p. 19. I am pleased to see that the suggestion that ancient Aigai was modern Vergina has been supported with other more solid arguments by N.G.L. Hammond in his remarkable History of Macedonia vol I, which replaces all earlier work on the historical geography and prehistory of the country. He adds the exciting guess that the fourthcentury throne found in one of Vergina’s vaulted tombs may actually be Philip’s; one can only hope this will be followed up on the site.
p. 104. An excellent account of the continuity of water worship (Anahita) in Iran, with modern ritual, is given by M. Boyce JRAS (1966) p. 110.
p. 202. I must stress that even if the drift of motive in A. 3.2–3.3 for Alex.’s visit to Siwah was derived from Ptolemy, that does not make it true. Ptol. certainly was not ‘Out of sympathy’ with Alex.’s ideas about Ammon; apart from his coins showing Alex wearing the ram’s horn on the elephant cap, he dedicated an altar at Siwah (Paus. 9.16.1). The word pothos, of course, cannot possibly be traced back to Alex., through Aristotle or any contemporary. Call. as quoted by S., used the word philodoxia, hence the themes of the ingens cupido or pothos urging him to Siwah, as agreed in A. and QC. The use of pothos perhaps is a Herodotean idiom (as argued by H. Montgomery, Gedanke und Tat) and A. allows Herodotean words to mar the purity of his anyway cumbersome Attic style in the Anabasis (e.g. acharis, atrekes). Montgomery lists the many uses of the word in historians of the late Hellenistic age; this puts A.’s practice into perspective, with the one reservation that these earlier uses are limited to a pothos to found a city, be king of Asia and so forth, which are pothoi that suit Alex.’s career. It would thus be possible, though unnecessary, to argue that a historian of Alex. established the word; for many reasons I refuse to believe this.
Chaps. 21–24. Peter Levi, Light Garden of the Angel King (1972) is a perceptive and elegant account of Afghanistan, based on six months’ travel and a study of possible Greek sites.
p. 414. I feel it needs no proof (there is no sound evidence either way) that the Exiles Decree was sent to the League of Corinth. The Council, as in the 302 revival, met at the major Greek festivals, and Alex.’s Decree was surely reserved for the Olympic Games in order to coincide with a Council meeting. It was upheld by Polyperchon in 319 when ‘freeing’ the Greeks by an edict which strongly recalls Alex.’s own (DS 18.56, esp. last clauses). Despite the doubts of E. Will (Hist. pol du monde hellen. 1 p. 43f.). I still incline to Larsen’s view that in 319, Polyperchon revived Philip’s League. If so, Alex.’s edict on exiles, which he also revived, is likely to have gone through the same unit.
The Samians may suggest otherwise, as they had been exiled before the League existed, yet were restored in 324. However, Philip had arguably stretched a point against them in 338 and against his own League Charter by leaving the Athenians in possession of their island. Like the small Boeotian cities, Samos had a right to be ‘free and autonomous’, a clause which the Athenian cleruchy, arguably, infringed. Alex.’s decision was popular with other Greeks, and could have corrected Philip’s on these ‘legal’ grounds (cp. his dissolution of the Arcadian League, also in 324). If he had merely been issuing a completely arbitrary edict, Philip’s precedent would not have been relevant, or worth raising. The Athenians thought it was, although it failed. So, on balance, I do not think the Samians are the exception which disproves my view.
The use of an edict, certainly, was no new tyranny. We do not know when, or how, Philip and Alex. were ‘entitled’ to issue diagrammata to Greek cities, but plainly Philip did (DS 18.56), and Alex. issued one to Eresos in 332, usually assumed to be a League member (Tod 191, lines 35, 60, 129, 142 where ‘diagrapha’ is a diagramma, though the ‘laws’ are Eresos’s own, a point proved by line 132f. Philip Ill’s brisk résumé in 99–100 ignores the point that the tyrants are condemned off Eresos’s own bat: cp. line 60). The copy of Alex.’s ruling to Chios (also by diagramma?) may be abbreviated, but it has a brusqueness, already in the 330s, which had not been seen in Greek inscriptions since the hey-day of democratic Athens’s Empire. The diagramma of 324 was no new approach. It may even have been more politely phrased than its predecessors.
The details are tricky. The edict in DS 18.8 is at best an excerpt, and was followed by the full diagramma ruled on complex inheritance (line 57) and house-ownership (10), a reminder that we should not yet underestimate Alex’s chancellery. However, Philip’s League, as revived in 302, also passed rubrics on inheritance (I.G.IV.I2.28 line 50 (34):kleronomoi), so Alex.’s edict may only have ordered these to apply to the returning exiles in 324.
Other royal clauses are hinted at by agreements between the Tegea text and other texts restoring exiles throughout Alex.’s reign. Both at Mytilene (Tod 201. line 31) and Tegea (line 57), an oath of amnesty is sworn: Alex may have enjoined this from. above, perhaps as at Ephesus in 334 (A. 1.17.12). At Tegea and Calymna (Michel, nr. 417) there were boards of foreign judges, by order of the diagramma (Michel, line 44). At Mytilene (line 21–23) the judges were exiles and citizens, a divergence which strengthens the view that this law belongs in 332, not 324. If so, Alex.’s rulings on exiles developed (wisely) between 332 and 324. For this foreign arbitration, at least between states, cp. Tod 170, as prescribed by the League. Again, the League charter may be the source for a ruling in the diagramma of 324.
These clauses, common to Tegea and Calymna, do persuade me that the Exiles’ diagramma was circulated through one centralized unit, not just through the distant night of Antipater. Philip’s League forbade exiling and changes of government; perhaps where these ‘evils’ happened despite the Council, a clause entitled the king to intervene bydiagramma (hence Tod 191; also the submission of Spartan rebels to Alex.’s will in 330). That does not make the Exiles’ Decree any less stringent, but it does mean that in 324, Alex. was not necessarily acting on some new despotic whim or despising all formalities.
p. 434. H. Luschey’s lecture on the Lion of Hamadan now appears in Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran (1968) p. 115.
Chap. 32. W.H.S. Jones, Malaria in Ancient Greek History once equated the symptoms of ‘melancholia’ with those of the nervous hysteria which he had observed in cases of malaria. I doubt this, and ‘melancholia’ could anyway be used more widely; hence Aristotle says all great poets and philosophers have a streak of melancholia, a word frequently occurring with oxutes or sharpness. This volatility or nervous quickness is what Ephippus alleged of Alexander.
Chap. 33. The theme of ‘universal conquest’ is certainly not the invention of modern Germans as a motive for Alex. A.7.15.5 (where the legousi can include Ptol. and Aristob.) the (contemporary, in my opinion) inscription on Lysippus’s Alexander with the Spear, and above all, Aristob. F56 line 23 imply it was in the minds of contemporaries.The ‘vulgate’s’ questions at Siwah are at least evidence for the subsequent gossip, and one must consider how far the later aspirations of Demetrius the Besieger, painted at Athens as master of the globe, were due to his own wild ambition or a play on Alex.’s own aspirations. The latter is at least plausible: S. Weinstock, Divus Julius (1972) traces the effects of this, and much else, in extraordinary detail.
p. 280. Isidore, Stathmoi 15 and 5.11.10.1 prove that Artacoana and the new Alexandria were distinct. If Alexandria is Herat, they must have been far apart.
p. 357. Alexander’s initial route through Makran remains uncertain. Stein’s proposal (Geogr. Journal, 1943) is too easy a road and founders on S.15.2.4–6’s insistence that the march ‘repeatedly’ touched the coast (unless this is S’s own phrasing, and worthless). Also, it entails that Alex. abandoned his coastal route as soon as the fleet did not meet him near his Alexandria. I doubt this. Strasburger’s proposal (Hermes, 1954) is difficult, too; if Alex. sent Thoas to inspect the shore early on, and found it desert, he surely would have avoided a march along it. I suspect the truth lies between Stein and Strasburger, with several loops as the guides went wrong. The coastline has certainly altered since 324 B.C.
A. SOURCES
Despite frequent and ineffective challenge, the fullest and soundest discussions are still to be found in the articles in Pauly-Wissowa, Realen-encyclopädie der Altertumswissenschaft, by F. Jacoby (articles on Callisthenes and Cleitarchus) and E. Schwartz (Arrian-Aristobulus, Curtius and Diodorus). Disagreements are mostly minor, except for the theory that Ptolemy used the Royal Diaries, now admitted to be irrelevant. P.M. Fraser, Opuscula Atheniensia (1967), pp. 27ff. remains an essential background to these Diaries’ problems; H. Strasburger, Ptolemaios und Alexander (1934), is of much scholarly value but errs on the side of optimism (when A.B. Bosworth’s commentary on Arrian is complete, it will no doubt be impossible to neglect Arrian’s own phrasing any more) and overvalues Ptolemy’s own impartiality.
As for the coinage, A.R. Bellinger, Essays on the Coinage of Alexander the Great (1963) can only be used critically; E. Pegan, Jahrb. für Numism. u. Geldgeschichte (1969) p. 99, corrects one point, the dating of Alexander’s gold issues, but there is more to be refuted. Perhaps this will be the achievement of G.B. Le Rider, whose surveys of this field in Annuaire de l’ École Pratique, 1968/9, 1969/70 have unfortunately been unavailable to me. On the role of coinage in antiquity, Dr M.H. Crawford, JRS (1970), p. 40 has some especially interesting comments.
B. MACEDONIA
i. GENERAL BACKGROUND
S. Casson, Macedonia, Thrace and Ilyria (1926)
M. Delacoulonche, Mèmoire sur le berceau de la puissance macédonienne (1858)
M. Dimitsas, He Makedonia en lithois phthengomenois (1896)
N.G.L. Hammond, Epirus (1967)
L.A. Heuzey and L. Daumet, Le Mont Olympe et l’Acaranie (1860)
—— Mission Archéologique en Macédoine (1876)
Colonel W.M. Leake, Travels in Northern Greece (1835)
A. Struck, Makedonische Fahrten, I and II: Zur Kunde der Balkan Halbinsel. Reise und Beobachtungen, nos. 4, 7 (1907/8)
ii. EVIDENCE
Inscriptiones Graecae, vol. x, covering inscriptions found in Macedonia, although stones found in ports like Thessalonica may have arrived from elsewhere
J.N. Kalleris, Les anciens macédoniens (1954): a dictionary of Macedonian words I.I. Russou, Ephemeris Dacoromana (1938): a collection of Macedonian names Arnold Toynbee: Some Problems in Greek History (1969): conjectural account of early Macedonian history
iii. ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES
A vast bibliography of most excavations this century can be consulted in the periodical Makedonika (1966/7), pp. 277ff., followed up in subsequent issues. The equally useful annual Balkan Studies is a good introduction, its volume for 1962 containing a survey of the field. Here I single out a few articles of special interest; we are not yet able to trace the origins of Macedonia’s material culture (though the tradition of a Phrygian invasion may be one clue: the so-called ‘Macedonian’ tombs have parallels at Gordium, the Phrygian capital), nor can we single out Macedonian features, if any, in the spread of hellenism through Asia (though the main building at Ai Khanum already shows some interesting similarities to the palace at Vergina). D.M. Robinson, Excavations at Olynthus, especially vols. ii and x, remains the essential comparison.
M. Andronicos, Bergina (1969)
—— BCH (1955), p. 87: funeral stelai from Vergina
C.F. Edson, CP (1951), p. 1: route of the Via Egnatia
Hesperia (1949), p. 78: tomb of Olympias, with inscriptions
B. Kallipolitis, Arch. Ephem. (1948/9), pp. 85ff.: late fifth-century finds at Kozani A.E. Keramopoullos, Arch. Ephem. (1932), p. 32: finds in Upper Macedonia
—— PAE (1940), stilt village at Kastoria
G.P. Oikonomos, Ath. Mitt. (1926), pp. 8off.; bronzes from Pella
P. Perdrizet, BCH (1898), pp. 335ff.: Macedonian tombs
Ph. Petsas, Balkan Studies (1963), pp. 150ff.: Pella
Of the brief notices of finds given yearly in the BCH Chronique des fouilles and the Archaeologikon Deltion, the following are of interest: BCH (1965), pp. 808-10 (bronze bowl, papyrus and armour at Derveni), (1966), p. 864 (walls of Dion), p. 867 (Mieza), p. 871 (Pella). Archaeol. Deltion 16 (1960), pp. 72ff. discusses Pella, 1957-60; 21 (1966), Chronik, p. 344 notes fourth-century tombs at Edessa, not however of a size to suit the royal graves at Aigai, misplaced there.
C. PERSIA
i. GENERAL BACKGROUND
Gertrude Bell, Persian Pictures (1894)
Cambridge History of Iran, vol. i (1968): geographical
G.N. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question (1892)
R.N. Frye, The Heritage of Persia (1963)
Anne Lambton, Landlord and Peasant in Persia (1953)
A.T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire (1948)
G. Rawlinson, The Fifth Oriental Monarchy (1876)
E.H. Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand (1963)
Lt J. Wood, A Journey to the Sources of the River Oxus (1872)
ii. NATIVE DOCUMENTS
(a) In Old Persian, a language probably inherited from the Medes and used only for the official inscriptions of the kings until c. 460; Alexander’s court would speak Middle Persian. J. Duchesne-Guillemin surveys all but the most recent work here in Kratylos (1963), pp. 1ff.
W. Brandenstein, Wiener Zeitschr.für die Kunde Süd-und Ostasiens (1964), p. 43: old Persian in Aristophanes
W. Eilers, Beitr. zur Namenforschung (1964), p. 180: study of the name Cyrus
W. Hinz, ZDMG (1963), p. 231; Orientalia (1967), p. 327; improvements in Bisituntext
R.G. Kent, Old Persian Grammar, Texts and Lexicon (2nd edn, 1953)
R. Schmitt, ZDMG. (1967), p. 27: Median and Persian in Herodotus
(b) Babylonian
G. Cardascia, Les Archives des Murasu (1951): full supporting bibliography
(c) Elamite
G.G. Cameron, Persepolis Treasury Tablets (1948)
—— JNES (1958). p. 161, (1965), p. 167: more treasury evidence
R.T. Hallock, Persepolis Fortification Tablets (1969): vital, but sparse, new sources
W. Hinz, ZDMG (1960), p. 236: another survey
(d) Aramaic: a small selection
R.A. Bowman, Aramaic Ritual Texts from Persepolis (1970)
E. Bresciani, ‘Le lettere aramaiche di Hermopoli, Atti del. Acc. Naz. dei Lincei (1966), Ρ 357
A.E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. (1923)
G.R. Driver, Aramaic Documents (2nd edn, 1957)
E. Kraeling, Brooklyn Aramaic Papyri (1953)
iii. SPECIAL STUDIES
L.T. Altbaum, B. Brentjes, Die Wachter des Goldes (1972)
F. Bergman, Archaeological Researches in Sinkiang (Sino-Swedish Expedition, 7), p. 120: an Iranian bow
P. Bernard, Syria (1964), p. 195, (1965), p. 272: horsemen and harness
M. Boyce, JRAS (1957), p. 10; Persian minstrelsy
—— JRAS (1966), p. 100, BSOAS (1969), p. 10, (1970), p. 22: Zoroaster
P.R.L. Brown, The World of Late Antiquity (1971), pp. 160ff.
M.A. Dandamayev, Iran pri pervykh Akhemenidakh (1963)
M. Echtecham, L’Iran sous les Achéménides (1946)
I. Gershevitch, BSOAS (1957), p. 317: wood at Susa
R. Ghirshman, Un Village perse—achéménide (1954)
G. Gropp, Archaeol. Mitt. Iran (1969), p. 147: fire-temples
E. Herzfeld, The Persian Empire (1968)
W. Hinz, ZDMG (1960), p. 236: stability of prices
S.V. Kisselev, Artibus Asiae (1951), p. 169: cavalry
B. Laufer, Sino-Iranica, with special reference to plants (1919)
—— Felt How it was made and used (1937)
R. Lyddeker, Wild Oxen Sheep and Goats o, All Lands (1898)
M. Nicol, Iran (1967), pp. 137-8: advance report on survey of the Royal Road
B.B. Porten, Archives from Elephantine (1968)
J.P. Roux, Central Asiatic Journal (1959), p. 27: the camel
E.H. Schafer, Iranian Merchants in Tang Dynasty Tales, in Semitic and Oriental Studies Presented to William Popper (1951), p. 403
K. Schippmann, Iranischer Feuerheiligtumer (1968)
D. Schlumberger, L’Argent grec dans l’empire achéménide (1953)
M.L. West, Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient (1971)
G. Widengren, Festchr. L. Brandt (1968), p. 323: feudalism
F. Willmann, Rocznik. (1951/2, 1953), p. 250: Anahita
Hellenism in Asia, especially among Iranians: the artistic remains are discussed with full bibliography in D. Schlumberger’s excellent L’Orient hellénisé (1969). The Soviet excavations are most accessible to those who cannot read Russian in C.A. Frumkin’s Soviet Excavations in Central Asia (1970) and his general survey in the Central Asian Review (1969); M.A.R. Colledge, The Parthians (1967) lists most of the literature for Parthian documents and Asian art in the Parthian period. M.I. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (1953) remains the outstanding sketch of the age; the briefer essay of A.H.M. Jones, Past and Present (1963), p. 1 is equally provocative. I only list here a few specialized studies, mostly not covered in these general works.
B. PALESTINE AND SYRIA
M. Avi-Yonah, Oriental Art in Roman Palestine (1961)
Comte du Mesnil du Buisson, Études sur les dieux phoeniciens (1970)
M. Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus (1969)
B. Lifschitz, Euphrosyne (1970) p. 113: the spread of Greek in Palestine, a subject also discussed and, to my mind, exaggerated by M. Sevenster, Do You Know Greek? (1968).
H. Seyrig, Syria (1970), pp. 29off.: a brilliant survey of certain effects of Seleucid rule. J.B. Ward-Perkins, Proc. Brit. Acad. (1965), p. 175: so-called ‘Parthian’ art of Mesopotamia
C.B. Welles and others report on Dura Europos, the Excavations (1929 onwards) and
C.B. Welles summarizes one crucial point in The Population of Roman Dura, in Studies Presented to A.C. Johnson (1951), p. 251
B. BABYLON
A. Al-Hail, Sumer (1964), p. 103: the chemical cell
A. Aymard, Une Ville seleucide de la Babylonie, reprinted in his Études d’hist. ancienne (1967): a brilliant survey
R.A. Bowman, Amer. Joum. Semit. Lang. (1939), p. 235
G. Sarkisian, Vestnik dreyney istorii (1952), p. 68; (1953), p. 59. Eos (1956), p. 29 E. Unger, Babylon, Die Heilige Stadt (1931), esp. pp. 318-19 on Greek style in Babylon’s decrees
The best study of Berossus and Greek and Babylonian astronomy is to be found in Trans. Amer. Philosoph. Soc for 1963; the most provocative study of hellenistic science is the essay by C. Préaux, in Studies presented to C. B. Welles (1966)
C. WESTERN IRANIANS
A.J. Festugière, Symb. Oslo. (1950), p. 89; Greek hymn at Susa
C. Habicht, Hermes (1953), p. 251: school text of Euripides in Armenia
G.B. Le Rider, Suse sous les Seleucides et Parthes (1965)
E.H. Minns, JHS (1915), p. 22: Greek documents from Avroman
H.S. Nyberg, Le Monde oriental (1923), p. 182: same documents
L. Robert, Noms indigenes en Asie Mineure (1963), esp. pp. 457ff. on hellenized Cappadocia
—— Epistemonike Epeteris of the Philos. School at Athens (1962), p. 520: Greeks at Susa
J. and L. Robert’s, Bulletin Épigraphique (REG 1961), nr 819: Greek gymnastics. L. Robert, Hellenica, vol. 7, p. 7, vol. xi-xii, p. 8: Greek inscriptions in Iran
D. UPPER SATRAPIES
R.D. Barnett, Iran. Antiqua (p. 1968), 34: Oxus treasure
P. Bernard, Syria (1968), p. 111: Corinthian capitals at Ai-Khanum
—— Syria (1970), p. 327: ivory Achaemenid style thrones
E.J. Bickermann, CP (1952), p. 65: brilliant sketch of Greek approach to the east
A.D.H. Bivar, JRAS (1970), p. 65: Parthian ostraca in Iran
M. Boyce, JRAS (1957), p. 10: Iranian minstrelsy and the Parthians
M. Bussagli, Riv. dell’ Instit. naz. d’Archeol. (1953), p. 171: Greek art in Central Asia
MX. Chaumont, Journ. As. (1968), p. 16: Parthian ostraca
I.M. Diakonov, V.A. Livshitz, Dokumenty iz Nisy (1960)
I.M. Diakonov, V.A. Livshitz, Sbornik LA. Orbel (1960): Iranian names at Nisa
—— Materialy i issledovaniva po arkheolog. SSSR (1950), p. 161: Charon’s coins and Oxus nomads
R. Ghirshman, Persian Art, the Parthians and Sassanids (1962)
Begram (1946), esp. on the walls and water, for which cp. H. Fischer Gnomon (1966), p. 282
W.B. Henning, Bull SAOS (1960), p. 47; ‘Mitteliranisch’, in Handbuch der Orientalistik (ed. B. Spuler), 1958, p. 22: use of Aramaic in Seleucid Iran; cp. the Taxila inscription, the Chorasmian alphabet of the third century A.D. and Chinese evidence mentioned in A.J. Toynbee, Between the Oxus and the Jumna (1961)
E. Herzfeld, Archaeological History of Iran (1935)
—— Iran in the Ancient East (1941)
Sir John Marshall, Taxila (1951)
M.E. Masson, VDI(1951), p. 89; Greek city in Merv oasis; VDI(1954), p. 159: Greek seal-stones at Nisa; VDI (1955), p. 42: lack of small-change coinage in finds in Iran before the second century A.D.
M.E. Masson, G.A. Pugachenkova: Parfansky ritony Nisy (1965)
E.H. Minns, JHS (1943), p. 123: review of K.V. Trever, as below
A.L. Mongait, Archaeology in the USSR (1961, pelican ed.), esp. pp. 239ff. on nomads statuettes
G.A. Pugachenkova, VDI (1952), p. 26: Merv
G.A. Pugachenkova, VDI(1951), p. 128: vase from Termez
—— Iran. Antiqua (1965): Greek art at Khaltchayan
B. Rowland, The Art Quarterly (1955), Ρ· 174: Hellenistic sculpture in Iran
W.W. Tarn, Greeks in Bactria and India (1951): to be used extremely critically S.P. Tolstov, Iran. Antiqua (1961): report on Khwarezm in French
—— Po drevnim deltam Oksa: Jakarta (1962), esp. pp. 125ff.: nomads’ ossuaries
K.V. Trever, Pamyatniki greko-baktribskovo iskusstva (1940)
L. van den Berghe, Archéol. de l’Iran ancien (1959)
Κ. Weitzmann, The Art Bulletin (1943), p. 289: Euripides on Bactrian silver
M. Wheeler, Flames over Persepolis (1968): Indo-Greek material
Far the most important evidence are the Asoka inscriptions, first discussed by L. Robert and others in Journ. Asiat. (1958), pp. 1ff. and the finds at Ai Khanum, regularly reported in Compte Rendu de l’Acad. des Inscript, et Belles Lettres, from 1964 onwards. The reports by P. Bernard and D. Schlumberger in BCH (1965) and by P. Bernard in Proc. Brit. Acad. (1967) are important; the finest study, however, is by L. Robert, CRAI(1968), ‘Des Delphes à l’Oxus’, p. 416 citing the whole range of Greek inscriptional evidence. The theme of the Trojan horse has now turned up at Ai Khanum, explaining its presence in Gandharan art; there are hints of the knowledge of Greek myth in the Swat highlands in the many Italian finds there, reported in East and West from 1960 onwards. The Ceylon inscriptions naming Homer and Greek sages are discussed by S. Paranavitana, The Greeks and the Mauryas (1971).
We must hope for great things from Ai Khanum; its site on the south bank of the Oxus does not rule it out as Alexandria-in-Sogdia; Darius I’s great Susa building inscription refers to lapis lazuli from Sogdia, not Bactria. The lapis mines were on the Kokcha river, like Ai Khanum, which stood, therefore, in Sogdia too.