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Why was Alexander III of Macedon called 'Great'? The
answer seems relatively straightforward: from an early age
he was an achiever, he conquered territories on a superhuman
scale, he established an empire until his times unrivalled,
and he died young, at the height of his power. Thus, at the
youthful age of 20, in 336, he inherited the powerful empire
of Macedon, which by then controlled Greece and had already
started to make inroads into Asia. In 334 he invaded Persia,
and within a decade he had defeated the Persians, subdued
Egypt, and pushed on to Iran, Afghanistan and even India. As
well as his vast conquests Alexander is credited with the
spread of Greek culture and education in his empire, not to
mention being responsible for the physical and cultural
formation of the hellenistic kingdoms -- some would argue
that the hellenistic world was Alexander's
legacy.[2] He has also been viewed as a
philosophical idealist, striving to create a unity of
mankind by his so-called fusion of the races policy, in
which he attempted to integrate Persians and Orientals into
his administration and army. Thus, within a dozen years
Alexander’s empire stretched from Greece in the west to
India in the far east, and he was even worshipped as a god
by many of his subjects while still alive. On the basis of
his military conquests contemporary historians, and
especially those writing in Roman times who measured success
by the number of body-bags used, deemed him
great.[3]
However, does a man deserve to be called ‘The
Great’ who was responsible for the deaths of tens of
thousands of his own men and for the unnecessary wholesale
slaughter of native peoples? How ‘great’ is a king
who prefers constant warfare over consolidating conquered
territories and long-term administration? Or who, through
his own recklessness, often endangered his own life andthe
lives of his men? Or whose violent temper on occasion led
him to murder his friends and who towards the end of his
life was an alcoholic, paranoid, megalomaniac, who believed
in his own divinity?These are questions posed by our
standards of today of course, but nevertheless they are
legitimate questions given the influence which Alexander has
exerted throughout history -an influence which will no doubt
continue.[4]
The aims of this paper are to trace some reasons for
questioning the greatness of Alexander as is reflected in
his epithet, and to add potential evidence dealing with the
attitude of the Macedonians, Alexander"s own people, in
their king"s absence. It is important to stress that when
evaluating Alexander it is essential to view the "package"
of king as a whole; i.e., as king, commander and statesman.
All too often this is not the case. There is no question
that Alexander was spectacularly successful in the military
field, and had Alexander only been a general his epithet may
well have been deserved. But he was not just a general; he
was a king too, and hence military exploits form only a
percentage of what Alexander did, or did not do -- in other
words, we must look at the ‘package’ of him as
king as a whole. By its nature this paper is
impressionistic, and it can only deal rapidly with selected
examples from Alexander’s reign and discuss points
briefly. However, given the unequalled influence Alexander
has played in cultures and history from the time of his
death to today, it is important to stress that there is a
chasm of a difference between the mythical Alexander, which
for the most part we have today, and the historical.
Alexander died in 323, and over the course of time the
mythical king and his exploits sprang into being. Alexander
himself was not above embellishing his own life and
achievements. He very likely told the court historian
Callisthenes of Olynthus what to say about his victory over
Darius III at the battle of Issus in 333, for
example.[5] Contemporary Attic oratory also
exaggerated his achievements,[6] and so within a
generation of his death erroneous stories were already being
told.
As time continued we move into the genre of pulp fiction. In
the third or second century BC Alexander’s exploits
formed the plot of the story known as the Alexander
Romance, which added significantly to the Alexander
legend and had such a massive influence on many cultures
into the Middle Ages.[7] Given its life-span, deeds
were attributed to Alexander which are unhistorical, such as
his encounters with the tribe of headless men, his flying
exploits in a basket borne by eagles, and the search for the
Water of Life, which ended with his transformation into a
mermaid. These stories became illustrative fodder for the
various manuscripts of the Alexander Romance -- one
of the most popular episodes is Alexander’s ascent to
heaven, inspired by the myth of Bellerephon to fly to Mount
Olympus on Pegasus, which is found in many Byzantine and
later art-works, sculptures and paintings. As a result of
the Romance Alexander astonishingly appears in the
literature of other cultures: in Hebrew literature, for
example, he was seen as a preacher and prophet, who even
becomes converted to Christianity. In Persian literature he
is the hero Sikandar, sent to punish the impure peoples. In
the West he appears as a Frank, a Goth, a Russian and a
Saxon.
Then there is Plutarch, writing in the late first and second
century AD, who has probably done the most damage to our
knowing the historical Alexander. In his treatise On The
Fortune or The Virtue of Alexander, Plutarch was swayed
(understandably) by the social background against which he
was writing and especially by his own philosophical beliefs,
and he portrayed Alexander as both an action man and a
philosopher-king, whose mission was to impose Greek
civilisation on the ‘barbarian’ Persians.
Plutarch’s work is essentially a rhetorical exercise,
but as time continued
The Alexander legend was a ready feeding ground for artists
throughout the centuries as well. When Alexander invaded
Persia in 334 he detoured to Troy to sacrifice at the tomb
of his hero Achilles. This was a stirring story, which
became a model for heroic piety in the Renaissance and later
periods; thus, for example, we have Fontebasso’s
painting of Alexander’s sacrifice at Achilles’
tomb in the eighteenth century. In modern Greece Alexander
became both an art-work and a symbol, as seen in the
painting by Engonopoulos in 1977 of the face-less Alexander
standing with his arm around the face-less Pavlos Melas, a
modern hero of the struggle for Macedonian independence.
Thus, we can see how the historical Alexander has faded into
the invincible general, the great leader, explorer and king,
as time continued, especially in the Middle Ages with its
world of chivalry, warriors and great battles: a superb
context into which to fit Alexander, even if this meant
distortion of the truth, and history subsumed to legend.
Indeed, during the Middle Ages was regarded as one of the
four great kings of the ancient world. Let us now consider
some specific aspects of Alexander’s reign in support
of this.
In 334 Alexander III left home for Asia, entrusting to
Antipater as guardian (epitropos) a stable -- for a
while -- Greece and Macedon (Arr. 1.11.3). The king also
unilaterally made Antipater deputy hegemon in the League of
Corinth. Alexander’s ‘mandate’ or prime
directive, as inherited from his father Philip II and
endorsed by the League of Corinth, was to pursue his
father’s plan of punishing the Persians for their
sacrilegious acts of 150 years ago and to
‘liberate’ (whatever that meant) the Greek cities
of Asia Minor. In other words, a panhellenic mandate. After
he had fulfilled it, people quite rightly would have
expected him to return home. People were wrong: the king
would soon disregard the prime directive for personal
reasons, causing discontent amongst the army with him and
also, even more ominously, with his countrymen back
home.
We have a fair amount of information for events in mainland
Greece, especially Athens, during the reign of Alexander,
however events in Macedon in this period are undocumented
and largely unknown. We certainly cannot say that there was
a hiatus in Macedonian history, for Antipater kept Macedon
powerful and united while Alexander was absent, so much so
that there was economic growth, and education and military
training, for example, remained at a high
standard.[9] However, appearance is not likely to
reflect reality. Macedon in this period may well have been
fraught with discontent, and it provides insights into the
Macedonians’ attitude to their king and he to them. At
the same time a consideration of the Macedonian background
also lends further weight to questioning the aptness of
Alexander’s title ‘Great’.
Alexander’s military successes throughout his reign
were spectacular to a very large degree -- and certainly
manufactured by the king to be great (see below) -- and we
should expect his people back home to feel proud of their
king at the head of his panhellenic mission of punishment
and liberation, and to proclaim his victories to all and
sundry. His deeds and the geographical extent of his
conquests were certainly known for we have references to
them in contemporary Attic oratory.[10] However, the
impression which strikes us about the Macedonians themselves
is that Alexander was far from their idea of an ideal king.
Why might they feel this way? In addressing this, we can
begin with the vexed question of Macedonian manpower. Did
Alexander’s demands for reinforcements from the
mainland seriously deplete the fighting strength of the army
under Antipater? Did he make these demands regardless of the
pressure under which he was putting Antipater and without
regard for the lives of his people and the security of his
kingdom from external threat? And if so, how did the people
feel and how did they react?
I take as my example the abortive war of Agis III of 331.
This is the only Greek attempt at the overthrow of the
Macedonian hegemony which we know about from the time
Alexander left for Persia until his death, and therefore it
is significant. It is impossible to determine the fighting
strength of Macedon at this time,[11] and
Badian’s most recent discussion of this complex issue,
which effectively rebuts the views of others, will no doubt
be itself challenged at some point.[12] While
Billows and Badian argue that the fighting strength of
Macedon was never depleted to the extent that there was a
serious manpower problem, numerical accuracy is not the
issue here. It has to be said that Agis III had posed no
small threat to Antipater, and that the latter’s forces
were not at full strength (Diodorus 18.12.2 says that
Antipater was short of ‘citizen soldiers’, i.e.
Macedonians proper), and he had just sent 6,500 Macedonians
to Alexander. Alexander had left Antipater with only 13,500
Macedonians (12,000 infantry and 1500 cavalry), and when the
king needed reinforcements the first year he crossed into
Asia he had had to resort to somewhat hastily-levied local
troops (Arr. 1.24.2). In 332 Alexander needed more men
(Diod. 17.49.1, Curt. 4.6.30), this time from the Greek
mainland; in 331, 500 cavalry and 6000 infantry arrived
after the battle of Gaugamela (Diod. 17.65.1, Curt. 5.1.40),
and as late as 324 Antipater had orders to bring more men to
him (Arr. 7.12.4). Antipater was never able to rebuild his
manpower significantly. Even in the so-called Lamian War,
which broke out on Alexander’s death and lasted about a
year, he had only 600 cavalry and 13,000 infantry and was
forced to recruit soldiers from elsewhere -- and we know
what a detrimental impact on his forces the desertion of the
2,000 strong contingent of Thessalian cavalry was and how
Antipater only just managed to struggle to Lamia for refuge
(Diod. 18.12.3-4). Moreover, it was only the timely arrivals
of Leonnatus and then Craterus with several thousand
Macedonian veterans that saved the day.
Agis III had accepted ten ships and money from Persia to
hire 8,000 mercenaries (Diod. 17.48.1, Curt. 4.1.39), with
which he occupied Crete, and so in late 331 Sparta was able
to mobilise a fairly formidable force. Then in the same year
Memnon, the general of Thrace, and in command of a powerful
army (Diod. 17.62.5), leagued with some Thracians and rose
in revolt, thereby stretching Antipater’s own army
further. Antipater had to lead all his army into Thrace to
put down this rising (Diod. 17.62.6). This episode shows not
only the ever-present danger of external threats to the
kingdom’s security but also the need for an adequate
army -- something denied to Antipater. Although Antipater
dealt with Memnon and with Agis successfully, his manpower
reserve had been depleted since he had need of a large sum
from Alexander (Arr. 3.16.10) to boost his small force of
1500 cavalry and 12,000 infantry (Diod. 17.17.5), and we
later find -- in 325 -- Memnon leading 5,000 Thracian
cavalry to Alexander in Asia since Macedon could not then
have raised such a large force of cavalry.
Alexander’s money on this occasion had helped to save
the day, but money cannot be the answer to solving problems:
the king should not have continued to demand troops which
could, and did, weaken Antipater’s position. Take the
Thracian discontent at this time, Agis’ insurgence,
Peloponnesian stirrings, and throw in a potential revolt of
the Greek states (as Agis must have intended) and we have a
recipe for disaster.[13] These threats would not
have been lost on the Macedonians, and we simply cannot
imagine they would not have been worried by them.
Perhaps Alexander relied too much on money buying his way
out of trouble. Whilst he may be acclaimed for rewarding his
men with high pay, various bonuses, remission of taxes in
certain cases, cancellation of soldiers’ debts and
various signs of royal favour (Arr. 1.16.5, 7.5.1-3,
12.1-2), the argument can be made that such measures were to
ensure the loyalty of his men, especially as he pushed
further eastwards after defeating the Persians so
decisively. And the question is, what happened when money
and favour were no longer enough, especially when we
consider the ‘down side’ such as the huge numbers
of casualties stemming from Alexander’s
battles,[14] the numerous demands for
reinforcements, and especially the forced settlement from
Macedon and Greece to the newly-founded cities at the
farthest ends of the world?[15] There was also the
worrying news from those who did return home of
Alexander’s drunken rages which resulted in him killing
-- either by his own hands or from false implication in
conspiracies -- some of those close to him, his paranoia,
his orientalism, and even his belief that he was divine as a
son of Zeus. Another factor too is that his people back home
did not know Alexander as a man and a king: he had only been
home as king for about two years before he left his country,
and he showed no signs of coming back until his men forced
the issue with a mutiny (see below). Macedon needed a king,
and Alexander was not there.
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Footnotes
- I thank Professor A.B. Bosworth for his comments on
an earlier draft of this paper.
- N.G.L. Hammond, ‘The Macedonian Imprint on the
Hellenistic World’, in Hellenistic History and
Culture, ed. P. Green (Berkeley & Los Angeles
1993) 12-23.
- The first attested reference to Alexander as great is
found in Plautus, Mostellaria 775, where Tranio
compares himself to Alexander ‘the great’
(magnum) and to Agathocles of Syracuse. The
casual, non-explanatory, nature of the exchange here
would indicate that Alexander had had this title for some
time, and that the audience knew it. Besides, it would be
hard to ascribe the start of a tradition to someone like
Plautus! When was Alexander saddled with this title?
Perhaps during the reign of Ptolemy I, at the time when
he kidnapped the funeral cortege of the dead Alexander,
which proved so useful in promoting his rule.
- The most recent biography of Alexander, written by
N.G.L. Hammond, is ominously titled The Genius of
Alexander (London 1996).
- See D. Golan, ‘The Fate of a Court Historian:
Callisthenes’, Athenaeum 66 (1988)
99-120.
- See L.L. Gunderson, ‘Alexander and the Attic
Orators’, in Ancient Macedonian Studies in Honour
of C.F. Edson, ed. H.J. Dell (Thessaloniki 1981)
183-92.
- See for example R. Stoneman, ‘The Alexander
Romance: From History to Fiction’, in Greek
Fiction. The Greek Novel in Context, edd. J.R. Morgan
and R. Stoneman (London 1994) 117-29.
- The historical accuracy of this work was attacked by
E. Badian in his classic article ‘Alexander the
Great and the Unity of Mankind’, Historia 7
(1958) 425-44. See more recently S. Schröder,
‘Zu Plutarchs Alexanderreden’, MH 48
(1991) 151-7 and A.B. Bosworth, Alexander and the
East (Oxford 1996) 2-5.
- On Macedon during Alexander’s absence and
especially the disunity, potential and otherwise, cf.
N.G.L. Hammond and F.W. Walbank, A History of
Macedonia 3 (Oxford 1988) 86-94 and R.M. Errington,
History of Macedonia (Berkeley & Los Angeles
1990) 104 and 114-15.
- Aes. 3.65, Din. 1.34; cf. Hyp. 5.31-32. On the
Dinarchus passage see Ian Worthington, A Historical
Commentary on Dinarchus (Ann Arbor 1992) ad
loc., with references there cited.
- On troop numbers see the discussion of R. Billows,
Kings and Colonists (Leiden 1995) 183-212. Billows
believes that Macedon did not face a manpower shortage at
this time, although I disagree.
- E. Badian, ‘Agis ’, Ventures into Greek
History. Essays in Honour of N.G.L. Hammond, ed. Ian
Worthington (Oxford 1994) 259-68, who is right to stress
that precise figures will never be known. For an opposing
view see A.B. Bosworth, ‘Alexander the Great and the
Decline of Macedon’, JHS 106 (1986) 1-12.
- Though the Greeks may well have come to accept the
Macedonian hegemony, at least while Alexander was alive:
see Ian Worthington, ‘The Harpalus Affair and the
Greek Response to the Macedonian Hegemony’,
Ventures into Greek History. Essays in Honour of
N.G.L. Hammond, ed. Ian Worthington (Oxford 1994)
307-30.
- Professor Bosworth cautions me here on the extent of
the casualties. He believes that there was regular
attrition, no major disaster (except at the Persian
Gates), and that the casualty rate may have been ‘as
low as 30%. Nearly 20,000 out of 30,000+ seem to have
survived’ (personal letter). Admittedly, in battles
using arrows, sarissas, and short swords, the prediction
of dead and wounded is impossible, but for over one third
of Alexander’s combat troops to have been killed or
maimed is hardly a low percentage! If a figure of 30%
represents those actually killed, then at least the same
number would have been wounded, which for an army amounts
to an annihilation.
- On cities founded by Alexander, see now P.M. Fraser,
Cities of Alexander the Great (Oxford 1996) who
limits Alexander’s genuine foundations to eight
(excluding Alexandria in Egypt).
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