ABSTRACT
The stage of Alexander’s great drama is thronged with minor characters playing their walk-on parts or acting as heroes or villains in their own little scenes. Their names, often unknown to—or ignored by—our main sources, have been gathered with monumental diligence by Berve, 1 who has provided a basis for some akribeia in a study traditionally befogged with generality and prejudice. In this country the study of Alexander is necessarily under the spell of Tarn’s masterly work, 2 based on a thorough discussion of the sources. 3 To agree or to disagree, we must always come back to him; and disagreement, in the main, has been confined to details. 4 But it is on detailed study that a general interpretation must be based, especially in the case of such a vast subject; and an investigation of that minor villain, the eunuch Bagoas, may turn out to be not devoid of general interest.
