HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[nikki]

Hi I am a student at Gisborne Girls high school in New Zealand and I am currently having to write a seminar on alexanders visit to siwa . If anyone could possibly help me out by telling me why this visit was considered to be so important and what do we learn of alexanders attitude to religion from thhis visit and other similar visits such as his visit to Troy this may sound like a royal pain and i know you must be thinking why the heck don't you just find out for yourself but this is a crucially important seminar and i am just not getting it.
thank you

[Thalestris]

Easy enough, my friend, no fret! (1) Borrow or purchase a copy of "Arrian:Anabasis of Alexander", preferably by P.A. Brunt. Within the text there is an appendix titled, "The Visit to Siwah" This site may lead you straight to it; also, browse through here and you will find gold nuggets of information that will support your endeavor.(2)If you can find the RARE video "Child of Fire", it chronicles the Siwah voyage, its impact on Alexander, and its "ripple effect" upon religion and culture.Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Plutarch are reliable *ancient* historians you can explore at your local library. Again, brows through this site for support.The topic of your seminar is *very interesting and provocative*, for Alexander's state-of-mind changed greatly, metamorphosized, since Siwah.Cheers!Thalestris

[marcus]

I don't have time to add much to Thalestris' post, but here are a couple of pointers which I hope will help.(1) The oracle at Siwa was one of three extremely famous and credible oracles of Zeus-Ammon. Other Greeks had sent requests to the oracle before Alexander, and there was a Zeus-Ammon oracle at Dodona, in Epirus.(2) Herakles and Perseus were reported to have been to Siwa - Herakles was one of Alexander's ancestors.(3) The Persian king Cambyses had sent an army to try and destroy the oracle, and failed (his army was destroyed in the desert). Alexander, as 'liberator' of Egypt, would be travelling to honor the oracle, not destroy it.All the bestMarcus

[maciek]

Hi
If I can help a little:
Priest in Siwa (according to Plutarch) welcomed Alex by words in Greek so he twisted a little and it was similar to "Welcome son of Ammon". Alexander was happy hearing this and it gives him pretext to claim that he is the God. Personally I believe it is quite complicated but the facts was more or less like this.
Both Troy and Siwa shows how important was for Alexander support of the gods. He wanted to have Gods on his side (or later to even be a God).
From other situation we can suppose that he really didn't believe that he might be a really God (so he was not creasy as some people think) but he wanted it to his propaganda aims or to better rule in all parts of his empire. Maciek

[marcus]

Hi MAciek,Yes, that's true. But unless there was more going on that anyone realises, Alexander didn't actually know what the priest was going to say, or what the oracle was going to pronounce. So there are two specific stages about the visit: first, Alexander's reasons for going; and second, the 'outputs' of the visit.All the bestMarcus

[maciek]

Hello Marcus!
That is right. I heard that he might organise all this but I didn't found anything like this in all our sources so it is not historical... Also we have to add that the way to Siwa was not just ordinary. It was long way throughout desert where even all army could disappear. So his desire to go there was tremendous. What is also important in this visit - is that AFAI(We)K he asked about his father - did he punished all the murderers. Well we can look at this also from different perspectives but in my opinion he wanted to show all opponents (at least the believing part of them) that he has nothing to do with that murder.Maciek

[agesilaos]

Look on this site in HOME-religion-divinity, Nick has collated the ancient sources. One thing to remember is that as Pharaoh Alexander would be the Son of Ammon, it was part of his Royal title. When considering his attitude to religion you might care to mention the restoration of the temple at Babylon, and the alleged destruction of the Avesta; the sacred book of Zoroastrianism- when Alexander waged war it was against the Gods of his enemies too. In India he displayed a curiosity about their religion but never understood it and ended up offending the Indians sensibilities and waging a war of Terror. Tantae religio suaderit malae.

[marcus]

Good point, Maciek.It would be interesting to speculate how important it was to Alexander to ask that particular question - after all, it was a good 4+ years since Philip was killed... and there wasn't really any need to go to Siwa to ask the question (he could have sent to Dodona, or to Delphi, or to any other oracle). All the bestMarcus

[marcus]

It is true that Alexander, as 'Pharaoh', was Son of Ammon... but what is interesting is that Alexander was also the first Pharaoh to visit Siwa, so it was more than him just fulfilling the obligations of a Pharaoh.All the bestMarcus

[John.]

The priest was supposed to welcome Alexander with the Greek "O paidion," meaning "O my son." However, the priest's foreign tounge made the n sound like an s: "O paidios." This can be written "O pai Dios," meaning, "O son of Zeus."... I was watching Pink Floyd's animated video for the song, The Machine. "Welcome my son. Welcome to the machine." Guess what the final animation in the video was of? That's right. The monolith from the movie, "2001: A Space Odyssey," discovered in the movie by Heywood Floyd, I think. Of course, the founder of Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, fell into the monolith about the time the movie was made, '67 or '68, and, though still alive, has never really returned. In the movie, however, David Bowman goes into the monolith (interstellar overdrive?) around Jupiter (the Roman name for Zeus), and what comes back to earth is the re-born son of Zeus. What a dramatic (re)birthday! As contrasted by Frank Poole's boring one in the move. - I wonder what Alexander's re-incarnation birthday is (if he's really re-incarnated).For those who have time to kill:
http://www.pinkfloydonline.com/echoes20 ... s.htmlJohn

[agesilaos]

My point was merely that Alexander was divine for the Egyptians by virtue of being Pharoah, whereas the Greeks took his greeting to signify the God's acknowledgement of paternity in a real sense; the Egyptains were surely sophisticated enough to realise Pharaoh was really a mortal.

[marcus]

Hi Karl,I think I knew you were saying that. I was just trying to rationalise it against the original question, which was about Alexander's motives for going to Siwa in the first place.However, I beg to differ on your point about the Greeks' view of divine paternity. There was not any immediate assumption that, if you had divine parentage, you were yourself divine - after all, Herakles was not deified until after his death (whenever that was) and men assumed, or were given, "divine parentage" as a recognition of superlative abilities, deeds etc. without any implication that they were divine. So, in fact, Alexander's acknowledgement as "son of Zeus" was a different matter from his later request/demand for divine honours.(There are some interesting articles on this subject, but I'm not in a position to quote them, as they are at home.)All the bestMarcus

[xxx]

I agree Marcus, however, it is questionable that he ever actually asked for divine honors for himself. That was not quite cricket.

[marcus]

Well, yes, Tre, that's true. I was hoping to sound a little "whether he really did or didn't" on that bit - the trouble with having to write these messages really quickly when I'm supposed to be working... :-)All the bestMarcus

[maciek]

Well Marcus of course I also think that it was political reason as I said before, however Siwa had a special position between Greek oracles - I think that it was because of the distance from Greece and that it was so hard to get there. Also Egypt was always a mysterious country (like it is even today). In such place question which could clean him from any suspects could have a special meaning.Maciek