The Guardian is doing a series of articles on cities through history. In their piece on Alexandria, they cite that Alexander the Great, after the battle of Gaugamela/Arbela, obtained a small golden box that was previously the property of Darius III. He used that to keep his copy of the Illiad, which was cited as among Alexander's most treasured possessions.
For some reason this fine detail stuck out in my mind. The Guardian article cites E. Cobham Brewer's 1898 edition of Dictionary of Phrase and Fable as its source, while in this thread, /u/XenophonTheAthenian cites Plutarch when discussing Alexander's love of Homer.
My question is, how reliable is the account of the gold "casket"? Is there enough evidence of the box, that it's taken as fact, or is it something in the realm of "well maybe," like Pheidippides dying after the Battle of Marathon, or Gaius Gracchus's head being filled with lead?
I apologize if my question seems naive or asks too much in terms of "evidence" from that era. I suppose the better question is really, how reliable is the account of the gold casket, relative to the other historical things(for lack of a better term) we know of that era?
Thank you in advance.
I mean, it's in our texts, if that's what you're asking. Plutarch says:
κιβωτίου δέ τινος αὐτῷ προσενεχθέντος, οὗ πολυτελέστερον οὐδὲν ἐφάνη τοῖς τὰ Δαρείου χρήματα καὶ τὰς ἀποσκευὰς παραλαμβάνουσιν, ἠρώτα τοὺς φίλους ὅ τι δοκοίη μάλιστα τῶν ἀξίων σπουδῆς εἰς αὐτὸ καταθέσθαι: πολλὰ δὲ πολλῶν λεγόντων αὐτὸς ἔφη τὴν Ἰλιάδα φρουρήσειν ἐνταῦθα καταθέμενος.
But when a little casket was brought to him, which nothing of the goods of Darius and his baggage seemed more valuable than to those watching over it, he asked his friends what they though was most rightly placed there. And after many of them spoke he said he would place the Iliad there to guard it.
This occurred, according to Plutarch, some time after the battle of the Issus, which is when Darius' baggage train was famously captured (not at Gaugamela), although Plutarch delays mentioning it for some reason until after Gaza was taken. Strabo mentions the same story:
φέρεται γοῦν τις διόρθωσις τῆς Ὁμήρου ποιήσεως, ἡ ἐκ τοῦ νάρθηκος λεγομένη, τοῦ Ἀλεξάνδρου μετὰ τῶν περὶ Καλλισθένη καὶ Ἀνάξαρχον ἐπελθόντος καὶ σημειωσαμένου τινά, ἔπειτα καταθέντος εἰς νάρθηκα ὃν ηὗρεν ἐν τῇ Περσικῇ γάζῃ πολυτελῶς κατεσκευασμένον
Anyway, it is said that there a recension of Homer, called the 'Recension of the Casket,' which Alexander, and Callisthenes and Anaxarchus, read over and annotated and which was then placed in a richly-wrought casket which he found in the Persian spoils
So there's at least two textual authorities for it