by David Grant
ANOTHER HELEN, ANOTHER TROY
A further formative event in the chronology debate beckons parallel autopsy. It concerns Thais, the Athenian courtesan who became Ptolemy’s mistress, the mother of three of his children, and according to Athenaeus, eventually his wife.194 Vulgate texts credited Thais with instigating the fire that burned the palace of Persepolis to the ground in a bacchanal that took place in May 330 BCE. The royal complex completed ca. 518 BCE by Darius the Great was no more, and the firing was supposedly the conclusion to a drunken Dionysiac affair, though it came some months after the Macedonians had arrived in the city (in December 331/January 330 BCE). Quite in contrast, Arrian claimed the burning was a political decision and no accident, and so it is argued, once again, that Ptolemy, Arrian’s principal source, had corrected Cleitarchus on the matter.195
A reconstruction of the royal palace at Persepolis, ceremonial capital of the Achaemenids, depicted before Alexander burned it to the ground, by the renowned Iranologist Charles Chipiez (1835-1901).
But surely Ptolemy had little choice when adopting the reporting line he did, for he could hardly have implicated his mistress, or wife, in a regrettable incident in which ‘… the enormous palaces, famed throughout the whole civilised world, fell victim to insult and utter destruction.’196 Arrian’s sanitised version stems from here, so the ‘political decision’ appears a scapegoat for an act that might have been arrived at under the influence of alcohol. Cleitarchus’ narrative, captured most vividly by Diodorus and Curtius, does paint Thais as a somewhat heroic and patriotic figure who urged Alexander to avenge Xerxes’ burning of the Temple of Athena in her own native city, Athens, so the two accounts are not as irreconcilable as they first appear.197
Her Dionysiac revelry was possibly setting out to emulate Herostratus, the Greek arsonist whose blaze at the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was supposed to bring him immortal fame; this was an infamous inferno portentously linked to Alexander’s birth.198 If Cleitarchus published his book late, however, in the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphos, Thais’ heroic imagery would have suited a dynasty that had propelled her children into prominent positions in the Successor Wars.199 The portrayal became immortal through Shakespearean-era plays and John Dryden’s 1697 Alexander’s Feast: or the Power of Music:
Thais led the way
To light him to his prey
And like another Helen, fired another Troy
A further pointer to a late Cleitarchean publication date would be Onesicritus’ alleged reading of his own account aloud to the Thracian dynast ‘when he was king’:
And the story is told that many years afterwards Onesicritus was reading aloud to Lysimachus, who was now king, the fourth book of his history, in which was the tale of the Amazon, at which Lysimachus smiled gently and said: ‘And where was I at the time?’200
Jacoby believed this suggested: ‘Onesicritus stood on the same footing with Lysimachus as Cleitarchus did with Ptolemy.’201 But the episode sounds as suspicious as Aristobulus’ river recitation even though some scholars believe it indeed captured a key date marker: the publishing when the Diadokhoi were crowned.
The earliest date Lysimachus could have been referred to as ‘king’ was 305 BCE, by which time Onesicritus might have been in his seventies. But he had no obvious reason to publish so late as he took no active part that we are aware of in the Successor Wars.202 As it has been firmly established that Cleitarchus took detail from Nearchus’ book,203 which itself appears to have been published after Onesicritus’ work (judging by his criticism of Onesicritus’ claims), and if the Lysimachus episode did portray the reading of a freshly completed chapter by Onesicritus (the fourth book in this case, probably of eight),204 it is likely Cleitarchus published a good number of years after 305 BCE for Onesicritus to have completed his subsequent chapters, and for Nearchus to have published between them.205
And yet this all hangs on the reference to ‘kingship’; this could have just as credibly meant ‘when Lysimachus had established himself in Thrace’, and there is no further evidence the reading came from Onesicritus’ newly inked scrolls. Furthermore, as we will see, the Diadokhoi acted as kings soon after leaving Babylon in 323 BCE. If the claim that Onesicritus was fearful of naming the supposedly guilty guests at Medius’ banquet did originate with the Pamphlet (T1), Onesicritus may in fact have published before anyone else.206
WHEN ‘FEAR DRIVES OUT THE MEMORY’207
Tarn brings our attention back to Diodorus’ comments (T6) on other ‘fearful historians’ who avoided commenting on Cassander’s reported part in the regicide at Babylon (T1, T2).208 If, as Tarn logically concluded, this ‘fear’ can only refer to writers publishing before Cassander’s death in 297 BCE, then Cleitarchus, who did detail the plot to poison Alexander and Cassander’s alleged central role, must have published later, assuming he was the common source behind these Vulgate allegations.
More convincing still is a first publication after Cassander’s sons had been killed (by 294 BCE) and his nephews too (by 279 BCE with the death of Ptolemy Keraunos), as well as his former brothers-in-law who had sons by his sisters: this category included Ptolemy I Soter himself who died in 283 BCE and Lysimachus who died in 281 BCE, the year in which the still-dangerous Seleucus, possibly named as a Babylon plotter, was also killed.209 After then, those who might have defended the reputation of Cassander and his extended family, and theirs by association, were gone. It is in this environment, logically focusing on the period after 280 BCE, that the rebroadcasting, without repercussions, of the Pamphlet allegations of poison and regicide would have first been possible by a historian seeking fame without the fear of execution.
Aristobulus’ penchant for the portentous further pushes out the Cleitarchean publication date. It was Aristobulus who reported the presence of the mysterious Syrian prophetess when the royal pages made an attempt on Alexander’s life, and he was additionally the source for the supernatural episodes and divinations heralding Alexander’s death, the detail the Vulgate accounts picked up on along with other corroborating augural detail (T21, T22, T23, T24).210 As we have no indication that the Roman-era Vulgate historians used Aristobulus directly, we assume their source was once again Cleitarchus.211 But for him to have read Aristobulus, who commenced his book in his eighties (or at least ‘late’ in life) and who was yet sufficiently young to complete challenging assignments for Alexander on campaign, once more suggests Cleitarchus published his book later than many scholars have concluded.
A final dating clue involves the emergence of Rome, as, according to Pliny, Cleitarchus claimed a Roman deputation visited Alexander at (or on the way to) Babylon, presumably sent to pay homage to the Macedonian king and avert his expansionist eye.212 Arrian named Aristus of Cyprus and Asclepiades (who is otherwise unknown) as the historians behind the detail (though he referenced ‘other writers’ too when discussing Italian delegations), and it was accompanied by suspicious pro-Roman ambassadorial propaganda: Alexander recognised the ‘proud freedom of their bearing’ and with ‘greatness prophesised for their country’.213
No Roman legation was mentioned by Diodorus, whose Sicilian origins suffered in the Roman politics of his troubled day, though it has been argued that he may have omitted the detail for political expediency, writing as he was in the dangerous Roman era of the Second Triumvirate (43-33 BCE), and when Antony and Cleopatra, the last ruler of the Macedonian dynasty in Egypt, still posed a threat. Tarn accused later authors, including Trogus (as evidenced in the epitome of Justin), of inventing embassies from all the lands by then subject to Rome – though not to Macedonia centuries before – as paying tribute to Alexander.214 And many scholars do still uphold the anonymity of the Latin city in Cleitarchus’ day, but that is on the premise that he published early. The contention falls apart, however, if he published in the 270s, and, moreover, if we analyse Rome’s ascent, its ‘anonymity’ is clearly questionable.
Polybius believed (possibly duped by Fabius Pictor’s propaganda) that as ear
ly as 509 BCE Rome had already signed a treaty with Carthage (a modern scholar suggests 348 BCE), but certainly by 338 BCE, the year of Philip II’s victory at Chaeronea, Rome had reached an accord with the Italian states that had revolted in the Second Latin War; the dissolution of the Latin League was a major step towards Rome’s pre-eminence in the Italian peninsula.215 And that is unlikely to have gone unnoticed overseas; the south of Italy and Sicily were populated by many Greek colonies that were trading with mainland Greece.
The discrediting of Cleitarchus’ claim of Roman ambassadors additionally ignores the significance of Livy’s recording the peace treaty between Alexander Molossus of Epirus (Alexander’s uncle and brother-in-law mentioned in the extract above) and Rome in 332 BCE, a year or two before Molossus was killed in Italy.216 His death, apparently fulfilling a prediction from the oracle at Dodona, was mourned by the conqueror in Asia who threw three full days of funeral games, so communications were intact.217 Strabo additionally believed that Alexander (though which one is not clear), and later Demetrius Poliorketes, petitioned Rome to take steps against the piracy of Antium in which they were apparently participating (or perhaps simply tolerating).218
After Molossus’ misadventure in Italy almost a decade before Alexander’s death in Babylon, Rome surely watched the rise of Macedonian power with interest, noting how easily the Adriatic was being crossed by its westward-looking Epirote neighbour on the pretext of protecting Tarentine interests in Italy. What is accepted is that the Lucanians and Bruttians (and Samnites) who felt the Epirote blade and successfully turned it back on the Molossian king, did wisely send a delegation to ‘apologise’ to Alexander, and Arrian further stated that ‘other writers’ claimed Italy was a future target for the Macedonian war machine.219 So it is not impossible, in fact, that the Latins did too. Trogus’ generalised list of ambassadors at Babylon also included ‘some from Italy’ and Diodorus’ reference to ‘those who dwell around the Adriatic’ may well have been meant (guardedly) to include Rome.220
Although a Rhodian trade negotiation with Rome dating to 306 BCE is widely regarded as the city’s first known formalised contact with a Greek (rather than Epirote) state,221 the rhetorical On the Soul by Heracleides of Pontus (died ca. 310 BCE), the Greek philosopher-astronomer and ‘inventor’ of a pre-Homeric literary ancestry, had already claimed Rome was founded as a ‘Greek city’; a later tradition even held that a Corinthian, Demaratus, sired Tarquinus Priscus the fifth king of Rome, parts of whose first Cloarca Maxima, the great sewer that drained the marshes and gave the city her forum (constructed ca. 600 BCE), is still functioning today.222 Moreover, both Hecataeus (ca. 550-476 BCE) and Hellanicus had detailed the legends of Rome’s founding some two centuries (or more) earlier.
Closer to Alexander still, the sack of the city by the Gauls under Brennus in ca. 387/386 BCE was known, it seems, in Aristotle’s school.223 His successor, Theophrastus, the Greek historian Callias of Syracuse (3rd century BCE), as well as Timaeus and the poet Lycophron in his Alexandra (likely written pre-264 BCE at the court of Ptolemy II Philadelphos) also touched on the rising presence of Rome; the city was certainly not the agnotos, ‘unknown’, that her absence from early Hellenistic history suggests.224 And just forty-three years after Alexander’s death the dispatches of Pyrrhus were broadcasting Rome’s presence to the Hellenistic world in no small way; Hieronymus most likely had a hand in that when using Pyrrhus’ memoirs.225 So the whole chronological debate is rather questionable. Whether Pliny was correct in naming Cleitarchus or not, and regardless of whether Cleitarchus himself was lying about events at Babylon, if he was publishing as late as the 270s BCE, the name of Rome, which invaded Sicily in 264 BCE, would have been ringing in the ears of the second-generation Diadokhoi, and the idea of the city’s submission or allegiance to the Macedonian king may have been useful propaganda for the Ptolemies.
IPSUS: FINESPUN VERSES FROM THE QUIET MIND
The digression on publication dates does have particular relevance to the fate of Alexander’s testament and the literary monopoly we touched on above, because if Ptolemy had led the publishing order, and if the Journal extract did originate with his book, his was indeed the ‘Cranmer’s Bible’ of the day that opposed any ‘heretical’ belief in Alexander’s Will and its succession instructions. But how early could Ptolemy himself have published to head that influential hierarchy? Well, as Hammond postulated, he might have steadily drafted his account over the years in which he was expanding his influence from Alexandria, releasing critical extracts for propaganda purposes to justify his evolving policy; Callisthenes may have established this approach for Alexander as the Asian campaign progressed.
Yet with the epic battle at Ipsus in 301 BCE there finally came a world without Antigonus Monophthalmos, the charismatic general who had challenged for, and once gained, supremacy in Asia (though never Egypt). The former Somatophylakes, kings in the waiting for much of that time, had been hemmed in by his tactical brilliance and by his sway with the veteran Macedonians. With his defeat at Ipsus, the Antigonid storm passed, and if the squalls from his equally charismatic son, Demetrius Poliorketes, had not quite settled, the horizon in Asia extended.226
Before then, powerful and well-informed enemies resided close by (Coele-Syria and Phoenicia changed hands repeatedly) and an invasion of Egypt was only ever a Nile Delta crossing away. Ptolemy’s grip on power was still tenuous and alliances were not yet consummated with marriages between the Diadokhoi outside Macedonia; those were not the years in which to publish a web of deceit, for dangerous repercussions were likely. If Ptolemy had read his Euripides, he would have known of a pertinent wisdom: ‘Silence in season, speech where speech is safe’;227 and, moreover, as Ovid later poetised, ‘fine-spun verses come from a tranquil mind’.228 But even then: ‘There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.’229
The great ‘Battle of the Kings’, as Ipsus was labelled, removed much clutter from Ptolemy’s desk and it provided the victors with a pool of battle-hardened veterans that Antigonus had kept in arms. The outcome was a tribute to Ptolemy’s powers of persuasion, for neither he nor his army turned up to fight on the Phrygian plain. Where possible he preferred to manipulate the nemesis of his rivals from afar; this was a classic example of an actio in distans that left Seleucus and Lysimachus to represent his interests alongside an expedition force Cassander had sent. Philip II was always said to have been ‘prouder of his grasp of strategy and diplomatic successes than his valour in actual battle’; his rumoured son was following his lead.230
Although it appears that in the longer term Ipsus ‘created more tensions than it resolved’,231 galvanised by Demetrius Poliorketes’ still-intact ambition, the trio of Alexander’s former Bodyguards, Ptolemy, Seleucus and Lysimachus, avoided self-destruction for the best part of the next twenty years, each living into their eighties.232 That is not to say they didn’t intrigue, use their intermarriages nefariously, or, in fact, sponsor some of the most famous generals in history to undermine their opponents. Responding to Seleucus’ occupation of Coele-Syria in the wake of Ipsus when governance of the empire was again reviewed, Ptolemy allegedly commented on the quiet revenge he may one day extract: ‘For friendship’s sake he would not for the present interfere, but would consider later how best to deal with friends who chose to encroach.’233 And that might just have been carried out through the medium of his book.
In the view of many historians, the battle at Ipsus represented the true beginning of the Hellenistic era, when the landscape of the empire was reshaped by ‘agreement’ rather than by brute force for the very first time.234 In the following decades superpowers emerged and around them the Eastern Mediterranean and former Persian Empire gravitated for generations to come. The kingdoms of Seleucus, Ptolemy and Lysimachus (and Antigonus before them) riveted Asia, Egypt and Macedonia together as never before, propagating Greek culture and language eastward, perhaps in a way Alexander had originally conceived, though now without the Argead Star (more commo
nly known as the Vergina Sun) stamped on state correspondence.
Perhaps we should finish by asking why the long-lived Seleucus and Lysimachus declined to publish campaign accounts and stake their own claims to heroics and a share in Alexander’s success, for they became kings with great tales to tell and no doubt with their own hatchets to bury deep. Possibly it was because Ptolemy ended his account at Alexander’s death, and until then, his pages had treated them fairly enough, if perhaps not ‘frequently’ enough, for their liking, for Ptolemy’s reluctance to attribute credit to Alexander’s other nobles has long been recognised.235 But for all we know, Seleucus and Lysimachus were felled halfway through writing their memoirs in old age with primed court historians ready to dictate to. But manuscripts, diaries, journals, libraries and official correspondence disappeared without a trace in the face of defeat in battle, giving the impression that a literary desert had existed at their court. Along with treasuries, wives, generals and their men, chattels, ships and cities, literary ordnance was also seized, so the history of the vanquished slipped into the folio of the victor.
After occupying Antigonus’ former ‘empire’ that spanned Asia Minor, Lysimachus did set about repairing the crumbling walls of what he believed was Troy, suggesting he harboured something of a ‘caretaker’ role for the Homeric past, no doubt for propaganda purposes. According to a fragment from Memnon’s history of Heraclea Pontica, preserved in an epitome by Photius,236 Lysimachus exiled a certain Nymphis from Thrace; he appears to have written a work titled Concerning Alexander, the Diadokhoi and the Epigonoi, and this may suggest Lysimachus was sensitive to the subject as a whole, marrying as he once did into the Antipatrid house, whose figurehead through much of the Successor Wars, Cassander, had murdered Alexander’s mother and two sons.237 Or, perhaps after thirty years of bloody campaigning, these giants of the age were simply content to rule in their own name with their dynasties unfolding before them, though they were themselves to witness, and even orchestrate, the death of a number of their own children.238
