In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great

by David Grant

  22.Hammond (1989) p 221 for the helmet differences, principally the plumes; cf. Borza-Palagia (2007) p 111 for the similarities to the iron helmet described by Plutarch. Hammond (1989) p 222 for the cuirass differences.

  23.Lehmann (1980) pp 529-530 for discussion of the diadem. Arrhidaeus wore the diadem at Babylon in June 323 BCE; Curtius 10.8.20; more on the regalia in chapter titled Babylon: the Cipher and Rosetta Stone. Hammond (1989) pp 218-218 for discussion of the throne, diadem, signet ring, robe and arms. Fredericksmeyer (1981) p 332 and Hammond Tombs (1991) p 81 refutes the gilded diadem as stemming from Persian tradition.

  24.Homer Iliad 1.245, translation by Samuel Butler; references to sceptres appear frequently in the Iliad and this is just one example. Borza Tombs (1987) p 116 for the Porus Medallion. One of the painted tablets within the golden colonnade of Alexander’s funeral bier, itself resonant of a barrel-vaulted tomb, depicted Alexander holding a sceptre in his hands, as (likely) does the so-called Porus Medallion (a minted silver decadrachm) discovered in Afghanistan, potentially the sole surviving depiction of Alexander produced in his lifetime.

  25.Arrian 1.16.5 and Curtius 7.9.21 confirmed Alexander had himself followed the ‘custom’ of burying the dead with their weapons; discussed in Hammond (1978) p 332, Hammond (1989) p 217. Livy 40.6.2 for the Xandika and Hammond (1989) p 218. Curtius 10.6.5, 10.7.13, 10.8.20, 10.10.13 for the insignia in Babylon; Diodorus 18.2-27 for them reappearing in the funeral bier. Diodorus 18.60.6 and 18.61.1 for Eumenes’ exploitation of similar items on campaign ca. 318/317 BCE; see chapter titled The Tragic Triumvirate of Treachery and Oaths for more detail and several sets of regalia potentially being in circulation.

  26.Nikolaos Xirotiris was the first physical anthropologist to examine the remains, along with Franziscka Langenscheidt and a team of specialists in Cremations from the Royal Macedonian Tombs of Vergina, Archaiologike Ephemeris 1981. A number of studies followed (see Understanding the Bones: The Human Skeletal Remains from Tombs I, II and III at Vergina by Jolene McLeod, University of Calgary and available online at http://theses.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/11023/1562/2/ucalgary_2014_mcleod_jolene.pdf for a rundown of the studies and conflicting conclusions). More recently, in 2000, emerged A Bartsiokas The Eye Injury of King Philip II and the Skeletal Evidence from the Royal Tomb II at Vergina, Science 288, pp 511-514, 2000 which was answered a decade later by JH Musgrave, AJNW Prag, RAH Neave, R Lane Fox, and H White. 2010, The Occupants of Tomb II at Vergina. Why Arrhidaios and Eurydice must be excluded, International Journal of Medical Science 7(6), pp 1-15. The most recent study – Bartsiokas-Arsuaga-Santos-Algaba-Olivencia (2015) Results – has been called into question as it introduced bones never seen before or described in the diaries or illustrations of the initial excavators including ‘a remarkable flexional ankylosis of the left knee, which resulted in the fusion of the tibia with the femur.’

  27.For a thorough rundown and discussion of Philip’s wounds see Understanding the Bones: The Human Skeletal Remains from Tombs I, II and III at Vergina by Jolene McLeod, University of Calgary and available online at http://theses.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/11023/1562/2/ucalgary_2014_mcleod_jolene.pdf p 70 ff.

  28.Quoting Justin 11.1.4, however, following the observation in Borza-Palagia (2007) p 84, this is far from proof of the ritual being performed at Aegae.

  29.Justin 9.7.11

  30.Director of Research and Head of the Laboratory of Archaeometry at the Democritus Institute, Giannis Maniatis, who conducted the analysis, believes that these residues are from a mask ‘of complex design, using laminated fabric that is found for the first time in Macedonia, meticulously crafted from six or seven layers of huntite and porphyry, and which Philip wore during religious ceremonies, possibly as high priest of the Orphic mysteries’: quoting Archaeology News Network. See opening text, Press Release, the Bones of Philip II Found for more detail on the funeral mask findings. Aelian 7.8 for the armour, gold and silver on Hephaestion’s funeral pyre. Diodorus 17.115.1 for the gold and silver likenesses being prepared for the funeral of Hephaestion.

  31.Pausanias 1.11.3-4, 8.7.7 for Olympias’ treatment of Arrhidaeus’ body, also Justin 14.5.10 and Diodorus 19.11.5; discussed in Carney (2006) p 76. Musgrave-Prag-Neave-Lane Fox (2010) section 9.1.2 for related pollution and contamination discussion issues.

  32.Bartsiokas-Arsuaga-Santos-Algaba-Olivencia (2015), Abstract, also concludes the bones in Tomb I were inhumed, though this evidence may inevitably be called into question after the recent controversy. Cassander could in fact have exhumed Philip II’s body before it became completely skeletal if that took place at the earlier end of estimates of reburial between six and seventeen months after Olympias ordered their deaths.

  33.Earlier analyses suggested the bones were of a twenty-to-thirty-year-old female; see Musgrave-Prag-Neave-Lane Fox (2010) section 6 for summary of earlier conclusions. Antikas-Wynn Antikas (2014) Results for the new proposed age. Diodorus 17.2.3 confirmed Cleopatra was Philip’s last wife.

  34.A young archaeologist working on his thesis at Vergina found three wooden crates in a storage place filled with bone fragments and artefacts from Tomb I in three plastic bags containing well over one hundred bone fragments never-before studied; Dr Theodore Antikas, private communication.

  35.Referring, for example, to the previous analyses of Musgrave (1990) and Xirotiris-Langensheidt (1981)

  36.Plutarch Pyrrhus 26.6; evidence unearthed in 2013 suggests other tombs at Aegae were looted at the same time.

  37.Borza Tombs (1987) pp 105-107 for the uniqueness of the double burial. Also Borza-Palagia (2007) p 84 for discussion of the antechamber as a repository for grave goods and not a second person.

  38.Europa, according to Athenaeus 13.557e and Justin 9.7.12 was born just days before Philip died; Diodorus 17.2.3. According to Justin 9.7.12 she (or he, or even ‘they’) was murdered in her mother’s arms by Olympias who forced her mother to commit suicide by hanging, whilst Pausanias 8.7.5-7 claimed mother and daughter were burned in an oven or dragged over a brazier without Alexander’s approval; Plutarch 10.8 confirmed Alexander’s anger at Olympias treating her ‘savagely’. The sex of the baby, and whether there was more than one child, is debated as Justin 11.2.3 suggested Alexander killed the son (Caranus) of his mother-in-law, thus we may assume Cleopatra: see Musgrave (1991) p 7 footnote 23 for details and Lane Fox (2011) p 385; also Heckel (2006) p 78 (Caranus 1). Diodorus 17.5.2, Curtius 7.1.3 for Attalus’ execution. Justin 11.5.1 for the murder of the whole of Attalus’ family.

  39.Antikas-Wynn Antikas (2014) Introduction and Paleopathology for the leg fracture and Results for the regular horse-riding.

  40.Antikas-Wynn Antikas Discussion for arguments promoting the female identity as King Ataias’ daughter; Justin 9.2.1-6 for Ataias’ loss of 20,000 captives and for Ataias’ adoption offer, and Diodorus 16.4-5 for Ataias’ defeat. Hammond Tombs (1991) p 77 for Ataias’ coins being adorned with quivers. Hammond Tombs (1991) p 76 for burial rituals of Scythians, Getae and some Thracian tribes. Other candidates for the female, besides Eurydice the wife of Philip III, are Philip’s Illyrian warrior queen, Audata (renamed Eurydice, date of death unknown) or more likely Meda, the daughter of the Getic Thracian king, Cothelas. Early discussion of the contents of the tomb in detail in Hammond (1978) and pp 336-337 for discussion of the daughter of Ataias and the tribal tradition of being buried beside their men. Herodotus 4.71.2-4 for Scythian burial customs including strangulation of a concubine and servants, Herodotus 5.5 for a similar tradition in Crestonia, Thrace.

  41.Athenaeus 13.557b-e for a rundown of Philip’s wives, as provided by Satyrus, and the political motivation behind the marriages.

  42.Justin 9.2.3.

  43.Diodorus 17.2.1 confirmed Alexander ‘dedicated himself’ to his father’s funeral. Diodorus 17.2.1 stated Alexander dealt with the assassins and their conspirators before overseeing the funeral where Justin 11.2.1 claimed they took place together; this is not necessarily a conflict if we consider there may have been man
y conspirators, real or accused for political convenience, who needed tracking down and killing.

  44.Justin 9.2.6.

  45.Plutarch 46.3, Arrian 7.13.1-4, 4.1-3, 4.15.1,7.15.4 for embassies from the Scythians; discussed in detail in chapter titled Mythoi, Muthodes and the Birth of Romance. Curtius 10.1.31-32 for the contents of Cyrus’ tomb; other versions at Strabo 15.3.7 and Arrian 6.29.5.

  46.Diodorus 19.52.2, Athenaeus 4.155a (from Diyllus) for Cynnane’s remains being returned to Macedonia for later burial.

  47.Polyaenus 8.60 for Cynnane’s warrior past and Athenaeus 13.560f for her training her daughter in the arts of war. Diodorus 16.4.1 named Eucharistus as archon at Athens in the year of Philip’s campaign against Bardylis; if as Heckel (2006) p 64 (Audata) concludes, Philip married Audata as part of the ‘noteworthy peace’ (Diodorus 16.8.1) with the Illyrians which followed, then it is unlikely that Cynnane was born before 357/356 BCE.

  48.Polyaenus 8.60 stated she was a leader of armies and charged ahead of them into battle but these actions do not necessarily relate to the earlier Illyrian campaign. It may of course be court propaganda, or simple exaggeration.

  49.Adea was likely born in 336 BCE as her father Amyntas was killed by Alexander, probably soon after Philip’s death; according to Arrian 1.5.4 Amyntas was definitely dead by spring 335 BCE; Heckel (2006) p 4. See discussion on the ‘high’ and ‘low’ chronologies of events post-Babylon, which renders dating uncertain, in chapter titled The Silent Siegecraft of the Pamphleteers.

  50.Nepos Eumenes 13, Plutarch Eumenes 19.1-2; upon Eumenes’ death his ashes were returned to his wife, children and mother. For Craterus’ death see Plutarch Eumenes 7.13, Arrian Events After Alexander 26, Nepos Eumenes 4.4, Diodorus 19.44.2, 19.59.3. Arrian Events After Alexander 1.23 confirmed Alketas’ troops were indignant at Cynnane’s death.

  51.Antikas-Wynn Antikas (2014) Results for the different pyre conditions.

  52.Cassander’s double burial of Philip III (Arrhidaeus) and Eurydice in ca. 316 BCE is found in Athenaeus 4.155a (Diyllus 73 F 1), Diodorus 19.52.5; see discussion in Musgrave-Prag-Neave-Lane Fox (2010) section 7.1 and 9.1.2 for the delay between deaths and burial, though the same report concluded mother and daughter would have been buried together. Cynnane had been briefly married to Amyntas, son of King Perdiccas III, but he yielded the throne to Philip due to his youth; it is unlikely he was ever on the throne, see Heckel (2006) p 23 for discussion.

  53.See chapter titled The Reborn Wrath of Peleus’ Son for more on the collateral damage at Philip’s death.

  54.For Olympias’ death after an Assembly, Diodorus 19.51.1-4 and Justin 14.6.6-13; both recorded a judicial proceeding in the form of an Assembly gathering. Discussed in detail in Hatzopoulos (1996) pp 274-275.

  55.Hammond (1978) p 348 for the preconstruction of tombs. Diodorus 16.1.3 stated a twenty-four-year reign; the additional year depends upon whether he initially acted as regent for his nephew, Amyntas, or immediately proclaimed himself king.

  56.Hammond Tombs (1991) p 76 and p 82 for the unfinished features of Tomb II and delayed preparation of the antechamber. Cohen (2010) p 237 for the preparation of the plaster.

  57.Quoting Stella Miller-Collet for ‘illusionist’ columns from Borza-Palagia (2007) p 87.

  58.Borza-Palagia (2007) pp 83-85 for discussion of the relative size of the antechamber and its significance.

  59.Hammond Tombs (1991) p 79 for the ceremonial remains on the top of the vault, and Justin 11.2.1 for the executions at the burial place though in some translations this reads as ‘tumulus’. The executions were ‘Homeric’ as in the Iliad 23.171-176; some twelve young Trojans were sacrificed at Patroclus’ funeral, see Hammond (1978) p 350. Other examples, as Carney (2006) pp 85-96 points out, Iliad; 22.395-404 for Achilles’ maltreatment of Hector, 23.20-3 and 24.14.21 as the most notable examples.

  60.More on their confrontation in chapter titled The Silent Siegecraft of the Pamphleteers. Athenaeus 13.560f for Adea’s battle dress; Kechel (2006) p 229 sees this as a fabrication of Duris.

  61.Whilst the suggestion that the weapons and armour found in Tomb II once belonged to Alexander goes back to Eugene Borza (1987), other scholars such as Hammond (1989) refute the argument and propose such items were the standard insignia destined for burial with every Argead king.

  62.Andronikos-Fotiadis (1978) p 35 for the suggestion of Nicomachus; Pliny 35.108 related that he used only four colours and painted rapidly. Quoting Borza-Palagia (2007) p 82 of the artist’s technique.

  63.Cohen (2010) p 190 for the origins of the Hymn to Demeter and its setting.

  64.Adams (1991) p 28 for the heroon close to Tomb I; Hammond Tombs (1991) p 74 for its dimensions. Bartsiokas-Arsuaga-Santos-Algaba-Olivencia (2015) Abstract for the rock of the heroon and Tomb I. Plato Laws 947D for the porous recommendation; Hammond Tombs (1991) p 73 for discussion and p 75 for the dating of the secondary tumulus originally covering both tombs. Hammond Tombs (1991) p 74 for the secondary burials in Tomb I.

  65.Justin 9.7; ‘manes’ is a Roman term for the chthonic deities associated with the soul of the deceased.

  66.Hammond (1978) pp 332-333 for the original double-tumulus; Hammond Tombs (1991) p 75 believed that as Tomb II lay broadly at its centre, the double-tumulus was built after Tomb II; this does not necessarily follow, as it could have been extended geometrically with this intention. www.Aigai.gr (necropolis) for Thessalonice’s possible tomb.

  67.Dr Antikas, personal communication; this however does imply that Antikas agrees with the author that Cynnane is a candidate as the Tomb II female.

  68.For Lysimachus see Hammond (1991) p 78 and following Carney (2002) p 108 for the association of Gonatas with the Great Tumulus; Adams (1991) p 28 for the format of the Great Tumulus. Plutarch Pyrrhus 26.6 for the earlier looting by Gallic mercenaries. Also see Andronikos-Fotiadis (1978) p 35 for Gonatas’ own tomb and his rationale for building the Great Tumulus.

  69.Diodorus 19.61.1-4, Justin 15.1 for Antigonus’ call for the release of Roxane and Alexander IV; discussed in chapter titled The Silent Siegecraft of the Pamphleteers. See chapter titled Sarissa Diplomacy: Macedonian Statecraft and The Tragic Triumvirate of Treachery and Oaths for the Antigonid bid for legitimacy.

  70.Borza-Palagia (2007) p 82 footnote 5 for detail of Tomb IV and its dating.

  71.The accounts of the Gallic attack on Delphi conflict; Justin 24.7-8 and Pausanias 10.23.1-14 claimed the Gauls were defeated at Delphi, but Strabo 4.1 provided detail for Roman tradition of the fabled 15,000 talent aurum Tolosanum, the cursed gold of Tolosa looted from Delphi.

  72.Bartsiokas-Arsuaga-Santos-Algaba-Olivencia (2015) Methods for the reddish-brown sediment and horizontal shaft. If there was no Great Tumulus covering both tombs, looters would not have needed to dig a subterranean shaft from the heroon. Hammond Tombs (1991) p 79 and Hammond (1978) p 334 more logically argues that it was constructed before the Gallic raids, possibly by Lysimachus.

  73.Hammond Tombs (1991) p 79 for the layers of rock.

  74.Hammond (1978) p 334 for the stelae and dating. Hammond Tombs (1991) p 78 for the possible stoa and cenotaph at its centre.

  75.Quoting Cohen (2010) p 233 on a ‘relationship of equality’.

  76.Hammond (1978) p 333 for the worship of Philip at Amphipolis and Hammond Tombs (1991) p 74 points out that Amyntas, Philip’s father, was also worshipped at Pydna at a heroon known as the Amyntaion. Excavations at Pella have turned up the so-called House of the Abduction of Helen, ca. 325-300 BCE, though this was not funerary.

  77.Hammond (1978) p 338 for linking the mural of Persephone to the Orphic faith. Cohen (2010) p 188 ff for the myth behind the scene and p 213 for the Thesmophorion.

  78.Livy 45.32.3-11, Polybius 26.4-9 for Aemilius Paullus’ proclamation and victory games at Amphipolis.

  79.A further inscription dated to 340 BCE and dedicated to Eurydice has been found at Vergina; Carney (2006) pp 90-91. Olympias probably married Philip in 357 BCE – Heckel (2006) p 181 – so she and Alexa
nder would have known Philip’s mother, Eurydice, for well over a decade before her death.

  80.Carney (2006) p 91 for Eurydice’s possible attempt to salvage her reputation.

  81.In a tomb dating to one of the wives of Alexander I (498-454 BCE) were clay heads depicting Demeter and Kore; see the official outline at Aegae.gr/necropolis. Cohen (2010) p 94 ff for griffin iconography.

  82.Carney (2006) p 88 for the role of women in burial rites and p 98 for Orphic symbolism and rebirth. Cohen (2010) p 198 for the themes of immortality.

  83.Cohen (2101) pp 230-233 for the link of abduction to marriage rites.

  84.Carney (2006) p 104 for the site and once fragmentary inscription marking Olympias’ tomb near Pydna; further discussion in Edson (1949). Also see http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/pdf/uploads/hesperia/146994.pdf; and ALN Oikonomides The epigram on the tomb of Olympias at Pydna, Chicago. Diodorus 17.118.2 (and Porphyry FGrH 2.260 3.3) claimed Cassander ‘threw her body out without burial’. Plutarch Pyrrhus 26.6-7 and Diodorus 22.12 for the tomb-raiding by Pyrrhus and, or, his men.

  85.Curtius 9.6.26 for Alexander requesting Olympias’ consecration to immortality; see chapter titled The Silent Siegecraft of the Pamphleteers for the circumstances.

  86.What are believed to be Hephaestion monograms were dredged from the River Strymon in the early 20th century but thought to have originally formed part of the circular wall of the tomb; a further monogram was recently found above the Persephone mosaic.

  87.Plutarch 72.5 for Deinocrates; chapter titled Babylon: the Cipher and Rosetta Stone for more on Deinocrates.

  88.Hammond (1978) p 334 linking the Great Tumulus to Alexander’s last wishes. Alexander had already constructed a large tumulus some 125 feet (38 metres) high and ‘great in circumference’ for Demaratus of Corinth, Plutarch 56.2; a tumulus for Hephaestion, Plutarch 72.5; and a first modest tumulus for Philip upon his death, Justin 11.2.1.