ABSTRACT
No aspect of the career of Alexander the Great should be more important and instructive to the historian than the series of executions and assassinations by which he partly crushed and partly anticipated the opposition of Macedonian nobles to his person and policy. Yet no aspect has, on the whole, been less studied in modern times. Tarn, by acceptance of the favorable and rejection of the unfavorable sources, 1 came to the conclusion that Alexander committed two murders, but only two. Of these two, one (that of Clitus) can be regarded as manslaughter under some provocation, while the other (that of Parmenio) can at least be mitigated by various legal, social and political considerations. 2 This procedure is part of an attitude towards Alexander the Great of which Tarn was the most distinguished (though by no means the only) exponent, an attitude that has made the serious study of Alexander’s reign from the point of view of political history not only impossible, but (to many students) almost inconceivable. Yet there is no plausible reason why the autocracy of Alexander the Great should not be as susceptible of political analysis as that of Augustus or Napoleon, for the grim and bloody struggle for power that went on almost unremittingly at his court is amply documented even in our inadequate sources. This is not, of course, to assert that there is nothing else to be studied, any more than one would claim that the study of Hitler should be confined to the unraveling of the intrigues among the party leaders. But it is not the business of the historian to envelop a successful military leader in an aureole of romantic idealization, nor is it sacrilege to dispel it. Serious study is made difficult enough by the inadequacy of the sources. Yet, if the right questions are asked, some answers will begin to appear. It is in this spirit that this paper attempts to direct attention to an acknowledged turning-point in the reign, the execution of Alexander’s friend Philotas and the assassination of Philotas’ father Parmenio. 3
