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Iskandar Zul-Qarnain's father was also an astrologer or vana sastra. He waited forty years for a conjunction of two stars/planets and remained celibate for the whole forty years. He told his queen, "If we have a child at that time, he will live until the end of the world. If we have a child one...

In the rocky, remote south-east corner of Sri Lanka is a shrine GÇô Kataragama, Kathirkamam, or Khadir-Gama, sacred to Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu alike. For Muslims, it is the shrine of Al Khadir or Al-Khidr, the Green Man; for Hindus, it is the shrine of Skanda, the Indian war-god; for Buddhists it...

There's been much mention of Roxane and the dagger. This actually comes from one version of the Alexander Romance, so it's an old tradition and I think that it's great that they included it. I don't think that even Stone could have filmed a Central Asian version of the Romance - where Alexander is m...

Kenny You misunderstand me - what I said was that there was a Cassander in Asia towards the start of the campaign; but I'm not sure if this was the same as Cassander son of Antipater. There were a limited number of Macedonian personal names, so there are endless Alexanders, Philips, Arridaeus etc; s...

Ruth Kassandros wasn't known to have been Alexander's "known enemy from boyhood" - this is just guesswork, I think largely by Renault. It might have been true but there's no hard evidence for it. Also, I think there's a chance that he was in Asia at the start of the campaign - certainly th...

I saw the film last night, and I thought that it was better than I'd expected, particularly given the bad reviews. Remembering that it is intended to be a dramatic interpretation rather than an exact historical account, I felt that visually it was fine if a little too lavish; historically there were...

I went to Sri Lanka in November, partly to look for traces of the Alexander legend. My friend out there runs a pilgrim shrine for Buddhists, Hindus & Muslims; he is now doing relief work.I was woken on 26th December by an SMS from him to tell me of the tidal wave; and in his latest, today, he sa...

Happy Christmas ! For those of you who remember my son James - he's spending Christmas Day in a snow-bound 10th century monastery in the Haemon Mountains in Bulgaria, near where Alexander & Philip campaigned. Last night he toasted Alexander's memory in monastery-brewed moonshine.(here's pictures...

I've a feeling that Ptolemy was a bastard of one of Philip's brothers - an Argead, but not really close enough to Philip to count sufficiently.On the face of it, Ptolemy seemed to have abilities more related to the Argead rulers than his unknown father. Obviously, this strays into the 'nature' versu...

I'm looking for an English translation of Curtius to put on my Alexander sources site (http://www.alexander-sources.org). I can't find any translation that's in the public domain; and I feel quite strongly that it should be made available to everyone if possible. So, if anyone feels like translating...

I've got Arrian and Justin online ( http://www.alexander-sources.org) , and hope soon to have the Metz Epitome & Liber de Morte as well. The site is a labour of love so please bear with problems. On other sites, Curtius is available online in Latin, and you can download it in English if you pay ...

I read that Lahore = Lo-Pore = city of the Porus region; Porus was named after his region in the same way that Taxiles was named after Taxila. So, Lahore was the right place to buy it.Susan

I recently visited Sri Lanka, partly to hear about the Alexander Romance there. I came across some different traditions to the ones we've heard about Alexander & India.The first was from a Buddhist monk from Nepal in a remote jungle monastery - he told me of the tradition that when Alexander inv...

Yes, I saw this in Suda; I also interpreted it that Roxane's household were probably put to death with her. I suppose the implication is that Drakon accompanied them to India or Persia and treated her there - unless Alexander refers to her son Alexander IV, in which case I suppose that it's possible...

Based on not having seen the movie, but having seen the trailers and read the reviews: .Is the movie good? -------------------. No - Alexander is not portrayed as capable of conquering most of the known world in a few years - there's none of the greatness that projects his image through thousands of...