In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great

by David Grant

  If the inscriptions found at Nineveh have been deciphered correctly, the so-called Archimedes Screw was also in use centuries before Archimedes ‘stumbled’ upon the idea.123 And on the subject of water management, De Lesseps’ canal at Suez remains a wonder of the industrial revolution, but Aristotle, Diodorus, Strabo and Pliny each placed an original channel linking the two oceans (though indirectly and via a different route) in the time of the Egyptian pharaohs. The first excavations possibly commenced with Merenre I of the Sixth Dynasty in the late third millennium BCE, though sources better corroborate the early efforts of Sesostris (ca. 1878-1839 BCE, probably identifiable with Senusret III).124 Re-excavation of the watercourse had commenced around 600 BCE, centuries before Alexander crossed the Nile, which was named the Aegyptus River in antiquity, though in Greek mythology Aegyptus was a descendent of the river-god Neilus.125

  Pharaoh Necho II (ruled ca. 610-595 BCE) stopped construction of the waterway when an oracle warned him he was ‘working for the advantage of a barbarian’, though by then, according to Herodotus, some 120,000 Egyptians had died in the construction efforts. Another tradition picked up by Aristotle more practically suggested that engineers had advised against contaminating the freshwater Nile with salt, for the channel linked the Red Sea (thought to be at a higher level than Lower Egypt) to the river and not directly to the Mediterranean.126 The canal was finally completed by Darius I whose inscription commemorating the project survives to this day; according to Herodotus the waterway was sufficiently wide for two triremes to pass and Ptolemy II Philadelphos had it re-excavated to the Bitter Lakes using navigable locks and sluices to prevent the in-flow of seawater; it was known as the ‘Ptolemy River’.

  Excavated papyri do reveal a remarkable irrigation system in the Fayyum basin south of Memphis, which drained marshland that was otherwise uninhabitable and reclaimed valuable settlement areas for Egyptians and Hellenic mercenaries alike through to the mid-3rd century BCE.127 Rome would later benefit from the engineering feat and Trajan extended the canal system with a branch known as the Amnis Trajanus, which joined the Nile somewhere close to Memphis (which was some 12 miles south of modern Cairo). Remnants of an ancient East-West canal were indeed found by Napoleon’s cartographers in 1799 along with an emaciated Alexandria with barely 6,000 inhabitants; Napoleon reincarnated the idea of putting it back into service, though the canons of the British navy did not allow him the opportunity.128

  Rome’s own enigmatic past is not beyond question. The ‘legend’ of Coriolanus (5th century BCE), a vivid narrative of a hero turned enemy, was scooped up by Livy, Plutarch and Dionysius, amongst others. Although Plutarch confidently afforded him a lineage (and a nickname) and a fifty-page biography, the consular fasti (official records) never mentioned Coriolanus at all, yet they record the siege of Corioli and the Volscian uprising that supposedly made him.129 Was he a figure invented to warn the Senate of the unbridled power of popular generals and kings, or a representation of aristocratic tyranny over the city’s plebeian interests? For these themes were prominent in the early days of Rome; Livy recorded the fall of the Etruscan city of Veii, which was alienated by the remaining tribes for its abhorrent adherence to monarchy.130

  It is worth noting that new linguistic investigation suggests the Etruscans, to whom Rome ‘owed much of its civilisation’, may well have been refugees from fallen Troy (Herodotus reported they emigrated from Lydia in Asia ca. 1,000 BCE), though Augustus, Naevius, Ennius (ca. 239-169 BCE) and Virgil (70-19 BCE) would be mortified to hear it. Certainly, some of the paintings on the walls of Etruscan tombs (6th century BCE), somewhat Greek in style, have Phrygian and Lycian points of comparison. Etruscan offerings (7th century BCE) have been found at Olympia, suggesting continuous early contact with Greece.131 Trosia, the Greek name (alongside Ilium) for the city of Priam, resonates with similarity to the frequent Hittite and Egyptian references to Turush and Trusya that appeared in 14th and 15th century BCE documents, and thus, it is suggested, to later Tros or Trus, the supposed roots of the names ‘Etruria’ and ‘Etruscans’. What was once a fanciful notion is now backed up by the identification of genetic similarities,132 though as one historian noted of the Etruscan civilisation and its supposedly indecipherable texts: ‘I don’t think there is any field of human knowledge in which there is such a daft cleavage between what has been scientifically ascertained and the unshakable belief of the public…’133 But the same could perhaps be stated, of course, of Alexander himself.

  THE INCOMPARABLE COMPARANDUM AND THE NEW SACK OF ILIUM

  Alexander’s character portrayal survives as a Graeco-Roman amalgam that is analysed against the backdrop of ever-changing contemporary ideals. But the comparisons inevitably made are not always digestible. Texts are unambiguous that Caligula (alternatively Gaius, 12-41 CE) was something of a monster who paraded himself in Alexander’s breastplate, which he claimed was taken from the now-lost Alexandrine sarcophagus.134 But are we troubled, or inspired, by Alexander’s own heroic emulation? For he relieved the guardians of the Temple of Athena at Troy of Achilles’ shield, or so he believed. The deeds are comparable but the men are not, and so we revile the one while admiring the Homeric homage being paid by the other. If Schliemann had not staked his claim to Troy in 1868, the value we place on what we deem ‘court’ sources may have been quite different, for Arrian, for one, claimed Alexander found the site easily enough upon beaching at the Troad and sacrificing at the tombs of his heroes, where Strabo stated little identifying evidence of the site remained.135

  Alexander’s own Homeric shield-coveting might have been inspired by tales of Pythagoras, who, through eternal transmigration, claimed to be a reincarnation of a Trojan hero. He was, he believed, Euphorbus, who had been cut down by Menelaus in the fight over Patroclus’ body, a story put to verse in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a ‘compendium of myth’ written in the dactylic hexameter of the Epic Cyle. Unlike the Socratic belief that all knowledge of a previous life was washed away with each rebirth, Pythagoras had been, he claimed, granted eternal memory as part of the gift from Mercury. As ‘proof’ of his past when inhabiting the reincarnated body of Hermotimus, he apparently went to the (original) territory of the Branchidae and tracked down the beaten shield (by now worn down to the ivory) that Menelaus had retrieved from the battlefield and dedicated to the temple of Apollo.136 Whether Pythagoras or Alexander truly believed they had the genuine defensive armour of the Trojans is a matter of conjecture, but in Alexander’s case that would have meant that the hoplon he actually used in battle was more than 800 years old; what he had retrieved from the Athena’s temple was surely a symbolic talisman rather than a functional shield.137

  Alexander also shared intriguing parallels with the Roman emperor Nero, who should feature prominently in any chapter dedicated to the vivid hues of romance. An open admirer of the Macedonian conqueror, Nero formed an elite personal unit staffed exclusively by men over 6 feet tall and he named it The Phalanx of Alexander the Great;138 according to the Suda, an Alexander of Aegae was even employed as one of Nero’s tutors.139 The excesses and colour that epitomised Nero’s imperium became legendary and fascinated the citizens of an expanding empire.140 Everyone related to something of the emperor, and paradoxically, besides the havoc he wrought, the populace remained curiously nostalgic for Nero’s eccentricities. Even his choice of a ‘proud whore’ as second wife (Poppea Sabina) must have appealed to those outside the elite patricians and nobiles. Dio Chrysostom recorded their enthusiasm: ‘… for so far as the rest of his subjects were concerned, there was nothing to prevent his continuing to be emperor for all time, seeing that even now everybody wishes he were still alive. And the great majority believe that he still is…’141

  A 17th century sculpture of Nero at the Musei Capitolino, Hall of Emperors, Rome. A part of it is original giving form to the reconstruction. Suetonius provided a vivid description of the emperor: ‘He was about the average height, his body marked with spots and malodorous, his hair light blond, his fe
atures regular rather than attractive, his eyes blue and somewhat weak, his neck over thick, his belly prominent, and his legs very slender… he was utterly shameless in the care of his person and in his dress, always having his hair arranged in tiers of curls.’145

  Chrysostom’s final line brings us to the most significant parallel with Alexander: the ‘false’ Neros that appeared. For many did believe he never committed suicide but rather lived on in obscurity; at least three imposters presented themselves as the living emperor over the next twenty years and with subjects ready to accept them.142 Cassius Dio (ca. 155-235 CE) reported that in 221 CE, a century and a half on, a mysterious person appeared at the Danube with an entourage and claimed to be Alexander the Great. Entranced by the apparition (an eidolon to the Greeks), none dared to oppose his progress; on the contrary, they provided him with food and lodging. After performing nocturnal rituals and burying a wooden horse, he disappeared once more.143 As for Nero, it was the developing Sibylline Oracles that took the thespian emperor to the realms of apocalyptic legend through to the City of God of Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE, also known as ‘Saint Augustine’), which criticised the portrayal of him as the Antichrist, and like Alexander, Nero entered the folklore of the Middle Ages.144

  Nero had forced his teacher, Seneca (‘the Younger’, ca. 4 BCE-65 CE), and his teacher’s nephew, the celebrated poet Lucan, to commit suicide, claiming they both had a part in the Pisonian plot to remove him.146 In fact Nero simply wished to put an end to Seneca’s criticism of his increasingly bizarre behaviour following his alleged murder of his own mother, Agrippina; Nero claimed that Seneca had amassed the remarkable (and highly suspicious) sum of some 300,000,000 sestertii in just four years under his patronage.147 The Apocolocyntosis (loosely translated as the ‘pumpkinification’) of the Divine Claudius, flattering to Nero and possibly written by Seneca shortly after Claudius’ death (in 54 CE), suggested this Stoic teacher once held high hopes for his new ‘radiant-faced’ Nero. Alas, after some promising years, the trappings of imperium saw the ‘new star’ begin to fade. The demise of Lucan, once an imperial friend and holding a questorship and augurate at a remarkably early age, stemmed ultimately from the republican sympathy embedded within the later books of his De Bello Civili.148 This led to the banning of his poetry, including the De Incendiis Urbis, On the Burning of the City, in which Lucan termed Nero a tyrant, and that paralleled his critique of the conquering Alexander. Lucan was forced to open his veins at the age of twenty-five.149

  The parallel here is Callisthenes, Alexander’s own outspoken historian. He had opened promisingly for Alexander too; seas parted and the gods took due notice of their favourite new son. However, his distaste for Alexander’s oriental adoptions, divine pretensions and perhaps, finally, the wholesale slaughter of the defenceless Branchidae, saw him forget Aristotle’s warnings and he let loose his indiscreet tongue. He too was executed on the king’s orders; according to one tradition, quite possibly again stemming from Greek polemic emanating from the Peripatetic school, Callisthenes was first caged for some years and dragged around in chains before being tortured. Perhaps he saw it coming: once offered undiluted wine at a court komos, he reportedly declined with, ‘I do not wish to drink Alexander’s cup and then need the cup of Asclepius’, the healing god.150 The comparison with Nero is rarely made but the crime was ultimately the same.

  Philosophers were the bane of kings, emperors and even democracies, as was Diogenes the Cynic of Sinope. Alexander visited the barrel-bound philosopher in Corinth in 334 BCE shortly after the destruction of Thebes, and he enquired if there was anything that Diogenes desired. In the legendary anecdote captured by Plutarch (and others), Diogenes asked Alexander to step aside as he was blocking his sun.151 Tradition claims that this prompted the Macedonian king to confide to his companions that ‘… if he were not Alexander he would like to be Diogenes.’ The unlikely dialogue, probably the output of the Diogenes’ Cynic school, ought to be shadowed in historical reality.152 Superficially impressive in its hauteur as his reply was, any biography of Diogenes would not be complete without mentioning his public behaviour, which included defecation and masturbation, leading Plato to brand him (and Diogenes to brand himself, for that matter) a dog, kynos, the root of the word ‘cynic’; it was behaviour supposed to emphasise his objection to ‘regressive’ civilisation.153

  A former slave captured by pirates, and one charged with debasing (or defacing) the local currency at his native Sinope (a charge carrying severe penalty),154 Diogenes had found the clay barrel (or urn) in which he slept in the Temple of Cybele. He might have been the first true ‘citizen of the world’, kosmopolites, a concept the Stoikoi later took up when Rome was indeed assimilating much of the known world.155 But there were, in fact, a number of traditions floating around involving Alexander and the ‘dog’ he so admired. Plutarch’s Moralia claimed Diogenes expired on the same day as Alexander, whilst another writer has him brought before Philip II after the Athenian defeat at Chaeronea; when questioned on his identity Diogenes replied he was ‘a spy, to spy upon your insatiability’ following which his amused captor set him free.156 A further story, which proliferated in later works, claimed Alexander found the philosopher rummaging through a pile of bones; when asked why, Diogenes replied: ‘I am looking for the bones of your father, but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave.’ No doubt allegorical too, it bears the hallmarks of Lucian’s Menippus, a dialogue featuring the 3rd century Cynic-satirist whose style he often imitated,157 and it remains highly unlikely that the ‘mad Socrates’, as Plato called Diogenes, would have been worthy of Alexander’s continued esteem.158

  THE GIRDLE OF HIPPOLYTE

  Plutarch was always creative when dealing with a scandal. In a campaign episode that featured the legendary Amazons he named fourteen different sources that either confirmed, or repudiated, Alexander’s affair with their tribal queen, Thalestris. Superficially, the incident is quaint and much developed in the Romance, however, for our study, it is a tutorial on the grey matter between the black and white.159 Of those sources cited, five declared for the meeting, and nine, according to Plutarch, maintained it was a fiction. Notably, one of the five was Onesicritus, supposedly an eyewitness to the event. Another was Cleitarchus who likely followed Onesicritus’ lead. Surprisingly, one of the nine doubters was Chares the royal usher who had an interest in court scandaleuse; Ptolemy and Aristobulus also came down on the side of invention.160

  Plutarch named six historians who are little known or unique to this passage and their responses, it seems, confirmed it either happened, or it did not. But we need to tread carefully, for in the same passage Plutarch confirmed Alexander did write to his Macedonian regent to report his meeting with a Scythian king who offered him his daughter. Moreover, the Macedonians were indeed close to Amazon country, the relevant part of southern Scythia attached to the legend popular since the Iliad. Scythian ‘warrior women’ are known to have existed; modern excavation of burial sites prove female warrior bands operated amongst the Sacan nomads, and Amazonomachy (art depicting Greeks fighting Amazons, often equipped with light battle-axes), much of it based on Heracles’ Ninth Labour, adorned everything from the Parthenon, the Painted Stoa and the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.161 Although Plutarch saw the presence of the Scythian king as a vindication of the doubters, it nevertheless confirmed that an event that broadly approximated the reports could have in fact taken place.

  Arrian recorded the presence of embassies from various Scythian tribes as Alexander progressed through Asia; when reporting that Atropates, the satrap of Media, sent one hundred women dressed as Amazons to the Macedonian king, he reminded us of their frequent appearances in the Histories of Herodotus, which recounted Heracles’ task of bringing the girdle of their queen, Hippolyte, back to Greece. Arrian concluded with: ‘I cannot believe that this race of women never existed at all, when so many authorities have celebrated them.’162 But regardless of their historicity, if Alexander was presenting himself as a new
Achilles, as sources appears to confirm, then the hero needed an encounter with his own Penthesilea, the legendary Amazon queen who turned up to defend Troy and take on the famed warrior.163 That Alexander seduced an Amazon where Achilles stabbed her instead, did not lessen the romantic parallel. The spectacular shield found in Tomb II at Vergina may in fact bear the imagery of that legendary Trojan encounter as its centrepiece in ivory and gold.164

  So can we blame Onesicritus for what may amount to a modest embellishment of truth inspired by the Median episode? Upon hearing Onesicritus recount the episode, Lysimachus’ cynical quip – ‘Where was I then?’ – may have been targeted at the thirteen-day tryst Alexander allegedly enjoyed with the queen (assuming Onesicritus covered that too) and not at the meeting itself.165 Furthermore, Lysimachus’ criticism appears singular, which might suggest that on the whole Onesicritus narrated events that were supportable. That itself appears misleading, for we have examples of far more fabulous claims from him concerning the wonders of India: living dragons, three-hundred-year-old elephants and 200-feet-long serpents among them.166 So we in turn may ask: ‘Where were all the Macedonians then?’