In his famous ‘‘Second Preface’’ Arrian asserts his determination to do justice to Alexander’s achievements. No single man could lay claim to successes of such magnitude and in such profusion, and Arrian boasts that he has the literary talent to commemorate them as they deserve (Anab. 1.12.4-5; cf. Moles 1985; Marincola 1989a; Gray 1990). He expresses himself in Herodotean terms and indirectly echoes Herodotus’ ambition to immortalize the exploits which he regards as great and remarkable. For Arrian, Alexander’s career is the paradigm, unmatched by any figure of the past, and he intends to highlight its uniqueness.
Now, what most distinguished Alexander was his military success and with it his driving passion to emulate and surpass the great figures of history and myth. It was his image as a conqueror that impressed the Roman emperor Trajan, who envied his successes in India and prided himself on having taken Roman arms beyond the frontiers Alexander had established (Dio 68.29). This outrageous claim was probably based on Trajan’s annexation of Armenia (114 ce), an area which Alexander had bypassed before the battle of Gaugamela and never brought under military control (Bosworth, HCA I.315-316; Anson 2004: 77-81). Yet however preposterous the comparison, Trajan had made world empire a topical theme, and Arrian could not ignore it. In a brilliant, carefully written passage he refers to the plethora of embassies which descended on Babylon during the last months of Alexander’s life. They included the Ethiopians of the south, the Scyths of the north, and the Iberians of the west. All sued for friendly relations, and many ambassadors submitted their local disputes to Alexander. That leads up to an emphatic climax: ‘‘and then preeminently Alexander appeared to himself and his entourage lord of the entire earth and sea’’ (Anab. 7.15.5; cf. Bosworth 1988: 83-93; Alessandri 1994). This is not an authorial statement by Arrian. It is focalized firstly on Alexander and his staff and secondly on the sources. Alexander is world emperor only in his own eyes, and that he appeared so is merely what is stated by some of Arrian’s authorities. It need not be his own view.
There is a studied ambiguity, which continues into the next episode, the arrival of a Roman embassy (7.15.5-6: cf. Bosworth 1988: 86-93; Sordi 2002: 153-170). This underlines the universality of Alexander’s empire, but the effect is immediately neutralized by the description of Alexander’s admiration for the austerity and frankness displayed by the Roman envoys and his presage of their future empire. Arrian goes further and sheds doubt on the whole episode, which did not appear in his principal sources, Ptolemy and Aristobulus. He adds that it is grossly implausible that the Romans with their tradition of freedom made diplomatic approaches to a foreign king. The implicit comparison of the virtuous Romans and the alien despot is given extra pungency by a reference to the Roman antipathy to their kings. But Arrian does not refer to them as kings. They are tyrants, and Arrian has in mind the specific ‘‘tyrant family,’’ the Tarquins. By implication Alexander becomes a tyrant, and the reader is invited to reflect on the dark side of his career, which Arrian has emphasized in the previous chapters, pointing out that he was becoming more passionate and autocratic (7.4.3, 8.3). Alexander the alien king suggests another comparison, with the current Roman ‘‘king,’’ the princepswho preserves all that is admirable in Roman institutions. There is an illuminating passage in Arrian’s Essay on Tactics (44.2), written in 136/7 ce. It praises Hadrian for his military innovations but comments on his respect for tradition: ‘‘and, in a word, there is not one of the ancient practices discontinued in the past that is not cultivated afresh.’’ Such an emperor would have nothing but respect for the reported behavior of the envoys to Alexander, and in his toleration of freedom he could be represented as the polar opposite of Alexander the autocrat. There is, then, a tension in Arrian’s treatment of Alexander. The description of the embassies to the world monarch is set alongside an encomium of republican Rome and Roman predilection for freedom. It is hardly unqualified approval of Alexander.
There is a similar ambiguity about Alexander’s contempt for peril. This is, of course, a topos (cf. Curt. 10.5.29), but Arrian treats it with considerable sophistication. In the fulsome encomium that ends his work it appears alongside ambition as one of Alexander’s key moral attributes (Anab. 7.28.1). Yet when he describes Alexander’s self-exposure to danger there is considerable reservation. His most famous act of daring came during the storming of a town of the Malli in the Punjab. For a few moments he was isolated on its battlements, and at this point Arrian gives an analysis of Alexander’s motivation. If he stayed where he was, exposed to enemy fire, he would still incur danger without achieving anything of note; but, if he leapt down inside the fortification, he might intimidate the Indian defenders or, failing that, would die in glory (6.9.5). The language is carefully chosen. Word for word it echoes Hector’s poignant speech in the Iliad (22.304-305) before his last encounter with Achilles. Arrian’s source here (probably Ptolemy) may well have stressed the motive of glory, but the epic embellishment is due to Arrian and it is subtly chosen (for an equally appropriate Homeric allusion see Bosworth 1996: 45-47). The model is not Achilles, Alexander’s ancestor, but the defeated Hector, and the speech immediately precedes his death. The Homeric allusion adds a distinctly dark color, suggesting that death was the most likely outcome from Alexander’s epic daring. It also suggests a contrast. Hector was in the hands of fate. He tried to escape Achilles, but, as he states a few lines earlier, the gods are calling him to his death (Il. 22.297). All he can do is meet his fate with dignity. Alexander, however, has only to wait for reinforcements, and he can capture the city with his glory intact. His leap into the Malli citadel, it is implied, was reprehensible rashness, and the theme is taken up in the famous description, based on Nearchus, of his staff upbraiding him for his irresponsible rashness (6.13.4-5: cf. Bosworth 1996: 53-62).
The implicit comparison between Alexander and Hector suggests that Alexander’s own end was near; and Arrian repeats the message throughout Book 7. Directly and indirectly he suggests that Alexander was overstretching himself and his resources, and that disaster would inevitably strike. He is insistent (7.16.7) that Alexander was at the height of glory and that it was better for him to have perished when he did than to incur some human calamity, and the ominous example of Herodotus’ Croesus is cited. The atmosphere of foreboding continues with the discussion of the island of Icarus (modern Failaka). It had an ancient temple, which was locally known as ekurru, ‘‘temple’’ (Teixidor 1989; Potts 1990: I.349). According to Aristobulus (FGrHist 139 F 55), Alexander had the island named Icarus after its counterpart in the Aegean, clearly impressed by the similarity of nomenclature. Arrian briefly refers to the naming of the island and continues with the myth of Icarus and his folly (Arrian uses the word anoia) in ignoring his father’s instructions and flying too close to the sun. The parallel with Alexander’s ambitions could not be clearer. He was on the eve of a major invasion which would take him to the incense-bearing lands of Southern Arabia. Arrian notes that his exploratory missions had reported unfavorably on the littoral beyond the Persian Gulf. In both the Alexander history and its companion work, the Indica, he evinces the view that Nearchus’ fleet would have perished if it had continued southwards along the Arabian coast past the Musandam peninsula (Anab. 7.20.10; Ind. 32.13). It was clearly the view of Nearchus himself, and in the Indica Arrian repeats it emphatically as an authorial statement. In that context the story of Icarus had sinister overtones. Alexander would quite literally expose himself to the heat that had melted Icarus’ wings.
The parallel with Icarus is not unique to Arrian. It recurs in the fourth oration of Dio of Prusa, dating to the early years of the second century ce (Moles 1983: 252-253). Here Diogenes the Cynic is portrayed admonishing the young Alexander and deflating his overblown passion for glory. There are passages in this work that look ahead to Arrian, notably the characterization of the young king as ‘‘the most ambitious of mankind and the most ardent lover of glory’’ (Dio Chrys. G>r. 4.4; cf. Arr. Anab. 6.13.4; 7.28.1). This combines the language of Arrian’s necrology with his description of Alexander at the Malli town. Similarly Icarus is presented as the paradigm of the ambitious character who courts disaster (4.120-122). It is almost certain that Arrian knew Dio’s oration (Dio was a fellow Bithynian) and used its imagery to place a question mark over the feasibility of Alexander’s ambitions.
There is another parallel when the two authors refer to Alexander’s unlimited ambitions. For Dio (Dio Chrys. Or. 4.50) ‘‘he did not wish to live unless he were king of Europe, Asia, Libya and any islands lying in the Ocean.’’ Arrian takes up the theme with stronger rhetoric, and he expresses it as his own view (Anab. 7.1.4):
This I think I may affirm for myself, that Alexander did not have his mind set on anything that was small and mean, nor would he have remained idle in any of the lands he had acquired, not even if he had attached Europe to Asia and the British islands to Europe, but he would still be searching beyond for the unknown, competing with himselfifthere were no one else.
What was relatively commonplace in Dio has acquired depth and color with the remarkable image of Alexander struggling to eclipse his own achievements, with ambitions too great for the physical world. The picture is one of unceasing activity; Alexander never rests, a far cry from the tradition that he despaired of life when there was nothing left to conquer (Plut. Mor. 207D). Arrian prepares the way for this rhetorical climax by a report ofAlexander’s last plans, which he attributes to unnamed literary sources. He himself keeps his distance and refrains from any categorical statement of Alexander’s ambitions. However, he deliberately chooses the most extreme tradition of a circumnavigation of Africa as far as the Pillars of Hercules and Carthage (7.1.2-3: cf. Bosworth 1988: 187-197). He names the peoples who would be affected by Alexander’s imperial design, and even adds a variant contrasting his intended conquests after the circumnavigation: either the European Scyths and the Sea of Azov or Sicily and the southern tip of Italy. This is a very impressive program of annexation, and its prospective victims read like a roll call of the embassies which Alexander received in Babylon.
The parallel must be intended. Arrian gives the most vivid picture of restless imperialism through military conquest. He goes as far as to claim that the Persian and Median Kings could not properly be termed Great, ‘‘for they did not hold sway over the smallest portion of Asia’’ (7.1.3). This comes as a shock, since the Persian monarchs notoriously conquered and ruled Asia as far as the Indus valley. However, there is once again an echo of Dio (Dio Chrys. Or. 4.51), who has his young Alexander look ahead to the defeat of Darius and ‘‘the king of the Indians’’; then there will be nothing to prevent his being the greatest of kings. Here greatness is achieved by overcoming the monarchs of Asia. Yet for Arrian these monarchs do not control the least part of Asia. The paradox rests upon his concept of Libya as an extension of Asia. It is already present in the fictional speech that he puts in Alexander’s mouth at the Hyphasis (Anab. 5.26.2). There Alexander has his troops look ahead to the circumnavigation of Africa, which will make all Libya theirs and with it the whole of Asia. The geographical framework is taken from Herodotus. In an earlier passage Arrian reflects Herodotus’ critique of authorities who conceived of rivers as continental boundaries; ‘‘in their view Libya is divided from the rest of Asia by the river Nile’’ (3.30.9; cf. Hdt. 2.16.2; Thomas 2000: 80-85, 177). Here it is presupposed that Libya is a part of Asia, and Arrian exploits the continental duality in a rhetorical sleight of hand. Alexander will circumnavigate Africa, something that the Persians notoriously failed to achieve (Hdt. 4.42-43). In this he will outdo the Persian Kings who never extended their empire beyond Egypt and Cyrene. They controlled no part of Libya. However, Arrian sees Libya as part of Asia, and with faulty logic but effective rhetoric he draws the conclusion that the Persian Kings did not hold sway in Asia. There may also be an implication that the Persians never properly controlled the lands they claimed to rule (for rebellion was endemic). Their writ de facto did not run anywhere in Asia. Here the elaboration must be Arrian’s own. He reserves judgment on his source’s list of prospective conquests and is careful to distance himself from the report of Alexander’s ambition to eclipse the Persian monarchs, expressing it as an indirect statement. However, he uses the strongest of colors, implying that the whole of Asia was open for conquest and that Alexander saw his predecessors as nonentities. Unlike them, who had been hardly more than local rulers, he was set on being king of all Asia.
The theme reappears in the context of the embassies to Babylon. Alexander was approached by diplomatic missions from the limits of the world, including the Libyans, Ethiopians, and Carthaginians, all peoples threatened by the plans to circumnavigate Africa. Not surprisingly, Alexander saw this as proof that he was lord of earth and sea. There is a clear underlying message here. The peoples whom Alexander was set on attacking and subjugating had voluntarily approached him and paid homage, even submitting their disputes to him for resolution. There was no need for military conquest, and the grand plans that he had devised in Persia were superfluous. There could hardly be a better argument against military expansion, and Arrian has a specific audience. We have seen that he knew and echoed Dio’s Fourth Oration, which belittles Alexander’s lust for glory and empire, and it has been plausibly argued that it was directed at, perhaps even delivered to, the emperor Trajan, advising against extravagant expansionism (Moles 1983: 272-278; Swain 1996: 192-193). Arrian’s message is the same, and it could well be intended primarily for his friend and patron, the emperor Hadrian. I have argued elsewhere that the most probable date for the Alexander history is the early years of Hadrian, when Roman bridges over the Euphrates and Tigris were a thing of the past (Anab. 5.7.2; cf. Bosworth, HCA II.4-5, 256-257). In that context the negative picture of Alexander’s aspirations to world empire would be congenial to a ruler who had abjured Trajan’s conquests beyond the Euphrates and done so perhaps within hours of his accession (Birley 1997: 78-79). Alexander’s plans of unlimited conquest had been shown to be superfluous, his ambitions for Arabia dangerous. Instead he provided a copybook example of the superiority of diplomacy (as seen in the embassies at Babylon). Hadrian was given every reason to keep the empire within its limits. By contrast, Arrian’s near contemporary Tacitus expressed mordant disapproval: containment was the product of fear or jealousy (Ann. 1.11.4; cf. Syme 1958a: 490).
There is a hint that Arrian expects to command Hadrian’s interest and approval. The critique ofimperial expansion is developed in three episodes in which Alexander’s passion for earthly glory is confronted by ascetics who achieve self-sufficiency and happiness with the absolute minimum of material possessions. The gymnosophists of Taxila inform Alexander that despite his restless aggression he only occupies the land he stands on and after death the land that contains his coffin (Anab. 7.1.6). This leads on to the famous anecdote of the encounter with Diogenes and finally to the Indian ascetic Dandamis, who refuses to attach himself to Alexander’s court, claiming that the land of India supplies him with all his needs. Here Arrian explicitly draws upon the early Hellenistic writer Megasthenes (Anab. 7.2.4 = FGrHist 715 F 34b), whom he selects as one of his main sources in the Indica. Strabo also uses the same passage of Megasthenes, and presents it in a simpler, more straightforward manner (Str. 15.1.68 (718) = FGrHist 715 F 34a). Arrian clearly uses the same material but dresses it in more striking language. Like Strabo, he has Dandamis state that he has no need of anything that Alexander can give, but he goes on to recapitulate the gymnosophists’ criticism of the king’s endless wanderings - hardly an inducement to join his court. This in turn provides a link with the negative theme of world empire and leads to the close of the digression. There is another variation of imagery towards the end of the episode. Strabo’s version has Dandamis end his address with the remark that ‘‘India was a sufficient nurturer for him in his lifetime, and when he died he would be quit of his flesh ravaged by old age, and be translated to a better, purer life.’’ Arrian has the same terminology for the most part, but he omits the transition to a higher life and ends with the liberation from bodily ills: ‘‘he would be quit of his body, which was no gentle housemate.’’ The body is the soul’s xunoikos: they live in reluctant cohabitation. It is a striking metaphor, and it is hard to discover any parallel in Greek literature. The nearest I can find is the Platonic Gorgias 479b: ‘‘how much more wretched than lack of health in the body it is to dwell with (sunoikein) a soul that is not healthy’’ (cf. also Menex. 246e). This comes part of the way, but it does not extend the metaphor. The soul and body are not personified as they are in Arrian.
There is, however, a parallel in Roman literature. It is Hadrian’s farewell to his soul. Here the imagery is explicit; the soul is the guest and companion of the body (hospes comesque corporis). According to our source, the Historia Augusta (SHA Hadr. 25.9: cf. Birley 1994; 1997: 301-302), the poem was composed on Hadrian’s death-bed, but that is likely to be an inference from its content (Cameron 1980: 167). It may have been composed many years before and was familiar to Hadrian’s entourage, including his friend Arrian. If that was the case, Arrian picked up the emperor’s imagery of the cohabitation of soul and body, but gave it an interesting twist. For Hadrian the separation of the soul was a dismal prospect, its future dwelling pallid, harsh, and bare (in loca pallidula, rigida, nudula: on the interpretation see Birley 1994: 181-192). For the Indian sage the separation was devoutly to be wished. The body was an unpleasant housemate, and the future life would be better and purer. The negative image of Hadrian’s poem is turned around and the future becomes optimistic. Hadrian, that most sophisticated of emperors, would have understood and appreciated the conceit.
Arrian’s web of allusion is elaborate and contrived, and it is amusing to read Tarn’s characterization of him (1949: 101) as a ‘‘practical soldier’’ who ‘‘wrote plainly and eschewed rhetoric.’’ Arrian has always been underestimated, written off as a copyist or an uncritical enthusiast of Alexander (I have been guilty of this myself). There is no doubt that he admired his subject. He states as much at the end of the work (7.30.3), and there is ample evidence of his admiration. But he also acknowledges his duty to truth and posterity. That entailed criticism, direct and indirect. It is an attitude that
Herodotus would have endorsed. The ‘‘great and wonderful deeds’’ that he records include memorable atrocities like the story of Hermotimus of Pedasa, who exacted the most terrible revenge ever known (Hdt. 8.105). Similarly, the achievements of Alexander had their dark side, and Arrian duly emphasizes them. The savage punishment of Bessus and the adoption of Persian dress are juxtaposed with the plans of world empire, proof that success without moderation cannot bring felicity (Anab. 4.7.5, anticipating the critique at 7.1.2). Elsewhere the critique underlies the narrative. It may be expressed as a delicate implicit compliment to Hadrian, who could be compared with Alexander and come out the better. Often it emerges from the carefully chosen vocabulary, containing allusions which can enhance or undercut the literal meaning of the text. There is occasionally undiluted encomium (notably at 2.12.8), but as the story progresses, and particularly in Book 7, the notes of reservation become more frequent; and close to the end Arrian deliberately digresses to express his absolute censure of Alexander’s toleration, and implicit approval, of Cleomenes’ corrupt behavior in Egypt (7.23.8). For all his stress on the positive and his mitigation of faults he concedes that faults there were, and serious faults at that (7.29.1). This is no literary proskunesis, but a reasoned and nuanced study of Alexander’s reign, reflecting the complexity of Alexander himself.
FURTHER READING
Stadter 1980 is a complete treatment of the life and writings of Arrian; more recent material, relating to Arrian’s minor works in a Roman context, may be found in ANRW II.34.1: 226-337. The standard text of the Anabasis is Wirth 1967; there is a major commentary under way: Bosworth, HCA. See also Bosworth 1988 and Tonnet 1988 (detailed but inaccessible). See also above, Ch. 17, for additional bibliography.
World History
