[00:00] Welcome to toldinstone. This video explores
three ancient conspiracy theories: an outbreak
[00:07] of hysteria in classical Athens, a plot at
the court of Alexander, and a crusade against
[00:14] a mysterious Persian cult. But before I tell
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[01:14] it. Thank you for your time – and now, without
any further ado, ancient conspiracy theories.
[01:22] A conspiracy theory arises in the hazy gulf
between suspicion and fact. It is discussed,
[01:30] accepted, rejected, dismissed. It may be definitively
debunked; it may even be proven. But it exists
[01:38] independently of any verifiable source, living
in the court of public opinion, feeding on
[01:45] itself.
Ancient history is full of conspiracies, in
[01:49] the sense of coordinated plots against power.
Famous examples include the Catilinarian Conspiracy,
[01:56] an attempt – thwarted by Cicero – to overthrow
the Roman Republic; the Pisonian Conspiracy,
[02:02] which sought to supplant Nero; and the Barbarian
Conspiracy, an apparently concerted attack
[02:08] on Roman Britain by the Picts, Saxons, and
Irish.
[02:13] There are fewer instances of conspiracy theories
in the most familiar sense – i.e., the assumption
[02:19] that a secret organization is pulling strings
behind the scenes. Speculation about those
[02:25] in power, of course, is as old as civilization
itself, and our sources reverberate with rumors
[02:32] about the undue influence of courtiers and
relatives of rulers. Claims that the whole
[02:38] political system was being subverted, however,
tended to emerge only in periods of acute
[02:44] crisis.
The affair of the herms in Classical Athens
[02:48] is one of the best-documented examples. Athens,
famously, had a democratic government, in
[02:55] which a large part of the citizen body participated.
In combination with a lively tradition of
[03:02] criticizing public figures – epitomized
by the comedies of Aristophanes – the immediacy
[03:07] of the democracy made the schemes and scandals
of prominent politicians a popular conversation
[03:14] topic.
The most talked-about of all Athenian politicians
[03:19] was the brilliant, charming, and utterly unscrupulous
aristocrat Alcibiades. A scion of the same
[03:26] family that had produced Pericles, Alcibiades
made his name by promoting an aggressive foreign
[03:31] policy against Sparta and her allies.
He was admired for his compelling speeches
[03:37] before the Assembly, and for such political
stunts as entering no fewer than seven awesomely
[03:42] expensive chariots in the Olympic race. His
dissolute private life, however, led many
[03:48] Athenians to distrust him, and set the stage
for the affair of the herms.
[03:54] Herms were small statues placed at crossroads
and beside doorways. They consisted of a simple
[04:00] stone pillar, topped by a god’s head and
garnished with a prominent erect phallus.
[04:07] In the spring of 415 BC, just as the Athenian
government, spurred by Alcibiades, was about
[04:12] to launch a vast armada to conquer Sicily,
nearly all the herms in Athens had their noses
[04:18] and phalluses knocked off.
While this might seem like a harmless prank,
[04:24] the mutilation of the herms threw Athens into
a frenzy. Herms, after all, were images of
[04:31] the gods, and any injury to them was sacrilege.
That so many divine images had been damaged
[04:37] at the outset of the Sicilian expedition seemed
a bad omen, and a conspiracy theory arose
[04:43] that the herms had been broken by a secret
cabal that sought to destroy the government.
[04:49] You know what isn’t a conspiracy theory?
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[05:58] Back to Classical Athens. A public investigation
brought additional information to light: shortly
[06:04] before the herms were mutilated, a group of
young men had broken other religious statues
[06:10] and mimicked the Eleusinian Mysteries, the
most sacred Athenian ritual. One of the participants,
[06:16] it was said, had been Alcibiades. It began
to be whispered that Alcibiades had also been
[06:22] responsible for smashing the herms, and that
his acts of sacrilege were part of a plot
[06:27] to overthrow the democracy.
As one of the leaders of the Sicilian Expedition,
[06:33] Alcibiades was forced to leave the city before
he could clear his name. In his absence, the
[06:39] conspiracy theory continued to grow, connecting
the mutilation of the herms and violation
[06:44] of the mysteries with an aristocratic scheme
to replace the government. When a small Spartan
[06:49] force was reported in the vicinity, it was
immediately assumed that they had been summoned
[06:54] by the conspirators. Arrests were made; armed
patrols were posted in the city center; and
[07:00] finally, Alcibiades himself was summoned back
to Athens to be tried for his supposed crimes.
[07:07] Although it’s entirely plausible that Alcibiades
mimicked the mysteries with his friends, and
[07:12] not impossible that he was associated with
the men who mutilated the herms, there is
[07:17] no reason to think that he was plotting to
overthrow the democracy. Aristocratic coups
[07:22] were a legitimate threat – there would be
two within a decade of the Sicilian Expedition
[07:27] – but Alcibiades had little to gain from
overthrowing a government that had just awarded
[07:32] him an important command. In this case, he
seems to have been nothing more or less than
[07:38] the victim of a conspiracy theory.
To a degree that a democratic leader like
[07:44] Alcibiades could only envy, monarchs dominated
both public discourse and popular suspicion
[07:51] in antiquity. The most familiar examples are
the Roman emperors, whose plots, perversions,
[07:58] and peccadilloes pervade our sources. Emperors
were frequently implicated in conspiracy theories,
[08:05] especially – and understandably – when
their predecessors perished under suspicious
[08:10] circumstances. Perhaps the most interesting
conspiracy theory involving a classical ruler,
[08:17] however, centers on the death of Alexander
the Great.
[08:20] Alexander died at Babylon on June 10, 323
BC, aged 32. According to his most reliable
[08:28] ancient biographers, he had fallen ill ten
days before, during or shortly after a wine-soaked
[08:34] banquet. His illness began as a fever, mild
enough – at first – for the king to ignore
[08:40] as he prepared to invade Arabia. Within a
few days, however, he had become too weak
[08:46] to sit up or speak. Still burning with fever,
he lapsed into a coma, and never woke.
[08:52] An alternative tradition added dramatic details.
At the final banquet, according to this version
[08:59] of events, Alexander was draining a goblet
of wine when he cried out in pain. Collapsing,
[09:06] he was carried away by his friends, and lay
in agony until the final coma overtook him.
[09:12] Almost as soon as Alexander died, it began
to be rumored that he had been poisoned. The
[09:17] culprit, it was said, was Antipater, the king’s
regent in Europe, who had sent his young son
[09:23] Iollas to dose Alexander’s cup with a potion
prepared by Aristotle.
[09:28] Aristotle certainly had reason to resent Alexander.
He had been the king’s tutor; and when the
[09:34] Persian campaign began, he sent his nephew
Callisthenes to accompany the Macedonian army
[09:39] and write a history of its conquests. Alexander,
however, proceeded to execute Callisthenes
[09:46] on a trumped-up treason charge. As might be
imagined, this did not improve his relationship
[09:52] with the young historian’s uncle.
According to the rumors that sprouted after
[09:57] Alexander’s death, Aristotle had procured
water from the bitter springs of the river
[10:02] Styx, whose deadly water would dissolve any
container besides the hoof of a mule. With
[10:08] the connivance of Antipater, Antipater’s
son Cassander, and a very literal drug mule,
[10:14] the poison made its way to Babylon, and to
the king’s cup.
[10:17] The Styx water is legendary, and the involvement
of Aristotle supremely unlikely. That Alexander
[10:23] was poisoned, however, is not beyond the realm
of possibility. Alexander’s mother Olympias
[10:30] believed – or claimed to believe – that
Antipater was responsible for her son’s
[10:35] death. She executed several men on charges
of involvement in the plot, and dishonored
[10:40] the supposed poisoner Iollas by exhuming his
body and scattering the bones.
[10:45] Antipater’s son Cassander, Iollas’ brother,
returned the favor by executing Olympias and
[10:51] leaving her body to rot unburied. He also
took vengeance on Hyperides, an Athenian orator
[10:58] who had dared to propose honoring Iollas for
poisoning Alexander. After Hyperides was captured
[11:04] by Cassander’s bounty hunter, his tongue
was cut out, he was executed, and his body
[11:09] – like that of Olympias – was left to
be devoured by the birds and beasts.
[11:15] The dramatic sequence of accusations and murders
that followed Alexander’s death does not,
[11:21] of course, prove that the king was poisoned.
Our most reliable ancient sources roundly
[11:26] reject the theory, which seems to be a product
of popular suspicion and political maneuvering.
[11:33] Although we’ll never know for certain, malaria
– exacerbated by alcoholism and old battle
[11:38] wounds – is a far more likely culprit for
Alexander’s death than poison.
[11:45] Not far from Babylon, but more than half a
millennium after the death of Alexander, the
[11:49] deadliest of all ancient conspiracy theories
began in a small Mesopotamian village, where
[11:55] a prophet named Mani started to preach a new
religion.
[11:59] Mani’s creed, which we call Manichaeism,
proclaimed a universal conflict between the
[12:05] powers of Light and Darkness. To ensure the
ultimate triumph of the Light, a chosen few
[12:11] – the Elect – were called upon to renounce
all worldly possessions and devote their lives
[12:17] to rituals combatting the Darkness. It was
the duty of all other believers – the Hearers
[12:23] – to support the Elect with alms, and so
gain a chance to be reborn as an Elect, and
[12:29] finally escape the prison of the flesh.
With the personal support of the shah, Mani
[12:34] proselytized throughout the Persian Empire,
proclaiming a religion that perfected and
[12:39] replaced the teachings of Jesus, Zoroaster,
and the Buddha. Missionaries were sent to
[12:45] India, to the steppes of Central Asia, and
into the Roman Empire.
[12:49] Adda, one of Mani’s chief disciples, led
the first Roman mission, which established
[12:55] communities in the provinces of Syria and
Egypt. Equipped with translations of Mani’s
[13:01] scriptures and trained to engage philosophers
and priests in theological debate, Manichaean
[13:07] preachers gained converts rapidly, sowing
cells of believers from Alexandria to Rome.
[13:12] Traditionally, the Romans were tolerant of
any religion that respected the established
[13:17] social and political order. Sects that seemed
to encourage rebellion or disloyalty, however,
[13:24] were repressed. The most famous example is
the Christian Church, but instances stretched
[13:29] back to the Roman Republic, which had crushed
the cult of Bacchus for inciting immoral behavior.
[13:35] In 302, Diocletian was notified of disruptions
caused by Manichaean preaching in the province
[13:41] of Africa. The more the emperor learned about
the new religion, the more alarmed he became.
[13:47] Mani had been a friend of the Persian shah,
the arch-enemy of all things Roman. To Diocletian
[13:54] and his advisors, this seemed a clear indication
that Manichaeism was nothing less than a Persian
[14:00] plot intended to overthrow the Roman Empire.
In an imperial edict, Diocletian proclaimed
[14:07] that the Manichaeans were seeking to infect
the “innocent, orderly, and tranquil Roman
[14:14] people” with the “damnable customs and
perverse laws of the Persians, as with the
[14:20] poison of a malignant serpent.” Any Roman
who converted to Manichaeism would be executed;
[14:28] any official who supported the cult would
be sent to the mines; and the Manichaean preachers
[14:33] themselves were to be burned alive atop piles
of their scriptures.
[14:38] As the Great Persecution of the Christians
would soon demonstrate, the provincial governors
[14:43] responsible for enforcing imperial edicts
were not always enthusiastic about doing so,
[14:48] and most Manichaeans seem to have escaped
punishment. Throughout the fourth century
[14:53] and beyond, however, emperors continued to
issue edicts stripping Manichaeans of their
[14:58] civil rights, declaring them outlaws, and
condemning them to death.
[15:03] As the Roman Empire became Christian, the
Manichaeans were branded heretics and corrupters
[15:08] of the faith. St. Augustine – a former convert
to Manichaeism – was the most famous of
[15:14] the many Christian thinkers who attacked the
so-called Persian heresy. Increasingly savage
[15:20] penalties drove the sect underground, and
eventually expelled it from the empire.
[15:25] Manichaeism was never actually a Persian plot.
Although Mani had indeed enjoyed court patronage
[15:32] for a time, he had died in prison, and his
religion was being persecuted in its native
[15:36] land by the Zoroastrian priesthood long before
Diocletian issued his edict.
[15:42] Yet the Roman crusade against the Manichaeans
lasted, with interruptions, for more than
[15:47] two centuries. In keeping with the late imperial
synthesis of church and state, it became an
[15:53] issue of both policy and belief. But it had
its origins in the fatal simplicity of a conspiracy
[16:00] theory.
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