Alexander the Lynkestian and the Thracians at Thebes

A Note on the Tale of Timokleia

Abstract

The Thracians are a well-attested part of the Alexander’s army in Asia. But when, exactly, did they appear in the king’s force? The question is prompted by the story of Timokleia of Thebes, which is found in Plutarch (Alex. 12; De mul. virt. 24) and Polyainos (Strat. 8.40) and happens to be the only source for Thracian presence in the Macedonian army before the Hellespont. During the Macedonian destruction of Thebes in summer 335, Timokleia is raped by a Thracian or a leader of the Thracians. The story is evidently designed to ennoble the figures of Alexander and Timokleia as idealized Greeks: Timokleia kills her rapist, and Alexander is so impressed by her comportment and family that he frees her. The fullest version (Plu. De mul. virt. 24) identifies this man as another “Alexander,” who can be easily identified with a historical figure: Alexander son of Aëropos/Alexander the Lynkestian, whom Alexander had a few months earlier made strategos of Thrace, but was nevertheless an untrustworthy figure, implicated in Philip II’s death and, eventually, in a plot against Alexander’s own life. Plutarch elsewhere names Aristoboulos as a source for Timokleia, so it is easy to assume she is historical and that the “evil twin” Alexander is a fiction helping to increase the pathos of her story. I wonder, however, if we have the situation backwards, and that it was Alexander the Lynkestian’s presence at Thebes that prompted Aristoboulos –whose attitude towards Alexander III was generally encomiastic– to invent Timokleia and her rape in order to malign this traitorous figure.