Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/54

 10 ONCE AGAIN EASTWARD HO !

A fanciful surmise, but one that appeals strongly to my own imagiHation, even if little attention seems to have been given to it, would seek grounds for assigning the sarcophagus to Alexander's favorite, Hephaestion, whom Alexander, when at Sidon, authorized to select a king for the Sidonians, and who named Abdalonimus for the office.^ When Hephaestion died of fever at Ecbatana, Alexander's grief knew no bounds, as Plutarch says, and he planned for the remains of his favorite a magnificent tomb that was to be executed by Stasicrates and was to cost ten thousand talents.^ There are, nevertheless, some objections against urging the plea, despite its attractive- ness, and I shall content myself with simply presenting it. A title, still further, has been set up for Abdalonimus himself, whom Hephaestion named as king of Sidon, but the evidence in his favor is regarded as unsubstantial. ^ The strongest plea that has been urged is that put forward by Reinach, according to which the sarcophagus once held the remains of Mazaeus, * a

supposition that the Greeks had as- 2 piutarch, Alexander, 72. 3, and

sumed the Persian dress (see also my cf. Jackson, Persia, p. 165. note above on the horses' frontlocks, ' The claim in behalf of Abdaloni-

p. 7, n.2). But it is the view adopted by mus was put forward by Studniczka,

Justi (also of Marburg) in Grundr. Die Sarkophage von Sidon, in Ver-

iran. Philol. 2. 477. My own student handlungen der zweiundvierzigsten

and friend, Dr. Gray, also inclines to Versammlung deutscher Fhilologen

the belief that the coffin was probably und Schulmanner in Wien, 1893, pp.

that of a Diadochus, and that it was 91-92, Leipzig, 1895 ; idem, Ueher die

perhaps a miniature of Alexander's Grundlagen der geschichtlichen Er-

own burial-place, if we may attach kldrung der sidonischen Sarkophage,

any credence to the Pseudo-Callisthe- in Jahrbuch des kaiserlich deutschen-

nes or to the templar form of Alexan- archaeologischen Instituts, 9. 243,

der's own tomb ; see Julius Valerius, Berlin, 1896. Against Studniczka's

Bes gestae Alex. Mag. 3. 57. view see Hamdy Bey and Reinach,

1 See Curtius, 4. 1.15-26; Justin, 11. pp. 392-395 and 316, n. 1; cf. also

10; and other references in Eiselen, Joubin, p. 13.

Sidon, 69-71, New York, 1907. Jou- * See Reinach's discussion in Hamdy

bin, op. cit. p. 15, merely mentions Bey and Reinach, Une Necropole, pp.

Hephaestion's name by the side of 317-320 and 341. It must, however, be

Parmenion and Abdalonimus as claim- remmebered that Alexander confirmed

ants, but without entering into a dis- Mazaeus in his satrapy of Babylon,

cussion of the matter. where he remained until his death.

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