Affective Relations and Personal Bonds in Hellenistic Antiquity: Studies in honor of Elizabeth D. Carney

By Edward M. Anson

The intense bonds among the king and his family, friends, lovers, and entourage are the most enticing and intriguing aspects of Alexander the Great’s life. The affective ties of the protagonists of Alexander’s Empire nurtured the interest of the ancient authors, as well as the audience, in the personal life of the most famous men and women of the time. These relations echoed through time in art and literature, to become paradigm of positive or negative, human behavior.

By rejecting the perception of the Macedonian monarchy as a positivist king-army based system, and by looking for other political and social structures Elizabeth Carney has played a crucial role in prompting the current re-appraisal of the Macedonian monarchy. Her volumes on Women and Monarchy in Ancient Macedonia (University of Oklahoma Press, 2000), Olympias: Mother of Alexander the Great (Routledge, 2006), Arsinoë of Egypt and Macedon: A Royal Life (Oxford University Press, 2013) have been game-changers in the field and has offered the academic world a completely new perspective on the network of relationships surrounding the exercise of power. By examining Macedonian and Hellenistic dynastic behavior and relations, she has shown the political yet tragic, heroic thus human side, thus connecting Hellenistic political and social history.

Building on the methodological approach and theoretical framework engendered by Elizabeth Carney’s research, this book explores the complex web of personal relations, inside and outside the oikos (family), governing Alexander’s world, which sits at the core of the inquiry into the human side of the events shedding light light on the personal dimension of history. Inspired by Carney’s seminal work on Ancient Macedonia, the volume moves beyond the traditionally rationalist and positivist approaches towards Hellenistic antiquity, into a new area of humanistic scholarship, by considering the dynastic bloodlines as well as the affective relations. The volume offers a discussion of the intra and extra familial network ruling the Mediterranean world at the time of Philip and Alexander. Building on present scholarship on relations and values in Hellenistic Monarchies, the book contributes to a deeper historical understanding of the mutual dialogue between the socio-cultural and political approaches to Hellenistic history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Nov 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781789254990

Book preview

Introduction

Edward M. Anson, Monica D’Agostini and Frances Pownall

Affective relationships as a causative factor in history is a relatively new concept in ancient studies. In many respects this is a peculiar circumstance, since in truth antiquity lacked most of the modern structures that inhibit personal contact. Modern society is more individualistic and impersonal, and we have many relationships where we barely know our coworkers or our neighbors. Fredric Jameson (1991, 54) has proclaimed that in what is referred to as our postmodern age there is a waning of affect. It is not just the effects of online communication and the obsession with the web; impersonal institutions dominate government, business and culture. The current coronavirus pandemic has shown that despite our apparent acceptance of our individual and impersonal society, we are chafing at our self-quarantining, craving those very affective relationships our modern institutions have been curtailing.

This was not the case in the ancient world. It could be easily argued that antiquity was an age of affective relationships. Even the briefest examination of ancient Greek history and institutions in general shows that personal relationships dictated the workings of society. Throughout the Classical Age government was by sovereign assemblies of voting citizens. Those with voting rights came together and determined the laws under which they would be governed. While in these societies the voting public was male and often propertied, these assemblies could still include thousands in populations rarely achieving 250,000.¹ American democracy has 535 representatives legislatively representing 330 million people.² Ancient warfare was also far more personal than its modern version. Hoplite warfare, which dominated the Classical Age, was such that opponents were literally so close to each other that they could smell one another’s breath. Even archers could not exceed 175 meters.³ In comparison, with modern warfare death can be directed from half a world away using drones and missiles.

What is often referred to as state diplomacy in antiquity is hardly the highly structured edifice of our world. There were no permanent foreign embassies in the various states (Perlman 1958, 187). In the United States there are roughly 13,000 professionals in the Foreign Service, most of whom are civil service employees and therefore career bureaucrats hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected (https://careers.state.gov/learn/what-we-do/mission/). These individuals serve under the authority of the United States’ Secretary of State, whose upper administration includes two deputies, six under-secretaries, 24 assistant secretaries, and a few directors and coordinators (https://careers.state.gov/learn/what-we-do/ organization/). In Classical Greece, at a formal level, states established connections with foreign governments through local individuals who represented the foreign state’s interest in a relationship between the two states. This was called proxenia.⁴ Here a state would contract a relationship with a proxenos, a person representing the interests of the contracting state in their own community (Antiphon fr. 67). These were usually prominent individuals who took active roles in the political life of their own cities. These individuals were not, however, supposed to be foreign agents who were to sacrifice the interests of their homeland to accommodate the contracting party. In the words of Plato (Leg. 642b), "Stranger of Athens, you are not, perhaps, aware that our family is, in fact, a ‘proxenos’ of your state. It is probably true of all children that, when once they have been told that they are ‘proxenoi’ of a certain state, they conceive an affection for that state even from infancy, and each of them regards it as a second mother-land, next after his own country." The duty of this individual was to look out for the interests of the contracting state. For the rendering of such services a proxenos could expect some reciprocation, which could include citizenship, immunity from taxation, right of access to the contracting community at any time, and front seats at events in that community (GHI 55, 56). These relationships were formalized in decrees by the city-states and most often seen as hereditary (Xen. Hell. 6.3.4). In the case of these city-states, it was assemblies that usually established these relationships formally, but in Macedonia it was the king who determined who would be proxenoi for the Macedonian state and, therefore, act in fact in the king’s interests in the various governments in the Greek world. Treaties were made with the king, not technically with the Macedonians.⁵ The monarch was the state.⁶ In this situation proxenoi were in fact xenoi or guest-friends. Philip established numbers of personal alliances with key individuals and families throughout the Greek world. The elites of the various communities certainly from the Archaic Age and continuing into the 4th century established relations based on the institution of xenia, guest-friendship. Proxenia was a more formal and state-oriented form of this ancient practice. Xenia was a form of hospitality which established reciprocal, hereditary relationships between individuals and families in which significant services would be provided as a matter of courtesy.⁷ These services could be as little as personal generosity or more importantly the providing of political or military support (Mitchell 2002, 13).

Affective relationships were also critical in Philip II of Macedonia’s creation of the Macedonian state. Traditionally, Macedonia was a land where the king was in theory an autocrat, but in practice had no bureaucracy and was dependent on a class of land-owning aristocrats, the king’s hetairoi, his Companions. These individuals made up the king’s government. These hetairoi, mostly native Macedonian aristocrats who owed their status to their birth, were in a very real sense the government (Stagakis 1970, 86–102). They acted as the king’s ambassadors, military commanders, governors, religious representatives and personal advisers. Their relationship, however, with the king was regarded by them as personal, not institutional. The hetairoi were formally tied to the monarch by religious and social bonds; they sacrificed to the gods, hunted and drank with the king, and fought alongside him. There was even a religious festival, the Hetairideia, honoring Zeus Hetairides, celebrating the relationship of the king and his hetairoi (Athen. 13.572d–e). Prior to the reign of Philip, the Macedonian army, whether cavalry or light infantry (Macedonia had no heavy infantry of note), was in effect under the control of members of the king’s hetairoi. The cavalry was made up of the younger members of the aristocratic families and the infantry was raised by the aristocrats from their dependent retainers. One aspect of this very personal relationship was the fairly common assassination of Macedonian kings by disgruntled Macedonian hetairoi. Archelaus (Arist. Pol. 1311b 11–12),⁸ Amyntas II (Arist. Pol. 1311b 4),⁹ Pausanias (Diod. 14.89.2), Alexander II (Diod. 15.71.1; Marsyas of Pella BNJ 135/6 F 11=Athen. 14.629d) and Philip II himself (Diod. 16.93–94) were all killed in palace conspiracies of highly personal natures.

Philip transformed the Macedonian monarchy and the country itself by expanding this basic personal relationship between king and landed aristocrats. He created a new Macedonian heavy infantry force and bound these individuals to him through his creation of the pezhetairoi, the Foot-Companions. He tied these formerly landless tenants and dependent pastoralists to his monarchy through gifts of land. By this action he freed these individuals from their previous dependency on the local landed aristocrat and made them grateful for their new status as independent landowners. He further included his new landowners who now also peopled his new model army in the formerly exclusive aristocratic relationship by calling these individuals his Companions. Alexander often summoned these troops for sacrificial events (Arr. Anab. 1.18. 2; 2.5.8; 3.5.2; 5.20.1; 6.28.3), which often included athletic competitions (Arr. Anab. 2.5.8; 3.5.2; 5.20.1). Before the assembled troops he would also honor particular soldiers with rewards (Arr. Anab. 2.12.1). In the case of Philip, he typically led the pezhetairoi directly in combat (Diod. 16.4.5, 86.1). Macedonia was a state by tradition and through Philip II’s reforms was moulded into one in which affective relationships dominated; much of this tradition was carried over into the Hellenistic Age.

Because of the very personal nature of the exercise of power, the Argead courts of Philip and Alexander can be seen as analogous to the oikos, or the household, the building block of ancient Greek society.¹⁰ The roots of the highly-developed networks of personal relations through which eventually the Hellenistic kings exercised power are to be found in the affective relationships that Philip and Alexander established in both the restricted oikos and the extended oikos of the Argead court. The oikos was a much larger unit than the modern nuclear family, including not only the husband, wife and their children, but also dependent members of the extended family (including aged parents and unmarried, divorced or orphaned relatives), adopted children or wards, friends, workers, slaves and even the household animals. The male head (the kyrios) was responsible for the overall security and sustenance of the household and regulated all of the relationships within it; even so, other members of the oikos could and did exercise influence in certain areas. Although the courts of Philip and Alexander operated necessarily on a much larger scale than the oikos of the Classical Greek polis, the basic structure was the same.¹¹ The king served as the nucleus of the Macedonian court, much like the kyrios of the oikos, positioned at the center of a complicated network of relationships that radiated out from his extended family through his inner circle to his entourage to his army and finally to his subjects. Nevertheless, as with the oikos, the social structure of the Argead court was not necessarily always top-down and one-way, and various members of this network were able to manipulate the power dynamic through their affective bonds with the king.

This volume examines the courts of Philip and Alexander through this analogy, attempts to establish the nature of those relationships, and investigates how they influenced the complex history of the Hellenistic Age. In this field, while the nature and structure of societies and the mechanisms of their historical transformations have often been objects of investigation, little has been written about the role of intimate and personal bonds in Macedonian and post-Macedonian monarchies. Previous scholarship has mostly focused on describing the structure and functioning of monarchical institutions, or on analysing the strategic and tactical dimensions of ancient historical events and political affairs. One important exception, however, to this lack of focus upon the role of the personal in Hellenistic history is the scholarship of Elizabeth Carney. By rejecting the perception of the Macedonian monarchy as a positivist king-army based system, and by looking for other political and social structures she has played a crucial role in prompting the current re-appraisal of the Macedonian monarchy. Her volume on Women and Monarchy in Ancient Macedonia (2000) has been a game-changer in the field and has offered the academic world a completely new perspective on the network of relationships surrounding the exercise of power. By examining Macedonian and Hellenistic dynastic behavior and relations, she has shown the political yet tragic, heroic thus human side, finding a point of connection between Hellenistic history and social history. To put it succinctly, in the ancient world it was almost always personal.

With the analogy of the oikos in mind, the essays in the volume explore further the two main directions taken by Elizabeth Carney’s research. The papers in "The Restricted Oikos attempt to identify the features of the affective relations between the king and the members of his family, whereas those in The Extended Oikos" examine the extra-familial networks surrounding the exercise of power at the courts of Philip and Alexander.¹² The first section builds on the influential monographs of Elizabeth Carney: Women and Monarchy in Ancient Macedonia (2000), which opened the path to Olympias, Mother of Alexander the Great (2006), Arsinoe of Egypt and Macedon: A Royal Life (2013) and Eurydice and the Birth of Macedonian Power (2019). Beginning with Olympias and continuing through the study of other royal women, Carney brought to life the world behind the curtains of the Hellenistic political stage, an entire category of people and activities that had either been ignored or, more often, trivialized (Carney 2015, x). As keepers of the oikos (Carney 2012), the female members of the family bore political weight, which crucially affected their and their kin’s lives. Under the sacral and traditional rule of the Argeads, Ancient Macedonia was shaped by a clan structure, where blood ties, affective bonds and political partnership intertwined and overlapped. Motherhood, sisterhood and marriage defined the role of individuals connected to the Argeads – such as Arrhidaeus, Olympias, Eurydice, Phila, Alexander the Lyncestian – and also directed their agency and their loyalty.

The papers in "The Restricted Oikos address the meandering connections between kinship, affection and political cooperation. In this section, we have deliberately chosen to avoid the fraught father-son relationship between Philip and Alexander and the intense bonds between Alexander and his difficult" mother Olympias, both of which have been extensively discussed in recent scholarship.¹³ Instead, the authors examine topics of family relations that remain under-explored, beginning with an investigation of the family relations that contributed to the development and training of the monarch during his formative years by those with whom he experienced the closest bonds of affection. Monica D’Agostini’s Alexander’s Brothers and Sisters: Blood in the Hellenistic Palace develops Carney’s (2000) remarks that bonding relations among siblings were a cohesive strategy of the ruling genos. The relation between Alexander and his sisters and stepsisters offers a clear example. Alexander prevented his sisters Cleopatra, Thessalonice and Cynnane from creating new political units and, in so doing, was supported by the personal bonds forged and preserved by Olympias. Building also on the relationships fostered by his mother, Alexander’s attitude towards Cynnane and Thessalonice protected the basileia from usurpation claims perpetrated via his female kin. With Cleopatra, however, Alexander instead engendered a political collaboration out of their strong affective connection. Alexander kept his full sister bonded to his own oikos, and, as long as he was alive, her personal relationship with him shaped her agency more than the identity patterns linked to her kinship or to the Macedonian tradition.

The family also included those closely related to the raising of the heir. Sulochana Asirvatham (Alexander’s Wet-Nurse Lanice and Her Sons) shows that wet-nurses were generally considered to contribute to their charges’ moral as well as physical development. Alexander’s wet-nurse, Lanice, understandably escaped history’s obliv-ion for she was linked with later actions of the king. Unlike most wet-nurses, Lanice was a Macedonian elite woman. She had her own children who followed Alexander and died at Miletus. However, the connection of Alexander with Lanice’s sons survived in several of the ancient sources, reflecting both the romanticizing and the judgmental aspects of ancient discourse that surrounded the practice of wet-nursing. Some of the ancient sources (Arrian and Curtius) sublimated the bond among the king, the wet-nurse and her children by associating them with divine protectors of the king. But some sources interested in a more sensationalist version saw Lanice as the mother of one drunk, her son Proteas, and the nurse of another, Alexander.

Another negative interpretation of a familial bond can be found in the charge that Olympias was responsible for her stepson Arrhidaeus’ affliction. As Elizabeth Carney has already shown, however, it is unlikely that Olympias caused Arrhidaeus’ disability by means of her pharmaka (Carney 2001). Building on her remarks, in "Olympias’ Pharmaka? Nature, Causes, Therapies and Physicians of Arrhidaeus’ Disease", Giuseppe Squillace argues that Arrhidaeus was affected by epilepsy, which might have been stabilized by the physician Menecrates of Syracuse. He came to the court to heal Antipater’s son, and might have been later engaged by Philip II to cure his own son.

Waldemar Heckel also focuses on the fate of another unlucky royal son and heir. The Limits of Brotherly Love: Neoptolemus II and Molossian Dynastic History illustrates the difficult Epirote succession in the years that followed the death of Alexander the Molossian, brother-in-law of Alexander the Great. The personal bonds within the party of his grandmother Olympias protected the royal infant heir Neoptolemus II and allowed him to survive the turbulent years following his father’s death, but his blood made him a pawn of his Macedonian neighbor, for his support had faded with the disappearance of his closest familial relations. After being restored as king of Epirus in 302, he was eventually murdered by his co-ruler and relative Pyrrhus: the shared blood made the two co-kings, but also rivals.

The topic of Argead royal women as succession advocates and public representatives of their dynasty has been carefully examined by Elizabeth Carney herself (and others).¹⁴ Therefore, we have avoided the topic of Argead marriage policy to focus upon relationships that have not received the same kind of scrutiny. The following three chapters deal with the role women played in the clan structure of Alexander’s basileia and of the Hellenistic monarchies, showing how the personal ties they had within the clan defined female agency (Carney 1995; 2016; 2019). In Barsine, Antigone, and the Macedonian War, Sabine Müller explores the familial ties of the Persian clans during the Macedonians’ expansion into the East, and stresses the female role in the context of the (psychological) warfare. Alexander’s troops took noble women as captives, but treated them differently. After the battle of Ipsus, Barsine, daughter of the former satrap Artabazus, widow of Memnon of Rhodes, and sister of the Persian general Pharnabazus, was caught by Parmenion and his troops in Damascus where she had been expected to be safe. Thereafter, her love affair with Alexander became public. At the same time, the Macedonian Antigone, also taken captive in Damascus, became the mistress of Philotas, Parmenion’s son. Their fate was determined by their personal bonds: the men with whom they were associated were crucial figures of the Persian resistance to the Macedonian invasion. Philotas took Antigone as his mistress because her former captor (Autophradates) was among the most dangerous enemies of Macedonia, and Alexander took Barsine, key female figure of his enemy Artabazus’ house. Although the philo-Macedonian sources stress Alexander’s love for Barsine, the war context suggests that the king took her as his mistress to disgrace her in an attempt to politically compromise the enemy clan. Barsine became a token of victory and a key element of the threatening gesture directed against her family. It will be no coincidence that Pharnabazus (Barsine’s brother) and Autophradates continued the Persian counterattack in the Aegean Sea after the death of Memnon, who initiated it and tried to gain back Persian control over the area.

The relation between women and the members of their family is also a determinant in Antipater and His Family: A Case Study. Franca Landucci explores the political ties fostered by Antipater, governor of Macedonia, in the wake of Alexander’s death via his daughters, Phila, Nicaea and Eurydice. These ties allowed the Antipatrid bloodline to merge with the family of the Hellenistic rulers, Lysimachus, Demetrius Poliorcetes and Ptolemy, just as they sealed fruitful political-military alliances in aristocratic and archaic Macedonian society. All these marriages profoundly marked the fates of those who contracted them. Among Antipater’s grandsons, Agathocles, son of Nicaea and Lysimachus, was executed by order of his father, and Ptolemy Ceraunus, son of Eurydices and Ptolemy I, was repudiated by his father who favored Ptolemy II, his son by Berenice. The case of Phila, the wife of Demetrius, however, illustrates effectively the relevance of the father-daughter connection, which resonated beyond their blood tie. She is the heir of the positive legacy of her father, for she purportedly was portrayed as the wisest of the daughters, carrier of the Macedonian traditional moderation, which eventually resulted in the kingship of her son, Antigonus Gonatas.

Marriage, however, appears to have a different impact on the mother-daughter emotional relationship from the father-daughter dynamic in the Hellenistic age. Sheila Ager observes that the daughter’s marriage brings about the separation of the familial unit and the affective bond, and might cause emotional loss. The strength of this bond can be inferred by the absence of cases of murder among mothers and daughters, in the otherwise bloody Hellenistic royal scene. Romance and Rivalry? Three Case Studies of Royal Mothers and Daughters in the Hellenistic Age collects rare cases of political/sexual rivalry. The royal women Eurydice and Eurynoe, Apame and Berenice, Cleopatra II and Cleopatra III all found themselves in a sexual rivalry between parent and offspring. This was caused by one of the mother-daughter pair having an affair with the husband of the other. This occurrence had a disruptive effect on the sacred relation bonding mother and daughter, and compromised the Hellenistic familial structure. It could be therefore assimilated to one of the most repellent forms of incest, argues Ager.

Animals can also be considered as part of the oikos as both wild and domestic animals could be companions or pets. Domesticated animals were used on farms, in warfare, in sport and entertainment, as well as in religious rites and magic. They were involved in those sharing experiences crucial for the creation and development of personal bonds among the Macedonian establishment. The relationship of human and animal, and the role played by animals in shaping human relationships, is the focus of the chapters Alexander’s Pets: Animals and the Macedonian Court and The Theft of Bucephalas. In the former, Elizabeth Baynham investigates the animals Alexander owned personally, considering the importance of their companionship, and the emotional and personal bond these animals offered their owner – as well as the potential for such a connection to touch a wider audience. Alexander likely had several animals, but was closely associated with three – two dogs, Peritas and Triakes, and a horse, Bucephalas. Their relationship was developed in a military and hunting environment, where horses in particular offered not only companionship, but partnership to the king. The sources are all consistent in stressing the affection of Alexander for his pets, not just his convenient use of them. The connection between Alexander and Bucephalas, just as in a considerably lesser version with the dog Peritas, was recognized and honored by ancient writers. Notably, there is no negative tradition on Alexander’s bond with his horse which, as noted by Baynham, cannot be said for Alexander’s human nearest and dearest. Daniel Ogden further investigates the narrative of Bucephalas. The strong affection between Alexander and his horse offered material for fictive tradition which merged the historical with the fantastical. Among the analysed episodes, Bucephalas’ theft by the Mardians and Alexander’s procreative encounter with Thalestris, the Amazon queen, reflect a disaggregated and partly rationalised version of a traditional story-type attested in Herodotus’ tale of Heracles and the Scythian Echidna and in the Shahnameh’s tale of Rostam and Tamineh. Articulated in many historical episodes, the bond between Alexander and Bucephalas grew beyond them, as part of the Alexander myth.

The second section ("The Extended Oikos") is inspired by Carney’s scholarship on the Hellenistic court, which was partially collected, updated and republished in her volume King and Court in Ancient Macedonia (2015). Since her dissertation on Alexander the Great and the Macedonian aristocracy and throughout her subsequent publications, Carney has dealt with the relations bonding the Macedonian elite with the royal house, shedding light on the complex dynamics of affective and political interaction among the establishment that came to rule the known world for several centuries. The keyword that regulates relations among the members of the leading class, Macedonian and non-Macedonian, is friendship. Once again, we have attempted to avoid the oft-studied questions of Alexander the Great’s bond with his Companions, the Macedonian elite,¹⁵ or his alleged sexual relationship with Hephaestion,¹⁶ in order to focus upon personal connections that have been under-explored in modern scholarship. In the first contribution to the section Friendship within the Oikos, Joseph Roisman (Alexander’s Friends) provides an analysis of the evidence for Alexander’s friends, the meaning of his friendship in light of Aristotle’s discussion of philia (friendship and love) and the creation, termination and revival of friendship among the king’s fellows. According to the king’s teacher, equality was an essential element of friendship for it guarantees the relationship to be mutually beneficial, pleasant and useful. Aristotle, however, claims that friendship exists also between the king and his subjects, although it has an unequal nature. Alexander’s friends fostered their friendship via shared experiences for they were involved in both equal activities, such as the hunt, and hierarchical ones. Given the unequal nature of the relationship, it was Alexander who started, cultivated and ended the bond. This caused rivalry among the king’s friends for the king’s affection, hence political feuds among them. The court network could play a role in becoming friends with the king, for it provided physical access and shared time with Alexander, yet there were other key factors in the friendship that bonded the king to his countrymen. The ties could be marked by a utilitarian nature or by strong affective component, sustained by a sense of loyalty and of mutual support, by seeing eye to eye with the king on the matters that were relevant to him. These were also crucial elements to restore friendship as well as to end it for good, as shown by the case of Callisthenes, whose relationship with Alexander broke when and because the historian did not support the king’s political views. By exploring this case in Callisthenes the Prig, William Greenwalt considers the impact of shared moral ideas in the preservation of personal relationships. The Macedonian establishment who accompanied Alexander in the Eastern expedition was held together by rituals, such as the hunt, that engendered and strengthened the personal ties ruling the army. A communal moral outlook supported the bonds between the king, his court and his army. Yet, when Alexander incorporated non-Macedonians into the army, he also introduced non-Macedonian protocols into court rituals. Although politically Callisthenes supported the king, as the most prestigious historian of Alexander’s Anabasis, he morally reacted to Alexander’s innovations. The intellectual considered his Greek stand to be superior and would not abase himself to Persian practices. His rebellion compromised his political position, for shared moral ideas were at the base of personal relationships ruling Alexander’s basileia. The mutinous impact of Callisthenes’ stand was mirrored in Hermolaus’ uprising and the conspiracy of the Pages. In the Argead monarchy there could be no space for (priggish) intellectual rebellion for it undermined Alexander’s political policies, and hence his authority.

A friendship based on a strong affective bond, on the other hand, was fostered between Harpalus and Alexander, despite their apparent divergence. The chapter Friendship is Golden: Harpalus, Alexander and Athens by Timothy Howe demonstrates the consistency of Alexander’s attitude towards his friend Harpalus, who had important administrative and policy appointments as Alexander’s treasurer and early counsellor. However, although he was a close friend of Alexander since childhood, Harpalus is remembered instead as a weak-minded betrayer, overwhelmed by personal greed and sexual depravity. By moving beyond the negative misinterpretation of Harpalus’ actions derived from post-Alexander interpolation, Howe shows that Harpalus did not betray his friendship with Alexander. The king did not seem to be unhappy with Harpalus’ initiative in 334, when he was welcomed back from a trip to Greece and entrusted with great responsibility. The case was similar in 324, when Harpalus used Persian gold, like his predecessors Timocrates and Conon, to divide the Greeks and keep Athens from uniting the Hellenes against a common enemy. Although he likely acted on his own at least in 324, Harpalus’ motive was to support his life-long friend and king, for both affective and utilitarian reasons. The result was indeed unwavering friendship from Alexander, who imprisoned those who slandered him, but also undying hatred from the Athenians.

The following chapter also discusses the strength and impact of juvenile friendship within the royal oikos, although it moves beyond Alexander’s era into the age of the Successors. According to Pat Wheatley’s study "Demetrius and Mithridates Ctistes: Erastes and Eromenos? the close relationship, perhaps a love affair, between Demetrius Poliorcetes and Mithridates Ctistes was the cause of the latter’s flight from Antigonus Monophthalmus, but also of his survival. Their personal bond could be hardly viewed as positive by Antigonus the One-Eyed, who thus planned the elimination of the Persian nobleman. Learning from his father that his friend, the young Mithridates, was to be executed on account of a paranoid prophetic dream, Demetrius drew him aside one day and inscribed on the ground with the butt of his lance the words Φεῦγε, Μιθριδάτα!" Mithridates comprehended his peril, and vanished that night, later to fight against the Antigonids at the crucial battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, and become Mithridates I Ctistes (Founder), the first king of Pontus. The friendship was strong enough to compel the Besieger to break his father’s command and warn his loved one, performing an uncharacteristic act of disobedience to Antigonus the One-Eyed. The affective relationship allowed Mithridates to escape his fate and found the kingdom of Pontus. Notably, Mithridates was the only male affective partner of Demetrius that did not disappear from the historical record, perhaps intentionally.

Alexander’s management of relationships with his people, Macedonian and non-Macedonian, foreign communities and leaders is the focus of the final group of papers, Friendship Beyond the Oikos. The personal bond was a diplomatic and managerial instrument for and of Macedonian society. Alexander strengthened this strategy, for informally and formally he relied on personal ties to structure his multiethnic and multi-cultural basileia, politically, militarily and diplomatically. The relevance of the personal relationship in Alexander’s rule is explored by Edward Anson in the chapter The Father of the Army: Alexander and the Epigoni. During his Asiatic expedition, Alexander came to understand that, if his ambitions for further conquest were to be realized, he would need a different army, for the traditions of Macedonia could limit his ambitions. He began to build a personal army, bonded to him directly, rather than a national force that was imbued with the traditions of Macedonia, or with any other national ones either. He wanted to alter his relationship with his army and retain a core of Macedonian veterans, but where possible to replace these with troops from his new subjects. The marriages at Susa as well as the creation of Iranian battalions and the incorporation of Iranians into certain Macedonian units were planned in the interest of the administration of his empire and future military operations. Alexander’s policy at the court and in the army, now comprising Iranians and Macedonians, was meant to make them more united, as well as more personally loyal to him.

The chapters by Frances Pownall and Olga Palagia deal with the importance of personal relationships in the diplomatic dialogue between basileia and Greek institutions. In Sophists and Flatterers: Greek Intellectuals at Alexander’s Court the presence of Greek scholars and artists at Alexander’s court is reconsidered. The Macedonian kings traditionally employed respected intellectual and cultural figures to underpin their self-fashioning as legitimate monarchs. The relationship they came to establish with the rulers provided them with wealth, but could also translate into tangible political and economic benefits for their home poleis, and into an opportunity to advance their careers and enhance their personal prestige. Moreover, via these friendships the Macedonian king could gain diplomatic advantages in his often-tense relations with the Greek city-states. Alexander followed and enhanced his predecessors’ strategy, and established personal relationships with many intellectuals who played a crucial role in the shaping of his image. However, since their fate was bonded to the strength of their personal relationship with the king, the atmosphere of the Macedonian court was very competitive due to the rivalry among scholars and artists. This competition was also embittered by the polemical debate among different philosophical movements, and eventually offered ground to the Roman imperial tradition for anecdotes which portray the intellectually-rich and heterogeneous group of literati who accompanied Alexander on his expedition as a despicable cluster of sophists and flatterers.

Finally, Olga Palagia explores further the impact of personal bonds on the diplomatic relationship of Alexander with the Greeks, specifically the Athenians, with regard to the issue of his deification. In Alexander and the Athenians: Deification and Portraiture, it is shown that the Athenians promoted their political ties with the king via the erection of portraits. At least two of these portraits are documented by the ancient sources; in addition, two marble portraits have come to light in excavations in the Agora and the Athenian Acropolis. Palagia argues that the bust in the Athenian Agora is a Roman copy of Alexander’s cult statue erected in 324/3, and reflects his exalted status as an equal to the gods. In the Hellenistic kingdoms Alexander’s Diadochs also produced images of the deified Alexander in order to foster their relationship with the king as the ultimate source of their power and legitimacy. This is the case with the famous marble head of Alexander from the Acropolis, usually thought to reflect a lifetime portrait; instead it belongs to a posthumous portrait, also showing a divinized Alexander. It was dedicated by the Attalids on the Acropolis in the 2nd century BC and associated with their dynastic cult due to the very special relationship Attalus I and his sons Eumenes II and Attalus II developed with Athens.

In the reign of Alexander, affective relationships in the political, administrative and diplomatic environments were a crucial asset for the king to manage and control his basileia. In order to reinforce his authority in the army, the administration, and the political factions, Macedonian and non-Macedonian, Alexander increasingly entrusted with political, military and diplomatic responsibility roles those who were strictly tied to him personally. These personal relationships were mainly built on the affective component, sustained by a sense of loyalty and mutual support. Political alliances were engendered not only because of a common utilitarian goal, but because of a communal political vision built on shared experiences, sympathetic interactions, moral agreement, and a like-minded attitude towards policy-making. And king Alexander was the core of this. The basileia was a personal matter, and personal relationships were its structural roots. These, rather than blood ties, proved to be the successful and determinant factors in Alexander’s succession and in the creation of the Hellenistic world of the Epigoni. Two hundred years later, the Hellenistic monarchs still stressed loyalty to Alexander in order to support their legitimacy claims via the artificial design of a personal bond with the king.

Bibliography

Akrigg, B. (2011) Demography and classical Athens. In C. Holeran and A. Pudsy (eds) Demography and the Graeco-Roman World: New Insights and Approaches, 37–59. Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press.

Anson, E. (2013) Alexander the Great: Themes and Issues. London, Bloomsbury.

Anson, E. (2020) Philip II, The Father of Alexander the Great: Themes and Issues. London, New York, Sydney and New Delhi, Bloomsbury Academic.

Badian, E. (2000) Conspiracies. In A.B. Bosworth and E.J. Baynham (eds) Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction, 50–95. Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press.

Cox, C.A. (1998) Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton, Princeton University Press.

Heckel, W. (2003) Kings and companions: observations on the nature of power in the reign of Alexander. In J. Roisman (ed.) Brill’s Companion to Alexander the Great, 197–225. Leiden and Boston, Brill.

Heckel, W. (2016) Alexander’s Marshals. 2nd ed. London, Routledge.

Herman, G. (1987) Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Jameson, F. (1991) Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, 1–54. Durham, NC, Duke University Press.

McLeod, W. (1965) The range of the ancient bow. Phoenix 19, 1–14.

Mirón Pérez, M.D. (2000) Transmitters and representatives of power: royal woman in ancient Macedonia. Ancient Society 30, 35–52.

Mitchell, L. (2002) Greeks Bearing Gifts: The Public Use of Private Relationships in the Greek World, 435–323 BC. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Müller, S. (2003) Massnahmen der Herrschaftssicherung gegenüber der makedonischen Opposition bei Alexander dem Grossen. Frankfurt, P. Lang.

Müller, S. (2011) Oikos, Prestige und wirtschaftliche Handlungsräume von Argeadinnen und hellenistischen Königinnen. In J.E. Fries and U. Rambuscheck (eds) Von wirtschaftlicher Macht und militärische Stärke, 95–114. Münster, Waxman.

Müller, S. (2018) Hephaistion – a re-assessment of his career. In F. Pownall and T. Howe (eds) Ancient Macedonia in the Greek and Roman Sources: From History to Historiography, 77–102. Swansea, Classical Press of Wales.

Ogden, D. (2011) Alexander the Great: Myth, Genesis and Sexuality. Exeter, Exeter University Press. Patterson, C. (1998) The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.

Perlman, S. (1958) A note on the political implications of proxenia in the fourth century BC.

Classical Quarterly 8, 185–91.

Reames-Zimmerman, J. (1999) An atypical affair? Alexander the Great, Hephaistion Amyntoros and the nature of their relationship. Ancient History Bulletin 13, 81–96.

Stagakis, G.S. (1970) Observations on the Hetairoi of Alexander the Great. In B. Laourdas and Ch. Makaronas (eds) Ancient Macedonia I. Papers Read at the First International Symposium Held in Thessaloniki, August 26–29, 1968, 86–102. Thessaloniki, Institute of Balkan Studies.

Weber, G. The court of Alexander as social system. In W. Heckel and L.A. Tritle (eds) Alexander the Great: A New History, 83–96. Malden, MA, Wiley-Blackwell.

Works of Elizabeth Carney

Books

(2000) Women and Monarchy in Ancient Macedonia. Norman, OK, University of Oklahoma Press. (2006) Olympias, Mother of Alexander the Great. London and New York, Routledge.

(2010) Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and Son, Lives and Afterlives. Co-edited with Daniel Ogden. New York, Oxford University Press.

(2013) Arsinoe of Egypt and Macedon: A Royal Life. New York, Oxford University Press.

(2015) King and Court in Macedonia: Rivalry, Treason and Conspiracy. Swansea, Classical Press of Wales. (2018) Royal Women and Dynastic Loyalty. Co-edited with Caroline Dunn. London, Palgrave.

(2019) Eurydice and the Birth of Macedonian Power. New York, Oxford University Press.

Articles

(1980) Alexander the Lyncestian: the disloyal opposition. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 20, 23–33.

(1981) The conspiracy of Hermolaus. Classical Journal 76, 223–31.

(1981) The first flight of Harpalus, again. Classical Journal 76, 9–11.

(1981) The death of Clitus. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 22, 149–60.

(1983) Regicide in Macedonia. Parola del Passato 211, 260–72.

(1984) Fact and fiction in ‘Queen Eleanor’s Confession’ (Childe No. 156). Folklore 95, 167–70.

(1986) City-Founding in the Aeneid. Latomus 196, 422–30.

(1987) The career of Adea-Eurydice. Historia 36, 496–502.

(1987) Olympias. Ancient Society 18, 35–62.

(1987) The reappearance of royal sibling marriage in Ptolemaic Egypt. Parola del Passato 237, 420–39.

(1988) Eponymous women: royal women and city names. Ancient History Bulletin 2.6, 134–42.

(1988) The sisters of Alexander the Great: royal relicts. Historia 37, 385–404.

(1988) Reginae in the Aeneid. Athenaeum 66, 427–45.

(1991) Review essay on Macedonian history. Ancient History Bulletin 5, 179–89.

(1991) The female burial in the antechamber of Tomb II at Vergina. Ancient World 22.2, 17–26.

(1992) The politics of polygamy: Olympias, Alexander, and the murder of Philip. Historia 40.2, 169–189.

(1992) Tomb I at Vergina and the meaning of the Great Tumulus as an historical monument. Archaeological News 17, 1–11.

(1993) Foreign influence and the changing role of royal women in Macedonia. Ancient Macedonia 5.1, 313–23.

(1993) Olympias and the image of the virago. Phoenix 47, 29–55.

(1994) Arsinoe before she was Philadelphus. Ancient History Bulletin 8, 123–31.

(1995) Women and Basileia: legitimacy and female political action in Macedonia. Classical Journal 90.4, 367–91.

(1996) Macedonians and mutiny: discipline and indiscipline in the army of Philip and Alexander. Classical Philology 91, 19–44.

(1996) Alexander and the Persian women. American Journal of Philology 117, 563–83.

(1998–2000) Were the tombs under the Great Tumulus at Vergina royal? Archaeological News 23, 33–44.

(1999) The curious death of the Antipatrid dynasty. Ancient Macedonia/Archaia Makedonia 6.1, 209–16.

(2000) The initiation of cult for royal Macedonian women. Classical Philology 95, 21–43.

(2001) Women and military leadership in Pharaonic Egypt. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 42, 25–41.

(2001) The trouble with Arrhidaeus. Ancient History Bulletin 15.2, 63–89.

(2004) Women and military leadership in Macedonia. Ancient World 35.2, 184–95.

(2005) Women and dunasteia in Caria. American Journal of Philology 126.1, 65–91.

(2006) Death of Philip: perception and context. Classical Bulletin 82.1, 27–38.

(2007) Symposia and the Macedonian elite: the unmixed