pothos.org

Thanks once again to Heinrich for his review of Jona's book. Perhaps we can add it to the book reviews section?As I read it once thing stuck out. It's a little niggle, but worth throwing out for discussion - and perhaps Jona can shed some light.Heinrich says: "Both agree that Bessus became king immediately and not, as our Greek sources say, several weeks later."Now, as always I am constrained by my Greek and Latin not being good enough to read Arrian, Curtius etc. in the original, but ...Is it not possible that any indication in the Greek sources that Bessus didn't become king immediately is just due to the time it took for Alexander to find out that he had declared himself the new king? I'm pretty sure that in Arrian it says that they "heard" that Bessus had procalimed himself king.Also, while Darius' death might have made Bessus de facto king, presumably the time lapse might just have been because Bessus had to go through some sort of crowning ceremony? Our dear queen, after all, wasn't crowned until the year after she ascended the throne. For Bessus, days/weeks spent on the hoof following his predecessor's death, knowing that your nemesis was on your heels and hot for revenge, isn't conducive to a grand ceremony in Westminster Abbey (so to speak).So I would suggest that the Western sources shouldn't be held up to too much scrutiny over this episode. But Jona, as I'm removed from your book by having read only a review, and in the reviewer's non-mother tongue*, maybe I've misrepresented what you say. I'm very interested in digging into this subject!CheersMarcus* Absolutely no disrespect to Heinrich's English, btw - you write English far better than most English folk!

I have no objection to a more permanent place for the review, but I will rewrite it a bit, because it is very much written as a reply to the criticism posted earlier. To whom can I mail it?H

You can sent it to Nick, me, Sikander(?).I haven't added anything to the book reviews section before, but assuming there isn't anything complicated I can do so ... or I can badger Nick until he adds it :-)Yes, a bit of re-writing probably ought to be carried out - your first couple of paragraphs probably shouldn't appear on permanent record in a book review! :-)Marcus

"Is it not possible that any indication in the Greek sources that Bessus didn't become king immediately is just due to the time it took for Alexander to find out that he had declared himself the new king?"Yes, and this is more or less the point I was making. I was suggesting that from an oriental point of view, Bessus immediately became king; our Greek sources suggest otherwise, but that is because they simply didn't know the technical details of Persian law. Arrian does indeed record the moment on which Alexander *learned* what had happened.Jona