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BANDITS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE<br />
Augustus makes plain that he is not happy with this response, and presses<br />
the false Alexander further. Finally, the latter can stand no more interrogation.<br />
The emperor’s promising him his life encourages him at last to make a<br />
full confession. As we already know, Augustus keeps his word and condemns<br />
the false Alexander to the galleys. From the Antiquitates we learn further<br />
that the man who put him up to it was executed as instigator. Both versions<br />
come together again in respect of the conclusion of the affair: wryly amused,<br />
Augustus finds it a worthy punishment for the Melians that they stupidly<br />
squandered so much in believing the imposter.<br />
Which points in this story are genuine and which are fictional is very<br />
difficult to decide thanks to Josephus’ evident and extensive literary reworking.<br />
The imposter makes his appearance craftily and to effect and so is<br />
enormously successful – until, that is, he falls under the penetrating gaze<br />
of Augustus who, unlike all the rest, is not fooled. And in the end what<br />
undoes the false Alexander is not any error in his performance but his servile<br />
physiognomy. Both aspects seem too schematic to be true.<br />
Disregarding such contradictions, what needs to be considered here is the<br />
extent to which vengeance may have played a role in all this. The answer is<br />
scarcely to be found with the false Alexander himself, who had no connection<br />
with the house of Herod; but it may be in his unknown backer. As we<br />
have seen, it was this man who pulled the strings and who was the brains<br />
behind the act. He treated his accomplice only as a tool in his plans. Augustus<br />
took this into account by having him executed but letting the false Alexander<br />
live. This mystery man is the key to the plot.<br />
Though we are told very little about him, Josephus provides one clear<br />
clue in saying that he was well acquainted with life within the ruling house<br />
and well versed in dirty dealing. 78 This sounds very much like a royal slave<br />
or freedman, all the more so because the friend whom he induced to play<br />
the dangerous game because of his similarity to the dead Alexander was<br />
also a slave. This slave or freedman may have developed a wish to avenge<br />
the prince, Alexander, executed for political reasons, and this led him to<br />
momentous decisions. Such thoughts of vengeance become all the more<br />
plausible if this man had been one of Alexander’s personal attendants, as<br />
Clemens had been of Agrippa Postumus. This is not invalidated by Josephus’<br />
stressing personal enrichment as the goal of the undertaking and the great<br />
criminal drive behind it. This just results from his literary stylisation, aimed<br />
at demeaning the perpetrator as a common lawbreaker. At first glance one<br />
indeed forms the impression that the imposter and his crony were interested<br />
only in loot and had no political agenda. However, that the false Alexander<br />
wanted to secure not only wealth but also the standing of the real Alexander<br />
becomes clear the moment he says to Augustus that his brother Aristoboulus<br />
had taken refuge in a safe place to prevent the family of Mariamne from<br />
being totally wiped out. 79 This would give a political motive: the safeguarding<br />
of dynastic interests. If my supposition is correct and the anonymous<br />
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