' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Discuss Philip's achievements and Macedonia pre-Alexander

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Xenophon
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by Xenophon »

Agesilaos wrote:
Oh dear! You seem particularly confused by a very simple matter. As can seen above Arrian’s source was Aristoboulos of Kassandreia, who gives the month as Daisios a Macedonian month which runs parallel with Aiiaru of the Astronomical Diary, done to the very day – the last day of the month 29 for the astronomer and 30 for Aristoboulos, due to different counting systems rather than radically different calendars.
I am not confused at all. You provide some detailed information on the date of the death of Alexander, which is not at issue at all, but perhaps of interest to those of the general readership not familiar with it.

You based your 'count-back' on Alexander having reigned 12 years 7/8 months, but that is not the only length of reign given for Alexander. The best account, because it is contemporary, is that of the Babylonian astronomical diaries - and that apparently gives his reign as 14 years and 2 months ! [see your post above – but one would like to check that further, is the figure an interpolation or original?]. The reason the Macedonian calendar exactly parallels the Baylonian one to the day is because it had been re-aligned to do just that - see my post. According to Jona Lendering this had been done by Aristotle, after he'd been sent translations of the 'Astronomical diaries' by his nephew Callisthenes. Within a year, the calendar had been reformed. That would mean that the 'new' calendar was different to the 'old', original Macedonian calendar of Philip's day ( rather like the old Julian Christian calendar is different to the modern Gregorian one).The ‘new’ calendar was in effect the the Babylonian one with Macedonian names.

You have also left out, or overlooked, at least two other important clues:

The 'Oxyrhyncus chronologist' reckoned Alexander's reign at 13 years.
( since writing this I see you have added another post referring to this as just a ‘rounded’ figure, but there is no need to assume this to necessarily be the case)

Before the Granicus, there were Macedonian officers who were uneasy about fighting a battle ostensibly because Macedonians traditionally avoided fighting during 'Daesius ( May/early June ), naturally,as it was harvest month. This does not seem to be an inflexible rule however, and when needs must, they seem to have campaigned and fought. Nevertheless, Alexander decreed an inter-calary month by renaming 'Daesius' as a second 'Artemesios' [ the preceding month], thus creating an inter-calary month. ( Plutarch "Alexander" XVI.2). That seems a rather extreme reaction to what must have been a minor superstition.But what if it was unlucky because a Macedonian King ( Philip) had been killed in that month ? That would have seemed like a serious omen, and explain Alexander’s action. And it begs the question of whether Alexander ‘tinkered’ with the calendar on other occasions. For example he tinkered with the month that Tyre fell by changing it from a ‘hollow’[29 day] month to a ‘full’[30 day] month in order to comply with Aristander’s prediction.

Ancient rulers felt little compunction in altering calendars to suit their own purposes, which alone can throw out calculations.......

As Welles observes in the Loeb, an intercalary month often came at the end of a regnal year - he places Philip's death in early summer/Daesius. [incidently Badian and Beloch also seem to place the assassination early in the year.]

If that is the case, then the ‘Oxyrhyncus chronologist’ would be correct in giving Alexander’s reign at 13 years. ( or it could be co-incidental if the figure is in fact rounded to a particular year).
“....which include embolimic months of Gorpiaios and Dystros rather than, Hyperberetaios and Xandikos;”
In six of the seven leap years, Xandikos was repeated. In the remaining leap year Hyperberetaios was repeated. The use of Gorpiaios and Dystros did not occur until much later, probably 2 C AD.
“We can therefore ignore the Egyptian re-herring (the Macedonian calendar used in Egypt was the same as that elsewhere, the Egyptian Civil and Lunar calendars both had different month names and are, thus excluded by Aristoboulos’ statement that the date was in Daisios)”
The invaders brought the (original?) Macedonian calendar with them to Egypt. This calendar was modified by adopting a fixed leap year cycle, albeit a quite crude one, from ca 280 BCE on. In the latter half of the third century BCE the cycle seems not to have been used anymore, and from ca 200 BCE on the Egyptian calendar was used with Macedonian month names. A source working in Alexandria after this date might well use a contemporary calendar. But let us take your statement regarding Aristoboulos as correct.
“the re-aligned calendar with a new start (it did not exist), leaving the standard Macedonian one which is evidently in line with the Babylonian in 323, including embolimic months.”
I don’t know where you get this from. Every source I have read (quite a number) state that matters were as I have written above – that the ‘old’ Macedonian calendar was re-aligned with the Babylonian one, to become the ‘new’ Macedonian calendar. It was not co-incidence, as you imply, that the two were aligned.
“What of the intercalated months? Another red-herring; the question is did the ancients count the number of months and divide by twelve to determine the number of years (despite the fact that there were thirteen months in 7/19 years), or if they took account of them some other way? Fortunately a good check exists, the reign of Philip III which began 1st Panemos and ended six years and four months later (Diod XIX 11 v).

Panemos 323, if we count embolimic months and we have 76 months and his deposition or death comes in Loios 317, July, if we count years from the anniversary of his accession and add four months we come to Dios 317 (October), a two month difference we also have a report, most likely of his death, from Babylon LBAT 1414 dated to late December. Either two or four months after his rule ended.”
The fact that these sources counted whole years and odd months is immaterial, and is incorrect for purposes of calculation. You are trying to ‘count back’to arrive at a correct month, and thus need to know the correct number of months, so your first method is the correct one, placing his death in July.

Applying this correct method of the number of months, including embolimic ones, to Alexander’s reign we need to add in the (probably) five intercalary months of his reign, and that takes Alexander’s accession/Philip’s death to ‘Daesius’/May early June aprox, or thereabouts in the late Spring.

.Then there is the circumstantial evidence. Philip had his assembled army with him, having earlier that year opened the war with Persia by sending an ‘advance force’ under Attalus and Parmenion [who were incidently campaigning and fighting through ‘Daesius’]. Clearly it would be joined by Philip and the full Graeco/Macedonian army, and so must have been earlier in the year rather than later ( otherwise, if late in the year, we have no information on what Philip did that year).

Second, we are told Philip set out his planned celebration and invitations “Straightaway” in the year [Diod XVI.91.4]

Third, with people flocking from far and wide, that event would hardly occur at the onset of winter, for they would not be able to travel home.

Fourthly, we don’t hear of a winter before Alexander embarks on campaign. [Diod XVII.1.2ff has all this, including Philip’s death take place in 335 BC], again implying Philip’s death was early in the year.

Since there are two different calendars, any simple ‘count-back’ can’t be correct. There are, as I said, many uncertainties regarding dating.

Also your calculation method is indeed certainly incorrect – you can’t mix whole years of differing numbers of months, and odd months to ‘count back’ to a particular month.

If a simplistic count-back were a solution, why do scholars differ so much in their estimates? (rhetorical question ! )
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by Xenophon »

Agesilaos wrote:
As can be seen the fingers, phalanges and the small bones of the hands, all in yellow are in place as are the radii and their ulnae, in red and green and the carpal joints are proximal enough to call this ‘articulated’. Yes it has been ‘disturbed’, but it is not scattered as would be the case with scavenging animals.
Either you were having a ‘senior moment, or else you need to re-read some basic anatomy texts. The picture does not show arms, radii ,ulnae or fingers !
It is in fact a picture of the lower legs, being a close up of the photo I posted on Dec 10. Red are the tibiae; green are the fibulae; yellow are the tarsals and metatarsals – though most of the 40 odd bones per foot are ‘missing’. The top tibia is the ankylosed one. As can be seen from my Dec 10 post the femurs are over a foot away (lower right in picture, sticking out of fill). That is hardly ‘articulated’.
You seem confused by just what ‘forensic’ means this link might help.
https://debate.uvm.edu/NFL/rostrumlib/f ... 002-03.pdf

Yes, I do know what ‘forensic means, but I don’t think you do. Nothing you’ve linked to adds anything. Try looking up ‘forensic lawyer’ to get an idea of my background. F.Y.I, there are ‘Forensic Accountants too !!
Look at these pictures, some ribs are there adjacent ones are not similarly for the facial bones and other parts of the skull; like I said it no mystery, except it seems to a life-long ‘forensic lawyer’; a court case involving fossils sounds interesting.
What is apparent in your examples is that the crumbled organic remains of destroyed bones ( whether by biotic or abiotic means) are present, but this does not seem to be the case with the Tomb 1 skeleton ( c.f photo posted Dec 10 with these examples) where for example, most of the foot bones are simply ‘missing.’ But no matter, there is no way of being any the wiser....

Most people think that fossils must be older than 10,000 years by definition, but that is not the case. Under the right conditions, the actual process of fossilisation can occur in tens or even just hundreds of years. The court case in question involved stolen human fossils that were just a few thousand years old.....

Well, since we are completely removed from the subject of Philip’s lameness and Bartsiokis’postulations,( which, let us be reminded, Agesilaos doesn't support either) and I don’t care to continue a debate on the completely different subject of the date of Philip’s assassination - I've said all I need to - I don’t intend to post further on this thread..... (though I appreciate chronology problems are rather a hobby horse for Agesilaos ! )
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by agesilaos »

The 14 years and 2 month is a restoration, but a computationally correct one according to the Babylonian convention. There was no accession year in Macedonia so year one is the actual year of his accession between

1 Nisannu 336 and 1 Nisannu 335 =yr 1
1 Nisannu 335 and 1 Nisannu 334 =yr 2
1 Nisannu 334 and 1 Nisannu 333 =yr 3
1 Nisannu 333 and 1 Nisannu 332 =yr 4
1 Nisannu 332 and 1 Nisannu 331 =yr 5
1 Nisannu 331 and 1 Nisannu 330 =yr 6
1 Nisannu 330 and 1 Nisannu 329 =yr 7
1 Nisannu 329 and 1 Nisannu 328 =yr 8
1 Nisannu 328 and 1 Nisannu 327 =yr 9
1 Nisannu 327 and 1 Nisannu 326 =yr 10
1 Nisannu 326 and 1 Nisannu 325 =yr 11
1 Nisannu 325 and 1 Nisannu 324 =yr 12
1 Nisannu 324 and 1 Nisannu 323 =yr 13
1 Nisannu 323 and 1 Nisannu 322 =yr 14 dies in second month, Aiiaru

We know this is the way they counted because we know that Alexander entered Babylon 20/1 October (Tashrittu 13/4 BM 36390+36761 = AD 331) 331 BC; we also know that this part year was reckoned an accession year and that the next year was his seventh which can only work on this scheme. As pointed out above IG3 322 precludes Philip dying before Hekatombaion 336 (July), so Alexander’s first year must be the part year he ascended.
The reason the Macedonian calendar exactly parallels the Baylonian one to the day is because it had been re-aligned to do just that - see my post. According to Jona Lendering this had been done by Aristotle, after he'd been sent translations of the 'Astronomical diaries' by his nephew Callisthenes. Within a year, the calendar had been reformed. That would mean that the 'new' calendar was different to the 'old', original Macedonian calendar of Philip's day ( rather like the old Julian Christian calendar is different to the modern Gregorian one).The ‘new’ calendar was in effect the Babylonian one with Macedonian names.

There is, unfortunately no evidence for such a reform, it is an inference from the coincidence of Alexander’s death day in both calendars and the tale in the 6th Century AD commentator on Aristotle, Simplicimus of KilikIa, that Alexander had the texts translated and sent to Aristotle. Yet the Greeks had been aware of Babylonian astronomy much earlier, Meton introduced his 19 year cycle in 432BC clearly based on Babylonian models which Darius I had accepted in his reform of the Achaemenid calendar (certainly by 503 BC). This may well have been used in Macedonia from this time too, since the Kingdom was heavily influenced by, if not under the control of, the Persian Empire at the time.

Any variation due to the Kallippic refinement would be in the order of a day or so (if that), not the six or seven months required to retroject Philip’s assassination to Xandikos.

An obvious point I forgot (yes senior moments are multiplying) is that

Arrian I 1 i
IT is said that Philip died when Pythodelus was archon at Athens, and that his son Alexander, being then about twenty years of age, marched into Peloponnesus as soon as he had secured the regal power.
Diod XVI 91 i
When Pythodorus was archon at Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Quintus Publius and Tiberius Aemilius Mamercus, and the one hundred and eleventh celebration of the Olympic Games took place, in which Cleomantis of Cleitor won the foot-race. 2 In this year, King Philip, installed as leader by the Greeks, opened the war with Persia by sending into Asia as an advance party Attalus and Parmenion
BUT
Diod XVII 2 i
When Evaenetus was archon at Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Lucius Furius and Gaius Manius. In this year Alexander, succeeding to the throne, first inflicted due punishment on his father's murderers, and then devoted himself to the funeral of his father.
Marmor Parium 101/2
1)_____________ [Philip died] and Ale[xander] is king, 72 years, when Pythodelus was archon at Athens.
Oxyrhynchos Chronographer (P.Oxy 12) Col III 18-27
In the archonship of Pythodelos (336-335) Philip king of Macedon was assassinated by Pausanias, one of his bodyguards (doryphoroi), and was succeeded by his son Alexander
.

Pythodelos was archon July 336 to July 335 (Loios in Macedonian); Diodoros has goofed and made the assassination on the midnight of 1st of Hekatombaion335 so that the death can fall in one archonship and the accession in the next, clearly a nonsense, he has just swept the events of the remainder of Pythodelos’ archonship into that of Euainaitos.

Thirteen years from the archonship of Pythodelos would be July 323 to July 322, Alexander would have had to survive his death by at least a month for this not to be a round number. I have posted the full P.Oxy 12 on the Off-Topic thread, people can judge its worth and this does not include the tutors corrections in the missing bottom margins; fortunately we do not have to rely on this author for the archon date!

I too have read the footnotes and they do not impress me. The Granikos story mentions nothing about the taboo concerning the death of the previous king, nor is the taboo mentioned elsewhere. Further, were this a normal embolic month ie the one after the accession month the story loses its point; it has to be an irregular intercalation for it to have any point. Nor is there any evidence that the embolic month was that after the accession that I have come across. No story of calendric manipulation comes from outside Plutarch, making them somewhat suspect; they point to both Alexander’s superstition and his refusal to bow even to the constraints of Time, topoi suitable for the biographer’s illustrative purpose but less so for serious history.

The same applies for Welles’ footnote
The date of Philip's death is discussed by K. J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte2, 3.2 (1923), 59. The news had not yet reached Athens by the end of the civil year 337/6 B.C.;IG II2.1.240 in the tenth prytany does not know of it. On the other hand, the time must be early in the summer, for Philip was busy with preparations for an invasion of Asia Minor. A possible clue to the date is furnished by the statement of Plutarch, Alexander, 16.2, concerning the battle of the Granicus: this would have taken place in the month Daesius, but as that was unlucky, Alexander ordered the intercalation of a second Artemisius. Since there is some evidence that the intercalary month was the last month of the regnal year, this establishes a certain presumption that Philip died and Alexander came to the throne in Daesius; and this squares well enough with the evidence of the Attic inscription. Since Alexander died in Daesius, the Oxyrhynchus chronologist was correct in crediting him thirteen years of reign
There is a glaring error Philip was not ‘busy with preparations for an invasion of Asia Minor’ according to Diodoros (above) he had already, ‘opened the war with Persia by sending into Asia as an advance party Attalus and Parmenion’ the rest is supposition and the last statement patently false; all in all, not a good day at the office for Mr Welles.

Your comment
In six of the seven leap years, Xandikos was repeated. In the remaining leap year Hyperberetaios was repeated. The use of Gorpiaios and Dystros did not occur until much later, probably 2 C AD.
What was written
So we are dealing with the Macedonian calendar, which still began in Dios (and always did until a first century realignment by the Arsacids) this is demonstrable by the six month lag between dual dates of the Seleukid Era given in Greek and Babylonian style, the Parthian adjustment is shown by Josephos’ usage, and particularly coin inscriptions which include embolimic months of Gorpiaios and Dystros rather than, Hyperberetaios and Xandikos; a fuller exposition in ‘Arrian’s Monthly Problem’ and a link to G R F Assar in his article ‘Parthian Calendars at Babylon and Seleucia on the Tigris’ Iran Vol 41 (2003) pp171-191.
The assimilation occurred under Ptolemy V, as you say circa 200BC but although there was a mooted move to assimilation earlier under Ptolemy II post 280 evidence shows this did not occur for all matters of Egyptian chronology start here

http://www.tyndalehouse.com/Egypt/ptole ... endars.htm

It is not my statement about Aristoboulos but those of Arrian and Plutarch both quoting him. As for ‘every source’ you have read, without a proper reference they may as well not exist as their arguments and ‘evidence’ have not been presented. Nor do I suggest that the coincidence was coincidental, the source was the Darian introduction of the Metonic regulated calendar seventy years before Meton.
The fact that these sources counted whole years and odd months is immaterial
Except for the fact that it demonstrates we are not dealing with a ‘rounded’ number of years!
Applying this correct method of the number of months, including embolimic ones, to Alexander’s reign we need to add in the (probably) five intercalary months of his reign, and that takes Alexander’s accession/Philip’s death to ‘Daesius’/May early June aprox, or thereabouts in the late Spring.
And ignore the epigraphic evidence and put it in the wrong archonship, but that’s immaterial, I suppose. A leap year (one with an embolimic month) is still just a year; consider annual magistrates, their year of office runs to the end of the year, leap or not and in Athens where the evidence is most plentiful, the prytannies were adjusted to the new length of the year. Your proposal of the ‘correct’ method means that Aristoboulos could not count his twelve years include leap years you propose counting the leap months twice, another nonsense. Oh dear! :roll:

The rest will have to wait; Merry Xmas nevertheless. :D
When you think about, it free-choice is the only possible option.
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by agesilaos »

The so-called ‘circumstantial evidence’ might elsewhere be termed ‘unevidenced supposition’; no source says that the army had been assembled, in fact they rather suggest the opposite. Diodoros says, XV 91 vi
Out of all Greece he summoned his personal guest-friends and ordered the members of his court to bring along as many as they could of their acquaintances from abroad. He was determined to show himself to the Greeks as an amiable person and to respond to the honours conferred when he was appointed to the supreme command with appropriate entertainment.
Had he been assembling the League Army one might have expected these guest-friends to already be present, there would certainly be no shortage of Greeks to be made good, there would presumably be the 7,600 allies with whom Alexander was later to cross into Asia. Nor is any Macedonian army attested, only the Hypaspists. It is not clear when Philip planned to join the advance force, it is evident that it could have held its own until the campaigning season of 335 since it was not reinforced until 334 when Alexander finally crossed.
otherwise, if late in the year, we have no information on what Philip did that year
By way of example
72 1 When Sosigenes was archon at Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Marcus Valerius and Marcus Gnaeus Publius. In this year, Arymbas king of the Molossians died after a rule of ten years, leaving a son Aeacides, Pyrrhus's father, but Alexander the brother of Olympias succeeded to the throne with the backing of Philip of Macedon.
2 In Sicily, Timoleon made an expedition against Leontini, for this was the city where Hicetas had taken refuge with a substantial army. He launched an assault on the part called Neapolis, but since the soldiers in the city were numerous and had an advantage in fighting from the walls, he accomplished nothing and broke off the siege. 3 Passing on to the p43city Engyum, which was controlled by the tyrant Leptines, he assailed it with repeated attacks in the hope of expelling Leptines and restoring to the city its freedom. 4 Taking advantage of his preoccupation, Hicetas led out his entire force and attempted to lay siege to Syracuse, but lost many of his men and hastily retreated back to Leontini. 5 Leptines was frightened into submission, and Timoleon shipped him off to the Peloponnese under a safe-conduct, giving the Greeks tangible evidence of the results of his programme of defeating and expelling tyrants.
The city of Apollonia had also been under Leptines. On taking it, Timoleon restored its autonomy as well as that of the city of Engyum.
73 1 Lacking funds to pay his mercenaries, he sent a thousand men with his best officers into the part of Sicily ruled by the Carthaginians. They pillaged a large area, and, carrying off a large amount of plunder, delivered it to Timoleon. Selling this and realizing a large sum of money, he paid his mercenaries for a long term of service. 2 He took Entella also and, after putting to death the fifteen persons who were the strongest supporters of the Carthaginians, restored the rest to independence. As his strength and military reputation grew, all the Greek cities in Sicily began to submit themselves voluntarily to him, thanks to his policy of restoring to all their autonomy. Many too of the cities of the Sicels and the Sicanians and the rest who were subject to the Carthaginians approached him through embassies in a desire to be included in his alliance.
3 The Carthaginians recognized that their generals in Sicily were conducting the war in a spiritless manner and decided to send out new ones, together with heavy reinforcements Straightway they made a levy for the campaign from among their noblest citizens and made suitable drafts among the Libyans. Furthermore, appropriating a large sum of money, they enlisted mercenaries from among the Iberians, Celts, and Ligurians. They were occupied also with the construction of battleships. They assembled many freighters and manufactured other supplies in enormous quantities.
So all Philip did in 342/1 was support Alexander for the Molossian throne? We cannot expect a full account of the actions of any player in an epitome; so the point is facile.
Second, we are told Philip set out his planned celebration and invitations “Straightaway” in the year [Diod XVI.91.4]
Not quite, we are told
When Pythodorus was archon at Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Quintus Publius and Tiberius Aemilius Mamercus, and the one hundred and eleventh celebration of the Olympic Games took place, in which Cleomantis of Cleitor won the foot-race. 2 In this year, King Philip, installed as leader by the Greeks, opened the war with Persia by sending into Asia as an advance party Attalus and Parmenion, assigning to them a part of his forces and ordering them to liberate the Greek cities, while he himself, wanting to enter upon the war with the god's approval, asked the Pythia whether he would conquer the king of the Persians. She gave him the following response:
"Wreathed is the bull. All is done. There is also the one who will smite him."
3 Now Philip found this response ambiguous but accepted it in a sense favourable to himself, namely that the oracle foretold that the Persian would be slaughtered like a sacrificial victim. Actually, however, it was not so, and it meant that Philip himself in the midst of a festival and holy sacrifices, like the bull, would be stabbed to death while decked with a garland. 4 In any event, he thought that the gods supported him and was very happy to think that Asia would be made captive under the hands of the Macedonians.
Straightway he set in motion plans for gorgeous sacrifices to the gods joined with the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra, whose mother was Olympias; he had given her in marriage to Alexander king of Epirus, Olympias' own brother. 5 He wanted as many Greeks as possible to take part in the festivities in honour of the gods, and so planned brilliant musical contests and lavish banquets for his friends and guests. 6 Out of all Greece he summoned his personal guest-friends and ordered the members of his court to bring along as many as they could of their acquaintances from abroad. He was determined to show himself to the Greeks as an amiable person and to respond to the honours conferred when he was appointed to the supreme command with appropriate entertainment.
So he organised and despatched the advance force, if we were to take Diodoros literally in July, when Pythodelos was archon; it is better to go with Justin IX 5
In the beginning of the next spring, he sent forward three of his generals into that part of Asia which was under the power of the Persians, Parmenio, Amyntas, and Attalus, whose sister he had recently married
Then he sought the response of the Delphic Oracle, which only operated once a month for nine months of the year, and Kings could not consult at will else the story of Alexander being told to go away and come back later would have no logic (Plutarch Alx.14 vi). Then he ‘straightaway set in motion plans etc’ so before the wedding all the sacrifices had to be gathered and the invitations to the proxenoi go out and they had to gather.

Dios was governed by the autumnal equinox, not the winter solstice and is pleasantly warm, hardly the onset of winter.
Fourthly, we don’t hear of a winter before Alexander embarks on campaign. . [Diod XVII.1.2ff has all this, including Philip’s death take place in 335 BC], again implying Philip’s death was early in the year.
But that year would be 335! We actually hear of prompt action before the campaign of 335.
3 1 Alexander knew that many of the Greeks were anxious to revolt, and was seriously worried. 2 In Athens, where Demosthenes kept agitating against p125Macedon, the news of Philip's death was received with rejoicing, and the Athenians were not ready to concede the leading position among the Greeks to Macedon. They communicated secretly with Attalus and arranged to co operate with him, and they encouraged many of the cities to strike for their freedom.
3 The Aetolians voted to restore those of the Acarnanians who had experienced exile because of Philip. The Ambraciots were persuaded by one Aristarchus to expel the garrison placed in their city by Philip and to transform their government into a democracy. 4 Similarly, the Thebans voted to drive out the garrison in the Cadmeia and not to concede to Alexander the leadership of the Greeks. The Arcadians alone of the Greeks had never acknowledged Philip's leadership nor did they now recognize that of Alexander. 5 Otherwise in the Peloponnese the Argives and Eleians and Lacedaemonians, with others, moved to recover their independence.6 Beyond the frontiers of Macedonia, many tribes moved toward revolt and a general feeling of unrest swept through the natives in that quarter.7
6 But, for all the problems and fears that beset his kingdom on every side, Alexander, who had only just reached manhood, brought everything into order impressively and swiftly. Some he won by persuasion and diplomacy, others he frightened into keeping the peace,8 but some had to be mastered by force and so reduced to submission.
4 1 First he dealt with the Thessalians, reminding p127them of his ancient relationship to them through Heracles and raising their hopes by kindly words and by rich promises as well, and prevailed upon them by formal vote of the Thessalian League to recognize as his the leadership of Greece which he had inherited from his father.9 2 Next he won over the neighbouring tribes similarly, and so marched down to Pylae, where he convened the assembly of the Amphictyons and had them pass a resolution granting him the leadership of the Greeks. 3 He gave audience to the envoys of the Ambraciots and, addressing them in friendly fashion, convinced them that they had been only a little premature in grasping the independence that he was on the point of giving them voluntarily.
4 In order to overawe those who refused to yield otherwise, he set out at the head of the army of the Macedonians in full battle array. With forced marches he arrived in Boeotia and encamping near the Cadmeia threw the city of the Thebans into a panic. 5 As the Athenians immediately learned that the king had passed into Boeotia, they too abandoned their previous refusal to take him seriously. So much the rapid moves and energetic action of the young man shook the confidence of those who opposed him.6 The Athenians, accordingly, voted to bring into the city their property scattered throughout Attica and to look to the repair of their walls, but they also sent envoys to Alexander, asking forgiveness for tardy recognition of his leadership.
7 Even Demosthenes was included among the envoys; he did not, however, go with the others to Alexander, but turned back at Cithaeron and returned to Athens, whether fearful because of the anti-Macedonian course that he had pursued in politics, or merely wishing to leave no ground of complaint to the king of Persia. 8 He was generally believed to have received large sums of money from that source in payment for his efforts to check the Macedonians, and indeed Aeschines is said to have referred to this in a speech when he taunted Demosthenes with his venality: "At the moment, it is true, his extravagance has been glutted by the king's gold, but even this will not satisfy him; no wealth has ever proved sufficient for a greedy character." 9 Alexander addressed the Athenian envoys kindly and freed the people from their acute terror.
Then he called a meeting at Corinth of envoys and delegates, and when the usual representatives came, he spoke to them in moderate terms and had them pass a resolution appointing him general plenipotentiary of the Greeks and undertaking themselves to join in an expedition against Persia seeking satisfaction for the offences which the Persians had committed against Greece. Successful in this, the king returned to Macedonia with his army.
Which looks like a lot to cram in but what we have is a diplomatic offensive while the army gathers then a lightning strike down to Thebes and formal submission at Korinth before back to Macedonia for the winter that is not mentioned. Nothing makes this early in 336 and other evidence counts against it.

As I have demonstrated there were not two calendars nor any real evidence for a radical reform, that the Greeks had years of both 12 and 13 months makes a month count and division system most unlikely. My method which gives a possible answer must be superior to one that gives an impossible solution.

There is another piece of evidence used by Bosworth in his commentary on Arrian to support the October date; Arrian Indike 21 i
in the archonship at Athens of Cephisodorus, on the twentieth day of the month Boedromion, as the Athenians reckon it; but as the Macedonians and Asians counted it, it was ... the eleventh year of Alexander's reign.

ἐπὶ ἄρχοντος Ἀθήνησι Κηφισοδώρου,εἰκάδι τοῦ Βοηδρομιῶνος μηνός, κατ᾽ ὅτι Ἀθηναῖοι ἄγουσιν: ὡς δὲ Μακεδόνες τε καὶ Ἀσιανοὶ ἦγον,%2%2 τὸἑνδέκατον βασιλεύοντος Ἀλεξάνδρου
.

This would mean that Boedromion, or possibly Metagetnion (if the month had been given in contemporary Macedonian style and equated with the style of Arrian’s day as happens in the ‘Anabasis’), despite the error in the archon we know this year was 325BC, 20 Boedromion equates to 15 September, which means that if Alexander had acceeded before 15 sept 336 he would have been in his twelfth not his eleventh year, this is only true if he came to the throne on or after this date.

Your question may be rhetorical but I suspect only because you do not wish to hear the answer rather than because the answer is so obvious one is not required, although that is the case; all the scholars positing a June/July date (no takers for your April that I have found), Hammond, Ellis and Welles go back to Beloch’s discussion which combines the fallacious army gathered for an imminent campaign with an entirely unique tradition of the Macedonians counting their regnal years from Dios, ie. imposing a Babylonian style accession year on the Macedonians who patently did not use it on the evidence of Alexander’s own reign.

Before you call something ‘simplistic’ you might try reviewing your own ‘ideas’ next time. :roll: :roll:
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by agesilaos »

Although Hammond put the Accession in June (since that is when he starts archonships regardless) he revised his opinion in this article http://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/view/3531 ; some of his arguments are unsound, however, he believed that the date for Alexander’s birthday came from Timaios on the strength of a reference in Cicero, when Plutarch makes it dependent on Hegesias of Magnesia a rhetorical source excoriated for his Asiatic style who made Alexander imitate Achilleus by dragging Batis seven times round Gaza (preserved in Dionysios of Halikarnassos, ‘De Compositione Verborum 18ff).
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by Xenophon »

Aaaaaaargh....... Congratulations! You have ‘goaded’ me ( as you put it ) into responding, because your last few posts contain totally unevidenced postulations and a number of inaccuracies.
So much for my good intentions.....

Agesilaos wrote:
Xenophon wrote:The reason the Macedonian calendar exactly parallels the Baylonian one to the day is because it had been re-aligned to do just that - see my post. According to Jona Lendering this had been done by Aristotle, after he'd been sent translations of the 'Astronomical diaries' by his nephew Callisthenes. Within a year, the calendar had been reformed. That would mean that the 'new' calendar was different to the 'old', original Macedonian calendar of Philip's day ( rather like the old Julian Christian calendar is different to the modern Gregorian one).The ‘new’ calendar was in effect the Babylonian one with Macedonian names.
There is, unfortunately no evidence for such a reform, it is an inference from the coincidence of Alexander’s death day in both calendars and the tale in the 6th Century AD commentator on Aristotle, Simplicimus of KilikIa, that Alexander had the texts translated and sent to Aristotle.
That is inaccurate. The evidence for the reform comes from the Calippic reforms you refer to below. As the ‘Egyptian calendars’ site you referenced says:
The Callippic Cycle is the most important of the astronomical eras for chronological purposes, since it appears to have had the most widespread use.It is an astronomical cycle invented by the Athenian astronomer Callippus, probably from the Babylonian data sent to Athens by Callisthenes. It is a refinement of the Metonic cycle of 6940 days in which 235 lunar months fits almost exactly into 19 solar years. Since 19 solar years of 365.25 days each gives 6939.75 days, which is not an integral number of days, the Callippic cycle is a 76 year cycle equivalent to 4 Metonic cycles less 1 day. The cycle was used by Hipparchus and other Hellenistic astronomers, and the dates of a number of astronomical observations are recorded according to it in the Almagest of Claudius Ptolemy. From these observations it can be shown that year 1 of the First Callippic cycle began on the summer solstice of 330, which was a new moon.”
As Jona Lendering says in the article referred to below on the Babylonian calendar:
The new system [Calippic cycle] was already known in 331, because in that year the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great captured Babylon and ordered the Astronomical Diaries to be translated into Greek. The new knowledge was immediately applied in Greece: the astronomer Callippus of Cyzicus, a pupil of the philosopher Aristotle of Stagira, recalculated the length of the lunar month and proposed a new calendar, in which he applied the longer cycle. His new era, which was used by later Greek astronomers, started on 28 June 330, eight months after the capture of Babylon.”
Solid evidence that the Macedonian calendar was reformed after contact with the Babylonian calendar.
Yet the Greeks had been aware of Babylonian astronomy much earlier, Meton introduced his 19 year cycle in 432BC clearly based on Babylonian models which Darius I had accepted in his reform of the Achaemenid calendar (certainly by 503 BC). This may well have been used in Macedonia from this time too, since the Kingdom was heavily influenced by, if not under the control of, the Persian Empire at the time.
Whilst Meton supposedly deduced the 19 year cycle from his own observations ( but may have become aware of the Babylonian calendar), he did not “introduce” a calendar based on this cycle to the Greek world, nor did any Greek calendars use it at this time or later, so far as we know, and to call it the ‘Metonic Cycle’ is really a misnomer. Even in his native Athens, where inter-calary months were added on an ad hoc basis as needed, roughly every 3 years or so, carried on as before ( for all three of its calendars). ‘Perseus’ has a short article on Meton here:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... eton-bio-2

Darius I did apparently make the ‘inter calary’ months regular in the Babylonian calendar circa 503 BC, but this was not the ‘official’ Achaemenid calender, which was slightly different ( The Babylonian calendar had 354 days to the year, the Persian 360 days). See a short article on the Babylonian calendar by Jona Lendering on the ‘Livius’ website here:

http://www.livius.org/articles/concept/ ... abylonian/

...and for the Old Iranian calendar, see this article here on Encyclopaedia Iranica [with a comprehensive bibliography] here:

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/calendars

If Macedon was at all influenced in its calendar by Persia – pure surmise on your part, by the way, with absolutely no evidence to support such a postulation, we might surmise it would have been the Persian calendar rather than the Babylonian one.
Any variation due to the Kallippic refinement would be in the order of a day or so (if that), not the six or seven months required to retroject Philip’s assassination to Xandikos.
I never suggested that Philip’s assassination was in Xandikos, simply that because the army was present, Xandikos provides a terminus post quem. I did not suggest a particular month, because of all the uncertainties I have referred to, and which are apparent from your posts also, but contented myself with guessing it would be sometime in Spring.

In addition, the obvious time for such a ceremony would be at the annual muster of the Makedones in the month of Xandikos/March. That the army was mustered and present at the time is certain, since Alexander was immediately acclaimed King by the assembly of the Makedones. On balance of probability therefore, I think a Spring date the most likely, and that would be my guess.”

If I were pressed to nominate a month, then I would tentatively hazard another guess and say ‘perhaps Daisios/May-June’but I stick to my previous position that there are too many uncertainties to be sure of a particular month.

Agesilaos wrote:
An obvious point I forgot (yes senior moments are multiplying) is that

Arrian I 1 i

IT is said that Philip died when Pythodelus was archon at Athens, and that his son Alexander, being then about twenty years of age, marched into Peloponnesus as soon as he had secured the regal power.............



........In the archonship of Pythodelos (336-335) Philip king of Macedon was assassinated by Pausanias, one of his bodyguards (doryphoroi), and was succeeded by his son Alexander
.

Pythodelos was archon July 336 to July 335 (Loios in Macedonian); Diodoros has goofed and made the assassination on the midnight of 1st of Hekatombaion 335 so that the death can fall in one archonship and the accession in the next, clearly a nonsense, he has just swept the events of the remainder of Pythodelos’ archonship into that of Euainaitos.
I don’t think this is the case at all, as I said earlier, Diodorus has simply given these events as occurring in two different archon years (336/335 Pythodelos and 335/334 Euainetos), perhaps deriving his information from two different sources. Incidently it is not quite correct to say the Attic year ran July to July (Gregorian/modern).The year was meant to begin with the first sighting of the new moon after the summer solstice – i.e. around 20/21 June. Ideally, the solstice was to occur in the last month of the year. Then, on the day after the evening the new moon had been seen (or presumed to have been seen), the new year was to begin. Because movements of sun and moon are not related, solstice and new moon are variable and the new year would have moved (in relation to a Gregorian date) by up to a month, so not always June to June – another source of uncertainty, though exact dates could probably be calculated from astronomy.
Thirteen years from the archonship of Pythodelos would be July 323 to July 322, Alexander would have had to survive his death by at least a month for this not to be a round number. I have posted the full P.Oxy 12 on the Off-Topic thread, people can judge its worth and this does not include the tutors corrections in the missing bottom margins; fortunately we do not have to rely on this author for the archon date!
See above. Technically the archonship of Pythodelos probably began in late June, possibly sooner or later. Alexander apparently died on 28th Daisios[May/early June aprox]. That means the 13 years could be exactly right.......

Agesilaos wrote:
I too have read the footnotes and they do not impress me. The Granikos story mentions nothing about the taboo concerning the death of the previous king, nor is the taboo mentioned elsewhere. Further, were this a normal embolic month ie the one after the accession month the story loses its point; it has to be an irregular intercalation for it to have any point. Nor is there any evidence that the embolic month was that after the accession that I have come across. No story of calendric manipulation comes from outside Plutarch, making them somewhat suspect; they point to both Alexander’s superstition and his refusal to bow even to the constraints of Time, topoi suitable for the biographer’s illustrative purpose but less so for serious history.
As I pointed out earlier, ancient rulers did not regard the measurement of time as immutable as moderns seem to. They frequently manipulated calendars for their own purposes. Indeed Athenian archons were notorious for it, so much so that Aristophanes could joke about the practice in his play ‘Clouds’ of 423 BC.
I did not suggest that the Granikos story necessarily occurred as a result of superstition about Philip’s death as an ill omen. Merely suggested that something clearly more serious than a custom of avoiding battles in harvest month was likely at play. After all, we never hear of anything so drastic as altering the calendar for other occasions when battle/campaigning occurred in Daisois. That something might well have been the death of the King. A mere possibility.
The same applies for Welles’ footnote:
The date of Philip's death is discussed by K. J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte2, 3.2 (1923), 59. The news had not yet reached Athens by the end of the civil year 337/6 B.C.;IG II2.1.240 in the tenth prytany does not know of it. On the other hand, the time must be early in the summer, for Philip was busy with preparations for an invasion of Asia Minor. A possible clue to the date is furnished by the statement of Plutarch, Alexander, 16.2, concerning the battle of the Granicus: this would have taken place in the month Daesius, but as that was unlucky, Alexander ordered the intercalation of a second Artemisius. Since there is some evidence that the intercalary month was the last month of the regnal year, this establishes a certain presumption that Philip died and Alexander came to the throne in Daesius; and this squares well enough with the evidence of the Attic inscription. Since Alexander died in Daesius, the Oxyrhynchus chronologist was correct in crediting him thirteen years of reign
There is a glaring error Philip was not ‘busy with preparations for an invasion of Asia Minor’ according to Diodoros (above) he had already, ‘opened the war with Persia by sending into Asia as an advance party Attalus and Parmenion’ the rest is supposition and the last statement patently false; all in all, not a good day at the office for Mr Welles.
An odd way of interpreting Welles. Clearly despatching the advance force to secure a bridgehead was by way of preparing the way for the main invasion, and gathering the army from all over Greece was too. So no ‘glaring error’ at all. Just a rationalisation by Agesilaos – and a very poor one at that – to discredit Welles. The inscription in question dates to the tenth prytany, that is the last six weeks or so of the year, which could be any time from mid May 336 BC. Moreover the inscription merely means that at the time, news of Philip’s death had yet to officially arrive in Athens. In fact we know that Philip’s death occurred some time before this ( days or weeks ) because Demosthenes knew of it before the news actually arrived:

Aeschines ‘Against Ctesiphon’ 77
Now this man [Demosthenes] it was, fellow citizens, this past master of flattery, who, when informed through scouts of Charidemus that Philip was dead, before any one else had received the news, made up a vision for himself and lied about the gods, pretending that he had received the news, not from Charidemus, but from Zeus and Athena, the gods by whose name he perjures himself by day, and who then converse with him in the night, as he says, and tell him of things to come. [Demosthenes had ‘predicted’ the death of Philip]. And though it was but the seventh day after the death of his daughter, and though the ceremonies of mourning were not yet completed, he put a garland on his head and white raiment on his body, and there he stood making thank-offerings, violating all decency—miserable man, who had lost the first and only one who ever called him “father”!

Therefore Welles is quite right that Philip’s assassination could have occurred in late May/early June i.e. Daisios. His statement is not ‘false’. More like “a bad day at the office” for Agesilaos and his rather weak arguments to discredit Welles, because Welles does not agree with Agesilaos' conviction that Philip's death occurred in October......
It is not my statement about Aristoboulos but those of Arrian and Plutarch both quoting him. As for ‘every source’ you have read, without a proper reference they may as well not exist as their arguments and ‘evidence’ have not been presented. Nor do I suggest that the coincidence was coincidental, the source was the Darian introduction of the Metonic regulated calendar seventy years before Meton.
As mentioned above, this requires unevidenced assumptions. It is a pure surmise by Agesilaos to bolster his position. In the reign of Darius [c.503 BC], Chaldaean astronomer priests established a system of regular ‘inter calary’ months, in place of the previous ‘ad hoc’ system for the Babylonian calendar.[the incorrectly named ‘Metonic cycle’]. Whether this was also extended to the Old Persian calendar is unknown. There is no evidence that either the Babylonian (or Persian) calendar was in use in Macedon – or anywhere else in Greece – until after Alexander captured Babylon. ( see above reference to Callipus)

Xenophon wrote: Applying this correct method of the number of months, including embolimic ones, to Alexander’s reign we need to add in the (probably) five intercalary months of his reign, and that takes Alexander’s accession/Philip’s death to ‘Daesius’/May early June aprox, or thereabouts in the late Spring.

And ignore the epigraphic evidence and put it in the wrong archonship, but that’s immaterial, I suppose. A leap year (one with an embolimic month) is still just a year; consider annual magistrates, their year of office runs to the end of the year, leap or not and in Athens where the evidence is most plentiful, the prytannies were adjusted to the new length of the year. Your proposal of the ‘correct’ method means that Aristoboulos could not count his twelve years include leap years you propose counting the leap months twice, another nonsense. Oh dear!
As Welles, others and myself recognise, the epigraphic evidence does not rule out a date in Daisios, because the end of the Attic year moved around by up to a month, and because the inscription merely demonstrates that when it was carved, news of Philip’s death had yet to reach Athens, and that in fact Philip was obviously murdered some time previous to news reaching Athens in any event. As to ‘wrong archonship’ there are many things wrong with this. Firstly, Diodorus mentions two different archon years at different times! (implying that there was uncertainty regarding Philip's death even by Diodorus’ time.) All the references to the archonship of Pythodelos you refer to come from well after Alexander’s reign, mostly in Roman times, with the earliest being the ‘Marmor Parium’ inscription of 264/263 BC. This ( or something else) could be the original source from which all the others are derived, and is therefore only a single reference. ( Evidence is weighed, not counted). Furthermore, that archon year could have commenced as early as June/Daisios 336 BC.
In addition, Diodorus in trying to define a particular year, is giving us only an approximation. The Athenian year ran approximately June to June, but the Roman consular year at this time was variable and began much earlier, becoming fixed on the ‘Ides of March’(15th) from 222 BC. So did that particular year begin in June, or earlier? ( the reference to the Olympic games only confirms the year 336/335 is being referred to.) [Diod XVI.91 ] In addition, having defined a year only approximately Diodorus then frequently narrates events that occurred before and after that year, to keep the narrative cohesive. Agesilaos accepts this when preferring Justin’s date for the Macedonian advance force crossing the Hellespont :
“So he organised and despatched the advance force, if we were to take Diodoros literally in July, when Pythodelos was archon; it is better to go with Justin IX 5
In the beginning of the next spring, he sent forward three of his generals into that part of Asia which was under the power of the Persians, Parmenio, Amyntas, and Attalus, whose sister he had recently married
....and if Agesilaos accepts that Diodorus’ dates for the year are only approximate and not to be taken literally in this case, then the same logic should apply to Philip’s death, which also might have taken place prior to this Attic archon year actually beginning.
As we can see, there are many uncertainties here, and the absence of a definite date for Philip’s death leaves the question open, though the weight of evidence seems to point to Spring, and perhaps Daisios.
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by Xenophon »

Post by agesilaos » Fri Dec 25, 2015 2:56 pm

You are a bit keen, posting on Christmas day! :shock: Don't you have anything else to do?
The so-called ‘circumstantial evidence’ might elsewhere be termed ‘unevidenced supposition’; no source says that the army had been assembled, in fact they rather suggest the opposite. Diodoros says, XV 91 vi
I do not accept that - as we shall see see, there is evidence to support my comments - unlike Agesilaos' 'unevidenced supposition' that Macedon used the 'Babylonian' calendar as early as a century or so prior to Alexander's arrival there.


Agesilaos wrote:
Out of all Greece he summoned his personal guest-friends and ordered the members of his court to bring along as many as they could of their acquaintances from abroad. He was determined to show himself to the Greeks as an amiable person and to respond to the honours conferred when he was appointed to the supreme command with appropriate entertainment.
Had he been assembling the League Army one might have expected these guest-friends to already be present, there would certainly be no shortage of Greeks to be made good, there would presumably be the 7,600 allies with whom Alexander was later to cross into Asia. Nor is any Macedonian army attested, only the Hypaspists. It is not clear when Philip planned to join the advance force, it is evident that it could have held its own until the campaigning season of 335 since it was not reinforced until 334 when Alexander finally crossed.
This logic is flawed, and does not follow. It is inconceivable that Philip was not gathering his invasion force, intending to invade the same year. ( Nor would it be likely that Philip's personal guest friends, important people, have been serving in the ranks of Greek allies and mercenaries). The advance force, only around 10,000 strong, was too puny to do much more than secure a beachhead, despite the chaotic circumstances in the Persian empire at the time. In fact, when Alexander eventually crossed, the advance force was pretty much on the ropes, having suffered defeats by Memnon of Rhodes, the Persian mercenary commander, and having hung on far longer than had been intended - certainly not 'holding its own'. [Diod XVII.7.1 ff]. The delay to the Macedonian invasion was purely the result of Philip’s death, and Alexander’s subsequent need to pacify the Balkans to the north and Greece to the south before heading East.

But we need not rely on military logic alone, for Justin XI.1 refers to Philip’s assembled army, including allies :
In the army of Philip there were various nations, and after his death different feelings prevailed among them. Some, oppressed with an unjust yoke, were excited with hopes of recovering their liberty; others, from dislike of going to war in a distant country, rejoiced that the expedition was broken off;”
.....and.....
To all these apprehensions the succession of Alexander was a relief, who addressed the whole host in an assembly, so effectually soothed and encouraged the people, as to remove all uneasiness from those that were afraid, and to fill every one with favourable expectations.”

That the Macedonian army ( the Makedones/citizen soldiers) was present is shown by:

He granted the Macedonians relief from all burdens, except that of service in war; by which conduct he gained such popularity with his subjects, that they said they had changed only the person, not the virtues, of their king.” [C.f. Diod XVII.2.2]

Diodorus mentions Alexander keeping the army busy with training [Diod XVII.3]and addressing “the [Greek]Embassies that were present.”[Diod XVII.2]
Having secured the loyalty of Philip’s army, Alexander then attends to Philip’s funeral.....
Xenophon wrote: otherwise, if late in the year, we have no information on what Philip did that year
By way of example


72 1 When Sosigenes was archon at Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Marcus Valerius and Marcus Gnaeus Publius. In this year, Arymbas king of the Molossians died after a rule of ten years, leaving a son Aeacides, Pyrrhus's father, but Alexander the brother of Olympias succeeded to the throne with the backing of Philip of Macedon........



So all Philip did in 342/1 was support Alexander for the Molossian throne? We cannot expect a full account of the actions of any player in an epitome; so the point is facile.
Yes, indeed, my point is easy to understand. Just because, in a passage about events in Sicily, Philip is only mentioned in passing should not surprise us. In fact, we learn elsewhere that in this year Philip was campaigning in Thrace in the Haimos area. He advanced north through the Shipka pass and made an alliance with Kothelas, king of the Getai, which was later cemented by his marriage to Kothelas’ daughter Meda. Philip would conclude his Thracian conquests in the following years, reaching the Black sea coast and the mouths of the Danube.

However, if we assume an October 336 date of death, it begs the question of what Philip and his army were doing for six months or so from Spring, when the advance force crossed – for there is a complete lacuna in all our sources for this period, not just Diodorus. It makes no sense that Philip ‘wasted’ a whole campaigning season, doing nothing and having apparently prematurely sent out his advance force a year too soon. This fact alone would be quite enough to reject an October date, and that’s before considering all the other evidence.

Xenophon wrote: Second, we are told Philip set out his planned celebration and invitations “Straightaway” in the year [Diod XVI.91.4]

Not quite, we are told:

"When Pythodorus was archon at Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Quintus Publius and Tiberius Aemilius Mamercus, and the one hundred and eleventh celebration of the Olympic Games took place, .......
........Straightway he set in motion plans for gorgeous sacrifices to the gods joined with the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra, whose mother was Olympias; he had given her in marriage to Alexander king of Epirus, Olympias' own brother. 5 He wanted as many Greeks as possible to take part in the festivities in honour of the gods, and so planned brilliant musical contests and lavish banquets for his friends and guests. 6 Out of all Greece he summoned his personal guest-friends and ordered the members of his court to bring along as many as they could of their acquaintances from abroad. He was determined to show himself to the Greeks as an amiable person and to respond to the honours conferred when he was appointed to the supreme command with appropriate entertainment.
"

So he organised and despatched the advance force, if we were to take Diodoros literally in July, when Pythodelos was archon; it is better to go with Justin IX 5
"In the beginning of the next spring, he sent forward three of his generals into that part of Asia which was under the power of the Persians, Parmenio, Amyntas, and Attalus, whose sister he had recently married"
See my comments in previous post. If Justin’s early Spring is to be preferred to Diodorus’ late June/July – and I agree - ( which is only an approximate indicator of the year, not a literal date), then the same logic ought to apply to Philip’s death, which may therefore also have fallen outside the strict limits of the Attic year, and into the consular year for example.

Agesilaos wrote:
Then he sought the response of the Delphic Oracle, which only operated once a month for nine months of the year, and Kings could not consult at will else the story of Alexander being told to go away and come back later would have no logic (Plutarch Alx.14 vi). Then he ‘straightaway set in motion plans etc’ so before the wedding all the sacrifices had to be gathered and the invitations to the proxenoi go out and they had to gather.
All this is taking place in Spring, on your own reckoning. The distance from, say, Athens to Macedon is roughly 500 km aprox by road, and would take 5 weeks or so on foot, reckoning 15- 20 km per day, and a couple of rest days. Say 6 weeks or more from the Peloponnese. If messengers went out ‘straightaway’ in Xandikos, then all would be assembled before Daisios or thereabouts.......
Dios was governed by the autumnal equinox, not the winter solstice and is pleasantly warm, hardly the onset of winter.
That rather depends on your idea of ‘pleasantly warm’, coming as you do from a cold climate. That time of year (Oct/Nov) in Macedon has temperatures in the range 7-15 degrees c., and is the wettest time of year with rain a third of the days, and very cold winds. I live in a similar climate to Greece and I would find that cold, wet, and unpleasant weather to be travelling in – and so would Greeks used to much warmer weather !
Xenophon wrote:Fourthly, we don’t hear of a winter before Alexander embarks on campaign. . [Diod XVII.1.2ff has all this, including Philip’s death take place in 335 BC], again implying Philip’s death was early in the year.
But that year would be 335! We actually hear of prompt action before the campaign of 335.
I’d agree that Diodorus’ source saying 335 is likely wrong, and that Philip’s death took place in 336. That means Alexander’s actions in travelling to the Peloponnese, most likely with his army, calling an assembly to be appointed expeditionary commander in Philip’s place, then travelling on to Athens will have taken place in the summer of 336, and he then returns to Macedon. The following Spring (335 BC) he embarks on his campaign against Thrace [Arrian I.1]
Which looks like a lot to cram in but what we have is a diplomatic offensive while the army gathers then a lightning strike down to Thebes and formal submission at Korinth before back to Macedonia for the winter that is not mentioned. Nothing makes this early in 336 and other evidence counts against it.
See above, since you agree Alexander acceded to the throne in 336, and in Spring 335 marched against Thrace, and then speedily south against Thebes, that only leaves summer 336 for those events........

Agesilaos wrote:
As I have demonstrated there were not two calendars nor any real evidence for a radical reform, that the Greeks had years of both 12 and 13 months makes a month count and division system most unlikely. My method which gives a possible answer must be superior to one that gives an impossible solution.
You have not demonstrated any such thing beyond supposition that Macedon already used the Babylonian calendar, but I have produced evidence that there was a reform of the Macedonian calendar after Alexander took Babylon. As Robert Hannah says in “Greek & Roman Calendars: Constructions of Time in the Classical World". London: Duckworth, 2005 :
Assimilation between the Macedonian calendar and its Babylonian counterpart in the Hellenistic period is a matter of one lunar calendar being drawn into another, more sophisticated version of the same kind' (p. 96).

Bickerman and Samuels have similar views, that the original Macedonian calendar prior to modification to the 19 year Babylonian cycle was possibly ‘ad hoc’ regarding inter calary months, like other Greek calendars, but information is scanty and must be deduced from the ‘Babylonian’ reform and later Seleucid and Ptolemaic calendars......

‘Your’ counting method of whole years and odd months is incorrect for reasons I have given. Let us take a simple example. You want to count back ‘1 year and 6 months’ from Daisios in year 2 which is, say, an inter-calary 13 month year. ‘Your’ method goes back 1 year, to Daisios in year 1, and counting back a further 6 months brings us to Apellaios ( exclusive of Daisios). But if we count back actual months (19) we get Dios – your method is out by a month because you didn’t allow for the 13 month inter calary year. If you do this for Alexander’s reign, we must add in/count back an additional 5 or so intercalary months ( depending where Alexander’s reign of 12 years 7/8 months falls in the 19 year cycle) which gives us Daisios aprox as the month of Philip’s death – as I have already explained in my Dec 24 th post.
There is another piece of evidence used by Bosworth in his commentary on Arrian to support the October date; Arrian Indike 21 i

"in the archonship at Athens of Cephisodorus, on the twentieth day of the month Boedromion, as the Athenians reckon it; but as the Macedonians and Asians counted it, it was ... the eleventh year of Alexander's reign.
ἐπὶ ἄρχοντος Ἀθήνησι Κηφισοδώρου,εἰκάδι τοῦ Βοηδρομιῶνος μηνός, κατ᾽ ὅτι Ἀθηναῖοι ἄγουσιν: ὡς δὲ Μακεδόνες τε καὶ Ἀσιανοὶ ἦγον,%2%2 τὸἑνδέκατον βασιλεύοντος Ἀλεξάνδρου"

.
This would mean that Boedromion, or possibly Metagetnion (if the month had been given in contemporary Macedonian style and equated with the style of Arrian’s day as happens in the ‘Anabasis’), despite the error in the archon we know this year was 325BC, 20 Boedromion equates to 15 September, which means that if Alexander had acceeded before 15 sept 336 he would have been in his twelfth not his eleventh year, this is only true if he came to the throne on or after this date.
On the face of it, that might seem like a valid deduction, but once again uncertainties creep in. Firstly, Arrian’s “Indica” is a very truncated account of Nearchus’ voyage and much is clearly left out. Still, “Indica” XXI gives the dates above, and also that the voyage began in the Indus river. There is however another account, that of Aristoboulos who seems to have been on the voyage, which is quoted by Strabo [XI.1], which gives us some firm astronomical information :

They remained at the Hydaspes while the ships were constructing, and began their voyage not many days before the setting of the Pleiades, and were occupied during the whole autumn, winter, and the ensuing spring and summer, in sailing down the river, and arrived at Patalene about the rising of the Dog-Star;during the passage down the river, which lasted ten months, they did not experience rain at any place, not even when the Etesian winds were at their height, when the rivers were full and the plains overflowed; the sea could not be navigated on account of the blowing of contrary winds, but no land breezes succeeded.

They therefore arrived at Patala, at the head of the Indus delta about 22 July 325 BC, as ascertained by astronomical calculation, (Attic Hekatombeion aprox) and the voyage began ten months before, i.e. September (Boedromion aprox) of the preceding year, 326 BC, which agrees with Arrian’s Attic date. That would make Alexander’s year of accession 336 in Macedonian terms (whose year commenced in Dios/October) counting back 11 years from September/Boedromion 326 BC, and bearing in mind the year of accession counted as belonging to the incoming King’s reign. That also means Philip’s death and Alexander’s accession cannot have occurred in Dios/October 336, for that would be the next Macedonian year, and in September 326 Alexander would only have been in the tenth year of his reign. [Thus Bosworth's, and Hammond’s calculation in ‘Regnal years’, which I assume you follow is mistaken, being out by a year. This also illustrates an important point about ancient history.We often have a single source and no way of checking its accuracy. Were it not for the small, but vitally important evidence in Strabo, we would have only the 'Indica' to go on, which as we have seen leads to erroneous deductions by Hammond and Bosworth. How often does this happen, due to lack of corroborative evidence, one wonders?]
Your question may be rhetorical but I suspect only because you do not wish to hear the answer rather than because the answer is so obvious one is not required, although that is the case; all the scholars positing a June/July date (no takers for your April that I have found), Hammond, Ellis and Welles go back to Beloch’s discussion which combines the fallacious army gathered for an imminent campaign with an entirely unique tradition of the Macedonians counting their regnal years from Dios, ie. imposing a Babylonian style accession year on the Macedonians who patently did not use it on the evidence of Alexander’s own reign.
Tsssk, Tsssk.....getting sloppy with facts again. As I have previously said, I did not nominate a month, simply “Spring” ( which includes Daisios, by the way).
I have not referred to Beloch at all ( I don’t have access to his work) and my estimates, guesses and calculations are my own, and I have arrived at “Spring”, possibly Daisios as the likely date – and given many reasons why we should rule out October.

I have also demonstrated from actual source evidence that the presence of Philip’s army at the time of his death/accession of Alexander is not at all “fallacious”, but source evidenced .
Before you call something ‘simplistic’ you might try reviewing your own ‘ideas’ next time.


Your attempted barb is wasted, because as I have demonstrated, simply counting back whole years and 7/8 months is “simplistic”, because it ignores the inter calary months, when you are trying to count back the total number of months. And I do review my ideas and research before posting, as is surely obvious, and you would be singularly unobservant to think otherwise.

Agesilaos wrote:
Although Hammond put the Accession in June (since that is when he starts archonships regardless) he revised his opinion in this article

http://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/view/3531 ;

.... some of his arguments are unsound, however, he believed that the date for Alexander’s birthday came from Timaios on the strength of a reference in Cicero, when Plutarch makes it dependent on Hegesias of Magnesia a rhetorical source excoriated for his Asiatic style who made Alexander imitate Achilleus by dragging Batis seven times round Gaza (preserved in Dionysios of Halikarnassos, ‘De Compositione Verborum 18ff).
Hammond has indeed erred in his calculations in this article, being a year out,[and also Bosworth, through not taking into account, or being unaware of, Strabo/Aristoboulos' account] as has been demonstrated above, and Alexander’s accession cannot have taken place in Dios/October, the first month of the next year, for all sorts of reasons.......

Can we now put this lengthy digression on the date of Philip's death to bed now, please ( and the entire thread for that matter) ? You should be pleased with yourself. Between us we have added a factual footnote to history. Whilst it was obvious from the start that October was not really a viable option for Philip's death for all sorts of reasons, thanks to your drawing attention to the evidence of the Indica, and subsequently the emergence of the evidence of Strabo/Aristoboulos, which apparently Hammond and Bosworth failed to consider in their calculations, we now have definitive proof that Philip's death/Alexander's accession could not have occurred as late as October 336 BC! A small but important historical note.

There doesn't appear to be much else to say, and I doubt if either of us is going to convince the other, despite the fact that even your own posts demonstrate 'uncertainty'. There is more than enough verbage for other readers to reach their own conclusions....
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by agesilaos »

LOL! I’ll ignore the standard charges and cut to the meat. The salient point from the section of Chris Bennet’s site you yourself post is that the 76 year Kallippic Cycle corrected the 19 year Metonic one by dropping one day in that 76 year period, taking the first year as 330 (later it was retrojected to October 331) the calendar would not be adjusted by this crucial one day until 254 BC.

Or if the correction was taken back to the first Metonic cycle, which began on 27 June 432, by 336 there would only be one day to lose. There is no evidence of any effect on the day to day calendar, as I accurately said; and Jona IS working on the basis of Simplicimus, as this is the ONLY evidence that Alexander sent the translated astronomical work back to Aristotle. If you think that Jona is, somehow, infallible, then his note is, indeed, ‘solid evidence’; I tend to think that he is as human as anyone else, whilst appreciating the superhuman effort he puts into his site. A moment’s thought would suggest that Kallippos was more concerned with the Athenian calendar, 28 June 330, looks suspiciously like 1st Hekatombaion.

Despite your ‘unevidenced postulation’ when the intercalated and normal years of the Athenian archons are considered, based on epigraphic evidence, the ignored Metonic cycle emerges fairly clearly see ‘Athenian Archons 347/6-48/7 B.C.’, Benjamin D. Meritt, Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 26, H. 2 (2nd Qtr., 1977), pp. 161-191 available at JSTOR.

You really must adopt a more critical view of these online Encyclopaedia, the Iranica is completely wrong, as reference to ancient material demonstrates quite clearly. But to give you some practice researching, I challenge you to find evidence that the Old Persian calendar had 360 days in twelve months and five epagonal days; conversely you can find the incontrovertible proof that it did not. I’d plump for the latter were I you; it is simply achievable, the former is, of course impossible as it is wrong. I’ll post the answer Friday New Year’s Day.

If Macedon was at all influenced in its calendar by Persia – pure surmise on your part, by the way, with absolutely no evidence to support such a postulation, we might surmise it would have been the Persian calendar rather than the Babylonian one.

:lol: :lol: wait till you have done your research task. Funny is it not that the use of the Kallippic Cycle by later astronomers is judged as ‘solid evidence’ of a Macedonian calendar reform, but the exact congruence of the Macedonian and Babylonian calendars in 323, Macedonia’s long period of vassalage to a state using the very same calendar and where there is evident cross-cultural influence, is ‘pure surmise’ ? Speaks volumes about the value of your judgement. :?

So now, the army is mustered in Xandikos and part dispatched to Asia, then it stands around for the whole of Artemisios, before attending a ceremony in Daisios, still four months from Dios and the date derived from Aristoboulos. Still clinging to the fictional Macedonian Constitution, it seems, nowhere is the ‘whole army’ mentioned, the locals of Aigai and the Hypaspists would be sufficient for an acclamation. There are uncertainties but they lie in your approach to the simple statement of Aristoboulos, which is seemingly not as good evidence as the suppositions of Beloch, Welles and yourself et al. If you actually weigh evidence then it would seem your scales need mending. :D

On the dates of the archonship of Pythodelos you are closer to the truth; the sixth Metonic cycle began with 337/6 and Hekatombaion will have been 28th June, epigraphic evidence ensures that this was a normal year, thus it had 354 days, so Pythodelos will have assumed office 18th June 336, which would be 12th of Panemos/Simanu (assuming the calendars were synchronised already) 13 days or another 46 Metonic cycles requiring correction by Kallippos to touch Daisios, that’s only 874 years.

Recourse to astronomy will not arrive at the Attic calendar, but fortunately Athens had a regular civil or prytanny calendar of 354 days in ordinary and 384 days in intercalated years; the trick is to work out which years are which; fortunately all the archonships of Alexander’s reign have been worked out see the Merritt article above.

The thirteen years of the Oxyrhynchos schoolboy chronographer cannot be right unless the contemporary court evidence of Aristoboulos and that of Diodoros’ source, still about six centuries closer to the action, is dismissed. Wonder if those scales are working yet?

Although the Athenians tampered with their months they readjusted the days to make the year the right length during the final month and did not disturb the civil calendar; that would mean one tribe having a longer prytanny presidency than another, which would not do, not to mention longer archonships.

We can say that the Tenth prytanny of 336 would have begun 14th May and run until 17th June, which would be 6th Daisios to 11th Panemos, so if one disregards Aristoboulos and, probably, Kleitarchos and the archon date, it would be possible to place the assassination in Daisios. It is a pity that we are not told when Demosthenes’ daughter died. That he received advance news does not help with the month of the event.
Whether this was also extended to the Old Persian calendar is unknown
Should you bother to do your homework you will find why this is false and why it is known. :twisted:

IG II2 241 (and 240) demonstrate more than that the news had not reached Athens; something ‘Welles, others and yourself’ have missed; towhit, that during the final prytanny of the Archonship of Phrynichos, Demades was still in Athens. Yet, according to Diodoros, Philip invited all his guest friends and encouraged his companions to do likewise; Demades was one of the main pro-Macedonian statesmen at this time, it would be inconceivable that he was not on the guest list. If as you assert the trip was 5 weeks from Athens to Macedon, only if Demades moved his two motions on the first day of the prytanny and left immediately could Philip be murdered on the very last day that prytanny. Again you also have to dismiss the contemporary evidence of Aristoboulos and Kleitarchos.

Well what somersaults you will perform to support a bad idea. Let’s get this right ‘Evidence is weighed not counted’ but if you can pretend that it comes from one source, which sounds like counting to me, you can reject it, presumably on the grounds that it does not suit your POV. Ultimately any archon date should go back to the list of archons kept in Athens, that would be a single source but pretty weighty I would say. Diodoros does not put Philip’s death in two archonships he makes it the sole subject of Pythodelos’ term. He then ends the book XVI with the death of Philip as he said he would. He never carries an archonship over between books so he starts XVII with Euainetos and reports the remainder of Pythodelos’ office under him, since this is the first archon of book XVII and the material relates to Alexander, this is his method. Thus no ancient puts Philip’s death anywhere but under Pythodelos, despite many variations on the name, all of which makes putting it under Phrynichos, ‘totally unevidenced’. :roll:

Consular dates are irrelevant for the Greek material or perhaps Xenophon would care to suggest which Roman annalist treated the death of Philip? It is, in fact, well known that Diodoros has his consuls in a twist throughout this period, those he names for Pythodelos’ year actually held office in 399BC! It is not only Diodoros who puts the murder under Pythodelos, but also Arrian and the chronographers, what there does not seem to be is any confusion over this. Not only that were the murder not in Pythodelos’ term, Diodoros would report absolutely nothing for his archonship. It is far more likely that his Greek source gave the archon and he chose to treat the murder at length and exclude the other material, and the Gods be praised that he made that compositional decision as his is the longest and best account of the affair.

That is post 1 largely dealt with; you may like to review your second one as it contains a howler of Ctesian proportions. :lol: :lol:
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by Xenophon »

Agesilaos wrote:
“That is post 1 largely dealt with; you may like to review your second one as it contains a howler of Ctesian proportions.”
In the words of John McEnroe, “You cannot be serious!” I raised seven major points in that post, and you have dealt with none of them ! Instead, we get a load of irrelevant chronological argument – a veritable ‘smokescreen’ of avoiding the issues.

Calippus’ work shows that information about Babylonian Astronomy arrived in Macedon shortly after Alexander’s occupation of Babylon.
“ The salient point from the section of Chris Bennet’s site you yourself post is that the 76 year Kallippic Cycle corrected the 19 year Metonic one by dropping one day in that 76 year period, taking the first year as 330 (later it was retrojected to October 331) the calendar would not be adjusted by this crucial one day until 254 BC.”
No, that is not the salient point at all. Reference to the year 254 BC is misleading and a huge red herring !(See above) .Callipus (circa 370-c.310 BC) was known to have worked with Aristotle in 330 BC, and his theories date from around this time, incorporating Babylonian Astronomical information. Shortly afterward, Aristotle produced a revised ‘Metaphysics’ with its ‘circles of spheres’ theories to explain planetary movements revised to 34 spheres from 27, incorporating the work of Callipus. This ultimately led to Macedonian Calendar reform. The salient point is that the Babylonian information was known in Macedon and Athens in 330 BC. Q.E.D
“Or if the correction was taken back to the first Metonic cycle, which began on 27 June 432, by 336 there would only be one day to lose. There is no evidence of any effect on the day to day calendar, as I accurately said; and Jona IS working on the basis of Simplicimus, as this is the ONLY evidence that Alexander sent the translated astronomical work back to Aristotle. If you think that Jona is, somehow, infallible, then his note is, indeed, ‘solid evidence’; I tend to think that he is as human as anyone else, whilst appreciating the superhuman effort he puts into his site. A moment’s thought would suggest that Kallippos was more concerned with the Athenian calendar, 28 June 330, looks suspiciously like 1st Hekatombaion.”
Totally irrelevant. The ‘solid evidence’ is the work of Callipus and when it took place – around 330 BC, shortly after Alexander’s occupation of Babylon, and this work led directly to calendar reform ultimately. No logical person thinks in your ‘black-and-white’ terms that one source or person is “infallible” – that is just silly – or that the whole of a particular source is unreliable - it all depends on their use in turn of sources and some may be good, some not so good. Such sweeping generalisations are foolish, to say the least. ( see below).
“Despite your ‘unevidenced postulation’ when the intercalated and normal years of the Athenian archons are considered, based on epigraphic evidence, the ignored Metonic cycle emerges fairly clearly see ‘Athenian Archons 347/6-48/7 B.C.’, Benjamin D. Meritt, Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 26, H. 2 (2nd Qtr., 1977), pp. 161-191 available at JSTOR.”
Here we have the point missed yet again, deliberately or otherwise, and inaccurate information asserted to boot. The fact that Athenian archons freely altered the calendar for their own purposes was to illustrate the point that ancient rulers did not regard chronology as immutable – after all, eventually it would be pulled back in line with the lunar cycle when it was adjusted on an ‘ad hoc’ basis, and Alexander too evidently took this line in altering chronology, and felt free to alter it if it suited him.....

Merritt’s 1977 paper begins by saying :
“So much new evidence and so many changes in old determinations have come to light in recent years that even such tables of archons as those of Meritt's The Athenian Year (1961) are no longer reliable. This presentation is intended to make available a revised table drawn up in the light of our present knowledge.” – and these are revisions constantly being made from its original publication in 1940! Hardly to be relied on then.

In addition, the Metonic cycle does NOT “emerge fairly clearly” according to Merritt. His 1977 paper says the exact opposite to Agesilaos claim !!

This was done because of a conviction which Meritt held in 1964 that the dates were specifically Metonic dates. He and Traill have come to believe that a "regular," untampered, festival calendar was often accurate enough, astronomically, to be in effect the same as the Metonic. [ i.e. just as accurate for practical purposes] But the known divergences of dates from the Metonic norm show that the festival dates were not ipso facto Metonic dates.”[p.161/162]
....and he then goes on to explain the evidence as to why the Athenian calendar was not Metonic.

Totally irrelevant and inaccurate information.

The only relevant information to the question at hand concerns the archon year of Pythodelos, 336 BC, which as I have pointed out several times is agreed as the year of Philip’s death, allowing that Diodorus is defining the year by three different dating systems .

“You really must adopt a more critical view of these online Encyclopaedia, the Iranica is completely wrong, as reference to ancient material demonstrates quite clearly. But to give you some practice researching, I challenge you to find evidence that the Old Persian calendar had 360 days in twelve months and five epagonal days; conversely you can find the incontrovertible proof that it did not. I’d plump for the latter were I you; it is simply achievable, the former is, of course impossible as it is wrong. I’ll post the answer Friday New Year’s Day.”
How very condescending and patronising of you !
Utterly irrelevant of course as to whether Macedon used a Babylonian/Persian calendar – did I not use the word “surmise” because we have no evidence they did ? And frankly I don’t share as deep an interest in general chronology as you. . We are a long way from Philip’s injury and Bartsiokas mistaken postulation, and for that matter from the date of Philip’s death too – a digression on a digression, and now a digression on that ! :roll: .

I don’t care to discuss ‘general’ chronology matters. Especially not yet another digression on the complexities of Persian calendars, still a subject of debate. For our purposes, all we need to know is that the Achaemenid calendar (the one referred to by Darius in his Behistun relief) was NOT the same as the Babylonian one. And there is no evidence that either was in use in Macedon. [see quote from me below] As to the question of Macedon’s ‘vassalage’ to Persia see my post Aug 26 on p.13 of the "Taktike theoriai" thread for just how brief this 'vassalage' really was - certainly not long enough to impose Persian culture including calendars. There's just no evidence for Macedonian use of a 'Metonic' or more properly a Babylonian calendar prior to Alexander's occupation of Babylon, and consequent transmission of Babylonian Astronomy and chronology. Far more likely their calendar followed the overwhelming Greek culture that influenced Macedon, and consisted of a lunar calendar with 'ad hoc' corrections from time to time. Any correspondence of dates, given both were using very similar lunar calendars is either co-incidental or the result of adopting the 'Babylonian cycle' between 330 and 323, and certainly not 'evidence' that Macedon used a Babylonian calendar prior to Alexander taking Babylon.

It should be pointed out that all lunar based calendars are going to be much of a muchness, save for differing somewhat irregular inter calary insertions to correct them. The only significance of the mis-named ‘Metonic cycle’ is that it regularised these intercalary adjustments. No surprise then that Greeks saw no reason to alter existing systems, and the 'Metonic cycle' was not even adopted in Athens .
Xenophon wrote:If Macedon was at all influenced in its calendar by Persia – pure surmise on your part, by the way, with absolutely no evidence to support such a postulation, we might surmise it would have been the Persian calendar rather than the Babylonian one.
... wait till you have done your research task. Funny is it not that the use of the Kallippic Cycle by later astronomers is judged as ‘solid evidence’ of a Macedonian calendar reform, but the exact congruence of the Macedonian and Babylonian calendars in 323, Macedonia’s long period of vassalage to a state using the very same calendar and where there is evident cross-cultural influence, is ‘pure surmise’ ? Speaks volumes about the value of your judgement.
See above for why Calippus’ work is ‘solid evidence’ that the discoveries of Babylonian astronomy and chronology reached Macedon and Greece shortly after Alexander’s capture of Babylon, and were then ultimately used to modify the Macedonian calendar.
"So now, the army is mustered in Xandikos and part dispatched to Asia, then it stands around for the whole of Artemisios, before attending a ceremony in Daisios, still four months from Dios and the date derived from Aristoboulos.
...or rather, a date derived through faulty arithmetic in a 'count back'.Aristoboulos' actual statement has never been disputed. This allegation is a complete falsehood.
Still clinging to the fictional Macedonian Constitution, it seems, nowhere is the ‘whole army’ mentioned, the locals of Aigai and the Hypaspists would be sufficient for an acclamation...
,

Red herring again! I never referred to acclamation and I don't believe Macedonian Kings were chosen this way. Having been chosen, usually by the nobles, they were then presented to the army/assembly effectively for 'rubber stamping'. and since it was rare, if ever, for all the Makedones to be present, a 'quorum' so to speak, sufficed.

The purpose of showing that the whole army was present, including Greek allies [see my quotes of Justin and Diodorus previously] was to show that Philip would shortly lead the invasion of Persia when he was murdered.(hence not in Dios/October, but must have been earlyish in the year.) There is not one shred of evidence that just the Hypaspists (and locals) were present. The evidence of Justin and Diodorus is clear and unambiguous.
There are uncertainties but they lie in your approach to the simple statement of Aristoboulos, which is seemingly not as good evidence as the suppositions of Beloch, Welles and yourself et al. If you actually weigh evidence then it would seem your scales need mending."
There's that same false allegation again ! Aristoboulos' statement is not challenged, and the 12 years 7/8 months is one way of reckoning, which in reality is the same as the 13 years (Daisios to Daisios) of P. Oxy. when calculating purely by months including inter calary ones.What is challenged is the mistaken arithmetic of a count-back based on the whole years plus odd months method of reckoning. [for the 'n'th time !]. Incidently, Olympic intervals were calculated on an actual month counting, including inter calary months.

Once the Macedonian army had been mustered, usually in Xanthikos/March-April ( but not always), it would still have to await the arrival of the Greek contingents after despatching the advance force, which would take an estimated 5-6 weeks to arrive ( see previous post ), taking us up to Daisios aprox. No time lost at all. Unlike standing around a whole campaigning season [until Dios/October] in 'your' scheme of things. As to the presence of the whole army, see reference to source material in Justin and Diodorus in my post of 29 Dec which is clear– and which you have ignored.

As to Aristoboulos, I don’t dispute what HE says, rather your faulty arithmetic in YOUR ( and others) ‘count-back’ which is completely incorrect for reasons I have now repeatedly given – and won’t discuss again. “There are none so blind as those that will not see”.
On the dates of the archonship of Pythodelos you are closer to the truth; the sixth Metonic cycle began with 337/6 and Hekatombaion will have been 28th June, epigraphic evidence ensures that this was a normal year, thus it had 354 days, so Pythodelos will have assumed office 18th June 336, which would be 12th of Panemos/Simanu (assuming the calendars were synchronised already) 13 days or another 46 Metonic cycles requiring correction by Kallippos to touch Daisios, that’s only 874 years.
So? What is your point – you already agree that we are not to take Diodorus’ reference to the year too literally, and that he can refer to events that actually fall outside it. He is simply referring to the year by Athenian archons and Roman consuls and the Olympic year , which don't co-incide, and it doesn’t matter if he gets the consuls wrong, the point is that the various years did not equate exactly, so only give an approximate indication of dates.
Recourse to astronomy will not arrive at the Attic calendar, but fortunately Athens had a regular civil or prytanny calendar of 354 days in ordinary and 384 days in intercalated years; the trick is to work out which years are which; fortunately all the archonships of Alexander’s reign have been worked out see the Merritt article above.
Again, so? How does this affect the question of which month Philip died and Alexander acceded in, other than that it was an Athenian inter calated year?
The thirteen years of the Oxyrhynchos schoolboy chronographer cannot be right unless the contemporary court evidence of Aristoboulos and that of Diodoros’ source, still about six centuries closer to the action, is dismissed. Wonder if those scales are working yet?
Oh, for heaven’s sake! Repetition will not establish the accuracy of your statements. I have shown why your count-back of Aristoboulos’ 12 years and 8 months is erroneous in arriving at Dios/October, and why for other reasons Philip’s death/Alexander’s accession could not have taken place in that month. A correct count-back arrives at Daisios/May-June, which is indeed exactly 13 years from Alexander’s accession to his death. Which is the same as using the years and odd months counting system you refer to. You would seem to be ‘arithmetically challenged’ if you really cannot see this – but I suspect you can , but just don’t want to admit it. Notice Agesilaos' continual habit of disparaging those who don't agree with him - me, Welles, Jona Lendering, and now the P.Oxy. chronographer. Hardly a valid methodology ! :lol:
Although the Athenians tampered with their months they readjusted the days to make the year the right length during the final month and did not disturb the civil calendar; that would mean one tribe having a longer prytanny presidency than another, which would not do, not to mention longer archonships.
We can say that the Tenth prytanny of 336 would have begun 14th May and run until 17th June, which would be 6th Daisios to 11th Panemos, so if one disregards Aristoboulos and, probably, Kleitarchos and the archon date, it would be possible to place the assassination in Daisios. It is a pity that we are not told when Demosthenes’ daughter died. That he received advance news does not help with the month of the event.
So you acknowledge that the assassination could have taken place in Daisios? Hurrah! Progress. Of course if we are not to take the archonship of Pythodelos literally, as you have pointed out, but only as an approximate indicator of the year, then it might conceivably have been sooner still in the year, especially when the evidence regarding Demosthenes foreknowledge is taken into account. One doesn’t ‘disregard’ Aristoboulos – this is just a false ‘furphy’ put about by you, mere mud slinging. It is your incorrect deduction on a ‘count-back’ based on faulty arithmetic and methodology that is wrong. Using the ‘years-and-months’ counting system you described earlier, 12 years and 8 months is correct, but in reality because this system neglects the inter calary months, that period runs Daisios to Daisios ( aprox) and can thus also be expressed as 13 years.
Xenophon wrote: Whether this was also extended to the Old Persian calendar is unknown
Should you bother to do your homework you will find why this is false and why it is known.
See above. I have read enough about Persian calendars to know the subject is complex, and debated, and whether it was or not is in any case irrelevant to what is a trivial point in this discussion anyway. Like Clark Gable’s Rhett Butler, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”, for the purposes of this discussion. There is zero evidence that earlier Macedonians used a Persian or Babylonian calendar. Period.
IG II2 241 (and 240) demonstrate more than that the news had not reached Athens; something ‘Welles, others and yourself’ have missed; to whit, that during the final prytanny of the Archonship of Phrynichos, Demades was still in Athens. Yet, according to Diodoros, Philip invited all his guest friends and encouraged his companions to do likewise; Demades was one of the main pro-Macedonian statesmen at this time, it would be inconceivable that he was not on the guest list. If as you assert the trip was 5 weeks from Athens to Macedon, only if Demades moved his two motions on the first day of the prytanny and left immediately could Philip be murdered on the very last day that prytanny. Again you also have to dismiss the contemporary evidence of Aristoboulos and Kleitarchos.
A fine example of ‘special pleading’. From the inscription itself it is apparent Demades was carrying out important diplomatic business – more than enough to keep him in Athens instead of attending Philip’s celebrations.

Yawn ! Nobody ‘dismisses’ the evidence of Aristoboulos, and perhaps you’d care too specify which actual evidence of Kleitarchos you are referring to, which earlier was only ‘probable’.
Well what somersaults you will perform to support a bad idea. Let’s get this right ‘Evidence is weighed not counted’ but if you can pretend that it comes from one source, which sounds like counting to me, you can reject it, presumably on the grounds that it does not suit your POV.
I thought you said you could read and understand English ? I don’t ‘pretend’ anything, merely point out that in reality, your multiple sources for “archonship of Pythodelos” may well boil down to a single source. This is in the context of ‘counting’ evidence.Half a dozen references derived from a single source are really only one source....
Nor do I reject that probably single source of evidence. But it is a ‘red herring’ because as you yourself point out, the 'archonship year' is not to be taken literally, just an approximate indication of the year in question, like the Olympic year or Roman consular year, all of which are different.
Ultimately any archon date should go back to the list of archons kept in Athens, that would be a single source but pretty weighty I would say. Diodoros does not put Philip’s death in two archonships he makes it the sole subject of Pythodelos’ term. He then ends the book XVI with the death of Philip as he said he would. He never carries an archonship over between books so he starts XVII with Euainetos and reports the remainder of Pythodelos’ office under him, since this is the first archon of book XVII and the material relates to Alexander, this is his method. Thus no ancient puts Philip’s death anywhere but under Pythodelos, despite many variations on the name, all of which makes putting it under Phrynichos, ‘totally unevidenced’.
See above. Whether Diodorus does this as part of his method, or merely made a careless slip doesn't matter. It is clear that Diodorus means 336/335 Attic year (aprox)for the death of Philip, and I have repeatedly agreed this..... :evil:
Consular dates are irrelevant for the Greek material or perhaps Xenophon would care to suggest which Roman annalist treated the death of Philip?
It is, in fact, well known that Diodoros has his consuls in a twist throughout this period, those he names for Pythodelos’ year actually held office in 399BC!
I don't think that is correct. Welles gives 338 BC, based on "The magistrates of the Roman Republic. 1. 509 B.C. - 100 B.C." T.R.S. Broughton, which in turn is taken directly from Varro's list and the Fasti Capitolini..... The consular eponymous year most likely began on the Kalends Mai/1st of May at this time...
It is not only Diodoros who puts the murder under Pythodelos, but also Arrian and the chronographers, what there does not seem to be is any confusion over this. Not only that were the murder not in Pythodelos’ term, Diodoros would report absolutely nothing for his archonship. It is far more likely that his Greek source gave the archon and he chose to treat the murder at length and exclude the other material, and the Gods be praised that he made that compositional decision as his is the longest and best account of the affair.
Total ‘red herring’ alert ! The point is that Diodorus gives years of differing starting dates – Athenian, Roman and Olympic – to determine which particular year he is referring to, and as Agesilaos avers, even then refers to events technically outside the ‘archonship period’ ( the advance force crossing the Hellespont).
That is post 1 largely dealt with; you may like to review your second one as it contains a howler of Ctesian proportions.
You have not at all “largely dealt with” my post.
I raised :
1. The Calippic reform as evidence that the Macedonian calendar was reformed in the light of Calippus work shortly after the fall of Babylonc. 330 BC – not dealt with at all ( see above)
2. Pythodelos archonship being either 12 years 8 months, or 13 years, depending simply on method of reckoning – not addressed
3. Manipulation of time by ancient officials/leaders as an example of why Alexander’s use of same was ‘normal’ – not addressed
4. Welles postulation that ‘Daisios’/May - June could have been the month in question – now acknowledged
5. No evidence for use of Persian/Babylonian calendar in Macedon – not addressed, and no evidence offered.
6. The year in question not being the literal archonship year, on Agesilaos’ own assertions – not addressed
7.The presence of the whole army at the time, as evidenced in the sources – not addressed saved for flat assertion this means Hypaspists and residents who were citizens, for which no evidence is offered, and which is plainly untrue on the evidence of Justin and Diodorus!

As to 'howler', I assume that is in relation to my calculations. If it is, I have indeed followed your advice and double-checked and they are correct, to the best of my knowledge..........I certainly hope you are not going to suggest Nearchus left Patala in Sept/Boedromion 325, and only 'began his voyage' then, because there are good reasons that is not so!
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by agesilaos »

Issue 1. : Calippus’ work shows that information about Babylonian Astronomy arrived in Macedon shortly after Alexander’s occupation of Babylon.

This is a major point? It is false in any case; Kallippos worked with Aristotle in ATHENS and began his first cycle on the first of Hekatombaion but more to the point any correction would not be applied for the period stated AND it would only be one day, which bit of that do you think is so massively ‘relevant’? As Basil would say; ‘Please try and understand before one of us dies!’

Why do you refuse to reference your assertions? I the Metaphysics XII 1073b-1074a Aristotle says
Eudoxus held that the motion of the sun and moon involves in either case three spheres, of which the outermost is that of the fixed stars, the second revolves in the circle which bisects the zodiac, [20] and the third revolves in a circle which is inclined across the breadth of the zodiac; but the circle in which the moon moves is inclined at a greater angle than that in which the sun moves.And he held that the motion of the planets involved in each case four spheres; and that of these the first and second are the same as before (for the sphere of the fixed stars is that which carries round all the other spheres, and the sphere next in order, which has its motion in the circle which bisects the zodiac, is common to all the planets); the third sphere of all the planets has its poles in the circle which bisects the zodiac; and the fourth sphere moves in the circle inclined to the equator of the third. In the case of the third sphere, while the other planets have their own peculiar poles, those of Venus and Mercury are the same.
Callippus assumed the same arrangement of the spheres as did Eudoxus (that is, with respect to the order of their intervals), but as regards their number, whereas he assigned to Jupiter and Saturn the same number of spheres as Eudoxus, he considered that two further spheres should be added both for the sun and for the moon, if the phenomena are to be accounted for, and one for each of the other planets.
But if all the spheres in combination are to account for the phenomena, [1074a] [1] there must be for each of the other planets other spheres, one less in number than those already mentioned, which counteract these and restore to the same position the first sphere of the star which in each case is next in order below. In this way only can the combination of forces produce the motion of the planets.Therefore since the forces by which the planets themselves are moved are 8 for Jupiter and Saturn, and 25 for the others, and since of these the only ones which do not need to be counteracted are those by which the lowest planet is moved, the counteracting spheres for the first two planets will be 6, and those of the remaining four will be 16; and the total number of spheres, both those which move the planets and those which counteract these, will be 55.If we do not invest the moon and the sun with the additional motions which we have mentioned, there will be 47 (?) spheres in all.
Rather different from your version and fully referenced; still only as important as one day in seventy-six years though. Do let us know where you found your ‘information’. And try and make the reference rather more accurate that the Strabo one you gave above in which neither Book nor chapter nor verse was correct, tut, tut!
Totally irrelevant. The ‘solid evidence’ is the work of Callipus and when it took place – around 330 BC, shortly after Alexander’s occupation of Babylon, and this work led directly to calendar reform ultimately.
And you ‘relevant’ contribution is a surmise based on the start date Kallippos gave to his cycle, itself calculated from references in Ptolemy 2nd century AD, and the putative reform would have lost exactly one day. What the gibberish that follows this refers to God alone knows.

If you want to bandy accusations of inaccuracy it is a good idea to be accurate yourself, you have omitted the phrase kata theon in your quote, which had you read and understood the piece it would have been clear that Merrit is using ‘Metonic’ as shorthand for the intercalary years in that system. Had you got just five pages into the paper you would have read this
‘With these changes it will be seen that the years 128/7 to 91/0, so far as there is evidence, conform exactly to the correct sequence of ordinary and intercalary years in the Metonic cycle. The correct sequence can now be observed, as far as there is evidence, in the fifth cycle (355/4 – 338/7), in the sixth cycle (337/6 – 319/8), in the seventh cycle (exept for two transpositions: in 318/7and 317/6 and in 307/6 and 306/5) (318/7 – 300/299, in the eighth and ninth cycles (200/8 – 262/1), and in the seventeenth and eighteenth cycles (128/7 – 91/0).’ P166
Exactly what I said and you have denied; either you were too stupid to understand this plain statement or you were only pretending to have read on, I’d plump for the latter.
How very condescending and patronising of you !
Utterly irrelevant of course as to whether Macedon used a Babylonian/Persian calendar – did I not use the word “surmise” because we have no evidence they did ? And frankly I don’t share as deep an interest in general chronology as you. . We are a long way from Philip’s injury and Bartsiokas mistaken postulation, and for that matter from the date of Philip’s death too – a digression on a digression, and now a digression on that ! .
Given the standard of your reasoning throughout no more than is deserved; and I notice that the conundrum was too much for you. If you do not like digressions you really ought to do the work and not post such obvious misconceptions in the hope of bolstering a bad idea, just eliminate the bad idea (here that Philip died in Spring) .

Frankly, you ‘do not care to discuss’ anything you prefer an ill-informed pronouncement and want people to simply accept it

Since you bring it up the Behistun relief does in fact prove that the Old Persian Calendar was exactly the same as the Babylonian one under Dareios. The inscription is tri-lingual and unlike administrative tablets like the Persepolis archives contains specific dates, day and month in each of the three versions Persian, Elamite (aka. Susian) and Babylonian, in every case the day number is the same in all three versions, only the month name changes, this can only happen if the calendars are the same QED! Not only that the Babylonian calendar was not 360 + 5 days long, so the Encyclopaedia Iranica is wrong there, despite the long list of relevant books; it seems just listing references is no match for actually reading them.

Anyway I see I am being accused of ignoring a post; in fact your last whine appeared before I could reply so I will reply to that first.
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by Xenophon »

Agesilaos wrote:
Xenophon wrote: Calippus’ work shows that information about Babylonian Astronomy arrived in Macedon shortly after Alexander’s occupation of Babylon.
This is a major point? It is false in any case; Kallippos worked with Aristotle in ATHENS and began his first cycle on the first of Hekatombaion but more to the point any correction would not be applied for the period stated AND it would only be one day, which bit of that do you think is so massively ‘relevant’? As Basil would say; ‘Please try and understand before one of us dies!’
The point, for the ‘n’th time is that Macedonian calendars were only reformed AFTER the arrival of the Babylonian astronomical diaries – which was pretty promptly after Babylon’s capture, since Callipus was using the information in 330 BC. It has been calculated that Callipus made his observations in the region of the Hellespont (in Macedon) and well known that he worked with Aristotle in Athens, which is why I said: “The salient point is that the Babylonian information was known in Macedon and Athens in 330 BC.”
Why do you refuse to reference your assertions? I the Metaphysics XII 1073b-1074a Aristotle says
Why do you write such rubbish? If it is relevant, I always provide references.

"Eudoxus held that the motion of the sun and moon involves in either case three spheres, of which the outermost is that of the fixed stars, the second revolves in the circle which bisects the zodiac, [20] and the third revolves in a circle which is inclined across the breadth of the zodiac; but the circle in which the moon moves is inclined at a greater angle than that in which the sun moves.And he held that the motion of the planets involved in each case four spheres; and that of these the first and second are the same as before (for the sphere of the fixed stars is that which carries round all the other spheres, and the sphere next in order, which has its motion in the circle which bisects the zodiac, is common to all the planets); the third sphere of all the planets has its poles in the circle which bisects the zodiac; and the fourth sphere moves in the circle inclined to the equator of the third. In the case of the third sphere, while the other planets have their own peculiar poles, those of Venus and Mercury are the same.
Callippus assumed the same arrangement of the spheres as did Eudoxus (that is, with respect to the order of their intervals), but as regards their number, whereas he assigned to Jupiter and Saturn the same number of spheres as Eudoxus, he considered that two further spheres should be added both for the sun and for the moon, if the phenomena are to be accounted for, and one for each of the other planets.
But if all the spheres in combination are to account for the phenomena, [1074a] [1] there must be for each of the other planets other spheres, one less in number than those already mentioned, which counteract these and restore to the same position the first sphere of the star which in each case is next in order below. In this way only can the combination of forces produce the motion of the planets.Therefore since the forces by which the planets themselves are moved are 8 for Jupiter and Saturn, and 25 for the others, and since of these the only ones which do not need to be counteracted are those by which the lowest planet is moved, the counteracting spheres for the first two planets will be 6, and those of the remaining four will be 16; and the total number of spheres, both those which move the planets and those which counteract these, will be 55.If we do not invest the moon and the sun with the additional motions which we have mentioned, there will be 47 (?) spheres in all."


Rather different from your version and fully referenced; still only as important as one day in seventy-six years though. Do let us know where you found your ‘information’. And try and make the reference rather more accurate that the Strabo one you gave above in which neither Book nor chapter nor verse was correct, tut, tut!
A mere typo, and since I quoted the relevant passage in full, hardly crucial... for the record, should have read Strabo XV.1......

As can be seen, quoting Aristotle out of context adds nothing. The only point is that the availability of the Babylonian astronomical diaries allowed the Macedonian calendar to be modified so as to co-incide with the Babylonian 19 year cycle, and ultimately the slightly more accurate so-called Calippic cycle.

Xenophon wrote:Totally irrelevant. The ‘solid evidence’ is the work of Callipus and when it took place – around 330 BC, shortly after Alexander’s occupation of Babylon, and this work led directly to calendar reform ultimately.

And you ‘relevant’ contribution is a surmise based on the start date Kallippos gave to his cycle, itself calculated from references in Ptolemy 2nd century AD, and the putative reform would have lost exactly one day. What the gibberish that follows this refers to God alone knows.
So you can’t in fact read and understand plain English? Keep re-reading. I have no doubt you’ll understand eventually......
The point is not the minor modification of Callipus’ refinement, but when he received the information that led to it.....
If you want to bandy accusations of inaccuracy it is a good idea to be accurate yourself, you have omitted the phrase kata theon in your quote, which had you read and understood the piece it would have been clear that Merrit is using ‘Metonic’ as shorthand for the intercalary years in that system. Had you got just five pages into the paper you would have read this

With these changes it will be seen that the years 128/7 to 91/0, so far as there is evidence, conform exactly to the correct sequence of ordinary and intercalary years in the Metonic cycle. The correct sequence can now be observed, as far as there is evidence, in the fifth cycle (355/4 – 338/7), in the sixth cycle (337/6 – 319/8), in the seventh cycle (exept for two transpositions: in 318/7and 317/6 and in 307/6 and 306/5) (318/7 – 300/299, in the eighth and ninth cycles (200/8 – 262/1), and in the seventeenth and eighteenth cycles (128/7 – 91/0).’ P166
Exactly what I said and you have denied; either you were too stupid to understand this plain statement or you were only pretending to have read on, I’d plump for the latter.
Just the usual casual abuse, I see. In fact if YOU had read the paper fully, you would realise that although Merritt refers to ‘Metonic cycles’, it is apparent from his table [p.169] that although he refers to ‘the sixth Metonic cycle”, this series of archonships, the second of which is Pythodelos/336 BC does NOT follow the Metonic cycle in the slightest. It contains eight inter-calary years (instead of the Metonic seven), and these occur randomly every second or third year and are thus ‘ad hoc’ – so Athens is NOT using a Metonic calendar....... Now who is stupid?

Xenophon wrote:How very condescending and patronising of you !
Utterly irrelevant of course as to whether Macedon used a Babylonian/Persian calendar – did I not use the word “surmise” because we have no evidence they did ? And frankly I don’t share as deep an interest in general chronology as you. . We are a long way from Philip’s injury and Bartsiokas mistaken postulation, and for that matter from the date of Philip’s death too – a digression on a digression, and now a digression on that ! .

Given the standard of your reasoning throughout no more than is deserved; and I notice that the conundrum was too much for you. If you do not like digressions you really ought to do the work and not post such obvious misconceptions in the hope of bolstering a bad idea, just eliminate the bad idea (here that Philip died in Spring) .
Better than reasoning based on nothing more than bad arithmetic! :shock:
Philip certainly was murdered in late Spring/early summer for any number of reasons. The ‘bad idea’ is that he was murdered in Dios/October, based on nothing more than a false ‘count-back’ derived from faulty arithmetic........
Frankly, you ‘do not care to discuss’ anything you prefer an ill-informed pronouncement and want people to simply accept it .
Chronological trivia may be of interest to you, but as I have said, not to me – and you are not going to cajole, ‘goad’ or otherwise persuade me to waste any more time on it.
Since you bring it up the Behistun relief does in fact prove that the Old Persian Calendar was exactly the same as the Babylonian one under Dareios. The inscription is tri-lingual and unlike administrative tablets like the Persepolis archives contains specific dates, day and month in each of the three versions Persian, Elamite (aka. Susian) and Babylonian, in every case the day number is the same in all three versions, only the month name changes, this can only happen if the calendars are the same QED! Not only that the Babylonian calendar was not 360 + 5 days long, so the Encyclopaedia Iranica is wrong there, despite the long list of relevant books; it seems just listing references is no match for actually reading them.
I’ve already pointed out that any calendar based on lunar observations is going to be pretty much of a muchness. The Old Persian calendar is supposed to contain 12x30 day months = 360 days compared to the Babylonian calendar’s 354, so not the same. The dates are given in the Old Persian calendar, which is merely translated into Babylonian and Elamite ! There is no evidence for the use of any other calendar.
Anyway I see I am being accused of ignoring a post; in fact your last whine appeared before I could reply so I will reply to that first.
Huh? You wrote:
“That is post 1 largely dealt with;”.....which it was patently not. Now you claim you didnt’t have the chance to reply?
Anyway, I am not going to respond to any more chronological trivia, unless it is absolutely pertinent to the question of the date of Philip’s murder/Alexander’s succession........
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by Xenophon »

Getting back to the current subject of the possible date of Philip's death/Alexander's accession( for those who may have forgotten, or whose eyes are simply glazed over with Agesilaos' chronological trivia), There are further clues as to this date.

Arrian [I.1]:
"It is said that Philip died when Pythodemus was archon at Athens,' and that his son Alexander, being then about twenty years of age, marched into Peloponnesus as soon as he had secured the regal power. There he assembled all the Greeks who were within the limits of the Peloponnesus and asked from them the supreme command of the expedition against the Persians, an office which they had already conferred upon Philip. He received the honour which he asked from all except the Lacedaemonians who replied that it was an hereditary custom of theirs, not to follow others but to lead them. The Athenians also attempted to bring about some political change ; but they were so alarmed at the very approach of Alexander, that they conceded to him even more ample public honours than those which had been bestowed upon Philip. He then returned into Macedonia and busied himself in preparing for the expedition into Asia.However, at the approach of spring (b.c. 335), he marched towards Thrace, into the lands of the Triballians
and lllyrians,....."


Now it is generally agreed that Alexander was born in July 356 BC ( an Olympic year) - though there are suspicions this date may have been altered to suit the legend that Philip received three pieces of good news on the same day - the winning of the Olympic chariot race, the birth of Alexander, and a victory by Parmenion. We have also seen that this march to the Peloponnese described by Arrian must have taken place in 336 BC ( see previous posts), perhaps late summer or early Autumn. It would take roughly 3-4 weeks to march from Macedon to Corinth or thereabouts, so if Alexander is "about 20 years of age" that arrival is somewhere in late summer/early Autumn, and Alexander must have set off a month before. Allowing a month to settle affairs following Philip's death, and once again we are talking around May/June for the assassination, bearing in mind also that Alexander is going to take 3-4 weeks to return, which must be before winter.....

Plutarch also mentions Alexander's age with the same relevance.
"He took over the kingdom, having been born twenty years before"
(Alex.11.1); Justin [XI.1.1-9]describes the fears of the army of Macedonians and allies in the face of so many dangers at the death of Philip, the curing of those fears through the speech of Alexander, and the inspiration of hope.
"He had been born twenty years before"


All sources are therefore agreed that Philip's death was in late Spring/early Summer, 336 BC..... i.e around July give or take a month or two.

Had the assassination been in the incorrectly calculated October, there would certainly have been no time for Alexander to go to Thessaly, then the Peloponnese, carry on negotiations, then approach Athens, and return to Macedon, all before Winter......
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by agesilaos »

Just the usual casual abuse, I see. In fact if YOU had read the paper fully, you would realise that although Merritt refers to ‘Metonic cycles’, it is apparent from his table [p.169] that although he refers to ‘the sixth Metonic cycle”, this series of archonships, the second of which is Pythodelos/336 BC does NOT follow the Metonic cycle in the slightest. It contains eight inter-calary years (instead of the Metonic seven), and these occur randomly every second or third year and are thus ‘ad hoc’ – so Athens is NOT using a Metonic calendar....... Now who is stupid?
Indeed, pp169/70

Sixth Metonic Cycle
337/6 Phrynichos O
336/5 Pythodelos I-1
335/4 Euainetos O
334/3 Ktesikles O
333/2 Nikokrates I-2
332/1 Niketes O
331/0 Aristophanes O
330/29 Antiphon I- 3
329/8 Kephisophon O
328/7 Euthykritos I -4
327/6 Hegemon O
326/5 Chremes O
325/4 Antkles I- 5
324/3 Hegesias O
323/2 Kephisodoros O
322/1 Philokles I-6
321/0 Archippos O
320/19 Neaichmos I- 7
319/8 Apollodoros O
I’ve already pointed out that any calendar based on lunar observations is going to be pretty much of a muchness. The Old Persian calendar is supposed to contain 12x30 day months = 360 days compared to the Babylonian calendar’s 354, so not the same. The dates are given in the Old Persian calendar, which is merely translated into Babylonian and Elamite ! There is no evidence for the use of any other calendar.
How thick are you? Try working things out; the task, which you will obviously not attempt, instead relying on the usual repeated assertion, would be to demonstrate how in two calendars , one of thirty day months and the other of alternating hollow and full months there can be these equivalent days

Pers - Bab
COL 1
14 Viyakhana (XII)= 14 Adar (XII)
26 Atriyadiya (IX) = 26 Kislev (IX)
COL 2
27 Anamaka (X) = 27 Tebet (X)
9 Thaigarcish (III) = 9 Sivan (III)
15 Anamaka (X)= 15 Tebet (X)
End of Thuravahara (II) = 30 Iyyar (II)

No other correlations survive in toto but that’s direct matchs in months 2,3, 9, 10 and 12. The calendars were the same. How do you decide which month is which when they can be a month out of synch? You want to deny that the Greeks counted a thirteen month leap year as a year despite the fact that more than one third of the years in a two decades had thirteen months. Yet the Persians make a best guess and unlike the Greeks they make a great play on the Truth, Dareios is emphatic about the Truth of his inscription, if there were another calendric equation he would have used it not settles for a vague month. The dates are specific and they clearly demonstrate to adoption of the Babylonian calendar in Achaemenid Persia.

I am not bothering with the rest of your posts, having found another blatant lie, since when are you qualified to alter the translation of the Rev Shelby Watson; but you can have the post people; oh the Howler, Strabo is talking about the voyage TO Patala, Niarchos dates the voyage FROM Patala, simples.
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by agesilaos »

I am neither a Christian nor a Mithraist (they stole Mithras’ birthday) so Xmas is just a day when the pubs shut early and hence nefastus.

I have not said that Macedon used the Babylonian calendar, quite clearly the months have different names, but I do think they had adopted the superior form of intercalation introduced by Dareios; the evidence is late (the synchronism at Alexander’s death) and circumstantial since we have no fully dated documents before Alexander, so the opposite case is equally ‘unevidenced’. It is a matter of balancing the probabilities. Macedonia was under Persian influence if not rule (Dareios names them as part of his empire at Behistun) right about the time that the calendric reforms were being put into practice (these are the Metonic cycle not the Kallippic) contrariwise we have a reform of Alexander that is not mentioned by any Alexander historian, is clearly instituted at Athens (the cycle begins at the start of the Athenian year not the Macedonian) and is only suggested by a very late source, Simplicius. Much is made of the fact that he gives a title to the work he says Alexander had translated (as far as I can gather not being able to find the original) that makes sense only as a poor translation from the Akkadian, in which the same word contains the meaning of Guardians and Observations, we might use ‘watching’; all this demonstrates is that Simplicius saw some real Babylonian works whilst in exile at the Court of Khoesroes.

When declaring someone’s logic to be flawed it would be customary to point out where it breaks down; you simply assert that ‘It is inconceivable that Philip was not gathering his invasion force, intending to invade the same year’; all this demonstrates is that you cannot conceive of it, Philip II was more imaginative and also cautious.

We are not told much about his intentions but we have some facts, the most obvious one is that the advance force was sent in advance. One has to ask; why? Nothing would have prevented Philip holding Kleopatra’s wedding before the campaign started and having the army fully assembled and then had a full campaigning season.

We also know that the area which went over to the Macedonians stretched from Ephesos (Arr. I.17.ixff) to Kyzikos (Diod XVII.7.viii). We are told that at Ephesos Alexander re-instated those who had been exiled for supporting him by an oligarchy imposed after they had admitted Memnon to the city. To me this suggests that Philip was sending the advance party to both discover the extent of and encourage support among the Asiatic Greeks. That the size of the force was adequate rather than puny is demonstrable, as previously stated by the fact that they were not defeated and expelled, even after the delay necessitated by Philip’s death .

As for Justin the first quote does not mean the army was mustered only that there were these various foreign elements in and the second quote you have shamelessly altered to make it sound that the army was gathered Justin has ‘ qui pro contione ita uulgus omne consolatus hortatusque pro tempore est ut et metum timentibus demeret et in spem omnes inpelleret.

Which Watson gives as ’who, in a public assembly, so effectually soothed and encouraged the people, as to remove all uneasiness from those that were afraid, and to fill every one with favourable expectations. ‘ You have ‘“To all these apprehensions the succession of Alexander was a relief, who addressed the whole host in an assembly, so effectually soothed and encouraged the people, as to remove all uneasiness from those that were afraid, and to fill every one with favourable expectations.”

Pathetic, if you cannot be trusted to ‘copy and paste honestly you are not worth bothering with.
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by agesilaos »

Ooops! On checking my Clarendon Press Justin it turns out that it is Yardley who is to blame for the inexplicable ‘host’ so apologies to Xenophon. The word in question is ‘vulgus’ which Lewis Short gives thus

vulgus (volg- ), i, n. (
I.masc., Att., Sisenn., and Varr. ap. Non. p. 230, 27 sq.; Verg. A. 2, 99; Phaedr. 4, 14; Liv. 6, 34, 5; 24, 32, 1;Lucr. 2, 920 et saep.) [Sanscr. várga, a group], the great mass, the multitude, the people, public (class.; cf.: plebs, turba).
I. In gen.: “non est consilium in vulgo, non ratio, etc.,” Cic. Planc. 4, 9; Sall. J. 66, 2; Verg. A. 2, 39: “quod invulgus gratum esse sentimus,” with the people, with the public, generally, Cic. Att. 2, 22, 3: “in vulgus notus,” id. ib. 9, 5, 2; Liv. 22, 3, 14; Tac. H. 1, 71; 2, 26 fin.; “2, 93 al.: apio gratia in vulgo est,” Plin. 20, 11, 44, § 112.—
II. In partic.
A. A mass, crowd, throng, multitude of persons or animals: “vulgus servorum,” Ter. And. 3, 4, 4: “mulierum,” id. Hec. 4, 2, 24: “patronorum,” Cic. Brut. 97, 332: “insipientium,” id. Tusc. 2, 26, 63: “densum (umbrarum),” Hor. C. 2, 13, 32: “inane (animarum),” Ov. F. 2, 554: “femineum,” Luc. 7, 39: “incautum (ovium),” Verg. G. 3, 469: “aequoreum,” of sea-monsters, Sen. Hippol. 957.—
B. With an accessory idea of contempt, the crowd, the vulgar, mob, rabble, populace: “sapientis judicium ajudicio vulgi discrepat,” Cic. Brut. 53, 198: “ceteri omnes strenui, boni, nobiles atque ignobiles, vulgusfuimus sine gratiā, sine auctoritate,” Sall. C. 20, 7: “gratiam ad vulgum quaesierat,” Liv. 6, 34, 5: “quidoportet Nos facere, a vulgo longe lateque remotos?” Hor. S. 1, 6, 18: “odi profanum vulgus et arceo,” id. C. 3, 1, 1: “malignum Spernere vulgus,” id. ib. 2, 16, 40: “infidum,” id. ib. 1, 35, 25: “mobile,” Stat. S. 2, 2, 123: fani pulchritudo et vetustas Praenestinarum etiam nunc retinet sortium nomen: atque id in vulgus; “quis enimmagistratus aut quis vir illustrior utitur sortibus?” among the common people, among the populace, Cic. Div. 2, 41, 86: “spargere voces In volgum ambiguas,” Verg. A. 2, 99: “alio pane procerum, alio volgi,” Plin. 19, 4, 19, § 53: “vulgus proceresque gemunt,” Ov. M. 8, 526.—
C. Militari gratiora vulgo, the common soldiery, Curt. 3, 6, 19: “vulgo militum acceptior,” id. 7, 2, 33.— Hence, vulgō (volg- ), abl. adv., prop. among the multitude; hence, in gen., before every body, before all the world, generally, universally, everywhere, all over, commonly, openly, publicly (syn.: “palam, publice,aperte): num locum ad spectandum dare? aut ad prandium invitare? Minime, sed vulgo, passim. Quid estvulgo? Universos,” Cic. Mur. 35, 73: “ejusmodi tempus erat, ut homines vulgo impune occiderentur,” id. Rosc. Am. 29, 80: “vulgo totis castris testamenta obsignabantur,” Caes. B. G. 1, 39: “accidit, ut vulgomilites ab signis discederent,” id. ib. 5, 33: “vulgo nascetur amomum,” everywhere, Verg. E. 4, 25: “vitulivolgo moriuntur in herbis,” id. G. 3, 494: “vulgo loquebantur, Antonium mansurum esse Casilini,” generally,Cic. Att. 16, 10, 1: “aliquid vulgo ostendere ac proferre,” before all the world, openly, Cic. Verr. 2, 4, 28, § 64; cf.: “quas (litteras) vulgo ad te mitto,” id. Q. Fr. 3, 1, 6, § 21: “verum illud verbum est, vulgo quod dicisolet, Omnes, etc.,” usually, Ter. And. 2, 5, 15; cf.: “ut vulgo uti solemus,” Quint. 9, 2, 8: “hoc quod vulgosententias vocamus,” id. 12, 10, 48: “victum vulgo quaerere,” i. e. by prostitution, Ter. Heaut. 3, 1, 38; so, “vulgo concepti,” Dig. 1, 5, 23.

Unqualified it is just a crowd, one can only suppose Yardley was thinking of ‘host’ in a general sense rather than the more archaic sense of ‘army’, not a good translation.

The follow-up demonstrates Justin’s accuracy,

He granted the Macedonians relief from all burdens, except that of service in war;

Which means when Arrian says I 16 v

To their parents and children he granted exemption from imposts on agricultural produce, and he relieved them from all personal services and taxes upon property.
γονεῦσι δὲ αὐτῶν καὶ παισὶ τῶν τε κατὰτὴν χώραν ἀτέλειαν ἔδωκε καὶ ὅσαι ἄλλαι ἢ τῷ σώματι λειτουργίαι ἢ κατὰ τὰς κτήσεις ἑκάστων εἰσφοραί,

Alexander is granting what has already been granted.

All the same apologies to Xenophon.
:oops: :oops: :oops:
When you think about, it free-choice is the only possible option.
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