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karen wrote:

The disagreement is the excusatory tale of the courtisan and the alcohol.

The disagreement, you mean, is based on your assumption that I consider the courtesan and the alcohol excusatory .

No, not your assumption at all. Ptolemy's assertion in exculpation of his king.

It's funny how different people view things. N.G.L. Hammond swears -- using the remains of the fire as evidence -- that the burning was calculated, because he sees the idea that Alexander might have been tempted into it by a mere woman as intolerably disgraceful.

And that's the point: nothing to do with any mere or unmere (!!) woman. It is all to do with Alexander.

Nothing mysoginistic about it. Just a nice story retailed by Ptolemy to explain his king's fit of pique.

But here's the thing -- it could be argued that burning the palace was effective in helping subjugate the Persians, and therefore good imperial policy. Hammond thought so. The argument that Thais is quoted as making -- that it was suitable revenge for Xerxes sacking the Acropolis -- would have had good traction in a culture that believed in the sacredness of revenge. So why would Ptolemy have thought it was a bad enough mistake that he must exculpate Alexander -- especially with a tale of him losing control, which -- as Hammond makes clear -- is a very severe shortcoming in a king?

This is why I think he told the story because it was simply the truth, and he wanted to give his beloved her rightful share of immortality.

karen wrote:To me the most precise sign as to whether something Alexander did was calculated -- whether he saw it as necessary -- or not was whether we know he regretted it. I think he regretted virtually nothing that he decided was necessary -- or at least didn't show it -- else he'd have shown remorse about things like the assassination of Parmenion, the razing of Thebes (being nice to Thebans thereafter is not the same as regretting), the massacre of the Branchidai, etc. We are told he did regret burning the palace... that means he wanted it known that in his own mind he'd screwed up.

It may have been a drunken error of judgment or (to quote Paralus) the final demonstration and the final cutting off of the Persians from their imperial identity, however, the histories demonstrate that Alexander intended to assume the imperial identity for himself. I rather like Peter Green's theory (albeit presented as fact) that Alexander lingered so long in Persepolis because he hoped (expected?) that the Persians would hold their annual New Year's celebrations in HIS honor, and that the burning was done in a fit of pique at their failure to attend. It's plausible, IMO, because it adds to what I think is the real reason for Alexander's regret. Once Persepolis was destroyed, there could be no further New Year's events. Tell me that on his return to the east Alexander wouldn’t have LOVED to have sat on that throne with native peoples from all over HIS Empire bringing gifts as proof of their fealty? He had his own glorious celebrations (such as the mass weddings and the feast at Opis) but these he organized himself. The New Year's celebrations, on the other hand, were for the natives of the Persian Empire to demonstrate their own devotion to their king. He would have thrived on it, I believe, and must have regretted the loss of opportunity. After all, if Green is right, even Alexander must have realized that his expectations were too high during his original stay at Persepolis – Darius wasn't even dead and certainly didn't consider himself yet defeated. Why should the Persians have thought otherwise?

So … I don't think Alexander’s regret offers us an explanation as to the why/how of Alexander burning the buildings. I think it was purely regret based on lost opportunity for future events. And that applies whatever the circumstances/reasons behind the burning.

Best regards,

Re civilization -- it's not just about living in cities; that's a side effect of homes becoming permanent. It's about changing a people's way of life from nomadic to agricultural. The source of their subsistence is changing from hunting/gathering -- and moving on when the area they're in is hunted/gathered out -- to making the same piece of land feed them permanently by sowing/pasturage.

If Alexander had known what we know today, he'd have been able to say this when he settled nomads into cities: "Here's the deal. You'll all be shorter, but there will be lots more of you." Seriously, this is true, though I don't recall where I read it. When people change from a nomadic way of life to an agricultural, the food supply becomes more plentiful, ergo more people, but the ratio of protein to carbs in everyone's diet goes down and therefore they don't grow as tall.

Staying in one place has some distinct advantages. You can build things that are permanent, and, since you're going to stay in them rather than folding them up and carrying them away, it's feasible to make them large, solid and truly impressive, the ultimate example being the things the Egyptians built. Agriculture means more surplus value (that which people produce over and above what they consume); and that means more time available for those who have the talent to develop things like science, art and philosophy. It also means greater concentrations of wealth and power; you can't have a standing army like Philip's, for instance, if everyone's full-time labour is required to bring in enough food to feed everyone. It also gives an agricultural culture a military advantage over nomadic ones; the settled life, in general, is safer. All these things were part of the impetus pushing a general change for all humanity from hunting/gathering to agriculture.

So when Alexander was growing up, he lived in a palace that could not have been built but for the corn sown on the great plains of Makedonia, watching plays, reading writings and learning philosophy that could not have existed but for the corn grown elsewhere in the Greek world. Indirectly, agriculture made him. To have a bias towards agriculture over nomadism, to see nomads as backwards and in need of taming and training in the "proper" way of life, would have been natural. Alexander's idea that he was doing them a favour doesn't preclude the standard exploitation of lower classes by upper (including the king); it just means that he thought that even as peasant farmers under the protection of a king and his armies, they were better off than they had been.

In fact according to Arrian he made this argument to his army using themselves as his example -- since the civilization of upper Makedonia was recent enough to be within living memory. Trans. Yardley:

Philip found you a tribe of impoverished vagabonds, most of you dressed in skins, feeding a few sheep on the hills and fighting, feebly enough, to keep them from your neighbours - Thracians and Triballians and Illyrians. He gave you cloaks to wear instead of skins; he brought you down from the hills into the plains; he taught you to fight on equal terms with the enemy on your borders, till you knew that your safety lay not, as once, in your mountain strongholds, but in your own valour. He made you city-dwellers; he brought you law; he civilized you. He rescued you from subjection and slavery, and made you masters of the wild tribes who harried and plundered you; he annexed the greater part of Thrace, and by seizing the best places on the coast opened your country to trade, and enabled you to work your mines without fear of attack. Thessaly, so long your bugbear and your dread, he subjected to your rule, and by humbling the Phocians he made the narrow and difficult path into Greece a broad and easy road.

"He brought you down from the hills into the plains" means, of course, from non-fertile land to fertile. They had been apparently living not an entirely nomadic life -- viz the mountain strongholds -- but one that was a sort of mix, with herding, some permanent settlements and a shift away from hunting towards raiding, which isn't that different, as a source of meat. What Philip would have done was imposed an end to raiding, the endless cycles of sacred revenge that would have made every tribe the mortal enemy of the tribe in the next valley, and the resulting death toll. Some would argue that wasn't a bad deal.

Now nomads tend to have their own opinions about that, which is why Philip and Alexander both had to force it on them, of course. (It's incorrect, incidentally, both on the part of Alexander and whoever wrote it upthread, to say nomadic cultures are lawless. They aren't amenable to living according to laws imposed on them from outside, but like all cultures, they have their own, no less strict, or wise, for not being written down.)

More anon.

Warmly,
Karen

karen wrote:But here's the thing -- it could be argued that burning the palace was effective in helping subjugate the Persians, and therefore good imperial policy. Hammond thought so. The argument that Thais is quoted as making -- that it was suitable revenge for Xerxes sacking the Acropolis -- would have had good traction in a culture that believed in the sacredness of revenge. So why would Ptolemy have thought it was a bad enough mistake that he must exculpate Alexander -- especially with a tale of him losing control, which -- as Hammond makes clear -- is a very severe shortcoming in a king?

This is why I think he told the story because it was simply the truth, and he wanted to give his beloved her rightful share of immortality.

Do we know that it was Ptolemy who told the story? Arrian, using chiefly Ptolemy and Aristobulus, doesn't even mention Thais and says that the burning was a matter of policy. I would think that Ptolemy wouldn't have wanted to be responsible for his beloved (and mother of two (?) of his children) achieving immortality as one of the "courtesans who had been leading disreputable lives with the soldiers" (Curtius 5.7.2) I'm inclined to disagree with Paralus (Aaack!) in that there's more likelihood of the “wishing to punish the Persians for sacking Athens” story being an excusatory tale of Ptolemy’s to cover up the involvement of Thais rather than the other way around.

Best regards,

So … I don't think Alexander’s regret offers us an explanation as to the why/how of Alexander burning the buildings. I think it was purely regret based on lost opportunity for future events. And that applies whatever the circumstances/reasons behind the burning.

But I think if the decision had been carefully calculated, as Paralus says it was, part of that calculation would have been writing off any future New Year's homages in that palace in the event of a total victory. And that was something Alexander was planning. Tell me he was incapable of thinking 'When I really am Great King in all their minds, they'll come.' So if he gave that hope up for other reasons, why regret... unless the decision was not so careful?

Do we know that it was Ptolemy who told the story? Arrian, using chiefly Ptolemy and Aristobulus, doesn't even mention Thais and says that the burning was a matter of policy. I would think that Ptolemy wouldn't have wanted to be responsible for his beloved (and mother of two (?) of his children) achieving immortality as one of the "courtesans who had been leading disreputable lives with the soldiers" (Curtius 5.7.2) I'm inclined to disagree with Paralus (Aaack!) in that there's more likelihood of the “wishing to punish the Persians for sacking Athens” story being an excusatory tale of Ptolemy’s to cover up the involvement of Thais rather than the other way around.

Huh... good point... I hadn't checked the sources and was just going on Paralus' assertion that it was Ptolemy who told the story. Now mind you, he might have told the story out of pride in her for having enough spirit and eloquence to move Alexander to do what she wanted... and Curtius added the part that makes her look bad. If it didn't come from Ptolemy... then who did it come from? And were they trying to make Alexander look good or bad?

All interesting mysteries.

And with that, my dear friends, I have to step away from this for today and perhaps a few days... I have guests coming up tomorrow for Thanksgiving (Canadian), I've been shirking on the house-cleaning to write these posts, and my son, bless him, just drew a lovely road system all around my dining room table, on the carpet, with black pastel. And I've already wasted a bit more time restraining myself from causing him bodily harm.

Warm and peaceful wishes to all,
Karen

Yes, it is in Curtius, Plutarch and Diodorus. Arrian, perchance, is the only one to omit the reference. My view is that it is safe to say that Arrian is rationalising his hero's actions even though pointing out the policy is flawed. Which does not mean he is wrong.

That the others all mention the drunken episode as the excuse for the vandalism indicates - to me - that this was the excusatory tale of the time. It may well have come from Clietarchus and, if it did, will have been written up as such in Ptolemy's full knowledge you'd think.

The king was regretful later of an episode where his alcohol addled senses had failed him.

Arrian, looking at it as a matter of flawed policy four hundred years later, is closer to the truth. Persepolis, as Amyntoros has said on another thread, was the Persian Imperial capital. Under Darius (the "Great") it supplanted Pasargade. The great Persian monarchs used the site as the Persian version of the New York Times: the grand palace and other buildings literally proclaimed their power and their achievements both in their grandeur; the artwork and what was literally written on them.

Alexander’s, until then, largely successful policy toward the Persian nobility netted him little in Persis – hence the spring offensive. Green’s idea is tied in with this. There was no recognition of Alexander rather, there was resistance.

The great imperial publication and proclamation that was Persepolis suffered “erasure” accordingly.

Re the burning of Persepolis. Wasn't it Engels who pointed out that Alexander couldn't really leave before he did because of the ice bound passes and food availability?

I'm trying to remember where I read that no Persian Great King had actually spent much time at Persepolis for decades. And also trying to remember where I read that Alexander restored the tradition of passing coin to the women of Persia as he passed, back from Gedrosia I believe. A traditiion that had fallen aside apparantly.

I think he torched the palaces on purpose, after he looted them for all they were worth and right before he was to leave for the north. It may have been at a big ole party and Thais may have been the "spokesperson" for the Greeks (handy girl, an Athenian and Ptolemy's sassy sqeezel). Between then and his return I do believe he had cause to regret it. A 25 year old does things a 31 year old might regret. Particularily one who began to adopt the Persian ways in the meantime.

Green wishes Alexander got snubbed...it seems very important to him.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving Karen.

Phoebus wrote:I will fully admit that, when two sources contradict each other, I will lean toward the one more favorable to Alexander. I have little doubt that, had Alexander actually caught up to Dareius, there's little chance the ultimate outcome would have been different. Having said that, though, and as hypocritical as WE might find it, I don't find it at all hard to believe that Alexander was nonetheless genuinely outraged by Dareius' end. I wonder if his rage had anything to do with recognizing in Dareius' plight the same sort of treachery that brought his own father down.

I have to agree with your take on Darius' ultimate fate. Whether he would be betrayed or not, it was sealed after the loss of his empire. At Issus, along with his wife, mother, and daughters, Alexander had also captured Darius' five year old son Ochus. The sources never mention this boy again. Being the rightful heir to the throne, it is highly unlikely Alexander permitted him to survive.

Take care

Ps. When it comes to Alexander, I conflate myths with the sources all the time myself. Whose to say the sources didn't do it themselves?

athenas owl wrote:Green wishes Alexander got snubbed...it seems very important to him.

Ah, you make me smile. Because a writer has an agenda (or a person might think he has an agenda) doesn't mean it applies to every statement he makes. Sometimes even a writer whom you dislike can give revelatory information. I find Green's thoughts on Persepolis to be intriguing - and, as I do think Alexander was capable of having a fit of pique, quite reasonable. I'm not saying that it DID happen the way Green describes, just that I don't think Green came up with the idea so that he could delight in the thought of Alexander being snubbed. He's a better writer and academic than that.

Best regards,

amyntoros wrote:

athenas owl wrote:Green wishes Alexander got snubbed...it seems very important to him.

Ah, you make me smile. Because a writer has an agenda (or a person might think he has an agenda) doesn't mean it applies to every statement he makes. Sometimes even a writer whom you dislike can give revelatory information. I find Green's thoughts on Persepolis to be intriguing - and, as I do think Alexander was capable of having a fit of pique, quite reasonable. I'm not saying that it DID happen the way Green describes, just that I don't think Green came up with the idea so that he could delight in the thought of Alexander being snubbed. He's a better writer and academic than that.

Best regards,

Well we'll disagree. Green went in with a very preconceived world view and sought ideas to fit it. In another topic the idea that our first introduction to Alexander determines our own viewpoint. I'd have to disagree. His was the first history I read.

I was repulsed by his writing, honestly. There I've said it. Not because ATG might well have been a right bastard and the occasioanaI drunken idiot here I do think he was in many cases, though in the context of HIS world whether he was more so or just more successful at it I'm not sure. But perhaps it's because I started college in 1972 in the dying throes the "revolution" and if I had had one more "power ot the people" prof I was going to pop him in the nose. Which is ironic, because I was a bit of a protester myself (began sneaking out og the house at 12 to protest that other war) and to this day am highly anti-imperialistic. I swear one would have died happy if they'd found a mummy wearing a Che t-shirt and the Little Red Book clutched in it's dried crumbly arms.

It's anachronism of the highest order. It's a bad habit of mine, but I'd like my politics left out of my history. Of course I do ask myself when do the actions of a long dead king matter in that I feel the need to condemn it? The Medieval period? The European expansion and colonialism? Post WW1? I suppose my mental line in the sand is post 1492. I do realise that that date is as arbitrary as any.

As for the "New years Festival", are we sure that the reliefs at Persepolis actually represent that?

It has been pointed out there are no contemporary Old Persian texts that describe a spring festival (i.e., the Norouz festival) being part of Persian rituals circa the 5th-century BCE. The earliest (and only) sources for a description of a Persian spring festival are Arabic and date from the 11th-century CE. However, there is a general acceptance amongst scholars that the Persian Norouz festival was a major festival during the pre-Islamic era in the Mesopotamian basin.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gtosiris/page9b.html


As for Ochus, isn't he mentioned, or at least one grandson, in Curitius, along with Drypetis. Both were in the company of their grandmother when they recieved the news that ATG was dead. Of course it's Curtius hamming it up as usual, but I do believe the boy is mentioned, or at least some grandson.

I wish Engels would update his wonderful little book. A lot has been learned about climatology and geological changes since he first published. But even as it stands, the logic of his ideas were eye-opening to me. He might be off on some details, but overall he made a lot of sense.

athenas owl wrote:As for Ochus, isn't he mentioned, or at least one grandson, in Curitius, along with Drypetis. Both were in the company of their grandmother when they recieved the news that ATG was dead. Of course it's Curtius hamming it up as usual, but I do believe the boy is mentioned, or at least some grandson.

Hi Athena's Owl,

I just looked Ochus up in Heckel's 'Who's Who in the Age of Alexander the Great'. Did you mean this reference?

Heckel wrote:Ochus was left behind in Susa in 330, with his grandmother and sisters (D17.67.1; C5.2.17). What became of him we do not know.

Take care