Search found 23 matches

by Chris Bennett
Sun Jan 28, 2007 2:34 am
Forum: Book reviews
Topic: Ancient Aramaic documents from Bactria
Replies: 2
Views: 2010

Ancient Aramaic documents from Bactria

Some members of this group may be interested in the following:

http://www.palgrave-usa.com/catalog/pro ... 1874780749

Due to appear later this year or early next depending which site you read.

Chris Bennett
by Chris Bennett
Tue Sep 19, 2006 10:03 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: Eumenes and the Royal Diaries
Replies: 7
Views: 4142

Re: Eumenes and the Royal Diaries

According to Michael Wood- he says that Eumenes included information such as there were "missed days, long sleeps" after extended sessions of drinking and Wood expresses his surprise at Eumenes having had the liberty to pen such info about the king. It does seem more than his life would h...
by Chris Bennett
Mon Sep 11, 2006 7:44 pm
Forum: Alexander's contemporaries
Topic: Ptolemy & Alexander Brothers???
Replies: 123
Views: 85033

Re: Date of Alexander's death

Hammond might be right as far as I can see, but it's clear from his article that it's really a bit of a guess. There are many other possible explanations. Hence the Clarysse & Schepens papyrus fragment does not seem like very satisfactory evidence on the general problems of the Ephemerides. It ...
by Chris Bennett
Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:20 am
Forum: Alexander's contemporaries
Topic: Ptolemy & Alexander Brothers???
Replies: 123
Views: 85033

Re: Date of Alexander's death

I had a look at Aelian 3.23 and I can see that you are possibly getting confused. You are translating "tetradi meta eikada" as the 24th in forward counting, but it is also backward count for the 27th (at least in the Athenian calendar from the late 4th century). In this instance I think i...
by Chris Bennett
Sun Sep 10, 2006 11:16 pm
Forum: Alexander's contemporaries
Topic: Ptolemy & Alexander Brothers???
Replies: 123
Views: 85033

Re: Date of Alexander's death

As I said above, there are good reasons to believe that Aelian 3.23 is only an indirect fragment of the Ephemerides. In my article I suggest that Aelian got it from Ephippus of Olynthus. I had not particularly noticed the evidence of the dating number formats before, but this tends to confirm my vi...
by Chris Bennett
Sun Sep 10, 2006 1:56 am
Forum: Alexander's contemporaries
Topic: Ptolemy & Alexander Brothers???
Replies: 123
Views: 85033

Re: Date of Alexander's death

Uh-oh, you're more confused than I thought! It is now generally accepted (thanks to A. B. Bosworth, From Arrian to Alexander, Oxford 1988, 170-2) that Aelian 3.23 is October-November 324BC. The palace is that at Ecbatana - not Babylon! The Greek always said this (the month is Dios, not Daisios), bu...
by Chris Bennett
Sun Sep 10, 2006 12:44 am
Forum: Alexander's contemporaries
Topic: Ptolemy & Alexander Brothers???
Replies: 123
Views: 85033

Re: Greek and Macedonian days

Hi Chris, But we do have a list of Athenian archons - at least, I have!* Unless you mean that we don't have the eponymous lists for other states, so while we can be pretty exact on dates that use the Athenian list, we have trouble dating inscriptions, etc. pertaining to other states. (*I don't know...
by Chris Bennett
Sun Sep 10, 2006 12:35 am
Forum: Alexander's contemporaries
Topic: Ptolemy & Alexander Brothers???
Replies: 123
Views: 85033

Re: Date of Alexander's death

Aelian's excerpt from the Ephemerides uses the same format as Plutarch for the 28th but uses a regular forward count for the 24th. So does the decad count reflect Plutarch's or Aelian's representation of the dates rather than that of the Diarist? Chris, I had a look at Aelian 3.23 and I can see tha...
by Chris Bennett
Sat Sep 09, 2006 9:40 pm
Forum: Alexander's contemporaries
Topic: Ptolemy & Alexander Brothers???
Replies: 123
Views: 85033

Re: Gaugamela and the lunar eclipse

Hello, Talking about dates some thing that I found interesting was.. I remember reading somewhere on the forum, think it was Nick who mentioned it,(a good long while ago) that the only date we have for sure when it comes to studies on Alexander, was the date for Gaugamela and that was, if I remembe...
by Chris Bennett
Sat Sep 09, 2006 9:31 pm
Forum: Alexander's contemporaries
Topic: Ptolemy & Alexander Brothers???
Replies: 123
Views: 85033

Greek and Macedonian days

I know now why I thought that the whole of the Greek world considered nightfall to be the beginning of the day. It's in Robert Garland's article, Countdown to the Beginning of Timekeeping , History Today April 1999: It was the Romans who chose midnight as the transition between one day and the next...
by Chris Bennett
Sat Sep 09, 2006 12:13 am
Forum: Alexander's contemporaries
Topic: Ptolemy & Alexander Brothers???
Replies: 123
Views: 85033

Chris's web pages on chronology and calendars are most impressive but very complicated for one such as myself. Now, I'd love to see a simpler explanation of the Macedonian calendar as it applied in Alexander's time. I don't think Pothos has a page on the calendar- a quick search of the site didn't ...
by Chris Bennett
Fri Sep 08, 2006 11:09 pm
Forum: Alexander's contemporaries
Topic: Ptolemy & Alexander Brothers???
Replies: 123
Views: 85033

I would certainly agree with you that Samuel's Babylonian sources for the Ephemerides idea does not make much sense. I would warn you also that Hammond's idea that Diodotus was Eumenes' successor is also fairly dubious. It is pretty much contradicted by Nepos and Hammond is wrong to suggest that th...
by Chris Bennett
Fri Sep 08, 2006 7:55 pm
Forum: Alexander's contemporaries
Topic: Ptolemy & Alexander Brothers???
Replies: 123
Views: 85033

Re: Date of Alexander's death

But are you not aware that the "diarists" were very probably Eumenes of Cardia in the Chersonese (a colony of Miletus and Athens) and Diodotus of Erythrae in Ionia? Neither native Macedonians. I don't see any difficulty in believing that they would have adopted the Macedonian calendar (si...
by Chris Bennett
Fri Sep 08, 2006 2:20 am
Forum: Alexander's contemporaries
Topic: Ptolemy & Alexander Brothers???
Replies: 123
Views: 85033

There is no great difficulty in believing that the fact that Alexander had been pronounced dead on the evening of the 28th Daisios was not generally proclaimed by the Friends until the next morning. Aristobulos was a man with much privileged information on whom Arrian frequently relies. Yet accordi...
by Chris Bennett
Fri Sep 08, 2006 1:26 am
Forum: Alexander's contemporaries
Topic: Ptolemy & Alexander Brothers???
Replies: 123
Views: 85033

Re: Chris's website

marcus wrote:
So ... when will you have finished all the Pharaonic dynasties? :shock:
Considering the time its taking me just to wrap up the Ptolemies, I think I have a lifetime project on my hands.... :D

Chris