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 newly-won 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. Thus, H.’s biggest problem is the inaccuracy found in the sources and their broad tendency to give round numbers when they occasionally show interest in quantifying Alexander's treasures. H. can do nothing more than declare his intent to compare the different surviving accounts, cross-check the information when this is possible, and in general rely on well-founded and plausible guesswork (pp. 18–19).
Chapter 2 covers the wealth of the young Alexander, and H. convincingly counters the assumption that Alexander inherited a bankrupt kingdom. By analysing the totality of the king's resources, H. shows that Alexander had considerable economic scope in his first years and that the portrayal of a young man going from rags to riches suited the rhetoric in Alexander's speech at Opis perfectly (p. 43). In Chapter 3, H. treats the plunder, destruction and human consequences of Alexander's campaigns at Thebes (335 b.c.), Granicus (334), Issus (333), Gaugamela (331) and his move into the Eastern provinces in the 320s. H. nicely shows the deadly attractions of wealth, the corruption of power and that no region escaped the destruction that followed Alexander (p. 67). Chapter 4 continues to build on this picture, as H. discusses the transfer of wealth retrieved from the great cities and provinces of the Persian Empire. The chapter also covers the destruction of Persepolis and ends with a short partial conclusion on Alexander's revenues: From 336 to 330 wealth was mainly absorbed from the big cities and urban centres, while the spoils of war changed from 329 onwards to consist also of slaves, horses, cattle and elephants from less urbanised regions (p. 94).
Chapter 5 focuses on how the newly acquired wealth was spent. H. shows that most of the money went back into the army, but that Alexander also spent large amounts on personal gifts and patronage (p. 96), religious and ceremonial matters (p. 107) and the infrastructure and foundation of cities (p. 110). In Chapter 6, H. directs his attention to the question of Alexander's administrative skills and whether he governed as effectively as he conquered. By focusing on the careers of Phloxenus, Antimenes, Ophellas, Cleomenes and the enigmatic Imperial treasurer Harpalus (the boyhood friend of Alexander), who lived extravagantly in Babylon but fled to Greece after hearing of Alexander's (unexpected) return from the East, H. depicts a pattern of mismanagement, revealing a king much more interested in success on the battlefield than financial stability in his empire (p. 140).
In the concluding chapter, H. engages in the long-raging debate about the evaluation of Alexander as an administrator. H. aligns his conclusion with the most critical voices and even seems to twist his interpretation a bit further. In the eyes of H., Alexander was first and foremost a simple-minded soldier not interested in financial development. He waged wars in order to engage in new wars, and because Alexander acted far away from the administrative centres for most of his career, most of the wealth he acquired never went back into circulation. Thus, the general picture H. draws is that of a destructive process, filled with chaos, waste and a bloody track in the wake of Alexander's army. While characterising him as a murderous and paranoid ruler is in line with the current majority of research on Alexander, it is worth considering how far we can pull Alexander away from his own time, without losing sight of those norms and standards that formed his world view. Alexander acted true to his nature and the actions we can extract from the sources must be judged in the context of their time. Furthermore, H. seems to use Alexander's indifference to administrative matters when a new satrapy was conquered as a sign of incompetence, but could this not equally be interpreted as a sign of a conscious (perhaps faulty) strategy of winning over the Persian elite by letting them handle their own administration in the way they had always done?
Despite its one-dimensional portrait of Alexander, H.’s study is a welcome addition to Alexander scholarship and the vast amount of literature on the Macedonian conqueror. His prose is direct and easily accessible, and the book will be of value for specialists and non-specialists alike. He manages to provide valuable insight into the complexity of ancient economies, how wealth influenced warfare and what consequences plundering had on everyday life in the fourth century. H. could have done more to address, as promised in the subtitle, the lasting legacy of Alexander's redistribution of wealth, which could have provided him with the perspective his final evaluation needs. So, was Alexander a state builder or a despot, conquering for good or evil? H. offers a clear answer, but as with most things in the life of Alexander, the picture tends to be muddier than we expect.
