amyntoros wrote:
A legend it is!
And not the only one - Alexander's name is mentioned on the internet in reference to just about every eastern spice, fruit and food, from apricots to ices, yet the only ones I recall from the sources are bananas and aloe. OTH, he probably
was responsible for the introduction of some fruits and spices to Greece - we are told he sent samples of flora and fauna back to Aristotle. The stories going round on the internet are considerably embelished though.
Best regards,
The ices one has cropped up a lot this summer, for some reason. Sure, they're legends, but what fascinates me is where they come from. They can't suddenly have appeared out of the ether - can they? - when we got the Internet. That's why I like to dig and see if I can find clues as to how far back some of these things go.
Now this one about the saffron seemed, as Karen said, as if it might have had some basis, from the sound of the book that was quoted - until we saw a sample of its scholarship.
Even so, it may not be invention - or at least, not *modern* invention. There may be a reference in some ancient herbal or pharmacopeia. That still wouldn't mean it was true, I realise that, but suppose such a thing had been 'invented' in Roman times - would that alter our perceptions, or would we give it more credibility than a modern Internet myth?
How old does a spurious reference have to be before it starts to gain credibility?
I suppose that a lot of the material in the various Alexander Romances was the urban legend of its day, yet you sometimes see those episodes being quoted with serious intent. Not as much as the 'official' sources, but still, with a kind of respect that implies that the writer acknowledges that such-and-such might be true. Alexander and Hephaistion's trip to the Olympic Games would be a good example of that.
I think it's true, though, that the Internet has encouraged proliferation of this kind of thing. One feeds upon another, one site quotes another...one person's 'might have been' becomes the next person's 'was', and so on.
With regard to the various fruits, plants, etc, I suppose it's reasonable enough, if the plant in question was previously unknown in Greece, and becomes known around Alexander's time, to assume that it may have been one of the things he sent home, or maybe just a result of greater exchange going on, perhaps between more distant places than before.
It's even understandable - though not excusable! - for a writer to say Alexander 'took' home, when he should really have said 'sent' home, as the writer's focus is on the commodity and its appearance in Greece, not who did the actual taking.
This doesn't apply to the saffron writer, though, because, as Karen also said, the Greeks had saffron, they grew it themselves.
It would be interesting to know just how much Alexander's conquests affected trade and commerce. I don't know if a study of this has ever been done, or if the data even exist to make it possible, but it would be an interesting thing to read about.
Fiona