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Hello, Marcus and everybody! It is in Plutarch, chapter 52, and is reported as a remark of Callisthenes to Anaxarchus, a more “integrated” philosopher who was working his way into the king’s favour and mantained that in Asia it was not colder than in Greece; obviously the Asian climate is not the re...

Perhaps we should listen to what Herodotus says on the matter. Imagine Greece while Xerxes is preparing his monstruous expedition against Athens ( but the Spartans are one of his targets as well). The city of Argos (supposed homeland of Perseus and his genealogy), out of rivalry and sheer hatred aga...

Hi, Theseus! A statue portraying Alexander IV may actually exist, although the attribution is still uncertain. Look at this site: http://www.ville-agde.fr/mairie/patrimoine_archeologie/archeo_ephebe.php Here it is presented (only in French!) as an Alexander statue, but it has been observed (by Paolo...

This account of an UFO in antiquity has at least the merit of being recorded by legend: Numa Pompilius was the second of the Kings of Rome, succeeding Romulus. He was assisted by the nymph Egeria, who met him in a sacred grove and inspired his actions as a wise legislator. When Rome was struck by a ...

Thank you; Amyntoros's and Marcus's comments are very useful, as usual, and I'm going to buy the book. Repetitions have become a by-product of academic literature; one keeps noticing them all the time and everywhere. Students will be glad!
Cordially
Azara

Hello, Pothosians! Recently I've come across the review of a new Alexander book (comparatively new, since it came out in Nov. 2006) of which I've found no mention in Pothos archives. It is: Carol Thomas, Alexander the Great in his world, Blackwell Publishing. The site is this: http://www.blackwellpu...

Here is another one: I'm quoting from http://www.irib.ir/occasions/Nezami/NezamiEn.htm "Elias Abu Mohammad Nezami, the third great Iranian poet and acknowledged master of romantic couplets and Persian poetry was born in the year 1141 A.D. in Ganja, located in the present Azerbaijan Republic, wh...

I've seen 300 and found it unbelievable. :shock: Unbelievable that in 2007 still someone makes a film courting a myth and ideology centred on Death; these are the Spartans whom the nazis imagined and took as their model, too beautiful to be true and lusting for self-annihilation. As for the portrait...

Peter Green’s theory, quoted by Amyntoros, is very interesting; his is one of the books that scowl at me from my library, looking forward to being read. Still I have some doubts about his scenery: - Were the Persians of Persepolis in such a position as to deny Alexander what looks like a sort of “co...

Thank you, Amyntoros, for the links to those two books. I've just ordered them on-line, because they have never been published in Italy. A timid objection from the height of my ignorance: if the palace was stripped of all the valuables, why didn't they take the draperies, which must have been highly...

Hallo, everybody! This is a cue to the thread “Alexander and music”, but I started another thread as the topic is rather independent. Referring to the burning of Persepolis: I distinctly remember reading somewhere (in an article of a modern historian, but who?) that the palace had been carefullly em...

Euripides in the Bacchae stresses the fact that the women, glimpsed by some herdsmen on the mountain, show a perfectly decent behaviour until they sense the presence of intruders, and then they become terrible, but what they do has nothing to do with sex. He is resolute in refuting the allegations o...

Hi, all! (But I regret that Marcus isn’t there!) :wink: A fiction writer has to extrapolate, in a sense, when he handles history, because our knowledge of historical truth is incomplete and, on the other hand, the writer has an agenda of his own; if, for example, he wants to insert a love story in t...

Frank L. Holt in “Into the land of bones” writes that “As part of their religion, the Bactrians literally tossed their dead to the dogs and even hastened the process by letting these hounds execute their old, sick and invalid citizens.” A note indicates that the reference is Strabo 11.11.3, based on...

To Alexanthros: the gift on a tray is an orange, which then was an unknown marvel for Europeans. In fact lemons and oranges, originary of Northern India, were first introduced into Middle East and Europe as a consequence of Alexander's expedition. Best regards Azara