WHO WAS HOLKIAS?
by Karl Soundy
Holkias is the putative author of the pamphlet 'The Last Days and Testament of Alexander' which accuses Antipater and Cassander of poisoning Alexander.
(6) While Antigonus wintered in Cappadocia, three thousand heavy-armed Macedonians revolted from him: and having advantageously posted themselves on the mountains, they ravaged Lycaonia, and Phrygia. Antigonus thought it cruel, to put such a number of men to death; and yet was afraid, lest they should join the enemy, who were commanded by Alcetas. He therefore put into execution the following stratagem. He dismissed Leonidas, one of his generals; who immediately went over to the rebels, and offered to join them. His offer they readily embraced; and appointed him their general. The first step he took was to prevail on them not to attach themselves to any party: which eased Antigonus of his apprehensions. He contrived afterwards to draw them from the mountains to a place, where cavalry might act, of which they were destitute. There Antigonus with a detachment of horse surprised them, and seized Holcias and two of the principals in the revolt; who threw themselves upon his mercy, and begged their lives: which he granted, on condition, that they would without tumult and confusion quit the camp, and return into Macedonia. They accepted the terms: and Leonidas was dispatched to conduct them to Macedonia, and deliver them of their respective homes.
The most mysterious character in the 'Liber de Morte' is probably Holkias, who figures nowhere else other than one stratagem of Polyainos viz IV 6 vi. Were it not for this reference it would be easy to dismiss him as purely fictional, however a fictional character would hardly serve the propaganda purposes of the tract and, indeed it would make it ridiculous. Further, Polyainos seems to have used Hieronymos of Kardia as the source for his stratagemata of the diadochoi, as when they can be compared with Diodoros' account they tally too well to be derived from an independent source (e.g. IV 6 iv, vii, viii, x;.with Arr FGrH 156, 9,33, Diod.XVIII 44-45, XVIII, 72, iv-ix and XIX 32, i ). This helps in more than one way since the biases of Hieronymous are well known; he was the nephew of Eumenes and passed into the service of the Antigonids after his defeat; he was pro Eumenes and pro Antigonid. Allowing for this, his history does seem to have been very full and accurate, as to fact, though suspect in interpretation.
Polyainos' story can be dated to before summer 319 with certainty, since Alcetas died then (Diod. XVIII 46-7) and he is the foe Antigonos fears the rebels will join. The situation described best suits the winter of 320/19 after Antigonos' general Asandros had been defeated by Alcetas, and Eumenes had withdrawn to Kappadokia (Plut Eum 8 iii-vii); only then will Antigonos have found Alcetas the main threat, and been wintering by Kappadokia.
Our sources for this period are fragmentary, to say the least, so we cannot fairly expect any details on a plate but must squeeze as much as we can from the little we have without trying to force too much.
Holcias rebelled with three thousand 'heavily armed Macedonians' and two other officers; now it is clear that Antigonos' army, at this stage contained elements of Perdikkas' former Royal Army, given that the style 'heavily armed' must apply to the phalanx or the hypaspists. The number three thousand, under three officers makes this sound like the body of hypaspists deserted under their chiliarchs and the archihypaspist, Holkias.
It is true that three thousand men, could be made up of two phalangia or elements of various units, but one would expect only two officers with two phalangia and more with any disparate band. That Holkias surrenders his leadership so readily to Leonidas may be explained by his relatively low position vis-à-vis Leonidas who was a strategos to his chiliarch. Also his appointment can date only to 323, at the earliest, when Perdikkas made Seleukos Hipparch of the Companion cavalry (Diod XVIII 3 iv). His term of service would have seen Perdiccas' victorious campaigns against Ariathes, Laranda and Isauria (Diod XVIII 16 and 22) and also the disastrous campaign against Ptolemy (Diod XVIII 33-36). Conversely, he may only have been elevated after the fall off Perdikkas, as officers raised by the fallen Regent are likely to have been purged. So he may have had only a year's service as archihypaspist and as an appointee of the new regime may have been unpopular with his men.
Billows (Antigonos the One-Eyed 1990), following Berve, identifies Leonidas with the officer of that name who assumed command of the 'ataktoi' in Curtius VII 2 xxxv, and possibly Ptolemy's general in the invasion of Kilikia Trachea in 310 (Diod XX 19 iv) but certainly the man who dedicated a wreath at Delos during this period (IG XI 4 161b line 77).
Leonidas is described as having been on intimate terms with Parmenion and is thus likely to belong to the older generation in Alexander's army as may many of the hypaspists; Antigonos may well have considered his experience handling the rowdy elements in Alexander's army crucial; Holcias may have been equally grateful for his experience. If this is the same man, as seems likely then were he forty when Alexander crossed into Asia he would be fifty odd when Antigonos gave him this mission, and seventy if he was the Leonidas in Kilikia; I think the Ptolemaic Leonidas must therefore be a different man.
Billows reads the stratagem as saying that the three thousand rebels were repatriated, this is not how the passage above reads there it is only the three principals who are dismissed to Macedon. Lacking a Greek Polyainos this point must remain moot.
Further support for the theory that these rebels are the Hypaspists may be deduced from the command structure of the Silver Shields. Antigenes and Teutamos are joint-commanders, Diodoros usually styling them 'hegomenes argyraspidon' or the leaders of the Silver Shields, twice (XIX 15 ii and 41 i) Antigenes is called 'strategos ton argyraspidon Makedonon' the general of the Macedonian Silver Shields, and crucially at XVIII 62 v he is 'synarchonta' to Teutamos or co-commander. It would seem that the old corps under a single archihypaspist now has two commanders of equal status; this recalls nothing so much as Alexander's division of the old Companion cavalry into two commands under Kleitos the Black and Hephaistion, following the liquidation of Philotas and Parmenion.
Nor is the attitude of the Silver Shields well disposed to Antigonos they fight steadfastly for Eumenes until their baggage is lost at Paraitakene. This is all circumstantial but suggestive, I think.
This also gives us a better reason for Antigonos not wanting to kill these men, it was not through mercy, which he singularly fails to display elsewhere, but because there were no troops in his army willing or able to take them on.
Contra Billows it is unlikely that Holkias was anything other than a Macedonian, thither he is sent home in Polyainos and the racist Macedonians would never accept an Illyrian, folk-enemy, as commander of their Corps of Guards (nor indeed of any Macedonian unit; the only possible Illyrian officer under Alexander is Balakros and he commands only akontistai, javelinmen.).
Thus, Holkias may well have been the last archihypaspist and as such fairly well known and plausibly close to Alexander. I do not think that this makes his authorship more certain, however, his non-existence after 320 in the record may, perhaps, be best explained by his removal, probably by Kassander soon after his return to Macedon. Ptolemy or his propagandist would then be pointing up another of the crimes of the Antipatridae. The self-advertisement Bosworth imagines would surely undermine the propaganda value of the whole, it must have been plausible for Leonnatos to marry his sister and for him to both be present at the deathbed and receive a satrapy. Far from 'writing himself into early Hellenistic history' we have rather the case of a man whose fame was particular to the age and that celebrity being used by others after his demise (otherwise he could contradict it). The necessity of his fame tends to support the possibility that he was archihypaspist.
Billows view, 'Antigonos the One-Eyed; and the creation of the Hellenistic State' 1990, pp412-3
83. OLKIAS (or HOLKIAS), Illyrian(?)
Sources. Ps-Kallisthenes III 31, 8-9; 32, 8; 33, 1-25; Epitome Metensis (ed. Thomas) 97-98; 103;106; 109-23; Polyainos IV 6,6
Career.
Olkias, unknown to the regular sources on Alexander, is extraordinarily prominent in the romantic accounts of Alexander's last days. He is recorded (Ps-Kall III 31, 8-9.Epit. Met. 97-98) to have been one of the twenty high-ranking officers who attended the banquet Medeios of Larissa gave for Alexander, and one of the six who were innocent of the alleged plot to murder Alexander (with Perdikkas, Eumenes, Ptolemy, Lysimachos, and Asandros). Subsequently, he was entrusted by the dying Alexander with his last will and testament (Ps-Kall III 33,1; Epit Met. 106), with orders to send a copy to Rhodes (Epit. Met. 109). He is placed on a level with Ptolemy and Perdikkas as one of the three great men who stood around the bed of the dying king (Ps-Kall., Armenian version, p105, 10-26, Raabe ed.). He read out the will of Alexander after his death (Epit Met. 114), and the will ordered Olkias's sister Kleodike be married to Leonnatos, a relative of Alexander, and that Olkias himself be appointed king of Illyria (Ps-Kall. III33,12; 33,23; Epit Met. 116; 122).
Given these fictitious details of Olkias's importance during Alexander's last days, one would suppose him a wholly fictitious character were it not for the fact that Polyainos (IV 6,6) records his existence in a fashion that can scarcely be doubted. In the winter of 320/19, when Antigonos was encamped with an army near Kappadokia, preparatory to undertaking operations against the armies of Alketas and Eumenes, 3,000 Macedonian soldiers rebelled against him, the leader of the rebellion being Olkias. Antigonos succeeded in quashing the rebellion and capturing Olkias, with the aid of an officer named Leonidas. This story tells us that by 320 Olkias was an officer in Antigonos's army, and was discontented. Antigonos's army in 320/19 was in large part made up of the army that Perdikkas had commanded in Egypt (Arrian Met' Alex. I 38), these 3,000 men and Olkias no doubt among them. Merklebach ('Quellen des griechischen Alexanderromans') argues that the extraordinary prominence of Olkias in the accounts of Alexander's last days can be explained by conjecturing a pamphlet written by Olkias as the source of these accounts.. A feature of these accounts is the slander of poisoning Alexander directed at prominent enemies of Perdikkas such as Antipatros, Peithon, Meleagros, Philotas and Menandros, while Eumenes, Perdikkas, Olkias, Lysimachos, Ptolemy and Asandros are exculpated.
Olkias then was a middle-ranking officer in the Macedonian army and a supporter of Perdikkas after Alexander's death. He passed into the service of Antigonos in 320, but early in 319 raised a rebellion to help Alketas, Perdikkas's brother and Antigonos's enemy (so Polyainos IV6,6). After his capture by Antigonos, he is not heard of again, but probably he lived on for some time, for the accounts of Alexander's last days based on his putative pamphlet show knowledge of Onesikritos's history, chiding him for not naming the plotters against Alexander (Epit Met 97), and other events of the Diadoch period (see Merklebach's in depth treatment). Perhaps given Olkias's 'appointment' as king of Illyria, he actually was an Illyrian.'
Bosworth's view, Ptolemy and the Will of Alexander in 'Alexander in Fact and Fiction' p240
'…Ptolemy perhaps did not represent himself as the principal agent in the recovery of the Will. It is a popular and probable assumption (Ausfeld 1895; 365: Heckel 1988: 79-81) that the author of the document is the mysterious Holcias who shares Alexander's last confidences alongside Perdiccas, Ptolemy, and Lysimachus, receives the Illyrians as his subjects, and has a sister betrothed to Leonnatus. Holcias presumably passed into the service of Ptolemy (For his opposition to Antigonus in Asia Minor see Polyaen. 4.6.6. If he returned to Macedon in 320/19 with his insurgent troops, he could have left the turbulent political scene there to take service with Ptolemy at any time before 309.) and produced a document which served the interests of his master, while giving himself a central position in the transmission of power. Relations with the Illyrians should have been his preserve; the actions of Cassander, who had recently transplanted the Illyrian Autariatae to northern Macedonia, were therefore unjustified. His sister should have been married to a Bodyguard of Alexander, one of the leading figures after the king's death. Holcias, then wrote himself into early Hellenistic history.'