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king Alexander to the exiles from the Greek cities. We have not been the cause of your exile,but, save for those of you who are under a curse, we shall be the cause of your return to your own native cities...
What does he mean by "save for those of you who are under a curse"?
Does that mean sickness? Or persecuted for religous reasons? Or something completely different?
Just rereading diodorus and remembered this from the last time through and thought someone might have an idea of what it means exactly. Thank you.
Spitamenes
spitamenes wrote:What does he mean by "save for those of you who are under a curse"?
Does that mean sickness? Or persecuted for religous reasons? Or something completely different?
You're correct with the second - religious reasons. The decree would allow political exiles - those ejected by their political opponents during stasis etc - to return. Those who'd been convicted of "religious crimes" will have been those described as "cursed".
Incidentally, this shows Alexander in his most autocratic light. The symmachy created by Philip II ("League of Corinth"), after he'd finished re-arranging the Greek city state polical and geographical landscape, actually forbade the alteration of constitutions and the laws governing each city state. It is highly likely that Alexander is here acting contrary to that symmachy. It most certainly caused great anxiety and upheaval in Greece - particularly in Aetolia and Athens - and a good part of the drift to revolution (against Macedonian suzerainty) in Greece can be laid at its door.
Paralus
Ἐπὶ τοὺς πατέρας, ὦ κακαὶ κεφαλαί, τοὺς μετὰ Φιλίππου καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου τὰ ὅλα κατειργασμένους;
Wicked men, you sin against your fathers, who conquered the whole world under Philip and Alexander.
