THE WATER OF THE STYX AND THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT

Two different questions arise regarding the alleged use of Stygian water to poison Alexander the Great: When did the story begin to circulate? And where did the idea that a horn could be a suitable vessel for this substance come from?

Shortly after the great king’s unexpected death, a rumour arose that his end was not due to natural causes, and that he had been the victim of a conspiracy involving some of his closest friends. Everyone’s finger seems to have been pointed at Antipater specifically as the main instigator of the plot. Having had some significant disagreements with the queen mother Olympias and fearing the reaction of an angry Alexander,Footnote ²² Antipater was said to have sent a powerful poison to Babylon through his elder son, Cassander,Footnote ²³ to be poured into Alexander’s cup by his younger son, Iollas, then serving as the king’s cup-bearer. Antipater and his family had the motive, the means and the opportunity to kill Alexander, and many of their enemies were doubtless ready to profess belief in and to spread the accusation.Footnote ²⁴ According to the pseudo-Plutarchan author of the Lives of the Ten Orators, Hyperides even ironically suggested to the Athenians that they should honour Iollas for administering the poison.Footnote ²⁵ The extremely cruel treatment Antipater inflicted on Hyperides, cutting out his tongue before he was executed in 322 b.c.e.,Footnote ²⁶ is difficult to explain other than as a reprisal for the orator’s contribution to spreading the whispers about a plot. This means that less than a year after the death of Alexander, suspicions around Antipater had reached mainland Greece.Footnote ²⁷

There is little doubt that the story of the assassination arose almost immediately after the king’s death. However, the extant testimonies about Hyperides and the earliest rumours of foul play say nothing about the poison Antipater is supposed to have usedFootnote ²⁸ or how it reached Babylon. Only later accounts of the treason, most dating from the late Hellenistic or the Roman period, name the water of the Styx (or an unspecified substance that resembles it), brought to Babylon by Cassander in a horse’s hoof and later poured by Iollas into the king’s cup. With slight differences, this is the version we find in the works of Trogus, Vitruvius, Pliny, Quintus Curtius, Arrian, Plutarch and Pausanias.Footnote ²⁹ These sources are unanimous about the container of the poison, all of them mentioning an equine hoof; none considers the possibility of a horn, let alone a fantastical ass’s horn, serving this purpose.

Several different rumours probably began to circulate simultaneously.Footnote ³⁰ However, at some point the version with the water of the Styx seems to have become predominant. Perhaps the distinctive characteristics of this substance partially explain the success of the story: a king as extraordinary as Alexander could surely not be assassinated by a simple poison. The narrative needed an extraordinary means, one capable of killing the semi-divine conqueror of the world whose lineage could be traced back to Heracles, Achilles and Zeus himself; and a mythical liquid like the ominous water of the Underworld seems to be a perfect fit.Footnote ³¹ Moreover, the alleged effects of this substance resemble some of the symptoms experienced by Alexander on his deathbed, where he suffered a progressive general paralysis, lost the ability to speak and, apparently, remained unconscious for several days before he died: according to Hesiod (Theog. 775–98), who offers the earliest testimony about this water and its power, its extreme coldness is resisted only by gold, and it is taken to Olympus by Iris in a golden vessel to be used in a lie-detector test among the gods. If a god swears an insincere oath, after drinking it he or she falls deeply asleep, unable to eat, speak or even breath for one year.Footnote ³²

The story about the water of the Styx used as the poison was circulating already in the early Hellenistic period, during the time of the Diadochi. Plutarch indicates that Antigonus the One-Eyed (died 301 b.c.e.) knew it (see below), and the fact that Philon of Heracleia mentioned the story of Sopater and the Scythian ass’s horn in the early third century b.c.e. provides further evidence that this specific version of the conspiracy was known before Philon. We have no evidence, though, of the precise moment when it began to circulate or who started the rumour. Still, the political situation and the new alliances made after the death of Antipater in 319 b.c.e. seem to have marked a turning point in the propaganda war between the Diadochi, and these changes probably affected the narrative of the plot to kill the great king. Specifically, around 317 b.c.e. the suspicions of an assassination seem to have grown stronger. It was at that moment that Olympias returned after years of exile in Epirus as an ally of Polyperchon; once in Macedonia she ordered the execution of Nicanor, another son of Antipater, and had Iollas’ ashes disinterred and cast to the wind, deeds she asserted to be vengeance for the death of her son (Diod. Sic. 19.11.8). Surprisingly, Plutarch points to this moment as the beginning of the rumours that Alexander was assassinated, a statement that scholars have interpreted as indicating that Olympias revived the story of the conspiracy, after six years of silence imposed by Antipater and his family.Footnote ³³ It is tempting to connect the success of the story about the Stygian water to this historical context. Unfortunately, beyond the Antipatrids’ responsibility for the murder and Iollas’ active involvement, we have no details of the plot in which Olympias believed.

Olympias’ return to Macedonia, however, coincides with another event likely to have had an effect on the propaganda of the time, since 317 b.c.e. is also the year in which the Peripatetic philosopher Demetrius of Phaleron, an ally of Cassander, was designated governor of Athens, where he remained until Demetrius Poliorcetes expelled him in 307, prompting his flight first to Thebes and then to Egypt.Footnote ³⁴ Some of the extant accounts of Alexander’s poisoning, namely Pliny’s, Arrian’s and Plutarch’s, add that Aristotle was involved in the conspiracy, though his name is absent from the other sources. This has led to the idea that Aristotle did not appear in the narrative when it started to circulate but was included later, and some scholarsFootnote ³⁵ have construed the accusations against him as an attempt to delegitimize Demetrius, who was marked by the Peripatetics’ proximity to Antipater’s clan. If the accusations against Aristotle were in fact directed against Demetrius of Phaleron, and the inclusion of Aristotle’s name is a secondary development in the evolution of the rumours about the water of the Styx brought to Babylon inside a hoof, then the end of Demetrius’ service as governor of Athens marks a terminus ante quem for the creation of the rumours about Aristotle’s involvement, and the original story was necessarily circulating before that moment.

In this context, it is probably significant that the ancient sources indicate a connection between the Peripatetic school and the idea that horn vessels resist the corrosive power of the water of the Styx. Thanks to the paradoxographer Antigonus,Footnote ³⁶ it is attested that Theophrastus dealt with this substance and its properties in his lost work Περὶ ὑδάτων, explicitly mentioning its deadly effect on anyone who drank it. Perhaps, then, that poison was associated not only with the master of the Peripatos but also with his disciple, who moreover was Demetrius’ mentor. But, most importantly, in the same fragment Theophrastus appears to be the only ancient author clearly attested to have described the vessels able to hold this water as κεράτινα, pointing to horn as the material capable of withstanding the substance’s corrosive action. Sharples noted the ambiguity of this description, indicating that κεράτινος could also designate a hoof; he based his argument on the statement of Aristotle that hoof and horn, specifically those of the unicorn, consist of the same substance.Footnote ³⁷ Nevertheless, there are no clear testimonies of the adjective κεράτινος used to describe a hoof.Footnote ³⁸ In any case, the alleged ambiguous expressions concerning the container of the Stygian water would be limited to Antigonus’ quotation of Theophrastus.Footnote ³⁹ This might lead us to suspect a Peripatetic origin of the story about the Scythian ass and its wonderful horn.

Περὶ ὑδάτων was likely written after 310 b.c.e.Footnote ⁴⁰ There is no textual evidence of Theophrastus’ interest in the Stygian water before that time, at least seven years after Demetrius’ rise to power and thus closer to Demetrius’ expulsion from Athens than to the beginning of his governorship. Given the accumulative character of Peripatetic natural science, the late composition of Περὶ ὑδάτων does not by itself prove that the properties of this liquid were not a subject of the scientific discussions at the Peripatos before that moment.Footnote ⁴¹ Still, further arguments seem to place the accusations against Aristotle around the end of Demetrius of Phaleron’s governorship: Plutarch states that the claims about Aristotle’s involvement in the plot came from a certain Hagnothemis, who supposedly heard it from Antigonus ‘the king’ (ὡς Ἀντιγόνου τοῦ βασιλέως ἀκούσαντα). Antigonus was proclaimed king by his army in the year 306 b.c.e. (Diod. Sic. 20.53.1–4), that is, immediately after Demetrius’ expulsion. The reference in Plutarch’s text does not necessarily mean that Antigonus was already king when Hagnothemis heard the story; it could simply be a way of identifying him when the story was recorded. Moreover, it is not possible to verify whether Antigonus started these rumours or only helped to spread them.Footnote ⁴² Still, with all due caution, the extant textual evidence about the rumours aimed at delegitimizing Demetrius of Phaleron, and the possible hints of a Peripatetic origin of the answer to these rumours, seem connected to the later years of Demetrius’ governorship.

THE ENIGMATIC SOPATER

Other details of the story can perhaps also be construed as aimed at diverting suspicion from Antipater and his family: Aelian and Porphyry mention a certain Sopater as the person who presented the Scythian horn to Alexander. However, the identity or even existence of this individual has not been clearly established. BerveFootnote ⁴³ describes him as ‘someone of unknown origin and homeland’ and Heckel, while acknowledging this unknown origin and casting serious doubts on the historicity and truth of his story, tentatively identifies this elusive figure with the poet Sopater of Paphos.Footnote ⁴⁴

The name Σώπατρος seems to have been common in the Greek world, and it is widely attested in both epigraphical and papyrological sources.Footnote ⁴⁵ The Greek literary tradition also includes a number of people with that name.Footnote ⁴⁶ Among them, however, only the aforementioned Sopater of Paphos, an author of parodies and comedies, seems to have been a contemporary of Alexander.Footnote ⁴⁷ Nevertheless, according to the testimony of Athenaeus,Footnote ⁴⁸ he seems to be too young to be our Sopater: he is mentioned as ‘born in the time of Alexander, the son of Philip’, that is, after 336 b.c.e., and having lived until the second Ptolemy (king in 285 b.c.e.). He was thus barely a teenager when Alexander died. Moreover, apart from being born under Alexander’s rule, there is no evidence of any other connection between this person and him, nor any indication of an interest in natural marvels on his part.

A solid identification of Sopater is, for the moment, impossible. But, again, perhaps the obstacles to identifying him are not mere chance, but the result of a deliberate decision. The most plausible identification of the Sopater of our story is that proposed by Giannini in the commentaries to his edition of the Greek paradoxographers: analysing the text of Porphyry as a fragment of Philo’s paradoxographical work,Footnote ⁴⁹ he states: ‘Σωπάτρου: Antipatrum habent Plin. Plut.’ That is, in Giannini’s opinion, ‘Sopater’ appears in Philo’s text instead of ‘Antipater’, a name whose phonetic similarity is self-evident.

The man ultimately responsible for the arrival of the Stygian water in Babylon, Antipater, appears in Porphyry’s and Aelian’s story transformed into the otherwise unknown Sopater. Giannini’s brief statement does not indicate how he interpreted this substitution: is the name Sopater just a mistake, the product of textual corruption from an original Antipater? Perhaps; still, if the story reported by Aelian and Porphyry is considered as a whole, the change admits other interpretations. Every element of the conspiracy story appears to be systematically altered in the anecdote of Aelian and Porphyry. The observed changes are always partial, though, so that the original items are not substituted by something entirely different, but only modified, reversed or blurred. Instead of dying, poisoned by the water of the Underworld, Alexander receives an extraordinary gift and inscribes a votive epigram on it. The deadly water is not transported hidden inside a hoof, but openly and inside another equine body part: a horn, moreover a peculiar one, belonging to an ass, not an animal renowned for that appendage. In this context, it is not strange that the name of Antipater was subjected to the same treatment and that his name was replaced by a similar one, so that Alexander should receive this wondrous object not from the man everyone blamed for his death, but from a mysterious Sopater, an enigmatic figure with a common name and no clear identity. Furthermore, a substitution of Antipater by Sopater could have happened as late as six years after the death of Alexander, if the hypothesis is accepted that the story told by Aelian and Porphyry has its origins in the Peripatetic School and started circulating only after Demetrius’ accession to the governorship of Athens, in 317 b.c.e. (or perhaps even later, close to his expulsion from Athens in 307 b.c.e.; see above). In that case, perhaps the passage of time had helped for memories to be confused and misleading elements to be inserted in the story.

HORNED ASSES IN SCYTHIA AND ELSEWHERE

As noted above, Porphyry attributes the story of the ass’s horn to Philon of Heracleia. Scholars like Sharples,Footnote ⁵⁰ for instance, have interpreted the deviations from the ‘normal’ story about the poisoning of Alexander, and in particular the substitution of the usual hoof by a horn, as due to the paradoxographer’s aim to astonish his audience. However, it seems unlikely that it was the paradoxographer himself who inserted this modification. First, dependence on earlier sources is one of the most conspicuous characteristics of the paradoxographers,Footnote ⁵¹ and therefore the presence of the anecdote in a work called Περὶ θαυμασίων should, in principle, entail the existence of an earlier source, a work on natural science or, perhaps in this case more likely, an historiographical text, maybe one dealing with the Diadochi.Footnote ⁵² Second, paradoxographers certainly modified their sources to create astonishing effects, but their modifications do not normally affect the content of the original information. They rather eliminate expressions of doubt, rational explanations, similar examples, etc.,Footnote ⁵³ but their working method does not allow alterations of the source so profound as the substitution of an unremarkable hoof by an extraordinary horn invented out of nothing; these were not creative works. Therefore, Scythian horned asses and their virtues were presumably not an invention of Philon: they belonged to the original story of his source text.

Nevertheless, the paradoxographical and astonishing nature of the horn observed by Sharples, compared to an ordinary hoof, is impossible to deny. When the anecdote was invented, therefore, someone felt the need to substitute the hoof of the original account of the poisoning by a fantastical horn. If the anecdote is read as counter-propaganda, perhaps this extraordinary horn is essential, because it justifies the dedication of the object at Delphi. A normal hoof, from a common ass, horse or mule, even if it was said to hold water sourced from the Underworld, could not easily be presented as inspiring Alexander to offer it to Apollo. However, as we will see, the deposit of the horn in the sanctuary is probably indispensable to the effectiveness of the story.

Scythian horned asses have attracted little attention from scholars, with the exceptions of Page’s commentary to his edition of the epigram and Tolić’s paper dedicated to our anecdote.Footnote ⁵⁴ They agree in considering that our Scythian ass is the same animal as the legendary Indian ass, that is, the unicorn. In their opinion, the Indian rhinoceros, which lies at the origin of the legend of the unicorn, is behind the curious asses of Aelian and Porphyry, too. The contribution of Tolić is particularly interesting, given that her study is, to my knowledge, the only one where the anecdote of Porphyry and Aelian is not interpreted as a testimony of a story about an attempt to kill Alexander, but rather about a gift intended to protect him from poisoning. Tolić connects the story to an old Indo-Iranian tradition of kingly gifts, in which drinking cups made of the horn of the unicorn were an extremely precious present, reserved only for persons of the highest nobility.Footnote ⁵⁵ Therefore, so Tolić explains, Aelian and Porphyry reflect the original story, later misinterpreted and wrongly understood as dealing with a plot to assassinate Alexander. The horn, then, in her interpretation, is the original vessel, and the equine hoof a variation, aimed at rationalizing the more extraordinary elements of the story.

But Tolić’s original hypothesis offers no clear evidence indicating that the accounts of Stygian water held inside a hoof might have originated from our story about the horned Scythian asses. The tradition about the plot is unanimous regarding this detail. All the authors who clearly identify the water of the Styx as the chosen poison agree in mentioning a hoof as its vessel,Footnote ⁵⁶ and none mentions a horn or any other animal body part.

Reports of Indian asses whose horns have wonderful medical properties form a well-defined tradition in Greek literature. Scythian horned asses, on the contrary, are attested nowhere else. Therefore, the anecdote recounted by Aelian and Porphyry invites a new question: given that the Greek world had an established and coherent tradition about wondrous horned asses in India, why was it necessary to create a ‘Scythian version’ of this animal? Among the historians and authors dealing with natural science, Scythia is persistently regarded as a territory inhospitable to asses; from Herodotus onwards, testimonies abound stating that, due to the extreme cold of its climate, it is impossible to breed asses in Scythia, an assertion that many authors follow, notably Aristotle.Footnote ⁵⁷ Herodotus (4.191) does attest the existence of a peculiar species of ass whose major notable feature is its possession of horns, but he places them in Libya, not in Scythia, and no special powers are explicitly attributed to them.Footnote ⁵⁸

A generation after Herodotus, Ctesias of Cnidus brought the Greek world his famous report about Indian marvels, among them the strange Indian ass and its legendary horn, which later sources would soon transform into the unicorn that would echo throughout the centuries:

The power of the Indian ass’s horn as universal antidote is also reported by authors such as Aristophanes of Byzantium (Epit. 2.612), Aelian (NA 3.41), Philostratus (V A 3.2) and Timotheus of Gaza (Epit. 31.14), and, through the influence of the Physiologus (ch. 22), it entered the culture of the Middle Ages.Footnote ⁶² The miraculous virtues of the horn of the Indian ass depend on a well-established tradition.Footnote ⁶³ From the earliest references to this object, it is possible to read of its effect of inhibiting all kinds of poisons, providing their owners, mainly kings—sources indicate that possession of such vessels is exclusive to royaltyFootnote ⁶⁴ —with a means to avoid being murdered should there be a conspiracy against them.

If we accept that the origins of the anecdote of Aelian and Porphyry are not connected to natural science, and that it does not reflect a real event during the reign of Alexander, but rather was invented as political propaganda after Alexander’s death, several aspects of the reading of Page and Tolić need to be reconsidered. First, it makes no sense to seek a realist interpretation of the story of the Scythian horned ass or a clear preceding tradition in the Greek scientific or historiographic literature. This creature can best be understood as specifically created for this story.

It is still possible to see the Indian ass and its famous horn as the model on which the Scythian horned ass was based, so that it can be regarded as a sort of elaboration on the Indian legend. But the relationship between the two animals needs to be nuanced and their differences deserve attention. Rather than a model, the stories about the horn of the Indian ass might be understood as an anti-model of our anecdote about the Scythian species, at least in terms of the use of the objects derived from them. The virtues of the unicorn’s horn and of the one Alexander dedicated to Apollo are both connected to poison. The Indian horn is a vessel which offers both a medical remedy for diverse illnesses, including the holy sickness (epilepsy), and protection against poisoning; its Scythian counterpart, however, has the virtue of containing the water of the Styx, that is, instead of inhibiting poisons in general, it allows the handling of one particular, very powerful poison.

If the ultimate aim of our story was to prove that there was no intention of killing Alexander on the part of the Antipatrids, perhaps the horn of the unicorn could not serve that purpose. The ancient sources depict it as inhibiting the effect of poisons drunk by the victim of a conspiracy. Thus, if a horn of Indian ass appeared in our story, this association could lead the audience to think that Alexander was indeed the victim of a plot, and survived thanks to the protection of the miraculous object. However, nothing in the story indicates that the king drank the water of the Styx. He dedicated it out of ‘admiration’, as Aelian puts it, for the horn’s capacity to withstand that water.

The Scythian ass and its wondrous horn therefore seem to be an ad hoc invention, created specifically to fulfil a double function: (1) to explain why the king, astonished by its extraordinary nature, dedicated it at Delphi; (2) to avoid the risk of referring to a unicorn horn, which could have been interpreted as a sign that there was indeed a plot against the king, frustrated thanks to the extraordinary container.

THE EPIGRAM: A PAST-CREATING STRATEGY AT WORK?

In Page’s opinion, the poem, which he apparently regards as a real inscription engraved on a real object offered at Delphi by Alexander, was probably written ‘shortly before 323 b.c.’,Footnote ⁶⁵ that is, shortly before Alexander died in Babylon.Footnote ⁶⁶ However, if our hypothesis is accepted, it should rather be dated at some point after the rumours of a plot by Antipater and his family began circulating, and possibly even after Demetrius of Phaleron and the Peripatetic School became a collateral target of the propaganda against Antipater’s family, in 317 b.c.e.

Beyond its date, if the epigram is read as part of a counter-propaganda campaign, its whole meaning needs to be reinterpreted. Scholars have repeatedly acknowledged the value of votive offerings deposited in temples as testimonies of a narrative, points of reference for historical memory, material traces of the past of a place, a family or a whole city.Footnote ⁶⁷ A sanctuary is a space invested with authority, and the offerings inside it, in particular if they are inscribed, seem to be authenticated, verified ‘relics’, directly connected to a specific historical or even mythical context. Modern philosophers have distinguished between ‘things’ and ‘objects’, the former being raw elements of the material world, whereas the latter are individualized.Footnote ⁶⁸ Such a distinction is potentially relevant in the case of our horn and its inscription. An inscription can provide the inscribed thing with a past, making it tell a story and transforming it from mere thing to an ‘object’, which is unique and meaningful.Footnote ⁶⁹

In the case of our anecdote, the epigram is the key element that makes everything fit, attesting that Alexander, alive and well, not the victim of any conspiracy, witnessed for himself the power of the extraordinary horn, and afterwards made a dedication in the temple of Apollo. Observe the past tense in the epigram: the horn ‘was not subdued’ (οὐκ ἐδαμάσθη) and ‘withstood’ (βάσταξεν) the water, presenting the capacities of the object as proven facts, not mere potentialities. The epigram and the story around it should be read as a textual forgery, intended to attest that the great king did not die after receiving the poisonous Stygian water inside a wondrous horn and, perhaps, to identify an object deposited in Delphi as the horn of a Scythian ass, the very specimen that Alexander had in his hands.

In principle, the inscribed horn, the material trace of the story, was available for the temple’s visitors to admire, and for sceptics to verify. At least theoretically, anyone could confirm the existence of a horn at Delphi inscribed as the story indicates. We will never know if there was a real horn inside the temple of Apollo on which this epigram was engraved, a fake deposited at the sanctuary to guarantee the story. The possibility cannot be excluded that the desire to create a convincing account led to the fabrication of the corresponding material evidence. Delphi had lost its independence in the time of Alexander’s father, and from 317 b.c.e. it was under Cassander’s control.Footnote ⁷⁰ Presumably, it would not have been difficult for the Antipatrids to have a particular object deposited there and made to appear as an offering made at an earlier time.

Nevertheless, the ‘real’ existence of a horn in Delphi does not seem indispensable: most of Cassander’s enemies, who could have reacted with scepticism to the story about the Scythian horn, were probably not able to check the existence of the curious object. Moreover, the rumours of conspiracy were not based on any material evidence. They were damaging to Antipater and his family by their existence alone; equally, the mere circulation of our anecdote could have been enough to counterbalance the rumours, even in the absence of material traces of the alleged facts. Indeed, examples like the Lindian Chronicle show the extent to which claims of an inscribed object inside a temple can appear trustworthy, even in the absence of both object and inscription.