In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great

by David Grant

  As for the areas lying between the boundaries of Babylonia and Bactria, the satraps should retain what they variously govern, and as commander-in-chief over them, I appoint Perdiccas, on whom I also bestow as a wife Roxane…195

  From his reading of Hieronymus, Arrian interpreted that the outcome at Babylon entrusted Perdiccas with the ‘care of the whole empire’ in his capacity as the foremost of Alexander’s Somatophylakes, acting chiliarch, and as the recipient of his ring.196 But the compression of power suggested above sees him overseeing only what we propose were the regions inherited by Seleucus and Peithon, the most prominent of his murderers, if Nepos was correct.197 And this suggested a clear motive for his assassination in Egypt: they wished to rid themselves of his overarching authority.

  From the perspective of the pamphleteer, Perdiccas’ marriage to Roxane legitimised the former chiliarch’s authority over Bactria, whilst his earlier Susa marriage to the daughter of the Median satrap, Atropates (reinstalled by Alexander on campaign and reconfirmed after his death at Babylon, though now to Lesser Media), likewise justified an authority over Median regions as well.198 A broader interpretation of the Babylon-Bactria mandate could include the Persian heartlands to the south, so Peucestas’ domain. Either way, fencing in Perdiccas’ authority to Babylon and eastwards released Ptolemy and Lysimachus (and Eumenes) from any overlord except the kings, whilst it legitimised Ptolemy’s defence of Egypt by the suggestion that Perdiccas, who clearly had alternative plans for Alexander’s corpse, was overstepping his mandate.199

  According to the Pamphlet Will, before Alexander died he bade Perdiccas promise that he and Antipater would manage the affairs of the kingdom and empire and ensure the terms of his Will were properly concluded; this could have been a neat device that positioned it as a balanced testament and not one hell-bent on the destruction of the Antipatrids; Alexander was, after all, supposedly unaware of the plot against him when the Will was written (or amended) just before he died.

  The section of the Pamphlet testament dealing with Asia Minor is the most corrupted in both the Metz Epitome and Romance texts (T1, T2), with the former involving Antipater in future government there.200 The Halys is the proposed dividing line of administration, yet the river runs in a southwest-northeast arc on its way to the Black Sea, providing no clinical geographical division. The most obvious explanation, however, is that ‘Antipater’ should simply read ‘Antigonus’, in which case the Halys referred to the north and east borders of his Greater Phrygian authority. Whatever the intended name, governance east (or southeast) of the Halys remained free from any overlord, providing Eumenes in Cappadocia independence from their higher authority.

  A curious gift in the testament is ‘Syria as far as the so-called Mesopotamian Line’, for this went to a Peithon, clearly not the hostile son of Crateuas who held the upper satrapies. If this referred to the prominent Peithon son of Agenor, who governed regions bordering on (and in) India on campaign and certainly until 320 BCE, then the pamphleteer had anticipated his return to Syria, which did take place in 314/313 BCE.201 Peithon’s whereabouts from Triparadeisus in 320 BCE to 315 BCE, when he was installed by Antigonus in Babylonia once Seleucus fled to Ptolemy in Egypt, remain unknown. If this is indeed our man, he too was being courted away from Monophthalmos.

  The only other so-named candidate would be Peithon son of Antigenes whose importance is attested by the reference to the patronymic.202 If the Antigenes referred to was the commander of the Silver Shields, Eumenes was granting his most important soldier honours and estates through his son; Antigenes himself now governed Susiane (though his service under Eumenes took him away from the province).203 Events made it clear that Eumenes needed every coercive tool to keep the unruly Silver Shields brigade marching. Yet none of these identifications present ideal candidates.

  A further possible identity – for what could have become corrupted to ‘Peithon’ – is Aristonus son of ‘Peisaeus’, though this would involve a lacuna that lost the onoma and saved the patronymikon, with a scribe reverting the name to more familiar Somatophylax. The loss of this type of detail must have occurred as patronyms would have been more widely employed, and they were certainly needed where the first name (onoma) was identical. Mistakes were often made: Arrian, for example, used varying patronymika for Leonnatus in four different passages.204 Little is known of the campaign career of Aristonus, the seventh attested Bodyguard, apart from a reference to his trierarchos role with the Hydaspes-Indus fleet, and a wound in the Mallian city. Curtius proposed he had spoken out for Perdiccas at Babylon (T11) and we know he commanded his Cypriot invasion (the identity of the existing pro-Perdiccas governor remains unanswered), and so he ought to have featured in governance in a meaningful way, either in Alexander’s Will, or (for the adherents to the intestacy) by virtue of Perdiccas’ self-interested division of empire.205

  The relative obscurity of Aristonus in the Alexander biographies suggests his contribution to the campaign was deliberately sidelined; in Ptolemy’s account that may have been due to these ‘royalist’ sympathies and this may have influenced Cleitarchus. The unique references to him in Arrian’s texts appear to come from Nearchus’ Indike, and he is not mentioned by name (only inference) in the Susa honours list.206 Aristonus was eventually murdered on Cassander’s orders in 315 BCE after a brief resurgence the previous year when Olympias was confined to Pydna and he controlled Amphipolis.207 References to him by Diodorus suggested he was popular and respected, in post-Alexander Macedonia at least.208 If ‘Aristonus son of Peisaeus’ was truly being referred to as the inheritor of a part of Syria in the Pamphlet Will, it is not difficult to rationalise why. Either the pamphleteers were beckoning him out of forced retirement to operate in Macedonia or Asia once more (in which case he cannot have been present at Medius’ banquet in Babylon or he would have been cited as an ‘innocent’), or Alexander’s Somatophylax did genuinely inherit a part of Syria (excluding the Coele-Syrian region) and the pamphleteers were conveniently returning it to him.209

  RHODIAN SEDUCTION: A DIPLOMATIC DIEKPLOUS

  Strikingly prominent in the Pamphlet is the favourable treatment of Rhodes, both within the main Will narrative and in Alexander’s so-called ‘Letter to the Rhodians’ which preceded its bequests.210

  This letter, as we read it today in the extant Will texts (T1, T2), could be the product of gradual embellishment. But to quote Bosworth on the issue: ‘A single coherent document composed at a particular moment for a particular purpose is preferable to a composite production, growing layer by layer according to the interests of different groups at different times.’211

  It would have benefitted Eumenes and Olympias to reach out to Rhodes, ‘an aristocracy disguised as a democracy’, to galvanise her naval resources to the planned alliance.212 Rhodes was described by Diodorus as the ‘best-governed city of the Greeks’ and the island was strategically important: a seafaring power with a reputation for remaining politically neutral, with much of her wealth derived from tributes paid by those inclined for her to remain so. Additional income was earned from the renting out of Rhodian galleys (principally triremes) to clients lacking a fleet.213 By now the smaller nearby islands and strategic mainland land tracts had become part of the Rhodian state. The Rhodian currency standard had eclipsed its Chian forerunner and it was uniquely maintained in the face of Alexander’s adoption of the Attic standard, probably due to long-standing trade and shipping contracts.214

  It is unlikely that the dying Alexander gave complete autonomy to the major Greek islands, despite the earlier rhetoric surrounding the ‘freedom of the Greeks’; and if any of them in the eastern Aegean did consider themselves nominally independent, they were to soon lose their impartiality in the Successor Wars. Many examples survive of new law codes imposed by Antigonus, in particular on Kos, Chios and Lebedos, despite independent federations such as the Cycladic League of the Islanders which ‘liberated’ them in 313 BCE.215 Any reference to their future at Babylon appears absent from Hierony
mus’ satrapal rundown, and the fate of strategically important Cyprus remains vexing; the island saw little activity during Alexander’s campaign and it was never formalised into the empire, though its fleet assisted with the siege of Tyre. When Ptolemy later gained possession of the island in 315 BCE, he installed his brother, Menelaus, which perhaps suggests a gap in its governance still existed following the Perdiccan defeat.216

  In contrast, the Romance bestowed Rhodes with authority over all other Greek islands (T2). If a relic of Alexander’s original Will, it was a sound step, for a carefully chosen Macedonian strategos would have directed that Rhodian authority through the Aegean. Rhodes had already become directly answerable to Alexander and not to its ten former strategoi, and it had not been immune to Macedonian law, resulting in arrests in the campaign years.217 If this is a design of the Pamphlet, then clearly a governor of some repute had held the island in Perdiccas’ interest. Either way, Alexander’s past attachment to Rhodes was being exploited by the pamphleteers.

  Alexander had sported a belt of significance into battle taken from the Rhodian temple of Lindian Athena; it was a relic no doubt ascribed to a suitable hero or king, for thanks to the Lindian Chronicle we know the temple was a depository of heroic significance. Heracles, Persian kings (through their generals and satraps) and the kings of Egypt had made votive offerings of weapons and armour at Rhodian shrines, and after the battle at Gaugamela Alexander is said to have made a gift of caltrops and armour to the temple, just as he had at Troy. After all, Lindos, the daughter of Danaus (Alexander’s ancestor) was worshipped on the island that named its templed city after her.218 The island had always been closely associated with Heracles who visited it on his way from Egypt; Heracles’ son, Tlepolemus, was the founding king of Rhodes. We also have evidence of a cult to Alexander, Heracles’ alleged descendent, appearing on the island after his death; an inscription titling him ‘Lord of Asia’ was found in a Lindian temple,219 so the Athena Poliouchus cult (to Athena ‘Guardian of the city’) might have resounded with a special significance.

  The Pamphlet overtures to the powerful Rhodian confederation, made through the reworked Will, included 300 talents of gold, forty triremes, annual grain and wheat subsidies from Egypt and from the regions of Asia adjacent to Rhodes.220 The island was promised its own ‘freedom’ with a pledge to have the garrison removed, a meaningless (yet symbolic) concession as it had already been expelled after Alexander’s death, and it had more recently resisted Attalus’ attempts to form a Perdiccan bridgehead there after Triparadeisus.221

  Egypt’s role in Rhodes’ wellbeing was also being emphasised; Eumenes was bestowing Ptolemy with the ‘honour’ of providing the island with grain, the most influential currency in the empire.222 Rhodes did become Ptolemy’s most faithful ally in the Aegean with a relationship further strengthened by the enormous export, and to fund the grain subsidy the Will granted Egyptian priests 2,000 talents from the public purse.223

  As conspicuous in the testament is Ptolemy’s task of transporting Alexander’s body to Egypt, for this justified his attack on the Perdiccan escort that was leading the bier elsewhere; a further 200 talents were to be used for the construction of the sarcophagus. The courting of Ptolemy continued; in the Romance text the Rhodian letter closed with an emphasis on his role as the executor of the Will:224

  I am quite sure you will obey my instructions. Ptolemy my bodyguard will take care of you: we have indicated to him what he must do for you. Do not think this legacy was made lightly. The administrator of the kingdom will ensure there is no deviation from the instructions.

  It was a golden handcuff: now Ptolemy was not only present at the Will’s drafting, as were Holcias and Lysimachus, but he was also responsible for its enactment.

  Olympias was granted the right to live on Rhodes.225 Linking Alexander’s mother to residency implied a ‘guardianship’ of the island, and any hostile move against it could result in a legitimate military response; this rather underpins the story of the doctored oath Eumenes allegedly signed when exiting Nora, as Eumenes would have known Antigonus would court Rhodes for the same reason he and Olympias planned to: the lack of a significant navy. It was a diplomatic diekplous that kept the islanders from a flanking action.226 With Rhodes on board, and with Ptolemy annexing Coele-Syria and the Phoenician ports, the Eastern Mediterranean seaboard would be theirs to control.227

  THEBES: THE WOVEN WEB, BANE OR BOON

  Another visitor to the pages of the testament is Ismenias, apparently a Theban to whom the Will was entrusted for delivery to the city still in ruins.228 An ‘Ismenias’ is mentioned earlier in verse in the Romance as the best of the Theban pipers ordered to play his shrill instrument while the city burned.229 The name is firmly Theban in origin; the so-named god mentioned by Pausanias, Diodorus and Ovid, are all associated with the River Ismenas that washed the walls of Thebes, where a fountain allegedly ran with blood before Alexander destroyed the city.230 In a surviving fragment of the third book of Callisthenes’ Hellenika we have the reference ‘… that of Ismenas at Thebes: the trophonian oracle at Levadia.’ Its existence is confirmed by Herodotus who claimed to have visited the sanctuary of Ismenias, or better, the Temple to ‘Apollo Ismenias’, and it is additionally referenced in a passage in the penultimate chapter of Plutarch’s Life of Lysander.231

  As far as a possible historic identification, Alexander did free Thessalicus, a son of Ismenias, after capturing the Theban and Greek envoys to Darius following the battle at Issus; Alexander’s respect for Thessalicus’ illustrious lineage was reportedly the reason for his release. Moreover, Pelopidas, the renowned general Philip II would have come to know well at Thebes, had been a member of the political party of Ismenias who was himself ‘admired for valour’ and for his ingenuity too, according to Aelian: he found a way to avoid proskynesis when visiting the Persian Great King.232 Could a grateful son of Ismenias have joined Alexander’s entourage, or have become a well-known agent in the Boeotian city with whom a copy of the Will was being entrusted?

  Alexander is said to have regretted his destruction of Thebes, when children ‘wailed piteously the names of their mothers’, though Arrian gave his best shot at damning its past in the king’s defence: he claimed its Greek enemies inflicted more damage than the Macedonians in the attack.233 Alexander apparently feared the wrath of Dionysus (whose favourite city was Thebes – despite Euripides’ portrayal of his hostility towards it), though this story might have emanated from Ephippus who claimed the god’s anger was behind Alexander’s death. The Theban ancestral oracle had nevertheless cryptically declared ‘the woven web is bane to one, to one a boon’ before he took the city.234 Heracles himself was born there in legend, and so to hedge his bets on oracular fate, a donation of funds for the reconstruction of the ancient city (including the aforementioned temple) is not insupportable as one of Alexander’s testament ‘last wishes’.235 The demand would have doubtless been cancelled by Perdiccas at Babylon and surely with little objection.

  But restoration of the city by the Pamphlet architects is also credible; securing support of a renewed Boeotian confederacy headed by Thebes would turn central Greece against Cassander. Cassander knew it himself, and he embarked upon his own rebuilding programme after the death of Eumenes; many cities in Greece, Sicily and Italy pledged their support and ‘played a part’ in the city’s rebuilding despite Antigonus’ objection, for he demanded it be reversed in his proclamation from Tyre. As Crates had forewarned, a ‘second Alexander’ would surely seek to raze it to the ground.236

  A NEW ARGIVE ODYSSEY

  The Pamphlet Will requested a significant votive to Argos: Alexander’s arms, insignia plus 1,000 talents of silver.237 Divided texts direct the donation either to the Temple of Hera, or as ‘first fruits of war for Heracles’.238 The Argive Heraion was destroyed in 423 BC but had featured in the Iliad.239 Heinrich Schliemann excavated the site in 1874 and the spurious Dictys of Crete claimed it was the site at which Agamemnon was chosen to lead the
Argives against Troy. Alexander’s lineage was traceable back to Argos and the returning Heracleidae, and so a bequest of this nature may be original.240 But, once again, there was more reason for the Eumenes-Olympias-led coalition to exploit Polyperchon’s position in Greece. Cassander had garrisoned Argos and yet the inhabitants offered to hand the city over to Polyperchon’s son, Alexander, when its occupying general was absent campaigning elsewhere.241 Although this was soon after Eumenes’ death in Asia, it may have been the first opportunity the city had to show the support solicited by the promise of a significant financial gift.

  The Romance text (T2) contains additional endowments not appearing in the Metz Epitome Will (T1): 3 talents apiece for ‘feeble’ Macedonian and Thessalian veterans due for repatriation.242 Again, if based upon an original Pamphlet clause, Eumenes and Olympias were simply seeking to enrol the celebrated cavalry (whether in Thessaly or still in Asia) and other experienced Macedonian infantry into their ranks to help install Olympias in Pella, and potentially those resettled in Asia for Eumenes to muster. Antipater and Craterus must have destroyed much of Thessaly after the Battle of Crannon. This, along with much else in the document, only makes sense if Olympias and Eumenes were broadcasting their identity as the capable upholders of these Pamphlet pledges through their unique positions and mandates. Although 3 talents, equivalent to a total of almost fifty years’ infantryman’s pay, is clearly excessive, the concept was nevertheless sound once Eumenes gained control of a major Asian treasury.243