1985/11/01 by H. W. Parke · 2 citations
Social Sciences · #Classical Antiquity Studies
paper · doi:10.2307/631522
crossref issued 1985/11/01 · crossref published 1985/11/01 · crossref published-print 1985/11/01 · openalex publication_date 1985/11/01 · crossref created 2006/05/07 · crossref published-online 2013/10/11 · crossref deposited 2019/06/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21 · crossref indexed 2026/08/02
The reputation of Alexander and the judgement on his character have oscillated between two extremes down the ages. At times he was taken by ancient moralists as the prime example of one corrupted by power and ambition. At other times, especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he has been seen as the ideal leader of men in war and peace. These extremes of interpretation are possible because his brief and incomplete career contained a number of highly dramatic episodes of different kinds, which can be enhanced or explained away to produce either effect. The most extreme instance leading to an adverse judgment is the massacre of the Branchidae, and it is not surprising that Tarn, whose work on Alexander represented a peak of eulogy, argued strongly for the view that: the event was entirely fictitious. He has been followed by most writers since then, who usually do not try to account for this episode; in fact they simply omit it. This is strange, for the evidence that it occurred goes back to Callisthenes, the earliest to write on Alexander's campaigns, and an eye-witness of the happening, if it occurred.