The Greeks in Bactria and India c12.128

c12.128

A feature of Y, however, is that its three documents all represent Alexander as putting *ten* questions, a matter which they drive home by saying that there were ten Indians; one question is put to each, as it is also in Z, though Z never specifies the number of Indians. The common original then, it seems, must have made Alexander ask ten questions, and this becomes certain if Z be examined. Of the earlier versions of the Romance, the fullest list of questions is in the Armenian; the others have all become imperfect, A’ giving five questions only, the Syriac and Julius Valerius eight. The Armenian has eleven⁵—ten *aporiai*⁶ and an added question *τί ἐστι βασιλεύς*; ‘What is a king?’ (*βασιλεία* in B’, *imperium* in Valerius, ‘kingdom’ in the Syriac), a question which goes straight to the root of the treatises on kingship. Undoubtedly therefore the common original of Y and Z contained, not simply ten questions, but ten questions which were *aporiai*; and these presently began to be altered. Plutarch and the Epitome have six *aporiai*—five identical with the Z list and an altered one; they have two questions which have been substituted for *aporiai* to carry through the contention in Y that Alexander was a tyrant, viz.: ‘How did you induce Sambos to revolt?’ and ‘Who has answered worst?’ (for he was to be killed first); and for the two remaining *aporiai* have been substituted two questions relating to Alexander’s kingship, (1) ‘How can one be most loved?’ and (2) either ‘How can a man become a god?’ (Plutarch) or ‘be thought to be a god?’ (Metz Epitome). As the Armenian version of Z has the complete list of ten *aporiai* and also a question about kingship, a question reproduced in the other (imperfect) versions of Z, it can be seen that what happened was this. There was an original list of ten *aporiai*, which in course of time became altered by the introduction of other questions of two types; one type, appearing only in Y, was substituted for some *aporiai* for the sake of Y’s ‘tendency’; the other type consisted of questions relating to kingship, which in Y were substituted for certain *aporiai*, but in Z were added to the list; and there can be little doubt that the ten *aporiai* extant in the Armenian version are the list of questions in the common original. The point however which I wanted to make has now made itself: the stereotyped number of Alexander-questions, from the common original onwards, was ten, however the actual questions might be shuffled about.¹