pothos.org

Well........ Since folks around here don't seem much inhibited about allowing the direction of posts meander, pardon the pun, here's what I think. I'm a big believer in reincarnation and the afterlife, believing that this world is really nothing more than a construct or a school in which the school ...

At the risk of acquiring a reputation for asking slightly off the wall questions, here I go again.... Occasionally, you run into references in the literature in which Alexander attended a dinner party or symposium, I guess, at another's "home." I think he ate over at Perdiccas' "home&...

Thanks very much for the help! I don't have O'Brien's book, so I'll have to go snag it for myself at Amazon. I think that Medea is the play that has survivied to be popular today, because I thought I'd seen that at the bookstore. Interesting that it comes up in the Pausanius incident, because that r...

Oops! Did I really write, "saved from the seige of Troy?" I meant saved from the seige of Thebes. Sorry, been a rough day!

Does anyone know what play or passage it was from Euripides, exactly, that Alexander was fond of quoting at dinner parties? I know that some of Euripides' plays have survived to present and some have not. I'm guessing that it may have been The Women of Troy? I know that there was also a poet, Pindar...

I'll tell you what I secretly find very funny. I"m amused by the story of Alexander being set up, as a teenager, with the prostitute. In my mind's eye, I envision a very smart and worldly wise teenage boy in love with another teenage boy (not passing judgment here) and I can imagine, at least I...

I think that you could probably get a master's thesis or dissertation out of this question because of the numerous variables! I think that you would have to start with an ancient recipe for wine, i.e., exactly how they made it. I don't know if one of those exists for Macedon. Then, I think that you'...

So....I'm guessing that when the sources tell us that ATG grew bored with the pace of the march and went hunting, he was basically hunting for his supper, i.e., meat to supplement his ration of grain? I wonder what he brought home when he got lucky? Boar, I guess, and maybe deer? Any better guesses?...

Although it's never really funny when someone suffers from a fire, I think that the story about Eumenes tent going up in flames to reveal all of his money is pretty funny, too, and it may be the only surviving example we have of an ancient military practical joke.

Thank you, Amyntoros! Lots of interesting stuff there. So, amongst the Macedonians, only the very, very macho could recline at supper and being very, very macho had to do with killing a boar without a net, not necessarily a lion :lol: Still, I think that the tale of Thais is suspect because it appea...

Could anyone point me to a good reference or else explain here what a typical Macedonian symposium was like? For example, what was the sequence of events? Aside from lots of wine, what was consumed? Would that have been olives and fish, mostly? Did "free ladies" really sit on the end of me...

Before you reminded me of Phillip's strange edict prohibiting baths except for post natal women, I was thinking that perhaps it was a bit politically incorrect to go to a macho, testosterone fueled symposium smelling too nice. Sort of like shaving off one's beard was a bit politically incorrect. Per...

Well, I thought it was the Romans that made such a huge, social event of bathing.

I remember learning in undergrad that the Catholic religion had usurped a whole lot of pagan stuff, but particularly the holidays. It was a matter of convenience and it smoothed the conversion process. I think that most well educated Catholics realize that occurred. However, I think that the vast ma...

I think you're right, Andrew. I think the healed injuries would be the best identification, sort of like modern dental records. Without having done any research on it, I'm sitting here idly wondering if anyone has successfully extracted DNA from the roots of Egyptian mummy teeth. Perhaps I'll look t...