Rereading fire from heaven

[Paralus]

Actually, it was precisely the duty of the Pages to guard the king against armed threats: that is why the Pages Conspiracy against Alexander was feasible.

It is illogical to expect that the king, on foot, is to be guarded by a troop of fourteen year old stripplings. If we are to take the "Alexander sarcophagus" as representing some reality, there were aspis and spear carrying troops in the immediate vicinity of the king. Nothing indicates young fourteeen year olds and it is inconceiveble, and far from amusing, that Philip (or Alexander) would trust his person, in hand to hand combat, to such troops. These are almost certainly the members of the agema of the hypaspsists: 18 plus year-old sons of hetairoi. These are the troops that would accompany Alexader in his assault on the walls of tyre ("hetairoi" so Arian) and so singly preserve his life in India (Peucestas). They are most certainly not fourteen year old juniors whom one might imagine the best hoplites of Greece to make "mince-meat" of.

And (amusingly) it has been your position that the Pages might be described as Somatophylakes.

Funnily enogh, that would be Diodorus...

Diod. 17.65.1:
From Macedonia also came fifty sons of the king's Friends sent by their fathers to serve as bodyguards. / ek de tês Makedonias tôn philôn tou basileôs huioi pentêkonta pros tên sômatophulakian hupo tôn paterôn apestalmenoi

But there is no need for Pausanias to have been a Somatophylax at the time of the original incident – only at the time of the assassination, which is Diodorus’s focus. Justin appears to be correct in suggesting that the original incident had occurred something like eight years before Philip’s assassination.

The date of the Illyrian battle is not agreed upon. Even were it “something like eight years before Philip’s assassination” Pausanias, had he been primis pubertatis annis at the time, can only have been in his very early twenties at the assassination. Amusingly, you would number him amongst the seven most influential nobles in Philip’s kingdom.

That is because you have truncated the quote, which continues, “Archedamus was unable to resist thoughts of gain…” The Loeb editor has commented, “Perhaps Archedamus had been tempted to plunder the enemy camp before the danger of a counterattack was past.”

I have, in fact, truncated nothing. I am using theThomas Stanley translation. The Greek, from the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, is:

ἤλπισε γὰρ διὰ τῆς κολακείας καὶ ὑποδρομῆς χειρώσασθαι τὸν βασιλέα, ἅτε ἀνὴρ ἥττωντοῦ κερδαίνειν ὤν / êlpise gar dia tês kolakeias kai hupodromês cheirôsasthai ton basilea, hate anêr hêttôn tou kerdainein ôn

Given the difficulties of translation the note on this translation is: Stanley leaves untranslated the very difficult passage that ends the chapter. It can be made to read something like "Archedamus thought he had, by his flattery and subservience, gained enough sway over Philip that he did not have to fear punishment. I would add that, given the use of "basilea", you - or your translator - are implying Archedamus is plundering from Philip? Heckel views this in terms of punishment: being made to stand in one's armour as the Greeks were wont to impose. Your view is, therefore, neither the only one applicable nor necessarily the correct one on balance.

Most amusing that you argue from context here. This is something you resolutely refused to countenance on the "Latest on Alexander's Death" thread. Something resembling Damascus in view?

I note that the arguments above against Marcus are arguments from silence.

Again, other Persians of note are named and Artabazus named as having a command under Alexander. Alexander’s favourite is nowhere so named. The onus is to prove that he so commanded or fought rather than the other way around.

[Taphoi]

I don't see the logic. At all. The pages may have performed certain duties right from the beginning - anyone can stand outside the king's bedroom while he sleeps - but they most certainly would have had to be trained before performing others. You don't put a high school junior who has never played basketball directly on to the school team. And that's only sports. With the pages it was war! Putting a 13-14 year old with NO training and NO military experience by the side of the king, ostensibly to protect him in battle? There's no way I can view that as logical. Instead of combatting the enemy Philip (and Alexander) would have been babysitters. And they would have endangered their own lives.

But the Pages will not have been untrained in arms when they joined the corps. Noble Macedonians would have been trained in the arts of war from as soon as they began to walk (perhaps earlier!) They would already have been experts at 14. There would have been no need for them to undergo years of additional training before starting to take up the duties of a Page. The sources do not say that only some of the Pages undertook the guard duties or battle duties. Indeed, Curtius describes the guard rota in some detail in the context of the Page's conspiracy and there is a strong implication that all the Pages took part. Everyone fatally endangers his or her life by the act of living.

Actually, it was precisely the duty of the Pages to guard the king against armed threats: that is why the Pages Conspiracy against Alexander was feasible.

It is illogical to expect that the king, on foot, is to be guarded by a troop of fourteen year old stripplings. If we are to take the "Alexander sarcophagus" as representing some reality, there were aspis and spear carrying troops in the immediate vicinity of the king. Nothing indicates young fourteeen year olds and it is inconceiveble, and far from amusing, that Philip (or Alexander) would trust his person, in hand to hand combat, to such troops. These are almost certainly the members of the agema of the hypaspsists: 18 plus year-old sons of hetairoi. These are the troops that would accompany Alexader in his assault on the walls of tyre ("hetairoi" so Arian) and so singly preserve his life in India (Peucestas). They are most certainly not fourteen year old juniors whom one might imagine the best hoplites of Greece to make "mince-meat" of.

And (amusingly) it has been your position that the Pages might be described as Somatophylakes.

Diod. 17.65.1:
From Macedonia also came fifty sons of the king's Friends sent by their fathers to serve as bodyguards. / ek de tês Makedonias tôn philôn tou basileôs huioi pentêkonta pros tên sômatophulakian hupo tôn paterôn apestalmenoi

But there is no need for Pausanias to have been a Somatophylax at the time of the original incident – only at the time of the assassination, which is Diodorus’s focus. Justin appears to be correct in suggesting that the original incident had occurred something like eight years before Philip’s assassination.

The date of the Illyrian battle is not agreed upon. Even were it “something like eight years before Philip’s assassination” Pausanias, had he been primis pubertatis annis at the time, can only have been in his very early twenties at the assassination. Amusingly, you would number him amongst the seven most influential nobles in Philip’s kingdom.

A strange argument that Pausanias could not be a Somatophylax in his twenties, when Alexander was king at 20.

I note that the arguments above against Marcus are arguments from silence.

Again, other Persians of note are named and Artabazus named as having a command under Alexander. Alexander’s favourite is nowhere so named. The onus is to prove that he so commanded or fought rather than the other way around.

Deafening silence! My argument is from the factual words of Xenophon, who will have met Persian Royal Eunuchs and who indicates that they fought with steel. He expresses it in a way which shows it was generally true, so Alexander's Bagoas would have been an exception, if he did not. The trierarchy is an additional hint that this was true of Bagoas too. It is not an honorific in a battle situation, but the literal command of the vessel and Alexander appears to have assumed that the ships would need to fight when he made the appointments.

Best wishes,

Andrew

[Paralus]

A strange argument that Pausanias could not be a Somatophylax in his twenties, when Alexander was king at 20.

Strong enough for you to sidestep it.

Appointed somatophylakes are hardly the same as the acession of Philip's son and heir to the throne. The comparison is a nonsense.

Deafening silence! My argument is from the factual words of Xenophon, who will have met Persian Royal Eunuchs and who indicates that they fought with steel.

Which does not prove that this eunuch did. That he'd the money to fund a ship is the only certainty. That and the fact that he is not mentioned in any other military context

[marcus]

I note that the arguments above against Marcus are arguments from silence.

Again, other Persians of note are named and Artabazus named as having a command under Alexander. Alexander’s favourite is nowhere so named. The onus is to prove that he so commanded or fought rather than the other way around.

I do agree wholeheartedly that the onus is to prove that he did command or fight (although I should note that I have never asserted that he commanded, which would, for sure, demand some mention in the sources). However, my assertion is that Arrian surely does not name all the Persians so honoured, merely the main ones, which therefore does not preclude Bagoas from having been given a place in the agema; but it certainly does not mean that he definitely did. My other point is that Arrian never mentions Bagoas at all (except the trierarch he mentions (once) in Indica, which might well be a different one, anyway); so if we were to take solely Arrian we wouldn't be discussing Alexander's "favourite", Bagoas, at all.

By no means am I asserting that he was in the agema; I just suggest that, despite the silence of the sources, there is no reason to suppose that he didn't.

ATB

[dean]

Hi,

I think that really we aren't ever going to know for sure whether or not Bagoas ever wielded arms and maybe my opinion is strongly being swayed by Mary Renault's portrait in the Persian boy.

Either way, as Marcus says, he was a really minor player in the whole story and possibly people pay more attention to him because of the more controversially inferred things about him and as I said, was probably one of the reason why Renault cashed in on how people love the sensational to gain a wider audience.

Incidentally, while looking for any detail in Plutarch about Bagoas I found out that Parmenion had been given Bagoas' house worth 1000 talents. (The eunuch who tried to kill Darius.)

I don't know but seeing that Bagoas is mentioned first as Darius's lover, then in Plutarch part 68 in a context of dance, song and "passionate kissing", I think it highly unlikely that he would have ever set foot on the battlefield but who knows???

Best
Dean

[amyntoros]

I don't see the logic. At all. The pages may have performed certain duties right from the beginning - anyone can stand outside the king's bedroom while he sleeps - but they most certainly would have had to be trained before performing others. You don't put a high school junior who has never played basketball directly on to the school team. And that's only sports. With the pages it was war! Putting a 13-14 year old with NO training and NO military experience by the side of the king, ostensibly to protect him in battle? There's no way I can view that as logical. Instead of combatting the enemy Philip (and Alexander) would have been babysitters. And they would have endangered their own lives.

But the Pages will not have been untrained in arms when they joined the corps. Noble Macedonians would have been trained in the arts of war from as soon as they began to walk (perhaps earlier!) They would already have been experts at 14. There would have been no need for them to undergo years of additional training before starting to take up the duties of a Page. The sources do not say that only some of the Pages undertook the guard duties or battle duties. Indeed, Curtius describes the guard rota in some detail in the context of the Page's conspiracy and there is a strong implication that all the Pages took part.

I don't find this credible, Andrew. That the Pages might have had some training prior to their entry to the court I don't deny, although I would hardly call them experts at such an age unless they'd regularly taken part in battles at an even younger age, something I sincerely doubt. However, the entire reason for them being at court was to be "trained". (Their education continued under philosophers, that we do know.) Yes, there's an implication that all the Pages took part in the guard rosta, but as I said before - why not? Anyone, and I mean anyone can do that. It takes no experience and no training and it is, in fact, training in court procedure itself. All the king needed in that instance was "trust" in the Pages. (A trust that was unfortunately betrayed.) But I'm to believe that they were so adept at warfare when first arriving at court that they were randomly assigned on a rosta to be at the side of the king in battle? Am I to believe that during one particular battle the king may have been protected by young men with four years of so of training in warfare, given within the camp, and at another battle he might have had 14-year-olds by his side who had never had any actual training within the army itself. That he may have trusted such position to his own son I can understand. Alexander must have had some battle experience before being left as regent at sixteen. But that was Alexander - the man who would become king. However, there's no sense in taking a large group of young men of various ages, training, and experience and dividing such a duty amongst them at random. You'd end up with a situation where the regular soldiers who were assigned to protect the king would also have had to watch over some of the Pages! And there's no evidence of any untrained Pages dying in these particular circumstances. If that had happened I do think it would have been amongst the list of "grievances" put forth at the trial of the Pages.

Everyone fatally endangers his or her life by the act of living.

Now you're playing with philosophy, but I'll respond according to the thread. Alexander endangered his life many times in battle, sometimes foolishly according to his friends. But there is personal glory to be had in performing such acts. There's no glory in surrounding yourself in a fight with inexperienced children who are supposed to be there to protect you. Having them hold your horse and bring it to you at the start of the battle, yes, that would make some sense. Having them right by your side in the thick of a battle with thousands upon thousands of the enemy doesn't. And that, to me,is logic.

Best regards,

[marcus]

I think that really we aren't ever going to know for sure whether or not Bagoas ever wielded arms and maybe my opinion is strongly being swayed by Mary Renault's portrait in the Persian boy.

Either way, as Marcus says, he was a really minor player in the whole story and possibly people pay more attention to him because of the more controversially inferred things about him and as I said, was probably one of the reason why Renault cashed in on how people love the sensational to gain a wider audience.

Indeed. I would hazard a guess that had Tarn not written specifically about him - and concluded that he didn't exist, Puritan that he was - and had Renault not written The Persian Boy, no-one would be paying him the slightest bit of attention in the first place!

ATB

[agesilaos]

Valid point, Marcus, but on my side doesn't that abscence hint at a lack of official status in itself? I was going to mention that the Trierarch may not be the eunuch but I am not convinced, as I remember Tarn wanted to erase the eunuch from history and 'invented the two Bagoases to allow Arrian's evidence and still exclude Curtius'!

Amyntoros has hit the nail on the head with Curtius' list of Pages' duties, as Paralus had said, it is quite common to list everything that a person may do in a list of duties; just as Herodotos lists Persian arms as bow, spear, axe and shield, yet it is clear that these were not carried by each Persian soldier but were the arms carried by the different types of soldiers, towhit Sparabara shield and spear, takabara axe and shield and archers bows even the wargames community have moved from their cherished triple armed supermen (and shifted to Late Romans with even more weapons!).

The Pages were NOT detailed to guard the King's person in battle; as Paralus says that was the job of the elite corps of the Hypaspists that I call the pezhetairoi, after Goukowsky and others call various things, while on foot and the agema if mounted, or are we to belive that Kleitos the Black, brother to Alexander's nurse, was still a Page? The Macedonian equivalent of Bart Simpson, held back a grade for thirty years?

The Pages attend on hunts and guard the Royal person when he is abed supervised by one of the Seven it seems; still a dangerous position to entrust to the disloyal.

It follows that the two Pausaniases were both hypaspists and Diodoros' terminology is consistent with this as is the narrative. That Justin wants to make them kids should really not detain us from the absurdity of an eight year grudge; an Illyrian campaign close to Philip's death is perfectly feasible, and why would Philip bother to try and assuage Pausanias' outrage unless Amyntas was already close to him, which seems not to be the case until his marriage to Kleopatra? Ellis favours this solution and puts the arguments more fully and eloquently than I can working from memory.

Aelian's excerpt proves little as it is corrupt and the translator's guess is just that; for what it is worth the context in which I would place it would be guard duty at the King's tent the offence would be similar to sleeping at or deserting one's post ie not being ready for an emergency.

Beware of calling your own position 'logical' not only does it imply that others are not; the rhetorical point I suppose but it does leave ones posterior begging to be kicked, even a one-legged Spartan King would have a go!

Of course the trierarch list corresponds to the high and mighty in the army these are the men with the disposable wealth, they are Athenian style trierachies, burdens as well as honours, they are not military appointments (nor even naval ones, oops!).

[Alexias]

why would Philip bother to try and assuage Pausanias' outrage unless Amyntas was already close to him, which seems not to be the case until his marriage to Kleopatra? Ellis favours this solution and puts the arguments more fully and eloquently than I can working from memory.

Would you mind elaborating on this please? I was not aware of a link between Pausanias and Amyntas. Thank you.

[Taphoi]

I think that really we aren't ever going to know for sure whether or not Bagoas ever wielded arms and maybe my opinion is strongly being swayed by Mary Renault's portrait in the Persian boy.

Either way, as Marcus says, he was a really minor player in the whole story and possibly people pay more attention to him because of the more controversially inferred things about him and as I said, was probably one of the reason why Renault cashed in on how people love the sensational to gain a wider audience.

Indeed. I would hazard a guess that had Tarn not written specifically about him - and concluded that he didn't exist, Puritan that he was - and had Renault not written The Persian Boy, no-one would be paying him the slightest bit of attention in the first place! :shock:

Actually, the historical Bagoas was quite important judging by the things we know he did:

1) Persuaded Alexander to forgive Nabarzanes for his involvement in the death of Darius
2) Escorted the delegation of emissaries of the Sacae in Sogdiana
3) Trierarch on the Indus river voyage (& therefore the most senior Persian at court)
4) Won the dancing contest in Carmania
5) Persuaded Alexander to move against the governor of Persia and took personal responsibility for his execution
6) Entertained the king to dinner in his own house in Ecbatana
7) Was one of only two male lovers attested for Alexander
8) Was included in a shortlist of the most important "flatterers" of Alexander by Plutarch

I also suspect that it is no coincidence that the so-called "Persianising" began just after Bagoas joined Alexander's retinue. It is likely on circumstantial grounds that Bagoas was the prime mover of this trend in Alexander's behaviour - hardly an inconsequential matter.

Best wishes,

Andrew

[marcus]

I think that really we aren't ever going to know for sure whether or not Bagoas ever wielded arms and maybe my opinion is strongly being swayed by Mary Renault's portrait in the Persian boy.

Either way, as Marcus says, he was a really minor player in the whole story and possibly people pay more attention to him because of the more controversially inferred things about him and as I said, was probably one of the reason why Renault cashed in on how people love the sensational to gain a wider audience.

Indeed. I would hazard a guess that had Tarn not written specifically about him - and concluded that he didn't exist, Puritan that he was - and had Renault not written The Persian Boy, no-one would be paying him the slightest bit of attention in the first place!

Actually, the historical Bagoas was quite important judging by the things we know he did:

1) Persuaded Alexander to forgive Nabarzanes for his involvement in the death of Darius
2) Escorted the delegation of emissaries of the Sacae in Sogdiana
3) Trierarch on the Indus river voyage (& therefore the most senior Persian at court)
4) Won the dancing contest in Carmania
5) Persuaded Alexander to move against the governor of Persia and took personal responsibility for his execution
6) Entertained the king to dinner in his own house in Ecbatana
7) Was one of only two male lovers attested for Alexander
Was included in a shortlist of the most important "flatterers" of Alexander by Plutarch

I also suspect that it is no coincidence that the so-called "Persianising" began just after Bagoas joined Alexander's retinue. It is likely on circumstantial grounds that Bagoas was the prime mover of this trend in Alexander's behaviour - hardly an inconsequential matter.

Although I am not 100% convinced that Bagoas wasn't the trierarch, there is clearly still debate about that, so we should be careful about taking it as read that he was. I would also be cautious about the issue of Persianising - Alexander had already taken other notable Persians into his retinue, and had already appointed Persians as satraps - that's a more powerful argument for Persianising, along with the fact that Darius had now died and Alexander was adopting the mantle of his 'legitimate' successor, than the appearance of Bagoas.

Be that as it may, would you not agree that, at least before people started taking Curtius more seriously and questioning Tarn, Arrian's silence about him was powerful? Therefore, important to Alexander or not, he might not have received all this attention had it not been for Renault (and, strangely enough, Tarn)?

ATB

[Alexias]

I also suspect that it is no coincidence that the so-called "Persianising" began just after Bagoas joined Alexander's retinue. It is likely on circumstantial grounds that Bagoas was the prime mover of this trend in Alexander's behaviour - hardly an inconsequential matter.

Did not Artabazus and his sons surrender shortly after Nabarzanes? Would not they and Artabazus's daughter Barsine, Alexander's mistress, have had far more influence in how Alexander dealt with the Persians who were now submitting to him? Or was he supposed to slight the Persians who were now acknowledging him as king and not make use of them in the army and honour some of their customs?

It's unlikely that Bagoas, from Darius's inner circle, spoke Greek at this point, but Barzine, with two Greek husbands, would almost certainly have done so, and Artabazus probably spoke Greek from his time in exile with Philip, if not before from his dealings with the Greek cities on the Ionian coast. This is likely to have given this family far more influence with Alexander than Bagoas at this time.

[Paralus]

However, my assertion is that Arrian surely does not name all the Persians so honoured, merely the main ones, which therefore does not preclude Bagoas from having been given a place in the agema; [...] By no means am I asserting that he was in the agema; I just suggest that, despite the silence of the sources, there is no reason to suppose that he didn't.

As I wrote, the list provided by Arrian is not a complete list and lists the important barbarians. Were this Bagoas, “Alexander’s favourite”, in the agema and as important as conjectured, I’d expect that name to make it. That it does not tells us something as Agesilaos has noted.

The Pages were NOT detailed to guard the King's person in battle; as Paralus says that was the job of the elite corps of the Hypaspists that I call the pezhetairoi, after Goukowsky and others call various things, while on foot and the agema if mounted, or are we to belive that Kleitos the Black, brother to Alexander's nurse, was still a Page? The Macedonian equivalent of Bart Simpson, held back a grade for thirty years?

Originally the pezhetairoi and later the hypaspists of the hetairoi with its agema or "royal" hypaspists; a mirror of the Companion Cavalry and its royal ile.

It follows that the two Pausaniases were both hypaspists and Diodoros' terminology is consistent with this as is the narrative. That Justin wants to make them kids should really not detain us from the absurdity of an eight year grudge;

Diodorus language is consistently inconsistent throughout in calling them "bodyguards" (somatophylakes) or spearmen (doyphoroi - the city state term for a ruler's troop of bodyguards) and Plutarch refers to him as "doryphoroi". All of which indictes they are hypaspists. An eight year grudge is a stretch; as is the notion that Philip raised a youth (adulescens) to the position of one the seven most important nobles in the kingdom. He’d been so for some time given that this argument claims he was "promoted amongst" the seven.

[marcus]

However, my assertion is that Arrian surely does not name all the Persians so honoured, merely the main ones, which therefore does not preclude Bagoas from having been given a place in the agema; [...] By no means am I asserting that he was in the agema; I just suggest that, despite the silence of the sources, there is no reason to suppose that he didn't.

As I wrote, the list provided by Arrian is not a complete list and lists the important barbarians. Were this Bagoas, “Alexander’s favourite”, in the agema and as important as conjectured, I’d expect that name to make it. That it does not tells us something as Agesilaos has noted.

I don't disagree - which is why I wonder how important Bagoas really was, not least (as already noted) because Arrian doesn't mention him anywhere else.
Although I have elsewhere acknowledge that Bagoas is mentioned in Curtius, it should also be noted that Curtius only mentions him twice - in Book 6 and in Book 10, with regard to only two incidents (neither of which are military). That says something about his "importance", too, surely?

However, my point has always been that I don't see why he shouldn't have been in the agema, all the same? I accept that there is no evidence for this, but as I have said elsewhere, there must be Persians who were inducted who were not as important as those you mentioned, so if Bagoas had become Alexander's favourite it is reasonable to suppose that Bagoas was, too. Doesn't mean he was an important figure in the court, however.

You have quoted:

It follows that the two Pausaniases were both hypaspists and Diodoros' terminology is consistent with this as is the narrative. That Justin wants to make them kids should really not detain us from the absurdity of an eight year grudge;

I don't think I said this, did I?

ATB

[marcus]

Did not Artabazus and his sons surrender shortly after Nabarzanes? Would not they and Artabazus's daughter Barsine, Alexander's mistress, have had far more influence in how Alexander dealt with the Persians who were now submitting to him? Or was he supposed to slight the Persians who were now acknowledging him as king and not make use of them in the army and honour some of their customs?

Not according to Curtius, who says that Nabarzanes surrendered not long after Alexander had sent Artabazus off with double the honours he had had under Darius (C 6.5.22). But I agree in general with the point you're making.

ATB