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Thank you for making clear the exact location of the column, and for the beautiful photo. However , according to Herodotus ( 9, 81), the snake had 'three heads'( trikàrenos òphis). This is one of the few ancient monuments still existing that are quoted by a near-contemporary author: over the snake h...

Thank you for remembering this great - yet now underrated - battle. I'll add another element to stress its importance: the so-called serpentine column. This unique monument, still preserved (even if partially) in Instanbul Museum, is a bronze spiral of several snakes in which there are inscribed the...

I 'd add that some scholars think Alexander quoted some lines from Hesiod (Works and Days, 410- 412): "Do not put your work off till to-morrow and the day after; for a sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor one who puts off his work: industry makes work go well" Unfortunately I don't ...

I totally agree with you. I read this novel a year ago or more, but it seemed to me so ugly, and - even worse - useless to understand Aristoteles, let alone to love Alexander, or to recognize the characters of his friends, that I have completely wiped out this book from my memory, Usually I don't li...

In Theocritus,Idyll XVII there is perhaps a hint of the dubious birth of Ptolemy I. Here the poet calls the father of Ptolemy II 'son of Lagus', but, after a comparison between Alexander and his companion Ptolemy I, he says: "Both of them are descendants (prògonos) of strong Heracles, both of t...

By the way, it seems that Ptolemy wasn't at all a long- winded speech lover, but rather laconic in his writings, if we may judge from the extant fragments of his work.

I'd add another shade of meaning to your comment on Curtius quote (7,1,17): if Amyntas wanted to retain his 'spear', it means that he wanted to be considered a "free man", not yet a "prisoner". The official deprived of his weapon, then as now, is an official under arrest, but Amy...

Cartledge statement "poison has to me more of a Roman than a Greek ring to it" is plainly refuted by Plutarch's quote (Alex.life,77,2-3): "And as for suspicions of poisoning, NO ONE HAD ANY IMMEDIATELY, but five years afterwards, as we are told, upon information given, Olympias put ma...

What strikes me mostly is the face of this bronze: it is so uncharacteristically generic, it has no one of the features that we know distinguish a true Alexander portrait. It seems the sculptor had never seen his subject, and therefore put together a seemly (in his judgement!) head of a guy very you...

The Greek title of this work by Lucian is:
'Perì toù mè raidìos pistèuein diabolè'. Sorry, I cannot write here with Greek alphabet. BTW, correct Latin title is 'Calumniae non temere credendum'
Best regards

Of course! What else? Very funny and clever ideed!

I think both quotes on the difference between Persian and Italic army isn't from an historical source, but from a rhetorical one. The core of these quotes isn't the historical truth, but a quite widespread opinion in Greek and Roman world about the difference between East and West, and the superiori...

Hi, Robbie! the one and only ancient source that records how Alexander the Great reacted after knowing his uncle's fate is Justin (12, 3). He says: "When these occurrences (i.e. what happened to Alexander of Epirus and Zopirion) were reported to Alexander, who was then in Parthia, he assumed a ...

Thank you, Alexias, for posting this beautiful image.
I think Alexander head is a bit like the one in Pella Museum, but much more expressive, almost ecstatic.

I'm amazed at the almost particular care of details in this stele' s text: it seems to me the ancient Athenians were really strict in lay down the law of building the hanging attachment of their ships. It's well known geometry and mathematics were in high esteem in philosopher's consideration, but t...