers some advantages. At least Peucelaotis need not be assumed to have been taken twice over, and differently treated on each occasion, without any comment on this in our source; moreover, it is worth noting that A. leaves the town in which Astis was besieged anonymous: if he did not think it was Peucelaotis, that would at once explain why he later felt it necessary to introduce the city to the reader. Yet against this there arise insuperable difficulties. First, the chronology. As we have seen, the capture and fortification of Orobatis by Hephaestion’s army corps precedes the arrival of that force at the Indus, to which it proceeds after that event; whereas it is clear that Astis’ revolt follows their arrival at the Indus. In each case, the account is coherent, and there is no reason to assume any error by A. in either. So the explanation adopted by Berve would mean that Astis seized Orobatis after it had been fortified and garrisoned by Hephaestion, and that Hephaestion had to return with part of his army in order to drive him out – all this without A.’s being aware of it. And if this seems implausible, it is surely much more so that, whatever had happened at Orobatis, Peucelaotis had been left untouched, to be taken over only when Alexander appeared there after the Assacenian campaign. For that would mean either that it had not been taken on Hephaestion’s march to the Indus (which would not only be contrary to the explicit instructions he had received, but would be an action inconceivable, even without instructions, in any experienced commander), or that it had rebelled at some later time (not under Astis, ex hypothesi) and had not been retaken until Alexander appeared; which would present us with a rebellion by the prince of Peucelaotis in a minor place, duly defeated by Hephaestion, and a rebellion in Peucelaotis by someone else, apparently not opposed by any army until the city voluntarily surrendered to Alexander himself. The initial puzzle would be replaced by a much more insoluble one, both in the facts constituting it and in the further fact that A. did not find (or at least did not transmit) any reference to these complexities in either of his sources. These difficulties seem so insurmountable that we are driven to abandon the hypothesis of Orobatis as the city seized by Astis and to see if the more obvious interpretation – that the ruler of Peucelaotis based his rebellion on Peucelaotis – can work. This means that, since we must take the basic facts as authentic, the confusion is due to our source. Scrutiny reveals that there are two elements of confusion: 318

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the direction of the march and the surrender of the city to Alexander. All the rest, without these two items, would make good sense. Now, the first of these elements turns out to be positively helpful, since it can be assigned to A. himself. Not only is it inconceivable (as we saw) that either of his sources should be guilty of this error regarding the direction of the march, but the phrase he uses to ‘introduce’ the city of Peucelaotis at this point is close to one that he was to use in describing the city in a different context, and probably from a different basic source, in the Indica (1.8), which shows that it must be taken to be his own; and the phrase he uses to indicate the direction of the march is a precise repetition of one he had used – correctly, at that stage, as we pointed out – when he first mentioned the region of Peucelaotis. His whole comment on Peucelaotis must therefore be taken to be his own, and it obviously cannot be argued (e.g.) that he had merely forgotten what he had written: indeed, he remembered it all too well, at the wrong time. It thus becomes probable that the other constituent of our confusion, the surrender of the city to Alexander, is also due to A. How he came to foist this on the reader can hardly be known with any real certainty. But a suggestion is possible. We start from the obvious fact that he did not understand the implication of his source (and in fact, it would quite reasonably be taken for granted rather than made explicit) that the city seized by Astis was his own capital of Peucelaotis. Since he was not very familiar with the geography of the area, he would have no idea what the city was, except that he probably did not identify it as Orobatis, which he soon found mentioned. In fact, he had not at this point properly understood that Peucelaotis was the name of a city as well as of a region (he uses it, initially, only for the latter); and it was perhaps this that helped to obscure the identity of the city held by Astis for him. When the city was finally named in his source, in connection with Alexander himself, he may have thought that this was its first appearance and that it needed introducing to the reader; and, remembering his identification of the region by that name somewhat earlier (and, once more, not at all familiar with the geography of the area), he decided to use the phrase he had used for the direction of the region, thinking it would clearly apply to the city as well. In his actual introduction of the city, he no doubt felt quite entitled, from the general context as he understood it, to assume that the city was not far from the Indus; and having once thus described it, he found the phrase stored in his memory (or perhaps by re-reading his earlier work) when he needed it again in the Indica. However, he would also now notice that he had not told the reader how the city came into Alexander’s possession – an omission that had to be made up at this first mention. Since he clearly did not in fact know, he contended himself with a vague phrase indicating surrender: that much could be deduced from the fact that he had not found any fighting over it mentioned in his sources. Whether he thought (and whether the reader was to think) that the city had surrendered at some previous time, or perhaps that it surrendered at this precise point, we cannot tell: the Greek aorist was a convenient tense to use if one did not know the precise facts regarding a time sequence.19 319

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III Once we recognise that the confusion must be due to A. (whether or not the explanation attempted above is thought to be on the right lines), Alexander’s actions at this point become readily intelligible. We can in any case be sure of the direction of the march from Orobatis to Peucelaotis; and we now need not try to account for a surrender by the city to him at this point. He had decided to mount an attack on the supposedly impregnable rock of Aornus – not a mere piece of bravado, but a strategic and political necessity if the tribes were to be persuaded to allow his settlement to survive – and, before he could do so, had to complete the political settlement of the rest of the area. The fortification and garrisoning of a few well-chosen strongpoints was well in hand. Sheer terror, almost unprecedented so far (though there was to be much more of it, later in the Indian campaign), had been used to impress the tribesmen with Alexander’s power and determination. A political organisation could now be set up. Alexander appointed a satrap for the whole area (to include, in due course, the territory he was about to invade – a common pattern in his organisation of his conquests) and a Macedonian commander for the garrison in the satrapal capital. Both these actions had become normal over the course of his victorious progress. He must certainly have marched in the direction of the Indus (and perhaps a mention of this in A.’s source contributed to A.’s confusion over the direction of Alexander’s march), in the first place to get to Embolima, the city that was to be his base for the attack on Aornus and that provides the natural base for the invasion of Buner,20 and then in order to complete the mopping up of various places in the Indus–Kabul area that had not been on the route of Hephaestion’s army corps and had not yet surrendered. What A.’s confusion does not allow us to see with any approach to certainty is whether Alexander in fact marched to Peucelaotis before turning towards the Indus. But the mention of the city at this point suggests that Alexander thought it worth his while to go out of his way in order to make a ceremonial entrance into the capital of the area – of course, before marching ‘in the direction of the Indus’. The ride, through country already pacified, would take him only a day each way, and his personal appearance might have a healthy political effect. It had always been his custom to put in a personal appearance in satrapal capitals; and although Peucelaotis was not a traditional satrapal capital of the Achaemenid kingdom, he had marked it out as the only possible place to be the seat of his own newly-appointed satrap. If he thus assimilated the city to traditional satrapal capitals, it would be a further obvious suggestion that the appointment of the satrap and of the garrison commander took place in the city itself. That further slight correction to A.’s totally confused account would bring Alexander’s actions into line with what had become his customary behaviour in such cases. If indeed he took the time and trouble to go to Peucelaotis, we may regard it as almost certain that he waited to announce his appointments there. As for the Indian Sangaeus, put in by Hephaestion after Astis’ revolt, he presumably stayed there,

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but his retention was not important enough to appear in A.’s sources. There is no need to think that Philip would be expected to look after the civil administration of the city: this, under the satrap, no doubt remained in native hands. I hope that this investigation has helped to bring Alexander’s campaign on the ‘Northwest Frontier’ into sharper focus. Even the revolt of Astis and the march of the army corps under Hephaestion assume firmer outlines – especially in chronology, once the chronology of the campaign as a whole has been more accurately established. A.’s account makes it clear that there was no Macedonian commander in Peucelaotis when Astis revolted. Had there been one, the city would clearly not have provided such a ready base for him; and had a Macedonian commander been killed, it is inconceivable that A. would not have seen it mentioned and reported it, as he does on several similar occasions. Moreover, whether a Macedonian commander was killed or survived, it is hard to imagine that Hephaestion would not have appointed him or a successor after defeating the rebellion. As regards chronology, Astis’ revolt certainly precedes Alexander’s completion of his main Assacenian campaign: there is no mention of Alexander in connection with Hephaestion’s defeating it in thirty days and appointing Sangaeus to take charge of the city. As for the army corps, since it did not take the direct route to the Indus crossing, but turned off to take Orobatis, we cannot tell how long it actually took to reach the Indus – a march which, along the Kabul route, would have taken a week or so. We do not know how long it took to overcome the resistance at Orobatis, which we must allow for, and to fortify the place after the resistance had been overcome. Even if we think it unlikely that this took a long time – nothing like the thirty days needed against Astis – the army corps, which left by about the middle of November, is unlikely to have reached the Indus before the end of the month, and more probably arrived early in December. On the other hand, Alexander’s main Assacenian campaign was over, as we saw, by about mid-January (p. 316 above); this means that Astis’ revolt must have been defeated by early January; and since it started thirty days earlier, that must have been some time in early December. As we saw, it started after the army corps had reached the Indus, and that gives us a reasonably clear picture of the chronology of these events, which fit together as well as could be expected: Astis’ revolt must have followed closely on the arrival of Hephaestion’s force at the Indus crossing, early in December; it was over early in January; and Alexander reached Orobatis, and perhaps visited Peucelaotis, in the middle of January, shortly after it had been pacified. We may guess that the season will have had something to do with Hephaestion’s apparent difficulty in overcoming the revolt.

IV What the unravelling of this story does to A.’s credibility as a historian, in cases where he does not alert us by actually producing nonsense, is another question. We must clearly accept the possibility (perhaps probability) that there are other 321

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cases, not so easy to diagnose, where he has added ‘helpful’ explanatory comments, as he did in the case of Peucelaotis; and that he may in some of those cases also have misunderstood his sources, though less obviously so, and have ended by misleading us. At least recent work, especially by A. B. Bosworth, has made this a much less shocking possibility than it would have been to scholars based on the traditional German school a generation ago.21

Notes * The map (based on that of Eggermont in OLP 1) was drawn by Mr. A. Newman of the Department of Geography, University College London. 1 P. H. L. Eggermont, ‘Alexander’s Campaign in Gandhara and Ptolemy’s List of Indo-Scythian Towns’, Orientalia Lovanensia Periodica 1 (1970), 63–123, followed by an excellent map. [Cited ‘Eggermont 1’.] All geographical identifications in the present article follow his work, and the map accompanying this article is based on his map. The only exception is in the case of the ‘Aornus’ rock, where he has himself since changed his view: see OLP 15 (1984), 191–233 [cited ‘Eggermont 2’], where his map will again be found (following p. 230), but where he rejects Stein’s identification of Aornus with Pir-sar, which Stein was specially proud of as one of his principal topographical achievements, and instead accepts the identification with Mt Ilam revived by Sir Olaf Caroe. (It is not yet in Caroe’s book, The Pathans 550 BC — AD 1957 [1965].) On geographical and historical grounds, Pir-sar seems too far out of the way (as Eggermont now points out) to be the πτρα L 'ν τῃ̑ χρᾳ (A. 4.28.1) of the tribesmen around Bazira, whereas Mt Ilam (‘dividing Swa¯t from Bune¯r’: Caroe, op. cit. p. 499) seems suitable in location. 2 To illustrate his lack of familiarity with modern scholarship on Arrian, and on the Alexander sources in general, see (e.g.) Eggermont 2, 194: ‘Arrianus is regarded by classic scholars as a primary source [sic] because he based his story on Ptolemy’s Royal Diaries.’ I doubt if anyone apart from N. G. L. Hammond would nowadays maintain this. And compare his dating of Cleitarchus after 258 B.C., and probably in the second century, on the strength of a complex and confused argument involving Pliny’s Natural History and the Asoka Edicts (Alexander’s Campaigns in Sind and Baluchistan [1975], p. 67 n. 262; repeated Eggermont 2, 193, as a basis for further argument about the Alexander sources). I hope that this traditional gap between experts on India and Alexander scholars can now be overcome. 3 For the various spellings of the name, see Roos ad Arrian vol. I, p. 216, with Wirth’s additional note p. 444; and cf. RE s.v. Πευκελαω̂ τις. No consistent differences (e.g. between town and region, or between different periods) can be disengaged. Arrian is the main source for events here discussed. Curtius and Diodorus add one or two items, which will be noted in their place. 4 Eggermont (2, 205 n. 53, with a reference to a Dutch dissertation of 1930) seems unaware of A.’s carelessness and inconsistency regarding technical terms and is puzzled by the term: ‘It is unknown what power the hyparchos has.’ 5 A. 4.22.8: κα( οB̑ τοι ς φκοντο πρς τν 1Iνδν ποταμν, 9πρασσον 5σα 'ξ 1Aλεξνδρου Y̑ ν τεταγμνα. 6 Ibid.: α+τς τε πλλυται κα( τ#ν πλιν προσαπλεσεν 'ς Nντινα ξυμπεφεγει. 7 Thus already A. E. Anspach, De Alexandri Magni Expeditione Indica (1903), p. 13, not known to Eggermont. More recent scholars, where they mention Astis, also tend to be unaware of Anspach and get the time of the revolt wrong; thus N. G. L. Hammond, Alexander the Great (1980), p. 200 (also ignorant of Eggermont’s work). The basic facts therefore need restating.

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8 Contrast the operation at Orobatis (4.28.5), where A. mentions both the commanders and where, after completing its task, the army departs for its appointed duties on the Indus bank (cf. below). 9 Although Eggermont 2 gives a slightly different account of Omphis’ accession and early relations with Alexander, the author maintains his contention (originally argued 1, 102ff.) that Omphis ruled on the west bank of the Indus as well as east of it (2, 204f.). 10 Eggermont 1, 74. Cf. (e.g.) P. A. Brunt in vol. 1 of his Loeb edition of Arrian, pp. 507f.; also 2, 455. The anecdote related by Chares (FGrHist 125 F 16), which Brunt cites (p. 439 n. 1) as perhaps confirming April 326, is irrelevant. If it refers to this operation at all, it merely shows that it took place in winter, which we already known from Aristobulus. There is no trace of any more specific information. 11 Caroe, op. cit. (n. 1), pp. 51–3, also showing the importance of the site, which controls the entrance to the whole plain; cf. πλις μεγλη, xναπερ κα( τ κρτος τη̑ ς γη̑ ς 'στι τη̑ ς 1Aσσακης (A. Ind. 1.8). 12 It is possible that he has, since Bazira was more centrally placed for this particular campaign. On the other hand, Massaga was strategically much the more important place, both when Alexander arrived (as A. makes clear) and for the future protection of his conquests (see last note). It is therefore possible that A. has got it wrong, misinterpreting his source as he demonstrably does in some other cases. 13 My suggested calculations allow for the ten days specified by Curt. 8.10.17 as devoted to Bacchic revels at Nysa: whatever the facts about the latter, Curtius often gives precise day counts (e.g. for the stay in Babylon, or, in our own context, for the march from Embolima to the Indus crossing: see below), which we ought not to reject. A. adds the story of Nysa from Vulgate sources in Book 5 (1.1; cf. 2.5f.), for compositional reasons, after completing his account of the conquest of the country up to the Indus from his main sources in Book 4. As regards Nysa and Dionysus, he expresses pious unwillingness to disbelieve, no doubt modelled on Herodotus’ attitude to things divine and stories about them, but (2.6) he tones down Curtius’ revels. I am not convinced by Brunt’s suggestion that the story must come from Aristobulus (op. cit. [n. 10], 2, 435ff.), including even Acuphis’ lecture on the basis and the excellence of aristocratic government (cf. also 2, 531). The very fact that A. adds the story at the beginning of a new book serves to show that his ascription of it to a logos (i.e. not one of his two main sources) must be taken strictly. That Nysa as a town was mentioned by one of his two main sources, we cannot tell which (Berve, Alexanderreich 2, 17 suggests Ptolemy, while Brunt prefers Aristobulus – neither gives any reason that might help us decide), is shown by the reference to its cavalry force at 6.2.3. But we do not know that that source had mentioned more than the capture of the place and the demand for that force. In any case, A., already planning his long appendix on the logos for the beginning of his next book (for his composition was never hand-tomouth), decided to omit any reference to Nysa in his main account of the campaign in Book 4, in order to give it self-contained prominence there. Whatever his main source(s) said about the town thus dropped by the wayside. 14 On the identification of Aornus see n. 1. It is clear that, if Mt Ilam is correct, the marches would be much shorter than they would be in the case of Pir-sar. 15 See E. J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World 2 (1980), p. 112. 16 Aristobulus is cited as reporting that he saw only snow in the mountains and saw rain for the first time at Taxila. On the extended time-table usually proposed for the whole campaign, this does not seem conceivable. 17 Eggermont’s identification of Orobatis (1, 71–4) is erudite and entirely convincing. However, he is confused about the chronology, suggesting that Alexander there ‘first joined the army of Hephaestion and Perdiccas’. This is impossible, for according to A.

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18

19

20 21

that army, after fortifying Orobatis, had long ago departed to carry out its instructions on the bank of the Indus. Alexander did not rejoin it until he reached the Indus crossing. Brunt appears to miss the fact that the account of Orobatis is a flashback: his translation, at any rate, suggests that the action takes place at the point where it is narrated. A.’s wording, where he describes the task of the army corps at the Indus, which it was ‘now engaged’ (9πρασσον 6δη) in completing when Alexander reached Orobatis, carefully echoes the instructions he had reported them as receiving (22.8). Eggermont (1, 69) at least notes the puzzle, even though his explanation – that the ‘so-called “surrender” of that town to Alexander cannot have meant any more than an official act’ – seems to me unacceptable, if (as he in fact knows) the town had earlier been taken over by Hephaestion and had received a governor: no such official act would be needed, or could even be reported. We certainly have no parallel for such a situation. However, not all recent historians of Alexander have even commented on the puzzle. Compare the way in which modern readers can be misled even where A. is at pains to make the sequence clear (cf. n. 17). The aorist is, of course, the normal way of expressing either action at the particular point in the narrative or action at some earlier point (since the pluperfect is rarely used): the ‘past definite’ use and the ‘pluperfective’ (or ‘past anterior’) use are not technically distinguished, and are occasionally difficult for the modern reader to distinguish, whether or not the author has deliberately taken advantage of the ambiguity. Diodorus provides a long list of obvious examples. Where the author wants to establish the ‘past anterior’ use, he can, of course, use various stylistic devices, as A. does in the Orobatis affair. See Eggermont 2, 198. His identification of that town (1, 91–4) is again a masterpiece of scholarly argument, based (like that of Orobatis) on knowledge of both the actual topography and the Indian sources. This article is an incidental product of my work in Trinity Term 1985, which I was able to spend in Oxford owing to a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. I should also like to acknowledge the kindness of St John’s College, and help received from Dr Ellen Rice.

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As is well known, the story that Alexander, on his deathbed, gave his ring to Perdiccas is of considerable importance both for our interpretation of the early Successors and in the debate about the sources for the last days of Alexander and the first few days after his death. A recent book by N.G.L. Hammond, Three Historians of Alexander the Great (Cambridge 1983), makes it a touchstone of method in the interpretation of the whole of Alexander history and concludes (p. 10): ‘Thus the reader will have no hesitation in discarding as unhistorical the giving of the signet-ring to Perdiccas, the sayings of A[lexander] about the succession and the alleged poisoning of A; and in rejecting the views of Badian and Bosworth, for instance, which were based on their belief that D[iodorus], J[ustin] and C[urtius] were in this instance more dependable than Arrian.’1 Jane Hornblower (Hieronymus of Cardia [Oxford 1981]) has approached the topic from her point of view and ended by essentially supporting Tarn’s old conclusion that the first few chapters of Diodorus XVIII are a mixture of varied material, whereas the use of Hieronymus as D’s main source starts only at ch. 5; though she recognises use of some material from Hieronymus, mixed in with other sources, in the first few chapters. Indeed, it would be absurd to deny that Hieronymus must have treated the events in Babylon straight after Alexander’s death, or to assert that a writer preparing to make Hieronymus his main source would deliberately refrain from using him on those events, and Hornblower rightly notes evidence for a basic outline of facts in all our main surviving authors, which is likely to be taken from Hieronymus.2 But I am afraid I cannot share her confidence in pinpointing precisely what a writer nearly all of whose actual text is lost would have regarded as ‘irrelevant’ in the introduction to his work. That the hypomnemata of Alexander are ‘a piece of clutter which a political historian would avoid’ (p. 89) seems to me to be a singularly ill-considered remark, above all since it begs the important question of the relevance of the hypomnemata to political history. She knows that I argued3 that the importance of that ‘document’ lies precisely in the realm of the political history of the period immediately following Alexander’s death, and she makes no effort to disprove my interpretation: she seems to regard the problem as irrelevant. Yet if her purpose is ‘to exclude Hieronymus’ name from the discussion’ of the 325

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hypomnemata, she ought to have realised that this simply cannot be done if one accepts the crucial importance they had in the political events of those few days and (in a sense, by eliminating the possibility of any future production of ‘plans’ of Alexander’s) in the whole history of the Successors. She is right, of course, in warning against the equation of Hieronyman provenance with truth. But this can reasonably be applied only to the contents of the document on which the army was made to vote. For if (e.g.) the contents had been made up for the occasion, Hieronymus may not have been able to inform us of this and may have reported them as he heard them. But we cannot say, without full discussion to impugn the credibility of Hieronymus (as a whole or at least in this instance), that Hieronyman authorship is irrelevant to the truth of the actual events narrated: the fact that the hypomnemata were put to the army and were voted down by it; and therefore also to the truth of the contents of the document as put to the army – for it was clearly the nature of the document that was used to bring about the vote that resulted. That question, highly relevant and important, cannot be answered by a priori statements ignoring the place of the action reported in the very events that stood at the centre of the historian’s interest. By choosing to use this approach, Hornblower has failed in her objective of trying to prove that the story of the vote (including the alleged contents of the document) cannot be from Hieronymus. On the premises of my interpretation, which she does not consider (let alone refute), it would be more proper to say (with all the caution indicated in making such statements at all) that, if the event took place, Hieronymus cannot have failed to report it in detail, and that there is no reason to doubt that D got it from him. It would take me too far to investigate in similar detail her treatment of the rest of what she calls a ‘bridge passage’. But I must say that in each case her assertion that certain items in those first chapters of D XVIII cannot be from Hieronymus is based on much the same a priori method. As regards the passing of the ring to Perdiccas, which she is inclined to take as a reminiscence of D XVII 117, 3, she actually notes that Nepos’ relation of it at the beginning of his Life of Eumenes points towards Hieronymus’ having told it. (We may add that D does not here repeat the rhetorical prophecy that goes with the story in his earlier passage.) Again, I see no good reason to doubt that Hieronymus told that story. But again, this (as I pointed out long ago) does not help us decide whether it was true. Even if we believe (as we probably should) that Hieronymus would not deliberately put himself in the service of Perdiccan propaganda, we must remember that he was not present when Alexander died. He would no doubt get his account of the final scene from those who were, and he could not easily have rejected it. Although, therefore, I firmly believe that we have a right to claim the story (and, with obvious exceptions recognisable as D’s own contributions, the rest of the chapters which Tarn and Hornblower wanted to deny him) for Hieronymus’ history, this is of no avail in deciding whether the story was true; and that without any imputations against the trustworthiness and good faith of Hieronymus as a historian. 326

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With this out of the way, we may now devote the rest of our analysis to the arguments advanced by Hammond. They, of course, are of far wider importance. H returns to the old view (discredited for a whole generation, after the work of Pearson, Bosworth and others) that the Ephemerides (or ‘Royal Journal’, as he also calls them) were an authentic document, in the possession of Ptolemy and used by him, though not only by him: ‘he may have given favoured persons access to it.’ Now, E (apud A and P) does not mention either the ‘last words’ or the passing of the ring. H argues that E therefore excludes both, and that we should accept this as a verdict on their authenticity. In fact, this is not quite accurate. It is certainly stressed in E (as reported) that Alexander was speechless for some days before his death: his supposed remarks on the succession are therefore certainly to be excluded. What is more, A, after his summary of E, explicitly tells us (VII 27) that there was an assortment of stories alleging that Alexander was poisoned, which he contemptuously rejects; he also reports (26, 3) the remarks on the succession (precisely the ones we in fact have in the ‘Vulgate’), as additional to what was in E and in his two main sources – this without comment. If, with H, we accept the account in E as solely true, then we must certainly disbelieve these further stories, which A does not explicitly deny. However, it is interesting that he does not give us the story of the ring at all: it is neither in what he quotes from E nor among the additional stories, whether merely reported (26, 3) or rejected (27). Since it is clearly impossible that he did not know the story of the ring, we must conclude that he did not think it worth telling (for whatever reason). It might strike us as odd that he should ignore it; but it happens to be plain fact, and the historian must take his facts as he finds them. In view of this, it follows that we cannot say that the failure of the story of the ring to appear in E is decisive evidence that it was not in fact reported in E. Since A did not think it worth mentioning, he is as likely not to have thought it worth mentioning in his summary of E as in the additional material that follows (in part, as he says 27, 3, recorded merely to show that he had done his reading). Moreover, although E totally excludes Alexander’s being able to pronounce his famous last words (whatever they were), it presents him as speechless, but certainly not motionless. When the soldiers filed past the dying king, he could at least move his head (26, 1). It is therefore quite possible that, either before or after that time (for the filing past of the soldiers belongs to the day before his death), he had enough strength to pass on his ring to Perdiccas – especially with a bit of aid and encouragement, which we must imagine would readily be forthcoming. Nor is any of this contradicted by P’s account of E on the last days, which is shorter than A’s: thus he does not even mention the gestures of recognition to the soldiers. Even on his own premises, H has therefore not disproved the story of the ring, though he has disproved the poisoning of Alexander and the last words. It is always tempting for us to guess what an ancient writer ought to have found significant. Unfortunately, it is often illicit even to try. A’s failure to mention the story of the ring, even though he was trying to convince the reader of the exhaustiveness of his reading, must be accepted as one of many instances 327

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of totally different judgments on what is important in an ancient source and in modern scholars. We could almost stop here. It is clear that the two most recent attempts to brand the story that Alexander passed on his ring to Perdiccas before his death as fiction have failed – though, of course, it has not been shown to be true either. But as we have already noted, H’s attempt to revive the old theory of the Ephemerides as the touchstone of truth in Alexander history has far wider importance, as indeed he himself claims. Since his argument seems to me beset with error, and unacceptable as presented by him or in any similar form that might be imagined, it is therefore necessary to continue and to examine it in detail.4 Let us start with E as reported by A and P. It has been known for a long time5 that the two reports, though referring to the same source, are quite different in some important details. We shall come back to this. Let us first, however, concentrate on A’s account, which, as we have already noted, is fuller in several details. I accept H’s argument (171 n. 14) that both authors should be believed when they claim to have seen E themselves: it is no longer acceptable method to allege that direct inspection of sources must always be credited only to an author who, unfortunately, does not survive, and must not be assumed (even when explicitly claimed) of one whom we can actually read. We should also note, and accept, P’s claim that what he reports from E is for the greater part quoted verbatim (τ: πλε)στα κατ: λξιν). Of course, he must not be taken to claim that he is giving us the whole of what he found in E – only that what he does choose to give us is more or less precisely transcribed. It will clearly not do, on H’s own general premises, to believe P when he claims to have consulted E and to disbelieve him when he states that he is rendering almost verbatim what he found, referring (as H does) to P’s actual account of E as a ‘paraphrased fragment’: that is rank inconsistency, alien to basic historical method. Now, A does not make this further claim; and indeed we see that he does not conscientiously number each day, as P does. We may therefore take it that he has introduced more of a literary element. He also tells us, at the end of his long citation of E, that Ptolemy and Aristobulus wrote ο+ πρρω τοτων. There is a long history of (largely subjective) discussion of the precise meaning of this phrase: should we take what follows to be additional information (in which case the phrase means ‘no further than this’), or should we take it as being very different from E (in which case it means that A’s two sources were ‘not far from’ E in their accounts)? H is to be thanked for having provided a useful and (I think) decisive parallel, to show that A must intend the latter meaning. I hope we may regard this little problem as settled. But H does not quite seem to recognise what follows from this interpretation, which he uses to support his view that both Ptolemy and Aristobulus must have actually had E in front of them when they wrote their accounts of Alexander’s last days. Let us try to investigate. First, it follows that neither Ptolemy nor Aristobulus in fact cited E as his source, for if they did, A could not have said what he says about them in the way 328

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he said it: as a statement of his own, resulting from comparison. This, of course, is not fatal to the hypothesis that they did use E: H rightly points out that ancient authors did not have to cite their sources. But as we happen to know, there is a major difference between E and Aristobulus: whereas the latter puts Alexander’s death on Daesius 30 (P75, 6), E (explicitly as cited by P (76, 9), and implicitly in A, as can be worked out) puts it on Daesius 28. The difference suffices to show that Aristobulus, contrary to H’s assertion, may not have seen E, at least in the form in which we have it cited by our two authors. There remains, at most, Ptolemy; and perhaps H would, on reflection, be content with him. However, our difficulties of method are by no means at an end. As it happens, we do not have any direct citation of Ptolemy on Alexander’s death, to compare with the one we happen to have of Aristobulus. But the discrepancy between E (in the form in which A saw it) and Aristobulus did not prevent A from judging the two accounts ‘not far from’ each other, as H has now proved. We must therefore recognise that A used that term with much greater latitude than (e.g.) we ourselves might. In fact, it cannot mean more than that the general outline of the accounts in the two authors was similar to that in E; in particular, as he at once makes clear, he is concerned with negative rather than positive similarity: what interests him is that none of these three accounts included Alexander’s ‘last words’ or any mention of his being poisoned. We are clearly not entitled to argue for any particular degree of positive coincidence: e.g., since Aristobulus puts the death on a very different day, we must surely conclude that he did not have an accurate day count at all and we must by no means assert that he included the particular incidents that E assigns to each day. This much is elementary method. A must not be presumed to intend a much higher degree of detailed resemblance than (as we can securely deduce from the incompatibility in the crucial dates) he was in fact intending to vouch for, or even interested in noting. And as we have already suggested: if Aristobulus, then why not Ptolemy? If we reject a priori (or intuitive) beliefs as to his possession of E in actual physical shape, we are not entitled to argue that A is intending to ascribe to him a greater degree of positive resemblance to E than he did to Aristobulus: for all we know, the date of death as given by Ptolemy may have agreed with Aristobulus rather than E, or (for that matter) with neither. It is clear that this was not the sort of thing that A was interested in observing. Again, we must be content to admit that an ancient author’s criteria of importance (and, in this case, A’s in particular) cannot be expected to agree with our own. Nothing in what we have seen entitles us to posit a closer degree of positive coincidence between E and Ptolemy than between E and Aristobulus, where we happen to know that it was not (by our standards) very close. By asking the wrong question and making wrong assumptions about our sources, we can only too easily fall into literary anachronism. All that we can in fact say is that, while we can be sure that Aristobulus did not use E (in the form in which A has it, which is what matters), we cannot be sure whether Ptolemy did or did not. H’s idea that A’s statement in fact supports the assumption that both of them (or even that only Ptolemy) used E is simply false. 329

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We have so far concentrated on A, adding from P only the citation of the date of Alexander’s death as reported by Aristobulus. To conclude this part of our analysis we must look at what P has to say regarding Aristobulus’ connection with the time-table of Alexander’s decline and death. Unlike A, he does not tell us that there was any resemblance between Aristobulus’ account and that of E. (As for Ptolemy, we must remember that there is no reason to think P had read him.) Chapter 75 starts with a homily on the difference between religion and superstition: Alexander, we are told, had now lapsed from the former into the latter. After that we learn that he drank heavily, first with Nearchus and then with Medius, and that his fever came upon him at the end of a day of drinking with Medius. P next rejects certain dramatic details of the onset of the fever as reported by some other authors, though he does not tell us where his own report comes from. Clearly, it is a source that he trusts. After this, he adds: ‘But Aristobulus says that he drank wine when he was in a raging fever and extremely thirsty; thereupon he became delirious and on Daesius 30 he died.’ P continues (ch. 76): ‘But in the Ephemerides the following is the way his illness is recorded.’ (This account starts with the fever on Daesius 18, and right down to Alexander’s death there is no mention of his drinking.) It is clear from comparison with A VII 25 that the first part of the account in fact also comes from E. The fever starts after Alexander has spent one day and night drinking with Nearchus and Medius, then another day drinking with Medius. We have seen that these are details that P trusts, as against accounts that he rejects, and they must surely be from his copy of E. They are in any case the same details as in A. It is at the end of the second day of drinking that the explicit quotation in ch. 76 takes up P’s story, with Alexander’s sleeping in the bath-house. That is the night of Daesius 18, so the first item recorded from this source (the banquet with Nearchus, not dated by P) must come on the 17th. In A, Nearchus is omitted, but we start with two banquets with Medius, clearly on successive days, since λουσμενον καθεδειν comes in between. Here too Alexander then sleeps in the bath-house (not thus designated, however, for reasons of literary propriety) because the fever has just started. P has presented his account, with the delayed reference to E, in a way that would certainly have misled us (though that was presumably not his intention), did we not have A to clarify. He has in fact taken the unacknowledged citation of E just to the onset of the illness which follows heavy drinking: it is only A who enables us to see that this was the way E presented the matter. After dismissing other, over-dramatic, versions, he next notes that Aristobulus reverses the order in a significant way: the drinking follows the fever and is due to it, whereas in the account (of E) transmitted by P himself the drinking precedes the fever (and may have caused it, though we do not find this explicitly asserted). Having now dealt with the onset, P proceeds to describe, only now referring to E, the actual course of the illness. To repeat: it is A who, by explicitly starting his use of E from what must be Daesius 17 (though A himself gives no dates), enables us to see that Aristobulus was in fact contradicting the account in E – whether he simply did not know it or whether 330

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the contradiction was deliberate – just as he does over the date of Alexander’s death; far from (as H thinks) following it. How much detail P has omitted from Aristobulus’ account we cannot tell: it cannot be imagined to have been as brief as what, for his limited purpose, P here cites. But we have no right to posit that P totally misunderstood what Aristobulus meant to say; not only because P was too learned for that, but because what he here reports Aristobulus as saying fits in perfectly with what we know was Aristobulus’ apologia for Alexander’s drinking: we must remember that it was that author who opined (A VII 29, 4 – it may well be taken from this very context) that Alexander never drank wine to excess, but that he attended long drinking-parties in order to be sociable – a judgment accepted, for purposes of his closing eulogy of Alexander, by A, as it later was by Tarn. Close inspection of what Aristobulus actually reported about Alexander’s final illness and death, as far as we know it, therefore reveals that he not only had a different date for Alexander’s death from the one given in E, but that he reversed the course of the final illness, undoubtedly for apologetic purposes. Yet as we saw earlier, H has shown that A still thought Aristobulus’ account ‘not far from’ that of E. This surely reinforces the conclusion already suggested by the layout of A’s account: that we should not take this statement as implying any positive resemblance, for there was precious little (in what seem to us essentials) in Aristobulus and it would be merely fanciful to assume more in Ptolemy. We must take the statement as intended negatively and exclusively. I.e., A is telling us merely that Ptolemy and Aristobulus did not have the other reports that were also not in E. The debate over the precise meaning of the Greek words has turned out to be perhaps not all that important, indeed to be likely to obscure the facts. But the proper conclusion of H’s discovery of the true meaning is in any case clear enough. A’s statement is simply irrelevant to the question of whether either of these authors knew E. That A and P in fact had different versions of E in front of them has long been known. As we have argued, we have no right to disbelieve P’s assurance that what he quoted from it was mostly quoted verbatim. Yet he has Alexander listen to Nearchus’ report of his old periplous (which in fact he had heard more than once before) where A has him plan the next naval operation with Nearchus, and, correspondingly, on Daesius 22 he has Alexander discuss army promotions with his officers, where A (on both Daesius 22 and 23, the latter omitted by P) has him organize the campaign about to begin. It is absurd to ‘explain’ these discrepancies as consistent errors by P, as has sometimes been done. The forthcoming campaign is the sole official topic of conversations in A’s version of E, occurring no less than five times in the course of the illness. In P two, as we saw, are differently reported (the rest are omitted), even though P, unlike A, assures us that in what he reported from this source he was largely quoting verbatim. We must conclude that P had a version of E in which there was no reference to (and apparently no knowledge of) the forthcoming campaign – a topic which in A’s version occupies Alexander’s mind almost to the exclusion of every other serious 331

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consideration. Other discrepancies may be explained as due to P’s selection: thus (clearly) his omission of Daesius 23, which essentially repeated Daesius 22. We must recall, once more, that P does not claim to be transcribing everything. But this fundamental difference between P and A cannot be thus explained, nor can it be explained away. Thus, around AD 100, there were demonstrably two versions of E in circulation, one that did and one that did not include Alexander’s plans for his forthcoming expedition in its account of his last few days. It is theoretically possible that one (it would be the one in A) was authentic and the other fiction. On the other hand, it seems a little hard to believe that a fictitious version would be written, and would circulate widely enough to end up in Plutarch’s library to the exclusion of the genuine one, if a genuine one were already circulating. And, as H rightly insists, we must believe each author that he saw and reproduced (in P’s case, largely verbatim as far as he reproduces it) an actual copy of E. Hence we cannot argue (e.g.) that A is ‘improving’ his version from Ptolemy. His claiming to follow E and then referring to Ptolemy as a separate source would make this a piece of dishonesty unlike anything of which Arrian as an author has been proved guilty. It follows, therefore, that we must unfortunately regard both the versions of E as fictitious.6 Modern scholars dislike losing a ‘source’ and I am sure the proof here given will be resisted. For one thing, it will no longer be possible to attempt diagnoses of Alexander’s illness or to state (as H does) that the symptoms are not compatible with poisoning. It will not even be possible to contrast Aristobulus and E (as Plutarch did) and draw the conclusion (as he did not, at least not explicitly) that Aristobulus was trying to contradict versions of Alexander’s death that attributed it to heavy drinking – at least, not on the evidence of E as quoted by P (though it could still be done in other ways). But until the facts here noted can be explained so as to permit acceptance of one version of the so-called Ephemerides (it should never be possible to argue for acceptance of both), we must reconcile ourselves to giving them up as evidence.7 H’s attempt to prove the authenticity of the versions we have is destroyed by his failure to read them properly. Not only does he not notice the differences between them: he does not even notice the difference between P’s version and Aristobulus. In fact, he comments on ‘the similarity of the paraphrases’ (he takes no notice of P’s claim to be quoting largely verbatim) and he actually states that P’s citation of Aristobulus, which he quotes in full (including the date of Daesius 30), ‘helps to confirm’ A’s statement that Aristobulus is ‘not far from’ the Journal (p. 4)! His long argumentation trying to refute those who have doubted the authenticity of the ‘Journal’ as we have it therefore becomes moot. Yet its flaws ought to be exposed, since otherwise we may soon find someone proposing that its weight overrides the plain evidence from the documents themselves showing that they are not authentic. The worst is his claim that Plutarch and Arrian were ‘practised in assessing the genuineness or otherwise of such documents’: this he regards as so decisive (p. 6) that it ‘might be enough in itself to convince us that they were right’. It is 332

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clear that this must not pass unchallenged. For it would forbid us to challenge the authenticity of any document cited by those authors – and not only by them, for H at once goes on to add Aelian (VH 3, 23) and Athenaeus as ‘ancient scholars’ (sic) who would not have been deceived by a forgery. If we are to apply this to those two gossips, it would deprive us of the right to deny the authenticity of any source whatsoever cited in almost any ancient author: which would make the historian’s task much simpler in actual practice, no doubt, and would dispense him from much thankless labour, but which would certainly lead to the production of modern fiction based on ancient fiction. The very attempt to call such authors ‘scholars’ shows an attitude of mind that can only be described as anti-historical and anti-critical. To mention one obvious point: if we accept H’s principle, it would follow that all the letters to and from Alexander (over thirty of them in Plutarch’s Life) would have to be regarded as authentic. It is unlikely that Hammond himself, in his enthusiasm for the ‘Journals’, would be willing to face even this minimal consequence. As Bosworth rightly pointed out, the existence of documents in parallel and slightly differing versions invites comparison with the Alexander Romance. It ought now to be clear that E, as known to Plutarch and Arrian in their respective versions, belongs to that large genre of compositions. It is possible to follow Bosworth and see the original composition and publication of the document as an act of forgery by Eumenes, who is cited as its author (or, to be precise, as one of its authors) by Athenaeus and Aelian. If so, as Bosworth points out, it belongs to the time of collaboration between Perdiccas and Antipater: to develop this further, it could then be regarded as an attempt by Perdiccas to win Antipater’s daughter and support and could perhaps be placed fairly precisely some time in 322 (since Nicaea arrived in the spring of 321, it seems). That ‘any secretary . . . could have exposed him at once as a falsifier’ (H, p. 9) would hardly matter to Perdiccas or to Eumenes: no one would have been given the chance, and certainly no one would have got away with it. In that case, the mysterious Diodotus of Erythrae cited by Athenaeus (X 434b) as the second of the authors could be a later editor, responsible for one of the later versions of Eumenes’ original publication.8 Bosworth was certainly right to insist that the rumour of Alexander’s death by poison arose almost immediately – whatever the facts. (It might be added that, throughout antiquity, it practically always did when a young and apparently healthy person died without obvious violence.) This is sufficiently proved by Hyperides’ motion to honour Iolaus for administering the poison – a fact that H tries to ignore without discussion.9 Hence (to follow Bosworth this far) Antipater would be eager to have the report scotched by an ‘official’ publication of the Journal. It might also be added that this would form an obvious parallel in what might be called political style to the ‘publication’ of Alexander’s hypomnemata by Perdiccas, for the sole purpose of having them annulled by the Assembly of the Army. Each of these acts would show the determined use of the possession of Alexander’s records for political purposes. 333

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Although this idea is quite attractive and may well be in some form correct, it does, however, leave the puzzle of how an official publication, no doubt fully accepted as authentic, would later be re-edited in different versions. The fact that this did apparently happen seems to me to tilt the scales against political forgery and in the direction of literary fiction. Eumenes’ name would in any case be used to add plausibility, and Diodotus of Erythrae would then be the actual writer of the version for which he is cited: if the work were known to be fiction, others would undoubtedly adapt it later, as happened with the versions of the Romance. The fact that Arrian and Plutarch took their respective versions to be genuine should not be too surprising. Ancient writers (except perhaps – we cannot be sure of this – for some Alexandrian professional scholars) had no serious training or methods for sorting genuine works from pseudepigrapha: the ‘letters’ of Alexander bear ample witness, as does, in its own peculiar way, the collection of Attic decrees made by that great Macedonian epigraphist Craterus (FGrHist 342). The relation of the ‘Journal’ to the compositions of such writers as Ephippus and ‘Nicobule’ (FGrHist 126, 127) can only be guessed at: there is not enough evidence for reasonable conjecture, let alone serious discussion. But in any case, the version that made Alexander drink himself to death seems to have remained a serious rival of the one that had him poisoned, and they are still both in the lists today, with attempts to exclude one or the other with real finality condemned to ineffectiveness by the nature of the evidence – as indeed they already were in antiquity. Let us, however, now glance at what may be an indication that the basic problem that concerns us was recognised at a very early date. The mysterious Strattis of Olynthus appears only in the Suda (Adler vol. IV p. 441). H is unfortunately not aware of the problems surrounding this man and, in addition, distorts what little evidence we have. He is right in rejecting Pearson’s strange misinterpretation of the title of his first work cited in the entry:10 there is no question that it must mean ‘About the Ephemerides of Alexander, Five Books’. H, however, engages in some weird chronology regarding this man. Asserting that he ‘took his citizenship as an adult [my italics] from a city . . . destroyed in 348’ (p. 9; cf. just below ‘he became a citizen at Olynthus’!), he puts his date of birth not later than 366. In fact, the assumption is absurd. The name under which he is entered means that he was born a citizen of Olynthus, which would be possible down to the city’s destruction in 348. He may very well, however, have been called an Olynthian if he was born in exile of an Olynthian father then living as a metic in another city; indeed, in such a case – and they must have been quite common, since in the fourth century it was not as easy to acquire citizenship as it later became in the Hellenistic age – there would be literally no other way of designating him.11 This, without any special pleading, means that the date of Strattis’ birth may as easily be assumed to be a whole generation later. Not that it matters in detail. Strattis will have written some time in the first half of the third century, and almost certainly not in Macedonia. For a writer, Alexandria is as good a guess as any other, and better than some. 334

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The real problem, unknown to H, is what he in fact wrote. The standard texts give three works. The one on the Journals (see above) is followed by one on Rivers, Springs and Lakes, and that is followed by one on the death of Alexander. In neither of these last two cases is the number of books specified. The collocation is, to say the least, odd. Needless to say, this has been recognised, and Adler’s apparatus shows that Gutschmid wanted to assign the work on various forms of water to another author – frustra, says Adler, but that merely means that she did not accept it, not that it ought not to be accepted. It is hard to imagine (say) a tract on Airs, Waters and Places among the works of Clidemus or Androtion. Fortunately this is irrelevant here. What ought to be mentioned, however, is that there is textual confusion about the two works on Alexander. Codex A omits the whole entry on Strattis (which, of course, is no good reason for doubting the existence of that author or his works). It was added in the margin with varied confusions, not worth listing here. But the number of books in the work on the Journals is omitted by codex F – no doubt by accident. We ought still to take it that the precise indications we have are correct, and that Strattis of Olynthus wrote five books on the Journals and one book on Alexander’s death. He was right to reassert this firmly against Pearson. But why five books on the Journals? From what we know of them, the contents would hardly justify the effort. On the other hand, how could a subject as complex, and as debated, as that of Alexander’s death be treated in a single book? There seems to me to be only one plausible explanation. The work on the Journals, listed first, was an elaborate Vorstudie. Like so many works of that period, it was a work of literary detection, trying to sort out the genuine from the fictitious and to comment in detail on alternative versions, such as, by the middle of the third century, were certainly already in existence. After this, the book on Alexander’s death could presumably confine itself to plain narrative: the actual work had been done before, in those earlier five books. Proper attention to Strattis suggests that our own problems over the Ephemerides are by no means new. Finally: how did Ptolemy get hold of the (genuine) journal? H presents a new solution, stated in a few words as nothing less than patent fact: ‘The corpse and the possessions of the deceased king . . . were intercepted and removed by Ptolemy to Memphis and then to Alexandria (Paus. 1.6.3). Among them surely was the Journal.’ (pp. 9–10)12 Unfortunately this is no less fiction than the ‘Journal’ itself. All that Pausanias says on this is the following: Κα( Μακεδνων το!ς ταχθντας τν 1Αλεξν>ρου νεκρν 'ς Αγ:ς κομζειν νπεισεν α!τῷ παραδοναι κα( τν μν τῷ νμῳ τῶν Μακεδνων 9θαπτεν 'ν Μμφει. (The

sentence continues with Ptolemy’s guarding against Perdiccas’ reaction.) Nor do our excerpts from Arrian on the Successors (FGrHist 156 F 9, 25) and, above all, the full and highly detailed description by Diodorus (XVIII 26 ff.) of the hearse and the cortège mention any ‘possessions’ other than the king’s arms. That volumes upon volumes of the Journal (as they would be, on H’s interpretation) could form part of the procession (to be buried with the king at Aegae? to be 335

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kept in a Royal Library and Archive at Pella, for the existence of which there is not a shred of evidence?) is perhaps an even more absurd suggestion in itself than the assumption that all this would not be alluded to in a single word in a lavishly full source. That unhappy idea fails more disastrously than its predecessors to explain Ptolemy’s supposed privileged access to the genuine Journal. The end of this long investigation, necessitated by recent ill-considered suggestions, has unfortunately not helped us in deciding by some easy rule of thumb, which the busy historian always appreciates. We cannot be sure that the story of Alexander’s handing the ring to Perdiccas was in Hieronymus, and if it was, we still cannot tell whether it was true. We cannot tell whether it was in the version of E seen by Arrian, but whether it was or was not, we can at least be sure that that version (and presumably all versions of E) should be regarded as fictitious, so that it has turned out not to matter whether E had the story or not.13 As H is right to recognise, our judgments on Alexander history always risk being ‘unduly subjective’ (p. 4). But there is unfortunately no royal road to akribeia, and we may have to live with the possibility that there is no road at all.

Notes 1 I shall use the following abbreviations for texts cited frequently: A = Arrian, D = Diodorus, E = the Ephemerides or ‘Royal Journal’, P = Plutarch; also H = N.G.L. Hammond, in the work cited in the text to this note. Since H cites me as accepting the story of the passing of the ring to Perdiccas (he refers to a review of mine in Gnomon 34 [1962]), I must mention that he is not aware of a later article in HSCP 72 (1967) [no. 12 in this collection] where I say (185 with n. 12; cf. 204) that we cannot tell whether the story is true, though it is quite likely that Hieronymus reported it. This is still my position. 2 See especially 87 f. 3 See my article cited n. 1 above. 4 It is surprising that H, reviving the old view about the Ephemerides, nowhere mentions its most systematic exposition, by C.A. Robinson, The Ephemerides of Alexander’s Expedition (Providence, RI 1932). For any arguments that can be put up for that view, that work remains the place to look. 5 On this and much else regarding the ‘Journals’ see A.B. Bosworth’s interesting discussion in CQ n.s. 21 (1971), 117 ff. As will be clear, I cannot follow him in accepting the historicity of Alexander’s death by poison, and I believe he would no longer argue for this himself. 6 It is a pleasure to acknowledge that P.A. Brunt, as so often, got the actual facts precisely right in his concise fashion, in his introduction to the Loeb Arrian, vol. I (1976) p. xxv; ‘It seems to me clear that the so-called journals were of very limited scope and circulated in different versions, which were literary compositions.’ Cf. ibid.: ‘If Ptolemy used them . . . elsewhere, he certainly never made this plain to Arrian.’ This is an important argument in itself, against the old view that much of Ptolemy was based on E, which H tries to reinstate. It seems quite remarkable, and difficult to explain, that A should suddenly, just when describing Alexander’s final illness and death, have found out about the existence of an original document that he had never seen cited before. H quibbles about the term ‘literary’ (p. 7) and describes it as ‘a matter of modern taste’ whether the style of the quotations from E would be called literary. But this is not the point. As H must know, all that those who use the

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7

8

9

10 11

12

13

term ‘literary’ mean is that it was a published work, accessible to any interested reader. Since anything one nowadays writes is likely to be misinterpreted by hasty readers, I must make it clear that I am not denying (a) that a genuine royal journal was kept, in some form, while Alexander was alive; (b) that our two versions of E have a large common stock of facts and that those facts may well be true. But one must remember, as so often, that the historian, like the lawyer, has his ‘rules of evidence’: the nature of the documents, as here analysed, does not permit use of the evidence offered by the two versions – just as the jury in a court of law must often dismiss from its mind considerations that it may well intuitively regard as true, and that may well in fact be true. The second name (as it must be) in Aelian is corrupted to κε)νος and has so far proved irretrievable. The name was presumably that of another (later?) editor: it may be genuine (i.e., that of the real author of the work?) or may, like that of Eumenes himself, be fictitious. Professor William M. Calder has suggested to me that ‘Eκατ)ος would be a palaeographically plausible emendation. (Particularly, I might perhaps add, in a capital script.) Admitting that this is mere speculation, we might perhaps tentatively put forward the name of Hecataeus of Abdera (FGrHist 264), the wellknown writer of semi-fictional ethnography, probably connected with the court of Ptolemy I (T7, cf. T4), for whose edification (and use?) he might compose such a work. And since (as we have seen) the name of this author may itself be fictitious, it is worth noting that Hecataeus of Abdera already has at least one major work and several other citations usually regarded as spurious attributed to him (F18–F24). But here speculation must end. The motion is cited in [Plut.] X Or. 849F. H (187–8 n. 55) decries this as ‘of little value in itself, being set among absurdities in a spurious work’. The remark shows little comprehension of the points of method involved. The attribution to Plutarch makes no difference: just as in Plutarch’s genuine works, anecdotes related are often valueless, but not because the work is a pseudepigraphon. However, the record of each orator’s public life (offices, military service, trials, decrees) is accurate where we can check it, and such items are generally believed where we cannot. A reported decree should be accepted as genuine unless proof to the contrary can be found. Pearson (cit. H 171 n. 21) wanted the title to mean ‘Five books of diaries about the exploits of Alexander’ – which the Greek will not really permit. Lysias was correctly designated as a Syracusan by Timaeus, as we happen to know from Cicero (Brut. 62). Cicero, who was living in the world of the late Republic and of the later Hellenistic cities, where citizenship could readily be acquired by merit, prefers to regard him as an Athenian, with an erudite joke at Timaeus’ expense. But Cicero, unlike Timaeus, probably did not know the personal history of Lysias, who could certainly not have been called an Athenian (indeed anything other than a Syracusan) in his own day. The details of Alexander’s burials are irrecoverable. Pausanias does not actually mention Alexandria in the passage cited by H. In I 7, 1 he ascribes the reburial (at Alexandria) to Philadelphus. Curtius, in the last sentence of his work, refers to it, but gives no chronological indication. D, using his (rather puzzling) pro-Ptolemaic source (for which see Hornblower, op. cit. [p. 325 above] 40 ff.), does not mention a burial at Memphis and has Soter bury Alexander in Alexandria. (Similarly Strabo XVII 1, 8.) It might matter in trying to decide between (politically motivated) forgery and literary fiction: if the former, and composed and published at the only plausible time, E ought surely to have mentioned the ring story that helped legitimise Perdiccas’ administration. However, since one must in any case assume various editions, this point may not be decisive.

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20 AGIS III Revisions and reflections

In the twenty-five years since my article on Agis III a great deal has been written on the subject, as part of the explosion in what one might call the Alexander industry. Here as elsewhere, theories long disproved keep being revived, at best slightly dressed up for cosmetic effect. In particular, Tarn’s statement (quoted in my article) that the burning of the palace area at Persepolis was ‘a sign to Asia that E-sagila . . . was avenged and Achaemenid rule ended’ keeps reappearing in less naïvely inappropriate forms, although it is not only without the slightest support in any source—indeed, Parmenio’s reported reproach to Alexander makes an excellent case against it—but, as I pointed out, is both contrary to the whole of Alexander’s policy, as he had carefully been developing it in his anabasis from the coast, and meaningless in the political and cultural context of the Achaemenid kingdom. In this restricted space, I shall naturally not be able to consider more than a very few discussions concerning only a few of the points raised in my article. But the points are important in any evaluation of the history of Alexander III of Macedon, and in numerous areas touching upon that history.1

Macedonian manpower To start with the simplest (though in one way the most important) point: de Ste. Croix, among a mass of appendices in his book dealing with the fifth century, has a totally irrelevant one entitled ‘The “Revolt” of Agis III’.2 The only feature connecting it with a work entirely devoted to events a century earlier seems to be the author’s obsessive hatred of Sparta: just as the book is largely written to prove that Sparta bears almost sole responsibility for the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, and the majority of the appendices are designed to exculpate Athens and incriminate Sparta on points of relevant detail, so here the aim is to show that Agis was incompetent and that, as late as 331, most Greeks preferred Macedon to Sparta. That interpretation has had more influence than might have been expected. Thus, most recently, Paul Cartledge, in his discussion of Agis III3—a discussion that he himself describes as ‘eclectic and opinionated’ but that might more properly be described as eclectic and highly conventional— 338

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follows and reproduces most of de Ste. Croix’s views without any critical scrutiny. De Ste. Croix’s appendix will therefore have to be analysed in some detail. De Ste. Croix’s first section, on chronology, has nothing to contribute. (The problem is dealt with below.) The second deals with Antipater’s forces and Alexander’s reinforcements, the third with Athens’ failure to join Agis. This last section is the most useful. Amid some glib rhetoric about Agis it firmly reminds us of two important and connected facts: that the crews of twenty Athenian ships were hostages in Alexander’s hands, and that Alexander had shown in the case of Thebes that he would not shrink from extreme measures against rebels. I now accept this argument. It was no doubt too much to expect the Athenian democracy to expose many of its citizens to almost certain death or enslavement. Not that his exaggerated figures for the actual numbers involved should be accepted. First, we do not know how many of the maximum of 4,000 men forming the full complement of twenty ships were Athenians. His assumption that all of them were is contradicted by all the fourth-century evidence (and much from the fifth century) that we have. Any page of Demosthenes’ political speeches will make clear that Athenian fleets and armies did not wholly, or even chiefly, consist of citizens. Moreover, it should not be assumed that the fleet was up to paper strength: it has often been suspected that it normally was not, and it has now been proved by Wallinga’s thorough investigation.4 Since the officers, however, are likely to have been Athenians, a number somewhere in three figures should probably be assumed. I agree that, although some extremists might have been prepared to sacrifice them, Demosthenes could not easily advocate this—not without opening the door to immediate attacks by his enemies and risking his own life. This must be the background to the ambiguities and tergiversations with which he is charged by Aeschines (3. 165 ff.). De Ste. Croix’s discussion of Antipater’s forces is confused and unacceptable. He allows that Antipater’s army must have included mercenaries and non-Greek allied contingents (Thracians and Illyrians), but he misrepresents D 63. 1 as intending to count such contingents among the ‘allied forces’. A glance at the text will show that this is not what Diodorus is saying. What he does say is that after marching ‘with his entire army’ (its composition is not specified) into Peloponnese he there added men from ‘the allied Greeks’, and that after this his total strength came to ‘not less than 40,000’. Whether he is right is another question. He is certainly foreshortening events, as we can see by comparison with the contemporary Aeschines, who stresses Antipater’s slowness in collecting an army in the first place—a slowness explicable only if he had to find and hire mercenaries. But de Ste. Croix, having thus misrepresented the only good source we have on the actual figures, goes on to guess that there can have been only 5,000– 10,000 who were not ‘allied Greeks’ among the 28,000 whom Antipater enrolled for the emergency (we get no explanation of that figure); and this is said to prove ‘that Antipater’s Greeks would still have greatly outnumbered Agis’ citizen forces’. The argument is worthless. Even on de Ste. Croix’s own arbitrary figures it is quite possible that Antipater had only 18,000 allies from the Greek cities, as 339

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against Agis’ 22,000 Greek citizen forces attested by Diodorus. But there is no basis at all for his fanciful guesses about numbers. As we have seen, Diodorus in fact clearly distinguishes between the army that Antipater brought with him from Macedonia and the ‘allied Greeks’ whom he enrolled in Peloponnese (most of them indeed Peloponnesians hostile to Sparta). In fact, Diodorus has just informed us (62. 7) that ‘most of the Peloponnesians and some of the other Greeks’ joined Agis, and he gives their numbers as ‘not less than 20,273 infantry and 2,000 cavalry’. Again, whether he is right is another question: Dinarchus (1. 34)—not a better source (see p. 347 below)— speaks of support from only Achaea and Elis, and of 10,000 mercenaries. But Diodorus could not have made it clearer that he (unlike de Ste. Croix) does not think that Antipater’s Greeks outnumbered Agis’. Let us investigate Antipater’s numbers more closely. He had originally been left an army of 12,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry. (I accept D 17.3–5 as an accurate army list, if the obvious manuscript errors are corrected.) Strangely enough, even Beloch5 thought that these forces, plus those allocated to Alexander’s own army, represented the total manpower resources of Macedon, which he thus estimated at 27,000. That figure, implausible as it is (for even Athens’ manpower pool at this time has been estimated at about 13,500),6 seems to have become the basis for later calculations of Macedonian manpower, even though the method by which it was arrived at seems as absurd as the result. The evidence that would allow us to build up a more plausible picture does not seem to have been properly used, and the consequences of this for Macedonian history have been serious. We must start with the levies of new recruits sent to Alexander in the early years of his campaign. (No such levies are attested after 331, though some may be implied.) The sources in each case call them νοι, noui milites, i.e., clearly the class of young men just reaching the age of military service (we do not know what that age was). In 333 3,000 Macedonian infantry and 300 cavalry arrived (we shall come back to Arrian’s implication that these were ‘as many as were possible’); in 332 there are no such troops; in 331 6,000 infantry and 500 cavalry. It can easily be seen that the men arriving in 331 are the new levies of two years. It follows that the number of men reaching military age at this time was conventionally put at 3,000 infantry and 250–300 cavalry. What precisely these figures represent, we do not know. Arrian (1. 24. 2) states that in the first case Alexander had asked for all the men he could get. That is probably no more than his own rhetorical elaboration, as so often: it deserves no credence as regards the manpower pool. The figure, in fact, seemed too small to Hans Droysen, who pointed out that, with an area that he estimated at 600 to 650 ‘Quadratmeilen’ (about 30,000 to 32,500 square kilometres), this is unlikely to represent the whole of a year’s class. (He suggested that the levy, at this point, was limited to Lower Macedonia, which might well yield such a figure.)7 It is perhaps best to assume that men were enrolled up to this conventional figure, and that enrolment stopped at that point. Enrolment up to a predetermined point was later the Roman method. 340

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The figures for the levy that we have been looking at, whatever they represent, come from different sources and are not likely to have been independently made up. The information must be accepted. It follows, first of all, that we are not entitled to see Macedonian reinforcements in a variety of figures we find later (not specified as such) or to posit unrecorded Macedonian reinforcements at various points later. Misconceptions based on no recognizable evidence or model abound: it is hardly ever realized how little effect the departure of the four annual classes of recruits that we have listed would have on the forces still potentially at Antipater’s disposal. This goes with fanciful statements regarding the relation of Alexander’s demands for troops (very limited as they actually were) to the total manpower available. In this genre, Bosworth has been particularly prominent. In 1975 he claimed that at the beginning Antipater had been left with only 12,000 infantry and that ‘the stream of reinforcements to Asia’ had since caused ‘severe losses of manpower’.8 As we shall see, this is improbable even for 331/30. In his final elaboration of this, published in 1986 and incorporated as fact into his commentary on Arrian,9 the claims become fanciful. He very properly recognizes that we have no evidence for Macedonian reinforcements after 331, and he refuses to follow modern fiction in inventing them: he stresses that all the demands were confined to those early years, though he greatly exaggerates the number demanded at that time.10 He puts the attested figures at 26,000 (see p. 342 below) when in fact they add up to precisely 21,000 infantry [and 800 men], and, working back from the figures of veterans attested at Opis, he argues that ‘a minimum of 30,000 (perhaps nearer 40,000) was taken out of Macedon between 334 and 331’. In other words, he has shifted the invention of unattested reinforcements, which he appears to abandon, from the later years to the early years of the campaign! Even so, it does not occur to him to ask whether the years between 331 and 323 would not suffice for a thorough regeneration of manpower which (on his own reconstruction) was not drawn off. In fact, if we conservatively estimate the class reaching military age in any one year at 3,000 (concentrating on infantry, as he does, to simplify), then those seven years would have yielded 21,000 men; and as we have seen, that figure should be regarded as a minimum. Even if there were indeed Macedonians among later reinforcements where this is not specified, it will be clear that, with such a large reservoir, no conceivable unattested reinforcements could have produced the kind of denudation of manpower claimed by Bosworth. It was only the wars of the Successors that finally depleted even Macedonia’s ample manpower resources. We must now briefly look at a figure that has caused untold confusion: briefly because it was explained over a century ago, though the explanation has been unaccountably ignored by those who follow miscalculations of Macedonian manpower. Polybius (12. 19. 1f.) cites Callisthenes as stating that 5,000 Macedonian infantry and 800 cavalry reached Alexander in Asia Minor. (This is in the context of an attack on Callisthenes’ competence as a military historian, which, according 341

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to Walbank, ‘shows Polybius at his worst’.11) These figures clearly do not fit in with the attested reinforcements, year by year, and were therefore rejected by Brunt as due to ‘gross carelessness by Callisthenes or Polybius or both’.12 Brunt quotes with approval a comment by G. T. Griffith, that ‘Polybius is unlikely to have misrepresented Callisthenes here, when he is picking holes in his account’. Bosworth, on the other hand, seems to add the 5,000 to the 21,000 actually attested, to arrive at his swollen figure of 26,000. Any observation of scholarly polemic surely suggests that such a purpose is positively conducive to misrepresentation—especially when the scholar attacked is safely dead. Since Polybius is not known for fairness to other historians, distortion is here conceivable. However, there may be a genuine misunderstanding: Callisthenes was not aware of the fact that he would be a source for military history for historians of later ages. As was seen by Hans Droysen in 1885, Callisthenes has simply reported the total figure of soldiers arriving to join Alexander at Gordium: the 3,000 infantry recorded as the new levy and 2,000 who came back from the home leave that Alexander had granted to newlymarried soldiers (νεγαμοι). Polybius, collecting figures as they appeared, could in good faith have thought that Callisthenes was giving numbers for reinforcements, even though the interpretation was in fact his own. Polybius never cites Callisthenes as thus describing them.13 What needs to be stressed, in any case, is the fact that Callisthenes’ apparently odd figure can be—and long ago was—easily and satisfactorily explained. It does nothing to impair the striking consistency of our figures for the annual Macedonian levy. It is not methodologically permissible to rely on a fragment of a historian not chiefly interested in military matters, as recorded by another historian trying to discredit him, to refute figures consistently reported by different sources with no axe to grind. It would be as though we relied on Plutarch’s De malignitate Herodoti as evidence for what Herodotus actually wrote – which, in that case, we are fortunately not tempted to do. The levy figures can now give us interesting information. Above all, if we accept Diodorus’ figure of 24,000 Macedonian infantry under arms in both Asia and Europe in 334, this will correspond to about eight annual classes of recruits. It is almost incredible that scholars should have taken this figure, for no positive reason whatsoever, as representing the whole of Macedonian manpower at the time. This misunderstanding must inevitably distort the interpretation of Macedonian history. Once it is cleared up, we can see that Macedonia was not even temporarily denuded of manpower by Alexander’s early campaigns; and if later reinforcements did include Macedonians, there was ample time for regeneration. In fact, as we have noted, it is quite likely that the figure of 3,000 per year (a suspiciously round figure) for a year’s levy left, and was intended to leave, some of the potential resources untapped. In any case, in an emergency like that of 331, Antipater would have many veterans to add to his standing forces. There is no numerical reason why much the greater part of his 40,000 men should not have been Macedonians. 342

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Although we cannot here discuss the question of Macedonian manpower at full length, it is worth pursuing a little further. The figure of 3,000 would be less than five times that of Athenian ephebes in the 320s—and that although, whatever the letter of the law, by no means all Athenian boys registered for service; so the figure may be nearer four than five times the Athenian manpower pool. We see that Hans Droysen’s doubts were amply justified. The figure of 3,000 can by no means have been the total of the manpower annually available: it was merely the number of infantry it was thought necessary to enrol for actual service each year.14 We can use the levy figures to arrive at a minimum total for Macedonian adult manpower at this time. Hopkins15 estimates the cohort of 17-year-old males, in a stable population with life expectancy at birth 25 years, at 3% of the total adult male population. That would give (if we again ignore the cavalry) a minimum (and we have noted that it must be a minimum) of 100,000 for the adult male population of Macedonia at this time. Of course, we cannot hope to arrive at a precise figure: we do not know whether Hopkins’s assumptions apply to Macedonia in the late fourth century; we do not know how many men beyond the 3,000 were enrolled; and for military purposes we do not know up to what age men were expected to be ready to serve. (Though I would suspect that there was no upper limit for healthy men in an emergency.) But the figure gives us what Hopkins has taught us to aim at: an order of magnitude. It suffices to show the absurdity of the traditional ‘minimizing’ guesses. The figure for Athenian ephebes, which we have used for meaningful comparison, does however come as close to precision as ancient evidence ever permits. The ‘minimizing’ view is by no means a recent heresy. It has a long and respectable history. Berve’s standard work may be taken as typical: it is claimed that after the ‘gewaltigen Abgaben an Truppen’ for Alexander, Antipater in 331 had only about 6,000 men left, and Diodorus (who gives no figure) is cited in support.16 A recent restatement of the conventional view is given by J. Seibert.17 For Seibert, as also for Bosworth, it is axiomatic that ‘das Gesamtaufgebot Makedoniens betrug demnach [i.e., on the basis of the belief that Diodorus’ army list gives the total of Macedonian manpower] im Jahr 334 ca. 24.000 Mann zu Fuß und 3.600 Reiter’ [my emphasis]. It follows (p. 839) that the reinforcements sent to Alexander (and Seibert, like Bosworth, conscientiously counts only those actually recorded) of 9,000 infantry over three years drew off 75% of Macedonian manpower in Europe! (Like Bosworth, Seibert makes no allowance for new age classes becoming available over three years, though he recognizes their existence.) He then (p. 839 n. 10) suggests ‘Kriegsmüdigkeit’ and resistance to the draft as early as 331—presumably from very recent analogies, since there is no ancient evidence whatsoever. He (and Bosworth, again in parallel) also draws attention to Diodorus 18. 12. 2, where it is asserted that early in the Lamian War Antipater was short of troops and this is ascribed to the numbers sent to Alexander for his campaign. This passage is indeed interesting, for it suggests that the theory held by Seibert and 343

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by Bosworth, that Alexander exhausted Macedonian manpower, may even be ancient, and in fact date back to the Hellenistic age, when Macedonian manpower was seen to be really depleted. But before we embrace that view, a warning is needed. First, Diodorus refers only to a shortage of forces under arms, not to the manpower reserves of Macedonia: like his modern successors, he may not have been aware of the difference and added the comment as his own judgement. Moreover, it is likely that, whether he knew it or not, the statement about the shortage referred only to cavalry;18 for Antipater had 13,000 infantry ready, but only 600 cavalry—a glaring disproportion. As for infantry, he ordered ‘Sippas’, whom he left behind, to enrol ‘a sufficient number’ for the defence of Macedonia—i.e., after taking with him all the men available, he expected his subordinate to be able to draw on a manpower pool adequate for defence. Again: whether he realized it or not, Diodorus is not reporting the exhaustion of Macedonian manpower. Let us return to Antipater in 331. The 3,000 talents of silver sent by Alexander from Susa (see below) cannot have reached him before the early spring of 330. But mere word of it would give him sufficient credit to hire all the mercenaries he wanted and could find; and he would have had word, by courier, by the beginning of 330. Since Diodorus has foreshortened the whole story of Antipater’s mustering of his army (see p. 339 above), we simply cannot tell whether he could relieve a large number of Macedonians by hiring mercenaries. But it may be conjectured that, out of obvious concern for Macedonians, he tried to do this during the winter, and that this is why he was so slow to collect his army. At an inflated rate of two drachmas a day, thirty talents would have paid 3,000 mercenaries for a month if he could get them; and with the money in prospect he could pay any number of mercenaries for any foreseeable future. Antipater thus had an almost unlimited reservoir of manpower to draw upon during that winter, even though it took time to collect an actual army. He would not even need many Greek allies. We may take Diodorus’ word for the fact that he collected few—nothing remotely like the 22,000 that Diodorus (whether correctly or not) assigns to Agis.

The beginning of Agis’ war The chronology of the beginning of the war has been much debated, especially since Cawkwell suggested that it began only about the middle of 331, as against the standard view (followed in my article) that it began early in the year.19 Cawkwell’s argument on this was brief and (as it turned out) was soon adequately refuted by Borza and by Lock.20 However, in his 1975 article Bosworth revived the case and injected a new philological point into the debate, and his conclusions are taken for granted in his Commentary (p. 279) and in his Conquest and Empire.21 It is therefore important that they should be adequately discussed. His arguments are of unequal merit. Above all, his discussion is marred—as many others have been—by a very basic error in historical understanding: that 344

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of assuming (without even arguing a case) that not only Antipater, but every subaltern recruiting agent, when sent by Alexander on a specific mission to collect troops for the campaign against Darius, was free to ignore his instructions and to decide, entirely on his own responsibility, whether he should carry out his order or not. De Ste. Croix too had stated that, in order to allow the forces requested by Alexander to leave, Antipater ‘must have been confident indeed that his Greek allies would fight well under his command’. As I had in fact pointed out in my article on Agis III (p. 188), whether some Greeks would fight well for him (as some, e.g. the Megalopolitans, undoubtedly would) is irrelevant. Even the regent Antipater could hardly have refused to let forces depart which Alexander himself had ordered to be sent to him for his own operations; and there can be no doubt that this is what Alexander had done. What if the lack of those forces led to disaster in Asia through lack of manpower? Alexander certainly was not oversupplied with men, as compared with the King’s resources. Could even Antipater assume this responsibility? Surely no war could have been organized like that. Despite constant repetition of such statements (see Bosworth, p. 320), it is inconceivable that anyone (even Antipater, let alone Amyntas) was given full freedom to make the major strategic judgement involved in a comparative evaluation of the needs of (say) Europe and Asia: theirs (surely) not to reason why, theirs but to obey orders. Any argument based on the postulate that such ‘freedom of decision’ was the normal practice under Alexander may be said literally not to need refutation. It ought never to have been advanced. There remains the philological point. Bosworth tries to argue that Arrian’s report of instructions to Amphoterus to go to Peloponnese and to aid loyal allies there (3. 6. 3) should be taken to refer to the same occasion as Curtius’ report (3. 13. 15) that he was instructed to go to Crete and oppose Spartan and Persian forces there, as well as (generally) clear the sea of pirates. (This is essentially repeated in Conquest and Empire, 200.) On the face of it, no two instructions could be more dissimilar. What lends initial plausibility to the case is that both authors report the respective instructions on the same occasion: during Alexander’s stay at Tyre in spring 331. It has been usual to regard the instructions as different, with those reported by Curtius preceding those in Arrian. (Thus, e.g., Berve, whose interpretation I followed in my article.) There are two reasons for such a view: it is known that Agis went to Crete, no doubt largely to collect mercenaries, before starting his war in Greece; and it is also known that, on this very occasion, Curtius relates several incidents that must go back to Alexander’s stay in Egypt together with what properly belongs to his stay in Tyre. Bosworth is in fact aware of this: ‘Clearly Curtius . . . has accumulated a number of passing notices and lumped them together in a convenient pausing place in his main narrative’.22 Bosworth suggests what would certainly be a simplification: that Crete could be regarded as part of Peloponnese, and that Arrian must have got his notice from a source that did just that. The usage is found only in Strabo 10. 4. 1 (474). Bosworth also adduces a trace of it in Pseudo-Scylax (he collects various 345

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passages), which would place it in the fourth century. But in fact that author says nothing of the sort. He merely treats Crete and some islands east of Peloponnese between the south and the east coast of Peloponnese. This, from a purely practical point of view, is reasonable enough, but irrelevant here. No other Greek author provides a parallel to Strabo’s usage.23 Atkinson saw the reason:24 Strabo’s unique use of the term is part of his attempt, or perhaps already that of a predecessor, to systematize geography. But since, in the whole of surviving Greek literature, there is not a single other passage where this odd use of the name can be found, it would have to be conjectured that Arrian here (and here only) picked it up (ultimately) from that source. As Atkinson has made clear, it is more reasonable to return to the usual view, that ‘Peloponnese’ means Peloponnese and nothing else, and to follow Berve in interpretation.25 The only disquieting element in that interpretation is the hypothesis that, of two different instructions, one source happens to mention one and another source the other, such that they should be regarded as dovetailing into each other. In general, that is not a happy solution to a source problem—though it ought not to worry Bosworth, since his whole interpretation of the administration of the Syrian provinces is based on precisely this kind of hypothesis.26 Fortunately, it is here made easier by two facts: that each source is known to have a habit of omission; and that, in a related context, they can be seen to complement each other. As Atkinson puts it (Commentary, 373): ‘Neither Curtius nor Arrian tells the full story of the war in the Aegean . . ., but for the period 332/31 Curtius and Arrian do not cover the same events.’ It is all the easier to believe that, in the case of orders to Amphoterus in late 332 and early 331 respectively, they have also not covered the same events. I therefore find Bosworth’s alternative suggestion, that the orders given on only one occasion included all the components we pick up, but that each of our two sources happened to select a different part of that whole for mention, less satisfactory in point of method. It is much easier to postulate that a different selection of events happening at different times might be made, by sources not committed to giving a complete historical account, than that for unknown reasons different sections of the same set of instructions happened to attract their interest. We therefore have no reason to revise the generally held view that, when Alexander was at Tyre in the late spring of 331, he heard of a revolt in Peloponnese, but did not as yet take it seriously. That was to come later, at Susa.

The end of Agis’ war The date of the battle of Megalopolis and the collapse of Agis’ war is another question that has been reopened by Cawkwell. In my article I accepted and defended Niese’s chronology, based on Curtius’ date for the battle of Megalopolis, which places the war entirely within 331. Cawkwell has now shown that one can never regard a scholarly problem as settled beyond revision. Let me say at once that he has largely convinced me. I must recant the chronology set 346

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out in my article and reject Borza’s attempted rebuttal of Cawkwell. Despite Diodorus’ confused reference to it in his account of events at Babylon (see also C 5. 1 fin.), it seems to have been at Susa (A 3. 16. 9f.) that Alexander sent 3,000 talents to Antipater to draw on as needed for the war. At that point, he clearly cannot have known that it was over. He had presumably been informed of the progress of the war by Amyntas, who seems to have brought him the recruits from Macedonia just before he reached Susa.27 A new argument was advanced by Wirth, who tried to suggest that Amyntas brought word of the conclusion of the war just after Alexander had sent the 3,000 talents with Menes: ‘so müssen sich denn Meldung und Geldsendung nicht weit von Susa begegnet sein.’28 This has been fully refuted by Bosworth29 and needs no further discussion. Had Alexander indeed at once heard of Megalopolis, he would certainly have sent a courier after Menes asking him to return with the money: after Agis’ death such an enormous sum would not be needed by Antipater. In any case, since these forces must have left Macedonia by midsummer, it would be plain paradox to think that the war could be over as soon as that, especially in view of Aeschines’ statements, to which Cawkwell has drawn attention. (See especially Aeschin. 3. 165: Alexander had gone ‘beyond the North Star and almost beyond the whole oikumene’, at a time when Agis still seemed to be winning and Antipater was only slowly collecting his forces.) Orators speaking within a few months of the event, however hyperbolical, must keep reasonably close to known and recognizable facts. Indeed, it follows further from that passage, as Cawkwell rightly insists, that the synchronism between Gaugamela and Megalopolis will have to be abandoned. This is all the easier, as Lock has since stressed,30 because Curtius actually contradicts himself: he also reports the arrival of news of the war (as yet unfinished!) when Alexander was at Bactra in spring 329. As Bosworth has acutely pointed out,31 synchronisms between major events (and particularly battles) in reasonably close proximity are a stock device of ancient historiography and need not always be taken literally. The question of Alexander’s precise location, to which Aeschines hyperbolically refers, remains. We may ignore Dinarchus 1. 34, that Alexander was thought to be in India: that statement was made eight years later and is of interest only in connection with the growth of the Alexander legend and as showing the unreliability even of contemporaries’ accounts many years later. Even his intention of going to India cannot have been known in 331. There is no obvious answer. Bosworth has suggested that Alexander was in ‘northern Mesopotamia, just before Gaugamela’: since he turned north after crossing the Euphrates, he may have been thought to be ‘following in the footsteps of the Ten Thousand into Armenia’.32 I find this impossible to accept. Even if news of his march came to Greece by messengers who had left him precisely during those few days when he was indeed marching north and before he turned east to cross the Tigris— which would be a strange coincidence—it must have been very soon followed by news of what he had really done; but on the further assumption that it was not, 347

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and that he was really thought to be repeating the march of the Ten Thousand, Aeschines’ statement becomes doubly unintelligible. Bosworth objects to Assyria, Susa, and Persis as places where he might have been because they were ‘all places very much within the oikoumene’. The objection applies far more strongly to the route of the Ten Thousand: it was well known from Xenophon’s very popular writings, and in its own way had passed into national folklore. No one thought of the Ten Thousand as having gone beyond the inhabited world. There are, in principle, only two ways of explaining the Athenians’ belief. The first and obvious one is that it was almost literally true: that would put Alexander beyond the Oxus, in Sogdiana, or at least in Bactria—certainly unknown to most Athenians and to some extent legendary. But that would date a period of Agis’ war still some time before its end right in the middle of 329 at the earliest (the time when Alexander really was there)—which is totally unacceptable, since Aeschines spoke in mid-330, referring to events of 331. The other is to assume that the Athenians simply did not know where Alexander was: if so, pure fantasy could reign supreme. In any case, Aeschines’ hyperbole can no longer be simply forgotten, written off as ‘rhetorical language’. Anyone writing about Agis’ war will henceforth have to treat it seriously and try to find a plausible explanation. Cawkwell’s insight has made a lasting difference to this subject. We shall return to the passage in the section on ‘The motive regained’. Lock has shown that we need not be too concerned about giving up Curtius’ statement of the synchronism with Gaugamela: his two contradictory statements cancel each other out. Lock has also made the interesting suggestion that they may both be due to compositional reasons.33 This is certainly plausible for the synchronism: we have already noted the attraction of that device. It is difficult for the modern scholar to remember, and to put to use in his actual work, what is in principle well known: the great difference in attitudes and techniques between our own practices and those of the ancient writers whom we have to use as sources. In all but a very few of ancient historical writers, the artistic attraction of a striking synchronism or a striking peripeteia will override the claims of historical accuracy. Lock concludes (cautiously and perhaps correctly) that we cannot tell with any approach to precision when the war ended. He fixes the termini inter quos, very reasonably, as Alexander’s sending of the 3,000 talents from Susa (a clear sign that the war was known to be going on) and the discharge of the Greek allies at Ecbatana (a clear sign that it was known to be over)—two major landmarks that ought to prove generally acceptable as our limits, provided each is taken to mean the time when those who brought Alexander the news on which he acted had left Greece. In terms of Alexander’s information (to anticipate the chronology that will be developed in the next section), that is between December 331 and early June 330. In terms of the actual events, of course, it is much harder to fix, but we can at least say that it is between the end of the campaigning season of 331 (or near it) and some time after the beginning of that of 330. That much ought to be accepted if we want to avoid mere paradox. Any attempt to gain further precision must be more controversial. I have suggested one possibility, which now needs 348

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reformulating in the light of what has emerged from the long discussion of this problem: if Alexander was already at Persepolis at a time when Antipater was still collecting an army, then the battle that ended the war must fall in 330, not in 331. Cawkwell has drawn attention to two other source passages. First, there is Justin 12. 1. 4 (cf. 12. 3. 1–2), where Alexander, just after the death of Darius, receives despatches informing him of three events: the death of his Epirot namesake, the end of Agis’ war, and the death of his governor Zopyrion in Thrace. This would seem to put the death of Darius—in Hecatombaeon, i.e. about July, of 330, according to Arrian 3. 22. 8—not long after that of Agis.34 So Agis’ death might be as late as May. However, Justin’s synchronism can be shown to be unreliable, like many of his dates and (for that matter) many ancient synchronisms. Zopyrion’s death is reported by Curtius (10. 1. 44) much later, while Alexander was in India: he heard of it after his return. That date gains support from the fact that Memnon remained governor of Thrace until he left to join Alexander, not before late 328; at a time when Justin reports the despatch announcing Zopyrion’s death, he cannot yet even have been governor.35 We cannot independently fix the date of the death of Alexander of Epirus: indeed, it may well be the actual event around which the synchronism was assembled, since the record of the court mourning may well have accurately survived. But even so, a score of one certainly false and one perhaps true, out of two, is not enough to inspire real confidence in the third item, the death of Agis. Distrust is heightened by two further items in the immediate vicinity. First, that well-known piece of fiction, Alexander’s meeting with the Amazon Queen, is reported within three sections of these despatches (12. 3. 5). Next, an obvious chronological inaccuracy: Alexander’s order to Parmenio to move the treasure of Persepolis to Ecbatana, put by Arrian (3. 19. 3) at Ecbatana itself (where it makes sense), is put by Justin after Darius’ death (12. 1. 1), where it does not (see further the section on ‘Alexander’s communications’ below). Justin’s date for Agis’ death, therefore, inspires grave misgivings.36 Cawkwell also pointed to Aeschines 3. 133, where, about midsummer of 330, the Spartan hostages are said to be still awaiting their despatch to Alexander: this might, at a stretch, be taken to support Justin’s date. On the other hand, nothing like an actual date really emerges. Atkinson has pointed out37 that the selection of the hostages to be sent to Alexander was only the last act in a complex series of judicial and political manoeuvres that followed the defeat of Agis and that must have taken months to complete, even though we cannot (of course) say precisely how long. He also noted that the fifty hostages (all noble Spartiates, and so in fact a large part of the remaining citizen body) would need a strong military guard; i.e., they would probably travel with a reinforcement sent to Alexander. We know that two reinforcements left early in 330: the forces that reached Alexander near Ecbatana in June (C 5. 7. 12) must have left by March or, at latest, early April; and the contingent that caught up with him after 349

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the capture of Artacoana and just before he entered Drangiana (C 6. 6. 35), perhaps an additional 1,400 kilometres from Ecbatana (by Beloch’s calculation), in August 330, cannot have left much later than the forces just mentioned. The upshot of this is that a date in 331 for Agis’ death seems once more to be excluded: had it been as early as that, the hostages should surely have been ready to travel by (say) late April or early May 330. On the other hand, if he died early in the campaigning season of 330, which we have seen is the preferable alternative, then the hostages could not have been selected and ready by that time. As Atkinson points out, we hear of no further reinforcements until 329. So the hostages may even have had to wait as long as that. Antipater could guard them efficiently, and Alexander would not mind keeping the Spartans in suspense as regards their fate. We can therefore legitimately deduce from the passage to which Cawkwell drew attention that the war cannot have ended in 331, but must have ended in the campaigning season of 330, and that the Spartan hostages did not leave before midsummer. The variety of evidence that points to 330, and early in the campaigning season, has persuaded me that early 330 is likely to be the date of Agis’ death; i.e., it comes much nearer the end than the beginning of the timespan worked out by Lock.

Alexander between Gaugamela and Ecbatana Having fixed (as far as they can be fixed) the likely chronological limits of Agis’ war, we can now proceed to investigate Alexander’s own movements. Here, as in the chronology of Agis’ war, I have been convinced by my critics. The time I postulated for his arrival at Persepolis was impossibly early, despite his speed in marching. This was independently pointed out by Borza and by Wirth. I have, on the whole, found Wirth’s discussion and Brunt’s chronological appendices in his Loeb edition of Arrian the most useful summaries of the Greek evidence and guides to its evaluation. Fortunately, there is Babylonian evidence that gives us an accurate picture of the first stage of the march from Arbela to Persepolis; and there is Greek evidence, so far overlooked, that gives useful information on the last part. The middle section, however, from the arrival at Susa to the division of Alexander’s army, must at present remain purely conjectural. Curtius (5. 1. 16) reports that Alexander arrived at Mennis quartis castris from Arbela. If Mennis is Kirkuk (the bitumen is a reliable indication), the distance from Arbela is about 120 rather difficult kilometres. Arbela is said (A 6. 11. 5) to be 500 or 600 stadia from Gaugemela, i.e. roughly the same distance. The infantry must have taken three days to reach Arbela from the battlefield, even though Alexander and the cavalry got there in a day. The next information we have comes from Babylonian sources.38 Alexander and the army reached Sippar, some 50 km. NNW of Babylon, on 18 October and the outskirts of Babylon two days later; he entered the city (it seems) on 21 October.39 The whole march, of

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close to 600 km., had taken him twenty days—an achievement no modern scholar would have believed, were it not reliably attested. He stayed in Babylon, as Curtius tells us (5. 1. 39), thirty-four days, i.e. he left the city on 25 November. The next information we have is from Arrian: the march to Susa took twenty days (A 3. 16. 7). This seems a slow rate, for the distance of about 360 km., but there was a lengthy rest in Sittacene (C 5. 2. 1f.: diutius; D 65. 2: several days). Perhaps the actual march rate was less rushed than between Arbela and Babylon. The heat would not be unbearable at this time, and conditions made strenuous marching possible, giving ample time for rest and entertainment. We must allow at least four days, probably more, for the activities reported during the long rest, including a prize-giving and a military reform (and D’s phrase implies that), leaving sixteen days at most for marching. It is clear that Alexander was now in no hurry. At any rate, he arrived at Susa on 15 December. Perhaps no less important: we have, for the first time, reliable march rates for Alexander’s army in easy conditions, both when he was in a hurry and when he was not. But now fortune deserts us. The time he spent at Susa is not reported, though it must be considerably less than that of his stay at Babylon, on which Curtius dilates. Wirth’s conjecture of two weeks may be taken as an extreme limit; it is likely to be too generous. Even though Alexander had not rushed to get to Susa, he must now have been eager to get to Persepolis, and aware of the risk of snow in the mountains. Moreover, another long stay in a city might affect the army’s morale. In any case, for an important part of the march we are now restricted to conjecture. For after the stay at Susa, we have only slightly more information on the next stage. Alexander took four days to reach the Pasitigris and cross it to face the Uxii (D 67. 1f.; C 5. 3. 1f.). But he now had to fight the Uxii (A 3. 17; C 5.3. 2–16; D 67. 3–5), and we cannot easily guess how long the actual campaign and the subsequent arrangements took, quite apart from the uncertainty as to whether there was one battle or two.40 A delay of several days (including time for the negotiations with Sisygambis at Susa) must be allowed for, and the actions described, especially the siege of the Uxian ‘city’, are demonstrably speeded up in our sources. A week seems the reasonable minimum. Hence we must allow at least eleven days for the march from Susa and the Uxian interlude, and another day before the army was divided (see below). Twenty days seems the least amount to be plausibly allocated to the period between the arrival at Susa and the division of the army; and it may well have been a day or two more.41 This brings us to early January. For the last stretch we have at least a maximum. There exists a precise item of information worth noting for this purpose. Diodorus (19. 21. 2) tells us the exact time it took Eumenes’ army to get from the Pasitigris (the river Alexander crossed to fight the Uxii) to Persepolis.42 Not only that: his wording (οδοιπορας Lμερω̑ ν εGκοσι κα( τεσσρων, ‘the journey by road being one of twenty-four days’) is a general statement, not merely referring to that particular march. We seem to have the official figure. Adding the three days from Susa to 351

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the Pasitigris, we get a figure of twenty-seven days from Susa to Persepolis, no doubt by the ‘royal road’, the main road taken by Parmenio’s force after the division of Alexander’s army (A 3. 18. 1), not the shorter route taken by Alexander’s own. Parmenio’s (standard) time from the point of the division might be put at twenty days. There is no mention of Parmenio’s forces (in fact, their presence is excluded) in the account of Alexander’s arrival at Persepolis. Alexander certainly took less time than Parmenio to get there, even though he was delayed by the fierce battle at the Persian Gates. We are told that he reached the ‘Susian Gates’ on the fifth day (C 5. 3. 17; D 68. 1) and the fighting there seems to have taken at least three days, perhaps with another day to be allowed for the mopping up after the battle. After that, we have no reliable news. Moreover, the speed of his movements is likely to be exaggerated, and the march to Persepolis is interrupted by the tale of his meeting with the deported Greeks (C 5. 5. 5–24; D 69). No chronological data can be got out of the mix. All we can be sure of is that he arrived at Persepolis before Parmenio’s force, and that he must have taken at least two weeks or so from the point where the forces were divided. It follows that I now agree with Borza43 and Wirth in putting his arrival at Persepolis in the third week of January 330. Greater precision is clearly unattainable. On the length of Alexander’s stay at Persepolis we have two indications, which support this calculation. Plutarch (P 37. 6) has him stay at Persepolis for four months. Curtius (5. 6. 12), though he does not give a figure for his stay, gives a precise date for the start of a campaign into the interior of Persis and against the Mardi—one of the very few precise dates that our Alexander historians supply: it was ‘about the setting of the Pleiades’, which would be 7 April.44 Thirty days later (about 7 May), Alexander returned to Persepolis (C 5. 6. 19). Although we are not told how long he stayed there, the implication is that it was not long and that the burning of the palace area followed almost at once. Diodorus (73. 1), presumably based on the same source (as usual), puts the campaign after Alexander’s final departure from Persepolis—obviously an error, for after leaving Persepolis Alexander was clearly in a hurry to confront Darius, but (for what it is worth) it suggests that the campaign and the departure were closely connected. At any rate, it seems that Alexander left Persepolis about 10 May, after a stay of close to the four months assigned by Plutarch. The question therefore remains: why did he delay so long; and why, after saving the palace area on his arrival, when the city was sacked and destroyed (C 5. 6. 1 ff.; D 70. 1 ff.), did he in the end burn it before leaving?45

The burning of Persepolis Alexander’s reasons for the sequence of actions we have been tracing have given rise to a great deal of discussion. The simplest explanation is that proposed by Engels: Alexander’s delay was due entirely to geographical and logistic reasons.46 Certainly, we have all in the past tended to ignore these obvious factors in his 352

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campaign. But Engels’s simplification seems to me excessive in this instance. It has, of course, never been suggested that Alexander should have left at once, in January, and taken the road to Ecbatana.47 But Engels attaches too much faith to Curtius’ rhetorical ecphrasis about the land of ice and snow above Deh Bid (the pass is a mere 7,000 feet high) and its weird inhabitants, and combines this with the hearsay accounts of early travellers to produce a greatly exaggerated picture of the ice and desolation of that route. There might well be snow in Persis in April in the uplands. But Alexander was to show, not many months later, in the Hindu Kush, that he and his men did not lapse into folk-tale terror at the sight of it. Moreover, no large force was needed. Engels thinks (wrongly, it seems to me) that Alexander had only a small force with him and had left the main part of the army at Susa. But in any case, they could have been left in the plain of Isfahan, while Alexander, with the mobile forces that he often took on such campaigns, forced his way to Ecbatana, supplementing the supplies they could carry by robbing the natives of their winter stores—in fact, the technique that was to get him across the Hindu Kush with his whole army, between Ghazni and the Kabul valley. Alexander never lacked self-confidence: he would trust himself to surprise Darius at Ecbatana and either defeat him or (more probably) force him to leave the city, abandoning its supplies. There was another strategic alternative, worth mentioning at least in passing. He could have tried to by-pass Ecbatana and taken the road north, past modern Qum, straight on to Rhagae (Tehran). Again, a mobile force could manage: there is only one pass, about 7,000 feet high, and oases (especially Qum) would provide convenient resting-places. There was little risk of serious opposition along that route, and it would have led Alexander into the heart of northern Iran, cutting off Darius if he was still at Hamadan. And again, no one can reasonably maintain that this route was impracticable until late May. The purely geographical and logistic approach will not do, in the circumstances. The limitations imposed by those factors must be borne in mind (and that is the great merit of Engels’s book), but it must also be remembered that Alexander often achieved what others thought impossible and never shied away from what was merely difficult and strenuous. As I have said: we must bear in mind his crossing of the mountains from Ghazni. The fact that Alexander waited on the platform at Persepolis for four months and then destroyed his newly-won sacred capital needs a better explanation. Borza and up to a point Balcer have revived, in slightly modified form, what was essentially the explanation given by Tarn which I quoted initially. Borza adds, reasonably, that it was not only Asia as a whole, but the Persians themselves in particular, to whom this notice, that the Achaemenid monarchy had ended, was addressed: ‘Never again would the long processions of tribute bearers mount those magnificent stairways and pass through Xerxes’ Gate of All Nations to deposit their wealth [read ‘ceremonial gifts’] in the Hall of Audience.’ Borza’s statement is true as far as it goes. What he has failed to see is that he states the problem, not the solution. For one must ask: why would this never happen again? 353

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It is the answer to this that really matters. During his stay at Susa and Persepolis Alexander had sat (it seems) on the ceremonial throne of the Achaemenid Kings. It was probably when he first saw this (perhaps on the very first occasion) that Demaratus made his famous remark.48 As we also well know, this coincided with a period during which—at Babylon, Susa and Persepolis itself, at first— Alexander had appointed noble Persians to high positions and had tried to assure them that nothing had changed: that he had come (we might say) not to destroy but to fulfil. After all, if Alexander wanted to govern the country he had won and hoped to go on winning, he would depend on the help of the only class that had the experience to do it for him. If he was to be accepted (as he certainly wanted to be) not merely as a barbarian destroyer but as a ruler, both to exploit his conquests and to avoid a succession of wars of independence that would make them permanently insecure, he had to seek a broad basis of support among the class that mattered—i.e., he had to approach as closely as circumstances allowed him to legitimacy. It is within this context that the burning of royal Persepolis clamours for explanation.49 Tarn’s idea in its primitive form missed the context and made no sense on its own terms: ‘Asia’ did not care about Esagila or vengeance for it; that temple concerned only a relatively small group of people in Babylonia, and Alexander had tried to attend to their susceptibilities long ago. Borza at least adds the suggestion that henceforth no national war in Asia ‘could use the traditional center as a rallying point’.50 This again seems to me largely irrelevant to the real situation. Persepolis had never been a national ‘rallying-point’ and there was no reason to foresee that it might become one. And as far as it was a centre, it was one only for Persians, not for ‘Asia’. Did Alexander seriously fear that a rising in Fars would liberate Persepolis in his absence if he left it (as he had left the other capitals) intact and strongly held (cf. C 5. 6. 11)? Surely the very thought would have been absurd. A ‘liberation’ by guerrilla war was out of the question; as to Darius, he would first have to win a battle before it became even thinkable—and at the moment he was at most thought to be collecting another army in the eastern provinces, which was unlikely to turn out better, or better led, than the two defeated before. Alexander was not so lacking in self-confidence that he considered the loss of a major battle a real possibility. And short of this, Persepolis would no more be a ‘rallying-point’, even for Fars, than any other occupied city. Conversely, if there were a major defeat in battle (which, I repeat, Alexander can never have considered possible), then Persepolis would cease to matter, one way or the other. To ‘Asia’ (as distinct from Persia), Persepolis was at most a symbol of royal rule, of domination by the Achaemenids, and as we have seen, Alexander had no plan to ‘liberate’ (say) Bactrians or Parthians from that domination. He proposed to exercise it himself, and to be obeyed as the King had been. However it be wrapped in anachronistic rhetorical terminology, the destruction of his own symbol of legitimacy made no political or historical sense. One can only repeat that the man who sat on the throne of the Achaemenids had no business destroying their revered palaces. 354

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The motive for the destruction is, at one level, clearly given in all our sources. Whether or not we accept the Thais story (and we probably should, up to a point—i.e., as the way in which the destruction, though clearly planned in advance, was carried out), the unanimous report is that the destruction was a symbol of vengeance on behalf of the Greeks, who remembered Xerxes in 480. (They could hardly forget, if only because the ‘Hellenic League’ propaganda of Philip II and Alexander in his early days, as when Thebes was destroyed, had kept reminding them.) I see no alternative to posing the question precisely as I did in my article of 1967: why, after four months at Persepolis, did it suddenly become so important to Alexander to return to the slogans of the ‘Hellenic Crusade’ that he sacrificed his newly won legitimacy, and with it the hope of support by the Persian nobility whom he had been carefully wooing? Why, after months of trying to ease himself into the role of Great King, did he suddenly become the Avenger of Hellas? And it still seems to me that the war in Greece provides the only conceivable answer. But another major issue has been raised that needs investigation before we can reaffirm that conclusion.

Alexander’s communications Borza has investigated the question of Alexander’s communications.51 Let me say at once that, as far as his investigation in Ancient Macedonia 2 is concerned, he has done scholars an important service by showing that the standard view of the mare clausum will not do. Anyone who has visited Greece will know that the difference between times when one can sail and times when one cannot is not a consistent seasonal one, and Borza has now provided solid evidence. Moreover, no one has ever denied that reinforcements got to Alexander wherever he was— whether by the nearest route or after picking and perhaps losing their way, we are not told. No one would expect large bodies of troops sent to join him to miss him and his army entirely. This has little to do with military communications, as we normally interpret that term. It is more germane to military intelligence: discovering where Alexander could be found was an exercise akin to finding out, in general terms, where the enemy forces were. A model of reinforcements following signposts and uniformed attendants to get to Alexander’s location by the most direct route is wholly inappropriate. Nor, of course, did I ever deny that much of the conquered country was indeed pacified—as much so as it ever had been—so that even messengers could normally travel along the main roads to keep the King in touch with many of his provinces. Borza rightly stresses how, with the passes of Paropamisus strongly held by Alexander’s father-in-law, information from India readily reached him after his return. Whether this was so in 330, and how far it ever extended, is another question, to which there is as yet no answer. Perhaps there cannot be, in view of the nature of our sources. As I pointed out long ago, when discussing the plot against Philotas,52 communications must certainly not be imagined along the lines of those of a modern army. I drew attention to the fact that individuals trying to 355

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join Alexander seem always to have joined him at a well-known site, a fixed point along his proposed route (which, in general terms, would be widely known): nothing suggests that they took short cuts through the countryside to catch up with him en route. And much the same, most of the time, applies even to military units; though they were obviously much safer on the road. It will be of interest to scrutinize the evidence for regular communications, organized in an orderly fashion, that Borza collects in his only major citation of sources.53 Nine passages are cited. Of those nine, the first two refer to a time when Alexander was on or near the Mediterranean coast road (A 3. 2. 3, 6. 1f.) where communications were easy and sure to function well, even (as Borza has shown) in winter. The third (A 3. 16. 3) reports that, on his way from Babylon to Susa, Alexander received news from Philoxenus, whom he had sent ahead to occupy Susa, to the effect that this had been done. This has little to do with communications. A courier going back along the highway along which Philoxenus had gone ahead and Alexander was following could hardly miss him! The next three items and a later one (A 3. 19. 1–2, 23. 1–2, 29. 6; 6. 17. 5) do not concern communications but military intelligence: finding out where the enemy was—a totally different field, necessary to any army, and one that Alexander handled superbly.54 A 7. 19. 1 reports the arrival of Greek embassies in Babylon, not long before Alexander’s death. In that city, he was again not hard to find; and no one will deny that, both under the Achaemenids (in normal times) and under Alexander, travel from Asia Minor (along the Royal Road) or from Phoenicia to Babylon and Susa was frequent and relatively safe. Finally, A 4. 3. 6f. shows Alexander, while fighting in Sogdiana, receiving news of Spitamenes’ revolt at Maracanda. This shows the maintenance of communications within the limited area in which the main fighting was actually going on (which was essential); it is irrelevant to the larger subject of ‘imperial’ communications. Borza also mentions, almost with astonishment, the arrival of reinforcements at Bactra (A 4. 7. 1). On this and similar ‘achievements’ see my comments above: the army would not be difficult to ‘track’ across the country it had traversed, and a major force could always get through. The passages were cited by Borza only as a selection. We could all find more like them. But that is just the point. They are a representative selection, and they tell us little about what we might normally regard as communications within the usual meaning of the term. It is not the fault of any scholar, rather that of our sources and their interests. But in fact we cannot really know at all precisely how and to what extent Alexander’s communications functioned, as compared (for instance) with those of his Achaemenid predecessors. It is only by chance (let us recall) that we discover that in the Achaemenid period, where travel along the Royal Road from Susa to Sardis was safe and common, travel from Susa to Persepolis, the sacred capital, was possible only by paying ‘tolls’ to the tribe of the Uxii. The report55 has sometimes been disbelieved. But it is quite likely that the King (who could well afford it) preferred, in this and in some other cases, to ensure the safety of a dangerous route by paying (in effect) a ransom, rather than 356

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engage in a military operation that would be more costly, more dangerous, and in the end probably indecisive. Alexander preferred to fight rather than to pay; and there is no doubt that he won a decisive victory over the tribesmen. How lasting it was is another matter. Some have agreed with Major-General Fuller that ‘in twenty-four hours Alexander settled a problem which for two centuries the Persians had feared to tackle’.56 In the light of modern experience of brigandage or guerrilla that is highly improbable, and indeed the Uxii appear as ‘an autonomous people’ in Arrian, Indica 40. 1 (probably from Nearchus, near the end of Alexander’s life) and later in Diodorus 19. 17. 3 (317 BC). The Cossaei, between Susa and Ecbatana, were subdued only in Alexander’s last winter: up to that time, it must be imagined, passage along that road was possible only with a large military escort or (as under the Achaemenids) by paying a ransom. When I referred to Alexander’s army as ‘an island moving through hostile territory’ (quoted by Borza at various times), I carefully said that this was ‘at this stage’, i.e., in the winter of 331/30: I did not mean to imply that regular communications did not at any time exist anywhere in the empire he had won. Most of Borza’s evidence, of course, is not addressed to ‘this time’ at all, or to regular communications. The only piece that is concerns the movement of the treasure found at Persepolis. In two related sources we have the story that Alexander, while at Persepolis, ordered and received thousands of pack animals from Mesopotamia in order to transport the treasure he had found at Persepolis either with his army for its use (C 5. 6. 9) or partly with the army and partly to Susa for deposit (D 17. 71. 2). As Borza notes, it was not like Alexander to have thousands of animals carrying treasure moving along with his army: it was asking for trouble, a mere distraction from the military task, and we have no evidence that he did it. That whole story, even in Diodorus’ more reasonable dress, is therefore suspect. It would be more credible to suggest that all or nearly all the treasure was transported to Susa; but our Alexander sources do not in fact say that, though Strabo (15. 3. 9) reports that some lost works did. Arrian, on the other hand, tells us (3. 19. 7) that at Ecbatana Parmenio was ordered ‘to deposit in the citadel at Ecbatana the money being brought from Persepolis (τ: χρ%ματα τ: 'κ Περσω̑ ν κομιζμενα—mistranslated by Brunt in the Loeb edition) and to hand it over to Harpalus’. Borza interprets this to mean that the treasure was to be transported from Susa to Ecbatana. But the Greek cannot mean that: it is clear that Arrian envisaged Alexander as having ordered the Persepolis treasure to follow him on the road to Ecbatana; Parmenio was now to receive it safely and Harpalus was to take charge of it. And so most scholars have taken it. We recall that Justin (12. 1. 1) reports the order to Parmenio to transport the Persepolis treasure to Ecbatana after Darius’ death. It is more likely to have been given at Ecbatana itself; more likely still (as Arrian thought), the treasure was already on its way. Strabo too had read of this order: he mentions it as an alternative to the Susa location, and he gives almost the same figure as Justin for the total of the treasure. (The difference can be accounted for by 357

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textual errors.) It has been suggested that Alexander’s order ‘refers to the bullion actually in transit . . . which had been left in Paraetacene (19. 3 above)’.57 In fact Arrian 3. 19. 3 has not a word about bullion or money, but refers explicitly to the equipment (κατασκευ%) of the army. The order to Parmenio has nothing to do with these impedimenta. Before burning the palace area, Alexander had carefully stripped it of valuable items.58 He had no doubt seen to it, after deciding on the burning, that the treasure was to be taken north along the route he himself intended to travel. (Hence perhaps the story that he wanted to take it along for the use of his army.) The order for thousands of pack animals would still be necessary; but the elaboration that they were collected from all over Mesopotamia is very insecurely based, as compared with the more plausible version in Arrian, that Alexander at once had the treasure transported to Ecbatana, where Harpalus was to take charge of it, with Parmenio deputed to guard it. Presumably animals had been rounded up for the purpose during the campaign in Persis that immediately preceded the burning. (Indeed, that may have been one of its subsidiary purposes.) And animals could, of course, be sent back to repeat the journey. [The process was certainly a protracted one.] When Harpalus left Ecbatana and established his seat in Babylon we are not told, and it is irrelevant to our immediate purpose.59 What does matter is that the tale that the passes controlled by the Uxii were so secure, in the winter of 331/30, that Alexander could send most of the Persepolis treasure to Susa along that road without worry or hesitation is modern fiction based on ancient. Our best evidence knows nothing of it.

The motive regained We have seen above that, at the time when the war in Europe seemed to be going well for Agis and Antipater was only slowly collecting forces, no one in Athens knew where Alexander was: he had (literally, according to Aeschines) disappeared off the face of the earth. Since we have also seen that Antipater’s victorious offensive ought to be put at the beginning of the campaigning season of 330, the winter of 331/30 is the most plausible time for this state of affairs. The long discussion that has developed over the war of Agis, chiefly due to Cawkwell’s proper insistance on the value of the contemporary evidence, in the end makes the suggestion I advanced in my article all the more plausible. We have found no good evidence to suggest that, while Alexander was at Persepolis, his communications were functioning as securely as those of a well-organized modern army of occupation. (And we must not forget that modern armies of occupation, in lands like Iraq or Afghanistan, have not always been all that secure.) On the contrary, if we attend (as Borza urges) to other periods of Alexander’s long march, India might be a suitable parallel. While he was there it is clear that rumour was abundant, and many (not only Greek mercenaries in Bactria: C 9. 7, D 17. 99.5) thought he would never return. Nor did he himself know what was going on. It was (as we have seen) only on his return from India 358

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that he learnt of Zopyrion’s disaster, and—no less surprising—we have every reason to think that he did not know about usurpation in Persis itself, and about an actual pretender in Media wearing the upright tiara, until he got back to Persis (A 6. 29. 2 ff.). [See no. 24 in this collection, pp. 440 ff.]. It is by no means unreasonable to suggest that the situation was similar once he had disappeared beyond the mountain barrier of the southern Zagros in the winter of 331/30. [There was a break in communication both ways.] Anyone who will not recognize that it must have been at this time that fanciful rumours could arise in Athens will have to give some other and more plausible explanation: as we saw, it will not do to brush the evidence aside with a glib phrase, and no other period of Alexander’s march that can possibly be assumed to coincide with Agis’ war will furnish a reasonable explanation. Moreover, in view of the high probability that it was precisely early in the campaigning season of 330 that Agis died, it is equally probable that it was precisely in the preceding winter that Antipater—slowly and, as it turned out, thoroughly, and perhaps using the credit that the King’s 3,000 talents gave him—collected his overwhelming army. I cannot at present see any other way in which the pieces reasonably fit together. The chronology that I suggested in my article of 1967—not only for Alexander’s movements but for the war in Greece as well—omitted too many of them, as has since been shown. But the suggestion that Alexander, cut off at Persepolis, waited in vain for news of the war seems to have been immeasurably strengthened by the new evidence since adduced. [He had no more information about Greece than Athens had about him.] If we knew precisely when Agis died, we might also be able to argue more knowledgeably about when Alexander heard of that event. At present nothing can be proved with real rigour. If we accept—as I think we must—that he was cut off from the west in Persis, early in 330, it might still be argued that this would not be so by the early spring; i.e., that news would reach him there before he left. In that case, provided Agis died early enough in 330 (say, late in March, since it really cannot be any earlier), it is theoretically possible that a swift and fortunate courier might have successfully reached Alexander at Persepolis in early May so that he knew the outcome before his departure. But we do not know when the decisive battle took place: if it was (even) in April, it is practically impossible that, even at the best, a courier could have got to him by mid-May. I can only repeat, therefore, that the reason I suggested for the sudden revival of the ‘Hellenic Crusade’—uncertainty over the outcome of the war in Europe— should at present stand. At least it has the merit of making sense of Alexander’s action, and no alternative hypothesis has so far achieved that desirable aim. If we allow (as I still think we must) that Alexander did not learn of the outcome of the war at Persepolis, when did he do so? I still think that the most likely messengers were the forces that met him near Ecbatana. If a hypothetical courier arrived at Susa at a time when it was likely that Alexander was about to leave Persepolis for Ecbatana, there was no way in which he could be reached: no short cut across those wild mountains was possible. If we allow that communications were indeed reopened between Susa and Persepolis at some time in the 359

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spring, then his imminent departure would be known. And that would perhaps also account for the fact (as I still think it) that the forces come to meet him set out towards Ecbatana.60 They clearly expected to find Alexander already there, or if not, very close. And they would surely have enough intelligence—in both senses of the word—to find out who actually was at Ecbatana, as they approached the city, and to act accordingly. In fact, that seems to be precisely what they did: they met Alexander just outside the city, which he had not yet occupied. I have tried to arrive at a reassessment of the basic data about Agis’ war in the light of what I consider the most important discussions of the last two decades. It can claim no finality: no doubt there will be further new ideas advanced, and a new synthesis may ultimately become possible. But I think I may at least claim that, on the whole, Agis’ war has gained a permanent and important place in Alexander history. And the connection that I established between that war and the burning of Persepolis seems, at the end of this long re-evaluation in which I have tried to correct my miscalculations and to accept what seem to me the major contributions of other scholars, to be no less reasonable, and indeed at present no less necessary, than when I first too hastily advanced it. It must, however, be admitted that, by cumulating what one must call marginal physical possibilities—the earliest conceivable date for Megalopolis, barely allowing enough time for Antipater to collect his army and get it to Peloponnese; and a courier covering the enormous distance, partly through imperfectly held territory, in less than two months, and actually reaching Alexander—it is still possible, in view of the uncertainty of our sources, to restore Alexander’s decision to burn Persepolis from the light of a rational motive to that primal pit of historical murk that has been the favourite habitation of so much traditional Alexander historiography.61

Notes It is particularly appropriate to dedicate to N. G. L. Hammond a supplement to my early article on Agis III (Hermes, 95 (1967), 170–92 [no. 11 in this collection]), which in retrospect shows obvious weaknesses in need of reconsideration; for the germ of that article was a lecture delivered to a meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies in London, at which (as it happened) Professor Hammond was my chairman. I have learnt much from him since. 1 The main ancient sources will be cited in the following abbreviated form: A = Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander; C = Q. Curtius Rufus, History of Alexander; D = Diodorus Siculus, Library of History Book 17; P = Plutarch, Life of Alexander. A. B. Bosworth, A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander i: Books I–III (Oxford, 1980) will be cited as Bosworth, Commentary. 2 G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London, 1972), 376–8. 3 P. Cartledge and A. Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta (London, 1989), 16 ff. (The quotation on p. 22.) 4 H. T. Wallinga, ‘The Trireme and its Crew’, Actus. Studies in Honour of H. L. W. Nelson, J. den Boeft and A. H. M. Kessels, eds. (Utrecht, 1982), 463–82.

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5 K. J. Beloch, Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt (Leipzig, 1886), 208. 6 M. H. Hansen, Demography and Democracy (Herning, 1985), 50. 7 Hans Droysen, Untersuchungen über Alexanders des Groseen Kriegführung (Freiburg, 1885), 39f. The sources are as follows: A 1. 24. 2, 29. 4 (333); C 4. 6. 30f. (332: despatch); C 5. 1. 40f.; D 65. 1; cf. A 3. 16. 10 (331: arrival). 8 A. B. Bosworth, ‘The Mission of Amphoterus and the Outbreak of Agis’ War’, Phoenix, 29 (1975), 36 n. 47. 9 See ‘Alexander the Great and the Decline of Macedon’, JHS 106 (1986), 1–12. 10 Ibid. 7f. 11 F. W. Walbank, Historical Commentary on Polybius, ii (Oxford, 1967), 364. 12 P. A. Brunt, ‘Alexander’s Macedonian Cavalry’, JHS 83 (1963), 37. 13 Bosworth rejected Hans Droysen’s explanation (which he found in Berve) with discussing the actual texts and their implications. He went so far as to call acceptance of that view (which seems a very plausible one) ‘perverse’ (‘Mission’ (cit. n. 8), 42). Although he has not repeated that assessment in his later work, he still dismisses the actual explanation without scrutiny, or ignores it. It should be mentioned that some later reinforcements may indeed have included Macedonians, thus the forces brought to Alexander at Ecbatana and described as ‘from Cilicia’ (C 5. 7. 12). But since Alexander had in fact ordered men to be collected in Cilicia (see Berve, Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage (Munich, 1926), ii, no. 732 and Falsi, no. 67 (p. 429)), it is unlikely that this particular force included Macedonians landed in Cilicia. I should add that, despite attempts to defend the figure, I do not believe that Curtius had good authority for his report that when Alexander (at Opis, as we know from Arrian) decided to send the seniores home (in fact, all those unfit for service), he decided to keep 13,000 Macedonian infantry and 2,000 Macedonian cavalry with him in Asia (C 10. 2. 8). Curtius does not give the figure (10,000) for those to be sent home; he depicts the Macedonians as demanding that all be sent home (when in Arrian’s sober account they are distressed at the thought that Alexander was intending to do without them); and he fills the scene with fictitious oratory, including a fine address to the barbarian soldiers whom Alexander, in view of the mutiny, was planning to substitute for the Macedonians. The implication in Arrian is that most of the Macedonians were to be sent home, and that this is what alarmed all the Macedonians, even those meant to stay. The total number of Macedonians in the field army (i.e., excluding those in garrisons and colonies) is unlikely to have been as high as 25,000 and far more likely to have been less than 20,000, as implied by Arrian. 14 For Athenian ephebes see M. H. Hansen, ‘Demography and Democracy Once Again’, ZPE 75 (1988), 190: ‘600 or more’ per year. He stresses the fact that enforcement of the law seems to have been lax. 15 K. Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge, 1978), 35. 16 Alexanderreich ii (cit. n. 13), 48. 17 ‘Demographische und wirtschaftliche Probleme Makedoniens in der frühen Diadochenzeit’, in Studien zur Alten Geschichte Siegfried Lauffer zum 70. Geburtstag am 4. August 1981 dargebracht, H. Kalcyk, B. Gulatt, A. Graeber, eds., iii (Rome, 1986), 835–51. 18 Thus Goukowsky in the Budé edition, p. 124. He suggests that Menidas (A 7. 23. 1) may have had some Macedonians among the cavalry he brought to Alexander in 323, thus producing a temporary shortage of available cavalry in Macedonia. The disproportion is certainly striking. 19 G. L. Cawkwell, ‘The Crowning of Demosthenes’, CQ2 19 (1969), 163–80. 20 E. N. Borza, ‘The End of Agis’ Revolt’, CPh 66 (1971), 230–5; R. A. Lock, ‘The Date of Agis III’s War in Greece’, Antichthon, 6 (1972), 10–27. 21 A. B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire (Cambridge, 1988), 200, reasserts (but with increased caution) mid-331 as the starting-point of the war in Peloponnese. The

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22 23

24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35 36

37 38

39

philological point made in the article and here discussed appears by implication to be abandoned, but there is no explicit retraction. Bosworth, ‘Mission’ (cit. n. 8), 31; contrast ibid. 30: ‘Nothing in his wording indicates that the notice is resumptive.’ His attempt (hesitantly presented) to find such a usage in Thucydides at 2. 9. 2 and 2. 9. 4 is quite unfounded, as cursory inspection will show. It should be emphasized that Bosworth does not retract this strange argument in Conquest and Empire, although his reference to Arrian may imply that he has abandoned it. (See n. 21 above.) J. E. Atkinson, A Commentary on Q. Curtius Rufus’ Historiae Alexandri Magni Books 3 and 4 (Amsterdam, 1980), ad loc. That Arrian (3. 6. 2) intended to refer to Agis’ war in Greece is clear from his wording: the ‘rebellion against him [Alexander]’ in Peloponnese (α+τῷ νενεωτρισται) must refer to the defection of the Peloponnesian Greeks to Agis; it cannot refer to Cretans, who had never been Alexander’s allies or subjects. In order to posit a delay in the actual outbreak of fighting, Bosworth tries to distinguish two meanings of the verb νεωτερζειν, one that does and one that does not imply military action. But this is simply mistaken. The present or imperfect, as a narrative tense, can obviously denote a ‘movement towards’ revolt: this is inherent in the use of those tenses and has nothing to do with the particular verb. But to assert that the perfect can bear this meaning is a totally different matter: no parallel is provided, and I do not see how the perfect, in plain Greek grammar, can mean anything but a state of revolt. This particular argument is clearly still presupposed (though not explicitly referred to) in Conquest and Empire, 200. ‘The Government of Syria under Alexander the Great’, CQ2 24 (1974), 46–64, on which the brief treatment in Conquest and Empire appears to be based. See my article on Agis III [no. 11 in this collection] n. 80 and text. G. Wirth, ‘Alexander zwischen Gaugamela und Persepolis’, Historia, 20 (1971), 617–32 at p. 630. Bosworth, ‘Mission’ (cit. n. 8), 36f.; cf. his Commentary, 320. Lock, ‘Agis III’s War’ (cit. n. 20), 22. Bosworth, ‘Mission’ (cit. n. 8), 40. Ibid. 38f. Lock, ‘Agis III’s War’ (cit. n. 20), 22f. Bosworth tries to shift it to the following month, arguing that Alexander cannot have got as far as this by July; but since we have no precise information about Alexander’s movements, it may be better to accept the precise reference to Hecatombaeon— subject to the usual caution that authors writing under the Empire may be making their own calculation by the fixed calendar in use under the Empire. See Lock, ‘Agis III’s War’ (cit. n. 20), 14, for full discussion. Borza suggests (‘Agis’ Revolt’ (cit. n. 20), 23) that Alexander first may have received the official despatches at the time stated by Justin, while couriers may have informed him earlier. This is possible, but I doubt whether Justin’s (at this point) very limited credibility deserves the concession. Atkinson, Commentary (cit. n. 24), 482f. The information here used will be found in Abraham J. Sachs, ed., Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia, completed and edited H. Hunger, i: Diaries from 652 B.C. to 262 B.C., Denkschriften der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 195 (Vienna, 1988), 176 ff. The translation of the passages here relevant is on p. 179. I.a., the diary at last makes the date of 1 October for the battle of Gaugamela certain. I want to thank Professor Matthew W. Stolper for drawing my attention to this source and Professor G. W. Bowersock for making it available to me when I needed it. The text is very defective here, but it seems that he reached (?) ‘the outer gate of Esangila’ on 20 October and formally entered the city, after a sacrifice, on the next day.

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40 Bosworth, Commentary, 321 ff. suggests there were two battles; other scholars have seen only one battle, variously reported. 41 At least a week should be allowed for Susa, where some complicated arrangements were made; ten days seems more probable. The fighting with the Uxii (with messages sent back and forth between the tribe and Susa) must have taken several days, though it appears foreshortened, in the usual way, in our sources; and two or three days must be allowed for the completion of the administrative arrangements. 42 On the nomenclature of the rivers round Susa see G. Le Rider, Suse sous les Séleucides et les Parthes (Paris, 1965), 262 ff. (262–7 for the hydrography of Susa). 43 See especially E. N. Borza, ‘Fire from Heaven: Alexander at Persepolis’, CPh 67 (1972), 233–45. 44 For the (evening) setting, the only one that can be intended here, see E. J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World (London, 1968), 143. In view of the nature of our evidence, the slight difference between the true and the observed setting is of no importance. 45 Wirth (cit. n. 28) jettisons both the initial destruction and the four months’ stay, which cannot be reconciled with his interpretations. Yet the information on both these items seems unobjectionable and should not be lightly discarded, even where plausible a priori arguments can be marshalled on the other side. 46 D. W. Engels, Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army (Berkeley, Calif., 1978), 73 ff. 47 The fact that I myself, in January 1971, found the upper reaches of that road clear of snow, at a time when Pasargad and Shiraz were under snow, merely shows the vagaries of the weather and teaches us to be cautious in generalizing about it. 48 Quoted by Plutarch (P 37. 7). The fact that the place where it was made is differently reported in the sources may suggest that the action as such became common, so that it was hard to tie the comment to a particular occasion. 49 J. M. Balcer, ‘Alexander’s Burning of Persepolis’, IA 13 (1978), 118–33. Balcer essentially accepts my point about the effect of the decision on the war in Iran, but seems to ascribe the decision to a temporary aberration in Alexander’s judgement, for which he provides no motive. This, of course, explains nothing. (He appears to be unwilling to accept the motive I suggested, apparently persuaded by Borza.) 50 ‘Fire from Heaven’ (cit. n. 43), 243, which Balcer follows. 51 Borza, op. cit. (n. 43) and, from a different point of view, ‘Alexander’s Communications’, Ancient Macedonia 2 (Thessaloniki, 1977), 295–303. The article provides an important addition, but it is not relevant to this discussion. 52 E. Badian, ‘The Death of Parmenio’, TAPhA 91 (1960), at p. 330 [no. 3 in this collection]. 53 ‘Fire from Heaven’ (cit. n. 43), 238: ‘abundant information to show that the king’s army was a . . . focal point for all manner of messages and troops sent and received.’ 54 See, e.g., D. W. Engels, ‘Alexander’s Intelligence System’, CQ2 30 (1980), 327–40. The role of Laomedon, ‘the interpreter’, should be added. 55 A 3. 17. 1; for other sources, see Bosworth, Commentary, ad loc. 56 J. F. C. Fuller, The Generalship of Alexander the Great (London, 1958), 228. 57 Bosworth, Commentary, 336. He seems now to have abandoned this misapprehension in Conquest and Empire (see pp. 94 f.). 58 See E. F. Schmidt, Persepolis, i (Chicago, 1953), 172, 179 et al. 59 Bosworth (Commentary, p. 337) thinks it was before the end of 330. This seems most unlikely, since the initial move had only been completed a few months before. If we must guess (which is all we can do), the most reasonable conjecture is after the death of Parmenio, when Ecbatana, filled with soldiers who resented it, must suddenly have seemed a much less suitable place.

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60 Borza’s point (‘Fire from Heaven’ (cit. n. 43), 241 n. 47) that they could not have been sent there because Darius was still there is not convincing. It ignores Alexander’s selfconfidence, a major aspect of his character. 61 I should like to thank the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where, during a profitable term in the Fall of 1992, most of the final revision of this article was done, and the American Council of Learned Societies for a Fellowship that helped to make it possible for me to stay at the Institute.

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21 ALEXANDER THE GREAT BETWEEN TWO THRONES AND HEAVEN Variations on an old theme When I was asked by the organizers of a conference in honour of Duncan Fishwick to speak on Alexander the Great in connection with divine honours, I could assume that they knew (as our honorand certainly knew) that I had published a long essay on the deification of Alexander some time ago1 and have since referred to the subject in passing on other occasions. I obviously cannot treat the subject without reference to that earlier essay. On the other hand, it happens that I have in fact changed my mind on at least one major aspect of the problem, and that I have come to recognize that I failed to pay sufficient attention to the background (and especially the Persian background) in that earlier treatment. Thus, although much that was argued there will here be taken for granted and merely referred to, the present discussion should be regarded as superseding the earlier one in some important respects as well as supplementing it.

The starting-point Let us first look at the Macedonian kingship that Alexander inherited. The dynasty of the Argeads, encouraged by that presumably tribal name, claimed descent from Argos, indeed from the Argive Temenids, the senior branch of the Heraclids descended from Zeus. We have no historical evidence of this claim before Alexander I advanced it and had it accepted at the Olympic Games, against the protests of his competitors who were obviously taken by surprise (Hdt. 5.22 ff., 8.137 ff.). That acceptance by the Hellanodikai ensured that it was never officially doubted again. The descent from Heracles was obviously important to the Argead kings, and Heracles appears on much of their coinage from the middle of the 5th century B.C. Unfortunately we know little about the daily life of those kings: practically nothing before Philip II and very little before the detailed (but obviously timebound) information provided by the Alexander biographers. Since the move of the administrative capital to Pella by Archelaus (the sacred capital remained at the sanctified site of Aegae), they lived in a palace adorned by the great painter Zeuxis (Aelian, VH 14.17); yet by comparison with other kings their lifestyle remained rather simple. At home, the king would hunt, eat, and perhaps above 365

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all drink, with his hetairoi. In the field he fought at their head, conspicuous (if we may judge by Philip and Alexander) by his splendid arms and attracting the enemy’s attack to his person.2 Under Alexander we find him surrounded by a select bodyguard of seven nobles, who protect him in battle and take turns in guarding access to his quarters.3 We cannot tell when this group was formed: perhaps only under Philip II. There is at any rate no trace of it in what we hear of Alexander I and of Perdiccas in the 5th century. There was no elaborate ceremonial of approach or address, at least for men of the right class. We cannot be quite sure how the king was addressed by his nobles, since the speeches in our sources are presumably largely fictitious. The usual address was perhaps simply ̯ ‘King’ (βασιλευ̑ or [ βασιλευ̑ ), as in early Hellenistic times; but the name in the vocative was apparently quite acceptable.4 This familiarity was no doubt traditional, although clearly attested only under Philip and Alexander. It is confirmed by the Greek cities’ references to the Macedonian kings. Not once, either in Herodotus or in the Corpus Demosthenicum, is the king of Macedon referred to with ‘King’ before his name: he is regularly referred to by his mere name. And this corresponds to the usage we find in the documents. We have no documents from cities within Macedon. But Athenian documents refer to the king of Macedon by mere name, just as the writers do.5 And this is not confined to Athens. The alliances of the Chalcidic League with Amyntas III and later with Philip II use bare names, with patronymics added in more formal sections.6 In what is commonly called the foundation document of the ‘League of Corinth’7 Philip’s βασιλεα is referred to, but he himself is called plain Philip or, in the introduction to the oath, ‘Philip the Macedonian’.8 This last item makes quite clear what the evidence in any case suggests: that the omission of the royal title was not a mark of disrespect, but was approved of by (perhaps due to) the kings themselves. The reason for this can only be conjectured. But they were not legitimate Greek kings, like those at Sparta, and so they may have preferred to avoid a title that would seem invidious to Greeks (Isocr. 5.105 f.; cf. 154)9 and would set them apart from Greek aristocrats, among whom they wanted Greeks to count them. The practice seems to carry on into the early years of Alexander, apparently until after the battle of Issus, when he seems to have regarded himself as King of Asia and, at least potentially, as successor to the Achaemenids. There is no persuasive evidence for any change before early 331.10 Yet in the last year of Philip II we find a surprising development.11 It begins in Asia Minor and just offshore. At Ephesus, after his army had expelled the Persian garrison and the oligarchy it supported, Philip’s portrait statue (εκν, not =γαλμα, cult statue) was set up in the famous temple of Artemis as synnaos of the goddess (Arr. 1.19.11). While not deification, this is clearly an extravagant and perhaps unprecedented honour. At Eresus on Lesbos a cult of Zeus Philippios was instituted after a similar ‘liberation’ — again extravagant, but in no way tantamount to deification, as anyone familiar with elementary Greek will recognize: it is a cult of ‘Philip’s Zeus’ (i.e., of Zeus as Philip’s special 366

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protector — a duty that Zeus had assumed in addition to his numerous other special duties), not of Philip as Zeus.12 We do not know whether Philip himself worshipped such a personal Zeus. This does not amount to deification. But it clearly raised Philip to a status above that of other mortal men, and one unprecedented for a Macedonian king, whose royalty had been of a simple and accessible kind. But worse was to come. It seems that these honours gave Philip the idea of approaching even more closely to the gods. At the celebration of his daughter’s wedding at Aegae, in the autumn of 336, he had his own statue carried in the procession among those of the 12 Olympians: he was making himself the synthronos of the gods (Diod. 16.92.5). It was at this point that Philip was assassinated.

Hero and god In the 19th century it was commonly suggested that Alexander got the idea of deification from the tradition of the Oriental kings whom he superseded. Kaerst13 thought that the individualized worship of Alexander and his Hellenistic successors differed notably from the veneration of the Oriental (he was thinking especially of the Egyptian) king as ‘Abbild des Gottes’: Kaerst derived it from Greek ideas on the reward of individual achievement, carried to their extreme. This idea — rather to Kaerst’s annoyance — was appropriated and spectacularly developed by Eduard Meyer, with whom it remains principally connected.14 Julius Beloch, on the other hand, continued to see Oriental inspiration: he regarded the deification of the king as the Orient’s first reaction visited upon the victorious Greeks.15 Meyer was right, of course, in stressing that nowhere in the ancient world, as Alexander found it, with the sole exception of Egypt, was the living king worshipped as a god, even though an aura of divinity normally attached to him. As for Egypt, we must add that it does not count as an example. Alexander of course visited Egypt, but as I have pointed out,16 we have no justification for suggesting that he was crowned Pharaoh according to Egyptian ritual, either before or after his visit to Ammon. Such a striking and colourful event, had it taken place, could not be missing in the whole of our tradition. The reason for the omission of a formal coronation was no doubt political: his Macedonians would not have relished such a ceremony. But he quite probably had no real interest in it in any case. In official art and documents, he of course appears with all the Pharaoh’s titles, inter alia as son of Amun-Re and a god himself: thus, strikingly, in the Alexander chamber in the temple at Luxor.17 But if he ever knew what was depicted there (and he quite possibly never heard of it: it may be due to customary practice at a much lower level), it meant nothing to him, except as a device to engage Egyptian loyalty. On the other hand, as also needs to be pointed out, Meyer’s use of some passages in Aristotle to support his claim of entirely Greek origins for the deification of kings involved such flagrant misrepresentation of the 367

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texts that one must wonder whether he ever read them without a preconceived interpretation. It is hard to see how anyone reading those passages in their context could take any of them as relevant to deification.18 There is in fact little in Greek tradition to prepare us for the deification of a living man.19 We know of only one example of securely attested deification of a mortal before Alexander: the Spartan Lysander; and I have tried to show20 how little solid reason there is for ascribing it to his lifetime: essentially no more than a single word in a miscellaneous collection of anecdotes in Plutarch. Heroic honours after death were quite conceivable: founders of cities got them as a matter of course (see, e.g., Thuc. 5.11.1), and it would be rash to deny that some men may have attained them while still alive, though we seem to have no clear evidence for this.21 Hagnon’s successor as hero-ktistes of Amphipolis, at any rate, received that honour only after his death. Nonetheless, the great speech by ‘Callisthenes’ over the proskynesis affair, which (as I tried to show) reflects popular religion late in the time of Alexander, does not exclude heroic honours, even for living men: the impassable frontier lies between hero and god. Only a ‘licensed lunatic’ like the physician Menecrates ever called himself a god; and it is worth noting for ancient assessments of Philip that, in an anecdote that of course need not be authentic, it is precisely Philip who makes fun of his pretensions.22 Let us return to Philip. We must now ask: did he claim, or at least wish, to be a god on the level of the Olympians? Had he lived longer, would he have tried to establish a cult of himself in Macedonia and perhaps in Greece? We cannot answer this question with real assurance (though it is clear that ancient tradition never imagined this), but it must be pointed out that such a conclusion does not follow from his action at Aegae; and also, that he must have known how difficult it would have been to impose a cult of himself in Macedonia. However, he had made himself what the Greeks called σθεος: a mortal in many respects equal to the gods, but always known to differ from them, not least by his acknowledged mortality, and to be subject to them. In Homer several of the heroes, all of them subject to arbitrary divine intervention, are given this epithet. In epic scansion, it provided a convenient hexameter ending: σθεος φς — a combination that in itself stresses the hero’s humanity. The word then disappears from our sources23 until we pick it up in Aeschylus. I need not follow its later history. It is never common, but is used in various senses (e.g. by Plato24), not all of them favourable, which have in common the implication that the man thus described is in fact not a god: there is no question of his receiving cult. As A. D. Nock concisely put it, citing an earlier scholar’s informal communication, ‘σθεος is not θες.’25

The ‘godlike’ King of Persia Let us now look at Aeschylus. The word σθεος appears twice in his surviving works: both times in the Persae and both times applied to a Persian King. In its first use, we can see a deliberate assimilation of Xerxes to Homer’s heroes. In 368

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line 80, Aeschylus uses what one must call the actual Homeric quotation σθεος φς, complete with the epic scansion, which Broadhead noted in his commentary on the line. The other reference is to Darius (856), who, in a word reminiscent of Homer (though not used by him), is also called θεομ%στωρ (god-like counsellor? — cf. Homer’s θεφιν μ%στωρ, of Priam and one or two others), continuing the heroic parallel. We should also, however, note σοδαμων (634), obviously not Homeric (since it would not scan), but recalling Homer’s δαμονι ̯ σος (which could not be used in tragedy) — a word fit for heroes, yet with negative (hubristic) associations (e.g. of Diomedes attacking Apollo: Il. 5.438, 459, 884; cf., for Patroclus, 16.705, 786), hinting at a link between the idealized Darius and his son. There is only a single passage where the Kings are explicitly called divine: in lines 157 ff. Atossa, Darius’ widow and Xerxes’ mother, is called wife and mother to a god (the latter with some qualifications). As has always been seen by commentators (e.g. Broadhead p. 69), this is hyperbolic flattery of the Queen and cannot stand as meant literally against the numerous contrary instances we have noted. The poet’s opinion is in any case made quite clear when he describes Darius as having lived ‘like a god’ (ς θες). Much that is reported about the King of Persia in our Greek sources stresses his more than human status.26 Can this be how Philip got the idea? We cannot be sure. But it is worth noting an important and stimulating essay by D. Kienast27 that argued, more than 20 years before this essay, that Philip took much of the organization of his court and his expanded kingdom from Persia, the only obvious model at the time. Some of the detailed suggestions may be exaggerated, but a good deal of the case seems convincing, whatever we think of the actual relations between Philip and the King. Oddly enough, Kienast never mentioned Philip’s final pretension to σθεος status, but we may supply this here. Kienast rightly pointed out that, as an educated man in the Greek tradition, Philip would have read at least Herodotus and Xenophon (p. 269). We may confidently add Aeschylus’ Persae — obvious reading for one who was preaching a crusade to avenge Xerxes’ invasion, whatever Philip’s literary and cultural interests. To put it simply: σθεος status would make him (we may say) the equal of the Persian King whom he was attacking, in the social and the religious sphere. For one who needed to attract support in Asia Minor, the idea had much to commend it. Philip’s preparations for the invasion had been careful and rational: we need only mention the contacts with Hermias of Atarneus in northwest Asia Minor28 and the attempt to seize a chance of establishing a connection with the Carian dynast and satrap Pixodarus, which failed only owing to Alexander’s irresponsible interference.29 After the invasion, we must note the politically profitable establishment of democracy in co-operating Greek cities occupied by his forces — we have commented on Eresus and Ephesus, which we may regard as delineating a more general policy — while most of European Greece was run for him by pro-Macedonian oligarchies, precisely comparable to the pro-Persian ones he was expelling in Asia.30 As we saw, both Eresus and Ephesus responded 369

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by enhancing his status beyond the merely human. The Greek cities of Asia, accustomed to being ruled by a more than human barbarian for 50 years, would find it a natural status for a descendant of Heracles who had freed them from that barbarian. As for the native tribes in the interior and along the southeast coast, such status might well seem an essential prerequisite in one who aimed at defeating the King and ruling them. Agesilaus of Sparta, himself a descendant of Heracles, who would never have countenanced such honours, had shown in years of futile campaigning that being a mere mortal king was not enough. This is not meant to assert that Philip’s motives were wholly rational. After his achievement in raising a semi-barbarian fringe kingdom to the status of the foremost power in Greece and the Aegean in less than 25 years, he seems, in the last year of his life, to have departed from that purposeful rationality on which his achievement had been based. An element of irrationality enters his personal life and ultimately helps to destroy him: as the biographer Satyrus later put it in a famous passage (quoted by Athenaeus 13.557b ff.), the man who had always married for political and strategic profit in the end made the mistake of marrying for love ('ρασθες) and thus ‘confounded his whole life’. It cannot be denied that, whatever good political reasons there might have been for his calling himself more than human and demonstrating the claim by conspicuous symbolic actions, it is not the act of a wholly rational man. In the end we cannot really conjecture what Philip’s motives may have been in the religious sphere, any more than we can conjecture what limits he had set for his campaign in Asia — another issue much debated in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with Meyer and Beloch again on opposite sides.31 Leaving aside what A. Demandt has called ‘ungeschehene Geschichte’ (the historian’s equivalent of science fiction), we can now turn to Alexander with a better understanding of his background.

The road to kingship What I have been trying to disengage is that a precedent (a domesticum exemplum) had been set for Alexander. If he wanted to equal his father — and he surely wanted to surpass him — he would from the start have to aim at becoming σθεος. For the moment, succeeding to his father’s throne in highly suspicious circumstances, he would have to establish his right to it by acting like a traditional Macedonian monarch: like his father, he would dine, drink and hunt with his hetairoi; and he led his army with speed and decision, himself fighting in the front rank. This was how he would earn the confidence of his men, on whom his success ultimately depended. But Homeric reminiscence was stressed right from the start of the invasion of Asia, in the sacrifice to Protesilaus (Arr. 1.11.5) — also, of course, recalling the blood-curdling incident that concludes Herodotus’ account of the victory of Hellas over Asia (Hdt. 9.116–22), which Alexander must have known. The romanticizing tradition that we call the Alexander Vulgate found a good deal more to add to the Homeric theme: Arrian did not usually find it in his main sources and added it for additional colour. We find 370

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such choice items as his taking from Athena’s temple the very arms surviving from the Trojan War and henceforth having them carried before him by hypaspists in his battles — a picture hard to imagine, even if we grant the postulate that the original arms survived for the centuries since the Trojan War (whatever and whenever it was). The ‘sacred shield from Ilium’ makes an appearance in the hands of Peucestas in the battle at the town of the Malli (Arr. 6.9.3, 10.2). In Curtius (9.5.17–18) Peucestas has only his own shield, which he uses to protect Alexander as long as he can. In Diodorus (17.18.1; cf. 21.2) Alexander merely takes the best of the armour dedicated to Athena and uses it himself: there is no mention of Troy. Since this elaboration is confined to Arrian (and obviously was unknown to Clitarchus), we may suspect Aristobulus of having introduced it. Perhaps he (rather than Callisthenes, as has been suspected32) is responsible for such items as the sacrifice to Priam, with the plea that Priam should not take vengeance on the descendant of Neoptolemus (who had killed him), and various Homeric reminiscences, culminating in the proskynesis of the Pamphylian Sea to its lord, as in Homer the waves bow to Poseidon. Much of this is patent fiction, though modern biographers tend to believe all or most of it.33 Plutarch, who was no fool, ignored it all, except for the very plausible honours for Alexander’s ancestor Achilles (Alex. 15.8). [See further no. 26 in this collection.] We need not follow Alexander’s campaign in detail.34 One or two items may be of interest to this enquiry, thus his dealing (in whatever way) with the Gordian knot – which he was compelled to do once its significance was explained to him.35 Nowhere in Asia Minor, as far as our information goes, did he either demand or receive superhuman honours; and for at least two cities it can be proved that he did not receive any, as we shall soon see. After defeating the royal Persian army under Darius’ leadership at Issus and capturing his family, he occupied Egypt without meeting any resistance (332). By then some negotiations between him and Darius had certainly been going on, for Darius was willing to give up a great deal (on terms ultimately favourable to himself) to get his family back. But we cannot know the details, since the various communications cited in our sources36 must be dismissed as fictitious, like nearly all speeches and letters in ancient historians.37 As we have seen, coronation as Pharaoh can be confidently excluded, although Alexander sacrificed to Apis and no doubt other native gods. He then designated the site of the city of Alexandria, which would at least guarantee him the heroic honours (if perhaps only posthumous) of a City Founder. The ritual act of foundation had to wait for the approval of Ammon, whose oracle, respected in Greece for generations, Alexander decided to visit in person. The foundation of Alexandria was the first cautious step on the road to superhuman status, a step that his father had taken before him.38 The visit to Ammon, one of the crucial events in Alexander’s life, need not be treated in detail, for far too much has been written about it and we simply cannot tell exactly what happened: only conjectures are possible.39 That he was hailed as son of Zeus-Ammon is certain; and Callisthenes did not delay in 371

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proclaiming this to the world. The result was immediate: two Ionian cities, Miletus and Erythrae, sent messengers to Alexander (they met him in Memphis where he spent the winter after his return from Ammon) informing him of divine communications proclaiming him the son of Zeus. This, of course, is proof positive, at least for these two cities and presumably for all Greek cities in Asia, that nothing of the sort (let alone deification) had occurred to them before, e.g. on his first dealings with them. Recognition of the new fact of Alexander’s divine sonship, although now respectably confirmed, was not imposed on Macedonians and Greeks, for the Macedonians (in particular) still cherished Philip’s memory. It was presumably voluntary, and appreciated by him: perhaps confined to the Greeks of Asia Minor and to ‘flatterers’ at his court. Even so, it did not go down well with Macedonians, although they had to hold their peace. Many years later, Macedonian soldiers still regarded Alexander’s divine filiation with what appears to be sarcastic irritation. (See Arr. 7.8.3.) Philotas is said by Curtius (6.9.18 et al.) to have been frank in expressing his opinion. As the son of Parmenio, and himself commander of the hetairoi cavalry, he no doubt thought he could afford it. But the result of his lack of caution was that Alexander set Philotas’ mistress to spy on him, and the elaborate conspiracy against him, which ultimately led to his death and to Parmenio’s, began to take shape. Plutarch (Alex. 49) first suggested the connection, which ought to be accepted, despite the interval.40 Alexander did not forgive open objection to his newly-won heroic status, although we cannot be sure how he interpreted it.41 But Ammon must in some sense have confirmed in his own mind a story put about, well before this time, by Olympias, that his birth had been the result of a divine visit to her bed, apparently by Zeus, with whom Ammon was identified. Plutarch (Alex. 2.6 ff.; cf. 3.2) relates the story and cites Eratosthenes (surely no mere gossip) for the fact that Alexander was told about this before he left for Asia. After the visit to Ammon, Alexander is reported to have written to Olympias that the secret revealed to him there was for her ears alone (ibid. 27.8): we are entitled to conclude that the secret was in fact confirmation of the story, and that this may have been one of the questions that Alexander wanted to ask Ammon; but he did not want to entrust the response to a letter. It would not be safe for him to be discovered denying Philip’s physical paternity. He now advanced across the desert and Mesopotamia and on October 1, 331, destroyed Darius’ army at Gaugamela. Darius fled to Ecbatana, while Alexander took over Babylon, Susa and (by January 330) Persepolis, collecting thousands of talents from the royal treasuries and appointing eminent Persians to govern the central lands of the kingdom. He now regarded himself, and obviously meant the Iranian aristocracy to regard him, as the successor to the Achaemenids. At some point the army formally acclaimed him King (Plut., Alex. 34.1). At Susa and/or Persepolis (the story is told about both) he ceremonially took his seat on the royal throne of Persia.42 Yet the town of Persepolis was handed over to his soldiers, who had had no major reward, for plunder (Curt. 5.6.1–10; Diod. 17.71.3). Alexander was between two worlds and already had difficulty reconciling them. When 372

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taking his seat on the throne, he would naturally have put his feet on the royal footstool (as we see it in the Persepolis audience scenes), for the King, on ceremonial occasions, was not allowed to touch the ground with his feet. Being short in stature, he could not reach it, and a royal table had to be substituted. (The story is slightly garbled by our Greek sources, who probably did not know about the taboo.43) Alexander was announcing to the world that he was now the lawful King. As we saw, the Greek cities had already begun to refer to him as such. There is a surprising reflection of his change in style in an unexpected place. Cicero, writing to Atticus on May 26, 45, complains that he has been asked to write a symbouleutic letter to Caesar and does not know how to set about it. He thinks of Alexander (Att. 13.28.3): ‘quid? tu non vides ipsum illum Aristoteli discipulum, summo ingenio, summa modestia, postea quam rex appellatus sit superbum crudelem immoderatum fuisse?’ [That rex appellatus sit must refer to his being called King of Asia (or similar), not to his Macedonian accession, has sometimes been denied, but should be obvious from the phrase itself (his accession would be described as rex factus est), and from the comparison with Curtius, who found the censure of Alexander’s deterioration in Clitarchus, whom both Cicero and Atticus had read.]44 Compare what Curtius writes about Alexander not long after Darius’ death, straight after the tale of the Amazon Queen, certainly from Clitarchus (6.6.1): ‘hic vero palam cupiditates suas solvit continentiamque et moderationem. . . . in superbiam ac lasciviam vertit . . . Persicae regiae par deorum potentiae fastigium aemulabatur.’ The Greek source commented on the σθεος status that Alexander had reached by becoming Persian King, ‘postea quam rex appellatus sit’: the results are described in recognizably similar language, as remodelled by two Latin stylists. For some Greeks, the claim to Achaemenid pseudo-legitimacy was the turning-point in Alexander’s career and character.

From Persepolis to proskynesis We do not hear much about Pasargadae at this point. We know that Alexander collected the royal treasure there (it did not amount to much), as he had all the others (Arr. 3.18.9; Curt. 5.16.10), and that at his request Aristobulus honoured Cyrus’ tomb there. He probably went there straight after the capture of Persepolis (just possibly only on his thirty-day campaign before he moved on: Curt. 5.6.12– 20). Pasargadae was the sacred capital, the place where the ‘mysteries’ of the King’s coronation took place (Plut., Artox. 3.1: τ#ν βασιλικ#ν τελετ%ν — surely from Ctesias, an author, incidentally, whom Alexander must have read). Did he consider a ‘legitimate’ coronation? If he did, the time was not right. For one thing, the duly crowned King, Darius, was still alive at Ecbatana; the Macedonian soldiers had just been allowed to plunder Persepolis, as the enemy’s capital; and in Greece the war against Agis, which we know the king took very seriously, was still going on. He could not afford to antagonize Macedonians and Greeks by a gesture they could not but resent, no matter how well it might have 373

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fitted into his personal plans.45 Ammon had been bad enough. All that he could now do was to see to the safety of Cyrus’ tomb, which, as we shall see, may have played an important part in the coronation. That would leave the future open. Not long after this he decided, in one of his best-known acts, to destroy the palace area at Persepolis: an action that must have annihilated any chance he might have had of having the legitimacy of his Kingship recognized by the Persian nobility and far beyond their circle. I have tried to point out46 that this puzzling step can be rationally explained only as a return to the slogan of the ‘Hellenic crusade’, no doubt due to his anxiety over the war in Greece. That worry was over by the time he reached Ecbatana: he had heard of Agis’ defeat and death. The Greek allies could now be sent home and Alexander had to think about how to make up for what had turned out to be a devastating error. There was just one chance: if he could capture Darius alive, the King might be persuaded to pay homage to him. This is clearly what Darius’ noble companions in his flight feared. They respectfully bound him in golden fetters and, before Alexander could reach him, stabbed him and left him to die. Bessus, no doubt an Achaemenid and perhaps no less entitled to rule than the man who called himself Darius, assumed the name of Artaxerxes and the royal insignia.47 Alexander would have to live with the consequences of Persepolis. He now had to make the best of it. The details are not clear and we cannot go into them here. But he assembled a Persian court, complete with bodyguards, harem and eunuchs, in addition to his Macedonian court, dressed his hetairoi in purple and himself adopted a modified style of Achaemenid dress, combining it with Macedonian in ways that may have changed over the years.48 He continued to pardon and receive Persian nobles, even if they joined him only after Darius’ death, including Artabazus, who had been loyal to Darius to the end, and even Nabarzanes, Darius’ ‘chiliarch’ (hazarapatiš ), who had taken part in the murder but now voluntarily surrendered. Bessus, who had actually committed the murder and had then assumed the royal title and style, could not be pardoned. He was punished with traditional Persian cruelty. (Berve, s.vv., gives the details.) Roughly contemporary with these events was the elimination of Philotas, Parmenio and Clitus: this is only marginally relevant here, in that it reassured Alexander that he could count on the unquestioning support of his army, whatever he did.49 Before long he married Roxana, daughter of a Persian baron in Sogdiana, according to what may have been a mixed Persian-Macedonian rite. Whatever the technical defects of his claim to Persian royalty, there was no one to challenge him. It was at this time that he tried to introduce proskynesis to himself for Greeks and Macedonians. The outline of that story is clear enough: I set it out in my earlier essay and I have seen no reason to change my mind.50 What I must reconsider, however, is the implication. That it was merely a homogenization of court ceremonial (for his Oriental subjects had been performing it as a matter of course) and had no religious implications is a view that is popular with those who construct an 374

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entirely ‘rational’ Alexander, and it will inevitably be revived from time to time.51 That it is a totally unacceptable view will be clear to anyone who can allow that the Greeks (or most of them) took their religion seriously. (See my comments in op. cit., n.1, 52 f.) On the other hand, the view found by Arrian and Curtius in their sources, that the main point at issue (in Arrian between ‘Anaxarchus’ and ‘Callisthenes’) was Alexander’s deification — that view, taken over by many scholars (including at one time myself), now seems to me clearly mistaken: it is based, in our sources, on an anachronistic interpretation due to the time of composition, a time when Alexander was indeed seeking, or had recently sought, divinity. As far as the proskynesis affair is concerned, that interpretation is premature. What I missed was the main fact that I have tried to make clear in this paper: that the Greeks never considered proskynesis before the King an act of divine worship and that they well knew that the King was not a god but σθεος, which was far from divine (see p. 368 above). It is likely that authors who witnessed the actual event and later recorded it got it right, unlike the authors of the set debate, who had not been with Alexander. Arrian (4.9.9), in what he presents as his own view, but what is presumably based on his main sources, makes Alexander’s attempt a consequence of his belief that he was the son of Ammon (i.e., a hero). Curtius, detailing (as we have seen) Alexander’s deterioration after he was proclaimed King, leads up to the demand for deification (as he considers proskynesis: see 8.5.5), ‘iacere humi venerabundos ipsum . . . expectabat,’ by referring to his σθεος status as Persian King (6.6.2). Unfortunately Diodorus’ account of the incident, which would be a useful control of the Clitarchan tradition, is missing. The convenience of unifying court ceremonial was certainly a factor, and Alexander would want to do it at the higher level: he could not abolish the custom for Orientals, since that would impugn his claim to legitimacy. But in addition there was the expected ratification of his status as σθεος. His Oriental subjects (except for those still fighting him) had been forced to recognize him as King, even though he was not qualified for that position by birth and ancestry and was not prepared to submit to the taboos. He was also close to such recognition in the case of those Greeks who acknowledged him as the son of Ammon. But the Macedonians, and probably most of the Greeks at his court, kept stubbornly aloof. If he wanted to equal the status reached by Philip before his death, he could now best do so by means of proskynesis, approaching the issue in a way that had not been open to Philip. That all this had nothing to do with actual deification should be obvious. But the failure of the attempt to impose proskynesis meant the victory of those who refused to see Alexander as anything but the son of Philip and the king of Macedon.

Pasargadae and legitimation as σθεος The failure in India and the disastrous march back through the desert had a serious effect both on him and on his subjects. Both his own belief and theirs in 375

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his invincibility, in his control of nature as well as of men, had been profoundly shaken, and he took immediate steps to compensate. That is largely a different logos, which I have pursued elsewhere.52 What we must do here is to consider his return to the Persian homeland against this background. We have seen that his first visit to Pasargadae had been brief and inconspicuous. This time he made straight for Pasargadae, even though it was well away from the direct route to Susa, where he planned to celebrate the conclusion of the campaign and his ‘victory’. He had taken particular care to honour and safeguard the tomb of Cyrus: we must note that he had never shown any interest in the tomb of Darius I, not far from Persepolis, even though that King had been his ancestor’s suzerain and benefactor.53 He now found Cyrus’ tomb desecrated. It had been broken into and robbed of most of its contents. Its appearance, both before the desecration and after, was described by Aristobulus, whom in this instance we have no reason to distrust. He is reproduced, somewhat inaccurately, both by Arrian (6.29) and by Strabo (15.3.7. 730C). The versions combine to give an interesting picture. Cyrus’ body lay in a gold sarcophagus, between a couch with golden feet (or a golden couch) and a table with cups on it. There is mention of rich carpets, Babylonian tapestries and Cyrus’ clothing, jewellery and sumptuous arms. All that could be moved was now gone. The body had been taken out of its sarcophagus and thrown on the ground — an apparently pointless act of vandalism, since the sarcophagus obviously could not be removed, [but in fact a carefully considered religious and political act (see below).] It is difficult to believe that the tomb had been thus stripped without the knowledge of the magi who had the full-time task of guarding it. The work could hardly be done in an hour or two, especially since the stone door made access to the tomb difficult. The magi denied any knowledge, even under torture (so Arrian tells us). A favourite of Alexander’s charged the satrap Orxines with responsibility: he had assumed office in Alexander’s absence in India without Alexander’s commission, and the charge made a good pretext for eliminating him.54 I should like to suggest that the objects in Cyrus’ tomb may have been connected with the initiation mystery (see above, p. 374) of the coronation. Plutarch (Artox. 3.1 f., from Ctesias) sets this in an implausible temple of a warrior goddess identified with Athena. Excavators found no trace of such a temple and it cannot be reconciled with anything we know of early Achaemenid religion (for the rite must be traditional).55 Among the buildings actually found on the site [see Figure 21.1],56 the tomb of Cyrus seems the most plausible location,57 isolated as it was in its own grove. The use of the cups and the donning of Cyrus’ cloak are mentioned by Plutarch-Ctesias as parts of the ritual; but little was known in detail about that ‘mystery’. The magi assigned to the tomb were presumably the priests in charge of the ceremony. That Pasargadae, rather than Persepolis, remained the site for it makes it very likely that Cyrus, the Founder, was meant to impart his spirit to his successor. 376

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Figure 21.1 Plan of Pasargadae

This must remain speculation. But if it is accepted, it follows that the sacred objects were abstracted by the magi or with their connivance: they certainly had unlimited opportunities. (Whether the satrap was involved we cannot tell.) We know, better than the Greeks did, that torture is not a reliable means of eliciting truth. Many have confessed to crimes they did not commit, others (documented both in antiquity and above all in our own generation) have stood firm and continued to refuse any information or confession. To a religious (and indeed to any patriotic) Mede or Persian the ritual coronation of a Macedonian invader as King would be an act to be prevented at all personal costs. To the magi it would be supreme sacrilege. The casting of Cyrus’ body on the floor now becomes explicable: it would produce ritual contamination of the site and make it unusable for a religious ceremony. We have seen that Alexander could not have risked a formal coronation at Pasargadae on his first visit. The care devoted to Cyrus’ tomb (and not to any other building, or to the tomb of any other King) suggests that he considered it a 377

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possibility for the future. On his return, visiting the sacred site and holding court there, he certainly had the power to enforce it. We are within a few weeks of the Susa celebrations, involving the marriages to Iranian wives forced upon Greeks and Macedonians of high standing, and of the dismissal of the Macedonian veterans at Opis. The Greeks, by now, were merely remote subjects, whose opinion would count for little. A formal coronation at Pasargadae would have been a fitting prelude to the festivities planned for Susa — a fitting climax to the long campaign whose victorious conclusion was to be celebrated. Had he succeeded, he would have acquired the right to insist that Greeks and Macedonians perform proskynesis to him: he would have been recognized as σθεος.

Forward to divinity By this time there were probably some cults of Alexander as a god in Asia Minor: that much of Habicht’s thesis remains probable.58 One city that honoured Alexander as a god was Ephesus. It was there, in the Artemisium, that Apelles’ famous portrait of him wielding the thunderbolt was set up (Pliny, NH 35.92). We cannot really know when it was put there, but certainly not before 331, as follows from our discussion, and probably much later, towards the end of his life. I once suggested that Alexander’s offer to pay for rebuilding the temple of Artemis and dedicate it in his name was made when he first passed through the city, in 334.59 This cannot be so. At that time, no matter how optimistic he felt about the future, he could not have foreseen that he would be able to pay for the construction. (That only became possible by late 331.) And if we consider the Ephesians’ reply, that it would not be fitting for a god to make offerings to a god, to be authentic (as we probably should, on the authority of Artemidorus), the incident must be moved down to a time when a cult to him had been set up at Ephesus and the portrait with the thunderbolt stood in the Artemisium: in fact, not long before the end of his life. In 334 there had been no question of calling him a god, even in extreme flattery.60 When Hephaestion died, at Ecbatana, in the winter of 324–323, Alexander sent to Ammon, to ask what honours would be appropriate for his dead friend. ‘Some’ (according to Arrian) said that he hoped for divine honours (7.14.7). However, he could be sure his ‘father’ would approve at least a hero cult, which (as we have seen) was not all that extraordinary. In fact he at once made preparations for it. The god indeed allowed only heroic honours.61 These honours are firmly attested at Athens (Hyper, Epitaph. 20 f.): the cult was still celebrated in the middle of the Lamian War, no doubt because of Ammon’s sanction, for Ammon was much revered.62 The same passage of Hyperides attests some divine cults (no doubt of Alexander) in Greek cities, presumably in Europe: θυσας μν νθρποις γ[ιγνο]μνας . . ., γλμ[ατα δ] κα( βωμο!ς κα( ναο!ς τοιˆ[ς μν] θεοιˆς μελω̑ ς, τοιˆς δ νθρ[ποις] 'πιμελω̑ ς συντελομενα. Although it does

not (strictly speaking) tell us whether there had been (but was no longer) a cult in Athens, it makes it clear that there was not one at the time: had there been one 378

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that was abolished after Alexander’s death, the orator could be expected to have had something to say about this as at least relative liberation. Hyperides also (Dem. 31) cites Demosthenes as agreeing that Alexander should be addressed as son of Zeus (i.e., Ammon) in what appears to be early 32363 — which shows that this had not been officially done up to that time. It was now a hotly debated question. Dinarchus (Dem. 94) charges that Demosthenes, after proposing a decree that no gods other than the traditional ones should be recognized, then changed his mind and said that the People must not question Alexander’s ‘honours in heaven’ (ο+ δειˆ τν δηˆ μον μφισβητειˆν τω̑ ν 'ν ο+ρανω̑ ι τιμωˆ ν A ’ λεξνδρωι). Demosthenes had clearly changed his mind in the light of Demades’ remark that the Athenians must not lose the earth over their concern for heaven (Val. Max. 7.2, ext. 13). That is the context in which the remark belongs, as the coincidence in wording helps to show. And these sources are contemporary: they cannot (as Athenian orators were given to doing) have made up or distorted what was still remembered by everyone. The fate of Samos was at stake, and ‘honours in heaven’ were the only way to save Athens’ claim.64 But how was it to be done? We may now inspect Hyperides’ further report (Dem. 32), in an unfortunately lacunose passage, that someone proposed that a portrait statue (εκν, not =γαλμα) be set up to Alexander, ‘King and God Invincible’ (στηˆ σαι εκ[να ’Aλεξν]δρου βασιλ[ως τουˆ νι]κ%του θε[ουˆ . . .). It was in any case likely that the proposer of this was the man attacked in the speech: Demosthenes is the subject of the statement just before the lacuna, which comprises about 10 lines of about 15 letters. We can now knit the primary evidence together into an explanation of what form Alexander’s deification took in Athens. When Demades made it clear (no doubt from his private contacts at the court) that Alexander, although he had not demanded deification, would greatly welcome it and generously reward such an offer, Demosthenes, who had been firmly opposed to ‘recognizing any gods other than the traditional ones’, opposed setting up a cult, but agreed that ‘honours in heaven’ would in some form have to be granted for the sake of the city. He therefore proposed (or perhaps merely supported) a motion that seemed a reasonable compromise: the city would set up a portrait statue on which Alexander would be described as divine, but it would avoid actual cult. We do not know whether that recognition satisfied him, since we do not know his final decision on Samos — but that is a subject too vast to be treated here. There is indeed no evidence for an order by Alexander demanding deification, even at a time when he was apparently dressing up in a variety of divine costumes in order to identify himself with various gods. (Thus Ephippus ap. Athen. 12.537d ff.) But Bickerman’s insight remains valid, against what rationalizing historians of Alexander keep reiterating: the debate in Athens amply makes clear what Alexander really wanted in the last months of his life — and what Athens had up to a point to concede, while weaker cities had to grant it in full measure, as Hyperides’ comment after Alexander’s death reveals. Having failed 379

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to achieve universal recognition of σθεος status, he now wanted to prod the Greeks into much more: into what Greek cities in Asia seem to have spontaneously offered him. Perhaps encouraged by Ammon,65 he came to long for the genuine article, at least in the Greek world, where it was feasible if enough pressure was applied, even if not in the Persian, where religion utterly forbade it and where he had to remain content with an insecure claim to the heritage of the Achaemenids. If it was indeed Ammon who had led him along this path, his prophecy for once stopped short of fulfilment: Alexander was never universally recognized as a god, nor even universally as ‘equal’ to one.

Notes 1 ‘The deification of Alexander the Great’ in Ancient Macedonian studies in honor of Charles F. Edson (Thessaloniki 1981) 27–71 [no. 16 in this collection]. It is a special pleasure for me to dedicate this paper to Duncan Fishwick since he had in fact shown an interest in that earlier article. 2 For Philip’s wounds see G. T. Griffith in N. G. L. Hammond and G. T. Griffith, History of Macedonia II (Oxford 1979) 473 f. 3 See H. Berve, Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage (Munich 1926) I 27 f. 4 We find this used by Parmenio (Arr. 1.13.3); by Coenus, in a fictitious speech which presumably nonetheless preserved the correct forms (Arr. 5.27.2 ff.); and by an obscure person (Arr. 7.11.6). Thus also by Nearchus in his own report as rendered by ̯ Arrian (Ind. 20.5, 35.6). Clitus, in the episode that ends with his death, uses [ ’Aλξανδρε (Arr. 4.8,7 and 9), explicitly from Aristobulus, therefore authentic. One might think it an example of provocative familiarity, were ̯ it not for the fact that Isocrates, in his formal address to Philip (5.1), similarly uses [ Φλιππε. 5 This although the Athenians were occasionally willing to name kings of Thrace with the royal title (Tod, GHI II 117, lines 11 f., 23 f.; but not in Tod 151 or 157) and might even give it to a kinglet in Upper Macedonia (IG I3 89 line 69; II2 190). 6 Tod 111, 158. 7 Tod 177. 8 There is a possible exception, it has been claimed. At Lebadeia a king who may be Amyntas son of Perdiccas may be called βασιλε!ς Μακεδνων (IG VII 3055), and much has been made of this by some historians, since he never actually became king. That phrase as such would not be extraordinary even in an Athenian author: note that he is not called Βασιλε!ς ’Aμντας, which would indeed be unparalleled. It must be noted that any restoration of this text is based on two unsatisfactory old copies (by Pococke and Leake) and, if it is to make sense, must stray quite far from those copies. The text is discussed (with adventurous historical conclusions) by J. R. Ellis, ‘Amyntas Perdikka, Philip II and Alexander the Great,’ JHS 91 (1971) 15 ff. 9 Cf. E. Badian, ‘Greeks and Macedonians’ in Macedonia and Greece in Late Classical and Early Hellenistic times (Studies in the History of Art 10, Washington 1982) 42 with n.69. [No. 17 in this collection]. 10 The details are too complex for full discussion here. On Priene, see A. J. Heisserer, Alexander the Great and the Greeks (Norman, OK 1980) 145 ff. It has since been shown that the actual inscription of Alexander’s edict, which uses the title, must be dated well after his death (S. M. Sherwin-White, ‘Ancient archives. The edict of Alexander to Priene, a reappraisal,’ JHS 105 [1985] 69 ff.). The Chios letter (Heisserer 79 ff.) presents the puzzle of the use of the royal title in the prescript and its omission in the text (line 7). Heisserer’s involved argument trying to explain this does not seem to succeed. (His

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11

12

13 14 15 16 17 18

attempt to move the date from the usual 332 to 334 has not found universal support.) On his reconstruction, the Chians called Alexander king, while one of his generals uses the bare name in the text. The former would itself need explanation, in view of the fact that no other Greek city uses the title with the name of a Macedonian king (see above and, for further discussion, Badian, ‘A reply to Professor Hammond’s article,’ ZPE 100 [1994] 389 f.). The contrast is best explained in the usual way, by the hypothesis that the prescript was engraved somewhat later, when the royal title had come into use. (As we have seen, the descriptive use of the title, in ’Aλεξνδρου τουˆ βασιλως, presents no difficulty and can readily be accepted at any time.) The third relevant document, the Eresus file, is too complicated to be treated in detail. But Heisserer’s version, putting ‘Section 1’ (which calls Alexander king) first, followed by ‘Sections 2 and 3’, where he is plain Alexander, is quite implausible. The traditional reconstruction inserts his ‘Section 1’ between parts of ‘Section 3’ so that Alexander is given his plain name first and the royal title after. (For this, see Tod 191.) The dossier needs renewed checking. It may have been foreshadowed by Philip’s calling cities after himself, except that we cannot be sure precisely when he began to do so. Philippopolis (Plovdiv) was presumably named soon after he had conquered the area (c.340). Philippi, on the site of Crenides, is unlikely to have been renamed at once (356): such arrogance at that early time is hard to believe and would have harmed Philip’s cause in his dealings with Greek cities. (He could claim to have defended Crenides against barbarian Thracians.) Cf. n.38 below, also for Alexandropolis. It seems incredible that any scholar knowing elementary Greek could have taken this as a cult of Philip himself. Yet even A. B. Bosworth (Conquest and empire [Cambridge 1988] 322) describes it as ‘cult honours for Philip’ at Eresus; as sole argument he produces the suggestion (p. 281) that ‘the sacrifices made to Zeus were also in a sense offered to Philip’ (my emphasis). He does not explain the ‘sense’ and I find it difficult to do so. The statement contrasts with Bosworth’s careful and sensible treatment of other aspects of this question. Nock, Essays I. 156 f. did not know this text. Geschichte des hellenistischen Zeitalters I (Leipzig and Berlin 1901) 383 ff. First in an essay in International Quarterly, then in an expanded version in Kleine Schriften I 307 ff. See my discussion of this in W. M. Calder III and A. Demandt (eds.), Eduard Meyer: Leben und Leistung eines Universalhistorikers (Leiden 1990) 8 ff., 20 ff. He described it as the first step on the road to ‘Byzantium’, which he regards as the Orient’s revenge on the West (see my discussion cited in the preceding note, p. 21). Art. cit. (n.1 above) 45. See, however, n.65 below for a possible remote relevance. See Mahmud Abd el-Rasiq, Die Darstellungen und Texte des Sanktuars Alexanders des Groβen im Tempel von Luxor (Mainz 1984) passim. The few relevant passages are frequently misrepresented and even mistranslated. Bosworth (op. cit., n.12 above) 279 f. gets it essentially right, but shows some lack of clarity, stating that Aristotle envisages a situation in which one man would be so superior as to appear a god among men. Against this common misinterpretation of Pol. 3.8.1284a etc. see my treatment (op. cit. n.14 above, n.20 with n.30). Aristotle is saying that if there is a man or a number of men of outstanding arete¯, he or they cannot be part of an ordinary polis, for any such man would be like a god among men; however (Aristotle takes care to add), if there are enough of them, they can form a polis by themselves. Nothing could be farther removed from thoughts of deification. In Rhet. 1.1361a34 ff., which Bosworth treats very well, he lists outstanding honours awarded for ε+εργεσαι: they consist of θυσαι, μνηˆ μαι . . . γρα, τεμνη, προεδραι, τφοι, εκνες, τροφα( δημσιαι (some barbarian customs intervene) and highly prized gifts. The reference to εκνες (not γλματα), portrait statues (not cult statues), almost suffices to show that deification is not envisaged. Honours for the

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19 20

21 22

23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

living and the dead (as for Greeks and barbarians) are intermingled, and it is probably the latter that may include heroic honours, e.g. sacrifices, perhaps also τεμνη, although the latter may be taken in a purely secular sense, as in Homer: see LSJ s.v. and cf. the Loeb translation. There is no good reason for taking the heroic honours as referring to living men: we do not know whether living men could reach heroic status. (Cf. n.21 below) I have discussed this (op. cit. n.1 above, 31–44), dealing with the supposed examples. Op. cit. (n.1 above) n.19. Duris is nowhere cited as saying that the divine honours for Lysander were awarded in his lifetime: that conclusion hinges on a single word (Λυσνδρεια) in Plutarch’s collection of miscellaneous anecdotes, we do not know from what sources; the word itself is Plutarch’s own. Thucydides 5.11.1 does not clearly say whether the honours received by Hagnon as founder of Amphipolis (τ: ʿAγννεια) included heroic honours or cult. See op. cit. (n.1 above) 32 n.11. Bosworth appears to believe that Clearchus, the eccentric tyrant of Heraclea, imposed worship of himself as a god on his subjects (op. cit. n.12 above, 280). That tale turns up only in the Byzantine Suda, and even the less outrageous anecdote that he used a thunderbolt for his sceptre appears only as late as Plutarch’s Moralia — evidence for what could later be believed of him rather than for historical fact. The historian of Heraclea, Memnon (FGrHist 434 F 1.1), knows nothing of this. (Bosworth’s statement that he corroborates it is false.) Except apparently for a snippet of Pindar, which we have without context: Paean. 7(a)5 Sn. Phaedr. 255A (applied to the beloved), 258C (the lawgiver and writer); Rep. 2.360C, 8.568B (of irresponsible and tyrannical power). Nock, Essays (n.12 above) II, 841, et al. citing Hepding. The reference given is to Nilsson’s Geschichte der griechischen Religion, which was not accessible to me in the edition Nock seems to have used. The (probably) corresponding passage in the third edition (II3 141 n.1) cites Hepding without an actual reference, among many other scholars for whom references are given. I do not know where Hepding’s statement is to be found. It should be added that in the Hellenistic period the word σθεος (as in σθεοι τιμα) comes to be confused with ‘divine’ — a process usefully studied by Nock. It is worth mentioning that a 2nd-century A.D. papyrus equates βασιλες with σθεος, and that we find σοδαμονος βασιλη‹δος ρχαˆς in Ariphron of Sicyon (ap. Athen. 15.702a). See the sources collected by S. K. Eddy, The King is dead. Studies in Near-Eastern resistance to Hellenism, 334–31 B.C. (Lincoln, NE 1961) ch. 2: to be used with caution in detail. D. Kienast, Philipp II von Makedonien und das Reich der Achaimeniden (Abh. der Marburger Gelehrten Gesellschaft 6, 1971 [1973]). See especially Dem. 10.32 with scholia (1.152 Dilts) and Didymus 8.26 ff. (pp. 29 f. P.-S.). See Plut., Alex. 10.1–3 (the only source), with Badian, ‘The death of Philip II,’ Phoenix 17 (1963) 244 ff. [no. 7 in this collection]. Much has been written on this since, but not to much effect. For sound evaluation see Bosworth (cit. n.12 above) 22 n.55. Rightly stressed by Bosworth 192. See (briefly) Badian (above n.14) 18 ff. See L. Pearson, The lost histories of Alexander the Great (New York 1960) 40 ff., with critical assessment. Surprisingly, Bosworth (op. cit. n.12 above) 38 f. seems to accept it all without much warning. He expands the reported expiatory offering to Priam into a piece of powerful rhetorical fiction: ‘The descendants of Achilles and Priam would now fight together against the common enemy.’

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34 Bosworth’s is now the best-informed and most readable account. See also Badian, Cambridge History of Iran II (Cambridge 1985) ch. 8. 35 For a plausible motive for his going so far out of his way from the coast see E. A. Fredricksmeyer, ‘Alexander, Midas and the oracle at Gordium,’ CP 56 (1961) 160 ff. 36 See Bosworth, A historical commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander I (Oxford 1980) 227 ff. for a complete collection of sources, with discussion 228 ff. 37 For an obvious parallel from a better historian, see the treasonable correspondence of Pausanias quoted in Thuc. 1.128.7–129. That these letters cannot be genuine was conclusively proved by C. W. Fornara, ‘Some aspects of the career of Pausanias of Sparta,’ Historia 15 (1966) 263 ff. 38 For Philip’s foundations see n.11 above. For Alexander’s first city, Alexandropolis (never heard of again), see Plut. Alex. 9.1 (with Badian, ‘Alexander the Great and the unity of mankind,’ Historia 7 [1958] 442 [no. 1 in this collection]). He founded it in his 16th or 17th year, when put in charge of the kingdom while Philip was away fighting in Thrace. It must have been founded at Philip’s suggestion and with his approval. It is presumably to this time that Alexander’s reported victory over the ‘Illyrians’ (perhaps Thracians?) in Philip’s absence should be assigned (Curt. 8.1.25). The foundation precisely coincides with Philip’s foundation of Philippopolis and was no doubt meant to build up Alexander as heir apparent to the throne. Bosworth (op. cit. n.12 above) 246, suggests that Alexander may have renamed the city after his accession. This seems unlikely. Quite apart from the chronological coincidence with Philippopolis, we should be left to explain why he founded no other cities for over five years after this; and he was hardly secure enough for such an act of conspicuous arrogance. 39 See Badian, op. cit. (n.1 above) 44 ff. with some discussion and references, also for Miletus and Erythrae; for a further conjecture, ibid. 65 f. 40 See Badian, ‘The death of Parmenio,’ TAPA 91 (1960) 326 ff. [no. 3 in this collection] for the final form of the conspiracy, and Bosworth (op. cit., n.12 above) 101 ff. for further discussion and references. [See further no. 26 in this collection, pp. 489 f.] 41 It seems to be only much later that we find him actually denying Philip’s paternity: see Plut., Alex. 28.2, with the convincing discussion by J. R. Hamilton, ‘Alexander and his “so-called” father,’ CQ n.s. 3 (1953) 151 ff. Even then, of course, he would acknowledge it when it was politically necessary, e.g. in his address to his mutinous soldiers (Arr. 7.9.2 ff.) — obviously not his actual words, but we can take it that praise of Philip was appropriate to the occasion and was presumably used. 42 Plut., Mor. 329d, Diod. 17.66.3, Curt. 5.2.13 (Susa); Plut., Alex. 37.7 (Persepolis). We do not know what made Plutarch change his mind from the former (obviously in the vulgate) to the latter, but he is normally better informed in the biography. The story of the footstool can only have applied to one occasion. 43 In the anecdote (Curt. and Diod., see preceding note) Alexander is too short for his feet to reach the ground and this is the reason for the production of the royal table. For the audience scenes, see, e.g., the reproduction in Camb. Hist. Iran (n.34 above) Plate 23, between pp. 814 and 815. That the King was never allowed to touch the ground is popular misinterpretation. Thus the pretender Cyrus, considering himself lawful King, is reported by Ctesias (who must have known of the taboo) as having walked after being wounded, and Artaxerxes himself marched at the head of his troops (Plut., Artox. 11.8, 24.10). The taboo must have been confined to formal, especially ritual, occasions. 44 For Cicero, see Leg. 1.7 and (facetiously) Fam. 2.10.3 (to Caelius). The latter corresponds to Att. 5.20.3, where Clitarchus is not named. Atticus is presumed to know the allusion, no doubt also from Clitarchus: as far as I know, there is no evidence of any other Alexander historians being known to Cicero.

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45 Bosworth (op. cit. n.12 above) 154 n.399, impugns the authenticity of Aristobulus’ first visit to Pasargae, as reported by Strabo 15.3.7. 730C. I see no good reason for doing so, since Arrian’s account (see below, p. 376) is summary and cannot be shown to be more accurate than Strabo’s. Presumably Strabo had read Aristobulus on this, as on matters of geography. 46 Most recently in Ian Worthington (ed.), Ventures into Greek History (Oxford 1994) 258–92, revising earlier statements [no. 20 in this collection]. 47 See my account in Camb. Hist. Iran (n.34 above) 448 ff., with the sources. 48 See Bosworth, ‘Plutarch, Callisthenes and the peace of Callias,’ JHS 110 (1990) 8 for an attempted reconstruction. The vulgate sources and Aristobulus (ap. Arr. 7.22) report him as wearing the diadem. In an earlier passage Arrian, citing no sources, says he wore the upright tiara (4.7.4). There is no reason to disbelieve this. He may have changed his style over the years, or more probably he reserved the wearing of the tiara for formal and ritual (Persian) occasions, as indeed the King himself may have done. 49 See Curtius’ perceptive comment (8.4.30): ‘post Cliti caedem libertate sublata’. 50 Badian 1981 (op. cit. n.1 above) 48 ff. Bosworth (op. cit. n.12 above) 285, in one of his few unfortunate interpretations of sources, tries to reconcile Chares’ tendentiously falsified account (aiming at robbing Callisthenes of the glory of opposition) with the main account in Arrian and Curtius by assuming two ceremonies, one and only one of them described in each version. This stock device of making each of two conflicting sources partly right and partly wrong will not work. It is clear that Plutarch, who had seen all the sources and knew (but does not tell) the main account, gives the version of Chares as an alternative account of the same banquet ('ν τ-ω̑ συμποσ-ω). He also fortunately documents Chares’ attempt to denigrate Callisthenes on another occasion: in ch. 55, ‘some say’ that Callisthenes was executed by hanging, ‘others’ that he was put in chains and died of illness (both of which can document Alexander’s cruelty), but Chares reports that he was kept in chains for seven months ‘so that he should be tried before the Synedrion (of the Hellenic League) in the presence of Aristotle, but that he died in India of obesity and lice’ — the most undignified end reported. (The other versions were probably those of Ptolemy and Aristobulus respectively: see Arr. 4.14.3.). 51 Thus most recently by G. L. Cawkwell on p. 294 of a very useful article in the collection cited n.46 above. My discussion (loc. cit. p. 9) disproved such a view (I hope) for unprejudiced readers. As I there wrote (p. 47): ‘Rationalist historians will have to come to terms with the mystical element in Alexander.’ 52 Most fully Badian, ‘Harpalus,’ JHS 81 (1961) 16–43 [no. 5 in this collection]. 53 On Alexander I and his relations with the Persians see recently my essay in S. Hornblower (ed.), Greek historiography (Oxford 1994) 107 ff. Basic discussion appears in the standard histories of Macedonia. 54 For the court background to this, with the methodological questions concerned, see Badian, ‘The eunuch Bagoas. A study in method,’ CQ n.s. 8 (1958) 147 ff. [no. 2 in this collection], modified in ‘Conspiracies’ [no. 24 in this collection]. 55 It is impossible to hold that Ctesias, who had spent many years at the Persian court, could believe, as Herodotus did (1.131), that Mitra was a goddess. Herodotus identifies ‘her’ with the mother goddess Aphrodite, not with a warrior goddess. Ctesias was probably filling out his information with plain fiction. 56 The excavation was splendidly published by D. Stronach, from whose work my illustration of the site is taken. He wrote an extensive summary of the site in Camb. Hist. Iran (n.34 above) ch. 20. 57 The mysterious tower called ‘the Prison of Solomon’ has at times been suggested, but is decisively refuted by the fact that Darius I built a similar tower (the ‘Ka’ba of

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58 59 60

61

62 63

64

65

Zoroaster’) near his tomb at Naqsh-i Rustam. See Stronach, Camb. Hist. Iran (n.34 above) 848 ff. See Badian, op. cit. (n.1) 60 ff., with reference to Habicht and discussion. ‘Alexander the Great and the Greeks of Asia’ in Ancient society and institutions: studies presented to Victor Ehrenberg on his 75th birthday (Oxford 1966) 44 ff. [no. 10 in this collection]. His order to the Ephesians to pay to Artemis the tribute they had been paying to the King (Arr. 1.17.10) was issued before he formulated the policy of freeing the Ionian cities from tribute (ibid. 18.2: see my discussion, op. cit. n.59). Since we are not told that it was rescinded, it presumably continued. This was no doubt a way of making sure that the work would in fact be completed — a point not to be taken for granted in major projects undertaken by Greek cities. A later offer to pay for the entire work of construction would be all the more tempting to the Ephesians if they could by then expect a large refund. The Artemidorus cited by Strabo 14.1.22. 640C for the story must be the eminent Ephesian geographer well known to Strabo. He ought to be trusted for an important incident in the fairly recent history of his city. This is the implication of the logos reported by Arrian. Most of the sources he saw apparently omitted the story of the embassy to Ammon, but that does not disprove it. Its truth might depend on who the ‘some’ who reported it were: if (as is quite likely) the contemporary Ephippus in his work On the deaths of Hephaestion and Alexander, that would make it credible. Its truth is supported by the fact that the cult of Hephaestion established at Athens was not abolished after Alexander’s death: see next note and text. This was pointed out by E. Bickerman, ‘Sur un passage d’Hypéride, Epitaphios, vol. VIII,’ Athenaeum n.s. 41 (1963) 81. No other good reason for the retention of the cult through the Lamian War can be imagined. At the time when the Areopagus had postponed publication of its verdict, in its enquiry that began in autumn 324 — hence at the earliest at the end of 324 or (more probably) early in 323. It is possible that this stage of the debate (over Alexander’s divine sonship) may be connected with the letter denying Philip’s paternity (see n.41 above); that letter was addressed to the Athenians and concerned Samos (Plut., Alex. 28.2). The phrase about ‘honours in heaven’ ascribed to Demosthenes presumably mirrors Demades’ warning about the ‘concern for heaven’ leading to loss of the earth. It quite probably comes from the same debate. It may be relevant that O+ρνιος is one of the names of Zeus. See op. cit. (n.1 above), 65 ff. This, of course, can only be advanced, as it there was, as reasoned speculation. In this respect only there may be an Egyptian connection: Ammon, in his Egyptian capacity, would be quite accustomed to ‘introducing’ kings to the ranks of the gods. See n.17 above with text.

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According to Greek tradition, India (a term I shall throughout use for the Indian subcontinent, not for the state at present using that name) was conquered by the Assyrian queen Semiramis, at least up to the Indus. Thus Ctesias reported, and Arrian accepts the Assyrian conquest as such, adding that India was taken over by the Medes and from them by the Persians.1 Semiramis is clearly a figure largely built up by myth, and traditions on her achievements in India vary.2 Indian tradition, which of course is also myth and not history, is of no help. Assyriologists are divided as to whether there was ever any claim regarding Assyrian (or earlier) control of parts of India. (How much, if anything, was in fact controlled is irrelevant to later history.) It depends on the much-debated interpretation of references to Meluhha in a document usually referred to as the ˇˇ ‘geography of Sargon’ and of Magan/Makkan in various documents from the late third millennium BC on. On the former, which is generally agreed to have been a work written for Sargon II, listing (for propagandist purposes) the extent of the empire of his remote predecessor Sargon of Akkad, whose name the usurper had adopted and whose deeds provided what Grayson has described as an edifying example for him,3 Grayson regarded Meluhha as the easternmost province of Sargon’s supˇ posed empire, whose boundaryˇ Sargon is said to have fixed and whose size he is said to have measured. The identification has been contested, and it has been suggested that the name refers to an area west of Mesopotamia, perhaps in or near Egypt.4 Similarly, Magan, often identified with Oman, has been sought in Egypt, which appears to be Makkan in neo-Assyrian; but even Potts has argued for the identification with Oman, dissociating it from Meluhha.5 ˇ ˇ experts disagree. I am clearly not competent to discuss this problem, on which Unfortunately the third edition of the Cambridge Ancient History, which one might have expected to enlighten the interested non-expert on these matters, of considerable historical interest in themselves, does not even list the names concerned in its indexes. We must here approach the complex of problems from a different standpoint. Darius I’s first list of provinces, notionally of the year of his accession, as engraved on the rock at Bisutun, lists three Indian provinces among the twenty386

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three named: Gandara, Thatagush (Herodotus’ Sattagydia, the name I shall henceforth use) and Maka.6 Before we deal with their possible or probable location, we must stress that these provinces had come to Darius by inheritance from Cambyses, whose lawful successor he claimed to be. Now, Cambyses never campaigned in the East, as far as we know. As for Cyrus, his father and founder of the dynasty, his invasion of India appears to be no less legendary than that of Semiramis: they are at any rate coupled as examples of ill success, which are said to have inspired Alexander to undertake his march through the Gedrosian desert in order to surpass what was reported of them.7 It follows that Cyrus must have claimed to rule over his Indian provinces by taking over an anterior claim, just as Darius later did. In his case, of course, it was not by inheritance but presumably through his conquest of the Medes. The kingdom of the Medes must have included those Indian provinces in the list of territories over which it claimed sovereignty. Unfortunately no records corresponding to the Persian ones survive from that kingdom: we cannot check when and in what context the claim was made, and we know practically nothing of the Eastern provinces of the Medic kingdom. We do not know, in particular, whether the Medes campaigned, and claimed successes, in India or whether they in turn based their claim on the Assyrian or an earlier Iranian kingdom which they had conquered. But it now becomes at least possible that Sargon II did indeed claim sovereignty over the provinces of Magan and Meluhh a, on the basis of the ‘conquest’ of those provinces by his ˇ need hardly be stressed, of course, that a claim to soverremote namesake.ˇ It eignty has nothing to do with its actual exercise. The Achaemenid kings monotonously repeated the list of their provinces when they had, to our certain knowledge, lost control over some of them. The geographical list compiled for Sargon’s benefit may have had a more serious purpose than ‘the edification of the reigning Sargon, Sargon II’ (Grayson 57). It was quite probably the basis of a political claim, and possibly the announcement of an intention of at some future date reasserting it. (Whether that intention existed or was merely a suitable propaganda point, like some of the plans attributed to Augustus by his court poets, is again a different question, not worth discussing.) The claim would then be taken over by the Medes and, from them, pass to the Persians. It is worth noting that Xenophon, in his reference to the extent of Cyrus’ kingdom, includes Arabia and India among the territories Cyrus either subjected or ruled (Cyr. 1.1.4). Regrettably, Xenophon’s account of the ‘subjects’ and ‘allies’ of Assyria and Media is pervaded by legend. But it is at least possible that a list of ‘provinces’ over which Cyrus claimed rule survived (perhaps in Babylon) and, very indirectly, provided a basis for Xenophon’s list. Such a list would certainly be in the spirit of Cyrus’ Mesopotamian predecessors. As regards MaganMaka, Dilmun is known to have had a Babylonian governor in the time of Nabonidus, and Graf has very plausibly suggested that it and the islands of the Gulf were taken over from him by Cyrus.8 Further east, Oman is apparently attested as paying tribute to Assurbanipal.9 That Achaemenid Maka included 387

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Oman should be accepted: Eilers has shown it and Heidemarie Koch has pointed out that the route taken by a satrap of Maka in the 17th year of Darius I points to his having travelled by sea before receiving his rations for the journey to Persepolis on land.10 That Maka included the coast of Iran opposite Oman is also attested (Strabo 16.3.2–4: along the Straits of Hormuz). On the other hand, as we shall see, the sculptures on the royal Achaemenid monuments show Maka’s inhabitants as being Indians, and Herodotus’ army list (7.68) describes them as dressed like the Paktyes (Pathan), with similar arms. The extent of the province may of course have varied. The attestation of Maka as being essentially an Indian province does not appear before the middle of Darius’ reign. In his first list, of provinces inherited from his predecessor, it brings up the rear, after Sattagydia and Arachosia (DB I 17). It is obviously the southeasternmost province, but the order of its two predecessors makes it likely that it was thought of as being essentially in Iran (though an extension into India may have been present even then). Its situation as the southeastern limit of empire keeps interfering with what one might think its natural location on the lists: thus on Darius’ tomb it appears between Kush (Nubia-Ethiopia) and Caria, at the very end (DNa 30), and on Darius’ Egyptian-made statue at Susa again at the end, between Kush and Hindush. At Persepolis (DPe 18) it is again (as at Bisutun) at the very end, this time in a southeastern corner (Sattagydia, Arachosia, Hindush, Gandara), strangely interrupted by Saka, perhaps stressing the northeastern limit. One can constantly see, on these lists, how an attempt to proceed by geography is crossed by the attempt to stress the actual extent of the empire: the attempt by many modern scholars to reconstruct a kind of ‘atlas’ as seen by the Kings and their advisers is clearly chimerical. However, there is one of Darius’ lists where geographical procedure seems to be the main criterion: the Susa list DSe. There, presumably well into the reign of Darius (though absolute dating is impossible), Maka sits in the middle of a nest of Indian provinces (Sattagydia precedes and Gandara and Hindush follow) that makes it clear that by that time it was indeed regarded as essentially Indian. If indeed (as seems likely from its pre-Achaemenid history) the original base of Maka was Oman and the Iranian coast opposite, the shift of emphasis to India may be connected with the acquisition of Hindush and the need for control of the areas leading to it. How much of the inland area any Persian King actually controlled, we simply cannot tell. But Persian Kings, whose attested pragmatism was willing to pay mountain tribes for access to their mountain passes, rather than fight them for it, are very likely to have avoided the needless trouble of fighting in the Gedrosian desert: it is significant that Alexander, who was informed of the disasters suffered there by Semiramis and Cyrus, was not told of any attempt (successful or unsuccessful) to force a passage by any later Persian King. We may take it that the Iranian part of Maka, at least, as inherited by Darius, was confined to a narrow coastal strip.11 Hindush, of course, is not on the Bisutun list because it was conquered only later. Herodotus (4.44) reports that Darius sent Scylax of Caryanda (not far from Herodotus’ own native Halicarnassus) with a small flotilla manned by men 388

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whom he could trust to tell the truth (does Herodotus mean they were not Ionians?) to start from a city of the Pactyans (in Pathanistan, in modern terms) and sail down the Indus and along the coast as far as Egypt; it was after this that Darius conquered India. As it stands, the tale is unlikely to be true. As we can tell by looking at Alexander’s expedition down the Indus, to sail down the river with a small flotilla, among the welter of wild and often mutually hostile tribes probably even then, no less than in Alexander’s day, unified only by religiously based xenophobia,12 would have been suicide. Scylax would never even have reached the mouth of the river, let alone sailed along the coast afterwards. We must take it that Darius had some kind of armed presence along the Indus at the time he gave the order for the voyage: perhaps a loosely knit string of garrisons extending southward from Sattagydia (on which see below). The continuation of the voyage along the coast, until Persian-controlled territory was reached, would be feasible—as Nearchus was later to prove: only skill at navigating and a show of force to secure supplies would be needed. Darius presumably wanted Scylax to tell him whether the extension of full control over the territory down to the river mouth was worth the effort: it would obviously involve the extension of Maka along the coast to the east, as well as control of a wide territory along the river, with a governor and military forces to secure it. Hindush (the land of ‘the river’, Skr. Sindhu) at once seems to have become the jewel in his crown. According to Herodotus, its tribute in gold dust (360 talents) was nearly a third of the King’s tribute from the whole of his empire (Hdt. 3.94). That, of course, need not be taken literally. But it shows that the wealth of India was even then proverbial, as it was to remain through later ages, from Ctesias and the Alexander historians through Hastings and RimskyKorsakov, the best-known aria in whose Sadko starts: ‘Les diamants chez nous sont innombrables.’ Characteristically, a story of ants digging up gold pervades the ancient sources.13 Darius clearly kept it under firm control, once he had achieved its conquest and settlement. Hindush and contacts with it are mentioned more often in what we have of the Persepolis Fortification Tablets (which admittedly is only a fraction of those still unpublished and likely to remain so in the near future) than any other relevant province except Arachosia.14 A satrap whom Koch transliterates Rtaupama authorises travel by several wealthy and important persons: one of them is accompanied by ten ‘gentlemen’ and twenty ‘boys’ (servants), another by 52 servants and one apparently has a hundred men in his suite. These gentlemen appear to be Indians. There is also coming and going of envoys between the King and his satrap; a gentleman named Apadavia travels to and from Susa and receives an enormous ration of flour: more, we are told, than the second-highest official in Persis itself. Koch even considers that he may have gone to Susa to be appointed satrap. If, as she thinks, he was an Indian, this would at that time be highly unlikely in a key province. However, the name could be explained as an Old Persian compound, whether or not he was actually made satrap. Darius’ rule apparently relied, like the British raj centuries later, on co-operation between the King’s agents and lavishly honoured 389

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local notables, with the spoils, contributed largely by the lower classes, shared between them. We unfortunately do not know the precise extension and boundaries of any of the King’s Indian provinces: we can only gather their general situation. Gandara was certainly based somewhere in what is now NW Pakistan.15 Sattagydia appears in different locations on different modern maps. It is not named in the Alexander sources, hence was presumably not known by that name (Thatagush) in his day. As a reader of Herodotus, Alexander (not to mention his well-read suite) would certainly have recorded it if they had recognised it. This is why its location has been more debated among modern scholars than that of the other three provinces. Koch, who summarises some earlier views, opts in support of Herzfeld’s location in Baluchistan. She rightly notes the close association with the province of Arachosia in the Persian sources and points out that one of the towns placed by the OP text at Bisutun in Arachosia appears in the Babylonian text as situated in Sattagydia. This discrepancy (one of the few between the OP text and the Elamite and Babylonian versions), like the others, must be seen in the light of the fact that the OP text is known from the layout of the monument to have been the last to be engraved, and according to Darius’ statement it was (certainly the only one) read out to Darius and approved by him (DB IV 91). The OP version therefore is the only ‘authorised’ text: the others, although instructive, were not approved by Darius and his secretariat. The town must have been known to Babylonians as situated in Sattagydia, but was incorporated by Darius in Arachosia: the difference, properly observed, shows Babylonian knowledge of that Indian province—unfortunately we cannot tell whether from a claim to rule over it or from trade. (See further below.) As Vogelsang noted,16 in Darius’ lists Sattagydia is closely associated with Arachosia. Specifically, it precedes Arachosia on DB (I), DSaa, DSm (?) and DPe and follows it on DSe and DNa. On Darius’ Egyptian-made statue it follows Arachosia, but is separated from it by Drangiana (an item not easy to explain on any theory of its location or of Darius’ ‘picture of the world’). Vogelsang also noted the passage in Curtius (9.7.14)17 where two Indian tribes have tribute imposed on them by Alexander, which they say they previously used to pay to ‘the Arachosians’ (i.e. the satrap of Arachosia). It is clear that under Darius III this area was attached to Arachosia, though not directly controlled or administered. We shall return to some implications of this. Here we may note that the passage helps to site Sattagydia firmly on the middle Indus and that the Oxydracae and Malli must have belonged to that administrative unit. Unfortunately this tells us nothing about its boundaries. Hindush, despite its importance to Darius, which we have noted, is by no means securely placed. Herodotus 4.44 implies that it was along the lower Indus, down to the sea, and that it was conquered after Scylax’s flotilla had explored the route. But we have seen that Herodotus’ story does not make good sense on its own terms. It must be added that in Darius’ lists, Hindush, when it appears, is always closely associated with Gandara, in every case either preceding or following it: the association is much closer than that between Sattagydia and Arachosia, which we have seen 390

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reason to accept. If we proceed on the principle that documentary sources deserve preference over Herodotus, it would follow that Hindush is to be sought much higher up along the river: perhaps east and southeast of Gandara. Since it is very likely that Maka extended along the coast as far as the Indus (as we have seen, it came to be regarded as essentially an Indian province), it must be suggested that Maka stretched upstream along the Indus up to a point (not to be identified on our evidence) where it met Sattagydia. As we have seen, the position of Maka on the lists varies, at times influenced by considerations not of a strictly geographical order. But in the only text (DSe) where we have a ‘nest’ of Indian provinces in sequence, the order is Sattagydia, Maka, Gandara, Hindush; Sattagydia in its turn is preceded (in order) by Drangiana and Arachosia, which inspires confidence. It we get away from the simplistic model of all the Achaemenids’ Indian provinces stretching from north to south in series, and the belief that the position of Hindush is guaranteed by Herodotus’ narrative, it is easy enough to construct a model that would satisfy the order suggested by DSe, which of course does not exclude the possibility that provinces not mentioned next to each other (e.g. Sattagydia and Gandara) may also have met along part of their borders. I must repeat that we know only the general situation of those provinces and nothing about their actual boundaries: statements to the contrary should always be marked as conjectures. If we were to seek Hindush roughly east of the Indus, it might also help to explain Alexander’s proceeding as far as the Hyphasis and only when preparing to cross it meeting resistance among his officers. But that is an issue too big to be followed up here. Let us be content with the suggestion that the situation of Hindush is uncertain. Recognition of this fact, and abandonment of simplistic models, may in due course enable it to be identified with greater probability. To Greek writers, unfortunately, all those who came from the Indian parts of the Achaemenid kingdom were normally ‘Indians’. It is only where they are ultimately based on Achaemenid documents that we get specific information. Herodotus’ army list in book 7 is probably based on Achaemenid sources: among other things it shows us that the provinces (as I have for convenience called the dahya¯va of the inscriptions) were often irrelevant to army organisation, as well as to the traditional attire of the inhabitants as depicted on their sculptural representations. None of this need surprise us. In the list, the Gandarans18 are, like the eastern Iranians, equipped in the Bactrian manner (7.66); those called ‘Indians’ (ib. 65) carry reed bows and arrows (tipped with iron), while the ‘Pactyans’ carried their native bows and short swords (ib. 67), and the Mykoi (men of Maka) and Utioi and Paricanioi were armed in the same way. How the ‘Pactyans’ (Pathan) fit in, if they are not from Gandara, is a puzzle; the Utians and Paricanians seem to be fairly securely placed in southeast Iran, close to India.19 There are also Herodotus’ ‘Asian Ethiopians’ (ib. 70; cf. 3.94), brigaded with the Indians and armed like them (but with showier dress): presumably called ‘Ethiopians’ because they were dark-skinned southern Indians (with straight hair, so Herodotus insists, and not speaking like the Ethiopians of Africa). The ‘Indians’ are likely to be from Hindush; probably, as in the case of the other dahya¯va from India, some of the tribes from the province had been peeled out, as the 391

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Pactyans presumably were from Gandara: pragmatic as always, the Persians apparently avoided keeping provincial forces together if that would provide an excessively miscellaneous assemblage. The army list, presumably in essence authentic (as all have taken it to be), shows that the Achaemenid administration did not think in the bureaucratic ways that we have come to take for granted. However, as I noted, when the Greeks speak of ‘Indians’ they are not using the term with any precision. The ‘Indians’ who stayed with Mardonius in his last stand, together with Persians and Medes, the formidable Scythians and the Bactrians, and who were in fact placed between Scythians and Bactrians to face Greek hoplites (9.31, cf. 8.113), were hardly those carrying reed bows and arrows: Mardonius would not risk an easy enemy breakthrough in the decisive battle. They were presumably Gandarans, armed like the Bactrians and in other ways close to them.20 It seems that they practically counted as Iranians, to deserve this special post of honour. But our Greek source (and the account of Plataea is entirely Greek-based) did not distinguish among Indians. It is interesting to observe the conventions that apply to the pictorial treatment of the Indian provinces. In the representation of the throne-bearers, as on Darius’ tomb at Naqsh-i Rustam, they are all treated alike: all shown wearing loin-cloths, with the upper part of their bodies bare; they wear sandals and carry a sword; some individuality is allowed only in their hair-styles, especially (where it survives) apparently the ‘top-knot’ (to use Vogelsang’s term) held in a decorative ring that is characteristic of the men from Hindush. Here, unlike in the army list and more like in the processions (see below), each province is allowed one representative to stand for the whole of it. The conventions are uniformly repeated on other occasions where throne-bearers are represented. The representations on other tombs have confidently been used to supplement what has been destroyed on Darius’ own tomb.21 The processions are in part treated differently, in part the same way. The resemblance lies in the convention allowing no more than one representative group for a province (if that); the difference is in the greater individuality allowed each province: Indians are not, as they appear when supporting the King’s throne, all largely alike. This difference, in fact, has made positive identification of many of the ‘delegations’ in the procession difficult, for it applies, mutatis mutandis, to most of the representations. The fact that at Naqsh-i Rustam they are actually labelled (‘This is the Mede’ etc.) does not help as much as it might have when we get to the processions at Persepolis. Let us look at those delegations that are generally regarded as coming from India.22 In the Apadana they are (on Herzfeld’s generally accepted numbering) numbers XIV and XVIII: only two can be confidently assigned to Indian provinces. No. XIV shows, behind the guide, a leader and five attendants, all dressed alike [see Figure 22.1]: as Erich F. Schmidt describes them (Persepolis I 88), they are dressed in a short-sleeved coat (the neckline is visible on one of the attendants) with a skirt (or loin-cloth) fastened with a belt; a long cape covers their backs, with four tassels at the corners, two of them thrown forward over the shoulders; their feet are 392

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Figure 22.1 Persepolis, Apadana, Eastern Stairway. Procession no. XIV: The Gandarans(?)

sandalled (the shape of sandals in these representations appears to be conventional) and they wear a band in their hair. All obviously very different from the figure wearing merely a loin-cloth that represents all Indians as throne-bearers. We shall soon discuss a possible reason for the difference. But who are these delegates? Schmidt identified them as Gandarans; Vogelsang says that they may be Gandarans or Sattagydians: he cannot decide. Other conjectures have been offered, on the whole unconvincingly.23 The cape presumably suggests a cool location, hence not Maka. The offering, which consists i.a. of a zebu bull, suggests Sattagydia, which in OP means the land of ‘hundreds of cattle’.24 The other items offered are arms (lances and a shield), not to be identified with any listed in Herodotus’ army list. They should certainly mark a province known for its fighting spirit. Since the Sattagydians do not appear as such in the army list, we do not know whether that would suit them; but it would certainly suit the Gandarans, and it has been suggested that this delegation stands for both Gandara and Sattagydia.25 As we have seen, it is impossible to be sure. This is also true of delegation no. XVIII, which Schmidt identified as from Hindush. The identification, widely accepted, was rejected by Vogelsang, for a convincing reason: they lack the topknot held in a ring at the top of their heads, which elsewhere marks Indians from Hindush. [See Figure 22.2] Vogelsang plausibly identified them as representing Maka.26 What is noticeable in this delegation is the difference in dress between the leader and the remaining four (on the northern façade five) members, a feature that is not common. Only the leader wears a covering over the upper part of his body: a cape, similar to that worn by the members of delegation XIV, although it is worn rather differently. The others wear only (as he also does) a loin-cloth; the upper part of their bodies is bare. They walk barefoot, while he (again as in XIV) wears sandals. Their gift animal27 is what appears to be a donkey: Schmidt rightly observes that one would have expected the wild ass (onager) characteristic of India, but adds that his zoological expert assured him it could only be a 393

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Figure 22.2 Persepolis, Apadana, Eastern Stairway. Procession no. XVIII: The Maka

donkey.28 The other gifts are no less remarkable. The rearmost of the group carries two double axes, presumably meant to represent battle-axes, but in fact with short blades and short and thin handles that suggest more domestic uses. The man behind the leader carries a heavy load: two baskets, each with two closed containers, hang from a wooden (?) bar, bent under their weight, that he balances on his shoulders, supporting the weight with his upturned hands. There is no doubt that this man must be a low-class servant. We may now suggest that the difference in dress in fact stands for a major class (or caste) difference: the leader is distinguished by his cape and sandals, worn by the gentlemen in XIV. Indian society, of course, was traditionally divided in this way. The general statement often made, that each group is in formal upper-class dress characteristic of its province, is clearly not true of this delegation. The low-caste attendants are presumably Vaiçyu, who are described as ‘to be lived on by another and to be oppressed at will’.29 There is only one other delegation where class distinction is clearly shown by dress: that is no. XXIII, from Kush [see Figure 22.3]. (Differences in dress occur in five or six others, but all members are respectably dressed.) Here only the leader wears a shawl (?) over the upper part of his body; the two others wear only a loin-cloth, as in XVIII. There is a further subtle distinction: the first of the two wears sandals, the second (the one carrying the tusk and leading the animal) does not. This is clearly a highly stratified society, which the Persian sculptors rendered, and regarded, with what one must call racist amusement. They are crowded into a corner; that was perhaps inevitable, for architectural reasons. But here it has led to their being depicted not only as black and woolly-haired (as Herodotus describes the African Ethiopians), but as pygmies— which they certainly were not—considerably smaller than their Iranian guide. This is not the case with any of the other delegations placed in corners. Moreover, the animal, whatever it is, okapi or giraffe, is positively caricatured and also rendered in diminutive size.30 It might be suggested that the same Iranian feeling of contempt for the exotic, though in much more discreet form, 394

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Figure 22.3 Persepolis, Apadana, Eastern Stairway. Procession no. XXIII: The Ethiopians

may account for the diminutive axes in XVIII and the substitution of a domestic donkey for what one would expect to be an onager. In XXIII, the last of the delegations, there is no sign of discretion. We should next ask: what are the delegates in XVIII presenting to the King? The donkey and the supposed battle axes are obvious and not significant. But what is there in the two baskets that is causing so much distress to the servant carrying the rod bent under the weight? I must agree with those who have thought it the gold dust mentioned by Herodotus as the tribute of India (3.94). Naturally, it would not actually come in the form of gold dust; nor is the procession a procession bringing the tribute, as Walser decisively proved.31 Nonetheless, the province paying gold dust might well include more of it among its gifts on this occasion. What is interesting is the way in which it would be carried, presumably for the tribute as well. Herodotus tells us that the King would melt down the tribute silver and gold and pour it into earthenware containers (πθους κεραμνους); when they are full, he breaks the containers away and keeps the metal in the shape they have given it, to be used when needed (3.96). It is an obvious suggestion that the Indians’ gold dust was not carried as actual dust, but was melted down and delivered to the King in earthenware containers such as he himself used: an easier way to carry the metal and convenient for both parties. I would suggest that each of the baskets contained two such earthenware pots filled with not gold dust, but melted gold, such as the King himself wanted. If so (and there is no obvious alternative suggestion for the contents of those pots), then the gifts must be gifts of the Indians, for Herodotus mentions Maka separately, as part of the 14th revenue district (3.93). I am therefore inclined to think that, although the delegates are not dressed as Indians from Hindush, they are intended to stand for both Maka and Hindush, just as XIV quite probably stands for the other two Indian provinces.32 The difficulty the sculptors faced in 395

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engraving this procession was that there was simply not enough room. Hence the uncomfortable squeezing of some delegations into corners, and in particular the realisation that not all the dahya¯va could be represented. It would be an obvious device to collapse the four Indian ones into two, naturally without causing disharmony of design by varying the dress within one delegation so as to combine two (this might be necessary in the case of the Hindush Indians’ hairstyle, as Vogelsang insisted; Gandarans and Sattagydians would probably be dressed alike in any case): it could be done discreetly by combining the actual gifts in (to contemporaries, not necessarily to us) recognisable form. I suggest that this is precisely the function of the vessels carrying gold in XVIII, as it may be that of the arms in XIV. But Vogelsang was undoubtedly right in identifying the actual delegates as coming from Maka. When Artaxerxes I decided to imitate his father in engraving a gift-bearing procession, he wasted less of the space. Unfortunately not much of it survives. But the section showing the Indians from Hindush was still seen in the 19th century. It was drawn by two French travellers and later photographed by a German.33 The Frenchmen saw it in almost perfect condition, it seems. But the drawing is seriously inaccurate: it omits the first of the two figures carrying a small vessel and makes the fragment end too soon. By the time Stolze’s photo was taken (remarkably well done, considering the cameras then available), much less was visible. But that at least was accurately recorded. It was the photo that Herzfeld used and on which he based his drawing [see Figures 22.4, 22.5, and 22.6].34 The delegation includes nine men.35 The first two carry small vessels with pointed lids; the next three (probably the next four) men, if we can trust the

Figure 22.4 Persepolis, Façade of Artaxerxes I. Indian Delegation from Hindush

396

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Figure 22.5 French drawing of the Indian Delegation from Hindush

Figure 22.6 Herzfeld’s drawing of the Indian Delegation from Hindush

French drawing, carry a tusk over their right shoulder, supporting its weight with both hands; the last three carry feline skins over their backs, with the head of the skin covering the man’s head and the forepaws held in the man’s hands. All are dressed alike, in a loin-cloth and sandals, with their hair pulled together at the top, the knot held together by a decorative ring or clip. It is unfortunately impossible to see whether they are wearing an upper garment. The French drawing shows no trace of it (but cannot be fully trusted); on the photo the poor preservation of the monument (and no doubt the quality of the camera) does not allow a positive judgment; Herzfeld’s drawing, based on the photo, shows clear neck lines, but they are imaginary. The hairstyle suffices to make it clear that this is an Indian delegation from Hindush and the elephant tusks help to confirm it. It is interesting to note that here there is no concept of caste differences and that, unlike the two Indian delegations in Xerxes’ procession, these men carry no arms as gifts. This suffices to show that the whole procession was conceived and 397

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executed on different lines from those in Xerxes’ procession and neither can be used to supplement the statements of the other. Artaxerxes, unlike his predecessor, stresses peace, and equality within the ranks of his subjects.36 After Artaxerxes’ procession we hear little about the Indian provinces. Ctesias of Cnidus, who lived at the Persian court for eight years at the end of the 5th century, according to his own account close to the royal family as court physician, wrote a work (Indica) about India. Unfortunately it survives only in the works of late excerptors, especially Photius, whose interests (to put it mildly) do not coincide with ours.37 But it is clear that, although he claims to have met Indian envoys, he did not learn much about the country. In particular, his ethnography is as fabulous as that of Herodotus, and he knows nothing of Indian geography beyond the Indus; there is no mention of the Ganges: the only river east of the Indus seems to be a confused parody of the Jumna (the river of Delhi), a tributary of the Ganges. Making every allowance for Photius and Ctesias’ own lack of competence, we must yet find it difficult to believe that the King, around 400, was in touch with and maintained effective control over the provinces beyond the Indus. The fact that all the territories appear in the later list of throne-bearers, A?P,38 including Thrace, the European Scythians and the European Greeks, shows that the King, especially on his tomb, could not admit having ruled a smaller kingdom than his predecessors had. It gives us no information on actual control. We must at least wonder (though we cannot be sure) whether Arabia and Kush (however precisely delimited) were actually controlled at any time: Herodotus writes that these two provinces had no set tribute (3.91, 97; but set ‘gifts’ amounting to a heavy imposition are detailed: 3.97). We obviously cannot lightly believe him, but we must at least leave the answer in suspense.39 In the fourth century, Egypt was a running sore, not regained, despite several attempts, until 343, and Cyprus had to be watched. It is difficult to believe that the King could spare resources for the control of faraway India. Moreover, local tribes of whom we only hear by accident clearly engaged the King’s attention much of the time: Artaxerxes III, who finally regained Egypt, had had to do some of his fiercest fighting, under his personal command, against the Cadusians.40 Information only accrues in the Alexander historians. By the time Alexander appears in India, there was no system of administration and no garrisons. It has been argued that in some of the provinces (Gandara and Sattagydia) administration had always been indirect, with no satrap in charge.41 This thesis cannot at present be disproved, since no likely satrap in those provinces appears in what we have of the Fortification Tablets. However, it is in principle unlikely. There were certainly satraps in Hindush and Maka, and there must have been garrisons, in Darius’ day. Yet there is no trace of them by the time of Alexander. There is no good reason to separate the fates of the four Indian provinces. The same should apply to other outlying parts: Scythia, Sogdiana, Chorasmia. At Gaugamela the Sogdians were in the Persian line, and it was the Indians (those ‘bordering on the Bactrians’: i.e., again Gandarans [Arr. 3.8.3]) who, together with the Persians themselves, broke through the Macedonian lines (Arr. 3.14.5f.) and stood up to 398

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Alexander himself in the ‘hardest-fought cavalry battle’ (8ππομαχα καρτερωττη, 3.15.2): the parallel with Plataea comes to mind, illustrating the meaning of ‘Indians’ on that occasion. The ‘Indians of the mountains’ were also there (3.8.4), under Arachosian command. Alexander was to come across them later. So were ‘the men from near the Red Sea’ (3.11.5), surely from Maka, and unspecified Indians ‘from the near side of the Indus’ with fifteen elephants. The Scythians, very much in evidence (again as they had been at Plataea), are explicitly said to be allies, not subjects (3.8.3). Whatever control over the Saka had once existed had been abandoned. However, we see that, even without direct control, at least parts of Sogdiana, Scythia, Gandara and even Maka still recognised the King as their suzerain and were willing to fight on his behalf. There is a great deal to say on Alexander in India. Fortunately it is no longer necessary to say it here, since Professor Bosworth has set it all out in his brilliant book Alexander and the East (1996). I shall confine myself to brief discussion of a few points that can be treated in this context.42 Brunt (followed by Bosworth) pointed out that Arrian calls all the rulers in India, certainly as far as the Hydaspes, hyparchoi; and Alexander summoned them before his invasion to do homage to him. Bosworth would take the term hyparchoi back to Ptolemy, but that is at least uncertain: we surely no longer believe in Kornemann’s argument that Arrian in principle merely copied out Ptolemy. He had his own style and his own vocabulary. Brunt suggested the possibility of original Persian titles, which seems fanciful. The term is very probably Arrian’s own, for these smallish chieftains, whom Alexander treated as subject to him (at least up to the Indus) from the start and who never seriously objected. (Taxiles is a different story.) Bessus, who had considerable initial success summoning the Sogdians and Saka when he proclaimed himself Artaxerxes (V), never had much in India. We hear of only one prominent Indian who joined him, Sisicottus. Arrian oddly reports that he had ‘deserted from the Indians’ (4.30.4). In the light of his later career43 it is likely that he came from the Northwest Frontier, where it seems the local rulers had decided to assert independence, at the latest after Darius’ defeat and death, and therefore did not recognise Bessus any more than Alexander. Sisicottus obviously disagreed with that policy and hoped for personal advantage by rallying to the new King. When a stronger King asserted himself, Sisicottus rallied to him and in due course reaped his reward. We may, with due caution, suggest that the King’s suzerainty had still been recognised in that area not too long before. When Alexander first reached the area beyond Bactria, he called his first province there Paropamisus. How he got that name is a real puzzle. As is well known to scholars, it is the Greek form of the name that appears in the Elamite and Akkadian versions of the Bisutun text for what Darius decided to call Gandara. As far as I know, the term appears just once in the Fortification Tablets we have (Q 944: see Koch p. 36), then is never heard of again until it reappears with Alexander. It would be purely fanciful to suggest that Alexander had had the Elamite or Babylonian version of DB I read to him and remembered it; nor, from 399

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its meaning (denoting, as Koch stresses, extreme remoteness), can it have been a local designation. I think it likely that the Babylonians kept it alive and that this was how Alexander came to pick it up. We have already observed hints of an old Babylonian connection with India, which was apparently passed on to the Elamites. (There is nothing in what we know of Elamite history to make us posit them as the original source.) A battle site that is located by the Akkadian version of DB as lying in Sattagydia is put by Darius himself (as also in the Elamite) in Arachosia.44 Presumably it had been known to the Babylonians as being in Sattagydia, but Darius decided to change the boundaries. We have also noted that in Xerxes’ procession the Babylonians are conspicuous for choosing the zebu as their animal gift, although it is characteristic of (and was in fact presented by) an Indian area. The survival of the term Paropamisus (a Persian term, but clearly picked up by the Babylonians) points in the same direction. An old trading connection must have been kept up under Persian rule. It is interesting that we can conjecture it from three disparate items: a geographical location, an old name and the relief of a bull. Perhaps more can be added once one comes to look. Although Alexander adopted the old name, he did not of course preserve the old boundaries: whatever they were, they must have lain well beyond the Hindu Kush; perhaps the province extended as far as the Indus. Alexander, on the other hand, made Paropamisus the satrapy guarding the passes leading to India. Sattagydia, as we saw, he never knew by that name. But as we have also seen, its general location can be disengaged from its close ties to Arachosia. We have noted the ‘Indians of the mountains’, under Arachosian command at Gaugamela. On his terrible march through the snows of the Hindu Kush, Alexander came across the ‘Indians who border upon the Arachosians’ (Arr. 3.28.1) – clearly the same tribe. It is not difficult to assign them to Sattagydia, even if that name had apparently been forgotten. As Vogelsang noted, Alexander later found that the Oxydracae and/or Malli had been paying tribute to the Arachosians (cf. p. 399 above), i.e. to the satrap at Kandahar. This reasonably delimits the extent (although, I must repeat, nothing like the precise boundaries) of the old Sattagydia. It extended from Arachosia across the Hindu Kush, at least as far as the Indus and possibly beyond. (We do not know precisely what was the territory of the Malli and Oxydracae.) When we find remnants of the old Sattagydia still not only serving their King but paying indirect tribute to him, we may at least conjecture that some men of Gandara, who fought for the King at Gaugamela under Bactrian command (Arr. 3.), had also been paying tribute to the satrap of Bactria. Clearly, control over those old provinces was far from complete, as (e.g.) the action of Sisicottus enables us to deduce. But we must wonder whether it is only chance that has deprived us of evidence of similar remnants of loyalty in the old Hindush (wherever it was): we have a bare trace of it in the ‘men from near the Red Sea’, from Maka. It would be surprising if it had entirely vanished in Hindush. But our evidence is scrappy, and the Alexander historians, although they almost inadvertently supply us with the evidence, were not inclined to play up loyalty to the King whom Alexander was replacing. 400

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We know about the Greek mercenaries, a small band of whom stayed with Darius to the end, when Persian aristocrats had decided to kill him. We should now add the notable loyalty of at least some of the King’s Indians, demonstrably in three of the four old provinces and perhaps in all four, who, without a satrap to supervise them or a garrison to assert control, continued to the end to pay their tribute to the King and to expend their lives in his cause. There is perhaps no more striking testimony to the spirit and the suasive power of that remarkable and, until recently, much underrated institution, the Achaemenid kingdom.45

Notes I am happy to be able to dedicate this little essay to my old friend Gerhard Wirth, as small recompense for all he has taught me about Alexander and other subjects, some remote from Ancient History. 1 Ctes. in Diod. 2.15ff.; Arr. Ind. init. 2 There has been a great deal of modern discussion. See G. Pettinato, Semiramide (1985), with (incomplete) bibliography pp. 403–6. Diodorus (from Ctesias) reports Semiramis’ actions in India at length. Arrian (Ind. 5.7) denies she ever got there. 3 The standard edition and discussion of Sargon’s geography is by A.K. Grayson, ‘The Empire of Sargon of Akkad’, Archiv für Orientforschung 15 (1974–77) 56–64. 4 D. Potts, ‘The Road to Meluhha’, JNES 41 (1982) 279–88. I owe the references to the ˇˇ debate on Meluhha to my colleague, Professor Piotr Steinkeller. ˇˇ 5 D. Potts in The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity I (1990) 134f. (and variously later). See on this the excellent survey by David F. Graf in Achaemenid History 4 (1990) 131–48. If Meluhha ought indeed to be associated with Magan/Maka, an obvious guess would be thatˇ ˇit might be the part of later Maka that was along the Iranian coast opposite Oman. 6 See (simplest) Roland G. Kent, Old Persian2 (1953) DB I 14–17. His system of references, though not always his text, has been universally followed and new finds fitted into it. I shall use ‘provinces’ for the OP dahya¯va, most of the time, though I am well aware of the fact that some have interpreted it differently. 7 See Nearchus ap. Strabo 15.1.5. C686. (Arr. 6.24 knows the story, but denies that Nearchus told it.) 8 Graf (cit. n. 5) 144–5; also J.-F. Salles, Achaem. Hist. (cit. n. 5, p. 113). 9 Salles 114. 10 H. Koch. Achämeniden-Studien (1993) 21, with reference to Persepolis Fortification Tablets (PFT) 679 and H-2135. (But she admits the possibility that he may have gone by sea to avoid the discomfort of land travel in that area.) The basic survey is by W. Eilers, ‘Das Volk der Maka vor und nach den Achämeniden’, AMI Erg.-Bd. 10 (1983) 101–19. 11 If Sargon’s Meluhha could be securely identified by Assyriologists in an eastern locaˇ Darius’ original claim. (See n. 5 above.) But there is unlikely to tion, it would defiˇne be a consensus unless new evidence turns up. 12 On Alexander’s reaction see now A.B. Bosworth, Alexander and the East (1996) ch. 5. On Alexander’s voyage to and along the Indus see Arr. 6. 1–17 (the most sober account). 13 See bibliography in W. Vogelsang, The Rise and Organisation of the Achaemenid Empire (1992) 206. This work will henceforth be cited under the author’s name only. It is a truly monumental achievement, for the first time laying a solid foundation for discussion of the East under the Achaemenids. 14 Koch (cit. n. 10) 37–8 gives an interesting summary, from which my brief account is taken. Precise references to the tablets will be found there. Vogelsang 168 lists (with

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15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30

31 32

33

discussion p. 167) the tablets mentioning Hindush or its inhabitants. The lists in Vogelsang and Koch should be taken in conjunction. Vogelsang’s idea that a man called Parnaka (not identical with the great Parnaka-Pharnaces) was resident in India is not a happy one. His only argument—that Indian delegations, twice apparently going from Hindush to Susa, have a pass sealed by him—is inconclusive: they may have had instructions to find the King in Persepolis; failing to find him, they needed a new document to take them on to Susa. (Cf. Koch 25 for a similar case.) See (best but too precise) Vogelsang 101. In Achaem. Hist. 4 (1990) 100. Ibid. The reference to Curtius is misprinted and needs correction: read IX for XI. And the Dadicae, whoever they are (frequently but inconclusively discussed). See Vogelsang 197ff. He rightly notes the fact that Arachosia is not listed as supplying a provincial contingent. It was presumably broken up into tribal units. See below, on Gaugamela. There is no mention of Sattagydians in the list. Unlike the other three Indian provinces (but like Arachosia), they probably provided no provincial contingent. Some of the tribal units from India will belong to Sattagydia. For discussion see Vogelsang 136 (with reference to Schmidt’s detailed treatment), 140. Vogelsang (147–60) presents a careful discussion and comparison with the throne-bearers. See Koch 98f. for discussion and some references. This is Kent’s etymology, op. cit. (n. 6) 187, rejecting Herzfeld’s implausible alternative. I am aware of the fact that the Babylonian delegation presents the same Indian animal—a fact never adequately explained. (For a conjecture see below.) Cf. Koch 99, based on Schmidt. (Her alternative conjecture seems less happy.) Vogelsang 148f. It is worth noting that all the delegations except for the Ionians present their characteristic animals. Perhaps the Ionians were thought to have no interesting animals to present. Schmidt, Persepolis I 89 n. 150. Camb. Hist. of India I 128. They can hardly be the native Çudra, who were regarded as unclean and would not be fit to appear before the King. Peter Calmeyer presented an interesting selection of relevant material from Persepolis in ‘Zur Darstellung von Standesunterschieden in Persepolis’, AMI 24 (1991), 35–51 (with Tafeln 11–18). Unfortunately his section on the ‘Gabenbringer’ (pp. 42–46), including a special treatment of ‘Anführer’ (pp. 45–46), makes no reference to the delegations in Xerxes’ procession here discussed. For discussion of the animal see Schmidt 90 n. 162, concluding that it may be an animal unknown to us. There were indeed pygmies in Ethiopia: they were still marvelled at by a Byzantine traveller. But they were an oddity, by no means the main inhabitants who paid the tribute and fought in Xerxes’ army. The rendering of those men as pygmies must be a deliberate slur. G. Walser in various works, especially in Die Völkerschaften auf den Reliefs von Persepolis (1966). His thesis seems to me basically unrefuted, although it has been contested in one or two details. This follows up a suggestion by Koch. It seems a reasonable one when the designers realised that they were running out of space. Artaxerxes (see below) learned from the mistake in design and used what was much the same amount of space more economically. Voyage en Perse de MM. Eugène Flandin et Pascal Coste pendant les Années 1840 et 1841. 1. Perse ancienne. 4 vols. (The drawing in vol. I Pl. 130.) The photograph was taken by F. Stolze: Persepolis. Hrsg. mit einer Besprechung der Inschriften von Th. Nöldeke.

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34

35

36

37 38 39

40 41 42

43 44 45

2 vols (1882). (The photo in 1 Plate 65.) I thank Professor W. Will for getting the photo for me and the UB of the University of Bonn for providing the book. F. Sarre und E. Herzfeld, Iranische Felsreliefs (1910). (The drawing on p. 50 Abb. 16.) I thank the Library of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts for making this book available to me when the Harvard Fine Arts Library had lost their copy. Herzfeld’s drawing is misleading as it shows one man carrying a tusk (on the photo two can be clearly seen). Between the second and third figure there is a tiny handwritten note: ‘hierzwischen 2 zerstörte Figuren’. No space has been left and the design of the group cannot be seen. Moreover, the lower portion of the body of one of the ‘zerstörte Figuren’ is clear on the photo and part of the other figure is discernible. The relief (now in very poor shape) has been unfortunate in its treatment. See further next note. There were in fact ten men. Schmidt, Persepolis I Pl. 202C, as he points out, shows parts of the feet of another man, not on the photo, in front of the first man on the photo. He must clearly be the delegation leader, and it is a pity that no witness saw what he looked like. (This of course explains why the next two figures on Stolze’s photo are alike and there is no obvious leader visible.) For some further fragments of Artaxerxes’ procession see Schmidt 281 and Ann Britt Tilia, Studies and Restorations at Persepolis and Other Sites of Fars. Reports and Memoirs, 1st. Ital. per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (1972) 293–312, with discussion and illustrations (fig. 10 and—a highly imaginative reconstruction—fig. 11). See Jacoby, FGrHist 688 F 45–52; R. Henry, Ctésias, La Perse, L’Inde. Les Sommaires de Photius (1947). Manfred Mayrhofer, Supplement zur Sammlung der Altpersischen Inschriften. Österr. Akad. d. Wiss., Sb. Philol.-Hist. Klasse 338 (1978) 31 (no. 7.3), assigns the tomb and the text to Artaxerxes II. It is worth pointing out that the appearance of Arabia on all the lists (and probably more than we know) must have influenced Alexander’s decision to invade and conquer Arabia: the last campaign planned before his death. There must have been men in his suite who would translate the lists for him at Susa and perhaps at Persepolis. Needless to say, the Alexander historians do not impute any such purpose to him, since he himself claimed that he had already conquered the whole of the Achaemenid empire by the time he returned from India. He clearly knew that this was false. So now, with more detailed discussion, A.B. Bosworth, Alexander and the East (1996) 152ff. not yet known to me when I read this paper in Bonn. As we happen to hear in relation to the later Darius III: Diod. 17.3.3, Just. 10.6. This is one of Vogelsang’s main theses. See (briefly) Achaem. Hist. 4 (1990) 99f. I should perhaps briefly mention that the argument over the boundaries of ‘India’ (Eratosthenes, following Megasthenes against the contemporary Alexander historians, it seems, makes the Indus the boundary between Ariane and India) seems to me to be unrelated to the earlier extension of Persian rule in India. It was a geographical (if one may say so, scholarly) dispute as to where Iran ended and India began. There were similar disputes, also without historical implications, as to the boundary between Europe and Asia and where Egypt fitted in. See Berve, Alexanderreich II no. 707. See Vogelsang 128. I should like to express my thanks to the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, where, during the autumn of 1996, I had the leisure and the books that enabled me to write the draft of this paper that I read at the Bonn Colloquium. The photographs of the Apadana procession are reproduced by courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

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23 A NOTE ON THE ‘ALEXANDER MOSAIC’

Eyes have they, and see not. Psalm 115

It takes a great deal of temerity for a mere historian to rush in and speak where (to adapt Sir Ronald Syme’s words on another matter) so many of the pachyderms of Kunstgeschichte have trodden and trumpeted. But the Mosaic has fascinated me ever since I first saw it in Naples, over forty years ago, and much more so since the splendid publication by Bernard Andreae1 gave the world some idea of what the colors must originally have looked like and how much they contribute to the effect.2 In a lecture I gave at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts on November 4, 1981, I included a discussion of the Mosaic, not rehashing all that had been said, but concentrating on some points that had never, to my knowledge, been raised in the treatments I had seen and that have a major bearing on its interpretation. My remarks seem to have been fairly widely disseminated and led to some correspondence, and they were at later times repeated and expanded in lectures on various occasions at Harvard. Of course, much has been written on the Mosaic since, most notably by Carl Nylander, whose careful observation and knowledge of Achaemenid matters have transformed important aspects of the way we look at it.3 The editors’ request for a contribution to a volume in honor of Peter Green, a scholar whose contribution to the history of Alexander III of Macedon is second to none, and who has demonstrated his interest in the art surrounding that king, has finally persuaded me to publish some of my views in this volume, for his consideration and perhaps amusement.

I That it is called the ‘Alexander Mosaic’ appears to be largely due to an accident of its discovery and history.4 Discovered in October 1831, in the House of the Faun, which at the time was called the ‘House of Goethe’ in honor of the poet’s visit there in 1787, it became known just when German Romanticism had transformed the classical world in its image, largely through the agency of Goethe’s 404

Figure 23.1 The ‘Alexander Mosaic’. Originally from the House of the Faun, Pompeii, now in the Museo Archeologico-Nazionale di Napoli. © Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library/Alamy

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genius. A rather inaccurate drawing by Wilhelm Zahn reached Goethe in March 1832, not long before his death, with a letter in which Zahn at once identified Alexander and Darius III. Goethe’s reply expresses his joy at seeing this depiction of Alexander as ‘Überwinder,’ with Darius personally being carried away in flight before him. And he at once appreciated (better than many of his successors) the horror shown by Darius at the death of the Persian who had sacrificed himself for his King. He also at once recognized the work as a ‘Wunder der Kunst.’ As Andreae has pointed out (32 ff.), Goethe’s interpretation was both subtle and penetrating, considering the circumstances. But it was his basic point, that Alexander is here shown as the conqueror, that mainly impressed itself on practically all future interpretations and was no doubt responsible for the name by which the Mosaic is generally known. To the German tradition fashioned by Johann Gustav Droysen in history and by Goethe in cultural matters, it seemed inconceivable that Alexander could not be depicted as the all-conquering hero. Yet a mere glance at the picture shows the truly dominating position of Darius in his chariot as the artistic focal point on the right, as the tree is on the left, and above all the visual obscurity of Alexander himself—as was in due course partly recognized by some art historians (e.g., Ludwig Curtius). The Mosaic should in fact have been more appropriately called the Darius Mosaic. But the facts have had little effect on the general interpretation, even down to the present. Heinrich Fuhrmann, in what is still much the fullest and in many ways the best treatment of the Mosaic,5 sees in the portrayal of Darius only ‘Sorge um das eigene Ich’ (p. 143) and describes him as ‘Schreckerstarrt, mit angstvollen Augen, . . . die Rechte waffenlos ausstreckend und damit auf jeden Widerstand verzichtend’; whereas Alexander ‘blickt . . . fest und unbeirrt auf sein Ziel’ [Darius]. Not only is this far from Goethe’s sensibility, but the untrained onlooker, ignorant both of art history and of the historical background, would surely find it impossible to understand how a trained eye could see in this picture what the expert here describes. Nor has the composition, much admired by critics, always been better understood. Thus Ludwig Curtius6 says of Alexander: ‘Er ist nur Vordrängen, nur Richtung [sic], nur Tun. Die Perser, das ist nur Erleiden.’ Georg Lippold, writing in the Real-Encyclopädie,7 finds classical standards of composition satisfied, ‘obwohl die gröβere Masse auf der Perserseite ist’: the left side has ‘das Gegengewicht der Vorwärtsbewegung.’ (We cannot help wondering how he knows this, since practically the whole of the left side is lost.) More recently, Tonio Hölscher,8 no mean art historian, opined: ‘Von Alexander geht die Bewegung aus.’ (The reader is invited to look at the actual picture!) One could continue the dreary catalogue, but let us conclude with an extravaganza by a recent writer, as well informed on the Mosaic as any of the great men cited. Burkhard Fehr, in an idiosyncratic interpretation of the original as having been painted in Egypt, finds in it from the Greek point of view a depiction of the barbarian King as cowardly and cruel, while from the Egyptian point of view he sees Alexander as the true Pharaoh and Darius mocked as the foreign enemy.9 406

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II Some general reflections seem indicated before we start. A realistic action painting like the original of the Mosaic is the painter’s equivalent of a snapshot— except, of course, that within given limits it may vary reality according to the artist’s choice. They are alike in that the painter chooses to ‘click the shutter’ at a certain point in the action and, like the photographer (though with greater freedom of action, especially since he is depicting a past event), he selects the moment at which he does so. The photographer must in the heat of action choose a moment that illustrates what he regards as the significant message; the painter, correspondingly, also chooses his moment, but is free to reconstruct it and is not forced to seize it as it occurs. It is helpful to bear this in mind when we look at the Mosaic.10 It would have been easy, and tempting, to show a godlike Alexander eagerly riding toward and thrusting his lance at a King whose back was turned in flight: the King’s terrified face (as Fuhrmann saw it), full of fear for his own safety, could be shown as he turned his head. Fortunately, this is not merely a theoretical construction. This is largely how the scene is depicted on an Apulian amphora from Ruvo, by the ‘Darius Painter’ (Naples Museum no. 3220, see Figure 23.2), which some art historians have actually thought similar to the Mosaic. (It is also worth commenting on the limp right arm held out by Darius in that painting and on the look of resignation on his face, as contrasted with the face tight with horror and the arm purposefully stretched out toward the enemy in the Mosaic.) What our artist has chosen to show is vastly different: as different as it could be, given the fact that he had to keep within the constraint of the historical situation well known to his public. Since practically the whole of the Macedonian half of the picture is lost, we cannot tell how that was shown. But it is reasonably clear that, at the imaginary moment when the painter chose to click his shutter, the actual movement was from right to left—not from left to right, with Macedonians pursuing the fleeing Persians. Darius himself leans forward, as do two of the Persians seen in front of him; in fact no Persian except for the charioteer clearly leans away from the enemy. The one Macedonian we can see does not seem to be leaning toward the enemy, and his helmet points toward the left. As for Alexander himself, the ‘camera’ has caught him at a time when (for whatever reason) his horse is rearing, so that he too leans slightly away from the enemy. No one, of course, could show Alexander as retreating, since the painting was intended to be essentially true to the historical event. But it is interesting that Bucephalus, at any rate, could be shown as apparently unwilling to attack and rearing away from the enemy, thus imparting to Alexander’s body the paradoxically contrary inclination that the artist was clearly aiming at.11 The momentum is strikingly enhanced by the tree. Its trunk could easily have been represented as pointing in the direction of Alexander’s attack, or at least as standing straight upright. In fact, it shares the inclination from the Persian to the Macedonian side and, dominating

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Figure 23.2 Alexander pursuing Darius. Apulian amphora from Ruvo, attributed to the ‘Darius Painter’, c. 330 BC, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (3220). © The Art Archive/Alamy

the whole picture as the viewer first looks at it, impresses it on him before he even has time to note the details. The tree is in a way the conductor of the whole ballet that is acted out underneath it. It embodies and directs the tour de force of the artist’s conception. The effect is vastly increased by the lances in the background on the right. Where we can see the bearers, they are Persians, and all but three on the far right point toward the Macedonian enemy. Among them, visibly carried by a Persian (as his costume shows), is one that displays (for us) the remains of a banner, most of it erased by damage. It is not inclined quite as much as the actual lances, but it still clearly points in the right direction. This posed a problem for the traditional interpretation. Fuhrmann (p. 142) had long ago correctly identified the banner as the royal standard: that had to be explained away. The lances were correctly seen to be sarissae characteristic of Macedonian armament. This was developed into the interpretation of their bearers being Macedonians (contrary to what our eyes tell us where we can distinguish them): they had surrounded the Persians and were closing in to annihilate them. But what could be done about the royal standard? With increasing unanimity 408

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Andreas Rumpf’s ‘proof’ that it was in fact a Macedonian signal for attack has been followed—never mind the fact that it would be singularly out of place for such a signal and that it is slanted in the wrong direction.12 It was one of Nylander’s great merits to expel this whole phantom and restore the true interpretation. Consulting old drawings that showed the Mosaic before some of the deterioration had set in, he found that the symbol on the banner was a bird and that, in view of what we know of Achaemenid symbols, the banner must be a royal standard and presumably Darius’s own. It follows that the lances are indeed carried by Persians, even though they are Macedonian-style sarissae; and this led Nylander (for the first time, as far as I know) to a reasoned identification of the battle intended. It must be Gaugamela. According to Diodorus (17.53.1), the only source that gives details of Darius’s arming of his forces between Issus and Gaugamela,13 he ‘had made [his army’s] swords and lances much longer than the ones they had had before, since it was thought that it was because of these weapons that Alexander had had a great advantage in the battle in Cilicia [i.e., at Issus].’14 Gaugamela (at the time called Arbela, its vulgate designation) had been the original identification of the battle when the Mosaic was discovered.15 It was accepted by Fuhrmann (p. 44), who fitted it to Callisthenes’ account of the battle as reported by Plutarch. A further detail may point toward this identification. Andreae (p. 20) noted the shadows that appear on the right in some places: they show the fact that the sun was behind Alexander. He regarded this as a detail that confirmed the artist’s overall accuracy. We may add that it also seems to confirm Gaugamela as the identification. On the plain of Issus, extending roughly north to south, the sun could not have been behind Alexander except briefly in the middle of a winter’s day—much too early for the decisive moment in the battle. We do not know the orientation of the battlefield at Gaugamela, but since the possibility is not excluded, we must take it that this was the battle the artist intended.16 This detail further strengthens Nylander’s decisive proof.17 As we have seen, it has at times been observed that it is Darius who dominates the action. He is raised above all others on his chariot, where he stands up to increase the effect and leans forward toward the enemy, who is leaning away from him. His right arm is stretched out toward that enemy whom he now realizes he will never actually reach. The expression of horror on his face, as he contemplates the self-sacrifice of his faithful nobles, has almost invariably been seen. (We have noted the strange exception of Fuhrmann.) As for the portrayal of Alexander, it was noted by Fuhrmann that this is not the standard later heroic or divine portrait, but a portrait of a warrior (pp. 131 ff.). Fuhrmann drew attention to the ‘Backenbärtchen’ that must be true to life, since they were later affected by some of Alexander’s imitators. Andreae calls the portrait truest to life of all we have (p. 40) and comments, i.a., on the heavy chin, the arrogant lips and the knitted eyebrows, which, with his large (and, we may add, ruthless and fanatical) eyes make the face ‘schreckenerregend.’ (The portrait can be well studied in Andreae’s enlargement on p. 41, just as Darius’s can be on p. 43.) Ludwig 409

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Curtius (op. cit. n. 3, p. 329) calls it ‘das einzige authentische und durch seine Häβlichkeit garantierte [Porträt Alexanders; my emphasis].’ Andreae (25) practically echoes these words. It must be added that, in life as we know it, ugliness does not guarantee the full authenticity of a portrait: it is as likely to be a caricature. But that, of course, was beyond the imagination of those who regarded the ‘Alexander Mosaic’ as glorifying Alexander. It must further be noted that this Alexander not only, as we have seen, seems to be unable to control his recalcitrant horse, which imparts to him the appearance of leaning away from his enemy, but he is bareheaded. This has been taken to be a heroic attribute—but then we notice, even in our fragmentary representation, that his helmet is lying on the ground. He is, to put it bluntly, a man who has lost his hat.18 The representation as a whole may justly be called not merely not heroic, but deliberately unheroic, even though (in Andreae’s word) terrifying. We have already noted the importance of the tree. If it is Darius who dominates the action, it is the tree that dominates the whole composition. We must now note how it serves as a link among the principal actors, with one exception, probably due to the loss of much of the Mosaic. Its left branch is roughly parallel to Darius’s outstretched right arm: it is impossible to say whether the approximation is due to the mosaicist or to the original artist, who may have wanted to create an impression of a parallel without too obvious insistence. But we note the twig at the top of the branch, corresponding to Darius’s thumb. The branch is more precisely parallel to the slope of Bucephalus’s head, even to mirroring the little lump on the horse’s head. The two strands of the horse’s mane falling over his forehead correspond inversely to two twiglets to be seen above the lance. On the right side of the tree, the little branch is parallel to the right arm of the charioteer, with a twig at its end recalling the angle of the charioteer’s whip. The main (vertical) branch on the right parallels Darius’s left arm, though pointing in the opposite direction. But there is nothing except perhaps the inclination, which we have noted, to link what we have of Alexander with the tree. We can only assume that this is due to our having so little of Alexander’s body preserved. In view of the careful links established by the artist, it would be astonishing if Alexander had not been drawn into the scheme. It is not unreasonable to suggest that, if we had his right leg, it would show some parallelism to one of the features of the tree, and so probably to one of the other main actors. Of course, this can never be proved. But it is surely an obvious, indeed (I would say) a necessary hypothesis, in view of the artist’s care in linking the main actors through the tree. The most astonishing fact about the tree is that it is a striking piece of deliberate fiction. Everyone knew that, in order to deploy his cavalry and scythed chariots to best effect, Darius had ‘flattened the ground’ on the whole battlefield (Arr. 3.8.7; elaborated Curt. 4.9.10). The artist introduced the tree, as the key to his whole composition. No doubt it was also intended as a many-faceted symbol. At the simplest level, it may be taken to symbolize the destruction and denudation caused by Alexander’s war. But it must surely above all be a memento mori. In 410

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the words of ‘Nabarzanes’ in Curtius’s delightful Roman controuersia that precedes the death of Darius III: ultimum omnium mors est (Curt. 5.9.7). Or, in the words ascribed to a modern economist: ‘In the long run we are all dead.’ This trivial truism certainly acquired some exposure in Hellenistic times. It is here raised from banality to the level of great art by the role assigned to the fictitious tree. After all, much great art has (if I may say so) been rooted in universal truisms. The tree, dwarfing Alexander ‘the Great,’ essentially stands for the vanity of human, and especially of heroic, effort. Andreae has commented on the splendid portraiture we find in the Mosaic: of Alexander, of Darius, even of Bucephalus (‘a portrait of a horse’). We may add: a portrait of a dead tree. I was fortunate to be able to discuss this with Professor Anthony Snodgrass when he visited Harvard. He later wrote to me that he knows of nothing precisely parallel in earlier Greek art. As far as specifically Macedonian art is concerned, the matter is more complicated. We shall return to it after considering the identity of the artist.

III The only Alexander battle reliably assigned to an artist in antiquity is that painted by Philoxenus of Eretria for Cassander: cuius tabula, nullis postferenda, Cassandro regi picta, continuit Alexandri proelium cum Dario (Pliny, NH 35.110). An obscure manuscript here reads rege, which would transform Cassander into a mere chronological point of reference and move the terminus ante quem non down to when he began to call himself king, some time after 311. Fortunately, I have not seen any serious attention paid by textual critics to that variant. We may take it that Cassander commissioned the painting—and not necessarily after he became king, for such titles are freely used merely to pinpoint identity, without intended chronological implications. An ascription of such a painting to an Egyptian Helen by Ptolemy ‘Chennus’ (‘the Quail’) was disbelieved, along with much other stuff reported by that purveyor of fiction, by Adolf Michaelis (cited by Fuhrmann) over a century ago and was completely demolished by Fuhrmann, who supported the ascription to Philoxenus with elaborate arguments. (He pointed to connections between Philoxenus’s teacher Nicomachus and Cassander’s father, Antipater, attested to in ancient sources.) Pliny’s high praise for his painting would certainly fit what most modern critics have said about the Mosaic.19 Yet Fuhrmann’s powerful arguments have recently tended to be rejected, usually by far from convincing reasoning. Thus Andreae, while expanding Pliny’s judgment that ‘Die Komposition zählt zu den großartigsten, die je von einem Künstler entworfen wurden’ (p. 19), rejects Philoxenus, because Pliny reports that he did his painting quickly, whereas the original of the Mosaic cannot have been the work of a ‘Schnellmaler.’ (He is more inclined to accept its assignation to Apelles—absurd, because it could not fail to be mentioned in the numerous sources on his 411

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works—because Apelles was the greatest of Greek painters!) But relative speed of execution—Philoxenus is said to have worked even faster than Nicomachus—is not necessarily a mark of lack of quality, any more than length of time employed in the composition of a work of art, music, or literature is any guarantee of it. Both Bach and Mozart could be called ‘Schnellkomponisten.’20 Moreover, we cannot be sure that there are no signs of ‘Flüchtigkeit’ in the painting. Some infelicities usually ascribed to the mosaicist may be due to the painter. Ludwig Curtius (op. cit. n. 3, p. 332) thought that only the central figures are rendered with real care, and that away from them the rendering becomes ‘flüchtig und ungenau.’ Nor did Andreae notice that one of his own best comments, that Alexander’s face is ‘schreckenerregend,’ fits in precisely with what Plutarch reports about Cassander’s reaction to Alexander (Alex. 74) after Alexander had treated him inhumanly, Cassander’s spirit was so deeply penetrated and imbued with a dreadful fear of Alexander that many years afterwards, when he was now king of Macedon and master of Greece, . . . the sight of an image of Alexander struck him suddenly with a shuddering and trembling from which he could scarcely recover, so that he became dizzy at the sight. This is also the answer to others, who have denied that Cassander, with his hatred of Alexander and Alexander’s family, could have chosen to commission a painting of one of Alexander’s victories to adorn his palace. We must consider how it was depicted. Cassander was acquainted with Peripatetic philosophers. The painting he commissioned was, as we have seen, a ‘philosophical’ one. Alexander is shown with his features distorted to the ruthless ugliness that Cassander remembered; the battle is paradoxically depicted at a moment when his enemy, although ultimately defeated, dominates the action; and the tree behind him symbolizes the vanity of his heroic striving and the destruction that was the sole result of it. I see no reason why Cassander should not have ordered a painting such as this, as part of his vengeance against Alexander. It is only the German romantic admiration for Alexander, which comes across in so many of the comments on the Mosaic, that will see a problem in this. A further reflection ought at least to be set out for consideration. When Cassander commissioned, and his artist executed, a painting showing Persian nobles sacrificing themselves for their King, and the King’s compassionate horror at their sacrifice, one wonders whether, at least in Cassander’s mind, there was an implied comparison with Alexander: the Alexander who had rewarded some of those who most loyally fought for him (Parmenio and Philotas), who had saved his life in battle (Clitus), and even those who had unhesitatingly carried out his repulsive orders (the murderers of Parmenio), with death. Cassander well knew that that fate was probably in store for his father Antipater, who had loyally governed Greece for Alexander and saved it for him at the time of Agis’s war: for Antipater had been 412

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superseded by Craterus and recalled to the court; with the fate of others swept up in the great purge after Alexander’s return from India before his eyes, he refused to obey and instead sent two sons to Alexander as hostages—one of them Cassander himself, whose treatment at Alexander’s hands both imbued him with that indelible fear and hatred and clearly showed the fate in store for Antipater if he obeyed the summons. He was in fact saved by Alexander’s death, and so (perhaps) was Cassander himself.21 Perhaps this at least in part accounts for the introduction of that striking Motiv, which was not part of the general tradition on the battle or even an obvious theme to dwell on. It is clear that the artist must at least have worked from a very detailed description of Darius, whose depiction seems as realistic as that of Alexander (if more sympathetic). Indeed, since the Persian tradition, inherited from Mesopotamia, did not go in for realistic portraiture, Darius III is the only Achaemenid King whose features we actually know: like Alexander, he must here be shown ‘true to nature,’ as far as his basic features are concerned. It is in fact very likely that the artist must himself have seen Darius, whether in life or after the King’s death. That he knew Persian traditions on depicting the King is clear. As we know from Persepolis and Naqsh-i Rustam, the King had to be shown taller than anyone in his company. This, of course, could not be done in a Greek painting. But this artist has skillfully transferred that traditional rendering into the Greek medium by the way he arranged for Darius to tower from his chariot above the other figures. He must have been to one of the Persian capitals—at least Susa, if not Persepolis itself—where he could pick up that information. The evidence compels the conclusion that he was either on Alexander’s expedition, at least as far as the Persian heartlands, or that he traveled there a little later and got his information on Darius’s appearance at second hand. Nylander some time ago suggested that the painting was commissioned by someone who aimed at reconciling Greeks, Macedonians, and Persians.22 He seems by implication to point to Seleucus, although he does not name him. If so, it would be easy enough to imagine the artist in Seleucus’s company, visiting the old Achaemenid capitals and receiving from Seleucus and some who had served with him an account of the features of Darius III that might enable him to devise his portrait. Like everything that Nylander has written about the Mosaic, or indeed about Achaemenid matters, this will have to be very seriously considered. But I must disagree with him on one or two points, which admittedly are not vital to his interpretation; yet their abandonment would weaken it and allow for an alternative. First, as will be clear, I do not at all agree that this painting ‘glorified Alexander’ (his p. 694); nor (as he will know) do I accept his statement that Alexander’s ideas included ‘brotherhood among nations, unity between East and West’ (p. 693): this is the Alexander of Tarn’s historical fiction, not (as far as I know) based on anything in real life or the principal sources.23 As for Seleucus, we simply do not know how he regarded or treated Persians; although we do know that, for good political reasons, he did not divorce Apame, and that he was popular in Babylonia, so he may have treated them well. On the other hand, since he, like the rest of the Diadochi, in part derived his legitimacy from 413

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Alexander, I cannot conceive of his conspiring in having Alexander characterized as he is in this painting. To return to Philoxenus, whom Fuhrmann so plausibly confirmed as the best candidate. Did he accompany Alexander? Unfortunately, we cannot tell. We can only say, Nihil obstat. Alexander’s moving court included painters, as well as poets and philosophers, who are occasionally attested. Apelles certainly accompanied the expedition, at least for some time. And Alexander’s widely reported unwillingness to let anyone other than Apelles paint him shows that there were other willing candidates about. They are not named, simply because they never succeeded in painting Alexander, and because the special favor shown to Apelles made it inevitable that his officers who wanted to be immortalized would also let only Apelles paint them.24 Of the poets and philosophers too, only those are actually named who came into close contact with Alexander (e.g., Agis and Anaxarchus). Those artists who knew their own worth—and if Philoxenus was there, we may take it that he was among them—would not like Alexander any better because of their exclusion. They might be prepared to work for Cassander. For all these reasons, which admittedly cannot be called decisive, but which seem to me better than those advanced for any other ascription, I would prefer to restore the credit for this outstanding painting, nullis postferenda (as all its interpreters admit), to Philoxenus of Eretria.

IV Let us now return to the puzzle of the tree.25 In Hellenistic times, dead trees became mere items of artistic furniture, as indeed they are on Macedonian tombs, most of which are Hellenistic in date. Their first appearance in Macedonia is in the famous frieze of the ‘royal hunt’ on tomb no. 2 at Vergina, identified by Manolis Andronikos as the tomb of Philip II.26 In addition to some living vegetation, the scene shows two dead trees in the center, framing a wreathed youthful figure aiming at a lion. Andronikos identified the young man as Alexander, with Philip an older, bearded man (not much of whose face survives) over to the right, also aiming at a lion. He at once compared the dead trees to the tree in the Alexander Mosaic, pointing out various similarities (some of them not easy to see, in part perhaps because of the poor state of preservation of the frieze). He points out, quite rightly, that the artistic standard of the frieze can in no way be compared to that of the Mosaic. From this he concludes that the frieze may be the work of the same artist as the original of the Mosaic, only ‘not less than fifteen or twenty years’ earlier. He inclines to accept Philoxenus of Eretria as the artist in both cases. There is an obvious petitio principii in the argument. If the two works are not by the same artist (and nothing actually proves that they are), then the fact that the frieze is not as outstanding a work of art as the Mosaic is irrelevant to their respective dates, even on the assumption that one was influenced by the other. 414

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As is well known, many scholars believe that tomb no. 2 is that of Philip III (Arrhidaeus), and the question may be regarded as still open.27 Now it was suggested to me by Professor Olga Palagia that the dead trees are descended from Persian funeral monuments in Asia Minor of the fifth and fourth centuries. The best-known of these, frequently reproduced, comes from a site near Dascylium and shows a hunt including a (perfectly straight) dead tree.28 If, as is likely, these paradeisoi scenes were indeed the inspiration of the royal hunt at Vergina, it is likely that that painting was executed after Alexander’s invasion of Asia Minor, most probably indeed after the return of his soldiers in 323. Professor Palagia is among those who believe that it adorned the tomb of Philip III and that the tomb was constructed under Cassander. This of course brings the frieze into close proximity to the original of the Mosaic: there is no easily imaginable way of telling which precedes the other. If we accept the similarities noted by Andronikos, it would seem that one was the model for the other. But some of the similarities are less striking on close inspection. Thus the two straight dead trees of the frieze, although also used as artistic devices (to frame the main figure in the frieze), show no close resemblance to the dominant tree, with its tone-setting leftward slant, in the Mosaic. It is probably easier to posit that both these works were independently inspired by Persian tomb art seen in Asia Minor. If the frieze indeed postdates the return of Alexander’s soldiers and was executed under Cassander for Philip III, this has an obvious bearing on the identity of the figure framed by the trees. On general principle, that figure ought to be the inhabitant of the tomb: no one else would reasonably be given such a central position. Indeed, this is a basic flaw of Andronikos’s identification of the tomb: there is no good reason why, in a tomb erected for Philip II, Philip should be depicted in an out-of-the-way position, with Alexander holding the center of the stage. If we assume that it is indeed the tomb of Philip III, the objection vanishes: there is no argument against the central figure being an idealized Arrhidaeus—with his father Philip shown in a corner, much-needed authentication of his claim to rule, for which his descent from Philip was the sole qualification. The wreath can also now be explained: we hear incidentally that, on Alexander’s expedition, Arrhidaeus, not known to have held any military or administrative post, had in fact been a priest (Curt. 10.7.2; according to Curtius, this was urged in his favor when he was put forward as a candidate for the throne).29 In view of what we have seen about Cassander’s attitude to Alexander’s memory, it would of course be quite unimaginable that Cassander could have made Alexander the central figure in a frieze on a tomb whose occupant was in any case not Alexander himself. The identity of the occupant of the tomb and that of the central figure on its frieze will no doubt continue to be debated. It is here only of marginal concern, but needed a mention. As far as the original of the Mosaic is concerned, the introduction of the deliberately fictitious dead tree as a symbol and as the artistic center of the whole composition was quite probably suggested by Persian hunting scenes in paradeisoi depicted in Asia Minor. (I have seen no reference to such trees in earlier battle scenes.) This only makes the originality of the artist’s genius shine forth all the more brightly. 415

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Notes 1 I refer to Andreae’s final publication, Das Alexandermosaik aus Pompeji (Recklinghausen, 1977), with a foldout of the Mosaic and enlargements of various details, in much better colors than the visitor to Naples would ever see in the Museum. I am grateful to the editors of this volume who, right from the start, agreed to having a color reproduction of the Mosaic included with my essay [the original essay in F. B. Titchener and R. F. Moorton Jr., The Eye Expanded, Berkeley, University of California Press 1999], and to Professor Andreae for allowing the use of his reproduction in that volume. For an extended new treatment of the Mosaic see Ada Cohen, The Alexander Mosaic: Stories of Victory and Defeat (Cambridge and New York, 1997). 2 I have only recently seen Andrew Stewart’s Faces of Power: Alexander’s Image and Hellenistic Politics (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1993), where the Mosaic is discussed in detail (esp. pp. 130–50), unfortunately with a rather poor reproduction. I am glad to see that on some points of detail he has independently reached readings similar to mine, and if there are far more points on which we differ, that is largely because of the difference between a general historian and an art historian. I shall not, on the whole, comment on the differences in detail, since I have found his book very instructive, in part because of the very fact that it is methodologically so remote from the works of historians. 3 I assume throughout that the general execution of the Mosaic was, in its undamaged state, of a very high level, as Andreae’s reproductions make clear, and that we are entitled to attribute what we see to the original artist. In this, I am happy to follow Nylander’s judgment in Opuscula Romana 14 (1983): 19 n. 4. The excellence of the composition has always been recognized. See, e.g., Ludwig Curtius, Die Wandmalerei Pompejis (Leipzig, 1929), 329: ‘Dem, der sich die Mühe nicht verdrießen läßt, sie immer aufs neue zu studieren, eröffnet sich die grandioseste Komposition eines Gemäldes, die es überhaupt gibt.’ (Echoed by Andreae, Alexandermosaik, 19.) And see further n. 6 below. 4 See the treatment in Andreae, Alexandermosaik, 29 ff. 5 Heinrich Fuhrmann, Philoxenos von Eretria: Archäologische Untersuchungen über zwei Alexandermosaike (Göttingen, 1931). I again unhesitatingly share Nylander’s admiration for this work (expressed loc. cit., n. 3 above). 6 Op. cit. n. 3 above, 335. Yet he not only comments on the excellence of the composition, but in that respect compares the artist to ‘dem Geschlechte der Raffael, Michelangelo und Rubens’! 7 RE s.v. Philoxenos 29, col. 202. 8 Tonio Hölscher, Griechische Historienbilder des 5. and 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Würzburg, 1973), 127. 9 Burkhard Fehr, in Bathron: Beiträge zur Architektur und verwandten Künsten für Heinrich Drerup, ed. Hermann Büsing and Friedrich Hiller (Saabrücken, 1988), 121–34, at pp. 125, 128. The cruelty is said to be shown by the charioteer whipping his horses to run fast over the bodies of Persians in the way. However, he is not depicted as actually whipping them; and would one push the accelerator to the floor when going round a sharp bend? The most reasonable suggestion made is that he is signaling with his whip held high for Persians to get out of the way. 10 Andreae, Alexandermosaik, 19, seems to get close to realizing this, but he is too caught up in the traditional Alexandrolatry to pursue it or make much of it. He even manages to find (33) that ‘in der rechten Bildhälfte die Kompositionslinien sich nach rechts neigen’ (with the sole exception of Darius, and no mention of the sarissae in the background). 11 Needless to say, this too can be explained away, with sufficient imagination. Andreae (cf. preceding note) finds proof, in the piece of the rear leg of Alexander’s horse that survives (16), ‘wie das Pferd . . . zum Sprung ansetzte, aber von Alexander

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12

13 14

15 16

17

18

durchpariert wird.’ The picture of that hoof is not shown among the many excellent enlargements. This painting, incidentally, was one of the first works of art showing a rider in battle on a rearing horse. That soon became fashionable. But in later examples (chiefly sculpture) the rider sits vertically on his horse (as in the Dexileos memorial in Athens) or actually leans forward (as in one scene of L. Aemilius Paullus’s relief at Delphi). Thus Andreae: ‘Above everything there rises the Greek sign of victory, the red standard giving the signal for attack’ (Andreae, Alexandermosaik, 69, my translation). This, of course, is the only way of saving the implausible interpretation of the lances in the background as showing Macedonian soldiers. Arrian is not interested in the Persian armament, and Curtius’s real interest is limited to the exotic scythed chariots (4.9.4), details of which were bound to fascinate his readers. As I put it in a contribution to a memorial essay for David M. Lewis [no. 25 in this collection, p. 467] ‘No Persian army was ever better prepared for a single battle than Darius’ army at Gaugamela.’ Unfortunately, its commander was not at the same level of excellence. See Andreae, Alexandermosaik, 31. Andreae strangely comments on Alexander’s choosing to attack with the sun behind him, ‘so wie jeder geschickte Feldherr der Antike.’ (One could surely extend this to more recent times.) He overlooks two facts. First, that Alexander could not choose the direction of his attack, either at Issus or at Gaugamela. At Issus, Darius’s army was uncomfortably fitted into a narrow plain and Alexander, coming up from the south, could only move northward. At Gaugamela, Darius was waiting for him, encamped on a large plain; Alexander had led his forces to a ridge overlooking that plain and the attack would have to be launched from there, no matter where the sun was that morning. Second, and above all, that if Alexander, at Gaugamela, was fortunate enough to be able to attack with the sun behind him, he could not expect the sun to stand still (as in the Bible at Jericho) for the whole day that the battle would take. The only battle where Alexander had that choice was the battle of the Granicus. There he could choose between attacking across the river in the afternoon, with his army somewhat tired from the march but with the sun shining straight into the enemy’s eyes, and waiting until next morning, with his men rested but having to face the sun as they crossed the river. Alexander wisely opted for the former. That battle could be expected to be a short one, as indeed it turned out. That is not to say that the wrong identification has not been arbitrarily revived: thus F. Salviat in the Acta of the 12th International Congress of Classical Archaeology, vol. 2 (1988), 193–97. Stewart, Faces of Power (cit. n. 2 above), 134, argues for Issus, but I do not find his rather subjective arguments persuasive. He apparently did not know Nylander’s article. The game will no doubt continue, as scholars seek ‘originality.’ Andreae probably knew, though he does not mention, the portrait of Alexander holding the thunderbolt that forms the reverse of the ‘Porus decadrachms’ (or, as Martin J. Price preferred, largely for the sake of his theories, ‘5-shekel pieces’). Since that time, more of these coins have turned up. That portrait is presumably related to (if not based on) the famous painting by Apelles at Ephesus (see, e.g., Pliny, NH 35.92; Plut. Alex. 4—which helps to show that what distinguished the painting simply cannot appear on a coin). Both must have been done after Alexander’s return from India, the first time when divine (as distinct from heroic) pretensions are attested in him. But the coin portrait is much too small to give any detailed impression, and it can in any case hardly be expected to be realistic. The identification of the fallen helmet in the Mosaic as Alexander’s, visibly adorned as it is with a horn characteristic of the royal Macedonian helmet, has of course been denied by some who see him depicted as the

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19

20

21 22 23 24

25

26

all-conquering hero. See, e.g., Tonio Hölscher (op. cit. n. 8 above, 129 f.), who claims that the helmet is not Alexander’s (he does not say whose it can be): Alexander is shown heroically bareheaded. (A disquisition on kings and emperors later portrayed bareheaded is added, without reference to the fact that they must have imitated a portrayal of Alexander.) Andreae, to his great credit, takes it for granted that the fallen helmet is Alexander’s. ‘Chennus’ was not revived even by Fehr (cit. n. 9 above with text), who argued that the painting was produced in Egypt. Unfortunately, Stewart, Faces of Power (cit. n. 2 above), lists that notice without any warning as serious ancient documentation. Art historians not familiar with source criticism, and with this discussion in particular, may well take it seriously. It is perhaps worth pointing out that Chennus’s statement comes from his book 4, on women called Helen. It lists, i.a., a Helen, daughter of Musaeus, from whom Homer took his plot, and a Helen who fought a duel with Achilles and almost killed him. That ‘Helen’s’ painting of the Alexander battle is said to have stood in the enclosure of Vespasian’s Temple of Peace raises the intriguing possibility that Philoxenus’s painting, like so many great Greek works of art, ended up in Rome—whether specially shipped across for the Temple of Peace or (rather more likely) taken from some other public place in Rome, where an earlier Roman art thief had displayed it. Stewart, Faces of Power (cit. n. 2 above), 147 f., has advanced a different explanation of the term used by Pliny, which would not refer to speed of execution. I do not know enough about the terminology of ancient art criticism to discuss this, but as it comes from a distinguished art historian, it will have to be seriously considered. However, the context in Pliny undoubtedly suggests actual speed of execution: note his reference to ‘Laia’ (if that is the correct reading)—‘no hand was faster [uelocior] than hers.’ I have compared the floating anecdote of the painter who, when his sitter complained of the high price charged for a few hours’ work, replied that it was based on a lifetime of experience. On this see my treatment in ‘Harpalus,’ JHS 81 (1961, [no. 5 in this collection]), 16–43, at pp. 16 ff. Carl Nylander, ‘Il milite ignoto,’ in La regione sotterrata dal Vesuvio, ed. Alfonso de Franciscis (Naples, 1982), 689–95. See my essay ‘Alexander the Great and the Unity of Mankind,’ Historia 7 (1958 [no. 1 in this collection]), 425–44, the conclusions of which seem to have been widely accepted. For Alexander’s insistence on letting only Apelles paint him, widely reported, see, e.g., Pliny, NH 7.125. (Pyrgoteles and Lysippus were the only artists allowed to portray him in sculpture.) Complete documentation on Apelles in H. Berve, Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage (Munich, 1926), vol. 2, no. 99. Berve thinks Lysippus accompanied Alexander as far as the Granicus, but as far as I recall, does not list any other artist as accompanying the expedition. No others are named in our sources. What follows owes much to a fine lecture by Professor Olga Palagia at a colloquium on Alexander organized by Dr. Elizabeth Baynham and Professor A. B. Bosworth at the University of Newcastle, NSW, in July 1997. Professor Palagia also provided some references to earlier literature. She should of course not be taken as agreeing with any of my interpretations. (I know that she disagrees with some.) See Manolis Andronikos’s splendid publication Vergina: The Royal Tombs and the Ancient City (Athens, 1984), 116 ff. The ‘royal hunt’ has been much discussed, particularly with reference to Persian and possible earlier Macedonian influences. See, e.g., the articles by Bruno Tripodi and Pierre Briant in Dialogues d’Histoire Ancienne 17 = Annales litteraires de l’Université de Besançon 450 (1991): 143–209 and 231–43 respectively. Briant is (cautiously) inclined to believe that there were hunts in imitation of paradeisoi in

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Argead Macedonia. He even suggests (234 n. 40) that the Nympheum at Mieza, where Aristotle is said to have taught Alexander, was part of a Macedonian paradeisos! But he finally admits that there is little evidence. 27 Basic for this view, A. M. Prestianni-Giallombardo and B. Tripodi, ASNP, Cl. di lettere, ser. 3, 10 (1980): 889–1001. Both these scholars have since contributed much to the support of the view by art-historical analysis. Tripodi (cit. n. 26, 209) now dates the tomb ‘soon after Alexander the Great.’ It will be clear that this is the view I accept, even though my suggested identifications of the two principal figures in the hunt scene differ from his (and in part from Andronikos’s). 28 I have not actually come across other examples of such trees, but take Professor Palagia’s word for their existence. They are no doubt well known to specialists. For the one referred to here, see J. K. Anderson, Hunting in the Ancient World (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1985), 71 f. (illustration on p. 72), with references to previous publications. He thinks it possible that the tree in the relief ‘suggests mortality.’ Tripodi (cit. n. 26 above), on the lookout for detailed parallels with the Vergina hunt in earlier art, does not mention this relief or indeed refer to the dead trees in the Vergina frieze except in passing. 29 Even though she thinks the tomb is Philip III’s and agrees that the central figure in a tomb painting ought normally to be the occupant of the tomb, Professor Palagia still accepts Andronikos’s identification of the central figure as Alexander.

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24 CONSPIRACIES

Plots, true or false, are necessary things To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings. Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel

No age has been a stranger to conspiracies and suspicion of conspiracies, least of all our own. Even in the USA, surely the most open society in history, conspiracies both by and against the government or members of it keep occurring and, at least as often, keep being suspected where they cannot be proved. In our age, in democratic societies, a new motive for allegations of conspiracy has been added to the traditional ones: the hope for lucrative publicity. This may have been one of the motives in charges used by lawyers defending O. J. Simpson to secure their client’s acquittal, and certainly (one would think) in a recent conspiracy theory regarding the sinking of the Titanic, advanced around the release of the successful film.1 Although that motive did not exist in this form in antiquity, we may compare the desire on the part of some historians to enliven their narratives and appeal to a wider audience by juicy allegations of this kind. Indeed, it sometimes seems that no prominent man was deemed by all who wrote about him to have died a natural death—whether he died relatively young, like Alexander the Great, or in middle age, like Aratus of Sicyon, or in extreme old age, like the Emperor Tiberius. Dryden’s verses were written in the light of his own experience of the Civil War and the ‘Popish plots’. The conspirators we shall examine would never (like two of the imaginary ones in Herodotus’ ‘constitutional debate’ among the Persian conspirators: 3. 80 ff.) have thought of ‘raising up a commonwealth’; at most they aimed at substituting a better king for one whom they thought worse. Where Dryden was right for all ages, however, even if he intended it satirically, was in stressing that tyrannies cannot be overthrown except through conspiracies. What did not fit into his scheme (although he only had to look at earlier English history to notice it) was that kings can plot against their subjects (any of them whom they think too wealthy or too powerful) and that, from their position of supreme power, they are much more likely to succeed. Conspiracies do not always ruin kings, as we shall see: they often make them more secure. 420

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Under an autocratic regime, which maintains its power in part through its ability to conspire against its subjects, conspiracies are more often formed as ‘necessary things’—and more often alleged, as pretexts for conspiracies by the ruler. The Emperor Domitian said that no one believes there has been a conspiracy against a ruler unless he is killed (Suet. Dom. 21. 1). To the extent that this was so, he had only himself to blame, because of his use of allegations of conspiracies in order to carry out his own. Those of us who have lived through the age of Stalin and Hitler will find plenty of examples of this, as well as some of real conspiracies against those rulers—though surprisingly few that can be documented and none that succeeded. One result is that public opinion is likely to suspect conspiracies where in fact there were none. The Reichstag, as it turns out, was indeed set on fire by an unbalanced Dutchman, not by either the Communists (as the Nazi government claimed) or the Nazis themselves (as most of the rest of the world believed), even though neither of these charges was implausible in view of the records of the parties concerned. This conspiracy theory is unlikely to be revived. But where there is powerful motivation—psychological or, often linked with it, financial—mere evidence will not necessarily allay such theories: witness a commercially successful recent pseudo-historical film on the death of John F. Kennedy; or the continuing allegations, ignoring the evidence provided by the Russian archives, that charges of treason against Alger Hiss or I. F. Stone were conspiracies made up by right-wing enemies. The historian, trying to arrive at the truth, must follow the hard evidence. Unfortunately the historian of Alexander rarely, if ever, has such hard evidence. He must rely on deductions from character and situations: analysis of an individual situation in the light of parallels that can be adduced to elucidate it—in short, the kind of evidence that can never be conclusive and (it must be stressed) that can in perfectly good faith be differently interpreted by different interpreters. At this point another consideration must be added, which further confuses judgement. A ruler given to conspiring will be inclined to suspect the existence of conspiracies against him, especially when such suspicions suit his purpose. Hitler no doubt genuinely believed in a conspiracy by international Jewry. Stalin, after ordering the assassination of Kirov, may have believed in a conspiracy (which would not have been unjustified) against him by leading members of the party and by the general staff under Tukhachevski. Yet, did Stalin seriously believe, after the War against Germany, that Zhukov and a dozen other generals were preparing to betray the Soviet Union? Or, later, that Molotov and Voroshilov were, and even some of his own relatives? If he did, what does that tell us about his mental state? As we shall see, these questions are not irrelevant to Alexander. Alexander, in one known case, did believe in a conspiracy that did not exist, on the part of supporters of Cleitus. Whether he genuinely believed this in some other cases is part of the impenetrable mystery of his psychology. The plotter does seem ultimately to have come to believe that he was surrounded by conspiracies. In some cases, this factor can obviously lead the historian into error. But 421

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unless it is well documented, the historian cannot allow for it, but, whether in Stalin’s case or in Alexander’s, must follow where the evidence of character and previous actions leads. Anyone accused of suspecting conspiracies on the part of Alexander, where some do not see them, can only reply that, like the Emperor Domitian, Alexander has only himself to blame if we approach his claims, as transmitted by court historiography, with some suspicion. This may, in individual cases, be mistaken, but I would reject any claim that it is unjustified. The war of Alexander against Darius III and the continuation of Alexander’s campaign is marked by a series of conspiracies, allegations of conspiracy, and attempts to anticipate conspiracy unequalled in any other war I know about. The two protagonists were heirs to a long history of conspiracies in their respective dynasties, and each of them had come to the throne through a conspiracy. Only two of Alexander’s predecessors in the fourth century BC, Amyntas III and Perdiccas III (who died in battle), had not died by assassination, and only three among all the successors and destined successors of Darius I (Artaxerxes I, Darius II, Artaxerxes II) who preceded Darius III. In the Persian case, the monarch who had the longest reign and died peacefully in extreme old age, Artaxerxes II, had had to contend with conspiracies throughout his reign: from the well-supported revolt of his brother Cyrus at its beginning, through the Satraps’ Revolts, to the conspiracies near the end of his life that began with that by (or against) his chosen successor and joint King Darius (who should really be called Darius III, had the numeral not become immovably attached to Alexander’s opponent) and ended with Artaxerxes Ochus’ bloody way to the throne. Whether Darius III was involved in the conspiracy that led to the murder of his predecessor Artaxerxes Arses we cannot tell for certain. The only positive allegation comes in Alexander’s supposed first letter to Darius (Arr. 2. 14. 5); and we need not even discuss the question of whether the letter is authentic or a historian’s rhetoric to see that it cannot be used as evidence proving Darius’ real guilt. In either case, it merely offers ta deonta (‘what was required by the occasion’). Since our sources are not remiss in attacking Darius’ actions and character, I think we may confidently exclude at least any Greek knowledge of his having participated in the removal of Ochus and Arses. However, since he had lived, as one of the King’s ‘friends’, through the time of these plots, he could not fail to learn from the experience, in his case (it seems) a wholly passive one.

I That Alexander was involved in the conspiracy that led to the death of Philip II seems to me as clear as when I first wrote about the subject;2 although we cannot tell whether he initiated and led it. In any case, each of the protagonists had good reason to fear conspiracies—and to anticipate them. Alexander put his experience to good use right from the start. The sons of Aëropus of Lyncestis were accused of having participated in the plot to kill 422

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Philip3—an implausible charge, since they had nothing to gain by his death. They were not Argeads, hence had not the slightest chance of seizing the Macedonian throne—and only two of the three were executed. The third, Alexander, who was Antipater’s son-in-law and apparently had had warning of what was to happen, at once paid homage to Alexander as king and (although he was guilty, so Arrian states) was not only spared, but entrusted with important commands as long as Alexander was close to Antipater (Arr. and Curt., loc. cit.).4 That Antipater had master-minded Alexander’s accession, hence must have known about the plot to kill Philip, is not attested by any good source. But it is clear from his prompt action, and even more so from that of his son-in-law—as we noted, the only one of the three sons of Aëropus who was fully prepared for the event. No other source for his foreknowledge is conceivable. Antipater’s association with Alexander under Philip is attested: they were both sent by Philip to Athens to conclude peace after Chaeronea ( Just. 9. 4. 5). There is no record of his having sought any contact with Attalus after the domestic coup that brought Attalus to power. (In this he contrasts with Parmenio, who married one of his daughters to Attalus.)5 It was presumably on the occasion of the mission to Athens that Antipater was made a citizen and proxenos of Athens, an unusual combination (Harpocration, s.v. ’Aλκμαχος, quoting Hyperides, Against Demades: we do not know when Alcimachus received the same grants, but perhaps also on a mission to Athens).6 Antipater’s patent involvement, incidentally, is another argument against the view (still sometimes advanced, perhaps on the basis of some of Plutarch’s sources) that Olympias was involved in Philip’s assassination. Not only was she away in Epirus at the time, but it is difficult to picture her collaborating with Antipater on such a project. Having disposed of the two sons of Aëropus, Alexander could deal with Attalus. He could not be forgiven for wresting power from Olympias and for an insult to Alexander that had had disastrous consequences for the prince’s life. His murder was also justified by a charge of conspiracy (Diod. 17. 2. 5; cf. Plut. Demosth. 23. 2), which some modern Alexander worshippers have seen fit to extend far beyond what even the hostile sources allege.7 It was co-operation with the king in this plot against his own son-in-law that secured Parmenio’s position and power under the new king, at the price of setting a precedent that Parmenio would have cause to regret. Alexander’s cousin Amyntas, who had real claims to the throne, was also at once eliminated, not surprisingly on a charge of having conspired against Alexander.8 It is significant that we do not hear of any trials in any of these cases, even where evidence was later alleged. Alexander could not yet trust the army to accept his word and his evidence against the denials of men who had been loyal to Philip. In total control of what was reported to the army, he had, however, shown real genius in using charges of conspiracy to make the elimination of men he feared politically acceptable.9 This is one of the factors to be borne in mind when we evaluate later charges of conspiracies against him. 423

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I must here repeat my warning that no reconstruction can claim certainty: anyone may believe that some or all of these ‘conspirators’ did conspire, against either Philip or Alexander. Thus, for example, Berve doubts the conspiracy of the sons of Aëropus, but seems to believe the others; Bosworth believes some but not others; Brunt seems not to believe any of them.10 There are scholars who will even believe, with Plutarch (Alex. 10. 8), that Alexander disapproved of the murder of Cleopatra and her daughter.11 Since I see no reason why the sons of Aëropus should have conspired to kill Philip, and I think it unlikely that Amyntas, with no known backing among the Macedonian nobles (and presumably no support in the army, which would hardly know him), would have tried to kill Alexander, I share Brunt’s view and regard these executions merely as early indications of Alexander’s methods. They could be refined later, when he could confidently resort to show trials.

II The ‘conspiracy’ of Alexander son of Aëropus fits into this context and follows on smoothly. It was discovered in Asia Minor when Alexander was near Phaselis.12 We do not have Curtius’ actual account. It appears to have been based on a different version from the one we have in our other sources (Arrian, Diodorus, and Justin), but that divergence must arouse our suspicion. Caution is indicated: it may be the same tradition, reworked by Curtius himself.13 Arrian gives the only full account: a Persian called Sisines14 was captured by Parmenio as he carried a letter from Darius to the satrap of Phrygia—a circumstantial detail that ought to be accepted (the obscure Atizyes is named as the satrap) and that shows Arrian’s date to be correct: by the time Alexander had reached the area of the Cilician Gates (as in Diodorus) Greater Phrygia no longer had a Persian satrap. Sisines, when interviewed by Parmenio (needless to say, through interpreters), is said to have revealed that his real mission was to contact Alexander the Lyncestian, said to have approached Darius to offer treason, and to promise him the throne of Macedon and 1,000 talents in gold if he assassinated his king. The story, as it stands, is worthless. Parts of it may even have been excogitated for Alexander’s show trial in 330, for which we have no details.15 In the first place, we must ask: why did Sisines, unlikely to have to save himself from torture or death, reveal the ‘plot’ instead of confining himself to his prima-facie mission, which was perfectly plausible? Next, it is difficult to believe that Sisines was expected to meet in secret, and hold secret conversations through interpreters, with the commander of the Thessalian cavalry: one might even wonder (though an answer to this is possible) what πστεις (physical pledges of the King’s good faith) Sisines could offer him.16 The story of the divine warning, this time transmitted through a swallow, is (as we shall see) not unparalleled in the tales of conspiracies against Alexander. However, the kernel of truth is the capture by Parmenio of an envoy from 424

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Darius to his governor of the province about to be invaded by Alexander, and Parmenio’s sending him on to Alexander, who would want to hear Darius’ message to his governor at first hand. The ‘conspiracy of Alexander son of Aëropus’ was grafted on to this authentic incident. I think it was done at the time, not later. The opportunity was too good to be allowed to pass. Alexander had at the start of his reign had to accept and even honour Antipater’s son-in-law. By now he was far enough away from Antipater, and sufficiently secure in his own power, to remove the man, provided a plausible reason could be found. With his usual genius for recognizing and seizing an opportunity, Alexander at once saw that the capture of a Persian messenger would serve his purpose. We may even conjecture (although this is not a necessary or even a secure hypothesis) that Parmenio was informed of Alexander’s plan. However, it was the opportunity of needing interpreters to transmit Sisines’ message to Greeks and Macedonians that invited exploitation. It provided a perfect setting. Interpreters could be made to perform as instructed. If they were slaves, they obviously had no choice. If (as is quite possible) Alexander called on Laomedon and his staff (cf. Arr. 3. 6. 6), there can be no doubt of his devotion to Alexander: after all, he had suffered for that devotion under Philip (Arr. 3. 6. 5) and he would not let him down on an important occasion. The interpreters would produce the required message, and Sisines would never know about it (there is no reason to think he understood Greek), nor would the Greeks and Macedonians who, even if they heard them, would not understand Sisines’ own words.17 Parmenio’s loyalty, whether or not he knew of the plot, was not in doubt: the man who had organized the murder of his own son-in-law would not hesitate to act against the son-in-law of Antipater. From what we know of the Macedonian court, there was probably no love lost between those two: Parmenio had at once joined what appeared to be the winning faction of Attalus, while Antipater had stayed with Alexander, awaiting his chance. Nor need we be surprised at Olympias’ letter, which we can accept as genuine. I think it had arrived some time before and could be effectively produced at this point.18 Olympias’ feelings towards Antipater do not need documentation. That in Pella she could have acquired information about a plot by the Lyncestian that was not accessible to Alexander surely does not merit serious discussion. Her letter presumably was based on distrust for Antipater and merely contained an injunction to Alexander to be on his guard against the Lyncestian. At the most, it may have given Alexander the idea of staging his namesake’s ‘treason’.

III The story of the ‘conspiracy of Alexander son of Aëropus’ is instructive. It adds considerably to our perception of Alexander’s methods. The next suspicion of conspiracy, that of Alexander’s physician, Philip the Acarnanian, acts as a foil (Arr. 2. 4. 7 ff.). Berve has shown that it was at the least novelistically expanded by reminiscences of the ‘conspiracy’ of the Lyncestian Alexander. Although 425

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(as Bosworth has shown, 1980a: 191 f.) not all of Berve’s arguments are sound, enough remains. Even as Arrian tells the tale (we do not know from what source), it shows features of dramatic embellishment characteristic of vulgate anecdotes.19 Arrian at least does not go as far as Curtius (3. 6. 3), where the feverish king is made to wait three days before he can take the ‘medicine’ (surely a duplicate of the three days it later took him to recover) and so has plenty of time, while near death, to do an elaborate cost-benefit analysis regarding confidence in Philip. In Arrian, who implies no long interval, but rather seems to envisage Philip mixing his potion by Alexander’s bedside, we dramatically see Alexander drinking the supposedly poisoned cup ‘at the same time’ as Philip reads Parmenio’s warning letter.20 Some major questions impose themselves. First, where was Parmenio? In 2. 4. 4 Arrian has just told us that Alexander’s ‘whole force’ was with him just before this incident. Surely Parmenio is included, and there is no indication of his being at once sent away. On the contrary, at the beginning of the very next sentence after the Philip story (2. 5. 1), Arrian reports that 'κ δ τοτων (‘after this’) Alexander sent Parmenio ahead to seize the Gates. Of course, Parmenio might have been somewhere else and then sent on from there. A scenario can easily be constructed ad hoc that puts Parmenio either in advance of the point Alexander had reached or behind. But any such conjecture cannot refute Arrian’s account, almost certainly from Ptolemy, and his refusal to vouch for the story. Nor will it do to call the Greek phrase a ‘weak transitional phrase’ (Bosworth 1980a: ad loc.): even when he uses it as a transitional phrase, Arrian always uses it of temporal sequence.21 It means, quite simply, that Parmenio, who (at least as Arrian, following Ptolemy, saw it) had been with Alexander throughout this incident, was then sent off on his mission. Arrian’s narrative is consistent and based on his main sources (in fact, presumably Ptolemy). Parmenio’s presence, as Berve saw, deprives the Philip story of any claim to authenticity: there can have been no letter from Parmenio to Alexander, dramatically handed to the physician to read. Moreover: why, in this story, is the informant anonymous; and why did he not take his story straight to Alexander? Bosworth rightly noted that Arrian’s indirect narration shows (as occasionally elsewhere) that he refused to take responsibility for the tale. As often, he could not resist the temptation of inserting a good anecdote from the vulgate tradition into his basic narrative—especially an anecdote with such a eulogistic conclusion. What is striking, however, is that Arrian retains indirect speech in the conclusion: he would not subscribe even to this in his own person. He has in fact warned the sophisticated reader that he himself did not believe any of it. Possibly Philip did save Alexander’s life, perhaps when the other physicians did not dare to try. The rest is fiction, and marked as such. Coming not long after the story of the Lyncestian and sharing some features with it,22 it was later completely amalgamated with it.23 By the time it reached Seneca (De Ira 2. 23. 2), a letter from Olympias had been substituted for the letter from Parmenio. The original point was presumably to serve as a counterweight to the story of the Lyncestian. If we ignore embellishments added 426

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by the vulgate in telling of Alexander’s hearing of Philotas’ ‘treason’ or of Harpalus’ escape, it is the only story on record that shows Alexander as loyal to his friends under suspicion. I have often argued that the court version of Ptolemy and (in part) Aristobulus should not be regarded as the whole truth and that the vulgate tradition, especially as found in Curtius, offers much to correct or supplement it. But at some point one must draw the line. A story that, on the face of it, does not make sense even as told in Arrian, and that Arrian refused to authenticate, is perhaps hardly even worth the long treatment I have given it, were there not a tendency to defend it. It is about as authentic as the supposed conspiracy of Parmenio, confessed to under torture by Philotas (Curt. 6. 11. 22), which has also recently acquired a defender. Essentially, Berve was right in his judgement. One lesson, hinted at above, is that Curtius is given to making up not only speeches (as we all know) but exciting dramatic details, even where, as here, they make no sense. Fortunately, we do not have to believe the story of Alexander’s waiting at death’s door for three days before receiving his medicine. But I have perhaps been too ready to follow Curtius on other occasions where there is no other source and his dramatic details do not produce obvious nonsense. I am not now as certain as I was that we should fully accept his dramatic account of the arrest of Philotas (6. 8. 16 ff.). Although it is only distantly related to Tiberius’ plots as told by Tacitus (see Atkinson 1994: ad loc.), those well-known incidents may have provided points of departure for Curtius’ dramatic imagination, elaborating his information (which I think was essentially correct) on relations at the Macedonian court.24

IV But these details are perhaps not important. What really matters about the next conspiracy we must treat, the ‘Philotas affair’, is whether there was indeed a plot by Dimnus (whoever he was). In my treatment of the affair in TAPhA 91 (1960), 324–38 [no. 3 in this collection], I implied, without adequate discussion, that there was no such plot: that there was only a conspiracy against Philotas, hatched in his absence from the camp and maturing straight after his return. Perhaps I went too far in my implication. Hamilton’s suggestion (1969: 134 f.) that there was a plot by Dimnus (though Philotas was not involved in it and merely did not think it important enough to be worth reporting) and that Alexander, already suspicious of Philotas ever since Egypt, was now persuaded by Philotas’ many enemies at the court that Philotas must be its prime mover, does not seem an acceptable alternative.25 It is not, in fact, ‘more in accord with the sources’, as he writes, except in so far as most of them report that Dimnus was guilty. The sources show a great deal of variation. In Arrian (from Ptolemy) Dimnus is not mentioned: Philotas admits that he heard of ‘some plot being hatched’ against Alexander and did not report it. In Diodorus (17. 79. 5–6) Dimnus is arrested and kills himself in 427

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the course of the investigation.26 In Curtius (6. 7) we have the usual dramatic elaboration: Dimnus’ death is almost worthy of opera. He tries to kill himself, does not quite succeed, is carried into Alexander’s presence, and there lives just long enough to hear Alexander’s rhetorical (and quite irrelevant) question whether he thought Philotas more fit to be king than Alexander. The only other account is in Plutarch (Alex. 49. 7). There Dimnus is said to have been killed while resisting arrest. Plutarch adds that Alexander now thought the explanation had escaped him. It is this that makes him inclined to listen to the charges advanced by Philotas’ enemies, especially since he had already been feeling hostile towards him. Inevitably, Plutarch shies away from directly accusing Alexander. As far as Philotas is concerned, Plutarch knows only of a plot against him, initiated by Craterus in Egypt and taken over by Alexander. Abandoning temporal sequence by a wide margin, he relates the events leading to Philotas’ execution in immediate sequence. Plutarch surely knew all the earlier sources we know and many more. He must certainly have known the vulgate account, as we find it in Diodorus and Curtius: that Philotas was told of a plot against Alexander and at the least evaded his duty of passing the information on to the king or allowing the informants do so. In Plutarch, Philotas never (until his trial, presumably) hears of any plot against Alexander. Of course, even if he did and failed to pass on the information, his alleged explanation, that he did not attach much importance to the matter, would seem credible: the conspirators were unimportant men, the motive (if one was stated) quite probably trivial and the way the matter was said to have been revealed conventional. However, Plutarch did not accept this story at all. He followed a source (we cannot specify it) that reported Cebalinus and Nicomachus as telling Philotas that they had ‘very important business’ to discuss with Alexander; it was only when they got to see Alexander that they revealed the plot of Dimnus (in Plutarch Limnus), and they did not even then imply that Philotas had known of it. It is hard to understand why scholars have unanimously (as far as I know) chosen to follow the version found in the vulgate and to ignore the one followed (no doubt deliberately) by Plutarch, without asking why he chose to do so.27 In Plutarch the ‘plot’ against Philotas, developed by Alexander in Egypt, turns into what he saw was the plot against Philotas at Phrada. Plutarch never questions the existence of a plot by Dimnus and its effect on Alexander. But, being a better historian than he likes to admit (as is indeed clear from other instances, both in this Life and in others), he leaves no doubt that he saw that there was no reason why his source should invent a version that made Philotas innocent, while there was every reason why the version officially propounded at the trial and after should insist that Philotas deliberately suppressed (at least) knowledge of the plot, hence was quite likely a participant in it. However, he could not pursue his case to its obvious conclusion and accuse Alexander of arranging the judicial murder of Philotas as well as the undeniable murder of Parmenio: that would have destroyed the image of Alexander that he tried to convey and made him out to 428

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be a despicable tyrant. He therefore links Philotas with the plot of Dimnus by making Philotas’ enemies, when poisoning the king’s mind against Philotas, imply among ‘ten thousand other charges’ against Philotas that he had indeed known of the conspiracy by Dimnus and had preferred not to reveal it (Alex. 49. 8–10). (On this, see further n. 25 with text.) In view of the (apparently) brief treatment of the affair by Ptolemy, who merely asserted that there was proof of Philotas’ guilt and gave no details (which Arrian would not have suppressed), and the chain of events that I sketched forty years ago, I now think it is advisable for the scholar seeking the truth to follow Plutarch and make the choice that he made among the sources: it follows that the ‘conspiracy of Dimnus’ offered an opportunity to rid Alexander of the house of Parmenio (what remained of it), which he eagerly seized. With Dimnus dead, he no doubt had full control over what Cebalinus and Nicomachus would state at Philotas’ trial, and that would be the only information heard by the army. The case, in fact, shows the full development of the method used in the ‘discovery’ of the ‘conspiracy of Alexander son of Aëropus’ [pp. 424 ff. above]. We are now ready to consider what I described as the most important question: whether there really was a plot by Dimnus—or merely one by Alexander and some of his courtiers against Philotas. In the light of the fuller discussion of the background, and of Plutarch’s testimony, this question requires more careful consideration than I devoted to it forty years ago. The Philotas affair, as I insisted at the time, comes suspiciously soon after Philotas had been left as the only one of Parmenio’s sons still alive and after he had joined the camp, having fulfilled his sad duty of burying his brother. There was now an opportunity for decisive action against Philotas and Parmenio. Alexander had a long memory: he will not have forgotten Parmenio’s (at the least) eager embrace of the new order at Philip’s court by a marriage alliance with Cleopatra’s uncle, clearly directed against the interests of Olympias and Alexander; nor the traumatic incident of Philotas’ accompanying Philip when the latter exploded in anger at Alexander’s undercutting of his plans for ̯ a ̯ marriage alliance with Pixodarus. Plutarch’s 'πετμησεν σχυρως κα( πικρως 'λoιδρησεν (‘forcefully rebuked and bitterly abused him’: Alex. 10. 3) vividly paints the atmosphere at that interview, which preceded Philip’s exiling Alexander’s friends and demanding the arrest and extradition of Thessalus; even though Plutarch accepts what is clearly Alexander’s later version of the cause for Philip’s incommensurate fury, that he merely thought the match was not good enough for Alexander. Philotas was obviously not one of the ‘friends and close companions’ of Alexander (thus Plutarch, again no doubt following the later expurgated version): as Hamilton (1969: 26) rightly points out, he was not exiled when Alexander’s friends were (indeed, we find him at Philip’s side, and Hamilton suggests that he may have alerted Philip to Alexander’s treasonable action); and Philotas’ father was the father-in-law (Hamilton mistakenly writes ‘son-in-law’) of Alexander’s most dangerous enemy. 429

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At the time of his accession Alexander had had to pay Parmenio’s price for his and his family’s support. Antagonizing him might have been fatal, but the family’s loyal and distinguished service fully justified the forced decision. However, that memory would be stored alongside the earlier ones. Even at the time of the action against Philotas and Parmenio, Plutarch notes that the action was not without danger (Alex. 49. 2), and Curtius’ account of the coup d’état, rhetorically enhanced though it may be, proves him right (Curt. 6. 8. 9 ff.). But by now Alexander felt strong enough to indulge his stored-up resentment by swift action. The question is, I now think, whether the plot by Dimnus provided a lucky opportunity that Alexander eagerly seized (we might compare the action against the Lyncestian Alexander) or whether Dimnus’ plot was manufactured in order to entrap Philotas. I would not now exclude the former possibility: the parallel, both for Alexander’s luck and for his seizing the opportunity to exploit it, is striking. But the timing, and the care taken in setting the trap, on the whole still makes me incline to the more sinister interpretation. On this reading, Dimnus was suborned to be the tool: his telling his young lover of a conspiracy and warning him not to reveal it would almost ensure that he did so. Everything then went according to plan: Dimnus, when he saw Alexander’s soldiers approaching, knew he was being sacrificed and either killed himself or was killed before he could reveal the real plot, and Alexander was safe. In the light of Alexander’s pattern of behaviour, it does not seem impossible, or even improbable, that he would not hesitate to sacrifice an obscure man like Dimnus for the sake of a great prize, and that, as I suggested in my earlier discussion, the whole plot was hatched during Philotas’ fortunate absence. As Bosworth has recently demonstrated, Alexander was soon to show mastery on a more massive scale in making ‘the victims . . . become the culprits’.28 How and by what promises Dimnus may have been persuaded to become the key figure in the plot, we can of course never know. I have merely been concerned to point out that the fact of his death and the fact that most of our sources (we cannot be sure in Arrian’s case) believe in his guilt do not exclude the possibility that he was originally a willing participant. In any case, an express messenger was now sent to organize the assassination of Parmenio, which I still think was, on either interpretation, the ultimate aim. It was entrusted to Cleander, linked to Parmenio by a brother’s marriage and promoted by him. Parmenio, clearly, had never thought of the precedent he was setting when he sacrificed his son-in-law Attalus to Alexander for the sake of his family’s power under the new king. We cannot here discuss the trials that followed the death of Philotas. (I discussed them in my earlier article.) But it is worth mentioning that the Lyncestian Alexander was now produced in front of the army and ‘tried’ for the crime he had been charged with in Asia Minor (Curt. 7. 1. 5 ff.). His execution could be taken for granted and Alexander no longer had to fear that Antipater might stir up Macedonia against him (cf. Just. 11. 7. 2).29

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V The next event that deserves a brief mention is Alexander’s suspicion of a conspiracy against him in the scene that led to the death of Cleitus.30 It was clear even to Alexander, once he was sober, that there had been no conspiracy. But he genuinely suspected (it seems) a conspiracy by his hetairoi and perhaps even his guard when they tried to prevent him from killing Cleitus in a drunken fit of rage. This gives us a foretaste of what was to come years later. But what is important about the Cleitus affair is what followed post Cliti caedem (as Curtius put it: 8. 4. 30). When Alexander continued to sulk in his tent, in spite of various efforts to ‘console’ him, the army finally passed a resolution posthumously convicting Cleitus of treason (Curt. 8. 2. 12)—hardly a spontaneous action, one would think. It is only Curtius who alerts us to it, and to its effect: libertas was now sublata. Both Alexander and his officers now knew that the army would support him, no matter what. There is no more talk of conspiracies for about a year, when we reach a very peculiar plot—the conspiracy of the pages, perhaps the first genuine conspiracy of the reign, certainly the first where the sources allow no doubt as to its real existence. The story is told in all the standard works and need not be set out here.31 It is also often pointed out that the pages involved (only a handful of the corps) did not belong to the nobles most active and eminent at Alexander’s court. The death of Cleitus and its aftermath, as Curtius pointed out, had suppressed opposition. It seems that the sons of those who had gained real prominence had been taught to share their fathers’ caution.32 One cannot help wondering whether the reaction of precisely these boys was perhaps due to dissatisfaction with the lack of rewards and advancement their fathers had received (no one above ilarch, it seems)—and perhaps talked about in the safety of their tents or lodgings. Jealousy felt for those who had made names and fortunes for themselves would not be unexpected. For what it is worth, Hermolaus’ speech in Curtius blames Alexander for acquiring riches while his soldiers had nothing but their scars to show. This may well in part represent talk picked up among the lower officer ranks, if it is entitled to any belief. A detail arousing some interest in the story of this conspiracy is the warning by the Syrian prophetess that, according to Aristobulus, persuaded Alexander to go back to his all-night drinking-bout until the pages’ guard was changed. Curtius (8. 6. 14), like Arrian (4. 13. 6), knows both a version that apparently ascribed his escape to his fortuna and one that credited the Syrian; which shows that Aristobulus, at least, did tell the story of the conspiracy. Now, the theme of a supernatural warning of a conspiracy is not unique in the tale of these plots: we noted it in the ‘conspiracy’ of the Lyncestian Alexander (see p. 424 above and n. 13). If Aristobulus correctly represents the official version, the ascription to fortune may be an attempt to substitute that well-known concept (compare Plutarch’s essay!) for the less than respectable figure of the barbarian seer. If so, it would follow that Alexander knew about the conspiracy (unless we are willing

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to believe in the divine warning as such) and decided to let it mature and fail, since that was certain to lead to his being fully informed about it. The problem is that Aristobulus, who was determined to deny that Alexander was given to excessive drinking,33 may have invented the Syrian to ‘explain’ why Alexander stayed at the party all night. However, he was also given to stressing the favour of gods and fortune for Alexander34 and, had this been the official version, should have had no hesitation in reproducing it. I am inclined to believe that Alexander did know about the plans, but had no detailed information, and so had recourse to the one way of making sure he would find out.35 The execution of the pages was followed by the judicial murder of Callisthenes, fully comparable in method to the judicial murder of the Lyncestian Alexander after the conviction of the ‘conspirators’ with Philotas.36 The official version stated that he was not only guilty, but had been denounced (under torture, it seems) by the pages (Arr. 4. 14. 1). Ptolemy, at least, must have been present at the trial and must have known better. He chose, not for the only time, to support his king’s memory. Arrian’s sympathy is, at least to some extent, with Callisthenes. Indeed, it must have been hard for one who was by profession a philosopher and by choice a panegyrist of Alexander to find those two influences in such sharp conflict. As Bosworth put it (1996: 97), ‘Arrian is clearly uncomfortable, and rightly so’. He does report that most of his sources deny that the boys implicated Callisthenes. He does not seem to have known (or if he did, he ignored) the decisive testimony to the fact that Alexander knew this, just as he had known that Philotas was innocent: the letter quoted by Plutarch in Alexander 55. 5 f.37 That Callisthenes was at once executed, as Ptolemy reported, cannot be seriously doubted.38

VI This seems to have been the end of documented conspiracies by Macedonians against Alexander. There were still rebellions by Iranian nobles,39 but they are not strictly relevant here. The only (probable) Iranian conspiracy I have been able to find is the one we are almost forced to postulate as preventing Alexander from undergoing the ritual initiation as Great King as Pasargadae. I have sufficiently discussed this elsewhere.40 However, it was by no means the end of Alexander’s suspicion of conspiracies, a suspicion fed by the events at the Hyphasis and later by the disastrous march through Gedrosia. At the Hyphasis, what must have been a nightmare to him came true. Ever since the death of Cleitus had led to the end of freedom (as we have seen), Alexander had been secure against plots by senior officers because of the unquestioning loyalty of the army shown on that occasion. The pages’ conspiracy, as we observed, involved no offspring of any senior officer or of any man close to Alexander. What happened at the Hyphasis must have been totally unexpected. First, according to the only full and reliable account (Arr. 5. 25 ff., probably from Ptolemy, except for the speeches, which are probably Arrian’s 432

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own additions based on vulgate material), the soldiers started grumbling among themselves and some of them went so far as to say they would not march any farther. The base of Alexander’s support was collapsing. The only possible response was to appeal (this time) to the officers, to gain their support by rhetoric and promises, and to hope that they would be able to persuade the men to follow. This road was blocked when Coenus stood up to speak in support of the men. There was real danger in this. Coenus, ‘in seiner männlich-einfachen Art’ (Berve 1926: 218), had always known which side his bread was buttered on. A son-in-law of Parmenio, he had been instrumental in the plot against Philotas and, at least according to the vulgate, had demanded that Philotas be tortured and had even attacked him at the ‘trial’ (at length in Curt. 6. 8 ff.). His forceful intervention could only be due to his judging that he could attach the army to himself, even against the king—or so it must have seemed to Alexander.41 In the end, seeing officers and men united against him, Alexander surrendered and did what he could to fasten the blame on the gods. What he clearly could not do was to treat the affair as a mutiny (which is how historians see it): it was impossible to punish a limited number of men as responsible for it, as could be done, for example, at Opis later. What was urgently necessary was to remove the danger from Coenus without arousing the army’s suspicion or resentment. Alexander was fortunate, as usual. Not long after, Coenus died, not honourably in battle, but of disease. Alexander could defuse suspicion (if anyone had dared to voice it) by giving him a splendid funeral (Arr. 6. 2). The immediate danger was past, and the signal to other prominent nobles would be clear.42 Next came the shock at the city of the Malli, where Alexander found his soldiers to be ‘sluggish’ (βλακεειν: Arr. 6. 9. 3) in their attack, rushed to expose himself to the enemy and ended by receiving his almost fatal wound, which for the moment regained the remorseful loyalty of the army. The effect, however, threatened to be undone by the disaster of the march through Gedrosia. There is no point in trying to quantify losses or to discuss their distribution. What mattered was the effect on morale. There is no reason to disbelieve the vulgate on this (see Diod. 17. 105. 6; with dramatic exaggeration Curt. 9. 10. 11 ff., esp. 15–16). Alexander had lost his aura of invincibility, of being able (as once at the Hindu Kush) to triumph even over the elements. The overpowering nature of his suspicion was first shown in his order to the satraps to disband their mercenary armies.43 Diodorus puts it down to his receiving information that rebellions in his absence had relied on mercenaries. But the overreaction documents a fear approaching panic, though we shall see that Alexander indeed had reason to worry about Iranian rebellions. First, we are not told what alternative ways Alexander had found of keeping order in the satrapies and defending them against raiders and guerrillas. Since he could not spare any of his own men for such duties throughout the kingdom, it is difficult to come up with an answer. Had he lived longer, he would certainly have been forced to attend to this aspect of the problem he had created. If he could not ensure peace, rebellions were bound to follow. Another aspect necessitated immediate action. 433

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He cannot have been unaware of the dangerous social, and ultimately political, consequences that would follow the dismissal of tens of thousands of professional soldiers, suddenly deprived of the only way of making a living that they knew and sent to find their way home as best they could. Here an instant solution was found: the decree ordering the Greek cities to readmit all their exiles, most of whom had no doubt, in the manner traditional in the fourth century, enlisted as mercenaries. As I have pointed out, Alexander threw the problem he had created to the cities, on which it imposed intolerable burdens, to solve for him. We do not hear of any effort to assist them in doing so, although Alexander could by now well have afforded it. Moreover, he probably no longer cared about the fact that the decree involved a breach of the oaths sworn between him and the cities on his accession—which they would certainly not have been allowed to ignore with impunity. The extent of his fear could not be more strikingly demonstrated. The reign of terror after his return from India44 must in part be due to this same fear; though the element of searching for scapegoats for his failure of leadership in Gedrosia is obvious in the sources. It was not by accident, surely, that the only Macedonian commanders caught up in it were Cleander, brother of Coenus, who had so conveniently died in India, and his no doubt hand-picked officers.45 Those who had organized the murder of Parmenio could be expected, if a case of conflict arose, to put their own interests above the king’s. This was by no means the end of Alexander’s suspicions of conspiracy. He clearly thought that Hephaestion’s death had been deliberately brought about by his physician, who was punished with impalement—the traditional Persian punishment for traitors (Plut. Alex. 72. 5; Arr. 7. 14. 4),46 and after this he became obsessed with fear of portents and conspiracies (Plut. 73–5; Arr. 7. 22, 24; note 24. 3, Alexander’s suspicion that the simpleton who sat on Alexander’s throne had done so 'ξ 'πιβουλ ̑ης (‘with treasonable design’)). As I put it long ago,47 he finally ‘found himself . . . on a lonely pinnacle over an abyss, with . . . security unattainable’. Before we leave this subject, we must briefly mention the ancient conspiracy theory regarding Alexander’s death: the supposed plot by the sons of Antipater that succeeded in poisoning him. The evidence was well discussed by Bosworth, though he unfortunately substituted for the ancient, not totally absurd, story a fanciful and indefensible one.48 Much depends on the evidence of the supposed Ephemerides: if they are, in any form, accepted as genuine, the theory of the plot is difficult (perhaps not impossible) to maintain. But I do not see how those ‘documents’, forms of which were known to Arrian and Plutarch, can be contemporary or even near-contemporary.49 If we reject them, we are left with a situation in which it not only did not pay anyone to tell the truth, unless it coincided with his or his superior’s interests, but in which it would have paid practically everyone concerned to lie for political advantage, if the truth was inconvenient. The answer, as most scholars (including now Bosworth) would agree, must be non liquet. This is an unsatisfactory conclusion regarding what would be the most 434

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important conspiracy against Alexander. But (if I may again quote what I have written),50 ‘there is unfortunately no royal road to akribeia, and we may have to live with the possibility that there is no road at all’.

VII We can now turn to the much shorter topic of Darius III and conspiracies. The first point to make is that only two conspiracies against Darius are in fact attested: one just after his accession, by Bagoas, which he overcame, and one at the end of his reign, to which he succumbed. Yet it seems that the whole of his reign is dominated by fears of conspiracy, which greatly contributed to the disasters he suffered, even though the fears were by no means unreasonable and lack of them might have turned out no better for him. The starting point must be recognition of the fact that Darius was an interloper, although probably of Achaemenid descent on his father’s side, like (by then) hundreds of others.51 He was ‘a certain Codomannus’ (Justin 10. 3. 3 ff.) who had been picked up and promoted by Artaxerxes III, for his bravery and no doubt for the very obscurity of his origin, after Artaxerxes had exterminated all collateral claimants to the throne. According to Diodorus (17. 5. 5), after Bagoas had killed Arses, Artaxerxes III’s son, the royal house was 9ρημος (‘destitute’) and no one was set κατ: γνoς (‘by descent’) to succeed him; hence the wicked Bagoas now secured the throne for one of the King’s ‘friends’ named Darius. (The name is proleptic, but the statement must surely be accepted.) We must assume that, among the descendants of (only) Artaxerxes II, said by Justin (10. 1. 1) to have had 115 sons, there must have been others who were the King’s ‘friends’ and who would think themselves no less entitled to succeed. They might now be assumed to be waiting for their chance. Had Darius been able to distinguish himself by a major military success before he met Alexander, his position would have been immeasurably strengthened. Unfortunately, he had no opportunity for doing so; and indeed, he had never commanded in a battle or a campaign before he came to the throne.52 There was, fortunately, time enough for him to settle into his position and consolidate his rule, as Philip’s death for a while eliminated the Macedonian danger; but he had no good way of using that time to strengthen the Persian position in case Alexander resumed the invasion. He was unlucky in that the Rhodian commander Mentor, architect of the reconquest of Egypt and of Asia Minor, and under Ochus supreme commander in Asia (it seems), had died. However, had he lived, it is doubtful whether Darius could have retained him as such. It certainly seems that he did not fully trust Mentor’s brother Memnon, for he, together with Artabazus, had spent many years in exile at the Macedonian court.53 In fact, Darius’ weakness at once appears in Asia Minor. Even when he knew that Alexander was preparing to renew the invasion, he felt unable to appoint a commander-in-chief there. Memnon, as was clear, could not be trusted—and in any case would probably not have been accepted by the noble Persians 435

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stationed there, without a strong King like Ochus to impose him. There were indeed eminent nobles, some of them probably Achaemenids, among those commanders, and they might well think their own claims to the throne as good as Darius’. A daughter of his by an earlier marriage had married a noble Mithradates (Berve 1926: no. 525), now one of the commanders in Asia Minor. It is note-worthy that we never find him exercising any authority over the others or transmitting orders from the King.54 Indeed, we have no evidence for the satraps’, before the battle of the Granicus, receiving any orders from the King. He certainly could not trust any of them to hold the supreme command—and win the major victory that was no doubt expected. It was only after the battle and the death and disgrace of the commanders that he appointed Memnon commander-in-chief in Asia; but only after Memnon had sent his wife and son to Darius as hostages—whether, as Diodorus reports, spontaneously, in the hope of thus attaining the command, or (as we are entitled to believe) because it had been suggested to him that it might be helpful.55 Memnon, who planned to carry the war to Greece, died in late spring 333, before the capture of Mytilene, which would have completed the strategic prerequisite to that plan.56 Darius now had to take the field himself (Diod. 17. 30, Curt. 3. 2. 1).57 Within six months of hearing of Memnon’s death he had collected the forces of the central and western parts of his kingdom (rightly judging that he could not wait for those from the east: see Curt. 3. 2. 9, with an inept comment) and stood at Sochi.58 His method is shown by his ordering the Greek mercenaries, whom Thymondas was to lead to him, to meet him along the route.59 We are entitled to deduce that other contingents coming from the west, for example the army of Egypt, received similar instructions. The achievement should be judged by comparison with the length of time it had taken Xerxes and Artaxerxes II to collect a royal army (admittedly including the eastern contingents). It appears all the more admirable in view of the fact that he had to bring the women and children of his immediate family, and those of some other nobles, along with him.60 That had not been the practice of Persian Kings; and they were bound to delay him. In the circumstances, and even if we discount the lurid picture painted by Curtius and probably not based on any source,61 the march was a model of organization and speed. We do not know precisely who Darius’ commanders were. The satraps of the western provinces must have led their contingents, as the satrap of Egypt Sabaces did (Arr. 2. 11. 8 and Curt. 3. 11. 10; Diodorus has a different name) and Arsames (Berve 1926: no. 149: perhaps related to Artabazus), satrap of Cilicia, tried to do. Rheomitres (Berve 1926: no. 685) and Atizyes (Berve 1926: no. 179) had lost their satrapies in Asia Minor and perhaps tried to make up for that disgrace by special bravery which led to their deaths. Of those who survived, we know only Nabarzanes (Berve 1926: no. 543), the chiliarch, whom Curtius (3. 9. 1) names as commander of the right wing and Arrian, characteristically, does not name at all, and Darius’ brother Ox(y)athres (Berve 1926: no. 586), no doubt commanding the bodyguard. This lack of interest in our sources 436

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masks an important question: where was Artabazus (Berve 1926: no. 152), head of the great Pharnacid family and grandson of Artaxerxes II—and brother-inlaw of Mentor and Memnon? Berve, arguing from the fact that his wife was captured after Issus, argues that Artabazus must have been in the battle. Unfortunately we do not know his position at this time, but as we have seen, all the noble ladies specifically named as accompanying Darius, apart from those of the royal family, were related to Artabazus. The royal ladies and their children could hardly be left behind: Darius had to guard against their being murdered or (as appropriate) married by some other Achaemenid in his absence, who would thus establish a claim to the throne—especially if Darius failed. The remarkable concentration of Artabazus’ relatives (and the families of Mentor and Memnon were, of course, not among the wives of ‘all the commanders’ allegedly with the expedition!) strongly suggests that Artabazus, one of the most distinguished of the Persian nobles, had been left behind to be in charge of affairs at the centre, and that his loyalty consequently had to be ensured at whatever cost in delay to the expedition. Unfortunately (as we saw) the nature of our Greek sources makes it impossible to prove this. But in view of Darius’ insecurity, and remembering that he had received Memnon’s family as hostages before entrusting him with an important post, we must surely conclude that Artabazus was in Susa, as someone no doubt had to be, to act practically as vicegerent in the King’s and the chiliarch’s absence. Darius had acted shrewdly and efficiently. However, he had in the end been unlucky. The fact was that after his defeat and flight at Issus his family were hostages in Alexander’s hands (however generous Alexander’s treatment of them, as—no doubt in essence truthfully—depicted by our sources) and he was debarred from any offensive action. His need to guard against conspiracies at home had in the end forced him into assuming the strategic risk of a purely defensive battle against a great tactician. He tried to compensate by making Alexander lavish offers, which Alexander would have been naive to accept, since they would involve garrisoning a stretch of hundreds of miles against an essentially undefeated Persian army.62 In the end, Darius’ unavoidable care to guard against conspiracies led to his being unavoidably forced to give up the initiative. The arrangements he made for Gaugamela were the best any known Persian King had ever made for any recorded battle. He deserved to succeed, and Alexander’s victory was nothing less than a military miracle.63 But the victory was decisive, and not least due to Darius’ being tactically at the mercy of the attack. We have a better list of his commanders at Gaugamela than we had at Issus (Arr. 3. 8. 3 ff.: thirteen names of Iranian commanders). There is one noteworthy absence: Nabarzanes the chiliarch, who had been as successful as the fate of battle allowed him to be at Issus (Curt. 3. 9. 1, with 11; cf. Arr. 2. 11. 2). Berve 1926 (p. 268) believes he must have been there. But in fact Mazaeus held the post that Nabarzanes had occupied at Issus, and a man of his eminence could only have been in high command and would have appeared on our list. Did the King no longer trust him? One might be inclined to think so, in the light of later 437

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events, but perhaps there is a simpler explanation. This time Darius could not take wives and families with him as hostages. Artabazus (who is also missing in the roll-call) could therefore not have been in charge at home. He was perhaps too old to be given a tactical command. It is likely that the chiliarch was left in that position: he, at least, was not an Achaemenid (had he been of royal blood, the cautious Darius could never have entrusted him with that post), hence could not aspire to the throne. Mazaeus turned out to be a good substitute, as Darius must have known.

VIII However, Darius again had to flee, giving up most of his capitals and taking refuge in remote Ecbatana, where he was safe for the winter (Arr. 3. 16. 1–2; Curt. 5. 1. 9; Diod. 17. 64. 1). In the end he had seven months there. What he did with that dearly bought time, we do not know.64 No military effect is discernible. In particular, he did not summon or prepare the armies of the east. Nor can we be sure why Darius waited until Alexander was almost upon him before leaving Ecbatana. We are forced to speculate on all this, on the basis of very slight evidence. Since he had made no effort, in those seven months, to prepare for a continuation of the war, we must assume he intended to give up: to do homage to Alexander, as Alexander had at one time demanded, and thus save the rest of his kingdom from devastation—and wait for another chance.65 For whatever his gesture, he would remain the only legitimately crowned King; and whatever territory Alexander had won, he would have to hold it.66 The suggestion covers all the known facts as no other does. But if so, why did he not meet Alexander at Ecbatana and do what he intended to? The answer, as it emerges from subsequent events, must be that there were men around him who had very different ideas: who still hoped to organize resistance in the east round the name of the King. This means that, when he left Ecbatana, Darius was no longer a free agent. The conspiracy that ultimately cost him his life must have started at Ecbatana. Bessus and Barsaentes (Berve 1926: nos. 212, 205), respectively satraps of Bactria-Sogdiana and of Arachosia-Drangiana, between them a large part of the Upper Provinces, and able to call on Indian tribes as well and (it seems) on Scythian allies (Arr. 3. 8. 3–4), could hope to muster a powerful force. We may well believe, as the vulgate has it,67 that Bessus, himself no doubt an Achaemenid, who no doubt thought himself as well qualified for the upright tiara as Darius, had his own ambitions. But that would have to wait, in the interests of the kingdom. In the near future, it was obviously best to keep the King as a unifying force, with men more eager to fight than he in de facto control. The two satraps seem to have won the powerful support of Nabarzanes, the chiliarch, whom it seems the King had trusted before Gaugamela. The three clearly formed a powerful cabal. They must have mounted their coup when they saw 438

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the King’s inactivity at Ecbatana (and, quite probably, were consulted about his defeatist plans). By the time the royal train moved east, the King seems to have been their prisoner. The position of an unsuccessful King was always unenviable,68 as Xerxes had known long ago.69 Darius’ unprecedentedly disastrous leadership ensured that he could at most survive as a figure-head. That, as such, he was still important is clear from the actions of the conspirators. On the final stage of the conspiracy we have at least some information, though not much that can be trusted. Curtius gives a detailed and dramatic account, but it consists chiefly of speeches perfused by his own invention, as is shown by sententiae and commonplaces that would have been applauded by Seneca, as well as by demonstrably Roman concepts.70 In any case, no Greek ever knew more than we know, and few Persians did. Our information comes mainly, as has often been conjectured, from the Greek mercenaries and their leader Patron (Berve 1926: no. 612). They, by the time they surrendered to Alexander, had much to explain in their conduct, both just before Darius’ death and since, and much that needed to be forgiven. This information is certainly no better than our information about conspiracies against Alexander. But the facts have their own logic. As Alexander approached, open confinement was no longer enough to ensure the conspirators’ control over the King. To prevent his escaping, perhaps with some loyal troops, and actually succeeding in meeting Alexander, they now had to bind him—with golden fetters, still showing him all due respect (Curt. 5. 12. 20): the fact would later be well remembered. In any case, they still hoped to keep him alive as a figure-head and centre for the resistance they expected to organize. However, slowed down as they were by their captive and their impedimenta,71 they could not evade Alexander’s frantic pursuit; for Alexander had by now been informed of the full situation by Persians who had succeeded in linking up with him before it was too late.72 He knew that it was vital for him to reach Darius still alive—just as the conspirators knew (as their actions show) that it was vital for them not to let him do so. In the end they saw no alternative to killing him. Even our defective tradition shows how reluctantly they did so, barely in time. Bessus, no doubt the only Achaemenid among them, would have to assume the upright tiara and a royal name (Artaxerxes: Arr. 3. 21. 10, 25. 3), hoping that, at least in his own province and among the Indians associated with it, he might command the loyalty that would certainly have gone to the duly consecrated King, had Bessus succeeded in keeping him alive as the nominal centre for resistance.

IX As I noted at the beginning, the war between Alexander III of Macedon and Darius III of Persia is marked by conspiracies and anticipation and suspicion of conspiracies that form a major motif on both sides and a decisive one on the Persian side. Alexander, a master plotter from the plot that led to his accession, 439

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skilfully uses charges of conspiracy to strengthen his position and rid himself of possible centres of rivalry, secure in the allegiance of the Macedonian soldiers, whose unquestioning support helps him in disposing of Philotas and Parmenio. But the master plotter is an easy victim to fear of conspiracy. A trace of it appears in the scene of Cleitus’ death, and the confidence apparently fully justified by the outcome of that incident is shattered at the Hyphasis, where an ambitious and unscrupulous senior officer appears to be supporting the army against its king. The disaster in the desert destroyed the myth of Alexander’s all-conquering power, and his attempt to claim the rightful succession to the Achaemenids proved unacceptable both to his soldiers and to many of the very Iranians whom it had been intended to attract. The resulting reign of terror on his return from India led to far-reaching decisions, which, had he lived longer, were bound to present him with major political and military problems. When at the end even the gods seemed to turn against him, he became obsessed with fears of conspiracy, from the death of Hephaestion to the final events round Babylon. It would be a fitting conclusion to this cycle if he had died as a result of a conspiracy. But our sources are unaccommodating, and we simply do not know. Darius, on the other hand, grew up surrounded by conspiracies, but never (as far as we know) himself engaged in any. Yet, understandably, he was constantly aware of the threat of conspiracies, and the caution this inspired governed the major actions of his reign and (perhaps unavoidably) led to disastrous decisions: the decision to take the women of his household and of another major noble family with him on his march to the west ended by giving Alexander unhopedfor hostages and debarring Darius from taking the military initiative; and this, despite all his careful preparations, was a major factor in his loss of the decisive battle. That defeat ultimately led to the conspiracy of his nobles against him, which, much against their intention, culminated in his death. Its result was to plunge the country that they had all tried to save into devastation and ultimate chaos.

Appendix Some Iranian rebels As I pointed out in my text, rebels are not identical with conspirators, though they may of course incidentally conspire. But they are close enough to our topic to deserve a mention, especially as the importance of rebellions led by Iranian nobles while Alexander was in India and perhaps continued after his return (it is only those that will concern me here) has usually been grossly underestimated, not least by me. The sources report them briefly, take them lightly, and never depict them as dangerous: it would not do to show Iranians posing a serious threat to Alexander after the completion of the conquest of their country. I shall here try to make amends, as far as one can do so. 440

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It is a symptom of the way in which this topic has been downplayed, with modern scholars following the ancient sources, that, as far as I can see, no list of these rebels has ever been collected. I hope no important Iranian rebel, or Iranian suspected of rebellion, during that period has been omitted, no matter what the evidence allows us to say.73 The rebellions seem to have begun when they appeared to have a chance of success: when Alexander was in India, and almost certainly after he was wounded at the city of the Malli, which led to rumours that he had actually died (cf. Diod. 17. 99. 5). Once committed, rebel leaders could not pull back. 1. ASTASPES (Berve 1926: no. 173). Justi takes the name to mean ‘owning eight horses, i.e. two quadrigae’—a rather fanciful interpretation, though accepted by Hinz 1975: 48. I suggest that the name is a compound of (av.) asti (= friend) and (Med.) ¯a spa (= horse); i.e. it means precisely ‘Philippos’. Cf. Mayrhofer 1973: 8. 144, p. 131. The name is found in Aeschylus, Persae 22, and that man must be an ancestor of the rebel, who obviously belonged to one of the oldest aristocratic families in the Greek record. He was confirmed in his satrapy by Alexander (see Berve), who clearly wanted to avoid unnecessary conflict with Iranian nobles who surrendered. The interesting fact is that he was not one of those scapegoats blamed for the Gedrosian disaster, as I once thought. It is clear from Curtius’ detailed account that Alexander, when he first met him on his return, made no charges against him but treated him in a friendly manner (9. 10. 21: dissimulata ira comiter allocutus), even though it was reported to him that the satrap had planned rebellion. After the Bacchic procession, related at great length, Curtius briefly describes what followed, leading up to it with a Tacitean phrase: hunc apparatum carnifex sequebatur, quippe satrapes Astaspes . . . interfici iussus est (ibid. 29). Alexander’s deceitful friendliness while he prepared his blow recalls the action against Philotas (cf. Curt. 6. 7. 35, 8. 15–16)—and there is no doubt that he realized the danger that he was facing on that occasion. We must conclude that he found it equally dangerous to deal without thorough preparation with a member of the oldest Iranian aristocracy, who had had ample time to consolidate his position, and that the time gained by the harmless-looking distraction of the games and the procession (whatever precisely the details of that celebration) was used for thorough military preparation of the arrest.74 Indeed, in the circumstances we should probably believe that the celebration, whatever its religious and social purposes, had a serious political-military function. Curtius is not interested in the end: Astaspes was no Greek or Macedonian, and the operation no doubt went smoothly. He therefore did not see the connection of the events he reports, and we moderns have followed him in this. Characteristically, Arrian does not mention him at all: we may compare the cases of Cleander and his officers. Arrian does mention Heracon (6. 27. 3), but not his fate; Agathon, who had probably been left at Ecbatana to command the Thracian cavalry under Parmenio, is not mentioned at all. (On him see Berve 1926: no. 8.) He was summoned and appeared along with Cleander and Sitalces (Curt. 10. 1. 1) 441

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and presumably shared their fate. Curtius, unlike Arrian, does not mention the execution of any of them (10. 1. 8). Arrian’s lack of interest in a Persian grandee is only to be expected. (The attempt to charge Arrian with confusing Astaspes with Apollophanes is not worth serious consideration: their fate was not even the same, and the action against Apollophanes can find an easy explanation. Berve’s endorsement of the suggestion that Apollophanes’ fate was excogitated as a ‘parallel’ to Astaspes’ (1926, p. 57) is simply absurd: no source draws this ‘parallel’.) 2. AUTOPHRADATES, in Curtius PHRADATES (Berve 1926: no. 189). Justi, ‘das Verständnis (für die Religion) fördernd’ is again fanciful, though the second part of the name presumably is fra¯ dat (increase, promote); the first part, turned into a Greek prefix, is irrecoverable. Probably both he and the homonymous commander of the Persian fleet (Berve 1926: no. 188) are related to the satrap of Lydia who played a mysterious part in the Satraps’ Revolt (see RE Suppl. 3 (1918), col. 190: they could be nephews). At Nautaca, according to Arrian, Phrataphernes was sent to ‘bring back’ Autophradates, who had ignored Alexander’s orders to join him (Arr. 4. 18. 2). That was in 328/7. Arrian again loses interest in his fate. Fortunately Curtius (10. 1. 39) tells us a little more: at Pasargadae Alexander ordered his execution, because ‘he was suspected of aiming at the throne’. We may conclude that he was of Achaemenid descent. Whether Phrataphernes (perhaps also an Achaemenid) had already captured him by the time he briefly joined Alexander at the Hydaspes (Arr. 5. 20. 7—so Berve 1926: no. 814) we cannot tell. It is perhaps more likely that he had not, for otherwise Alexander would presumably have entrusted Phrataphernes with his execution. As Berve sees, he probably only sent the rebel to Alexander after the latter’s return from India; he will have ended the war with him only shortly before, some time after his return to his satrapy. That Autophradates could even be suspected of wanting to make himself King shows his importance, and the lateness of his execution shows the seriousness of the resistance he could put up. Our sources are essentially uninterested. 3. BARYAXES (Berve 1926: no. 207: just over five lines). Cf. *ba¯ rya = ‘edel, superfein’ (Hinz 1975: 64). A Mede, ‘certainly of aristocratic descent’ (Berve), had ‘worn the tiara upright and called himself king of the Persians and Medes’ (Arr. 6. 29. 3), but was captured by Atropates and brought to Alexander and executed at Pasargadae. A Mede claiming the throne of (more probably) Medes and Persians must have claimed descent from the old kings of Media, and presumably expected his followers to believe him. That the Persian Atropates would have no sympathy with this arrogation is obvious. (On Atropates see Berve 1926: ¯ tarepa no. 180. His Persian name was A ¯ ta (Justi), presumably = Protector of the Fire.) We cannot guess how long or difficult their conflict was, but Baryaxes clearly did not succeed in wresting the satrapy from Atropates or in rousing Median nationalism against the Persian satrap. ORDANES: see no. 5. 4. ORXINES, in Curtius ORSINES (Berve 1926: no. 592). (Curtius’ form seems to give an easier Persian original, for which see R. Schmitt in Mayrhofer 442

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1973: 11. 1. 8. 4, p. 291.) Self-appointed satrap of Persis, which he presumably saved from chaos after Phrasaortes’ death while Alexander was in India (Arr. 6. 29. 2). He was too proud to pay court to the eunuch Bagoas (cf. Badian 1958b [no. 2 in this collection]), who might have saved him, but instead helped to destroy him. He prided himself on descent from Cyrus (Curt. 10. 1. 23): it is doubtful if Alexander would in any case have let him live, especially since he himself specially honoured Cyrus, at the expense of Darius and Darius’ successors. A descendant of Cyrus, ensconced at Pasargadae and of surpassing wealth, would have needed all the patronage he could muster in order to save his life. His arrogation of power, even if a necessary and beneficial act, would not secure him any favour with Alexander. If we omit the subplot involving Bagoas, inflated into a moral exemplum by Curtius when in fact it was a miscalculation by a proud Persian noble, we can see that once more Alexander started by treating this dangerous man, whose rich presents (Curt. ibid. 24 f.) only underlined the danger he presented, without signs of disfavour. Indeed, it was only after he had left Pasargadae and gone on to Persepolis (Arr. 6. 30) that he sent ‘messengers’ to arrest and impale Orxines. The punishment seems to show that the charge was rebellion. Alexander, as in the case of Astaspes, faced a situation he thought dangerous and used deceit followed by force to rid himself of the danger. The charge that the descendant of Cyrus had descrated and plundered Cyrus’ sacred tomb (Curt. 10. 1. 33 f.; cf. Arr. 6. 30. 2) was no doubt intended to prevent serious dissatisfaction and unrest in Persis; and so, no less clearly, was the appointment of Peucestas, who had learned the Persian language and was ready to adopt Persian customs (Arr. 6. 30. 2–3), as satrap. Alexander’s special commendation of the Persians, ‘because they were in all things obedient to Peucestas’ (Arr. 7. 23. 3; the praise of ̑ 'ξηγ%σεως (‘for governing them in good order’), Peucestas, τ ̑ης 'ν κσμῳ α+των in Arrian’s obscure wording, seems to be for keeping Persis in order), shows, as far as our sources ever do, the delicacy of the situation created by Orxines’ removal. Alexander can be seen to have been seriously worried. 5. ORDANES (Arr. 6. 27. 3, Berve 1926: no. 590). Cf. later rulers called Vardan(es) (Justi). 6. OZINES (Curt. 9. 10. 19, cf. 10. 1. 9, Berve 1926: no. 579); from (av.) huzae¯ na, ‘having good weapons’ (Justi, accepted Hinz 1975: 130). 7. ZARIASPES (Curt. ibid., Berve 1926: no. 335); ‘having gold-coloured horses’ (Mayrhofer 1973: 8. 1833, p. 254: zariašba; Hinz 1975: 278: zarya¯ spa). These must be treated together. Arrian reports only that in (the capital of) Carmania Craterus rejoined Alexander and brought with him Ordanes, whom he had captured after Ordanes had led a revolt. Arrian seems entirely uninterested in the affair. As in some similar cases, he does not bother to inform us of Ordanes’ fate (Berve’s statement that he was executed is a guess, although no doubt correct). Nor does he mention Zariaspes—which, of course, is no argument against the latter’s real existence. As we have seen, Arrian can be singularly uninterested in persons, even in prominent Macedonians whom Alexander punished. 443

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Curtius reports that when Alexander had reached Pura (not named), he received a dispatch from Craterus reporting that he had defeated and arrested two noble Persians, Ozines and Zariaspes, who were ‘planning revolt’. At the Carmanian capital, after the trial of Cleander and his associates (whose execution Curtius fails to report), we are told that those whom Craterus had brought with him as instigators of a Persian revolt were executed. Curtius does not mention Craterus’ arrival and does not name his prisoners. It will be seen that up to a point the reports are complementary. Neither of these authors was greatly interested in Iranian rebellions or discontent and their references even to striking events are likely to be casual. Here Curtius mentions a dispatch from Craterus, received at Pura, which Arrian does not mention; on the other hand, Curtius does not tell us where Craterus actually rejoined Alexander; but since he is with him in the Carmanian capital and was not with him at Pura, it must have been (whether or not Curtius had thought about it) at the Carmanian capital, where Arrian relates it. What we do not know is precisely whom Craterus brought to Carmania, to be executed there. Are there three rebels, two of them mentioned by Curtius and another defeated just before Craterus joined Alexander—all of them executed in Carmania? Again, the fact that Arrian mentions only one is not significant; and one could argue that Curtius did not know about (or did not bother to mention) another defeated rebellion at a later time. On the whole, I am inclined to accept three rebels and explain the fact that we hear only of two in Curtius by name and only of one in Arrian (at a later date) by their obvious lack of interest (especially in Arrian’s case) and carelessness. Note that all three have names that are easily recognized as Greek renderings of Iranian names. Berve rejects the identification of Ordanes and Ozines (1926: 282), but is willing to consider an identification of Ozines with Orxines, which, on the facts that we know, is easily seen to be absurd. He rightly rejects the identification of Baryaxes with Zariaspes (p. 163): no less absurd, since Atropates did not join forces with Craterus! Curtius cannot be trusted on names, and it is just possible that his Ozines is indeed Arrian’s Ordanes; but, to use Berve’s term, there is ‘kein zwingender Grund’ for thinking so. In this case manuscript corruption cannot easily be posited. None of our manuscripts, although often corrupt on names, as even in the section immediately preceding, shows any sign of corruption here. Moreover, as we have seen, Curtius’ form can easily be given a plausible Persian etymology. It seems methodologically preferable to accept both names. Whatever the number of rebels, there is every good reason to think that there were serious rebellions going on somewhere along Craterus’ route and (I suggest) that Alexander knew about it. Not only would that explain Craterus’ dispatch, sent to the first place where he could be sure Alexander could be reached. Above all, it explains the fact that, in addition to the men unfit for service and the elephants, who could not be expected to share the march through the Makran desert, Alexander gave Craterus half the Macedonian infantry—clearly not 444

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because he wanted to spare them the hardship of the march, for he even took the whole of the Macedonian cavalry except for the unfit with him. The obvious explanation is that he had heard of the unrest that Craterus was expected to quell. (Thus Berve 1926: 224, s.v. Κρτερος: a good conjecture, but the references are irrelevant.) Once more, we find our sources suppressing reports of Iranian unrest and rebellion, which Alexander seems to have taken very seriously. The picture is consistent, once disengaged. If we want to get at true Alexander history, we must no longer ignore it. Alexander’s conquest was not acceptable to all the Iranian aristocracy, in spite of his efforts to depict himself as the true successor to the Achaemenids—as far as his Macedonians would let him. It has often been observed that after the great purge Alexander did not appoint any Iranian satraps. The facts here set out provide an explanation.

Notes I should like to thank Professor Bosworth for searching questions and stimulating suggestions, which have made this essay longer and (I hope) better. 1 Robin Gardner and Dan van der Vat, The Titanic Conspiracy (1997): essentially, that a damaged ship was made up to look like the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic and put under the command of a captain with a bad record, for financial gain by the owners. It may yet make a film. 2 Badian 1963. [No. 7 in this collection.] The replies, of varying quality, called forth by that article contain nothing to make me change my mind on either my interpretation of the train of events or the conclusions I drew from it. But this cannot be argued here. 3 See esp. Arr. 1. 25. 1, cf. Curt. 7. 1. 6 (on Alexander son of Aëropus). See Berve 1926: no. 144 (Arrhabaeus) for balanced discussion, except that he believes Alexander saw them as rivals for the throne (against: Bosworth 1980a: 159). What Alexander may have feared was that they would raise Lyncestis against him: it was probably not regarded as certain that Philip’s integration of the Upper Macedonian states would survive his death. See Bosworth 1971c: 93–105; and 1980a: 159. 4 Diodorus’ statement that the Lyncestian Alexander was related to Antigonus (17. 80. 2) is a mistake, but should be left in the text. There is no need to emend, as (e.g.) Goukowsky (in the Budé edition) does, following Freinsheim’s old suggestion. Diodorus can confuse the Tigris with the Euphrates (2. 3. 2—surely not in Ctesias!). 5 Curt 6. 9. 17. It is sometimes said (correctly, I must admit) that we do not actually know whether the marriage preceded or followed the elevation of Attalus and his niece-ward. I have assumed the latter. But if the former is true, it creates an even more sinister picture: in that case, it would be difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was Parmenio, Philip’s most trusted general and adviser, who engineered Philip’s marriage to Cleopatra. Attalus was probably not close enough to Philip to do so on his own, and we can hardly assume that Philip came across a noble girl of marriageable age by pure chance. 6 That Philip was made an Athenian citizen is also attested (Plut. Demosth. 22. 4). I have not found any attestation that Alexander was, but it may not have been necessary, since the grant to Philip would presumably, in the usual manner, include his descendants. The grant to Philip should be put about the time of the treaty after Chaeronea.

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7 See Berve 1926: no. 182 for the modern charge of a treasonable understanding with Memnon, cited with apparent approval. Berve also accepts the charge of treasonable correspondence with Demosthenes, which is at least in the sources, but is implausible for various reasons. 8 See Berve 1926: no. 61, again apparently accepting the accusation, although we hear of no other member of the aristocracy involved in this ‘conspiracy’. 9 For the chronology see Bosworth 1980a: 159 f. (not accepting the charge against Amyntas). 10 For Berve see above, nn. 7 and 8. Bosworth 1980a: 159 f. et al. Brunt 1976 (Arrian I, Loeb edn.), p. lxi. 11 e.g. Berve 1926: no. 434, though aware of Just. 12. 6. 14, putting Cleopatra and her brothers (?) in a list of Alexander’s victims. 12 This is where it is placed by Arr. 1. 25 (early 333). The vulgate seems to have agreed with this. Just. 11. 7. 1 ff. puts the affair between Granicus, followed by fighting and the capture of other cities in Asia Minor, and Alexander’s arrival in Gordium. For Curtius, see Atkinson 1980, 78: the account was in book 2, apparently following the fall of Halicarnassus. Diodorus is the odd man out: he puts it (17. 32) after the incident involving Philip the physician (17.31). See further, n. 23 below. The view I expressed in Badian 1960 [no. 3 in this collection], that an interval elapsed between the deposition of Alexander the Lyncestian and his being taken into custody, is not seriously tenable. 13 Diodorus mentions the ‘evidence’ of Sisines and Olympias’ letter; Justin writes of an indicium captiui (i.e. clearly Sisines), ignoring the letter; Arrian too has only Sisines’ evidence. Curtius’ two indices, if taken literally, are unparalleled. I suspect, however, that he merely combined Sisines’ evidence (as in Justin and Diodorus) with Olympias’ letter (as in Diodorus), and, for dramatic effect, changed what might fairly be called two indicia to two personal indices. The fact that the reference to the two indices is repeated (7. 1. 6, 8. 8. 6, 10. 1. 40) merely shows that Curtius remembered what he had written (note sicut supra diximus, 7. 1. 6). Although Arr. 1. 25. 9 makes it just possible, I doubt that the swallow that, in an anecdote reported by Arrian (1. 25. 6 ff.), warned Alexander of danger facing him would count as an index. It is not to be excluded that Curtius told the story (obviously of vulgate origin). The supposed letter of Alexander, proving his guilt, was imported by Hedicke (Teubner) into the text at 8. 8. 6 by fanciful emendation. (Compare, e.g., Bardon (Budé), with much simpler and convincing intervention.) 14 We do not know whether this Sisines is identical with the son of Phrataphernes (Berve 1926: no. 709). Berve’s attempt to identify him with the hero of a fanciful story in Curt. 3. 7. 11 ff., whose existence is difficult to credit (no. 710), is worthless. These are the only three individuals by this name who occur in the Alexander historians. Berve’s comment that no. 709 may have been too young in 330, when his father joined Alexander, even to meet the king can only be called ‘aus der Luft gegriffen’. We are not told where this Sisines was between 330 and 324, when he entered the agema of the Companions, together with his brother, who had joined Alexander only a few months before (Phradasmanes, Berve 1926: no. 812; Arr. 7. 6. 4). As Berve himself says, ‘all’ those admitted to the agema on that occasion will have been with Alexander ‘längere Zeit’ (and all will have acquired military distinction (sub no. 526)). Since Phradasmanes clearly had not been with Alexander at all long, we must conclude that it was Sisines who secured his brother’s admission along with his own. It follows further that he will not have left Alexander’s entourage after joining him in 330. As for military distinction, it is quite likely that he had acquired some: our sources simply do not record the military activities of Persians in Alexander’s service (of which there must have been many), except for one or two satraps.

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15 See Bosworth 1980a: 161 ff. (As will appear, I think more of the details authentic than he does.) 16 Robson’s Loeb translation (copied by Brunt, as usual) certainly mistakes the meaning of πστεις δουναι/λαμβνειν ̑ . But although it always means a physical pledge confirming an assurance, it can be weakly used, so that the word may be acceptable here. It may mean only an explicit promise over the King’s seal (thus probably Arr. 3. 6. 7; 1. 4. 7 is not clear). Xenophon rarely uses the phrase, but see for an amusing instance Anab. 1. 2. 26 (a ‘strong’ meaning). For Thucydides Bétant explains it as fidei pignora. 17 It is relevant to refer to a famous translation scene in comedy: Aristoph. Acharn. 100 ff. The Persian there, called ‘gibberish’ by Sommerstein (agreeing with West 1968: 5–7 ff., with fanciful reconstruction of the OP), has been taken seriously by Iranologists. See Brandenstein and Mayrhofer 1964: 91, with a reference to a more detailed discussion (unknown to the two Hellenists). They produce an acceptable OP original, with minimal textual changes. (Noted already, with speculative discussion, Francis 1992: 337–9.) 18 We cannot tell when Olympias’ letter was received. Diodorus’ aorist (17. 32. 1: 9γραψε) is non-specific: either ‘Olympias wrote’ (without specification of time) or, following a common use of the aorist, ‘Olympias had written’. His use of an aorist (συνδραμντων) for the corroborative evidence prima facie suggests an earlier time. Of course, it may mean that that evidence had become known before Olympias’ letter arrived, but the run of the narrative does not suggest this. I am therefore inclined to translate: ‘when many other plausible points had come together to support the charge’. The letter would then be pulled out and acted upon when the time seemed right (Welles’s addition, in his Loeb translation, that the letter arrived ‘at this time’, is pure fiction). It is interesting that Alexander did not have his namesake tried at this time: obviously, that was because he could not. Sisines would have to appear as a witness, and the accusation would not have survived his testimony in translation, before some who understood Persian. 19 Berve 1926: 388 n. 2 is wrong in stating that the story was not in Aristobulus. But he is essentially right in rejecting the story as we have it. The Philotas affair is not a parallel for Arrian’s reluctance to use direct speech: he there explicitly tells us (3. 26. 2) that he is following Ptolemy, hence indirect speech is mandatory. There are no clauses in the indicative, except where the infinitive was precluded by grammar. In 4. 8. 8 (the Cleitus affair) we do see Arrian briefly changing to direct speech for vivid effect, as Bosworth says. Bosworth is surely right in explaining the indirect narrative of that episode by Arrian’s reluctance to counter his encomiastic purpose. It would follow that he would have embraced the story of Philip the physician with open arms, and nowhere more so than in its conclusion. I must suggest that he did not do so because he not only did not find it in his main sources, but realized that Ptolemy’s account left no room for it, and perhaps that it contained elements that did not make sense. 20 Plutarch, who has precisely the same story as Arrian (presumably not from Ptolemy but from a vulgate source), adding dramatic detail and wording of his own, describes the scene of the reading of the letter as θαυμαστ#ν κα( θεατρικ%ν (‘astonishing and fit for the stage’): here, for once, he did not need to add to the dramatic colouring. Curtius does not call the remedy a purge, which may be to his credit. For the three days’ wait, see Atkinson 1980: ad loc. Rolfe (Loeb) and Bardon (Budé) make nonsense worse by mistranslation: they take praedixit to mean that Philip ordered Alexander to wait, while near death, for three days before he could take the medicine. In fact, praedixit is always used by Curtius to mean ‘foretell’ (see Thérasse’s Index Verborum): the doctor is said to have warned Alexander that it would be three days before he could take it. It has been suggested to me that finding and mixing the ingredients might take as long as that. This seems to me going too far in defence of Curtius’

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21 22 23

24

25

26

27

dramatic invention. Purges were not difficult to come by, and since they have a clearly defined effect, one would be as good as another if effective. Pliny, that repository of medical lore, mentions quite a number of them. As it happens, he nowhere mentions a purge for use against fever or a chill. The nearest I have found is in the uses of dried figs (23. 121 f.), which aluum molliunt and a decoction of which with fenugreek (again a simple mixture!) will treat pleurisy and pneumonia, which were probably diagnosed even by Greek physicians as being what Alexander had contracted. De Morbis 44 ff., a discussion of pleurisy and pneumonia, does not mention purges as treatment. The ‘purge’, I think, helps to give the story away as fiction: it is just what a layman, familiar with physicians’ common practices, would make up, even though it was unsuitable in this case. Nor can I believe that a physician would spend three days on finding and preparing the ‘purge’. Only very few infusions have to be left to ‘draw’ as long as that and I have found none at all appropriate here. We must also bear in mind that court physicians would hardly rely on finding familiar plants in the unknown lands to which they were being taken, or on taking the word of potentially hostile natives for the effects of the plants they would find there. Philip, obviously one of the court physicians, must have carried a ‘medicine chest’ with basic remedies and (e.g.) dried herbs with him, to last at least for some time. (The physicians were no doubt used to the duration of Philip’s campaigns and had no idea of how long Alexander’s would turn out to be.) Most ancient remedies were simple enough. See, e.g., 2. 1. 1, where there is no doubt that the actions described in that chapter (starting with Memnon’s capture of Chios) belong to 333, long after Alexander’s arrival at Gordium. But Sisines, whatever he had to say, clearly did come across Parmenio first and said it to him. See Berve 1926: no. 788, concluding that it was ‘deutlich eine Dublette’. Diodorus’ displacement of the incident, which (as we saw) was concordantly and correctly placed earlier by the other sources, is puzzling. Perhaps he remembered the association of the incidents of an Alexander and a Philip (is the name ‘Philip’ significant? perhaps, if the story was spun out of whole cloth) and tried to associate them more closely than his source. However, the solution to this puzzle is hardly worth a great deal of effort and ingenuity. That the speeches at Philotas’ trial are not authentic does not need to be argued. Even speeches in Arrian should not be lightly regarded as such. But the strand of personal relations among the men around Alexander that Curtius found in one of his sources and that is not reproduced in any other of our surviving sources, except occasionally by Plutarch, does seem to add valuable and acceptable information to the court historiographers and the gossips. I am reluctant to accept it (as well as another scholar’s theory that the plot against Philotas was hatched by some of his courtiers and that Alexander himself was entirely innocent) because of what we know about Alexander’s personality: he is never demonstrably a simple-minded victim of court intrigue, but (on the contrary) seems to be given to stimulating mutual jealousies (e.g. between Hephaestion and Craterus). In the case of Philotas, Plutarch makes it clear that Alexander, once he had been informed of Philotas’ remarks in Egypt, personally took charge of what Plutarch calls the ‘plot against Philotas’. That he confessed before doing so, thus giving Alexander the full information (as Hamilton believes), is not a legitimate deduction from the source, where the page (Metron) informed Alexander ‘of everything’. (In Curtius the information comes from Cebalinus: 6. 7. 25.) There is no doubt that Plutarch knew the ‘vulgate’; he perhaps assumed that the reader would also know it, so that he needed to state only his divergence from it. The

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28

29 30

31

32 33

34 35

36 37

proskynesis affair would provide a parallel. There Plutarch omitted the common version of the banquet and opted to tell a (presumably) less known one by Chares; but his allusion to Callisthenes’ heroism shows that he both knew the standard version and expected the reader to know it. Here he must surely have seen the implication of the version he followed, that Philotas was innocent and that Alexander knew it. [See further no. 26 in this collection.] Bosworth 1996a: 165. Atkinson 1994: 224 notes Tiberian parallels to Curtius’ narrative and suggests they may have influenced Curtius’ presentation. If Curtius wrote later than Atkinson believes, Domitian would also have to be considered (Suet. Dom. 11). Curtius may have accentuated some of the resemblances (see my comments p. 427 above), but this is no reason to believe (with, e.g., Berve 1926: 395, citing Schwartz) that Alexander was incapable of deviousness towards his enemies. I should perhaps add to my account of Plutarch that his total rejection of the official version (which, I repeat, he must have known) is shown by his statement (49. 7) that Philotas’ motive for not taking Cebalinus to see the king remains unknown. For deviousness, see further on Astaspes in the Appendix to this chapter. Habicht 1977: 514–15 has shown that a son of this Alexander, called Arrhabaeus, survived (no doubt protected by Antipater in Macedonia) to be a ‘friend’ of Alexander’s successors. The fear of conspiracy: Arr. 4. 8. 8, Curt. 8. 1. 47, Plut. Alex. 51. 6—which incidentally shows to most (unfortunately not to all) scholars that the Macedonian dialect was the language of command among Alexander’s (and no doubt among Philip’s) Macedonian forces. Arr. 4. 13, Curt. 8. 6 (the speeches in 7 and most of 8), Plut. Alex. 55. Diodorus reported the fate of Callisthenes (hence presumably the pages’ conspiracy), but his narrative is not in our text (see Diod. Per. 17. 2). Arrian picked up Hermolaus’ speech from a vulgate source; indeed, his whole narrative is a logos, hence probably composed from various sources in the form in which he tells it. It differs in significant respects from Curtius’ elaborate version: each presents one or two items the other lacks. However, the general topic is no doubt based on Cleitarchus, whose assessment of Alexander’s deterioration is echoed in Cic. Att. 13. 28. 3. (See my analysis in Badian 1996 [no. 21 in this collection.], 20.) For the story as a whole see, e.g., Bosworth 1988b: 117 ff. For the interesting prosopographical item of Philotas son of Carsis, a Thracian, among the conspirators, see Berve 1926: no. 801 and Bosworth 1995: ad loc. Arr. 7. 29. 4, Plut. Alex. 75. 6: enthusiastically welcomed by Tarn 1948: ii. 41. (See 39 ff. for his idealizing portrait of the faithful Aristobulus, closer to Alexander than the Macedonian nobles. In fact there is no evidence for his being at all close to Alexander; much of his work seems to have been secondary interpretation.) Berve 1926: no. 121 also idealizes, but less blatantly. Pédech 1984: 354 f., in a basically favourable discussion of Aristobulus, fully recognizes his tendency to naive apologia. Passages collected by Berve 1926: 65. In Curtius the boys are aware of the fact that delay would lead to exposure: they want at all costs to avoid waiting seven days for the next opportunity. Actual failure, of course, was likely to lead to a sauve qui peut reaction, since no one would want to be anticipated. We cannot tell what happened to Epimenes, who actually started the unravelling of the plot. His fate is not mentioned in Arrian. In Curtius he shares in the rewards given to the informers, but this may be fictitious elaboration. See Diod. 17. 80. 2, Curt. 7. 1. 5–9 (staged by the king, § 5). Arrian suppresses the story. See Hamilton 1969: ad loc., with the reference to his detailed proof that the letter must be authentic. Bosworth 1995: 98 entertains the possibility that it might have

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38

39 40 41 42 43 44

45

been written by a well-informed forger. I cannot put a name to such a putative person, who was close to Alexander at the time, hostile to him, and likely years later to remember the precise location of the commanders addressed. Curtius is wrong in stating that the pages and Callisthenes were tortured to make execution more painful (8. 8. 20 f.). He knew quite well that torture was not used for that purpose, but to extract confessions—which he also knew were not at all reliable (6. 11. 21). But his ‘confusion’ is deliberate, intended to make the story more graphically appalling. Ptolemy, even in Arrian’s summary, can be seen to have separated the torture from the death (Arr. 4. 14. 3: στρεβλωθντα κα( κρεμασθντα). Bosworth (loc. cit.) is unclear and seems to be wrong: Philotas was tortured to extract new revelations, not to intensify execution. Chares, followed in part by Aristobulus (ap. Plut. Alex. 55. 9—Plutarch apparently thought they were independent accounts), reported that he was made to accompany the expedition as a prisoner, to be tried by the synhedrion at Corinth in the presence of Aristotle(!), but died of a disgraceful disease seven months later, ‘at the time when Alexander was wounded in India among the Malli Oxydracae’. 'ν Μλλοις ’Oξυδρκαις is in all the manuscripts, but universally deleted by editors and commentators in order to save Plutarch’s (and often Chares’) credit. Even Hamilton 1969: 156, argues that Plutarch ‘who had made a special study of Alexander’s wounds’ (no evidence is given for this except for a German dissertation—there is no such claim in Plutarch) would not have made such an error in chronology. (The time between the pages’ conspiracy in Bactria (Arr. 4. 22. 2, cf. Strabo 11. 11. 4.C517) and Alexander’s attack on the town of the Malli was about two years.) Hamilton 1969: 122 in fact mentions two occasions when Plutarch makes mistakes over Alexander’s wounds. Add that Mor. 341c, 343d ff. apparently confuses Malli and Oxydracae. This makes it likely that Plutarch added that phrase, to specify the occasion referred to by Chares. But he cannot have made up the ‘seven months’ and it cannot be held that he misinterpreted Chares: no one referring to Alexander’s wounding in India, without specification, as Chares seems to have done, could have meant anything but the famous almost-fatal wound. Chares’ story discredits itself in all details. Aristobulus can be more briefly dismissed: he was ‘never one to omit an opportunity to whitewash’ (Bosworth 1995: 100, which see also for general discussion). For brief discussion, see Appendix. See Badian 1996: 22 ff. [No. 21 in this collection.] See now Carney 1996: 33–7. For discussion of this incident see Badian 1961: 20. [No. 5 in this collection.] Diod. 17. 106. 3, 111. 1. For the interpretation see Badian 1961: 25 ff. See Badian 1961. There can be no doubt that there was a reign of terror: I took care to collect the actual figures and distinguish possible from attested victims. Bosworth 1971: 123 charges me with laying ‘excessive stress on the arrival of satraps at court, inferring that a summons to court meant danger to the man invited’. All I argued was that ‘such a summons could [original emphasis] be the prelude to summary trial and execution’ (18) and that those summoned had ‘ambiguous prospects’—unless, like Peucestas, they were sure of the king’s favour. Bosworth’s list of those who suffered no harm can be found on my pp. 18–19. However, I still think that any satrap summoned must have felt twinges of uneasiness, in view of what he had seen and heard about; and that, in view of the king’s documented duplicity (Philotas and recently Astaspes!), friendly entertainment after arrival did not offer final reassurance. See Badian 1961. The fact that Cleander and his subordinates were the only Macedonian commanders summoned to the court and (probably all of them) executed can hardly be explained except through the connection with Coenus’ outspokenness and death.

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46 One is reminded of the authentic story of the physician called in to attend to Stalin on his deathbed: Beria (who, of course, saw his own future as uncertain) screamed at him: ‘If he dies, you’ll be shot.’ I do not know if the threat was carried out. 47 Badian 1962, 204. [No. 6 in this collection.] 48 Bosworth 1971a: given up in his more recent work (e.g. 1988b: 171 ff.). O’Brien 1992, 224 showed that it would have been far too dangerous for the generals, if they did intend to kill the king, to use a slowly acting poison: there would surely have been easier and safer ways. A full (and surprisingly extensive) collection of the evidence will be found in O’Brien 1992: 275 n. 7. His chapter 5, despite the idiosyncratic translations from the Iliad, gives the best brief survey of Alexander’s last months. Attempts to ‘diagnose’ Alexander’s illness (if we believe he died a natural death) are as unprofitable as (e.g.) the similar parlour game of ‘diagnosing’ Thucydides’ plague. The latest I have come across is by Dr David W. Oldach, in the New England Journal of Medicine of 11 June 1998. After considering various other possibilities, ranging from (accidental) lead poisoning and (deliberate) poisoning with arsenic (which ‘must . . . be given serious consideration’) to malaria (which by his own description appears to be a serious possibility), he finally settles for typhoid fever: this, it seems, offers the further advantage that ascending paralysis ‘may have given the impression of death before it actually occurred’ and so account for the report that Alexander’s body did not decompose after death. Since he admits that this report is likely to be legend, the suggestion of an ‘ascending paralysis’ due to illness, easily shown to be untenable, is not worth discussing. As for the rest, his own analysis shows no good reason for preferring typhoid fever to some of the other possibilities he advances. We may note his explanation of why Alexander did not receive better care: ‘This patient received little in the way of modern medical care, I believe, because he lived at a time when such care was unavailable.’ Borza adds a long note, essentially undermining the futile attempt by pointing out the unreliability of our information, the influence of propaganda, and the growth of legend. I regret to say that the most prestigious American medical journal has added nothing of value to the parlour game. 49 My views are argued in Badian 1987 (610 ff. on the Ephemerides’ reports on Alexander’s death). [No. 18 in this collection.] 50 Ibid. 625. 51 My view of Darius’ origin and rise is fully argued in an article, ‘Darius III’, developing views sketched in the Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. The article appeared in HSClPh 100 (2001). [No. 25 in this collection.] We must assume Achaemenid descent, since no one not of Achaemenid lineage on his father’s side had ever, to our knowledge, aspired to the throne and since the supply of Achaemenids was by then plentiful (see below). 52 That he suppressed a revolt in Egypt, by one Khababash, straight after coming to the throne is a figment due to Kienitz, an Egyptologist without much knowledge of other areas of ancient history and not to be trusted on points of method. The case is described by A. B. Lloyd, a better-informed Egyptologist and better historian, as ‘not strong’ (CAH VI2 345). Although Khababash was certainly at one time recognized as pharaoh, the date is quite uncertain. I think the disturbed time after Ochus’ reconquest the most likely setting. None of the Alexander historians tries to build up Darius as a worthy opponent of Alexander. They would hardly have missed the opportunity, if he had indeed won such a major success as the reconquest of Egypt within months, when it had taken his predecessors generations. Their view of him is in fact quite the opposite: see, e.g., Arr. 3. 22. 2 with Bosworth’s comment. (See my article on Darius III, cited in n. 51.) 53 See Berve 1926: nos. 152, p. 83, and 497, p. 251 (obiter).

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54 We may safely ignore Mithradates’ son Ariobarzanes (no. 116), who is said to have betrayed Darius, and Berve’s speculations. Berve, strangely, was taken in by one of the ‘Schwindelautoren’ (Jacoby, FGrH III A, p. 162) cited in Ps.-Plut. De Fluviis, who were exposed long ago in the edition of that essay by Rudolf Hercher (1851). Jacoby’s comments are based on it. As Professor Bosworth pointed out to me, Berve should at least have known the terse dismissal of ‘Aretades’ by Georg Knaack in RE Suppl. 1 (1903), col. 125. Jacoby justly refers to ‘der gelehrte roman Berves’. On the satraps, see (a beginning) Seibert 1987: 442 f. (That essay also has the great merit of trying to overturn the sources’, and especially Arrian’s, portrait of Darius as a weak coward—a portrait eagerly embraced by most scholars—by rational discussion.) 55 Arr. 1. 20. 3; cf. Diod. 17. 23. 5–6. However, Diodorus’ phrase 5περ κα( συνβη γενσθαι (‘and so it actually turned out’) raises the suspicion that the whole story of Memnon’s initiative and motivation is fiction based on the actual event. It is doubtful whether any of our sources would know them, which they presumably could do only from Memnon himself or a close associate. It is quite possible, of course, that he had been told the King suspected him and advised how this could be remedied, but the ‘background’ to the action must remain suspect. 56 Alexander, on his way from Gordium (late May 333), had not yet heard of Memnon’s death (Curt. 3. 1. 21). See Beloch 1922–27: ii2 2, 312 ff. for the chronology. 57 I do not see why Atkinson 1980: 100 thinks that Diod. 17. 29. 4 and 31. 1 imply that Darius heard of Memnon’s death at Susa. Curt. 3. 2. 2 certainly seems to put the display of the forces of the empire outside Babylon, but does not indicate where Darius received the report. But chronology is not Curtius’ strong point, and he does not tell us (or, it seems, care) whether those forces were assembled after news of Memnon’s death came in or were already in place. However, since he firmly puts Darius’ decision to face Alexander himself after Memnon’s death (of which it was the result), we must assume that he thinks that a good deal of time had elapsed before the spectacle. Diod. 17. 30. 1, 31. 1 is explicit on the sequence, which we have no reason to reject, but does not indicate the King’s location. It is a pity that Arrian’s frequent lack of interest in chronology, especially in matters away from Alexander, is here at its worst (that he shows little interest in Memnon’s operations has often been pointed out). We do not know how much time Memnon had, before his death, to advance the siege of Mytilene; but from what we can gather of his activities before this, probably not very much. We do not know how long Autophradates and Pharnabazus, after his death, τῃˆ πολιορκᾳ ο+κ ρρστως προσκιντο (‘vigorously devoted themselves to the siege’) before Mytilene surrendered; but to judge by what we know of other attempts, in Classical Greek history, to starve major cities into surrender, it is likely to have been a long process. After this, we do not learn from Arr. 2. 2. 1 whether Pharnabazus, when he took his mercenaries to the mainland, had already received instructions to hand them over to Thymondas, who was to take them to meet the King, or whether he only received those instructions when he arrived in Asia; nor do we know whether he found Thymondas waiting for him or (as the text prima facie implies, for what little this is worth) had to wait for Thymondas’ arrival, no matter when he received the instructions from the King. Arrian’s regrettable vagueness provides no reason to reject the explicit and detailed account in Curtius and even Diodorus, that it was the news of Memnon’s death that made Darius decide he would himself have to march against Alexander. The speed and efficiency he showed on the march only confirm that, whatever his defects as a commander in the field, he was a great organizer. 58 The numbers of the Persian forces are, as usual, vastly exaggerated. Diodorus gives 500,000, Arrian surpasses him by giving 600,000 (perhaps from a vulgate source: his main sources may not have estimated the number). Curtius is relatively modest: less

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59

60

61

62

63

64

than 300,000, plus 30,000 Greek mercenaries (that figure also in Arrian). The true figures are beyond conjecture. The inclusion of the mercenaries in Curtius’ account of Darius’ display at Babylon does not mean that Thymondas had in fact arrived there: Curtius almost certainly added them from his own knowledge of the battle of Issus. Even if (as is likely) Darius gave the order to Thymondas as soon as he heard of Memnon’s death, they cannot have arrived in Babylon before his departure with the army. Curt. 3. 8. 1 is clear and explicit on where they met it. Diod. 17. 35. 3 describes the presence of the royal and noble women with the army as κατ τι πτριον Y̑ θος τωˆ ν Περσωˆ ν (‘in accordance with an ancestral custom of the Persians’). We hear of nothing of the kind in the best-attested Persian armies, those of Darius and Xerxes in Herodotus, and it is unlikely that the ‘custom’ had developed in Artaxerxes’ Egyptian campaign. For the women and children with Darius III, see Curt. 3. 12. 4, 13 ff.: Darius’ mother, wife, and daughters (Darius’ son: 12. 26); ‘the wives and children of Darius’ commanders’ (13. 6); Ochus’ daughters (13. 12, also his wife); Artabazus’ wife (sister of Mentor and Memnon, cf. Berve 1926: no. 152) (13. 13), also the daughters of Mentor (i.e. nieces of Artabazus), Memnon’s widow and son and the wife of Pharnabazus, nephew of Memnon (see Berve 1926: no. 766) (13. 14). This is the fullest list. Diodorus’ pathetic description (17. 35–6) gives no specifics except for the family of Darius (17. 36. 2; 37–8). Arrian also mentions only Darius’ family (2. 11. 9, with the vulgate story 12. 6 ff.: we learn that the anecdote of Leonnatus’ mission of reassurance is from Ptolemy and Aristobulus: 12. 6). Unnamed Persian ladies are mentioned by all authors, as captured both after the battle and at Damascus. That they included the wives and children of (all of?) Darius’ commanders (Curt. 3. 13. 6) is no doubt Curtius’ pathetic invention, developed with fine rhetorical phrasing later in that chapter. As we have seen (n. 13 above), this practice by no means guarantees the authenticity of what he reports. For the only ladies actually named, see above. It is inconceivable that a large number of noble ladies, who would have to travel in state, were with the expedition. Darius’ speed would be inexplicable if he had had to cope with such a major impediment. The ‘other Persians’ who had sent their women to Damascus along with their possessions (Arr. 2. 11. 9) probably included a fair number of soldiers who had picked up women during the march and in Cilicia itself. That the graue agmen of Darius’ army (Curt. 3. 7. 1: it could not move fast!) included the traditional 360 concubines, as well as a number of women on horseback, the wives of the propinqui and amici (Curtius has just specified 15,000 cognati alone!), as well as eunuchs and (as in a Roman army) lixae and calones (all this Curt. 3. 3. 9–25), is undoubtedly a picture due to Curtius’ overheated imagination, stimulated by reading about the King’s traditional luxury. We must doubt the vulgate story that Parmenio, that experienced soldier, gave him the stupid advice to accept the main offer, as reported. (Of course, we have no idea of the course of the real negotiations, but major territorial concessions on the part of Darius were obviously unavoidable, and very much in his interest, in case Alexander could be persuaded to accept them.) The military reasons for rejection are so obvious that we need not even consider psychological motivation. See Diod. 17. 39. 3 f., 53. 1 f.—and the ‘Alexander Mosaic’, as Nylander has pointed out. The actual course of the battle is beyond recovery, as is true of many ancient battles. No one, least of all Alexander or Darius, can have exercised any real control over the whole battlefield. (See Bosworth 1988b: 81 f.). He certainly did not expect to fight Alexander with the levy of Scythians and Cadusians that Arrian picked up as a rumour (Arr. 3. 19. 3). The rumour went on to report that in the end they did not turn up! That story can be ignored; but we are no better off than Alexander, who had no idea what Darius was planning (ibid. 1–5).

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65 For this suggestion see especially my articles cited in n. 51. 66 See n. 62 above with text. If the whole kingdom was handed to him, with Darius alive, this would apply with even greater force. The eminent Greek epigraphist M. B. Hatzopoulos has recently suggested (1997, esp. 50–1), on the basis of his interpretation of Alexander’s letter to Philippi, that Alexander intended to go home with his Macedonians and Greek allies after his stay at Persepolis—thus leaving Darius free to reoccupy all he had lost—and that it was only the reports of Darius’ collecting troops and fleeing to the east that made him continue his march. Not to mention the fact that he only received those reports when already on his way to Media (Arr. 3. 19. 1–4), we are left to wonder why, after he had decided to abandon his conquests, they should make him change his mind. Even on Hatzopoulos’ interpretation of his text (and despite his pronouncement, p. 50, I still think I proposed a valid alternative […]) there are more plausible suggestions. Thus, the ambassadors may have reached Alexander early in 333, during his long stay at Gordium. Whether Leonnatus and Philotas (if the famous hetairoi) were among the neogamoi sent home for the winter, we cannot guess. (No offspring are attested, but that is not significant.) But in any case they would have had plenty of time to accompany the ambassadors, adjudicate as Hatzopoulos prescribes for them, and return to Gordium before Alexander resumed his march in May. I doubt that historians will find Hatzopoulos’ hypothesis appealing. 67 See esp. Curt. 5. 9–10 (note 9. 2–3: absurd speculation), 10. 1. The idea that anyone would, at this point in Persian fortunes, want to usurp the throne for the sake of being King is quite possibly Curtius’ own. Diod. 17. 73–4 does not report Bessus’ motives. 68 See Calmeyer 1981 (to be read with caution), citing A. Sh. Shahbazi’s earlier studies (nn. 1 and 12). 69 See Hdt. 8, 100 ff. Modern scholars generally recognize that Xerxes crossed to Asia at once, not through cowardice but to prevent rebellion. Diodorus reports (we do not know on what authority) that from Ecbatana Darius sent messengers to the commanders in the Upper Satrapies, ‘exhorting them to preserve their good will towards him’ (17. 64. 2). That may be a Greek guess, but it would be important for him to do it, no matter what his future intentions. Nothing can be got out of the romance, characterized by speeches, in Curt. 5. 8 ff. See Atkinson 1994: 138 (on 8. 6–17) for the quality of Curtius’ speeches: ‘The speech is lacking in material substance.’ 70 See Atkinson’s treatment (1994), especially 133. Note such gems as idemque erit regni quam spiritus finis; the good king’s maxim, difficilius sibi esse damnare quam decipi; or, perhaps best of all, Nabarzanes’ pronouncement: ultimum omnium mors est. For Roman material, see the request that Darius transfer his imperium and auspicium to another (5. 9. 4). These and similar items are obviously Curtius’ own, decorating the basic account derived from Patron. He and his mercenaries would not only have had no idea of what Persian nobles had been discussing among themselves, but would have had to find an explanation for their final desertion of Darius and the lateness of their surrender (see text). 71 We may ignore the elaborations of the vulgate sources on the details of the march and especially on the size of Darius’ forces: Diod. 17. 73. 2 = Curt. 5. 8. 3 (30,000 infantry and, in Curtius 4,000, Greeks; Curtius also adds cavalry and light-armed). Had Darius had anything like this number with him, Alexander with his (ultimately, we are told: Plut. Alex. 43. 1) sixty men would have been caught in an inescapable trap. Arrian (3. 19. 5) lists 3,000 cavalry (close to Curtius’ 3,300) and only 6,000 infantry, apparently including the Greeks. Even this is, if anything, exaggerated (but see below), as must be the 7,000 talents supposedly taken with him: the number of mules or donkeys needed to transport such a sum in bullion or coin would have reduced the speed of the column to a crawl and ensured that Alexander would have no difficulty

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in overtaking it. Diodorus found two sources on the final encounter: he prefers the one that stated Darius was dead when Alexander reached him, but notes one that reports they still met and Darius urged Alexander to avenge him on Bessus. Curtius has the story of Polystratus’ finding Darius before his death (cf. Plut. Alex. 43), presumably therefore did not report a meeting between Alexander and Darius. (A lacuna intervenes.) Arrian briefly states that Darius was dead when Alexander arrived (3. 21. 10). What inspires some confidence is his reporting that many in Darius’ force either went home or surrendered to Alexander and that the Greek mercenaries deserted some time before Darius’ death (ibid. 2. 4): the account is not infected by Patron’s apologia, and the final numbers with Darius may have been quite small. 72 Bagistanes, accompanied by one of Mazaeus’ sons (Arr. 3. 21. 1, Curt. 5. 13. 3, 11, with a different version of the name; Curtius adds a Greek and two Persians, ibid. 7–9, in principle credibly, though the Persian names are garbled). Bagistanes, described as a Babylonian, has a purely Persian name. He was no doubt one of the numerous Persians who had colonized Babylonia and, following Persian custom, described himself by his residence, not his descent. 73 Professor Bosworth has reminded me of Orontes (Berve 1926: no. 593) who, although nominally superseded by Mithrenes (Berve 1926: no. 524), may in fact have maintained his independence beyond Alexander’s reign. If he did nominally submit and then rebel, that act is undatable, but it is almost certainly not as late as this. At one point (undated, but presumably before the Indian campaign) Alexander sent a force under a Menon (Berve 1926: no. 516) to seize some gold mines in Armenia. We do not know its fate (the text at Strabo 11. 14. 9.C529 is open to debate), but it looks like a raiding party, not a plan to garrison an organized province. 74 Professor Bosworth has pointed out to me the relevance of Arr. Ind. 36. 8 f.: when Tlepolemus tried to take over the province after Astaspes’ death, he found the natives in control of τ: 'ρυμν: τη̑ ς χρης (‘the strong places of the region’); they severely harassed Nearchus and his no doubt small escort (36. 7) on his return to the coast. This point is actually of some importance for chronology. Astaspes’ death must be put while Nearchus was with Alexander, for he had had no trouble going up to meet Alexander with only a few of his men (33. 6). I cannot develop this further here.

Works cited Andronikos 1984: M. Andronikos, Vergina Atkinson 1980: J.E. Atkinson, A Commentary on Q. Curtius Rufus’ Historiae Alexandri Magni Books 3 and 4 Atkinson 1994: Id., A Commentary on Q. Curtius Rufus’ Historiae Alexandri Magni Books 5 to 7.2 Baynham 1998a: E.J. Baynham, Alexander the Great: The Unique History of Quintus Curtius Beloch 1922–27: K.J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte, ed. 2, 4 volumes Berve 1926: H. Berve, Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage, 2 volumes Borza 1995: E.N. Borza, Fire from Heavaen: Alexander at Persepolis Bosworth 1971: A.B. Bosworth, Philip II and Upper Macedonia, CQ 21, 93–105 Bosworth 1980a: Id., A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander, vol. 1 Bosworth 1988b: Id., Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great Bosworth 1994b: Id., in Cambridge Ancient History VI, second edition, 791–875 Bosworth 1996a: Id., Alexander and the East Brandenstein-Mayrhofer 1964: W. Brandenstein and M. Mayrhofer, Handbuch des Altpersischen

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Calmeyer 1981: P. Calmeyer, Zur bedingten Göttlichkeit des Grosskönigs, Archäol. Mitteilungen aus Iran 14, 55–60 Carney 1996: E.D. Carney, Macedonians and Mutiny, CPh 91, 19–44 Francis 1992: E.D. Francis, Oedipus Achaemenides, AJPh 113, 333–57 Habicht 1977: Chr. Habicht, Zwei Angehörige des lynkestischen Königshauses, Ancient Macedonia 2, 511–16 Hamilton 1969: J.R. Hamilton. Plutarch, Alexander: A Commentary Hatzopoulos 1997: M.B. Hatzopoulos, Alexandre en Perse, ZPE 116, 41–52 Hinz 1975: W. Hinz, Altiranisches Sprachgut der Nebenüberlieferungen Justi: R. Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch, 1895 Kienitz 1953: F.K. Kienitz, Die politische Geschichte Ägyptens vom 7. bis zum 4. Jhdt. vor der Zeitwende Mayrhofer 1973: M. Mayrhofer, Onomastica Persepolitana Nylander: C. Nylander, Opuscula Romana 14, 1983 O’Brien 1992: J.M. O’Brien, Alexander the Great: the Invisible Enemy Pédech 1984: P. Pédech, Historiens Compagnons d’Alexandre Schmitthenner 1968: W. Schmitthenner, Über eine Formveränderung der Monarchie seit Alexander d. Grossen, Saeculum 19, 31–46 Seibert 1972: J. Seibert, Alexander der Grosse Seibert 1985: Id., Die Eroberung des Perserreiches durch Alexander den Grossen auf karthographischer Grundlage, 2 volumes Seibert 1987: Id., Darius III, in W. Will and J. Heinrichs, ed., Zu Alexander d. Gr. (sic) 437–56 Tarn 1948: W.W. Tarn, Alexander the Great, 2 volumes West 1968: M.L. West, Two Passages of Aristophanes, CR 16, 5–8 NB: Citations of Badian in the notes include a reference to numbers in this collection and have therefore not been listed in this Bibliography.

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THE history of Darius III, the last Achaemenid King, must almost entirely be gathered from sources that see him through a Greek lens; and not only Greek, but sources concerned to celebrate the history and achievements of Alexander III of Macedon. Our surviving sources, as is well known, were in fact written centuries after his death, in Greek or (following Greek sources) in Latin.2 The distortion inevitably caused by this tradition, and increased by the Latin sources where they add Roman distortion,3 has shaped the standard modern view of Darius, as a mere foil to Alexander ‘the Great.’ Indeed, the modern tradition has until recently tended to follow the ‘official’ Greek tradition, as reflected by Arrian, and made little use of even the ‘vulgate’ Greek sources. Arrian’s purpose, as he tells us in the ‘second preface’ (1.12.2–5), was to play Homer to Alexander’s Achilles and for the first time (so he asserts) to accord his deeds worthy celebration. It is not surprising that his picture of Darius, as summed up in the obituary he accords him (3.22.2 ff., however one actually translates it4) is damning: νδρ( τ: μν πολμια, εGπερ τιν( =λλKω, μαλακKω̑ μν κα( ο+ φρεν%ρει. He goes on to say that Darius did no harm to his subjects— but only because he had no time to do any. This judgment was eagerly embraced by Tarn, whose attitude to Alexander resembled Arrian’s. But it has frequently been followed by better historians.5 Only in recent years have attitudes begun to change. This is not so much due to increased interest in Achaemenid Persia (indeed, specialists in that area until a few years ago showed little interest in Darius) as to the reaction against Alexandrolatry among Greek historians and against the uncritical admiration of Arrian among students of the sources. Some detailed studies had already found merit in Darius on particular occasions,6 and Arrian is no longer, as he was by Tarn and his generation, regarded as the sole reliable source of information on Alexander.7 Two articles and a major book have recently aimed at rehabilitating Darius. The articles are by the Hellenistic historian Jakob Seibert and by an outstanding Iranologist, Carl Nylander; the book is by Pierre Briant, an eminent student of Achaemenid Iran.8 Seibert’s study is chiefly based on his own writings and on a few other German works: in particular, on his very useful atlas of Alexander’s campaigns, illustrating Seibert’s interpretation of the literary sources.9 Nylander 457

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advances a very new interpretation of the King’s actions, one based on Iranian religion and cosmology. Briant’s judgment on the actual events often coincides with mine, reached independently and in part published earlier; but he misinterprets the sources and therefore fails to understand the basis of Darius’ insecurity.10 Nylander’s theory, coming from a scholar of his excellence, will obviously have to be taken very seriously. What I propose to do is much humbler: there is room for a careful analysis of the sources, especially on Darius’ background and the beginning of his reign, and for a merely pragmatic interpretation of his decisions.

The rise to power Let us for a start look at what the literary sources have to say about Darius III’s background and origin. Modern scholars have on the whole been content with a brief reference to Berve, who here collected rather than interpreted what he found. Darius must clearly have been an Achaemenid, at least by paternal descent. No one not of that background had ever become King, and it is inconceivable that there should have been an exception in this instance. But there must by this time have been hundreds, perhaps thousands, who had that basic qualification, in view of the large number of royal children by concubines over the centuries. Justin 10.1.1 reports that Artaxerxes II had 115 filii (and the context shows that he means sons) by his concubines.11 It is equally clear that the man who later adopted the name of Darius had no close connection with the reigning family of Achaemenids. Diodorus 17.5.5 does indeed make him a son of ‘Arsanes’ (so our texts: no doubt in fact Arsames = Arsa¯ma, which was the name of Darius I’s grandfather and which is the name of Darius III’s father in the late chronographers), who was a son of Ostanes, son of Darius II and brother of Artaxerxes II. This descent makes him a son of a cousin on the paternal side of Artaxerxes III Ochus. We do not know his mother’s name. She is consistently called Sisyngambris in Diodorus and usually Sisigambis (with manuscript variants) in Curtius. Neither of these authors is known for accuracy over (especially Persian) names and neither form has found a convincing etymology. Curtius, in a pathetic passage (10.5.23), makes her a sister or cousin (almost certainly the latter, from the context) of Ochus’ cousins. Her precise place in the stemma is not certain and we do not know the source for Curtius’ statement, although we can be sure he did not make up the relationship as he did the context. This distinguished lineage should have sufficed long ago to arouse the suspicion of modern historians. For Ochus is reported to have eliminated a brother of Ostanes and all his sons (apparently the cousins, just possibly the brothers, of Sisyngambris) in one day of carnage: so Curtius writes (loc. cit.), followed by Valerius Maximus (9.2. ext. 7). Justin 10.3.1 reports that Ochus regiam cognatorum caede et strage principum replet, without regard for age, sex or link by blood, because of his fear of conspiracies—a motive that his own experience under Artaxerxes II makes quite plausible. It is surely impossible to imagine that he not only left 458

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alive, but (as we shall see) promoted, the son of a cousin of his and son of a cousin of the family of his cousins that he had eradicated: an Achaemenid of royal lineage on both sides, who would be as likely as any of them to aspire to the throne and to gain support for such a claim. Most remarkable of all: Justin 10.3.2 puts the Cadusian war in which young ‘Darius’ first attracted Ochus’ attention straight after the massacre, and he emphasizes the connection. As we shall see, Justin’s text makes it clear that Ochus did not include ‘Darius’ among his victims for the simple reason that he had never heard of him before his aristeia in that war. Once aroused, suspicion is confirmed by attention to some positive statements in various sources. Diodorus, in spite of the fully royal lineage he gives ‘Darius,’ states that with the death of Ochus’ son Arses in the third year of his reign, 'ρ%μου δ’ ντος του̑ βασιλως οGκου κα( μηδενς ντος του̑ κατ: γνος διαδεξομνου τ#ν ρχ%ν (‘since the King’s house was destitute and there was no

one who could succeed to the throne by descent’), his murderer Bagoas, προχειρισμενος ^να τω̑ ν φλων Δαρει̑ ον νομα (‘selecting one of (the King’s)

friends, named Darius’), secured the throne for him. There is no mention of any relationship to the royal family. If we ignore the proleptic name (Diodorus clearly knew no other name for him), the statement is quite clear: the royal line had died out and the new King came from the circle of the dead King’s ‘friends.’ This is expressed even more clearly by Strabo, who ends his account of Persia with a summary of the royal house (15.3.24). He states that the succession to Darius I ended with Arses; after his assassination Bagoas installed Darius (III), ο+κ ντα του̑ γνους τω̑ ν βασιλων (‘not belonging to the royal family’), as King: clearly not a great-grandson of Darius II. The accounts of Darius’ first appearance in history fill in some details. Diodorus 17.6.1 reports his victory in single combat over a Cadusian challenger in Ochus’ first campaign; this attracted Ochus’ attention and brought Darius gifts of honor from him; and it was because of his outstanding bravery that he himself later became King. Justin 10.3.3 ff. tells the same story and fortunately adds a detail crucial for our evaluation of Darius’ background, the man’s name and (by implication) his station: in the Cadusian war that followed straight upon the massacre of Ochus’ relatives, aduersus prouocatorem hostium Codomannus quidam cum . . . processisset, he killed the enemy and was rewarded for this glorious deed with the satrapy of Armenia; interiecto tempore (Arses’ brief reign is omitted as irrelevant in the context) he was made King by the People12 under the name of Darius, in memory of his earlier bravery. Justin tends to be well informed and reliable on names. The name Codomannus must be regarded as securely derived from Greek tradition. He goes on to say that this Darius later fought against Alexander uariante fortuna magna uirtute. To Trogus and his Greek source Darius was no coward. One only has to compare this with Arrian’s scathing verdict to see how far we are from a tradition denigrating Darius. The phrase Codomannus quidam cannot be intended to demean him. Yet that phrase (rightly translated by Seel as ‘ein gewisser 459

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Kodomannos’: a certain Codomannus) shows that the man whose name was thus transliterated by Greeks was not a man of any prominence. It must be stressed that in the whole extensive tradition, Greek and Babylonian, on Darius, this name is found only here. It is nothing less than astonishing that modern writers have turned it into a sobriquet permanently retained: right down to the new Cambridge Ancient History (VI2 50) and Briant, they refer to him as Darius Codoman or Codomannus. In fact, Codomannus was his original name, never heard of again after his rise to prominence. It was his outstanding deed of valor that brought an undistinguished man to the King’s attention and led to the beginning of that rise. The name has never been satisfactorily explained. There have been guesses, varying in degree of implausibility, by Iranologists trying to derive it from Old Persian. In this respect it does not stand in isolation, as was shown by Lipinski.13 Nylander finds the name ‘hard to account for’ (147 n. 22) along those lines. The eminent philologist R. Schmitt dealt with the name in a particularly unfortunate way. Noting that Darius III’s personal name, as given in Babylonian documents, is ‘not compatible with Iustinus’ Codomannus,’ he concludes: ‘These data point categorically to that Darius III originally was not called Codomannus . . . but on the contrary was called Artašat’ [as in the Babylonian documents; my emphasis]. He actually notes that Justin’s form never appears again after that single mention, but then strangely goes on to posit a ‘coexistence’ of the two names throughout (p. 91); and he regards the case as ‘settled’ by his unsupported guess that ‘Codomannus’ was ‘a surname given to him for some reason,’ perhaps because of his courage (!): he compares the name Mnemon given in Greek tradition to Artaxerxes II.14 In fact, the Babylonian documents do show a King’s personal name, but his name when already King. It is begging the question to call these names birthnames. We have no evidence as to whether they were or not, except in the case of Darius III; and here the evidence clearly shows that the name Codomannus, the only name attested when an obscure man leaps into prominence, was not used once he had come to the throne. There can be no doubt that the name Codomannus (as transliterated by Greeks and rendered into Latin) was Darius’ ‘birth-name,’ which he later dropped.15 I would suggest that the name is most obviously explained as a Western Semitic (most probably Aramaic) name, readily connected with ‫( קﬢמרך‬qdmwn), ‘from the East, Easterner.’ (Compare, perhaps, the Hebrew ‫ כני קרם‬for ‘those who dwell in the East,’ i.e., east of Palestine.) For ‫ קﬢמרך‬see KoehlerBaumgartner-Stamm, Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament III (1983) s.v.: ‘Die im Osten wohnenden, die Östlichen.’ Since the word can also mean ‘ancient,’ Professor Cross suggested to me that it might be a divine epithet. But all I have found to point in that direction is a note by Zimmern in E. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (1902) 477: k.admu as a synonym for ilu (god) on one tablet. The names in Lipinski’s collection (see n. 13) are by no means all divine or theophoric. We can rest content with the literal meaning, easily explained if the Persian Darius grew up in Babylon. 460

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Parallels for unions between high-ranking Persians and Semitic- (Aramaic-) speaking ladies can easily be found, one even in the Alexander sources. Artaxerxes I had married a Babylonian woman (called a concubine by some Greek authors). Her son could claim the succession as Darius II (and is therefore called ‘Nothos’ by Greeks). The great satrap Mazaeus’ marriage to an Aramaicspeaking lady in Babylon is highly probable, as I showed long ago.16 He saved Babylon by surrendering it to Alexander, and one of his sons is called Brochubelos (Blessed of Bel), so Curtius reports (5.13.11). No Greek could ever have invented names like Brochubelos and Kodomannos. We have no indication that any of our Alexander sources were proficient in Aramaic. Nor is there any reason why any Greek should have simply invented these names.17 We might here remember Lewis’ comment on the careers of Artaxerxes I’s sons by Babylonian women: ‘An arcanum imperii had been revealed. One did not need a Persian mother to become King’ (Lewis 75). Nor would a successor care if some Greeks called him Nothos. Artaxerxes Ochus does not seem to have worried about the sons of Artaxerxes II by non-Persian concubines. But he was clearly sensitive about men of full royal descent who might be rivals for his throne. This is clear from his elimination of an uncle (a son of Darius II) with all his eighty male offspring. It is inconceivable that he would have become the patron and sponsor of a fully legitimate great-grandson of that King. He clearly had no reason to be worried about Codomannus quidam, even if he knew of his Achaemenid descent: much less so than about the sons of Artaxerxes II. Codomannus would not be a danger to himself or to his son’s succession (cf. p. 459 above). The stemma provided by the Alexander historians, making Darius a son of Arsames and Sisyngambris (herself a granddaughter of Darius II: see C. 10.5.23), must be an official construct. At best it may be due to adoption (no doubt after Ochus’ death, for he would not have risked it). As likely, it was composed only after Darius’ accession. In Babylonian documents he bears the resplendent Persian name Artaša¯tu, clearly ‘Happy in Arta.’ (The form Artaša¯ta, found once, must be an error.18) Did he have that name while called Codomannus? We cannot be quite certain. Of several instances of Babylonians known by two names, nearly all, before the Hellenistic age, have two Babylonian names, one a Babylonian and also an Aramaic name. There seems to be only one instance of a man (and that a highly placed Persian official) with an Iranian and a Babylonian name. He dates from the reign of Artaxerxes I—suitably if, as I am inclined to think, the double name is due to intermarriage. No parallel instance is known for generations after. This makes it unlikely that the practice should be assumed in the case of Darius, born several generations later. It seems far more likely that he had only his Aramaic name from birth and, at some time after he became a Persian grandee, dropped it and assumed (or was given) a name befitting his new status. The royal stemma followed in due season. Justin tells us that Codomannus was promoted to the satrapy of Armenia and in due course became King. The large gaps this leaves can in part be tentatively 461

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filled. Diodorus attests him (plausibly enough) as one of King Arses’ ‘friends’ before he became King. Plutarch Mor. 326E calls him an στνδης, a δου̑ λος of the King. (The latter term is repeated in Ael. VH 12.43.) στνδης is glossed in the Suda (A165 Adler) as a Persian loan word meaning ‘courier.’ Plutarch uses it twice more, at Mor. 340C and Alex. 18.7. It clearly impressed him. Scholars have cited these passages as part of a denigrating tradition (so recently Nylander), and Greek writers must have intended this. But we must look more closely. As for δου̑ λος, it is the standard Greek translation of OP bandaka, one ‘bound’ to a superior, especially the King. It is the term that Darius I uses throughout the Bisutun inscription to designate his senior army officers, most strikingly even a member of the ‘six families’ that had assisted in his coup d’état and hence held the highest position in the Persian aristocracy. (See DB 3.38 ff., 5 init.) Combining this with the statement that he was a ‘courier,’ we may deduce an appointment in the King’s ‘postal service’; and in view of Ochus’ attested patronage, it would be fitting if he at one time headed an important sector of it, perhaps even the central (Persepolis) sector, a position once held by the great Parnaka (Pharnaces), so it appears from the Persepolis Fortification Tablets. This appointment would be a fitting promotion after the Armenian satrapy, attested by Justin as his immediate reward for his act of bravery. It would put him squarely in the inner court circle, indeed it presumably attests him as already a ‘friend of the King,’ a title documented only under Arses, just before he became King. It should surely be conjectured that he owed it to his patron Ochus. At this point it is again worth stressing that Ochus, who had shown extravagant suspicion of any possible rival, clearly did not dream of the possibility that Codomannus was a danger to him or to his son Arses. In 339 or 338, probably still before Ochus’ death, he married the royal princess Stateira. Arrian 2.11.9 and Plutarch Alex. 30.3 call her Darius’ sister. (The relationship also appears in Justin 11.9.12 and Gellius 7.8.3) It is striking that this is not mentioned by Curtius and Diodorus, although Curtius has a great deal to say on her beauty and her misfortune. This surely means that their common source, Clitarchus, apparently did not mention this interesting point. It is possible that Arrian’s statement comes from Ptolemy (cf. 2.11.8). But his story of Alexander’s dealings with the royal women was based on a variety of sources (see 2.12.3, ‘some historians of Alexander’; 2.12.6, ‘this is told by Ptolemy and Aristobulus’; 2.12.6–8, a logos included although Arrian cannot make up his mind whether it is true or not). He may well have added this item from one of those sources used in the next chapter, without bothering to notify us. The story that Darius married his sister should be regarded at the least with the attitude shown by Arrian in 2.12.8 in a related context. It may be simply modeled on the known examples of Achaemenid sister marriages (Darius II is the most notable example). If it is true, then Stateira was his sister in the official account of his descent, which, as we have deduced from Artaxerxes Ochus’ treatment of possible rivals and, in particular, of other descendants of Darius II, is unlikely to have been 462

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composed before Ochus’ death. Indeed, her descent from Darius II, which must surely be accepted, may, in the light of that King’s matrimonial practice, have inspired Darius III’s official stemma. That Darius II (Nothos) was the son of an Achaemenid father and a Babylonian woman would help to suggest him as a precedent. For Codomannus was undoubtedly of Achaemenid descent on his father’s side, else he would never have been accepted as King by the large number of other nobles who were. The son of Darius III and Stateira was very suitably named Ochus. He is said to have been five or six years old (Curtius’ phrase at 3.11.24, nondum sextum annum aetatis egressum, can be taken either way, even if he is precisely rendering his source) at the very end of 333, when he was captured after the battle of Issus. No other children are attested. Darius’ two adolescent daughters are vividly described by Curtius (ibid.) as seeking refuge from the Macedonians in gremio anus auiae (i.e., Sisyngambris, Darius’ mother), while Stateira was holding and comforting the young Ochus. That Darius was married before is shown by his apparently having a son-in-law bearing the aristocratic name of Mithridates (see RE s.v., no. 2), who died in the battle at the Granicus (A. 1.15.7).19 The two daughters captured are most easily regarded as younger children of that same first wife, whose name is unknown. That first marriage, clearly to an aristocratic lady, must follow Darius’ elevation to high rank, at least to the satrapy of Armenia. It should be put at some time in the 350s. He may also have had an (apparently) older son, named Ariobarzanes (also a good aristocratic name), whatever we think of the tale told about him.20 As we have seen, we cannot be certain whether his aristocratic Persian name was one of his birth-names (together with the Aramaic Codomannus) or, as may be more likely, he assumed it after his promotion to the Persian nobility, dropping the lowly name, which he had borne when he earned that promotion. He must certainly have been known only by the Persian name at the time of his first marriage. All we can say is that it must precede the composition of his descent. At the time of the war against Alexander, he also had an official (?) brother, Oxyathres, who fought loyally for him and after Darius’ death made his peace with Alexander and was held in high honor by him (see Berve no. 586).

Khababash Understanding of Darius’ background, as far as we can disengage it from the sources, is important. Bagoas, after eliminating the royal family (as we saw), had to choose a man who would be acceptable to the Persian nobles at a time when a Macedonian attack was developing on the western fringes of the kingdom, yet who might be presumed to remain subservient to him. Darius, remembered for his bravery (as the sources emphasize) and no doubt also for the patronage of Ochus, was qualified on both counts. Others must have been no less qualified by descent—e.g., Bessus, who later assumed the upright tiara and the name Artaxerxes (Berve no. 212)—but not on other grounds. It is worth noting that Darius is nowhere, even in hostile Greek sources, accused of participation in the 463

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murder of his two predecessors. At most, the idea is faintly suggested in a letter reportedly written to him by Alexander (A. 2.14.5), which, whether authentic or not, cannot be regarded as truthful. He cannot have engineered Bagoas’ choice of him as King, but he soon unexpectedly justified it by eliminating Bagoas, about the time of Alexander’s accession (autumn 336), and so securing his own survival. We now come up against a major problem created by modern scholars. Nearly all recent accounts refer to a successful campaign in which Darius reconquered Egypt, straight after his accession. The mention is usually inconspicuous, with a reference to Kienitz, who devotes a detailed discussion to the Pharaoh Khababash (German Chababasch),21 at one time recognized as pharaoh in both Thebes and Memphis and ruling more than two years. The evidence is now accessibly set out by Alan B. Lloyd in CAH VI2 345 (cf. 357). Khababash, who was prepared to fight off an invasion by ‘the men of Asia,’ does not appear on the Egyptian king lists. That must be because Manetho’s list stops with Dynasty XXX. (Ochus’ reconquest came at the end of it.) The list for XXXI has sometimes been thought to contain genuine material left by Manetho, but Lloyd has refuted this in a careful study, which concludes that nothing in XXXI is authentic and all we can say about Khababash is that he comes after Ochus’ reconquest.22 Egypt was in a disturbed state after the reconquest, and it was exacerbated by Ochus’ harsh measures, as shown by frequently quoted passages in the Petosiris document. Even a non-Egyptian like Khababash might be welcomed at this time. But it seems there is no decisive evidence.23 The one suggestion that must be made is that the beginning of Darius’ reign, which Kienitz chose, is the least likely time, indeed almost impossible. Kienitz started from the assumption that the rebellion is inconceivable under the strong King Ochus; eliminating Arses by vigorous special pleading, he arrived at Darius III as the only candidate. Lloyd describes the case as ‘not strong.’ Historically, it is impossible. Our Greek sources might not pick up reports of rebellion in Egypt against Ochus or Arses, since no Greek cities or forces seem to have been involved. On the other hand, if Darius III had begun his reign with an outstanding success, which his predecessors had taken generations to achieve, completing the reconquest of Egypt in a few months, it is inconceivable that none of the Alexander sources would have seized this opportunity of enhancing the stature of Darius for the greater glory of Alexander. There is not a word of any military achievement by Darius in any of our Alexander sources. As we saw, Arrian’s judgment on his military ability shows that he had no inkling of any such success. Whatever the true date of Khababash’s defeat, under Ochus or Arses, it must all have been safely over when Darius came to the throne.

Facing Alexander Darius in fact had time to consolidate his rule without military challenges. The death of Philip II had practically eliminated the Macedonian threat. The invaders 464

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were confined to a small beachhead around Abydus, and no one even knew whether the young successor would be willing or able to renew Philip’s adventure. It was as well for Darius that there seemed to be no need for strengthening the defenses of Asia Minor. That would have posed serious difficulties for the outsider on the throne. Under his predecessor Memnon, a Rhodian whose brother Mentor had done much to win Egypt for Ochus and to secure Asia Minor but had died before 336, had loyally fought against Philip’s advance guard and was largely responsible for the success of the resistance. Yet he was a brother-in-law of Artabazus and had shared his exile in Pella for many years. In fact, one member of his family was probably at that moment serving under Alexander.24 It would not be safe for the new King to entrust large forces to Memnon. There was certainly no question of supreme command in Asia Minor. The imposition of a supreme commander (even a Persian satrap, let alone a Greek) would have been fiercely resisted by the eminent nobles in positions of command there when it seemed unnecessary. In fact, although a son-in-law of Darius himself was there, as we have seen, he clearly had no authority over the other nobles, and there is no sign of his transmitting royal orders. When Alexander invaded Asia early in 334, he was met by a small force under no unified command. The only agreed aim was apparently to kill the adventurous boy in the first engagement. No one foresaw any serious danger. When the attempt failed at the Granicus, at heavy cost in noble Persian lives, all of Asia Minor lay open to the victor. It was only now that Memnon, who had survived, was given supreme command after sending his wife and family to the King as hostages (D. 17.23. 5–6, cf. A. 1.20.3). Skillfully organizing resistance in Caria, he was politically undercut by Alexander’s cooperation with Ada, who could claim to be the rightful queen and had much support in the country. Alexander could simply bypass Caria and leave it to be mopped up by his officers and Ada. Memnon’s promising plan to take the war to Greece collapsed with his death in spring 333. Fortune deprived Darius of his only able commander when he had just begun to trust and use him. There was now no alternative but for the King himself to take up the war. Darius recalled the Greek mercenaries who had fought under Memnon and with unprecedented speed (if we think of the long preparations for war needed by Xerxes, or more recently by Artaxerxes II for the attack on Egypt) collected an army from the western and central provinces of his kingdom. (For the sake of speed, he preferred not to call on the manpower of the eastern provinces.25) By October 333, within not more than six months of Memnon’s death, he was crossing the Taurus and, whether by luck or by design, appeared in Alexander’s rear, as the Macedonian was marching down the coast of the Levant. Darius had proved himself no mean organizer. However, unlike Alexander, he had no experience of command in the field, and that was to lead to his downfall. He had to rely on noble advisers, who were probably still underestimating Alexander and who, in any case, did not dare to appear pessimistic when consulted by the King. Like Xerxes before him, as strikingly depicted in Herodotus, Darius was cut off from reality. The system combined with the man to produce disaster. No 465

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experienced commander would have fought a battle on the site of Issus, narrow and unsuitable for cavalry, which was the Persians’ main strength. Perhaps an experienced commander would not have fought at that point at all but continued efforts to outmaneuver the enemy. Darius had to escape before the battle was over, and tradition was ready to charge him with cowardice, even though, as we have seen, some Greeks well knew that it was personal bravery that had won him the throne. He saw that the only chance of saving his kingdom lay in his survival. No conceivable successor could have secured universal recognition. His flight shows that he kept his head and thought of his responsibilities, to the point of incurring the one charge that must have been most repugnant to a man of his character. The main disaster was that he had to let his family fall into the victor’s hand. He had been forced by his own insecurity to take them with him.26 Now there was no way of saving them. The stories of his surprise at Alexander’s generous treatment of them are no doubt rhetorically inflated, but they must be basically true as regards both the treatment and the King’s surprise. Men in the Greek tradition had never shown mercy to an enemy, let alone a barbarian, except in order to extort a ransom; and Darius himself had set the precedent of killing prisoners who fell into his hands.27 Yet he well knew that in Alexander’s hands his relatives were much more valuable as living hostages than as dead bodies. Darius could never plan a counter-attack while they were alive. He could only negotiate, and hope to provide a sufficiently attractive ransom. Persians had usually defeated Greeks in the game of diplomacy, as Agesilaus among others had learned to his cost. Letters between Darius and Alexander are quoted by several of our sources.28 They have usually been accepted as authentic (as they once were by me). Yet it is in principle known to all that speeches and letters quoted at length in ancient authors were not authentic, and were not expected to be.29 The details are not worth examining: we have already seen that Alexander is said to have charged Darius with the murder of his two predecessors, and that is enough to set the tone on his side.30 But it is clear that Darius could only try to offer a large ransom and the cession of large territories. The Euphrates as a border, as reported, seems reasonable. Alexander would have to be recognized as a victor, and in possession of the King’s family. No Persian King had ever had to face such a situation before. Yet it is clear that Alexander, even if we ignore his well-documented heroic ambitions, could not consider such terms. Once he gave up his hostages, Darius would be free to prepare for an attack, which could come at any time.31 Whatever boundary Alexander accepted, he would have to hold it for the foreseeable future against the inevitable attack. He simply lacked the means to do so. He could not keep an adequate force along a line of vast length while leaving the initiative to Darius. Alexander, with his genius for instant military insight, could not have failed to see this, no matter how flattering the offer appeared. His very success had made it impossible for him to stop. He rejected all terms. Darius would have to await his attack. 466

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Darius had few Greek mercenaries left. They had always been the mainstay of Persian armies, but now most of them had scattered after Issus. The King now showed remarkable adaptability and courage. He collected a large army, chiefly from the eastern part of the kingdom, which had hitherto not been called upon, and while increasing and improving the arms in which Persia was traditionally strong—cataphract cavalry and scythed chariots, to which he added elephants32—he decided on a truly astonishing measure: to equip some of his eastern infantry after the Greek and Macedonian fashion. No Achaemenid King had ever dared to do this. Providing effective arms and training for the peasantry and making them play an equal part in defending the kingdom would have social consequences that no King had been willing to face. Hence hordes of primitively armed infantry had for two centuries left defense to noble cavalry, and Greeks had been hired to supply effective infantry without upsetting the traditional pattern of society. In his unprecedented danger Darius was willing to take unprecedented risks. No Persian army had ever been so formidable a machine as the one he now proposed to build.33 He had also learned the principal lesson of Issus (A. 3.8.7). He would meet the enemy on a broad plain. Much of his new-model army—all except the infantry—was built on that plan. He may have tried to overcome Alexander in Mesopotamia, though the force sent out with Mazaeus was surely inadequate for that purpose (A. 3.7.1–2, C. 4.9.12 ff., D. 17.55.1–2). Alexander eluded his forces by (perhaps accidentally) taking a more northerly route to avoid the heat. There was no adequate plain for Darius’ purpose east of the Tigris, so he created one for his revision of Issus. Near the village of Gaugamela, a good day’s ride north of Arbela (= Erbil), with the Maqlub range covering his flank, he leveled the ground over a large area by removing everything that protruded above it (C. 4.9.10, A. 3.8.7).34 We must surely also believe the report, probably from a Persian source, that he used his time to drill his disparate army to understand and obey commands (D. 17.53.4: we are not told what was the language of command). We can see that, just as he had planned, no Persian army (perhaps no other army in any war) was ever better prepared for a single battle than Darius’ army at Gaugamela. Unfortunately his very preparations contained the seeds of defeat. Darius’ aim, like that of so many commanders throughout history, may be said to have been to fight the last battle all over again. (We must remember that Issus had been his only experience of actual command.) As a result, he had now locked himself into a position from which he could not move. He had long ago lost the strategic initiative, when his family was captured. He now gave up the tactical initiative as well, to one of the greatest tacticians in history. Alexander moved up slowly, giving his men plenty of rest, while keeping Darius on the alert. He finally halted where he could overlook Darius’ plain. On 30 September 331 (as we now know, the eve of the battle), the moon was early in its last quarter,35 offering the disciplined Macedonians a chance of attacking late at night. Darius had to keep his men under arms, to guard against this possibility, while 467

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Alexander in fact allowed his to rest. After sunrise he could attack a tired and in part demoralized enemy (A. 3.11.1–2). Yet Darius’ preparations were so excellent that the Persians fought well and in part successfully: indeed, Gaugamela deserves a place among history’s ‘impossible victories.’ The battle was decided when Alexander, taking the chance of ignoring a gap that had opened in his center, charged straight at Darius’ weary center and broke through it, making for the King. Once more Darius had to choose between death and disgraceful flight, no matter how well the battle was going elsewhere. Once more, for the same reason, he chose flight,36 and his army, after still putting up an amazing resistance, and killing or wounding many eminent Macedonians in what Arrian calls the fiercest cavalry fighting of the whole battle (A. 3.14.2), finally disintegrated. He fled straight up to Ecbatana, where he could not be attacked during the winter and would have time to prepare further resistance. That meant leaving Alexander to occupy all the other ‘capitals’ without centrally directed defense, even though not always without fierce fighting.37 After occupying Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis (also, at some time, Pasargadae), Alexander spent the winter of early 330 at Persepolis, finally destroying the royal buildings before setting out for Ecbatana in May.

The inglorious end By the time he arrived there, Darius had left for the east. We have no solid information on how he had spent the seven months bought at such cost. The vulgate report that he took an army of thirty thousand men with him from Ecbatana is pure fiction.38 Not only would such a force have offered some resistance to Alexander’s pursuit, but if such a large army had passed along the route just before, he could not have found supplies for his own men. Those who try to defend the figure must be unaware of the famous passage in Xenophon (An. 2.2.11) making that point clear. Northern Media was no land flowing with milk and honey. As Arrian 3.19.5 reports, Darius had about nine thousand men with him at the start, and in the end only fifteen hundred Greek mercenaries who had abandoned him surrendered to Alexander. Nor is there any evidence of a concentration of forces in the east, suggesting plans for further resistance. Alexander did not rush in pursuit until he heard that Darius had been taken prisoner by those closest to him: Bessus, an Achaemenid (A. 3.21.4–5) and satrap of Bactria, had taken charge; Barsaentes, satrap of Arachosia-Drangiana, and the ‘chiliarch’ (hazarapatiš) had joined him. They had bound the King with golden fetters and were moving east with their prisoner. I argued elsewhere that the conspiracy had begun at Ecbatana and that Darius, who did not want to continue the hopeless war (there is no other explanation for his inaction during seven months at Ecbatana), was already virtually a prisoner of those who did when they left Ecbatana.39 They had to bind him when Alexander was quite near and there was a danger that Darius might escape in order to surrender. 468

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The conspirators obviously wanted to keep him alive. His figure, securely under their control, would be a major asset in organizing resistance in their immense satrapies and unifying it. It was only when Alexander was about to overtake them by almost superhuman efforts (A. 3.21.6 ff.) that they decided they had to kill the King. Alexander arrived just too late. Pathetic fiction later invented a meeting between them, or at least between Darius and one of Alexander’s men (D. 17.73.4; P. 43.3 ff.; J. 11.15.5 ff.; cf. C. 5.13.25, whose text is defective). That allowed a conversation in which the dying King acknowledged Alexander’s greatness. This was only the culminating fiction. What was actually said, within the small circle of nobles around him, could never be known. The only accounts come (demonstrably) from the leader of the Greek mercenaries who had left Darius while the final plot was hatched and had to explain why,40 and from the Persian nobles who joined Alexander after Darius’ death and had their own, far from disinterested, stories to tell. We hear that Bessus, or Bessus and Nabarzanes, acted out of ambition for the throne (implausible at that time!) and, inconsistently, that they hoped to gain Alexander’s pardon by surrendering the King (C. 4.6.4, 5.9.2, 5.10.1; A. 3.21.5; cf. J. 11.15.1). Curtius reports a long debate in the King’s consilium (5.8.6–9): a dignified speech by Darius, then a proposal by the evil Nabarzanes that Bessus be temporarily made king and restore the throne after victory. The speeches are full of vapid sententiae of which Seneca might have been ashamed, and of purely Roman concepts.41 A long conversation between Patron, commander of the Greeks, and Darius follows: Patron reveals the plot to the King, but Darius refuses to think ill of his nobles and Bessus makes a statement in rebuttal (C. 5.11.1–12.5). The vulgate figures for Darius’ forces are repeated (5.12.4) and this is followed by Darius’ statement, Alexandri sibi non minus iustitiam quam uirtutem esse perspectam. It is necessary to insist that these dialogues are fictitious, since they have at times been regarded as partly historical. The apologia for the mercenaries may be based on the report by Patron, but the terms of the debate in the consilium cannot have come to Alexander’s ears, any more than the manner of Darius’ death reported by Arrian and Curtius. For he pardoned Nabarzanes, the archvillain in those stories, thus acquitting him of the crime of regicide for which Bessus was tortured and executed.42 What was the conspirators’ real motive? The sources are no help, as we saw. I have already suggested that Darius’ inaction at Ecbatana must show willingness to abandon further resistance, which the conspirators for their part wanted to continue, based on the resources of their provinces. Regicide was never unthinkable in Achaemenid Persia. In spite of the King’s semi-divine status and (as argued by Nylander) the need for him to survive in order to save the cosmic order, only a minority of Achaemenid kings had died a natural death. The conspirators had good reason for wanting to keep their King alive and under their control: it was not done out of horror at the idea of regicide. However, when Alexander threatened to capture Darius alive, they were forced to kill him, no matter how much this weakened their own ability to carry out their plans. 469

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Alexander’s extreme efforts to take Darius alive precisely match the conspirators’ decision to prevent this. There is, therefore, only one plausible motive we can posit: Darius was ready to do homage to Alexander, as indeed Alexander had demanded in their fictitious correspondence (A. 2.14.9, C. 4.1.14), and this would have lent some legitimacy to Alexander’s claim to be the rightful heir of the Achaemenids. The King’s authority would weigh heavily in the eastern satrapies, as yet unsubdued. The same reason that made control over a living King vital to the plans of the conspirators made it vital to Alexander, who of course had not a shadow of a claim to legitimacy in Iran. As I once wrote, Alexander’s failure to capture Darius alive was his one piece of ill fortune; coming on top of his one serious mistake, the burning of the royal palaces at Persepolis, it let him in for years of difficult guerrilla war in the eastern provinces, far more difficult and wearing than the battles he had won. That Darius had given up hope of defeating Alexander seems clear. This does not necessarily mean that he had abandoned his plan to save Iran by diplomacy. Just as acceptance of Darius’ generous offers at an earlier stage would have left Alexander in a strategically impossible position, so it can be held that Darius’ homage to Alexander would have changed very little, at least in the long run. Alexander could never be ritually crowned at Pasargadae (which he seems ultimately to have aimed at43), and recognition of him by Iran would last precisely as long as Darius, the legitimate King, chose to direct it. It would force Alexander to stretch his only reliable forces, the Macedonians, too thinly for safety, while eastern Iran, still undefeated, waited for a signal from its King. It is a pity that we know nothing of the real debate that must have gone on among Darius and his nobles. We can only deduce that they were eager for continued action, while he counseled patience and diplomacy. In the end, splintered resistance turned out to be useless. The conspirators’ answer was clearly not the right one. Darius’ death, coming when it did, was a disaster for both sides. Darius III is the only Achaemenid King of whose features we can form an idea. The ‘Alexander Mosaic,’ however idealizing in conception, and however distorted in reproduction in the form in which we see it, captures his heroic and his tragic aspects [see Figure 23.1, page 405].44 This man of demonstrated courage, forced to play the coward, and of outstanding organizing ability, not matched by experience or ability in field command, found himself facing one of history’s greatest military leaders. What might have sufficed against an Agesilaus proved totally inadequate against Alexander. In the end his ability and his sacrifice of personal pride were of no use. Probably hoping that surrender to the victor would buy time for some future revival, he was killed, and his country was ruined, by brave and patriotic men who lacked the quality of patience.

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Appendix: Darius III’s official descent (simplified stemma)

Notes 1 This essay, developing ideas first briefly set out in an article on Darius III written in 1993 for volume 7 of the Encyclopaedia Iranica and altered in publication, was submitted and accepted for a volume in memory of David M. Lewis, which has now appeared as Maria Brosius and Amélie Kuhrt eds., Studies in Persian History: Essays in Memory of David M. Lewis (Leiden 1998). I was forced to withdraw it owing to lack of cooperation on the part of the editor to whom it had been submitted. I now dedicate it individually to the memory of that great scholar, the first scholar writing in English to devote serious attention, based on mastery of the languages and the other evidence on both sides, to the interaction of Greeks and Iranians during the period of the Achaemenids. Lewis’s book Sparta and Persia (Leiden 1977) inspired many others to devote themselves, at least in part, to these studies. He was taken from us in the midst of a project of outstanding importance, which may now not be carried on. But he had led the way towards bridging the breach between Greek and Iranian history that had long been detrimental to both. This essay is supplemented by my paper ‘Conspiracies,’ in A. B. Bosworth and E. J. Baynham eds., Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction (Oxford 2000) 50–95 [no. 24 in this collection], which includes a treatment of conspiracies, actual and suspected, against Darius. Detailed treatment of this topic in that paper has enabled me to reduce the length of the present essay by referring, where relevant, to the fuller discussion there. Some duplication and overlap naturally proved unavoidable. 2 The main sources are abbreviated as follows: A. = Arrian, Anabasis; C. = Q. Curtius Rufus; D. = Diodorus Siculus; J. = Justin, Epitome of Trogus; P. = Plutarch, Life of Alexander. Titles of journals as in L’Année philologique. I shall not document the course of Alexander’s Asian campaigns, which can be followed in many books about him (best in Bosworth 1988).

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3 Nylander noted that Berve’s biography of Darius (no. 244) ‘is built on a total of twenty classical sources—and no Near Eastern.’ (Similarly Seibert [1987] 437.) Unfortunately we still cannot do significantly better, but it should be stressed that, although no Near Eastern sources specifically on Darius were available to Berve, he does cite related work by Near Eastern specialists both in that article and throughout. Hornblower (CAH VI2 53) rightly stresses ‘the obsession of the literary sources with Alexander and his glorification.’ 4 A random selection will show the possible range: ‘above all weak and incapable in warfare’ (Loeb); ‘Er besaß, wenn üerhaupt [?], zu kriegerischen Taten zu wenig Energie und Selbstvertrauen’ (Wirth and Hinüber: perhaps more an interpretation than a translation); ‘as soft and unsound of mind in war as anybody ever was’ (Nylander). Bosworth’s comment ((1980) 347) is illuminating: ‘ο+ φρεν%ρει is a very strong expression, borrowed from Herodotus’ description of outright lunatics [correctly seen by Nylander]. . . . Arrian implies that Darius’ strategy was that of a man deranged.’ 5 ‘[H]e was a poor type of despot, cowardly and inefficient’ (Tarn, Alexander the Great [Cambridge 1948] 1.58). See S. Lauffer, Alexander der Groβe, 2nd ed. (Munich 1981) 113 for further references. Similarly (surprisingly) Dandamayev (1989) 329, writing on Darius’ death: ‘For the cowardly ruler of a huge empire this was a well-deserved end.’ Even Hornblower (above, n. 3) is unjust to Darius. The legacy of Tarn has proved difficult to overcome, and not only for English-speaking scholars. 6 Thus E. W. Marsden, The Campaign of Gaugamela (Liverpool 1984), stressed Darius’ careful planning for that campaign. I partly follow his views below, although I think that the sources permit only a very general understanding of the battle. J. A. Murison, ‘Darius III and the Battle of Issus,’ Historia 21 (1972) 399–425, tried to disengage Darius’ plan for that battle, but was misled by excessive sympathy. However, the obvious overstatement of Darius’ qualities as a field commander in these two studies provided a welcome contrast to the interpretation of him that was generally accepted at the time. 7 This is largely due to the massive and thorough work of A. B. Bosworth. The results can be seen in his massive commentary (Bosworth 1980 and 1995; another volume is to conclude it) and in From Arrian to Alexander (Oxford 1988). Tarn’s first volume was a mere paraphrase of Arrian, and the detailed studies in his second volume were built on that foundation. 8 Seibert (1987), cf. below, n. 9; Nylander; Briant (1996). 9 Seibert (1985). The title perhaps implies excessive scientific objectivity, where in fact there can be no more than the author’s personal interpretation of the sources. There can be no objective map of Alexander’s campaign, in the sense that we can draw one of the actual areas through which he passed. 10 Briant (1996) 790 accepts the propagandist letter reported as being written by Alexander to Darius (see p. 466 above) as the ‘Macedonian version’ of Darius’ accession. He makes the accounts in the sources that report the end of the ruling Achaemenid family with the death of Arses part of this ‘Macedonian version’ (791); but when Darius (‘Codoman chez Justin’) shows outstanding bravery from early on, this is the ‘Persian version.’ He does not notice that the name Codomannus is irreconcilable with a Persian propagandist version, just as Alexander’s reported letter cannot be regarded as a ‘Macedonian version.’ Failure to scrutinize the sources with sufficient care has resulted in a misconceived picture, as elsewhere in that book. 11 Plutarch Art. 27.2 states that he had 360 concubines: clearly a conventional figure, standing for one for each night of the year. The figure became traditional among Greeks: Darius III is assigned the same number (C. 6.6.8). This shows that the emendation to 365 is not called for. The number was conventional and approximate.

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12 The strange phrase a populo constituitur may be no more than a Roman interpretation. However, a graduate student in one of my classes (by now a Ph.D.), Rahim M. Shayegan, suggested that the OP word kara, particularly frequent in Darius I’s Bisutun inscription, and usually taken to mean ‘people’ or ‘army’ (as the Babylonian version understood it), can in fact also sometimes be translated as a meeting of nobles, cf. the Περσων ο8 =ριστοι of Hdt. 7.8.1. If so, one might compare the Hebrew Am ha-arez., on which see (briefly) Encyclopaedia Judaica 2.134. Justin’s phrase may, via Trogus, go back to a Persian source. Dr. Shayegan pointed out that a fair part of his account of Darius I’s coup d’état seems to do so. And of course the nobles, at least the aristoi among them, would have to approve the installation of a King not in the line of succession. Some of the Greek writers accompanying Alexander’s expedition may have picked up the story of Darius’ origin and rise to power from some of the numerous Greek-speaking Persians. The concordant picture in our sources, including even the obscure birth-name in Justin, can hardly be otherwise accounted for, no matter whether we accept the speculative interpretation of Justin’s phrase about the appointment. 13 E. Lipinski, ‘Western Semites in Persepolis,’ Acta Antiqua (Budapest) 25 (1977) 107– 112. See his notes 3, 12, 20, 55, 57, 72, 79, 81, 84, 98, 117: truly massive documentation. 14 This has unfortunately found acceptance, e.g., by Dandamayev (1989) 112 n. 3. The name is there given as ‘Arsames Codomannus’ (p. 307), presumably either a misprint or an error by the translator. Schmitt failed to note an important difference between Codomannus and the Greek ‘Mnemon’: the latter name was given to that King (we may also compare Darius ‘Nothos’) because the word has a meaning in Greek that seemed to suit him. Codomannus obviously does not. 15 In addition to the point made in n. 14, it is of course an obvious and complete refutation of Schmitt’s suggestion to note that the name Darius is never used together with Codomannus, though it continues to spook modern work (e.g., CAH VI2 50: ‘Darius III Codomannus’). 16 In ‘The Administration of the Empire,’ G&R (n.s.) 12 (1965) 166–183 at 172. [Not in this collection.] 17 For generational change between Iranian and Babylonian names in Babylonia see Dandamayev (1992) 172 ff. He does not suggest intermarriage, for which he found little evidence. But as I argue in the text, the literary sources can help, with distinguished examples. Mazaeus’ record can hardly be explained without that hypothesis. 18 For the two forms, see conveniently A. Sachs, AJAH 2 (1977) 144 ff. (confirmed by Professor Sachs at my request). For the etymology (Artašiya¯ta) see Schmitt 91 with references. For what follows, I am indebted to Professor Stolper for precise information. Needless to say, he bears no responsibility for the way I have interpreted what he provided. 19 See Berve no. 525. Diodorus (17.20. 1 f.) gives the name as Spithrobates (!) and makes him satrap of Ionia. This is generally explained as confusion with Spithridates, not (as far as we know) related to Darius, who might indeed be called satrap of Ionia (more precisely Sardis, i.e., Lydia: A. 1.12.8, 16.3). Clitus saved Alexander from an attack by him (A. 1.15.8). Plutarch Mor. 326F mentions Darius’ son together with Spithridates and they may have been linked in some earlier source. But the -bates element in Diodorus’ form cannot be accounted for. 20 He is said (Plut. Mor. 308C) to have been executed by Darius for treason. But the context of the story is so absurd that there has been little temptation to believe it. Oddly enough, Berve (no. 116) accepted the basic story and developed it by further prosopographic speculation. The result was rightly called by Jacoby (FGrH 3a, p. 371)

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21

22

23

24

‘der gelehrte Roman Berves.’ But the existence of the son and his name may well be based on authentic material. F. K. Kienitz, Die politische Geschichte Ägyptens vom 7. bis zum 4. Jahrhundert vor der Zeitwende (Berlin 1953) 185 ff. Recently accepted by Nylander 48 and by Bosworth in CAH VI2 797 (with a hypothetical Babylonian rebellion added, to provide a notable increase in Darius’ early successful military experience). For a careful bibliography on Khababash, see now Stanley M. Burstein, AHB 14 (2000) 149 ff. Partial authenticity for XXXI was accepted, e.g., by Waddell in the Loeb Manetho. For Lloyd’s refutation see J. Baines et al. eds., Pyramid Studies (1988) 154–160 (at 157 ff.). Lloyd shows that one Egyptian tradition put Ochus’ reconquest in 339/8 instead of 343/2; he suggests recognition of Khababash in the interval between those dates. Although he seems to abandon this idea in CAH VI2, it seems to me plausible. (He still lists the difference in the Egyptian dates for the reconquest, but seems to think any date from late Ochus to early Darius possible for Khababash. That the latter should be firmly excluded is argued in my text.) That Khababash was not an Egyptian, but either a Nubian or a Libyan, is agreed by all specialists. It has been noted that the priests of Buto, to whom he returned property confiscated long ago by Xerxes, had refrained from advancing a claim to it under the native dynasties preceding. For Petosiris see G. Lefebvre, Le Tombeau de Petosiris (Paris 1924) 1.10–11: under a foreign king ‘les luttes se déroulaient dans l’intérieur . . ., le Sud . . . étant dans l’agitation et le Nord en état de révolte.’ (The date, as he shows, is after the reconquest by Ochus.) On Memnon, commander in Thrace, see my comments in Badian (1967) 179 ff., which Bosworth attempted to refute. His strange speculation that Memnon did not fight Antipater, but invited his help against a Thracian rebellion that he himself had started (Bosworth [1988] 201), leaves the reader puzzled. Even if Diodorus had ‘garbled his material’ (as he indeed sometimes does, although mostly concerning dates), it is going to extremes of hypercriticism to produce the opposite story by turning on its head his statement that Antipater διεπολμει πρς τν Μμνονα and had in the end to make an unfavorable treaty with him in order to be free to fight against Agis III in Greece. Bosworth’s rejection of my suggestion that this Memnon belonged to the family of the Rhodian and of Artabazus (for whose large family see D. 16.52.4), who had for years lived at Pella as refugees and had returned to Asia only when pardoned by the King in 342, is supported by reference to the existence of two Athenians by that name at that time. One of the two was put by Kirchner in 340/39 in his PA; later, when editing IG II2, he changed his mind and put him in 313/2 (the inscription, dated by the archon Theopompus, will suit either date), this on the strength of the shape of one letter. We have learned from fifth-century inscriptions how unreliable this criterion can be; in this case it involves the invention of two new persons in place of a reference (in 340/39) to two known ones. The earlier date still seems to me preferable, and the name Memnon would have been given a generation earlier, we do not know for what reason. The second Memnon (of Aphidna) appears as an orator in 302/1; we do not know his age or anything else about him or his family. Speculation as to what prompted the naming of these two men at widely separated dates would be pointless. (For the men see now Lexicon of Greek Personal Names II (1994) s.v., nos. 5, 8, and 9. The editor gives no indication of uncertainty.) On the strength of this evidence, and of the fact that the name is later ‘fairly well attested in the Hellenistic period,’ we are invited to conclude that it ‘is perfectly credible as a Macedonian name’ (my emphasis) in 331, although there is, to my knowledge, no attestation of the name in earlier or contemporary Macedonian prosopography. Another Memnon must be taken into account: the one attested in Tod II 199, when he was honored by the Athenians in the autumn of 327, as belonging to the

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25 26 27 28 29

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34

35

family of the Rhodian Memnon and Artabazus (we cannot tell precisely how he fits in, as the text is defective). The inscription is unfortunately misreported in Berve no. 498, which has misled scholars following him. I still think it the easiest hypothesis to identify him with the Thracian commander who had fought Antipater and who was at the very time about to leave his post in order to lead a reinforcement of troops to Alexander (C. 9.3.21). This was the view I advanced in Badian (1967). For details regarding the way he achieved his unprecedented speed, see ‘Conspiracies’ (above, n. 1) 80 f. For his selection of the persons he took with him and detailed discussion, see ‘Conspiracies’ 81 f. A. 2.7.1; cf. C. 3.8.15, not reporting execution but merely mutilation. See Bosworth (1980) 227 ff. (with a complete list of sources) for these exchanges. Such fine examples as the correspondence of Pausanias with the Mede (Th. 1.128.7, 129.3), long ago shown to be historically impossible, and the letters saved by excerptors from Sallust’s Histories (2.98 M, 4.69 M) had helped to set the tone for epistolary insertions in historical works, Greek and Latin. As I have argued elsewhere, for our purpose it matters little whether the letter containing the charge was authentic or was written by Arrian. It was in either case written to serve a propagandist purpose without much relevance to truth, so that the ‘facts’ alleged cannot be treated as historical. However, the distinction becomes important when the letter is used (as by Briant, see n. 10 above) as the basis for postulating a ‘historical tradition.’ Curtius reports a letter sent by Darius to Alexander before Gaugamela (and carried by ten leading cognati), in which he offers (inter alia) to let Alexander keep Darius’ son Ochus as a hostage if he agrees to make peace (4.11.6). Arrian does not report any correspondence at this point. Of those who do (D. 17.54.1 ff.; J. 11.12.9f.) and who variously report the terms of Darius’ letter, neither makes any reference to this purported offer. We must assume that if indeed another letter from Darius did arrive at this point (which is unlikely), it did not contain the offer: Curtius will have added it for greater effect. Briant (1997) has shown that neither Greek nor Persian sources mention elephants before the battle of Gaugamela. Their use must have been one of Darius’ innovations in preparing for that battle. The Persian infantry carrying their sarissae can be seen on the right side in the background in the ‘Alexander Mosaic,’ as Nylander first demonstrated. They had earlier been regarded as Macedonians about to encircle the Persians, a view disproved by several detailed features that its holders were unable to explain away. (See now Badian [1999] 80). This fact, which must have been known to all contemporaries and readers of contemporary historians, makes the dead tree that dominates the ‘Alexander Mosaic’ even more significant: it was imported by the artist as a symbol. (See Badian [1999] 80, 82 f.) Ginzel (whose tables are reproduced by E. J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World (1968): for this date see p. 120) put the new moon of October 331 at Greenwich at 5.35, i.e., 5 October, about 8 p.m. (Technical precision is irrelevant in our context.) Since Gaugamela is about 40 degrees east of Greenwich, about one ninth of a day (2⅔ hours) must be added for its local time, bringing the new moon on 5 October to about 10.40 p.m. On the night of 30 September/1 October (the night before the battle) the moon would therefore be about two days into its last quarter. The date of the battle, long debated by scholars, is now fixed as 1 October by a Babylonian astronomical text. See Abraham Sachs and H. Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia (1988) 176 ff.

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36 The details of the final scene are irrecoverable because of our sources’ varied attitudes and corresponding elaborations. Arrian’s account, the only one that makes Darius initiate flight as the culmination of a long panic, fits in with Arrian’s interpretation of Darius (see n. 4 above with text). Diodorus 17.69.3 also depicts him as terrified, but only after his guard had deserted him. Curtius, as often, seems to draw on the same source (Clitarchus?), improving on it by greater length and rhetorical flourishes (4.15.28 ff.). He includes a story (dicitur) that Darius at first wanted to die on the field, but refrained because that would mean deserting his men who were still fighting; once a general flight had begun, he decided to flee. (No motive for that decision is given.) In Justin (11.14.3) again in accordance with that author’s picture of Darius as outstandingly courageous, he actually seeks death, but is forced by his entourage to flee. This matches the version depicted in the ‘Alexander Mosaic,’ where, leaning forward towards the enemy, he is unwillingly carried away by a loyal charioteer intent on saving the King’s life. (P. 33.7 ff. merely adds disgraceful details to a hostile version.) In view of Darius’ reputation for courage, I have preferred to follow the favorable sources, for he certainly had a legitimate motive for saving his life for the sake of his country. 37 Alexander had to fight his way through the ranges beyond Susa (the tribe of the Uxii) and then suffered his only serious defeat (although he at once retrieved it) at the Persian Gates, an incident that even the court tradition had to admit. (See A. 3.18.3–9, minimizing the seriousness of the defeat and the difficulty of the final victory; cf. C. 5.3.16–4.34 for a long, topographically circumstantial and essentially credible account, pointing up the difficulties.) See Bosworth (1980) 325 ff.; Atkinson 84 ff., especially 92 ff. See now the careful study by H. Speck in AJAH (n.s.) 1. Seibert (1987) thinks that Darius himself, isolated at Ecbatana, planned the whole of this resistance. This is not suggested even by the favorable sources and seems hard to believe. 38 C. 5.8.3 and D. 17.73.2, no doubt from the same source, report that Darius had thirty thousand men (‘infantry’ in Curtius, who adds 7,300 cavalry and light-armed; merely ‘Persians’ in Diodorus); Diodorus adds mercenaries to these, whereas in Curtius four thousand mercenaries are included in the number given for infantry. Curtius also considerably multiplies Alexander’s force in his pursuit. He reports a battle in which part of 6,300 of Alexander’s men killed three thousand of the enemy and drove the rest, pecudum more, before them into flight (5.13.19). Arrian 3.21.9 reports only a skirmish, in which ‘a few’ of the enemy are killed and the rest take to flight. Plutarch Alex. 43.1 gives the number of men who were with Alexander when he finally reached Darius as sixty. Arrian, based on Ptolemy, should here be believed in preference to the ‘vulgate’ sources. He is clearly not exaggerating (as elsewhere) in order to glorify Alexander. However, as Bosworth has shown, he got the topography wrong. (It was probably not easy to disengage from his source, for one who had never seen the terrain.) Bosworth argues that Darius ‘could have raised a formidable force’ in Media in the time at his disposal, and seems to conclude from that premiss that he in fact did so, which ignores the problems caused by this hypothesis (Bosworth [1980] 335; cf. Atkinson 137). With such a force under his command, Darius would surely not have fled before Alexander, abandoning his well-fortified mountain capital of Ecbatana for the uncertainties of a long flight to the east, where nothing had been prepared. Arrian’s statement that Darius’ force was ο!κ ξιμαχος must be true. (For another strong argument against the inflated figures see my text.) 39 This is fully argued in ‘Conspiracies’ (above, n. 1) 84 ff. 40 See C. 5.9.15, 5.11, 5.12.4 ff. (cf. A. 3.21.4) for Patron’s conspicuous but unavailing loyalty, and see C. 6.5.6 ff., A. 3. 23.8 f. (differing in details) for Alexander’s unfriendly attitude towards the mercenaries.

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41 In Darius’ speech, note, e.g., quo usque enim in regno exulabo? (5.8.11) and idemque erit regni mei quam spiritus finis (5.8.13). Nabarzanes’ speech deserves the prize for vapid commonplaces: note, e.g., fortium uirorum est magis mortem contemnere quam odisse uitam (5.9.6) and (a showpiece) ultimum omnium mors est (5.9.7). His opening images of a physician in a critical illness and a helmsman in a storm can be matched in Seneca, even though not verbally. (See Atkinson 142. He rightly treats the speeches as free compositions and assesses them only from a literary point of view: they tell us nothing about history.) Briant (1996) 885 rightly ignores the whole debate in Curtius. However, he believes the alleged motive of gaining Alexander’s pardon by surrendering Darius and, misunderstanding A. 3.21.5 and 3.30.4 (which also refer to the alleged motive), posits a plan for joint command by the three conspirators. 42 The precise timing and details of Nabarzanes’ pardon are irrelevant. The efforts of the eunuch Bagoas on his behalf, stressed by Curtius 6.5.23, will have helped; but Curtius himself reports (6.4.14) that Alexander had already promised him a full pardon. In Curtius’ novelette Nabarzanes and Bessus are the joint principals in the plot against Darius (5.9.2) and it is Nabarzanes who is allotted the deceptive speech trying to persuade Darius to abdicate. (Darius then calls him pessimum mancipium 5.9.9.) He joins Bessus in arresting the King (5.12.9) and is mentioned together with Bessus as the leader in the actual assassination (5.13.15, cf. 18). In Arrian (3.21.1) Barsaentes joins Bessus and Nabarzanes in seizing the King’s person, and it is Nabarzanes and Barsaentes who inflict the fatal wound (3.21.10). Whatever the source, Alexander cannot have heard this version. For Bessus, so Arrian later reports, was explicitly charged with regicide and tortured and condemned to death for it, and this account is ascribed to Ptolemy (3.30.4 f.: Aristobulus seems to have differed only in his account of Bessus’ capture); it is continued in 4.7.3. Nabarzanes surrenders together with Phrataphernes (3.2 3.4). The latter was confirmed in his satrapy of Hyrcania and Parthia (cf. 5.20.7), and no punishment of Nabarzanes is mentioned. Tarn’s idea that Bessus was punished for usurpation, not for regicide, contradicts the statement of Arrian’s main sources. His punishment also fits regicide or rebellion: cf. Darius I’s punishment of the rebels Phraortes (DB 2.14 ff., 73 ff.) and Cicantakhma (DB 2.79 ff., 87 ff.), neither of whom was guilty of usurpation, but who would have killed Darius if they had been able to. Zopyrus (in Herodotus’ story, 3.153 ff.), similarly mutilated, never depicts himself as a pretender to the throne: he seems to have claimed that his opposition to the King’s decision to continue the siege of Babylon was treated as rebellion. The debate in Darius’ consilium is accepted as fact by Nylander (152 f.: he even bases part of his hypothesis on Curtius’ actual words). He does not notice the purely Roman concepts, such as nouis initiis et ominibus opus est. auspicium et imperium . . . alii trade (C. 5.9.4: we never hear that the Persian King possessed auspicium) or fiduciarium imperium (5.9.8, an emendation, but a perfectly assured one). 43 For this suggestion see Badian (1996) 22 ff. 44 See Badian (1999) 81, 85 f. (with references).

Bibliography This bibliography generally omits authors cited only once. In those cases, bibliographical details are usually given in a note, in order to spare the reader unnecessary turning of pages. Dates are given where more than one work by an author is cited. Atkinson: J. E. Atkinson. A Commentary on Q. Curtius Rufus’ Historiae Alexandri Magni Books 5–7.2 (Amsterdam 1994).

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Badian 1967: E. Badian. ‘Agis III,’ Hermes 95 (1967) 170–192. [No. 11 in this collection.] Badian 1996: E. Badian. ‘Alexander the Great between Two Thrones and Heaven,’ in A. Small ed., Subject and Ruler (Ann Arbor 1996 [JRA Supplement 17]) 11–26. [No. 21 in this collection.] Badian 1999: E. Badian. ‘A Note on the “Alexander Mosaic”,’ in F. B. Titchener and R. F. Moorton Jr. eds., The Eye Expanded (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London 1999) 75–92. [No. 23 in this collection.] Berve: H. Berve. Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage 2 (Munich 1926) Bosworth 1980: A. B. Bosworth. A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander 1 (Oxford 1980). Bosworth 1988: A. B. Bosworth. Conquest and Empire (Cambridge 1988). Bosworth 1995: A. B. Bosworth. A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander 2 (Oxford 1995). Briant 1996: P. Briant. Histoire de I’Empire perse de Cyrus à Alexandre (Paris 1996). Briant 1997: P. Briant. ‘Note d’Histoire militaire achéménide,’ in P. Brulé and J. Oulhen eds., Esclavage, Guerre, Économie en Grèce ancienne (Rennes 1997). Dandamayev 1989: M. A. Dandamayev. A Political History of the Achaemenid Empire, transl. W. J. Vogelsang (Leiden/New York 1989). Dandamayev 1992: M. A. Dandamayev. Iranians in Achaemenid Babylonia (Costa Mesa, Calif. 1992). Lewis: D. M. Lewis. Sparta and Persia (Leiden 1977). Nylander: Carl Nylander. ‘Darius III—the Coward King. Points and Counterpoints,’ in Jesper Carlsen et al. eds., Alexander the Great. Reality and Myth (Rome 1993 [Analecta Romana Instituti Danici Supplementum 20]) 145–159. Schmitt: R. Schmitt. ‘Achaemenid Throne Names,’ AION 42 (1982) 83–95. Seibert 1985: J. Seibert. Die Eroberung des Perserreiches durch Alexander den Großben auf kartographischer Grundlage (Wiesbaden 1985 [Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients Reihe B Nr. 68.]). Seibert 1987: J. Seibert. ‘Darius III,’ in W. Will and J. Heinrichs eds., Zu Alexander d. Gr. (Amsterdam 1987) 1.437–456.

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26 PLUTARCH’S UNCONFESSED SKILL The biographer as a critical historian1

I In a well-known passage at the beginning of his Life of Alexander Plutarch asserts that he is writing biography, not history: he will use anecdotes that reveal the ‘signs of the soul’ of his subjects and will not report all their outstanding deeds, which do not particularly demonstrate virtue and vice. The announced omission is exaggerated, at least for this Life. Of Alexander’s major battles, only Issus is sketchily treated. The Granicus, Gaugamela and the Hydaspes get as full treatment as could be expected (Alex. 16, 31–33, 60: henceforth references by chapter and section only will be to the Alexander). The programmatic statement has tended to blind Plutarch’s readers to the amount of critical historical thinking that can be discerned in some of the Lives. The point could be illustrated from any of the Greek Lives where we have a parallel tradition,2 but this essay will confine itself to the Alexander, the longest of his Greek Lives, where the programmatic statement appears. As we all know, nowadays, Plutarch read a great deal. It is fortunately no longer fashionable (as it used to be, particularly in the British and the German tradition) to argue that he found all the reading already done and excerpted by a predecessor, unfortunately no longer extant and not to be securely identified. Plutarch liked to compare accounts in different sources, especially where a point aroused his particular interest, as is best seen in the impressive list at 46.1: even if we grant that some of those sources may be cited at second hand, the great majority were surely checked for this particular point, even if not read all the way through. He must have done more reading for this Life than for any of the shorter Greek ones, and all the primary sources, almost completely lost to us, as well as a great deal of secondary writing lost to us, must have been available to him. Even a polymath like Plutarch cannot have read, and kept notes on, everything in all of this mass of literature. But we can see that he knew many of them and, as we noted, was prepared to consult more on particular points. In the manner of ancient authors, he does not always cite his sources for his statements and interpretations: the technique of footnotes was not available, and a careful stylist would not clutter his text with references. Sometimes we can discover his source for ourselves where he does not give it.3 479

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It is not my intention here to concentrate on Plutarch’s historical methods, as Philip Stadter did in a classic work.4 Although points of method cannot be kept out, my chief interest here is in Plutarch’s historical judgment. His main interest is indeed clearly in character. It would be absurd to deny that he sometimes uses anecdotes that not only seem incredible to us, but that he himself must at least have suspected were fictitious.5 Anecdotes of varying degrees of plausibility are sometimes bunched to illustrate a particular feature of Alexander’s character (e.g. 39: generosity, supported by a letter from Olympias; 40.1–4: his favourites living in luxury, while he engaged in strenuous activity and risked his life: a lion hunt at the end is supported by a dedication by Craterus at Delphi, but a clever comment on it by a Spartan envoy is hardly authentic). In one case (64), a whole chapter that he must have known was a traditional question-and-answer fiction is inserted without comment, purely for entertainment: it follows the description of Alexander’s almost fatal wound received in the city of the Malli and serves as light relief. Such collections of fictitious anecdotes, told without warning, occur after the Persian empire had been utterly destroyed (34.1) in the battle of Gaugamela. Once the immediate consequences have been told, there follows a long digression (for which Plutarch pretends to apologise) on the phenomenon of the naphtha (35) before the capture of Susa, which Greeks regarded as the capital of the empire, and this is itself followed by a short description of unusual substances found in the stores there (but this time cautiously hedged with citation of a source and ‘they say’). What could be regarded as the climax of the campaign, the capture and destruction of the palaces at Persepolis, is followed by three ‘character’ chapters (39–41) with a mixture of anecdotes, a few supported by letters. This much in brief illustration of Plutarch’s skill in varying his writing. The use of anecdotes that he must have known, or strongly suspected, to be fictitious is mainly found in the second half of the Life, as though the reader may now be trusted to judge such matters for himself and take as established the fact that the author will not necessarily vouch for the truth of all that he is writing. Even here, he often makes his caution about accepting some of the tales clear. Near the beginning, when he did not have sources he believed he could trust, he impresses upon the reader the fact that he does not necessarily believe everything he has written. Much of the story of Philip’s marital relations with his wife (2–3.4), hedged in the way soon to be described, seems to come from an impeccable source: Olympias herself, as vouched for by the great Eratosthenes (3.3). The whole account is full of phrases like λγεται, λγουσιν, 'στ( λγος. This technique in disavowing responsibility is used, and has been noted, in Arrian; it has not aroused comment in Plutarch. I can only give a few examples here, after the one already cited. In 10.7 Alexander ‘is said’ to have incited Pausanias to murder with a quotation from Euripides. (It is clear that Plutarch would not think Alexander guilty of patricide, and the ο+ μ#ν λλ that introduces Alexander’s subsequent actions so informs the reader.) In 14.5, ‘it is said’ introduces Alexander’s famous 480

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comment on Diogenes’ reply to him (‘If I were not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes’). Similarly the story of the greeting by Ammon’s prophet and that of Alexander’s hearing the aptly named Egyptian philosopher Psammon (27.9– 10). Quite late in the Life, this is how we hear of a silly story told about the Persian Kings (69.1–2), and at the very end, Plutarch explicitly disbelieves the story that Alexander was murdered (77.5, following and supporting the denial by most writers), and he qualifies with ‘they say’ (repeatedly) some details in that story. He also hedges with ‘they say’ the rumour that Arrhidaeus as a child showed a noble and cultured disposition, but that this was changed by Olympias’ poisoning him (77.7–8, the conclusion of the Life). The technique enables him to tell a good story and establish his critical attitude towards it, or actual disbelief, without having to suppress it. Once we have noted this technique, we can follow it further. We must surely assume that he did not believe the story of Alexander’s taming of Bucephalas (6). That Philip and his nobles, experienced horsemen all, had to be enlightened on an elementary point of equine psychology by a boy is not a tale that one who must himself have ridden a good number of horses would readily have accepted. Here we come across a variant of the hedging technique: the disclaimers may be discreetly inserted, so as not to destroy the impact of the story. Alexander’s ‘insight’ is modified by ς 9οικεν (6.5): the strange phrase, inserted at the climactic moment, surely casts its shadow of uncertainty (not to say doubt) over the whole tale. At the end, Philip’s tears of joy and extravagant comment, that Macedon was not large enough for the boy, are duly marked by ‘it is said’, one of the stock hedging phrases. It seems to be left up to the reader to decide how far back its import is meant to extend, from its insertion at the final climax. Between them, the two phrases mark the whole anecdote as a good story, not necessarily to be believed – and this is done with Plutarch’s characteristic subtlety, so that the impact of the dramatic story is undiminished and the reader is left to draw his own conclusion as to the author’s attitude to it. There are other instances, particularly in the early part of the Life. The word δοκε) provides similar distance for the author, and it can also be inserted so as to leave the reader to decide how far, in the story, the author’s implied doubt extends.6 A good example can be found in the account of the events preliminary to Alexander’s crossing to Asia (14.6–9). These sections follow immediately upon the scene of Alexander’s meeting with Diogenes, where, as we have seen, Plutarch takes care to distance himself from belief. 6–7 relate his visit to Delphi, where, arriving on a day when the oracle was closed to customers, he dragged the prophetess to the temple, forcing her to exclaim: ‘Boy, you are invincible’ – which he readily took as the good omen he wanted. There is no word warning the reader that the story should not be believed. It is, of course, highly improbable in itself, above all because there was nothing in Alexander’s use of force to call forth the woman’s response: he had not yet ‘conquered’ to the extent of forcing her to give him an actual oracle. Moreover, as far as Plutarch is concerned, his belief in Alexander’s religious piety surely could not be reconciled 481

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with acceptance of this act of sacrilege. We have to wait for the next item in the list (s. 8) to find δοκε) (so we should read), attached to the ‘other signs from the daimonion’, including the sweating of a wooden statue of Orpheus. Although, as we saw, Plutarch will transmit anecdotes illustrating Alexander’s character without giving any indication of doubt, he is certainly cautious where historical ‘facts’ not directly doing so are concerned. The prophetic tablet cast up by a spring near Xanthus (17.4) is introduced with a ‘they say’ and, straight after this, the miracle of the sea receding before Alexander in Pamphylia, as reported by ‘many of the historians’, is related in ironical terms and finally contradicted by reference to one of Alexander’s letters. The story of the Gordian knot (18) comes in for a great deal of caution. Gordium is ‘said to have been’ the home of Midas of old; the story that whoever loosened the knot would rule the oikoumene is a logos believed by the barbarians. As for Alexander’s action, Plutarch tells what ‘most’ report (that he cut it with his sword) and follows this with Aristobulus’ account of how he actually succeeded in untying the knot. We are not told, but presumably Plutarch accepted Aristobulus, as often. There follows a prophetic dream by Darius, with an interpretation, ς 9οικεν, foretelling Alexander’s victory and early death. Whether Plutarch suggests distance from the story of the actual dream, as well as from the interpretation (its source is not named), is again left to the reader to decide. In 25.6 we hear of a lavish gift of incense plants to Alexander’s old tutor Leonidas, a gift confirmed by a letter to Leonidas (25.8). The story that the gift alluded to an incident in Alexander’s youth is inserted, modified by ς 9οικεν: a good story, but not on the same level of credibility as the action confirmed in the letter. This is only a brief selection from many examples of this kind. Alexander’s letters, of which Plutarch saw a large collection, apparently including at least some letters to Alexander, were one of Plutarch’s most credible sources. Today scholars still argue about the authenticity of some of them, and the Hellenistic collection as such is discredited. But Plutarch had no reason to doubt them. We have already seen that he uses the letters to confirm or contradict other reports. This is a feature elsewhere. In 20.8–9 a wound received by Alexander at Issus is said by Chares to have been inflicted by Darius himself: a letter of Alexander by implication contradicts this. Plutarch was surprised that Alexander had time to write so many personal letters (42.1). This did not make him worry about authenticity, nor need it have. One may well be surprised at the number of letters written by Mommsen and other prolific 19th- and early 20th-century scholars, but no one would question their authenticity. He also discovered at least one contradiction: after the pages’ conspiracy, Alexander wrote to Craterus and two others, that the boys had not implicated anyone outside their circle even under torture.7 Yet Plutarch at once refers to a letter written to Antipater that by implication accuses Callisthenes and threatens punishment even for Aristotle (55.6–8). Plutarch does not discuss the contradiction, but he is careful to note that the letter to Antipater was written ‘later’ and contrasts this with the letter to the generals, written ‘at once’. 482

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Plutarch had noticed the contradiction and pointed to the difference in the times of writing to explain it. He refuses to stress the obvious conclusion that Alexander’s punishment of Callisthenes did not rest on any new evidence (how could it, after the boys’ denial under torture and their death by stoning?) and, as often, leaves it to the reader to draw his own conclusion, on what had changed during that interval of time. On the whole, Plutarch follows a consensus of most of the sources he read. There was little else he could do, except in rare cases. We have seen that he will accept a letter written by Alexander as superseding the historians. He will also follow a source he particularly trusts, Aristobulus, against the majority. On the Gordian knot, he seems to accept Aristobulus’ account, placed after that of the majority. He presumably accepts Aristobulus’ version, that Alexander drank wine, just before his death, only because his fever made him thirsty, against what appeared to be the common account (told first) that the fever was the result of excessive drinking. For he explicitly denies that Alexander was given to excessive drinking, claiming he mainly spent his time talking when at banquets (23.1, cf. 6: Bπ1 δολεσχας). This is one time when we can spot a source he does not cite, for Arr. 7.29.4 ascribes this (slightly altered, no doubt by Arrian himself) to Aristobulus.8 Aristobulus is also cited as the source for Alexander’s losses at the Granicus (16.15), where Arrian (1.16.4), no doubt from Ptolemy, has a slightly different account.9 Plutarch’s correction of ‘most’ regarding the site of the battle of Gaugamela will also come from Aristobulus (31.6: the explanation of the name will also be taken from the same source), whom Arr. 6.11.5 cites for this together with Ptolemy. Having found Aristobulus to be trustworthy, he rightly takes his word where sources are contradictory, even where we (assessing Aristobulus rather differently) might not always do so. Yet he is clearly not taken in even by eminent names, where the story itself is improbable. He has his way of distancing himself from it, while (as often) unwilling to suppress a story interesting and well told in itself. Perhaps the best example of this is the story of the founding of Alexandria, where he cites Heraclides (of Lembos), at second hand: ‘if what the Alexandrians say, taking Heraclides’ word for it, is true’ (26.3). The whole fanciful tale (ss. 3–10) is no doubt from Heraclides, whether or not ‘the Alexandrians’ correctly reported him. It is an interesting question why Plutarch occasionally names sources, when he usually does not. We have seen that Aristobulus may lend authenticity to a story, even when contradicting the majority of writers. Chares, the eisangeleus (46.2), ought to have been a good source, and in that passage (the Amazon episode) he is on the right side, in good company, as a letter by Alexander confirms (46.3–4). Yet in another episode, the wound received at Issus, he is, as we have seen, contradicted by Alexander himself (20.9). Chares is cited as a source as often as Aristobulus. Did Plutarch cite him for authentication, or in order to get a good story in without assuming responsibility? We cannot always tell. In 24.10–14 he tells the story of how Alexander saved Lysimachus during the Arabian expedition. The story is dramatic, shows Alexander making a serious error of judgment 483

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and repairing it by an improbable action, and is not told (it seems) by any other of the numerous Alexander historians and anecdotalists. Perhaps Plutarch was as undecided as we must be. In 55.9 (the death of Callisthenes), the account ascribed to Chares is particularly hostile to Callisthenes. Chares had shown his hostility to him in his account of the proskynesis affair (54.4–6). In the case of Callisthenes’ death, Chares seems to have been followed by Aristobulus (Arr. 4.14.3: whether he or Arrian omitted the repulsive details of Callisthenes’ disease we cannot tell): one of several instances showing that we should not regard Aristobulus as necessarily a ‘primary’ source. In the case of the proskynesis scene, Chares seems to stand alone. Plutarch’s handling of this incident is interesting. He clearly knew, and seems to have accepted, the general account, which made Callisthenes’ open and courageous (if unwise) opposition to the introduction of proskynesis for Greeks and Macedonians responsible for Alexander’s having to abandon the idea: thus Callisthenes ‘removed a great cause of shame from the Greeks and an even greater from Alexander’, but by forcing the king to abandon the idea without persuading him, he brought about his own destruction (54.3). He then adds, as an appendix, Chares’ version, where Callisthenes plays a far from heroic role: he merely avoids performing the act Alexander expected, hoping to be unobserved, and when found out, passes it off with an impudent remark. There is nothing inherently improbable in Chares’ story, as there is in various ‘theological’ explanations that some scholars have spun out of it; but it cannot be reconciled with the accepted version, since, had Callisthenes really been outspoken in opposition, he would not have acted surreptitiously at Chares’ banquet scene. Here Plutarch seems to make it clear that he does not believe, or invite us to believe, Chares’ account. His immediately preceding statement praising Callisthenes’ successful courage (quoted just above) demotes Chares’ appendix to an interesting but incredible anecdote. Are we also invited to disbelieve Chares’ lurid details about Callisthenes’ final illness, a few sections later?

II We have shown how Plutarch expresses disbelief or doubt regarding anecdotes or sources he quotes for anecdotes introduced to enliven the narrative. The brief selection could easily be expanded. But we must now look at another interesting aspect of Plutarch’s historical judgment: his positive contribution to our historical knowledge. Above all, Plutarch is the only surviving author who tells us about Alexander’s youth: had it not been for this, we might know no more than that he was taught by Aristotle, and that there was some unspecified trouble between Philip and Alexander after Philip’s marriage to Cleopatra. Diodorus does not mention any quarrel. Justin (9.7.1–6) has an account of the initial quarrel and mentions Alexander’s return from exile and even a suspicion that Alexander was involved in Philip’s assassination. (He gives the absurd reason that Alexander feared a 484

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stepbrother born, or yet to be born, by Cleopatra.) Arrian (3.6.5) mentions the exile of Alexander’s friends before Philip’s death, but places it vaguely ‘after Philip married Eurydice’ – correctly, as far as it goes, but he suppresses the immediate cause of the exiles, which he must have known. It is only Plutarch who informs us of the Pixodarus affair (10.1–5) and explicitly makes it the cause of the exiles. It is clear that Philip regarded Alexander’s underhand negotiations with the satrap as amounting to treason: this is why he shouts insults at Alexander (10.3: the alleged reason for Philip’s indignation was no doubt made up by Alexander’s admirers, who could not, like some of his modern admirers, argue the importance of the Pixodarus affair out of existence); this is why he exiles Alexander’s close friends, and why he wants Thessalus, the intermediary, handed over to him, apparently for execution. (This order was cancelled by Philip’s death.) This also leads Plutarch to mention the suspicion of Alexander’s involvement in the murder, from which he personally dissociates himself, as we have seen.10 We do not know, of course, what Curtius had to say about Alexander’s youth. He may well have reported some of the items that we find in Plutarch. However, we can be pretty sure that he did not mention the exile of Alexander’s friends and omitted the Pixodarus affair. His treatment of Alexander in Caria, where he would have had to refer to Pixodarus and, if he had reported it, to his earlier appearance, is unfortunately lost. But when he mentions the men exiled, he makes no reference to their exile. The case of Erigyius is decisive: he is listed (6.8.17) as among Alexander’s amici in the arrest of Philotas, and in the laudatio after his death as inter claros duces: his death merely provides another cause of grief for Alexander after the death of Lysimachus’ young brother (8.2.39–40). At least one of these occasions, and especially Erigyius’ death and Alexander’s grief at it, would inevitably have called for a mention of his exile for loyalty to the young Alexander, had Curtius known of it. Plutarch is demonstrably the only writer who both reports the exiles and provides the background to them. After this striking example of Plutarch’s positive contribution to the history of Alexander, as it has come down to us, we must now look at some items that Plutarch found in his historical sources and decided to omit. Alexander’s crossing to Asia was a suitable theme for mythopoeia. We have noted the omens before the crossing, which Plutarch reports without assuming responsibility. Arrian (1.11.6) picked up a report in most of his vulgate sources (> πλεων λγος), but not in his two most trusted ones (so he implies), of (among other items) a libation poured from a golden bowl and the sacrifice of a bull to Poseidon and the Nereids in the middle of the Hellespont. A.B. Bosworth, a scholar known for his critical acumen in matters concerning Alexander, accepts the story, pointing to the better documented sacrifice in the Indian Ocean (Arr. 6.19.5; Ind. 20.10). He suggests that these ‘were probably traditional acts of cult in Macedon’.11 He also lists the sacrifice before Alexander’s descent down the Indian rivers (Arr. 6.3.1; Ind. 18.11, with a long list of gods). At first sight, the occasions for these sacrifices seem different, although both are for the safety of 485

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an expedition about to sail, down unknown rivers or along an unknown coast. The reported sacrifice in the Hellespont did not lead up to any expedition on water, and the crossing of the Hellespont must have been pretty commonplace to Greeks. However, there is something odd about the two sacrifices Arrian attests: they were both made on behalf of an expedition to be led by Nearchus. Now, Nearchus was not one to tell the unembellished truth of an incident concerning himself.12 The showpiece is his ‘annexation’ of Alexander’s games at his Carmanian stop as a tribute to himself. This must make us doubtful about the Indian games as well. The sacrifice at the embarkation on the Indian rivers is not mentioned by Diodorus or Curtius. That some sort of sacrifice was performed is quite certain. That it was as splendid as Nearchus made out (Ind. 18.11) and yet was overlooked by the vulgate sources is unlikely.13 As for the sacrifice on behalf of Nearchus’ voyage along the coast (Arr. 6.19.5), this is reported quite differently in the vulgate sources: in Curtius the reason for the sacrifice is not specified, except that Alexander is said to be tandem uoti sui [of reaching the Ocean?] compos (Curt. 9.9.27); in Diodorus the libations celebrate the end of his campaign (Diod. 17.104.1); in Justin (12.10.4) he sacrifices on behalf of his safe return to his homeland. What the accounts, with their different motives, have in common is that Nearchus is nowhere near and is not in Alexander’s mind. And this will be the truth. Plutarch also ignores the sacrifice to the Indian rivers, and the sacrifice to the Ocean (‘to the gods’ in Plutarch, in a slightly different context) is combined with a prayer that no one might ever be able to advance farther than he had. Plutarch ignored Nearchus’ claims, as the vulgate did, and as he ignored Nearchus’ version of the games in Carmania (67.3–48.1). Technically, Bosworth’s use of the Indian Ocean parallel has turned out to be justified. (He does not make much of the Indian rivers one.) However, I am still inclined to believe that the Hellespontine sacrifice, not attested in Arrian’s main sources, was invented by vulgate authors precisely on the basis of the ceremony in the Indian Ocean. The Macedonians were not a seafaring race: they had no real navy and had not sent out any colonies. It is difficult to regard a sacrifice to the gods of the sea as a traditional Macedonian custom. Moreover, that Hellespontine sacrifice had no visible purpose. As noted above, the crossing of the Hellespont was no unusual achievement needing special divine favour; and Alexander’s intended campaign would obviously be a land anabasis. Nor was there, at that stage, any reason for a thank-offering, which the Indian Ocean sacrifice clearly was (thus Diodorus and Curtius; Justin’s unlikely motive is presumably invented). Plutarch was right to ignore it. We can now turn to a myth that has had a great deal of influence on modern scholarship. Diodorus reports (17.17.2) that, as he approached the Asian shore, Alexander threw a spear on to the soil of Asia, to signify (along with his own disembarkation) that he had received Asia as a spear-won gift from the gods. This has at times been taken very seriously. One eminent scholar made the reported gesture into a turning-point in the development of Hellenistic political theory, although Arrian (1.11.6 ff.), who reports a mass of logoi, some of which we shall 486

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have to treat, does not mention this gesture. As I pointed out long ago, even if we accept the spear anecdote, there is no need for such an impressive interpretation: for the Romans throwing a spear into enemy territory was a form of declaring war.14 Justin (11.5.10–11), who reports the incident, gives it a Roman motivation (iaculum uelut in hostilem terram iecit), combined, in Justin’s common fashion, with a piece of obvious rhetorical invention: a prayer (with a sacrifice) that the nations he was about to conquer should accept his rule. There is, as far as I know, only one parallel in Greek history for this spear-throw. In Plut. Mor. 298A–B, the spear serves as an extension of the person and is intended to give the thrower priority in the foundation of a colony. This was a spontaneous act, not an accepted ritual: its validity had to be decided (narrowly, as it turned out) by arbitration. The fact that the motivation differs in the two accounts we have shows, at any rate, that the oldest sources reporting the act did so without any interpretation. Diodorus’ explanation was later imported, precisely from the Hellenistic concept of ‘spear-won land’. It cannot serve as a basis for it. Plutarch, who of course knew the anecdote of the only recorded throwing of a spear in Greek history, clearly could not accept the story of Alexander’s reported action and omitted it. Arrian shows that it was not even respectable fiction. Among the many myths surrounding Alexander’s landing and visit to Troy Diodorus reports (17.18.1) that at Ilium Alexander exchanged his suit of armour for one hanging there in the temple of Athena, which he then wore at the battle of the Granicus. (In the account of the actual battle, the panoply has been reduced to a shield: 17.21.2.) In Arrian we find a (Hellenistic) logos describing the ‘arms’ taken at the temple as relics of the Trojan War: these (and Arrian repeats that this is a logos) the hypaspists used to carry before him in his battles (1.11.7–8: κα( τατα λγουσιν 5τι ο8 Bπασπιστα( 9ϕερον πρ α+το 'ς τ:ς μχας, s. 8). The arms from Ilium are never mentioned by Arrian in any battle. The shield, however, which Diodorus records at the Granicus, turns up in Arrian at the battle in the city of the Malli: there Peucestas carries the shield – uselessly – behind the king. Arrian here remembered what he had written before and the ‘sacred shield’, taken from the temple of Athena Ilias, was kept by Alexander near his person and carried before him in the battles (6.9.3 ν . . . Wμα οI εˆχεν 1Aλξανδρος κα( πρ α+το 'ϕρετο 'ν τα)ς μχαις). It did not bother Arrian that he had never mentioned it (i.e., never found a record of it) in any of the battles. Inside the citadel, after Alexander has collapsed under his wounds, Peucestas, who has now arrived, covers the unconscious king’s body with ‘the sacred shield from Ilium’ (6.10.2). Since Leonnatus also held a shield over him, we do not even know whether the ‘sacred shield’ protected Alexander from death. Oddly enough, in Diodorus the sacred shield is noticeably absent on this occasion: Peucestas is merely ‘the first to hold a shield over the king’ (17.99.4). The pantomime of entrances and exits of the sacred shield (not to mention the panoply) points up the variety of sources that can be traced in both Arrian and even Diodorus. It also proves the whole tale to be fiction. Plutarch found it more than he could stomach and omits it, as he had omitted the fiction of the spear. In 487

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the detailed description of Alexander’s armour and weapons at Gaugamela (32.8–11) he had found no mention of the sacred shield or armour. Droysen15 accepts much of the tradition, but with due caution. For the spear, he keeps to the sensible part of Justin: it was thrown ‘in das Land der Feinde’, with no interpretation. At the temple of Athena Ilias, he tries to reconcile Arrian and Diodorus: Alexander dedicated his arms to the goddess, ‘nahm statt dessen von den Waffen des Tempels namentlich [my emphasis] den heiligen Schild.’ He goes on to conjecture that it may have been thought to have been the shield of Achilles, which, if you believe in the story of the Trojan relics, is a reasonable further development. We cannot deny that Alexander might have believed this; we can only stress that, as far as the sources are concerned, the whole nest of stories must be regarded as fiction. Of various other myths at this point I shall merely pick out Alexander’s sacrifice to the shade of Priam at the place where he was said to have been killed, with a prayer that Priam should forgive the descendants of his killer (who included Alexander). Here (1.11.8) Arrian takes more than his usual care to distance himself from the story. Although it is part of a whole series introduced by ‘they say’ (s. 7), he here insists: λγος κατχει. Droysen accepted all the tales in Arrian as fact and expands an item from Plutarch (see below) into ‘Wettkämpfe aller Art’. The temptation to accept and improve on these tales seems irresistible. Even Bosworth16 accepts the spear story (he sees ‘no reason to reject it’, or its interpretation by Diodorus, although he rejects any juridical interpretation such as Schmitthenner’s). He also accepts all the logoi in Arrian and expands the sacrifice to Priam, from which (as we saw) Arrian is particularly careful to distance himself: ‘the descendants of Achilles and Priam would now fight together against the common enemy.’ It need hardly be pointed out that nothing in the sources suggests this rhetorical expansion. It is a relief to return to Plutarch, who ignores all of this, even though he must have read all of it and perhaps more, e.g. the report of the fallen statue of Ariobarzanes (only Diod. 17.17.6) and its interpretation as an omen, which shows us how much more there must have been. Plutarch (15.7–8) simply reports a sacrifice to Athena Ilias and libations to the Trojan heroes, all of which is highly probable. He also reports special honours for Achilles, which we do not find elsewhere. His wording is not easy to understand, but he appears to report a formal race by Alexander and his companions, in which Achilles may have been anointed as the winner. (This is the origin of Droysen’s expansion, quoted above.) He is also said to have congratulated Achilles on having a faithful friend and a great herald (in Homer: this last was happily developed by Arrian, who cites it among his logoi, into his ‘second preface’, 1.12.1–5). Honours for the heroes and especially for his ancestor Achilles are certainly to be expected, whatever we make of Plutarch’s formal race. He then goes on to tell a story of Alexander’s expressing a wish to see, not the lyre of Paris (which was apparently shown to tourists) but the lyre of Achilles, with a reference to Iliad 9.185 ff. This item is unique to Plutarch,17 in the Alexander tradition. One of Plutarch’s 488

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decorative anecdotes, it was surely believed by him to be authentic, since it fits well with Alexander’s character as he conceives it. We have seen how careful Plutarch is, especially in the early part of the Life, in screening out what appear as logoi in Arrian and as facts in the vulgate, and in making his absence of belief clear in other cases. It is time we approached what must be regarded as his historical masterpiece, the treatment of the ‘conspiracy of Philotas’. Plutarch had already introduced Philotas in a significant scene, not noted by any of our other sources. In the aftermath of the Pixodarus affair, when Philip screams insults at Alexander (10.3), Philotas is standing by Philip’s side; what is more, Plutarch introduces him as one of Alexander’s ϕλοι κα( συν%θεις. This is not necessarily true (as is widely recognised): for one thing, Philotas was a much older man, and we never find him associated with any of those attested friends who were exiled at this time. However, this is clearly what Plutarch found in his source and believed. It is in any case unlikely that the incident, which as such there is no reason to doubt, would be blotted from Alexander’s memory. But if Plutarch’s assessment is regarded as true, Philotas’ action was nothing less than an act of betrayal of his friend. Plutarch clearly meant this to be the implication, and although he does not refer back to this scene when we reach the Philotas affair (48–49), the careful reader would remember. Alexander’s suspicion of Philotas is reinforced by an anecdote credited to Eratosthenes (31.1–5). Just before Gaugamela, the camp-followers fought a mock battle between a team led by ‘Alexander’ and one led by ‘Darius’. Alexander ordered those leaders to fight in single combat; he himself armed ‘Alexander’ and ‘Darius’ was armed by – Philotas. Whether Philotas acted on his own (which is hard to believe) or at Alexander’s bidding, the memory of 10.3 is strongly reinforced and Alexander’s suspicion of Philotas is now fully apparent. A brief mention in 40.1, where (with others) he is accused of excessive luxury, is not in itself significant, but it keeps his name before the reader halfway between the war game and the beginning of Plutarch’s discussion of the events leading to Philotas’ death. Let us now turn to Plutarch’s unique treatment of those events. Chapter 48 starts with a very unfavourable characterisation of Philotas: although brave and generous, he was arrogant and displayed a life-style above what befitted a private person, and his attempt at a lofty and dignified demeanour was blatantly unsuccessful, with the result that he aroused suspicion and illwill (ϕθνος – here clearly not ‘envy’). The source for the Philotas incident was certainly not an admirer of the man. We next hear of how he acquired a young Greek (from Pydna; hardly a Macedonian) slave called Antigone, who became his mistress and to whom he occasionally boasted that Alexander owed his success to him and his father Parmenio. This kind of talk ultimately came to the ears of Craterus, who took her to Alexander to repeat her story, and Alexander ordered her to keep reporting on Philotas to him. 49.1 continues that Philotas, ‘ignorant of this plot against him ('πιβουλευμενος οpτως Yγνει)’, continued to 489

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speak unbecomingly against the king, uttering angry and boastful words. Alexander, informed of all this (Antigone was obviously eager in performing her task), nevertheless put up with it. (Possible reasons are given.) In Diodorus and Curtius, Philotas is mentioned (as regards relations with the king) only in a friendly incident. When Alexander inadvertently put his feet on Darius’ dinner-table while seated on the Persian throne at Susa, Philotas interpreted the act as a favourable omen for the remainder of the war. (So Diod. 17.66; Curt. 5.2.13 ff.) They do not allege any previous disloyalty or consequent suspicion. Arrian, in his very brief treatment of ‘the conspiracy of Philotas’ (3.26.1), writes that, according to Ptolemy and Aristobulus (the ‘court’ tradition, here clearly Arrian’s only sources), this conspiracy had been reported to Alexander in Egypt, but he had not believed the report. The summary, obviously not correct as it stands, must be a garbled reference to the story we have in Plutarch. But we do not know how these two authors actually reported it. The story of the ‘plot against Philotas’ appears only in Plutarch. It is unlikely, whatever we think of Arrian’s accuracy, that they reported it in those terms. Like Arrian, Plutarch continues with the account of the plot of Dimnus (in Plutarch’s text Limnus), which led to Philotas’ downfall. But the actual account differs from all the others we have in one important respect. Arrian transmits, without comment, Ptolemy’s version, that Philotas was convicted by the fact (among other ‘clear proofs’) that he admitted having heard of a plot against Alexander, but had not revealed it. In Diodorus (17.79–80.1) Dimnus mentions his plot to his young lover, whose brother Cebalinus thus hears of it and twice vainly asks Philotas to inform the king; he finds a page to take him to Alexander; Dimnus is arrested, confesses everything and kills himself, while Philotas, confronted with Cebalinus, merely admits to dereliction of duty (probably the meaning of jαθυμα), denies involvement in the plot and asks for a trial before the Macedonians, who hear the case and condemn him and others to death. Curtius has much the longest and most rhetorical account (6.7–11),18 essentially a swollen parallel to Diodorus’; except that Dimnus kills himself when facing arrest without confessing (Alexander learns all the facts from Cebalinus) and Curtius, unlike Diodorus (17.79.3), nowhere suggests the possibility that Philotas was involved in the plot. The details of his account, some of them interesting and probably authentic, do not concern us here. Plutarch also makes ‘Limnus’ (a Macedonian from Chalaestra: Plutarch alone gives this information) the initiator of the plot and has his lover’s brother Cebalinus go to Philotas. But in Plutarch only, Cebalinus (with his brother) asks to be taken to the king ‘because they had to meet with him about great and essential matters’ (49.4). In other words, Philotas is not told that there was a plot against Alexander. The brothers denounce him to the king for twice ignoring their request for admission and inform the king of the plot; ‘Limnus’ is killed while resisting arrest and Alexander, ‘feeling bitter towards Philotas (πικρ$ς 9χων πρς τρς τν Φ)’, summons a council of Philotas’ long-standing enemies, who (inevitably) persuade him that Philotas must be the initiator of the plot and 490

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make other accusations against him. Philotas is arrested, tortured (apparently Hephaestion is in charge of the procedure) and is executed. (The assassination of Parmenio follows, told with a brief eulogy in one sentence.) The difference is obvious. In the other three accounts19 Philotas refuses to pass on information about Dimnus’ plot against the king and in Diodorus and Curtius he admits this; Arrian only says that he defended himself. In Plutarch, as we saw, he is not told of the plot until (presumably) after his arrest and we are never told that he admits to having known of it. In other words, in Plutarch’s account Philotas is entirely innocent. Plutarch did not know the reason for Philotas’ refusal to take the two brothers to see the king (=δηλον γρ 'στιν: 49.5), except that he told them the king was engaged on more important matters. Dimnus was obviously not an important man (see Curt. 6.7.2, not contradicted by anything we know). The two brothers were presumably no more important. Whatever they wanted to tell the king might well be thought to be less important than they themselves considered it. And the king, at this time, did indeed have very weighty matters on his mind. Bessus, calling himself Artaxerxes, was still active and beyond Alexander’s reach, and Satibarzanes was keeping up an undefeated guerrilla war in Areia (see Arr. 3.28). The word Plutarch uses when reporting Alexander’s secret instructions to Antigone, 'πιβουλευμενος (49.1), is obviously significant in this context. It was Alexander who had ‘conspired’ against Philotas, not (as the accepted version had it) the other way round.20 Yet Plutarch obviously knew the accepted version, at least in its ‘vulgate’ form. Perhaps an unimportant phrase may point to this (if it needs reinforcing): his =δηλον γρ 'στιν, of Philotas’ reason for not taking the two brothers to the king can be matched with incertum quam ob causam (Curt. 6.7.18), not in precisely the same context, but referring to Philotas’ staying behind and enabling Cebalinus to approach him. Whichever of the two authors adapted it, the phrase will go back to a vulgate report of Cebalinus’ meeting with Philotas. Alexander’s ‘plot’ against Philotas by the agency of Antigone is continued, as Plutarch tells the story, by Alexander’s summoning a council of Philotas’ enemies to advise him, since he already felt bitter towards the man. On the surface, this must refer to what Antigone had been telling him about Philotas’ remarks to her. Is it possible that Plutarch was also thinking of that much earlier event, the scene where Philotas stood by Philip’s side as Philip screamed insults at Alexander? The connection is nowhere explicitly made. But in a peculiar passage in the second essay on Alexander in the Moralia (333D–345B), when Plutarch refers to the case of Philotas as an example of the king’s patience and self-restraint, he tells the story of Antigone and adds that ‘for more than seven years’ Alexander never revealed his suspicion to anyone. The figure is puzzling, since Plutarch, even in this early work, must have known that it was closer to two years than to seven. However, seven years from late 330 gets us back to late 337: a few months too early for the scene of Philip’s anger, but well within the bounds of rhetorical exaggeration. Did Plutarch have this incident, which he does not mention in the Moralia essays but had presumably read about, at the back of his 491

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mind when he expanded Alexander’s restraint from two years to seven? In the Life, as we noted, the scene is featured, and Philotas’ behaviour appears to be treacherous. We do not know where Plutarch found his version of the story and there is little point trying to guess.21 The interesting fact, as far as the source is concerned, is that, as we saw, it by no means favoured Philotas as a person, but painted a very derogatory picture of him. Yet I cannot see much doubt that it was that same source that provided Plutarch with his version of an entirely innocent Philotas ensnared by Alexander. The puzzling question, of course, is: why did Plutarch, whose reading had certainly put before him all possible versions and degrees of Philotas’ guilt, from partly excusable misjudgment of the seriousness of the danger to Alexander to leading participation in the conspiracy, choose to follow and transmit the one version opposed to all the others? His portrait of Alexander is certainly a complex one, much more so than Arrian’s. There was much that he admired in the king: his courage; his generosity; his selfcontrol in matters of sex, food and (so Plutarch believed) drink; even his ability to feel remorse. Yet his Alexander is no model of virtue. Although normally not given to drinking too much wine, he does occasionally do so, with regrettable and even appalling results (23.7, 50–51: Clitus); he could be guilty of treachery in war (59.6–7 described as the only example) and of lying to exaggerate his achievements (62.6–7).22 The treacherous murder of Parmenio is recounted with simple and dignified emotion, more effective than explicit reproach (49.13). Callisthenes, like Philotas, is described as a thoroughly unpleasant person (52.7– 55), yet honourable and dignified (53.1, cf. 52.4, 54.3), just as Philotas is partly redeemed by his courage, generosity and ability to endure hardship (48.1–2). As we have seen, Plutarch implies (although he does not openly say so) that Alexander knew of Callisthenes’ innocence in the matter of the pages’ conspiracy, yet decided to have him arrested and (probably) executed (55.5–8: see above on the two letters quoted). This gives some of the background for Plutarch’s choice of what source to believe and transmit regarding the execution of Philotas. It was certainly an act of deliberate choice, based on what must be called principles of critical history. Perhaps the choice was immediately motivated by the fact that Plutarch knew, and had written, of a ‘plot’ by Alexander against Philotas (49.1: see above on the significance of the word chosen to describe Alexander’s action). What follows now becomes a real plot, orchestrated by Alexander with the help of carefully chosen associates (who can share part of the responsibility: cf. perhaps 11.11 on the sack of Thebes). What is perhaps most astonishing in this story is the fact that modern scholars have taken no notice. I was myself guilty of this when I first wrote about the Philotas affair,23 and even scholars who seem to have carefully read Plutarch and give an independent and critical account of the affair24 follow the basic substratum common to the other sources (the court historiography and the vulgate, which often rest on a basic ‘official’ substratum) without mentioning or evaluating Plutarch’s total contradiction of that version. Whether we approve of 492

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Plutarch’s choice or not (and this can be endlessly debated), my point here has been to show that Plutarch, when he set his mind to it, could be a critical historian superior to many of the professedly historical writers. I would also urge that Plutarch’s reasoned choice deserves serious consideration in our own evaluation of the Philotas affair – and of Alexander.25

Notes 1 This study is remotely based on a short paper read at a meeting organised by the Department of Classics at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and by the International Plutarch Society in June 2000. My thanks are due to the Department for hospitality on that occasion, and particularly to Professor Philip Stadter. 2 Let me mention, at least, the well-known discussion at the beginning of the Aristides, where Plutarch cites the Socrates of Demetrius of Phalerum, then Idomeneus of Lampsacus and Panaetius in refutation of Demetrius, adding his own argument to theirs. At the end of ch. 5 he resumes and expands the discussion by correcting Demetrius’ statement as to the date of Aristides’ archonship in the light of the actual archon lists, which Demetrius could equally have consulted. (In ch. 1 he appeared to accept Demetrius’ date, to show that Demetrius’ interpretation could be refuted on his own data; he leaves the refutation for ch. 5.) 3 See n. 8 below with text. 4 Plutarch’s historical methods (1965). 5 For some of the methods he uses to suggest disbelief, see below. 6 Note that Plutarch can use the two verbs without implying doubt, where his acceptance of what he relates is made clear. Thus δοκε) δ μοι (8.1: note the last word), and for ς ^οικε 21.7 on Alexander’s sexual self-control, where the context makes Plutarch’s acceptance clear: the statement is followed by a series of anecdotes, the first concluding with a rhetorical statement of Plutarch’s acceptance, the others (22) supported by citation of Alexander’s letters. This use is quite different from the insertion of the phrase in an anecdote. 7 The authenticity of this letter was proved by J.R. Hamilton, CQ n.s. 5, 1955, 219 ff. We are not told how much ‘later’ the second letter was written, but obviously while the matter was still topical. Plutarch’s skilful implication of a change of mind without new evidence is surely deliberate. Chares’ statement (55.9) that Callisthenes was to be tried by the Hellenic Synedrion in the presence of Aristotle does not contradict the letter (pace Kaerst, Philol. 51, 1892, 608). Chares, whom Plutarch had learnt to distrust (see 20.9), is usually cited (as there, also 54.4 ff., and cf. 70.2) for colourful additions to the narrative, not necessarily intended to gain the reader’s belief. Plutarch’s citation of the two letters, written at different times, seems to correspond to his equally tactful implication that Alexander knew of Philotas’ innocence when he had him condemned. (On this see below.) 8 Yet Plutarch accepts Alexander’s occasional drunkenness, with its consequences (see p. 492). We are left to wonder how much more in ch. 23 derives from a character sketch by Aristobulus, one of the authors Plutarch cites, and uses, most often. 9 Part of the difference may rest on a misunderstanding, or misremembering by Plutarch of what precisely Aristobulus had written: Aristobulus may have confined the statement about the statues to the 24 companions, as Ptolemy apparently did (ap. Arr. 1.16.4). Brunt (ad loc., in the Loeb Arrian) plausibly suggests that Aristobulus may only have counted Macedonian losses, while the figures in Arrian (more than sixty ‘other’ cavalry and a total of about thirty infantry) may refer to ‘non-Macedonians’. However, Aristobulus may simply have been mistaken.

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10 There are also interesting and more pleasant items, especially Alexander’s regency and the founding of the colony Alexandropolis (9.1). 11 Conquest and empire (1988) 38. 12 See my study in Yale Class. Stud. 24, 1975, 147–70. [No. 13 in this collection]. 13 Arr. 6.3.1–2, from Ptolemy (cf. 2. 4), reports only sacrifices to the customary gods and to the Hydaspes, on his seers’ advice, other deities (the river gods, his ancestor Heracles, Ammon and the other customary gods) received only libations poured on the river. Nearchus lists sacrifices, before the embarkation, to Alexander’s ancestral gods and those indicated by the seers (there is no implied reference to an oracle from Ammon, who indeed would be much too far away to be consulted; the suggestion is Brunt’s, in the Loeb Arrian 2.361 n. 7); also to the river gods and to Ocean and its divinities. These are said to have been followed by musical and athletic contests and the distribution of victims for sacrifice to each ‘unit’ (κατ: τλεα) of the army. It is difficult to believe that Ptolemy made a mistake over the sacrifices and omitted the games. Diodorus (17.95–96) and Curtius (9.3.24) do not even mention sacrifices or libations, which suggests that they were routine and not specially splendid. Nearchus seems to have ‘rewritten’ the scene into another instance of the importance of his leadership of a fleet. 14 See W. Schmitthenner, ‘Über eine Formveränderung der Monarchie seit Alexander d. Gr.’, Saeculum 19, 1968, 31–46. Rightly rejected by Bosworth, Conquest and empire 38 n. 35. Cf. E. Badian in id., ed., Ancient society and institutions, 1966, 63 n. 29 [no.10 in this collection]. Justin’s Roman source, Trogus, obviously found no motivation for the act and added his own. 15 Geschichte des Hellenismus I2, 1877, 186–7. 16 Conquest and empire 38 f. 17 Aelian (VH 9.38) is the only other author who mentions it, whether picked up from Plutarch or from Plutarch’s source. (The reference should be added in Hamilton’s Commentary 38.) Plutarch had told a more fanciful version of the anecdote in Mor. 331D. 18 For thorough analysis (pointing up the Roman input) see Elizabeth Baynham, Alexander the Great, 1968, 171–80. 19 Justin 12.5.3 has only one short sentence on the deaths of Philotas and Parmenio, with the statement that both were executed after trial. 20 Diodorus 17.79.3 is the only source that explicitly considers the possibility that Philotas was actually involved in the plot. (Ptolemy probably implied it and may have said so more clearly than Arrian’s summary.) C.B. Welles, in his note on the Diodorus passage in the Loeb Diodorus, states that Plutarch also thought so (347 n. 4)! Even in his early essay, to which Welles refers (Mor. 339 E–F), there is no such statement or implication; we only hear that Philotas, just as in the Life, decried Alexander’s merits. The only difference is that in the essay Philotas is said to have decried Philip’s merits as well. The fact that Plutarch speaks of a conspiracy against Philotas has often been noticed, of course. But Plutarch would have been surprised at some of the interpretations of what appears to be his plain statement. Thus W. Heckel’s treatment of the Philotas affair, entitled ‘The conspiracy against Philotas’ (Phoenix 31, 1977, 9–21), postulates a conspiracy by various members of Alexander’s entourage against Philotas, in which they enmeshed the king. A less plausible theory would be hard to find. Z. Rubinsohn, in an analysis of the affair (Anc. Mac. 2, 1977, 409–20), interprets Plutarch’s phrase as referring to a plot by Craterus against Philotas (413 f.), even though the preceding sentence describes Alexander as ordering Antigone to keep meeting with Philotas and report to Alexander what she heard him say. Craterus was merely the one who brought the two conspirators together. (Rubinsohn’s article contains a very useful bibliography, i.a. covering work in Russian.)

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21 It is obviously not Aristobulus and probably not Chares, the two sources most often cited in the Life. Aristobulus seems to have reported a conspiracy by Philotas (Arr. 3.26.1) and Chares is never cited for an interpretation unfavourable to Alexander. Chares was proposed as the source by L. Pearson, The lost histories of Alexander the Great, 1960, 60; but this was based on a mistake. (See J.R. Hamilton, Plutarch, Alexander. A commentary, 1969, 136.) If one had to conjecture one of the authors cited by Plutarch (which we perhaps should not do), one possibility would be Eratosthenes, who, as we saw, reports the duel in which Philotas, no doubt at Alexander’s request, armed the contestant named ‘Darius’. 22 See Hamilton p. lxiii for a collection of other flaws noted by Plutarch in Alexander. 23 In ‘The death of Parmenio’, TAPhA 91, 1960, 324–38 [no. 3 in this collection]. 24 E.g. Bosworth, Conquest and empire 101–3: ‘But he did not divulge what he had heard. [Implying that he had heard of the plot.] That is admitted by all sources.’ (p. 101) It should be explicitly stated that in Plutarch’s considered account he had heard nothing worth divulging. 25 I am honoured to have been asked to contribute to this volume, dedicated to a scholar from whom I and many others have never ceased learning. I hope he will at least find this trivial piece amusing.

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It was an odd feeling to return to this subject, forty years after treating it in an article written on a hospital bed.1 But the subject needed a new look. Much had been written in those forty years, far more than I can hope to refer to here; and my article was in any case brief and not sufficiently clear and comprehensive. As a result, I was often cited for views rather different from the ones I tried to set out.2 I shall now treat the subject by concentrating individually on the chief actors in the drama, which is dominated by personal interactions3, although space prevents me from treating all that would merit inclusion. I shall look, successively, at Olympias, Amyntas son of Perdiccas, Pausanias the assassin, Pixodarus and Alexander.

Olympias Several questions arise. (a) Did Philip divorce her? We have no good reason to think so. The only source asserting that he did is Justin 9.7.2, 11.11.3–5 and the reason he seems to give, adultery with a snake, does not inspire confidence.4 A more serious reason might have been her intrigues against Philip in Epirus, where she had settled at the court of her brother Alexander after the insult to her son by Attalus at Philip’s marriage banquet (Plut. Alex. 9.7.11, Just. 9.7.3–5). But Justin, the only source mentioning those intrigues (9.7.7), does not make the connection with the divorce he had alleged. Philip had shown that he was no monogamist. Not to mention his various earlier marriages detailed by Satyrus (Ath. 557b–c), since we are not explicitly told that he did not divorce each wife before marrying the next (unlikely though that is): we are in fact told by the same source that he brought home the Thracian princess Meda while still married to Olympias (ibid. d). He would be quite comfortable being still married to Olympias while taking Cleopatra as a new wife. Divorce need not be assumed. (b) Was Olympias exiled? Again, we have no reason to think so, and this time there is no mention of it in any source. Nor (to anticipate) was Alexander, contrary to what I wrote before: it is clear from Plutarch’s account that he could

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have returned at any time, but did not want to until persuaded (see below). Like her son, she must also have been free to return, but refused. (c) Did she return before Philip’s death? This has been much discussed, and at times with some confusion. But the answer must be that she did not. The only broken reed that those who imagine she returned can lean on is a pronoun in Plut. Mor. 179C – a saying, actually, of Demaratus’ of Corinth, put in a collection of Philip’s sayings, as a result of which (we are told), after quarrelling with Olympias and Alexander, he was reconciled with them (α+τος). I pointed out long ago, in a review of Kraft, that the casual remark, intended to provide a satisfactory ending to a story illustrating Philip’s character, is contradicted by Plutarch himself in his full treatment in the Life of Alexander. In chapter 9, where he tells the story of the flight of both Alexander and his mother, only a few sections later (two or four, according to which edition you use) he reports only Alexander’s return, not mentioning his mother. It is inconceivable that he can have merely forgotten about her, or thought her too unimportant to be worth mentioning5. A decisive argument can be added: Justin makes it circumstantially clear that she was not with Philip at the time of his death (and Diodorus does not mention her on that occasion either). Justin 9.7.10–11 states that when she heard of the assassination (audita regis nece), she rushed to be present at his last rites (cum . . . ad exequias cucurrisset). We do not have to believe the honours she supposedly paid to Pausanias’ body eadem nocte qua uenit (9.7.10) or, for that matter, that she had prepared horses for his escape, but there is no doubt that Justin’s source reported her as coming back from a distance. Nor was there any reason to invent this: the embroidery attached to it would have fitted equally well if she had been depicted as being at Aegae all along. More decisive still: we cannot seriously believe that, had she been present, she would have taken no part in her daughter’s impressive wedding – or that, had she done so, none of the sources would have noted it. We must surely believe that she was not there, i.e. that she was still in Epirus. There had been no reconciliation with Philip. To clinch the proof (if it needs further reinforcement), let us approach the matter from another direction. In the anecdote in the Moralia Plutarch does not mention the flight of Alexander and Olympias, let alone their return: he merely states that Philip had quarreled with them, and, persuaded by Demaratus, became reconciled with them. (This, of course, is clarified in the Life.) Here, Plutarch was only concerned to show that Philip would listen to advice. No one would ignore the account of the flight because the anecdote ignores it. Can we seriously imagine that, in view of the aim of the whole anecdote, he would state that Philip agreed with Demaratus’ implied advice (συμφ ον%σας), and then, if we assume (just for the sake of argument, for the moment) that he was reconciled only with Alexander and begged him to return, can we seriously imagine that Plutarch would illustrate Philip’s agreement with the advice by stating that he was reconciled only with Alexander? The nature of his purpose here compelled him to state that Philip fully took Demaratus’ advice. In the Life he was not under any such rhetorical compulsion. Those who try to press the pronoun in the 497

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anecdote against the account in the Life have not attended to, or not understood, the author’s aim6.

Amyntas son of Perdiccas We know that Philip, although he deprived him of the succession, left him alive. He was only put to death by Alexander, straight after his accession, allegedly for conspiracy against the new king. (Sources in Berve, no. 61; so also for what follows). Whether the charge was true is not relevant here. We must only note that he is called Mακεδνων βασιλες in an inscription from Lebadeia (IG VII, 3058.9), where he went down into the cave of Trophonius. Koehler, for no good reason, dated the inscription to 350; but a more obvious date would be close to 360, not long after the death of Perdiccas7. An inscription from Oropus, bestowing signal honours on him, is dated by Hiller (SIG I3 258) on linguistic grounds to ‘before 338’ (in 338, Berve, wrongly). This text calls him a Macedonian. What is the significance of the difference? The first editor reported that the word Mακεδνα stands in an erasure; Hiller suggested that it may have replaced βασιλα. But this seems unlikely. The correction was probably a merely technical one, e.g. a corrected misspelling8. If the Lebadeia inscription is dated c. 360– 359, and Amyntas was old enough to go down into the cave, he was born no later than c. 370, probably a little earlier9. By the time of the Oropus text he no longer bears the royal title and the honours voted for him are the same as are bestowed, in a parallel text, on Amyntas son of Antiochus, probably an associate of his10: presumably honours suitable for a Macedonian noble and benefactor. Since at all relevant times the Boeotian League was friendly to Philip, it is clear that the honours were not displeasing to him. He must have been Amyntas’ guardian until Amyntas reached adulthood, and he left him in full possession of a large property after, as this text shows11. Surviving in propertied obscurity, he was not used for affairs of state. Shortly before Philip’s death there appears to be a change: Philip married him to one of his daughters, Cynane. The time is only vaguely stated (Poln. 8.60), but it is very probable that Alexander would see this as a threat, especially if it happened at a time when he was not in the king’s favour (see below). In 337/6 an Amyntas is mentioned as commanding the Macedonian forces in Asia Minor, along with Parmenio and Attalus (Just. 9.5.8). The name is too common for confident assertion, but it has been suggested, as a possibility, that this is Amyntas son of Perdiccas12. This can be supported by the observation that after Philip’s death the man is not mentioned with the other two. Perhaps, after making him his son-in-law, Philip wanted to give him some experience of command, which (to our knowledge) he had never had, in association with two men who could see to it that he neither did nor came to any harm, and who were no friends of Alexander. There is no obvious reason why some other commander by that name should have suddenly faded from the record. But Alexander, who would have good reason to feel threatened if Amyntas’ marriage was followed by 498

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association in command with the clique of Attalus, would certainly at once have recalled him, before having him executed.

Pausanias the assassin The most important question here is the date of the battle in Illyria that led to his unforgivable humiliation. There is no doubt that Diodorus places it not long before Philip’s death. But neither he nor any other source mentions an invasion of Illyria after that of 344; and as is well known (see below), Diodorus is not a good guide for chronology. A campaign in 338–336, such as his sequence would suggest, is difficult to fit in and, unlike all other campaigns of Philip, would be unrecorded for no conceivable reason, especially if, as would follow from the story of the other Pausanias’ death, Philip’s life was in serious danger. The puzzle was solved by a brilliant and simple suggestion of Beloch’s13: that the ‘Pleurias’, king of the Illyrians, against whom Philip was reported to have been fighting at the time of Pausanias’ sacrifice, when he ‘received with his own body all the blows directed at (Philip)’, was in fact Pleuratus, Philip’s opponent in 344, when Philip received one of his famous wounds14. On this suggestion all the difficulties vanish: the improbable failure by our sources to report another Illyrian campaign, in which Philip’s life was (obviously) again in danger; and the fact that the name ‘Pleurias’ is unknown in Illyria and elsewhere, whereas ‘Pleuratus’ later recurs as a royal name in that area15. Moreover, both the organisation of the Hellenic League and the state marriage with Cleopatra must have taken up a considerable amount of time, as indeed would an Illyrian campaign with the preparations for it. J. R. Fears16, following earlier scholars and misunderstanding Justin17, suggests a putative Illyrian campaign in 337 as the occasion of the later assassin’s humiliation. But the question that must be asked, quite apart from the question of the amount of time available, is why an Illyrian campaign should have been necessary at this time. Alexander was later to boast that he conducted a campaign in Illyria in his father’s absence and informed him by letter of his victory (Curt. 8.1.25). This must surely have been when Alexander was left as regent in Philip’s absence in 340, and it was no doubt merely a minor incursion, for Alexander, whose major effort was devoted to Thrace (Plut. Alex. 9.1), would not have had time for more, and Plutarch does not even mention it. But it should surely have obviated the need for another Illyrian campaign, this one led by Philip and on a much larger scale – yet omitted, as we saw, by our sources, which note all his other campaigns, even though Philip’s life was once more in danger, just as it had been in the attested campaign18. The more it is scrutinised, the more such a duplicate of the campaign of 344 defies belief. Diodorus, whose sequential account leaves no room for such a campaign19, next implies its existence in his account of Philip’s death. It is perhaps idle to speculate how, within a few chapters of having excluded any such action, he comes to imply it; although it is no more puzzling than the fact that a number of 499

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modern scholars have chosen to accept the anecdotal narrative in preference to the sequential. The Illyrian war of 344 would still have been in Ephorus, whose history ended with the siege of Perinthus and was followed by Diodorus to the end (Diod. 16.76.5). The new source, from which he got his account of Philip’s death and the events leading to it, was presumably not writing sequential history, but telling the story of the events at Aegae, with the Illyrian campaign as mere background, especially since it would be familiar in its historical context to any reader of Ephorus. Diodorus apparently did not link the campaign and the danger to Philip’s life with what he had himself read in Ephorus: he thought that the campaign referred to must have closely preceded Philip’s death. Characteristically, he forgot that his own chronological account had positively excluded such a campaign at this point. His foreshortening of the narrative leads to further confusion. At the time of the campaign in which the other Pausanias sacrificed himself for Philip, Attalus is merely ‘a certain Attalus’ and a friend of his (’AττλKω δ τινι τ$ν φλων), obviously not a person of particular distinction. However, when he comes to record the humiliation of the later assassin, Attalus is already an οκε)ος of the king, being the ‘nephew’ (so Diodorus, erroneously) of the Cleopatra whom Philip had married and picked to command the force despatched to invade Asia. Yet the humiliation is told as the immediate consequence of, and revenge for, the self-sacrifice of Attalus’ friend20. It is only some modern scholars who imagine that we may use this confused account to mean that a short interval in fact elapsed between the self-sacrifice, followed by the humiliation, on the one hand and the invasion of Asia on the other. Thus Fears21 fails to notice the contradiction regarding Attalus’ status in Diodorus and uses a misinterpretation of Justin to support his construction. In fact, Justin postulates a longish interval between the humiliation of the later assassin primis pubertatis annis and his assassination of Philip when he was nobilis . . . adulescens. Pausanias did not grow up as quickly as Fears seems to imagine. In fact, the Illyrian war of 344 would fit in perfectly with Justin’s characterization of Pausanias. However, we must ask why Pausanias waited so long before his revenge, and why he chose to punish Philip and not Attalus. The two questions are closely connected. The answer was already known to Justin: Pausanias hoped for justice from Philip, but was all the time put off on various pretexts. Had he killed Attalus, clearly a Companion of Philip, he would have given up his own life, which would be the opposite of the real justice he expected. He kept hoping that the king, frequently reminded, would at last attend to the matter. It was only when he saw that Attalus was actually being honoured and promoted by the king, who had married his ward, that his patience was exhausted and, despairing of ever receiving justice, his anger turned against what he saw as Philip’s contempt for him22. Diodorus, owing to his foreshortening of the time, has Pausanias μετθετον φυλττων τ#ν Qργ%ν (16.94.1). But once we recognize that the incident belonged to the war of 344, we can see that Diodorus’ chronological error will have affected his whole interpretation. It should be suggested that the flame of Pausanias’ anger had not in fact burned undiminished for eight years: as he lived 500

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through those eight years, even though the memory was indelible, the indignation would tend to fade. After all, it was a large part of his life since his primi pubertatis anni. As for Philip, we may safely assume that he would have forgotten the distant incident, amid so many far more important events that had filled those years; he would simply not realise the offence that his close association with, and promotion of, Attalus would cause to Pausanias in view of that incident. Pausanias, on the other hand, now remembered his old humiliation and his failure to receive justice with renewed passion. Another consideration may be added to modify the simple picture. We must wonder why, after Philip’s marriage to Attalus’ ward and even after Attalus’ departure to take up his command in Asia, Pausanias took no action for what must have been several months and then struck when he finally did? There must have been earlier opportunities, for one consumed by a passion for revenge. The answer is implied by Plutarch and by Justin: some persons made it their business to prod Pausanias’ memory. Both mention Olympias and Alexander (Plut. Alex. 10.5 ff.; Just. 9.7), though Plutarch implies disbelief in Alexander’s complicity23. Even if we discount some of the details, there is no reason not to believe the basic reports. Olympias, of course, was in Epirus (as Justin, as well as Plutarch, well knew), but her messengers would know how to find Pausanias. Alexander, even if we do not believe his quoting the verse from the Medea, was certainly known to be at the court. We are therefore dealing with the time after his return from self-imposed exile (see below). We must conclude that Pausanias was still unwilling to give up his own life in order to obtain his revenge, now on the king who had betrayed him, as before on Attalus himself. The long delay between Attalus’ honour and promotion and Pausanias’ action helps to confirm the impression that time had passed since Pausanias’ humiliation and that the flame of resentment was not burning as ardently as Diodorus’ chronological transposition made that author believe. It was only when he was assured of powerful support (for there was no reason to doubt that, once Philip was dead, Alexander would, at least in due course, succeed) that he decided to avenge his honour. It was easy enough to arrange for escape after the deed (whether or not Olympias, as Justin reports, provided the horses!), but he could now be assured that he would before long be recalled and honoured. Pausanias was by no means consumed by blind passion, as ‘tragic history’ depicted him. His delaying his action by the better part of a year, from winter 337/6 until October 336, is the clue that must not be missed.

Pixodarus, satrap of Caria The precise dates of his negotiations with Philip and of Alexander’s intervention in them are not specified in our sole source. Plutarch tells the story and its consequences between Alexander’s return to the court and Philip’s death (Alex. 10.1 ff.). That does not mean that his source related the beginning of the negotiations at that time: indeed, we shall see that they must have begun earlier. The final failure can confidently be put shortly before Philip’s death. 501

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The fact that the satrap asked for Arrhidaeus as a son-in-law24 suggests that he was at that point seen as the likely successor, i.e. that Alexander was still away and in disgrace. What follows in Plutarch seems to confirm this, for it suggests that Alexander did not know of the negotiations until he was informed by persons at the court. (Olympias no doubt kept closely in touch with events there – far easier to do from Epirus than from Illyria.) Plutarch makes it clear that the information came through messengers25. It has been suggested that Alexander sent Thessalus to intervene on his behalf while he was still in Illyria26. But this is unlikely: he can hardly have hoped to persuade Pixodarus that he was a better match than his brother if he had still been visibly in disgrace and in exile. No matter when he heard about the negotiations, he had to wait until he was back at the court before he could make a plausible case for his suit. And as we shall see, the fact of his intervention is best explained by what he found when he returned27. As for Pixodarus, the last male Hecatomnid would hardly have thought himself unworthy of a connection with the Crown Prince of Macedon, as (in Plutarch) Philip describes him; indeed, he would hardly be prepared to settle for less. As we have seen, when he sent his first messenger, Alexander was in Illyria and it seemed that Arrhidaeus was the likely successor to Philip. When Alexander’s message reached him, he knew that Alexander had been recalled and reinstated in his position as Crown Prince, hence (as Plutarch tells us) he eagerly accepted Alexander’s proposal. That he was well in touch with Greek affairs and himself had Greek cultural interests is shown by his choice of messenger: the tragic actor Aristocritus. It was almost certainly due to this choice that Alexander too chose a tragic actor, Thessalus, as his own messenger to the satrap28. However, Philip intervened and vetoed the whole plan. As we shall see, he was practically compelled to do so. Finally, we must ask: why did Pixodarus want a close connection with Philip in the first place? Philip’s intention of invading Asia had been known there ever since Memnon and Artabazus, obviously well informed about it, returned from honoured exile in Macedonia, to inform Memnon’s brother Mentor, who had secured their recall29. By the time of Alexander’s and Olympias’ flight from Macedon, the plans were common knowledge. But as we shall see, Pixodarus in fact waited until Macedonian forces actually stood in Asia before sending his messenger. After their first successes30 it was clear that Caria would be invaded before long – and Ada, whose claim to legitimate sovereignty clearly surpassed his, was still secure in her mountain fastness. With the support of a powerful and victorious army, she was likely to be acclaimed by large sections of the population as their legitimate ruler31. The Pixodarus affair had important consequences at the Macedonian court (see below) and it does not show Alexander in a favourable light. It has therefore at times been described as fictitious or at least implausible, and its absence from all sources except Plutarch has been held against it. Against all such attempts it must be firmly stated that it will not do to accept Plutarch on (e.g.) Alexander’s regency in 340 (Plut. Alex. 9.1 ff.) while rejecting his circumstantial account on 502

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Pixodarus; or – and this is equally important in the dating of Pausanias’ humiliation – to accept Diodorus’ chronology on the events preceding Philip’s death and reject it in numerous other cases, even in the same general area of topics, where it is known to be absurd32. The Pixodarus affair, whether we like it or not, is fully historical33. We must resist the attempts to stretch the time needed for the negotiations (usually connected with attacks on the historicity). Only a few weeks were needed for two or at most three return trips by sea between Halicarnassus and Athens and the delivery and discussion of the messages of which we hear34. The end of the negotiations can be confidently dated to not long before Philip’s death (see below).

Alexander As all the sources make clear, Philip’s marriage to Cleopatra and the events at the marriage feast had a profound effect on Alexander. He was now persuaded that he might be removed from the succession to Philip. He seems to have regarded his step-brother Arrhidaeus as a dangerous rival, perhaps even before the Pixodarus affair, certainly as that affair developed35. (In fact, as has been suggested above, it was not Arrhidaeus but Amyntas who was a serious rival.) When Alexander left Macedon after the banquet, he quite probably thought, after his father’s attack on him at the banquet, that his life was in danger if he stayed36. Against those who argue, rightly or wrongly, that Philip needed Alexander37, we must firmly stand by the principle that what matters is not how things appear to us, but how they appeared to Alexander, as shown by his actions38. He would not have returned, however, had he not been persuaded by Demaratus not only that his life would be safe, but that he would be restored to the status of Crown Prince. The experienced Corinthian perhaps added that he would be much better able to defend his interests if he were at the court than if he remained in exile. But what he found on his return was not a picture to inspire confidence. His enemy Attalus and Attalus’ father-in-law Parmenio were successfully leading the forces in Asia (on Parmenio see Curt. 6.9.17)39. And as we saw, Amyntas, newly married to a daughter of Philip, had probably joined them in command40. The date of the marriage is not precisely attested41, but it may at least be suggested that the obvious time for Philip to devote renewed attention to his nephew would be when Alexander was in exile and Arrhidaeus was not a plausible choice: if Philip were to die (e.g. after taking over the command in Asia), there might be a chaotic struggle over the succession. And it would make good sense to introduce him to the army by offering him a position of command. The other question to be considered would be: who would take charge of Europe when Philip left for Asia. Four years earlier, aged only sixteen, Alexander had held this position when Philip was engaged in a distant war. No doubt supported by suitable advisers, he had held the post with distinction (Plut. Alex. 9.1 ff.). Could he expect the same post in 336? We do not know whether 503

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the choice had already been announced, but we have seen that Alexander had no reason to feel confident about it. It was in this situation that he decided to send Thessalus to Pixodarus. The action decisively documents his feeling of insecurity. To create a bastion for himself in Caria, with the option of actually moving there, could only have the purpose either of being able to block Philip’s planned advance into the area or of blackmailing Philip into offering Alexander a major post, presumably second-incommand in Asia, which would give him unlimited opportunities. Philip, no novice in the game of intrigue, would certainly realise this. That was why he was compelled to block the proposed marriage, even though on a superficial view a foothold in Caria for his Crown Prince was a gift from heaven. In fact he regarded Alexander’s action as high treason. The details of what was said when he went to his son’s bedroom, accompanied only by Philotas, cannot be known, although Plutarch (Alex. 10.3) probably had good information (ultimately going back to Philotas) about the tone of the encounter, when Philip 'πετμησεν σχυρ$ς κα( πικρ$ς 'λοιδρησεν Alexander – assuredly not only because he had proposed to marry beneath his station. Alexander’s friends, who had no doubt connived with him in the scheme, were exiled, but his intermediary, Thessalus, who had at once fled to Corinth, was not allowed to stay in exile: Philip ordered the Corinthians to extradite him in chains. This notice at last enables us to arrive at a reasonable chronology. For Thessalus was in fact not surrendered, but survived to act under Alexander, as we noted in passing. Had he been extradited, there can be no doubt as to what his fate would have been. Yet the Corinthians, even if (like the Athenians in the case of Harpalus) they were reluctant to comply and played for time, could hardly afford to let him escape: Philip was very angry, and not far away, and the city had a Macedonian garrison42. The only explanation, as has of course been seen by some before, must be that Philip’s death vacated the order. Philip died in October 33643. Alexander’s message to Pixodarus may therefore be dated in September (for Philip will have heard of it almost immediately); and Pixodarus’ original message will have reached Philip (to follow the basic chronology suggested by French and Dixon) in July – certainly not earlier (see my comments on the time required, above). We know that at the time when Philip received it Alexander was still in Illyria. He presumably returned in August and sent his message to the satrap as soon as he had assessed his situation. It must have been after the scene in Alexander’s room and the exile of his friends that Alexander, now isolated and more insecure than ever, will have spoken to Pausanias, whoever brought them together (possibly letters from Olympias – but that is a pure guess).

The wedding at Aegae There is not much to be added to what has been written about it. But some more improbable suggestions should be cleared out of the way. The great scene 504

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was to show off Philip’s power and his admission to the status of σνθρονος θε$ν. The wedding as such was meant to undercut Olympias’ intrigues at her brother’s court, for Philip had to avoid being distracted from his war against Persia44. There is no need to describe the great procession in detail. But what might be noted in Diodorus’ description is that the guards (custodes corporis in Justin 9.6.3), whom Philip apparently ordered to stand in two lines at a distance, forming a lane for the ceremonial entrance of Philip between the two Alexanders45, are called δορυφροι: a term uniquely reserved by Diodorus for the guards of tyrants and Oriental kings46. The historian, not always careful about historical facts, is normally scrupulous in his use of words. The implication that Diodorus now regarded Philip as being in that class must be intended; whether it is meant to make the assassination seem morally justifiable is a question we cannot answer. What does not seem doubtful is that at least some of those who knew about the plan for the assassination must have thought so47. Pausanias himself, in moral justification for his planned deed, may have thought so after the way Philip had treated him. But I see no evidence of what could legally be called a conspiracy. Hammond found proof in the fact that ‘horses’ were prepared for Pausanias’ attempted escape (Diod. 16.84.3). But neither Diodorus nor Justin, who also speaks of horses (provided by Olympias, 9.7.9; not cited by Hammond), gives any indication that this was at all suspicious48. Perhaps Pausanias intended to take a slave along. Perhaps it was simply that, with two horses running alongside, the one carrying an armed rider could find some relief, and progress would be speeded, if the rider in due course changed to the other horse. Suspicion has been aroused by the fact that three men (Diodorus mistakenly thought them σωματοφλακες, 16.94.4) caught up with Pausanias and killed him – ‘to silence him’, it has been suggested49. But, first, they only caught up with him by accident, hence were not actually ready to kill him after the deed; secondly, the three – Leonnatus, Perdiccas and Attalus, clearly the son of Andromenes – had no reason to get involved in a conspiracy to kill Philip. The only one who profited by the assassination was Alexander, and they were not special friends of his: they were not among those exiled by Philip and they did not get quick promotion after Alexander’s accession50. But if I would now say that there is no evidence of an actual conspiracy, there were certainly men (and perhaps one woman) who knew what Pausanias was planning to do and either encouraged him or at least kept silent, not committed to either the success or the failure of his plan. Prominent among the latter was Antipater, who was prepared to present Alexander to the army as their new king, and whose son-in-law Alexander, son of Aëropus, was well prepared to do homage to Alexander without delay51. But for Pausanias’ success, and the silence of those who knew about his plan or, like Alexander, actually encouraged it, Philip would have taken over the command of the Macedonian forces in Asia, Alexander would not have become king for years (if ever), and all later history 505

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would have been vastly different. There are few occasions when one man’s deed has had such profound and far-reaching effects52.

Appendix Philotas and Alexander When Philip went to Alexander’s quarters to accuse him and inveigh against him, he took Philotas with him. Philotas is described by Plutarch as one of Alexander’s friends (Alex. 10.3). The great disparity in age, which should not be doubted, cannot be used as an argument against this, in view of Erigyius’ attested friendship and loyalty to the young prince. On Erigyius’ age see Curt. 7.4.34 (his canities). Even if that incident is ‘ausgeschmückt’ (thus Berve 2.152), the fact that Erigyius was at that time at least in what we would call middle age will hardly have been invented by Curtius. It was plausibly suggested by French and Dixon53 that it was Philotas who had informed Philip of Alexander’s offer to Pixodarus: this would explain his taking Philotas with him to the meeting. They helped to convince me that Philotas may indeed have been a friend of Alexander’s, at least before the wedding-banquet and Alexander’s flight. If he moved in the circle of Alexander’s friends who informed him of Pixodarus’ offer to Philip (Plut. Alex. 10.1), he would be informed of Alexander’s message to the satrap. As a son of Parmenio, whose daughter had married Attalus, he would find his loyalties split; and, watching the way events were moving – Attalus’ promotion and Alexander’s increasing isolation – he decided to opt for what it was easy to regard as the winning side and inform Philip (who was obviously unaware of it) of Alexander’s offer. This does seem the only plausible reason why Philip would take Philotas with him. Alexander must have harboured suspicion and concealed hatred for Philotas ever after, until the conspiracy of Dimnus gave him the opportunity of striking Philotas down.

Notes 1 E. Badian, Phoenix 17 (1963) 244–250 [no. 7 in this collection]. I would now add that, when I read this paper, I was also ill. 2 Let me here clearly state that I did not and do not believe that Alexander organised a conspiracy that led to Philip’s death; indeed I now do not believe that there was such a conspiracy. I have changed many of my views over forty years, but I shall not positively refer to such changes: what matters to the reader is my present view, as here set out. 3 The only serious argument in recent years for a complex political motivation was advanced in an early work by A. B. Bosworth, ClQ 21 (1971) 93–105, who posited an Upper Macedonian conspiracy. The article is thoughtful and still interesting, but its main thesis seems to have been withdrawn by its author, to judge by his Conquest and Empire, Cambridge 1988, 22 f. 4 E. Carney’s statement (Historia 41 [1992] 171) that many have taken the story of the snake ‘as historical truth’ hardly needs refutation. None of the scholars she cited had lost his wits to the extent of actually doing so.

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5 This has not prevented others from repeating Kraft’s unsatisfactory argument, disproved by a careful reading of Plutarch himself. See, e.g., Carney, op.cit. (n. 4) 178, returning to a view she advanced in AncSoc 18 (1987) 44. W. Heckel in: G. S. Shrimpton – D. J. McCargar (ed.), Classical Contributions, Locust Valley 1981, 55 rejects Justin’s testimony (see text) as ‘marred by internal contradictions’. His n. 34 specifies: Olympias incited Pausanias to kill Philip and prepared horses for his escape, yet she was not in Macedon when Philip was killed.

6 7 8

9 10 11

12

13 14 15 16 17 18

He does not explain in what way these statements are contradictory, for no one would deny that she kept in touch with the court by means of messengers. He also argues that, when Plutarch (in the Life) states that both Alexander and Olympias went into exile, then, within a few lines of this, reports that Alexander was recalled, but says not a word about Olympias – we yet may not deduce from this that she was not recalled. This can be left to the unbiased reader to judge. Having decided to discard Justin, he enters into the realm of historical fiction: perhaps she was not only in Macedonia, but ‘entrusted with her daughter’s wedding arrangements’ [!] (p. 57), but apparently not important enough to rate a mention. Cf. n. 44 below. For my argument see Gnomon 47 (1975) 53 [no. 14 in this collection]. See N. G. L. Hammond, GrRomByzSt 33 (1992) 370: 359/8. See V. I. Leonardos, A Ephem 1891, 108, no. 51. He does not mention any apparent difference in the number of letters: if Mακεδνα had replaced βασιλα its letters would have been noticeably crowded. On the other hand, several corrections are noted in no. 51 and in the closely parallel no. 50. Amyntas’ date of birth is not recorded, but there is no reason to assume that he was a mere infant when his father died. Dittenberger (ad IG VII cit.) calls him adulescentulus but does not draw the obvious conclusion. Leonardos, op.cit. (n. 8) no. 50. (For their association see H. Berve, Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage, 1926, 2 no. 58.) In these inscriptions both are praised as ε+εργται, so they must have been fully adult and in possession of considerable wealth. I do not want to enter into the long and verbose controversy over the truth of Justin’s statement (7.5.9–10) that Philip ruled at first as Amyntas’ guardian. My point here is merely a private guardianship of his nephew, which must in any case be assumed and which Philip (we must note) is here shown to have exercised in an honourable and conscientious way. E. Grzybek in: Ancient Macedonia IV. Fourth International Symposium held in Thessaloniki, September 21–25, 1983, Thessaloniki 1986, 228. I overlooked this in what I wrote in: A. B. Bosworth – E. J. Baynham (ed.), Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction, Oxford 2000, 56 [no. 24 in this collection]. GG III.1.606. Did. In Dem. 12.64 ff. Pearson–Stephens p. 46. RE s.v. That Pleurias is a ‘Kurzform’ for Pleuratus (thus Lenschau, RE 21.239) is pure fiction: a suggestion without support in any source, from parallels or from philology. Athenaeum 53 (1975) 111–135 at 121: an admirably erudite, but essentially erroneous article. He takes just. 9.6.5 ff. as referring to two separate occasions when Pausanias was humiliated. See my detailed discussion n. 21 below. In his continuous historical narrative Diodorus (16.89.3) states that after his constitution of the Hellenic League Philip returned to Macedonia. He has nothing further to report until, in the next year, he resumes his account of Philip’s actions with a reference to his election as hegemon of the League (16.91.2). Heckel, op.cit. (n. 5) 54, puts the campaign referred to by Alexander after Chaeronea. He nonetheless wants to fit in another war, against ‘Pleurias’, in late winter 337/6. No comment is needed.

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19 See last note. We cannot tell what historian Diodorus followed after the end of Ephorus’ history, but an author who provided much detail about the founding of the Hellenic League and Philip’s appointment as στρατηγς α+τοκρτωρ, then resumes his account of Philip with a reference to that appointment, cannot have told of a major Illyrian campaign in between without Diodorus’ noticing. 20 Diod. 16.93.3–9. Diodorus’ own contribution may be illustrated by his describing the men who raped Pausanias as Qρεωκμοι, no doubt specially summoned for the occasion. Justin (9.6.6) plausibly calls them the conuiuae at the banquet. 21 Fears, op. cit. (n. 16), interprets Justin to refer to an earlier ‘unspecified’ insult in Pausanias’ primi pubertatis anni when he had suffered stuprum per iniuriam from Attalus, to which, at an indefinite but later date, Attalus added further insult by ‘that famous outrage (haec foeditas)’. Fears fails to notice the nature of Attalus’ ‘earlier’ insult, which he calls ‘unspecified’. (As the quotation shows, Justin very clearly specifies it.) Fears next misunderstands Latin haec foeditas, which cannot mean ‘that famous . . .’: he has confused hic with ille: haec foeditas means, in a common use of hic, ‘the following act of vileness’. (See, conveniently, OLD s. vv. hic 6, ille 4b.) After himself raping Pausanias, Attalus next took him to a banquet and, when the boy passed out after drinking too much wine, had him raped by the guests as well. Attalus was throughout taking advantage of the boy’s youth and guilelessness. Fears also misunderstands Diodorus, who writes that Attalus acted διαβοηθεσης τ/ς πρξεως (the other Pausanias’ selfsacrifice) as meaning ‘some time after the suicide had become a celebrated event’ and not immediately after the event (121 f.). Not only is there no mention of a ‘celebrated event’, but it cannot have taken long for Pausanias’ action to be widely discussed among the Macedonian officers. Even if we assume that Attalus only gave his banquet after his return from the campaign, it was still not long after, for the victim was still primis pubertatis annis. 22 Unlike Diodorus, who describes Philip as sympathizing with Pausanias, but unable to punish Attalus for personal and political reasons, Justin claimed that Philip found the whole story amusing and laughed at Pausanias (9.6.8: non sine risu). These are presumably interpretations by the respective authors. 23 Plutarch introduces the story of the Medea verse with λγεται, dissociating himself from what he reports. He contrasts it (ο+ μ%ν λλ) with a fact that he thinks disproves it. This is one of the clearest examples of Plutarch’s use of λγεται for this purpose. (See now my essay in: Laurea Internationalis, Th. Hantos [ed.], Stuttgart 2003, 26 ff.) [no. 26 in this collection]. 24 So Plutarch clearly tells us (Alex. 10.1). Heckel, op.cit. (n. 5) 55, uses his imagination: ‘[I]t is doubtful that Pixodaros himself chose the mentally deficient Arrhidaios’. (N. 31 adds: ‘I am inclined to believe . . . that Pixodaros simply sought an alliance . . ., in response to which Philip offered him [gladly, we may assume] Arrhidaios.’) He next deduces from Alexander’s (in Plutarch) offering himself in place of τν νθον . . . κα( ο+ φρεν%ρη Arrhidaeus that ‘Pixodaros may not even have known the truth about his would-be son-in-law’. He must have forgotten his earlier doubt about the satrap’s choosing the mentally deficient Arrhidaeus. 25 Plut. Alex. 10.2: 'γνοντο λγοι κα( διαβολα( παρ: τ$ν φλων κα( τ/ς μητρς πρς ’Aλξανδρον. The ‘friends’ were no doubt the men later sent into exile: they had planted the germ of the idea of interposing himself in Alexander. 26 V. French – P. Dixon, ‘The Pixodarus affair. Another view’, AncW 13 (1986) 73–86 at 79 f. This article is the most important recent study of the affair. 27 But as I have suggested (n. 25), the idea had been developed out of the messages his friends had sent him. 28 The two actors are associated in Athen. 12.538 f. On Aristocrtitus see Berve no. 125. (But he erroneously makes him Philip’s envoy to Pixodarus.)

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29 Diod. 16.52.3 f., clearly under the wrong year (349/8), since it follows Mentor’s help in regaining Egypt for the King (343) and his consequent appointment to command in Asia Minor: probably, therefore, 341 or 340. (By then they must have known about Philip’s plans, although the plans could not become public until after Chaeronea.) This blatant error (one of many) is ignored by those who accept Diodorus’ chronology for the Pausanias affair without compunction. That they brought the message to Mentor is made all but certain by the arrest of Hermias (See RE s.v. Hermias 1). 30 See the brief summary by E. Badian in: E. B. (ed.), Ancient Society and Institutions, Oxford 1966, 40. 31 This indeed happened when the Macedonian forces reached Caria. (On Ada, see now Neue Pauly 1.100.) 32 Thus Diodorus puts the first invasion of Asia under the archon Pythodorus (i.e. Pythodelus: 336/5), not earlier than mid-336. He has not been followed in this. He puts the organization of the Hellenic League under the archon Phrynichus (337/6), i.e. after the middle of 337 – unlikely although Diod. 16.39 is here supported by Chron. Oxyrh. (FgrHist 255). But that is a broken reed: it puts the battle of Issus in (Olympic) 334/3 and the battle of ‘Arbela’ in 330/29. (On another unacceptable [and unaccepted] date in Diodorus see n. 29 above.) 33 For ill-founded doubts about its historicity see (e.g.) E. A. Fredricksmeyer, CIJ 85 (1989–90) 303 f. (it ‘must be considered suspect’ – for no good reason); M. B. Hatzopoulos in: B. Barr-Sharrar – E. N. Borza (ed.), Macedonia and Greece in Late Classical and Early Hellenistic Times, Washington 1982, 59–68, is uncertain whether to disbelieve it, but tries to prove its irrelevance to the politics of Philip’s relations with Alexander on chronological grounds. On this, see French – Dixon, op.cit. (n. 26) 74 f., setting up an alternative chronology that is no less credible, and compare the one indicated above. Hatzopoulos operates chiefly by stretching the time needed for the negotiations: on this tactic, see text. He also fails to see, or at least to use, the few indications of chronology that we actually have. 34 These are only (1) Pixodarus’ offer to Philip; (2) Philip’s reply, apparently positive – not explicitly stated, but implied in the messages sent to Alexander by his friends; (3) Alexander’s message to Pixodarus, offering an alternative. It is difficult to see reasons for long discussions or negotiations either in Macedonia or at Halicarnassus. The change of suzerainty from Persian to Macedonian, with recognition of the satrap’s status, must have been offered in his initial message; and it would be gladly accepted by Philip. Philip would obviously consult with some of his hetairoi (those who were not in Asia), and there were a few technical questions to be settled: where the wedding would take place (presumably Philip would suggest Aegae) and where the couple would live. Even if Pixodarus had time to reply to these and perhaps similar questions before Alexander’s message reached him, he presumably had his answers ready and could send them off at once. Whether he replied to Alexander’s message, we cannot tell: that would depend on when Philip’s veto was reported to him. It is in any case clear that the whole business cannot have taken more than a few weeks. French – Dixon, op.cit. (n. 26) 76–77 suggest ‘a minimum of seven to eight weeks’. This seems to me the maximum that should be allowed. They do not indicate how that time would be filled. I am puzzled at Bosworth’s statement that ‘(there) is hardly time in 336 for the negotiations’ or why he thinks Plut. Alex. 10.1 presupposes Olympias’ presence at the court (op.cit. [n. 3] [1988] 22 n. 55). Like others who want to allocate a long time to the negotiations, he gives no indication of why he thinks a long time would be necessary or how it would be filled. 35 Arrhidaeus must be the one whom Justin calls fratrem ex nouerca susceptum, whom Alexander is said to have feared as a rival (9.7.3, apparently dated to before the

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36

37

38

39 40 41 42 43 44

45 46

47

commotion at the wedding-feast). The fear would be intensified by the news he received about the offer from Pixodarus (Plut. Alex. 10.1 f.). See Justin’s account of the quarrel at the banquet: . . . adeo ut etiam stricto gladio eum Philippus consectatus sit aegreque a filii caede amicorum precibus exoratus (9.7.4). Philip’s attacking Alexander with his sword is also told by Plutarch, though with added details stressing Philip’s being drunk (Alex. 9.9 f.). Alexander’s departure for Illyria is depicted by Justin as flight from his father’s threat. (Note, after the passage just quoted, the continuation: quamobrem [Alexander took his mother to Epirus and himself went to Illyria].) Plutarch does not give a causal connection, only a temporal one. Thus Heckel, op.cit. (n. 5), continues in the genre of historical fiction: by next morning Philip probably regretted his action at the banquet (53)! Fredricksmeyer, who questions the historicity of the Pixodarus affair, goes further (op.cit. [n. 33] 302): he is inclined to disbelieve the story of Philip’s attack on Alexander at the banquet (calling Plutarch and Justin ‘not very credible’) and he thinks that Philip ‘retaliated [for Alexander’s escape] by sending several of Alexander’s friends into exile’. His n. 11 states that Plutarch ‘less plausibly (!) dates the banishment after the Pixodarus affair’ – which, of course, Fredricksmeyer also wants to disbelieve. A coherent mass of source evidence can be cast aside, for the sake of an idealised picture of Alexander. This was decisively enunciated by W. Will, in his contribution to Zu Alexander d. Gr. (sic), Amsterdam 1987, 1.221 n. 10. G. T. Griffith (N. G. L. Hammond – G. T. Griffith, A History of Macedonia II, Oxford 1979, 677) makes the strange error of asserting that after Philip’s marriage to Cleopatra all remained well at the court ‘until the occasion of the party’ – which, of course, Plutarch explicitly describes as the wedding banquet (Alex. 9.6: 'ν το)ς Κλεοπτρας γμοις). The error is repeated by E. Carney, Historia 41 (1992) 174, who describes Olympias and Alexander as not much worried by Philip’s new marriage until the ‘post-wedding’ party. That the appointment of Attalus to share command in Asia meant that he was being ‘kicked upstairs’ and that it should have reassured Alexander is probably G. T. Griffith’s oddest idea (op.cit. 680). See n. 12 above with text. Polyaenus 8.60 merely states that his wife Cynna ‘soon lost him’ (i.e., when he was killed soon after Alexander’s accession). See Griffith, op.cit. (n. 38) 612 n. 3. As shown by M. B. Hatzopoulos in: W. L. Adams – E. N. Borza (ed.), Philip II, Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Heritage, Washington 1982, 42. See Justin 9.7.7. Some scholars have, paradoxically but unconvincingly, tried to argue that the marriage was a gesture of reconciliation towards Olympias (and even Alexander). See, e.g., E. Carney, Historia 41 (1992) 179, repeating an opinion expressed in an earlier article (AncSoc 18 [1987] 35–62). She thinks it ‘unimaginable’ that Olympias should not have been present at her daughter’s wedding – demonstrating, one might say, a certain deficiency of imagination. Also Fredricksmeyer, op.cit. (n. 33) 302. This follows Just. 9.6.3. Diodorus 16.94.3 has Philip entering by himself. It makes no difference. He applies it to Semiramis, Xerxes, Darius II and Dionysius at Syracuse – explicitly contrasting the virtuous Agathocles (19.8.7), who did not need any; also to Alexander, when he assumed Persian dress and the Persian diadem: at that time he made the most eminent Persians (Oxathres, Darius III’s brother, is singled out) his δορυφροι. The usage, in Greek historians, goes back to Herodotus. Antipater, for instance, was strongly opposed to the idea of deification (Suid. ’Aντπατρ ος 2703): he considered even the deification of Alexander after his death σεβς and would not permit it. His objection, therefore, was genuinely religious and not political. Philip’s turning himself into the σνθρονος of the Olympic gods was not

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48 49 50

51

52

53

all that easy to distinguish from actual deification, for one who held such strong feelings. That Antipater must have known about the planned assassination will appear below. N. G. L. Hammond, GrRomByzSt 19 (1978) 346. By C. B. Welles, in his Loeb edition of Diodorus 16.66 and 17, p. 101. Hammond, op.cit. (n. 48) 347, implausibly identifies the Attalus among the three with the guardian of Cleopatra, who (he thinks) had returned from Asia for the wedding! On the three men, see Berve, s.vv. Attalus 181, Leonnatus 466, Perdiccas 627. Attalus son of Andromenes was, at least at a later time, a brother-in-law of Perdiccas, so presumably at least a friend of his even in 336 (see Diod. 18.37.2). The only source attesting Antipater’s presenting Alexander as the new king is poor (Ps.-Call. 1.26), but there is also circumstantial evidence for Antipater’s being prepared for the occasion. See my fuller discussion in Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction (op.cit. [n. 12] ab.) 54 f. [no. 24 in this collection]. I wish to thank the Loeb Fund of the Department of the Classics at Harvard, and in particular the Chairman of the Department, Professor Richard F. Thomas, for a generous grant enabling me to visit some sites in Greece and then to attend the Macedonian Colloquium at which the original version of this paper was presented; also Professor I. Mourelos and the Institute for Balkan Studies for their generosity in Thessaloniki and above all for their courtesy and consideration when the writing and submission of this paper was delayed. French – Dixon, op.cit. (n. 26) 81.

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INDEX

Abicht, K. 233, 242 n51 Abisares 85 n7 Abulites 24, 59, 63 Abydus 126, 127, 129, 146 n32, 465 Acesines, the 195–6, 208 n30 Achaean League 162 Achaemenid Empire 20, 35 n79 Achilles 129, 226, 232, 286, 418 n19, 488 Acrisius 303 n23 Acuphis 323 n13 Ada 465, 502 Aeacus 302 n18 Aegae 175, 176, 177, 213, 274 n9, 286, 300 n14, 302 n17, 365, 367, 368, 500, 504–6, 509 n34, 510 n45 Aelian 302 n18, 333, 337 n8, 365, 494 n17 Aeneas 286, 287, 302 n20, 303 n23 Aeolis/Aeolians 131, 136, 137, 303 n23 Aëropus of Lyncestis 112 n26 Aeschines: and Antipater 339; and Demosthenes 162–3, 172 n47, 339; and Leosthenes 94 n170; battle of Megalopolis 347, 348; Pan-Hellenic congress 304 n28; Spartan hostages 349–50 Aeschylus 368–70, 441 Aetolian League 71, 77, 78, 80, 81, 94 n159, 162 Agamemnon 129 Agathocles 510 n46 Agathon 59, 64, 65, 441 Agesilaus 157, 159, 466 Agis III 414; accession of 153–4; and Antipater 153, 158, 160, 161, 162, 163, 166, 168, 358, 360, 474 n24; army 159– 60, 162, 338–44; and Arrian 169, 326 n25, 345–6, 362 n25; and Athens 339; and Borza 344, 347, 352, 353, 354, 358,

362 n36, 363 n49, 364 n60; and Bosworth 362 n22; and Chaeronea 154; Cretan campaign 158, 159–60, 164; and Curtius 168, 171 n30, 172 n62, 173 n80, 346; and Darius III 155, 157, 166, 168, 354, 364 n60; death of 153, 170 n4, 170 n5, 349–50, 359, 374; and Diodorus 153, 159, 162, 168–9, 170 n4, 172 n54, 173 n87, 347; fall of 37, 142, 168, 173 n87; in Greece 345; and Megalopolis 163, 168, 346–50; and Parmenio 157, 170 n17; rebellion xix; as regent 153, 154; and Tarn 154, 162, 338; war against Macedon 67, 155–63, 166–8, 171 n33, 259, 277 n24, 344–50, 358 Agrianes, the 194, 208 n26 Ahwaz 204 Alcibiades 114, 271 Alcidamas 114 Alcimachus 89 n87, 131, 134, 135, 136, 137, 141, 149 n65, 423 Alcyone 270 Alexander I: as barbarian 282–3; and Beloch 300 n9; and Demosthenes 299 n7; in the field 366; and Hammond 299 n7, 299 n8, 299 n9, 302 n19; Hellenism of 283–7, 298 n6, 299 n7, 299 n8, 300 n10, 301 n15; and Herodotus 299 n7, 299 n8, 299 n9, 300 n10, 301 n15; and Olympic Games 284, 288, 301 n15, 302 n16, 365; and Perdiccas 283, 299 n7; ‘Philhellen’ 286, 302 n19 Alexander Mosaic: and Andreae 404, 406, 409, 410, 411, 412, 416 n3, 416 n10, 416 n11, 416 n12, 416 n16, 417 n18; artist 411–14; composition 408–11; and Curtius, Ludwig 406, 409–10, 412, 416 n3, 416 n6; depiction of Alexander 406,

512

INDEX

407, 409–10, 411, 412–14; depiction of Darius III 406, 409, 410–11, 470, 475 n34, 476 n36; and Droysen 406; and Fehr 406, 416 n3, 416 n6, 418 n19; and Fuhrmann 406, 407, 408, 409, 414, 416 n5; Gaugamela 409, 417 n16, 453 n63; and Green 404; and Hatzopoulos 454 n66; and Lippold 406; and Nylander 404, 409, 413, 416 n5, 475 n33; royal banner 408–9; tree motif 406, 407–8, 410–11, 412, 414–16, 475 n34 Alexander of Epirus 107, 349 Alexander of Lyncestis 41, 212, 445 n4, 505; and Arrian 423; conspiracy of 423, 424–5, 426–7, 429, 430, 431, 445 n3, 446 n12, 446 n13, 447 n16, 448 n23; deification of 368, 382 n20; execution of 430, 432; and Philip II 109, 110; and Plutarch 368; as prisoner 37, 446 n12 Alexander the Great: absolutism 100–5; accession of 36, 97–9, 109, 126, 128, 423, 439, 505, 511 n51; Antipater against 104, 187, 425, 430; Antipater supports 97, 98, 107, 109, 111 n25, 176, 177, 412–13; appearance of 51; Aristotle as teacher 31, 35 n60, 290–1, 305 n41, 305 n42, 305 n43, 419 n26, 484; Aristotle’s letters to 13–14, 19 n71; armour 371, 487; army 45 n14, 120–3, 231–6, 240 n40, 241 n45, 241 n46, 242 n48, 242 n49, 242 n51, 242 n53, 242 n55, 242 n56, 243 n57, 243 n58, 338–44, 361 n13; birth of 304 n34; and Brotherhood of Man xv, 1–3; burial place 175–7, 257, 335–6, 337 n12; chronology of return from India 65, 87 n46; coinage 270; communications 355–60, 363 n51; death of 105, 205, 325–36, 541 n48; decline of reign 104–5; defying the weather 57 n2; deification of 16 n25, 16 n26, 49–50, 57 n4, 71, 74, 75, 77, 89 n93, 92 n133, 104, 245, 251, 254–60, 262–5, 266–8, 272, 274 n5, 275 n11, 276 n20, 276 n23, 278 n41, 278 n43, 278 n44, 278 n46, 278 n68, 279 n56, 280 n57, 280 n58, 280 n261, 281 n64, 281 n68, 367–8, 370, 371–2, 373, 375, 378, 379–80, 381 n18, 385 n62, 385 n63, 385 n64, 510 n47; divine sonship 49–50, 104, 137, 176, 211, 212, 213–14, 215, 217, 256–7, 261, 267–70, 276 n20, 276 n23, 278 n43, 280 n61,

513

285 n63, 371–5, 374 n48, 375; as Dreamer 1, 5–6, 11; drinking 52–3, 165, 167, 170 n6, 330–1, 332, 334, 432, 483, 492, 493 n8; education 290–1, 305 n41, 305 n42, 305 n43, 390; exiled 106, 496–7, 503, 507 n5; fate of body 175–7, 178, 189 n19, 190 n35, 335–6, 337 n12; in the field 366; finances 137–42, 151 n97; Granicus policy 66–7, 71, 89 n90; Greek mercenaries 66–73, 292–3, 307 n53, 307 n54, 307 n55, 307 n56, 307 n57; Hellenism of xiv–xviii, 52, 282–310, 307 n59, 309 n70; and Herodotus 390; illnesses 426, 427, 447 n20, 451 n48; knightly ethic 242 n49; legal theories 125; letters 268, 281 n64, 281 n65, 333, 334, 422, 454 n66, 464, 466, 470, 472 n10, 475 n30, 482–3, 493 n7, 499; march: Gaugamela to Ecbatana 350–2, 362 n39; medicine 447 n20; negotiations with Darius 437, 453 n62; Orientalism 101, 186; as Pharaoh 256, 276 n22, 371, 406, 416 n9; and Philip II and Pixodarus 501–3, 508 n25, 508 n26; and Philip II 176, 182, 186, 191 n42, 211–12, 217–19, 485, 489, 491–2, 501, 503–4, 506 n2, 508 n23, 509 n33, 510 n36, 510 n37; as philosopher king xv; poisoned 82, 88 n53, 93 n151, 105, 327, 332, 333, 334, 336 n5, 426, 434–5, 451 n48; ‘policy of fusion’ 293, 307 n59, 307 n61, 308 n61; political terrorism 36–7, 41–3, 46 n29, 58–9, 60–6, 67, 72, 76, 434, 440, 450 n44; prayer 216; puppet oligarchies 70, 72, 89 n87, 90 n98; as ‘rational’ 211, 222–3, 375; as regent 291, 306 n44, 383 n38, 499, 502, 503–4; restoration of the exiles 70–3, 74, 91 n122; ring of 175, 176, 178, 188, 189 n12, 325, 326, 327–8, 337 n13; rituals and sacrifices 220, 481–2, 485–6, 488, 494 n13; rumours of death 63, 68, 84, 86 n27, 89 n76, 441, 481; sexual control 493 n6; successor to the Achaemenids 22, 37, 137, 147 n41, 159, 164–6, 354, 366, 372–4, 380, 440, 445, 510 n46; synoecisms of cities 182, 183; term of address 366, 380 n10; treasure of 151 n97, 357, 358; transport of human beings 182, 183; warships 179–80, 181, 182, 183; wounded 433, 441, 450 n38, 480, 482, 483, 487; youth of 484–5; see also Alexander Mosaic

INDEX

Alexander Vulgate 208 n25, 208 n27, 245, 384 n48, 489, 492; and Alexander’s ring 327; and Arrian 370, 426–7, 433, 449 n31, 452 n58, 453 n60, 457, 485; and Bessus 438; conspiracy of Alexander of Lyncestis 427, 446 n12; conspiracy of Philip the Acarnanian 426, 447 n19, 448 n20; and Curtius 446 n13; and Darius III 454 n71, 468, 469, 476 n36; and Dimnus’ plot 428, 448 n27; and Gaugamela 409; Homeric themes 370–1; and Nysa 323 n13; and Parmenio 433, 453 n62; plot against Philotas 491; and Plutarch 383 n42, 428, 447 n20, 448 n27, 491, 492; rituals and sacrifices 485, 486, 494 n13; and Sisines 446 n13 Alexandria 335, 337 n12, 371, 483 Alexandropolis 306 n45, 383 n38 Alexarchus 271 Amazon, the 53, 57 n7 Ammon 380, 385 n61, 385 n65; Alexander’s burial 175–7, 257; Alexander’s visit to 2, 37, 49, 53, 137, 164, 215–16, 217, 255–7, 267, 269, 276 n20, 367, 481, 494 n13; and honours for Hephaestion 92 n137, 378, 385 n61; see also Zeus-Ammon Ammonius 266 Amphicrates 113 Amphipolis 251–3, 291, 306 n52, 368, 382 n21 Amphoterus 136, 161, 164, 166, 169, 345–6 Amun-Re 367 Amyntas I 283 Amyntas III 304 n28, 251–3, 366, 422 Amyntas IV (son of Perdiccas) 106, 112 n26, 380 n8; and Curtius 110; date of birth 498, 507 n9; marriage to Cynane 110, 111 n5, 128, 498–9; and Philip II 111 n25a, 303 n26, 423, 424, 446 n8, 498–9, 503, 510 n41; and Plutarch 112 n26 Amyntas son of Andromenes 42, 46 n30, 67, 70, 85 n8, 88 n68, 166, 347 Amyntas son of Antiochus 128–9, 498, 507 n10 Anaxarchus 414; debate with Callisthenes 244–7, 267, 274 n4, 274 n6; and proskynesis 260 Anaximenes 145 n32, 238 n16 Anderson, J.K. 419 n28 Andreae, Bernard 404, 406, 409, 410, 411, 412, 416 n3, 416 n10, 416 n11, 416 n12, 416 n16, 417 n18

Andreotti, R.: death of Parmenio 44 n3; unity of mankind 15 n6, 15 n11, 15 n14, 16 n19, 16 n23, 16 n34, 17 n38a, 17 n40, 17 n46, 17 n49, 18 n57, 18 n59, 19 n80, 19 n81 Andromenes 38, 190 n34 Andronikos, Manolis 284, 300 n11, 414–15, 418 n26 Androtion 335 Anspach, A.E. 318, 322 n7 Antigone 37, 489–90, 491, 494 n20 Antigonus 61, 66, 88 n55, 171 n30, 172 n47, 177, 188–9, 194, 445 n4 Antigonus Doson 288, 304 n26 Antimenes 66 Antiochus 194, 195 Antipater 310 n78, 333, 411; and Aeschines 339; and Agis III 153, 158, 160, 161, 162, 163, 166, 168, 358, 360, 474 n24; against Alexander 104, 187, 425, 430; and Alexander’s accession 423, 505, 511 n51; Alexander’s army 343–4; army 339–40, 341, 342, 345, 349; and Athens 151 n101, 423; attitude to deification 16 n25, 49–50, 108, 510 n47; and Bosworth 333; and Curtius 173 n80; and Diodorus 173 n80, 339, 340; Greeks of Asia 134, 136–7, 142, 143, 146 n36; and Harpalus 59, 66, 70, 71, 73, 75, 81–2, 85 n6, 86 n16, 151 n101; and the League of Corinth 134, 136–7; and Memnon 163, 474 n24; and Olympias 76–7, 425; and Pearson 49–50; and Plutarch 94 n159, 482; removal of 76–80, 88 n53, 94 n170, 100; silver talents 166, 169, 173 n80, 173 n83, 344, 347, 359; Spartan hostages 350; support for Alexander 97, 98, 107, 109, 111 n25, 176, 177, 412–13; and Tarn 149 n62 Antissa 135, 148 n53 Aornus 314, 315, 316, 320, 322 n1, 323 n14 Apadavia 389 Apame 413 Apelles 280 n59, 378, 411–12, 414, 417 n18, 418 n24 Aphrodite 271, 384 n55 Aphrodite Stratonikis 253 Apis 371 Apollo 52, 245, 246, 288, 369 Apollo Pasparios 253, 276 n18 Apollodorus of Damascus 33 n30

514

INDEX

Apollophanes 24, 59, 60, 63, 85 n6, 442 Apulian amphora, Ruvo 407, 408 Arabia 181, 183, 398, 403 n39 Arachosia 388, 389, 390, 400, 402 n19 Arbela 168–9, 172 n62, 350, 467, 509 n32 Arcadia 162 Archelaus 285, 287, 289, 300 n14, 302 n16, 302 n18, 303 n24, 365 Archias 209 n39 Archidamus 153–5, 158, 170 n4 Archon 88 n56 Areia 491 Areopagus, the 74–5, 83, 84, 93 n146, 385 n62 Arete 246 Areus 159 Argead clan 284, 285, 288, 298, 300 n10, 300 n11, 302 n19, 365 Argeos son of Makedon 300 n10 Argive tripod 284, 300 n11 Ariane 403 n42 Ariobarzanes 463, 473 n20, 488 Ariphron of Sicyon 382 n25 Aristides 251, 252 Aristion 172 n47 Aristobulus: Alexander’s deification 268; Alexander’s warships 181, 182; and Arrian 27, 33 n18, 34 n45, 44 n8, 52, 53, 181,195, 201–2, 278 n34, 371, 380 n4, 462, 483, 484, 490; Bacchic revels 28, 323 n13; and Bagoas 27, 31, 32, 34 n54; and Brunt 493 n9; and Callisthenes 278 n34, 384 n50, 450 n38; and Clitarchus 113; and Cyrus’ tomb 34 n45, 373, 376; and Darius III 453 n60, 477 n42; and the Ephemerides 328–9, 330–1, 332; and Gaugamela 483; and Granicus 238 n16; Hephaestion’s monument 191 n44; as historian 25, 34 n37; Hydaspes fleet 195; and Leonnatus 453 n60; and Nearchus 202, 203; and Onesicritus 199; and Pasargadae 384 n45; and Pearson 52–3; and Peucelaotis 315–16, 317–18, 323 n16; and Philip the Acarnanian 426, 427; and Philotas 44 n8, 57 n5, 490, 495 n21; and Plutarch 330–1, 332, 482, 483, 493 n8, 493 n9; Porus’ son, battle with 54; and proskynesis 260; sack of Thebes 146 n33; and the Syrian prophetess 431–2 Aristocritus 502 Aristogiton 93 n141

Aristonicus 93 n141 Aristonous 33 n35, 249 Aristoteles 148 n60 Aristotle 28, 29, 49, 98, 219, 246, 450 n38, 482, 493 n7; and the Academy 305 n38; and Alexander’s deification 367–8, 373, 381 n18; Alexander’s teacher 31, 35 n60, 290–1, 305 n41, 305 n42, 305 n43, 419 n26, 484; and Archelaus 302 n18; and the barbarians 12–14; and Bosworth 381 n18; death of Philip 108–9, 111 n20, 219; letters to Alexander 13–14, 19 n71; at Pella 305 n39; Politics 12–14, 18 n63, 274 n9; and Strabo 12 Aristotle the Cyrenaic 114, 115 Arrhabaeus son of Aëropus (Lyncestis) 422–3, 424, 445 n3, 449 n29 Arrhidaeus 36, 175–7, 190 n31, 190 n33, 481, 502, 503, 508 n24, 509 n35 Arrian 88 n54, 171 n30, 177, 190 n35, 349, 480, 493 n9; and Achilles 488; and Agis III 169, 326 n25, 345–6, 362 n25; and Alcimachus 141; and Alexander of Lyncestis 423; Alexander poisoned 327; and Alexander Vulgate 370, 426–7, 433, 449 n31, 452 n58, 453 n60, 457, 485; Alexander’s accession 128; Alexander’s army 340, 361 n13; Alexander’s burial place 335–6, 337 n12; Alexander’s deification 49, 50, 262–4, 375; Alexander’s hypomnemata 187, 188; Alexander’s letters 475 n30; Alexander’s ‘policy of fusion’ 307 n59; Alexander’s political terrorism 59, 65; Alexander’s ring 189 n12, 327–8; Alexander’s sacrifice to Priam 488; Alexander’s treasure 357, 358; Alexander’s visit to Ammon 255–6; Alexander’s youth 485; and the Amazon 57 n7; and Amyntas son of Antiochus 128; Anabasis 180–1, 183–4, 197, 198, 201–2, 204, 233, 263, 309 n72; and Aornus 315; and Apollophanes 24; and Aristobulus 27, 33 n18, 34 n45, 44 n8, 52, 53, 181,195, 201–2, 278 n34, 371, 380 n4, 462, 483, 484, 490; and Astaspes 441; Bacchic procession 28; Bacchic revels at Nysa 323 n13; and Bagoas 21, 22, 23, 33 n17; banquet at Opis 3–6, 15 n15, 15 n18, 15 n19; and Barsaentes 22, 33 n17; and Berve 346, 362 n25; and Bosworth 238

515

INDEX

n13, 426, 432, 447 n19, 472 n4; and Brunt 309 n72, 323 n10, 493 n9, 494 n13; and Callisthenes 432, 449 n36; Carmenian games 27; and Coenus 34 n41; and Curtius 57 n8; and Cyrus’ tomb 376; and Darius III 111 n21, 452 n54, 453 n60, 455 n71, 457, 459, 462, 464, 468, 469, 472 n4, 472 n7, 475 n31, 476 n38, 477 n42; and Dimnus 427, 430, 490–1; and the Ephemerides 328, 329, 330, 331–3, 334, 336, 336 n6, 434; fate of Alexander’s body 176; and Gaugamela 307 n57, 468, 475 n36; Gaugamela to Ecbatana march 351; and Granicus 224–36, 237 n2, 238 n8, 238 n12, 238 n15, 239 n23, 240 n40, 241 n46, 241 n47, 241 n48, 242 n51, 242 n53, 242 n55, 243 n57; on Greeks and Macedonians 309 n72; on Greeks of Asia 149 n67; and Hephaestion 26, 34 n43, 306 n46, 378, 385 n61; Hephaestion’s monument 191 n44; and Heracon 64, 87 n38, 441; and Hermolaus 449 n31; and Hieronymus 178, 181; Homeric themes 370–1; Hydaspes fleet 195; and Hyphasis 432–3; and India 386, 399; and Kraft 216, 219, 221; and Leonnatus 24, 47 n34; Macedonian language 308 n64; Macedonian Olympics 302 n17; Macedonians from Amphipolis 306 n50; and Memnon 133, 147 n42, 147 n46, 452 n57; in modern scholarship 322 n2; and Nabarzanes 436; and Nearchus 86 n29, 194–5, 196, 198, 200, 204, 205, 207 n14, 207 n17, 208 n25, 209 n39, 209 n42, 209 n48, 221, 276 n23, 380 n4; and Onesicritus 199; and Ordanes 443–4; Orientals in Alexander’s army 120, 121–3; and Orxines 23, 25–6; and the pages’ conspiracy 431, 449 n35, 449 n37; and Parmenio 26, 46 n30, 57 n8, 165, 224, 225, 226–7, 228, 238 n20, 239 n29, 349; and Pasargadae 384 n45; Persepolis: burning of 165; Persian forces 452 n58; and Peucelaotis 232 n12, 311, 313–14, 315, 316, 318–19, 320–3, 323 n17; and Philip the Acarnanian 426, 427; and Philotas 44 n8, 46 n21, 57 n8, 448 n24, 490, 494 n20; and Philoxenus 138, 139, 141, 142; and Phrataphernes 442; and Plutarch

447 n20; Porus’ son, battle with 54; and proskynesis 244, 258, 260, 375, 384 n50; and Ptolemy 53, 54, 55, 62, 86 n24, 120–1, 332, 426, 427, 429, 447 n19, 449 n37, 462, 476 n38, 483, 490, 494 n13; sacred shield 487; sacrifices 486; satraps 59, 60; and Sisines 424, 446 n13; and sons of Aëropus conspiracy 424; spear tradition 486–7; and Tarn 173 n79, 472 n7; and temple of Athena Ilias 487, 488; treasure 151 n97; treaty with Alexander 135; and Troy 487; and the Uxii 357; war at sea 170 n16; and Zariaspes 443 Arridaeus 107 Arsames 436, 458, 461 Arsanes 458 Arses 459, 462, 464, 472 n10 Arsites 230, 240 n44 Artabazus 21, 307 n57, 436, 465, 474 n24, 502; at court 160, 171 n37, 374, 435; relatives in Darius III’s army 436–7, 438, 453 n60; surrender of 292, 299 n7 Artacoana 350 Artaˇsat’ 460 Artaˇsa¯tu 461 Artaxerxes Arses 422, 435 Artaxerxes I 422, 461; tomb of 396–8, 396, 397, 397, 403 n34, 403 n35 Artaxerxes II 422, 435, 436, 437, 459–60, 465; concubines 458, 472 n11 Artaxerxes III Ochus 20, 398, 422, 435, 458–9, 461, 462–3, 464, 465, 474 n22 Artaxerxes V see Bessus Artemidorus 279 n56, 378, 385 n60 Artemis 108, 127, 130–1, 147 n40, 251, 280 n59, 366, 378, 385 n60 Asander 38, 39, 42, 45 n11a, 98, 207 n17 Asclepius 305 n39 Asoka Edicts 322 n2 Aspendus 134, 137, 142, 147 n50, 148 n51 Assacenia 194, 313–15, 321 Association of Ancient Historians xviii–xix Assurbanipal 387 Astaspes 59, 62, 87 n49, 441–2, 443, 450 n44; death of 202, 209 n42, 47a, 455 n74 Astis 311, 313, 316–19, 321, 322 n7, 324 n18 Athena 376; temple at Illium 181–3, 183 Athena Ilias, temple of 487, 488 Athena Polias, temple to 132, 147 n40

516

INDEX

Athenaeus 20, 26, 27–8,135, 148 n57, 248, 304 n31, 333 Athenian Confederacy 136, 148 n60 Athenian ephebes 343, 361 n14 Athenodorus 68 Athens 51, 107, 114, 115, 125, 137, 161; and Agis III 339; and Alexander’s deification 262–5, 266, 268, 278 n41, 281 n68, 379–80; and Antipater 151 n101, 423; Harpalus in 64, 65, 69–70, 71, 73–6, 77–8, 80, 81–5, 90 n108; and Hephaestion’s cult 378, 385 n61; Macedonian war 162–3; Philip II: citizen of 445 n6; Philip II: divine cult, 252, 269–70, 271–3 Atizyes 199–200, 424, 436 Atkinson, K.T.M. 272, 278 n41, 278 n43, 349, 350, 449 n28, 452 n57, 454 n70 Atossa 369 Atropates 60, 62, 86 n33, 442 Attalus 190 n34, 190 n35, 508 n21; in Asia 126, 177, 498, 499, 510 n39; assassination of 97–8, 110, 127, 128, 423, 430; and Curtius 445 n5; and Diodorus 500, 508 n21, 508 n22; and Kraft 217, 218; and Parmenio 38, 39, 42, 43, 45 n16, 425, 503, 506; and Pausanias of Orestes 108–9, 500, 501; and Philip II 106, 107, 108, 423, 445 n5, 496, 500, 511 n50 Attalus son of Andromenes 505, 511 n50 Attic decrees 334 Atticus 30, 373, 383 n44 Augustus 275 n18 Autophradates 59, 62, 133, 145 n18, 147 n46, 157, 159, 442, 452 n57 Babylon 65–6, 172 n62, 173 n80, 174, 177, 186, 187, 205, 210 n56, 280 n57, 351, 354, 356, 358, 440, 468 Bacchiads 286 Bactra 347 Bactra-Zariaspa 194 Bactria 400 Badian, Ernst 325, 445 n2; ‘Alexander the Great and the Creation of an Empire’ xvi; ‘Alexander the Great and the Loneliness of Power’ xvii; and Bagoas xv; Foreign Clientelae xiii–xiv; ‘Greeks and Macedonians’ xvi; and Kraft 213; methodology xv–xviii, xx n5; Publicans and Sinners xiv; Roman Imperialism in the late Republic xiv

Bagoas: and Aristobulus 27, 31, 32, 34 n54; and Arrian 21, 22, 23, 33 n17; and Athenaeus 20, 26, 27–8; and Badian xv; and Berve 20, 22, 32, 34 n41; and Bessus 22, 33 n17; and Curtius 20–3, 25–6, 29, 31, 32, 32 n8, 202, 477 n42; and Darius III 20–3, 435, 463, 464; and Diodorus 28, 34 n54, 202, 435, 459; and Orxines 23–6, 28, 34 n44, 35 n83, 59, 443; and Plutarch 20, 24, 25–8, 34 n48, 203; and Ptolemy 22, 25–6, 31, 32, 34 n37, 55; and Schachermeyr 31, 33 n31, 34–41; and Tarn 20–2, 23–4, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30–1, 32, 32 n8, 33 n17, 33 n30, 33 n35, 34 n37, 34 n44, 34 n48, 34 n54, 35 n56, 35 n80 Balacrus 60 Balcer, J.M. 353, 363 n49 Balsdon, J.P.V.D. 246, 247 n10, 262 Baluchistan 390 barbarian, use of term 295, 303 n21 Barsaentes 22, 33 n17, 438–9, 468, 477 n42 Barsine 205, 210 n51 Baryaxes 62, 86 n33, 442, 444 Baynham, Elizabeth 418 n25 Bazira 313–14, 323 n12 Bel, temple of 164, 172 n60 Bellinger, A.R. 280 n57 Beloch, K.J. 350; and Alexander I 300 n9; Alexander’s deification 367, 370; Antipater’s forces 340; and Granicus 225, 226, 237 n3, 237 n8; and Kraft 218; and Onesicritus 199, 200; and Pleuratus 499 Bengtson, H. 140, 141, 142, 143, 150 n88, 151 n104 Beria 451 n46 Berve, H.: Alexander’s army 343, 361 n13; and Apollophanes 442; and Ariobarzanes 473 n20; and Arrian 346, 362 n25; and Artabazus 437; and Autophradates 442; and Bagoas 20, 22, 32, 34 n41; and Darius III 458, 471 n3; on Greeks of Asia 124, 138, 139, 141, 145 n26, 145 n27, 149 n69, 150 n72; and Harpalus 59–60, 61, 84 n24, 85 n7, 85 n8, 87 n36, 87 n38, 87 n39, 88 n51, 89 n87, 90 n106, 92 n137, 92 n138, 94 n159, 94 n167; and Lysippus 418 n24; and Memnon 171 n34, 171 n38, 446 n7, 474 n24; Mithradates of Persia 473 n17;

517

INDEX

and Mithradates son of Ariobarzanes 452 n54; and Nabarzanes 437; and Nearchus 193, 199, 200, 207 n7, 208 n31, 210 n52, 309 n37; and Onesicritus 199, 200; and Ordanes 443, 444; and Orxines 444; and Ozines 444; and Parmenio 42, 43, 44 n8, 45 n5, 45 n10, 45 n15, 45 n16, 46 n19, 46 n30, 46 n30a, 47 n32, 47 n34; and Peucelaotis 318; and Philip the Acarnanian 425, 426, 447 n19; and Philoxenus 138, 139, 141; and Proteas 170 n18; and Sisines 446 n14; and sons of Aëropus conspiracy 424; and the tyrant of Zelea 275 n11; unity of mankind 5, 15 n8 Bessus: in Alexander Vulgate 438; ambition 37–8, 292, 374, 383 n43, 455 n71, 463, 468, 469, 477 n42, 491; and Bagoas 22, 33 n17; and Curtius 454 n67; and Indian troops 399, 438–9; and Parmenio 37–8 Bickerman, E.J. 475 n35; Alexander at Persepolis 363 n44; Alexander’s deification 251, 268, 278 n46, 379, 385 n62; on Greeks of Asia 124–5, 134, 144 n10; letter of Speusippus 304 n32 Bisutun inscription 386, 388, 390, 462, 472 n12; Akkadian version 399, 400; Elamite version 390, 399–400 Black Sea 181 Boeotian League 90 n105, 498 Borza, E.N.: Agis III’s war 344, 347, 352, 353, 354, 358, 362 n36, 363 n49, 364 n60; Alexander’s communications 355–6, 357, 363 n51; Alexander’s death 451 n48 Bosworth, A.B. 418 n25, 430; Agis III 362 n22; Alexander poisoned 325, 434–5, 451 n48; Alexander’s army 341, 342, 343, 344, 361 n13; Alexander’s deification 381 n18; Alexander’s reign of terror 450 n44; Alexander’s sacrifice to Priam 488; and Alexandropolis 383 n38; and Amphoterus 345; and Antipater 333; and Aristotle 381 n18; and Arrian 238 n13, 426, 432, 447 n19, 472 n4; and battle of Granicus 237 n6, 238 n13; battle of Megalopolis 344–6, 347, 348; battle with the Uxii 363 n40; and Berve 452 n54; and Clearchus 382 n22, 382 n33; and Curtius 325, 449 n28; and Darius III 472 n7, 476 n38; and Diodorus 237 n6, 325; and the Ephemerides

327, 333, 336 n5; and Eumenes 308 n65; and India 399; Indian Ocean parallel 485, 486; and Justin 325; and Khababash 473 n21; and Kraft 213; and Memnon 474 n24; and Orontes 455 n72; and Parmenio 237 n6, 363 n59; Peloponnesian War 361 n21; and Peucelaotis 322; and Philip II 381 n12, 506 n3; and Philip the Acarnanian 426; and Philotas 450 n44, 495 n24; and Pixodarus 509 n34; and proskynesis 384 n50; and sons of Aëropus conspiracy 424; and Tlepolemus 455 n74 Boterman, Helga 147 n48a Branchidae oracle 257, 267 Briant, Pierre 457, 458, 460, 472 n10, 475 n32, 477 n41 Brochubelos 461 Brown, T.S. 52; Alexander’s ring 189 n12; and Nearchus 193, 198, 207 n8 Brunt, P.A.: Aleander’s deification 281 n64; Alexander’s treasure 357; and Aristobulus 493 n9; and Arrian 309 n72, 323 n10, 493 n9, 494 n13; Bacchic revels at Nysa 323 n13; and the Ephemerides 336 n6; and Griffith 342; and India 399; and Orobatis 324 n17; and Polybius 342; and sons of Aëropus conspiracy 424 Bucephalus 407, 410, 481 Buner 320 Burn, A.R. 171 n21, 171 n30 Cadmus 286 Cadusian War 459 Caesar the Dictator, death of 184–5 Cahn, H. 280 n57 Calanus 180 Calas 61, 66, 129 Callisthenes 16 n25, 110, 113, 212, 235, 253, 254, 291; Alexander’s deification 256, 257, 256, 258–60, 276 n20, 371–2; and Aristobulus 278 n34, 384 n50, 450 n38; and Arrian 432, 449 n36; and Chares 258–60, 262, 277 n32, 384 n50, 450 n38, 484, 493 n7; and Cicero 29–30, 35 n71; death of 31, 35 n71, 53, 57 n5, 76, 259–60, 432, 484; debate with Anaxarchus 244–7, 267, 274 n4, 274 n6; and Diodorus 449 n31; and Gaugamela 409; and Granicus 226–7, 238 n16, 238 n17; and the Milesian

518

INDEX

oracles 277 n24; and the pages’ conspiracy 432, 492; and Parmenio 39, 45 n15, 50, 98–9, 226; and Pearson 49–50; Periplus 49; and Philotas 46 n23, 55; and Plutarch 258–9, 409, 449 n31, 450 n38, 482–3, 484, 492; and Polybius 341–2; and proskynesis 258–61, 277 n30, 368, 384 n50, 484; and Ptolemy 101, 259, 384 n50, 432; and Strabo 49 Callistratus 79, 114, 136 Callixenus of Rhodes 135, 148 n57 Calmeyer, Peter 402 n24 Cambridge Ancient History 386, 460 Cambyses 387 Cappadocia 188 Caranus 284, 287, 300 n13, 300 n14, 302 n16 Caria 149 n68, 164, 388, 465, 485, 502, 504 Carmania 27, 200–4, 443, 444, 486 Carney, E. 506 n4, 510 n38, 510 n44 Caroe, Olaf 311, 313, 322 n1, 323 n11 Carthage 18 n66, 180, 181 Cartledge, Paul 338–9 Carystius of Pergamum 304 n31, 304 n32 Cassander 29, 31, 80, 271, 415; commissions painting 411, 414; hatred for Alexander and house 29, 75, 77, 92 n139, 412–13; and Fuhrmann 411; and Plutarch 412 Cawkwell, G.L. 344–50, 358, 384 n51 Cebalinus 40, 428, 429, 449 n28, 490–1 Celaenae 220 Centrites, battle of 239 n24, 241 n46 Cephisophon 92 n141, 93 n144 Ceyx 270 Chaeronea 154, 236, 423, 445 n6, 507 n18, 509 n29 Chains, the 381 n10 Chalcidic League 366 Chares 25, 32, 67, 70, 89 n69, 89 n70, 323 n10; and Callisthenes 258–60, 262, 277 n32, 384 n50, 450 n38, 484, 493 n7; and Issus 259, 482, 483; and Pearson 50, 495 n21; and Philotas 57 n5, 495 n21; and Plutarch 482, 483–4; and proskynesis 258–60, 227 n33, 384 n50, 484 Charicles 91 n116 Charidemus 70, 220 Chios 133, 135, 148 n53, 156; decree 134; inscription 134, 137, 147 n41, 147 n41a; letter 280 n58, 380 n10

Chorasmia 398 Chroust, A.H. 305 n38, 305 n41 Chrysippus 301 n15 Cicantakhma 477 n42 Cicero 13, 28, 35 n71, 35 n74, 337 n11; Brutus 113; Callisthenes 29–30, 35 n71; Cato 30; Laelius 30; letter to Atticus 30, 373, 383 n44 Cilicia 138, 187, 361 n13, 424, 453 n61 Cimon 114 Clazomenae 135 Cleander 26, 86 n16, 87 n38, 434; execution of 59, 63–5, 69, 87 n49, 444; and Parmenio 38, 45 n16, 98, 100, 102, 430, 434, 441 Clearchus 382 n22, 382 n33 Clement of Alexandria 269–70, 271–2 Clementia Caesaris 275 n18 Cleomenes III 160 Cleomenes of Naucratis 61, 66, 76, 81, 85 n15, 141–2, 176; and Tarn 33 n35, 142, 150 n93 Cleon 244 Cleopatra Eurydice 38, 106, 108, 110, 128, 218, 219, 423, 424, 445 n5, 446 n11, 484, 496, 499, 500, 510 n38, 511 n50 Cleopatra of Macedon 107 Clidemus 335 Clitarchus 203, 322 n2, 371, 375, 383 n44; Alexander as Pharaoh 256; Alexander’s drinking 165, 170 n6; Alexander’s ring 189 n12; and Aristobulus 113; and Curtius 55, 373; and Darius III 462; date of 56, 113–19; and Diodorus 55, 115–16, 118; and Granicus 237 n6, 238 n16; and Hamilton 118, 118 n13; and the pages’ conspiracy 449 n31; and Pearson 50, 55–6; Persepolis, burning of 165, 170 n6; and Pliny 55–6, 116–17, 119 n28, 119 n31; and Tarn 112 n26, 114, 170 n6 Clitus 43, 53, 111 n8, 184, 296, 447 n19, 473 n17, 492; and Curtius 101, 431; killing of 63, 86 n22, 86 n27, 100–1, 165, 293–4, 374, 412, 431, 432, 440; term of address 380 n4 Codomannus see Darius III Coenus 26, 38, 44, 45 n16, 62, 86 n24, 220, 433; and Arrian 34 n41; death of 102, 434, 450 n45; and Parmenio 63–5, 98, 100; term of address 380 n4

519

INDEX

Coeranus 137–8, 139, 142 Conon 248 Corinth 135, 136, 137, 148 n58, 149 n65, 219, 450 n38 Corpus Demosthenicum 366 Corragus 162, 163 Cos 133, 135, 149 n62, 170 n19 Cossaei 357 Craterus 34 n43, 198, 413, 444–5, 480, 482; Alexander’s hypomnemata 174, 176, 184, 187–8; Assacenian campaign 314, 315; Attic decrees 334; and Granicus 230; and Harpalus 59, 64, 75, 76, 77, 81, 88 n55, 87 n39, 92 n138; and Philotas’ conspiracy 37, 43–4, 428, 489, 494 n20 Crates the Cynic 115 Crenides 381 n11 Crete 158, 159–60, 164, 345, 346 Cross, Professor 460 Ctesias of Cnidus 55, 115, 116, 386, 376, 383 n43, 384 n55, 398 Çudra 402 n29 Curtius 56, 86 n27, 164, 325, 448 n24; and Agis III 168, 171 n30, 172 n62, 173 n80, 346; and Alexander Vulgate 446 n13; Alexander’s army 361 n13; Alexander’s burial place 337 n12; Alexander’s deification 375; Alexander’s hypomnemata 179, 187; Alexander’s medicine 447 n20; Alexander’s ‘policy of fusion’ 307 n61; Alexander’s political terrorism 65; Alexander’s ring 189 n12; Alexander’s youth 485; and Amphoterus 345–6; and Amyntas IV (son of Perdiccas) 110; Anaxarchus and Callisthenes 244; and Antipater 173 n80; and Arrian 57 n8; and Artaxerxes III Ochus 458–9; and Astaspes 441; and Attalus 445 n5; and Autophradates 442; Bacchic procession 28, 441; Bacchic revels at Nysa 323 n13; and Bagoas 20–3, 25–6, 29, 31, 32, 32 n8, 477 n42; battle of Megalopolis 347, 348; and Bessus 454 n67; and Bosworth 325, 449 n28; and Brochubelos 461; and Clitarchus 55, 373; and Clitus 101, 431; and Darius III 435 n59, 436, 453 n60, 454 n70, 454 n71, 458, 459, 462, 469, 475 n31, 476 n38, 476 n41, 477 n42; and Dimnus 428, 448 n26, 490–1; and Erigyius 291, 506; and Gaugamela 348, 475 n35, 476 n36; Gaugamela to Ecbatana march 350–1, 362 n39; and

Gedrosian disaster 441; and Granicus 237 n2; and Hephaestion 306 n46; and Heracon 87 n38; and Hermolaus 431, 449 n31; and India 390; and Issus 453 n59, 463; and Kraft 215–16, 220; and Memnon 452 n57; and Nabarzanes 411, 436; and Nearchus 195, 201, 202, 203, 209 n42; and Orxines 23–6, 28, 443; and Ozines 444; and the pages’ conspiracy 431, 449 n31, 449 n35, 450 n37; and Parmenio 46 n30, 430; Parmenio-Hegelochus plot 40–1; and Persepolis 352, 353; Persian forces 452 n58; and Peucelaotis 315; and Peucestas 371; and Philip III Arridaeus 415; and Philip the Acarnanian 426, 427; and Philotas 40, 41, 44 n8, 46 n24, 50, 372, 490; and Pixodarus 485; and Plutarch 430; and proskynesis 258, 375, 384 n50; and Ptolemy 54, 57 n8; regiment of the ‘disorderly’ 47 n31; rumours of Alexander’s death 68; sacrifices 486, 494 n13; satraps 59; and Sisines 424, 446 n13; and Socrates of Macedon 167; and sons of Aëropus conspiracy 424; speeches 439, 454 n69; and Tiberius 449 n28; and Tyre 148 n53; and Zariaspes 444; and Zopyrion 349 Curtius, Ludwig 406, 409–10, 412, 416 n3, 416 n6 Cyclades, the 137, 149 n62, 159, 170 n18 Cynane 110, 111 n5, 128, 498–9 Cynna 510 n41 Cyprus 398 Cyrus 221, 383 n43, 388, 422, 443; and India 387; tomb of 26, 34 n45, 373, 374, 376–8, 377, 443; and Xenophon 387 Cyzicus 126, 127 Dadicae 402 n18 Damascus 137, 167, 176 Dandamayev, M.A. 472 n5, 473 n14, 473 n17 Danube, the 305 n42 Darius I 283, 384 n57, 401 n11, 422, 459, 477 n42; Bisutun inscription 386, 388, 390, 462, 472 n12; Greek mercenaries 401; and Herodotus 388–9; and India 386–96, 401 n6; list of provinces 388–9, 390–1; Susa list DSe 388; tomb of 376, 388, 392, 393, 394, 395, 392–6, 398, 401 n27, 401 n30

520

INDEX

Darius II 422, 458, 459, 462, 510 n46 Darius II (Nothos) 461, 463, 473 n14 Darius III 98, 99, 291, 305 n42, 307 n57, 387, 403 n40; accession of 156; Achaemenid lineage 451 n51, 458; and Agis III 155, 157, 166, 168, 354, 364 n60; and Alexander Vulgate 454 n71, 468, 469, 476 n36; and Arachosia 390; and Aristobulus 453 n60, 477 n42; army 66, 68, 69, 135, 159, 160, 241 n46, 433–8, 440, 453 n59, 453 n60, 453 n61, 467, 475 n33, 476 n38; and Arrian 111 n21, 452 n54, 453 n60, 455 n71, 457, 459, 462, 464, 468, 469, 472 n4, 472 n7, 475 n31, 476 n38, 477 n42; background and origins 451 n51, 458–64, 472 n10, 473 n14; and Bagoas 20–3, 435, 463, 464; and Baryaxes 443; and Berve 458, 471 n3; and Bosworth 472 n7, 476 n38; and Briant 477 n41; and Clitarchus 462; conspiracies against 422, 435–40, 454 n70; and conspiracy of Alexander of Lyncestis 424–5; and Curtius 435 n59, 436, 453 n60, 454 n70, 454 n71, 458, 459, 462, 469, 475 n31, 476 n38, 476 n41, 477 n42; death of 98, 349, 362 n34, 373, 374, 411, 439, 440, 455 n71, 468–70; defeat of 98, 371, 372; and Diodorus 408–9, 436, 453 n60, 455 n71, 458, 459, 454 n69, 462, 473 n17, 476 n38; at Ecbatana 167, 168, 353, 438–9, 453 n66, 454 n69, 468, 469, 476 n37; in Egypt 464, 473 n21, 474 n22; and Gaugamela 168–9, 235, 240 n34, 292, 398, 437–8, 453 n63, 467–8, 475 n32, 475 n34, 475 n35, 475 n36; and Gellius 462; as ‘godlike’ 369; and Granicus 235, 465; and the Greeks 147 n46, 292–3, 309 n72; and Herodotus 465; at Issus 235, 259, 409, 417 n16, 436–7, 453 n59, 463, 467; and Justin 349, 458, 459, 460, 461–2, 472 n11, 473 n12; letters of 466, 470, 475 n31; and Memnon 436, 452 n55, 452 n57, 453 n59, 453 n60, 465; military ability 464; murder of 21–3, 33 n17, 277 n24; negotiations with Alexander 437, 453 n62; and Nylander 457–8, 460, 462, 469, 471 n3, 473 n21, 477 n42; official descent 471; and Parmenio 37; and Plutarch 462, 473 n17, 476 n38; prophetic dream 482; and Ptolemy 453 n60, 477 n42; and Strabo

459; and Tarn 457, 472 n5, 472 n7, 477 n42; war against Macedon 464–8; wounds Alexander 482; see also Alexander Mosaic Darius, King 422 Darius Painter 407, 408 Dascylium 415 de Ste. Croix, G.E.M. 338–9, 340, 345 Delbrück, H. 231, 240 n35 Delian League 136, 149 n65 Delphi, oracle 481–2 Demades 119n21, 162, 272, 379; Alexander’s deification 262; bribe 93 n146; and Harpalus 75–6, 77, 79, 84, 91 n123, 92 n134, 93 n144 Demandes 385 n64 Demandt, A. 370 Demaratus 106, 217, 218, 354, 497, 503 Demarchus 61, 88 n56 Demeas 92 n134 Demetrius I 199 Demetrius of Phalerum 35 n79, 114, 119 n21; census of 89 n86; Socrates 493 n2 Demetrius Poliorcetes 270, 271 Demetrius the Bodyguard 42, 43, 45 n15, 46 n30, 47 n34 Demosthenes 114, 119 n21, 172 n47, 251, 297; and Alexander I 299 n7; Alexander’s deification 262, 278 n41, 278 n43, 278 n44, 379, 385 n63, 385 n64 ; and Aeschines162–3, 172 n47, 339; bribe 93 n146; and Harpalus 73, 74, 76, 79–80, 83, 84, 91 n117, 91 n121, 91 n123, 93 n144, 94 n155, 94 n167; Letters 73, 84, 91 n115, 93 n142; Macedonian war 162–3; and Philip II 79, 154, 252–3, 295; speeches of 125, 183, 339; and treason 446 n7; use of term ‘king’ 366 Denniston, J.D. 279 n49, 280 n261 Derdas 64 Dez 204 Dicaearchus 27, 28–31, 34 n48 Didymus 218 Dilmun 387 Dimnus 40, 46 n19, 506; and Alexander Vulgate 428, 448 n27; and Arrian 427, 430, 490–1; conspiracy of 427–30, 490–1; and Curtius 428, 448 n26, 490–1; and Diodorus 428, 448 n26, 490–1; and Hamilton 427; and Plutarch 428, 490–1; and Ptolemy 429

521

INDEX

Dinarchus 75, 83, 93 n146, 94 n170, 162, 272, 278 n43, 347, 379 Dio: Augustus’ deification 275 n18; cult at Syracuse 253–4, 276 n19 Diodorus 65, 94 n159, 172 n62, 173 n80, 235, 375; and Agis III 153, 159, 162, 168–9, 170 n4, 172 n54, 173 n87, 347; Alexander’s armour 371; Alexander’s army 342, 343–4, 361 n18; Alexander’s burial place 335–6, 337 n12; Alexander’s Greek mercenaries 307 n53; Alexander’s hypomnemata 174, 179–80, 181, 183–4, 185, 187, 191 n41, 192 n62, 325; Alexander’s ring 189 n12; Alexander’s sacrifice to Priam 488; Alexander’s treasure 357; Alexander’s youth 484; and Antipater 173 n80, 339, 340; and Attalus 500, 508 n21, 508 n22; and Bagoas 28, 34 n54, 202, 435, 459; battle of Illyria 499; and Bosworth 237 n6, 325; and Callisthenes 449 n31; and Clitarchus 55, 115–16, 118; and Darius III 408–9, 436, 453 n60, 455 n71, 458, 459, 454 n69, 462, 473 n17, 476 n38; and Dimnus 428, 448 n26, 490–1; Dio’s cult at Syracuse 254, 276 n19; and Eumenes 308 n67; fate of Alexander’s body 176, 178, 189 n19, 190 n35; and Gaugamela 475 n36; and Gaugamela to Ecbatana march 351–2; and Granicus 224–6, 227, 230, 237 n2, 237 n5, 237 n6, 237 n9, 237 n10, 238 n12, 243 n56; and Hephaestion 182–3; and Hieronymus 174, 177–8, 325, 326; invasion of Asia 509 n29, 509 n32; and Issus 225–6; and Kraft 218, 220; and Leosthenes 78, 80; and Memnon 161, 169, 436, 452 n57, 474 n24; mercenaries 433–4; and Nearchus 65, 195, 201, 202–4; Nicanor’s exiles decree 72–3; and Olympias 446 n13; and Parmenio 126–7, 145 n19, 225, 237 n6; and Pausanias of Orestes 508 n20, 508 n21, 508 n22, 509 n29; and Pearson 48, 50, 115–16; and Perdiccas 310 n76; and Persepolis 352, 353; Persian forces 452 n58; and Peucelaotis 315; and Philip II 108, 303 n26, 499–501, 505, 507 n18, 508 n19; and Philotas 44 n8, 45 n12, 490, 494 n20; and Pleistias of Cos 199; and proskynesis 375; regiment of the ‘disorderly’ 47 n31; restoration of the

exiles 70–3; rumours of Alexander’s death 89 n76; sacred shield 487; sacrifices 486, 494 n13; satraps 69–70; Sisines and Olympias 446 n13, 447 n18; and sons of Aëropus conspiracy 424, 446 n13, 448 n23; spear tradition 486; and Tarn 325; and temple of Athena Ilias 487, 488; and Troy 487; and the Uxii 357; wedding at Aegae 505, 510 n45 Diodorus Pasparus 276 n18 Diodotus of Erythrae 333, 334, 337 n8 Diogenes 481 Diogenes Laertius 51–2, 114–15 Diomedes 369 Dionysius 510 n46 Dionysus 92 n133, 323 n13 Dioxippus Alexander’s deification 268 Dium 285, 302 n17 Dixon, P. 504, 506, 509 n33, 509 n34 Domitian 421, 449 n28 Dorians 158, 300 n14, 302 n21, 303 n23 Drangiana 350, 390, 391 Droysen, J.G.: Alexander Mosaic 406; Alexander’s army 340, 342, 343, 361 n13; Alexander’s sacrifice to Priam 488; fate of Alexander’s body 177; Greeks of Asia 124; and Harpalus 64; and Peucelaotis 318; and Philip II xiv; spear tradition 488 Duris 247–9, 250, 275 n13, 382 n19 Dürr 280 n57 E-sagila 165, 173 n79, 338, 354, 362 n39 Ecbatana 39, 45 n16, 64, 142, 348, 349, 350, 357, 358, 359–60, 361 n13, 363 n59, 374, 441; Darius III at 167, 168, 353, 438–9, 453 n66, 454 n69, 468, 469, 476 n37 Edmunds, Lowell 274 n4, 277 n26, 305 n43 Edson, Professor 276 n23 Eggermont, P.H.L. 311, 313, 316, 322 n7, 323 n9, 323 n17, 324 n18 Egypt 137, 138, 141, 160, 164, 177, 220, 367, 371, 386, 398, 428, 464, 465, 473 n21, 474 n22, 509 n29 Ehrenberg, V. 124, 134, 135–6, 148 n53, 211, 214 Eilers, W. 388 Eion 299 n7 Elephantine 137 Elis 162

522

INDEX

Ellis, J.R. 303 n26 Embolima 320 Empedocles 246–7, 275 n11 Enchelei 286 Engels, D.W. 353 Eordaea 292 Ephemerides 205, 337 n13; and Aristobulus 328–9, 330–1, 332; and Arrian 328, 329, 330, 331–3, 334, 336, 336 n6, 434; authenticity of 332, 337 n7; and Bosworth 327, 333, 336 n5; and Brunt 336 n6; and Hammond 327–8, 332–3, 336 n4, 336 n6; and Pearson 56, 327; and Plutarch 327, 328, 330, 331–3, 334, 434; and Ptolemy 327, 328–9, 330, 331, 332, 335–6, 336 n6 Ephesus 128–9, 135, 136, 137, 366, 369–70, 378, 417 n18; and Alexander’s deification 279 n56; Philip II in 126–8, 129, 253; temple of Artemis 108, 127, 130–1, 147 n40, 251, 280 n59, 366, 378, 385 n60 Ephippus 51, 334, 379, 385 n61 Ephorus 254, 500 Epicurus 114, 115 Epimenes 449 n35 Epirus 496, 497, 501, 502, 510 n36 Eratosthenes 295 n21, 372, 403 n42, 480, 489, 495 n21; banquet at Opis 6–13, 14, 16 n34, 17 n49, 18 n52, 18 n56, 18 n81; Geography 11; and Strabo 12, 14; and Tarn 6–7, 8, 10 Erbil see Arbela Eresus 135, 146 n36, 253, 366, 369–70, 381 n10 Erigyius 44, 219, 220, 291, 485, 506 Errington, R.M. 281 n65 Erythrae 127, 145 n19; prophecy 256, 257, 277 n24 Eumenes 34 n43, 66, 81, 88 n55, 175, 177, 185, 187, 188–9, 205, 294, 295, 297, 308 n67, 333, 334, 337 n8, 351 Euphraeus of Oreos 289, 304 n31 Euphron of Sicyon 310 n78 Euripides 285, 300 n12, 302 n16, 480–1 Eurydice 111 n5, 145 n26 Euthycles 156, 158, 170 n15 exiles decree 70, 71, 72–3, 74, 77, 78, 90 n97, 91 n122, 136–7, 143, 149 n63 Fars 354 Fears, J.R. 499, 500, 507 n16, 507 n17, 508 n21

Fehr, Burkhard 406, 416 n3, 416 n6, 418 n19 Foss, Clive 228, 229, 240 n36 Fredricksmeyer, E.A. 263–4, 276 n22; and Megalopolis 279 n51; Philip II: divine cult 269, 270, 271–3, 281 n68; Pixodarus affair 509 n33, 510 n37 French, V. 504, 506, 509 n33, 509 n34 Fuhrmann, Heinrich: Alexander Mosaic 406, 407, 408, 409, 414, 416 n5; and Cassander 411 Fuller, J.F.C. 238 n20, 239 n31, 240 n42, 242 n48, 243 n56, 357 Galinsky, G. Karl 302 n20 Gandara 387, 388, 390–1, 398, 399 Gaugamela 164, 165, 172 n55, 172 n62, 277 n24, 280 n261, 347, 362 n38, 400, 475 n35, 480, 488; Alexander Mosaic 409, 417 n16, 453 n63; and Alexander Vulgate 409; and Aristobulus 483; and Arrian 307 n57, 468, 475 n36; and Callisthenes 409; and Curtius 348, 475 n35, 476 n36; and Darius III 168–9, 235, 240 n34, 292, 398, 437–8, 453 n63, 467–8, 475 n32, 475 n34, 475 n35, 475 n36; and Diodorus 475 n36; and Justin 476 n36; mock battle 489; and Parmenio 39, 238 n17; and Plutarch 483; and Tarn 45 n15 Gaza 220 Gedrosian desert 63, 181–3, 220–1, 387, 388, 433, 434, 441 Gellius 462 ‘geography of Sargon’ 386 Gesche, H. 211 gift animals 393–5, 400, 401 n27, 401 n30 Ginzel 475 n35 Glaucias 111 n8 God: fatherhood of 1–3, 15 n3, 15 n11 Goethe, J.W. von 404, 406 Gordian knot 371, 482, 483 Gordium 342, 446 n12, 454 n66, 482 Gordium oracle 220 Gorgus the hoplophylax 51 Goukowsky, Paul 170 n6 Graf 387 Granicus 66–7, 71, 89 n90, 129, 163, 275 n11, 292, 307 n53, 417 n16, 418 n24, 436, 463, 487; Alexander’s movements 231–6, 242 n48, 242 n49, 242 n51, 242 n53, 242 n55, 242 n56, 243 n57, 243

523

INDEX

n58; and Aristobulus 238 n16; and Arrian 224–36, 237 n2, 238 n8, 238 n12, 238 n15, 239 n23, 240 n40, 241 n46, 241 n47, 241 n48, 242 n51, 242 n53, 242 n55, 243 n57; battle-line 230–1, 240 n40, 240 n41, 240 n42, 241 n42, 241 n45, 241 n46, 241 n47; and Beloch 225, 226, 237 n3, 237 n8; and Bosworth 237 n6, 238 n13; and Callisthenes 226–7, 238 n16, 238 n17; and Clitarchus 237 n6, 238 n16; and Curtius 237 n2; and Darius III 235, 465; and Diodorus 224–6, 227, 230, 237 n2, 237 n5, 237 n6, 237 n9, 237 n10, 238 n12, 243 n56; and Craterus 230; and Hamilton 239 n31, 241 n42, 241 n47; and Lehmann 224, 231, 232; and Parmenio 224, 225, 234, 238 n17, 238 n20, 242 n56; and Plutarch 226, 227–8, 229, 231, 233, 237 n2, 238 n17, 239 n29, 239 n32, 239 n34; and Ptolemy 238 n16, 242 n53; and Schachermeyr 241 n42, 242 n49; terrain 227–30, 232, 238 n23, 239 n25, 239 n29, 239 n31, 239 n32, 239 n34, 240 n35; and Wilcken 239 n31, 240 n42, 242 n48, 242 n56 Grayson, A.K. 386 Green, Peter 237 n3, 237 n5, 267; Alexander Mosaic 404 Griffith, G.T. 148 n60, 309 n69, 342, 510 n39 Grote, G. 233, 238 n20, 240 n41, 242 n51 Grynium 126, 127, 130, 145 n17 gymnosophists 180, 181 Habicht, Christian 249, 449 n29; Alexander’s deification 57 n4, 245, 255, 256, 262, 266–7, 274 n5, 275 n11, 279 n46, 279 n56, 378; Alexander’s letter to Athens 281 n65; Argive tripod 300 n11; citizenship 299 n7; cult of Lysander 247–8, 249, 251; Dio’s cult at Syracuse 253–4, 276 n19; and Megalopolis 279 n51; Philip’s cult at Amphipolis 111 n16, 251–3; Philip’s cult at Eresus 253 Hagnon 368, 382 n21 Hagnonides 93 n141 Halicarnassus 133, 156, 170 n19, 207 n17, 446 n12 Hamilton, J.R. 429, 493 n7, 494 n17; Alexander’s letter to Athens 268; and Clitarchus 118, 118 n13; Dimnus’ plot

427; and Granicus 239 n31, 241 n42, 241 n47; and Harpalus 85 n15; and Kraft 211, 213–14, 215; and Nearchus 209 n37; and Pearson 56; Philip II’s paternity 383 n41; and Plutarch 275 n14; and proskynesis 261, 277 n30, 277 n32; unity of mankind 16 n26 Hammond, N.G.L. 169, 303 n24, 309 n69, 322 n2, 322 n7, 325, 334–5; and Alexander I 299 n7, 299 n8, 299 n9, 302 n19; Argead clan 300 n10; and Caranus 300 n14; Ephemerides 327–8, 332–3, 336 n4, 336 n6; Macedonian citizenship laws 306 n50, 307 n52; Macedonian language 283, 308 n64; Macedonians and Greeks 303 n21; and Olympic Games 301 n15; Philip II: death of 505, 511 n50; Philip II: mother of 288, 303 n25 Hampl, F. 222; Alexander’s attitude towards his father 191 n42; Alexander’s hypomnemata 174, 179, 183, 185; and Kraft 211, 214 Hansen, M.H. 361 n14 harmonia 286 Harpalus 37, 38, 45 n16, 61, 79, 82, 93 n146, 138, 262, 504; Alexander’s treasure 357, 358; and Antipater 59, 66, 70, 71, 73, 75, 81–2, 85 n6, 86 n16, 151 n101; in Athens 64, 65, 69–70, 71, 73–6, 77–8, 80, 81–5, 90 n108; and Berve 59–60, 61, 84 n24, 85 n7, 85 n8, 87 n36, 87 n38, 87 n39, 88 n51, 89 n87, 90 n106, 92 n137, 92 n138, 94 n159, 94 n167; and Craterus 59, 64, 75, 76, 77, 81, 88 n55, 87 n39, 92 n138; and Demades 75–6, 77, 79, 84, 91 n123, 92 n134, 93 n144; and Demosthenes 73, 74, 76, 79–80, 83, 84, 91 n117, 91 n121, 91 n123, 93 n144, 94 n155, 94 n167; disgrace of 63–5, 143; and Droysen 64; escape to Babylon 72; extradition of 151 n101; and Hamilton 85 n15; and Hyperides 70, 73, 74, 83, 84, 89 n69, 90 n113, 91 n117, 94 n170; leaves Babylon 65–6; money 65, 67, 70, 73, 74, 75, 79, 90 n109, 91 n129, 94 n161, 94 n167; and Olympias 76–7, 151 n101; and Philotas 151 n101; and Plutarch 90 n109; and Schachermeyr 85 n4, 86 n29, 87 n37, 87 n46; and Tarn 58, 86 n24, 86 n29, 89 n93; treasurer of 139–40; and Wilcken 87 n46, 89 n90, 89 n93

524

INDEX

Harpocration 302 n19, 423 Hatzopoulos, M.B. 509 n33; Alexander Mosaic 454 n66 Healy, J.F. 280 n57 Hecataeus of Abdera 337 n8 Hecatombaeon 349, 362 n34 Heckel, W. 494 n20, 507 n18, 510 n37 Hector 39, 220 Hedicke 446 n13 Hegelochus 40–1, 89 n69, 136, 161 Hegesias of Ephesus 113, 114, 139, 140 Heidelberg Epitome 176, 189 n12 Heisserer, A.J. 147 n41a, 280 n58, 380 n10 Helen, the Egyptian 411, 418 n19 Hellanicus 287, 303 n23 Hellas 370–1 Hellenic League see League of Corinth Hellespont 485, 486 Hellespontine Phrygia 129 Hepding, H. 382 n25 Hephaestion 43, 44, 64, 85 n15, 100, 101, 103, 172 n47, 187, 198, 221, 491; and Aristobulus 191 n44; and Arrian 26, 34 n43, 191 n44, 306 n46, 378, 385 n61; and Astis’ revolt 321; and Curtius 306 n46; death of 66, 75, 78, 82, 85 n15, 88 n55, 104, 440; and Diodorus 182–3; divine honours 85 n15, 92 n137, 104, 176, 257, 262, 269, 279 n46, 378, 385 n61; monument to 182–3, 185, 186, 191 n44; and Orobatis 316, 318, 323 n17, 324 n18; and Peucelaotis 311, 313, 317; and Ptolemy 26, 34 n43, 191 n44; and Schachermeyr 191 n44 Heracles 245, 246, 269, 272, 280 n57, 370, 494 n13 Heraclides 483 Heraclids 300 n10, 365 Heracon 59, 64, 65, 87 n38, 441 Hercher, Rudolf 452 n54 Hermarchus 114 Hermes 271 Hermias of Atarneus 246, 290, 369, 509 n29 Hermippus 49 Hermolaus 431, 449 n31 Herodotus 49, 207 n9, 284, 291, 298 n6, 303 n23, 305 n42, 390, 453 n60, 472 n4, 510 n46; ‘African Ethiopians’ 394; and Alexander I 299 n7, 299 n8, 299 n9, 300 n10, 301 n15; and Arabia 398; army list 388, 391–2, 393; ‘Asian

Ethiopians’ 391–2; Bacchic revels at Nysa 323 n13; and Darius I 388–9; and Darius III 465; and Hindush 389, 390–1; Homeric themes 370–1; and India 395; and Kush 398; and Mitra 384 n55; Periplus 52; read by Alexander 390; read by Philip II 369; Sattagydia 387; use of term ‘king’ 366; and Zopyrus 477 n42 Heromenes son of Aëropus (Lyncestis) 422–3, 424, 445 n3, 446 n13, 448 n23 Heropythus 126 Herzfeld, E. 390, 392, 396, 397, 397, 402 n24, 403 n34 Hieronymus 90 n99, 94 n159, 174, 175, 185, 188, 190 n31, 199, 308 n67, 325; Alexander’s hypomnemata 178, 187, 192 n62, 325–6; Alexander’s ring 176, 189 n12, 326, 336; and Arrian 178, 181; and Diodorus 174, 177–8, 325, 326; and Perdiccas 190 n31 Hiller, Friedrich 498 Himeraeus 90 n113 Hindu Kush 400 Hindush 388–90, 392, 393, 395, 396, 398, 400; and Herodotus 389, 390–1 History Today xvi Hogarth, D.G. 262, 263 Hölscher, Tonio 406 Homer 2, 15 n13, 49, 291, 310 n72, 382 n18, 418 n19; Alexander’s deification 268; Alexander’s education 305 n42; heroes 368–9; Iliad 488–9; themes in Alexander Vulgate 370–1; themes in Arrian 370–1; themes in Herodotus 370–1 Hopkins, K. 343 Hornblower, Jane 325–6, 472 n5 Hydaspes fleet 88 n56, 195, 208 n25, 208 n30, 225, 399, 442, 494 n13 Hydraotes, the 195–6, 208 n30 Hyperides 114, 333; Alexander’s deification 262, 272, 278 n43, 278 n46, 378, 379; Against Demades 423; and Harpalus 70, 73, 74, 83, 84, 89 n69, 90 n113, 91 n117, 94 n170 Hyphasis fleet 62–3, 64, 86 n23, 186, 191 n52, 195, 221, 222, 391, 432–3, 440; and Aristobulus 195; and Arrian 432–3; and Ptolemy 432–3; and Strabo 195 hypomnemata of Alexander 325–6; and Arrian 187, 188; authenticity of 179,

525

INDEX

183, 185, 186, 191 n60; contents 179–80, 181; Cretarus 174, 176, 184, 187–8; and Curtius 179, 187; and Diodorus 174, 179–80, 181, 183–4, 185, 187, 191 n41, 192 n62, 325; and Hampl 174, 179, 183, 185; and Hieronymus 178, 187, 192 n62, 325–6; and Perdiccas 174–5, 176, 177, 184, 185–7, 189 n1, 189 n4, 333–4; and Photius 177, 187, 188; and Schachermeyr 175, 179, 181–3, 184, 187, 189, 191 n41; and Tarn 174–5, 179, 181–3, 184, 187, 191 n41, 191 n60; and Wilcken 184, 190 n35 Idomeneus of Lampsacus 493 n2 Ilam, Mount 322 n1, 323 n14 Ilium 487 Illyria/Illyrians 218, 383 n38, 499–501, 502, 504, 507 n17, 510 n36 Imbros 140, 143 India/Indians 358, 391–2; and Arrian 386, 399; and Bessus 399, 438–9; and Bosworth 399; boundaries of 403 n42; and Brunt 399; and Ctesias of Cnidus 386, 398; and Curtius 390; and Cyrus 387; and Darius I 386–96, 401 n6; and Herodotus 395; satraps 398 Indian Ocean 485, 486 Indica 196, 198, 200, 204, 263, 319 Indus fleet 194, 195, 196–204 Iolaus 333 Ionia/Ionians 131, 136, 137, 139, 140, 303 n23; oracle 256–7, 276 n23 Ionian League 266, 267 Iran 165 Iranian conspiracy 432 Iranian rebels 440–5 Isocrates 19 n81, 246, 274 n9, 296, 309 n69 σο‘θεος 368–9, 370–3, 375–8, 380 Issus 37, 67, 132, 135, 156, 157, 159, 164, 292, 307 n53, 307 n57, 466; and Alexander’s claim to the Achaemenid throne 137, 147 n46, 366; and Chares 259, 482, 483; and Curtius 453 n59, 463; and Darius III 235, 259, 409, 417 n16, 436–7, 453 n59, 463, 467; and Diodorus 225–6 Italy 286, 302 n20, 303 n23 Iuppiter Iulius, temple of 275 n18 Jacoby, F. 56, 308 n66, 452 n54; Alexander’s ring 189 n12; and

Ariobarzanes 473 n20; Commentary 268; genesia 266; and Nearchus 210 n58; and Onesicritus 199, 210 n49 Jaeger, Werner 290 Janke, A. 228, 229, 239 n25, 239 n28, 239 n32, 239 n34, 240 n35, 240 n36 Jason of Pherae 289 Judeich, W. 226, 230–1, 232, 233, 235, 238 n14, 238 n20, 239 n34, 240 n36, 240 n38, 241 n42, 241 n48, 242 n49, 242 n56 Justin 112 n26, 189 n19, 210 n58, 303 n25, 304 n34, 325, 362 n36, 494 n19; Alexander’s treasure 357; Alexander’s youth 484; and Arrhidaeus 509 n35; and Artaxerxes II 435; and Artaxerxes III Ochus 458–9; and Astaspes 441; battle of Illyria 499, 507 n17; and Bosworth 325; and Darius III 349, 458, 459, 460, 461–2, 472 n11, 473 n12; and Gaugamela 476 n36; and Olympias 446 n13, 510 n44; and Pausanias of Orestes 500, 501, 508 n20, 508 n21; and Philip II 110, 303 n26, 484–5, 496–7, 505, 507 n5, 510 n36, 510 n37; rituals and sacrifices 486; and Sisines 424, 446 n13; and sons of Aëropus conspiracy 424, 446 n12; spear tradition 487, 488; wedding at Aegae 510 n45 Jüthner, J. 298 n4 Kaerst, J. 124, 367 Kalleris, J.N. 298 n1, 307 n61, 308 n66, 309 n68 Kandahar 400 Kent, Roland G. 401 n6, 402 n24 Khababash 451 n52, 464, 473 n21, 474 n22, 474 n23 Kienast, D. 369 Kienitz, F.K. 451 n52, 464, 473 n21 king(s): lifestyle 365–6; term of address 366, 380 n4, 380 n5, 380 n8, 380 n10; use of title 266 Kirchner, Professor 474 n24 Klaffenbach, G. 248 Koch, H. 388, 389, 390, 400, 401 n10, 402 n32 Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm 460, 498 Kornemann, E. 48, 53, 399 Kraft, Konard 497, 507 n5; Alexander’s deification 267, 280 n261; and Arrian 216, 219, 221; and Attalus 217, 218;

526

INDEX

and Badian 213; and Beloch 218; and Bosworth 213; and Curtius 215–16, 220; death of Philip II 211–12, 213; and Diodorus 218, 220; and Ehrenberg 214; and Hamilton 211, 213–14, 215; and Hampl 211, 214; method 219–22; and Nearchus 219; and Parmenio 212, 220; and Pausanias of Orestes 213, 217–18; Persian offensive 216; and Pixodarus 218–19; and Plutarch 214–15, 217, 219; and Ptolemy 219, 221; ‘rational’ Alexander 211, 222–3, 375; and Strasburger 214–15, 221 Kuhrt, A. 172 n60 Kush (Nubia-Ethiopia) 388, 398 Lamian War 78, 79, 81, 82, 94 n164, 136, 163, 297, 310 n78, 343, 378, 385 n62 Lampsacus 129, 130, 135, 145 n32 Langarus 111 n8 Laomedon 306 n49, 425 Latte, K. 308 n65 Lauffer, S. 472 n5 League of Antigonus and Demetrius 136, 137 League of Corinth 124, 125–6, 129, 130, 134–7, 142, 143, 144 n13, 147 n41, 148 n60, 149 n61a, 259, 265, 292, 355, 366, 499, 507 n18, 509 n32 League of Eresus 148 n53 League of Lamia 137 League of Philip II 136 Lebadeia 380 n8, 498 Lehmann-Haupt, C. 193, 207 n6, 207 n14, 210 n52 Lehmann, K. 224, 231, 232, 237 n3, 238 n12, 238 n15, 240 n41, 240 n42, 242 n48 Leonardos, V.I. 507 n8, 507 n10 Leonidas 159, 482 Leonnatus 44, 81, 88 n55, 95 n173, 204, 274 n3, 454 n66, 487, 505; and Aristobulus 453 n60; and Arrian 24, 47 n34; and proskynesis 260, 261–2; and Ptolemy 453 n60 Leontis, inscription of 82, 84 Leosthenes 68, 69, 77–80, 81, 89 n69, 94 n170 Leosthenes son of Leosthenes 79 Leotychidas 300 n9 Lesbos 133, 135, 366 Lesser Phrygia 65–6, 88 n55

Leuze, O.: Greeks of Asia 149 n69; and Philoxenus 139, 141, 150 n73, 150 n89 Lewis, D.M. 461 Limnus see Dimnus Lipinski, E. 460 Lippold, Georg 406 Lloyd, A.B. 451 n52, 464, 474 n22 Lock, R.A. 344, 347, 348, 350 Luxor 367 Lycia 194, 210 n58 Lycia-Pamphylia 88 n55 Lycurgus 6, 16 n25, 77, 79, 92 n134, 114, 163, 262 Lydia 130, 138, 146 n34, 164 Lyncestian dynasty 37, 41, 43, 109, 286, 302 n19 Lysander: and Habicht 247–8, 249, 251; and Plutarch 57 n4, 247–51, 254, 255, 275 n13 Lysandreia 247–51 Lysias the Syracusan 337 n11 Lysimachus 81, 146 n39a, 191 n40, 305 n42, 483 Lysippus 234, 418 n24 ‘Macedonia from the Iron Age to the Death of Philip II’ conference (Thessaloniki, 2002) xvi–xvii, xx n7 Macedonia/Macedonians 283, 287–8, 303 n24; Agis III’s army 338–44; from Amphipolis 291–2, 306 n50, 306 n51; citizenship laws 306 n50, 307 n52; custom 41; Greek origins of 286–7, 303 n21; Hellenism of xvi–xvii, 282–310; language 282–3, 294–5, 298 n1, 308 n64, 308 n65, 308 n66; as ‘northern Greeks’ 283; Staatsrecht 184, 304 n26, 306 n50 Macedonian Games 287 Macedonian Olympics 285, 302 n17 Maceta 200 Machatas 64 Magan/Makkan 386, 387–8, 401 n5 Magnesia on Maeander 131 Magnesia on Sipylus 127, 145 n20 Maka 387, 388, 389, 391, 393, 395, 398, 399, 400 Malli, the 371, 390, 400, 433, 441, 450 n38, 480, 487 Manetho 464 Marathon 162 Marcus Antonius 184–5

527

INDEX

Mardonius 392 Marsden, E.W. 472 n6 Marsyas of Pella 172 n47 Massaga 313, 314, 323 n12 Matris 113 Mazaeus 45 n15, 164–5, 437, 438, 461, 467 Meda 496 Medea 501, 508 n23 Media 167, 168, 454 n66, 468, 476 n38 ‘Medism’ 130 Medism 130, 146 n33, 158 Megalopolis 163, 168, 279 n51, 344–50, 360 Megara 300 n11 Megasthenes 403 n42 Meleager 174, 187, 188, 192 n62 Meluhha 386, 387, 401 n5, 401 n11 Memnon 61, 128, 133, 134, 135, 146 n32, 230, 240 n44, 435, 437, 502; and Antipater 163, 474 n24; and Arrian 133, 147 n42, 147 n46, 452 n57; attack on Cyzicus 126, 127; and Berve 171 n34, 171 n38, 446 n7, 474 n24; and Bosworth 474 n24; and Curtius 452 n57; and Darius III 436, 452 n55, 452 n57, 453 n59, 453 n60, 465; death of 156, 171 n19, 220, 436, 452 n57, 453 n59; and Diodorus 161, 169, 436, 452 n57, 474 n24; governor of Thrace 349, 474 n24; invasion of Greece 157, 158; revolt 160–1, 169, 171 n33, 171 n38; and treason 446 n7 Memnon of Aphidna 474 n24 Memphis 256, 277 n24, 335, 337 n12, 372, 464 Menander 39, 60, 66, 70, 151 n104 Menecrates 275 n11, 368 Menes 140, 151 n94, 166, 169, 347 Menesaechmus 90 n113 Menidas 64, 66, 87 n39, 88 n53, 361 n18 Mennis 172 n62, 350 Meno of Pharsalus 299 n7 Menon 60 Mentor 160, 435, 437, 453 n60, 465, 502, 509 n29 Methymna 140, 143 Metrodorus 114, 115 Metron 50 Meyer, E. 124, 170 n4, 170 n5, 170 n8, 265, 367, 367–8, 370 Michaelis, Adolf 411 Midas 284, 482 Mieza 290, 291

Miletus 132, 133, 156, 307 n56, 372; oracle 256–7, 277 n24 Mithradates of Persia 463, 473 n17 Mithradates son of Ariobarzanes 235, 240 n34, 270, 271, 436, 452 n54 Mithrenes 455 n72 Mitra 384 n55 Mnemon 460 Molossians 106, 286, 302 n19 Momigliano, A. 213 Mount Ida 126 Murison, J.A. 472 n6 Mylonas, Professor 306 n47 Mytilene 135, 156, 280 n57, 280 n58, 436, 452 n57 Nabarzanes 20–3, 374, 411, 436, 437, 438–9, 454 n70, 469, 477 n42 Nabonidus 387 Naqsh-i Rustam 385 n57, 392, 413 Naulochum 133, 147 n48a Nearchus 34 n56, 44, 88 n55, 276 n23, 291, 330, 331, 389, 455 n74; and the Agrianes 194, 208 n26; and Aristobulus 202, 203; and Arrian 86 n29, 194–5, 196, 198, 200, 204, 205, 207 n14, 207 n17, 208 n25, 209 n39, 209 n42, 209 n48, 221, 276 n23, 380 n4; and Berve 193, 199, 200, 207 n7, 208 n31, 210 n52, 309 n37; and Brown 193, 198, 207 n8; citizenship of 306 n52; and Curtius 195, 201, 202, 203, 209 n42; and Diodorus 65, 195, 201, 202–4; and Hamilton 209 n37; and the Hypaspists 194; and the Indus fleet 194, 195, 196–204; and Jacoby 210 n58; and Kraft 219; and Lehmann-Haupt 193, 207 n6, 207 n14, 210 n52; meeting with Alexander at Carmania 200–4; and Onesicritus 194, 196, 197, 198–200, 204, 205, 206, 207 n8, 209 n34; and Pearson 52, 193, 201, 207 n9, 207 n14; and Plutarch 201, 202, 203; and Ptolemy 204; rewards 204–5; sacrifices 486, 494 n13; self-assertion 196–8, 208 n31; and Tarn 86 n29, 208 n23; use of term ‘king’ 380 n4; and the Uxii 357; and Wirth 206 n5, 207 n19, 208 n21, 208 n23, 208 n25, 208 n26, 208 n31 Neoptolemus 294, 302 n19, 371 Nepos 326 Nicaea 177

528

INDEX

Nicanor 38, 39, 70, 71, 72–3, 74, 83–4, 85 n5, 90 n97, 91 n122, 149 n63 Nicias 138, 141 Nicobule 334 Nicomachus 40, 46 n30, 305 n39, 411, 412, 428, 429 Niese 346 Nilsson, M.P. 247, 281 n68, 382 n25 Nock, A.D. 251, 272, 368, 382 n25 Nylander, Carl: Alexander Mosaic 404, 409, 413, 416 n5, 475 n33; and Darius III 457–8, 460, 462, 469, 471 n3, 473 n21, 477 n42 Nympheum at Mieza 419 n26 Nysa 323 n13 O’Brien, J.M. 451 n48 Ochus, son of Darius III 463, 475 n31 Odysseus 286, 302 n20, 303 n23 Odyssey 52 Odyssey 193, 207 n9 Oeniadae 77, 94 n159 Oldach, David W. 451 n48 Olympias 73, 481; and Antipater 76–7, 425; and Diodorus 446 n13, 447 n18; and Harpalus 76–7, 151 n101; and Justin 446 n13, 510 n44; letters of 425, 426, 446 n13, 447 n18, 480, 504; and Philip II 97, 106, 107, 110, 111 n8, 213, 217, 219, 273, 423, 480, 496–8, 501, 502, 505, 507 n5, 508 n23, 509 n34; and Parmenio 38; and Plutarch 497; and the serpent 255, 372 Olympic festival 84 Olympic Games 111 n25, 285, 287, 288, 300 n9, 301 n15, 301 n16; and Alexander I 284, 288, 301 n15, 302n16, 365; and Philip II 289, 304 n34 Olympic proclamation 70, 78, 80, 91 n122, 149 n63 Oman 386, 387–8, 401 n5 Omphis 313, 323 n9 On the Sublime 113 Onesicritus: and Aristobulus 199; and Arrian 199; and Beloch 199, 200; and Berve 199, 200; and Jacoby 199, 210 n49; and Nearchus 194, 196, 197, 198–200, 204, 205, 206, 207 n8, 209 n34; and Pearson 51–2; and Pliny 199; and Plutarch 198–9; and Strabo 198, 199 Opis 3–6, 7, 9, 10–11, 15 n15, 15 n18, 15 n19, 16 n28, 17 n48, 33 n35, 186, 341,

378; and Eratosthenes 6–13, 14, 16 n34, 17 n49, 18 n52, 18 n56, 18 n81; mutiny 120–1 Ora 313–14 Ordanes 62, 274 n3, 443–4 Oreitae 204, 221 Orestian Argos 300 n10 Orestis 292 Orobatis 317, 318, 319, 321, 323 n8, 323 n17; and Brunt 324 n17; and Hephaestion 316, 318, 323 n17, 324 n18; and Perdiccas 316, 323 n17 Orontes 61, 455 n72 Orsines see Orxines Orxines 59, 376, 442–3; and Arrian 23, 25–6; and Bagoas 23–6, 28, 34 n44, 35 n83, 59, 443; and Berve 444; and Curtius 23–6, 28, 443; and Ptolemy 34 n44 Ostanes 458 Oxathres 24, 63, 85 n5, 436, 510 n46 Oxyartes 59 Oxyathres 463 Oxydracae, the 390, 400, 450 n38 Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 4808 xii Ozines 62, 274 n3, 443–4 Pactyans 391–2 Paeania 92 n134 pages’ conspiracy 431, 432, 449 n31, 449 n32, 449 n35, 450 n37, 482–3, 492, 493 n7 Paktyes/Pathan 388, 389 Palagia, Olga 415, 418 n25 Pamphylia 482 Panaetius 493 n2 Pan-Hellenism 129, 145 n29 Pan-Hellenic congress 288, 304 n28 Paricanioi 391 Parmenio 30, 40, 102, 106, 107, 108, 128, 129, 131, 146 n32, 148 n53, 167, 235, 304 n34, 338, 352, 412, 423, 424, 503, 506; and Agis III 157, 170 n17; Alexander Vulgate 433, 453 n62; and Alexander’s accession 97–9; Alexander’s treasure 357, 358; and Andreotti 44 n3; and Arrian 26, 46 n30, 57 n8, 165, 224, 225, 226–7, 228, 238 n20, 239 n29, 349; in Asia 126, 498; assassination of 36, 37–47, 44 n3, 57 n8, 63–4, 76, 87 n49, 94 n159, 99–100, 363 n59, 374, 428–30, 434, 440, 491, 494 n19; and Attalus 38, 39, 42, 43, 45 n16, 425, 503, 506; and

529

INDEX

Berve 42, 43, 44 n8, 45 n5, 45 n10, 45 n15, 45 n16, 46 n19, 46 n30, 46 n30a, 47 n32, 47 n34; and Bessus 37–8; and Bosworth 237 n6, 363 n 59; and Callisthenes 39, 45 n15, 50, 98–9, 226; and Cleander 38, 45 n16, 98, 100, 102, 430, 434, 441; and Coenus 63–5, 98, 100; conspiracy of 427, 489; and conspiracy of Alexander of Lyncestis 424–5, 426; and Curtius 46 n30, 430; and Darius III 37; and Diodorus 126–7, 145 n19, 225, 237 n6; and Gaugamela 39, 238 n17; and Granicus 224, 225, 234, 238 n17, 238 n20, 242 n56; at Grynium 126, 127, 130; and Hegelochus 40–1; influence of 38–9, 110; and Jacoby 199, 210 n49; and Kraft 212, 220; letter of 426; and Olympias 38; and Philip II 38, 429; and Philip the Acarnanian 426, 447 n20; and Plutarch 238 n17; and Ptolemy 26, 45 n15; and Sisines 424, 448 n22; and Tarn 36, 41, 42, 45 n15, 46 n21, 46 n29; term of address 380 n4 Parnaka/Pharnaces 462 Paropamisus 399–400 Parthia 38, 168–9 Pasargadae 373, 375–8, 384 n45, 432, 443, 468, 470 Pasitigris 165 Patrocles 90 n113, 369 Patron 439, 454 n70, 455 n71, 469, 476 n40 Pattala 221 Pausanias of Sparta 114, 140, 145 n32, 176, 273; Alexander’s burial place 335–6, 337 n12; Alexander’s Greek mercenaries 68, 307 n53; letters of 383 n37, 475 n29 Pausanias of Orestes (the assassin) 248, 505, 507 n5; and Attalus 108–9, 500, 501; death of 499, 500, 508 n20; and Diodorus 508 n20, 508 n21, 508 n22, 509 n29; and Justin 500, 501, 508 n20, 508 n21; and Kraft 213, 217–18; and Philip II 497, 499–501; and Plutarch 480–1, 501, 503 Pearson, L. 334, 335, 337 n10; and Antipater 49–50; and Aristobulus 52–3; and Callisthenes 49–50; and Chares 50, 495 n21; and Clitarchus 50, 55–6; and Diodorus 48, 50, 115–16; and the Ephemerides 56, 327; and Ephippus 51;

and Hamilton 56; and Nearchus 52, 193, 201, 207 n9, 207 n14; and Onesicritus 51–2; and Pliny 116–17, 119 n29; and Ptolemy 53–5; and Strabo 49; and Strasburger 52, 53, 54, 55, 57 n8; and Tarn 48, 51, 52–3, 55–6, 57 n3 Pella 133, 292, 305 n39, 306 n52, 365, 465, 474 n24 Peloponnese 67, 69, 71, 136, 161–2, 163, 164, 166, 169, 277 n24, 300 n14, 360 Peloponnesian War 247, 299 n7, 338, 339, 340, 361 n21 Peppas-Delmouzou, Mrs 274 n7 Perdiccas 42, 44, 64, 163, 190 n34, 198, 286, 290, 302 n16, 313, 333, 505, 511 n50; and Alexander I 283, 299 n7; Alexander’s hypomnemata 174–5, 176, 177, 184, 185–7, 189 n1, 189 n4, 333–4; Alexander’s ring 175, 176, 178, 188, 189 n12, 325, 326, 327–8, 337 n13; death of 498; and Diodorus 310 n76; in the field 366; and Greek culture 284–5; and Hieronymous 190 n31; and Orobatis 316, 323 n17; and Peucelaotis 311, 313, 317; and Ptolemy 81–2, 190 n25 Perdiccas III 288, 289, 422 Pergamum 276 n18 Pericles 114 Perinthus, siege of 306 n44, 500 Peripatetic School xiv–xv, 23, 24, 25, 29–31, 32, 49 Periplus 49, 52 Perrhaebia 162 Persepolis 165–8, 349, 351, 358, 359, 372, 373, 388, 402 n24, 403 n39, 413, 443, 462, 468; burning of 165, 170 n6, 338, 352–5, 358, 360, 363 n49, 374, 468, 470, 480; and Arrian 165; and Bickerman 363 n44; and Clitarchus 165, 170 n6; and Curtius 352, 353; and Diodorus 352, 353; and Plutarch 165, 352; and Ptolemy 165; and Tarn 165, 353, 354; and Wirth 363 n45 Persepolis Fortification Tables 389, 398, 399, 401 n14, 462 Perseus 303 n23 Persian (Susian) Gates 165, 476 n37 Persis 65, 167–8, 180, 348, 352–3, 358–9, 389, 443 Peucelaotis: and Anspach 318, 322 n7; and Aristobulus 315–16, 317–18, 323 n16; and Arrian 232 n12, 311, 313–14,

530

INDEX

315, 316, 318–19, 320–3, 323 n17; and Berve 318; and Bosworth 322; chronology of 313–19, 321; and Curtius 315; and Diodorus 315; and Droysen 318; and Hephaestion 311, 313, 317; map of 312; and Perdiccas 311, 313, 317; political organisation 320–1; and Ptolemy 317–18; and Strabo 315 Peucestas 60, 66, 85 n11, 88 n53, 88 n55, 88 n56, 443, 450 n44; and Curtius 371; sacred shield of Ilium 371, 487 Pharnabazus 133, 147 n46, 156, 157, 158, 171 n21, 171 n30, 452 n57, 453 n60 Phaselis 149 n65, 424, 446 n12 Phidias 271 Phila 64 Philip (satrap) 60 Philip, commander 318, 321 Philip II 41, 70, 76, 85 n8, 96–7, 98, 158, 160, 163, 230, 233, 235, 251, 287, 288, 303 n24, 355; Alexander’s attitude towards 176, 182, 186, 191 n42, 211–12, 217–19, 485, 489, 491–2, 501, 503–4, 506 n2, 508 n23, 509 n33, 510 n36, 510 n37; as Alexander’s father 372, 383 n41, 385 n63; and Alexander of Lyncestis 109, 110; Amphictyonic Council 288, 304 n30; and Amyntas IV (son of Perdiccas) 111 n25a, 303 n26, 423, 424, 446 n8, 498–9, 503, 510 n41; and Aristotle 108–9, 111 n20, 219; in Asia 125–8, 135, 147 n41; as Athenian citizen 445 n6; and Attalus 106, 107, 108, 423, 445 n5, 496, 500, 511 n50; as a barbarian 294; and Bosworth 381 n12, 506 n3; death of 36–7, 97, 106–12, 112 n26, 211–12, 213, 217–19, 422–4, 445 n2, 464–5, 484–5, 496–511, 511 n50; and Demosthenes 79, 154, 252–3, 295; and Diodorus 108, 303 n26, 499–501, 505, 507 n18, 508 n19; divine cult 108, 111 n16, 251–3, 269–73, 274 n9, 281 n68, 366–7, 368, 369–70, 381 n12; and Droysen xiv; in Ephesus 126–8, 129, 253; in the field 366; founding cities 381 n11; and Fredricksmeyer 269, 270, 271–3, 281 n68; and Hammond 288, 303 n25, 505, 511 n50; Hellenism of 289–91, 296, 306 n47, 306 n50, 309 n70; and Herodotus 369; and Justin 110, 303 n26, 484–5, 505, 507 n5, 510 n36, 510 n37; and Kraft 211–12, 213;

League of Corinth 155; marriage to Cleopatra 38, 106, 108, 110, 128, 218, 219, 423, 424, 445 n5, 446 n11, 484, 496, 499, 500, 510 n38, 511 n50; and Menecrates 275 n11; mother of 288, 303 n25; and Olympias 97, 106, 107, 110, 111 n8, 213, 217, 219, 273, 423, 480, 496–8, 501, 502, 505, 507 n5, 509 n34; Olympic Games 289, 304 n34; and Parmenio 38, 429; and Pausanias of Orestes 497, 499–501; and Philotas 504, 506; Pixodarus 501–3, 504, 506, 508 n25, 508 n26, 509 n33, 509 n34; and Plutarch 481, 510 n36, 510 n37, 510 n38; portrait statue 366; pyramid for 182, 186; and Sparta 154–5; synnaos of Artemis 127; and Tarn 112 n26; term of address 366; tomb of 414, 415; and Xenophon 369 Philip III Arridaeus 111 n5; and Curtius 415; tomb of 415, 419 n27, 419 n29 Philip of Megara 115 Philip the Acarnanian 425–7, 448 n23; and Alexander Vulgate 426, 447 n19, 448 n20; and Aristobulus 426, 427; and Arrian 426, 427; and Berve 425, 426, 447 n19; and Bosworth 426; and Curtius 427; and Parmenio 426, 447 n20; and Ptolemy 427 Philip V 304 n26 Philippi 381 n11 Philippopolis 381 n11 Philocles 82, 84, 92 n141, 93 n142 Philodemus the Epicurean 113–14 Philotas 31, 98, 106, 207 n17, 412, 450 n44, 454 n66, 504; and Alexander Vulgate 491; and Aristobulus 44 n8, 46 n21, 57 n8, 448 n24, 490, 494 n20; and Arrian 44 n8, 46 n21, 57 n8, 448 n24, 490, 494 n20; and Bosworth 450 n44, 495 n24; and Callisthenes 46 n23, 55; and Chares 57 n5, 495 n21; conspiracy of 25–6, 37–41, 42, 44 n8, 47 n32, 372, 432, 447 n19, 449 n28, 489–93; and Craterus 37, 43–4, 428, 489, 494 n20; and Curtius 40, 41, 44 n8, 46 n24, 50, 372, 490; death of 450 n44, 494 n19; and Diodorus 44 n8, 45 n12, 490, 494 n20; and Harpalus 151 n101; as innocent 259, 491, 492, 493 n7; letters of 449 n37; and Philip II 504, 506; plot against 36, 39–40, 43–4, 55, 57 n5, 57

531

INDEX

n8, 64, 76, 86 n22, 87 n37, 87 n49, 99–100, 109, 355, 374, 427–30, 433, 440, 441, 448 n25, 485; and Plutarch 44 n7, 45 n8, 45 n11, 46 n20, 46 n24, 50, 372, 428–9, 430, 432, 448 n25, 449 n28, 449 n37, 491, 492–3, 494 n20, 495 n21, 495 n24, 504, 506; and Ptolemy 44 n8, 46 n21, 490, 494 n20; trial of 448 n24 Philoxenus 60, 66, 70, 73, 74, 76, 90 n108, 93 n148, 94 n155, 131, 137–8, 139–42, 143, 146 n36, 149 n68, 151 n96, 172 n62, 280 n59, 356; and Arrian 138, 139, 141, 142; and Berve 138, 139, 141; and Leuze 139, 141, 150 n73, 150 n89; and Tarn 139–40, 150 n86 Philoxenus of Eretria 411–12, 414, 418 n19 Phocion 73, 74, 75, 90 n109, 140 Phoenicia 137, 138, 139, 151 n96, 161, 169 Photius 190 n35, 398; Alexander’s hypomnemata 177, 187, 188; Alexander’s ring 189 n12 Phrada 428 Phradates see Autophradates Phraortes 477 n42 Phrasaortes 443 Phrataphernes 61, 86 n33, 442, 446 n14 Phrygia 88 n55, 194, 220 Phryne 271 Phrynichus 509 n32 Picard, C. 271 Pindar 245, 246, 274 n7, 276 n20, 276 n23, 306 n43, 382 n23 Pir-sar 322 n1 Pithon 61, 297, 310 n76 Pixodarus 38, 107, 192, 194, 291, 369, 429, 489; and Bosworth 509 n34; and Curtius 485; and death of Philip II 501–3, 504, 506, 508 n25, 508 n26, 509 n33, 509 n34; and Fredricksmeyer 509 n33, 510 n37; and Kraft 218–19; and Plutarch 485, 501–3, 508 n24 Plataea 283, 298 n6, 299 n7, 392, 399 Plato 19 n81, 249–51, 302 n18, 368 Pleistias of Cos 199 Pleuratus 218, 499, 507 n15 Pleurias 218, 507 n18 Pliny 411, 418 n20; Alexander’s warships 181; and Clitarchus 55–6, 116–17, 119 n28, 119 n31; on medicine 448 n20; Natural History 113, 199, 322 n2; and Onesicritus 199; and Pearson 116–17, 119 n29; and Ptolemy 53, 54

Plutarch 49, 337 n9, 363 n48, 383 n42; and Alexander of Lyncestis 368; and Alexander Vulgate 383 n42, 428, 447 n20, 448 n27, 491, 492; Alexander’s deification 262, 268; Alexander’s divine sonship 372; Alexander’s education 305 n42; Alexander’s exile 106, 496–7, 507 n5; Alexander’s letter to Athens 281 n65; Alexander’s ‘policy of fusion’ 308 n61; Alexander’s regency 306 n44, 499; Alexander’s relation with courtiers 448 n24; Alexander’s religious piety 481–2; Alexander’s visit to Ammon 276 n20; Alexander’s youth 484–5; Alexandropolis 306 n45, 383 n38 ; and the Amazon 57 n7; and Amyntas IV (son of Perdiccas) 112 n26; and Antipater 94 n159, 482; Aristides 493 n2; and Aristobulus 330–1, 332, 482, 483, 493 n8, 493 n9; and Arrian 447 n20; Artaxerxes II’s concubines 472 n11; Bacchic procession 28, 34 n48, 34 n50; and Bagoas 20, 24, 25–8, 34 n48, 203; brotherhood of man 7–12, 13–14, 17 n36, 17 n44, 17 n49, 17 n50, 18 n54, 18 n56, 19 n80; and Callisthenes 258–9, 409, 449 n31, 450 n38, 482–3, 484, 492; and Cassander 412; and Chares 482, 483–4; and Curtius 430; and Cyrus’ tomb 376; and Darius III 462, 473 n17, 476 n38; De Alexandri Fortuna 7, 9–10; and Dimnus 428, 490–1; Diogenes and the Pythia 51–2; Dio’s cult at Syracuse 254, 276 n19; and the Ephemerides 327, 328, 330, 331–3, 334, 434; and Eumenes 188, 308 n67; fatherhood of God 2, 15 n11; and Gaugamela 483; and Granicus 226, 227–8, 229, 231, 233, 237 n2, 238 n17, 239 n29, 239 n32, 239 n34; and Hamilton 275 n14; and Harpalus 90 n109; and Kraft 214–15, 217, 219; Life of Alexander 9, 10, 277 n32, 304 n34, 479–84, 485–8, 489–93, 493 n6, 497, 509 n34; Life of Phocion 74, 91 n116; and Lysander 57 n4, 247–51, 254, 255, 275 n13; Macedonian language 308 n64; Moralia 301 n15, 382 n22, 491, 497; and Nearchus 201, 202, 203; and Olympias 497; and Onesicritus 198–9; oracle at Delphi 481–2; pages’ conspiracy 482–3, 493 n7; and Parmenio 238 n17; and

532

INDEX

Pausanias of Orestes 480–1, 501, 503; and Persepolis 165, 352; and Philip II 481, 510 n36, 510 n37, 510 n38; and Philotas 44 n7, 45 n8, 45 n11, 46 n20, 46 n24, 50, 372, 428–9, 430, 432, 448 n25, 449 n28, 449 n37, 491, 492–3, 494 n20, 495 n21, 495 n24, 504, 506; and Pixodarus 485, 501–3, 508 n24; and proskynesis 245, 258–60, 277 n32, 277 n33, 384 n50, 484; sack of Thebes 146 n33; the sea 140, 150 n86; spear tradition 487; and Tarn 7–9, 10–11 Polemo 177, 190 n34, 190 n35 Polemocrates 26 Polyaenus 140, 145 n18, 145 n26, 146 n36, 238 n23, 510 n41 Polybius 49, 138, 227, 230, 240 n39, 307 n61, 341–2 Polydamas 87 n39 Polyeuctus 93 n141 Polyperchon 274 n3 Polystratus 455 n71 Porus 86 n24, 195 Porus’ son, battle with 53–4 pothos 216, 223 Potts, D. 386 Powell, J.E. 250 Prestianni-Giallombardo, A.M. 419 n27 Priam 369, 371, 488 Price, Martin J. 417 n18 Prience 267 Priene 136 ; inscriptions 132–4, 146 n39, 146 n39a, 151 n96 Prison of Solomon 384 n57 Procles 90 n113 proskynesis 245, 257–62, 373–5, 378; and Anaxarchus 260; and Aristobulus 260; and Arrian 244, 258, 260, 375, 384 n50; and Bosworth 384 n50; and Callisthenes 258–61, 277 n30, 368, 384 n50, 484; and Chares 258–60, 227 n33, 384 n50, 484; and Clement 269; and Curtius 258, 375, 384 n50; and deification 258–62; and Diodorus 375; and Hamilton 261, 277 n30, 277 n32; and Leonnatus 260, 261–2; and Plutarch 245, 258–60, 277 n32, 277 n33, 384 n50, 484; and Ptolemy 260 Proteas 157, 170 n18 Protesilaus 370 Psammon 2–3, 481 Pseudo-Scylax 345

Ptolemy 39, 40, 42, 61–2, 81–2, 118, 150 n93, 176, 177, 181, 190 n25, 399, 493 n9; and the Amazon 57 n7; and Arrhidaeus 190 n33; and Arrian 53, 54, 55, 62, 86 n24, 120–1, 332, 426, 427, 429, 447 n19, 449 n37, 462, 476 n38, 483, 490, 494 n13; Bacchic revels at Nysa 323 n13; and Bagoas 22, 25–6, 31, 32, 34 n37, 55; banquet at Opis 4, 9–11, 16 n28, 17 n48, 33 n35; and Callisthenes 101, 259, 384 n50, 432; and Curtius 54, 57 n8; and Darius III 453 n60, 477 n42; and Dimnus 429; and the Ephemerides 327, 328–9, 330, 331, 332, 335–6, 336 n6; and Granicus 238 n16, 242 n53; and Hephaestion 26, 34 n43, 191 n44; and Hyphasis 432–3; and Kraft 219, 221; and Leonnatus 453 n60; and Nearchus 204; Orientals in Alexander’s army 121; and Orxines 34 n44; and the pages’ conspiracy 432, 449 n37; and Parmenio 26, 45 n15; and Pearson 53–5; and Perdiccas 82–2, 190 n25; Persepolis: burning of 165; and Peucelaotis 317–18; and Philip the Acarnanian 427; and Philotas 44 n8, 46 n21, 490, 494 n20; and Pliny 53, 54; Porus’ son, battle with 54; and proskynesis 260; sack of Thebes 146 n33; and Strabo 53 Ptolemy ‘Chennus’ 411, 418 n19 Ptolemy I 115, 136, 148 n58, 337 n8 Ptolemy II 135 Ptolemy IV xii, 270–1 Ptolemy son of Seleucus 309 n72 Pura 24, 27–8, 59, 63, 87 n46, 444 Pydna 251–3 Pyrgoteles 418 n24 Pyrrhus son of Neoptolemus 286 Pytheas 90 n113 Pythodelus 509 n32 Pythodorus 509 n32 Python of Byzantium 306 n47 Quintilian 113 Quirinus 30, 31 Qum 353 Rhadamanthus 302 n18 Rhagae 353 Rhebulas son of Seuthes 169 Rheomitres 436

533

INDEX

Rhodes 135, 140, 143, 149 n62, 151 n101 Robinson, C.A. 238 n16 Rome 181 Roxana 206, 374 royal footstool 373, 383 n42, 383 n43 Rtaupama 389 Rubinsohn, Z. 494 n20 Rumpf, Andreas 409 Sabaces 436 Sachs, A.J. 362 n38, 473 n17 sacred shield 487–8 Saka 388, 399 Salamis 162, 199 Sallust 475 n29 Salmous 201, 202, 204 Samos 74, 80, 91 n122, 133, 135, 247–51, 262, 268, 281 n65, 379 Sangaeus 313, 317, 318, 320–1 Sardis 130, 140, 141, 142, 166, 356 Sargon II 386, 387, 401 n11 Sargon of Akkad 386 Satibarzanes 33 n24, 39, 47 n33, 491 satrapies 59–60, 85 n5 Sattagydia 387, 388, 389, 390, 391, 398, 400 Satyrus 370, 496 Schachermeyr, F. 14 n6, 15 n8, 176, 211; Alexander’s attitude towards his father 191 n42; Alexander’s hypomnemata 175, 179, 181–3, 184, 187, 189, 191 n41; Alexander’s warships 182; and Bagoas 31, 33 n31, 34–41; fate of Alexander’s body 178; and Granicus 241 n42, 242 n49; Greeks of Asia 146 n34, 148 n56; and Harpalus 85 n4, 86 n29, 87 n37, 87 n46; Hephaestion’s monument 191 n44 Schmidt, E.F. 392–3, 403 n35 Schmitt, H.H. 149 n70 Schmitt, R. 460, 473 n14, 473 n17 Schmitthenner, W. 488, 494 n14 Schrader, E. 460 Schubert, R. 176, 178, 190 n31, 190 n35 Schwarzenberg 280 n57 Scylax of Caryanda 388, 389 Scythia 398, 399 Sea of Azov 181 Search for Alexander, The 303 n24 Second Athenian Confederacy 136, 302 n19, 304 n28 Seibert, Jakob 343–4, 452 n54, 457, 472 n9 Seleucus 54, 413–14

Semiramis 221, 386, 387, 388, 510 n46 Seneca 426, 469, 476 n41 Seuthes the Odrysian 81 Shayegan, Rahim M. 472 n12 Sherwin-White, S.M. 146 n39a, 149 n61a, 172 n60 Sibyrtius 59, 88 n56 Sicily 181, 286, 302 n20 Simias 114, 115 Siphnos 147 n46 Sippar 350 Sisicottus 399, 400 Sisines: and Alexander Vulgate 446 n13; and Arrian 424, 446 n13; and Berve 446 n14; and Curtius 424, 446 n13; and Diodorus 446 n13, 447 n18; and Justin 424 446 n13; and Parmenio 424–5, 448 n2 Sisyngambris/Sisigambis 351, 458, 461, 463 Sitalces 59, 64, 87 n38, 441 Sittacene 172 n62, 351 Siwah 176, 220, 256, 269, 276 n23 Snodgrass, Anthony 411 Sochi 436 Socrates 245, 246, 285 Socrates of Macedon 52, 167–8, 242 n53, 272 Sogdiana 356, 374, 398, 399 Soter 337 n12 Sparta 67, 70, 79, 155, 248, 259; Alexander’s deification 262, 268; hostages from 349–50; kings 366; and Philip II 154–5 spear tradition 486–8 Speusippus 304 n32, 305 n38 Spithrobates 473 n17 Stadter, Philip 480 Stasanor 60, 86 n33 Stateira 462–3 Stein, Aurel 311, 313, 322 n1 Stephanus: Thesaurus 209 n38 Stewart, Andrew 416 n2, 418 n19, 418 n20 Stilpo of Megara 114 Stolper, Professor 473 n17 Stolze, F. 396 Strabo 191 n40, 221, 302 n19, 345; Alexander’s deification 257, 279 n56; Alexander’s treasure 357; Alexander’s visit to Ammon 276 n20; and Aristotle 12; Artemidorus 385 n60; and Callisthenes 49; and Cyrus’ tomb 376; and Darius III

534

INDEX

459; and Eratosthenes 12, 14; and the Erythraean priestess 277 n24; Geography 7–8, 10, 17 n46; and the Hydaspes fleet 195; and the Maka 388; and Onesicritus 198, 199; and Pasargadae 384 n45; and Pearson 49; and Peucelaotis 315; and Ptolemy 53 Strasburger, Herman 211; and Kraft 214–15, 221; and Pearson 52, 53, 54, 55, 57 n8 Stratocles 90 n113, 113 Strattis of Olynthus 334 Stroebus 49 Stronach, D. 384 n56 Stroux 29, 35 n66, 35 n74 Suda 209 n34, 266, 334, 382 n22, 462 Sulla 113 Susa 11, 18 n54, 66, 103, 164, 165, 166, 172 n62, 173 n80, 182, 191 n53, 198, 204, 205, 346, 347, 348, 350, 351, 354, 356, 359, 363 n41, 372, 376, 378, 389, 403 n39, 413, 437, 468, 476 n37, 480 Susa list DSe 388, 391 Susiana 165 Synesius 53 synhedrion of the Hellenes 125, 137, 450 n38 syntaxis 132, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138–9, 142, 148 n60, 150 n73, 151 n96 Syracuse 180, 253–4, 276 n19 Syrian prophetess 431–2 Tacitus 427 Taeger, Fritz 247, 254, 262–3, 265, 267, 280 n57 Taenarum 67, 69, 73, 77, 78, 80, 84, 157, 158 Tarn, William Woodthorpe xiv–xv, xx n2, 178, 221, 222, 325, 326, 336 n1; and Agis III 154, 162, 338; Alexander the Dreamer 1, 5–6, 11; Alexander’s army: Orientals in 121; Alexander’s deification 267, 276 n23; Alexander’s drinking 331; Alexander’s hypomnemata 174–5, 179, 181–3, 184, 187, 191 n41, 191 n60; Alexander’s policies 165–6, 173 n79; Alexander’s ‘policy of fusion’ 307 n61; and Antipater 149 n62; and Arrian 173 n79, 472 n7; and Bagoas 20–2, 23–4, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30–1, 32, 32 n8, 33 n17, 33 n30, 33 n35, 34 n37, 34 n44, 34 n48, 34 n54, 35 n56, 35 n80; banquet at Opis 3–6, 10–11; and Barsine 210 n51;

and Bengtson 150 n88; Cambridge Ancient History xiv; and Cleomenes of Naucratis 33 n35, 142, 150 n93; and Clitarchus 112 n26, 114, 170 n6; and Darius III 457, 472 n5, 472 n7, 477 n42; and Diodorus 325; and Eratosthenes 6–7, 8, 10; fatherhood of God 1–2; and Gaugamela 45 n15; Greeks of Asia 125, 126, 133, 134, 136–7, 144 n9, 144 n10, 145 n17, 145 n32, 147 n41; and Harpalus 58, 86 n24, 86 n29, 89 n93; Lydian laws 146 n34; and Nearchus 86 n29, 208 n23; and Parmenio 36, 41, 42, 45 n15, 46 n21, 46 n29; and Pearson 48, 51, 52–3, 55–6, 57 n3; Peripatetic School 49; Persepolis: burning of 165, 353, 354; and Philip II 112 n26; and Philoxenus 139–40, 150 n86; and Plutarch 7–9, 10–11; and Polyaenus 146 n36; unity of mankind 1, 15 n8, 15 n13, 15 n19, 16 n28, 16 n36, 17 n46, 17 n49, 413 Taxila 315, 323 n16 Taxiles 311, 313, 399 Taylor, L.R. 277 n32 Tegea 162, 265 Temenids of Argos 284, 285, 286–7, 289, 300 n10, 300 n15, 365 Ten Thousand, the 347–8 Tenedos 133, 134, 156 Thais 165, 173 n79, 355 Thasos 265 Thatagush 387, 390 Thebes 52, 73, 79, 127, 130, 134, 144 n10, 146 n33, 154, 155, 158, 292, 339, 355, 464, 492 Themistius 35 n65 Themistocles 114, 300 n9 Theophrastus 28, 31, 35 n60, 35 n71, 35 n74, 55, 56, 114–15, 116, 117, 119 n28; Callisthenes 29–30, 49 Theopompus 55, 116, 117, 254, 289, 290, 474 n24 Thessalus 219, 429, 485, 502, 504 Thessaly 162, 303 n23 Thoas 59, 60, 88 n56 Thrace 136, 160, 161, 163, 166, 169, 290, 349, 383 n38, 398, 499 Thrasymachus 285, 303 n21 Thucydides 227, 279 n49, 284, 299 n7, 300 n10, 301 n15, 302 n16, 302 n18, 302 n21, 382 n21

535

INDEX

Thymondas 158, 436, 452 n57, 453 n59 Tiberius 427, 449 n28 Timaeus 254, 337 n11 Timagenes 113 Timagoras of Gela 114 Timoclea 52, 146 n33 Timocles 82–3 Titus Quinctius Flamininus 154 Tlepolemus 59, 88 n56, 209 n42, 455 n74 Tod, M.N. 148 n53, 169, 171 n38, 474 n24 Trajan 279 n56 Tralles 131 Tripodi, B. 419 n27, 419 n28 Trogus 459, 473 n12 Trojan War 129, 371, 487 Trophonius, cave of 498 Troy 487–8 Tyre 148 n53, 345, 346 Tyriaspes 59 Utioi 391 Uxii 165, 351, 356–7, 358, 363 n40, 363 n41, 476 n37 Vaiçyu 394 Valerius Maximus 458–9 Vergina 273, 284, 414–15, 418 n26, 419 n28 Versnel, H.S. 281 n68 Vespasian, Temple of Peace 418 n19 Vogelsang, W. 390, 393, 396, 400, 401 n13, 402 n19 Walbank, F.W. 342 Wallinga, H.T. 339 Walser, G. 395 Welles, C.B. 15 n7, 145 n17, 494 n20 Wilcken, Ulrich xx n2, 291; Alexander’s hypomnemata 184, 190 n35; Alexander’s

visit to Ammon 276 n20; and Granicus 239 n31, 240 n42, 242 n48, 242 n56; Greeks of Asia 124, 135, 137, 148 n53, 149 n67; and Harpalus 87 n46, 89 n90, 89 n93; unity of mankind 5, 15 n8, 15 n9 Will, W. 510 n38 Wirth, G.: and the Agrianes 208 n26; Alexander at Persepolis 363 n45; battle of Megalopolis 347; Gaugamela to Ecbatana march 351, 352; and Nearchus 206 n5, 207 n19, 208 n21, 208 n23, 208 n25, 208 n26, 208 n31 Xanthus, prophetic tablet 482 Xennias 294, 308 n66 Xenophon 305 n42, 310 n72, 348, 447 n16, 468; and Cyrus 387; read by Alexander 291; read by Philip II 369 Xerxes 163, 165, 172 n60, 257, 298 n6, 355, 402 n24, 436, 439, 453 n60, 454 n69, 465, 474 n23, 510 n46; and Homer’s heroes 368–9; tomb of 397–8, 400 Zagros 359 Zahn, Wilhelm 406 Zariaspes 62, 274 n3, 443–4 Zelea 130, 135, tyrant of 275 n11 Zeno: Republic 7, 17 n36 Zeus-Ammon 2, 49, 302 n17, 378, 494 n13; Alexander son of 49–50, 104, 137, 176, 211, 212, 213–14, 215, 217, 256–7, 261, 267–70, 276 n20, 276 n23, 278 n43, 280 n61, 285 n63, 371–5, 374 n48, 375 Zeus Philippios 253, 366–7 Zeus Seleukeios 253 Zeuxis 285, 288, 302 n18, 365 Zopyrion 349, 359 Zopyrus 477 n42

536