Of all the lost ancient sources on Alexander - those we do not have - which one do you think is more likely to be just or mostly propaganda instead of actual history?
Alexander and Propaganda
Well, I suspect all of them had some useful history embedded, but I reckon Onesikritos is the most notorious for writing nonsense recognized as nonsense in his own time. He reputedly cracked up Lysimachos with his account of the Amazon Queen. He seems generally to be regarded as a boaster. He certainly inflated his own place in the campaign.
Ephippos of Olynthos is almost certainly guilty of negative propaganda, although we have so little of it (reliably attributed to him), it's hard to tell a lot. He didn't like Alexander (or Hephaistion), apparently.
Pompeius Trogus (on which Justin's account is based) was also highly problematic (and negative), not unlike Theopompos of Chios, writing about ATG's father Philip. This is one reason (of several) that Justin simply can't be relied on unless it backs up something found elsewhere ... which is super-annoying as some things are found ONLY in Justin. But is he making shit up?
Last, I want to mention Kallisthenes, Alexander's own court historian. It would be LOVELY to have Kallisthenes in full, even if it cut off in Baktria ('cause he was arrested!). Yet as the official account, I think we can tag it as propaganda in at least some places. He wrote some nonsense to flatter Alexander, such as the waves of the Aegean bowing to the king at one point. 🙄 He's also the one who did the most to promote Alexander as the son of Ammon.
BUT it would be great to have him because there's probably quite a lot of useful detail embedded in the account thanks to access to official records. We'd have to be careful of some exaggeration (especially in enemy numbers and enemy dead, et al.) but it would still be info much closer to the source than anything we've got now. So yes, definitely propaganda, but I'd still like to have it.
(This doesn't address later, Roman accounts who used him for moral lessons, like Lucian of Samosata and Seneca the Elder. What they're writing is akin to modern preachers telling parable anecdotes in sermons, and about as divorced from history. After all, a good parable can be TRUE without being, you know, historically accurate.)
For more on Alexander in our Roman-Era authors.
