pothos.org

Aischines (Against Timarchus 1, 168) as a eyewitness, described the performance of Alexander during a symposium (held in Pella in 346 B. C.), before the Greek ambassadors. He was ten years old: "...[Demosthenes] was describing the boy Alexander, telling how, at a certain banquet of ours, he pla...

According to Plutarch (Life of Alexander 29, 1-6), Alexander was very fond of tragedy, comedy and other poetic contests. When he stopped in Phoenicia - after the foundation of Alexandria and before the battle of Gaugamela - he arranged splendid spectacles of this kind. The two kings of Cyprus, Nicoc...

Alexander the Great died 2345 years ago. Someone wondered what was his single greatest moment and answered his victory at Gaugamela. But I don't think so: for me his best moments are all in his last year of life, such as his marriage at Susa together with 90 Companions and 10. 000 soldiers ; the int...

A.B. Bosworth (From Arrian to Alexander. Studies in Historical Interpretation, Oxford 1988, p. 119, n.110) stresses that Arrian had no liking for Callisthenes, because he lived in a totally different age (II A. D.) when imperial power, authority, and etiquette was well established and no one called ...

Recently I read a lot of novels about Alexander the Great (and Hephaestion), and 'Memoirs of Hephaestion', by Valeson, was one of them. But I can't tell I liked it. I liked best another novel by Sigrid SIMMS, 'Lion of Macedon. The life of Alexander the Great', (2020). It tells the whole life of Alex...

Thank you, Alexias, and your tenacious memory! I forgot completely the lecture of Mr. Robin Lane Fox that you kindly posted on pothos.org in 2013. Nevertheless I think that the paper of F. Bosch-Puche is known too little, till now. Even when I read it for the first time, ten years ago, my attention ...

Happy New Year! I'm glad to recommend this paper by Francisco Bosch-Puche: 'L' "autel" du temple d'Alexandre à Bahariya retrouvé ', BIFAO 108 (2008), pp. 29-44.(I found it in Academia.edu). The author has found again an altar and a stele of a temple excavated in 1938 in Bahariya, but misla...

I'm reading the book "Alexander the Great: a New History", by W. Heckel and L. A. Tritle, Wiley-Blackwell 2011, and I found a quote of the chapter 10, by Elizabeth D. Carney, very interesting. She writes:" Cynnane was trained to fight as a warrior (...) and would train her daughter in...

By the way, I think actually no one of our ancient sources allow us to stretch Aristion's presence at Alexander's court more than 331 b. C.

Thank you, Dean! Your quote of Worthington is very interesting. If I interpret well his opinion, Demosthenes didn't restrict himself to sending Aristion to Hephaestion, but he managed to keep him "to live with Alexander's close friend". I wonder whether he had to play the hostage, as well,...

Is in this book any hint of Aristion, the man Demosthenes sent to Hephaestion - according to Diyllus - for the purpose of a reconciliation with Alexander (Jacoby, FGrHist 135 F 2)?

Very sad news, indeed. I read a lot of interesting comments by him, here. Rest in peace, Paul.

I agree totally with the paper of Elizabeth Baynham: I don't think a 13 years old son would change things at Alexander's death. Nobody can foresee the events, therefore nobody can solve this great "if" of history. Anyway I have two steady ideas on this matter: 1) I wondered often why many ...

Hi, Alexias, I think you are right, because Hephaestion is the only wounded man, in Arrian's passage, who belongs to the bodyguards (and, according to Diodorus 17, 61, 3, he was as well the "hegemon" of the "somatophylakes"). Therefore he was also the closest man to Alexander: it...

According to Plutarch (Life of Alexander 53, 1), Callisthenes declared that himself accompanied Alexander in Asia in order to persuade the king to rebuild the city of Olynthus and repopulate it with its former inhabitants.