I have seen three pieces of ‘evidence adduced for this proposition, towhit :
1) Curtius X 2 xii
2) Strabo XV 3 viii-x‘Now when it was discovered that some were being sent home and others detained, the men assumed that Alexander was going to fix the seat permanently in Asia...’
8 Onesicritus records also the following inscription on the tomb of Dareius: "I was friend to my friends; as horseman and bowman I proved myself superior to all others; as hunter I prevailed; I could do everything." Aristus of Salamis is indeed a much later writer than these, but he says that the tower has only two stories and is large; that it was built at the time of the succession of the Persians, and that the tomb was kept under guard; and that there was one inscription written in Greek, that quoted above, and another written in the Persian language with the same meaning. Cyrus held Pasargadae in honour, because he there conquered Astyages the Mede in his last battle, transferred to himself the empire of Asia, founded a city, and constructed a palace as a memorial of his victory.
9 Alexander carried off with him all the wealth in Persis to Susa, which was also full of treasures and equipment; and neither did he regard Susa as the royal residence, but rather Babylon, which he intend to build up still further; and there too treasures lay stored. They say that, apart from the treasures in Babylon and in the camp, which were not included in the total, the value of those in Susa and Persis alone was reckoned at forty thousand talents, though some say fifty; and others have reported that all treasures from all sources were brought together at Ecbatana and that they were valued at one hundred and eighty thousand talents; and the treasures which were carried along with Dareius in his flight from Media, eight thousand talents in value, were taken as booty by those who slew him.
10 At all events, Alexander preferred Babylon, since he saw that it far surpassed the others, not only in its size, but also in all other respects. Although Susis is fertile, it has a hot and scorching atmosphere, and particularly in the neighbourhood of the city, according to that writer. At any rate, he says that when the sun is hottest, at noon, the lizards and the snakes could not cross the streets in the city quickly enough to prevent their being burnt to death in the middle of the streets. He says that this is the case nowhere in Persis, although Persis lies more to the south; and that cold water for baths is put out in the sun and immediately heated, and that barley spread out in the sun bounces like parched barley in ovens; and that on this account earth is put on the roofs of the houses to the depth of two cubits, and that by reason of this weight the inhabitants are forced to build their houses both narrow and long; and that, although they are in want of long beams, yet they need large houses on account of the suffocating heat; and that the palm-tree beam has a peculiar property, for, although it is rigid, it does not, when aged, give way downwards, but curves upwards because of the weight and better supports the roof. It is said that the cause of the heat is the fact that lofty mountains lie above the country on the north and that these mountains intercept all the northern winds. Accordingly, these winds, blowing aloft from the tops of the mountains and high above the plains, do not touch the plains, although they blow on the more southerly parts of Susis. But calm prevails here, particularly at the time when the Etesian winds cool the rest of the land that is scorched by heat.
3) The existence of ‘Alexander’ tetradrachms from Babylon with the monogram Mu-Tau-Rho
To this might be added the story in Plutarch of the Indians and the hide shield
The quote from Curtius can hardly be considered evidence, what we have is an authors suggestion as to the motivation of the mutineers at Opis (Susa in Curtius). Arrian’s list of grievances does not include a shift of capital, but the matters concern the increasing Persianisation of the army, it is possible that Curtius or his source is merely extrapolating from this, in any case Babylon is not specified.Alex 65 viff
It was Calanus, as we are told, who laid before Alexander the famous illustration of government. It was this. He threw down upon the ground a dry and shrivelled hide, and set his foot upon the outer edge of it; the hide was pressed down in one place, but rose up in others. 7 He went all round the hide and showed that this was the result wherever he pressed the edge down, and then at last he stood in the middle of it, and lo! it was all held down firm and still. The similitude was designed to show that Alexander ought to put most constraint upon the middle of his empire and not wander far away from it.
The reference in Strabo is no firmer evidence of Alexander’s intentions, it may come from Onesikritos but just how close was he to Alexander? Not as close as he liked to pretend, for sure. It is also possible that the material actually comes from Aristos and is therefore late and of low value. The remark about lizards being unable to cross the street without being shrivelled by a laser-beam sun, shows the type of source we are dealing with.
But the tetradrachms, they must be a clincher, contemporary or near concrete evidence. Unfortunately, whilst in the 19th Century m-t-r was interpreted as Metropolis subsequent study has demonstrated, by die-linkages that several of the m-t-r issues are to be reassigned to Susa and that some of the monograms are in fact m-t-th. Besides which, this particular monogram appears only on posthumous issues. Lifetime issues generally have phi mu either as a monogram with the mu inverted or as distinct letters (cf M J Price ‘The Coinage in the Name of Alexander and Philip Arrhidaeus’ 1991). The letters of the monogram refer to a mint official. It would be strange, indeed, that Alexander’s intention to make Babylon the metropolis should only be declared on the coinage after his death and the abandonment of any such putative policy; Perdikkas was clearly not intending to stay in the East, his sending Alexander’s corpse to Aigai demonstrates that.
Indeed, the burial arrangements supposedly left by Alexander would imply that he intended his seat of power to be in Egypt as that is where he wished to be interred. Having conquered the West this would also be more central than Babylon, two months from the Mediterranean. The Seleucids, who would have good reason to make Babylon their capital instead established Seleucia-on-the-Tigris. Babylon’s malarial swamps cannot have been an asset.
There is no real evidence for the assertion then, what we have is a constructwhich owes more to the fact that it was at Babylon that Alexander died, his plans incomplete, the reported ‘hypomnemata’ have no provision for Babylon, either in Diodoros or LDM, Susa seems to have been a more important mint, it was there that the Greeks were dismissed and paid off, and later the army’s debts were settled. Babylon was to be developed, witness the new harbour plans, but the city was never intended as an Imperial Capital.
Consider the fact too that these monograms appear while Antigonos was in control of the region, and that was no time to bruit one's own ambitions; ask Peithon, Peucestas, Eumenes and Seleukos for a start!