Ghost on the Throne - James S. Romm [158]
5 He even proposed: As attested in the pseudo-Plutarchan biography, Moralia 849f.
6 (among other names): There is some confusion in the sources as to which names Olympias held and when; Myrtale and Stratonice are also reported. According to Carney (Olympias, p. 16), “It seems likely that [Olympias] had different names or epithets at different periods and that the changes came at significant moments in her life.”
7 Other rumors: Plutarch (Alexander 10.8) reports the suspicions surrounding Olympias after Philip’s murder, and Justin (9.7.1–2) accuses her more directly of complicity, but the other Alexander sources say nothing of her involvement. Modern scholarly opinion is divided.
8 arranged the killing: Plutarch Alexander 10.8, with lurid details filled in by Pausanias 8.7.7.
9 Mother and daughter: Only Cleopatra is attested by the sources as having sent the letter, but it is highly unlikely she did so without her mother’s participation.
10 Hecataeus found Leonnatus: The details of the complex scene that follows are taken from Plutarch Eumenes 3.3–7. I have somewhat expanded on Plutarch’s inferences about the thoughts of Leonnatus and Eumenes.
11 fondness for wrestling: Attested by Plutarch, Alexander 40.1, with the outlandish detail that Leonnatus had the sand used for his wrestling practice imported from Egypt by camel train.
12 When Leonnatus woke: A biography of Eumenes by the Roman Nepos, differing in some places from that of Plutarch, claims that Leonnatus sought Eumenes’ life after he realized the Greek meant to betray his plans, and that Eumenes’ nighttime departure was actually an escape (Eumenes 2.4–5).
13 “Of the words”: I have based my translation on Worthington’s text of the speech (Greek Orators II). Because the speech is known through only one tattered copy, many of the readings remain uncertain or rely on editorial insertions. I was not able to make use of the new edition by Judson Herrman, Hyperides: Funeral Oration (Oxford, 2009).
14 King Xerxes: The Hellespont bridge built by the Persians in 480 B.C. is described in detail by Herodotus 7.33–36. The key to its construction was the immensely strong cables, made of papyrus and white flax (7.25), that were stretched across the decks of the ships to bind them together.
15 many shirked it: The earliest preserved political speech of Demosthenes, “On the Naval Boards,” presents a plan for reforming the system for financing the navy. Demosthenes himself had served on the boards and witnessed many abuses.
16 were hard to come by: Bosworth, in “Why Did Athens Lose the Lamian War?” (p. 15), cites evidence that Athens had only forty ships at sea during the two summers preceding the war. That meant only eight hundred rowers had gained precious experience of naval service.
17 110 warships: Attested by Diodorus 18.12.2, who explains them as a treasure convoy but without specifying what the money they carried was to be used for. The assumption of most historians is that Alexander was already anticipating war with Athens before he died.
18 details of these battles: Because Diodorus almost totally neglects the war at sea in his narrative of the Hellenic War, much uncertainty about it cannot be resolved. Ashton (“Naumachia”) and Bosworth (“Why Did Athens Lose the Lamian War?”) have both made brave efforts at a reconstruction.
19 a peculiar denouement: The strange story is told by Plutarch, Demetrius 11.
20 sat idle: Evidence assembled by Green, “Occupation and Co-existence,” and Bosworth, “Why Did Athens Lose the Lamian War?”
21 He had brought Phila: Not attested by the sources but conjectured by Heckel and others on the grounds that Phila was in Cilicia at the start of the war (see note 17). Craterus’ remarkable reassignment of his existing bride, Amastris, to Dionysius of Heracleia is recounted by Strabo (12.3.10) and Memnon (4.4).
22 usually reckoned: Because of the vagaries of the Athenian calendar, it is not possible to give exact Gregorian correlates for the ancient dates Plutarch and other sources supply.
23 The negotiations: