#callisthenes

I recently came upon his answer again, and it made me wonder: if you managed to summon the historian‑genie from the lamp, and he could answer three very specific questions for you (or let you find such evidence) - absolutely anything, as long as it’s currently unknown - which three would you choose? And why?

Oh, I will go for the evidence, please....

First, I'd like to find a complete manuscript of Marsyas of Pella's History of Macedonia

Marsyas grew up with ATG, the (much younger) half-brother of Antigonos Monophthalmos, and was in a position to tell us all sorts of things about Macedonia.

Second, I'd like to find a complete manuscript of Kallisthenes's Deeds of Alexander

I'd honestly like to see the "marketing" that was part of Alexander's own campaign. I went back and forth between this and Kleitarchos' History of Alexander, but went with this one because I really want to see what was coming out of the court.

Third, I'd like to find the letters of Aristotle to Hephaistion (and his replies).

This one is purely personal interest!

Now, if I'm restricted to knowing single THINGS, not getting my hot little hands on more sources:

The real story behind Archelaos' ascent to the throne of Macedonia

What ideas Alexander I took from Persia and incorporated into the Macedonian court (e.g., Somatophylakes, Pages, cavalry...?)

Granted that he surpassed all former precedents of generals and kings, yet of all that he did, nothing will match his guilt in slaying Callisthenes.

- L. Annaeus Seneca, Naturales Quaestiones, giving notice that Killing Scholars Is Bad.

Alexander and Marketing

Boy, is that a thorny question. LOL

So, first, Alexander seemed unusually savvy about what we, today, would call “marketing.” Maybe (probably) this was in reaction to how the Athenians, and Demosthenes in particular, controlled the narrative about his father’s career, and trashed Philip’s public image. Alexander wanted to get out ahead of any such treatment. He no doubt hoped this control would extend to his legacy too…but he died too soon, and the subsequent bloody Successor Wars meant the Diadochi (Successors) used his image to their own ends.

I’m reminded of the Hamilton musical finale: “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” It’s a really great breakdown of how historical narrative works. “When you die, who remembers your name, who keeps your flame, who tells your story?” Someone recently asked me which Diadoch might have tried to stay truest to Alexander’s vision, and I’m not sure any could/did. But an equally important question is whether any tried to fairly tell his story. The one person who might have cared to—Hephaistion—was already dead.

Alas, we’ve lost MOST of what was written in antiquity. I’d wager we have between a fifth and a quarter left. When it comes to Alexander, as I’ve noted before, we have exactly ZERO that was written during his own lifetime, or even shortly after. At best, we have material embedded in later historians.

I’ve discussed these remaining sources in other Tumblr Entries, and now also on YouTube. I’ll link those at the end of this entry, so you can explore further.

We can divide surviving and lost Alexander sources into three basic groups:

1) Official accounts and other material written during Alexander’s lifetime (mostly lost).

2) Material (also lost) written during the Successor Wars after his death, which can be further subdivided into things penned before the Battle of Ipsos (301 BCE) that more or less finalized the Hellenistic Kingdom divisions, and material written after. But all of it, in one way or another, serves a particular view related to those Hellenistic kings.

3) Material written much later under the dying days of the Roman Republic and the emergent Empire. That can, again, be subdivided into Stuff/histories still existing, and Stuff now lost. Also, we can do “early” and “late” and “really late.”

(Most) ALL our surviving sources come from #3, with a few forensic speeches from #1 (largely Demosthenes, Hyperides, and Aeschines).

What that means is all our surviving sources were not controlled by Alexander, and several were outright hostile or were writing literally centuries after he lived.

All that said however, Alexander was clever about controlling his message, which is why Kallisthenes was brought along in the first place as Court Historian. In fact, from what we’re told, Alexander may be the first western example of such official accounts. The ancient near east had been doing it for, literally, a millennium or two. But Greece was new to the party. Prior historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon had all entertained their own unique biases in favor of this or that participant—but none had directly worked for the people/poleis/matters they wrote about. In short, they were moderately independent.

Kallisthenes (Callisthenes) was hired by Alexander to write what amounted to “Dispatches from the Front.” No, he didn’t call it that, but that’s how we might imagine it in modern terms. He was Aristotle’s nephew and seems to have got the gig for that reason. Aristotle, for those who don’t know, tutored the teenaged Alexander. And he got that gig because he knew Philip growing up, as his own father had been court physician for Philip’s father, King Amyntas III. Yup, All In the Family.

Anyway, Alexander brought Kallisthenes along to write about his conquests for posterity = a Greek audience. Again, he may have been inspired by how badly his father’s conquests had been detailed by hostile actors. But he was probably also inspired by Homer’s account of the Trojan War, Herodotus’s account of the Persian War, Xenophon’s account of Cyrus’s failed rebellion, not to mention various Persian histories of their kings, et al. So he had plenty of precedent, even if such an “official” account was more of a near eastern thing than a Greek thing.

From what we do know of Kallisthenes’s history, it involved a lot of over-the-top in flattery. Yet Kallisthenes himself was a difficult personality who liked to play up his asceticism, philosophy, and devotion to free speech (elutheria). His rough attitude made him unpopular and eventually got him arrested. Even Aristotle washed his hands of him, remarking that (basically) he didn’t have enough sense to know when to keep his mouth shut. He wanted to engage in egregious flattery to pay the bills while (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) HE was above succumbing to such nonsense. E.g., biting the hand that fed him. The result was a general lack of respect from most.

That said, his was the official account, giving him access to battle records, etc. I’d love to have that history, however absurd it might have been in places, because of that access to details. After his death (and maybe even before) the official history transferred into the traditional secretariat of the Persian court.

Other accounts of Alexander’s Great Adventure were written shortly after his death, but these would all have had some role in the subsequent Successor Wars for this or that player (or self-aggrandizement in the case of some, like Ptolemy and Nearchos). That’s why I separate these out from official material during his life, even if they appeared within a decade or so of his death. Doesn’t matter. That was a whole different (political) world, by then. And we have to regard it as such.

As more time passed, Alexander’s image waxed and waned, which of course affected how writers of those later eras presented him. Unfortunately, ALL our main historians (4 + 1) date to these periods. The earliest is Diodoros, writing during the fall of the Republic. Then in the Imperial period, Curtius (probably next), Plutarch, and Arrian. Finally, Justin (which is very short and highly problematic). Yes, they use earlier accounts, including Kallisthenes, but they weren’t just quoting directly. They editorialized. What did they carry over, and what did they tweak?

All right, for fuller discussions, see these entries (especially the first) for some detail about our historians:

“Alexander, Achilles, and the Ancient Sources” (2019)

“Alexander and Propaganda” (2024)

“Historians of Alexander the Great” (2025)

“Plutarch, Moralizing, Alexander, and akratia” (2021)

“What the Hell is Historiography (and Why Should You Care)?” (2022)

Then, on YouTube, I now have a series on the sources, so you can go directly to that Playlist. You can skip the first one, as that’s mostly about me and why I started the YouTube series, but after that, I talk about how to read ancient sources, what missing (“lost”) sources are, and then several videos on the sources we have, and the sources we don’t:

I'm going to cheat (sorta) and say I want the entire corpus authored by Marsyas of Pella,* who wrote a history of Macedonia as well as a book on the education of Alexander (no doubt meant to evoke Xenophon's Education of Cyrus), and maybe other things.

I've named Marsyas for years because I want that info on the early kingdom! And while I'm sure it was biased (probably heavily in places), it would be far superior to anything we've got. (May be [one of] the source[s] used by Curtius when he talks about "Macedonian custom.") Antipatros also wrote on early Macedonia, but it may have been less complete than Marsyas, so I want Marsyas.

If I can't have that, then Kallisthenes's official history. Again, heavily biased, but it would have data we can't get elsewhere. Or Kleitarchos, to see how closely Diodoros and Curtius (and Justin-Trogus) used him, and maybe what Plutarch and Arrian used, as well.

Oh, yeah, and Aristotle's book of letters to Hephaistion. ;-)

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The Pages' Conspiracy

What happened with the Pages or, as Beth likes to refer to them (accurately) the King’s Youths* had nothing to do with Alexander’s feelings towards kids or even teenagers. It had to do with timē, or public honor. I’ve written before about the importance of timē in Macedonian politics, particularly with regard to Pausanias’s murder of Philip.

Before I go further, however, I want to point to an excellent article by senior Macedoniast Elizabeth D. Carney, “The Role of the Basilikoi Paides at the Macedonian Court,” in Macedonian Legacies, Howe and Reames, eds., (2008), 145-64** Beth doesn’t just write about Olympias and Macedonian Women. She frequently deals with Macedonian court politics, and that’s what this article addresses. The incident with the Pages is examined in detail, and she comes to somewhat different conclusions about the complexities of it than she did in her earlier “Regicide in Macedonia,” although the latter should be read by anyone wanting to understand why Pausanias killed Philip (see linked post above).

Much of what follows summarizes Beth’s article, but read the whole thing as she explores a number of intriguing issues surrounding the Pages. (Beth is a good writer, clear, unlike some.)

Back to timē. One of the (many) jobs of the King’s Youths involved attending the king on hunts.

Also, a critical ritual that marked the movement from boyhood to manhood in Macedonian society was a hunt wherein the boy was expected to spear a boar (very dangerous prey) without nets (to hold it). If you read Dancing with the Lion: Becoming, Alexander undergoes that very ritual in chapter 3.

Anyway, most Macedonians would have undergone this rite-of-passage in their mid/late teens, possibly early 20s. Much is made of the fact Kassandros hadn’t, even though he was in his 30s. It was seen as a lack of courage (and thus manliness: andreia).

Furthermore, there was a Persian tradition that nobody in the royal hunting party could strike at an animal until the king had. To anticipate the king was a serious affront. Persians were all about rank and status.

Macedonians didn’t really have rules, per se, but something similar seems to have been assumed (unless the king intended somebody else to be chief hunter). In Macedonian hunts, competition was very much the name of the game, and “helping” the king wasn’t appreciated. Lysimachos found that out the hard way. That Krateros had the gall not just to save Alexander from a lion, but commemorate it in an ex-voto, is notable, although it was actually Krateros’s son who commissioned the statue group (c. 320 BCE) memorializing his father’s bravery … after both his father and Alexander were dead. By choosing that event of many in his father’s career, what do you think is the message sent? Not just his father’s ties to Megalexandros, but that Alexander wouldn’t be Alexander without Krateros. Perhaps it was his son’s way to hit back at Alexander’s own elevation of Hephaistion (his dad’s chief rival) to semi-divine status as a hero.

Another bit of background, Alexander had been trucking around Asia for about six years by the time this occurred. He was getting reinforcements for troops, but it’s not clear he was getting other reinforcements: e.g., new Basilikoi Paides. Hatzopoulos has theorized not, or if he did, it was early in the campaign, when he sent back Koinos and Meleager along with the newlyweds to Macedonia for a “break” in the winter of 334/3, to make new little Macedonians. They returned with reinforcements. So, maybe we can shave off a year. Still, and assuming Hammond is right that boys were King’s Youths only between about 14 and 18, these “boys” were getting a bit long in the tooth, even the youngest being past the 4-year appointment.

A lot of focus is spent on the conspiracy, Kallisthenes as their stoic-ish teacher, and fluffed up speeches (written by Curitus) about freedom and tyranny… It comes off very Romanized. I won’t go into Kallisthenes, but he reminds me a bit of some US Senators (Ben Sasse): a lot of hot air about principles while kissing ass with his votes. In Kallisthenes’s case, kissing ass with his glowing, propagandic history written for the Greeks. Even his own uncle (Aristotle) thought he didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. (Yeah…don’t think much of the guy; can you tell?)

What people have forgotten about—but Beth discusses—is the lead up to the conspiracy. What prompted it?

A hunt gone wrong prompted it. Hermolaos stepped between the king and his quarry, to spear the boar for himself. One source says he did it because he thought the king in trouble, but the other doesn’t give that as a motivation.

A-ha! Did you just say that in your head? You should have. 😊

The fallout: a furious Alexander had Hermolaos not only flogged, but also took away his horse. (Kinda like Dad taking the keys to your car.)

Now, flogging wasn’t that shocking (horrible as it sounds) in Greek and Macedonian society. “Spare the rod and spoil the child” is a saying they’d condone. Normally it was reserved for slaves and children (and women). The King’s Youths were a little old for it but…it’s the king. Curtius specifically states that the Basilikoi Paides performed jobs that were normally slaves’ duty, but being for the king, it became an honor. Plus most of these teens would age out c. 18 into another unit, probably the Hypaspists (Pezhetairoi under Philip) or the Companion Cavalry.

But—if Hatzopoulos is right—these young men may have been some years past 18, which would make a flogging especially humiliating. Even if they weren’t, and Alexander had been getting new Basilikoi Paides post-Gaugamela as well as new troops, Hermolaos was still a touchy teen punished like a “little boy” or a slave for just trying to spear his boar and be a man!

In punishing Hermolaos for insulting Alexander’s timē, Alexander, in turn, insulted his. Alexander no doubt saw it as a breach of discipline and decorum, as well as a slap at his own courage and prowess in the hunt. But to Hermolaos, it was, as Beth points out, “emasculating.”

Keep in mind: these are young men, even if late teens/early twenties. Everything’s a crisis. They’re also the sons of the top tier Macedonian elite, so very tetchy about their honor. And the Basilikoi Paides would have been an absolute stew of competition and testosterone poisoning.

I can just imagine a background to this of his mates teasing him, “When ya gonna get your boar, Hermolaos?” “You too much of a white-belly to face down a boar, Hermolaos?” Etc. Maybe he really did think, for a moment, Alexander was in danger AND this would be his chance! He could protect his king (his job as a Page) AND win his manhood! Two birds with one spear!

Except it didn’t turn out like that.

Smarting from more than the flogging, he would have complained to his friends in the unit, and griping grew legs and became a conspiracy. As Beth points out, they may even have heard fathers and uncles complaining about Alexander’s “Persianizing,” but they only complained. The boys, spurred by youth and Kallisthenes’s attempts to cover his ass-kissing with a pretense of philosophy, imagined themselves—especially Hermolaos and his lover Sostratos—as the new Harmodaios and Aristogeiton. (And yeah, I bet some clever soul pointed out the similarities between Hermolaos’s name and Harmadaios’s.)

So what is usually seen as an event all about Alexander’s increasing Persianizing and tyranny really gives us a peek into the pressure cooker that was Elite Life at the Macedonian court. Now you understand why I keep comparing these guys to a pack of sharks.

More on the Pages, Companions, Somatophylakes at the court....

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(**) The link above takes you to academia-edu where you can obtain a free download not only of that article, but the entire festschrift in honor of Gene. Tim (Howe) and I have made it free in PDF form and very cheap in paper form at Amazon. It’s basically sold at printing cost and a few pennies. All proceeds from paper copies go to the subvention fund of the Association of Ancient Historians, which provides financial assistance to grad students and junior scholars to attend annual meetings. Tim and I get nothing. (You will also help us shaft the dirty dog who bought Regina from its original owner and shafted us by printing and selling copies but giving us no royalties [like we got much anyway]. Academic karma.)