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Heracles Son of Barsine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

W. W. Tarn
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Extract

Some of our extant authorities, as Justin and Appian, state or assume that Alexander had two sons, Roxane's and Barsine's. Others, as Diodorus in the events prior to 309, and Curtius in parts, state or assume that he had only one, Roxane's. Now it makes a considerable difference in our view of the events of 309 whether the lad called Heracles, who appeared in that year as a reputed son of Alexander and Barsine, were really Alexander's son or an ordinary pretender. No modern historian has even noticed that there is a conflict of authority; for though Beloch saw that Heracles' age was wrong he did not follow it up, but altered the age. Before coming to the events of 309, the source of the evidence for Alexander having one son only must be considered.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , 1921 , pp. 18 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1921

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References

1 Schubert, , Die Quellen zur Geschichte der Diadochenzeit (1914)Google Scholar, to which I shall often refer, makes Diyllus play a large part in Diodorus 18–20; but the foundations of this belief (it is an old controversy) are very shaky indeed. I should be sorry to assume (for instance) that all the pro-Cassander material must be Diyllus, because one bit is. Why should not Hieronymus have been able to see both sides of Cassander, as he certainly did to some extent in Perdiccas' case? When he wrote he was the friend of Cassander's nephew Gonatas, who in part continued the Antipater-Cassander tradition; and in estimating his attitude we must allow for this no less than for his friendship with Cassander's enemies, Eumenes and Antigonus I.

2 ‘Alexander' ὑπομνήυατα and the “world-kingdom”,’ in this numier of J.H.S.

3 See generally Rostowzew, , Geschichte der römischen Kolonates (1910), p. 251 seq.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tarn, , Antigonos Gonatas (1913), p. 191Google Scholar.

4 Diod. 18, 43, 1, his claim that Egypt is δορίκτητος. Also, after he took the royal title, he reckoned his satrapal years as part of his reign.

5 Diod. 19, 55, 3; he asserts in 316 that he owes no account of his revenues to anybody. If the statement in App. Syr. 63 that he reigned forty-two years (i.e. from 321) represent a true tradition, then he also reckoned his satrapal years as part of his reign.

6 The Vatican fragments of Arrian Diad., § 6. The references to Aristonoos in Curtius (9, 5, 15 and 18; 10, 6, 16) are, of course, not historical.

7 Ausfeld, A., ‘Das angebliche Testament Alexanders des Grossen,’ Rh. Mus. 56 (1901), 517Google Scholar.

8 It may have belonged to the propaganda war of 318–317 between Olympias and her friends on one side, and Cassander and the Peripatetics on the other (Plut., Alex. 77)Google Scholar. But this war may have been going on, with different protagonists, since Alexander's death, or even since Callisthenes'. No one seems to have studied it. If it could be reconstructed (and parts of it are obvious) we should know more of the history of the Successors than we do.

8 Taking Cleodice as representing Eurydice, it being necessary, on the scheme of the document, for Leonnatus also to receive a royal bride, and there being reason to suppose that Cynane's daughter is, anyhow, the person meant. Double names of queens are so common at this time that some must have changed their name at marriage: e.g. Audata-Eurydice, Adeia-Eurydice, Cynna-Cynane, Myrtale-Olympias, Rhodo-gune-Sisygambis, Barsine-Stateira.

10 Poimandres (1904), App. 5, p. 315.

11 O.G.I.S. 4, both kings. O.G.I.S. 8 (v.) Syll. 3 311, and I.G. ii2. 401, Philip alone.

12 Bauer, Georg, Die Heidelberger Epitome (1914), p. 81Google Scholarseq.

13 Diodorus often makes such additions on his own account; see the instances collected by Jacoby, ‘Hieronymos’ in Pauly-Wissowa, and Schubert passim.

14 Arr. 7, 4, 4 seq. As Arrian quotes a variant from Aristobulus, this list is from Ptolemy.

15 I think Kahrstedt's date for the capture of Hermeias, (Forschungen zur Geschichte des ausgehenden fünften und des vierten Jahrhunderts, 1910)Google Scholar is now generally accepted.

16 Darius' brother is called Oxathres; this proves that this passage is Cleitarchus; see Diod. 17, 77, 4; Curt. 7, 5, 40; Plut., Alex. 43Google Scholar. His real name was Oxyartes; Ptolemy ap. Arr. 7, 4, 5.

17 Nothing in Diod. 17, or in Curtius till after 10, 6, i.e. after Cleitarchus ceases. This is very notable; for Cleitarchus loved to relate an intrigue, e.g. the Amazon queen, and Cleophis.

18 Ptolemy's speech in Curtius, in alluding to Heracles, reproduces what Polyperchon did later, precisely as, in alluding to the Alexander-tent, it reproduces what Eumenes did later.

19 It is more than possible (as we shall see) that Parmenion did give Alexander such advice, but with regard to the real Barsine, Darius' daughter, and that Aristo-bulus had some idea of it, and, with the vulgate before him, naturally supposed that it referred to the other (Polyperchon's) ‘Barsine’ and that Alexander had taken the advice. We know that Alexander's treatment of Darius' family sadly upset every one's ideas of how a conqueror ought to behave.

20 See another case of Memnon for Mentor, Strabo 13, 610.

21 That Artabazus was a son of Pharnabazus and Apama, daughter of Artaxerxes II., is a pure guess, and not very probable on the dates. Apama was mar ried late in 387. In 342 Artabazus had twenty-one children by one wife (eleven sons), and Mentor that year gave ‘his sons’ commands in the army (Diod. 16, 52, 4). Literally, this means the whole eleven. Probably it really means ‘some.’ Even so, Artabazus cannot well have been married later than 370, and most probably married much earlier; for, even if Curtius be wrong in making him ninety-five in 330, at any rate he retired from his satrapy in 328 on the ground of old age; and the period was one which saw men of eighty still commanding armies in the field. If he were Apama's son, he was under sixty when he retired. He may have been Pharnabazus' son; but Nòldeke's idea that Apama was his mother was based solely on the belief that he had a daughter Apama. This, as we have seen, was a mere blunder of Duris', possibly due to the fact that there was an Apama (Spitamenes' daughter) among the brides at Susa.

22 Bauer, op. c. p. 51 n., with references.

23 Schachermeyer, F., ‘Das Ende des makedönischen Königshauses,’ Klio 16 (1920), 332Google Scholar, suggests that Heracles in Justin 15, 2, 3 means Alexander IV.; but his article is quite superficial and does not examine the questions involved.