pothos.org

spitamenes wrote:Are there Any situations in the ancient world where a king or commander of a military campaign had put an unlikely person in charge of an important task? Just wondering if it has happened, or if it would have probably been as out of place then, as it would be now. I am assuming that a eunuch would be an unlikely candidate for a leadership position in ancient times of course. Not because of him being a eunuch, but just from a logical standpoint.

Well, hundreds of years later or late antiquity if you will, there is Narses, who not only a eunuch but an octogenarian no less, is given the field command by Justinian to win the war against the Goths for the re-conquest of Italy for the Eastern Roman Empire. It appears Justinian could just not bring himself to trust Belisarius completely enough to allow him to finish off his years of hard-fought campaigns, so he gives the command to someone it appears he could trust to not pose a risk to his authority, his eunuch former chamberlain!

Surprisingly, Narses not only finishes the Goth's off, he practically annihilates the Frankish army that crosses the Alps to aid them and reintroduces the Roman fiat through Italy.

spitamenes wrote:So another question that would add to plausibility would be, could they have been referring to "Bagoas the eunuch", as such in order to not get him confused with a different Bagoas? Like saying "Alexander...son of Philip" so people reading would not confuse him with a different Alexander in the story? (Just an example).

Well the point is that Arrian is, as plainly as is possible, identifying all the treirachs. Thus they are listed by every possible "ancient identifier": name, patronymic and origin. Whether or not this is the eunuch, he is named as the son of Pharnuches so as to clearly point out who he is. Just like the others.

Aresthusa, I am most certainly NOT saying that the so-called Euxenippos is Bagoas only that there is no 'Euxenippos' the manuscripts are all corrupt here and anything is a guess.

We have discussed the trierarchies before and they are almost certainly of the honorary type relating to the funding of the vessels - all these nobles will have been cash rich from the plunder, I doubt many could sail, in any case Hephaistion and Krateros both marched on the bank, nor are we talking trieremes if memory serves the largest boat was a pentekonter with most having but twenty oars.

agesilaos wrote:We have discussed the trierarchies before and they are almost certainly of the honorary type relating to the funding of the vessels - all these nobles will have been cash rich from the plunder, I doubt many could sail, in any case Hephaistion and Krateros both marched on the bank, nor are we talking trieremes if memory serves the largest boat was a pentekonter with most having but twenty oars.

There's no need to get into the nitty gritty of what ship is described as which: clearly this was a "fleet" built from what was available and not in the shipyards of Piraeus or Phoenicia. That said, yes the nobles will have funded them and, in some cases, only tread deck upon them the once. Again though, these cannot be directly compared to Athenian trierachies of the latter fourth century. Alexander is not having his nobility fund a fleet at Pella: this is enemy territory and these crews need to know what to do. If not, Alexander decided on a pleasure cruise at the expense of his nobles.

I don't think we are actually disagreeing, Paralus; I merely mentioned the size of the boats because they would be considerably cheaper to equip than triereis and crucially easier to row for as you point out Alexander had no access to the experienced seamen of the Med at such short notice. The Athenian trierarchy was his model but he obviously felt under no obligation to copy it exactly - though one can imagine him forcing Eumenes to swap fortunes with Krateros and still fund a ship!

I don't think the Indians had a tradition of riverine warfare, possibly because they held the great rivers sacred (yes, I'm busking ). This fleet is for transport rather than combat. I am away from my 'Ancient Indian Art of War' so cannot check.

agesilaos wrote:Aresthusa, I am most certainly NOT saying that the so-called Euxenippos is Bagoas only that there is no 'Euxenippos' the manuscripts are all corrupt here and anything is a guess.

We have discussed the trierarchies before and they are almost certainly of the honorary type relating to the funding of the vessels - all these nobles will have been cash rich from the plunder, I doubt many could sail, in any case Hephaistion and Krateros both marched on the bank, nor are we talking trieremes if memory serves the largest boat was a pentekonter with most having but twenty oars.

Agesilaos, I have browsed the Excipinon and excidinon thread and after reading your discussion, I think I will do research to know what manuscripts are used in France for Curtius' translation.

The publishing house "Les Belles Lettres"(renowned here for its studies on Latin and Greek manuscripts), in addition to the manuscript used for the translation, makes an inventory and a comparison of all the existing manuscripts.

We have the English and Australian points of vue (you and Paralus), maybe we can have the French one.