Eyewitness accounts of Alexander’s life

Alexander's life and exploits are best known to us from the leading ancient historians, Arrian of Nicomedia, Diodorus Siculus, Curtius Rufus, and Plutarch. Their works, however, were written several centuries after the king's death and based mainly on books that are now mostly lost. 

Since these authors used a different source or a combination of the available material, we ended up having different versions of the same story, which, in turn, can be interpreted individually. 

The oldest eyewitness account was written by Anaximenes of Lampsacus, who lived from c. 380 until 320 BC. It is highly probable that his On Alexander, which included the Battle of Issus and more, was published during Alexander's lifetime. After all, he accompanied the king to Persia. Except for some fragments, the book is lost. Upon the invitation of Philip II, Anaximenes lived at the Royal Court of Pella and wrote the king's history, Philippica.  

Callisthenes of Olynthus (c.360 – c.327 BC) was a nephew of Aristotle, upon whose recommendation he was appointed to become Alexander's Court historian. He accompanied the king to Asia, where he kept the official records of Alexander's expeditions. Around 330 BC, he wrote his Deeds of Alexander up to the Battle of Gaugamela or possibly the death of Darius in 330 BC. In 327 BC, Callisthenes was implicated in a conspiracy to assassinate Alexander. He was imprisoned and died seven months later. Except for a few fragments, the book is lost. 

Ptolemy, undoubtedly the best-known eyewitness, wrote his account between 320 and 283 BC. Ptolemy had grown up at Philip's court and became one of Alexander's generals to join him on his Asian campaign. As a result, his book covered the entire reign of Alexander, particularly from the military point of view. Arrian widely used Ptolemy's history, which he thought was very trustworthy. Unfortunately, this account is also lost, except for fragments. After Alexander's death, Ptolemy became king of Egypt and founded the Ptolemaic dynasty that ended with Cleopatra VII in 30 BC. 

Very shortly after Alexander's death, Nearchus of Crete wrote his Indike about his Indian campaigns. Nearchus had been with Alexander from the beginning. As the king's admiral, he would have led the fleet to the Gates of Heracles – a plan that never materialized. Only fragments of this book have reached us; it is otherwise lost (see: The Ephemerides of Alexander's Expedition by C.A. Robinson). 

Onesicritus, Alexander's helmsman sailing down the Indus, also wrote a now-lost book, How Alexander was educated, shortly after the king's death. A philosopher himself, he presented Alexander as such. Onesicritus was often in competition with Nearchus, and his book had a reputation for not being reliable. Few fragments survived (see: The Ephemerides of Alexander's Expedition by C.A. Robinson). 

After Alexander's death, his chamberlain Chares also wrote an eyewitness account, Histories of Alexander. He covered the later years of Alexander's reign. This book is lost, except for some fragments. 

Aristobulus of Cassandreia, in turn, covered the entire reign of Alexander in a kind of autobiography. The book, whose title is unknown, was written shortly after the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. Except for some fragments, it is lost. Aristobulus was one of the king's engineers and was put in charge of restoring Cyrus' tomb in Pasargadae. 

The most essential account was the Ephemerides, the Royal Diaries, the 'official' daily report that Eumenes of Cardia supposedly kept. He was appointed Alexander's personal secretary after having served Philip previously. There are serious doubts about the authenticity of these Royal Diaries because rumors circulate that the original document was later rewritten. Instead of having a book from Alexander's lifetime, it may well have become a forgery of a later date. The original is lost, except for fragments. The Ephemerides led to the Alexander Romance. 

The oldest known version of the Alexander Romance dates probably from the 3rd century AD, and its author is unknown, although it has been attributed to Pseudo-Callisthenes. The name has nothing to do with the Callisthenes mentioned above, who died before Alexander. The earliest version of the Romance was composed in Alexandria shortly after Alexander's death and related the story of his life, spiced with many fantastic tales that never happened. Over the centuries, the Romance was translated, truncated, embellished, and circulated throughout Europe and Asia. 

This list is incomplete; we know many other authors only by name. Their work is all lost, except for fragments or quotes by other historians. 

It is hard to believe that so few would have written about Alexander's exploits among the thousands of rulers, philosophers, generals, artists, and even ordinary soldiers who met him. The Persians and the Indians certainly shared their encounter with Alexander, yet barely any such documents surfaced until recently.

The hard reality is that even fragments of writing from Alexander's lifetime have survived. The most famous man in history would have disappeared had it not been for men like Arrian, Diodorus, Curtius, and Plutarch.

Alexander's projects and future plans, including his conquest of the West, are also largely neglected. Yet every single one is worth mentioning, which I did in a separate post: Alexander’s missed voyage to conquer the West.

[Papyrus from Macedonian Archaeology Quota]

Latest update 30 January 2025

End of Alexander’s campaigns in Central Asia (Central Asia 14)

In the chronological confusion, where exactly Alexander spent the winter of 328/327 BC needs to be clarified. Depending on the choice, the sieges of the Sogdian Rocks would have taken place in the fall of 328 BC rather than in the spring of 327 BC. But give or take a few months, this only changes a little to the facts.

The year 327 BC will be Alexander’s last year in Bactria and Sogdiana, but it will be another eventful year. He may well have reached a satisfactory settlement with the tribes of Central Asia by now, but within his own camp, matters were taking a different turn. The Macedonians strongly felt they were the conquerors of Asia and, therefore, superior. On the other hand, Alexander understood very well that he could not rule the Persians in the same way he led the Macedonians. There was no way the Persians would respect a king who didn’t live by their ceremonial requirements, which the Macedonians regarded as pure barbarian.

Alexander wanted to put all his subjects on equal footing, but this was a sensitive matter. He had already appointed several Persians to govern newly conquered satrapies, taking others in his personal service. He tried to compromise by adopting some aspects of their protocol, wearing some of the Persian regalia - but if the Persians welcomed this, it was heavily resented by his fellow countrymen.

There was, for instance, the sensitive matter of the proskynesis, a prostration the Persians used to perform to their king as a sign of respect, but which was ridiculed and rejected by the Macedonians, who would only prostrate themselves in front of their gods. Alexander could have abolished the proskynesis, but he would have lost face with the Persian courtiers and kinsmen, or he could have implemented separate rules for the Persians and the Macedonians, which, in the end, he did. But before reaching that decision, Alexander wanted to give proskynesis a try. It happened in Bactra, where he organized a banquet to be attended by both Persian noblemen and his Macedonian companions. The plan was that they all would toast to his health and then perform the proskynesis. There was a fiery speech about Macedonian values, at the end of which the Persians rose and prostrated themselves before Alexander. Then, as had been arranged, a golden loving cup was passed among the companions (as reported by Chares, the Royal Chamberlain). The king's companions would have a drink, rise from their seats, prostrate themselves, and then receive a kiss from Alexander. 

All went well until it was Callisthenes’ turn, Aristotle's court historian and nephew. Callisthenes of Olynthus drank from the cup and skipped the prostration to get the kiss, thinking Alexander was too busy talking to Hephaistion to notice him. Alexander might have ignored the missed prostration, but not his companions, who were watching each other with eagle eyes and notified Alexander immediately of the cheating. The king refused to kiss him. It is said that Callisthenes simply shrugged his shoulders, saying that he would return to his seat a kiss poorer. This was enough proof for Alexander that the best way would be merely to compromise, leaving the Persians to perform their prostration and not demanding it from his Macedonians.

Callisthenes definitely made headlines in Bactra, for he may well have been playing a significant role in the pages’ conspiracy against Alexander that happened shortly after the banquet. The pages were young men from leading Macedonian families in charge of guarding the king when he slept or joining him on his hunting parties. Yet part of their training was also provided by Callisthenes, whom they greatly admired. One of these pages, Hermolaus, seems to have broken the royal etiquette during a hunting party when he shot Alexander’s prey. That was a no-no, and Alexander ordered him to be whipped before his comrades. This fact alone was not a reason enough to plan the conspiracy. Still, the general resentment of Persian favors, fueled by Callisthenes’ personal attitude towards the king, may have contributed to the plot. A close group of pages managed to switch guard duties so that they all were on watch the same night. They would assassinate Alexander in his sleep. Yet Alexander stayed up all night, drinking till dawn, and never went to bed. Inevitably, the plan leaked, and Hermolaus and the other suspects were executed after fruitless interrogations and torture. No evidence was found against Callisthenes, but he was imprisoned all the same, and he eventually died.

Alexander was paying a very high price for his life and his plans to march into India. Hephaistion must have been quite a comfort to him in these needy times, and Alexander knew how to reward him by promoting him second in command with the title of Chiliarch. This meant that he carried military responsibilities, a job, and a title created by the Persian Kings. Personally, I feel that Alexander could have given his friend no greater honors.
        

During this time, Alexander decided to have 30,000 young Persians trained in Macedonian warfare and Greek writing. He obviously was very proud of these “epigonoi,” as they were called, but his Macedonians did not generally accept their presence. In their eyes, the conquered people remained their inferiors and forever enemies, not people they were now supposed to take into their ranks and treat as equals. The king had also promoted one of Oxyartes’ sons, a brother of Roxane, to a high position.
 

That summer, Alexander moved south to Alexandria-in-the-Caucasus (Begram in Afghanistan), where his army spent a lazy summer. Alexander, however, worked hard to reshuffle his army and draw up an entirely new plan.

To start with, he left 14,000 men to supervise the Oxus provinces. His strategic phalanx was dismantled since it no longer served its purpose in this terrain and in guerrilla wars. The mounted Lancers joined the Companion Cavalry together with the habile horsemen from Bactria and Sogdiana, to which he added 2,000 horse-archers from Spitamenes’ nomads. He must have thought it preferable to have these Central Asian forces fight at his side rather than against him.

On another level, the commanding posts needed to be redistributed now that Philotas was executed, and both Parmenion and Cleitos had been murdered. Their detachments were split between Ptolemy, Hephaistion, Perdiccas, and Leonnatus. The Royal Shield Bearers were promoted to the title of Silver Shields, led by Seleucos and Nearchus, under the supreme command of Neoptolemus (family of Olympias). The Royal Squadron of Companions remained under Alexander’s own command. These Cavalry Commanders and trusted squadron leaders made it possible to divide his army more freely between different attacks at any one time. These past three years have been a harsh and unforgiving lesson, but it was not lost on Alexander. You must be a military man to truly fathom what such a reorganization implied. For Alexander, this was a far cry from the kind of warfare he grew up with and had used so far in his career, but he must have realized its limits. His genius once again prevailed.

The people of Bactria-Sogdiana, however, were left very much to solve their own fate, which cannot have been very promising. Those not killed in the repeated raids were largely herded together and moved to populate the newly built Alexandrias. They had been torn from their tribes and ancestral grounds to live among Macedonian veterans who hated these places and had instead returned to their homelands. Daily life must have been a struggle for everyone, and far from the idealized picture, most historians would like us to believe that Alexander “civilized” the East. With no clearly drawn frontiers and no political victory, he instead left these peoples to their old way of life – unless their Macedonian rulers could convince them otherwise (The cultural success happened much later, after Seleucos’ rule and the start of the Graeco-Bactrian dynasty). For Alexander, it was a sad balance of three years of heavy campaigning and heavy losses of precious lives.

Alexander’s interference in Central Asia ended in Alexandria-in-the-Caucasus, where he received the submission of several Indian tribes from this side of the Indus and the surrender of Taxiles. In the early winter of 327 BC, he marched up the Kunar Valley into the Swat Valley and thus entered India. Alexander moves into another chapter of his short life.

This ends my impressions of Uzbekistan, or, should I say, my impressions of Bactria and Sogdiana. A fascinating country with far more to offer than one would expect, but I wonder if other travelers will find the traces of Alexander the Great I found, or maybe simply imagined? Who knows.

[Picture of the Persian noblemen is from Oliver Stone's movie]
[Click on the label Central Asia to read the full story]