In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great

by David Grant

  Aemilius Paullus, the architect of the victory at Pydna, was the father of the also-present seventeen-year-old Scipio Aemilianus, blood stained and ‘carried away by the uncontrollable pleasure of the victory…’ He would oversee the fall of Carthage in 146 BCE, the same year wealthy Corinth was plundered, by which time Rome had become something of a museum of Greek art and antiquities; even the twenty-five bronze equestrian statues Alexander had Lysippus fashion in memory of the Companions who fell at the Granicus River battle would be collected from Dion by Quintus Caecilius Metellus ‘Macedonicus’.331

  Escorted back to Rome after victory at Pydna were 250 waggons of booty, a chained King Perseus, and Metrodorus the Athenian philosopher as a tutor for Aemilius Paullus’ sons.332 Also taken were 1,000 notable Achaeans as good-behaviour hostages;333 they included Polybius, the politically-connected cavalry commander (hipparchos) from Megalopolis in Arcadia, and who, as a member of the Achaean League (in fact second-in-command), was technically in league with the Italians (since 198 BCE when the league abandoned Philip V, a former ally), though he was on the wrong side of the equally hostile Callicrates and his policy of ‘abject subservience and obsequiousness to Rome’.334 For Polybius’ father had advocated strict neutrality in the Roman war with Macedonia and he was a victim of that political divide, thus deemed of suspect loyalty.335

  Now in his early thirties, Polybius would also educate Paullus’ sons; he soon perfected for the Roman legions a telegraphic aid that sent messages by torches and which came to be known as the Polybius Square. During the next seventeen eventful years as a hostage in Rome (despite at least five pleas by the Achaean League for his return to Greece), or on the march with Roman generals which included a stint in Africa, he rubbed shoulders with senators and influential families and completed his military Tactics; it prompted Scipio and his brother to petition the city praetor that he be allowed to remain there for good. In return, Polybius’ diplomacy is said to have ‘stayed the wrath’ of the Romans against a now toothless Greece, and in particular against the Achaean League which was also disbanded in 146 BCE following a disastrous (and ill-reported) short war with Rome.336

  Recalling the battle at Pydna when he later penned his Histories, and summing a fate that saw King Perseus die in prison in Rome, Polybius claimed the last ever dynastic Macedonian king recalled a prophecy that the goddess Fortuna favoured the Macedones only until she favoured others:

  So then often and bitterly did Perseus call to mind the words of Demetrius of Phalerum. For he, in his treatise on Fortuna, wishing to give men a striking instance of her mutability asks them to remember the times when Alexander overthrew the Persian Empire, and speak as follows: ‘For if you consider not countless years or many generations, but merely these last fifty years, you will read in them the cruelty of Fortune. I ask you, do you think that fifty years ago either the Persians and the Persian king or the Macedonians and the king of Macedon, if some god had foretold the future to them, would ever have believed that at the time when we live, the very name of the Persians would have perished utterly – the Persians who were masters of almost the whole world – and that the Macedonians, whose name was formerly almost unknown, would now be the lords of it all? But nevertheless this Fortune, who never compacts with life, who always defeats our reckoning by some novel stroke; she who ever demonstrates her power by foiling our expectations, now also, as it seems to me, makes it clear to all men, by endowing the Macedonians with the whole wealth of Persia, that she has but lent them these blessings until she decides to deal differently with them.’ And this now happened in the time of Perseus. Surely Demetrius, as if by the mouth of some god, uttered these prophetic words.337

  Demetrius’ words were repeated almost word for word by Diodorus and also précised by Livy.338 So no one in Rome could fail to acknowledge Alexander’s part in its own conquest of the East, but as Polybius sensed, and as Diodorus, Nepos, and Plutarch knew from their own research of the era, the remarkable Diadokhoi who became the first Hellenistic kings, had inherited more than a knowledge of sarissa drills and flying wedges from their Argead mentors: they had learned Macedonian statecraft.

  Had Alexander’s own ambition never ventured beyond the expanded borders established by his father, these Pellan court aristocrats may have contented themselves with governing one of the ancient feudal cantons of Upper or Lower Macedonia.339 The more ambitious of them might have become condottieri working for a tyrant or satrap in Asia Minor. But Alexander had set the bar high, and in the process he infused his court hetairoi with a vision far grander than domestic state affairs or seasonal campaigning to pocket gold darics. For they had come to harbour a self-belief that emanated from their part in his great journey, resulting in talented satraps who coveted kingdoms, not the ephemeral wealth of serving the remaining Argead line. It was an ambition that, according to Justin, left Fortune inspiring them ‘with mutual emulation for their mutual destruction’.340 Their transformation to purple and the wearing of stephanephoria was irreversible and an idea as intoxicating as Alexander himself.

  What is beyond doubt is the ambition, ruthlessness and tenacity of Alexander’s successors. If their king’s last words in Babylon had truly rejected a continuation of his line and had cynically invited them to slug it out for the throne, diadems would have adorned the Diadokhoi and their coins more than a decade before they did.

  The Tyche of Antioch, a Roman copy of a bronze by Eutychides, a pupil of Lysippus, dating to ca. 300 BCE and the founding of the city of Antioch by the Seleucids. The goddess of fortune is portrayed in mural crown sitting on a rock by the Orontes River represented by a swimming boy, while holding stalks of grain signifying prosperity. The depiction proved so popular that it was copied by a number of cities and on coins. Her divine roots were however obscure: Hesiod related Tyche to Tethys and Oceanus, whereas Pindar claimed she was the most powerful sister of the Three Fates. Now in the Galleria dei Candelabri, Vatican Museum.

  NOTES

  1.Demosthenes On the Crown 270.

  2.Aeschines On the False Embassy 118.

  3.Thucydides 3.39.5.

  4.Aristotle Politics 3.1284a.

  5.Diodorus 19.1 for the saying. ‘Slay the tallest stalks to protect the crop’ is rooted in Aristotle Politics 3.1284a, and also Herodotus 5.92 ff; in Herodotos’ version it is Thrasybulus giving the advice to Periander, and the reverse in Aristotle’s rendering. Livy 1.54.

  6.Aristotle Politics 3.1284a; the text continued ‘… indeed a man would be ridiculous if he tried to legislate for them, for probably they would say what in the story of Antisthenes the lions said when the hares made speeches in the assembly and demanded that all should have equality.’

  7.The dating of the Constitution of the Athenians is uncertain as themes relating to the 330s and 320s BCE appear to be present; the work may even have been a later student compilation. Aristotle’s Politics appeared sometime between his return to Athens in 335 BCE when he founded the Lyceum, and before 323 BCE.

  8.Quoting Justin 8.1.1-3 on Philip’s oppression of Greek liberty. The prytaneion was the room in which the central hearth housing sacred fire was kept. Each city-state, or even town, had one and it came to represent the town hall or magistrates’ office. Thucydides 2.15 and Aristotle’s Politics referred to the prytaneion of Athens where the archons resided, though its location is uncertain and may have changed through time.

  9.Curtius 9.6.8.

  10.Demosthenes Second Olynthiac 8.11, 9.50 and 18.235 for Philip’s campaigning ability. As the Spartans used enslaved helots to farm their land, they were free to campaign throughout the year, religious festivals aside.

  11.Diodorus 16.89.2 for Philip’s declaration against Persia.

  12.The Myrmidons were a legendary race commanded by Achilles and renowned as skilled warriors. Iliad 1.179-180 for the Myrmidons being referred to as Achilles’ hetairoi.

  13.Justin 13.1-4 commented that after Alexander’s death the Bodyguards became princes instead of prefects.
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br />   14.A loose translation of the sentiment in Cicero Laelius De Amicitia 17.64, for example the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1923, translates this as ‘When Fortune’s fickle the faithful friend is found’.

  15.Lucullas became so renowned for his banqueting that we now use ‘Lucullan’ when referring to ‘lavish’ or ‘gourmet’. Plutarch Lucullus claimed be had a budget of 50,000 drachmas for nightly dining.

  16.Quoting Ennius from Cicero’s De Officiis 1.7.

  17.‘Kata polemon’, broadly ‘to do with war’; see I Worthington in Carney-Ogden (2010) p 171 and footnote 29 for a discussion of its use.

  18.Demosthenes First Olynthiac 1.4; discussed in Anson (2013) p 19. The list of Macedonian kings traditionally includes legendary names such as Caranus, but additional uncertainty exists over whether Philip’s nephew, Amyntas IV, briefly came to the throne or whether Ptolemy of Alorus had, or simply acted as regent.

  19.As indicated at Plutarch Cicero 7.1-2. Cicero De Officiis 1.26.

  20.Cicero De Officiis 1: Moral Goodness 90.26, translation from the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1913.

  21.Musgrave-Prag-Neave-Lane Fox (2010) section 9.1.3 for Amyntas IV’s possible reign. Justin 7.5.9 for the people demanding Philip take on the kingship.

  22.Green (1974) p 22 for the five usurpers.

  23.Diodorus 14.92.3-4, 14.19.2, 16.6.2 for Illyrian incursions, and following Anson (2013) p 44. Diodorus 16.2.4-5 for the death of Perdiccas III and his losses. Hammond (1991) pp 25-30 for a summary of Perdiccas’ challenges. After the death of King Amyntas III in 370/369 BCE, Ptolemy of Alorus, a possible envoy to the king (an alliance with Athens in 375-373 BCE mentioned the name) and possibly the son of Amyntas II (Diodorus 15.71.1; thus descended from the line of Menelaus, son of Alexander I) started a liaison with Amyntas’ widow, Eurydice, and he may in fact have married her and ascended to the throne. In 368/367 BCE Ptolemy allegedly assassinated Alexander II (Diodorus 16.2.4 and 15.71.1-2 but Demosthenes On the False Embassy 19.194-95 stated an Apollophanes was executed for the murder) after less than two years on the throne (Diodorus 15.60.3 stated 1 year), and became guardian (epitropos) for the immature Perdiccas III (Aeschines On the Embassy 2.29, Plutarch Pelopidas 27.3), a role that saw him become regent of the kingdom until Perdiccas killed him in 365 BCE and then reigned for five years (Diodorus 15.77.5). Diodorus 15.71.1, 15.77.5, Eusebius Kronographia 228, stated Ptolemy was in fact basileus, king, for three years, but the use of the demotic, Alorus, and the absence of coinage in his name, speak otherwise. Moreover his marriage to Eurydice (Justin 7.4.7, Aeschines 2.29) and previously to her daughter, Eurynoe (Justin 7.4.7-7, 7.5.4-8 stated Ptolemy and Eurydice were lovers even then), suggest he needed legitimacy his heritage did not provide. According to Justin, the intrigue was revealed by Eurynoe. Why Eurydice intrigued with Ptolemy remains unclear (Justin 7.5 claimed she had previously plotted against Amyntas who spared her for the sake of their children); it may have been to undermine Alexander II, or the line of Amyntas on behalf of a foreign regime, or simply lovers intriguing to put Ptolemy in power, even above her sons. However, neither Diodorus nor Plutarch included her in any plotting with Ptolemy, so her involvement may be fiction; Carney (2006) p 90 argues that there is evidence she was a loyal and devoted mother. Pelopidas, who had already driven the Macedonian garrisons installed by Alexander II from Thessaly, was called in to arbitrate (Plutarch Pelopidas 26.3, Diodorus 16.67.4). Pelopidas was offered, or took, hostages for good behaviour, including Philip II.

  24.Iphicrates (in 368-365 BCE) and Timotheus (in 363, 360 and 359 BCE) had both tried to take the city without success. Carney-Ogden (2010) p 74 for Heracles’ former possession of the city, according to Speusippus. Hatzopoulos (1996) p 184 argues Amphipolis remained ‘theoretically independent’ after the siege; epigraphic evidence suggests a high Ionic Greek population remained. See chapter titled The Rebirth of the Wrath of Peleus’ Son for more on Heraclid origins of the Argeads.

  25.Athenaeus 13.557 for Satyrus’ comment.

  26.Quoting Fredericksmeyer (1981) p 334 on ‘harem for political purposes’.

  27.Plutarch 9.4, Athenaeus 13.557d declared it a love match. Anson (2013) p 53 for discussion. Athenaeus 13.557b-e for a rundown of Philip’s wives and the political motivation behind the marriages.

  28.Justin 8.2 for the laurel crowns.

  29.Diodorus 16.95.2-5 suggested that Philip was more proud of his strategy and diplomatic successes then his valour in actual battle. For Philip’s guile see discussion in Thomas (2007) p 83. Justin 8.2.3-5 for Philip leading a coalition of Macedonians, Thessalians and Thebans. The Amphyctionic Council represented thirteen Greek peoples; Anson (2013) p 71. Flower (1994) pp 36-37 for Theopompus’ book on the Sacred War stolen artifacts.

  30.Diodorus 16.60.1-4 for Philip and the Amphyctionic League. Hammond (1994) pp 168-169 for Philip’s expeditionary force and its treatment of cities.

  31.Fredericksmeyer (1990) p 305 as quoted in Gabriel (2010) p 2.

  32.Hatzopoulos (1996) p 476 for the expansions under Philip. According to Thucydides 2.99.2 these Upper Macedonian regions were self-governing previously; detail in Anson (2004) p 214 and p 221 for ongoing autonomy.

  33.Quoting Hatzopoulos (1996) p 204.

  34.‘Everything north of Hellas’ was an observation by Justin 7.2.13-14 and quoting Hammond (1994) p 137.

  35.Justin 9.7.2-7 for the hostility between Olympias and Philip and him painting a picture that Philip’s assassination was contrived by Olympias. See chapter titled The Reborn Wrath of Peleus’ Son for fuller discussion of the intrigues of Olympias and Alexander in the final years of Philip’s reign.

  36.Diodorus 16.92.5 for the display of wealth in the procession of statues of the twelve Olympian gods and a thirteenth of Philip that preceded the wedding; following the conclusion of Anson (2013) p 91. Hatzopoulos (1996) p 272 for the wedding coinciding with the panegyris. Aelian 8.15 for the slave calls. Carney (2006) pp 1001-101 and footnote 131 for varying views on Philip’s quest for divinity.

  37.Discussion by AB Bosworth in Carney-Ogden (2010) p 99 for the development of the foot companions under the sons of Amyntas.

  38.Diodorus 17.17.5, 17.118.1, 18.12.1 for the implication that Antipater was general of Europe; presumably this meant Greece and a ‘greater’ Macedonia comprising the control of Thrace, Epirus, Illyria and adjacent conquered regions; see Blackwell (1999) p 36 footnote 10 for discussion.

  39.Diodorus 17.17.3-5 for the total troop numbers accompanying Alexander to Asia and left in Macedonia, some 12,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry; Anson (2013) p 44 for discussion.

  40.Discussed in Carney (1995) pp 370-371 quoting Diodorus 17.118.1 for strategos and 17.17.5 for hegemonia. Plutarch 9.1 for the kurios role Alexander held under Philip II and 68.3 for suggesting a non-exclusive power of Antipater in Alexander’s own absence. Fuller discussion in Anson (1992).

  41.Full discussion of Olympias’ role and her relationship with Antipater in Blackwell (1999) pp 81-131.

  42.Plutarch Demetrius 22.1 for the captured correspondence. They allegedly opened all of Philip’s letters except one from Olympias, which they returned to him unopened.

  43.Quoting the definition in Arrian 3.16.10, Penguin Books edition, 1971, p 174, editor’s footnote 42.

  44.Hornblower (1981) pp 34-35 and pp 76-80 on the Hellenistic use of terms associated with Alexander’s army and general staff. Livy 44.41.2 for Livy’s confusing use of caertracti for peltasts; discussed in Snodgrass (1967) p 123. Also see Sekunda (2012) pp 11-12 for Livy’s military terminologies.

  45.The various titles are presented and discussed in Carney (1995) p 373 and fuller discussion in Anson (1992) pp 39-41.

  46.For the origins of basileus see Sihler (1995) p 330.

  47.The armour was discovered in a chamber tomb at Dendra near Mycenae in May 1960. This shield design was termed dipylon after the group of vases depicting them found at the Dipylon Cemetery in Athens. Similarly the Corinthian helmet is found on Corinthian pottery and men
tioned at Herodotus 4.180.

  48.Snodgrass (1967) p 14 ff for Mycenaean shaft-grave funds, armour and weaponry. The Hittite monopoly on iron production discussed in Snodgrass (1967) p 36.

  49.The comparison made in Snodgrass (1967) p 24. The Louis XIV armour is exhibited in the Musée D’Artillerie in Paris.

  50.Hoplites were frequently depicted as holding two spears in 7th century works of art, perhaps for throwing and for thrusting; discussed in Hanson (1991) p 16; p 65 for the ‘codification’. The cuirass would have been worn over a chitiniskos, a linen tunic to stop chaffing; Anderson (1970) p 25.

  51.Snodgrass (1967) p 48 ff for the development of the hoplite and p 67 for shield designs.

  52.Quoting Plutarch Pelopidas 2.1 for the analogy to the body and Snodgrass (1967) p 49 for ‘rigid framework’.

  53.For the respective formations of the Thebans and Spartans at Leuctra, see Plutarch Pelopidas 22-23, Xenophon Hellenika 6.4.12 (6.4.14 for their shoving the Spartans back), 6.4.17; Spartan manoeuvres at 4.2.20, 4.3.18, 6.5.18-19 and discussed in Hanson (1991) p 104. There is some confusion on where the Sacred Band hit the Spartan line as they appear to have run ahead of the Theban advance to catch the Spartans off-guard; some scholars suggest they hit the Spartan flank. Devine (1983) p 204 for the infantry wedge. The traditional phalanx face-off arrangement disappeared in favour of oblique advance, refusals and deliberate retreats, as later employed by Philip and Alexander. The death toll in battle also rose from such strategies where ‘shock assaults’ were used. Diodorus 15.52-56 detailed the battle at Leuctra but did not mention the Sacred Band, curious when he referenced the Carthaginian Sacred Battalion in the same book.

  54.Iliad 2.362.

  55.Thucydides 2.100.5, Xenophon Hellenika 5.2.38-5.3.6 for cavalry use in the Macedonian state and following the summation of Hatzopoulos (1996) p 267. Thucydides 2.100.2 for Archelaus’ reforms; discussed in Hatzopoulos (1996) p 469.