Feast and Prayer of Opis

[rocktupac]

Since first reading about Alexander I have been fascinated by the huge feast and alleged prayer at Opis. Whether you take the actual prayer to be true or not, there must be some basis of truth behind it.

What does everyone think about this Feast and Prayer? If it did occur as recorded what were Alexander's intentions?

[Semiramis]

I've searched for this prayer on more than one occasion and always failed to find it. It'd be great if someone could paste the text and reference on this thread. Otherwise, I will have to go back to my default position of "probably didn't happen". Put it in the same basket as Alexander bathing in saffron, using hair dye and spotting UFOs.

[amyntoros]

This question comes up quite often but I know it's difficult to search through the many threads for the information you seek.

Try this site for a convincing argument about the (modern) origins of the Prayer.

Best regards,

[Paralus]

I'm afraid I'll take a large amount of convincing about the "Opis parayer". Alexander bathing in saffron and flying saucers indeed Semiramis. It's constant repitition makes it "fact" much in the way that Ned Kelly (Aussie bushranger) was supposed to have said "Such is life" as he was to swing on the gallows. There is no record of this or substantiation at all. Yet it persists.

Whatever words were uttered over the sacrificial victims have not been recorded for posterity outside of a wish (by Alexander) for "concord" among those with him. As well he might: he had provoked a near revolt. Not by dismissing his veterans but by replacing them with barbarians - recently conquered barbarians. Only when the Macedonians realised that they were being replaced - commanders, Companions, Silver Shields and all - did they seek reconcilliation with the king. Alexander had played his Macedonians off against the Persians and aroused strong resentment.

As for the "brotherhood of man" - a modern pie-in-the-sky overlay - the lie is given to that with the clear precedence given to the seating of the ruling or "higher" class - Macedonians.

Eumenes, in his jousting over command with Peucestas, replicated the scene in Persis to demonstrate wo was who. There it is the Macedonian satraps and their companions (for which read Macedonians of their agema), the Silver Shields, the erstwhile (foot) companions of Alexander and the satrapal (native) forces that formed the circles.

Interestingly - and pointedly - there is not one whit of a mention of Hammond's "sons of the hypaspists" (of Alexander - the Silver Shields) that he claims are the hypaspists mentioned at Paraetecene and Gabiene. Wonder why they weren't invited?

Too young to drink perhaps...

[marcus]

Interestingly - and pointedly - there is not one whit of a mention of Hammond's "sons of the hypaspists" (of Alexander - the Silver Shields) that he claims are the hypaspists mentioned at Paraetecene and Gabiene. Wonder why they weren't invited?

Too young to drink perhaps...

Was it possible to be too young to drink in 4th century Macedonian society?

ATB

[Efstathios]

First of all, Arrian was based in Ptolemy's writings when he described the feast at Opis. Then, we have Plutarch, who was based at both Ptolemy and Eratosthenis. The later, was the 2nd in command at the directorate of the library of Alexandria, and also had included accounts from people that were there at Opis, though young at the time. So, we can say that maybe a large part of the speech was like they described in their books, or maybe the entire speech.

It was a prayer that all the people at the Opis' feast heard. It doesnt matter how they were sitting. At Alexander's table there were Macedonians, as well as Persians and others.

There is more to these words than meets the eye, contrary to what the link that Amyntoros provided says. It is also a fact that some time after that speech, Hephaestion died, and Alexander too afterwards, under unclarified circumstances.

The unity of man. An idea that apart from any ambition that Alexander may have had for his rule, puts in the table the most basic element for humanity to evolve and succeed at higher goals. Think about it.

Today some people do not wish for people to be truly united. They wish for them to be united in their own terms and agendas. The moto is divide and conquer. And after that, globalization, with the extinction of invidual cultures. This is not though what Alexander was talking about.

If men are truly united they could make a better world, and set new goals. We cannot reach the stars, without first the whole planet being as a whole. I see scientists trying to do things, without proper funding, if not at all, because most of the money goes to weapons.

Had Alexander achieved unity, and if his speech was sincere, and lets say his succesors continued at this path, mankind would be different now.

But some people may have not wanted this unity for mankind. And this goes beyond any Macedonians not liking what Alexander did. So they send a message to him. First Hephaestion. But Alexander wouldnt comply. He was about to invade Arabia, and then proceed to the rest of Europe, and who knows where else. So they murdered him. In a way that looks very familiar with modern day "not be suspected" assasinations, done by goverments and such.

This is of course just a senario, and specculations. But if you search within the words and the events, you may see some parallels.

[Sandra]

Interestingly - and pointedly - there is not one whit of a mention of Hammond's "sons of the hypaspists" (of Alexander - the Silver Shields) that he claims are the hypaspists mentioned at Paraetecene and Gabiene. Wonder why they weren't invited?

Too young to drink perhaps...

Was it possible to be too young to drink in 4th century Macedonian society?

ATB

Well, if they were two or three years old, perhaps...

[Paralus]

Sorry Stathi, but this is indulging in wilful fantasy. Our surviving sources mention absolutely nothing of the sort at Opis. Nothing. This entire “prayer” or “oath” – as the fable that is currently being pressed upon us – is a fiction. Why, in the “documentary” DVD I purchased in Greece, this “oath” enshrines “democracy” as his vision of proper government.

Excuse me whilst I lose dinner.

Alexander had pushed his Macedonians’ buttons hard enough to spark what was near a rebellion. He achieved exactly what he wanted by it: the repatriation of his superannuated phalanx and its replacement by a homogenous Asian force draw from the “upper” satrapies and Persian notables. All of whom would owe their position, pay and favour to the new “great” king.

Having accepted their apologies he offered “reconciliation” via an overly ostentatious banquet.

It was a prayer that all the people at the Opis' feast heard. It doesnt matter how they were sitting. At Alexander's table there were Macedonians, as well as Persians and others.

There is more to these words than meets the eye, contrary to what the link that Amyntoros provided says. It is also a fact that some time after that speech, Hephaestion died, and Alexander too afterwards, under unclarified circumstances

The seating arrangement tells you all you need to know of his view of the supposed high ideals of racial equality and equal partnership. Arrian, almost like his battle descriptions, lists the feasting battle lines. There is the king “sitting among the Macedonians, all of whom were present” then the Persians and then “distinguished foreigners of other nations”. One suspects that, given some 9,000 apparently attended, the Macedonians were not his entire army, nor even those destined to be pensioned off but his officers, pages, somatophylakes and royal hypaspists. Either way, Persians are not sitting next to Alexander, Macedonians are.

Alexander was off to conquer the next free people who, ostensibly, were yet to recognise him as a god. Then it was off elsewhere. All of this, of course, fits with his prayer of Opis. He was off to incorporate them as “partners” in his “commonwealth”. He will have done this without resorting to arms, of course.

Piffle.

On other things I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments regarding weapons spending. Let’s not go into the worldwide trade. And no, we cannot reach the stars…yet. We will though – when archaeologists are looking back wondering what the hell it was we were doing and why we were doing it.

Fifty years since Sputnik. Forty-six since Mercury. Forty-one years since Gemini and thirty-five (in sixteen days) since Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt drove the moon on the last Apollo mission. Yes, prior to becoming Paralus, Michael was (is) always a space “exploration tragic”. If you grew up during the sixties and seventies it was hard to ignore – especially if you always had an interest in astronomy. And an interest in astronomy has always been a part of me. Last year I purchased a 103mm refractor – a marvellous instrument I must say. Makes the 60mm Tasco job I had in my early teens look poor - though what it showed me still resides within and was the inspiration for the serious 'scope.

Unfortunately back then China was not manufacturing them and the old man was not about to help me buy something worth half a years’ salary.

Now, there’s a rather unexpected excursus into my background. Probably explains why, back when teaching was my go, it was History/English/Science.

Was it possible to be too young to drink in 4th century Macedonian society?

Now Marcus, you of all people should recognise an in-joke when you see one. Of course age did not matter. The sources are clear: Clietus’ sister was Alexander’s wet nurse. She taught him to drink. On the extant evidence, do you really think that meant breast milk?

Somewhat more seriously, I find Hammond’s assertion that Eumenes’ hypaspists were the “sons of Alexander’s hypaspists” (the Argyraspids) quite incredulous. I was not ever aware that the position was hereditary. Hieronymus’ description (via Diodorus) of the “Opis-lite” banquet in Persis utterly fails to mention them. One might have thought that they will have been. It is clear, I think, that these were Asian troops – the best thereof if not the Persian “Silver Shields”.

[Efstathios]

And an interest in astronomy has always been a part of me. Last year I purchased a 1003mm refractor – a marvellous instrument I must say. Makes the 60mm Tasco job I had in my early teens look poor - though what it showed me still resides within and was the inspiration for the serious 'scope.

I cannot believe it! I wouldnt suspect that you were into astronomy Michael. I also wanted a telescope when i was young, and now i got one. Actually two. The first is a maksutov catodioptric 102mm, and i also got afterwards a 250mm dobsonian, which i now plan to get a mount for it for astrophotography. And i thought i was the only one that had an interest in history and also astronomy. We have much more in common than i thought. Except that you are a bit more realist, but that's also a good thing i suppose.

Sorry for the off topic.

[marcus]

Was it possible to be too young to drink in 4th century Macedonian society?

Now Marcus, you of all people should recognise an in-joke when you see one. Of course age did not matter. The sources are clear: Clietus’ sister was Alexander’s wet nurse. She taught him to drink. On the extant evidence, do you really think that meant breast milk?

Hmm, maybe. And how ironic that his demonstration of the efficacy of her teaching methods deprived her of yet another relative ...

[amyntoros]

Having accepted their apologies he offered “reconciliation” via an overly ostentatious banquet. ... ...

... The seating arrangement tells you all you need to know of his view of the supposed high ideals of racial equality and equal partnership. Arrian, almost like his battle descriptions, lists the feasting battle lines. There is the king “sitting among the Macedonians, all of whom were present” then the Persians and then “distinguished foreigners of other nations”. One suspects that, given some 9,000 apparently attended, the Macedonians were not his entire army, nor even those destined to be pensioned off but his officers, pages, somatophylakes and royal hypaspists. Either way, Persians are not sitting next to Alexander, Macedonians are.

I always thought the figure of 9,000 a curious number - certainly less than those who were to be sent home and considerably less than Alexander's remaining forces if we accept that there was a large number of Persians and other foreigners in attendance. Makes me wonder sometimes if the feast was a "reward" for those Macedonians who had not expressed objections to Persian involvement in the government and army rather than the other way around. I wonder what those Macedonians who were not included in this "public" banquet thought about it.

Best regards,

[Paralus]

[I always thought the figure of 9,000 a curious number - certainly less than those who were to be sent home and considerably less than Alexander's remaining forces if we accept that there was a large number of Persians and other foreigners in attendance. Makes me wonder sometimes if the feast was a "reward" for those Macedonians who had not expressed objections to Persian involvement in the government and army rather than the other way around. I wonder what those Macedonians who were not included in this "public" banquet thought about it.

Wink indeed.

Bosworth, after an arduous analysis of the sources, has estimated some 18-19,000 Macedonians remaining (from a near 30,000 taken east) at the time of Opis. In fact, an entire chapter of The Legacy of Alexander is devoted to nutting out Macedonian numbers at the time of his death (do you have the book?). I find it a fulsome and succinct summary of the available evidence.

Using that figure, the numbers at the feast do not indicate any great presence of his troops. Obviously some must have been in attendance but given the scant information anything we might surmise is nothing more than a stab in the dark. How many “officers” can one have in an army of 18,000? Did the attendee list include lochoi and pentakosiarchs? That would give us some 900. It’s all guesswork.

You’d think that it would include those most “miffed”. I’d suspect the Argyraspids of being, at the very least, a little fractious over the idea of a Persian epigoni unit of the same name. Those in the companion cavalry “welcoming” barbarian “companions” might too have been somewhat disjointed.

Whoever attended, the message behind the seating is clear: Macedonians are the “upper class” in this empire. And so it was after the death of the “unifier of the races”.

[Paralus]

[The first is a maksutov catodioptric 102mm, and i also got afterwards a 250mm dobsonian, which i now plan to get a mount for it for astrophotography. And i thought i was the only one that had an interest in history and also astronomy. We have much more in common than i thought. Except that you are a bit more realist, but that's also a good thing i suppose.

You must promise some photos come this opposition of Mars Stathi. I'm looking into (pardon the pun) a "t-ring" for my digital. The photos of the moon have been so-so without. I'll need a clock drive and to level and line up that equatorial mount.

PM me your email (or do I already have it?!) and I'll see if I can send off some of the lunar eclipse the other month.

Why'd I get back into this???

[Semiramis]

Looking at how Alexander played people or groups against each other throughout his career, the Opis feast can make sense in that light. In Macedonia, it was Olympias vs. Attalus. On campaign it was Hephaistion vs. Crateros. In India, Porus vs. his cousin.

Before this feast, when his Macedonian troops started getting lippy, Alexander replaced them with Persians. The feast follows the inevitable tensions between the Macedonians and Persians this must've led to. Once again, re-establishing Alexander on top, Macedonians (upper classes most likely) next, Persian nobles after them and other foreigners at the periphery in terms of importance.

I still can't wrap my head around the idea that Alexander's empire was any more about the brotherhood of man than the Persian one. Both empires favoured the "race" of the ruler - ie. Macedonians or Persians respectively. On a braoder scale, I just can't see how it can be argued that the conquest of one "race" over another through war can be a path to promoting unity or the equality of man. In fact, isn't it more likely to do the opposite?

Regards

[Thracomac]

On Alexander’s Oath
Websites attribute to Alexander the Great an “Oath” or “Prayer” which he is
supposed to have delivered at a banquet in Opis in 324 B.C.E. The “Oath” or “Prayer” is
mythological. With some minor variations, it is substantially the same on all websites.
The earliest written form of the “Oath” seems to be in Nicholas Martis’s The
Falsification of Macedonian History (Translated by John Philip Smith. 1985 ed. Athens:
Nicolas Martis, 1983).
In The Falsification, Martis describes a feast given by Alexander at Opis:
“There he invited in a supranational banquet military officers from all the
units, and monarchs, maharajahs and notables from every tribe and in one
banquet he joined East and West. Alexander mentions the name of his
own god, Zeus, but he swears with the others to ‘the god father of all
humanity’. He says he had a vision hat behind the local gods there was a
great omnipotent god who moves the universe.”1

But only one of the five early historians who wrote about Alexander (Diodorus
Siculus, Flavius Arrianus, Justin, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius Rufus) wrote about the
feast at Opis.2
“To mark the restoration of harmony, Alexander offered sacrifice to the
gods he was accustomed to honor, and gave a public banquet, which he
himself attended, sitting among the Macedonians, all of whom were
present. Next to them the Persians had their places, and next to the
Persians distinguished foreigners of other nations; Alexander and his
friends dipped their wine from the same bowl and poured the same
libations, following the lead of the Greek seers and the Magi. The chief
object of his prayers was that the Persians and Macedonians might rule
together in harmony as an imperial power.”3

In his book, Martis writes the following: “This oath is given by Zolakostas in his
book Alexander the Great, Precursor of Christ (p. 235, in Greek text), who quoted the 3rd book of Pseudo-Callisthenes and the philosopher Eratosthenes.”4
The Oxford Classical Dictionary entry for Pseudo-Callisthenes is: “Pseudo-
Callisthenes, the so-called Alexander-Romance, falsely ascribed to Callisthenes, survives in several versions, beginning in the 3rd cent. A.D. It is popular fiction, a pseudohistorical narrative interspersed with an ‘epistolary novel’, bogus correspondence …”5
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c.285-194 BC) was a mathematician, literary critic,
chronologist, philosopher, poet, and geographer. His works are for the most part lost.6
However, Strabo, who lived in the first century B.C., wrote that Eratosthenes documented a source that told of Alexander’s predilection to welcome men of fair repute regardless of their origins.7 That sentiment, whatever its source, is the substance of what Eratosthenes transmitted to us through Strabo.
Waldemar Heckel and J.C. Yardley provide an excellent summarization of the
events at Opis.
“At Opis, on the Tigris River, Alexander prepared to dismiss a large
number of his Macedonian veterans, bringing into the camp at the same
time new recruits from the Iranian satrapies known as Epigoni. This,
although it was not the only cause of discontent, triggered an angry
reaction within the camp, one which Alexander suppressed by arresting
and executing the most outspoken of the mutineers, as well as by offering
words of conciliation. The appeal for ‘concord’ (homonoia) gave rise to
the idea that Alexander was trying to promote a ‘Brotherhood of
Mankind’, an idea which has been thoroughly discredited and is discussed
today as a mere footnote to Alexander scholarship. Here we are
confronted not with dreams of unity but with the reality of opposition
within Alexander’s army.”8

W. W. Tarn was one of the most highly regarded Alexander scholars of the early
twentieth century. In his Alexander the Great9 he portrays Alexander as a philosopher-warrior-king ennobled by the concept of the “Brotherhood of Man.” Tarn projected near
Judaic-Christian values into Alexander’s motivations. Scholarship that is more recent has all but demolished Tarn’s notions.
Following are quotations from five academics about the events at Opis.

H.G.L. Hammond : Hammond adds very little analysis of the banquet at Opis,
except for the comment: “Alexander ‘prayed especially for concord and for the sharing
of rule between Macedonians and Persians’”10
A. B. Bosworth: “Alexander had acts of his own to expiate. He had deliberately
played on the deep hostility between Macedonian and Persian and the deliberate
promotion of Persians had inflicted a profound shock on the rank and file. To salve the
wounds he held an enormous banquet of reconciliation, allegedly attended by more than nine thousand guests. … but on this occasion the preferences shown to the Macedonians was emphatic and significant. … The prayer indicated that both peoples figured in Alexander’s imperial projects and that they should coexist peacefully. There was no deeper hint that he envisaged a hybrid master race fused from both nationalities or that he saw humanity as a brotherhood under his universal rule.”11
Ulrich Wilcken: “The actual prayer makes it most plain that the ideal which was before him was simply the fraternisation [sic] of Macedonians and Persians. There is no trace whatever of Alexander’s treating all mankind as one brotherhood.”12
Peter Green: “There is no hint here of that international love-feast, that
celebration of the Brotherhood of Man [emphasis added] which at least one scholar61 has professed to find at the banquet at Opis. Persians were placed firmly below Macedonians in order of precedence, and other races, again, below them. When Alexander made his famous prayer at the feast for ‘harmony [homonoia] and fellowship [koinonia] of rule between Macedonians and Persians’ he meant precisely what he said, and no more — nor is there much doubt which race he meant to be senior partner.”13
Ernst Fredricksmeyer: “Within this monarchy … the Macedonians were to be
the leading component, but all subjects would be equal with respect to Alexander as their absolute master.”14

Notes
1 Martis, The Falsification of Macedonian History, 68, 69.
2 But for fragments, the original sources for the Alexander story all have been lost.
3 Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, 366.
4 Martis, The Falsification of Macedonian History, 69.
5 Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 1270.
6 Hornblower and Spawforth, The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 553.
7 Strabo, Horace Leonard Jones, and John Robert Sitlington Sterrett, The Geography of Strabo, 8 vols., The Loeb Classical Library (London; New York: W. Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's sons, 1917). Book I 4.9
8 Waldemar Heckel and John Yardley, Alexander the Great: Historical Texts in Translation, Blackwell Sourcebooks in Ancient History (Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2004), 266.
9 W. W. Tarn, Alexander the Great (Boston,: Beacon Press, 1956).
10 N. G. L. Hammond, The Genius of Alexander the Great (London: Duckworth, 1997), 190.
11 A. B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 160, 161.
12 Wilcken and Borza, Alexander the Great, 221.
13 Green, Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography, 456. Green’s footnote #61 at page
561 refers to Tarn, Proc. Brit. Acad. 19 (1933), 123-66 = MP, pp. 243-86, cf. his Alexander the Great, vol. II, pp. 440 ff.
14 Fredricksmeyer, E. (1997) ‘Alexander and the Kingship in Asia’, in Bosworth and Baynham, Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction, 166.