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Kleitos Melas (which means "dark" not "black") was called that most likely because he had dark hair (and possibly eyes). Kleitos the "Light" was probably blond. We happen to know Kleitos came from an upper-class Macedonian family, so no, he wasn't himself a migrant from...

I was just there in May, before this part of it opened. It's nice, but I confess, I will miss being able to walk the entire site, as I was able to do in 1997. The restoration of the mosaics is impressive. BUT I was seriously NOT impressed by the "Disney-does-Greece" museum atmosphere in Ve...

Possible. Possible also that Alexander had better sight in one eye (this is before the days of glasses, ha), or better *hearing*. I had several bad ear infections as a kid (no tubes in those days), which hurt my hearing. For a while, I was all-but-deaf in the right ear and half deaf in the left. Eve...

Some general observations from somebody who's lived with this guy for 25+ years: 1) Too many people misinterpret and freak out over the fact Hephaistion was primarily a diplomatic & logistics officer. Those inclined to dismiss him, including a lot of my colleagues, see him as unimportant and inc...

Stone stole a lot, with no acknowledgement. The problem is that only characters and specific dialogue is copy-writable, not scenes, etc. It's considered too vague. But anybody familiar with ATG fiction recognizes things Stone "borrowed" without admitting it. And not just from fiction, but ...

The double-bladed axe is not an association of Hephaistos. Hephaistos's symbols are hammer and tongs, and a particular cap, sometimes a donkey. He's not shown with the double-bladed axe, which is specifically Minoan. But also THRACIAN . And that's a lot closer to home. ;) We find it's representation...

I don't think it's either one. Not sure why Waldemar thinks so.* This is a case of "looking for famous people in every image..." ;) Now, one can make a pretty decent case that the lion-hunt mosaic has Alexander in petasos (hat) on the left, and Krateros running up to save him on the right,...

It is a shame that the article i sent was in Greek , i assume you are unaware of the language, which difficulty forces even me (!) to open the dictionary on occasion.The Aegae s palace is internationaly recognise as the " Parthenon of Macedonia ", due to its amazing architecture which was...

A correction ... Aegae was not Alexander's home, quite. It was the old traditional capital. The palace at Pella would have been his "home." Speaking as someone familiar with archaeology and how quickly it advances, this "reconstruction" appalls me. See, when you recreate, you des...

I'll do my best. Amphipolis isn't on my list, but if we can get there, we will, even if just to see the outside. My chief research interest is different, however.

Thanks for the update. Hope to be back in Macedonia in May, although probably won't get here. Hoping to do lowland and some highland museums and other tombs. I know Lefkadia takes an appointment.

There is a novel by SF author Melissa Scott, called A Choice of Destinies , which posits that ATG turns back from Baktria (no India) in order to deal with rebellion in Greece, and then invades Italy. Godawful cover, but it's actually pretty good as alternate history. Some of the changes to history a...

Short answer. Yes.

Beth is the leading scholar on Olympias, hands-down.

I want to echo the difficulty in nailing down what motivated Alexander. A number of articles have been published on this, with oftentimes divergent conclusions. Ada Cohen wrote about Alexander and Homeric views, Brunt's article was already named, Ernst Badian wrote on ATG and the Loneliness of Power...

We have the Chaldean Astronomical Diaries, but they were using fairly simple tools to map the movements of planets (and stars). Ephimerides (where the planets were located on any given day) was their chief interest. They did not need even primitive telescopes; they were using much simpler instrument...