ABSTRACT
Certain events in Alexander’s reign involving non-Macedonians have sometimes been cobbled together and taken as something akin to a ‘policy’ of the fusion of races or brotherhood of mankind. Actions and events which have been singled out in particular are Alexander’s integration of foreigners into his army and administration, the attempt in 327 to introduce proskynesis (genuflection) at Bactra (see Sources 87 and 88),1 the mass marriage in 324 at Susa (see Sources 90 and 91), at which Alexander and 91 of his court married Persian noblewomen (Alexander taking two wives) in a Persian ceremony which lasted for five days,2 and the banquet of reconciliation and prayer for concord amongst the races (Arr. 7.11.9) after the mutiny at Opis in 324.3
Consequently, Alexander has been viewed as a philosophical idealist, striving to create a unity of mankind, and so even more worthy of being called ‘Great’.4
