The chapter considers the motivation for Alexander the Great’s expedition to India, which took him beyond the limits of the Persian Empire he had set out to conquer. Ambition (pothos) is seen as more probable than either strategic necessity or scientific curiosity. The course of the campaign from November 326 to July 325 BC is outlined, and the reasons for the savagery of the fighting during the journey down the Indus are considered. The chapter also reviews the impact of Alexander’s encounter with the ‘naked philosophers’ of Taxila. One of them, Calanus, travelled with Alexander until his death, and it is suggested that his conversation made an impression on another of Alexander’s companions, the philosopher Pyrrho, who became known as the founder of scepticism. The paper also reviews the legacy of Alexander in India. Foremost is the detailed account of India written by Megasthenes, a former member of Alexander’s army and ambassador from Seleucus to Candragupta. Indo-Greek dynasties persisted in north-west India for two centuries after Alexander’s death, but to narrate this history would go beyond the subject. The chapter looks briefly at the evidence for other Greeks who left records of their residence in India.

After discussing the historical processes that led to Arabian names being recorded in Babylonian texts, especially during the reign of Nabonidus in the mid-sixth century BCE, the chapter offers an extensive overview of the Arabian toponyms, ethnonyms, and anthroponyms that are attested in these records.

Alexander’s treaties and dealings with the Greek poleis mainly followed the path set by his father’s military success and diplomatic skills. The League of Corinth, an alliance between the states of the Common Peace with the aim of revenge against the Persian invasion of 480–79 BC was renewed by Alexander just after he became king. But the destruction of Thebes in 335 BC soon showed the Greeks that Alexander was ruthless in his authority, and it left a deep impression on them, for the only rebellion against Macedon with was the monor one of Agis III of Sparta, who failed to subdue Antipater’s armies. In Asia Minor, Alexander treated the Greek poleis as it suited him, with rewards for friends and punishments and for foes. During the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire, Alexander settled Greek populations in the new spear-won landscapes, spreading the Greek culture as he travelled, surrounded in his court by artists, philosophers and many other Greek intellectuals.

This chapter discusses the crises Alexander faced leading up to his succession to his father, Philip II: his dispute with Attalus at Philip’s wedding to Cleopatra, its causes, significance and aftermath; and the Pixodarus affair. It then turns to the crisis of the succession itself: the circumstances of Philip’s assassination at the hands of Pausanias, Alexander’s movements at the time of it, and the steps by which he secured the throne himself and legitimated himself as Philip’s successor.

In Babylonia, the name was used to establish the social identity of its bearer. Names attested to the piety of the family through frequent references to the protection of the divinity of the city or country. The name also marked the place of an individual within their kinship group. The frequent use of family names by the urban elite of the first millennium BCE, often referring to a prestigious ancestor, made it possible to mark a person as belonging to a well-recognised family group. By contrast, slaves, oblates, and other dependents often only had their personal name and their social qualification.

A construction like the colonate is known in the Heroninos archive (249–268). It is the paramonè agreement, where the estate owner grants credit and the debtor provides labour at the wish of the creditor, as a kind of interest. For the period from 364 to 293 constitutions are considered as issued originally. Retrogradely, several additions become visible. In the middle of the fourth century the coniugium non aequale is applied to coloni and some groups of workers, as is the senatusconsultum Claudianum. In 319 the coloni on imperial estates may be recalled: the essential mark of subjection. The same is shown in 332 for coloni on private lands: they are alieni iuris, may be recalled, and tax must be paid for them. Connected with the similar condicio for monetarii in 319, the colonate may have existed essentially in the beginning of the fourth century and can now be connected with a rescript of 293/4.

Cuneiform sources from Babylonia are a valuable extra-biblical source for the history of the Babylonian diaspora. Onomastic data play an important role in this regard: Yahwistic and other Hebrew names begin to appear in cuneiform corpus of Babylonia shortly after the first deportation by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE. They help trace the presence of men and women from Judea or of Judean descent in Babylonia. However, identifying deported Judeans and their offspring as well as their underlying cultural background in Babylonia by their first names or patronymics is a complicated process. This chapter aims to guide the reader through the constitutive elements of Hebrew names in cuneiform script. It looks both inside and behind the names, in detailing their linguistic and cultural characteristics, typology, orthography, and semantics as well as the naming practices and socio-economic profile of their bearers. At the same time, the challenges and limitations of these processes are discussed.

This chapter provides an overview of Alexander’s wealth by examining the sources of his income and his expenditure. In connection to the expenditure, the chapter provides an overview of Alexander’s coinage. The chapter suggests that while Alexander’s campaigns brought tremendous wealth to the king, much of his useable wealth was absorbed by the army necessary for the campaigns.

The subjected status of the coloni equalled them to persons alieni iuris, as slaves were too, but they were still free. It made marriages with those not in this way subjected with regard to the transmission of status ‘unequal’. It implies that children follow the status of the mother. This ‘unequal marriage’ and its consequence was introduced by earlier laws. To prevent the children out of marriages of a colonus with a not subjected woman being not subjected, the senatusconsultum Claudianum was applied. That made children follow the status of the father. The abolition of the senatusconsultum led Justinian to introduce the faculty of estate owners to recall coloni from such marriages in order to prevent the loss of labour force. CJ 11.48.19 established that every colonus after thirty years of service was no longer alieni iuris and thus subjected to their estate owner, but free from his control over him and his property. Such coloni are called ‘free’ coloni (coloni liberi). They remained tied to the estate and had to render services and to pay poll tax, but could now fulfill public functions as no longer being of subjected status.

Plutarch devotes two speeches and a biography specifically to Alexander. Current scholarship prioritizes the author over his subject. The erudite Plutarch employs numerous Alexander sources for his own writerly purposes. In the speeches he argues that Alexander’s successes are due to his own efforts rather than gifted by fortune. It is to be doubted that Plutarch had a serious polemical or philosophical point to prove; his epideictic oratory aims at rhetorical display and furnishing evidence from ready knowledge. The Life is similarly moulded by generic requirements. Plutarch provides an episodic birth-to-death account of Alexander, in which he presents himself as a competent interpreter and adviser. He quotes early sources, in particular from a collection of letters by Alexander, to render his depiction more authentic. Focusing on the ‘signs of the soul’, Plutarch is most interested in court politics and personal morals. His Alexander is determined by his physical make-up and greatness of soul on the one hand, and how effectively education and philosophy direct his ambition on the other. His biography is not apologetic; rather he wishes to educate his readership on how personal morality impacts on governance. References to his own context, if at all present, are oblique.

The chapter collects what may be known of Alexander’s life up until the battle of Chaeronea, for which the source of primary importance is Plutarch’s biography. It attempts to sift what may plausibly regarded as historical from embellishments of various kinds (contemporary and subsequent, propagandist, folkloric or mythologyzing). Particular attention is given to: Alexander’s three birth myths; his education at the hands of Lysimachus of Acarnania, Leonidas of Epirus and Aristotle; Aeschines’ vignette of him as nine-year-old boy; the intriguing traditions bearing upon his horse Bucephalas; his regency during the Byzantine campaign, his foundation of Alexandropolis and his dealings with the Persian ambassadors; his role in the battle at Chaeronea.