Alexander the Great: Propaganda Proponent
Written by Oscar O’Neill, reviewed by Saskia Higgins and Garry Tiscovschi
Propaganda: “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view” (Lexico Dictionaries, n.d.).
The term only took its modern form in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Catholic Church’s administrative body “Congregatio de Propaganda Fide” (Etymonline.com, n.d.), but the idea and use of propaganda is far older.
Historians have pointed to the Behistun Inscription (~500 BC) as an early example, which detailed the rise of Darius I to the Persian throne (Behistun, 1997). Strategic leaders throughout history have utilised this powerful tool, and Alexander the Great was potentially another early proponent (~200 years after the Behistun Inscription).
Before the 20th century, propaganda wasn’t associated with the same manipulation and negative overtones it is today (Etymonline.com, n.d.). While during World War II, it was often used to rile a country’s public against another, it seems to me that before this it was used to enhance the public image of a person, organisation or country, not dampen the opposition.
The infamous tales associated with Alexander all served to strengthen his followers’ support and his enemies’ fears. As a start, he was said to have been the son of Zeus, his mother impregnated in a virgin Mary-esque scenario. According to the prominent biographer Plutarch (n.d.), on the night before his parents’ marriage consummation, “the bride dreamed that there was a peal of thunder and that a thunder-bolt fell upon her womb, and that thereby much fire was kindled, which broke into flames that travelled all about, and then was extinguished”. This was further proved in Alexander’s mind by his visit to the Oracle of Zeus-Ammon at Siwa. Greeting Alexander with “O, paidios” meaning “Oh, son of god” (potentially by mistake), the priest confirmed his beliefs: he was the son of Zeus and would rule the world (Wasson, 2016). Alexander’s deity-status helped solidify his leadership role, and had his soldiers in full support of his strategies. Even if his opponents didn’t fully believe the story, a seed of doubt was planted in their minds. Being the supposed son of a Greek god was clearly a big deal in Greece.
Furthermore, Alexander was undefeated during his eight year reign. This daunting fact spread across western Asia faster than his military campaign, and struck fear into the cities which knew he was approaching next. After visiting the Oracle of Zeus-Ammon, he set out towards a small village called Gaugamela, where he was told his opponent Darius III was waiting for him (Ancient History Encyclopedia, 2012). “In all, [the historian] Arrian states that over 300,000 Persians were killed and more captured, with only 100 Macedonian dead. […] A more conservative estimate is 40,000 Persian dead, and Alexander himself claimed that his army suffered about 500 killed and 5,000 wounded” (Ancient History Encyclopedia, 2012). Though Alexander was a truly formidable and effective strategist in war, even he spread inflated figures when boasting of his successes.
Finally, the legend of Alexander and the Gordian knot. Whoever untied this impossibly tangled knot was said to become the king of Asia. Alexander simply sliced the knot in half with his sword (Andrews, 2018). Whether true or not has been debated by historical scholars, but the fact that this and his other stories have propagated to today only proves their spread, effect on his public image, and their potency in retelling.
So what kind of propaganda campaigns would Alexander launch utilising the information systems of today? He would have many options.
The now defunct British company Cambridge Analytica was a “political consulting firm that was involved in influencing hundreds of elections globally and that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal” (Wikipedia. n.d). By collecting a boasted “5000 data points on every American” (Lapowsky, 2017), the firm was said to have played an important role in Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign of 2016. They were paid $5.9 million (Lapowsky, 2017) and used social media in a near psychological warfare fashion to sway the opinion of the American public. Their huge collection of personal information was “scraped” from millions of Facebook users, creating personality profiles to then find the best way to influence these people through online advertisements. Whether or not Trump had Cambridge Analytica to thank for his eventual victory in the 2016 election is debatable. It would be narrow-minded, however, to dismiss the information systems used to deploy these targeted Facebook ads and the effect they had on at least some portion of the population.
Further, Alexander could have used the power of Cambridge Analytica’s data to win over the different regions he ruled. Once he had conquered Persia, he took on many of their customs and traditions in order for them to accept him as their new ruler. This backfired however as some Greeks and Macedonians back home began to resent his cultural development. Using targeted Facebook ads, Alexander could have fed different stories to his different followers. The Greeks would have only seen him as before, while the Persians would see him as he truly was, adopting their culture. The power of “Big Data” is truly something to behold, and using it in a similar fashion to Trump could have been of great benefit to him had he decided to utilise it, given the opportunity.
More stories exist of Alexander which attribute to his powerful aura (such as his taming of the “untamable” horse Bucephalus (Plutarch, n.d.), and perhaps more existed in the past which had since been lost in the centuries since his reign. Nevertheless, much of the prestige Alexander carries to this day can be attributed to these stories, and the information systems in place today for further propaganda would have been of great use to him and his sprawling empire.
References
Andrews, E., 2018. What Was The Gordian Knot?. [online] HISTORY. Available at: <https://www.history.com/news/what-was-the-gordian-knot> [Accessed 14 December 2020].
Etymonline.com. n.d. Origin And Meaning Of Propaganda. [online] Available at: <https://www.etymonline.com/word/propaganda> [Accessed 14 December 2020].
Lapowsky, I., 2017. What Did Cambridge Analytica Really Do For Trump’s Campaign?. [online] Wired. Available at: <https://www.wired.com/story/what-did-cambridge-analytica-really-do-for-trumps-campaign/> [Accessed 14 December 2020].
Lexico Dictionaries. n.d. Definition Of Propaganda By Oxford Dictionary. [online] Available at: <https://www.lexico.com/definition/propaganda> [Accessed 14 December 2020].
Livius.org. 1997. Behistun. [online] Available at: <https://www.livius.org/articles/place/behistun/> [Accessed 14 December 2020].
Plutarch, n.d. Lives Of The Noble Greeks And Romans. Plutarch.
Ancient History Encyclopedia. 2012. The Battle Of Gaugamela, 331 BCE. [online] Available at: <https://www.ancient.eu/article/108/the-battle-of-gaugamela-331-bce/> [Accessed 14 December 2020].
Wasson, D., 2016. Alexander The Great As A God. [online] Ancient History Encyclopedia. Available at: <https://www.ancient.eu/article/925/alexander-the-great-as-a-god/> [Accessed 14 December 2020].
Wikipedia. n.d. Cambridge Analytica. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica> [Accessed 14 December 2020].
