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A friend recently suggested that I read the above speech. In summary, Timarchus and Demosthenes charged Aeschines with treason for his partiality towards Philip on the occasion of the second Athenian embassy (346 BC) to Pella to ratify the peace agreed by the same envoys in the preceding year. Aesch...

The issue though is accessibility, which was the Macedonians' gripe about Alexander's Persianisation. The Macedonian nobility would have regarded Alexander as 'first among equals' rather than better than them. There is a story, told about Philip and Hadrian, that an old woman approached them to hear...

Er, on a slightly more dispassionate note, it seems that Arrhidaeus has been forgotten about. It seems to be generally assumed that he was about Alexander's age and at Alexander's accession that he was already impaired mentally and physically. Yet as a boy (not a child it would seem, so I'm guessing...

I also suspect that it is no coincidence that the so-called "Persianising" began just after Bagoas joined Alexander's retinue. It is likely on circumstantial grounds that Bagoas was the prime mover of this trend in Alexander's behaviour - hardly an inconsequential matter. Did not Artabazu...

why would Philip bother to try and assuage Pausanias' outrage unless Amyntas was already close to him, which seems not to be the case until his marriage to Kleopatra? Ellis favours this solution and puts the arguments more fully and eloquently than I can working from memory. Would you mind elaborat...

For what it's worth, a few thoughts: Alexander and Philip's relationship after Chaeronea appears to have taken a nose dive, and not just because of Philip's marriage to Attalus's neice and the Pixodorus affair. Alexander wasn't given any major command after Chaeronea despite his performance in the b...

And here's another one that has been touched up (not by me)!

It certainly has an air of Alexander! Books always seem to use the same images of Alexander, but here are a couple of less familiar ones (courtesy of posts on Yahoo's Alexander's Army) about upcoming exhibitions on Alexander in Amsterdam at the Hermitage Museum and the Allard Pierson Museum. I'm afr...

How long should the 14-year old Royal Pages have lasted? Nevertheless, it is widely attested that they fought in the battles. The older Pages certainly went into battle, but do we actually have evidence that 14 year olds fought? Might not the first experience for young boys in warfare have been to ...

But consider what would happen if Bagoas were present when the fleet ran into a fight. The trierarch led the ship in war, just as the pilot navigated it. It was a real role in that circumstance. Alexander could not afford to risk confusion over the command in a battle situation. I would not press t...

It feels a little strange to me to consider Bagoas as having such a high rank and then view him as having publicly danced for the army's entertainment. Can we reconcile this? Or does it mean we must doubt Plutarch's report? Best regards, Mary Renault I believe tries to reconcile these points by sug...

marcus wrote: Go for it. This isn't a fan site, after all, and the whole point is to have rational discussions about Alexander and his times. True, you might get a lambasting from some, but that shouldn't stop you!

ATB

I'll give it some thought!

Marcus wrote “I think I can honestly say, Dean, that all of Renault's other books are worth reading. The Last of the Wine (Peloponnesian War) is superb, but my personal favourites are The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea (both about Theseus). I think The Mask of Apollo (in which Alexander fe...

Oddly enough, I too have been rereading Fire From Heaven. She doesn't say so, but I think Mary Renault may be hinting that Alexander could have accompanied Philip when he presided at the Pythian Games at Delphi (although that might have been in September 346 when Alexander would have been 10). Perha...

That's an interesting one - in which gallery of the BM is it? The thing is, it clearly has the anastole in the hairstyle, which suggests that it's heavily influenced by Alexander sculptures, if not meant to be Alexander himself. The only thing is, that I'd be a bit surprised if the Etruscans were m...