Reinventing Proskynesis: Callisthenes and the Peripatetic School

Abstract

Many have felt to be anachronistic the casting of proskynesis in the court of Alexander the Great as a matter of worship of the king. Taking this premise as its starting point, this article explores the possible origins of this presentation of Alexander’s proskynesis, an understanding that is articulated most fully in the ‘proskynesis debates’ of Arrian (4.10-12) and Curtius (8.5-6). It is argued that the misrepresentation was a deliberate strategy cultivated in the Peripatos, and that it was designed to deflect opprobrium away from Callisthenes and, by extension, away from the Peripatos itself.