## THE RETURN OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT IN THE THIRD CENTURY A.D.: A QUESTION OF DAIMONES AND PHYSICAL IMMORTALITY

By Dag Øistein Endsjø

Summary: Why was an unknown man insisting he was Alexander the Great received with distinct deference by Roman officials and Bacchic celebration by hundreds of attendants around A.D. 221? Examining Dio Cassius's presentation in light of contemporary beliefs, one finds that the enthusiastic reception most probably was due to the conviction that Alexander had actually returned physically immortal and deified, either resurrected or never having died at all. The respectful awe of the officials was also most likely caused by either this belief or by their holding that this was the dead and disembodied h ē r ō s of the famed conqueror.

In A.D. 221 or right before, a man claiming to be Alexander the Great was received with deference and enthusiasm in three eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, more than half a millennium after the renowned conqueror originally lived. The contemporary Greco-Roman historian Dio Cassius is our only source on this event, but his succinct account is generally accepted as truthful and well-informed, as this traditionally renowned scholar born and raised in Bithynia was well connected in the area and writing about a contemporary event. And this is his report:

For briefly before this [an event in 221], a daim ō n proclaiming to be Alexander of Macedon, and resembling him in all manners in looks and appearance, set out from around the Ister [Danube], after having appeared in some unknown manner, and travelled through Moesia and  Thrace,  together  with  four  hundred  men  performing  Bacchic rites,  equipped  with  thyrsi  and  fawnskins  and  doing  no  harm.  All those who were in Thrace at the time agreed that lodgings and all provisions for him were offered at public expense; and no one dared to oppose him either by word or deed, neither magistrate, soldier, procurator, nor provincial governor, but he proceeded through daytime as in a procession, as far as Byzantium, as he had proclaimed. Then he went by ship and disembarked in the territory of Chalcedon [in Bithynia], and there, after performing certain sacred rites by night and burying a wooden horse, he vanished. This I was told while still in Asia (Trans. E. Cary, modified). 1

If one leaves out any supernatural explanation, this obviously involved an absolutely exceptional man, who after having gotten the idea to pose as the legendary conqueror, managed to gather an extensive following and considerable respect even among the upmost echelons of society. Beyond depicting his extraordinary ability to make the most profound impression on those he met, 2 and his appearance being similar to what his contemporaries held Alexander to look like, the sources do not give much in way of information about the man himself. However, as no one is recorded to have pointed out that this Pseudo-Alexander in reality was just  so  or  so,  he  probably  did  not  originate  from  the  region  through which he traversed.

The major question is, nevertheless, whom contemporaries thought this figure really was. Was he considered just a brazen impostor? Did others agree with Dio's assumption that this was a daim ō n , who may or may not have been the fabulous conqueror and what did this really imply? Or did this pretender actually succeed in convincing people that he, indeed, was who he said he was, the real-life Alexander the Great, returned centuries after he had lived originally?

## The status of Alexander after his death

The posthumous Alexander was in no way a peripheral figure in the Mediterranean world. In their extensive examinations of Alexandrian veneration, Boris Dreyer and Shane Wallace point to evidence of enduring cult in various places, like Arca Caesarea, Ephesus, and Thessaloniki. 3 As Angela  Kühnen  argues,  the  momentous  reception  of  the  pretender  may also, in itself, be considered 'a clearer indication of the Alexander veneration  of  the  time.' 4 In  Alexandria,  Rhodes,  and  Ionian  Teos,  sacred games were celebrated in honour of Alexander. 5 In what form the potentate was revered is rarely specified in the sources, but when games were performed in honour of various men, the men were generally venerated as h ē r ō es , like Pelops at the Olympic games, 6 Melicertes-Palaemon at the Isthmian games, 7 and Opheltes-Archemorus at the Nemean games. 8 As Diodorus of Sicily related how Ptolemy had the entombed Alexander in Alexandria  honoured  with  sacrifices  and  magnificent  games,  he  also specified that this was done in the way befitting h ē r ō es ( θυσίαις ἡρωικαῖς καὶ ἀγῶσι μεγαλοπρεπέσι τιμήσας ). 9

1 Cass. Dio 80.18.1-3.

2 Cf. Edmund Groag describing the man as 'an ecstatic enthusiast,' who, 'through his belief in himself, also carries the masses with him' (Groag 1909: 254).

But Alexander was at times also honoured as a god, and not as a h ē r ō s . In third century A.D. Erythrae, for example, there existed a 'priest of Alexander the god ' ( ἱερέα θεοῦ Ἀλεξάνδρου ), 10 while in Carian Bargylia a renovated statue central for the city's third century A.D. cult simply bore the inscription 'the god Alexander' ( θεὸν Ἀλέξανδρον ). 11 A third century A.D. dedication in Latin discovered in 1872 close to today's deserted Macedonian village of Vlah č eni, might also present Alexander as a god. The inscription is addressed 'to Jove and Juno and Dracco and Draccena and Alexander.' 12 As argued by Edmund Groag, Jean Gagé and Marjeta Š a š el  Kos,  the  epigraph  may  thus  present  Alexander  as  a  god  among

- 3 Dreyer 2009: 218-29; Wallace 2018: 183-87; Arcus Caesarea according to SHA Alex. Sev. 13.1; Ephesus according to SEG IV 521; Thessaloniki according to IG X 278.
- 4 Kühnen 2008: 40.
- 5 Alexandria according to Diod. Sic. 18.28.4; Rhodes according to IGR 4.1116; Teos according to Strabo 14.1.31.
- 6 Paus. 5.13.1-3.
- 7 Paus. 1.44.8, 2.1.3.
- 8 Apollod. Bibl. 3.6.4.
- 9 Diod. Sic. 18.28.4.
- 10 IErythrai 64; cf. SIG
- 11 OGIS 3.
- 12  ' IOVI ET IVNONI [ E ] T  DRACCONI ET DRACCENAE ET ALEXANDRO EP [ IT ] YNCHANVS S ( ERVVS ) [ R ] VRI OCAVI C ( LARISSIMI ) V ( IRI ) POSV [ IT ].'
- III 1014.viii; my emphasis.

other gods, venerated along with Jupiter and Juno, and what were probably two regional serpent deities. 13

According to Jaakkojuhani Peltonen, Greeks in the Roman Empire also tended to, more generally, portray 'the Macedonian king as 'our' Alexander … a Greek cultural hero' that gave them 'something to identify with,' 14 something that also could have contributed to the warm welcome the pretender received in his ancient Macedonian heartlands. But the exemplary status of Alexander was in no way limited to the east, as, for  instance,  pointed  out  by  C.T.  Mallan;  he  represented  'a  standard point of comparison' for any ambitious ruler in the Empire. 15 It was at times a question of imitatio Alexandri .  When Pompey celebrated his triumph for his victory over Mithridates of Pontus, a mighty ruler known for  presenting  himself  in  the  image  of  Alexander,  the  Roman  general himself chose to wore Alexander's alleged mantel, which had been found among the possessions of the Pontic king. 16 Dio Cassius also connected Alexander with a number of Roman potentates. Early in his career, Julius Caesar famously lamented his own shortcomings compared to that of Alexander, when encountering a statue of his role model in Cádiz. 17 Octavian visited his tomb in Alexandria, emphasizing the alleged connection between himself and the formidable conqueror. 18 After having crossed the Bay of Naples in a chariot, Caligula adorned himself with what he said was Alexander's breastplate. 19 Trajan claimed to have surpassed Alexander, after he had conquered the Parthian capital, 20 whereas Pescennius Niger was hailed by his men as the new Alexander, when initiating his unsuccessful claim to the imperial throne in 193. 21

Caracalla was probably the emperor exhibiting the most intense enthusiasm  about  Alexander,  imitating  his  idol  in  various  ways,  letting himself be depicted as him, and using weapons and cups held to be his. 22 In 215, he, too, visited the mausoleum, offering the corpse of Alexander his purple cloak, as well as his belt, gemset rings, 'and anything else of value on his person.' 23 He also created a military unit of 16,000 Macedonians, which he named 'Alexander's phalanx,' complete with arms and uniforms supposedly in style of that idealized period. 24 In a letter to the senate, Caracalla took his affinity with his magnificent idol to a new level, asserting that he was Alexander reincarnated. As he maintained, 'Alexander had come to life again in the person of the Augustus, so that he might live on once more in him, having had such a short life before.' 25

13  Groag 1909: 253-55; Gagé 1975: 11-12; Kos 1991: 188-89.

14  Peltonen 2019: 57.

15  Mallan 2017: 137; cf. Carlsen 2016: 318-28; Wallace 2018: 171-72.

16  App. Mithr

. 17.117.

17  Cass. Dio 37.52.2; cf. Suet. Iul. 7.1.

18  Cass. Dio 51.16.5; cf. Suet. Aug.

19  Cass. Dio

18.

59.17.3.

20  Cass. Dio

68.29.1.

21  Cass. Dio 75.6.2.

## Contemporary reactions

Examining the beliefs concerning the man asserting he was Alexander of Macedon, one finds that there does seem not to have been one single explanation as to what his appearance really meant to his contemporaries. Although Dio Cassius's account is the only source preserved, he refers to various people holding divergent views on this dramatic incident.

First of all, there is Dio himself who has an opinion of his own. There are also the Bacchic entourage of several hundred men enthusiastically following the pretender; there are the 'magistrate, soldier, procurator, and provincial governor' who did not 'dare to oppose him,' and, finally, there are 'all those' others 'who were in Thrace at the time,' among whom the first or second-hand sources for Dio seem to be found.

One should also take into account how Dio connects the entire incident of Pseudo-Alexander with how emperor Elagabalus soon afterwards adopted his slightly younger cousin as his son and successor, while renaming him Alexander. According to Dio, the very reason why the emperor did this was 'what happened in Moesia Superior' with the appearance of the Alexandrian pretender, along with an enigmatic prediction about how 'some Alexander ( τις Ἀλέξανδρος ) should come from Emesa

22  Cass. Dio 78.7.1.

23  Hdn. 4.8.6-9.

24  Hdn. 4.8.7, 4.9.3; Cass. Dio 78.7.1-2

25  Cass. Dio 78.7.2.

[modern Homs in Syria] to succeed [Elagabalus].' 26 The main point here is, of course, how the emperor allegedly took Pseudo-Alexander's spectacular appearance most seriously - even altering his policies in its wake. As Jesper Carlsen maintains, the reception of this impostor could have seemed  so  troubling  to  Elagabalus  that  he  changed  the  name  of  his adopted son (conveniently from Arca Caesarea close to Emesa) to Severus Alexander in  order to remove the possibility that he would be succeeded by any other Alexander, either someone claiming to be the original potentate returned like Pseudo-Alexander or, more simply, someone else by that illustrious name. 27 Although it is not possible to determine whether  Elagabalus  held  that  the  pretender  really  was  Alexander  returned or some other supernatural figure, or whether his actions were based solely on the extraordinary reactions of others, the acts of the emperor testify to how momentous this entire incident was generally held to be. The extraordinary reception of the man claiming 'to be Alexander of Macedon' was no trifling matter.

## The nature of Dio's daim ō n

Describing the pretender as a ' daim ō n ,' Dio himself holds that this was no ordinary man but a supernatural figure. Indeed, he connects the entire incident to 'some divine arrangement ( ἐκ θείας τινὸς παρασκευῆς ).' 28 As such, he considered Pseudo-Alexander as something else entirely than the Nero pretender appearing about twelve years after the death of this emperor in A.D. 68. Whereas Dio simply dismissed this 'Pseudo-Nero' as an Asiatic impostor 'named Terentius Maximus,' 29 the Alexander  pretender  is  depicted  as  an  otherworldly daim ō n inspiring awe. Here one should also note that there are no sources connecting anything miraculous with the claims of any of the three men who asserted they were Nero the first two decades after his demise. They all apparently based their claims on the rather mundane assumption that Nero had not been killed at all, but simply escaped. 30

26  Cass. Dio 80.17.2.

27  Carlsen 2016: 330; cf. Shayegan 2004: 298.

28  Cass. Dio 80.17.3.

29  Cass. Dio 66.19.3.

When  examining  what  Dio  meant  by  Pseudo-Alexander  being  a ' daim ō n ,' one should remember how complex this term really was. Originally, as in Homer, this was a synonym for an Olympian god, whereas Hesiod used daim ō n for the classical hero or h ē r ō s , the disembodied soul of certain mightier dead. As first found in Pindar in the mid fifth century B.C., there is also a belief in daimones watching over each mortal from birth, something that became particularly important in Platonic thinking and remained so even in imperial times, as seen with Plutarch. 31 Another type of daimones , as presented in Plato's Symposium by the priestess Diotima, are lesser divinities 'halfway between gods and men,' whose main role  is  that  of  being  'envoys  and  interpreters  that  ply  between heaven and earth.' 32 Epinomis , probably also by Plato, refers to ' daimones and creatures of the air' being ranked immediately under the traditional gods and the heavenly bodies. 33 These daimones seem also closely related to the ones Apuleius referred to in the second century A.D., describing their bodies as 'so loose-knit, lustrous, and fine-spun that all the rays of our gaze are let through by their loose texture.' Most strikingly, they are 'not easily visible to anyone, unless they reveal their form at divine command.' 34

Fergus Millar argues that for Dio, daim ō n seems like 'the neutral term by which he designates any divine force or intervention.' 35 According to Dio a daim ō n could certainly manifest itself in rather different ways, not

- 30  Tacitus Hist. 2.8, 1.2; Cass. Dio 66.19.3; Suet. Ner. 57. The Christian belief that Nero at the end of time would be resurrected from the dead mightier than ever, or return from some unknown place to where he had been miraculously translated, is only first documented in the beginning of the fourth century by Lactantius ( De mort. pers. 2; cf. August. De civ. D . 20.19).
- 31  Pind. Ol. 13.105; Pl. Ap. 40a; Phd. 107d; Resp. 617d-e, 620 d-e; Xen. Mem. 1.1.2; Plut. De gen. 10; Caes. 69.2. Cf. Burkert 1985: 179-81, 321-22.
- 32  Pl. Symp. 202d-203a.
- 33  Pl. Epin. 984d-e.
- 34  Apul. De deo Soc. 11.
- 35  Millar 1964: 179.

least in dreams, as what they did to him on several occasions. 36 But although he seems to have understood his own life as directly affected by the kind of guardian daim ō n who follows each and every one from birth, this does not appear to be how he understood the Alexander pretender either.

Turning to the daim ō n as a lesser divinity placed somewhere halfway between gods and humans, one finds, however, that this is an understanding that apparently fits Dio's daim ō n claiming to be Alexander the Great. The way he appeared mysteriously, and, in the end, simply vanished not only functions as proof of his profoundly different nature in Dio's account, but mirrors Apuleius's description of such daimones being able to appear and disappear at will.

An important clue to how Dio understood the daim ō n claiming to be Alexander is found in the most direct parallel in his texts, namely his depiction of the daim ō n , who miraculously appeared and disappeared in Italy in 217, or soon before. The rendition of this episode is as follows:

In Rome, moreover, a daim ō n having the appearance of a man led a donkey up to the Capitol and afterwards to the palace, seeking its master, as he claimed, and saying that the emperor [Caracalla] was dead and Jupiter was ruling now. As he was arrested for this and sent by [the praefectus urbi Flavius] Maternianus to Antoninus [Caracalla], he said: 'I will do as you bid, but I will not converse with this emperor, but with another.' And when he reached Capua a little later, he vanished (Trans. E. Cary, modified). 37

Dio's depiction of this other daim ō n appears as equally enigmatic as that of the Alexander pretender. Most importantly, one finds the same kind of unexplained first appearance and by how they both inexplicable disappeared in the end ( ἀφανὴς ἐγένετο ).

When  comparing  Dio's  presentation  of  Pseudo-Alexander  and  the daim ō n in Rome, it is, however, important to note that the quintessential indication of there being something supernatural about these two figures - that is the way they both inexplicably vanished in the end - is something  that  could  not  have  influenced  how  they  were  perceived when initially encountered.  Prior  to  their  miraculous  disappearance, both of Dio's daimones looked and acted essentially like ordinary mortals, speaking and interacting with people along their way. None of the more extraordinary  things  they  did,  neither  claiming  to  be  Alexander  the Great nor presenting some unsubstantiated assertion about the current emperor, classify as anything miraculous as such. Dio's unambiguous understanding of the two as daimones consequently appears not to be based on their initial appearance. He apparently accepts them as daimones in hindsight, in connection with how they both mysteriously vanished.

36  See e.g. Cass. Dio 73.23.2-4, 79.10, 80.5.

37  Cass. Dio 79.7.4

This must be taken into account also when examining how PseudoAlexander could have been understood by those who first encountered him and who received him in such a remarkable manner. Although both this episode and the one from Rome seem certainly less fantastic prior to their vanishing, there is still reason to consider their reception in the light of how one possibly could expect people who believed that supernatural figures could manifest themselves would react if they encountered one. But here there is also a distinctive difference between the two incidents.

Looking at the man in Rome, one finds that there is no indication that any of those who encountered him prior to his disappearance thought of him as anything but an annoying rabble-rouser, who had to be arrested and duly punished for his lèse-majesté. The cautious and deferent way with  which  the  Roman  officials  met  the  Alexander  pretender  seems, however, more in agreement with how one should act when encountering a daim ō n . On the other hand, anonymous daimones tended not to present  themselves  as  such  renown  figures  as  Alexander  of  Macedon.  As such, this is an unlikely explanation for what the officials thought the pretender to be. Looking at the parade of jubilant bacchants, one finds that this is not at all consistent with their believing this was a daim ō n , as such  explicitly  divine  rites  were  not  performed  in  relation  with  such lesser superhuman beings.

## A god manifested?

As the most traditional understanding of a daim ō n was that of an Olympian god, it may be relevant to examine whether some could have perceived Pseudo-Alexander as one of these traditional deities having chosen to appear in the likeness of that most fabulous conqueror.

As witnessed already in Homer, gods could manifest themselves as ordinary humans, often duping people knowing the person they impersonated, like when Athena in the Odyssey took the shape of King Mentes of the Taphians 38 and the daughter of the Phaeacian sea captain Dymas, 39 when Apollo appeared as king Mentes of the Cicones in the Iliad , 40 or when Poseidon in the Iliad took the guise of the Aetolian warrior Thoas. 41

These visitations of gods in human disguise were still considered to take place in historical times, though certainly not frequently. Demeter in the likeness of an ordinary woman killed king Pyrrhus of Epirus with a blow of a tile in 272 B.C., 42 whereas Luke-Acts depict the Lycaonians as convinced that Paul and Barnabas really were Zeus and Hermes visiting them. 43 Chariton of Aphrodisias does not seem to have raised many eyebrows either, when he in his first century A.D. novel Callirhoe presented the possible idea that a young girl had been a goddess all along appearing incognita, after she, too, had suddenly vanished mysteriously. 44

That both men behind the dramas in Thrace and Rome really were figures  of  flesh  and  bones  is  another  thing  that  fitted  with  how  the Greeks traditionally viewed their gods as creatures with an absolutely physical nature; physical immortality was, indeed, the very thing that made 'the immortals ( οἱ ἀθάνατοι ),' differ from us 'mortals ( οἱ βροτοί ).' That something was immortal meant originally that it was physically incorruptible ( ἄφθιτος ), a term repeatedly used to describe the nature of the gods as well as incorruptible objects, like items belonging to the gods or made of gold. 45 Although the later and primarily philosophical understanding of the gods as more spiritual beings certainly had an effect, the basic notion of the physical nature of the gods remained. Christian apologists like Athenagoras could still in the second century A.D. complain about how the Greek 'masses ( οἱ πολλοί )' were not able to 'distinguish between  matter  and  God,'  as  they  held  the  gods  to  be  'of  flesh ( σαρκοειδής ).' 46

38 Od. 1.178-79.

39 Od. 6.20-23.

40 Il. 17.70-73.

41 Il. 13.215-18.

42  Paus. 1.13.8.

43 Acts 14.11-12.

44  Chariton Call. 3.3.

The inexplicable disappearance of both the Alexander pretender and the Italian daim ō n ,  as well as the way they appeared in some unknown manner, were typical of deities visiting the mortal realm. As both of them appeared for just a limited period of time, their bodies would not give away their corruptible nature by ageing, that most revealing aspect of human nature. How Pseudo-Alexander insisted that he was none of the great gods by claiming that he instead was so and so, in this case Alexander  of  Macedon,  was  also  in  accordance  with  how  gods  traditionally would act when appearing as mortals.

There is, however, an important factor that makes it mostly improbable  that  Pseudo-Alexander  was  considered  a  deity  in  disguise.  When gods  appeared  as  humans  and  not  as themselves ,  they  usually  made  a point of appearing incognito or with discretion, not making a spectacle. This was at times connected with the emphasis on showing kindness to strangers, as one simply could not be sure who was at one's door. The prophesying but otherwise not very remarkable man in Rome could thus fit the picture, but that one of the gods should appear as the miraculously returned Alexander the Great along with such an ostentatious retinue was consequently particularly unlikely according to traditional beliefs. It is not probable that Dio either, considered his pretender daim ō n as one of the major gods appearing in the form of Alexander, as this is nowhere indicated.

45  Rohde 1925: 74; Nilsson 1971: 623; Endsjø 2009: 38-45.

46  Athenagoras Pro Christ.

15; cf. Endsjø 2009: 42.

## Alexander truly returned?

That  Dio  does  not  mention  anyone  protesting  against  the  man  'proclaiming to be the famous Alexander of Macedon' indicates to what degree  the  pretender's  assertion  seems  to  have  been  accepted  when  he traversed Thrace and the neighbouring provinces. Any possible dissent appears to have drowned in the ecstatic enthusiasm and sombre respect shown him. As Dio himself points out, 'no one dared to oppose him either by word or deed, neither magistrate, soldier, procurator, nor provincial governor.' How others 'who were in Thrace at the time' apparently uncritically relayed these events to Dio indicates that they, too, were not overtly  renouncing  the  pretender's  assertions. 47 One  should  also  note that  when  Dio  himself  refers  to  this daim ō n ' proclaiming to  be  ( εἶναι λέγων ) Alexander of Macedon,' 48 he does not rule out that this daim ō n truly was the ancient potentate in some way, although he apparently leaves open the possibility for this being some unknown daim ō n only appearing in the likeness of Alexander.

The reception of the Alexander pretender stands in stark contrast to that of Dio's prophesying daim ō n in Rome, who apparently incited scant interest among the masses and who was quite simply arrested by the authorities. With regards to how the man in Rome was apprehended merely because  of  his  unwanted  divination  about  the  emperor,  it  is,  indeed, striking that the imperial authorities were not only lenient with but even welcoming the man falsely asserting to be the most powerful Hellenic ruler returned, thereby essentially challenging the very authority of the Roman emperor.

It is therefore ample reason to examine closer to what degree it could have been possible that some accepted that the remarkable pretender actually was Alexander the Great, once again returned.

But similar to how there is no simple explanation to what the Alexander pretender being considered a daim ō n meant, there is no single answer either as to what it entailed that anyone was convinced that this really was that famed ruler of yore. There is a number of ways that people in antiquity thought it was possible for an individual to transcend his or her original mortality and subsequently return.

47  Cass. Dio 80.18.1, my emphasis.

48  Ibid., my emphasis.

## Alexander reincarnated?

Edmund Groag describes  Pseudo-Alexander  as  'an  ecstatic  enthusiast considering himself to be the incarnation of an earlier, mythical personality.' 49 But if Pseudo-Alexander himself maintained that he was only a reincarnation or if he generally was held to be just that, Dio probably would have made that clear, as he did with Caracalla's claim, instead of writing that this man was 'proclaiming to be ( εἶναι ) the famous Alexander of Macedon.' 50

There is, indeed, nothing in Dio's account indicating that Pseudo-Alexander was seen as Alexander reincarnated by anyone. If that had been the general understanding, he would probably not have been welcomed with such enthusiasm and utmost respect as he was. Although metempsychosis was held to be a principle of nature in certain more philosophical and eclectic circles, not least in Platonic and Pythagorean thinking, it was never a mainstream belief, as it ran so fundamentally against the traditional conviction that physical continuity was an absolute prerequisite for a complete individual survival. That one's very identity was inseparable from the unity of one's original body and soul remained, at this point, still the dominant notion. 51 Reincarnated with a new body, without his original flesh and bones, Alexander would simply no longer be himself.

Although  one  cannot  rule  out  that  some  more  philosophically  inclined people could have held the pretender to be the reincarnation of Alexander,  the  prevailing  understanding  of  metempsychosis  as  something incompatible with individual survival makes any belief in this pretender being the reincarnated conqueror, all in all, inconsistent with the deference and excitement with which he was met. This also explains the general indifference Caracalla received when he himself proclaimed to be the reincarnation of Alexander.

49  Groag 1909: 254; cf. Kos 1991: 189.

50  Cass. Dio

80.18, my emphasis.

51  Cf. Rohde 1925: 5, 9; Clarke 1999: 115, 157; Endsjø 2009: 1-2, 24-30.

## A dead and disembodied h ē r ō s ?

If Pseudo-Alexander was seen as a disembodied h ē r ō s , it would have been in accordance with his claim that he really was Alexander. Even though severed from their bodies, the dead souls of h ē r ō es were still the same persons as when they were alive, and Alexander had already been venerated as a h ē r ō s for centuries in various places in the Eastern Mediterranean. A heroic return of Alexander would not be in contradiction, either, with the fact that his dead body remained in the mausoleum in Alexandria, 52 as a return as a h ē r ō s would mean that it was only his soul that had manifested itself.

But forever disconnected from the remains of their physical bodies, being a h ē r ō s did not equal that of attaining immortality, which according to traditional beliefs always required the continuous union of the soul with the physical body. H ē r ō es were the fortunate dead disembodied souls that were the subject of chthonic cult and at liberty, to a certain degree, to intervene into the realm of the living.

If Dio held that his daim ō n really was who he said he was, or, at least, did not rule out the possibility that this was the case, this would also be in accordance with the traditional understanding of a disembodied h ē r ō s - not least considering that daimones was one of the traditional terms used for such powerful dead souls. This is, moreover, in agreement with how most modern scholars maintain that Dio held Pseudo-Alexander to be a spiritual figure. 53

- 52  Whereas Septimius Severus had closed the tomb in 199, Caracalla apparently had it reopened when visiting it in 215. In 390 Libanius referred to the body still being on display in Alexandria. Cf. Cass. Dio 76.13.2; Hdn. 4.8.9; Lib. Or. 49.12.
- 53  Both Herbert B. Foster and Earnest Cary translated Dio's ' daim ō n ' with 'spirit' (Foster 1906: 100; Cary 1925: 473). Groag referred to Pseudo-Alexander as a ' Spuk ' in German, a 'ghost' or 'spectre,' although simultaneously arguing that he may have been considered a deity (Groag 1909: 255, 253-55). More recently, M. Rahim Shayegan has translated Dio's daim ō n with 'soul' (Shayegan 2004: 298), Jesper Carlsen with 'spirit'

The way Pseudo-Alexander just appeared and subsequently vanished was  how  such h ē r ō es , daimones , phasmata or eid ō la traditionally  could manifest themselves for the living - although very rarely. In 490 B.C. many witnessed 'a phasma of Theseus in arms' charging against the Persians  at  Marathon  before  he,  too,  vanished, 54 whereas the Messenians claimed that their seventh century B.C. leader Aristomenes was present as a h ē r ō s at the battle of Leuctra in 371 B.C. 55 Later a whole number of h ē r ō es appeared for a short time as phasmata in the battle against the Celts at Delphi in 279 B.C. 56

That Pseudo-Alexander in reality was no ethereal spirit but a man of flesh and bone does not rule out that even some of those who met him could still believe that  he  was an incorporeal h ē r ō s .  Traditionally these apparitions could appear just as tangible as the Alexander pretender. The h ē r ō s Echetlaeus, who also manifested himself at the battle of Marathon, slaughtered several Persians with a plough; 57 the unfortunate hunter Actaeon, who had been devoured by his own hounds, returned as an apparition ( eid ō lon ) at some uncertain date only to ravage the lands of the Orchomenians; 58 the disembodied daim ō n of one of Odyssey's crewmen kept on killing young girls in Temesa in Magna Graecia, until he was waylaid and defeated by an Olympic pugilist in 472 B.C., after which he disappeared  in  the  sea. 59 Polycritus,  an  originally  well  respected  citizen  of fourth century B.C. Aetolia, appeared as a disembodied phasma or daim ō n soon after his death, only to tear his own new-born child limb from limb and devour it in front of a horrified assembly, before vanishing as into thin air. 60

(Carlsen 2016: 329), while C.T. Mallan called this figure the 'phantasmagorical Alexander' (Mallan 2017: 143), and John Granger Cook 'a spirit' and 'a ghost' (Cook 2018: 253).

54  Plut. Thes. 35.5.

55  Paus. 4.32.4.

56  Paus. 10.23.2.

57  Paus. 1.32.5.

58  Paus. 9.38.5.

59  Paus. 6.6.10.

60  Phlegon Mir. 2.9-10.

The apprehensive but respectful manner, with which the Roman officials greeted this brazen impostor, seems consistent with how an incorporeal h ē r ō s should be treated. As such it is probable that some of these officials, as well as some of those 'who were in Thrace at the time' who reported this, may have held that this man apparently looking so much like the ancient conqueror could have been Alexander's h ē r ō s .

Turning to the enthusiastic followers who celebrated Pseudo-Alexander with Bacchic rites, one finds, however, that their reception is quite contrary to the possibility of their seeing him as a disembodied h ē r ō s . If this  had  been  the  case,  he  would  instead  have  been  honoured  with  a more sombre and chthonic cult. This euphoric welcome was also incompatible with how the exceptional returned h ē r ō es usually were treated with considerable caution, due to their ambiguous nature and how they often resorted to violence.

## A returned Alexander of flesh and bones?

If people held that this remarkable pretender was Alexander the Great himself in flesh and bone, the most obvious challenge to this belief was that he at this point was so absolutely dead and had been so for more than half a millennium, with his corpse on display in a mausoleum in Alexandria.

If  this  was  the deceased Alexander  returned,  he  must  consequently have been resurrected from the dead, as almost casually suggested by M. Rahim Shayegan in a claim he, alas, does not elaborate any further. 61 But although always truly miraculous, being resurrected from the dead was not entirely impossible according to traditional Greek religion. Indeed, as I have previously tried to show systematically, this was one of the ways the gods made certain men and women physically immortal. 62 According to Greek beliefs, there was a whole number of men and women whom the gods had resurrected to eternal life, like Asclepius, 63 Heracles's mother Alcmene, 64 Achilles, 65 the Ethiopian king Memnon, 66 the infant Boeotian prince Melicertes, 67 at least one of the Dioscuri, 68 as well as the seventh century B.C. sage Aristeas of Proconnesus. 69

61  Shayegan 2004: 299.

62  Cf. Endsjø 2008: 423-24; 2009: 54-64.

63  Celsus according to Origen C. Cels. 3.22, 3.24; Justin 1 Apol. 21.2; Theoph. Ad. Autol. 1.13.

There is also another possible explanation about what beliefs lay behind the momentous reception of Pseudo-Alexander. Some could have held that Alexander had come back without ever having died at all. Although this meant that they ignored, were unaware of, or were not convinced by the historic accounts of Alexander's death and the existence of his body in the mausoleum in Alexandria, this is a possibility that also may be examined more closely.

That someone somehow could have escaped death entirely for centuries was not at all impossible according to traditional Greek beliefs, as I have also detailed more extensively before. 70 Indeed, the vast majority whom the gods offered eternal life were not resurrected but, instead, just never died. The number of people with whom this allegedly happened to is  extensive,  just  to  mention  Dionysus, 71 the  quintessential  superhero Heracles, 72 queen  Ino  of  Thebes, 73 princess  Orithyia  of  Athens, 74 the

- 64  Plut. Rom. 28.6, cf. 28.7-8.
- 65 Aethiopis according to Proclus Chrest. 4.2.198-200; Ibycus and Simonides according to the Schol. Ap. Rhod. 4.811-14; Pind. Nem. 4.49-50; Ol. 2.68-80; Eur. Andr. 1259-62; Eur. IT 435-38; Ap. Rhod. Argon. 4.811-14.
- 66  Pind. Ol. 2.79-80.
- 67  Apollod. Bibl. 3.4.3; Paus. 1.44.7.
- 68 Cypria according to Proclus Chrest. 4.1.106-9; Pind. Nem. 10.55-59, 75-90; Pyth. 11.6164; Apollod. Bibl. 3.11.2.
- 69  Hdt. 4.14; Celsus according to Origen C. Cels. 3.27.
- 70  Cf. Endsjø 2008: 424-26; 2009: 82-89.
- 71  Plut. Pel. 16.5; Origen C. Cels.
- 3.22; Paus. 3.18.11.
- 72  Apollod. Bibl. 2.7.7; Callim. Hymn Dian. 159-61; Diod. Sic. 4.38.4-5; Eur. Heracl. 9-12, 87172, 910-14; Isoc. Or. 5.32; Origen C. Cels. 3.22; Paus. 3.18.11; Plut. Pel. 16.5; Soph. Phil. 727-29; Thrac. 1255-78; Theoc. Id. 24.83-84; Theoph. Ad. Autol. 1.13.
- 73  Apollod. Bibl.
- 3.4.3; Paus. 1.44.7.
- 74  Hdt. 7.189; Paus. 1.19.5, 5.19.1.

handsome youths Ganymede, 75 Tithonus, 76 and Hylas, 77 king Amphiaraus of  Argos, 78 Helen of Troy, 79 Romulus, the first king of Rome, 80 and,  according to the most ancient Greek sources, the entire generation of warriors who survived the wars of Thebes and Troy. 81

As achieving physical immortality always equalled becoming divine, all of these men and women were turned into minor or, at times, greater gods, as they left humanity behind. As they were transformed into immortal deities, these figures no longer belonged in the human realm and were simultaneously translated to heaven or to lakes, the ocean, the underground, or some remote part of the earth. This was a belief that was still very much alive in the Roman Empire, as for example witnessed by the philosophically inclined Plutarch, who in the first century A.D. complained about 'the masses ( οἱ πολλοί )' continuing to hold that the gods could 'send the bodies of good people with their souls to heaven.' 82

If  the  magnificent  pretender  was  held  to  really  be  the  deified  and physically immortalized Alexander, it would also be in complete agreement with how he, in some places, already was venerated as a god , as in Erythrae, Bargylia, and perhaps even the province of Moesia Superior where Pseudo-Alexander first made his appearance. According to traditional beliefs, he must have been made physical immortal at some point if he were to be considered having become a true god.

- 75 Il. 20.232-35; Hymn. Hom. Ven. 5.202-6; [Lucian] Charid. 7; Pind. Ol. 1.43-45; Sophocles according to Ath. 3.602e.
- 76 Hymn. Hom. Ven. 5.218-38; Mimnermus Fragment 4. Sappho in a recently rediscovered poem first published by Michael Gronewald and Robert W. Daniel in ZPE 147 (2004) 1-8.
- 77  Theoc. Id. 13.43-73; Ap. Rhod. Argon. 1.1224-39.
- 78  Apollod. Bibl. 3.6.8, Pind. Nem. 9.23-27, 10.8-9; Diod. Sic. 4.65.8-9; Eur. Supp. 500-1, 92526; Paus. 1.34.2, 2.23.2; Philostr. Imag. 1.27.1; Xen. Cyn. 1.8.
- 79  Eur. Hel. 1666-69; Isoc. Hel. 61; [Lucian] Charid. 6; Paus. 3.19.13; Apollod. Epit. 6.29.
- 80  Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.56.2-3; Livy Per. 1.16.1-8; Plut. Rom. 27.5-28.8; Tert. C. Marc. 4.7.3; Tert. Apol. 21.23.
- 81  Hes. Op. 161-73, cf. Od.
- 4.561-65.
- 82  Plut. Rom. 27.8, 28.8, my emphasis.

These deified men and women, no longer at home in the mortal world, could never make more than limited returns to their original realm before they had to go back to where they now belonged. 83 The manner of Pseudo-Alexander's brief and momentous appearance was, as such, also reflecting this traditional pattern of return. That the pretender was held to have simply vanished in the end could easily be seen as the ultimate proof of his really being the mighty Macedonian ruler deified, as such an inexplicable disappearance was completely in agreement with how people who had been immortalized would leave after having briefly revisited the mortal realm. This was also the case when gods in general made their appearances.

Although  there  was  no  proof  of  anything  supernatural  prior  to Pseudo-Alexander's inexplicable disappearance, there are, indeed, several factors in Dio's account that fit well with what would have been the case if he really was the physically immortal Alexander in accordance with traditional beliefs. First of all, how he appeared 'in some unknown manner' meant that one could not rule out that he had just showed up miraculously, just the way he would have done if he now really had become divine. That the pretender was 'resembling him [Alexander] in all manners in looks and appearance,' 84 as the almost thirty-three-year-old man  he  allegedly  had  been  five  centuries  previously,  was  equally  in agreement with his having become immortal, as this meant that he had received the agelessness intrinsic of divine nature. If this was Alexander immortalized, his looks really should be unaltered.

How Pseudo-Alexander was welcomed both by his most enthusiastic followers, who turned themselves into his personal Bacchic retinue and celebrated him with divine rites, and by the Roman officials, who were careful to show him no disrespect and to provide him with all his needs, was also in accordance with how a deified figure should be treated. This extraordinary reception was, moreover, something that could have convinced even more people that this actually was the famous conqueror returned immortalized. Such an understanding is thus also consistent with how those others 'who were in Thrace at the time' apparently were not refuting Pseudo-Alexander's claims either.

83  Cf. e.g. the return of Asclepius in Celsus according to Origen C. Cels. 3.24; of the Dioscuri in Eur. Med. 1642-79, and Paus. 4.16.9, 4.27.2-3, 3.16.2-3; of Aristeas of Proconnesus according to Hdt. 4.15, and Celsus according to Origen C. Cels. 3.27.

84  Cass. Dio 80.18.1.

Among those who were in the area at the time, may also have been a certain Epitynchanus who had procured the Vlah č eni inscription apparently presenting 'Alexander' as a god. According to Edmund Groag and Marjeta Š a š el Kos, Epitynchanus may have made this dedication in honour of Pseudo-Alexander, 85 something that may seem somewhat pointless if he did not accept that the pretender was who he said he was, the actually  returned  Alexander.  How  this  'Alexander'  is  placed  among other gods indicates that Epitynchanus understood him as a physically immortal god in accordance with traditional beliefs. Although one, of course, cannot be certain about the identification of this 'Alexander' with the pretender, the inscription is a match in both space and time. The site of the dedication is south in what was Moesia Superior, the province where Pseudo-Alexander first appeared, whereas Epitynchanus was a contemporary of the pretender, as he presents himself as a slave or servant of the Roman senator Furius Octavianus, who served under Caracalla, Elagabalus, and Severus Alexander. 86

For anyone holding the pretender to be Alexander returned and deified, to receive him with Bacchic rites normally reserved for Dionysus was especially appropriate. The historical Alexander exhibited a particular affinity with this god, often seeing himself emulating the feats of the deity. If the famed conqueror himself had managed to become divine like what previously had happened to Dionysus, it could, thus, seem logical to honour him with the rites proper for his deified idol. The examples of Alexander's devotion are many. He believed, for example, that he was following in the footsteps of Dionysus in his attempt to conquer India, celebrating the discovery of ivy in this far-away land as proof of how his divine idol previously had vanquished this realm. 87 When returning from his Indian campaign in 325 B.C., Alexander even had 'his army wearing wreaths of ivy … in imitation of Father Liber [Dionysus],' as reported by Pliny. 88 Curtius notes that a bit later in the Persian province of Carmania, Alexander let his troops in a similar way 'imitate' what he considered the original procession of a Dionysus, in a Bacchic revel that lasted seven days. 89 The close bond between Alexander and Dionysus was also recognized by Dio Cassius, as seen in his remark on Caracalla's use of elephants in another attempt to emulate Alexander: 'He might seem to be imitating Alexander, or rather, perhaps, Dionysus.' 90

85  Groag 1909: 253-55; Kos 1991: 188-89.

86  Groag 1909: 255.

87  Arr. Anab.

5.1.6-5.2.3; cf. Curt. 9.10.24.

The  'certain  sacred  rites'  ( ἱερά τινα )  -  including  the  burial  of  a wooden horse - Pseudo-Alexander performed at night just before he disappeared 91 could also have been seen as another indication of his divinity. This mirrored how both deified humans and other gods sometimes ended their temporary return to the mortal realm by initiating various rites.  About  250  years  after  his  resurrection  and  immortalization, Aristeas of Proconnesus reappeared briefly to the Italic Metapontians, bidding them to set up an altar to Apollo and a statue of himself. 92 In Euripides' Helen ,  the deified Dioscuri intervened and told that due to the will of Zeus their sister Helen would also be made immortal and the object of libations and offering, just like themselves. 93 Euripides similarly made the once mortal Dionysus in Bacchae wanting to end his visit in Thebes by establish his mysteries there, as he had already done in numerous cities inhabited by both Greeks and barbarians. 94

## A question of bodily continuity

The focus  in  traditional  Greek  religion  was  generally  not  on  whether someone had been resurrected or not, but on the fact that these people were held to have achieved physical immortality, and how this always involved absolute bodily continuity. But here, of course, lay the big challenge in regard to a returned Alexander of flesh and blood, regardless of whether he was held to have been resurrected or not having died at all.

88  Plin. HN 16.62; cf. the Bacchic celebrations of Alexander's soldiers when discovering ivy in India according to Arr. Anab. 5.2.

89  Curt. 9.10.24-27; Kos 1991: 187.

90  Cass. Dio 78.7.4; cf. Carlsen 2016: 325.

91  Cass. Dio 80.18.3.

92  Hdt. 4.15.1.

93  Eur. Hel. 1666-69.

94  Eur. Bacch.

13-22.

The general acceptance of Alexander's death and the very presence of his dead body in Alexandria ran, of course, against any belief that this legendary figure never had died. That he should have been resurrected at some point before his appearance in the eastern provinces was, similarly,  hard  to  reconcile  with  the  widely  accepted  fate  of  his  corpse. Whereas Asclepius,  Achilles,  Aristeas,  and  the  other  men  and  women generally considered to have been raised from the dead to physical immortality were all resurrected just briefly after their death, the presence of his body in Alexandria meant that Alexander would have been resurrected centuries after his demise. This makes the idea of a resurrected Alexander most problematic in light of the traditional notion that individual identity always comprised of both soul and the original body.

Once the body was destroyed, for example by decay, fire, or consumption,  physical resurrection was consequently no longer possible. 95 Although the gods could heal certain wounds or reassemble a body that had been neatly cut up, they were not able to recreate flesh or bones that had been annihilated. These essential limits of divine powers were most obviously exhibited in the fate of ancient Pelops who had to be resurrected with  a  prosthesis  of  ivory,  after  Demeter  had  devoured  his  shoulder when he was dead and dismembered. 96 It is apparently the same logic behind how some Greeks denied the future resurrection of the dead at the end of time, while simultaneously accepting the resurrection of Jesus, as witnessed for example in First Corinthians and in Acts' depiction of Paul at Areopagus. Whereas the general resurrection involved countless people whose bodies had been annihilated, Jesus had been raised before his body in any way had deteriorated, although he forever had to keep his stigmata. 97

95  Cf. Endsjø 2009: 153-55.

96 Schol. to Lycophron Alex. 152; Pind. Ol. 1.52; cf. Endsjø 2009: 154-55.

97 1 Cor. 15.12. In Acts 17.31-32 Paul was met with interest from his Athenian audience when talking about Jesus' resurrection ' from the dead ( ἐκ νεκρῶν )' but was ridiculed as he referred to the general resurrection ' of the dead ( νεκρῶν )' (my emphasis). Cf. Endsjø 2008: 431-34; 2009: 147-52.

Although Alexander's body was yet not gone in the early third century A.D., the corpse still remaining in the famous mausoleum in Alexandria was not at all unchanged. The corpse had, as Curtius relates, been embalmed by Egyptians and Chaldeans 'according to their customs,' 98 something that most probably meant that it had been eviscerated and had had its brain removed, as this was the usual practice in Egyptian mummification. How Octavian, as related by Dio Cassius, later on caused 'a piece of the nose' to be broken off when visiting the mausoleum, 99 did not just further exacerbate the state of the body but demonstrated how brittle the corpse had become after centuries on display.

That anyone should be able to be resurrected with one's brains and entrails gone ran against the most basic traditional Greek understanding of physical continuity necessary for any proper further existence. The missing  nose  tip  and  the  absolute  frangibility  of  Alexander's  physical state  did  not  help  in  any  way  either.  If  resurrected  at  this  point,  this meant  that  one  was  dealing  with  a  miserable  reanimated  and  partly noseless corpse without brains and other internal organs, and which easily fell apart - in no way a figure that possibly could have received such enthusiasm and respect as in the account of Dio Cassius.

## Convoluted narratives

The more generally accepted facts about the fate of Alexander after his death do not, however, stand all by themselves. There are also intricate accounts of Alexander's dead body that could have made people uncertain whether the eviscerated body in the mausoleum in Alexandria really was him. Peculiar stories tell of the body being abducted or swapped. Strabo and Pausanias, for instance, related how Ptolemy kidnapped the body. 100 Around the same time as Pseudo-Alexander made his appearance, Aelian told of how Ptolemy, right after Alexander's death, secured the body by secretly conveying it in the most pedestrian manner, while leaving behind a magnificent bier of silver, gold and ivory with a dummy of the king to fool his rival Perdiccas. 101

98 Curt. 10.10.9-13.

99 Cass. Dio 51.16.5.

100 Strabo 17.1.8; Paus. 1.6.3; cf. Erskine 2002. See also Curt. 10.10.20, where Ptolemy more simply 'transported the king's body to Memphis, and from there a few years

Another  way  Alexander's  body  appeared  not  so  straightforward  is seen in how it allegedly was impervious to corruption the first days after his death in Babylon. Quintus Curtius Rufus maintained that after seven days in the 'burning heat' of Mesopotamia, the body was 'not spoiled by any decay, not even by the least discoloration. Nor had his face yet lost that vigour which is associated with the soul.' 102 Plutarch maintained essentially the same thing, noting that the body 'remained pure and not decomposed' for 'many days … although it lay uncared for in hot and stifling places.' 103 The apparently miraculous state of Alexander's corpse was also stressed by how the morticians, according to Curtius, 'at first did not dare to touch him' until 'after they had prayed that it might be right and proper for mortals to handle a god.' 104 Although this involved non-Hellenic caretakers, the presentation reflects the classical Greek notion that incorruptibility was the very sign of a divine body, although, here,  first  witnessed  when  Alexander  was  dead.  If  the  corpse  had  remained in this way completely unaltered, Alexander could still have been resurrected according to the logic of traditional Greek beliefs, even centuries after his death.

A  few  decades  before  Pseudo-Alexander  made  his  appearance,  the Greek  historian  Arrian  conveyed  a  particular  narrative  that  indicates that even Alexander's death was not always considered entirely unambiguous. According to this, the mortally ill Alexander wanted to stage his own disappearance by throwing himself into the waters of the Euphrates, in order to have people believe 'he had gone away,' obviously with both body and soul, 'to join the gods.' His plans were, however, impeded by his wife Roxana, after which he gave himself up to lamentations over

later  to  Alexandria,'  and  Diod.  Sic.  18.26.3,  where  Ptolemy  just  'went  to  Syria' where he received the body.

101 Ael. VH 12.64.

102 Curt. 10.10.12.

103 Plut. Alex. 77.3.

104 Curt. 10.10.13.

his lost chance to be considered to have achieved immortality. 105 This incident  was  also  retold  in  Pseudo-Callisthenes's  Alexander  Romance, probably in the third century A.D. Here the debilitated Alexander had 'started to crawl on all four towards the river' when stopped by his wife, after which he chastised her for 'taking away my glory.' 106

The way Alexander allegedly planned to vanish without a trace, in order to make people believe that he had been taken with body and soul to the  realm  of  the  immortals,  perfectly  mirrored  the  traditional  belief about various men and women being turned into gods both in mythical and historical times. In this narrative, Alexander played directly into the ancient conviction that when someone had mysteriously disappeared, this was by itself an indication that he or she had been swept away by the gods and made physically immortal, 107 as seen, for example, with Heracles, 108 Oedipus, 109 princess  Orithyia, 110 Romulus, 111 the  Olympic  boxer Cleomedes who vanished from a closed chest in 484 B.C., 112 Apollonius of Tyana who disappeared from within a temple around A.D. 100, 113 and, perhaps, also with Antinous, Hadrian's handsome lover, who became the subject of extensive cult after he drowned in the waters of the Nile in A.D. 130 and possibly was never found again. 114

Although both Arrian and Pseudo-Callisthenes relate how Alexander did not succeed in his desire to disappear in the Euphrates, it is not inconceivable that this story could have contributed to some actually believing that such a greatly lauded figure really had vanished and become physically immortal. Popular beliefs do not automatically follow historical facts.

105 Arr. Anab. 7.27.

106 [Callisthenes] Alexander Romance 3.32.

107 Cf. Edwards 1985: 223; Endsjø 2008: 425-27; 2009: 91-99.

108 Diod. Sic. 4.38.4-5.

109 Soph. OC 1656-64.

110 Paus. 1.19.5.

111 Plut. Rom. 27.5, 28.8; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.56.2-3; Tert. Apol. 21.23.

112 Plut. Rom. 28.4-5, cf. 27.8, 28.8; Paus. 6.9.7-8; Celsus according to Origen C. Cels. 3.33.

113 Philostr. VA 8.30-31.

- 114 Origen C. Cels. 3.36, 5.62, 8.9; Celsus according to Origen C. Cels. 3.36. Cf. Rohde 1925: 78, 538; Endsjø 2009: 96, 102.

## A pattern of contradictions

How there seems to have been disagreement on whether Alexander was to be honoured as a god or as a h ē r ō s , with what that entailed of his having been made physically immortal or just having survived as a disembodied soul, was not unique. 115 The accounts of even some of the most well-known men and women generally held to have been deified were not at all unequivocal. While Heracles was usually seen as a god due to his body having disappeared without a trace, 116 there were those, like the Peloponnesian Sicyonians, who instead venerated him as a disembodied h ē r ō s . 117 According  to  the Odyssey ,  Heracles's  shadow  ( eid ō lon )  is,  even more confusingly, found in Hades, while he himself 'is feasting forever with the immortal gods.' 118 In  the  second century A.D., Celsus felt the need to insist that the resurrected Asclepius, when seen by people who entreated him for healing, was not an 'apparition ( phasma )' or, in other words, a h ē r ō s , but Asclepius 'himself,' consequently deified and physically immortalized. 119

Other times the very basis of the immortalization narrative was challenged.  Whereas  most  sources  hold  that  Achilles  after  his  death  was translated to some place at the end of the earth by his divine mother, Thetis,  and  there  resurrected  to  eternal  life, 120 the  ever-influential Homer squarely placed him as a miserable dead soul in Hades. 121 Various authorities disagree on whether Iphigenia was sacrificed by her father or made physically immortal as she was swept away the very moment she was about to be killed. 122 The account of Romulus having become a god after disappearing in a horrible storm was circulated along with reports of how he had been murdered, cut up limb for limb, and his body parts secreted away by the most noble citizens. 123 Claims that Jesus's body had actually been stolen by his disciples similarly, of course, never stopped the immense success of the accounts of how he had been resurrected to physical  immortality. 124 Moreover,  although  the  empty  tomb  in  Mark was in line with traditional Greek beliefs around vanished people who had been deified, and Luke, as well as most later authorities, insisted that the  resurrected  Jesus  was  of  'flesh  and  bones,' 125 Paul  in  his  epistles seems to have understood the nature of the immortalized Jesus more akin to that of a classical h ē r ō s , as he repeatedly insisted that flesh was generally not included in the resurrection of the dead. 126

115 Cass. Dio 56.34.2, 67.2.6, 69.2.5, 79.9.

116 Soph. Phil. 727-29; Eur. Heracl. 12, 9-10, 871-72, 910-11; Diod. Sic. 4.38.4-5; Apollod. Bibl. 2.7.7; Origen C. Cels. 3.22.

117 Paus. 2.10.1.

118 Od.

11.601-2, my emphasis.

119 Celsus according to Origen C. Cels. 3.24.

120 See supra note 65.

121 Od.

11.488-91; cf. Edwards 1985: 221.

122 Iphigenia was sacrificed according to Aesch. Ag. 1523-29, 1555-59, Soph. El. 530-51, and Eur. El. 1020-26, whereas she was turned into a goddess according to Hesiod in Paus. 1.43.1, Cypria in Proclus Chrest. 4.1.141-43 and Eur. IA 1608, 1622.

None of these more contradictory aspects kept many in the ancient world from believing that these originally mortal men and women all had become physically immortal. This variety of claims was, indeed, not exceptional but typical of how traditions connected to various central figures  and  events  frequently  varied  according  to  different  literary sources and local cults. It is generally often difficult to establish absolute truths within traditional Greek beliefs. As pointedly made clear by Paul Veyne, the Greek worldview meant that people were often at liberty to draw their own conclusions as the sources so often did not align the most basic facts. 127

It is difficult not to recognize the parallels between the conflicting accounts pertaining to Alexander and to some of these other figures who were commonly held to have achieved physical immortality. As was the case with so many other deified mortals, all the most plausible explanations about Alexander's fate could be seen as countered by odd stories making everything seem opaquer. Most importantly, the already existing cult of Alexander as someone who had been turned into a god could simply make anything pointing to this not really being possible seem irrelevant.

123 Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.56.2-3; Livy Per. 1.16.1-8; Plut. Rom. 27.3-28.3; Dio Cassius in John of Antioch fr. 11 Mariev.

124 Cf. e.g. Matthew 28.13-15; Justin D. Tryph. 68.

125 Mark 16.5-8; Luke 24.39; cf. Endsjø 2009: 160-83.

126 Cf. e.g. 1 Cor. 1.29, 15.50; Col. 2.11.

127 Veyne 1988: 8.

This is the background against which one must have in mind when reexamining Dio Cassius's description of the third century A.D. people, who reacted with such reverence and enthusiasm upon coming face to face with this charismatic character. If one tries to see it from the point of view of those who actually were there, one is suddenly encountered by this dazzling figure who proclaimed that he was Alexander of Macedon, once again returned, a man who already was recognized as a god in various cults. Hundreds upon hundreds of ecstatic followers donned their Bacchic attire and simply followed him. All dignitaries treated both him and his retinue with the upmost respect. No one dared to contradict that this really was the mighty Alexander, and he truly looked the part. Apparently, nobody argued that a physically immortal Alexander was less likely than a deified Asclepius, Heracles, Romulus, or some of those other figures, whose tales of immortalization were also countered by conflicting reports. Who, then, were there to point out that the apparent return of  this  deified  conqueror  was  not  actually  possible  according  to  what most authorities would tell about his fate?

## The most probable conviction

Many of the soldiers, magistrates, procurators and other officials who received  the  Alexandrian  pretender  with  such  utmost  respect,  could very well have suspected or have been convinced that this was the disembodied h ē r ō s of  that  celebrated potentate, in accordance with what Dio Cassius may have considered a possibility. Some of the others 'who were in Thrace at the time' may also have held this to be the case. The momentous returns of such mighty dead souls, although always miraculous, were believed to have taken place at least since the end of Archaic times, and Alexander fit the picture perfectly, having already been venerated as a h ē r ō s for  centuries.  But  Alexander  returned  as  a  dead  and chthonic h ē r ō s was, however, not at all compatible with how Pseudo-Alexander  was  welcomed  with  exaltation  and  divine  rites  by  his  impromptu Bacchic retinue of four hundred men.

In this way, one finds that the only explanation that fits with how Pseudo-Alexander was received not only with respect, but also with enthusiasm and divine rites, is that those who encountered him either accepted the pretender's own claim, or were so much in doubt that they would not deny the possibility that he really was that  legendary  conqueror, once again returned in flesh and bones. Such a conviction was in accordance with the most ancient and enduring beliefs. As far back as it is possible to go in Greek history, the gods had chosen to deify certain men and women by making them physically immortal, either through resurrection or through altering their mortal nature before they died.

Everything about the pretender was in agreement with these traditional beliefs: he was already honoured as a god in certain places; his brief return mirrored how other deified men and women at times came back to the realm of mortals; how he 'appeared in some unknown manner' was just the way divine figures generally manifested themselves most abruptly; both the reserved and the jubilant reception were appropriate if he had truly been deified; how he resembled Alexander 'in all manners in looks and appearance' was as it should be, if he had truly become ageless and immortal; his clearly physical body reflected how the bodies of the gods traditionally consisted of flesh and bones; and the mysterious rites he performed in the end were in the manner of the way deified mortals and other gods at times introduced new cults upon their returns.

Although records of his death centuries before and the presence of his poorly preserved body in Alexandria ran counter to how immortality required absolute physical continuity, there were also the parallel stories indicating other possibilities - similar to how opposing narratives were often connected to various other individuals held to have been become physically immortal.

How he simply vanished in the end - in complete agreement with how the appearance of any immortal figure should end - could as such have seemed like the ultimate proof for those who believed that this really was the original Alexander the Great who had come back, deified and physically immortal.

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