The Campaigns of Alexander (Classics) Read Online Free Page B
Author: Arrian
celebrated scene with his doctor Philip, while Arrian warmly commends his repentance after his murder of Cleitus.
It is when Arrian’s imagination is kindled by incidents such as these that he raises the pitch of his narrative and achieves eloquence. For the most part he is content to let the story speak for itself. Certainly he deliberately avoided sensationalism and he explicitly denied the truth of such favourite stories as the visit of the Amazon queen or the week-long revel through Carmania. Perhaps no passage better illustrates Arrian’s admiration for his hero and the heightened tone of his narrative than that in which he describes the king’s return to his army after his recovery from the wound which so nearly caused his death. I quote the end of the passage:
Near his tent he dismounted, and the men saw him walk; they crowded round him, touching his hands, his knees, his clothing; some, content with a sight of him standing near, turned away with a blessing on their lips. Wreaths were flung upon him and such flowers as were then in bloom.
But Arrian’s evident admiration for Alexander and his achievements did not prevent him from criticizing his hero where he failed to reach the high standard which, as a Stoic, Arrian felt a king ought to attain. In particular, Alexander is censured several times for his excessive ambition. Arrian does not know, and commendably will not speculate about, Alexander’s future plans, but he is convinced that he would never have rested content with his conquests. The Indian wise men are expressly commended for their view that ‘each man possesses just somuch of the earth as he stands on’, and Alexander, despite his applause of this sentiment, is said to have acted always in a way completely opposed to it. It is clear that for Arrian Alexander’s conquests are merely an expression of Alexander’s insatiable appetite for fame. There is some truth in this, but it is not the whole story. It is, however, entirely to Arrian’s credit that he wholeheartedly condemns Alexander’s letter to Cleomenes, the governor of Egypt (7.23.6–7), in which the king offers to pardon him for his past misdeeds and to give him a free hand in the future if he erects temples in Egypt for the dead Hephaestion.g The historian’s understanding and humanity is apparent in his attitude to the murderer of Cleitus. Alexander’s act excites in him pity for the man who has given way to two grave vices, passion and drunkenness. The king has failed to achieve that self-mastery which, as Arrian has remarked a little earlier, is necessary before one can be happy. A similar sentiment occurs in the speech of Coenus at the River Hyphasis when he says to Alexander ‘when things go well with us, the spirit of self-restraint is a noble thing’ – surely Arrian’s own view, whether or not it was shared by Coenus.
The main weaknesses in Arrian’s portrait of Alexander seem to me two-fold – a tendency, which he derives from his sources, to gloss over the less attractive side of the king’s character, and a failure to appreciate Alexander’s intentions, especially with regard to the Persians.
The first of these is apparent before the expedition gets under way. The slaughter of the Thebans, perhaps rightly, and the destruction of the city and the enslavement of the survivors is blamed on the Greek allies of Alexander. Nothing is said of his responsibility for permitting them, as in fact he did, to pass this sentence. Yet even Plutarch, whom no one could accuse of hostility to Alexander,implicitly holds him responsible; as he saw, Alexander’s intention was to terrify the other Greek states into submission. At the battle of the Granicus Arrian relates without comment the massacre of the Greek mercenaries, nearly 18,000 according to his own account; he does not remark on the cruelty or the inadvisability of the massacre. In the same way at Massaga in India the massacre of 7,000 Indians passes
It is when Arrian’s imagination is kindled by incidents such as these that he raises the pitch of his narrative and achieves eloquence. For the most part he is content to let the story speak for itself. Certainly he deliberately avoided sensationalism and he explicitly denied the truth of such favourite stories as the visit of the Amazon queen or the week-long revel through Carmania. Perhaps no passage better illustrates Arrian’s admiration for his hero and the heightened tone of his narrative than that in which he describes the king’s return to his army after his recovery from the wound which so nearly caused his death. I quote the end of the passage:
Near his tent he dismounted, and the men saw him walk; they crowded round him, touching his hands, his knees, his clothing; some, content with a sight of him standing near, turned away with a blessing on their lips. Wreaths were flung upon him and such flowers as were then in bloom.
But Arrian’s evident admiration for Alexander and his achievements did not prevent him from criticizing his hero where he failed to reach the high standard which, as a Stoic, Arrian felt a king ought to attain. In particular, Alexander is censured several times for his excessive ambition. Arrian does not know, and commendably will not speculate about, Alexander’s future plans, but he is convinced that he would never have rested content with his conquests. The Indian wise men are expressly commended for their view that ‘each man possesses just somuch of the earth as he stands on’, and Alexander, despite his applause of this sentiment, is said to have acted always in a way completely opposed to it. It is clear that for Arrian Alexander’s conquests are merely an expression of Alexander’s insatiable appetite for fame. There is some truth in this, but it is not the whole story. It is, however, entirely to Arrian’s credit that he wholeheartedly condemns Alexander’s letter to Cleomenes, the governor of Egypt (7.23.6–7), in which the king offers to pardon him for his past misdeeds and to give him a free hand in the future if he erects temples in Egypt for the dead Hephaestion.g The historian’s understanding and humanity is apparent in his attitude to the murderer of Cleitus. Alexander’s act excites in him pity for the man who has given way to two grave vices, passion and drunkenness. The king has failed to achieve that self-mastery which, as Arrian has remarked a little earlier, is necessary before one can be happy. A similar sentiment occurs in the speech of Coenus at the River Hyphasis when he says to Alexander ‘when things go well with us, the spirit of self-restraint is a noble thing’ – surely Arrian’s own view, whether or not it was shared by Coenus.
The main weaknesses in Arrian’s portrait of Alexander seem to me two-fold – a tendency, which he derives from his sources, to gloss over the less attractive side of the king’s character, and a failure to appreciate Alexander’s intentions, especially with regard to the Persians.
The first of these is apparent before the expedition gets under way. The slaughter of the Thebans, perhaps rightly, and the destruction of the city and the enslavement of the survivors is blamed on the Greek allies of Alexander. Nothing is said of his responsibility for permitting them, as in fact he did, to pass this sentence. Yet even Plutarch, whom no one could accuse of hostility to Alexander,implicitly holds him responsible; as he saw, Alexander’s intention was to terrify the other Greek states into submission. At the battle of the Granicus Arrian relates without comment the massacre of the Greek mercenaries, nearly 18,000 according to his own account; he does not remark on the cruelty or the inadvisability of the massacre. In the same way at Massaga in India the massacre of 7,000 Indians passes
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