#ancient clemency

Alexander the Invincible & Clemency (not Compassion)

Many years ago now, in the forward to a new translation of Ulrich Wilcken’s biography, Alexander the Great, my academic father, Eugene N. Borza, wrote, "It is enough to say that there are many Alexanders, perhaps as many as there are those who profess a serious interest in him."

That quote perfectly summarizes the problem with determining what Alexander was like.

The disagreement goes back even into our original sources (those still surviving and those lost), that reflect differences in opinion. Was Alexander a good person, a bad person, a tyrannical megalomaniac, a vicious invader, a valorous fighter, a noble world civilizer….?

All those opinions were held by people in his own day.

(Much like, if you walked out into your local town square and started polling people on what they thought of Joe Biden, or Donald Trump, you’d get a wide variety of replies.)

To complicate matters, Alexander was masterful at marketing himself by the heroic ideals of his day, literally staging his own actions. Today, we’d call that propaganda, but we live in a more cynical age, one that assumes the use of propaganda implies self-serving purposes with no belief in the message conveyed…which is absolutely wrong in Alexander’s case. The guy BELIEVED his own hype and apparently tried to live up to it.

I find it interesting that even his ancient detractors never really accuse him of cowardice in battle or not leading the charge. He earned all his wounds. That said, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to ask if we ought to be glorifying that sort of all-out battle. Nonetheless, from the ancient point of view, they saw nothing wrong with it, and viewed actively seeking out war as a noble aspiration.

Alexander could be absolutely brutal. Ask Thebes. Ask Tyre. Ask most of the Indian nations along the Indus River or the Baktrians and Sogdians, or any of a thousand other villages and people who he sometimes attacked just because he could—he wanted another “win.” Even in Arrian’s rather positive history, he sometimes just does shit to do it.

In one case, Arrian (3.24.1-3) mentions that he was successful against a group of mountainous people (Mardians) who didn’t expect him to attack them because 1) nobody had in ages due to where they lived (difficult terrain), and 2) he’d already gone past them. But no, dude doubles back to attack them anyway. WHY? I mean, really? They don’t seem to have attacked his army until he started killing them. Some resisted, most fled, and he chased them and didn’t stop until they surrendered.

“Invincible” is very much part of Alexander’s own image creation. Alexandros Aniketos! (Unconquered*) You can’t say “no” to him, or it means you “beat” him.

Yet part of the expectation for heroic kings and commanders included clemency.

While rage might drive a warrior, the best battles didn’t involve rage, but a “pure” contest of men to prove their aretē, or personal excellence. That helps to explain Alexander’s response to Poros. Poros was protecting his kingdom, Alexander invaded it. Alexander won, Poros surrendered and faced Alexander after, asking to be treated as a king…. It wasn’t personal. Alexander wasn’t angry with Poros. (And we know he could get mad at the drop of a hat.)

But that “encounter” ticked all the heroic boxes, so after the battle, Alexander extended clemency.

Clemency isn’t quite the same as compassion. Compassion is more wide-ranging. It can be offered by anyone, to anyone, e.g., a slave can show compassion to his or her owner just the same as the reverse.

But clemency has a distinct “top-down” aspect. One can only offer clemency to those in one’s power—as Alexander offered to Porus after the Battle of the Hydaspes. Or as he showed to Darius’s family. Or to Timokleia after the razing of Thebes.

Chivalrous Alexander is a thread throughout the sources, a tradition Renault picked up on. I’m of mixed mind as to how much of it’s true. Some of my colleagues think it entirely fictional, a product of later literary traditions intent on using Alexander as a moral model, the “Philosopher in Armor.” The problem with seeing it entirely as literary is that Alexander himself cast himself in heroic models. So where do we draw the line between later literary invention vs. Alexander’s own conscious self-presentation? That’s the problem. (This is addressed in a recent, very good collection of papers in The Legitimization of Conquest: Monarchial Representation and the Art of Government in the Empire of Alexander the Great, eds., Kai Trampedach and Alexander Meeus. Good stuff in there if you can get the book via ILL.)

Anyway, Alexander certainly wanted to be seen as clement. We witness it over and over. If you surrender to him, he’s generous in return…because you acknowledged that he’s above you/better than you. Arrian states it bluntly, “[Mousikanos] acknowledged that he had done wong, which was actually the surest way, where Alexander was concerned, for anyone to obtain what he wanted” (6.15.6). But if you’re a hill tribe who just wants to be left alone? Oh, hell no! He’ll come after you and keep coming until you surrender. Then…he’s fine. (As long as you didn’t do anything too terrible leading up to the surrender and, especially, if he’s in a hurry to be somewhere else.)

This is sometimes presented as if he’s a three-year-old who can’t stand to be told, “No,” because he’s a spoiled brat.

I think this misunderstands, or at least filters ancient attitudes through modern perceptions. We can understand what Alexander was doing without necessarily approving of it. As I noted above, the ancient mindset glorified invasion, conquest, and war “just because” for fame. I most certainly do not approve, but I recognize that if one is raised with that as a valid, admirable goal, moderns critiquing that individual for holding a common cultural view is a bit petty, or at least silly. “Grow up, Alexander, and think like a 21st century man!”

Similarly here. Alexander emulates Herakles, and must be even more invincible (aniketos). If you challenge that, you have challenged something very deep and fundamental to his understanding of himself. Yet he also can’t stand it if somebody loses TO him: that makes his victory hollow. This is why he fights Poros…and then honors him by returning his kingdom and a bunch more besides. Poros tried to win, but failed. That made Alexander’s victory (nike) honest. Poros then did the honorable thing and asked for clemency without surrendering his honor (“Treat me like a king”). That made him Alexander’s new BFF.

Why should Alexander get to be The Best? He’s royal, descendent of gods (and heroes). That’s why he constantly pits himself against Herakles (NOT Achilles, drop-kick that popular mirage please). Herakles is the epitome of Greek heroes. So Alexander is truly the “bestest” if he’s even better than Herakles.

So anyway, to answer the last question about whether Alexander truly mourned for Darius’s wife, I expect he did. It would fit with the public image he wanted to present.

But that sure didn’t stop him from getting her pregnant in the first place with the child that killed her in its delivery. He may have been lamenting the death of the child as much as the death of his mistress. (For more on this, see my prior response to an ask about Statiera’s pregnancy.)

—————-