agesilaos wrote:He is as late as Arrian and Plutarch but not as late as Justin or Metz; but the real questions are how good was his source and how accurately did he transmit it?
You've read Unz (JHS Vol. 105 (1985), pp. 171-174) and, so, the following will be nothing new.
Marcus : Justin cannot be referring to Cleopatra's child in the disputed passage unless, as Heckel observes (Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus Books 11-12, p 82),Trogus inadvertently thought that Caranus was Cleopatra’s son. The fact is that Justin nowhere states that Cleopatra bore a son; he does state, unequivocally, that the child was female (9.7.12 when killed by Olympias) as do all other sources other than Pausanias. The latter stands in contrast and the language used is weak - the word "son" (υιός) is never used (see Unz, p172, n. 16). One needs to suppose - if Pausanias is taken as translated - that Cleopatra bore Philip two children. Most unlikely given the time frame involved. Also, Justin refers to a brother (or brothers) more than once. Not mentioned above is 9.8.2-4:
[Philip] had, by a dancing girl of Larissa, a son named Aridaeus, who reigned after Alexander. He had also many others by several wives, as is not unusual with princes, some of whom died a natural death, and others by the sword.
Now there is no real reason for any troupe of sisters to be killed by the sword (unless he refers to Cynane and Cleopatra daughter of Olympias). As well, as he leaves for Persia Alexander removed those who could constitute a threat and, in doing so, Justin (11.5.2) noting that “nor did he spare any of his own family who appeared likely candidates for the throne”. Only males can be thought of as candidates for the throne – Arrhidaeus excepted. After Alexander murders Cleitus he moved to think upon others he has murdered: Parmenio and Philotas, his cousin Amyntas, his murdered stepmother and brothers, with Attalus, Eurylochus, Pausanias, and other slaughtered nobles of Macedonia”. One notice might be questionable; several - distinct and yet related - cannot be the invention of a fertile imagination. If it be error it is a strangely recurrent error; if it be invention then Justin is exceedingly consistent. No matter his reliability or lack thereof, Justin surely found these scattered notices in his source. But this is an argument better presented by Unz (above).
Inventive arguments that Cleopatra bore two children (or was pregnant prior to marriage) aside, the case against Justin almost always comes back to
testis unis; testis nullus. That is, he alone as a source records it whereas all other sources do not. This silence is then used to dismiss Justin. Agesilaos has discussed the “late” nature of the sources. What goes terribly unnoticed is their extremely patchy and capricious nature. In the period of the Diadochoi, for example, an entire war between Antigonus Monophthalmos and Seleukos disappears from the Greek corpus; our knowledge of it coming courtesy of the Babylonian Chronicle of the Successors. As Bosworth (
The Legacy of Alexander, p 21) has acutely observed it is “a melancholy indication of how defective our historical knowledge must be”. Much of what was recorded has not made it down to us and that which has relies upon the tastes of epitomators and derivative writers. When it comes to the early years of Alexander - and indeed the reign of Philip II - this is even more marked and one must hesitate before consigning anything noted in one source to the rubbish heap on the basis of the silence of other sources.
With that in mind, it is instructive to look at the accession of Philip II. Justin and Diodorus are the two “fulsome” literary sources. Justin, at 7.4.4-5, describes the children of Amyntas III thus:
By his wife Eurydice he had three sons, Alexander, Perdiccas, and Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, and one daughter, named Eurynoe; he had also by Gygaea Archelaus, Aridaeous, and Menelaus
.
The sons by Gygaea, then, are Philip’s half-brothers by his step-mother. Later (8.3.10), in the context of the crushing of Olynthus, Justin says that “(Philip) fell upon the Olynthians, because, after the death of one of his brothers, they had, from pity, afforded a refuge to two others, whom, being the sons of his step-mother Philip would gladly have cut off, as pretenders to a share in the throne”. The dead brother is Archelaus. No other source for the period, Diodorus included, has a mention of Archelaus (and Diodorus never mentions the half-brothers). Yet this silence, as far as I can find, is not held against Justin and many a scholar accepts the existence of these half-brothers and Archelaus. Were we to apply the same logic used to dismiss Caranus, these men, too, would disappear from history.
Another infamous silence, that of Arrian, is deployed to dismiss the handing on of the signet ring of Alexander. Here the authority of the “better” or “more trustworthy” source is ranged against the Vulgate and Arrian’s auctoritas is said to carry the day against the “stories” of the “less trustworthy” tradition.
Whilst on Arrian, in Photius' epitome it is noted that one Amphimachus is given the satrapy of Mesopotamia and Arbelitis. This Amphimachus is explicitly noted as the “brother of the King”. This time, Arrian being the sole source, many scholars dismiss the notice on the basis of confusion with the satrap Arrhidaeus. Yet Photius seems quite at home with lists and seems to get his names correct elsewhere. There is no real reason that Arrhidaeus (Philip III) cannot have had a brother – a child born to his mother prior to Philip II politically marrying her. The dismissal of the relationship is purely a case of
testis unis; tesis nullis and the fact that one might invent other explanations. As any scholarly debate (and those here on Pothos ) show, alternative explanations are a ready coin.
I don’t think it unlikely at all that Alexander had a half-brother called Caranus. I also do not think that we have enough evidence to dismiss such notices where they are not countermanded by other sources.