Soldier, Priest, and God

by F S Naiden

  49. Royal tombs in the swamps: Str. 16.1.1; an attested example at ABC 18 col. 5.6 with Beaulieu (1988), no. 53. Just two locations of royal crypts—Uruk and Choga Zanbil, in Elam—are known, but the latter was destroyed by Ashurbanipal ca. 640, and neither could have been known to Alexander. A pious brick stamp of Sennacherib’s: Sennacherib, 151 no. 14 followed by no. 13.

  50. The story of the sailor: Aristoboulos FGrH 139 F 22.

  51. Death within a year: see n. 23 above. Tearing down the city wall: DS 17.115.1. Cost of repairs: Str. 16.1.15.

  52. The substitute king: Arr. An. 7.24.1–3, DS 17.116.2–4, Plu. Alex. 73.7–9, first interpreted as reflecting a Babylonian substitution ritual by Kümmel (1967), 184–86, followed by Lane Fox (1973), 549–550, and Bottéro (1987), ch. 9. What the ritual involved: Parpola (1993), 2 nos. 1, 2, (ingestion of texts), 3–4, 12, 25 (on the throne), 89–90, 189 (royal dress), 219, 220 (execution after fifteen or a hundred days), 221 (private life as a “farmer,” ikkaru), 240, 314, 350 (execution after a hundred days), 351, 352 (a simpleton, a consort, and their execution, followed by a funeral), 377

  53. Perhaps during the ritual the temporarily isolated king conducted business in the qersu, some kind of wooden chamber or vehicle, as suggested by Pomerantz-Leisten (1997), 99 with ref.

  54. Any Babylonian explanation given to the companions ought to have compared enthroning a substitute king to a Greco-Macedonian apotropaic ritual, but the enthronement was an instance of a subtly different rite, namburbi, that Maul (1994) calls “Löserrituale.” Only one Greek apotropaic ritual, for a scapegoat, involved putting a substitute to death.

  55. Eunuchs around Alexander: Arr. An. 7.24.3. Manteis: ibid., DS 17.116.4, Plu. Alex. 74.1. No details: D. Chr. 4.66–67, Zonar. 1.14. In Arrian and Plutarch, the substitute is removed rather than killed, another way of interrupting the ritual. A similar view: Boiy (2004), 113. A somewhat similar view: Abramenko (2000), 364, holding that the Babylonians conducted the ritual in secret to avoid interference from the companions.

  56. Alexander’s despair: Plu. Reg. apophth. 207d.

  57. A similar view of the role of the Babylonian astronomers in Alexander’s last days, although differing concerning the mock king: Lenderling (2005), 343–54.

  58. Favorable oracles about Hephaestion: App. 1b #24 (Plu. Alex. 74.4). In Arrian, a sacrifice for eucharistēria takes place on the same occasion (App. 1a #60). Onomarchus knew who attended the dinner at Medius’s, but discreetly refused to list them (FGrH 127 F 1). Lists appear in later sources, Ps.-Call. A 3.31.8–32.1 and the Epit. Mett. 97–98, analyzed at Heckel (1988), ch. 4. A drunken Alexander recalls Andromache: Nikoboule 127 FGrH F 2.

  59. The records kept by Eumenes (or his assistants) were evidently far more heterogeneous than what survives in the only two sources, Arr. An. 7.25–26 and Plu. Alex. 76, only one of which reports meetings and sacrifices. Many scholars have found sundry reasons to regard the Ephemerides as a pastiche or a fabrication, starting with inconsistent dating. Atkinson and Yardley (2009) ad Arr. An. 10.1.5–6 provide a synopsis of this skeptical bibliography. A fabrication that served the interest of officers in Babylon: Brunt (1983), 289. A fabrication that served the interest of Antipater: Bosworth (1988a), 157–64. The Arabian expedition: App. 3 #36. Alexander’s repairs to shrines: Mari (2002), 249–63, observing that some of these were major shrines chosen to maintain Alexander’s prestige as national priest of the Macedonians.

  60. Successive attempts to sacrifice and meet during the final illness: App. 3 #36, 37, 38, 39, 40, in the course of six days; Bosworth (1988a), 165–67, doubts so many meetings occurred.

  61. The parade of mourners also appears in Ps.-Call. A 3.32.12–13 with other versions as at Merkelbach (1977), 220–25.

  62. Diseases of absolute rulers: Pl. R. 9.573c, Arist. Prob. 30. Another view: the Greek doctors administered a fatal overdose of the purgative drug hellebore, as reported, along with other explanations, at Romm (2012).

  63. Babylonian nostrums: Stol (2007), passim. In some houses, and particularly palaces, bas-relief sculptures at these locations did this apotropaic work, as at Dalley (2013), 139.

  64. Contemporary doctors envisioning the scene: Oldach et al. (1998), diagnosing Salmonella typhi enteritis, with further remarks on their report by Borza and Reames-Zimmerman (2000), who add weakening of the immune system because of bereavement, 27–28. Encephalitis due to West Nile virus: Cunha (2004). Malaria: Atkinson and Yardley (2009) ad Curt. 10.5.6.

  65. The supplication by the worried companions: App. 2 #31. The god is Serapis according to Arr. An. 7.26.2–3 and Plu. Alex. 76.9. To explain this error, Bosworth (1995) ad. loc. identifies Serapis as Marduk, an impossibility, given that Marduk had only one shrine in Babylon. (For a later view, see Ch. 12, n. 34.) Quack (2013), 229–30, says that the suppliants sought to incubate, but shrines in Babylon were not used for this purpose. Interpretatio graeca in this episode: Heller (2010), 413–14.

  66. Roxana’s intervention: Arr. An. 7.27.3. Another view of this episode: Jamzadeh (2012), 148.

  67. Proteas’s age: Ael. VH 2.26. Nephew of Clitus: Curt. 8.2.8. Son of Alexander’s nurse: Ath. 4.129a. Drinking bout: Ephippus FGrH 126 F 3.

  68. The date: AD 1–322B obv. 8; also Sachs (1955), no. 209. The hour: Depuydt (1997). The companions’ inaccuracy: the duration of the illness is 11 days in Arr. An. 7.25–26 and ten in Plu. Alex. 76. Similar disagreement about the date of death: 28th Daisios at Plu. Alex. 76; 30th at Plu. Alex. 75; 29th according to Beloch (1922), 4.2.27. All Macedonian dates derived from Babylonian ones because of the synchronization of Macedonian and Babylonian calendars, as in Samuel (1972), 141. The Greek term ephemerides, used of the day-books kept by Eumenes, has a different sense in astronomical literature, where it refers to tables for making predictions about the movements of heavenly bodies.

  69. Resurrection according to the Pharisees, but not the Sadducees: Acts 23.8; so also J. AJ 8.14–15, BJ 2.8.14.

  70. Adapted from Ps.-Call. Γ 2.39–40. Considered in its entirety, this story, which features a forest journey followed by a journey to the end of the world, resembles the Epic of Gilgamesh, as noted by Meissner (1894). Nizami, however, attributes the story to Zoroastrianism (1.58.36). Cf. other versions of the story, such as Nizami 1.68–70, and Firdausi 20.3, where Alexander is unenlightened rather than deceived as in Ps.-Call. Γ 2.39–40 and also in B 2.39–40. Hebrew versions: Tamid 32a–b, HR 37.

  71. Folktales influenced by the Alexander Romance, as argued in Leigh Fermor (1958), 187, and in particular by Ps.-Call. B 2.41. Versions of the folktale: Politis (1904), #551–52.

  Chapter 12

  Dead Men and a Living King

  1. The council meets to dispose of Alexander’s body: App. 3 #42. No will: pace the sources for App. 3 #41, which mention mandata. The various purposes served by the posthumous “will” found in Epit. Mett. 87–123 and Ps.-Call. A 3.32.8–10, 33.1–25: Bosworth (2000a). The instructions to Craterus: DS 18.4.1. The instruction to be buried at Siwah: Ar. fr. 25, Curt. 10.5.4, DS 18.3.5, Justin. 12.15.7, Paus. 1.6.3.

  2. Alexander envisioning competition, as at athletic games: Curt. 10.5.5, although Curtius mistranslated “strongest,” an athletic term, as optimus; so also Justin 12.15.8, dignissimus. Cf. aristos (DS 18.1.4) and kratistos (Arr. An. 7.26.3). Less plausible remarks: Curt. 10.5.6, Justin 12.15.5, both with Roman topoi noticed by Atkinson and Yardley (2009) ad Curt. 10.5.2.

  3. The charge of poisoning: Arr. An. 7.27.1–3, DS 17.118.1–2, Curt. 10.10.14–18, and Plu. Alex. 77.1–3, each with characteristic reservations: Arrian rejects this explanation, Diodorus attributes the report of it to his sources, Curtius is scandalized that the report was repressed, and Plutarch is skeptical. Poisoning charges as multilayered propaganda: Bosworth (1971), 115–16, and (2010), considering poison a possible cause of Alexander’s death. Poisoning not a possible cause: Heckel (1988), 1–5.

  4. The tradition that the body was to be buried in Macedon: Arr. fr. 24.1–2, Str. 17.1.8, Paus. 1.6.3, A
el. VH 12.64. Only Curt. 10.10.20 omits this tradition.

  5. Perdiccas at Thebes: Arr. An. 1.8; DS 17.12.3 denies Perdiccas the initiative. Perdiccas and embalming: DS 17.110.8.

  6. A week spent unattended in a coffin: Curt. 10.10.9. Ael. VH 12.64 says the corpse lay unattended for thirty days, an impractically long time in the summer heat of Mesopotamia.

  7. This is the ring used to communicate with Greeks and Macedonians. Alexander used another to communicate with Persians (Curt. 6.6.6). Perhaps he used a third ring to communicate with Egyptians, as suggested by Rathmann (2005), 21. The story that Alexander gave the ring to Perdiccas, although found in all the Vulgate authors (Curt. 10.5.4, DS 17.117.3, Justin 12.1.5.12), does not appear in Ta meta Alexandrou, the Ephemerides, or the Metz Epitome; it turns a senior officer into a regent. Atkinson and Yardley (2009) ad Curt. 10.5.4 discern yet another Roman topos.

  8. The embalming of Alexander is not described by the Alexander historians, save for Curt. 10.10.13, so it is reconstructed by using Smith and Dawson (1924), 57–72, and later works by Egyptologists analyzing mummies of the late Persian and Ptolemaic periods—Loynes (2015), 204–5, 225; Dodson (1994), 1–3; and Janot (2000), 187.

  9. Perdiccas’s stage management: Curt. 10.6.1–4. Curtius regards the following meeting as an assembly of the army (10.6.3–7.15) combined with, or colliding with, a council (App. 3 #42). Schachermeyr (1970), 49–73, makes an archaeological objection to this assembly, which was that the likely meeting place, the regia in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar as at Curt 10.5.7, was far too small for such a meeting. App. 3 provides a procedural argument: no other meeting of the council is ever interrupted. Some of what Curtius reports the troops saying is also unprecedented, especially the regret expressed for never having worshipped Alexander while he was alive (10.5.11).

  10. If we assume that the council met by itself, two events reported by Curtius must be rejected: first, that the volgus (10.6.4) offered Perdiccas the crown, and second, that Meleager failed to mention Arrhidaeus to his fellow generals (10.6.20–24). The only comparandum, Justin 13.2.5–12, reports neither of these two events. Other views of this passage: Atkinson and Yardley (2009) ad Curt 10.6.5–24, “something of a construct”; Bosworth (2003), 179, dismissing the offer of the crown to Perdiccas; Schachermeyr (1970), 94, arguing that Nearchus did not belong at the meeting.

  11. The allotment of satrapies may have occurred later, as at App. 3 #43; the latest treatment is the relevant entries in Heckel (2016). The disposition of, and deaths among, the women: Justin 13.2.7, putting Barsine in Anatolia already; Curt. 10.5.21–25, Plu. Alex. 77.6.

  12. The use of honey, aloes, and myrrh on this occasion: Ps.-Call. 3.34.4.

  13. Protests by the infantry, but after the meeting, not during it: Arr. fr. 1a.1–2, Curt. 10.7.6–15, and especially Justin 13.2.13, reporting that the infantry protested at being ignored.

  14. Separate camps followed by a virtual siege: Curt. 10.7.20, DS 18.2.3–4; Curt. 10.8.1–14. Schachermeyr (1970), 99–101, notices the conflict between two kinds or grades of companions.

  15. The purification: App. 1a #61, followed at Curt. 10.9.21 by an act of supplication that would be impossible in Babylon, as at Naiden (2009), 24. Curtius says an assembly previously condemned Meleager (Curt. 10.8.5–7), which, if true, would render the supplication ineffectual in typical Greek circumstances.

  16. Similarly, Errington (1976), 142, posited delay in disposing of the body, but not for religious reasons; whereas Erskine (2002), 171, citing Arr. fr. 24.1, posited delay so that Perdiccas might “control” (κρατῆσαι) the body.

  17. The catafalque project: Arr. fr. 1.25; DS 18.3.5, 18.26.1, 18.28.2.

  18. The completed catafalque: DS 18.26–27, in the light of Stewart (1993), 215–21.

  19. The proposed marriage: Arr. fr. 1.26. Another view, that Perdiccas wanted to become king tout court: Waterfield (2011), 46.

  20. No theft: DS 18.28.2, Paus. 1.6.3. Theft strongly implied: Arr. fr. 1.24.1–8, Str. 17.1.8. A trick and not a theft: Ael. VH 12.64.

  21. The burial of Alexander: App. 1a #62. Memphis: Marmor Parium FGrH 239 F B.111 under 322/21 BC; Curt. 10.10.20, DS 18.28.3, Str. 17.1.8, Paus. 1.6.3, Ael. VH 12.64, as at Fraser (1972), 2.32 n. 79. The temple of Amon (and Thoth): Chugg (2002), 20, citing Préaux (1939), 298–99. Redford (1992), 228, describes the temples of Bel and Astarte. Another suggested location: the tomb of Nakhtnebef at Saqarra, as at Schmidt-Colinet (1996).

  22. The fiasco crossing the river: DS 18.33–36.1 Perdiccas also built a canal for some unknown purpose; see Heckel (2016), 181 with refs.

  23. The withdrawal of Ptolemy’s foes: Nep. Eum. 5.1. The date of Perdiccas’s death, May/June 320: ABC 13c. BM 35, 660 v. 4. The alternative view, placing this event a year earlier: Bosworth (1992) with refs.

  24. Babylon as a reward for Seleucus: DS 18.39.5–6.

  25. Olympias was assassinated only with some difficulty: 200 picked assassins could not bring themselves to dispatch her (DS 19.51). Then relatives of those she had killed did the deed.

  26. The later career of Polyperchon: DS 20.20, 20.37.1, 20.100.6, 20.103.5–7; Heckel (1992), 189.

  27. Aside from the deaths of Alexander’s mates, three sisters were also all eventually killed, one by Perdiccas, one by Antigonus, and one by Cassander’s son, as at Carney (1988).

  28. The shift from hetairoi to philoi: Corradi (1929), 318–43. See also Introduction, n. 13.

  29. Hero cult for Alexander is deducible from the hero cult for Hephaestion at SEG 40.547. Graffiti referring to Alexander as a hero: SEG 47.933. Returning soldiers responsible: Voutiras (1990), 130. The same honor given to Philip: IG xii.2 526 γ 4–5. Honors for Alexander in Alexandria: J. Val. 3.60. The Asia Minor oracles: Ch. 11, n. 28. Worship of Alexander on Thasos: SEG 17.415. Ionia: OGI 222. Later cult, but with no time of origin: Lucian. DMort. 13.2. Retrojecting all these cults to the period of the calendar reform: Habicht (1970), 17–26. Veterans honoring Alexander in 317: DS 19.22.2–3.

  30. One companion, Lysimachus, did become a god in his own right, as at Hatzopoulos (1996), App. Ep. 22, 44, dated between 287 and 281, and thus perhaps not beginning until decades after Alexander’s death.

  31. The cults of Seleucus, Antigonus, and their successors: Habicht (1970), 17–18, 20–26; 82–87, 88–89, 92–99. The Babylonians, however, never worshipped Alexander as a god, even though they eventually worshipped the Seleucids, as at Van der Spek (1985).

  32. The sarcophagus on public view: Erskine (2002), 167–79. Only a few years: Fraser (1972), ch. 1, n. 86, following Curt. 10.10.20. Alterations to the sarcophagus: Suet. Aug. 15, Str. 17.1.8, Zen. 3.94. The evolution of the Soma: Stewart (1993), 247.

  33. The expansion from Alexander to dead Ptolemies, and later to living ones: Fraser (1972), 1.213–46. The visitor to Alexandria in 274: Ath. 5.198.

  34. Serapis in Babylon: Ch. 11, n. 65. Altheim (1953), 111–12, saw the story in ethnic terms: Alexander’s attempt to unify Macedonians and Persians having failed, Serapis brings about the symbolic unification of Macedonians and Egyptians. Bosworth (1988b), 169, envisions an Egyptian shrine in Babylon, yet one used by Macedonians—a kind of concatenation, but not unification.

  35. Ptolemy’s order: OGIS 56.1–3.

  36. A summary of these developments from 272 to 238: Pfeiffer (2014a), 120–22.

  37. The words of Augustus: Suet. Aug. 18. Presumably, he spoke after the sarcophagus was brought forth, implying that ordinary visitors may not have been able to see it.

  38. The faux pas of Augustus: CD 51.16.5. Faux pas aside, this story is of a piece with Augustus’s indifference to Egyptian religion and with his refusal to be crowned pharaoh. In these two respects, he was the opposite of the man he admired.

  39. Caracalla in Alexandria: Hrd. 4.8.9. Later misfortunes: Fraser (1972), 2.34–35.

  40. Christian polemics against Alexander: Theod. Graec. Affect. Cur. 8 (PG 83.1030); J. Chrysos. Hom. xxvi in epist. secundam ad Cor. (PG 61.258).

  41. One
pilgrim: Leo Afric. 8.263, not specifying the mosque in which the chapel was located. Africanus was a Muslim at the time of his visit, and thus may have had better access than Christian visitors who could not find either a chapel or a mosque, as noted by Matthey (2015), 324–25. Apparently Clarke (1805) first proposed that a sarcophagus found in the “mosque of Saint Athanasius” was Alexander’s, although it proved to be Nakhtnebef’s. Longer versions of this story of how the shrine disappeared: Schlange-Schöningen (1996), Erskine (2002), and Saunders (2006), 269–80 with refs.

  42. The most recent fruitless search for Alexander’s body, leading to Vergina: Hall (2014), 113–16.

  43. Horned Alexanders: Stewart (1993), app. 4, passim, including examples from other media. The religious range of images of a horned Zeus-Amon or Zeus: Cook (1914), 346–409. The mosque of the two-horned man: Ibn Abdel Hakim, as at Fraser (1972), ch. 1, n. 86.

  44. Cyrus as the two-horned man: Baljon (1961), 32, quoting the Indian writer and administrator Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, an early exponent of this view. A son of Japheth rather than either Alexander or Cyrus: Horovitz (1926), 111–13.

  45. A Hebrew source for these verses: 1 Macc. 1.3-4. The barrier would seem to be the Great Wall of Gorgan, which ran from the Caspian eastward to the Kopet Dagh Mountains and thus divided Persia from the steppes of Central Asia. Although it was built in the fifth century AD by the Sassanids, tradition attributed it to Alexander. It was abandoned in the seventh century, perhaps in the years when Muhammad was preaching. See Sauer et al. (2013). In sources older than the Koran, the wall or walls breached by Gog and Magog were just south of the Caucasus (Ezek. 37.1–3), although Gog came from the far north; later, the sons of Magog were Scythians (J. A. 1.6.1), which suggests a wall somewhere within the Caucasus. Another Muslim report of Gog and Magog: Firdausi 20.4. See also Van Donzel and Schmidt (2010).

  46. Abraham: Koran 2.126. Cf. Isaac and Jacob (38.46–47), to whom knowledge of the Last Judgment is imparted, but whose statements about it are not quoted. Cf. also unnamed, unquoted messengers or warning-givers, as at 36.3, 36.14, and 50.2; and the generality of prophets to whom some knowledge of the Last Judgment is attributed. For Alexander and Christ, see Amitay (2010), 147–51.