Quite why we need this lengthy ‘quellenforschung’ I am not sure. We debated the details of the accounts of Olympias’ death on pp 4-5 in depth. A ‘second bite at the cherry’ doesn’t seem to add anything, so I shall confine my comments to short responses rather than 1300 word essays...
Paralus wrote:
Xenophon wrote:To make a case for the skeleton possibly being Olympias, you are reduced to rejecting the sources altogether and describing them as "fiction"( always a fraught proposition)…
Xenophon wrote:Justin’s account is demonstrably fictional and the details he gives impossible ( the thrusting gladius did not exist at the time), hence were added by him, I would give his account short shrift.
We are thus reduced to rejecting source material and describing it as “fiction”, in this instance Justin’s account. As ever, a fraught proposition. I quoted both Justin and Diodorus on Olympias’ death earlier in the thread and summed it up as below:
You are taking my comments out of context to make a false comparison, simply for the sake of eristic argument. That Justin embellished his account with fictional details is not really disputed. You yourself referred to Justin’s “over the top additions” and “dramatic embellishments”, and that is what I am referring to also. The matter of the ‘gladius’ detail occurs post, and I will respond there.
Agesilaos' Chum wrote:Trogus records that the job was accomplished by sword - and not "hacked to death".Given that neither records that stoning was to be the manner of death, Trogus is, in my view, more likely.
I subsequently reiterated that view as well as the fact that the relatives who carried out the murder clearly acted under Cassander’s fiat. Thus, as the sources all subsequently relate, the murder of Olympias is Cassander’s responsibility.
It is only in Justin’s account that Cassander orders ‘others’ to kill her when the soldiers balk. Diodorus has the distressed relatives carry it out of their own volition “
wishing to curry favour with Cassander as well as to avenge their dead, murdered the queen, who uttered no ignoble or womanish plea” although they are clearly aware of Cassander’s wishes in the matter. I will give additional reasons for preferring Diodorus’ account further on.
This has excited a farrago of words the aim of which is, in good part, to arrive at the above dismissal of the testimony of Justin as “fiction”. In the process several claims have been made; some few follow:
Xenophon wrote:If we strip away Justin’s ‘dramatics’, and his inaccuracies of detail about the means/weapon used that he almost certainly invented, then we are left with nothing of his account.
It is quite conceivable that Justin is simply drawing on Diodorus here. [ or the same source]…
Since he was probably familiar with Diodorus’ account, it is hardly surprising it “coheres” [i.e. Justin’s account with that of Diodorus].
Such claims deserve some scrutiny. Now, as I’ve pointed out, Justin’s account, not for the first or last time, coheres reasonably with Diodorus’ version. Xenophon would have it that Justin “simply drawing on Diodorus” here is “quite conceivable”. Further, the similarities between the two writers is “hardly surprising” because Justin was “probably familiar with Diodorus”. While not absolutely impossible, both are far more than improbable....
....Both Diodorus and Trogus wrote at near enough to the same time and just who finished what first is unknowable.
I think that is somewhat inaccurate. Diodorus has been demonstrated to have composed his work between 65 BC and 35 BC – 30 BC at the latest. Trogus wrote later during the reign of Augustus, who did not acquire power until after 30 BC. Trogus undoubtedly wrote after Diodorus, so my quoted statements above are correct. ( indeed you also state below that the two likely shared a common source)
In the instance under discussion (Olympias’ death), both Trogus and Diodorus share essentially the same information (and likely a source) and the differences that are apparent are a largely result of the respective epitomisers’ own agendas as mentioned above. For Diodorus this is his “moral programme” and so Olympias is reported as getting her just deserts because she does not behave as one properly should when accorded good fortune in the face of another’s utter misfortune (Eurydike). For Justin it is the topos of women behaving in a “womanish fashion” but facing severe adversity (death) in a fashion be[ne]fitting(sic) a man. Thus for Justin, Olympias’ behaviour on returning to Macedonia (the killings, etc.) is that typical of women. When it comes her turn to die she displays the other side of this coin and dies as well as any man of her time, indeed the death of a ‘king’ (by the blade). These are the ‘dramatics’ to which I originally referred; nothing to do with swords or stabbing. Diodorus, too, acknowledges this stating the matriarch “uttered no ignoble or womanish plea” (19.51.5)
If dying by the blade is ‘kingly’, doesn’t that make it likely that this is yet another of Justin’s (or Trogus) embellishments ? I’ll return to this shortly. As to “
nothing to do with swords or stabbing”, in fact that was the whole point of preferring Justin’s version – so as to allege:-
“
If that is correct then I'd imagine the classic scene of Caesar's murder. The sword wounds would likely centre around the thorax / abdomen and back. We lack the rib bones (and shoulder bones) that would show these wounds (as with the cremated individual). On the other hand, it would not be unexpected to find strokes to the head / face and the hip area (possibly thigh) and none are evidenced. We might also expect the arm to have worn the odd stroke as reflex would see these used as protection no matter how stoic the frightful old girl was.”
You were alleging that she was stabbed, in order to try and explain the state of the Katsas skeleton – but then balked yourself that multiple stabbing could occur without skeletal injury.
With reference to the sword (‘gladius’), the argument that this was not even invented at the time of Olympias’ death somewhat passes my comprehension. Nothing whatsoever has been adduced to prove that Justin has “invented” the use of swords here other than that the galdius did not exist in 317/6. Trogus claims to have summarised various Greek histories to produce his universal history. As he did so he translated the Greek into Latin for his Roman audience. Trogus himself came from a military family (his father having served under Caesar, his grandfather against Sertorious). It is unremarkable in the extreme that were Olympias’ death described (by Trogus’ source) as having been by the sword that Trogus might well translate the Greek (xiphos, kopis, etc.) into that instantly recognisable Roman version ‘gladius’. Indeed he seems to have done so regularly unless we are to suppose that every time a sword appears in the Greek narrative that Justin has simply invented it (cf 9.7.4 where Philip pursues Alexander with a naked ‘gladius’ and 12.7.16 where Alexander cuts the Gordion Knot with his ‘gladius’). Asserting the supposed “invention” of a gladius by Justin in Olympias’ murder is frail justification for dismissing source material as “demonstrable fiction”.
It was you who claimed a stabbing weapon such as the Roman ‘gladius’ was used, based on Justin’s use of the word. If that is what Justin meant – as you state from his use of :
“J
ustin writes confoderent which the translator here has rendered as blows. Justin is speaking of sword inflicted wounds and the natural meaning of "to strike down by stabbing, to pierce, stab, transfix" is here indicated”, then if Justin really did have in mind stabbing by a Roman-type stabbing sword/gladius that would be familiar to him, then he is guilty of an anachronism, as I said. However in addition to its meaning as a technical sword type, ‘gladius’ can also have a generic meaning of just sword generally, and used in translation perhaps going back via Trogus to a Greek source, as you say. I’d agree with you that a generic translation is likely, though this doesn’t explain ‘confoderent’.
“ Justin, translating from the Greek, also renders the weapon as a "gladius" which clearly it is not. Given that it was the relatives attacking the old matriarch, we aren't to know which sword this was.”
....save that if it was a Greek type sword of the types commonly in use – curved ‘machaira/kopis’/chopper, or ‘xiphos’/straight sword, both were ‘cutting/chopping’ swords rather than thrusting weapons. The usual blow inflicted by these weapons was a downward cut, which appears so often in the iconography that it has a name: the ‘Harmodius’ blow, from the famous statue of the Tyrant killers using just such a technique.
Still, all this is academic anyway. Firstly it is likely that the use of swords is a fictional embellishment for the following reasons.
1. It was probably chosen by Justin/Trogus/their source in order to make their point and confer a ‘Kingly’ death on Olympias. ( see above) No other source mentions swords.
2. It is highly unlikely that a crowd of civilian relatives, who went along to witness the execution, would be armed with swords and certainly not the wives, mothers, and children – who could of course participate in a stoning.( which Pausanias gives as the means of execution)
3. In our corpus of source material for the period, there is reference to around a dozen or so executions. In the majority of cases, the means are not specified, implying the reader would know. In six or so cases it is specified as stoning, with one, the military execution of Philotas, given alternately as stoning/spearing. In no case is execution by sword specified, implying this is indeed a later fictional embellishment.
Given that Diodorus does not specify the means, this suggests that he is following his (common?) source more closely than Justin, since the exact means probably was not specified originally. Diodorus’ account is therefore to be preferred.
Secondly, it is entirely academic for whether she was stoned, killed by sword blows, or even (unlikely) by multiple stabs to the abdomen, then there will have been damage to the extant skeleton, as you yourself acknowledge :
“
On the other hand, it would not be unexpected to find strokes to the head / face and the hip area (possibly thigh) and none are evidenced. We might also expect the arm to have worn the odd stroke as reflex would see these used as protection no matter how stoic the frightful old girl was.”
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That said, I reiterate that no marks on the arm or skull would indicate that these were not attacked which might well be somewhat incongruous.”
As I said, it is hard to understand all this source analysis, unless as a purely academic exercise, for all ( except Taphoi) are agreed that Olympias almost certainly did not go to Amphipolis, nor was she executed there........
There is simply no evidence that the Katsas skeleton suffered the violent death Olympias suffered according to our sources, ( as the excavators have affirmed).