chapter three
THE HELLENISTIC AGE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND POLITICAL STRUGGLES
Gabriele Marasco
The majority of the autobiographical literature of the Hellenistic epoch consists of the works of the kings, a fact that is well justified by the clear prevalence of the monarchic institution; but, close to the monar- chy of Alexander and to those monarchies generated by the division of his empire, the other forms of government typical of the Greek world also survived, from the tyrannies and the local potentates to the democratic or aristocratic poleis and the federal states. In these generally smaller political realities, the activity of the local politicians persisted, as well as the struggles, the internal contrasts, and the conflicts among the parties, which constituted the stimulus and the subject for the development of writings that drew attention to the actions of their authors. Despite the loss of so great a part of the Hellenistic sources, some important testi- monies of this literary genre have survived and allow us to appraise its development, which seems to have followed in substance the orienta- tion of the fourth century, developing the two fundamental themes of the accounts of travels and the political autobiography.
I. Autobiographical Travel Literature and Memoirs: Nearchus
The conquests of Alexander widened geographical knowledge enor- mously, and they aroused, already among the participants of the enter- prise, a wide literature that offered accounts of many lands until then unknown. The greatest part of these works confined itself to provid- ing geographical data in a strict sense, such as the description of the countries, the distances, the characteristics of the populations, the fauna and the flora, the economic resources, and the commercial roads. A notable and meaningful exception is constituted nevertheless by the work composed by Nearchus, a native of Crete but a citizen of Macedonian gabriele marasco
Amphipolis, who was among the foremost officers of Alexander and, in the summer of , was entrusted by him to drive the fleet in the trip back from the mouths of the Indus, along the coasts of Persia—actually to those of Mesopotamia—where he went up the Tigris to a place near Susa.1 On his return,2 he wrote a report3 that was read to Alexander few days before his death4 and which seems to still have been consulted by Theophrastus;5 then he elaborated it in a work entitled Παρ.πλυς (or 0Αν.πλυς) τς 0Ινδικς,6 which is known from some fragments and, above all, from the ample account of Arrian, who used it as source to narrate the return of Alexander’s fleet from India in his Indiké.7 The opinion according to which Nearchus would have completely obscured his own role8 is entirely to be rejected on the grounds, above all, of the testimony of Arrian. In effect, it is true that the work of Nearchus contains all the elements typical of a periplus, from the notation of the
1 On the career of Nearchus, see H. Berve, Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage (Munich, ), :, no. ; C.F. Lehmann-Haupt, Nr. : Ναρς,in J. Papastavru, Amphipolis. Geschichte und Prosopographie, Klio,Suppl.N.F.(Leipzig, ), –; G. Wirth, “Nearchos der Flottenchef,”in Acta Conventus XI Eirene (Wro- claw, ), – (= Studien zur Alexandergeschichte [Darmstadt, ], –); A.B. Bosworth, “Nearchus in Susiana,” in Zu Alexander der Grosse. Festschrift G. Wirth (Amsterdam, ), –; G. Wirth, “Nearch, Alexander und die Diadochen. Speku- lationen über einen Zusamenhang,” Tyche (), –. 2 In the spring of . 3 This task had been entrusted to him since the beginning (Arr., Ind. .). 4 Plut., Alex. . (= FGrHist Fb). The view of E. Badian (“Nearchus the Cretan,” Yale Class. Stud. [], ), according to which this information, for which Plutarch expressly quotes the royal Ephemerides, would have been inserted in obedience to the will of Nearchus, appears hypercritical, since from one side it exaggerates the influence of the latter in the time of the death of the king, and from the other it denies the particular interest of Alexander in the results of the maritime explorations. On the distinction of that testimony from that in Arr., Anab. .. concerning the expedition along the coasts of Arabia, see L. Pearson, “The Diary and the Letters of Alexander the Great,” Historia (), , . 5 Thphr., Hist. Plant. ... See W.Capelle, s.v. “Nearchos” no. , RE . (), ; P. Högemann, Alexander der Grosse und Arabien (Munich, ), n. . 6 The exact title is discussed: see W. Tomaschek, “Topographische Erläuterung der Küstenfahrt Nearchs vom Indus bis zum Euphrat,” Sitzungsber. d. kaiserl. Akad. d. Wiss. Wien (phil.-hist. Kl.) (), Abh. .; Jacoby, FGrHist B, Kommentar, ; P. Pédech, Historiens compagnons d’Alexandre. Callisthène—Onésicrite—Néarque—Ptolé- mée—Aristobule (Paris, ), –. 7 Arr., Ind. – = FGrHist F. Besides the commentary of Jacoby (FGrHist B, Kommentar, –), see the wider and updated one of N. Biffi, L’ Indiké di Arriano, Introduzione, testo, traduzione e commento (Bari, ), –. 8 See W. Capelle, s.v. “Nearchos,” .