✍ Scribed by Nawotka, Krzysztof
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Persia, Alexander the Great and the Kingdom of Asia Plutarch, after the lengthy account of the battle of Gaugamela (Alex. 32 -33), proceeds to describe the measures taken on the battlefield after the end of hostilities and prior to Alexander's march to Babylon. The paragraph relating them begins with a matter of fact statement:
Τοῦτο τῆς μάχης ἐκείνης λαβούσης τὸ πέρας, ἡ μεν ἀρχὴ παντάπασιν ἡ Περσῶν ἐδόκει καταλελύσϑαι, βασιλεὺς δε τῆς Ἀσίας Ἀλέξανδρος ἀνηγορευμένος, ἔϑυε τοῖς ϑεοῖς μεγαλοπρεπῶς, καὶ τοῖς φίλοις ἐδωρεῖτο πλούτους καὶ οἴκους καὶ ἡγεμονίας. ("This battle being thus over, seemed to put a period to the Persian empire, and Alexander, who was now proclaimed King of Asia, made magnificent sacrifices to the gods and rewarded his friends with wealth, estates, and provinces.", translated by B. Perrin, Loeb). Then Plutarch goes on to enumerate other measures taken by Alexander after Gaugamela, bestowing benefactions on the Greeks who in the past had been involved in the struggle with Persia or had suffered Persian injustice. This episode, like many others in history of Alexander the Great, has resulted in a lengthy scholarly debate. At stake have been the issues of historicity and interpretation of the episode, in particular of the meaning of the title ‚King of Asia'. History of the usage of this title in the Hellenistic age was recently covered in an extensive monograph of Muccioli (2004) to which little can be added. Therefore I shall concentrate in this paper on its sense in the age of Alexander the Great.
The episode at Gaugamela was not recorded by most other Alexander historians, with the exception of Pompeius Trogus, since Justin's epitome reads: Hoc proelio Asiae imperium rapuit, quinto post acceptum regnum anno (11.14.6). To this we may add Orosius who clearly depends on Justin: Hoc proelio Asiae vires et regna ceciderunt totusque Oriens in potestatem Macedonici 1 and Zonaras: Ἡ μὲν οὖν νίκη λαμπρὰ τῷ Ἀλεξάνδρῳ προσγέγονεν, ἡ δὲ Περσῶν βασιλεία ἐντεῦϑεν καϑῄρητο, Ἀλέξανδρος δὲ τῆς Ἀσίας βασιλεὺς ἀνηγόρευτο καὶ ἐπ' αὐτῷ ἡ Βαβυλωνία πᾶσα ἐγένετο ("A brilliant victory happened to Alexander in consequence of which the Persian empire was destroyed and Alexander was proclaimed king of Asia and all of Babylonia passed to his power"). 2 All elements in this short passage (brilliant victory of Alexander, collapse of the Persian rule, proclamation of King of Asia, march to Babylon) appear in the same order as in Plut. Alex. 33 -35. In all probability then here, as in all of chapter 11 in book IV and in some other places, Zonaras follows Plutarch, in terms of matter but having employed his own idiom in accordance with the stylistic principle he
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For nearly two and a half millennia, Alexander the Great has loomed over history as a legend'and an enigma. Wounded repeatedly but always triumphant in battle, he conquered most of the known world, only to die mysteriously at the age of thirty-two. In his day he was revered as a god; in our day he h