NOTES ON PLUTARCH, ALEXANDER

Abstract

Notes on the text and interpretation of passages in Plutarch's Life of Alexander.

10.3 ὁ δὲ Φίλιππος αἰσθόμενος †ὄντα τὸν Ἀλέξανδρον εἰς τὸ δωμάτιον, παραλαβὼν τῶν φίλων αὐτοῦ … ἕνα

When Philip found out that Alexander … into his room, taking along one of his friends …¹

After a quarrel between Philip and Alexander over the former's marriage to Cleopatra, in the course of which his father tried to attack him with his sword, Alexander fled to Illyria. He has now been persuaded to return to Macedon, only to learn that Philip is engaged in negotiations with Pixodarus, the satrap of Caria, to arrange a marriage between Pixodarus’ eldest daughter and Alexander's half-brother Arrhidaeus rather than with Alexander, who needs to be placated. Clearly the beginning of the sentence is corrupt, but ‘no satisfactory solution has yet been found for this crux’.² The context would be satisfied by something like <ἀπελθ>όντα or <καταφυγ>όντα, ‘(when Philip found out) that Alexander had withdrawn to his room’. For the former, cf. Cat. Min. 68.1 ἀπιὼν εἰς τὸ δωμάτιον, for the latter Cat. Min. 42.1 εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν καταφυγόντος. The situation is reminiscent of the Iliad, where Alexander's ancestor Achilles sulks in his tent, feeling slighted when a woman he thought was rightfully his was denied him. In each instance, one party to the dispute had earlier been prevented from running the other through with his sword, in one case by divine intervention, in the other by εὐτυχία (9.9), Philip's good fortune consisting in being prevented from violating the sanctity of the father–son relationship and Alexander's in staying alive.

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12.1 Θρᾷκές τινες ἐκκόψαντες οἰκίαν Τιμοκλείας

some Thracians having broken into Timoclea's house

An article is needed, and we should read <τὴν> οἰκίαν.

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14.3 ἔτυχε δὲ κατακείμενος ἐν ἡλίῳ.

He (Diogenes) happened to be lying in the sun.

In this famous encounter between Alexander and the Cynic Diogenes in Corinth, the king goes out of his way to visit the philosopher rather than, as is customary in similar narratives, the other way around.³ When Alexander asks if there is any favour he can grant the philosopher, he is peremptorily told to stand a bit out of the sunlight, which response, instead of causing Alexander to take offense evokes his admiration. But why is Diogenes lying in the sun in the first place? Sunbathing was not a normal recreational pastime in ancient Greece. Athletes might lie in the sun as part of their rigorous training routine (Philostr. Gymn. 58), apparently to effect a balance in their bodily humours. Similarly, the Hippocratic author of De morbis recommends sunbathing as an element in the treatment of livid disorder (πελιὴ νοῦσος, 2.68) and phlegmatic disease (νοῦσος φλεγματώδης, 2.70). It is not, then, obvious what Diogenes was doing lying in the sun. Some later authors simply assume that he was keeping warm (SSR V B 33), not appreciating the humour in his claim that, like the king of the Persians, he was accustomed to changing his domicile with the seasons: while the latter transported himself and his vast retinue over a thousand kilometers each year so that he could enjoy perpetual springtime, Diogenes split his time between the Isthmus and … Athens.⁴ These authors seem to have forgotten that Diogenes was a Cynic and not an Epicurean or a Cyrenaic, and that he was a follower of Socrates, who would calmly walk barefoot across the ice at Potidaea (Pl. Symp. 220b). Given the notices in Diogenes Laertius, however, that in summer his namesake used to roll around in blistering hot sand and in winter would hug snow-covered statues (6.23), and that he regarded contempt for pleasure as supremely pleasurable (6.71), it is more likely that the anecdote in Plutarch is intended to portray Diogenes as deliberately exposing himself to discomfort by shunning the shade. If that is the case, the favour he asks of Alexander is not that he be made more comfortable but that he be allowed to continue his askêsis undisturbed, something all the more likely to appeal to the indefatigable Alexander, who reacts to Diogenes’ conduct by saying that, were he not Alexander he would be Diogenes.⁵ We may, then, see this anecdote as portraying Diogenes as a Greek equivalent of the Indian Gymnosophists, who are said to have stood in the burning sand from dawn to dusk directly facing the sun (Plin. HN 7.22); further, the sun to which they exposed themselves was so hot at noon that no-one else could easily walk on the ground barefoot.⁶

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16.1 μάχεσθαι μὲν ἴσως ἀναγκαῖον ἦν, ὥσπερ ἐν πύλαις τῆς Ἀσίας, περὶ τῆς εἰσόδου καὶ ἀρχῆς.

It was seemingly necessary to engage the enemy at, so to speak, the gateway to Asia for access and sovereignty.

It is difficult to make sense of the last three words. Nor are matters helped by the fact that ἀρχή can mean either ‘beginning’ or ‘rule’, both of which are relevant to the context, the preliminaries to Alexander's first encounter with the Persians, at the Granicus River. The Budé editors try to have it both ways, translating ‘pour y entrer et commencer la conquête’.⁷ In the apparatus, however, they acknowledge their diffidence with the note, ‘corruptum?’. Ziegler too is uncomfortable with the text, which he prints, although suggesting in his apparatus καὶ <τῆς> ἀρχῆς.⁸ But Plutarch cannot have thought that this battle, in which Darius did not even participate, was a struggle both for entry into Asia and for rule over it. More satisfactory, therefore, is Reiske's εἰσόδου τῆς ἀρχῆς, glossing, as it were, πύλαις τῆς Ἀσίας.⁹ Castiglioni, apparently recognizing that the notion of beginning is more pertinent here than that of dominion, proposed καὶ <διακινδυνεύειν ἐξ> ἀρχῆς.¹⁰ That notion, however, can be conveyed more economically, and the corruption more readily explained, by reading περὶ τῆς εἰσόδου κατ᾽ ἀρχάς, ‘for access at the outset’. Plutarch uses κατ᾽ ἀρχάς following a vowel as an alternative to ἐξ ἀρχῆς.¹¹

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16.2 τοῦ δὲ ποταμοῦ τὸ βάθος καὶ τὴν ἀνωμαλίαν καὶ τραχύτητα τῶν πέραν ὄχθων, πρὸς οὓς ἔδει γίνεσθαι τὴν ἀπόβασιν μετὰ μάχης …

The depth of the river and the irregularity and cragginess of the opposite banks, where it was necessary to emerge while under attack …

Editors have routinely printed ὄχθων, masculine, for the feminine form ὀχθῶν preserved by the MSS, to accord with the gender of the relative pronoun that refers to it.¹² But elsewhere, over a dozen times, Plutarch uses ὄχθη, never ὄχθος; cf. 60.4 ταῖς ἀντιπέρας ὄχθαις, Ant. 18.5 πρὸς τὴν ἀντιπέρας ὄχθην, Publ. 16.8 τῇ πέραν ὄχθῃ. We should, therefore, retain ὀχθῶν and read πρὸς ἅς here. In what follows, ἀπόβασιν for ‘emergence’ from a river is difficult to parallel. Seemingly similar is a passage in De fortuna Romanorum (325Α), where Gaius Pontius crosses a river by binding broad strips of wood from a cork tree under his chest and, when he reaches the opposite bank (τῆς ἀντιπέρας ὄχθης), he proceeds ἀποβάς. Does this mean ‘having emerged’ from the river or ‘having disembarked, alighted’ (the most common meaning of the verb) from his improvised flotation device? The latter is more likely. In any event, the two situations are not quite comparable, since Gaius disposes of his conveyance on reaching land whereas the mounts on which Alexander's cavalry crossed the river are essential to their success, even their survival, on the other side. Moreover, ‘emergence’ from the river would be expressed with ἔκβασιν, which Kronenberg proposes here, comparing Arrian, Anabasis 1.13.5 ἐκβαίνουσιν ἐπικείσονται, only to dismiss it in favour of the less convincing ἐπίβασιν (sc. τῆς πολεμίας χώρας).¹³ But given Plutarch's emphasis on the depth of the river (which was not, in fact, particularly deep) and the precipitousness of the opposing banks (cf. 16.4 τόπους ἀπορρῶγας), the more appropriate emendation would seem to be ἀνάβασιν. Libanius, recounting Julian's crossing of the Tigris in the face of substantial enemy opposition similarly refers to ὄχθης ἀνάβασις at Or. 17.21; cf. Or. 18.252 ἀναβεβήκεσαν and 253 ἀναβάσει, both describing the same operation. For MS variation between ἀνα- and ἀπο- in compounds, see [Aesch.] PV 661, Eur. Hipp. 1293, Thuc. 6.2.1 and Pl. Ti. 79c.¹⁴

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23.5 καταλύσας δὲ καὶ τρεπόμενος πρὸς λουτρὸν ἢ ἄλειμμα

having stopped for the night and proceeding to a bath or a rub-down

Bath and rub-down are not really alternatives. Rather, they are a natural pair, always joined in Plutarch by καί, which should be read here; cf. 35.5 περὶ ἄλειμμα καὶ λουτρόν, 40.1 ἰέναι πρὸς ἄλειμμα καὶ λουτρόν, Quaest. conv. 662B περὶ λουτρὰ καὶ ἀλείμματα, 693B λουτρὸν δὲ καὶ ἄλειμμα.¹⁵ The lexica do not cite Plutarch for this meaning of ἄλειμμα, for which, see DGE II.1 and LSJ Rev. Suppl. II. For the frequent confusion of ἤ and καί in MSS, see W. Wyse, The Speeches of Isaeus (Cambridge, 1904), 410, on Is. 5.5.

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31.7 σημαίνειν δέ φασιν οἶκον καμήλου τὴν διάλεκτον

[The battle took place not at Arbela but at Gaugamela]; they say that the word means ‘camel's residence’¹⁶

LSJ (s.v. διάλεκτος A.II.2) cites only this passage for the meaning ‘local word or expression’, and the DGE (III.3) likewise quotes it to illustrate the meaning ‘palabra, voz, término extranjero o dialectal’; the entry continues by giving only two further references, Diog. Bab. Stoic. 3.213 (that is, SVF III Diog. 20 = Diog. Laert. 7.56) and Σ Ar. Nub. 317 (cf. Suda δ 628 Adler). The latter is not relevant, as it distinguishes διάλεκτος from διάλεξις as φωνῆς χαρακτὴρ ἐθνικός, ‘distinctive ethnic form of utterance’, which might refer to a dialect or a language as well as to a specific expression. It is, however, clearly related to the former, as Diogenes’ terminology shows:

διάλεκτος δέ ἐστι λέξις κεχαραγμένη ἐθνικῶς τε καὶ Ἑλληνικῶς⋅ ἢ λέξις ποταπή, τουτέστι ποιὰ κατὰ διάλεκτον, οἷον κατὰ μὲν τὴν Ἀτθίδα θάλαττα, κατὰ δὲ τὴν Ἰάδα ἡμέρη.¹⁷

διάλεκτος is λέξις expressed in a distinctive ethnic and Greek manner, or λέξις of a particular locale, that is of a certain type according to διάλεκτος, for example θάλαττα in Attic (i.e. as opposed to koinê θάλασσα) or ἡμέρη in Ionic (i.e. as opposed to koinê ἡμέρα).

That is, θάλαττα and ἡμέρη are not instances of διάλεκτος in the sense of ‘local word or expression’; rather they are examples that illustrate a διάλεκτος that displays -ττ- for -σσ- and one that exhibits η rather than α following ρ. There is, then, no secure parallel for the way διάλεκτον has been understood in our passage, nor is it clear why Plutarch would have expressed himself in this peculiar manner. On the many occasions when he has to explain (often using σημαίνειν) foreign names or expressions, the term being explained is referred to as γλῶττα (Num. 19.4), λέξις (Num. 19.8), ὄνομα (Publ. 10.9, Rom. 21.4, Quaest. Rom. 277A, De Is. et Os. 356D, 371C) or φωνή (Cor. 25.4, Num. 14.5). It seems, then, that the text of our passage is the result of corruption. If so, the simplest remedy would be to read σημαίνειν δέ φασιν οἶκον καμήλου <κατὰ> τὴν διάλεκτον, ‘they say that it (sc. the name Gaugamela) means “camel's residence” in the local dialect’, the preposition having been omitted in copying, following as it does another word beginning κα-. For the expression κατὰ (τὴν) διάλεκτον, which appears frequently elsewhere, including, as we have seen, in the quotation from Diogenes, see Ant. 27.4, referring to Cleopatra, whose facility with languages allowed her to express herself καθ’ ἣν βούλοιτο διάλεκτον.

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40.1 Φιλώτᾳ δὲ πρὸς θήρας σταδίων ἑκατὸν αὐλαίας γεγονέναι

and for his hunts Philotas had αὐλαῖαι one hundred stades (in length)

These are generally taken to be hunting nets, following LSJ, where this is the only passage cited for the meaning.¹⁸ But, just as this meaning of αὐλαία is unparalleled, so are hunting nets nearly 20 km long. The longest nets Xenophon knows are less than a third of a stade in length (τριακοντώρυγα, Cyn. 2.5). Rather, these were, in Olson's translation of Ath. Deipn. 12.539d (= Phylarchus, FGrHist 81 F 41), a passage not cited by the lexica, ‘about 12 miles of fabric screens, with which they surrounded the areas where they hunted’.¹⁹ We may compare the king of India, who used to hunt with bow and arrow from a pedestal ‘within his enclosures’, ἐν τοῖς περιφράγμασιν, but when he hunted in the open (ἐν ταῖς ἀφράκτοις θήραις) he was mounted on an elephant.²⁰

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41.6 αὐτός τέ τινας θυσίας ἔθυσεν ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ κἀκείνῳ θῦσαι ἐκέλευσεν.

[When Craterus fell ill, Alexander saw a vision while he was sleeping] and he himself performed sacrifices on his behalf and directed him to sacrifice as well.

There are two anomalies in the reading of the MSS, which is retained by the Budé editors: the dative with κελεύειν and the hiatus.²¹ Plutarch does sometimes admit hiatus following infinitives in -αι, but generally only when heavy punctuation intervenes (e.g. Arist. 15.5, 16.4, Them. 6.4). Sintenis dealt with both difficulties by emending and transposing: κἀκεῖνον ἐκέλευσε θῦσαι (the following sentence begins with a vowel).²² Ziegler adopted Sintenis’ κἀκεῖνον but deleted θῦσαι.²³ It is, however, possible to resolve both issues with only one change, namely by reading προσέταξεν (which is regularly construed with the dative, e.g. Lyc. 18.3, Num. 15.8, Them. 20.2) for ἐκέλευσεν. The corruption is not easily explained, but it is readily paralleled: the two forms are found as MS variants at Joseph. AJ 6.221, 7.134 and 8.31.

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42.6 ἀπηγόρευσαν μὲν οἱ πλεῖστοι, καὶ μάλιστα κατὰ τὴν ἀνυδρίαν.

most of his horsemen gave out, and chiefly for lack of water.

This, the reading of all but one of the MSS, is adopted by many editors, the translation given here being that of Perrin in the Loeb Classical Library.²⁴ It is supported by Hamilton,²⁵ who says, ‘for κατά = διά … see LSJ s.v. B.VI.1 [IV.1 is meant] and Kühner–Gerth, 1.479, where examples from Thucydides and Herodotus are cited’.²⁶ He continues with, ‘There are about a dozen examples in the Lives’, but unfortunately gives no specifics. He is presumably thinking of instances like Lys. 19.4 κατ’ ἰδίας μόνον αἰτίας, Sull. 31.1 κατ’ ἰδίας ἔχθρας and Ti. Gracch. 4.2 κατ’ ἀξίωμα, which are comparable to the passages given by LSJ and Kühner–Gerth from the historians. This is an extension of the meaning ‘in conformity with’ and is found with a limited class of nouns, to which ‘lack of water’ does not belong. By contrast, the reading of MS C (Paris. 1673, thirteenth–fourteenth centuries), κατὰ τὴν ἄνυδρον (sc. χώραν), ‘in the course of traversing the desert’, adopted by Ziegler, is supported by Polyaenus, Strat. 4.3.25 Ἀλέξανδρος τὴν ἄνυδρον ὁδεύων and is surely correct.²⁷ The full expression is given in Diod. Sic. 2.48.2 κατὰ … τὴν ἄνυδρον χώραν λεγομένην, ‘throughout the so-called waterless region’, but ἡ ἄνυδρος = ‘desert’ is common from the time of Herodotus on.²⁸ The difficulty with the reading of the other MSS is that the regular, and very common, expression for ‘on account of lack of water’ is διὰ (τὴν) ἀνυδρίαν,²⁹ which Reiske proposed here³⁰ and which is found in Zonaras: διά τε τὴν χαλεπότητα τῆς ὁδοῦ καὶ τὴν ἀνυδρίαν (1.295.1–2 Dindorf). All that Zonaras shows, however, is that he was following a text of Plutarch that read ἀνυδρίαν and, like Reiske, recognized that in that case the preposition called for was διά (also, he introduced χαλεπότητα, which is often governed by διά, never by κατά).

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42.10 οὔτε … κάμνειν οὔτε διψᾶν

neither to feel tired nor to be thirsty

All editions print διψᾶν, presumably on the authority of the MSS. But elsewhere in Plutarch editors, again presumably following the MSS, print διψῆν, the proper form of the infinitive, which should be read here.³¹ Curiously, the correct form was suggested in a school exercise book designed to teach Greek composition in nineteenth-century Germany, but the emendation has been ignored by editors.³²

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47.1 φοβούμενος δὲ τοὺς Μακεδόνας μὴ εἰς τὰ ὑπόλοιπα τῆς στρατείας ἀπαγορεύσωσι …

Being apprehensive that the Macedonians might refuse to go on to what remained of the campaign …

Plutarch does occasionally admit the hiatus exhibited by μὴ εἰς (e.g. 51.5 μὴ εἴκοντος). But here he surely wrote πρός, ‘in the face of’, which not only avoids the hiatus but accords with his regular usage with ἀπαγορεύειν: 42.6 πρὸς δὲ τὴν δίωξιν … ἀπηγόρευσαν, Ages. 2.3 πρὸς μηδένα πόνον μηδὲ πρᾶξιν ἀπαγορεύοντος, Caes. 17.1 πρὸς μηδένα δὲ τῶν πόνων ἀπαγορεύειν, Cim. 11.1 ἀπαγορεύοντες ἤδη πρὸς τὰς στρατείας, Cor. 2.2 πρὸς μηδένα πόνον ἀπαγορεύουσαν, 13.5 πρὸς δὲ τὴν στρατείαν παντάπασιν ἀπαγορευόντων. For MS variation between εἰς and πρός, see Cic. 50.5, Xen. Cyr. 3.1.5.

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49.3 ἐν δὲ τῷ τότε χρόνῳ Μακεδὼν ὄνομα Δίμνος ἐκ Χαλαίστρας [χαλεπῶς] ἐπιβουλεύων Ἀλεξάνδρῳ …

At that time a Macedonian from Chalaestra named Dimnus,³³ plotting cruelly (?) against Alexander …

Editors have generally followed Reiske, who deleted the adverb, regarding it as self-evident that it originated as a corrupt doublet of Χαλαίστρας.³⁴ But this explanation of its presence is not compelling, and one expects something more than a bare assertion that the man was planning treasonous action. Diodorus (n. 33) at least acknowledges that he had some motivation, although he cannot specify what that was: μεμψιμοιρήσας τῷ βασιλεῖ περί τινων καὶ τῷ θυμῷ προπεσών, ἐπιβουλὴν συνεστήσατο, ‘ungratefully harboring a grudge against the king for some reason and, giving vent to his anger, he orchestrated a conspiracy’.³⁵ Thus, rather than removing the adverb from the text, it may be worth considering the possibility that something has fallen out, perhaps prompted by the homoiarcton χαλ-, and was later imperfectly restored, e.g. χαλεπῶς <διατεθεὶς καί>. For the expression χαλεπῶς διακεῖσθαι, ‘feel resentful’, see Luc. 33.3, Per. 35.3, 36.4, Them. 29.1.

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50.11 “αὕτη μέντοι σε” εἶπεν “ἡ δειλία τὸν ἐκ θεῶν ἤδη τῷ Σπιθριδάτου ξίφει τὸν νῶτον ἐπιτρέποντα (Reiske: ἐκτρέποντα MSS) περιεποίησε …”

‘For your information (μέντοι)’, he said, ‘this “cowardliness” saved you, offspring of the gods, when you were at the point of offering your back to Spithridates’ sword …’

Cleitus responds with sarcasm to Alexander's (unfair) imputation of cowardice to some Macedonians who had recently been ambushed—both men have been drinking heavily—and implies (equally unfairly) that Alexander exhibited a craven desire to save his own skin at the battle of the Granicus River.³⁶ The only parallel that has been cited in support of the MS reading ἐκτρέποντα is Eur. Bacch. 798–99, καὶ τόδ᾿ αἰσχρόν, ἀσπίδας | θύρσοισι βακχῶν ἐκτρέπειν χαλκηλάτους, where the dative has been explained as ‘analogous to that used with ἐκστῆναι, ὑποχωρεῖν, etc., in the sense of making way for a person’.³⁷ But thyrsoi are not persons and recent editors have plausibly adopted Wecklein's βάκχας, giving the verb its most common force and taking the dative as instrumental, meaning ‘and this is shameful, for bacchants to turn away shields of beaten bronze with thyrsoi’.³⁸ It would, then, be unreasonable to use this poetic text from half a millennium earlier in support of the reading in the MSS of Plutarch. And so the Budé editors³⁹ and Ziegler⁴⁰ have adopted Reiske's⁴¹ ἐπιτρέποντα. But the verb used in prose for turning one's back to the enemy is ἐντρέπειν: Hdt. 7.211.3 ὅκως ἐντρέψειαν τὰ νῶτα and, with the dative, Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 20.2.6 ἐντρέψαντες κἀκεῖνοι τὰ νῶτα τοῖς πολεμίοις, Joseph. AJ 20.78 τὰ νῶτα τοῖς πολεμίοις ἐντρέψαντες, Suet. Περὶ παιδιῶν 7 Taillardat ἐντρέψαντες ἀλλήλοις τὰ νῶτα. We should, therefore, read ἐντρέποντα here.