Search found 259 matches

by sean_m
Tue Oct 29, 2019 3:02 pm
Forum: Philip and Alexander's predecessors
Topic: Αρχαιολογικόν Δελτίον
Replies: 5
Views: 14384

Αρχαιολογικόν Δελτίον

The journal Archaiologikon Deltion has been digitalized and can be downloaded at http://ir.lib.uth.gr/handle/11615/2196?locale-attribute=en Most of the articles are in Modern Greek with some English, French, and German but there are usually abstracts. Sites like Vergina were partially published here...
by sean_m
Wed Oct 23, 2019 10:50 pm
Forum: Philip and Alexander's predecessors
Topic: Callisthenes of Olynthus
Replies: 2
Views: 9466

Callisthenes of Olynthus

I just noticed his full name. The Suda entry for Καλλισθένης says he was from that city, which Philip took by treachery, depopulated, and razed. Is there any dispute about that? That would make him a historian deprived of his country like Thucydides, Xenophon, Sallust, and Josephus ( history is not ...
by sean_m
Sat Oct 19, 2019 1:30 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444598

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

We are still waiting for you to provide a spot of evidence that any Greek calendar before 300 relied on calculating the start of the month or had a way to compensate for the king or archon adding and subtracting months or days to taste. (One date in one [s]historian[/s] biographer and moral philoso...
by sean_m
Fri Oct 18, 2019 10:53 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444598

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

You are missing my point: my evidence from actual analysis of actual dates (above) is that Timaeus calculated the New Moon whereas the Babylonians at the same date relied totally on actual observations. Crikey Andrew! The logic, if that is the word, of that argument has more leaps than Track and Fi...
by sean_m
Thu Oct 17, 2019 8:35 am
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444598

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

You are living in a topsy-turvy world where the mechanical and rule-based Babylonian calendar is "subject to the whim of the moon goddess" (totally different from Selene!) because it relied on observing the start of the lunar month, whereas the abundant evidence for Athenians and Macedonia...
by sean_m
Thu Oct 17, 2019 8:22 am
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444598

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

Although Greek kings and archons occasionally messed with the calendar it is an interesting testament to Greek sentiment on the importance of an astronomically regulated calendar that people were moved to write about it so that we know it happened: we don't know so much about messing about that hap...
by sean_m
Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:23 am
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444598

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

The Antikythera mechanism seems to have been a navigational aid. It is a rather strange idea that this technology had its origins in land-locked Babylon. Where is your evidence? Since when did the Babylonians invent clockwork mechanisms? Most people associate Archimedes with the invention of the An...
by sean_m
Mon Oct 14, 2019 9:52 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444598

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

Look at the Antikythera mechanism: an absolute marvel! They did not need to rely on observations of last or first crescents to tell when a New Moon happens. You mean the Antikythera Mechanism from the 1st or 2nd century BCE? :shock: After Greek natural philosophers had gobbled down all that Babylon...
by sean_m
Mon Oct 14, 2019 8:20 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444598

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

The same article, by the way, has an example of Alexander taking time during the siege of Tyre when you would think he had better things to do to add some intercalendary days.
by sean_m
Mon Oct 14, 2019 8:08 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444598

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

Astronomers work in "Julian days" (a date is 'Julian day +23143214' not 'March 22nd, 11 CE') but I do not know why historians don't convert to Gregorian for events far too early to have been dated according to the Roman calendar. But the following article explains early on that it uses Jul...
by sean_m
Sun Oct 13, 2019 2:32 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444598

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

I would agree with Alexias that a good read of this thread would shed light - especially on Gaugamela. This thread also has the merit of not having an appeal to one's own authority in the third person... I agree that there are some good things there! It cannot lightly be dismissed that the Babyloni...
by sean_m
Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:11 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444598

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

No. 11th June is a Julian date. It is traditional to use Julian dates for ancient events, so that the dates given by Roman writers are not contradicted in translation. ... The Greek chronologists were perfectly capable of calculating the New Moon from prior and subsequent observations, so the evide...
by sean_m
Sat Oct 12, 2019 3:04 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444598

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

If I were going to celebrate an anniversary, I would pick Gaugamela where he became king of the world on 1 October 331 BCE. If you want to celebrate the anniversary of Gaugamela/Arbela, it is on 26th September (Gregorian). MesoCalc says that the dates it gives are Gregorian dates. So 24th day (in t...
by sean_m
Sat Oct 12, 2019 11:34 am
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444598

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

Oh! I checked Arrian Anabasis 7.28.1 and he says that Alexander's age at death comes from Aristoboulos (so from a primary source, but not from a culture where people have to give their age and birthday several times a month). "The Regnal Years of Philip and Alexander" by N. G. L. Hammond i...
by sean_m
Sat Oct 12, 2019 11:15 am
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444598

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

That is not how Plutarch works though ... he read a lot and combined it idiosyncratically (we can debate how much he read directly and how much through 'sourcebooks' and collections of 'best bits', and how much he bothered to re-read as he was writing his Alexander and how much he cited from memory)...