Plutarch denot es that Alexander likened his conquer of Persia with taming animals ‘by
following their wonted manner of life, thereby conciliating their rough natures and
smoothing their sullen brows’. 27
It is far more likely that Alexander was acting out of self-interest rather than out of
duty to his new courtiers. Moreover, there is no accounts of Alexander pushing Persian
hunting traditions on Macedonians. Tomb II at Vergina, commissioned Craterus as a form of
propaganda during the succession period reiterates this. 28 The friezes presented on the
Tomb are believed to represent a generic or idealized Royal Hunt, in which Craterus and
Alexander are fighting a lion, whilst a Persian nobleman prepares to use the unheroic net in
the far-right corner. 29 This portrayal, regardless of the propaganda element, does support
the theory that Alexander only included Persian hunting aspects to help the placate Persians.
It is extremely unlikely that Alexander was prioritising Persian protocols in the hunt with
Hermolaus, because there is no evidence during or after his reign that Alexander was
favouring Persian traditions over Macedonian protocols. This is confirmed by the fact that
there is no reference to hunting protocols in the accounts by Arrian, Curtius and Plutarch. If
this was one of the key motivators for Alexander it certainly would have been a key
dramatizing factor in the speeches relayed by Arrian and Curtius. This reaffirms the notion
that the Page’s Conspiracy was not an issue of ‘Fusion Policy’ but rather the culmination o f
27 Plutarch, Moralia on the fortune or the Virtue of Alexander 8.B-D 28 Charlotte Dunn and Pat Wheatley, ‘Craterus and the Dedication Date of the Delphi Lion Monument’, Bulletin, 26. 1-2 (2012), pp. 39-48 (p. 44) 29 Hallie M. Franks, Hunters, Heroes, Kings: The Frieze of Tomb II at Vergina (Princeton: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2012), p. 21; Olga Palagia, ‘Hephaestion’s Pyre and the Royal Hunt of Alexander’ in Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction , Ed. A. B. Bosworth, Elizabeth Baynham (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 167-207 (p. 167)
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