In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great

by David Grant

  ‘Lost historians’ from the Hellenistic Age and the Silver Age of Roman literature are, paradoxically, not difficult to find, and they left legacies. Although little or nothing remains of their own works, fragments often proliferated later accounts, usually with a commentary on their style, whether laudatory, or more commonly, derogatory. The most relevant example is of course Cleitarchus, Curtius’ principal (so convention has it), but not exclusive, source and about whom little is known.4 Nevertheless, he was sufficiently influential in Rome for Strabo, Quintilian, Cicero, Athenaeus and Aelian to reference him directly. Curtius, on the other hand, represents a ‘found historian’ as far as his text (but not identity) with a lost literary past. The intrigue has inspired forensic attempts to salvage him from that anonymity, analyse his style and method, contemplate his other sources, and assess how influential he might have been to other writers of the day; and finally to ponder what day that might have been.

  The identification of his full name as ‘Quintus Curtius Rufus’ appears one of a later age (in Hedicke’s 1867 edition, for example), for the praenomen ‘Quintus’ did not appear against the title of the earliest extant manuscripts, but in the colophons, the copyist’s endnotes. These were generally written in the first person and usually included the copyist’s name, the title of the work, the date and place of the transcription and the patron ordering the edition. Amongst the five most intact texts, manuscript ‘V’ also omitted ‘Quintus’, leaving us with simply ‘Curtius Rufus’. Alongside this dubiety, we cannot say the name of his book with any certainty.

  The 123 surviving manuscripts are variously titled, including Historiae, Historiae Magni Macedonis Alexandri or Historiae Alexandri Magni Macedonis, with older scripts including De rebus gestis Alexandri Magni libri and Cvrti Rvfi de rebvs ab Alexandro magno gestis.5 If this suggests a lack of clarity on the name from an early date, we should recall that Arrian’s Anabasis and Livy’s Ab urbe condita libri are as fluidly rendered in translations today.6

  Titular uncertainty is not unique; somewhat relevant to arguments on Curtius’ identity is an attribution made by Cassius Dio to what he termed the Apocolocyntosis, a play on the word ‘apotheosis’ in a ‘pungent satire’ at Claudius’ expense, and it is attributed to Seneca who had been banished by Claudius to Corsica between 41 CE and 49 CE. The title suggests the deification of a ‘pumpkin-head’, though extant texts don’t support that,7 and surviving anonymous manuscripts are variously titled Ludus de morte Divi Claudii, the Play on the death of Divine Claudius, and Divi Claudii Apotheosis per saturum or Satira de Claudio Caesare, though nothing in the text alluded to the better-known title we use today. In fact, its connection to Seneca is even questioned: ‘It is impossible to prove that it is his, and impossible to prove that it is not.’8 His nephew, Lucan, wrote an account of civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey, De Bello civili, and that is now better known as Pharsalia. But vexing as titles are, the greatest challenge with the Alexander monograph is to identify Curtius himself, for this might impact our debate on the Will that he so vocally assaulted (T11).

  A 1695 second printed edition of Curtius’ book by Christopher Cellarius titled De rebus Alexandri Magni Rebus Historia Superstes. The edition was subtitled with Recensuit, etiam Supplemetis, Commentariis, Indicibus & Tabulis Geographicisbisque omnibus novis illustravit Christopher Cellarius. Printed in 609 pages by Friederick Gleditsch, Leipzig. Author’s collection.

  THE POSSIBLE ROMAN IGNOTUS

  The vigorous century-and-a-half-old debate on the dating and identification of the Roman ignotus remains vigorously inconclusive.9 Although the subject matter has become ‘a fine field for critical and uncritical revelry’, it is generally agreed that the language and style of Curtius’ prose places him in the first three centuries of the Roman Empire.10 Studies have variously promoted publication dates as early as Augustus (ruled 27 BCE-14 CE) and as late as Constantine (emperor 306-337 CE) whilst more recent opinions incline to Claudius (emperor 41-54 CE) and Vespasian (emperor 69-79 CE).11

  A superficially attractive identification is the senator named Curtius Rufus referred to by Pliny in his Epistles and by Tacitus in his Annals, in which case the biography of Alexander must have been published sometime between 31 CE and 53 CE, potentially in Claudius’ term.12 This Curtius had been a suffect consul under Claudius, holding a quaestorship (supervising public affairs, finances, army and officers), and then a senator and attaining a praetorship (magistracy, or in times of war, a military command) under Tiberius who appears to have described him as a ‘self-made’ man, well-meaning or otherwise.13

  After administrating Germania Superior, the aforementioned Curtius Rufus made it to the prestigious governorship of Africa around year 53 CE when apparently in old age. He died shortly after, possibly early in the emperorship of Nero. Could this be our man? He might have been the rhetorician Q Curtius Rufus referred to by Suetonius in the index to his De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus, and if so, it reconciles that career path with a later senatorial post.14 If the list of rhetors is arranged in chronological order, a Claudian dating does work. Rhetoric was a necessary device on the Roman cursus honorum on the road from tribune to consul, as Suetonius himself made imminently clear, and as Cicero had so eloquently proven. Yet, like the various individuals proposed as authors of the anonymous Pamphlet, neither identification fits the Alexander historian sufficiently well.15

  By Augustus’ day a senatorial career demanded upwards of one million sestertii, and despite the fact that the currency had been demoted from silver to a large brass coin, this was still a fortune, and it restricted who could aspire to the path.16 Augustus had fixed the sestertius value at 1/100th of an aureus, which, at (broadly) current gold prices (the aureus was almost pure twenty-four carat gold) values a million sestertii at over 3,500,000 US dollars.17 Later emperors melted down the ‘old’ sestertius to reissue the coins by then debased with bronze and lead, inevitably with an inflationary impact. The true magnitude of the financial requirement for such a political career becomes apparent when compared to the salary of a 1st century Roman legionary: around 900 sestertii per annum, half of which would have been deducted at source for maintenance and equipment. The low interest and interest-free loans we see provided by Brutus, Crassus and Caesar (800,000 sestertii to Cicero, for example) illustrate the requisite political alliances behind such funding, though other loans could be procured more expensively (and potentially without political strings) from faeneratores, professional moneylenders.18

  The rubric for establishing termini post quem and anti quem for Curtius’ publication has been to analyse references within his basilikos logos, the imperial encomium, that sits conspicuously in his final chapter in the midst of his narrative of infighting and settlement at Babylon; within it he referred to an unnamed princeps who may well have been identified at the beginning of Curtius’ first book (books one and two have been lost) along with a preface and potentially a self-identification, all of which would have dovetailed neatly with the panegyric to the emperor. Tacitus, for example, identified himself in the opening of his book with a clear date reference (by naming the current consuls), and Pliny identified his princeps, Titus the son of Vespasian, with: ‘This treatise, Natural History, a novel work in Roman literature, which I have just completed, I have taken the liberty to dedicate to you, most gracious Emperor…’19 Pliny went on to further praise Titus (he termed him ‘friend’) and Vespasian as well as their respective patronage of the arts. His entry ended with a rundown of his methodology containing a list of his sources, the latter a unique acknowledgement, as he himself observed.20

  Curtius did, however, make contemporary references to the powerful Parthian Empire. But this, along with the encomium, only acknowledges that his work was written between 27 BCE – when a princeps first appeared (when Octavian became ‘Augustus’) – and 224 CE – when the latter ended (with the fall of the Arsacid Parthian Empire, after which the Sassanids ascended) – though if Bruère’s theory is correct and Silius Ita
licus (died ca. 101) knew of Curtius’ work and drew inspiration from it for his Punica, then that corridor is narrowed significantly.21

  Additional dating clues come from Curtius’ references to the Phoenician city of Tyre, described as enjoying ‘tranquillity under the merciful protection of Rome’, and from the terminology he used to describe military units.22 But these and the references to archers and archery, and to the cataphracti (heavy-mailed cavalry) all remain inconclusively dissected, as does the allusion to a ‘civil war’ that appears to have been averted by the emperor being eulogised.23 But deeper textual themes of the Roman political arena permeated Curtius’ work too, as does a linguistic style that displays notable similarities to the historians of the Gold and Silver Latin ages, as scholars have noted. This in itself isn’t helpful, as establishing who emulated who, and whether they were influenced through an intermediary, remains problematic.

  The Julio-Claudian age – the strongest contender for the publication date – arrived with additional historiographical challenges: ‘The gradual concentration of political power within a smaller and smaller group, together with the secrecy and mystery which resulted, could not but affect the task of recording Roman history.’24 If those holding the stylus were from privileged backgrounds, then the opening of Tacitus’ Annals captured a dilemma that began with Augustus:

  Many historians… dealing with the Republic they have written with equal eloquence and freedom. But after the battle of Actium, when the interests of peace required that all power should be concentrated in the hands of one man, writers of like ability disappeared; and at the same time historical truth was impaired in many ways: first, because men were ignorant of politics as being not any concern of theirs; later, because of their passionate desire to flatter; or again, because of their hatred of their masters. So between the hostility of the one class and the servility of the other, posterity was disregarded.25

  Tacitus added: ‘Opposition there was none: the boldest spirits had succumbed on stricken fields or by proscription-lists while the rest of the nobility found a cheerful acceptance of slavery the smoothest road to wealth and office…’26 This looks like a template for Plutarch’s later polemic and for Cassius Dio’s after him.27 But setting out one’s virtuous stall, as Tacitus did, and sitting on it, as Tacitus did not always, are different matters.28

  An independent literary spirit was not impossible under the Julio-Claudians, as evidenced by the accounts of Aulus Cremutius Cordus under Tiberius, and Aufidius Bassus under Claudius, but imperial criticism was dangerous and more often than not it was fatal.29 Lucan, once a favourite of Nero, published the benign first three books of his De Bello civili without initial repercussions, though his (now lost) laudes Neronis, read out at the first Greek-styled celebration of the quinquennial Neronia of 60 CE (with contests of music, gymnastics and riding), had clearly helped, for Lucan was crowned and appointed to the city augurate soon after.

  As his De Bello civili advanced, however, the poem, influenced by Livy’s republican nostalgia, increasingly appeared to attack the tyrannical excesses of his emperor, and this, alongside Lucan’s brazenly vocalised critiques, saw the young prodigy dead at twenty-five in the wake of the Pisonian plot that was exposed in April 65 CE. Another example of the imperial danger was Claudius’ early literary career, which had been cut short for being too critical of his emperor, Augustus; when he resumed his writing, now himself holding an imperial pen, he avoided the Triumvirate Wars altogether in which Octavian had risen to power.30

  If Curtius was, indeed, aboard the cursus honorum then the expediency of his imperial sycophancy, a typical and frequent Roman laudatio, becomes clear: it was a simple necessity for survival, if not the genuine admiration of an emperor. Curtius’ encomium has been dissected in the same way as the autopsies of Calpurnius Siculus’ first Eclogue, and similar conclusions which link it to Nero’s emperorship can possibly be drawn.31 Positioned within the chaos of Macedonian ‘civil war’ that was manifesting itself at Babylon following Alexander’s death, and set against a background of Curtius’ ‘contemplation of the public happiness’ of his own day, his panegyric to an unnamed ‘saviour’ took the following form:

  But already by the Fates civil wars were being forced upon the Macedonian nation; for royal power desires no associate and was being sought by many. First therefore they brought their forces into collision, then separated them; and when they had weighted the body with more than it could carry, the limbs also began to give out, and an empire that might have endured under one man fell in ruins while it was being upheld by many. Therefore the Roman people rightly and deservedly, asserts that it owes its safety to its prince, who in the night which was almost our last shone forth like a new star. The rising of this star, by Heaven! rather than that of the sun, restored light to the world in darkness, since lacking their head the limbs were thrown into disorder. How many firebrands did it extinguish! How many swords did it sheath! How great a tempest did it dispel with sudden prosperity! Therefore our empire not only lives afresh but even flourishes. Provided that only the divine jealousy be absent, the posterity of that same house will continue the good times of this our age, it is to be hoped forever, at any rate for very many years.32

  ‘OF COMETS OR BLAZING STARS, AND CELESTIAL PRODIGIES, THEIR NATURE, SITUATION, AND DIVERSE SORTS.’33

  Curtius’ laudation of his emperor, though it was typically thematic of the day and well exampled by Ovid’s Apotheosis of Julius Caesar, which framed Augustus as a demi-god, contains some noteworthy pointers.34 He compared his Emperor’s arrival to a novum sidus, a ‘new star’, and one that shone in the night.35 The ‘star’ seems to have become a frequent topos in panegyrics of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and one possibly continued through to Vespasian; in his Satires, Horace suggested its continued use was even being mocked.36 It was a term of endearment apparently used at Caligula’s accession, again by Seneca to describe Claudius in 43 CE, and Pliny the Younger used the symbolism for the dynasty of Trajan.37 Lucan’s De Bello civili described Alexander as an ‘evil star of humanity’ that brought disaster to mankind, where Curtius himself referred to Alexander as ‘a star of Macedonia’, with similar phraseology appearing in Livy and Virgil.38 More strikingly, Tacitus attached the motif (here ‘ill-starred’) to the final consulate of Galba (3 BCE-69 CE).39

  If references to a sidus were a rhetorical commonplace, we might wish to take the stellar observation more literally and less metaphorically in the case of Curtius’ encomium, for its luminous attachment to ‘shining in a darkened world’ suggests a further specificity. The same could be said of the reference to the ‘putting-out of torches’. What could they be?

  The classical world maintained a fascination with the night sky; it was viewed with an awe evoked by the scientifically unexplained and by prevailing superstitions, moreover, the celestial clarity from a lack of light pollution and emissions only enhanced the spectacle. The wonder and dread of moving stars (Greek, planetai, ‘wanderers’), the Milky Way (from the Greek galaxias kyklos, milky circle) and a comet in particular (kometes in Greek, crinitas in Latin, a ‘hairy’ star) is well recorded; the astronomical theories of Pythagoras, Anaxagoras and Democritus had been well summarised in Aristotle’s Meteorologika. Rome was equally curious about the phenomena as evidenced by Seneca’s De Cometis in his Quaestiones Naturales, and by Pliny’s frequent references in book two of his Naturalis Historia.40 The most portentous celestial episode of all took place in Constantine’s rule in the twilight of the Roman Empire, when, according to Eusebius, in the year 312 CE ‘a most marvellous sign appeared to him from heaven’; it was a sighting by the emperor and his army that might have redirected the religious doctrine of the empire.41

  Here, in Curtius’ eulogy, novum sidus and dark nights could be references to comets and eclipses, for they satisfy both. Linking the ‘new star’ to a comet has already been pondered and such arguments pointed to, as one example, the birth of Alexander Severus.42 However, it seems the attachment has n
ot been fully exploited. If a clearly developed encomiastic device, novum sidus is conspicuous in its attachment to emperors whose imperial tenancy was linked to stars rising and to comets as well as eclipses; the appearance of the latter was considered biographically portentous, usually as a harbinger of death and to the end of an administration,43 so they were often exploited by the successor.

  Pertinent to the era under scrutiny, a comet appeared shortly after Julius Caesar’s death in 44 BCE, and Virgil claimed in the first book of his Georgica when referring to Caesar’s assassination and civil war: ‘Never fell more lightening from a cloudless sky; never was comet’s alarming glare so often seen.’44 That cataclysmic scene begged a salvation by Augustus, to whom he dedicated a prayer early in the chapter and possibly more relevant still, both Suetonius and Cassius Dio reported a comet sighting four months prior to Claudius’ death in 54 CE, thus heralding in Nero’s imperium; as Suetonius described it, ‘the principal omens of his death were the following: the rise of a longhaired star, commonly called a comet…’45

  Seneca, Calpurnius Siculus and Tacitus mentioned a further comet which ‘blazed into view’ in 60 CE and it was visible for a full six months, with the latter historian commenting on its portent: ‘The general belief is that a comet means a change of emperor. So people speculated on Nero’s successor as though Nero were already dethroned’, though in this case they were to be some eight years out (Nero died in 68 CE).46 Another was seen in late 64 CE, the year of the great fire in Rome, and it was visible from July to September, with Tacitus commenting that it was ‘a phenomenon to which Nero always made atonement in noble blood’, for the emperor massacred selected nobility to appease the obviously angry gods.47