A Candle for Alexander

This moderated forum is for discussion of Alexander the Great. Inappropriate posts will be deleted without warning. Examples of inappropriate posts are:
* The Greek/Macedonian debate
* Blatant requests for pre-written assignments by lazy students - we don't mind the subtle ones ;-)
* Foul or inappropriate language

Moderator: pothos moderators

User avatar
Fiona
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 346
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2007 10:55 am
Location: England

A Candle for Alexander

Post by Fiona »

Last year, I and some friends in another group commemorated the anniversary of Alexander's death by keeping a candle alight for a certain time on 10th June, between midnight and midnight, Greek time. As we are online friends from all over the world, we managed between us, to cover the whole 24 hours, so that somewhere in the world, on that day, a candle was burning for Alexander. We had a timetable, and said which hours we could do. We're going to do the same thing again this year, and thought we'd invite people from other groups to join in with us.
So here I am inviting Pothosians to join in the commemoration. If you'd like to do this, just let me know what hours you would like, in Greek time, and we'll put you on the timetable, and send you a copy of it so you can see where all the candles will be.
(Greek time is eastern European time, that's GMT/BST+2)
The people who took part last year found it to be a profoundly moving experience - that's why we want to do it again, and share the experience more widely.
Fiona
User avatar
Vergina Sun
Pezhetairos (foot soldier)
Posts: 131
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2007 3:24 pm
Location: USA

Post by Vergina Sun »

Hi Fiona,

I would have loved to commemorate Alexander's death anniversary with you! Unfortunately, I have been out of town and was unable to have Internet access for a while. Still, I think it's a wonderful and very touching idea. I'm disappointed that I was unable to join, but perhaps next year you'll do it again. I certainly hope so because it sounds like such a thoughtful and meaningful way to remember Alexander the Great! :D
User avatar
Fiona
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 346
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2007 10:55 am
Location: England

Post by Fiona »

Oh, I am sorry you missed it! But it's very nice to know that you would have liked to join in. Sixteen people took part this year, and I'm sure we'll be doing it again next year. I'll remember to let you know.
Fiona
Vergina Sun wrote:Hi Fiona,

I would have loved to commemorate Alexander's death anniversary with you! Unfortunately, I have been out of town and was unable to have Internet access for a while. Still, I think it's a wonderful and very touching idea. I'm disappointed that I was unable to join, but perhaps next year you'll do it again. I certainly hope so because it sounds like such a thoughtful and meaningful way to remember Alexander the Great! :D
Semiramis
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 403
Joined: Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:24 pm

Post by Semiramis »

"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." - Joseph Stalin ;)
ruthaki
Strategos (general)
Posts: 1229
Joined: Sat Jul 13, 2002 5:31 pm
Location: Vancouver B.C. Canada

Alexander's death commemorated

Post by ruthaki »

I missed this candle vigil because I was in California. However a few years back when I happened to be in Thessaloniki on that date, I placed flowers at the base of the statue of Alexander riding Bucephalus.
User avatar
Fiona
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 346
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2007 10:55 am
Location: England

Re: Alexander's death commemorated

Post by Fiona »

ruthaki wrote:I missed this candle vigil because I was in California. However a few years back when I happened to be in Thessaloniki on that date, I placed flowers at the base of the statue of Alexander riding Bucephalus.
What a great place to be on that date. I should imagine that was a very moving moment. I only know the statue from a photograph - the one in Laura Foreman's book, where it's covered in snow - but it looks a really good one.
Fiona
ruthaki
Strategos (general)
Posts: 1229
Joined: Sat Jul 13, 2002 5:31 pm
Location: Vancouver B.C. Canada

Alexander remembered

Post by ruthaki »

At the time I recall there was also a wreath placed there in his memory. That was during the famous squabble with FROM so the Macedonians were really showing their solidarity. I've been to the statue a lot of times. It's a beauty!
Katerina

Re: A Candle for Alexander

Post by Katerina »

I'm really sorry I missed this ! I hope I can participate next year.
User avatar
Fiona
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 346
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2007 10:55 am
Location: England

Re: A Candle for Alexander

Post by Fiona »

Hello Katerina, nice to meet you. Yes, we will certainly be doing this again next year, I'll remember to let you have the details.
Fiona
Katerina wrote:I'm really sorry I missed this ! I hope I can participate next year.
User avatar
Fiona
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 346
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2007 10:55 am
Location: England

Re: A Candle for Alexander

Post by Fiona »

2009 Commemoration

Vergina Sun, Ruthaki, Katerina, and anyone else who is interested and would like to join in - we will be lighting candles again this year on June 10th.
If you'd like to participate, just let me know what hours you would like to do, and I will put you on the timetable and send you a copy, so you can see where all the other candles will be lit.
We run from midnight to midnight, Greek time, so don't forget that if you're west of Greece, the later hours of June 9th will be available to you.
Thank you,
Fiona
User avatar
Taphoi
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 932
Joined: Sat Apr 15, 2006 3:32 pm
Location: Bristol, England, UK
Contact:

Re: A Candle for Alexander

Post by Taphoi »

Dear Fiona,

I fear you may have been bamboozled by calendar reform. Presumably, you would like to commemorate the anniversary of Alexander's death on 10th June? What you may not realise is that the date 10th June (which is the day on which Alexander was pronounced dead according to the Ephemerides) is in a different calendar to the one we use. Ancient dates are mostly still expressed in the Julian calendar, because that was the calendar that the Roman imperial period writers were using (after AD8 anyway). But we use the Gregorian calendar that was introduced in 1582. The Gregorian calendar more or less keeps the equinoxes in the same place in the calendar, whereas in the Julian calendar the equinoxes drift by 3 days every 400 years. Roughly speaking the two calendars coincide only in the 3rd century AD. Alexander died nearly six centuries earlier so I think you need to subtract about 5 days from the Julian date to get the Gregorian date for his death, i.e. circa 5th or 6th June 323BC (I am assuming that 10th June is given in the modern version of the Julian calendar where BC dates are projected back from where the Julian calendar settled down in AD8, which I think is true). This is not only the correct date in the calendar that you seem to be using for your commemoration, but it also means that you will be commemorating the event at the correct point on the Earth's orbit, which was probably your intention.

(Mind you, the 11th and the 13th June [Julian] also have a claim to be the date that Alexander was pronounced dead and, if he was actually in a terminal coma, his real date of death may have been even later.)

Best wishes,

Andrew
User avatar
Fiona
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 346
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2007 10:55 am
Location: England

Re: A Candle for Alexander

Post by Fiona »

Hi Andrew, and thanks for all this information. Yes, it is indeed the anniversary of Alexander's death that we wish to commemorate, and yes, bamboozled is right, or confused, or flummoxed!
This started on another site, a fan fiction site, and most of us have enough trouble getting our heads round modern time zones, never mind the Julian and Gregorian calendars...
We had trouble in the first place choosing which date to go for out of the variety on offer in different books, but we went for June 10th because Robin Lane Fox and Paul Cartledge both had that date.
So, if I've understood you correctly, when they say June 10th, they mean the date that Roman writers would have called June 10th, but is now actually about five days earlier? That's very interesting - I've heard of the Gregorian calendar reforms, of course, but I kind of assumed modern writers would already have factored that in when quoting dates, I didn't realise it was a convention to keep the Julian dates. Because they must have been translated in the first place, mustn't they? I mean, the Macedonians wouldn't have called anything 'June', I know they had their own names for months.
(You don't happen to know what they would have called it, do you?)
I guess I was thinking that modern books would have taken the Roman date back to whatever it would have been in Greek dates, then jumped to Gregorian from there.
Well, as for the commemoration, I don't know that we were too worried about the accuracy of the point in the earth's orbit part - although some people might be, so I'll ask around, and if they like, we can have it more accurate next year.
I think that for most of us, though, June 10th is as good as day as any other - just a symbolic date, in a way - the important part being the sharing of the commemoration.
A thing that would never have been possible without the Internet - we live in amazing times!
Many thanks for explaining this,
Fiona

Taphoi wrote:Dear Fiona,

I fear you may have been bamboozled by calendar reform. Presumably, you would like to commemorate the anniversary of Alexander's death on 10th June? What you may not realise is that the date 10th June (which is the day on which Alexander was pronounced dead according to the Ephemerides) is in a different calendar to the one we use. Ancient dates are mostly still expressed in the Julian calendar, because that was the calendar that the Roman imperial period writers were using (after AD8 anyway). But we use the Gregorian calendar that was introduced in 1582. The Gregorian calendar more or less keeps the equinoxes in the same place in the calendar, whereas in the Julian calendar the equinoxes drift by 3 days every 400 years. Roughly speaking the two calendars coincide only in the 3rd century AD. Alexander died nearly six centuries earlier so I think you need to subtract about 5 days from the Julian date to get the Gregorian date for his death, i.e. circa 5th or 6th June 323BC (I am assuming that 10th June is given in the modern version of the Julian calendar where BC dates are projected back from where the Julian calendar settled down in AD8, which I think is true). This is not only the correct date in the calendar that you seem to be using for your commemoration, but it also means that you will be commemorating the event at the correct point on the Earth's orbit, which was probably your intention.

(Mind you, the 11th and the 13th June [Julian] also have a claim to be the date that Alexander was pronounced dead and, if he was actually in a terminal coma, his real date of death may have been even later.)

Best wishes,

Andrew
User avatar
Taphoi
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 932
Joined: Sat Apr 15, 2006 3:32 pm
Location: Bristol, England, UK
Contact:

Re: A Candle for Alexander

Post by Taphoi »

Hi Fiona,

Plutarch cites the Ephemerides (Alexander's Royal Journal) for Alexander's date of death - he says they gave 28th Daisios in the Macedonian calendar. Modern chronologists have converted that to 10th June in the projected back Julian calendar. In fact, the Roman version of the Julian calendar didn't coincide with our version until about AD8, about 50 years after Julius Caesar introduced it. This was because it wasn't used precisely correctly until after that date - there were various misunderstandings and confusions. Hence a Roman writer would probably not have known anything about 10th June for Alexander's death. We can only be so accurate in converting the calendars because of events like the lunar eclipse before Gaugamela, the date of which we can calculate precisely, so giving a pinion point to connect the calendars.

What I am trying to say is that I think 28th Daisios occurred about 76 days after the Vernal Equinox (day in spring on which the day and night are equal in duration - 12 hours each) in 323BC. Hence if you wish to commemorate the exact number of years since Alexander's death, you need to go for about 5th June (because the Vernal Equinox is on 21st March in our calendar.)

Hope this is clearer.

Andrew
User avatar
Paralus
Chiliarch
Posts: 2875
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:13 am
Location: Sydney, Australia
Contact:

Re: A Candle for Alexander

Post by Paralus »

The date rendered by those whose task it was to note these things - amongst others - in the "Astronomical Diaries" would be June 11 323 BC.

It's not that important so I'd just pick a comfortable date and go with it.
Paralus
Ἐπὶ τοὺς πατέρας, ὦ κακαὶ κεφαλαί, τοὺς μετὰ Φιλίππου καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου τὰ ὅλα κατειργασμένους;
Wicked men, you sin against your fathers, who conquered the whole world under Philip and Alexander.

Academia.edu
User avatar
Fiona
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 346
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2007 10:55 am
Location: England

Re: A Candle for Alexander

Post by Fiona »

Thanks, Andrew, that's very clear, I get the picture now. Very interesting too, to see how these things are worked out. The idea of the projected back Julian calendar was new to me.
Many thanks,
Fiona
Post Reply