Note 149 — Chapter XCII · ASIATIC CAMPAIGNS OF ALEXANDER.

Justin, xi. 5. “Proficiscens ad Persicum bellum, omnes novercæ suæ cognatos, quos Philippus in excelsiorem dignitatis locum provehens imperiis præfecerat, interfecit. Sed nec suis, qui apti regno videbantur, pepercit; ne qua materia seditionis procul se agente in Macedoniâ remaneret.” Compare also xii. 6, where the Pausanias mentioned as having been put to death by Alexander is not the assassin of Philip. Pausanias was a common Macedonian name (see Diodor. xvi. 93).

I see no reason for distrusting the general fact here asserted by Justin. We know from Arrian (who mentioned the fact incidentally in his work τὰ μετὰ Ἀλέξανδρον, though he says nothing about it in his account of the expedition of Alexander—see Photius, Cod. 92. p. 220) that Alexander put to death, in the early period of his reign, his first cousin and brother-in-law Amyntas. Much less would he scruple to kill the friends or relatives of Kleopatra. Neither Alexander nor Antipater would account such proceeding anything else than a reasonable measure of prudential policy. By the Macedonian common law, when a man was found guilty of treason, all his relatives were condemned to die along with him (Curtius, vi. 11, 20).

Plutarch (De Fortunâ Alex. Magn. p. 342) has a general allusion to these precautionary executions ordered by Alexander. Fortune (he says) imposed upon Alexander δεινὴν πρὸς ἄνδρας ὁμοφύλους καὶ συγγενεῖς διὰ φόνου καὶ σιδήρου καὶ πυρὸς ἀνάγκην ἀμύνης, ἀτερπέστατον τέλος ἔχουσαν.