“Just Rage”: Causes of the Rise in Violence in the Eastern Campaigns of Alexander the Great

151 Pages·2014·0.9 MB·English

by  Jenna Rice

“Just Rage”: Causes of the Rise in Violence
in the Eastern Campaigns of Alexander the Great
_______________________________________
A Thesis
presented to
the Faculty of the Graduate School
at the University of Missouri-Columbia
_____________________________________________________

In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts

_____________________________________________________
by
Jenna Rice
MAY 2014
The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the
thesis entitled
“JUST RAGE”: CAUSES OF THE RISE IN VIOLENCE
IN THE EASTERN CAMPAIGNS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
presented by Jenna Rice,
a candidate for the degree of master of history, and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it
is worthy of acceptance.

Professor Ian Worthington
Professor Lawrence Okamura
Professor LeeAnn Whites
Professor Michael Barnes
τῷ πατρί, ὅς ἐμοί τ'ἐπίστευε καὶ ἐπεκέλευε
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the members of my committee, Professors Worthington,
Okamura, Whites, and Barnes, for the time they spent reading and considering my thesis
during such a busy part of the semester. I received a number of thoughtful questions and
suggestions of new methodologies which will prompt further research of my topic in the
future. I am especially grateful to my advisor, Professor Worthington, for reading through
and assessing many drafts of many chapters and for his willingness to discuss and debate
the topic at length. I know that the advice I received throughout the editing process will
serve me well in future research endeavors.

ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................ iv
INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1
Chapter
1. THE GREEK RULES OF WAR ..............................................................................5
2. ALEXANDER IN PERSIA ...................................................................................22
3. BACTRIA ...............................................................................................................37
4. INDIA .....................................................................................................................84
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................136
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................139
The following frequently cited ancient authors are abbreviated as follows:

Arr. Arrian, Anabasis Alexandrou
Curt. Quintus Curtius Rufus
Diod. Diodorus Siculus
Hdt. Herodotus
Plut. Plutarch
Thuc. Thucydides
Xen. Xenophon

The following frequently cited modern works are abbreviated as follows:

Bosworth, Alexander and the East Bosworth, A.B. Alexander and the
East:The Tragedy of Triumph.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.

Bosworth, “Calanus” Bosworth, A.B. “Calanus and the
Brahman Opposition.” Alexander der
Grosse: Eine Welteroberung und Ihr
Hintergrund (Vorträge des
Internationalen Bonner
Alexanderkolloquiums). Bonn:
Rudolf Habelt, 1998.

Bosworth, Commentary [I-II] A.B. Bosworth, Commentary on
Arrian’s History of Alexander.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980,
1995.

Bosworth, Conquest and Empire Bosworth, A.B. Conquest and
Empire: The Reign of Alexander the
Great. Cambridge: Canto Classics,
1993.
iv
Fuller, Generalship of Alexander the Great Fuller, J.F.C. The Generalship of
Alexander the Great. London: Eyre
& Spottiswoode, 1958.

Hanson, Western Way of War Hanson, Victor D. The Western Way
of War: Infantry Battle in Classical
Greece. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1994.

Heckel, Conquests of Alexander the Great. Heckel, Waldemar. The Conquests of
Alexander the Great. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Holt, Alexander the Great and Bactria Holt, Frank. Alexander the Greatand
Bactria: The Formation of a Greek
Frontier in Central Asia. Leiden:
Brill, 1988.

Holt, Into the Land of Bones Holt, Frank. Into the Land of Bones:
Alexander the Great and
Afghanistan. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2005.

Kern, Ancient Siege Warfare Kern, Paul. Ancient Siege Warfare.
Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1999.

Pritchett, Greek State at War [I-V] Pritchett, William. The Greek State
at War vols. I-V. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1974-
1985.

Rawlings, Ancient Greeks at War Rawlings, Louis. The Ancient Greeks
at War. Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2007.

Romm, Landmark Arrian Romm, James. The Landmark
Arrian: The Campaigns of
Alexander. Translated by Pamela
Mensch. New York: Pantheon
Books, 2010.

v
Tritle, From Melos to My Lai Tritle, Lawrence. From Melos to My
Lai: A Study in Violence, Culture,
and Social Survival. New York:
Routledge, 2000.

Worthington, Philip II Worthington, Ian. Philip II of
Macedonia. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2008.

Worthington, By the Spear Worthington, Ian. By the Spear:
Philip II, Alexander the Great, and
the Rise and Fall of the Macedonian
Empire. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2014.

Translations

Translations of Arrian’s Anabasis come from The Landmark Arrian. Translations of
Herodotus, and Thucydides come from the Penguin Classics as cited in the bibliography.
The translation of the title, a quote from Curtius, comes from the Penguin translation of
The History of Alexander. All other translations of ancient authors come from the Loeb
Classical Library except where otherwise noted.

vi
Introduction

Alexander the Great of Macedonia (356-323) is perhaps the best known secular
figure of antiquity. Acceding to the throne aged twenty in 336, in thirteen years he forged
an empire that stretched from Greece and Macedonia in the west to India in the east, and
its collapse drastically altered the political and intellectual spectrum of the Near East. The
construction of this Macedonian Empire led Alexander and his army to the edges of the
world; they travelled farther and for a longer time than any Greek army before them,
spreading Hellenic culture in their wake.
Given the extent of Alexander’s influence and the number of works written about
him in antiquity, it is astounding that not one contemporary source survives intact; all are
fragmentary. The only extant intact histories of Alexander’s reign were written centuries
after his death and under Roman influence by Diodorus Siculus (1st century BCE),
Pompeius Trogus (epitomized by Justin in the 2nd century CE ), Quintus Curtius Rufus
(1st century CE), and Arrian (2nd century CE). To these we can add the 1-2nd century
biographer Plutarch, who wrote a biography of Alexander. The way in which these later
authors used the earlier (now mostly lost) sources is unknown, and for this reason their
accounts should be treated with caution.1 Nevertheless, without them it would be
impossible to proceed in the study of Alexander, and many of the obstacles the sources
present may be overcome through consideration of credibility, purpose, and by presenting
a reader with variations of an account.

1 See E. Baynham, “The Ancient Sources for Alexander the Great,” Brill’s Companion to Alexander the
Great ed. J. Roisman (Leiden: Brill, 2003): 1-29; A.B. Bosworth, From Arrian to Alexander: Studies in
Historical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
1
It is the nature of the ancient sources to center their reports on Alexander or his
generals, making the perspectives of unranked men, the majority of the campaign’s
participants, difficult to determine. Such is the general state of accounts of war
throughout history, but in his 1976 work The Face of Battle Keegan has shown that it is
possible to reconstruct some degree of the common soldier’s experience.2 By considering
the points of view of all participants in a battle, Keegan offered a fresh understanding of
war through three case studies from between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries.
Hanson followed in his footsteps by reconstructing the experience of the ancient Greek
hoplite soldier in his The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece.3 In
my thesis, I attempt to use a similar methodology on a smaller scale to investigate the
type and acceleration of violence in Alexander’s army, aspects of his campaign in the
East that bear further scrutiny.
The Macedonian invasion of Bactria, Sogdiana, and India in the latter half of the
campaign stands out as distinct from operations in West Asia, the traditional Persian
Empire. The degree of slaughter involved in the conquest and occupation of these lands is
emphasized in the ancient sources and used by some modern historians as a basis for
forming a “new…orthodoxy”4 in order to combat the romanticized Alexander of the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, I do not think that something as
complex as human brutality can be easily explained, and attributing the rise of violence to

2 J. Keegan, The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme (London: Penguin Books,
1983).
3 V. Hanson, The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1994).
4 P. Briant, Alexander the Great and His Empire, trans. A. Kuhrt (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2010), 140.
2