So I've seen some people here on Tumblr and on Reddit that argue they only use the ancient writers when they make claims or write fanfic. It sort of implies that if someone uses modern analysis, it's twisted or bad or something. It's not authentic. I don't agree, but I'm having a hard time thinking of how to explain why. How would you reply to that opinion?
“I’m Just Reading the Sources Themselves!”
This is by no means a bad impulse. I frequently encourage people to read the original sources for themselves. After all, that’s exactly what historians do when we write history. We can’t say anything without those sources! (“We are prisoners of our evidence.”)
I’m not clear on the context of the original statement, but it sounds as if the asker felt the one who said it had implied that no additional information is necessary. It’s right there, translated, in plain English. Anybody who can read can read it for themselves.
Yes, of course. But does that person understand what they’ve read? I’m not being snarky. A couple thousand years separate not just Alexander from us, but most of the Alexander historians. Alas, I hear similar expressions from some who read the Bible. They don’t need no stinkin’ commentaries or books on Bible history. “God said it, I believe it, that settles it!”
But with Alexander, unless one reads Greek and Latin, it's a translation, which is, itself, an interpretation. That’s not silly hair-splitting.
So let’s start there.
Ancient Greek is far from exact one-to-one into English. It’s dense and it’s … complicated. Some words have connotations that change the meaning, depending on context, and Greek has “helper” words (like “ge,” an intensifier) that we don’t normally translate directly but may affect translations. Plus the Greek verb is notorious for its variations … all of which add shades of meaning. Consider the optative tense when English has only a subjunctive that we don’t use that much, and it’s possible to translate the optative in a couple different ways…which changes the meaning.* Latin is a little easier I think, but it's still not one-to-one.
And if you want to learn Greek and/or Latin so you can read these in the original? You go! I did the same thing. I even thought I could teach myself from textbooks. Um, that didn't turn out so well. LOL Greek really is hard. I mean, it's hard. But I absolutely love it! It's a beautiful language, so I encourage anyone who can--take some classes!
Translation aside, there’s also the matter of the very writing itself. Ancient Greek had no lower-case, or (much) punctuation. So, when is a friend, a Friend? Or when is krateros (mighty), Krateros (a person)? It could make a HUGE difference. (And I wrote about that very problem in a soon-to-be-released article. EDITED TO ADD: I forgot about this specific YouTube video where I discuss this question slightly off-center that may be of interest.)
Let’s not stop there. Even if one has a reliable translation, to really understand it, one must also know WHO wrote it, WHEN it was written, WHERE it was written, and HOW it fits into the other literature of that era. Do you recognize the tropes, the puns, or the subtle allusions to That Famous Bit of Literature? Imagine someone with zero awareness of Shakespeare making any sense of someone’s quip, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Especially if the person protesting isn’t even female.
These matters affect everything from possible slang and how the meaning of a word changes over time, to popular themes and motifs to be aware of (and maybe watch out for).** That includes assumptions. So, when Curtius implies that Alexander favored Eastern ways, that wasn’t a good thing, but how bad it was might depend on when Curtius was writing … and that’s up for debate. He’s popularly placed in the Augustan period (middle/late first century) … but could be as late as the early second century. I’ve read sound arguments for both, but in order to make those arguments, one has to know more than just the text of Curtius.
What does it matter? Well, arguably, a lot. Especially if its author lived in the last years of the Roman Republic/very early empire when Augustus used (Eastern/Egyptian/Alexandrian) Cleopatra as a boogy (wo)man in Rome. After all, consider the anti-Muslim sentiment in the US after 9/11.
ALL this is why I made a whole series of videos on YouTube just about the Alexander sources.
Details about the source and its author determine how we should read the text.
So yes! Please DO read Arrian and Cutius and Plutarch and Diodoros (and even Justin). But then read a little about them. It might (and should) change how you understand what you’ve read.
I’d also add that Alexander pops up in scattered places in other ancient literature besides just “The Big Five” (historians), as do mentions of Macedonia, Philip, and earlier Macedonian kings. These also shape our understanding of Alexander.
So it’s all quite the rabbit hole!
Even if one chases down every ancient reference to Alexander (and there’s a chore!), without some familiarity with general ancient literature, understanding it can become a challenge without larger context.
I speak from experience.
Remember, I came into Alexander studies—and studies about ancient history generally—through the back door. I do not have a BA or MA in the field, and I was mostly unfamiliar with ancient literature … in part deliberately. When I was young, I had a love affair with JRR Tolkien and other (early) fantasy, which led me to fascination with British, Scandinavian, and other northern European myth. Greece and Rome? Way too last year! Ha.
When I was in grad school, I wound up looking up Alexander because I didn’t know who he was. I’d had to read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in my Shakespeare class as an English major, but that was about the extent of my Classical education. Therefore, I just didn’t have the proper context to understand a lot of what I was reading. That literally took years for me to gain. I went from enjoying and believing all Plutarch’s little anecdotes to distrusting a lot of them.
Btw, it’s by no means necessary to get a degree in the topic to gain this information! I just kept reading for the novel, and didn’t seem to know when to stop. 😉 In fact, part of why I’m here on Tumblr and YouTube, answering questions, is precisely so interested others can get some direction on what to read, and learn about important articles (and authors) on Alexander and ancient Macedonia who might not show up in the first 2 pages of a Google search (especially these days).
Saves plowing through everything the way I did when I first got started. I spent hours in university libraries, combing through every book and article I could lay my hands on, often by interlibrary loan. That was in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s (and continuing in grad school). There was less to read then, honestly, but I know it can seem daunting to beginners. If I can save folks some time by pointing you towards authors who are widely respected—including some who may not be writing biographies you can find on Amazon—fantastic.
So it really does help when reading the sources to have some background on those sources’ authors, their world, and their biases. All that has a fancy name, btw: it's called historiography. And if you've been here any length of time, this isn't the first time I've ranted about its importance. Ha.
But YES, please, please do read the original sources! As I prepare to get back to writing my monograph on Hephaistion and Krateros, it’s not the secondary literature where I begin, but with my “wall of sources.” (And I do mean all the sources. Every single ancient mention of either man that’s survived.) Reading the sources is where our ideas come from. Then we go see what other people may have said about it. (The number of articles I thought about writing, only to realize "___ already covered that and said pretty much what I was going to say..." Ha.)
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* Optative and subjunctive indicate degrees of uncertainty about an action (verb). Optative is more uncertain than subjunctive. We tend to achieve this effect with modal verbs, by the way. So “ἐλῶ” means “I might go” or “I’d like to go” (optative) whereas “ἔρχωμαι” meants “I may go” (subjunctive). Hear the difference between might and may? But there’s more than one way to translate especially the first. So when is the speaker indicating a small likelihood—or a wish? In the translating, I make that decision, which impacts how you (the reader) understand the text.
** This just came up, in fact, while reading a student’s paper where he made reference to some comments in Herodotus about Scythians versus Persian troops, without any apparent awareness of the then-current idea of environmental determinism and its impact on ancient perceptions of “barbarians” (whether wild but tough/brave or cultured but soft/weak), and what today we’d understand as a sort of proto-racism. So, he misunderstood what he was reading and took it more or less at face value without interrogating the larger assumptions of the author.
