In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great

by David Grant

  237.Posiedippus of Pella’s work was discovered bound around an Egyptian mummy.

  238.Scholars usually employ the Latin form, elenchus, when referring to Socratic debating or method of enquiry involving cross examination, disproof and refutation as part of the testing of an argument.

  239.Requests for divinity aside, Arrian 7.29.4 confirmed Alexander saw himself as the son of Ammon and 7.20.1 with Strabo 16.1.11 stated he planned to attack the Arabs to be worshipped as a third god. For the Athenian Assembly’s refusal to grant Alexander’s deification see Polybius 12.12b.3, Deinarchus Against Demosthenes 1.94 and for the fine to Demades who proposed the bill, Athenaeus 6.251b, Aelian 5.12. Aelian 5.12 and Strabo 16.1.11 cited Aristobulus as confirming Alexander had laid claims to divinity. However Flower (1994) pp 259-260 points out that Theopompus seemed to have known of an Alexander cult in Asia Minor worshiping him as Alexander-Zeus in his lifetime.

  240.Diodorus 20.81.3 for the Will reference.

  241.See discussion in Walbank (1962) p 10. Polybius 3.281 claimed a reputation for ‘opening up’ the known Western world with his own travels. His attack on Pytheas is found at 34.5-7 and confirmed by Strabo 2.4.1-2; Scipio had likely given Polybius a ship to explore beyond the Pillars of Hercules (straits of Gibraltar) after the fall of Carthage; McGing (2010) p 144. Strabo 1.4, Pliny 2.75 claimed Pytheas reported Thule was six days north of Britain but this could refer to Orkney. Yet he described the phenomenon of the midnight sun.

  242.See discussion in Green (2007) pp 19-21. Pytheas’ references to Thule appeared in Vergil’s Georgics 1.30 (Ultima Thule), Pliny 2.75, in a novel by Antinius Diogenes, The Wonder Beyond Thule, amongst others, which referenced the midnight sun.

  243.See Oikonomides-Miller (1995) pp 1-5 Herodotus 4.196 for Carthaginian trading along the African coast.

  244.Two copies of Hanno’s log or Periplous survive dating back to the 9th and 14th centuries; one is the Palatinus Graecus 398 at the University Library of Heidelberg. The other text is the so-called Vatopedinus 655; parts of it are in the British Museum and in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. The fully translated title is The Voyage of Hanno, commander of the Carthaginians, round the parts of Libya beyond the Pillars of Heracles, which he deposited in the Temple of Cronus. This was known to Pliny and Arrian who mentioned it at the end of his Indike VIII.

  245.A gnomon is an early form of upright sundial used by the Greeks for navigational purposes. Diogenes Laertius Anaximander 2.1 credited its introduction from Babylon to Anaximander of Miletus. A lodestone was a primitive magnetic compass formed from magnetite, naturally magnetic rock. Thales of Miletus first mentioned its properties.

  246.Translates from Latin: ‘art is long, life is short’. The saying is attributed to Hippocrates, as exampled in Lucian’s Hermotimus or on Philosophical Schools 1.

  POSTSCRIPT

  OF BONES, INSIGNIA AND WARRIOR WOMEN: THE RETURN TO AEGAE

  A continuation to the Press Release: The Bones of Philip II Found

  Any dissection of Alexander’s testament, and his own plans for commemoratives, brings us back to the royal burial grounds at Aegae, a necropolis he may himself have rejected once he deemed his own father too mortal, relegating him to ‘co-father’ with Zeus-Ammon.1 Although there is strong circumstantial evidence that Tombs I, II and III are appropriately termed the ‘royal burial cluster of Philip’, there is as yet no absolute proof for the identities of their occupants. As it has been pointed out, the cluster need not be Argead at all: the Antipatrids and the Antigonids would not have denied themselves significant burials, and potentially with artefacts that predated their own regnum.2

  The least controversial identification within the cluster surrounds the adolescent (estimated to be aged twelve to fifteen at death) male occupant of Tomb III, whose cremains were found in a silver hydria (a water jug, now used as a funerary urn), along with regalia suitable for that identification: a royal robe, a linen cuirass, gilded bronze greaves, a spear with gold casing (possibly a sceptre), a gold oak wreath and a marble throne.3 For it has been ‘universally’ accepted that the inhabitant was Alexander IV, the teenage son of Alexander by Roxane, and who was killed on Cassander’s orders ca. 310 BCE. But the double execution of Alexander IV and his mother was reportedly concealed on Cassander’s orders. So this conclusion requires that their hidden remains were found and exhumed by someone seeking credibility as a legitimate Argead successor, and, moreover, someone prepared to highlight Cassander’s termination of Alexander’s branch of the Argead line by building an impressive resting place that closely resembled Tomb II.4

  Although the conclusion of an early report by Xirotiris-Langenscheidt (1981) was that the bones are too fragmentary for any reasonable age range to be determined,5 the presence of a male teenager would support the conclusion that we have the line of Philip II in the cluster, but we still need to explain the unique and remarkable double (or multiple) burials in Tombs I and II. They appear ‘remarkable’ because kings and their wives inevitably died at different times (natural disasters and epidemics aside), potentially decades apart and with separate burials, hence the necropolis of the kings is separate from the so-called ‘cluster of the queens’. So it appears that the inhumations (Tomb I) and cremations (Tomb II) were the results of exceptional circumstances.6

  TOMB II: PHILIP II OR PHILIP III?

  As recent press releases illustrate, ever since Tomb II was first uncovered in 1977 scholars have been divided on the identity of the male occupant, with one camp arguing that the main chamber bones are those of Philip II, and another upholding the case for Philip III, his half-witted son.7 The identification process has not been helped by the fact that both Philip II and his son (formerly named Arrhidaeus) were in their mid or early forties when they died. Moreover, their wives were both teenagers or in their early twenties when the kings were murdered.8

  A most recent and controversial study led by Antonis Bartsiokas in 2015 proposed that the scattered bones in Tomb I, known as the ‘Tomb of Persephone’ after the remarkable fresco that occupies the whole of its northern wall, included Philip II’s remains.9 Though this is a smaller cist tomb (a cavity dug into the ground rather than a vaulted chamber) the remarkable decoration points to the importance of its inhabitant, previously thought to be King Amyntas III, Philip II’s father, or Philip’s older brother, King Alexander II.10

  Recent studies therefore put great store in evidencing the wounds Philip II suffered in various battles. The injuries were clearly described by Demosthenes for the ‘shattered remnant’ (so he termed Philip) in his On the Crown, and included the loss of an eye, a broken clavicle (collarbone) and a mutilated arm (or hand) and leg. But even the veracity of these wounds has been called into question, for they either conflict with other texts, or they are barnacled with anecdote that accompanied rhetorical agenda. As Professor Theodore Antikas has, for example, pointed out, if the arrow had actually entered Philip’s eye at Methone (as some examining the trauma seem to assume), he would have died instantly, where texts actually suggest that rather his vision was only impaired.11 Unsurprisingly, the early forensic teams employed by Andronikos came to completely opposite conclusions on what they found; the part-healed eye-socket injury by an arrow or catapult-bolt (thus ‘proof’ it was Philip) was later attributed to taphonomy – in this case bone cracking during cremation.12

  Supporting the case for the burial of Philip III, which took place in 316/315 BCE, some twenty years after his father’s death, are well-constructed arguments from Eugene Borza and Olga Palagia, amongst others, which rest on a number of key premises. The first is the conclusion that the iconography of the multiple-quarry big-game hunt seen on the fresco above the entrance of Tomb II was inspired by the well-stocked Persian game parks witnessed on Alexander’s campaigns.13 This, they argue, is supported by its depiction of lions, for their presence in Macedonia is questioned.

  Those upholding the case for Philip II, on the other hand, believe that within the hunting fresco is Phil
ip’s likeness (bearded and showing his left profile, thus avoiding his disfigured right eye) and also that of a young clean-shaven Alexander.14 Additionally, as Hammond, Fox, and other scholars have demonstrated, there is clear evidence for the presence of lions in Macedonia in the (earlier) 5th century BCE, along with the danger they presented; Pausanias and Xenophon placed them in the region, and Herodotus recorded that lions preyed upon Xerxes’ camels when his army was transiting Macedonia in 480 BCE. If Herodotus’ entry was perhaps allegorical as a ‘symbol of fierce resistance’, lions are nevertheless attested to have roamed ‘near’ the country’s borders (Mount Pangaeum, Mount Crittus and Thrace) and on Mount Olympus; a lion hunt also adorned the coins of King Amyntas III, Alexander’s grandfather. Just as Homeric themes lived on, the Tomb II mural might have captured the essence of the once-iconic test of bravery, even if by the 4th century it was wild boar that were actually hunted to symbolise that rite of passage; the lion and boar were considered a pair in ferocity.15

  The art-linked argument for the later dating of the tomb is also undermined if we recall that Macedonia had been annexed by Persia for much of the 6th and early 5th centuries BCE, when Eastern influences in art and architecture surely left their mark; the sister of Alexander I had married the Persian ambassador Bubares, and sanctuary had been given to Persian royalty – the family of Artabazus – by Philip II when Alexander was a child.16

  Additional arguments for Philip III in a later-dated chamber speculate that the more elaborate barrel-vaulted ‘Macedonian’ tomb design (Tombs II and III) originated with the architects of Alexander’s generation, possibly incorporating building techniques they had seen in Asia, so once again postdating the reign of his father. But the discovery in 1987 of a similar structure believed to have housed Philip’s mother, Eurydice (dubbed the ‘Tomb of Eurydice’), with artefacts within it dating to ca. 344/3 BCE, as well as the description of the ideal mausoleum found in Plato’s Laws (written ca. 360 BCE) appear to contest that; Plato’s recommendations may in fact have been influenced by even earlier burial practices of Macedonia.17

  We cannot be sure the aforementioned tomb housed Eurydice, as the pottery evidence recovered only provides a terminus post quem, and such prized items may have been handed down through the generations.18 Besides, in light of allegations that Eurydice consorted with Ptolemy of Alorus who was clearly a threat to the line of Philip II, and, further, if there is any truth behind allegations that Eurydice killed his brother, Alexander II (her own son), such an ornate tomb seems a remarkable act of reverence in the face of major indiscretions and even complicit filicide. But typifying the uncertainty that surrounds the Argead line, we have evidence to the contrary which suggests Eurydice was a devoted mother who negotiated her sons’ accessions in the face of major adversity; the likely inclusion by Philip II of her statue in the Philippeion at Olympia recognised her place in the royal family, as well suggesting the semi-divine status of Philip’s line.19

  The Tomb II debate further focuses on the king’s regalia, for the diadem, armour, and an illusive sceptre Andronikos (initially) claimed to have found in Tomb II, do resemble descriptions of the regal items on display at Babylon, as well as the insignia later used for propaganda purposes in the Successor Wars.20 Similar regalia were also listed amongst those destined for burial with Alexander’s corpse within the lengthy description of his funeral bier, and this suggests an established Macedonian funerary custom.21 Once again, this could point to a post-Philip II tomb. But the objects described are not fully reconcilable with Alexander’s originals22 and though the diadem, in particular, follows the Persian regal tradition adopted by Alexander after the defeat of Darius III, in Persia it likely took the form of a cloth ribbon and not a gilded silver band like that found in Tomb II.23

  The presence of a (now illusive) sceptre in Tomb II, it is argued, would have had specific significance to the dating debate, for the sceptre would surely have been passed down through the line of kings, and thus Philip II would not have been buried with his, though a last king of his direct line may well have been (so Philip III). Certainly the sceptre tradition is archaic and was maintained through the Argead line. In the Iliad ‘the son of Peleus dashed his gold-bestudded sceptre on the ground’, and in what might have been yet another emulation of Achilles, the so-called Porus Medallion appears to show Alexander holding a sceptre.24 If the Macedonian custom of burying soldiers with their weapons under a tumulus was well established, this practice needs to be distinguished from Livy’s description of the annual spring festival of Xandika at which the army was preceded by the ‘arms and insignia of all past kings from the founding of Macedonia’. So clearly a ‘ceremonial’ set (or sets) of regalia and weapons must have existed quite apart from any buried with the kings, like those on display in the Assembly in Babylon, and potentially those Eumenes later employed to beguile the Silver Shields.25 This too renders late-dating arguments inconclusive. Moreover, the exquisite contents of Tomb II speak of a truly revered warrior king; the half-witted Philip III was anything but that.

  At the core of the ongoing debate remain the various osteoarchaeological analyses from Tombs I and II which have seen, for example, scholarly opinion shift back and forth after the published and conflicting conclusions of teams led by Langenscheidt and Xirotiris and by Musgrave and Bartsiokas, in particular, over the past two decades. The most recent 2015 study of the Tomb I bones by the Bartsiokas team appears to have engendered more controversy than it set out to finish.26 The 2014 report from the team led by Theodore Antikas had itself turned up unexpected finds and a new conundrum.

  This comprehensive and disciplined 2014 analysis of the bones in Tomb II discovered, and reconfirmed, the existence of a number of compelling clues that point to Philip II. It revealed previously unseen trauma to the male body (chronic frontal and maxillary sinusitis, and soft-tissue eye trauma with chronic pathology on several ribs), which broadly match the wounds credited to Philip II.27 Antikas’ report additionally confirmed the corpse had undergone a flesh-boned cremation, and there is textual evidence that Philip was provided with just that, for Justin claimed that the friends of the assassinated king ‘… grieved that the same torch that had been kindled at the daughter’s wedding should have started the funeral pyre of the father.’ But, as scholars have pointed out, this was a well-used poetic simile and both Ovid and Propertius used similar lines, so it is not conclusive proof of cremation, and other sources simply referred to a ‘burial.’28 Justin’s claim that: ‘A few days after, she [Olympias] burnt the body of the assassin [Pausanias], when it had been taken down [from hanging on a cross], upon the remains of her husband, and made him a tomb in the same place’, is likewise suggestive of Philip’s cremation but could equally refer to the evidenced ceremonial fire on the roof of the tomb.29

  There is additional new and compelling evidence that the cremation of the male in Tomb II was part of a highly ritualised ceremony, as melted gold has been identified (thought to be from a crown, though gold death masks have been discovered in graves at Mycenae, not burned, however) and the white mineral huntite, which, along with purple porphyry, suggests that a funerary mask covered the face before the pyre was set ablaze. We should also bear in mind that the throwing of armour into the fire, as well as gold and silver likenesses (eidola), seems to have been a tradition, as evidenced by Alexander’s plans for Hephaestion’s funeral.30

  The so-called Mask of Agamemnon discovered at Mycenae in 1876 and so labelled by its discoverer, Heinrich Schliemann who thought he had found the body of Agamemnon who led the Greek coalition to Troy. Hammered out of a single gold sheet, it dates to 1550-1500 BCE, too early to belong to the traditional dating for Agamemnon, and was one of several funerary masks found in the shaft graves. Now in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.

  In contrast to the ritualised interment of the male in Tomb II, Pausanias reminds us that Philip III was never destined for honorary funeral rites, for Olympias, on whose orders he was brutally executed, d
id ‘unholy’ (anosia) things to his body, and no formal cremation was ever mentioned, or was ever likely to have been provided for his remains.31 It is equally doubtful that any of the supporters of Philip III, or more likely the supporters of his simultaneously executed wife, Queen Eurydice, would have dared to cross Alexander’s mother and exhume their still-fresh bodies for cremation. Doing so at a sufficiently later date would have resulted in a ‘dry-boned’ result (visibly distinct from flesh-boned remains). It is noteworthy, then, that the bones from Tomb I exhibit no signs of cremation and this suggests that Philip III is still a candidate for burial there, that is if we accept Cassander’s reburial was sufficiently delayed for Philip to have remained in the ground and become completely skeletal before exhumation.32

  Antikas’ study led to two further thought-provoking developments. The first is the revising of the age of the female occupant of the antechamber of Tomb II, for the bone analysis included, in particular, her pubic symphysis, which was not seen by earlier researchers; she is now believed to have been aged thirty to thirty-four when she died. Here we have the conundrum, as this rules out Philip II’s last wife, Cleopatra, and the equally young Queen Eurydice the wife of Philip III, both believed to be in their late teens (or early twenties) when they died.33

  The second development was the discovery of hundreds of new bone fragments that had been bagged, stored and never examined for over thirty-five years, and which were labelled as originating in Tomb I. Seventy of these bones were analysed and they suggest the tomb contained the remains of at least seven individuals: an adult male, a female, a child (mirroring the conclusions of the previous bone analyses), as well as four babies aged eight to ten lunar months and one foetus of six-and-a-half lunar months; there were additionally several species of sacrificial animal.34 If they did originate in Tomb I, as indicated, then the earlier examinations, though on the whole meticulously carried out, were based on less than ten percent of the evidence.35