Alexander in the Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

[ancientlibrary]

IGÇÖve just posted all 776 pages of Oskar SeyffertGÇÖs Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. ItGÇÖs in a new section on my site where I place full scans of classical works, with uncorrected OCR underneath the scans.The Dictionary of Classical Antiquity is a wonderful late 19th century classical dictionary. Unfortunately for Pothos, it omits history and geography. So, Alexander does NOT get an entry, nor the places he went. It is, however, quite full on mythology, social history, literature and literary authors. So, it has all the Alexander historians, Alexander's sculptur, and excellent general articles on related topics, like warfare and geography.IGÇÖve also posted a few other works. In the near future IGÇÖm going to have some real red meat for Pothos, but the DCA is probably the best bet for now. (Incidentally, I donGÇÖt have a copy of Berve; if you do, IGÇÖll pay for shipping and send you it back in a week with a bottle of wine.)Anyway, check it out, and let me know what you think of the project!LINKS:My GÇ£Ancient LibraryGÇ¥ section - http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/al/The DCA generally - http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/al/se ... lALEXANDER TOPICS:Arrian, HTTP://WWW.ISIDORE-OF-SEVILLE.COM/AL/SE ... TMLQuintus Curtius, http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/al/se ... mlPlutarch, http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/al/se ... htmlJustin, http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/al/se ... mlDiodorus, http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/al/se ... llisthenes, http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/al/se ... tmlPtolemy I Soter, http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/al/se ... istoboulos, http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/al/se ... mlLysippus, http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/al/seyffert/0372.html
SOME INTERESTING GENERAL ARTICLES:Warfare, http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/al/se ... lGeography, http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/al/seyffert/0253.html

[amyntoros]

Nice work Tim! I've been happily checking out the links, plus doing a search of my own through the dictionary. I checked the entry for Dionysus and found this:"Hence arose a fable founded on the story of Alexander's campaigns, that the god passed victoriously through Egypt, Syria, and India as far as the Ganges. . ." I knew the fable, of course, but I had no idea that it originated with Alexander's expedition! I had thought that Alexander and his Macedonians already knew of a tale of Dionysus in India and therefore came expecting or hoping to find evidence. I didn't realize the stories were created on-the-spot, purely for Alexander's entertainment. But then how would the Indians have known to invent connections to Dionysus? Were his generals and hangers-on feeding the natives information so that they could please and flatter Alexander, as Strabo so often says? But then Strabo also says this:15. I. 6. "But how can we place any just confidence in the accounts of India derived from such expeditions as those of Cyrus and Semiramis? Megasthenes concurs in this opinion; he advises persons not to credit the ancient histories of India, for, except the expeditions of Hercules, of Bacchus, and the later invasion of Alexander, no army was ever sent out of their country by the Indians, nor did any foreign enemy ever invade or conquer it. "That does seem to imply that the tales of Dionysus in India were known to the Greeks *before* Alexander - which would mean that the dictionary is wrong! Still, it all made for an interesting diversion this morning and I'll enjoy perusing the rest of the dictionary for some time. I read the entry for Philostratus as well, but it is very brief. I have a few questions on Philostratus and I'm looking for some opinions. Do you have any thoughts on Philostratus and would you mind if I posted my questions in this thread? I think the subject may be a bit too esoteric to warrant starting a new thread, though the questions do all relate to Alexander.Best regards,Amyntoros

[ancientlibrary]

That's a very interesting question:"What stories of Dionysus in India, Egypt, Syria
and etc. were there *before* Alexander's
expedition, and how did the expedition reinforce,
change or add to these stories?".I am guessing that we have evidence that the
stories preceeded Alexander, but that
Alexander's expedition brough them greater
prominence and definition. Seyffert is certainly
being old-fashioned in supposing that
Dionysus' cult *actually* spread east; this is
certainly false for the period in question. (Late
Antique Dionysus is another matter.) You could
get this idea if you read the classical texts,
however, and didn't have a nuanced sense of
how pagans from different cultures interacted. .When Greeks came across "new" gods, they
were eager to identify them with their own. This
process is evident from the beginning in the very
different attributes ascribed to Greek gods.
Artemis gets both wild beasts and childbirth,
and when Greeks must integrate the strange
god of Ephesus--a queenly oriental fertility
divinity covered with what are speculated to be
breasts, bull's testicles or bees' behinds--she
also is "Artemis." The process is rather similar
when Greeks encounter foreign gods. Melkart
becomes Heracles, Anubis Hermes, etc.
Non-Greek pagans did the same, and it seems,
sometimes these identifications became
something more solid and real, a cross-cultural
religious lingua Franca. For an interesting
example of this sort of cross-cultural
god-communication, see the beginning of
Herodotus, where Herodotus recounts in detail
what various non-Greek peoples have to say
about Io, Helen and the start of the Trojan War. .
Like the Herodotus section, I've always
assumed the local stories of Heracles and
Dionysus in India uncovered by Alexander's
expedition were a complex mixture of Greeks
"understanding" (ie., shoe-horning) local gods,
locals "understanding" Greek gods, leading
questions from Greeks, flattery from locals and
post hoc literary embelishment and invention.
As such, the exact mix is probably
unrecoverable, but it would be interesting to find
out what we know of Dionysus-in-India stories
before Alexander. I'm guessing there are
articles on this or entries in the commentaries
anyway.

[ancientlibrary]

I've posted three pages of Bosworth's Arrian commentary. The real meat is on page two. Evidently there is no evidence of Greek's putting Dionysus is India before Alexander, although eastern connections were established (eg., Euripides had him in Bactria). There is no evidence for Heracles-in-India stories either. There are very interesting source-critical points to be made, and discussion of Macedonians' attempts to "see" what they wanted to see, a strange world made familiar through connection to their expectations.http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/al/pothos/

[smittysmitty]

Euripides depicts Dionysos as a god first winning favaour among the Eastern civilizations with particular reference to the Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Medes as well as the people of Bactria and Arabia.More likely than not, this god has it's origins in such places; suprising as the story that comes down to us suggests his birth place was Thebes.

[ancientlibrary]

The idea that Dionysus is foreign is un-Greek is
an old one, but not necessarily a good one.
There are cancient traditions tying him to
Macedonia, Thrace and Phrygia (hardly
Bactria--these are areas in direct contact with
Greeks). And these notions get their appeal
from the purportedly "un-Greek" lack of restraint
Dionysus embodies. But attractive and generally
accepted as these ideas were, they hit new
evidence like an egg hitting a brick wall. When
the Linear B tablets were deciphered, who
turned up but Dionysus. So, while it's *possible*
Dionysus was not Greek originally, he was
Greek in the Mycenean period, half a millenium
before Homer.
.
This suggests that the "foreigness" of Dionysus
is more construction than reality. Dionysus'
foreigness is saying something--eg., about how
Greeks perceved themselves--but it's not
speaking the truth. She's not REALLY my
girlfriend, you see; we've just been living
together for ten years.

[amyntoros]

I'm only getting half a page of Bosworth's commentary - the bottom half is black. Anyone else having the same problem, or is it only my computer? Just my luck, I really want to read this!

[ancientlibrary]

Try reloading the graphic or the page. It works
on my three machines--OS9, OSX, Win. Hope
that works for you.

[marcus]

Cheers, Tim. I knew that this theory (or whatever) was knocking around, that Dionysus wasn't connected with India until Alexander ... but had never actually read what Bosworth had to say on it. I have to say that I always thought there *was* an earlier connection - I'm sure that there's a mention of Dionysus and India in The Bacchae ... but I don't have a copy so can't check.All the bestMarcusPS: Linda Ann - I've been trying to e-mail you for days, now, but it doesn't look as if anything's getting through. Just thought I'd let you know I'd been trying!

[amyntoros]

Euripides has Dionysus having travelled some distance, but not quite all the way from India."Far behind me lie
those golden-rivered lands, Lydia and Phrygia
where my journeying began. Overland I went,
across the steppes of Persia where the sun strikes hotly
down, through Bactrian fastness and the grim waste
of Media. Thence to rich Arabia I came;
and so, along all Asia's swarming littoral
of towered cities where Greeks and foreign nations,
mingling, live, my progress made. . ."I've always suspected that even this was a late tradition - perhaps even invented by Euripides himself. It certainly must have set the stage for Alexander's expectation of finding evidence of Dionysus as he travelled eastwards. I do like Bosworth's line: "The myth was inevitably snowballing."Best regards,Amyntoros
(You know who I am!)

[amyntoros]

My computer has a mind of it's own, but after I printed out the pages I now have 42 lines instead of the 27 that are viewable on the site. I'm still missing a tantalizing line or two at the bottom of the pages, but that's minor.Anyway, many thanks for posting Bosworth!Amyntoros

[smittysmitty]

G'day Tim, Dionysus' foreigness is saying something--eg., about how Greeks perceved themselves--but it's not speaking the truth. I have always found this point of view a little difficult to accept, although possible. Admittedly I havn't come across the Mycenean Dionysos before, but I'm not sure that that means little more than Dionysos's pressence in Greece occurs earlier than we had previously thought before. cheers!