ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND FINANCES

Any attempt to understand Alexander the Great is closely tied to the reigning Zeitgeist, and so every generation of historians has its own Alexander. The Macedonian king has always been a mirror of the dreams and truths that shape us, when we reach back to antiquity in order to understand our own time. This is seen in various portraits, from J.G. Droysen’s powerful depiction (Geschichte Alexanders des Großen [1833]) of a strong statesman that unified the world and spread Greek culture, to W.W. Tarn’s Victorian gentleman (Alexander the Great [1948]) that set out to unite mankind into a brotherhood without drinking, murdering or having casual sex. A new Alexander emerged at the end of the 1950s with E. Badian’s groundbreaking studies of a post-imperial and post-heroic Alexander (‘Alexander the Great and the Unity of Mankind’, Historia 7 [1958], 425– 44; ‘The Eunuch Bagoas: a Study in Method’, CQ 8 [1958], 144–57). This initiated the incorporation in studies of Alexander of a cynical, egoistic and sometimes murderous side of him, on an equal footing with more admirable characteristics. In scholarship, the low esteem of powerful leaders has only grown, and the present volume in question underlines this tendency: the reader is presented with a destructive ruler who is more focused on keeping the war machine running than administering his newlywon empire. With two previous books on Alexander, Alexander the Great and Bactria (1988) and Alexander the Great and the Mystery of the Elephant Medallions (2003), H. has a good eye for finding new angles on a topic that has already been heavily treated. In the present study, H.’s overall aim is to uncover the truth about Alexander’s treasure (broadly defined as any material goods that enhanced power, prestige and influence): ‘How much did the young king acquire? How, and how well, did he manage these revenues? On what did the King spend his fortune, and how does this illuminate his personality and policies?’ (p. 7). By drawing on a variety of evidence, H. aims to fill a gap in modern historiography on Alexander by ‘facilitating a conversation between classics, history, economics, archaeology and numismatics’ (p. 9). H. tackles the questions systematically throughout the seven chapters and four appendices. The first chapter outlines his overall project; Chapters 2, 3 and 4 cover the revenues of the Persian campaign; Chapters 5 and 6 discuss the expenditures; and in a concluding chapter, H. offers a broad evaluation of Alexander as a financial administrator of his empire. In Chapter 1, H. presents his study, the source material and his method. As H. observes, the main problem in any interpretation is that of the sources. A quick glance at the surviving accounts could give the impression that Alexander’s reign is well covered, with five full and completely extant narratives. Unfortunately, the quality rarely lives up to the quantity, as the texts are written several centuries after the king’s lifetime.