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Alexander's Plans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

W. W. Tarn
W. W. Tarn
Affiliation:
Muirtown, Inverness
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Extract

I return to this subject, on which I wrote in 1921, because there is a good deal to be said which is new and which should, I think, be pretty conclusive. I have recently been compelled to write once again on Alexander's universalism, and the two matters are interconnected; also Professor Wilcken has put forward a new view of the principal plan, that for the conquest of the Mediterranean basin, which I think is untenable. The importance of the question of this plan for our ideas of Alexander needs no emphasising.

The document which contains the plans is given in Diodorus xviii, 4, 2–5, and Wilcken, like every German scholar to-day, believes that that document comes from Hieronymus and is therefore true. I have traced this belief back as far as I can, and cannot find that anyone has ever attempted to prove it; it arises from the unquestioned fact that (Agathocles apart) the basis and much of the detail of Diodorus' books xviii–xx are from Hieronymus. But the question of xviii, 4, 2–5 stands thus, xviii, 5 is certainly from Hieronymus.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , 1939 , pp. 124 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1939

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References

1 Alexander's ὑπομνήματα and the ‘World-kingdom,’ JHS xli, 1921, p.1Google Scholar.

2 Alexander, Cynics, and Stoics, in A J Phil. lx, 1939, p. 41Google Scholar.

3 Die letzten Pläne Alexanders des Grossen, SB (Berlin), xxiv, 1937, p. 192Google Scholar.

4 But not yesterday. Niese and Beloch rejected these ‘plans,’ and Wilamowitz called them ‘fantastic.’

5 Endres' argument in Rh. Mus. 1917–1918, p. 440Google Scholar, which I dealt with JHS 1921, p. 15Google Scholar, is sometimes cited, but can hardly be called an attempt at a proof.

6 Diod. xviii, 4, 5: .

7 Παρπγήσιος means ‘like’ Like in size is always π. τὸ μέγεθος (instances in Dindorf's Stephanus, the fullest thing); so π. τὴν ὴλικίαν π. τὸν ἀριθμόν, but τὸν ἀριθμόν can be omitted if ambiguity be impossible, as παραπλήσιαι νῆες in a battle. I went through Diodorus' book I (Egypt), and he is very careful to avoid ambiguity: eighteen instances of π. alone as ‘like’; one case, 21, 5—Isis makes a model of each of Osiris' limbs—which could be ambiguous, as a model need not be life-size, so he writes π. τὸ μέγεθος; while of the second pyramid (64, 2) he says, (the first) . This excludes any idea of ambiguity in the passage I am considering; the tomb is to be of pyramid shape, and is also to rival the Great Pyramid in size, because of the mention of that particular pyramid.

8 Pharsalia viii, 696sq.Google Scholar

9 Thiersch, H., Die Alexandrinische Königsnekropole in JdI xxv, 1910, p. 55Google Scholar.

10 Line 697 does not mean tombs of two different sorts, Egyptian and Greek, for Lucan could not have called Greek tombs ‘disgraceful’; the indignitas lay in Greek kings being buried in native tombs.

11 Mm. Bourgery and Ponchont, 1929: quand les mânes des Ptolemées, une honteuse ligne, sont enfermés sous des pyramides et de scandaleux Mausolées; J. D. Duff, Loeb ed. 1928: though the dead Ptolemies and their unworthy dynasty are covered by pyramids and mausoleums too good for them.

12 Cook, S. A., The Religion of Ancient Palestine in the Light of Archaeology, 1930, p. 19Google Scholar.

13 So translated in a Nabataean bilingual: Cook ib. p. 19, n. 3. μνημεῑον could mean any funeral monument which was not a tomb; Josephus calls Simon's monument at Modin (below) a μνημεῑον, and Plutarch, Mor. 821 D, uses the word for the stupas erected by the cities who, in the legend, divided up Menander's ashes (see Tarn, , The Greeks in Bactria and India, p. 264Google Scholar). But in Hellenistic Greek μνημεῖον more often meant the actual tomb, e.g. Ditt.3 1234, LXX Genesis xxiii, 6, 9Google Scholar, etc., and commonly in the Gospels.

14 The Ethiopian pyramids are much older, and are I imagine quite a separate matter.

15 I Macc. 13, 27 sqq.; Jos., Ant. xiii, 211Google Scholar. The pyramids of Helena of Adiabene, cited by Cook op. cit p. 19, n. 1, are much later.

16 xvi, 83, 3, .

17 Op. cit. p. 14 [203].

18 Curtius x, 1, 16–18. Rex cognoscendi plura cupidine accensus … Ipse animo infinita complexus statuerat, omni ad orientem maritima regione perdomita, ex Syria petere Africam, Carthagini infensus, inde Numidiae solitudinibus peragratis cursum Gadis dirigere—ibi namque columnas Herculis esse fama vulgaverat—Hispanias deinde adire … et praetervehi Alpes Italiaeque oram, unde in Epirum brevis cursus est. Igitur he orders his governors in Mesopotamia to build 700 septiremes.

19 Cupidine is doubtless meant to represent his πόθος, so often mentioned in Arrian.

20 In my 1921 article this was wrongly given as crossing the Alps. Professor Wilcken pointed this out (SB Berl. 1928, xxx, p. 20Google Scholar [593] n. 1), and I should like to thank him for the courteous manner in which he treated it; I daresay it astonished him as much as it did myself. The error was against myself; it made the earliest possible date of the Curtius passage a little too early.

21 Athen. v, 203 d. On Callixenus' figures here see Tarn, , Antigonos Gonatas, p. 456Google Scholar.

22 Diod. xix, 58. This and all the Diodorus passages in this paragraph are from Hieronymus.

23 Diod. xix, 58, 2.

24 Id. xx, 49, 2.

25 Id. xx, 50, 2 sq.

26 Id. xix, 62, 8.

27 Tarn, , Mariner's Mirror, 1933, p. 69Google Scholar.

28 The heavier sevens and sixes crushed Ptolemy's right while the thirty Athenian quadriremes turned it. Some day I must collect the evidence that the quadrireme was the fastest ship of the line.

29 Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments, 1930, pp. 129Google Scholarsqq.; Mariner's Mirror, 1933, pp. 69Google Scholarsqq.

30 See H. Droysen, Griech. Kriegsaltertümer in Hermann, Lehrbuch, II, 2, p. 272Google Scholar, n. 3, and Luebeck, E., Das Seewesen der Griechen und Römer I, p. 17Google Scholar n. 6. Both naturally rejected as worthless the statements in Pliny and Curtius.

31 E. Bux, Mnesigeiton in RE. Not given in Susemihl.

32 Pliny, N.H. vii, 208.

33 See generally Partsch, J., Alpes in RE and Die Stromgabelungen der Argonautensage, in Berichte d. sächs Akad. d. Wiss. 71, 1919, Heft 2, pp. 11sq.Google Scholar; Cary, M. and Warmington, E. H., The Ancient Explorers 1929, pp. 121Google Scholarsqq. (Cary).

34 I gave some instances for Alexander in CAH vi, p. 402; add his perplexity about the Caspian. Callisthenes ascribed the destruction of the temple at Didyma to Xerxes (Tarn, , CR xxxvi, 1922, p. 63Google Scholar) though Herodotus had correctly shown it was Darius I, as is confirmed by the inscription on the bronze knuckle-bone from Susa, , Mém. Délég. en Perse VII, 1905, p. 155Google Scholar.

35 If the ‘pillar of the north’ in Ps.-Scymnus ll. 188 sqq. be really some dim hearsay of the Alps (more it cannot be, pace Cary op. cit. p. 121), it shows anyhow that nothing was known. On this, and the ‘Hercynian rock’ of Apollonius Rhodius, see Partsch op. cit. (Ber. sächs. Ak.) p. 11.

36 Wikén, E., Die Kunde der Hellenen von dem Lande und den Völkern der Apenninenhalbinsel bis 300 v. Chr. 1937, p. 142Google Scholar.

37 IV, 627 sqq.: he makes the Argo sail through from the Po into the Rhone. See on this story Partsch op. cit. (Ber. sächs. Akad.) pp. 9 sqq.

38 Hoefer, U., Rh. Mus. lxxvii, 1928, p. 127Google Scholar.

39 See Partsch op. cit. (both works). Massiliote traders must have known something; but the secrecy they observed about their trade routes (Cary op. cit. pp. 124 sq.) shows that they did not talk.

40 Ziegler's date in RE, after a very long examination. The exact year is not material here.

41 Alexandra 1361.

42 Servius on Aen. x, 13.

42a Polyb. iii, 47, 6 sqq. shows that one or more writers had (naturally) written on Hannibal's passage of the Alps before him; it does not appear whether in Latin or Greek.

43 III, 47–8; see Cary op. cit. p. 122.

44 Partsch op. cit. (RE) col. 1601; Pliny N.H. iii, 47, 135.

45 I have followed Wilcken in transposing the last two clauses, as against Fischer's arrangement; but it makes no difference to what I have to say.

46 Wilcken op. cit. p. 16 [205] makes them two separate fleets, though the 700 were to be brought from the Persian Gulf. Such numbers belong to the realm of phantasy.

47 Id. pp. 8, 16 [197, 205].

48 Tarn, , Bactria and India, pp. 474sq.Google Scholar

49 Polyb. xxxiv, 12 (= Strabo vii, 322); iii, 39, 8 (if genuine).

50 Op. cit. p. 5 [194].

51 Diod. iv, ig, 3 sq.

52 Ib., . This is always interpreted as crossing the Alps, I suppose because of in § 4. It seems to me an impossible translation; ‘going through the mountain country which is over (or “on” or “through”) the Alps’ is nonsense; it is ‘which is by (or “at” or “near”) the Alps.’

53 Strabo v, 209. It is the first of Polybius' four .

54 Schulten, , Tartessos p. 28Google Scholar.

55 Diod. iv, 19, 3, .

56 .

57 For de miris ausc. see Gercke, Aristoteles in RE. Schwartz, Diodoros 38 in RE, col. 676, said Diodorus iv, 19 was from Poseidonius; Laqueur, Timaios 3 in RE, col. 1177, says from Timaeus.

58 I can hardly believe, for example, that Diod. iv. 19, 1–2 on Alesia was written before Caesar's siege; Timaeus was not the only Greek who used absurd derivations.

59 iv, 19, 1: Heracles, having conquered Spain, hands it over to the natives to rule, . This is Alexander handing over the eastern Punjab to the conquered Porus (post).

60 For completeness I note two other things which are later than Alexander. One is the reference to Theophrastus in the ‘plan’ beginning ; I have dealt with this fully in Alexander, Cynics, and Stoics pp. 58 sq. and need not repeat it. The other is . Alexander never used synoecisms; they belong to his successors. Those who claim that the plans are genuine always translate the Greek word by Stadtgründungen, which is not what it means.

61 Diod. I, 4, 4; he even applies the word to paintings as historical records, i, 66, 5, as in IG II2 677. In 1921 I thought of the document as one of those books of extracts so very common in the Hellenistic period. This may be correct, but I would not now dogmatise on its form; it purported to give a historical record, and that suffices.

62 Bikermann, E., Arch.f. Papyrusf. ix, pp. 165Google Scholarsqq.

63 Op. cit. p. 5 [194]: possibly kept by Eumenes, who subsequently communicated them to Hieronymus.

64 Diod. xx, 81, 3.

65 Arr. vii, 15, 5, . But no embassies had come from the sea; is the phrase of a later day (post), and Arrian is making the connection with the embassies himself.

66 Arr. V, 29, 2 ; vi, 2, 1, . Cf. Glotz-Roussel-Cohen, , Histoire ancienne iv, i, 1938Google Scholar, Alexandre et le démembrement de son empire, p. 243: jouit d'une complète indépendance.

67 Diod. xviii, 39, 6. Eudamus, though he subsequently killed Porus and took his elephants (Diod. xix, 14, 8, presumably in the war with Chandragupta), was apparently not stationed in Porus' territory (Arr. vi, 27, 2); my remark that he was (Bactria and India p. 259 ) is a slip.

68 Cambridge Hist. of India I p. 471Google Scholar; Tarn, , Bactria and India, p. 46Google Scholar.

69 Gedrosia had submitted long before, when he was in Seistan: Arr. iii, 28, 1.

70 Wilcken op. cit. p. 6 [195] agrees that it was not to be a conquest, but envisages the occupation of certain points as harbours or stations; the difficulty is that Alexander had not attempted to do this in his own Gedrosia, where it was badly needed. Arrian vii, 20, 3 (from τό τε μέγεθος to the end ) is, as a comparison with vii, 20, 8 shows, only Hiero's report, and throws no light on Alexander's intentions.

71 Arr. vii, 25, 2.

72 Id. 25, 2, 4, 5.

73 Id. 25, 2, ἂμα οῑ πλέοντες.

74 Plut., Alex. 68Google Scholar (no mention of conquest).

75 It has been suggested to me that this story must have been invented after the voyages of Polybius and Eudoxus down the Atlantic coast of Africa [say perhaps rather after Poseidonius, in the Eudoxus story, had told of a Gades ship doubling the Cape]. But as Alexander certainly thought of the circumnavigation of Arabia for himself, he could equally well have thought of that of Africa; he had no idea of its size.

76 Arr. v, 26, 2; vii, 21, 1.

77 Omni ad orientem maritima regione perdomita.

78 Alexandra 1229. Arrian made the connection, n. 65 ante.

79 Livy ix, 17–19.

80 Livy ix, 18, 6. Jacoby, , F.Gr.Hist. ii no. 88Google Scholar T 9 prints this passage among his testimonia for Timagenes, which is quite unwarranted; that Livy meant Timagenes has never been anything but guesswork, and dictitare solent cannot refer to a single writer.

81 This helps to show how much of Hellenistic literature has perished without trace. For one possibility, see Tarn, , Bactria and India, p. 51, n. 2Google Scholar.

82 qui Parthorum quoque contra nomen Romanum gloriae favent. Gloria in this context cannot refer to anything before Carrhae.

83 Pliny's ascription of this embassy to Cleitarchus has I think been sufficiently discredited.

84 I gave all the evidence in 1921. Since Maspero pointed it out it has been a commonplace.

85 When in a petition in Egypt the petitioner ended by praying that the reigning Ptolemy might have the dominion of the whole earth, it meant precisely what the conclusion of an English petition means, ‘And your petitioner will ever pray et cetera’: that is, just nothing at all.

86 Professor Berve, , Klio xxxi, p. 168Google Scholar, has promised a study of Alexander's Weltherrschaftsgedanken. I hope that he will explain what the ‘world-kingdom’ is supposed to mean.

87 That is the meaning of the Diodorus plan. The word is used in Diod. xvii, 113, 1.

88 Arr. iv, 7, 5 shows that there was such a story.

89 Id. v, 26, 2.

90 Diod. xviii, 50, 2, τὰ δλα. The context shows clearly what is meant.

91 IGR 1, 901, Augustus is ib. I, 772, Alexander Severus is . So in Pliny N.H. iii, 39, Italy is chosen by the gods to be una cunctarum gentium in toto orbe patria.

92 Most recently e.g., by Ehrenberg, V., Alexander and the Greeks 1938 pp. 38, 61, 83Google Scholar, ‘empire of the world.’

93 Later times remembered this very well; see speech of Mithridates, which 2) enumerates all the countries the Livy-Trogus (Justin xxxviii, 7, 2) enumerates all the countries here given.

94 Paphlagonia became independent when Calas was killed in Bithynia (references in Berve, H., Das Alexanderreich ii, p. 188Google Scholar); his successor Demarchus was not satrap of either country.

95 No satrap of Armenia was appointed at either Babylon or Triparadeisos.