ABSTRACT
As is well known, the story that Alexander, on his deathbed, gave his ring to Perdiccas is of considerable importance both for our interpretation of the early Successors and in the debate about the sources for the last days of Alexander and the first few days after his death. A recent book by N.G.L. Hammond, Three Historians of Alexander the Great (Cambridge 1983), makes it a touchstone of method in the interpretation of the whole of Alexander history and concludes (p. 10): ‘Thus the reader will have no hesitation in discarding as unhistorical the giving of the signet-ring to Perdiccas, the sayings of A[lexander] about the succession and the alleged poisoning of A; and in rejecting the views of Badian and Bosworth, for instance, which were based on their belief that D[iodorus], J[ustin] and C[urtius] were in this instance more dependable than Arrian.’ 1
