Alexander the Great by Boardman John

Author:Boardman, John
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2018-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

Seriously, Though—Nectanebo?

The association of the Egyptian king Nectanebo II and his sarcophagus with Alexander, as his father and providing his final resting place, recurs in many Romances. Historically, their ages would fit. Even before he came to the throne, and certainly afterward, Nectanebo II had been busy trying to release Egypt from Persian rule, and he worked and fought beside Greek leaders—Agesilaus and Lamias of Sparta, Chabrias and Diophantos of Athens. In Egypt he conducted a very busy and productive building programme.

That he ever visited Greece is not recorded, but a trip is plausible, and he certainly travelled—fighting Persians at Tyre, for example. If he had visited Greece, he most plausibly might have gone to his allies there, and perhaps travelled on north to Macedonia, where Philip II was more effectively planning to attack the Persians than were any Greeks (until the Macedonians more or less obliged them to).

Olympias, Alexander’s mother, was a feisty woman, quite ruthless and self-willed, as her later career shows. That she might admit a regal Egyptian lover seems not altogether out of character. Stories of her impregnation involving snakes and snaky beings would suit the Egyptian royal image, where the cobra and various serpents were a prominent part of royal apparel and imagery. Even in Pseudo-Callisthenes Nectanebo disguises himself as Ammon with fleece, horns, and a gown resembling a snake.63 Ammon too is mentioned in some of the stories. Nectanebo himself, we assume, would have been fairly black, with curly hair, kin to the usual African/Nubian/”negroid” type, of somewhat lesser stature than the average European male.

It is generally thought that after some inconsequential brushes with the Persians Nectanebo fled south, to Nubia, where he died. This is not altogether certain. He may well have returned, and a sarcophagus had been prepared for him, eventually coming to rest in Alexandria, but probably awaiting him in Memphis or possibly Sais.

It was remarked in antiquity that Alexander was slightly shorter than one might have expected of a prince-hero. He had unruly wavy hair, but so, to various degrees, did most of his family, to judge from coin portraits. He probably had fair hair and perhaps blue eyes, as did most Greeks and Macedonians—modern Greek appearance being affected by centuries of Ottoman presence. No one says that he was at all swarthy. His nose was prominent. So physical indications of Egyptian parentage are, to say the least, flimsy. His deep interest in Egypt and her gods is manifest, not least in the manner in which he went there so often, and in his prime ambition to clear Egypt of Persians before going on east, as well as his devotion to the god Ammon, whom he seems to have deemed his father in some measure. He was also anxious to make of him a purely “Greek” god—Zeus. And he did bother to found the first, greatest, and longest surviving of all his “Alexandrias” in Egypt. His other Egyptian adventures—knocking the nose off the Sphinx (otherwise deemed a deed of Napoleon’s) are the product of fantasy—plus a little knowledge (that the Sphinx was noseless).

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