Alexander the Great

In Persia and Greece its social uses varied. In Greece it was a gesture reserved for the gods alone, but in Persia it was also paid to men: 'When the Persians meet one another in the street,' wrote Herodotus, with one of those deep insights into foreign customs which make him far the most congenial of Greek historians, 'in the following way, a man can tell whether they meet as social equals. If they are equal, they kiss each other on the mouth, instead of speaking a word of greeting; if one is slightly inferior to the other, he only kisses him on the check; if he is far less noble, he falls down and pays proskynesis to his superior.' There was another category, not to be seen in the street: a meeting with the Great King himself. Because the king was superhuman in his majesty, he received proskynesis from everybody; however, courtiers and royal Relations were noble enough to be spared the accompanying curtsey or prostration, and so they merely bowed. The Greeks noted this custom, and because they themselves paid proskynesis only to the gods, by a little sophistry some could suggest that the Persian king was considered to be a god himself. Intelligent Greeks knew this to be mistaken: in Persia proskyn esis was also paid by the lower classes to the upper class, and not even in Persia was the entire upper class divine. It was a social gesture, but nonetheless a deeply traditional one.

At Balkh, Alexander decided to try out proskynesis among his Macedonian friends. The decision was a bold one: proskynesis had caused trouble in the past when Greek met Persian, and it was open to misinterpretation, for whatever the Persians thought, it was not the way that a free Greek liked to greet a mortal. It had been left to the most radical of the Athenian dramatists, Euripides, to show proskynesis being paid on the stage to a man and even then he produced it as a foreign extravagance. At Persepolis, in the Treasury, the hands of officials paying proskynesis are the worst-damaged feature in sculptures which are otherwise well preserved: Alexander's army may have mutilated them on purpose, thinking this one gesture absurd. Greek ambassadors to the Persian court had been known on occasions to take an equally defiant stand: one had sent a letter in to the king, rather than pay proskynesis before him, and another was said to have dropped his signet ring, so that he could bow down to pick it up and seem respectful by his movement, though the true kissing gesture was missed in the course of bending forwards. Such stubborn refusals were less a matter of religion than of pride; if Greeks also came to Persia as prisoners or suppliants, at least in the eyes of the king, they were expected to go down on hands and knees as well as paying proskynesis , and the double disgrace had been known to prove too much for them. Aristotle had been told of an elephant trained to pay proskynesis to a king, no doubt by blowing the kiss with its trunk as Aristotle did not believe that elephants could

bend both their front legs at once. But free Greeks were not brutes, and what befitted an elephant did not become a Hellene.

Nevertheless, Greeks like Themistocles and Alcibiades had been sensible enough to do as the Persians when in Persia, and it was in this spirit that Alexander broached the subject of proskyne sis to his Companions. As Darius's heir, he would have been receiving such homage from his Iranians for the past three years: it came naturally to them, just as it did to Darius's queen when taken prisoner at Issus. Alexander had continued to attract more and more Iranians as hostages or helpers. Iranian brigades had been recruited to fight in India and at court the seven sons of elderly Artabazus had now been joined by Roxane's brothers and sisters, Spitamenes's daughter, many local barons and a grandson of the last King Artaxerxcs; Alexander even had his own two Magi and a fugitive rajah from the Punjab. If these Orientals saw the Macedonians greeting him without first paying their respects, they might begin to wonder whether he was a proper king; this belief' would have started among the servants and quickly spread everywhere', and at the end of a long and bloody native revolt, that was not a risk worth taking. New reinforcements and the recruiting of Greeks and Orientals meant that the Macedonians were now heavily outnumbered in the army; before invading India, the Macedonian courtiers should give way to their new supporters and take up their customs for the sake of social uniformity. But as in the case of Cleitus, later writers saw the tension differently; by ordering proskynesis, they insisted, Alexander was not considering court etiquette: he was intending to be worshipped as a god.

It is true that in Greece proskynesis was only paid to the gods, and that Alexander was doubtless aware of this. But in outer Iran, it was not Greek practice which was at issue. He was King of Asia, and his courtiers ought to tolerate an Asian social custom; in much the same way, he had been wearing the diadem, which among Greeks was a claim to represent Zeus, among Persians a claim to be king, but he had treated it entirely from a Persian point of view as heir of Darius, not rival of the gods. It was to be the same with proskynesis: his own Master of Ceremonies described the first attempt to introduce it and as the incident took place at a di

Alexander, said his servant, had ordered a banquet and was presiding over the after-di

This after-di