In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great

by David Grant

  Perdiccas’ words further implied that the claims of other contenders – the existing son, Heracles, and even the king’s half-brother, Arrhidaeus – might be undermined by his supremacy, despite any wishes in their direction Alexander had articulated in the Will. The chiliarch is reported to have rounded-off his speech with, ‘… meanwhile, nominate those you want as your leaders.’131 Perdiccas would not have handed back the emblem of power, when, as events were to show, he did all he could to wrest that power from those who would oppose him. The conclusion to Perdiccas’ speech has the hallmark of a Cleitarchean device, and one that legitimised Ptolemy’s role in the power play that followed – if it was not Curtius’ own overlay.132

  The Will demands themselves were sufficiently contentious to cause Assembly uproar. In the thick of the clamour we hear that Nearchus upheld the claims of both of Alexander’s potential sons to the throne, but with a sensible reminder that Roxane may birth a girl, a situation that demanded the recognition of the absent three- or four-year-old Heracles.133 Nearchus had married into the family of the boy’s mother at Susa, a fact that has encouraged speculation that it was his account – which must have therefore been published before ca. 310 BCE (when the boy was murdered on Cassander’s instigation) – which brought Heracles out of obscurity as a prelude to his promotion.134 But at Babylon, Nearchus was pushing his case a little too vigorously, and the crowd saw through another nepotistic promotion that was summarily rejected. If Nearchus did subsequently advance the boy’s claim through the medium of his book, it is unlikely he would have mentioned that humiliating Assembly rejection.

  At this juncture, Ptolemy was introduced into the Assembly in a pivotal role: he gave a speech that amounted to a total rejection of both of the ‘half-barbarian’ princes mothered by a ‘conquered race’.135 In a sense, this was a rejection of Nearchus too; already famous for his sea voyage, Nearchus did indeed steadfastly oppose the Ptolemaic regime in his service under Antigonus in the years to come. But the clearly treasonous words credited to Ptolemy could never have been publicly delivered by a Somatophylax or one of the hetairoi so soon after the king’s death, intestate or otherwise.136

  No doubt private utterances proffered exactly this view, especially amongst the infantry for whom the Persians were still the ‘enemy’; the notion of a half-Asiatic on the Macedonian throne was, at that time, a wholly abhorrent concept. However, as with the alleged burning of Persepolis by Ptolemy’s courtesan Thais, the moral message emanating from this rework, if Cleitarchean, would have suited the tone of the day some thirty-plus years on in Ptolemaic Alexandria in which even Egyptians recalled the heavy hand of the Persian yoke. Ptolemy, who declined to cover the Babylonian aftermath in his own book, notably never took a wife of Asiatic or Egyptian stock, marrying and fathering children with sisters and daughters of the Macedonian Diadokhoi.137

  Curtius’ own idea of Roman superiority, if overlaid on Cleitarchus’ words, would have permitted the reinforcing of such a prejudice against the conquered races; Curtius left us in no doubt of his attitude to barbarians when describing the ‘best’ of them: ‘However, the comprehension of the Scythians is not so primitive and untrained… in fact, some of them are even said to be capable of philosophy.’ But this was hardly original; as Baynham has pointed out: ‘The idea of certain Scythians as “virtuous savages” (recalling that “Scythians” was a general Greek and Roman term for northeastern “barbarians”) was also a well-known literary topos.’138

  What followed from Ptolemy appears couched in koinopragia, the suggestion of a working together for a ‘common interest’ – in this case ‘group rule’ – as this undermined Perdiccas’ hegemonia ton holon, his absolute supremacy.139 In fact, Arrian had earlier stated that Alexander ‘made no fresh appointment to the command of the Companion cavalry’ after Hephaestion’s death; this sounds like a regurgitation of Ptolemy’s attempt to suggest that the chiliarch post – the equestrian command but perhaps here meant to imply the second-in-command – had disappeared,140 a statement which contradicts Arrian’s Events After Alexander (taking its detail from Hieronymus) in which Perdiccas had clearly assumed Hephaestion’s role. Regardless of ‘official’ titles held at this point, Cleitarchus appears to have prudently made it clear that where ‘some agreed with Ptolemy, fewer followed Perdiccas’ (T11).141

  Although the Macedonians ‘had no use for republicanism’ this recommendation might have had more legitimate origins. For group rule, by what would be akin to a privy council, would have been credible and workable on the basis that a Bodyguard-dominated synedrion of a few ‘super-governors’ had been selected by Alexander to bind the empire together cohesively. Whilst we propose his Will implemented just that, it also required them to operate under a centralised authority: Perdiccas, who retained control of the royal army in the name of the king(s).142 Watching the rising hostility towards the chiliarch with some satisfaction, the Bodyguards had thought it the right moment to tender their own claim for that power without central handcuffing. This proposal was nevertheless rejected by the throng of men, which now firmly inclined away from the aristocratic megistoi in favour of more traditional roots in the heat of the indignant moment. Additionally, group rule implied the Assembly itself was being subordinated to an aristocratic collective.

  As a countermeasure to that dissent, Aristonus, a Somatophylax who featured less frequently in the extant texts, reminded the assembly that the Will vested power in Perdiccas above all others, a position confirmed by Alexander’s emblematically passing him the royal seal (T11).143 This endorsement is indeed consistent with Aristonus’ later Perdiccan support, and whilst it is counterintuitive to accept that Cleitarchus would have wished to reinforce knowledge of Perdiccas’ primacy (which could, nevertheless, hardly be hidden against the background of his actions in the next three years), the greater message that emerged in the narrative is the flaw in the man, and thus the flaw in Alexander’s choice.144 Aristonus’ timely reminder could not be denied, but Perdiccas ‘… wavered between inclination and shame, and believed that the more modestly he sought what he coveted the more persistently they would press it upon him. So, after delaying and being for a time uncertain what to do, he finally retired to the back part of the Assembly, and stood behind those who were nearest to the throne’ (T11).145

  This paragraph has been long discussed, and is viewed by some scholars as Curtius’ re-rendering of the ‘Tiberian farce’, for Tiberius had initially declined the emperorship, ‘a wretched and burdensome slavery’ that held what he had termed a ‘wolf by the ears’.146 And it is noteworthy, too, that Tiberius’ hesitation followed the reading of Augustus’ Will, which reportedly began with ‘since a cruel fate has bereft me of my sons…’147 Curtius was possibly embellishing Cleitarchus’ portrayal of a devious chiliarch milking the moment at the expense of the other Somatophylakes, and presenting it as a familiar episode his Roman audience could readily relate to, though here without any attachment to a Will.148

  There followed a contentious voice from the infantry credited to the infantry brigade commander Meleager, here portrayed as a demagogue articulating a common resentment (Curtius implied ‘hatred’, invisusque) of the haughty Perdiccas who had probably failed to integrate with the common soldier on campaign. Yet it might have been that very aloofness and distance from any faction that had made him effective as Alexander’s second-in-command; Hephaestion may well have represented this dispassionate authority before him. It appears Cleitarchus was using Meleager as the sacrificial anode through which his negatively charged portrayal of the chiliarch was passed, and the officer’s accusation was clear: Perdiccas would use Alexander’s wife and son, the future king of Macedonia, to exploit his own position.149

  The theme of unchecked ambition captured the dark mood of the Assembly. In contrast to the ‘Cleitarchean-Curtiana’, we have Justin’s alternative précis: Meleager argued that their proceedings should not be suspended for the result of an uncertain birth, for residing at Pergamum was Alexand
er’s son Heracles – as Nearchus had already reminded them – and better still, already at Babylon was Arrhidaeus, Alexander’s half-brother; both of whom were, we propose, recognised in the Will. Alexander’s appointing his mentally deficient half-brother as a figurehead king, in the absence of other options, was to provide Argead continuity until his sons came of age, and potentially after the ‘strongest’ or ‘most worthy of them’ – toi kratistoi in Greek (τῷ κρατίστῳ) and transmitted as qui esset optimus or dignissimus in Latin150 – was chosen to wear the crown. To reinforce his case Meleager reminded the Assembly that Arrhidaeus was begotten by Philip (Philippo genitus) and so part of his line (or kin, stirpem Philippi).151

  Yet what follows suggests Justin conflated the previous sentiment of Nearchus and Ptolemy with Meleager’s own dissent into a senseless contradiction; for here again Roxane’s Asian origins were rejected with: ‘It was unlawful that kings should be chosen for the Macedonians from the blood of those whose kingdoms they had overthrown’. This is senseless if it came from Meleager (rather then Ptolemy, but Justin’s text is garbled at this point) because Heracles was also half-Asiatic. Justin later confused the Arrhidaeus Meleager was promoting (Alexander’s half-brother) with the same-named constructer of the funeral hearse, and so his accuracy can hardly be relied upon.152 Justin finished by incorporating the claim that Alexander made no mention of Roxane’s issue; we may presume that this, once again, alluded to the brevity of his last words in the Vulgate genre texts.153

  Meleager was a notable taxiarchos with prominent military posts stretching back twelve years, and he had been amongst the six elite phalanx leaders at the Battle of Gaugamela alongside Craterus, Perdiccas, Coenus, Amyntas and Polyperchon.154 Although he was the highest-ranking infantry officer in Babylon, and the only one mentioned in Arrian’s list of the megistoi, other recorded incidents on campaign suggest Meleager was indeed opinionated with a voice that at times had bordered on insubordination.155 At the Babylon Assembly, and understandably angry if he had been passed over in the Will – possibly for exactly that reason – Meleager next proposed that Alexander’s half-brother, Arrhidaeus, carry the name ‘King Philip III’ for political poignancy. It was effective; as Justin put it, he was exploiting an ‘indignant infantry’ that had been given no share in deliberations.156

  How incendiary Meleager’s speech really was (if indeed it came from him) remains conjecture; if Alexander’s Will did recognise Arrhidaeus in some ceremonial and figurehead role, the speech was not treasonous at all. If properly managed under a basileon prostasian, a formal court guardianship, Arrhidaeus was in fact the perfect ‘safe’ choice as an interim Argead figurehead, as Alexander may have reasoned, and Meleager could have been reminding the Assembly of just that.157 Yet the speech also captured a significant reality: although the Macedonians were prepared to maintain their loyalty to the Argead house, Alexander’s sons, born, unborn and bred of Asiatic wives, were simply not acceptable as immediate choices, and neither were the highborn hetairoi to whom the empire was being conspicuously distributed. Curtius recorded that Alexander’s ‘friends had been shamed’ when he chose to marry Roxane, a girl from the ‘subject people’.158 Of course none could have voiced this in Bactria or at the Susa weddings. Cleitus, who headed the elite king’s cavalry bodyguard, the ile basilike, was run through for his straight talking, and the executions at Opis provided an instructive example of what befell dissenters. But here in Babylon, with Alexander dead, these sentiments were emerging at last.

  Intriguingly, a fragment of the cuneiform tablet Babylonian Chronicle recorded the reign of Arrhidaeus (indeed titled ‘King Philip III’ on it) as eight years long, where Diodorus claimed six years and four months (Justin simply stated six years). If the Chronicle is accurate, it suggests Alexander had elevated his half-brother to ‘ceremonial king’ (in Babylon at least) in 324 BCE, as Bosworth has proposed. This possibility may also be implied by a speech in which ‘a man unknown to most of the Macedonians’ and apparently of lowly birth claimed Arrhidaeus was recently made the king’s ‘associate in sacrifices and ceremonies’.159 Indeed, a bond may have been established between him and Alexander who conspicuously exempted Arrhidaeus from execution at Philip’s murder some thirteen years before, when we imagine Olympias must have pushed for his immediate death.

  Arrhidaeus may well have been capable of basic regal functions despite his impaired condition and the rumours that Olympias gave him mind-destroying drugs as a boy.160 He was possibly epileptic (as the Heidelberg Epitome stated), or perhaps more plausibly, autistic, for epilepsy did not stop Socrates, Caesar or Caligula, each inflicted with what the Romans termed morbus commitialis, from making their indelible marks.161

  Historians (old and new) are generally in agreement that the speech which followed from the prominent Bodyguard, Peithon son of Crateuas, was a further show of support for Perdiccas, for in ‘plain language’ he gave an assessment of Arrhidaeus (though this opinion was attached to Ptolemy in Justin’s précis); we assume that means he highlighted his mental limitations. ‘Peithon began to follow the plan of Perdiccas, and named Perdiccas and Leonnatus, both of royal birth, as guardians (epitropoi, tutores in Latin) of the son to be born to Roxane’; in fact Macedonian tradition held that only a member of the royal house could in fact be regent. Roxane’s potential son was now symbasileos alongside Arrhidaeus, just as we propose the Will demanded.162 But Peithon subjoined that Craterus and Antipater should direct affairs in Europe, with Justin reiterating this expanded line-up of guardians. Hidden below the Cleitarchean intestate scandaleuse it appears Peithon was presenting a credible counter-suggestion that maintained the basic fabric of the Will.163

  Here the hermeneutical debate thickens, for to conclude that Peithon was upholding Perdiccas’ position is not consistent with their relations immediately after the settlement. Neither are Peithon’s actions that came to justify Perdiccas’ suspicion, for he was one of his assassins in Egypt some three years on.164 If the Will had indeed granted Perdiccas overall command, Peithon’s speech was anything but supportive; rather it was designed to neutralise his sole possession of the boy and made to counter Aristonus’ speech. In line with the mood of the gathering, Peithon sweetened the suggestion by bringing the popular but absent Craterus and Antipater into the frame.

  What becomes apparent here is Leonnatus’ high standing amidst the Macedones; previously described by Curtius as ex purpuratis (‘from the purple’), he was clearly now the ‘second man’ then present beside the chiliarch, perhaps due to those regal roots (T11, T12).165 Peithon’s proposal held; the ageing regent, Antipater, was reconfirmed in his role, and the popular Craterus, arguably the most senior infantry commander still in Asia, and who had been given supreme control of the entire army when campaigning the eastern satrapies, was given prostasia (a protector’s role) alongside him, and ‘charge of royal property’. The exact division between his military and civil duties remains speculation, but for Craterus it was something of a compensation for his own regency now on hold. But whether this would emerge as an ‘honorific without power’, or arguably the top role in the empire that eclipsed even a chiliarchos, only time would tell.166 Did Craterus have agents in Babylon, and was Peithon effectively one of his men?

  We might speculate that not all of the infantry officers present cared who governed the lands outside Macedonia, or perhaps the lands east of the Greek coastal cities of Asia Minor, for the army had seen its fill of India and the upper satrapies. They did, however, care about the fate of the Macedonian throne and their right to participate in its destiny. Moreover, the convocation in Babylon was unique and perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to decide on something truly hard-earned and of real value to returning veterans. Antipater’s regime in Pella had already been instructed by Alexander to endow the repatriated campaigners with garlands and prohedria, the privilege of front row seats at public performances.167 But those picking up the pieces at Alexander’s death – the men who were forced to remain in A
sia – had not yet enjoyed the fruits of their labour, and now, under the new regime unfolding before them, they wondered if they ever would.

  But there were likely to have been quite different mindsets coalescing within the infantry ranks that now included men intent on getting home, those ambivalent as they had little to return to, and those who could not return. Within these last two groups were genuine settlers with wives, concubines, children and waggons laden with booty, and career fighters looking for the next chance to plunder or obtain a land grant as a reward. Finally, there were auxiliary mercenaries and exiles, principally Greeks.

  Arrian claimed 10,000 Macedones were registered at Susa as having married Asiatic wives, and though the figure is more than suspiciously high, it is likely that a good number of those then in Babylon had good reason to stay.168 For them the future was in the ‘empire’ under the wing of the generals who controlled the wealth and vast resources of the newly opened lands they had seen first-hand. As far as these soldiers were concerned, the stature of the immediate commander or satrap of the provinces did matter. Some ninety per cent or more of the governors appointed by the prominent Diadokhoi remained Macedonian or Greek; opportunity abounded for a talented officer, moreover evidence suggests a further 15,000 to 20,000 settlers arrived in the next two decades when new ‘Pellas’ were founded in Asia.169

  With this in mind, the surviving texts most likely provide an oversimplified interpretation of the position of the Macedonian soldiers that remained in Babylon, for they are treated as ‘state conscripts’ billeted where directed. If an accurate picture when Alexander was alive, judging by the tone of the Assembly, this was hardly the case now. Many veterans surely attempted to attach themselves to a province and a new patron under the cleruch system that most suited their situation, if not immediately and upon departing Babylon, then over the next several years once the outcome of the early conflict and Lamian War had been decided. So Ptolemy, Peucestas, Lysimachus, Seleucus, and Peithon, once free from central command (and probably even before), would each have been making financial offers, pledges for the future and offers of land grants, to secure a solid core of Macedonians and Greeks in their own satrapal armies. Justin did claim that Alexander’s ‘friends’ had already been secretly paying court to the common soldier to win the favour of the army before the king had died.170