Alexander the Great. The Brief Life and Towering Exploits …

Alexander the Great. The Brief Life and Towering Exploits of History’s Greatest Conqueror as told by his Original Biographers. By Brenda Jackson and Ronald L. McDonald. Edited by Tania Gergel. Introduction by Michael Wood. ISBN 0 14 20.0140 6

Just what I wanted, Alexander’s life story “as told by his original biographers” and since it included a foreword by Michael Wood, whom I hold in high esteem, I thought this would be the purchase of my life!

Although it is a noteworthy book where classic authors like Arrian, Plutarch and Curtius Rufus, are skillfully tied together in a pleasant narrative, I ended up feeling that the most interesting section was actually Michael Wood’s introduction. He at least knows how to kindle that sparkle that makes a book interesting and fascinating to read. Brenda Jackson and Ronald L. McDonald's story is more a flat statement of facts and figures from a past that seems even more remote than it already is.

I’ll hang on to Michael Wood’s last introductory sentence where he is quoting Arrian “… It is my belief that … never in the world was there another like him [Alexander]”.

A thought for Roxane, Alexander’s Bactrian wife

At times my mind travels in strange ways or I may simply get carried away by the emotions of the moment as happened recently went I attended a singing performance from Samarkand by a lady called Monajat Yulchieva.

With her velvet voice and natural grace, she was meant to become an opera singer but turned instead to the old tradition of shashmâquam, the typical songs from Uzbekistan. She found inspiration in Sufi texts that matched harmoniously with the string and percussion instruments of her native country. This is how she was announced in the media and somehow I felt I needed to see and hear her on stage (Bozar, Brussels, Sept 2009). This turned out to be quite a revelation, I can assure you! 

Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand a word of what she was singing, so it was all pure emotion that came to me. The first three songs were adaptations from folk songs, but then the sound and expression took an entirely different turn. At times, the tunes reminded me of some Chinese songs; in other parts, the melodies reflected the emptiness of the steppe where the notes were suspended in the thin desert air.

Monajat Yulchieva has a fine appearance, someone you do justice by calling her a lady. Utterly gracious and although no longer in her youngest years, you’ll easily qualify her as very handsome. It was almost evident that my thoughts went to the women Alexander would have met on his journey through that part of Asia, and in particular to Roxane. If she was as beautiful as some ancient writers pretend, she might have looked something like Monajat in her teens. Why not?

Unfortunately, no image of Roxane has come to us and the only way I can visualize her is through Oliver Stone’s movie Alexander but that is as remote as Pietro Antonio Rotari’s painting that was shown recently at the Hermitage Museum in Amsterdam (see: Immortal Alexander the Great). So I feel entitled to having my own image of Roxane.

Those who are truly interested in sharing this very special musical experience can watch Monajat Yulchieva on video here. Let me know if I’m right, yes?

Alexander de Grote, Macht als Noodlot by Peter Bamm

This book, written by Peter Bamm, is rarely mentioned in any literature about Alexander the Great. Yet I think this is a must for any novice willing to learn the basics about the person and the campaigns of Alexander.  ASIN: B0000COC3F

It was my very first substantial book I read about Alexander and I was hooked for the rest of my life! It was published in 1968 and may seem out of date here and there (the Macedonian city of Aegae is still believed to be in Edessa) with its black and white illustrations, but the photographs perfectly reflect the desolation of the eastern landscapes he was confronted with, the high mountain ranges, the wide wild rivers and unforgiving deserts. The illustrations are engraved in my memory forever and the vivid descriptions of Peter Bamm really make Alexander come alive.

Peter Bamm takes you by the hand as the story unfolds and leads you through a first-hand experience.

Amidst Shrapnel in Afghanistan

A near miracle, I dare say, to see archaeologists at work in Afghanistan while the fighting between the Taliban and the Western forces is still an ongoing business. An article from Reuters, meaning that we can consider the information as trustworthy, reports on 17 August 2010 about Buddhist remains that are being discovered south of Kabul.

Mohammad Nader Rasouli, head of the Afghan Archaeological Department, mentions that two statues were found, respectively seven and nine meters high, and some coins. They also uncovered a temple, some stupas, and rooms decorated with colorful frescoes and gold. Some of the finds have been dated to the 5th century, but there may be artifacts dating from the BC era.

[Picture from Fox News]

The site is located in the Aynak region of the Logar province, close to the area where the Chinese have recently started mining copper ore. The mine exploitation is not harming the excavations, but looters and smugglers are. They were there even before the government could start excavation work last year. Always a pity when those things happen.

The situation is grim, as can be expected, for we all remember how the radical Taliban destroyed the giant Buddha statues at Bamyan at the end of the last decade; many more antiquities and historical sites were destroyed or pillaged in the process.

Rasouli says that they don’t have the resources to move the relics to a safe place, but he hopes to build a museum there instead, adding, "We need foreign assistance to preserve these and their expertise to help us with further excavations."

Safeguarding a country’s archaeological heritage is never easy, but in war zones it is always worse. Let’s hope that a reasonable solution can be found for Afghanistan, which, in my eyes, is part of the land conquered by Alexander the Great. There must be an enormous wealth of archaeological treasures from his days and from Hellenistic times still hidden out there … somewhere…

All Alexander’s Women. Sisygambis’ Letters by Robbert Bosschart

The title alone made me stop in my tracks: Sisygambis' Letters (ISBN 1439272018)! I got “hooked” on this subject after attending a lecture by Robbert Bosschart at the Zenobia Congress 2010 when I heard his thorough investigation of the women in the life of Alexander the Great for the first time. Besides this book, which is a historic novel, he also wrote another one, All Alexander’s Women, that records his in-depth study of the matter, and I have to admit that I find this quite exciting.

How Bosschart dared talk about “all his women” made me raise my eyebrows at first for Alexander didn’t have that many wives or concubines. But Bosschart is not exactly talking about spouses and mistresses, but rather about the mother figures in Alexander’s life: his own mother Olympias, of course; Queen Ada of Caria; and most of all about Sisygambis, the Queen Mother of Persia. Alexander’s sister Cleopatra also enters the picture, although we know very little about her and most is pure speculation.

This novel gives us a kind of detective story in which a Swiss archaeologist with the significant name of Barsine gets hold of several secret papyri which she is able to decode. These documents turn out to be the private correspondence between Queen Ada and Queen Sisygambis mostly, but there are also a few coded messages written by Alexander personally. This is evidently a very utopian happening, but all in all, through these documents, we are able to shed an entirely new light on the Persian world in which Alexander had to move as a King.

New to me, and this is no fiction, is to hear that women in the East (which includes Persia) were very much emancipated. They occupied high positions, could exercise a profession, and were considered the equals of men! Once you manage to let that knowledge sink in, it is quite amazing and even more unbelievable to realize that thanks to the Romans and the Christian belief we needed more than two thousand years to start the process of emancipation all over again!

Keeping this concept of emancipation in mind, the person of Olympias –whose forefathers came from Troy – is to be seen in an entirely different light. The role of Barsine, the widow of Memnon and mistress of Alexander (she gave him a son, Heracles) cannot be neglected either, particularly if you remember that she spoke Greek and was able to converse with Alexander. Through her, he would have been aware of the protocol at the Persian Court, meaning that when he went to Sisygambis’ tent after the Battle of Issus, he must have known how to carry himself and how to handle this situation with the correct procedure. And let us not forget Queen Ada, who was put back on the throne of Caria by Alexander himself after the siege of Halicarnassus. She was not a queen by name only, but one who had full power to rule. Remember that unlike in other cities, Alexander did not leave a Macedonian garrison behind to have a finger in the pie. That is no small matter!

We are used to looking at Alexander as a conqueror, a fighter, and maybe even as a politician, but rarely as a human being and certainly not in a world where a woman had as much to say as a man. It is an intoxicating thought to even consider what our world would have looked like had Alexander lived long enough to organize his empire, taking this aspect into account! We certainly would not have known a Roman Empire, and Christianity would not have spread (or would have spread differently) in a world of religious tolerance and equality between men and women. I am sure the Greeks and more so the Macedonians will have taken great care to leave that knowledge out of their records!

A subject for deep reflection and lengthy discussions, no doubt! This very book, although it is a historic novel, is no less exciting and makes highly entertaining and intriguing reading!

The Iliad by Homer

The Iliad by Homer ISBN-10: 0140447946. It took me quite a while before I finally managed to read The Iliad, and I got hooked on it! I started this book at least ten or fifteen times before, but I never could manage more than just a few pages. As a matter of fact, I was always curious to find out why Alexander the Great thought so highly of Achilles, and this book, keeping a copy of it with annotations by Aristotle under his pillow all throughout his life. Achilles, the hero of the Iliad, fascinated him to the point that he wanted to emulate his very acts – all in all, reason enough for me to read it.

Lately, I watched the movie Troy with Brad Pitt once again. This picture upset me very much, for the sun is rising in the morning over Troy while this old city is facing straight West. The more I see of this movie, the more confused I get! How can they make a historic movie with so many errors or mistakes? For instance, there is Patroclus being introduced as being Achilles’ cousin, which he is not, just an attendant who grew up with him. There is Briseis, presented as a cousin of Hector’s and a priestess of Apollo. She was neither, only Achilles’ booty, which Agamemnon took away from him because his own girl, Chryseis, priestess of Apollo, had to be returned to her father in exchange for a lavish ransom. And then I am not even talking about the famous horse that never could be rolled over the sandy beach shown in the picture, etc. Well, so much for the movie, but it pushed me to dig out the full and true story about Troy once and for all. What better source than Homer’s Iliad?

The Iliad is generally attributed to Homer, who may have written it or not, or may simply have assembled old tales to create the Iliad at some time around 700 or 800 BC, although even these dates are subject to discussion. My book is a Penguin Classics publication, translated by E.V. Rieu, revised and updated by his son D.C.H. Rieu and by Peter Jones to make it pleasant reading material without dreary old-fashioned phrasing.

To simplify the complex story, I skipped most of the interference by all the gods and goddesses, and I was amazed to find such thrilling reading material! To my surprise, I learnt that four-fifths of the action in the Iliad occurs during a mere four days and nights, while one third of the book covers just a twenty-four hours’ period! Such a short period of time, when you know that the Trojan War lasted for about ten years. That never occurred to me!

In any case, The Iliad is written in the same way a storyteller would present his tale to the general public as he traveled from one village to the next, repeating certain phrases and facts to make sure his audience would understand the essence to the fullest. Yet it is also filled with unexpected details. One such detail is when Patroclus is preparing the meat for Achilles’ guests and adds salt! Isn’t it amazing that this was already common practice three thousand years ago and maybe even before that, in the days of Troy? Then there is the description of Agamemnon’s body armor that was made of strips, ten dark-blue inlays, twelve of gold,  and twenty of tin, on either side of which three blue snakes rose up towards the opening of the neck. That must have been a breathtaking sight by itself, not to mention the other fancy parts of his outfit that are being described with the tiniest details!

And then, last but not least, there is the making of Achilles’ shield by Hephaistos, the god of Fire! That description alone covers five full pages! What a superb piece of art this must have been, made of five full layers of imperishable bronze and some tin, and precious gold and silver on which he applied all sorts of decorations! It had a silver shoulder strap, nothing less! No wonder Alexander the Great exchanged shields when he saw this one at the Temple of Apollo after setting foot on Asian soil!

Well, I couldn’t believe how excited I got, for besides the story itself,  it is so detailed in many ways. Another example is the in-depth description of the Funeral Games for Achilles’ dearest friend Patroclus: the kind of games, who was competing against whom, what the prizes were, how the games were played, etc. I just heard recently that the Iliad is our only source when it comes to finding out about games in antiquity, so the more for Funeral Games!

And all of this interesting material and all these wonderful descriptions have been sleeping on my bookshelf for years! What a waste!

The Macedonian « kausia »

No, I’m not starting a lesson in Greek, but certain words simply cannot be translated. The kausia is a typical flat Macedonian hat that was particularly popular during the Hellenistic period, perhaps even before the days of Alexander the Great. For myself I can easily picture Alexander wearing this pancake hat, certainly after seeing this small terracotta statue of a young boy at the British Museum in London. But this is, of course, my personal opinion.

According to certain studies, the so-called lion hunt mosaic from Pella shows Alexander wearing such a kausia, but this appears to be a much flatter hat, maybe even made of straw. This form is more closely related to what the Bactrian Kings have been wearing during the centuries following Alexander’s conquest of their land as shown on their coins. Personally I like to refer to that headdress as a colonial sun helmet.

Anyway, I can tell you that the best story comes from Afghanistan! The men there still take pride in wearing a kind of wide woolen beret entirely inspired on the Macedonian kausia, which they call pakul, the traditional national headdress. In fact it is worn by specific tribes in a much wider area reaching all the way to Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as well.

Yet another piece of Alexander’s heritage. He'll never stop amazing me!

Traces of Alexander the Great in Lebanon?

A few months ago I heard about Theodore May who was walking in Alexander’s footsteps from the Turkish-Syrian border all the way to Babylon in today’s Iraq (see: More in the Footsteps of Alexander the Great). On his way along the eastern Mediterranean coast he had to cross Lebanon, a country of which we know very little since tourism is virtually non existent and we have only a vague idea of the archaeological treasures that may be hidden there.

The Romans have occupied that part of their Empire and have left their imprints atop of much older cities like Baalbek, to name just one. To my surprise Theodore May was talking about ruins of the Greek civilization that preceded the Roman. Of course, Alexander the Great must have crossed these lands after he conquered Egypt, heading east to strike a final blow on King Darius of Persia. Yet so little is documented of this itinerary and I personally wonder about the place and name of Umm el-Amed I am hearing here for the first time.

[picture by Theodore May]

On his way, Theodore May met up with Dr Paul Newson, who has done extensive fieldwork throughout the Middle East, and together they set out to find this ancient city, only a few miles from the tense Lebanon-Israel border hidden in a field amidst overgrown thorn bushes. It really turns out to be in the middle of nowhere as they drive down from Tyre, across banana fields and small villages, till they reach a narrow country lane with still no ruins in sight.

It takes a professional eye like that of Paul Newson to know which way to go. After some scrambling the two men find themselves standing on the old temple complex of Milk Ashtart, on the edge of the ancient Umm el-Amed civilization. A little further, to the East they find another temple. The foundation of the temples is still very much intact, and several column segments lie around it. The original complex from the 5th century BC is considered as the Phoenician prototype for the Greek god Heracles, and these two temples were built some time between 287 and 222 BC. i.e. long after Alexander the Great had crossed the region. Their date links them to the Ptolemaic period, when it was fashion to combine Greek religious elements with the local pagan deities.

The site of Umm el-Amed was discovered by a French explorer in 1772, but excavations didn't start until 1861 and even those cannot have been very serious. According to Paul Newson, further excavations are unlikely for their cost would be astronomical. Beside, there is no money to be made in return by visiting tourists – not yet at least...

The Death of Alexander the Great. A Reconstruction of Cleitarchus. By A. Chugg

A titanic job, nothing less. In his book A Reconstruction of Cleitarchus (ISBN 9780955679025), Andrew Chug has compared the surviving texts from Curtius, Diodorus, and Justin to filter out the original work these authors have used themselves to filter out what was written by Cleitarchus of Alexandria. To a lesser extent, Chugg also includes Arrian, although this author mainly based his book on the texts left by Ptolemy and the Metz Epitome. A convenient drawing with the links used by each and every author in antiquity is quite revealing.

Cleitarchus, son of Deinon, wrote his account in the decades following Alexander’s death, and most of the surviving ancient texts were more or less based upon his work. However, not a single copy has come to us since they all were destroyed or discarded at some time or another.

Chugg pinpointed which texts or phrases are commonly used by Curtius and Diodorus, with eventually an addition when Justin uses the same words. A Table overview accounting for the matches is constructive. And so is the Table showing the first division of the Satrapies soon after Alexander died in Babylon, listing each territory with the name of the appointed governor (satrap) as given by Diodorus, Justin, Curtius, Cleitarchus himself, as well as separately by Arrian, Dexippus and the Metz Epitome. Sounds all very technical, but it becomes quite interesting when in the end, we can read this part of Alexander’s history as it was presumably put down by Cleitarchus in the first place. A daring undertaking but a highly interesting one.

Most of Chugg's book is centered around Cleitarchus' Book 13, covering the period from July 324 BC to July 323 BC and beyond, i.e., the very last year of Alexander’s life. The subjects treated here are many: the Flight of Harpalus; the Exiles Decrees, the Mutiny at Opis; Death of Hephaistion; The Cosseans; Death in Babylon; Aftermath and Entombment. After a detailed comment and investigation of each chapter, one can read the full text as it may have been put down by Cleitarchus initially. A captivating story, especially since specific paragraphs have been put back in their original sequence, ensuring the continuity of events.

The book ends again with a Table giving for each episode in Cleitarchus' terms, the corresponding sources, and references with additional comments in the last column. If, after all that, you still have questions, please do get in touch with Andrew Chugg in person.

The Legacy of Alexander the Great by A. B. Bosworth

The Legacy of Alexander. Politics, Warfare, and Propaganda under the Successors by A.B. Bosworth. (ISBN 978-0799285150)

The years and decades after the untimely death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC have always been very confusing to me, as only forty years later, or so, the endless bickering and mutual envy seem to have subsided when the world conquered by Alexander was finally divided into four major territories between Lysimachos, Cassander, Seleucos, and Ptolemy.

Bosworth has taken on the massive task of shedding clear light on these confusing times, and he deserves all the merit and appreciation one can imagine. He must have spent many a sleepless night in the process of putting this book together!

He starts with the Babylonian Settlement, i.e., the agreement made among Alexander’s generals shortly after his death. This was not easy, for not all commanders were in Babylon at the time. Craterus, for instance, was underway to relieve Antipater as Regent, and with him was an army of 15,000 veterans, all of the Macedonian stock and dedicated entirely to their dead king. Bosworth also analyses how many men in the split armies are still true Macedonians, as everyone has their say in Alexander’s succession – with remarkable results.

In the following chapters, Bosworth quotes all the writers from antiquity that he can lay his hands on and not only the most obvious ones like Plutarch, Arrian, Diodorus, and Curtius but many, many others whose names I often hear for the first time. He then compares notes to sift out the most plausible truth and timing of the events, adding opinions and perspectives from any and every contemporary author he can find. A colossal job!

After that, he focuses on the campaigns in Persia with its turbulent satraps, followed by a detailed account of the situation in India and the nomads of Nabataea. Each territory has its own complex structure, and I can’t help wondering how Alexander would have tackled these problems had he still been alive. But then, his intervention may not have been necessary; for now, each of his generals is fighting his fellow commander over all sorts of land disputes that would not have existed otherwise. The rise of Seleucos and the precarious rule of Lysimachos are clearly highlighted. This thorough analysis ends with a chapter about the Hellenistic Monarchy, its success, and its legitimacy, starting around 306 BC. It seems this is when the second generation of commanders is taking matters in hands, except for Seleucos and Ptolemy, who by now have settled within their own boundaries and are merely left alone by the others.

The book concludes with a very handy chronology of events from 323 BC to 311 BC, showing a parallel of what happened in Europe and Asia simultaneously- a helpful tool to keep track of battlefields and rulers and constant changes of power.

I highly recommend this precious reading to anyone looking for a clear and thorough sketch of the difficult years that followed Alexander’s death. However, I would like to add that a good basic knowledge of Alexander’s life will be beneficial.