Everyday stuff in Alexander's world

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kate
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Everyday stuff in Alexander's world

Post by kate »

Hi everyone,I'm trying to find out information on things like weights and measures and how time was actually measured during Alexander's lifetime. Some of it I've discovered already, but can anyone recommend a good source for the smaller details? I know, for example, that the Greeks had water clocks, but did they actually measure out hours the way we do or did they have some other method? Basically, I'm interested in the small everyday details that make up daily life: we might go and buy a pound (or a kilo!) of apples, but what would a Macedonian buy?Cheers,Kate
jan
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Re: Everyday stuff in Alexander's world

Post by jan »

Hi Gail, This is a great question and I am wondering at newspapers, magazines, and other publications of the times as well. How well did Alexander read, besides the Iliad of course?
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marcus
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Re: Everyday stuff in Alexander's world

Post by marcus »

Off the top of my head I can't think of anything that will definitely give you all the answers you are looking for. But if you have access to the Oxford Classical Dictionary there is definitely *some* good information there.I remember seeing a book recently on the Greek and Roman calendars ... but it seemed very complicated to me, and I'd certainly want something a bit less complex in its explanations ... can't remember what the book was called, or who it was by, unfortunately.ATBMarcus
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ruthaki
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Re: Everyday stuff in Alexander's world

Post by ruthaki »

In the museum at Pireaus I recall seeing a lot of weights and measure that were used in the agora and other markets. Simple scales that you might find in third-world countries today. I know the water-clock in Athens (Roman period about 1 AD) was a time-piece but not sure how long before that it existed.Alexander read Xenophone at an early age and carried his copy of the Iliad with him everywhere.
He was also very interesting in theatre (dramas etc)
and could evidently recite lines of his favorite plays. As play-going was a common event in ancient time no doubt he was well versed in the work of the playwrights and poets of his time.
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Efstathios
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Re: Everyday stuff in Alexander's world

Post by Efstathios »

Alexander read a lot.He asked Eumenis (as he probably was the one in charge for these things)to bring him books.Plutarch tells us that Hiliad might have been nothing more than just an amusement to him.Maning that the influence that this book had on him was not that great as people believed.But anyway, he also read Philistos' books.One of them was about Dionysios the tyrrant from Syraccuse.He also enjoyed reading poetry and theatrical works (Euripedes e.t.c).
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amyntoros
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Re: Everyday stuff in Alexander's world

Post by amyntoros »

Hi Kate, Tracking the passage of time was in no way as simple as it is today. Different countries and city states had their own calendars and Athens even had two! I've often wondered how anyone knew what date it was, especially when circumstances arose such as Alexander extending one particular month into two so that a particular prophecy could be fulfilled! (I'm sure someone here can provide the reference as I'm too lazy to look it up.) Anyway, according to an article to be published in this month's edition of Antiquity, the ancient Greeks also probably used celestial readings in order to be in accord when it came to particular festivals and events. I.e., if they were all using different calendars, how did they know the exact day when the Oracle of Delphi could be consulted? The link is below if you have any further interest: http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/dyna ... nnovations %2Dreport.de/html/berichte/physik%5Fastronomie/bericht%2D49251.html As for measuring out hours, it was certainly different. The calendar day began at moonrise and not sunrise, and according to Robert Garland in 'Countdown To The Beginning of Timekeeping, History Today Magazine, April 1999, "Roman hours, like Greek, varied according to the length of the day, being therefore longer in summer than winter. Though the Babylonians invented a twenty-four hour day based on hours of unvarying length probably some time in the second millennium BC, their system had to wait until the invention of the mechanical clock in the Middle Ages before it was generally adopted." Even though sundials, water clocks, candles and oil lamps with markings on the side had all been invented by various peoples, I doubt that they were much in use by Alexander and an exact record of the hours passed probably wasn't of particular importance - it would be difficult to keep as well, given the varying lengths of the days. I suspect that when Alexander's army was on campaign the day was divided into watches simply by the passage of the sun and the moon. (An aside here - can anyone confirm if the Greeks used candles as well as oil-lamps? I don't recall having seen any renderings of candles in their art.) cont.
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amyntoros
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Re: Everyday stuff in Alexander's world

Post by amyntoros »

Weights and measures also varied by country. Jona's Livius site has an excellent page on this, although I thought they had different measurements for weighing things such as grain. Could be I'm remembering incorrectly though.http://www.livius.org/w/weights/weights.html#MoneyBest regards,Amyntoros
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chris
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Re: Everyday stuff in Alexander's world

Post by chris »

It begs the question how accurate are ATGs birthdate and death dates.
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amyntoros
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Re: Everyday stuff in Alexander's world

Post by amyntoros »

I do wonder myself how on earth anyone can fix dates with absolute accuracy when they happened well over two thousand years ago, but then again I know little about astronomical calculations. Back in August 94 I posted on Jeanne Reammes-Zimmerman's Livejournal about a USA Today article wherein a group of astronomers claimed that the battle of Marathon took place a month earlier than the accepted date of September 12th. In her reply she said that Ernst Badian once went to the astronomy department at Harvard and got them to calculate the new moon in 356 BCE in order to determine which date was really the 6th of Loos. According to their calculations, Alexander was born on the 19th of July and not the 20th! BTW, it took me forever to search Jeanne's archives and find the reference and I really should give the URL when I'm quoting her, so here it is: :-)http://www.livejournal.com/community/me ... 9.htmlThen there's Jona Lendering who, in his review of Frank Holt's Into the Land of Bones -http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2005/2005-08-35.html - says that Alexander died on June 11th and not June 10th and refers to Leo Depuydt, "The Time of Death of Alexander the Great: 11 June 323 BC, ca. 4:00-5:00 PM" in: Die Welt des Orients 28 (1997) 117-135. Jona gives this date as a *fact* and lists it amongst the few brief errors in Holt's book! Now, I would love to know more about this article and whether this new date is universally accepted in the academic community (haven't read anything about it elsewhere). I would have asked Jona himself, but I suspect he doesn't check Pothos on a regular basis. This talk of dates does bring me to another thought: It's been asked here before if Alexander actually celebrated his birthday and although there were various opinions there was no consensus, simply because we have no hard facts. Now does anyone know of ANY record of a birthday been celebrated by any ancient, up to and including Alexander's time? I haven't come across any, but that doesn't mean they don't exist as I mostly read the sources specific to Alexander. I'd love to know if someone has seen mention of a birthday celebration somewhere. Anywhere?! :-)All the best,Amyntoros.
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