Alexander φιλέταιρος

Ptolemy's first preserved reference to Alexander comes in the form of an otherwise unattested anecdote about the king during his liberation of Ephesus in 334 bc:

With this story Ptolemy combines his two favourite topics: Homeric and Alexander revisionism. As Downie notes, by the third century ce, ‘The neglected Palamedes had been a trope of Homeric critique in the Greek tradition for centuries.’Footnote ¹¹ Various accounts exist of how the hero Palamedes met his demise, though all agree that it was through treachery at the hands of Odysseus. Pausanias (10.31.2), citing the Cypria, claims that Odysseus and Diomedes drowned Palamedes while he was fishing,Footnote ¹² and Dictys (2.15) asserts that Odysseus and Diomedes, acting out of jealousy for Palamedes’ popularity, lured Palamedes into a well under false pretences and crushed him to death with stones. An alternative, more popular, version of events claims that Palamedes was put to death after being falsely accused of treason by Odysseus.Footnote ¹³ This version of the myth lies at the heart of works such as Gorgias’ Defense of Palamedes and can be found referenced in the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.Footnote ¹⁴ In the Imperial era as well Palamedes appears to have been a popular topic in sympotic literature, where references can be found to his death as well as to the various inventions with which he is credited, which range from dice to letters of the alphabet.Footnote ¹⁵

The Aristonicus named in Ptolemy's anecdote is not mentioned in any of the primary extant Alexander sources, but he is found in a late-fourth-century ce inscription from AthensFootnote ¹⁶ as well as in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae, also as a σφαιριστής (‘ball-player’) of Alexander.Footnote ¹⁷ Nevertheless, the theme of this passage is a common one, using an anecdote from Alexander's life to demonstrate a key aspect of his character (ἦθος).Footnote ¹⁸ And yet, while the portrayal of Alexander's character given here appears, on the surface, to be reasonable, the characterization of Alexander as ἐπιεικὴς καὶ φιλέταιρος engages the lively debate over the two traditional halves of Alexander's representation: the philosopher-king and the despotic tyrant.Footnote ¹⁹

The association of Alexander with his ἑταῖροι (‘companions’) is a common theme, reflecting the reality of the Macedonian court system.Footnote ²⁰ And yet, equally prominent is Alexander's betrayal of his ἑταῖροι, or theirs of him.Footnote ²¹ Alexander's campaigns in Asia after the defeat of Darius are frequently depicted as plagued with conspiracies against both the king by his Macedonian ἑταῖροι, and the ἑταῖροι by the king, culminating in the deaths of Philotas, Parmenio, Cleitus, and Callisthenes. The historicity of these events, and the motives behind them is a highly contentious issue, but regardless of whether these events happened in the manner described by the sources, the stories were an inherent piece of the ‘corrupted’ Alexander image, the archetype of the good Macedonian corrupted by Persian wealth and power.Footnote ²²

Returning to the passage in question, one of the adjectives used, φιλέταιρος, is especially revealing of Ptolemy's reliance on his reader's familiarity with the tradition of Alexander reception as well as his manipulation of this same tradition. Φιλέταιρος also occurs in both Plutarch (Alexander 48.1 and De vitioso pudore 530d) and Arrian (Anabasis 7.4.7) in reference to Alexander,Footnote ²³ and, notably, in all three cases this description is used in a context in which the opposite in fact appears to be true.

In the Alexander, Alexander's φιλεταιρία is compared with that of his ἑταῖρος Philotas, who is subsequently arrested and tortured by Alexander, although Plutarch emphasizes that the man had been framed and was in fact innocent.Footnote ²⁴ Following this incident, Plutarch emphasizes how Alexander, whom he had just previously described as the most φιλέταιρος, had become an object of fear for these same friends after executing both Philotas and his father, Parmenio, who had been one of his senior advisers.Footnote ²⁵ Similarly in De vitioso pudore, Plutarch relates an anecdote about how the diadochs Polyperchon and Cassander plotted to kill Heracles, the son of Alexander and Barsine.Footnote ²⁶ Polyperchon, Plutarch claims, lured the suspicious Heracles to dinner by saying ‘imitate first, child, your father's good nature and his attachment to his companions, lest you fear us on the grounds that we are plotting against you’ (530d: πρῶτον’ εἶπεν ‘ὦ παῖ, μιμοῦ τοῦ πατρὸς τὸ εὔκολον καὶ φιλέταιρον, εἰ μὴ νὴ Δία δέδοικας ἡμᾶς ὡς ἐπιβουλεύοντας). Thus shamed, Heracles attends the dinner where he is summarily murdered.Footnote ²⁷ Plutarch does not name any particular source for this anecdote, and the statement by Polyperchon is not included in any other extant account of Heracles’ murder. Within Plutarch's essay, Polyperchon's words are double-edged. They point to what appears on the surface to have been a key (positive) aspect of Alexander's reputation in antiquity and as such fulfill their rhetorical purpose in shaming Heracles into accepting Polyperchon's invitation. At the same time, the use of the term in the context of a betrayal – and in particular a betrayal at a meal – taps into negative aspects of Alexander's reputation, including in particular the dinnertime murder of Cleitus, creating a mirror for the treacherous actions of Alexander's former friends against his son.

Arrian's use of the term appears no less incongruous. In the Anabasis, during his account of the weddings at Susa, Arrian lauds Alexander for his munificence to his companions, holding a joint marriage celebration for both himself and Darius’ daughter Barsine and his ἑταῖροι to other noblewomen of the Persian court: καὶ τοῦτο, εἴπερ τι ἄλλο, ἔδοξε δημοτικόν τε καὶ φιλέταιρον πρᾶξαι Ἀλέξανδρον (Anab. 7.4.7: ‘this thing, if not anything else, seemed to make Alexander generous and fond of his companions’). This observation by Arrian comes at a point in the Anabasis where he does indeed stress Alexander's φιλεταιρία, paying the dowries of his companions’ new brides and offering wedding presents (7.4.8), discharging the debts of his soldiers (7.5.1–3), and handing out rewards for bravery in battle (7.5.4–6). However, it is sandwiched on either side by reminders of Alexander's increasing paranoia and tendencies to lash out at these same companions. Immediately before the wedding scene, Arrian describes how αὐτὸς Ἀλέξανδρος ὀξύτερος λέγεται γενέσθαι ἐν τῷ τότε ἐς τὸ πιστεῦσαί τε τοῖς ἐπικαλουμένοις ὡς πιθανοῖς δὴ ἐν παντὶ οὖσι (Arr. Anab. 7.4.3: ‘Alexander himself is said to have become quicker at this time to believe the accusations as being credible in every circumstance’).Footnote ²⁸ Arrian returns to this theme in the aftermath of the wedding ceremonies, describing the Macedonians’ increasing resentment with Alexander for continuing to adopt Persian customs and Persian men into his army in positions of prestige (7.6.1–5).Footnote ²⁹ While Arrian is typically very forgiving of Alexander's faults, on this point it is clear that this praise of Alexander as φιλέταιρος cannot be taken as wholeheartedly positive praise, given the broader context of Alexander's treatment of his ἑταῖροι.

In each of these attestations of Alexander as φιλέταιρος, this characterization of Alexander is immediately undermined by actions questioning its validity. This same double-edged meaning is present in Ptolemy's anecdote. On the surface, this passage would appear to demonstrate Alexander's unironic φιλεταιρία through his reaction to simply the idea of his friend meeting his death. The repetition of the compound δολοφονέω (‘to murder by treachery’), however, pulls in the opposite direction. Alexander is disturbed not at the notion that his friend would die, but at seeing his friend in the face of one who had been betrayed to his death by his companions out of jealousy and in revenge for perceived slights. What is it that disturbs him? Is it seeing in a dead man his friend's face, or is it the thought of him betraying his friend, as the reader would know that he did with Philotas, Parmenio, Cleitus, and Callisthenes? The conclusion of Photius’ summary of this section of Ptolemy suggests that the reader is supposed to see this event as positive, proof of Alexander's love for his ἑταῖροι that even the thought of one of them meeting a tragic fate upsets him. This claim is striking, however, in light of Alexander's history of being the one responsible for the tragic fates of his ἑταῖροι.

To a reader not familiar with this tradition, Ptolemy's anecdote appears to be genuine and more or less positive in its portrayal of Alexander. The figure of Alexander in this anecdote is much more problematic for the reader already well-versed in the reception of Alexander who is able to bring to the fore Alexander's complicated relationship with his ἑταῖροι. By blending together a tale of Alexander with that of Palamedes, Ptolemy has woven a clever trap for the ignorant and a subtle joke for the learned reader.

Alexander, Aristotle, and Homer

Ptolemy's next Alexander anecdote comes in the form of a discussion between Alexander and Aristotle, presumably while the philosopher was serving as tutor to the young Alexander:

Here Ptolemy is engaging with two specific contemporary debates; namely, what did Homer mean when he said the πέλειαι τρήρωνες brought ambrosia to Zeus, and what did Aristotle teach Alexander? Beginning with the first question, Ptolemy's passage appears to have centred around the exposition of Odyssey 12. 62–5:

Alexander's love of the Iliad was legendary, as was his association with Achilles in particular whom he supposedly desired to emulate.Footnote ³¹ That being said, Alexander's association with the Odyssey is far less attested. This passage of the Odyssey comes from a speech by Circe to Odysseus and his men, describing the legendary Clashing Rocks that were rumoured to be so deadly that not even the doves (πέλειαι) that carried ambrosia to Zeus could escape them. While Photius here has chosen not to relate what it was that Ptolemy claimed Alexander and Aristotle had actually said about the Homeric passage, the topic as well as the phrasing, at least as it appears in Photius, is worth further consideration. Athenaeus includes a lengthy discussion of the ambrosia-bearing doves in the Deipnosophistae, where he argues that both the πέλειαι here and the golden πελειάδες on Nestor's cup are not common doves, but the Pleiades.Footnote ³² The structure of Athenaeus’ discursus on the topic is also telling: he includes reference to a long list of authorities outside of Homer on which he justifies his account.Footnote ³³ While we cannot know if Ptolemy's account of the πλειάδες featured similar anecdotal references, it would not be out of place, given what we know of Ptolemy's text, as well as the genre in which he is writing.Footnote ³⁴

While Photius’ use of πελειάδες here instead of πέλειαι suggests that his text may well have included a similar discussion, Tomberg argues that Ptolemy must have followed a similar line of argumentation as Athenaeus due to a passage found in the Homeric scholiast Eustathius:

This passage is indeed striking in its similarities to the version preserved in Photius. But in assigning it to be the text verbatim of Ptolemy, Tomberg has ignored the context of the passage in Eustathius’ text. The inclusion of the name opening of the passage (Chiron of Amphipolis) suggests that it was originally part of a dialogue that Eustathius has excerpted. While it is possible, as Janko argues, that both Ptolemy and Eustathius’ passages share as a source an Aristotelian dialogue (e.g. the Homeric Problems), as Mayhew notes, it is far from certain, given the nature of the evidence at hand.Footnote ³⁵ The fragmentary state of both texts makes for very shaky ground on which to rest either Tomberg's or Janko's arguments as to the origins or relations between the two texts. Furthermore, there is a key difference in the language of the two passages that Tomberg fails to address. In Homer it is to Zeus alone that the πέλαιαι bear ambrosia. Eustathius’ language follows that of Homer, with Alexander's question mirroring closely the Homeric phrasing. Ptolemy, however, describes the doves as the διάκονοι (‘servants’) of all the gods at meals, not as servers of ambrosia to Zeus alone. While Chiron arrives at an idea similar to this at the end of the passage Eustathius quotes, the two passages are not as identical in structure as Tomberg suggests. However, regardless of on which side of the debate Ptolemy fell – whether he promoted the πελειάδες as doves or as stars–and whether it was his own invention or borrowed from another source, in this passage it is clear that Ptolemy is engaging with a wider tradition and debate surrounding both the Homeric texts and Alexander the Great.

Wherein lies the joke? The fame of both Aristotle and Alexander led to considerable speculation in antiquity on the degree of influence Aristotle had over Alexander's character. With little ancient evidence as to what transpired during the years in which Alexander was under Aristotle's tutelage, the contents of their discussions became the subject of various creative endeavours.Footnote ³⁶ Ptolemy's peers, when they broached the topic of the conversations between the two, describe much grander conversations than what Ptolemy has hinted at; for example, Plutarch claims that Aristotle taught Alexander ethics and politics, as well as ‘secret and profound teachings’ (Plut. Alex. 7.5: τῶν ἀπορρήτων καὶ βαθυτέρων διδασκαλιῶν), while Aelian notes how ‘Aristotle, while advising Alexander on the things necessary, became a benefit to many’ (Ael. VH 12.54: Ἀριστοτέλης τὰ δέοντα συμβουλεύων Ἀλεξάνδρῳ πολλοῖς ὠφέλημα γέγονεν). Instead of focusing on how Aristotle shaped – or failed to shape – Alexander's character, or describing lofty conversations about ethics or politics, Ptolemy has crafted the image of Alexander the scholar, engaged in Homeric criticism with his teacher. Should a reader of the Novel History be unaware of this tradition of robust speculation as to the conversations between the two men, regardless of what Ptolemy actually claimed that the two men said on the topic, this naïve reader would be well-positioned to reveal their own ignorance in a conversation touching on the question of Alexander's education.

Furthermore, returning to the Homeric context in Odyssey 12, Circe is describing how Zeus must constantly replace the πέλειαι as they are killed one after another. Here again, the irony would not have been lost to one truly knowledgeable about Alexander and his relations with his court, and in particular with his ἑταῖροι, who served as attendants for the king.Footnote ³⁷ Seen in this light, Alexander would share a common link with Zeus as both, when faced with the inescapable deaths of their attendants, were nonetheless swift to replace them. And, as with the previous example, should the reader not be aware of this context and attempt to use the information as presented, could easily reveal their true ignorance in place of a successful sophistic display.

This pattern of Homeric interpretation and Alexander continues with a series of entries about Alexander and poetry:

Hartley has called attention to the cryptic nature of this anecdote, claiming that there is little that we can say about Ptolemy's text: ‘Although this quotation is supposed to be about Alexander and reveal something about him, the anecdote as it appears in Photius’ epitome tells us more about Photius’ impact on the text than Alexander himself…[because] Photius has reduced what was likely to have been a substantial passage to a brief sentence that offers no context and very little understanding’ (23–4). While it is certainly true that this passage in Photius raises more questions than it answers, there is still much that can be gleaned about Ptolemy's treatment of Alexander from the few lines he dedicates to these topics.

The first item in the catalogue is a misquotation of Odyssey 9.347: Κύκλωψ, τῆ, πίε οἶνον, ἐπεὶ φάγες ἀνδρόμεα κρέα (‘Cyclops, drink wine, since you ate human flesh’), as Odysseus urges Polyphemus to drink himself into a drunken stupor so that he and his men might be able to blind him. The Proteas named here is probably the Macedonian Proteas, son of Andronicus, a companion of Alexander and a notorious drunkard.Footnote ³⁸ Our knowledge of his life is relatively limited, but he was apparently a popular enough figure for Athenaeus to refer to him as a famous ancestor, but not so famous that he could avoid mentioning the reasons for his fame.Footnote ³⁹ Alexander's drinking habits were a popular theme in both sympotic and miscellany texts of Ptolemy's day.Footnote ⁴⁰ For example, Aelian ends a list of famous drunks with both Proteas and Alexander, noting how ‘Alexander himself is said to have drunk the most out of any man.’Footnote ⁴¹ According to Athenaeus, it was a drinking contest with Proteas that brought about Alexander's death.Footnote ⁴² It is possible, as Djurslev suggests, that this phrase was imagined to have been said by Alexander as a challenge to Proteas to drink as much as the Cyclops did during their contest. Read in this light, the adapted quote takes on a rather ironic twist. Alexander might be the one speaking the taunt, but, unlike Odysseus, it was he who, like Polyphemus, indulged beyond his means and ultimately fell victim to the effects of wine, at least according to the more popular versions of events.Footnote ⁴³

As to for whom Alexander wrote a funeral dirge, the expected answer in Alexander historiography would be Hephaestion. Just as Achilles lamented bitterly the loss of Patroclus, so too did Alexander mourn the death of Hephaestion, or so much of the ancient scholarship would have us believe.Footnote ⁴⁴ For example, Aelian describes how:

Similar accounts can be found across the extant sources. None of these accounts, for all their detail, include reference to an ἐπικήδειον. If Ptolemy did in fact name Hephaestion here, that alone would appear to be a new addition to the existing tradition around Hephaestion's death. As for other candidates, outside of Hephaestion, the only other figure whom Alexander is said to have mourned excessively is his horse, Bucephalas. However, as with Hephaestion, there are no clear attestations of Alexander actually performing an ἐπικήδειον for his horse. Most extant accounts only note that, after the horse's death, Alexander named a city after him.Footnote ⁴⁶ Pliny appears to stand alone in his assertion that, ‘after his [i.e. Bucephalas’] death the king led his funeral procession and built a city in his name around his tomb’.Footnote ⁴⁷ As Photius has not preserved over whom this funeral dirge was sung, it is by no means certain that it was either Hephaestion or Bucephalas. Either would stand as unique attestations in the extant literature. However, given the ubiquity of both tales across the extant sources, including in other miscellany and sympotic texts, should it have been any other individual named, that alone would be running contrary to the traditional Alexander narratives. Barring the discovery of Ptolemy's original text, we will probably never be able to say for sure who was originally named in the Novel History, but whether it was an expected recipient or someone else entirely, we can see Ptolemy recycling popular topics from the tradition of Alexander-tales, especially those found in other compendia literature of his day, and giving them his own unique spin.

Finally, this relationship between Alexander and Homer may be seen lurking also in Ptolemy's catalogue of books supposedly found near the heads of famous individuals:

The works purportedly discovered with these five individuals pose some challenges to interpretation. Tellis is entirely unknown,Footnote ⁴⁸ and this work of Alcman is attested elsewhere only in the Suda. Footnote ⁴⁹ As for ‘Τυρόνιχος,’ this figure is probably Τύννιχος, as Valesius and Naeke have suggested, who is quoted by Plato in the Ion.Footnote ⁵⁰ Additionally, this comedy of Eupolis is elsewhere unattested, and it is not clear which Ephialtes is meant here.Footnote ⁵¹ With regard to Alexander, this comedy by Cratinus, one of the three great Old Comedy poets, is poorly attested but appears to be genuine.Footnote ⁵² The remaining works (Hesiod's Works and Days, the Iliad, and Euripides’ Medea), are clearly genuine, though the associations given here are rather surprising.Footnote ⁵³

In this catalogue, Ptolemy has presented a mix of jokes and insults, resulting in unusual combinations of poets and leaders. This is perhaps most notable in the case of Alexander. There was a book that Alexander famously kept at his bedside, and indeed under his pillow: the Iliad.Footnote ⁵⁴ Although among the extant historians Plutarch alone includes this specific detail, he cites a first- generation Alexander historian – Onesicritus – as his source for this anecdote.Footnote ⁵⁵ Furthermore, Alexander's association with the Iliad is pervasive throughout the surviving accounts.Footnote ⁵⁶ By declaring that a nearly 100-year old comedy was found next to Alexander on his deathbed rather than the Iliad, Ptolemy is subverting the tradition in a way that can only be seen as humorous. Ptolemy was not the only one to imagine Alexander reading a comedy. Athenaeus lists three comic actors among the many artists that entertained Alexander and his court,Footnote ⁵⁷ though elsewhere he describes how Alexander was not much interested in a comedy read by the comic poet Antiphanes, a snub which Antiphanes laughed off by claiming that it was because comedies were for the entertainment of those of lowlier status than Alexander enjoyed.Footnote ⁵⁸ Elsewhere, Athenaeus goes so far as to suggest that Alexander himself may have commissioned a satyr play, though he admits that the authorship of the Agēn is potentially suspect.Footnote ⁵⁹ By placing the Eunides of Cratinus in Alexander's bed Ptolemy is both acknowledging the tradition of close association between Alexander and the Iliad while at the same time subverting it by placing a book of the opposite genre by the head of the Macedonian king, a genre that is elsewhere little associated with the Macedonian king.

Alexander and Ammon

Ptolemy's final reference to Alexander comes in the form of a rationalization of Alexander's divine parentage:

This passage of Ptolemy alludes to the well-known claim by Alexander that he was the son of Ammon. An Egyptian god (Ammon-Re), in the Greek world he was associated with Zeus and his shrine at Siwah was considered as highly as the oracle at Delphi.Footnote ⁶⁰ Most ancient accounts are in agreement that, during Alexander's visit to Siwah in 332/1, he was declared by the priest there to be the son of the god.Footnote ⁶¹ This declaration and Alexander's later attempts (real or otherwise) to act on this claim were the source of considerable discomfort among the Greek and later Roman writers, who varyingly attempted either to deny the claim of divinity and thus defend Alexander, or to use this as a tool to denounce Alexander as eastern and despotic.Footnote ⁶² The reference in this passage to a story about a serpent is more unusual. Here Ptolemy refers to the tale that not only was Ammon, not Philip, the true father of Alexander, but that Ammon did so in the form of a snake. This tale was a component of the popular stories about Alexander referred to collectively as the Alexander Romance, and can also be found in the versions of his conception recorded by Plutarch, Pompeius Trogus (epitomized by Justin), and Lucian, though its origins are debated.Footnote ⁶³ Nevertheless, references to Alexander as the son of Ammon are pervasive in ancient Alexander literature, and Alexander's divinity as a result of this parentage was championed after his death by the Successors.Footnote ⁶⁴

In each version of the story, the motivations of the actors, and even the identities of the various actors, are altered slightly with significant effect. Plutarch records the tale, but is not consistent within the Alexander about whether or not the snake was actually Ammon or simply a normal snake that Philip saw lying with Olympias, which served as the origin of the tale.Footnote ⁶⁵ Justin/Trogus claims that Olympias confessed to her husband that he was not the father of Alexander, but rather a giant serpent, and that when Philip towards the end of his life declared that Alexander was not his son, Alexander bribed the priests at Siwah to declare him the son of Ammon to restore his mother's reputation.Footnote ⁶⁶ Lucian, for his part, has his interlocutor Diogenes mock Alexander in the underworld for having claimed that Ammon impregnated his mother Olympias as a snake, and mock likewise those who worshipped a snake's son as a god.Footnote ⁶⁷ Attempts to undercut Alexander's claims to divinity, either through outright rejection, rationalization, or satire, accompany each of the literary accounts of Alexander's snake-siring.

Even those who do not mention the snake-siring include repeated references, typically negative, regarding Alexander's claims to divinity. Aelian does not hide his disdain for such claims, noting sarcastically ‘Alexander, the son of Philip and Olympias, lay as a corpse, having died in Babylon, the one who said that he was the son of Zeus’.Footnote ⁶⁸ Elsewhere in the Varia Historia he notes his approval of a fine of 100 talents levied on one who declared Alexander to be among the Olympians,Footnote ⁶⁹ relates multiple anecdotes mocking Alexander's divine pretensions,Footnote ⁷⁰ and repeatedly refers to Alexander as the ‘son of Philip’,Footnote ⁷¹ though he does state that, ‘if it seems to any that he is the son of Zeus, it makes no difference to me’.Footnote ⁷² Athenaeus too makes comments both direct and oblique against the Macedonian king's divine pretensions; he records several instances in which attempts to praise Alexander's purported divinity were denounced, either by others or by Alexander himself,Footnote ⁷³ and he includes also a lengthy description of the different ways in which Alexander would dress and adorn himself with honours only befitting a god.Footnote ⁷⁴ It is notable that it is in this context alone that Athenaeus refers to Alexander as the son of Ammon, as he is describing how flatterers would call Alexander when he would put on the sacred garments of that god. It is in this context that Ptolemy's quip should be read. Alexander's claims to divinity were a persistent theme in imperial miscellany literature, and Ptolemy's solution here is a novel explanation for a persistent problem: the tradition of Alexander being the son of Ammon, sired in the form of a snake, did not come about as a result of Olympias being seen with a snake, or because of Alexander's journey to the sanctuary of Ammon at Siwah, but rather because his real father was not Philip or Ammon, but simply someone named Draco (‘snake’). As with his explanations for the names of Homeric heroes, Ptolemy is playing with the inherited tradition, picking up key details and changing them for a humorous result.Footnote ⁷⁵ Furthermore, once again, the joke also includes a trap; should readers approach the text from a point of ignorance, they would fail to understand the joke lying behind the reference, and use of the reference in a social context could reveal their ignorance, rather than fulfilling the purported purpose of the Novel History.