#nearchus

Aaaaand this is precisely why I’m still not 100% sold that Herakles was his.

Herakles of Macedon, Alexander's "Forgotten?" Son

Although as Monica (D’Agostini) reminded me, the baby would have been only about four when ATG died, so at that age, it was quite traditional for children to remain with their mother—and he’d sent Barsine to Pergamon, the Aeolian area where her family had a great deal of power and land. Typically, very young children were left out of historical accounts without a particular reason to mention them. One would think the birth of a healthy prince would count, but we hear about Alexander’s own birth only because notice of it coincided with two other pieces of good news for Philip (and because he became so important later). We don’t hear about Arrhidaios’s birth, much less any of the girls. Even the last is mentioned only because of how she died at Olympias’s hands.

Similarly, we know about Roxane’s pregnancy and stillbirth/miscarriage from the (very late) Metz Epitome. And we know Statiera died in childbirth from a tossed off comment in Plutarch and Justin. Arrian doesn’t mention either of these. That’s caused some to dismiss them both as fabricated, but the problem is we wouldn’t expect the campaign/military-focused Arrian to talk about them. Curtius does at least talk about Statiera, but because she fits into his narrative of an (early) clement ATG, he doesn’t attribute her death to childbirth but exhaustion—in part because a pregnant Statiera would conflict with how he’s presenting Alexander at that point in his narrative, suggesting that maybe he didn’t keep his hands off another man’s wife.

Monica thinks Barsine stayed with Alexander all the way into Baktria and was probably sent to Pergamon either when she became pregnant or after the baby was born. I’d bet on the former, to get her the best medical care. Remember Barsine’s age; she was older than Alexander—possibly approaching 40. Her daughter by Memnon was old enough to be married to Nearchos at Susa—which is why, after Alexander’s death, Nearchos brought Herakles forward as a candidate for king. The daughter may have been as young as 14/15, but that still makes her mother 35+ in 324. Barsine was married to Mentor before Memnon, although perhaps not for very long. Alexander probably didn’t want her trying to have a baby at the back of nowhere at her age, regardless of how many she’d already had. Artabazos “retired” around that same time, so perhaps they traveled back west together. (I’d have to check whether he stayed at the court.)

But the histories don’t reveal any of this. It’s pieced together from the age of Herakles at his death and mention of Barsine being given to Alexander as a mistress after Issos, plus the later prominence of her family—although that could have owed to long-standing guest-friendship between Artabazos and the Macedonian court. IOW, Barsine likely got her position as mistress because of her family’s earlier connection to the Argeads, and in turn, her position as mistress led to Artabazos’s elevated treatment later.

So that’s one likely scenario. But there are a few others. Barsine may have been a cover for Alexander’s affair with Statiera. As we know, Statiera (probably) died in childbirth but the baby couldn’t have been Darius, and therefore almost had to be Alexander’s. After she died (right before Gaugamela), Alexander may have left all the women in Babylon. He certainly didn’t drag Darius’s daughters off to Baktria. If that were the case, timing-wise, Herakles couldn’t be Alexander’s.

Or it's possible Barsine was Alexander’s mistress (not just a cover) even as he also had an affair with Statiera. No expectations existed for Alexander to have only one mistress at a time. I find it unlikely that he took up with Statiera until after he’d received at least the first letter from Darius, making it clear Darius wouldn’t negotiate for his family. So he may have started with Barsine, then took up with Statiera too, but also kept Barsine. Barsine's knowledge of Persia would have been invaluable to him. As for bringing Barsine to Baktria but not Darius’s daughters, they were much younger and perhaps less tough. Certainly they were less experienced politically, compared to the older, bilingual Barsine. So, I can see reasons for bringing her and not them.

The problem is simply that, when it comes to the women traveling with Alexander’s army, we are told so VERY little, from which we are then forced to infer so much. Ergo, disagreement easily ensues over how to interpret the titbits. That’s a large part of why I was open to hearing Monica’s alternative theories. (Well, that and the fact it’s not central to anything I’ve published, so any course-correction isn’t personal—ha.)

The difficulty is just that, after she’s brought to Alexander following Issos, we hear nothing about Barsine again until her daughter is selected for Nearchos’s wife. Then not again till Alexander’s death when Nearchos champions her son (and fails). Then not again until after Arrhidaios and Alexander IV are both dead, and Polyperchon tries to put Herakles forward but is bribed/talked out of it by Kassandros, so instead he kills both the 18-year-old Herakles and Barsine.

The problem is, we wouldn’t necessarily expect to hear about Barsine and Herakles, so that silence isn’t especially significant. That’s why an argument from silence is problematic. Alexander may, in fact, have taken an interest in his son, but wanted to keep him away from court until he was older, especially if he wasn’t legitimate. Alexander was all-too-accustomed to the politics of polygamy and recognized that bringing him to Babylon could make him a target, especially if he wasn’t old enough yet to travel with his father (under his father’s eye and protection). Alexander NOT taking a big interest in him would, ironically, act as protection.

Also, we don’t actually know where Barsine and Herakles were when Alexander died, except apparently not in Babylon. Alexander might have seen the boy earlier, however, once he was back in the west. Barsine could very well have met him to Ekbatana, as the Persian Royal Road goes from Sardis north until east of the Tigris, when it swings south towards Susa. But Persia had a LOT of roads, not just that one, and a road forked off the main trek to the capital of Ekbatana in Media. Easy travel. ATG was to have held a major festival there with athletic contests and all sorts of things, but everything got overshadowed by Hephaistion’s death.

Of more import is why he was passed over at Alexander’s death. I actually find this to be the one REAL sticking point in arguments about his parentage, but it cuts both ways.

Given that nobody knew if Roxane’s baby would be male, and the mental infirmity of Arrhidaios (enough that Perdikkas was appointed regent, as for a child, of a man in his mid-30s!), not choosing Herakles presents a problem. Any Argead male could inherit. Some have pointed out the resistance to Roxane’s son to explain resistance to Herakles too; not only was he part Persian, but the son of a mere mistress, not wife. I find that a weak argument. Barsine was half Greek (her mother was Greek, sister of Mentor and Memnon of Rhodes), making Herakles less than half Persian. If anything, the son of the thoroughly Hellenized Barsine would have been preferable to the unborn child of “barbarian” Roxane, legitimate or not.

If there were doubts about him AS Alexander’s son, however, that could explain why Nearchos’s suggestion was ignored. Except if he’d expected that to be a problem, it seems unlikely Nearchos would've put him forward. Perhaps years later, when Polyperchon tried, a cuckoo could have been slipped in, but in 323, that would've been harder. Also, the fact Kassandros paid off Polyperchon to kill Herakles, the last surviving Argead—didn’t just claim he wasn’t Alexander’s son—suggests Kassandros believed he was Alexander’s son.

[...]

The story of their acquisition by the peoples of Europe is lengthy and involved, covering nearly two and a half millennia, andyet in the end it may be as simple as Arrian’s dismissive remarks. At first parrots are exotic and astonishing, credited with marvelous abilities and even associated with the gods themselves. Then they become trivial and ordinary and even annoying.

Now they are becoming extinct.

Whether or not they actually do so will say as much about us and the world we have created as it does about them.

“Colonialism hasn’t changed much.”

“More than 2000 years ago, when Alexander the Great conquered the Persia, he sent an ancient explorer named Nearchus to sail down the Indus River and map the lands ahead. It was a voyage filled with some strange and unnerving echoes of the explorers of the world to come.”

-- native of Crete

-- family relocated to Macedon during Philip II’s reign

-- most likely older than Alexander

-- a close friend of Alexander’s during his boyhood

-- exiled by Philip II along with Alexander’s other friends

-- called back after Philip II’s death

-- an officer in Alexander the Great’s army

-- sailed from the Indus River to the Persian Gulf after Alexander’s campaign in India

Zeno took part in a revolt against Nearchus, tyrant of Elea, but was detected and apprehended. Nearchus then ordered him to be pounded to death in a mortar, unless he would tell the names of the other conspirators. When the philosopher was nearly dead he called the tyrant to him, as if to make a confession. Nearchus bending down put his ear close to the mouth of the dying man, when Zeno bit it off. This account is given as the origin of the phrase, "A remark more biting than Zeno."