In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great

by David Grant

  160.Tarn’s theory proposes that Nearchus’ own book promoted the boy as genuine, and so too his part in the boy’s promotion at the Assembly, when he was writing at the Antigonid court some years later. It has been argued that Antigonus’ influence over Nearchus, who operated under him from 317/6 BCE onwards, paved the way for a publication that perpetuated the claim of Heracles; inevitably it was for Antigonus’ own dynastic ends, care of a compliant Polyperchon who was by then desperate for alliances in Greece.

  161.Brunt (1975) pp 22-34 concurs.

  162.For Cassander’s actions see Diodorus 20.28.1-4. Curtius 10.6.10-13 preserved Nearchus’ speech proposing Heracles be recognised as an heir. Errington (1970) p 74.

  163.Plutarch Moralia 530b-d and Diodorus 20.28.2 for Polyperchon’s murder of Heracles: Polyperchon handed him over to Cassander for 100 talents and a share of power, which amounted to little.

  164.Curtius 3.11.24-25 for their respective ages, Diodorus 17.36.2, Justin 11.9.12, Plutarch, 21.1 and Arrian 2.11.9 for the confirmation that Darius’ wife was his sister.

  165.Curtius 3.13.12-17 for the captive list. Diodorus 17.23.5 for Mentor’s sending his wife and children to Darius’ care. Diodorus 16.52.3-5 and Arrian 2.1.3 mentioned Memnon appointed Pharnabazus, son of Artabazus, as his own replacement. See Heckel (2006) p 70. Mentor was last heard of in 342 BCE; for Memnon’s death see Diodorus 17.29.3-4, Arrian, 2.1.3, Curtius 3.1.21 and 3.2.1. Diodorus 16.52.4 for the eleven sons and ten daughters; Curtius 6.5.4 mentioned nine sons (Arrian 3.23.7 named three of them) were with him when he surrendered to Alexander in Hyrcania at age ninety-five; perhaps two had died earlier or were operating elsewhere. Ilioneus is named ‘Hystanes’ by Hedicke in some Curtius editions; amended by Heckel (2006) p 143.

  166.Curtius 5.9.1 and 6.5.2 for Artabazus taking refuge in Macedonia.The date of the arrival at Pella is uncertain; see Heckel (1987) p 116 footnote 4. Alexander would have still been young (perhaps eight) when Artabazus and family departed ca. 348 BCE as suggested at Diodorus 16.52.1-4 (16.5.2.3 for Memnon’s presence in Macedonia); the archonship of Callimachus is referred to 349/348 BCE though communications, pleas and exonerations would have taken time, so we may add a year or so to the departure of Artabazus from Macedonia. Heckel (2006) p 275 (F12) for discussion of the wife captured at Damascus.

  167.See Heckel (2006) pp 55 and 70 for discussion, as well as Diodorus 16.52.3-4.

  168.For Barsine’s intimacy with Alexander see Curtius 3.13.14, Plutarch 21.7-9, Justin 11.10.2-3, Plutarch Eumenes 1.3. For Artabazus’ surrender see Curtius 6.5.2-6; Arrian 3.23.7, and for Bactria, see Curtius 8.1.10 and Arrian 3.29.1 Artabazus was the son of the daughter of the Great King Artaxerxes II; see Plutarch 21.9.

  169.See Heckel (1987) for a list of these and other anonymae and their backgrounds and Heckel (2006) pp 274-275.

  170.For the Rhodian connection for Artabazus’ wife and family links see Demosthenes 23.154, 23.157 (these suggest an ‘in-law’ relationship). Diodorus 16.52.4 was more specific that Artabazus sired his children with their sister; Heckel (2006) p 275 for details. Heckel (1987) pp 114-116 provides a study of these interwoven lines. Also Mentor had married a daughter of Artabazus, who was himself the son of an Achaemenid princess.

  171.Quoting Justin 11.10.2-4; for Roxane’s misidentifications see Justin 14.6.2 and 14,6,13, Porphyry fr.3.1; see Tarn (1921) p 27 for discussion.

  172.Curtius 3.12.21-23 for Barsine’s descriptions and Arrian 4.19 for similar descriptions of both Roxane and Darius’ wife. Discussed at Tarn (1948) p 333, Plutarch 21.6.

  173.Plutarch 21.6-7.

  174.Arrian 7.4.4 for naming Darius’ daughter Barsine. Tarn (1948) p 334 disagrees with her having royal blood, and this is one of his principal arguments for Heracles being a ‘pretender’. Brunt (1975) p 24 reversed the claim. She (a daughter of Darius) cannot have been the mother of Heracles for various reasons: Stateira was reportedly murdered by Roxane in Babylon, as Plutarch 77.6 claimed, and if Heracles’ mother was murdered with him in Macedonia fourteen years on, as Justin 15.2.3 stated, then obviously Heracles cannot have been Darius’ grandson. It would also fail to explain Nearchus’ promotion of the boy at Babylon and fail to explain why Perdiccas did not have the boy killed when Antigonus vacated Asia Minor. We would further imagine that Heracles’ descent from the Great King would have been a widely discussed topos. And it was not.

  175.Tarn (1948) pp 335-336.

  176.Brunt (1975) pp 28-29 refutes Parmenio’s advice and sees it as fiction. Tarn (1948) p 335 sees it differently and argues Parmenio was referring to the Persian princess, citing a mistaken identification by Plutarch. The offer of marriage to Barsine and the division of empire is positioned in Curtius after the capture of Tyre. See Curtius 4.5.1-8 and Justin 11.12.3-3.

  177.Plutarch 29.4, Curtius, 4.5.1, Justin 11.12 for Alexander’s reply; quoting Plutarch 21.5.

  178.Diodorus 17.67.1.

  179.Curtius 6.5.4 stated Artabazus was ninety-five when he surrendered to Alexander ca. 330 BCE in Hyrcania; Heckel (2006) p 55 for age discussions. Curtius 8.1.19, Arrian 4.17.3 for his retirement due to old age.

  180.Plutarch 21.8-9, translation from the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1919. Tarn (1948) p 333 for the Duris link and p 334 for a similar (possible) misidentification at Strabo 13.610. See below for Arrian 7.4.6 linking Barsine to Mentor.

  181.Diodorus 17.77.7 and Justin 12.3.11-12 for Alexander’s incorporation of concubines into his retinue and Justin 12.3.7-8 and Diodorus 17.77.3 for his thirteen-day tryst with Thalestris.

  182.Curtius 3.13.14, Diodorus 17.23.5.

  183.Tarn’s statement in the Journal of Historical Studies xli 18 ff, quoted in Todd (1985) p 283 considered this ‘a purely unfounded conjecture of modern writers’. Heckel supposes two separate Mentors are being referred to. Brosius (1996) p 95 has Barsine as the daughter of Arses.

  184.Tarn (1948) p 333 for the generation statement. Arrian 1.15.2 for Memnon’s sons at the Granicus. Tarn (1921) p 24 for discussion of Mentor’s son; an Athenian inscription honouring a ‘Memnon’ may also suggest Mentor’s son was old enough to have seen action though he could be from an earlier marriage. This fragmentary stele on pentelic marble dating to 327 BCE seems to support ‘a family relationship’, though not conclusively this one. Full details of the inscription in Todd (1985) pp 281-284; it honours a Mentor for saving Greek lives in Egypt during the Persian invasion in 343 BCE; see Heckel (2006) p 162 for discussion and p 318 footnote 42, and Brunt (1975) pp 26-27.

  185.Diodorus 20.20.1 for Heracles being aged seventeen and Justin 15.2.3 has Heracles in his fifteenth year; Tarn (1948) pp 333-334 concurs, yet sees this as proof that the boy was an imposter, terming the links a wholesale ‘tissue of absurdities’.

  186.That Barsine had a daughter sufficiently old enough for marriage by 325 BCE only need, in extremis, put her in her mid-twenties in 333 at Issus, assuming, for example, she gave birth to that daughter when she was sixteen and that daughter in turn was sixteen when being married to Nearchus in 325 BCE. But the reference to several children and the ages of Mentor’s children, if by her, would clearly make her far older, unless sources only assumed she birthed the other children with the brothers.

  187.Arrian 7.4.6, translation from the Oxford World Classics edition, 2013.

  188.Plutarch Eumenes 1.3, translation from the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1919.

  189.The name ‘Apame’ was attested in Artabazus’ family; his own mother had been so called: Plutarch Artaxerxes 27.4, Xenophon Hellenika 5.1.28, Plutarch Agesilaus 3.3. Plutarch, Arrian and Strabo were unclear over the identity of the bride of Seleucus. Arrian 7.4.6 stated he married the daughter of Spitamenes of Sogdia-Bactria, but he failed to mention her name. In his Life of Demetrius 31.5 Plutarch named Seleucus’ wife ‘Apame’ ‘the Persian’, the correct name for a number of Seleucid cities that were later named after her, but Plutarch failed to say whose daughter she was. Strabo thought Apame was a daughter of Artabazus, and the above text explains why. The
Metz Epitome termed her quaedam Bacrtrina; see Heckel (1987) p 117 for discussion. Whilst Alexander was able to forgive and elevate those who opposed him (Roxane’s father for example) accounts of Spitamenes’ death, and the unique detail of Spitamenes’ flawed character at Curtius 8.3.1-12 (he took concubines and banished his own wife), make his daughter a strange choice of bride; unless this Apame was really Achaemenid and her true identity was hidden by Ptolemy?

  190.Arrian 7.4.4-6 named Aristobulus as his source for the name matches at the Susa weddings. Sources of the Susa wedding lists discussed at Tarn (1948) p 333 footnote 1. Aristobulus is not mentioned by name as a groom in Arrian 7.4.6 but eight pairings are, as well as a reference to Companions. Chares’ description of the wedding banquet suggested ninety-two marriages were to take place for ninety-two bedchambers were prepared, see Athenaeus 12.54P, 538B-539A, full text in Robinson (1953) p 79. Aelian 8.7 claimed ninety brides.

  191.Justin 11.9.13.

  192.Arrian 1.15.7 mentioned Mithridates was Darius’ son-in-law. Thus we assume he had a daughter apart from the ‘virgins’ Stateira and Drypetis, both from his second wife Stateira. Heckel (2006) p 274 (F5) for Darius’ previous wife and F8, F9, for other unnamed daughters. Heckel (2006) p 206 for Pharnaces’ possible identification.

  193.The contention at Curtius 6.5.3 that Artabazus was ninety-five by the time he surrendered to Alexander is termed ‘absurd’ by Tarn, see Brunt (1975) p 25. Tarn suggested he was ‘well over sixty’. As he married before 362 BCE and had twenty-one children by 342/1 BCE, and as nine of his sons were old enough for military campaigning against Alexander, and as we have no gender order for their birth, it is quite possible Mentor’s daughters by Barsine, who was possibly an earlier older child of Artabazus, could have been past puberty.

  194.Curtius 4.11.5-6 stated Darius demanded the return of his two daughters, duas virgines filias.

  195.Based upon Arrian 7.4.6 and incorporating the claims of Plutarch Eumenes 1.3.

  196.Strabo 15.8.15 for Apame being a daughter of Artabazus.

  197.Plutarch Eumenes 7.1 for Pharnabazus’ support for Eumenes.

  198.Also Heckel (2006) p 54. Artabazus’ father, Pharnabazus, had been the satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia. Justin 13.2 for Heracles at Pergamum.

  199.Demosthenes Against Aristocrates 23.154; Strabo 13.1.11.

  200.Curtius 8.1.19, Arrian 4.17.3 for Artabazus’ retirement. Heckel (2006) p 187 (Oxyartes) and pp 241-242 (Roxane) for a summary of the confusion with dates and sieges surrounding the capture of Roxane and her father. Curtius 9.8.9-10 referred to Oxyartes as praetor Bactrianorum. This in fact makes more sense than appointing him to a foreign province: Paropanisadae according to Arrian 6.15.3; was Arrian’s source, Ptolemy undermining Roxane’s family power? See Heckel (2006) pp 187-188 for discussion of Oxyartes’ appointment.

  201.Arrian 7.4.4 and Curtius 10.3.11-13 for Alexander’s additional marriages to Parysatis and the daughter of Darius III.

  202.See Heckel (2006) p 379 for the stemma of Artabazus.

  203.At Curtius 10.3.11-12 a highly rhetorical speech, in which Alexander is chastising his men at Opis and explaining his integration of Persian troops (and wives) into his ranks, only mentioned Roxane and ‘a daughter of Darius’, failing to mention Parysatis too; this could have come from his sources (or Cleitarchus alone) or from his own understanding of events.

  204.Arrian 7.4.4. For the marriage of Stateira see Arrian 7.4.4. Justin 12.10.9, Diodorus 17.107.6, Plutarch Moralia 338d, Curtius 10.3.11-12. Heckel (2006) p 341 footnote 695 suggested Aristobulus was Arrian’s source, and that when writing ‘late in life’ (well after Ipsus in 301 BCE we propose) he was no longer clear on detail; thus, he had confused the great king’s daughter with Alexander’s mistress.

  205.Brosius (1996) p 185.

  206.Brosius (1996) p 95.

  207.Adea’s own grandmother, Philip’s Illyrian wife, had probably been renamed ‘Eurydice’ before her; Arrian Events after Alexander 1.22; discussed by O Palagia in Carney-Ogden (2010) p 35. Arrian 3.6.5 named Cleopatra, niece of Attalus, as ‘Eurydice’ where elsewhere she was named Cleopatra; discussed in Heckel (1978).

  208.For Candace’s meeting with Alexander, Romance 3.18-22, and for the origins of the name see full discussion in Arthur-Montagne (2014) p 9.

  209.Strabo 16.1.2.

  210.The change of name discussed in Heckel (2006) p 181 and Heckel (1978) pp 155-158; also Carney-Ogden (2010) p 35 for Olympias’ changes of name as well as Tarn (1948) p 334 footnote 4; Plutarch Moralia 401a-b, Justin 9.7 and Carney (2006) pp 93-94 for the adoption of the name ‘Myrtale’ and p 95 for Olympias.

  211.Xenophon Cyropaedia 8.7.9-12.

  212.Tarn (1948) pp 378-399 clearly demonstrated later Roman corruptions of the so-called last plans.

  213.For the importance of the lesser known Dion see Arrian 1.11.1-2 and Diodorus 17.16.3-4. For Heracles’ former possession of Amphipolis and Olynthus see Carney-Ogden (2010) p 74.

  214.Quoting Cicero Laelius De Amicitia 15.

  215.Quoting Bosworth A to A (1988) p 203 and Plutarch 69.5 for the ‘uncertainty and mutability of life’. Compare this to Onesicritus’ version given at Strabo 15.3.7: ‘Here I lie, Cyrus, king of kings’; translation from Pearson (1960) p 165.

  216.The inscription was recorded by Arrian 6.29.5-8 and with minor variations by Plutarch 69.3 and Strabo 15.3.7.

  217.Strabo 15.3.7 for Onesicritus’ descriptions of the tomb.

  218.Alexander, or Aristobulus at least, had visited the tomb earlier, before it had been robbed, and they found ‘a golden couch, table with cups, a golden coffin, a large quantity of garments and dresses ornamented with precious stones’; a description corroborating Arrian’s and Strabo’s accounts. Plutarch 69.3 for the looting of the tomb. Polymachus was a prominent Macedonian from Pella. Curtius 10.1.31-32 for the tomb’s content and 10.1.35 for Bagoas’ references to Orsines; Curtius 10.1.26 for Orsines snubbing Bagoas.

  219.Arrian 6.29.4 for the plantation description. D Stronach Excavations at Pasargadae, Second Preliminary Report in Iran 2, 1964, p 2139.

  220.The ancient ruins at Samosata, Lucian’s birthplace, were flooded in 1989 by the Ataturk Dam project. For inundation details see P MacQuarrie (Revised 2004-2-26) Water Security in the Middle East Growing Conflict Over Development in the Euphrates – Tigris Basin, New York Times.

  221.The site is most likely Zeugma; see Gawlikowski (1996) pp 123-133. The flooding was discussed in Sivand Dam Waits for Excavations to be finished, Cultural Heritage News Agency, 26 February 2006, and Ancient Pasargadae threatened by construction of dam, Mehr News Agency, 28 August 2004.

  222.Or Seleucia-at-the-Zeugma, its location is disputed.

  223.Arrian 7.19-20, Strabo 16.1.11 for Alexander’s shipbuilding. Full discussion of identifications in Gawlikowski (1996) pp 123-133 with references taken from Pliny 34.15 and Pausanias 10.29.4; Gawlikowski (1996) p 125 for the Duke of Wellington’s commission.

  224.Quoting from Erskine (2002) p 178 for the lost resting places of celebrated rulers. Arrian 3.22.1 reported that Alexander sent Darius to be buried ‘amongst the royal tombs’ at Persepolis but where is not clear and the tomb has been lost; it may be a fifth unfinished tomb at Naqsh-e-Rustam some 7.5 miles to the northwest. Although Augustus was buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus, barbarian invasions scattered his remains.

  225.Aristotle Posterior Analytics book 1.2.

  226.Amphidoxon, the ambiguous, or, that with doubt attached.

  227.A statement possibly originating with WS Holt, professor of history at Washington University, or Charles Beard, cited in a communication by RF Smith, American Historical Review 94, October 1989, 1247.

  228.Aristotle Sophistical Refutations 1, discussed in Reeve (2001) p 208.

  229.F Nietzsche Wir Philologen 7.1; full text and citation in Heller-Roazen (2002) pp 151-153.

  230.Referring to principles outlined in Aristotle Prior and Posterior Analytics.

  231.Diogenes Laertius Chrysippus 2 for th
e divine reference: ‘if the gods studied logic, it would be the logic of Chrysippus’. The reference to hellebore is not to suggest he died of poisoning – but he died either of laughter, or from undiluted wine – according to Diogenes Laertius. Chrysippus used hellebore as a purge three times, and although Lucian did say he was banned from reaching the Isle of the Blessed until he had taken a fourth dose, this is just a joke.

  232.In his True History 2.18, and also Sale of Lives 23, Lucian suggested Chrysippus had been banned from reaching the Elysian Plain until he had taken a fourth dose of hellebore as a cure for insanity. For a summary of Hellenistic logical argument see The Oxford History of Greece and The Hellenistic World, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986, chapter 15 p 421 ff.

  233.Lucian How to Write History 3-4 and 63. As Philip II approached Corinth and fear gripped the city, the citizens frenzied themselves with defence preparations. Diogenes had nothing to do and so repeatedly rolled his wine jar, in which he was living, through the Craneion, a wealthy district of the city, to look busy.

  234.Quoting Tarn as cited in Bosworth (1996) though all Tarn’s analogies applied to Cleitarchus.

  235.Bosworth-Baynham (2000) p 14.

  236.According to Pliny 36.9-10 in a competition (4th century BCE) between Parrhasius and Zeuxis, two of the foremost painters then living in Greece, Zeuxis removed the shroud draped over his canvas to reveal a bunch of grapes painted so realistically that birds pecked at them, but Parrhasius invited Zeuxis to remove the shroud covering his own work. When Zeuxis attempted to, he realised the shroud was itself the painting, so lifelike that it had fooled him. Parrhasius won the competition.