Apollodorus of Amphipolis

Apollodorus (Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος) from Amphipolis was one of the cavalry generals of Alexander the Great, who commanded the force Alexander left behind with the Babylonian governor Mazaeus.[1] He was entrusted in 331 BCE, together with Menes of Pella, with the administration of Babylon and of all the satrapies as far as Cilicia. Alexander also gave them 1000 talents to collect as many troops as they could.[2][3][4][5]

The historian Arrian recounts the following story about Apollodorus, originally told by Alexander's engineer Aristobulus of Cassandreia: Apollodorus had a brother named Pythagoras (or Pithagoras or Peithagoras) who was a hepatomancer – that is, a fortune-teller who read the future in the examination of the livers of different animals – whom Apollodorus consulted over his own future. When Pythagoras, corresponding by letter, asked his brother whom was he worried about, Apollodorus said it was Alexander and Hephaestion, owing the purges these two were enacting against many whom they'd appointed to office.[6] Pythagoras predicted that Hephaestion would soon die, which he later did.[7]

Notes
  1. Heckel, Waldemar (2006). Who's Who in the Age of Alexander the Great: Prosopography of Alexander's Empire. Blackwell. pp. 40–41.
  2. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 17.54
  3. Curtius, 5.1
  4. comp. Arrian, Arr. Anab. 7.18
  5. Appian, Civil Wars 2.152
  6. Mitford, William; Davenport, Richard Alfred (1835). The history of Greece, continued to the death of Alexander the great. Vol. 8. Thomas Tegg & Son. p. 247. Retrieved 2016-02-28.
  7. Green, Peter (2013). Alexander of Macedon, 356–323 B.C.: A Historical Biography. Hellenistic culture and society. Vol. 11 (reprint, revised ed.). University of California Press. p. 475. ISBN 9780520954694. Retrieved 2016-02-28.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William (1870). "Apollodorus of Amphipolis". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 233.

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