Alexander and the streams of naphtha

[robbie]

Hi

1. Do you remember the incident with the youth Stephanus who agreed to be anointed with naphtha and who burst out into flames. Now is this true? Did it happen?

Member Agesilaos wrote in an previous thread of mine, Did Alexander really dislike ugly people, :The dunking of page boys in naptha is a similarly doubtful story, it is only in Plutarch, but nevertheless does not support any notion of bias on Alexander's behalf as the page volunteers for candle duty! If anything his plainness speaks against such antipathy as he was attending at the King's bath, as intimate as it gets; the Macedonians lacking a Groom of the Stool!

Plutarch tells :"The youth, as it happened, readily consented to undergo the trial, and as soon as he was anointed and rubbed with it, his whole body broke out into such a flame, and was so seized by the fire, that Alexander was in the greatest perplexity and alarm for him, and not without reason; for nothing could have prevented his being consumed by it, if by good chance there had not been people at hand with a great many vessels of water for the service of the bath"



2. In "Who's Who in the Age of Alexander the Great: Prosopography of Alexander's Empire", it says verbatimely: "Athenopanes attended Alexander when he bathed (PA 35.5). The only story told of him, that he smeared naphtha on the face of a homely youth named Stephanus, and nearly killed him when it (PA 35.5-9), smacks of sadism. Str 16.1.15 (743) attributes this act of cruelty to Alexander himself." Berve ii.15 no. 31 ; Kirchner no. 285.

Is this true? About the face? Because Plutarch does not seem to suggest so, and neither does Robin Lane Fox, who says: "he volunteered to be soaked in the liquid"
In fact, every other place I've read about this, it says nothing about Alexander smearing the boys face.

[agesilaos]

]προθύμως δέ πως καὶ τοῦ παιδαρίου διδόντοςἑαυτὸν πρὸς τὴν πεῖραν, ἅμα τῷ περιαλεῖψαι καὶ θιγεῖν ἐξήνθησε φλόγατοσαύτην τὸ σῶμα καὶ πυρὶ κατεσχέθη τὸ πᾶν ὥστε τὸν Ἀλέξανδρον εἰςπᾶν ἀπορίας καὶ δέους ἐλθεῖν εἰ δὲ μὴ κατὰ τύχην πολλοὶ παρῆσανἀγγεῖα πρὸς τὸ λουτρὸν ὕδατος διὰ χειρῶν ἔχοντες, οὐκ ἂν ἔφθασεν ἡβοήθεια τὴν ἐπινομήν.

The highlighted verb means 'to smear all over' and σῶμα means 'body' so no face, maybe Heckel was extrapolating from the translation 'anointing'.

[robbie]

Thanks agesilaos

OK, so the word was not face but "body"? Well, that clears it up.

[Paralus]

Strabo does, indeed, mention the event with the caveat that "it is said" or rumoured (16.1.15). Plutarch has the suggestion made by Athenophanes and then Stepahnos volunteering. This, after discovering the naphtha issuing from a "spring" in a chasm. Curtius (5.1.16) mentions the "discovery" of bitumen and its association with a "cave" in the same temporal context but has no mention of the decidedly morbid and cruel "experiment". It is surprising that Curtius would leave such a tale out - especially as it would provide grist for the "cruel Alexander" mill. Unless one supposes that the Macedonian conqueror was a morality free zone and capable of bizarre and cruel experimentation - no matter the "plain" nature of the boy's face - I'd go with Strabo: "it is said..."

[robbie]

Thank you Paralus

Yes, I'd have to agree with you as well. There's so much that's been written about him that one has to exercise a bit of scrutiny when filtering the tales.