by David Grant
499.Alexander at the Tomb of Cyrus by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, ca. 1650, Alexander and Porus by Charles Le Brun (1619-1690), Alexander the Great and the Fates by Bernadino Mei (ca. 1612-1676) The Tent of Darius by Charles Le Brun was originally titled Les Reines de Perse aux pieds d’Alexandre.
500.Displayed at the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
501.Now at the Maritime Art collection in Greenwich.
502.Alexander recited from the Andromache at Medius’ komos; see Athenaeus 12.537b, fragment on Robinson (1953) p 89. Athenaeus 10.44p for the size of Alexander’s drinking cup and Iliad 11.632-637 for Nestor’s cup; Diodorus 17.117.1 also term the cup ‘huge’. Discussed by F Pownall in Carney-Ogden (2010) p 64. The fragment is from Eubolos’ Semele of Dionysus.
503.Lucian How to write History 1-2.
504.Fragment 141, for full discussion of the Euripides’ fragments, see translation and discussion in Collard-Cropp-Gilbert (2004) p 153.
505.Discussed at length in the chapter titled Babylon: the Cipher and Rosetta Stone.
506.Justin 12.13.3-7 for the Magi warning and Alexander’s diversion past the ‘uninhabited’ Borsippa; the Babylonian surviving documents however suggest Borsippa was still a trade centre, see Bosworth (200) p 220 for detail. Also Arrian 7.16.5-7, Plutarch 73.1 and Diodorus 112.2-5 who terms them Chaldeans as opposed to Magi. Plutarch Moralia 466d or On Tranquility of Mind for Anaxarchus’ belief in innumerable worlds following Democritus’ school.
507.Justin 12.15.1-3 for his reflection that most of his line died before reaching thirty. See chapter titled Mythoi, Muthodes and the Birth of Romance for detail of Cleophis. Arrian 7.14.5; Alexander is said to have destroyed the shrine of Asclepius at Ecbatana at Hephaestion’s death, complaining to envoys from Epidaurus that Asclepius had ‘not treated me kindly, for he did not save my friend I valued as my own life’; translation by A de Selincourt, Penguin edition, 1958.
508.Homer Iliad 11.518 for Asclepius ‘the blameless physician’; better 'faultless' or 'capable'.
509.Jaeger (1939) p 47 for the Achilleid discussion; some scholars believe the original title. Statius wrote an unfinished Achilleid as a life story of the hero in the 1st century.
510.Homer Iliad 1.1.
511.Quoting from Hyperides over Leosthenes and his Comrades in the Lamian War.
512.For references to the Elysian Fields see Homer Odyssey 24.5-9 and Virgil Aeneid, 6.54. For Pythagorean belief in immortality see Riedweg (2002) p 37. Hesiod termed the Elysian Fields the Fortunate or Blessed Isles, which were, like the Elysian Fields, supposedly located at the western edge of the Earth.
513.Castor and Pollux, or Polydeuces, were the Dioscouri, twin brothers yet of different fathers; Castor was immortalised by his father, Zeus, and begged him to let Pollux (son of the mortal Tyndareus of Sparta) share his immortality with him. Alexander did sacrifice to them; see Plutarch 50 describing the death of Cleitus.
514.The Book of Daniel 3.1 described a golden statue erected by Nebuchadrezzar II on the plain of Dura near Babylon. It was purportedly 90 feet tall.
515.The Egyptian titles are discussed in de Mauriac (1949) p 112 quoting FA Wright Alexander the Great, 1934, pp160-161. Also Anson (2013) p 105 for the inscriptions.
516.For details of the Book of the Dead see Casson (2001) Egypt pp 116-117. For the progression of gods see Manetho’s Dynasties of Gods, Demigods, and Spirits of the Dead as preserved in Eusebius’ Kronographia.
517.Herodotus 8.109-110. Plutarch Themistocles 29.3; Artaxerxes II’s reference to Themistocles as a ‘subtle serpent’.
518.Ostraka were potsherds inscribed with the names of those to be banished; used by citizens casting the vote. Plutarch Themistocles 7.
519.Aristotle Poetics 13.1453a 27-30 termed Euripides ‘the most tragic of the poets’.
520.Full description of the funeral hearse in Diodorus 18.26-28.
521.Diodorus 18.27.3-4 for the axle design and 18.28.1 for the team of road menders. The funeral carriage was such a spectacle that spectators from nearby cities flocked to witness its passing; loud due to the bells attached to the sixty-four mules. Stewart (1993) p 216 for its dimensions.
522.Stewart (1993) p 294.
523.See Heckel (2006) p 315 and text note 383 for Judeich’s view that Laomedon was the original occupant. K Schefeld convincingly made a case that the coffin was constructed before Abdalonymus’ reign; see his review of Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway in the American Journal of Archaeology 73.4, October 1969, p 482. Anson suggested Alexander’s original sarcophagus would have been shipped up the Euphrates to Thapsacus and overland from there to Alexandria; see Anson (1986) p 213. Anson (2013) p 150 for the background to Abdalonymus; Curtius 4.1.16-26, Diodorus 17.47.1, Justin 11.10.7-9 for the Vulgate story.
524.Diodorus 18.26-28.
525.Chapter titled Lifting the Shroud of Parrhasius for Perdiccas’ role in Syria and his possible links to the sarcophagus. As Heckel-Jones (2006) p 91 points out, there is no proof, only supposition, that this depicts the murder of Perdiccas.
526.Thucydides 2.41 from Pericles’ panegyric to the Athenian dead, translated by Richard Crawley, 1910, based on the earlier translation by Cannop Thirwall and published by JM Dent and Sons.
527.Fraser (1996) pp 1-46 for discussion of the Alexandrian lists of the cities of Alexander. Modern excavations suggest the new ‘Alexandrias’ were little more than renamed Asiatic cities.
528.Justin 12.5.13 for Alexandria on the Tanais, also Strabo 11.7.4 and Plutarch Moralia 2.352e, 341c; discussion in Pearson (1960) Introduction p 14. The Jaxartes was later misidentified as the Tanais, the modern Don in Russia and then considered the boundary of Europe and Asia. Anson (2013) p 183 for 14 Alexandreias. Plutarch Moralia 438e claimed Alexander established seventy settlements and a minimum of six named after himself. Justin 12.5.12-13 claimed 13 cities (unnamed) were founded in Bactria and Sogdia alone. Green (1974) p 412 for ‘and a market’.
529.Arrian 4.1.3-4 for the intentions for Alexandria Eschate and 5.29.5 for the damage by monsoon rains. Quoting Tarn 1 (1948) p 100.
530.Xenophon Cyropaedia 6.1.16.
531.For the twelve monuments see Arrian 5.29.1-3, Diodorus 17.95; Curtius 9.3.19. Diodorus stated 75 feet high, i.e. 50 cubits. Arrian 1.16.4 for the twenty-five Companion statues later taken to Rome in 146 BCE. For the bronze statues at Dion, Arrian 1.16.4, Plutarch 16.8, Velleius Paterculus Roman History 1.11.3-4. Polyaenus 4.23 for the steps in Mt. Ossa.
532.Theopompus wrote a scathing letter about Harpalus’ behaviour (and Alexander’s hetairoi); recorded in Athenaeus 595a-c. Diodorus 17.108.5 referred to it as an expensive tomb of the Attic type’; Flower (1994) pp 260-261 for discussion.
533.Arrian 7.7.7 for the removal of weirs; also Strabo 15.3.4, 16.1.9 ff; here the restrictive nature of the cataracts on trade is mentioned though it was clear Alexander’s navy could not sail downriver either. The sentiment reiterates Bosworth (1988) p 159.
534.See Hannah (2005) pp 91-94 for discussion on the recalibration of the Babylonian calendar.
535.Quoting Billows (1990) pp 5-6 and Tarn 1 (1948) p 121.
536.Plutarch Apophthegms or Sayings of Kings and Commanders 207D8, based on the translation by E Hinton, William W Goodwin, Little Brown and Co., Boston, 1878.
537.Quoting Green (1970) p 258.
538.Van der Mieroop (2004) Part 1, p 3.
539.Winn Leith (1998) p 285.
540.Xenophon 7.5.31.
541.Arrian 4.28.2 and 5.1-3 for his doubt surrounding the legends of Heracles and Dionysius and India, and Arrian 6.28.2 for the epithet Lord of the Triumph. According to Aristophanes’ Frogs Dionysus visited Hades to bring Euripides back to the living, so disenchanted was he with the state of Athenian tragedians. ‘Ivy-wreathed’ following the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus.
542.See discussion in Robbins (2001) p 91.
543.Herodotus 2.120 gave the alternative version of Helen’s Egyptian captivity.
544.Herodotus excerpted from Book 2.116 and 2.120, translatio
n by George Rawlinson, Everyman’s Library 1910. Iliad 9.26 and 14.74-81 for Agamemnon’s plea.
545.See discussion in Tarn (1923) pp 26-27 citing Plutarch Moralia 329c or Fortune 6. See Tarn (1948) pp 399-449 for his full treatise on ‘brotherhood’. Bosworth-Baynham (2000) pp 97-135 for a detailed discussion of Panhellenism. ‘Loving cup’ came from Eratosthenes and referred to the drinking cup used at the Opis reconciliation ceremony and formerly belonging to Darius; see Tarn 1 (1948) p 116.
546.Arrian 7.11.8-9, Oxford World Classics edition, 2013, translation by M Hammond. Curtius 103.10-14 which likely echoed Roman themes and Curtius’ vocabulary; see discussion in Atkinson (2000) pp 134-139, Bosworth A in the East (1996) pp 2-4 for Plutarch’s influence on later interpretations of Alexander’s racial intentions. As examples of the use of breaking barriers or doors, Seneca Epistle 119.7 ‘mundi claustra perrumpit’, Lucretius De Rerum Natura 1.70 ff ‘effringere portarum claustra’. For discussion of the literal meaning of the Greek homonoia see de Mauriac (1949) pp 104-114.
547.See chapter titled Comets, Colophons and Curtius Rufus for discussion of Curtius’ identity and publication period.
548.Droysen (1877) p 4.
549.Quoting from Tarn-Griffith (1952) p 1.
550.See discussion by Grimal (1965) p 5.
551.Diogenes Laertius Aristotle. Also Athenaeus 15.696a. Hermias of Atarneus ruled Assus and was a student of Plato. He invited philosophers to study there. Aristotle had been there for three years and had married Hermeias’ niece, Pythias.
552.An epipolesis was a troop review, typically pre-battle, in which a rousing speech was given to boost morale.
553.Quoting Thomas (1968) p 258.
554.Pausanias 4.35.4 for identification of Procles and his dating see Hernandez (2009). Livy 35.14, Appian Syrian Wars 10-11, Plutarch Flaminius 21 for the meeting at Ephesus; Livy and Plutarch recorded different opinions on rankings. According to Appian, Hannibal and Scipio met at the court of Antiochus III. He preserved their discussion on who was considered the greatest of generals. However the meeting, as Baynham (1999) pp 19-20 explains, is historically unlikely. Plutarch Pyrrhus 8.2 confirmed Hannibal’s opinion, rating Scipio second and himself third. McGing (2010) pp 96-97 for discussion of Polybius’ attitude to treason and plots. Lucian Dialogues of the Dead 25 embellishes the conversation through third parties. The relation of the Alexandreis to the Africa discussed in Townsend (1996) Introduction p 17.
555.The first recorded use of the epithet ‘great’ came from the Roman playwright Plautus Mostelleria 775 in ca. 200 BCE. It may of course have been in use before but Greek literature did not employ it and was somewhat more hostile to his memory.
556.Plutarch Moralia 840c-d for the founding of a school of rhetoric, and Plutarch Aeschines for his fate. Aeschines may have been at Ephesus until Alexander’s death.
557.This is unlikely to be true and yet is suggests a death sufficiently close to the date to have made the claim that appeared in Plutarch Moralia 717c, Diogenes Laertius Diogenes 11. The Suda claimed the same.
558.Quoting Gudeman Greeks (1894) p 57.
2
SARISSA DIPLOMACY: MACEDONIAN STATECRAFT
Would Alexander’s generals have permitted their king to die without formally recognising their right to govern the new empire?
The most prominent of Alexander’s Bodyguards and Companions became kings and governors of vast regions of the former Persian Empire and beyond. They were schooled in the diplomatic and military revolution of Philip and Alexander and were immersed in their irrepressible brand of Macedonian statecraft.
We review the rise of the Macedonian military machine that swept all before it to highlight the extraordinary careers of the Diadokhoi whose dynasties survived until the arrival of Rome. Then we ask: would these ambitious and talented men have acquiesced to Alexander leaving them nothing but the challenge of fighting it out for a fragment of an empire they had battled for a decade to acquire?
‘Aeschines, if you can name any person under the sun, Greek or barbarian, who remains unharmed by the dominance of Philip, first, and now of Alexander, well so be it.’1
Demosthenes On the Crown
‘Tyche and Philip were master of the deeds. Things turned out not as we prayed, but as Philip did.’2
Aeschines On the False Embassy
‘It is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well, and look up to those who make no concessions.’3
Thucydides The Peloponnesian War
‘… it is no longer proper to count these exceptional men a part of the state; for they will be treated unjustly if deemed worthy of equal status, being so widely unequal in virtue and in their political ability: since such a man will naturally be as a god among men… but there can be no law dealing with such men as those described, for they are themselves a law…’4
Aristotle Politics
‘An old saying has been handed down that it is not men of average ability, but those of outstanding superiority who destroy democracies.’ Diodorus was quoting an adage that had its roots in the advice shared by the late-7th century tyrants of Miletus and Corinth: ‘Slay the tallest stalks to protect the crop’, a lesson more colourfully articulated by Livy in a warning from the legendary Tarquin the Proud, the last king of Rome: crop the tallest poppies to stave off revolt.5 And as Aristotle was carefully reminding Athens in his chapter headed Politics, the tallest of them all were Philip and Alexander: the ‘lions among the hares’.6
Aristotle’s Athenaion Politeia, one of many political treatises attributed to him, appears to have been constructed when Alexander was campaigning deep in Asia (if not before). His enthusiasm for Solon’s reforms of 594/3 BCE and those that followed – which laid the foundations of the republic if not actually sowing the seeds of democracy – seems to have waned, however, by the time Aristotle’s Politics appeared.7 For by then, the civil and political community in Athens, the koinonia politike, operating through the Assembly, the Council and the Areopagus (though still incorporating much of the Solonian Constitution) was under the thumb of Aristotle’s client and patron: the Macedonian monarchy. Philip II, ‘as if looking from a watchtower’, had attacked liberties across Greece, and now his former general, Alexander’s regent Antipater, was strangling any notions of true political freedom; the fire of democracy had all but been snuffed out in the Athenian prytaneion.8
Aristotle’s argument – that an exceptional individual is naturally above state law – may have been written to justify the very existence of the remarkable father and then his campaigning son on his ‘undemocratic’ Eastern campaign. For by now, the Graeco-Persian world revolved around the ‘star of Macedonia’, as Curtius referred to him, as history generally attributes the maelstrom that swept from Pella through the Persian heartlands to Alexander alone.9 Yet that would be a hugely flawed conclusion. Allocate a part of the storm to his father who galvanised Macedonia into a cohesive spear-won military state with an army able to campaign in both summer and winter (until then a uniquely Spartan ability due the enslaving of the Messenians, the ‘helots’), and credit a further share to his gifted companions, and you have a more accurate picture of the energies at work in that turbulent generation.10 Moreover, we have evidence that by 323 BCE the sun was beginning to set on the Pellan imposter who slept in the Great King’s bed, for contrary to the utopian vision Onesicritus may have espoused in his Alexandrou Paideia, Alexander’s empire may have been something approaching a dystopia at the time of his death.
The Macedonian conquest of the East is better remembered than the extraordinary period that followed because it was the more easily understood, like the stark-chiselled emotions and clean-sculpted motives that underpinned war in the Iliad. Alexander’s anabasis had shape, direction and cause, operating under the banner of ‘revenge for the earlier Persian invasions of Hellas’, just as Philip’s brief foray into Asia had been punishment for the ‘profanation of temples’.11 To this grievance Alexander had added accus
ations of the Persian gold backing assassination of his father. The Successor Wars lacked these public-relations-friendly soundbites and yet they were perpetuated by a group of mighty personas almost unparalleled in history: the new Myrmidons of a reborn Achilles.12
In a sense, the first generation of Diadokhoi were the true offspring of Alexander, or as Justin termed them, ‘the many Alexanders of Macedonia’, a uniquely privileged generation of ‘prefects who became princes’.13 They had learned their trade alongside their king, some as syntrophoi at the Pellan court, and as a cohesive unit they proved unstoppable in the decade that saw the Macedonian military machine advance as far as India. Its leadership became a true meritocracy: the unfortunate had fallen in battle, the non-performers had been sidelined, the indiscreet and loose-tongued were executed, and the frailer constitutions died on the march. Those who survived both the campaign and Alexander, were tough, brutal, ambitious, and most importantly, they proved to be cunning politicians.
On few occasions could a circle of men so influential to the fate of an empire have congregated in a single assembly hall or king’s campaign pavilion. Perhaps only the Roman Senate attended at once by Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE), Mark Antony (83-30 BCE), Cicero, Crassus (ca. 115-53 BCE), Clodius (ca. 93-52 BCE), Pompey the Great (106-48 BCE), Lucullus (ca.118-56 BCE) and Cato the Younger (95-46 BCE) could compare. But as Cicero warned: ‘The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends’.14 They were friends at times, drinking at ‘Lucullan’ banquets that had replaced the Macedonian symposia.15 And they became bitter enemies, as Alexander’s Bodyguards had before them, for ‘there is no fellowship inviolate, no faith is kept, when kingship is concerned’.16
MARRIAGE KATA POLEMON: THE POLITICS OF SURVIVAL17
The story of the rise of Alexander and the Diadokhoi began with Philip II, possibly the twenty-fourth king of the Argead line (the historicity of the early founding kings is uncertain) who, according to Demosthenes’ orations from the auditorium of the Pnyx, united ‘… the functions of a general, a ruler and a treasurer…’ He saw Philip as the absolute autocrat: commander and master of everyone and everything.18 If Plutarch considered Cicero as the first ‘professional’ politician to commit himself seriously to such a job, it was simply because he did not biograph Philip whom Cicero himself rated above his ambitious son:19 ‘Philip, king of Macedonia, I observe, however surpassed by his son in achievements and fame, was superior to him in affability and refinement. Philip, accordingly, was always great; Alexander, often infamously bad.’20