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In the past few months there have been some serious scholarly threads and some quarrels. Scholarship is important, and quarrels are part of life, but we are all on this forum for fun. So in this thread, why don't we tell stories about our favourite trips to a place where big Al had also been. In a p...

Thanks! To be fair, its just how people in Achaemenid studies have to look at the sources. We have found that almost every source which seems like it would let us tell stories about war and politics is distorting things- so if we don't want to give up, we have to think carefully about why they say w...

So the soil story was made up, right? That is hard to prove, but I would not spend much time trying to look for a source earlier than this general! In Alexander's day, Bactria and Areia and Arachosia and Gandara were exotic and remote lands, but I don't think they were especially poor or warlike co...

Thanks for letting us know, I see a Pothos-member among the speakers.

I agree, I think it is an example of a modern "Alexander Romance." Every story gets better if you put Alexander in it!

Also, I think we can agree that the situation in Syria sucks. But at least we are not the ones who have to decide whether to let ourselves be conscripted by one of three horrible factions to murder our fellow countrymen, or whether to risk sending our children away in a leaky boat in hope that they ...

As for arming people in Syria ... who? Something like 95% of the fighters in Syria are aligned with either Assad's government or one of the big three Islamist groups. The Kurds are nowhere near Palmyra and have their hands full protecting their own people. And quite a few estimates have Assad doing ...

You already posted this in that other place. If you visit Italy and look closely, a lot of what you see was destroyed by Germans or Americans or British or Canadians in the last war and rebuilt. Some of them were trying to inflict terror, some had tactical objectives, and some were just grumpy. The ...

I can't help the feeling that Antiochos did not want war with Rome (nor did the senate with him though particular Romans saw advantage - Flamininus). He'd no interest in the west despite Hannibal's urgings. A 'war' of words and political/diplomatic to and fro unfortunately, for him, went too far. W...

Fascinating, thanks. I hope this post means John is safe at home and not in Germany at the moment? Someone once told me that if something is headline news, its almost always something so unusual that it should be ignored. Its the dangers which we are familiar with which are worth worrying about: ab...

Looking at that anecdote from Gabiene again, its actually very similar to what the phalanx tried to do at Magnesia. The phalanx at Gabiene managed to get off the field while being harassed by cavalry ... but Alexander's veterans were one of the best armies which had ever existed, and not every Maced...

It would have made sense for the camp to be close, but Livy and Appian imply that a significant amount of time had passed and that Antiochus could no longer see the battlefield. So if I wanted to study this battle, I would have to pay close attention to working out space and time. There are also deb...

It is annoying that we keep reading those old Loeb translations of Polybius which 'helpfully' replace the Greek terms with the Latin 'equivalents' rather than translating or transliterating them. Sometimes he writes a Latin word in Greek letters, but more often he uses familiar Greek terms. Paralus:...

What a shame he did not adhere to the advice of Hannibal. Does anyone know Hannibal's thoughs on the battle, pre-battle, post-battle? Atb, Rob You are welcome Rob. I have not read any of the sources on Hannibal. The one thing that I can predict is that as soon as Hannibal showed up at court, a numb...

I found one modern scholar who is indignant that Antiochus left some of his elephants “uselessly in reserve.” I think that shows how almost any decision he made can be criticized ... he seems to have thought that he had a much stronger cavalry, so he had no use for the elephants on the wings to scar...