Liber de Morte, Polyaenus online

[susan]

I've just published Karl Soundy's translation of Liber de Morte on the Alexander sources site - http://www.alexander-sources.org .

You can get to it directly on
http://websfor.org/alexander/liberdemorte/liber.asp


We've also recently added Polyaenus, thanks to Amyntoros:
http://websfor.org/alexander/polyaenus/intro.asp


If anyone has any problem accessing the site, please email me susan@alexander-sources.org


Susan

[abm]

great!

[karen]

Susan, your site is just getting better and better -- thanks, it's useful to all of us!Question: who wrote "Liber de Morte"?Karen

[Linda]

If I had any comment on the site, and it is a great resource, is to echo what Karen said; a brief bio and background to the sources would be helpful to those of us less well up on the lesser known sources.I have just spent this afternoon reading about gold couches, naked flute girls and far flung lands - they had a fair old time of it, didn't they...

Linda

[marcus]

Hi KAren,We don't know. It was attached to the Metz Epitome (although it is a separate, different text), but its original provenance, and writer, are unknown. All the bestMarcus

[abm]

Hi Karen,there are a few possibilities:-it's pure literary fiction and we don't know who wrote it (advocated by Seibert)-it's written by someone of Perdikkas' entourage (Merkelbach)-it originated as propaganda of Polyperchon (Heckel, The Last Days and Testament of Alexander the Great)-it is propaganda of Ptolemy, written about 309, possibly by the otherwise unknown Holkias who features in the text. This is the most plausible view to my mind and it was argued by A.B. Bosworth, 'Ptolemy and the Will of Alexander', in A.B. Bosworth & E.J. Baynham (edd.), Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction, Oxford 2000.regards,abm

[S]

Greetings Susan,I have posted a link on our discussion group to your marvelous site.Your efforts are much admired.Regards,
Sikander

[Taphoi]

Just a slight correction: Holkias is not otherwise unknown. As it happens the other place he appears is Polyaenus 4.6.6, which links nicely to the other strand of this thread, so to speak.Best wishes,Andrew