Silverman, 'Alexander the Great: Ancient and Modern Perspectives', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9601
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9601-silverman-alexander
@@@@96.1.11, Roisman, Alexander the Great
Joseph Roisman, Alexander the Great: Ancient and Modern
Perspectives. Lexington: D.C. Heath & Co., 1995. Pp. xxv +
241. ISBN 0-669-34501-6.
Reviewed by David Silverman -- Reed College
dsilverm@reed.edu
This book is a textbook aimed at undergraduates and advanced
secondary school students. Its eight chapters consist mainly of
abridged excerpts from the previously published writings of
modern historians, together with selections from ancient authors
in translation. The first of these chapters is on sources; the
second, on Philip II, with a concentration upon his death; the
third, on relations between Alexander and the Greeks; the fourth,
on the aims of Alexander, especially those attributed to him
after his death; the fifth, on Alexander as a military leader,
with an emphasis on the battle of Issus; the sixth, on the
Philotas affair; the seventh, on Alexander's divinity; and the
eighth, on the integration policy. As R. notes in the
introduction, "The approach is more thematic than
chronological..." (p. 20).
The book is in the series Problems in European
Civilization, from which two earlier works are most likely to
be known to classicists: D. Kagan's The End of the Roman
Empire and A. F. Havighurst's The Pirenne Thesis. The
editor of this volume, Joseph Roisman (hereafter R.), has chosen
the essays from the best recent work. Badian, Borza, Bosworth,
Brunt, Hammond, Heckel, and Heisserer are all represented, among
others; only Green is conspicuous by his absence. The
translations are also reliable, excerpts of the Loebs of Arrian,
Diodorus, Demosthenes, Strabo, and Plutarch's Moralia, and
the Penguins of Curtius and Plutarch's Lives. But the
constraints of the series have imposed some serious flaws, which
the reader may begin to imagine by asking himself this question:
what is the difference between a high school student and the
intended reader of one of Badian's articles?
The best thing about this book is its combination of low price
and convenient completeness. It is designed to stand alone as
the only volume a student needs for an introduction to Alexander.
Each chapter could be an assignment and provide a discussion
topic for an hour's class. The students get the portable benefit
of a variety of ancient and modern opinions, without the
messiness of multiple volumes of Curtius and Arrian on reserve or
the bother of hunting through the stacks for books and articles.
The previously published material was re-keyed and typeset, which
could have led to multiple typographical errors; but the texts
(with the exception of the place names on the maps, xv-xvii) were
very meticulously proofread. So much, I suppose, the publishers
would be glad to read in a review. A teacher who faced severe
limitations in terms either of his students' budget for the
purchase of books or the resources of his library might well
order this book for his students. I myself would not relish
having to do so for mine. Less prescriptive course materials
such as sourcebooks, which give the instructor greater freedom,
are better. Moreover, for all that R.'s choice of originals was
judicious, the abridgement process as practiced here ruined them.
When we give students a text we are implicitly suggesting that it
constitutes a model for their own writing, and therein lies the
fault of the abridged texts. R.'s publishers insisted that
footnotes be kept to an absolute minimum, standard practice for
the series. R. eliminated all footnotes or endnotes from the
excerpted sources. Cutting the footnotes sometimes works as
intended. For example, R. includes a section of Bosworth's
Conquest and Empire on the Exiles' decree.[[1]] Cutting
Bosworth's footnotes on chronology works fine (in the original,
notes 36-38 on pp. 220-221); only a scholar or a zealous graduate
student would want to pursue that question, and presumably they
are reading Bosworth himself rather than R.'s abridgement.
Elsewhere, though, the effect is less than pleasing. As edited
by R., Burstein's excellent article on the death of Philip is
made to discuss the views of Andronikos without giving the
reference to the book (p. 43). Badian is made to mention the
views of Meyer, Tarn, Green, and Kraft, without giving the
reference to any of them (p. 199). And examples of this problem
in the volume could easily be multiplied.
A similar drawback arises from the frequent omission of
references to primary sources, whether originally intratextual or
in footnotes. Whether to include or omit such a reference was
regarded by R. and his publishers as an editorial decision. In
Bosworth's piece on the Exiles' Decree, for example, we find all
references to Diodorus and to Plutarch's Alexander have
been left in. All references to Dinarchus 1 and to Plutarch's
Demosthenes, however, have been omitted. And, unlike the
chunks of text which R. occasionally and more or less
judiciously omits from his source, marking the omission with the
conventional three or four dots, these references to ancient
authors all disappear without a trace. Even those three or four
dots do not always appear when they should to show that text has
been cut (as e.g. on pp. 33, 71, 156).
The decision regarding what to cut and what to leave in appears
to have been made on the basis of whether the reader can be
expected to know of the existence of a particular text, assuming
that the reader's entire knowledge of the topic is derived from
this book. If this was the principle, it was applied
inconsistently; for example, in Hammond's account of the battle
of Issus, the references to Polybius 12. 17-21 are left in, even
though the only primary text supplied is Arrian. A long
paragraph by Bosworth on the rules for the restoration of exiles
at Tegea is included, but references to the text (as all
references to epigraphical corpora) are omitted, and this despite
the existence of a good published translation by Harding.[[2]]
In Heckel's piece on the Philotas affair, we read "Furthermore,
any such story that derives from Callisthenes (and only one can
be assigned to him with certainty) need not be attributed to a
deliberate attempt to undermine Parmenio's reputation" (p. 156).
In the original article, that one story, about Parmenion's
mismanagement at Gaugamela, is identified in the footnote, along
with the necessary reference to Plutarch, Alexander
33.y[[3]] In R.'s abridgement that rather important reference
simply disappears. Again, a bad example is set for the student
readers, because the good scholarly references of the originals
become vague undocumented allusions.
The proliferation of bracketed glosses in the text is also
unfortunate. It appears that the publishers told R. to supply a
gloss in the text for any Greek word or concept with which the
student could be expected to be unfamiliar. This is inoffensive
when the gloss follows the Greek word and translates it: "Since
no charge was in fact brought against Parmenio, it is almost
certain that none could be; the plot with Hegelochus must be an
effort of later apologia [attempt at defense]" (Badian, p.
150). At least R. glosses hybris as "insolent
transgression" rather than "pride" (p. 85). It is much clumsier
and more disruptive when the brackets precede the word being
glossed, as R. does regularly with proper names: "[The Greek
historian] Thucydides described the Macedonian cavalry in action
..." (Hammond, p. 93). Exactly how uninformed are these readers
supposed to be, that they have never heard of Thucydides? Nor is
the practice consistent: "From the spoils of the [Battle of]
Granicus ..." (Brunt, p. 82) but two pages later: "He proclaimed
this aim ... again before Gaugamela." Both appear on the time
line (p. xiii), so why assume the reader needs to be told that
Granicus refers to the battle and not the river? Surely by the
book's last chapter the student has figured out the identity of
[second in command] Parmenio (p. 222)?
R.'s principle seems to have been to decide whether the
individual or place was sufficiently explained by the text
already, or had been identified recently enough that the reader
would remember; if not, he glossed it. Our sympathies belong
with R. here, the blame with whoever enjoined upon him this
thankless task. Thankless, because on the principle just
outlined there could have been five times as many bracketed
glosses as were actually printed. But surely most of these
brackets will be more distracting than helpful for R.'s readers.
It would have been better to have included a single comprehensive
glossary or set of glossaries for terms, people, and places, and
to have left the text unblemished by the proliferation of
supplements, glosses, corrections, and replacements.
Sometimes the word used by the original is simply omitted and
replaced by a gloss in brackets. In Brunt's remarks on the
sources for Alexander, taken from the introduction to his Loeb
translation, we read of Diodorus, Book 17, that "there is a long
[part missing] ..." (p. 16). Why was this necessary, when the
student could find the word lacuna in an English language
dictionary? "Even on [the geographer] Eratosthenes' later
reconstruction of the eastern hemisphere he was not so far
distant from his objective when he reached [the river Hyphasis in
India]" (Brunt, p. 86). "By comparison even the militarily
enforced peace and the political inertia of the Corinthian League
[were] a welcome change" (Bosworth, p. 75). Bosworth's original
has "was". This would seem to indicate that R. thought the
original sentence ungrammatical and in need of correction. If so
the proper way to indicate that would have been (sic) and not
brackets. At one point R. does use the word sic.
Unfortunately, he does so in reference to Bosworth's phrase "5000
cavalry" (p. 236), which is a perfectly fine usage. And what of
this: "Their territory was divided into [plots of land], farmed
by other Boeotians ..." (Bosworth, p. 70); [plots of land]
replaces cleruchies. Is this also a correction? Is R. saying
that the Boeotians did not call these plots cleruchies, so
Bosworth was wrong to use the term? If so, is this book the
appropriate place to offer such a correction?
If most of the problems with the book are caused by an excess of
concern to make things easy for the student reader, in one area
at least the error was in the opposite direction. Apparently the
publisher prohibited cross-references. Everyone knows publishers
hate cross-references, because they have to be filled in at the
last minute after the final numbering of the pages is set. But
in a book of this sort they could have been very valuable. For
example, Brunt's piece on the sources for Alexander alludes (p.
21) to "Arrian's preface." The reference comes towards the end
of the essay, after the student has already read about numerous
texts and authors, some extant and some not, which he has not
been given to read. However, this particular passage of Arrian
is something which he has been asked to read, and a reminder of
that would be useful. We have a mention (p. 217) of the
"notorious hypomnemata" of Alexander preserved by
Diodorus, but not a hint that the text being alluded to appears
in a previous chapter (p. 80). Surely, when the reader comes
across the Hypaspists (p. 206), a reference back to the extended
and authoritative definition of this group by Hammond (p. 100)
would be more useful than the gloss [elite infantry]. Glossing
asthetairoi as [royal guard] obscures the issues raised in
Hammond's discussion (pp. 94-95), to which a cross-reference
would have been useful (p. 207).
The main weaknesses of the book, all of which derive from the
process of abridgement, have now been described. For the rest,
this review is not the place to comment on the validity of the
ideas expressed by the writers selected by R., since those ideas
have all been before the public for some time already. The
material here published for the first time can be treated
briefly.
There are six introductory items before the first chapter.
First, a chronological table, which lists major events for each
year of Alexander's reign (xiii-xiv). The table does not aspire
to more than a minimal sketch. Second, two maps (xv-xvii). The
first of the maps stretches from Greece to the Hyphasis. It
shows the routes taken by Alexander, Nearchus, and Craterus, and
it fits neatly on one page. The second map shows a smaller area
on a larger scale: Macedonia, Greece, and western Asia Minor,
with many more sites plotted than space permits on the first map.
Unfortunately it is split across two facing pages with a wide
expanse of blank paper between them. Although it is better than
nothing, the original should have been reduced to fit on one
page. Unlike the text, the maps have typographical errors. On
the first, there is Sardes for Sardis. On the second, we have
Moeander for Maeander, Potidoea for Potidaea, Bithnia for
Bithynia. Third, there is a list of abbreviations,
unobjectionable unless one wishes to quibble that B.C. and B.C.E.
do not both stand for "Before the Common Era", nor do C.E. and
A.D. both stand for "The Common Era", or that it is inconsistent
to translate the title of Quintus Curtius Rufus's work into
English while giving the title of Athenaeus's as
Deipnosophistae.
Fourth, there is a glossary of "Principal Proper Names." It
provides entries for only thirteen individuals, which hardly
makes up for the lack of an index. The rationale behind its
composition is not apparent. Of the thirteen, five are not
contemporaries of Alexander: Cyrus the Great, Heracles, Perseus,
Polybius, and Xerxes. One might imagine that these are included
because the texts refer to them, but the student will not learn
their identities in the essays themselves. But the other eight
are people close to Alexander, all of them figuring prominently
at some point in the essays. Again, a comprehensive glossary
would have been useful.
Fifth, there is R.'s own introduction, three pages. This
provides a general overview of the book, but no strong sense of
R.'s own position on the issues raised in it. Because the avowed
purpose of the book is to stimulate discussion about questions to
which there are multiple possible answers, and it explicitly
disavows any claim to provide a hegemonic discourse, R.'s
studied neutrality here is appropriate. Those who would hope to
see much attention paid to method will be disappointed.
According to R., "our view of the past is strongly shaped by our
own circumstances and experiences," a compact but rich statement.
Beyond this, nothing about method, except the truism that it is
desirable to pay attention to ancient as well as modern sources.
The rest of the introduction consists of a pleasant brief
commentary on each chapter in turn.
Sixth, there is a curious little section entitled "Variety of
Opinion" which consists of snippets from major modern writers
(xxiv-xxv). Another standard feature of the series. The
quotations are from Wilcken, Grote, Hamilton, Lane Fox, Badian,
Hammond, Bosworth, and Green. Two of them, out of context as
they are, appear as platitudes: Wilcken is quoted to the effect
that Alexander had a great impact in human history; Hammond is
quoted to the effect that Alexander was one of the greatest
military commanders of all time. Grote's and Hamilton's are more
shrewdly chosen, provocative and mutually exclusive statements on
a single theme: the Hellas-Asia mix. Then we get two views on
Alexander's psychology. Lane Fox says Alexander "lived for the
ideal of a distant past" (i.e. associating himself with Achilles
and other heroes, a theme explored at length in this volume by
Edmunds). Badian sees him as he sees certain other monarchs, as
driven primarily by lust for power. Bosworth's statement was
originally a comment on the worthlessness as evidence of
materials like the Alexander-romances, but out of context it is
somewhat opaque. Finally, there is a very provocative snippet of
Green's about how we (presumably historians) conceptualize
Alexander. It too would no doubt be more easily intelligible in
context. It is impossible to put the quotes in context, however,
because no references are given.
Finally, there are a couple of unobjectionable sentences by R.
introducing each new author and topic, and at the end a
bibliography. The bibliography is in narrative rather than
tabular format, another conventional feature of the series. R.'s
own name does not appear there; no reference to his
articles.[[4]]y As the bibliography does not even remotely
aspire to be comprehensive, it would be foolish to complain at
length of things left out. But I note that, presumably because
there was not time between the submission of R.'s manuscript and
the appearance of Stewart's book, Faces of Power did not
make it in to the sentence about Alexander in art.[[5]]
It feels strange to render so negative a verdict about a volume
which contains writings by many of the leading authorities on
Alexander and the Macedonians, but I can not recommend giving
this book to students. If their level of background knowledge
and ability to do research is so slim, then let them read
something originally written especially for that level, and not a
dumbed-down version of something originally written for the
readership of Phoenix or JHS.
NOTES
[[1]] A. B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire: the reign of
Alexander the Great. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1988.
[[2]] SIG3 306 = Tod II 202 = 122 in P. Harding,
From the end of the Peloponnesian War to the Battle of
Ipsus. [Translated documents of Greece and Rome; v. 2]
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
[[3]] W. Heckel, "The Conspiracy Against Philotas"
Phoenix 31 (1977) 11 note 13.
[[4]] J. Roisman, "Ptolemy and his rivals in history of
Alexander" CQ 34 (1984) 373-385, and "Why Arrian wrote the
Anabasis" RSA 13-14 (1983-1984) 253-263.
[[5]] A. F. Stewart, Faces of Power: Alexander's Image and
Hellenistic Politics. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993.