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As I mentioned in the previous post I have just read the piece on Philip's Death. Therein I found a good deal of confusion over the nature of the various Guard units in Philip's Army.Imagine my delight when I found the same errors in the late professor Hammond's 'King, Statesman, Commander'.To start...

I finally got round to reading Halil and SikanderGÇÖs piece on the death of Philip II this weekend and was siezed with the urge to spill ink.They make great play of the fact that Alexander was threatened by KleopatraGÇÖs son Karanos; there is one problem with that : she bore no son !KaranosGÇÖ exist...

I got that game a while back but as a figure based gamer, or a big kid who likes playing with toy soldiers ( according to the local female population) I could never get on ith the mechanisms. I remember at Chaironea the Thebaban phalanx performing all sorts of weird and wonderful wheels that would h...

In fact this is not an RPG but a rather poor tactical wargame of Gaugamela which is reduced to a straight slogging match because both sides stretch to the board edge due to a designer's quirk. I speak as a wargamer and remember this getting slated by Charles Grant, now deceased, in the 70's.Sadly I ...

How about - a year's course in anger management from the friends of Kleitos, some deodorant from Demades (of the posthumous kind), and the head of a satrap on a plate (but not Franklin Mint).

I realise that much has been said on this subject but on re-reading Plutarch i realised I had been slandering Olympias, in chap 77 a certain Hagnothemis is named as the source and he claims Antigonos told him.Clearly this is Antigonid propaganda against the Antipatridae and since I cannot recall eve...

If you go to any Public Lending Library they will supply a photo-copy of any article, via the British Library sadly the days when all it cost was 40p when the thing arrived are gone now the request is 60p and you pay for the photocopying but only at cost.I think I have a couple of those articles ,ho...

You might argue that since Rome in the form of Gabinius re-established Ptolemy XII Auletes Egypt had become a client state by 55 BC.

I think a salient point is being missed here; yes Curtius, Diodorus, Plutarch, Arrian and Justin all mention the poisoning theory but ultimately all this shows is that they had all read the same source ie Kleitarchos. Arrian and Plutarch reject it, Curtius and Diodoros pay it lip service ; only Just...

What you say is quite correct, however , I was referring more to the Persian system of government which concentrated power in the person of the Great King thus once the King was defeated The Empire was conquered, whereas Rome could lose any number of consuls since they would spring hydra-like from t...

I t is true that Rome in the Fourth Century was not the great power she was to become in the Third but she was well on the way. Despite the defeat at the Caudine Forks 321BC she rallied and went on to subjugate the Marsi, Paelegini and Hernicii, defeat rumblings in Etruria and eventually in 310 defe...

Aha! But Badian in his latest work in 'Alexander in Fact and Fiction' edited by Bosworth suggests that the Dimnos Conspiracy was a canard, and that Philotas could not have reported it as he was never told about it in the first place! Alexander subborning witnesses against Philotas or even inventing ...

This question has been approached fictionally in 'A Choice of Destinies' by Melissa Scott however it is long out of print but may be available from the library. She posits a world where Rome is defeated by Alexander, personally I can't see it Attacking Rome was like attacking Moscow, military suicide.

There is of course the possibility that they included Alexander but not Olympias! Sadly the mother was dominant over the father in Alexander's psychology

Before this disappears I would just like to add my two staters worth.First why either visionary or Tyrant most visionaries are given to tyrranical means 'Change is born of Blood' as Marx has it I think. Ignoring our era think of Peter The Great, he dragged Russia out of the Middle ages but there was...