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ARCH 0810: Alexander the Great and the Alexander Tradition
November 3, 2014
PART VII: The Development
of the Legendary Alexander
Alexander magnus:
Roman responses to Alexander
The first recorded reference to Alexander as “magnus” (“the great”)
— Is in the great Roman comic playwright Plautus’ Mostellaria (c. 200 BC)
— In which a slave says:
“They say Alexander the Great and Agathocles* were a pair
who did really big things.
How about me for a third?
Just look at the immortal deeds I perform single-handed!”
* A very minor military despot from a town in Sicily
What has Alexander to do with Rome?
Why did the Romans feels obliged to measure themselves
by comparison with Alexander?
— Alexander did not actually go to Rome!
— But, according to the literary sources, there were connections:
(a)
a tradition that Alexander received an embassy from Rome,
in 323 BC at Babylon
(b)
the “Last Plans” allegedly show that he planned to lead
an army of conquest into the western Mediterranean
The successor kingdoms
The Roman Empire
Alexander has been
everywhere the Romans
wanted to be — from the
Danube to India
King Alexander controlled his own image,
by choosing the best artists of his day to represent him:



Lysippus (sculptor)
Apelles (painter)
Pyrgoteles (gem-cutter/coin designer)
Alexander
Demetrius I (300-285 BC)
Moral issues:
— West vs. East as a moral, as well as geographical, distinction
East
Decadent
Luxurious
Soft, hot
Corrupt
Servile
Barbarian
West
Virtuous
Simple
Hard, cold
Upright
Free
Civilized
— Worries about kingship
Democratic republican values vs. the realities of the Empire
— Remember that our surviving Alexander-historians wrote
for a Roman readership, in the early Empire
By the time of the late Republic and early Empire,
Alexander has become a cultural myth or model…
— according to which Roman military commanders and emperors
could act, or react
— from which Roman historians, poets, philosophers could pick and choose
qualities (good or bad) that fit his subject
Was Alexander the great general, or a despotic eastern ruler?
Imitatio Alexandri
The big “What if?” question:
If Alexander had lived to take on Rome…
…Who would have won?
Livy Book 9.17.17-18.5: Rome would have won…
Because:
— It had many excellent generals, not just one
— Roman military discipline and organization better than Macedonian
— Alexander would have attacked “as a half-hero already in decline”
— His army had been made soft by the ways of the Orient
Livy 9.17.17
The aspect of Italy would have appeared far different to Alexander than that of India,
the scene of his riotous procession at the head of his drunken army…
And we are speaking now of Alexander before he was swallowed up in the whirlpool
of his prosperity, which no man was less capable of withstanding…
It is painful in speaking of so great a king to point to his ostentatious change of dress,
his demand for obeisance by prostration (a thing intolerable to Macedonians even
if they had been under a conqueror’s yoke, much more when they were themselves
the victors), his cruel punishments, his murder of his friends over the feast and
the wine-cup, his foolish fictions of his birth. Again, if his love of wine was growing stronger
day by day, or again his fierce and tempestuous rage — neither of these characteristics
is denied by any writer — do we not consider his qualifications as a general to have been
thereby impaired?
Fortune vs Virtue
The Romans liked to commend their own generals as men with both
virtue and good luck (fortuna, tyche)
Both merit and divine favor essential to win a victory
So Alexander, who had only good fortune, would have compared badly
with the great Roman generals.
Cf. Plutarch, On the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander
How did this play out in Plutarch’s pairing of Alexander with Julius Caesar?
Roman coin showing the goddess Fortuna,
with cornucopia and rudder
Stoicism was a school of philosophy…
… foremost among the educated elite in the Greco-Roman Empire.
… usually contrasted with Epicureanism.
The term "Stoicism" is derived from the word "stoa," which means
"porch," which is where Zeno began teaching in about 300 B.C.
Self-control, fortitude and detachment from distracting emotions —
sometimes interpreted as an indifference to pleasure or pain —
allows one to become a clear thinker, level-headed and unbiased.
A primary aspect of Stoicism would be described as improving the
individual’s spiritual well-being. Virtue, reason, and natural law are
prime directives. By mastering passions and emotions, Stoics
believe it is possible to overcome the discord of the outside world
and find peace within oneself.
Stoicism holds that passion distorts truth, and that the pursuit of
truth is virtuous.
Roman thinkers such as Cicero, Seneca the Younger, Marcus
Aurelius, Cato the Younger, Dio Chrysostom, and Epictetus are
associated with Stoicism.
So, according to Roman Stoic philosophers such as Seneca:
Alexander’s progress eastwards
= evidence of an insatiable appetite for glory
His eagerness to master ever more territory
= an act of ignorance about the correct objectives of philosophy
True philosophy would aim at self-mastery and control of one’s emotions
Leads to the moral underpinning of the Alexander Romance
e.g., Alexander pushes to the very limits of the sky, the earth, and the sea
— but learns through bitter experience that he must accept limits
Affects the medieval
Christianized philosophical
reading of Alexander
The Romans were captivated by stories about Alexander
— whether true or false
e.g., Bucephalas……………….
…………………….e.g., exploration of the east
e.g., snake-stories about his birth…………….
But even here the element of comparison with Rome creeps in…
Similar stories about a fondness for snakes were told about the mother of
Scipio Africanus — one of Rome’s greatest generals in the war against Carthage
The Continence of Scipio, depicting his clemency and sexual restraint after the fall of
Carthago Nova, was a very popular subject, painted by many artists from the Renaissance
through to the 19th century — often as part of a cycle also involving Alexander
Poussin, The Continence of Scipio (1640, Pushkin Art Museum, Moscow)
Is this Alexander or
Helios, the sun-god?
(Note the large eyes, thought to be
a sign of a fiery spirit)
From Egypt. Probably 1st century BC-AD
Brooklyn Museum
The Dressel head of Alexander in Dresden
Portrait of Pompeius Magnus
Ny Karlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen
Plutarch, Life of Pompey:
“Pompey’s hair swept up in a slight cowlick from his forehead, and this, together with the
melting look about his eyes, produced a resemblance, more talked about than actually
apparent, to the portraits of King Alexander”