Nearchus of Crete, a boyhood friend of Alexander's (Arr. Anab. III 6,5; Plut. Alex. 10), was one of Alexander's officers on the expedition. In 326 Alexander appointed him commander of a fleet of ships on the Indus River. This fleet, augmented along the way, eventually sailed from the Indus delta along the northern coast of the Arabian Sea and into the Persian Gulf. Onesicritus of Astypalaea, evidently an experienced sailor, served as chief helmsman (Plut. Alex. 66). Both Onesicritus and nearchus wrote books about their service under Alexander. Onesicritus, however, wrote first and since the commander's helmsman by tradition was the second-in-command of the fleet and, when the commander had little nautical experience, the real commander, Onesicritus presented himself, possibly with some justice, as commanding the fleet (BNJ 134, frr. 13 and 27). nearchus wrote, at least in part, to refute this "lie" (see in particular BNJ 133, T 1 = 134, Fr. 27).
Little of Onesicritus' work is preserved, but the fragments suffice to show that Onesicritus reveled in descriptions of all the exotic things which the soldiers encountered on the expedition: the enormous banyan trees of India (BNJ 134, Fr. 22); another tree, in Hyrcania, which exuded honey (Fr. 3); unusual climates (Fr. 8); strange customs (Frr. 5, 17, and 21); marvelous animals such as whales (Fr. 31), giant serpents (Fr. 16), and Indian elephants (Frr. 13-14), and so on. Onesicritus also offered detailed discussion about various battles (see Fr. 19) as well as legendary material (T. 8 and Fr. 1), but few fragments on these subjects survive.
Far more, however, survives of Nearchus' work. Arrian used it extensively in his tract, the Indica, and also relied on it frequently in the Anabasis from Book VI onwards. For example, Arrian gives two accounts of the crossing of the Gedrosian Desert (a so-called doublet - see Box 18.1). The first (VI 23-24,1) is dry, spare, and gives no indication of the privations which the troops suffered. This is Ptolemy's account. The decision to march through the desert did not reflect well on Alexander, and Ptolemy did not choose to dwell overlong on the episode. The second account (VI 24,1-27,1) is vivid and colorful and stylizes the march as an heroic struggle of man against nature. This is what Nearchus wrote, and Arrian, recognizing its high literary merit, could not omit it.
Besides correcting Onesicritus at various points (see, e. g., BNJ 133, Fr. 21, on the Indus Delta), Nearchus sought to outdo him. Nearchus' account of Greek sailors' first encounter with whales (Arr. Ind. 30) indisputably excels what Onesicritus had had to say on the matter (Fr. 31). Where Onesicritus had focused on the whales' size which he exaggerated (about 100 yards long, he claimed), Nearchus composed a vivid and engaging story of the sailors' battle against these monsters of nature - Nearchus had the sailors give the signal for battle and row directly at the whales which in response dived under the ships.
The attention which both Onesicritus and Nearchus paid to exotic beasts and plants highlights an aspect of Alexander's expedition which often escapes notice: it was a tremendous age of discovery. In addition to all the fighting, people were writing about how large banyan trees were and excitedly telling stories about a bird which could mimic human speech (Nearchus, BNJ 133, Fr. 9).
Gedrosia) almost nothing is known before they were suddenly propelled into the Empire’s highest posts.
Alexander visited Persepolis (Arr. Anab. VI 30,1) and Susa (Arr. Anab. VII 4,1) in the spring of 324. At Susa he married a daughter of Darius Ill’s and one of Artaxerxes Ill’s (Arr. Anab. VII 4,4). From Susa Alexander marched westwards and then northwestwards up the River Tigris. Here at Opis his troops mutinied once again (Arr. VII 8), only this time he was ready. He threatened to replace them with Persians (among other things, he had earlier arranged to have some 30,000 Persian teenagers trained in the Macedonian style of fighting; this corps was now almost ready - Arr. Anab. VII 6,1), and the Macedonian veterans caved in. Alexander had no need for them anymore, and he dismissed some 10,000 of them homewards. Alexander retained any sons whom they had sired while on the expedition and promised to raise these in the Macedonian manner (Arr. Anab. VII 11-12) - surely as another corps of soldiers loyal to Alexander alone. Alexander was laying the foundations of a new imperial army.
From Opis Alexander journeyed to Ecbatana. Here Hephaestion, his chil-iarch or “vizier” and perhaps his last true friend, died, and Alexander’s grief was immense (Arr. Anab. VII 14). From Ecbatana, in the spring of 323, he returned to Babylon where in June he died in his thirty-third year (Arr. Anab. VII 28,1). Because of his youth rumors that someone had poisoned him immediately arose (Arr. Anab. VII 27,1), but given that he had spent the last thirteen years of his life in nonstop warfare during which he had continually pushed himself to the uttermost limits of human endurance; suffered repeated injuries, many life-threatening; contracted several severe illnesses; and abused alcohol far too heavily and far too often; the question really should not be why he died so young, but rather how he had managed to live so long.
Because of his outsize achievements, even his contemporaries viewed Alexander in legendary terms and attributed to him an outsize personality. It is easy to subscribe to this legend and to see Alexander as some sort of titan. Yet need Alexander have been more than a hard-drinking (e. g., Arr. Anab. IV 8 where he murders his friend Cleitus in a drunken rage), hard-driving soldier with tactical talent, an army with superior weaponry, and ruthless, political cunning? As the mutinies and the grumbling against him show, his ability to inspire men had its limits. He committed egregious errors (e. g., before Issus), and Nearchus states bluntly that he led his army through Gedrosia out of “ignorance” of the difficulty (BNJ 133, Fr. 3a). Because he died just after the conquest, his governmental and administrative ability remains largely unknown. So much of what later authors said about Alexander’s personality appears contrived (e. g., Plutarch on Alexander’s literary refinement - Alex. 8). The famous Alexander bust shows another contrived image with its dreamy, philosophical gaze (see Figure 19.2). Could any man who had gone through thirteen years of nonstop fighting actually look like that? Coins show a somewhat different portrait and are perhaps more realistic (see Figure 20.1). In the end Alexander must be judged not by dubious and unverifiable stories about his character, but by the
Figure 19.2 The Alexander bust (Roman copy of Greek original). Source: Gunnar Bach Pedersen, Http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Aleksander-d-store. jpg (accessed 12th February 2013)
Deeds which he demonstrably did - deeds which, taken on their own terms, are surely impressive enough with or without value judgments.
World History
