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antinous-posts · 3 years

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Mythology

Early life

According to Apollodorus and a fragment of Pindar, Orpheus' father was Oeagrus, a Thracian king, or, according to another version of the story, the god Apollo. His mother was (1) the muse Calliope, (2) her sister Polymnia, (3) a daughter of Pierus, son of Makednos or (4) lastly of Menippe, daughter of Thamyris. According to Tzetzes, he was from Bisaltia. His birthplace and place of residence was Pimpleia close to the Olympus. Strabo mentions that he lived in Pimpleia. According to the epic poem Argonautica, Pimpleia was the location of Oeagrus' and Calliope's wedding. While living with his mother and her eight beautiful sisters in Parnassus, he met Apollo, who was courting the laughing muse Thalia. Apollo, as the god of music, gave Orpheus a golden lyre and taught him to play it. Orpheus' mother taught him to make verses for singing. He is also said to have studied in Egypt.

Orpheus is said to have established the worship of Hecate in Aegina. In Laconia Orpheus is said to have brought the worship of Demeter Chthonia and that of the Κόρες Σωτείρας (Kóres Sōteíras; 'Saviour Maidens'). Also in Taygetos a wooden image of Orpheus was said to have been kept by Pelasgians in the sanctuary of the Eleusinian Demeter.

According to Diodorus Siculus, Musaeus of Athens was the son of Orpheus.

Adventure as an Argonaut

Main article: Argonautica

The Argonautica (Ἀργοναυτικά) is a Greek epic poem written by Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BC. Orpheus took part in this adventure and used his skills to aid his companions. Chiron told Jason that without the aid of Orpheus, the Argonauts would never be able to pass the Sirens—the same Sirens encountered by Odysseus in Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. The Sirens lived on three small, rocky islands called Sirenum scopuli and sang beautiful songs that enticed sailors to come to them, which resulted in the crashing of their ships into the islands. When Orpheus heard their voices, he drew his lyre and played music that was louder and more beautiful, drowning out the Sirens' bewitching songs. According to 3rd century BC Hellenistic elegiac poet Phanocles, Orpheus loved the young Argonaut Calais, "the son of Boreas, with all his heart, and went often in shaded groves still singing of his desire, nor was his heart at rest. But always, sleepless cares wasted his spirits as he looked at fresh Calais."

Death of Eurydice

The most famous story in which Orpheus figures is that of his wife Eurydice (sometimes referred to as Euridice and also known as Argiope). While walking among her people, the Cicones, in tall grass at her wedding, Eurydice was set upon by a satyr. In her efforts to escape the satyr, Eurydice fell into a nest of vipers and suffered a fatal bite on her heel. Her body was discovered by Orpheus who, overcome with grief, played such sad and mournful songs that all the nymphs and gods wept. On their advice, Orpheus traveled to the underworld. His music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone, who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth on one condition: he should walk in front of her and not look back until they both had reached the upper world. Orpheus set off with Eurydice following; however, as soon as he had reached the upper world, he immediately turned to look at her, forgetting in his eagerness that both of them needed to be in the upper world for the condition to be met. As Eurydice had not yet crossed into the upper world, she vanished for the second time, this time forever.

The story in this form belongs to the time of Virgil, who first introduces the name of Aristaeus (by the time of Virgil's Georgics, the myth has Aristaeus chasing Eurydice when she was bitten by a serpent) and the tragic outcome. Other ancient writers, however, speak of Orpheus' visit to the underworld in a more negative light; according to Phaedrus in Plato's Symposium, the infernal gods only "presented an apparition" of Eurydice to him. In fact, Plato's representation of Orpheus is that of a coward, as instead of choosing to die in order to be with the one he loved, he instead mocked the gods by trying to go to Hades to bring her back alive. Since his love was not "true"—he did not want to die for love—he was actually punished by the gods, first by giving him only the apparition of his former wife in the underworld, and then by being killed by women. In Ovid's account, however, Eurydice's death by a snake bite is incurred while she was dancing with naiads on her wedding day.

Virgil wrote in his poem that Dryads wept from Epirus and Hebrus up to the land of the Getae (north east Danube valley) and even describes him wandering into Hyperborea and Tanais (ancient Greek city in the Don river delta) due to his grief.

The story of Eurydice may actually be a late addition to the Orpheus myths. In particular, the name Eurudike ("she whose justice extends widely") recalls cult-titles attached to Persephone. According to the theories of poet Robert Graves, the myth may have been derived from another Orpheus legend, in which he travels to Tartarus and charms the goddess Hecate.

The myth theme of not looking back, an essential precaution in Jason's raising of chthonic Brimo Hekate under Medea's guidance, is reflected in the Biblical story of Lot's wife when escaping from Sodom. More directly, the story of Orpheus is similar to the ancient Greek tales of Persephone captured by Hades and similar stories of Adonis captive in the underworld. However, the developed form of the Orpheus myth was entwined with the Orphic mystery cults and, later in Rome, with the development of Mithraism and the cult of Sol Invictus.

Death

According to a Late Antique summary of Aeschylus' lost play Bassarids, Orpheus, towards the end of his life, disdained the worship of all gods except the sun, whom he called Apollo. One early morning he went to the oracle of Dionysus at Mount Pangaion to salute his god at dawn, but was ripped to shreds by Thracian Maenads for not honoring his previous patron (Dionysus) and was buried in Pieria. Here his death is analogous with that of Pentheus, who was also torn to pieces by Maenads; and it has been speculated that the Orphic mystery cult regarded Orpheus as a parallel figure to or even an incarnation of Dionysus. Both made similar journeys into Hades, and Dionysus-Zagreus suffered an identical death. Pausanias writes that Orpheus was buried in Dion and that he met his death there. He writes that the river Helicon sank underground when the women that killed Orpheus tried to wash off their blood-stained hands in its waters. Other legends claim that Orpheus became a follower of Dionysus and spread his cult across the land. In this version of the legend, it is said that Orpheus was torn to shreds by the women of Thrace for his inattention.

Ovid recounts that Orpheus ...

had abstained from the love of women, either because things ended badly for him, or because he had sworn to do so. Yet, many felt a desire to be joined with the poet, and many grieved at rejection. Indeed, he was the first of the Thracian people to transfer his affection to young boys and enjoy their brief springtime, and early flowering this side of manhood.

— Ovid. trans. A. S. Kline, Ovid: The Metamorphoses, Book X

Feeling spurned by Orpheus for taking only male lovers (eromenoi), the Ciconian women, followers of Dionysus, first threw sticks and stones at him as he played, but his music was so beautiful even the rocks and branches refused to hit him. Enraged, the women tore him to pieces during the frenzy of their Bacchic orgies. In Albrecht Dürer's drawing of Orpheus' death, based on an original, now lost, by Andrea Mantegna, a ribbon high in the tree above him is lettered Orfeus der erst puseran ("Orpheus, the first pederast").

His head and lyre, still singing mournful songs, floated down the River Hebrus into the sea, after which the winds and waves carried them to the island of Lesbos, at the city of Methymna; there, the inhabitants buried his head and a shrine was built in his honour near Antissa; there his oracle prophesied, until it was silenced by Apollo. In addition to the people of Lesbos, Greeks from Ionia and Aetolia consulted the oracle, and his reputation spread as far as Babylon.

Cave of Orpheus' oracle in Antissa, Lesbos

Orpheus' lyre was carried to heaven by the Muses, and was placed among the stars. The Muses also gathered up the fragments of his body and buried them at Leibethra below Mount Olympus, where the nightingales sang over his grave. After the river Sys flooded

Leibethra, the Macedonians took his bones to Dion. Orpheus' soul returned to the underworld, to the fields of the Blessed, where he was reunited at last with his beloved Eurydice.

Another legend places his tomb at Dion, near Pydna in Macedon. In another version of the myth, Orpheus travels to Aornum in Thesprotia, Epirus to an old oracle for the dead. In the end Orpheus commits suicide from his grief unable to find Eurydice.

"Others said that he was the victim of a thunderbolt."

From Wikipedia

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Orpheus the musician & beast tamer.

Art by Brittany Beverung @artistfuly

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chsmstr · 3 years

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uuuuaaaa ok gotta slam down what tf happened with the ring & alexander because i cannot bring myself to screw up history that badly lmao so i’ll bulletpoint this

alexander had already amassed his empire by the time he came across the sennen ring , so no , that did not grant him victory , he did that himself

although , the ring didn’t do anything good for his mindset or his health either ??? some historians say that alexander managed to ?? i guess get himself totally wasted & died ??? some say it was malaria ?? i’ve read a whole lot of things but evidently there was also alexander vc i am a god , & after that ( like not long after ) he ended up Dead lmao this god complex sure was bassboosted by the ring .

it was also this bassboosted god complex that made shaadi appear like “bro what tf” & so he sent alexander through the trials , which of course we know ended badly .

it was more of an astral projection sort of journey , & as we see , you could spend weeks in the capsule monsters world & only have a few hours pass in the real world . alexander went through this while he was asleep .

yeah shaadi also tore his soul in half at the end . meanwhile , alexander’s body spiked a massive fever , & he never woke up .

here’s a fun fact :)

When Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 B.C., his body didn’t begin to show signs of decomposition for a full six days, according to historical accounts.

To the ancient Greeks, this confirmed what they all thought about the young Macedonian king, and what Alexander believed about himself—that he was not an ordinary man, but a god.

anyway , that’s that on alexander . fast forward like 2000 years & what was left of his soul is reincarnated into alex brisbane :)

#* 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐀𝐒 𝐈𝐅 𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐁𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 !#* 𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐏𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐀 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐄 ?

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ehyeh-joshua · 4 years

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God of Dragons

@greater-than-the-sword - rather than dragging your post further off-topic, I decided to finally get around to writing this up.

If you honestly want to grapple with the Bible, it becomes essential to consider our ancient scaled friend/enemy the dragon. The Scriptures leave no alternative but to declare that man walked with dinosaurs.

The Hebrew word that we translate as “dragon” is Tannin, and like all ancient Hebrew thought, is not a specific species, but a genera – to us, we categorise things by qualities – we use “pencil” and “pen” and “quill” to describe specific classes of objects; to the mindset of Biblical Hebrew, they are all the same; you write with them.

What Tannin refers to is any large, dangerous reptile, whether on land, at sea or in the air, and while it would include them, it doesn't actually mean our modern understanding of dragon, which having being split from it's roots in historical creatures, is now mythical. (although such creatures are mentioned)

In the Septuagint – the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was considered the Old Testament for the Greek-speaking early church – the word Tannin is translated by “Drakkon” which is the root for our word “dragon”.

The word Tannin is used 23 times in Scripture:(note-all the citations are quoted in full at the end, truncated here for brevity)

Singular form:

Nehemiah 2:13; Psalm 91:13; Isaiah 27:1 and 51:9; Jeremiah 51:34; Ezekiel 29:3, Exodus 7:9, 7:10 and 7:12, and Genesis 1:21.

Plural form:

Deuteronomy 32:33, Job 7:12 and Job 30:29, Psalms 44:19, 74:13; and 148:7, Isaiah 13:22 Jeremiah 9:11, 10:22, 14:6, 49:33 and 51:37 and Ezekiel 32:2.

The second word we need to have in mind is Leviatan – this is the creature we think of when we think of dragon. This word is used five times in four verses: Job 41:1, Psalm 74:14 and 104:26, and twice in Isaiah 27:1. Like Tannin, Leviatan is translated in the Septuagint by “drakkon”.

Leviatan has the longest description, having nearly a whole chapter devoted to describing it at the end of Job – this is the strongest evidence, as this is God Himself describing this creature as an example of His own power.

One of the reasons I like Dragons so much is that God has set them as a testimony to Himself.

Sadly, this is perhaps the most mistranslated word in modern English Bibles; most English Bibles insert jackals into these verses wherever the Scriptures undeniably mean literal creatures, doing so because of the wrong belief that dragons are mythical.

The thing is, Hebrew has a word that actually means jackal; it is the same as that for “fox”, and for good reason, as they are known to be able to interbreed, and are therefore the same baramin. That word is “sha’ul”.

Nehemiah 4:3 for example; 'Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, “Yes, what they are building—if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!”'

He’s trying to say that despite the fact that the fox/jackal is such a small and weak animal, it could crush the walls the Jews were building; he’s insulting them. By contrast, a dragon smashing down a wall is kind of what you would expect to happen, and throughout the Prophets, the threat of dragons overwhelming a city is used to express judgement.

Compiling all these references gives us a huge amount of information about these creatures, some of it (most of it in fact) directly from God describing what we would understand as a water drake.

Firstly, that the purpose of these creatures is to give glory to God.

Secondly, it tells us that these are huge reptiles that are very dangerous; enough that the mere threat of them is enough to put a city of people to fleeing for safety – a quarter of the times Tannin is used, it is referring to this terror.

If a city got overrun with jackals, a single person could chase them out; a decent thickness stick as a club, and they scatter. A host of people working together could do it easily. They are mildly dangerous, but they have absolutely nothing on levyatan, which the Scriptures equate to Tannin. A Dragon however? An armoured, fire breathing dragon?

That is dangerous; one dragon is enough to be a risk to an entire region, they are apex predators, there is absolutely no shortage of stories of the danger dragons possess.

Now, if you had an entire city overrun by dragons? You’re not going to reclaim that. Not on the Bronze/Iron age technology possessed by Ancient Israel. Roman Ballistae might have a chance, and a Macedonian Phalanx could make a melee fight in the open stick, but I wouldn’t want to try that kind of a battle without at least trebuchet, if not cannon. And this is from a guy who knows how to solo a T-Rex; T-Rex has one primary weapon, the bite. The solution is a fuck-off amount of three feet long spikes covering your whole body, that way it can’t bite you without facing it’s own mortal peril. You could probably win with a spear, but I’d rather have the spikes.

Dragons? Fire. The accounts of dragons possessing fire-breathing capability are nearly universal, and it is far more reasonable than you might think; using the Bombardier Beetle as a baseline, to breath fire a dragon needs the reaction of hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone, catalysed by catalase and peroxidase; the reactants are ejected from separated storage areas into the front of the open mouth, where the reaction begins in conjunction with the rush of oxygen from heavy breathing out, causing both the reaction and the expellation of the reactants. Range could be comfortably over ten metres and still sufficient to cause burns and scalding on the victim.

Coincidentally, but rather obvious when you think about it, dragon stories generally stop after the invention of cannon, and by the 1800s, almost stop completely outside of Native American tribes.

It is therefore plain that reading the text and allowing the text to explain itself leads to the conclusion that Tannin/Levyatan are a race of immense and dangerous monsters, usually serpent-like but again not always, who’s presence is like the judgement of God, and which God Himself uses to say how awesome He is that He made them and controls their fates. Note also the contrast - the Babylonians had their gods being scared of these monsters, but right from the beginning God takes ownership of them.

The Bible tells us how these creatures lived, where they lived, their diet, their habitat, to an extent their way of life; and it exists as part of material from all over the world that shows that man and dinosaur coexisted. And if humans and dinosaurs coexisted, evolutionary beliefs about ages collapse.

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Nehemiah 2:13; “I went out by night by the Valley Gate to the Dragon Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire.”- presumably, the Dragon spring was a well or spring that was named for a resident/visitor dragon.

Psalm 91:13; “You will tread on lion and viper; you will trample young lion and dragon.” - the point is to talk about the protection of God; the claim about jackals makes no sense, and using serpent instead has already been covered. Further, the Septuagint uses Drakkon here.

Isaiah 27:1; “In that day GOD will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent with His fierce, great, strong sword, Leviathan the twisted serpent! He will slay the dragon in the sea.” Again, entirely pointless unless it refers to either a real animal, or a mythologised version of a real animal.

Isaiah 51:9; “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of GOD, awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not You who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?” Again, a pointless exercise if not referring to an actual event.

Jeremiah 51:34; “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me, crushed me, set me aside like an empty dish, swallowed me up like a dragon, filled his belly with my delicacies, rinsed me away.” Jackals cannot eat even a whole arm, and certainly cannot swallow a whole man as the similie depends on; whereas plenty of large carnivorous dinosaurs could.

Ezekiel 29:3, “Speak and say, thus says the LORD GOD: ‘Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh King of Egypt, the great dragon lying in his rivers, who says: “My Nile is my own—I made it for myself.” The idea is to convey that Egypt believes itself to be extremely powerful, before it is cast down in judgement.

Exodus 7:9, 7:10 and 7:12; “So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and did as Adonai had commanded. Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a dragon. Then Pharaoh called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and they too, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts. For each man threw down his staff, and they became dragons. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.” Not much to say here, although the Septuagint again uses drakkon both times, instead of one of the words that means a snake.

Genesis 1:21; “And God created the great dragons and every living soul that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their nature, and every winged fowl after its nature; and God saw that it was good.” This is one of the few times the Septuagint uses keytos (whale) to translate Tannin, however, dragons are traditionally associated with the sea and sky, so it makes sense that they are created on day 5.

Plural form:

Deuteronomy 32:33: “Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.” This also informs us that some dragons were poisonous, a feature noted of certain dinosaurs, and never with jackals.

Job 7:12; “Am I a sea, or a dragon, that you set a watch over me?” Again linking dragons to the sea.

Job 30:29; “I am a brother to the dragons, & a companion to the ostriches.” By this, he is continuing his theme, and he means he is alone, ostracised from the community. Jackals however, operate in packs.

Psalms 44:19; “Though you have broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.” Doesn’t tell us much this one, as it’s relying on the nature of tanninim to convey the situation.

Psalms 74:13; “You split open the sea by your strength; You broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.” Possibly a reference to the Flood.

Psalms 148:7; “Praise the LORD from the earth, you dragons, and all deeps:” An intriguing statement, given extra-Biblical documentation of dragon intelligence, which some sources put as near-Human.

Isaiah 13:21; “But wild animals will lie down there, and their houses will be full of howling creatures; there ostriches will dwell, and there wild goats will dance.” while it doesn’t say dragon, it says howling creatures, Wycliffe was happy to write dragouns as his translation solely from the sound identified, and it has to be inquired why he did so if humans could not have encountered dragons to record the sound.

Isaiah 13:22; " And the wild beasts shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.” Given the reference is about animals being used as tools for judgement, it’s no surprise that dragons are mentioned.

Jeremiah 9:11; “I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair of dragons, and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.” Again, a judgement making the city uninhabitable.

Jeremiah 10:22; “Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.“ again, dragons used as a symbol of judgement.

Jeremiah 14:6; 2and the wild asses stood in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes failed because there was no grass.“ This gives us information about how dragons breathed, which is something very difficult to know unless you either witnessed it or heard from someone who had.

Jeremiah 49:33; “And Hazor shall be a dwelling for dragons, and a desolation for ever: there shall no man abide there, nor any son of man dwell in it.“ Again, using dragons as a symbol of judgement.

Jeremiah 51:37; “And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and a hissing, without an inhabitant.” Jeremiah again uses the presence of dragons as a judgement.

Ezekiel 32:2 “ “Son of man, raise a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him: “You consider yourself a lion of the nations, but you are like a dragon in the seas; you burst forth in your rivers, trouble the waters with your feet, and foul their rivers.”Not much to say here.

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cincinnatusvirtue · 4 years

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Alexander III “The Great” Part 2: Where one empire falls, so must a new one rise...

Alexander the Great and the Macedonian army crossed the Hellespont into Asia Minor in 334 BC. The composition of his army at this point was primarily Greek but did include some non-Greeks as well. It consisted of a mix of cavalry and infantry. His cavalry included light cavalry mixing Greek and Thracian horsemen. While his elite cavalry was the heavy cavalry known as the Companions of which Alexander always lead into battle personally, leading his royal contingent, it was made of the Macedonian landed nobility which was personally quite loyal to the king. This was combined with Thessalian heavy cavalry from Central Greece as well. His infantry included missle and melee infantry ranging from the phalanx or phalangists to his hoplites and hypaspists and various armed skirmishers both Greek and Thracians such as the peltasts.

The Macedonian army was faced by the Persians who called on forces from all across the empire. Persians, Bactrians, Scythians, Sogdians, Syrians, Indians and even Greeks as mercenaries. They too had infantry, cavalry, archers and even armed chariots. Memnon of Rhodes, a Greek mercenary commander in Persian service advocated for a strategic withdrawal and scorch and earth tactics which would stretch Alexander’s supply lines and deny his forces food and supplies to forage or “live off the land”. However, the Persian satraps of Anatolia saw this move as both undermining to morale and not worthwhile because the scorched earth would be their own fertile lands, hurting long term commerce. Their contention was to fight the Macedonians head on before they ventured too far into the Persian Empire.

The first major battle, was the Battle of Granicus fought in May 334 BC in what is now western Turkey along the Granicus river, as was often the case Alexander would fight many of his classic battles along rivers. For his part this was strategic, the Persian armed chariots could not be effective on muddy river banks where mobility was slowed. The Persians knew the Macedonians would attempt to cross the river and hoped to slow their advance their by bunching up the Macedonian forces. The battle started with a feint attack on the Macedonian left, commanded by a trusted general, Parmenion who commanded the Thracian and Thessalian cavalry. The Persians shifted many of their forces to meet this attack but in doing so weakened part of their line, Alexander personally lead his noble Companion cavalry into battle in a flying wedge formation. In the melee, Alexander personally killed a number of Persian nobles but was nearly killed himself by one until a timely intervention by a Greek general named, Cleitus the Black severed the Persian’s arm clean off with sword still in their hand, saving Alexander’s life. The Macedonian center now had time bought and moved its phalanxes into place across the river, supported by the bulk of the army now pushed back the Persians, the speed of their advance surprised the Persian forces who after some tough fighting retreated. The retreat happened before they could commit their forces, namely the Greek mercenaries to battle. This resulted in the Macedonians killing their fellow Greeks in a general massacre, viewing them as a traitors for having served the Persians. Granicus was a resounding Macedonian victory, their first major one over the Persians.

The battle opened up Anatolia to the Greeks who began conquering the lands. Some Persian satraps in the next several months surrendered their territory without a fight, hoping to spare their damage. Alexander sometimes let Persians stay in their positions of power so long as they supplied his army and swore loyalty to him. Gradually, Alexander worked his way along the coast to neutralize the Persian naval bases that could cut off supply lines back to Greece. He also visited the city of Gordium which contained the fabled Gordian Knot which presented a riddle to many in the ancient world, the complicated and varied tied knot was a puzzle that required challengers to unravel it, the one who solved the puzzle was said to be destined to rule all of Asia. Many had contemplated how to unravel the knot but failed. Alexander’s solution was simple, cut the knot with his sword.

From Anatolia, Alexander hoped to advance into Syria and threaten the Levant. It was at this point that the Persian Shah, Darius III personally lead an army to counter the Macedonian threat. Darius’s army actually ventured behind the Macedonian army hoping to cutoff its supply lines and trap it deep in Persian territory with no hope of reinforcement. Alexander did however rise to meet Darius. They did do along the Southern Anatolian coast along a small river called Issus. The Battle of Issus was fought in a narrow ground between the mountains and the sea, the ground was chosen by Darius to limit the mobility of the Macedonian cavalry which had been so effective at Granicus. Darius’s army was as typical of the Persian forces was multiethnic and once again they relied on Greek mercenaries, arguably their best troops which Darius placed at the center with his royal bodyguard. The Macedonian advance across the river was slowed by the river itself, the Persians fortifying their bank of the river and the Greek mercenaries hard fighting. However, Macedonian hypaspists, tasked with guarding the phalanxes weak and vulnerable flank and rear managed to break through a line in the Persian-Greek forces. This allowed Alexander to see an opportunity to strike unexpectedly at the heart of the Persians. Taking his Companion cavalry, Alexander drove his force on a right flank maneuver and then wheeled toward the Persian center, straight at Darius. The speed and fury of the Macedonian charge at the Persian King of Kings completely unnerved Darius and he fled in his chariot. This collapsed the morale of the Persian center which also fled. On the left flank of the Macedonians, Persian cavalry held back Parmenion’s left flank cavalry. Ever the observer and adapter to the situations on the battlefield, Alexander would wheel his forces to hit the Persians now exposed rear. This surprise attack combined with the holes being punched in their mercenary forces and the flight of their king lead to a rout of Persian forces. The Macedonians pursued and killed off many retreating Persians, gaining yet another decisive victory. In the wake of this, Alexander captured members of Darius’s family including his wife, mother and two daughters. Alexander held them as prisoners though they were by all accounts well treated during their captivity. Darius himself retreated to the Persian capital in Babylon.

Over the next year or two Alexander consolidated his gains in Anatolia and advanced down the Syrian coast, taking the Levantine cities either by surrender and sparing them destruction or in the case of Tyre and Gaza having to besiege them and after many months finally captured both. Alexander then advanced to Egypt where he was proclaimed Pharaoh. He also visited a temple where the Egyptian priests declared him the son of their supreme god, Amon Ra. He introduced the Greek presence into Egypt and the Levant, something that was to last for centuries with the Greeks serving as Pharaohs of Egypt until Roman rule, with a Greek-Egyptian named Cleopatra being their last famed ruler, a descendant of the Ptolemaic dynasty that was established by one of Alexander’ s general, Ptolemy in the wake of Alexander’s death. Something new was happening due to Alexander and the Hellenic presence in Egypt. Greek and Egyptian culture to a degree synthesized and Greek culture was being spread to Persia’s various provinces. He would also found the first of many cities bearing his name, Alexandria, now one of Egypt’s major cities. It would become a famed center of learning and culture throughout the ancient world, blending Greek, Egyptian, Persian and other traditions into one center. This was to become a hallmark of Alexander’s rule and legacy, as he would spread Hellenic culture to other parts of the world and increasingly it would blend with the local culture becoming a hybrid of East meets West. Reflected in art, religion, currency, governance, commerce, day to day life and military tradition.

Meanwhile, back in Greece the mighty Sparta which had remained silent during Alexander’s Asian and African adventures finally rose up to challenge the Macedonians, Alexander nor his father directly fought the legendary Spartans and the question was raised who was mightier Sparta or Macedon. Antipater, one of Alexander’s generals who stayed behind in Greece would answer that burning question. The Macedonian army crushed the Spartans at the Battle of Megalopolis virtually fighting to the last man, killing their king in battle too. This subdued the Spartan rebellion and Greek discontent over taxes and Alexander’s rule in general.

Darius III offered several attempts at negotiations with Alexander as all of Persia’s western provinces and African ones, namely Egypt, were being conquered, some without a fight which was a humbling experience for the Persian Shah. His last offer at peace was to offer half of the Persian Empire to Alexander, all the Western provinces, to become co-rulers of the empire, to taken several thousand pounds of silver and gold as payment and to arrange a marriage between Alexander and one of his daughters. Alexander did seriously consider the offer and all but one of his generals argued against it. Alexander, refused seeking to have all the empire and not just half. The war would continue.

Alexander now marched his forces into Mesopotamia or modern Iraq with the goal of taking the Persian political capital, Babylon. Darius is believed to have anticipated the Macedonians would take a more direct route through the deserts of central and southern Iraq which with extreme heat and lack of supplies would drain their army. Darius however, once again realized he was dealing with no ordinary for. Alexander ever the clever strategist took his army on an unexpected route through Northern Iraq instead, nearing mountains that would shade or cool his forces from the intense heat of the deserts to the south. This caught the Persians off guard and Darius was forced to instead move his own army northward. Some Persians figured the Tigris River which the Macedonians numbering shy of 50,000 men would have to ford was too deep and strong. However, Alexander’s army did cross and was now moving toward Babylon on the east side of the river. Darius decided to find ground of his own choosing to meet and defeat the Macedonians. He found it on a relatively flat plain east of modern Mosul, Iraq at a place called Gaugamela.

By choosing an open expansive battlefield, Darius hoped not to be boxed in the way he had at Issus, this would allow more room for his chariots and cavalry to maneuver. His force was estimated by modern scholars of being upwards of 100,000. It included Indian war elephants and various contingents and mercenaries from all over the Persian Empire as was usual. Alexander however as was often the case, took an unexpected maneuver and initiative which offset the Persians. He moved his Companion cavalry from their right flank far out on what appeared to be an outflanking maneuver which deceived the Persians into thinking this was an maneuver that needed to be countered and indeed they sent a large force of cavalry from their left to meet and clash with the Macedonians. As the Persians drew their forces to mirror and counter Alexander’s deep flank, they weakened their own center as was Alexander’s plan. The deep flank was joined by his phalanx and hypaspists infantry which Alexander had gradually disengaged them from the flanking maneuver to meet the Persians center which fixed them in place. Meanwhile, the Persian chariots armed with javelin throwers advanced only for the Macedonian regiments to part forming alleys for the chariots to pass through without causing damage, before the chariot riders were killed themselves. Parmenion and the Thracian-Thessalian cavalry on the left also fixed the Persian right flank in place. It was now time for Alexander’s decisive move. The deep flank and the fixing in place of the Persian forces effectively weakened the Persian center by creating a gap which like at Issus, Alexander could strike at Darius’s jugular once more by driving his flying wedge Companion heavy cavalry right at the Persian center and split it’s force into pieces. Darius, once again caught off guard by the Macedonian deception and fury fled the battlefield, causing panic and routing in his forces. Parmenion’s left flank however was in jeopardy and just like as Issus, Alexander had to lead a counter charge to save his left from being overwhelmed which was encircled by Persian cavalry on all sides. Darius fled and evaded capture or death as Alexander had hoped, but preservation of his army was more key to the long term goals of Alexander. He attacked the Persians in their rear with some breaking off to loot the Macedonian camp before they were dispatched themselves. The rest of the Persian army fled as the Macedonians shifted their forces to left to relieve Parmenion. It was another victory and ultimately the final blow needed to defeat Darius and the Achaemenid Persian Empire.

Alexander entered the Persian capital of Babylon which he claimed to enter as a liberator, he also went onto the cities of Susa and the ceremonial capital of Persepolis which was in the Persian heartlands of modern Iran, he burned Persepolis as payback for the Persians burning Athens 150 years earlier in the Persian invasion of Greece under Xerxes. Now he was declared by his new Persian nobility Persian Shah himself and Lord of Asia, in addition to his titles as King of Macedon, Hegemon of the Hellenic League and Pharaoh of Egypt. Effectively the Persian Empire ceased to be a real force at least in the western provinces. Darius gave an impassioned speech to carry on the war in the eastern half of the empire which remained unconquered. However, his satraps, especially one by the name of Bessus had enough of defeats and retreat by Darius, they took him prisoner and murdered their Shah. Bessus was then self-proclaimed Shah but Alexander viewed Bessus as little more than an impostor, with himself as the real Shah and he considered the act of murdering Darius, the rightful ancestral King of Persia as cowardly and little more than petty and unjust, a crime punishable by death.

Darius’s body would be recovered by Alexander as he set off in pursuit of Bessus. He gave him a proper burial in the ancestral tombs of his dynasty. Alexander had respect for Darius’s position and an appreciation of the Persian monarchy’s history even if they were enemies on the battlefield. He now set about trying to consolidate a hold on his conquests through a mix of his Macedonian generals and Persians who proclaimed loyalty to him, becoming his new nobility and serving as provincial administrators. He began to administer Persia, though largely as Persia had been run, seeing himself not as a new conqueror but as rightful inheritor to the prior Persian dynasty, this admiration for Persia along with the adoption of certain Persian customs and the maintenance of Persian governors and administrators by Alexander started to cause some resentment among his generals who unlike Alexander simply despised the Persians and felt Greek traditions superior. The first cracks in Alexander’s otherwise impenetrable self-armor were starting to appear. Yet, there was much work to do, such as the capture of Bessus and the conquest of the eastern remnants of the nominal Persian Empire. Alexander’s gaze was fixed to the east to the ends of Persia and beyond, to the edge of the known world...

#Alexander the Great #darius iii #macedonia #persian empire #ancient greece #military history #military tactics #ancient world #granicus #issus #gaugamela

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philosopherking1887 · 5 years

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On the new racial essentialism of the Left

I decided to make a new post instead of reblogging this thread and probably pissing off the OP and making them think I’m a conservative, which all of my followers know by now that I am not. What I am is a philosopher (sometimes of race) and a Nietzsche scholar. In that capacity, the final reblog comment on that thread caught my attention, not in a good way:

It’s crazy to me that, literally everyone in the world was doing just fine until Europeans showed up flipped the script

It was all subtext before, but now I’ve caught someone making it explicit.

The way “the script has been flipped” in Left ideology preserves racial essentialism but reverses the roles: instead of thinking that white Europeans are civilized, peaceable, and humanitarian while all the various brown people are disorganized, violent, and savage, the ideology is now that brown people were always civilized, peaceable, and humanitarian while only white Europeans are disorganized, violent, and savage.

This way of thinking is worrisome to me for various reasons. The most important is that it requires a view of history that’s just as selective as the colonial pro-European narrative, only it switches what’s attended to and what’s forgotten. No, “literally everyone in the world” was not “doing just fine” until white people came along. I will absolutely grant that European imperialism made things worse for a lot of people, and in many cases represented a loss rather than a gain in technological advancement (“technology” construed broadly to include techniques of sanitation, agriculture, etc.). But that is hardly the same as saying that everyone was living happily in peace, abundance, and harmony until white people invented violence, disease, and oppression. There has always been war, including among societies of color before people from Europe showed up. We have plentiful written records of those wars in India, the Middle East, China, Japan, etc., and I think it’s common knowledge that many Native American nations had longstanding enmities with each other, which they sometimes used the European settlers to help prosecute. All of those wars have involved atrocity: killing people in nasty ways, mass murder of civilians as well as combatants, rape and enslavement of defeated enemies, destruction of homes, crops, and livestock. Most settled, urbanized societies, from Sumeria and Babylon to the Aztecs, have had drastic wealth inequality (except, apparently, Teohihuacán). Most civilizations that I’m aware of have had gender inequality favoring males, though of course it has taken different forms in different times and places.

Civilizations have always conquered each other; younger ones, drunk on newfound nationalism, prey on older, declining ones and strangle infant cultures in the cradle. Often this has involved the loss of expertise and technology, as with the fall of the Roman Empire. Maybe modern European imperialism/ colonialism is worse than ancient imperial conquest; it’s certainly covered more of the world than any of the ancient empires and had access to more advanced technology of violence and conquest. Honestly, I think that what makes it strange and different is that it carried the seed of its own destruction: Christian (and post-Christian humanist/ democratic) morality. For a few centuries, European nations were able to come up with tortured rationalizations to reconcile their conquest and exploitation with the morality of equality and compassion that they officially avowed, but those rationalizations have fallen apart faster even than the feudal caste system. The Assyrians, Babylonians, Macedonians, Romans, etc. would have had no reason to feel guilty about killing a bunch of people, moving populations around as it suited them (which they did: Europeans didn’t invent ethnic cleansing, either), and skimming off the wealth of their conquests to take back to the patria; their ethical system said that was glorious and pleasing to the gods. Christian morality is framed from the viewpoint of the oppressed rather than the oppressors; what confers virtue is not accomplishing great feats of warfare or statecraft and winning fame and glory, but being benevolent and peaceful, promoting the happiness and comfort of others, doing no harm.* Even if it has left Christian theology behind, the morality of the Social Justice Left is Christian through and through; no wonder it’s become widely accepted that only the oppressed can be virtuous.

[[ * I’m not saying Christianity is the only instance of this type of morality; it’s just been the most widespread and influential. Buddhism and the Chinese philosophy of Mohism (which is basically utilitarianism) fall into this category, too. There are probably other examples, cross-culturally, but unfortunately it’s harder to pin down the moral philosophy of cultures that don’t have an extensive, well-preserved written tradition. FWIW, both the Aztec and Mayan ethical philosophies seem to have been a lot closer to Greco-Roman warrior-noble virtue ethics than to (post-)Christian altruistic egalitarian morality. My impression is that Islamic ethics falls somewhere in between, so it sits pretty comfortably with a moderated form of ancient empire. From the Jewish standpoint, I’m a fan of the medieval Caliphate and the Ottoman Empire. ]]

The historical inaccuracy problem with the Brown = Good, White = Bad & Evil** ideology points to a deeper philosophical problem advertised in my post title: it maintains the binary, essentialist framework of traditional white supremacist racism, while just switching who gets placed in which category.

[[ ** Following Nietzsche, I use these to mean distinct things. “Bad” encompasses the aspect of being technologically and socially primitive, thus contemptible (which was the focus of the thread that inspired this essay); “Evil” is the violent, conquer-y part. ]]

Essentialism is very tempting and psychologically appealing; an old prof of mine who works on philosophy of language and psychology (esp. language acquisition) has a paper that calls it “the original sin of cognition.” It’s why people love quizzes that put them into categories, the MBTI, identifying with their astrological sign, etc. I do it, too. But the world is always messier than that. Racial categories, in particular, are far messier than that. And officially, the Social Justice Left knows that: it’ll pay lip service to the social construction of race, the very recent invention of the category of “White,” and the way it’s been strategically expanded -- letting in groups that were previously excluded: Irish, Italians, Russians, Ashkenazi Jews -- in order to preserve White supremacy over the groups who were decidedly Other. But when you get into details -- e.g., the fact that Jews weren’t widely considered white until the mid-20th century, so it’s anachronistic (as well as offensively dismissive) to call the Holocaust “white-on-white violence” -- all that principled anti-essentialism dissolves. The categories White and Non-White/ POC are projected back through all of history, complete with the demarcation criteria that are popularly accepted in the 21st-century U.S. (which ignores, e.g., the fact that self-identified white supremacists/ nationalists do not consider any Jews white). Ancient Greeks and Romans are suddenly white, even though there was constant cultural and genetic exchange across the Mediterranean; this is extremely convenient, because the violent warrior cultures of Greece and Rome can be pointed to as evidence of the moral race binary.

When I’ve expressed my objections to this binary, essentialist thinking before, I’ve been accused of “concern-trolling.” And yeah, I guess developing a historically accurate and philosophically consistent theory is not a high priority for most people, especially oppressed people. It’s entirely possible that the reversal of the binary is just a helpful corrective to the predominance of the white-supremacist narrative over the past few centuries, and people’s understandings will balance out into historical accuracy once practical equality is achieved and the revolutionary fervor has waned. Nonetheless, I wonder sometimes if the neo-Rousseauian ideology of “People are inherently good, except white people who have been corrupted and gone bad (or are inherently bad for some reason)” won’t produce similar consequences to the original Rousseauian ideology of “People are inherently good, except aristocrats/rich people, who have been corrupted and gone bad.” After all, wouldn’t it be a prudent policy of minimizing harm and suffering, in the long run, to get rid of the relatively small group that was causing all the problems? Probably an insane thing to worry about, and I certainly don’t think it’s an immediate danger; as things stand, people of color have WAY more to worry about from white people than the other way around. (As an Ashkenazi Jew in North America, I’ve always been more concerned about right-wing extremist violence than left-wing, though that calculus may change now that I’m moving to London.) Still, I did notice a lot of people on the Left -- especially white people -- scoring Woke points by saying “Killmonger was right.” Did they mean it? Did they think it through? Are they so consumed by white guilt that they want to throw themselves on their swords in the name of justice and atonement? That’s their lookout if they do, but I don’t have that kind of death wish.

#philosophy #racial essentialism #philosophy of race #philosophy of history #nietzsche #ideology critique #i hate rousseau

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dfroza · 4 years

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the pure treasure of the heart is the Spirit

(it is God within)

it is the baptism of the heart, just as we are instructed to do with the body in water when we choose to “believe...” in the True illumination of the Son

(in grace)

and this includes walking away from idols that attempt to take the place of God such as seen in Today’s chapter from the book of Acts with people in ancient History who chose to worship a fake goddess named Artemis, along with witches and warlocks burning their books of sorceries such as seen in these lines:

The realization spread that God was in and behind this. Curiosity about Paul developed into reverence for the Master Jesus. Many of those who thus believed came out of the closet and made a clean break with their secret sorceries. All kinds of witches and warlocks came out of the woodwork with their books of spells and incantations and made a huge bonfire of them. Someone estimated their worth at fifty thousand silver coins. In such ways it became evident that the Word of the Master was now sovereign and prevailed in Ephesus.

The Book of Acts, Chapter 19:17-20 (The Message)

and the complete chapter 19:

Now, it happened that while Apollos was away in Corinth, Paul made his way down through the mountains, came to Ephesus, and happened on some disciples there. The first thing he said was, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Did you take God into your mind only, or did you also embrace him with your heart? Did he get inside you?”

“We’ve never even heard of that—a Holy Spirit? God within us?”

“How were you baptized, then?” asked Paul.

“In John’s baptism.”

“That explains it,” said Paul. “John preached a baptism of radical life-change so that people would be ready to receive the One coming after him, who turned out to be Jesus. If you’ve been baptized in John’s baptism, you’re ready now for the real thing, for Jesus.”

And they were. As soon as they heard of it, they were baptized in the name of the Master Jesus. Paul put his hands on their heads and the Holy Spirit entered them. From that moment on, they were praising God in tongues and talking about God’s actions. Altogether there were about twelve people there that day.

Paul then went straight to the meeting place. He had the run of the place for three months, doing his best to make the things of the kingdom of God real and convincing to them. But then resistance began to form as some of them began spreading evil rumors through the congregation about the Christian way of life. So Paul left, taking the disciples with him, and set up shop in the school of Tyrannus, holding class there daily. He did this for two years, giving everyone in the province of Asia, Jews as well as Greeks, ample opportunity to hear the Message of the Master.

[Witches Came out of the Woodwork]

God did powerful things through Paul, things quite out of the ordinary. The word got around and people started taking pieces of clothing—handkerchiefs and scarves and the like—that had touched Paul’s skin and then touching the sick with them. The touch did it—they were healed and whole.

Some itinerant Jewish exorcists who happened to be in town at the time tried their hand at what they assumed to be Paul’s “game.” They pronounced the name of the Master Jesus over victims of evil spirits, saying, “I command you by the Jesus preached by Paul!” The seven sons of a certain Sceva, a Jewish high priest, were trying to do this on a man when the evil spirit talked back: “I know Jesus and I’ve heard of Paul, but who are you?” Then the possessed man went berserk—jumped the exorcists, beat them up, and tore off their clothes. Naked and bloody, they got away as best they could.

It was soon news all over Ephesus among both Jews and Greeks. The realization spread that God was in and behind this. Curiosity about Paul developed into reverence for the Master Jesus. Many of those who thus believed came out of the closet and made a clean break with their secret sorceries. All kinds of witches and warlocks came out of the woodwork with their books of spells and incantations and made a huge bonfire of them. Someone estimated their worth at fifty thousand silver coins. In such ways it became evident that the Word of the Master was now sovereign and prevailed in Ephesus.

[The Goddess Artemis]

After all this had come to a head, Paul decided it was time to move on to Macedonia and Achaia provinces, and from there to Jerusalem. “Then,” he said, “I’m off to Rome. I’ve got to see Rome!” He sent two of his assistants, Timothy and Erastus, on to Macedonia and then stayed for a while and wrapped things up in Asia.

But before he got away, a huge ruckus occurred over what was now being referred to as “the Way.” A certain silversmith, Demetrius, conducted a brisk trade in the manufacture of shrines to the goddess Artemis, employing a number of artisans in his business. He rounded up his workers and others similarly employed and said, “Men, you well know that we have a good thing going here—and you’ve seen how Paul has barged in and discredited what we’re doing by telling people that there’s no such thing as a god made with hands. A lot of people are going along with him, not only here in Ephesus but all through Asia province.

“Not only is our little business in danger of falling apart, but the temple of our famous goddess Artemis will certainly end up a pile of rubble as her glorious reputation fades to nothing. And this is no mere local matter—the whole world worships our Artemis!”

That set them off in a frenzy. They ran into the street yelling, “Great Artemis of the Ephesians! Great Artemis of the Ephesians!” They put the whole city in an uproar, stampeding into the stadium, and grabbing two of Paul’s associates on the way, the Macedonians Gaius and Aristarchus. Paul wanted to go in, too, but the disciples wouldn’t let him. Prominent religious leaders in the city who had become friendly to Paul concurred: “By no means go near that mob!”

Some were yelling one thing, some another. Most of them had no idea what was going on or why they were there. As the Jews pushed Alexander to the front to try to gain control, different factions clamored to get him on their side. But he brushed them off and quieted the mob with an impressive sweep of his arms. But the moment he opened his mouth and they knew he was a Jew, they shouted him down: “Great Artemis of the Ephesians! Great Artemis of the Ephesians!”—on and on and on, for over two hours.

Finally, the town clerk got the mob quieted down and said, “Fellow citizens, is there anyone anywhere who doesn’t know that our dear city Ephesus is protector of glorious Artemis and her sacred stone image that fell straight out of heaven? Since this is beyond contradiction, you had better get hold of yourselves. This is conduct unworthy of Artemis. These men you’ve dragged in here have done nothing to harm either our temple or our goddess.

“So if Demetrius and his guild of artisans have a complaint, they can take it to court and make all the accusations they want. If anything else is bothering you, bring it to the regularly scheduled town meeting and let it be settled there. There is no excuse for what’s happened today. We’re putting our city in serious danger. Rome, remember, does not look kindly on rioters.” With that, he sent them home.

The Book of Acts, Chapter 19 (The Message)

and in Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments with this of Zechariah 6 we see a picture of God’s sovereignty:

[Eighth Vision: Four Chariots]

Once again I looked up—another strange sight! Four chariots charging out from between two mountains. The mountains were bronze.

The first chariot was drawn by red horses, the second chariot by black horses, the third chariot by white horses, and the fourth chariot by dappled horses. All the horses were powerful.

I asked the Messenger-Angel, “Sir, what’s the meaning here?”

The angel answered, “These are the four winds of heaven, which originate with the Master of the whole earth. The black horses are headed north with the white ones right after them. The dappled horses are headed south.” The powerful horses galloped out, bursting with energy, eager to patrol through the earth. The Messenger-Angel commanded: “On your way! Survey the earth!” and they were off in every direction.

Then he called to me and said, “Look at them go! The ones going north are conveying a sense of my Spirit, serene and secure. No more trouble from that direction.”

[A Man Named Branch]

Then this Message from God came to me: “Take up a collection from the exiles. Target Heldai, Tobiah, and Jedaiah. They’ve just arrived from Babylon. You’ll find them at the home of Josiah son of Zephaniah. Collect silver and gold from them and fashion crowns. Place one on the head of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and give him this message:

“‘A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies. Be alert. We have a man here whose name is Branch. He will branch out from where he is and build the Temple of God. Yes, he’s the one. He’ll build the Temple of God. Then he’ll assume the role of royalty, take his place on the throne and rule—a priest sitting on the throne!—showing that king and priest can coexist in harmony.’

“The other crown will be in the Temple of God as a symbol of royalty, under the custodial care of Helem, Tobiah, Jedaiah, and Hen son of Zephaniah.

“People will come from faraway places to pitch in and rebuild the Temple of God. This will confirm that God-of-the-Angel-Armies did, in fact, send me to you. All this follows as you put your minds to a life of responsive obedience to the voice of your God.”

The Book of Zechariah, Chapter 6 (The Message)

to be followed with inspiration from Today’s reading of the Psalms and Proverbs for Wednesday, january 15 of 2020 (Psalm 15 and Proverbs 15) as well as the 26th day of Winter (Psalm 26) that mirrors the 26th letter Z of the alphabet

[Psalm 15]

Living in the Shining Place

A poetic song, by King David

Lord, who dares to dwell with you?

Who presumes the privilege of being close to you,

living next to you in your shining place of glory?

Who are those who daily dwell in the life of the Holy Spirit?

They are passionate and wholehearted,

always sincere and always speaking the truth—

for their hearts are trustworthy.

They refuse to slander or insult others;

they’ll never listen to gossip or rumors,

nor would they ever harm another with their words.

They will speak out passionately against evil and evil workers

while commending the faithful ones who follow after the truth.

They make firm commitments and follow through,

even at great cost.

They never crush others with exploitation or abuse

and they would never be bought with a bribe

against the innocent.

They will never be shaken; they will stand firm forever.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 15 (The Passion Translation)

[Psalm 26]

Declare Me Innocent

King David’s poetic praise to God

You be my judge and declare me innocent!

Clear my name, for I have tried my best to keep your laws

and to trust you without wavering.

Lord, you can scrutinize me.

Refine my heart and probe my every thought.

Put me to the test and you’ll find it’s true.

I will never lose sight of your love for me.

Your faithfulness has steadied my steps.

I won’t keep company with tricky, two-faced men,

nor will I go the way of those who defraud with hidden motives.

I despise the sinner’s hangouts, refusing to even enter them.

You won’t find me walking among the wicked.

When I come before you, I’ll come clean,

approaching your altar with songs of thanksgiving,

singing the songs of your mighty miracles.

Lord, I love your home, this place of dazzling glory,

bathed in the splendor and light of your presence!

Don’t treat me as one of these scheming sinners

who plot violence against the innocent.

Look how they devise their wicked plans,

holding the innocent hostage for ransom.

I’m not like them, Lord—not at all.

Save me, redeem me with your mercy,

for I have chosen to walk only in what is right.

I will proclaim it publicly in every congregation,

and because of you, Lord,

I will take my stand on righteousness alone!

The Book of Psalms, Poem 26 (The Passion Translation)

[Proverbs 15]

Respond gently when you are confronted

and you’ll defuse the rage of another.

Responding with sharp, cutting words will only make it worse.

Don’t you know that being angry

can ruin the testimony of even the wisest of men?

When wisdom speaks, understanding becomes attractive.

But the words of the fool make their ignorance look laughable.

The eyes of the Lord are everywhere

and he takes note of everything that happens.

He watches over his lovers,

and he also sees the wickedness of the wicked.

When you speak healing words,

you offer others fruit from the tree of life.

But unhealthy, negative words do nothing but crush their hopes.

You’re stupid to mock the instruction of a father,

but welcoming correction will make you brilliant.

There is power in the house of the righteous,

but the house of the wicked is filled with trouble,

no matter how much money they have.

When wisdom speaks, revelation-knowledge is released,

but finding true wisdom in the word of a fool is futile.

It is despicable to the Lord

when people use the worship of the Almighty

as a cloak for their sin,

but every prayer of his godly lovers is pleasing to his heart.

The Lord detests the lifestyle of the wicked,

but he loves those who pursue purity.

Severe punishment awaits the one

who turns away from the truth,

and those who rebel against correction will die.

Even hell itself holds no secrets from the Lord God,

for all is exposed before his eyes,

and so much more the heart of every human being.

The know-it-all never esteems the one who tries to correct him.

He refuses to seek good advice from the wise.

[Living an Ascended Life]

A cheerful heart puts a smile on your face,

but a broken heart leads to depression.

Lovers of God hunger after truth,

but those without understanding

feast on foolishness and don’t even realize it.

Everything seems to go wrong

when you feel weak and depressed.

But when you choose to be cheerful,

every day will bring you more and more joy and fullness.

It’s much better to live simply,

surrounded in holy awe and worship of God,

than to have great wealth with a home full of trouble.

It’s much better to have a kind, loving family, even with little,

than to have great wealth

with nothing but hatred and strife all around you.

A touchy, hot-tempered man picks a fight,

but the calm, patient man knows how to silence strife.

Nothing seems to work right for the lazy man,

but life seems smooth and easy when your heart is virtuous.

When a son learns wisdom,

a father’s heart is glad.

But the man who shames his mother is a foolish son.

The senseless fool treats life like a joke,

but the one with living-understanding makes good choices.

Your plans will fall apart right in front of you

if you fail to get good advice.

But if you first seek out multiple counselors,

you’ll watch your plans succeed.

Everyone enjoys giving great advice.

But how delightful it is to say the right thing at the right time!

The life path of the prudent lifts them progressively heavenward,

delivering them from the death spiral

that keeps tugging them downward.

The Lord champions the widow’s cause,

but watch him as he smashes down the houses of the haughty!

The Lord detests wicked ways of thinking,

but he enjoys lovely and delightful words.

The one who puts earning money above his family

will have trouble at home,

but those who refuse to exploit others

will live in peace.

Lovers of God think before they speak,

but the careless blurt out wicked words meant to cause harm.

The Lord doesn’t respond to the wicked,

but he’s moved to answer the prayers of his godly lovers.

Eyes that focus on what is beautiful bring joy to the heart,

and hearing a good report

refreshes and strengthens the inner being.

Accepting constructive criticism

opens your heart to the path of life,

making you right at home among the wise.

Refusing constructive criticism shows

you have no interest in improving your life,

for revelation-insight only comes as you accept correction

and the wisdom that it brings.

The source of revelation-knowledge is found

as you fall down in surrender before the Lord.

Don’t expect to see Shekinah glory

until the Lord sees your sincere humility.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 15 (The Passion Translation)

A poetic memory for the 26th day of Winter

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ascensio · 7 years

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Western civilization is built on Persian systems, not Greek.

Lesson on the world today and an important part of its history:

We are taught today that the western world is built upon Greek ideologies. However, the truth is that it is actually built upon Persian ideologies. The idea that Greeks represented freedom is false. The Persian Empire banned slavery, and built its entire civilisation through fair payment to its workers and soldiers. Greeks however commonly had slaves who they were legally required to beat and forced conscription of its army.

The founder of the Persian Empire, Cyrus II, was a multiculturalist who never forced his religion on the nations he conquered, and in fact he freed the Jewish tribes in Babylon, who went on to build their new temple in Jerusalem.

If you were born as a Spartan male, and were not muscular enough you would either be enslaved or killed. Whereas Persian leaders went on to improve their dominion, building roads, refining bureaucracy, standardising currency and other progressive things. Furthermore, Athens and Sparta fought each other for decades, eventually Sparta actually allied with Persia to crush Athens, and Athens never recovered.

So how did we get the western civilisation that we know today? Well with the help from Persia and its governance, Macedonia thrived while Greece was fighting with itself. In fact it thrived so much, that a certain famous Macedonian, by adopting the Persian systems which were the most effective government that he knew of, he was able to conquer the entire region and took over the Persian empire and it became the largest empire of the old world, the Roman empire. That person was Alexander the great. He venerated Cyrus II and had great respect for him.

Persian systems are still being used today, its influence is seen all around the world, which are commonly and wrongly attributed to the Greeks. Ps. A quick additional note of interest: Alexander the great was gay. In fact, he was so devastated by the death of his lover Hephaestion, that it is said that Alexander died shortly after from his sadness and broken heart.

#Persia #Greece #Greek #Persian #history #lesson #world #western #western civilization #alexander the great

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santasanghun-blog · 6 years

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Words of Accusation Not of God

God has a people in which all heaven is interested, and they are the one object on earth dear to the heart of God. * Let everyone who reads these words give them thorough consideration, for in the name of Jesus I would press them home upon every soul. When anyone arises, either among us or outside of us, who is burdened with a message which declares that the people of God are numbered with Babylon, and claims that the loud cry is a call to come out of her, you may know that he is not bearing the message of truth. Receive him not, nor bid him Godspeed; for God has not spoken by him, neither has He given a message to him, but he has run before he was sent. The message contained in the pamphlet called the Loud Cry, is a deception. Such messages will come, and it will be claimed for them that they are sent of God, but the claim will be false; for they are not filled with light, but with darkness. There will be messages of accusation against the people of God, similar to the work done by Satan in accusing God's people, and these messages will be sounding at the very time when God is saying to His people, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee." A Work of Deception It will be found that those who bear false messages will not have a high sense of honor and integrity. They will deceive the people, and mix up with their error the Testimonies of Sister White, and use her name to give influence to their work. They make such selections from the Testimonies as they think they can twist to support their positions, and place them in a setting of falsehood, so that their error may have weight and be accepted by the people. They misinterpret and misapply that which God has given to the church to warn, counsel, reprove, comfort, and encourage those who shall make up the remnant people of God. Those who receive the Testimonies as the message of God will be helped and blessed thereby; but those who take them in parts, simply to support some theory or idea of their own, to vindicate themselves in a course of error, will not be blessed and benefited by what they teach. To claim that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is Babylon, is to make the same claim as does Satan, who is an accuser of the brethren, who accuses them before God night and day. By this misusing of the Testimonies, souls are placed in perplexity, because they cannot understand the relation of the Testimonies to such a position as is taken by those in error; for God intended that the Testimonies should always have a setting in the framework of truth. Those who advocate error will say, "The Lord saith," "when the Lord hath not spoken." They testify to falsehood, and not to truth. If those who have been proclaiming the message that the church is Babylon had used the money expended in publishing and circulating this error, in building up, instead of tearing down, they would have made it evident that they were the people whom God is leading. There is a great work to be done in the world, a great work to be done in foreign lands. Schools must be established in order that youth, children, and those of more mature age may be educated as rapidly as possible to enter the missionary field. There is need not only of ministers for foreign fields, but of wise, judicious laborers of all kinds. The Macedonian cry is sounding from all parts of the world, "Come over, . . . and help us." With all the responsibility upon us to go and preach the gospel to every creature, there is great need of men and means, and Satan is at work in every conceivable way to tie up means, and to hinder men from engaging in the very work that they should be doing. The money that should be used in doing the good work of building houses of worship, of establishing schools for the purpose of educating laborers for the missionary field, of drilling young men and women so that they may go forth and labor patiently, intelligently, and with all perseverance that they may be agents through whom a people may be prepared to stand in the great day of God, is diverted from a channel of usefulness and blessing into a channel of evil and cursing. The great day of God is upon us, and hasteth greatly, and there is a great work to be done, and it must be done speedily. But we find that amid the work that is to be done, there are those professing to believe the present truth who know not how to expend the means entrusted to them, and because of a lack of meekness and lowliness of heart they do not see how great is the work to be done. All those who learn of Jesus will be laborers together with God. But those who go forth to proclaim error, expending time and money in a vain work, lay upon the true workers in new fields increased burden; for instead of devoting their time to advocating truth, they are obliged to counteract the work of those who are proclaiming falsehood and claiming that they have the message from heaven. If those who have done this kind of work had felt the necessity of answering the prayer of Christ that He offered to His Father just previous to His crucifixion,--that the disciples of Christ might be one as He was one with the Father,--they would not be wasting the means entrusted to them and so greatly needed to advance the truth. They would not be wasting precious time and ability in disseminating error, and thus necessitate the devoting of the laborer's time to counteracting and quenching its influence. A work of this character is inspired, not from above, but from beneath. "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God. Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of Mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow." The message that has been borne by those who have proclaimed the church to be Babylon has made the impression that God has no church upon earth.

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jeannereames · 3 years

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This is probably a very stupid question, but how did the Ancient Greeks measure time (in terms of years and months) ? What was their calendar like? What year would Alexander have viewed himself to be living in?

I love these sorts of daily-life details, so I may have got a little carried away…. Before I get into the weeds, however, I want to make everyone aware of a reference resource:

E. J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World. Thames & Hudson, 1968.

Yeah, it’s old now, but Bickerman spent most of his career on dating puzzles, and I don’t think there’s anything recent to match it. When I first was told about it years ago in my historiography class, I practically bounced off the walls. (My fellow grad students thought I’d lost my mind.)

I’m not sure of the best way to address this query—topically or geographically—but I’ll go with topically. I’ll also say upfront that I’m unfamiliar with Egypt, so they’re not much mentioned. Also, if you want more details on any particular system (Roman, Athenian, Babylonian, Jewish), there are plenty of online resources.

Long-count Calendar

How to number years across a span? Regnal years was most common in antiquity: year 1, year 2, year 3 of ___ king. Also, king lists detailed how long ___ ruled. The Ancient Near East (ANE) excelled at chronologies; we have some that go back to Sumer. That’s pre-Bronze Age. The span of some reigns can be deeply problematic (e.g., mythical), but we have the lists. Fun note, Neo-Assyrians named years by its major military campaign. Tells us a lot about them, no?

What about places without kings? Greece, Rome, Carthage?

The Greeks had several systems, internal and panhellenic. Internal systems often dated by the name of a prominent city magistrate. In Athens, that was the eponymous archon, in Sparta, the eponymous ephor, etc. The panhellenic system used Olympic years. In Dancing with the Lion, if you look at date plates before sections, that’s what I used. It’s a 4-year system, so, “In the year of the 97th Olympiad,” “In the first year of the 97th Olympiad,” “In the second year…,” and “In the third year…,” then we’re to “In the year of the 98th Olympiad…” In modern annotation it’s Ol. 97.1, Ol. 97.2, Ol. 97.3, Ol. 97.4. From (our year) 776 BCE down into the Roman Imperial era, the Olympics made useful anchor dating for the eastern Mediterranean (Magna Graecia).

Rome had its own system: two in fact. It counted years by both consuls, but also AUC = ab urba condita … “from the founding of the city.” Carthage used a similar system involving their two senior Judges for their senate.

When it came to “world histories,” authors such as Diodoros Siculus used several systems: Olympiad, Athenian archon, and Roman consuls. It gets a bit unwieldy, but is about as universal as we have for the Med until Christianity took over everything.

Yearly Calendars

Much of the ancient world used lunar (354 days), not solar (356 days) calendars. Yes, they knew a lunar year didn’t line up with the solar, and they used “intercalation” to fix it, avoiding summer festivals being celebrated in winter. Either a 13th month was needed every 3 years, or they added a few days to months here and there, making a “lunisolar” calendar. We have an intercalated day in our own calendar: Feb. 29th in Leap Year. To fix a calendar, however, an “anchor” is needed. This anchor is usually a solstice or equinox, which may (or may not) correspond to their New Year.

Our modern (Western) world places New Year’s in the dead of winter. But many pre-modern calendars put it in spring. Makes sense: life renews, it’s a new year. The Babylonian New Year was decided by the spring equinox—first new moon after—which pattern affected most of the ANE.

The Hebrew New Year (Rosh Hashana) is in autumn, but their first month (Nisan) is in spring. (They also have a New Year for Trees! Tú bish'vat. How cool is that?) Wanna know when your Jewish friends are having a holiday? Use Hebcal, the gold standard.

MANY ancient cultures have more than one calendar running at a time. So do we. Working in the uni, I have the “normal” year, but also the “academic” year to keep up with.

Despite the dominance of certain early systems like Babylon, counting the new year was specific to a region and people, and their religious traditions. No single Greek new year tradition existed. Both Delos and Athens used the first new moon after the summer equinox: early July. The Macedonian calendar seems to as well, so Alexander was born in the first month of the year. Other city states were different. I’ve forgotten most but do remember Sparta’s is in autumn because their new year almost falls on my birthday.

Remember, although we today talk about “ancient Greece” as if it were a country—it wasn’t. There was a landmass called Hellas, but each city-state was independent, and had its own laws, gov’t, coinage, and religious cult. Too often “Greek” winds up being conflated with “Athenian,” because we happen to have the most evidence from ancient Athens. But both Athens and Sparta were weirdos. Corinth, Thebes, Argos, Mytilene, Cos, Eretria, Miletus…all were a lot more typically Greek in their gov’t systems, etc. There were also 3 (or 4) different branches of Greek: Ionic-Attic, Doric, and Aeolic. When we talk about reading the “ancient Greek” language today, most people mean Attic Greek, or even Koine Greek (Hellenistic era common Greek).

That means every city-state had its own calendar, connected to its own festivals.

In fact, most city-states had several: sacred, civic, etc. Athens had a 12-month lunar calendar for festivals, but a 10-month civic calendar corresponding to the 10 tribes for Assembly business. Originally, they had only 4 tribes, not 10, so political changes meant calendar changes.

In each city-state, month names were derived from the major festival for that month. We have the complete month names for only a few: Athens is one and (fortunately for me) Macedon is another (specifically Ptolemaic, but it’s likely the same as the Argead). Below “Ancient Greek Month” REALLY means “Athenian month,” which annoys the hell out of those of us who don’t consider Athens the be-all and end-all of Greek history!

Because their months were lunar, they bisect our months, e.g., July/Aug = Athenian Hekatombian or Macedonian Loos [Alexander’s birthmonth], Jan/Feb = Athenian Gamelion or Macedonian Peritios [probably the month that gave Alexander’s favorite hound his name: Peritos]. Likewise, as the Athenian new year began in midsummer, dating ancient events also bisects. You’ll see 342/1 to designate the year from July of 342 BCE to June of 341.

As mentioned, most places used lunar months as the most basic time-keeping, but the moon isn’t the only way to make a “month.” Rome originally had 10 months of 30/31 days, adding 2 later, which is why our 12 months have Romanesque names.

Just remember: NO UNIVERSAL SYSTEM for months.

What About Weeks?

A seven-day week is borrowed from the Jews via Christianity. Both Jews and Egyptians had a dedicated day of rest. (For Egypt, the 10th day.) In most places, however, days off were festival related. Every month had festivals, which might last from half a day to several days in a row. You worked…took off for a festival…then you worked. No regular day of rest. (For the modern weekend? Thank unions and the Labor Movement!)

How did others subdivide a month? Athenian months were c. 30 days, divided into 10s: 1-10, 11-20, 10-1. Yup, the last is backwards. But dating also counted waxing and waning moons. So the new moon began a month, the 7th of the month would be the 7th waxing moon, the 24th the 6th waning moon. This is the Athenian system. Other city-states are less clear, but probably similar.

Romans had kalens (1st), nones (7th), and ides (15th). Nundinae (market days) means 9th, but were really the 8th day. The 7-day week is late Imperial and, again, owes to Christian take-over of Jewish weeks.

Most systems had “auspicious” and “inauspicious” days for religious activities, civic activities, and business activities. Don’t start anything on an inauspicious day! (These were manipulated, especially in Rome, but that’s a whole different discussion.) The closest modern equivalent I can think of is Mercury Retrograde. 😊 Although in modern Greece, signing a contract on a Tuesday morning is bad juju, or May 29th. Constantinople fell on a Tuesday morning May 29th, 1453. We might, in America, consider 9/11. Who wants to open a business on 9/11?

The Horai (The Hours)

When did the day begin? Again, the ANE and Med are different. In the ANE, day typically began at sunset. So yes, that’s why the Jewish shabbat starts at sunset on Friday and lasts till sunset on Saturday. (If you didn’t know, the Jewish “day of rest” isn’t Sunday, but Saturday.)

For Greece and Rome, et al., day began at dawn. Each day was then evenly divided between day and night, so there was no standard length of an hour. It depended on the time of year. Each half had twelve hours, subdivided into 4 groups of triads. Originally in Greece it seems there were only 9, not twelve, but they increased to match the lunar months. The division of 4 groups of triads also yielded the 4 seasons of 3 months each. Hora was initially a season, not an hour.

In any case, dawn was always the first hour, noon the 6th, sunset the 12th. Same deal for night (twilight, midnight, pre-dawn).

This is great for military and civic purposes, but most people tended to refer to daytime divisions more generally: dawn, midday, etc. And there was nothing like minutes or seconds. That’s totally modern. Closest, they might come would be to count “breaths.”

The gnomon (sundial) was the chief way to measure hours, as it matched longer or shorter days. But it’s kinda hard to use a sundial at night, or on a cloudy day, or inside. Night hours were approximate.

The water clock (klepsudra) was first popularized in Greece in courts and the Assembly (to time speeches), but spread to other use, for inside or on shady days. Yet water clocks are unwieldy to carry around.

The Romans did have portable sundials (below), but again…needs the SUN. Btw, I should add that sundials aren’t only a Greco-Roman thing. The Chinese had them too. By contrast, the sand-clock or hourglass is a medieval invention. Won’t find them in the ancient world.

#time-keeping #calendars #time in the ancient world #months in the ancient world #ancient Greece #ancient Rome #ancient near east #Jewish calendars #sundials #the Horae #The Hours #Classics #ancient history #ancient Mediterranean history #asks

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jeannereames · 3 years

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2. I think you mentioned somewhere in your blog that part of Alexander’s shock at Hephaistion’s death was that Alexander had expected himself to die first. Given that prior understanding, wouldn’t Alexander and Hephaistion have developed some kind of contingency plan in case one of them died? At least later on, once Alexander became more invested in actually ruling his newfound territory? Or did they just never consider what they would do if something happened to either of them?

What an intriguing question. I expect that, yes, they may have talked together of “what ifs”—especially after the Mallian debacle. Alexander would likely have expected himself to die first just because he had to lead from the front as part of the “heroic” style of kingship required of Macedonian kings. All the romantic allusions to Achilles-Patroklos aside, and assuming they even made those themselves, and it wasn’t made for them by Romans later, I really doubt they’d have expected Hephaistion to go first.

When I wrote my dissertation, I argued Hephaistion was made chiliarch relatively late, probably in early 324 after the return from India. But I’ve come to think his elevation owed to the Mallian debacle, occurring not too long after. There needed to be a clear chain of command not only if Alexander died, but if he was incapacitated for an extended period; after Parmenion’s murder, there wasn’t. Competition was the name of the game at the court, and if the king didn’t impose a pecking order, none of the top brass were inclined to step aside for another.

I don’t think Alexander was ever terribly invested in the “boring” part of ruling his empire. He basically handed that off to Hephaistion. “Here, I conquered it; you make it work.” Although we’re not told, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hephaistion was meant to stay behind in Babylon when Alexander went after Arabia—or Carthage. Regional commander. Persian kings had a layer between “satrap” and “Great King”: these regional commanders who were often high-ranking members of the Great King’s family: brothers or other close kin.

Anyway, not only did Hephaistion’s death leave Alexander emotionally bereft, it was really shitty timing. Hephaistion had barely established himself to formalize the changes introduced post-Susa weddings. The first substantial Persianizing of the court happened around mid-330 as the army marched into Baktria…not long before the infamous Philotas Affair. The next occurred after ATG’s return from India in late 325, then the Opis mutiny, the Susa weddings, etc., in 324. Hephaistion died in October of that same year.

So MUCH happened in Alexander’s life, it’s sometimes easy to lose track of timing. Even if Hephaistion had been named chiliarch in India, he wouldn’t have been able to implement a lot of court changes until they were back in central Persia, so effectively, he had less than 10 months, and probably less than 8.

Ergo, if Alexander’s appointment of him to the chiliarchy was part of a contingency plan for Alexander’s possible demise, imagine his shock when Hephaistion died first! AND before he really had much time to do the job Alexander had meant him to do: “you make [what I conquered] work.”

#asks #Hephaistion #Hephaestion #Alexander the Great #chiliarch #court of Alexander the Great #Mallian Campaign #death of Alexander the Great #death of Hephaistion #Hephaistion as chiliarch

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jeannereames · 3 years

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This is a bit tangential, but do we have any idea about what would have happened to Hephaistion's possessions when he died? If Alexander kept anything, what would have happened after his death? What about Hephaistion's larger property: his money and slaves and horses and estates?

A very interesting question. Obviously, we don’t have an actual answer, but we can do some educated conjecture.

There are really two parts to this. First his “personals,” and second, his wealth, both concrete (actual cash/rich goods) and in land/on the hoof—things that normally a son would inherit.

Personals would probably have been divided among his close associates under Alexander’s direction. Given the fact Alexander wouldn’t release Hephaistion’s body until pulled away, I doubt he was eager to get rid of his stuff, either—at least not at first.

Grief is a process. It’s also hard, emotional work. It takes months, even years, and the bereaved goes through quite different cycles. Kubler Ross and Kessler’s Five Stages of Grief are fairly well known, but I also like to underscore the Four Tasks of Grieving, as outlined by William Worden. (Btw, I think Alexander died while struggling with Task Four: Find an Enduring Connection with the "Deceased" While Embarking on a New Life.)

So if Alexander initially needed to cling to Hephaistion and his personals, as time passed, he may also have gone through a period of wanting to get rid of it all. It becomes too painful a reminder. When counseling the bereaved, we usually try to get them to promise NOT to make any major life decisions for at least a year: don’t sell your house, don’t throw away photos/sentimental jewelry/irreplaceable items, don’t get remarried. It’s all right to give away things like clothing, shoes, regular jewelry, etc. In fact, purging some of those items is important to healing. Yet grief is such a powerful thing, it can lead one to make radical decisions regretted later. (There are some exceptions: e.g., the survivor of an elderly couple, who stayed in a house because one was having memory issues/dementia when not changing environment is important, might downsize or go into a retirement community when that partner passes.)

A sudden, unexpected death like Hephaistion’s is automatically what we call “complicated” grief because of the shock of it. That is, it adds additional layers the bereaved must work through. Even if he’d been seriously ill, he was apparently getting better, so Alexander may have felt “cheated” or “tricked.” Such additional emotions can lead to greater difficulty adjusting to loss. (If you want to read more about my assessment of Alexander’s reactions, see “The Mourning of Alexander the Great.”)

So in short, almost certainly Alexander would have kept things belonging to Hephaistion. Some examples might be his cloak, perhaps rings (like the signet ring below--NOT Hephaistion’s, just as an example), bracelets, maybe for a while clothing that still smelt like him, any trinkets Alex may have given him, a boardgame if Hephaistion liked to play, quite probably his main mount(s), possibly any pets such as a dog. These are the sorts of items the bereaved usually save (modified for the ancient world).

As far as we can tell, he had no legitimate male issue; Greek (and presumably Macedonian) law restricted legal inheritance to legitimate offspring only, without special dispensation. If he’d had a son, even an infant son, almost certainly it would have been mentioned in the aftermath. (One time I think we’re completely safe making an “argument from silence.”) What’s less certain is whether he may have had any illegitimate children from a mistress. It is possible he had a prior wife in Macedonia, as some men who married Persian brides in Babylon already had a wife, but most of these were of the older generation (such as Krateros). Yet the possibility remains that Hephaistion had illegitimate children, especially daughters, as they tend to be left out of the historical record.

I am skeptical of any illegitimate sons, however, because Alexander’s reaction to Hephaistion’s death was so extreme, I would expect even an illegitimate son, to have been mentioned, perhaps as Alexander finding a way to settle some of his father’s wealth on him. We are told that he took care of the illegitimate children of his Macedonian soldiers by local women, some going on to be part of the Epigoni. Again, they can’t legally inherit from their Macedonian fathers so Alexander provided for them, including (if memory serves) dowries for the girls. If he did that for a run-of-the-mill pikeman, I can’t imagine he wouldn’t do ten-times that for any offspring of Hephaistion.

So that’s why I think we might have heard about any children, if he’d had them. To my mind, part of Alexander’s desperate grief was because he didn’t have children. It may sound overly quixotic, but I do think it’s why both Roxane and Statiera wound up pregnant before Alexander died 10 months later. He needed to get them pregnant anyway, sooner rather than later, but a common reaction among survivors is to reconsider one’s own mortality.

So if Hephaistion had no immediate issue, his “heir” would have been his closest surviving male relative, assuming he had one. We don’t know if his father was alive or dead. Just because he’s not in Asia doesn’t mean he’s dead.*(spoiler for Rise) It’s really important to remember that not every Macedonian went with Alexander. He left about as many troops behind as he took with him, for Antipatros to secure the country. (And Antipatros needed to use them more than once.) So while I think it a safe bet that Hephaistion had no close male relative in Asia, that doesn’t mean he didn’t in Macedonia, or elsewhere in Greece.**

Ergo, any living father, nephew, cousin, or brother back home would have been set for life. Also, some of his inheritance would have been set aside for his mother if his father was no longer living, and perhaps any sisters.

Hephaistion almost certainly also had lands in Asia/Persia as part of Drypetis’s dowry. Persian women, especially the royal and aristocratic classes, independently owned large tracks of land (no Monty Python jokes please). Those would have fallen under Hephaistion’s supervision while he lived (briefly), and after his death, would have reverted to her. But after her death, who knows what happened to them. He may also have had other Asian property, including herds, that Alexander gave him. Again, what became of these…. Even if he had male kin back home to inherit them, it would have required traveling to Asia to do so.***

Anyway, after first Alexander, then Drypetis died, nobody else seemed that interested in maintaining his memory. Some historians have used that as evidence he wasn’t widely liked, but I think it more a function of 1) people having war/survival on their minds. And/or 2) he was dead and not of much use to anybody, except negatively—e.g., his achievements might have overshadowed their own and got in the way of their claims on power. Sabine thinks Ptolemy may have tried to white-wash his memory a bit in his history, but that was written decades later when Ptolemy had time and his own reputation was secure.

But again, the fact we don’t know much about his legacy suggests to me that he didn’t have any surviving children, and perhaps very little family back in Macedonia/Greece. At least Krateros had a son (also named Krateros) who put up a big-ass dedication at Delphi in memory of his father, showing him saving Alexander from a lion. (It’s been lost except for its stand, but the famous mosaic from Pella is an other-medium copy.)

-----------------------

* Although I have Amyntor die near the end of Rise, that’s purely to foil the two fathers (Amyntor and Philippos). In my article on Hephaistion’s name (“Becoming Macedonian”), I talk about the very real possibility that Amyntor was made a proxenos of Athens in 335/34 BCE …over a year after Philip died. He was alive then. Again, authors sometimes make choices for thematic purposes that don’t reflect history—although I generally try not to violate it too egregiously!

** Sabine Muller agrees with me that Hephaistion wasn’t Macedonian, however she also doubts the childhood friendship, thinking it later Roman poetasting. She found my arguments convincing enough that she’s gone even further and proposes he was an Athenian, not Macedonian at all, and joined the army after Alexander was king.

*** Way back in my dissertation, I theorized that the (very wealthy) Macedonian Amyntor in Kolophon who contributed c. 316 BCE to the construction of a wall there (typical type of ancient euergetism) was Hephaistion’s much younger brother, now in possession of likely fantastic wealth. I no longer think that. I based it on a speculative reading of “gerontos” as “son of the elder” rather than “son of Geron”: e.g., Amyntor, son of the elder [Amyntor], and reassessed it in the name article “Becoming Macedonian” (link above). BUT this would be a good example of a possible family member who wouldn’t necessarily have been mentioned in connection with Hephaistion’s death. I think only Hephaistion’s own issue, or a family member present in Babylon would get a mention. Family back home…? Not so much. Ergo, he may well have had some.

#asks #Hephaistion #Hephaestion #Alexander the Great #Mourning of Alexander the Great #Grief of Alexander the Great #inheritance in ancient Greece #Amyntor of Macedon #Classics #ancient Macedon #ancient Macedonia #ancient Greece

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jeannereames · 4 years

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Where do you think Hephaistion's body was by the end of Alexander's life (Babylon, on his way to Macedon, etc.)? What do you think about the Amphipolis Tomb and its recent link to Hephaistion?

I think Hephaistion was cremated in Babylon, as per Diodoros, et al. I’ve read various attempts to say he wasn’t, based on time required to build the funeral monument, or it was too elaborate—why would Alexander burn something that expensive, etc. Not convinced by these arguments, as they wouldn’t have started on it when he arrived. He no doubt sent word not long after the death, so they’d have had from (probably) early November (by the time news reached Babylon) until sometime in the spring.

As for, “Why burn something that expensive?” Um, have y’all SEEN the amount of wealth Macedonians regularly poured into the ground with their burials? That was their culture. They didn’t build freakin’ huge temples, they built freakin’ expensive TOMBS. And on top of a lot of those tombs, they had cremations, where they burned up (also) a lot of money in grave goods. It was a POTLATCH, meant to honor the dead. You bet Alexander would have built the biggest damn funeral he could imagine for the man he considered his “other self.” Historians need to stop thinking like moderns and think like (ancient) Macedonians.

No source indicates Hephaistion’s body was sent back to Macedon, nor that Alexander intended that. As the new Chilliarch of the empire, he would’ve been stationed in Babylon, so it makes perfect sense for Alexander to hold his funeral there. It’s harder to explain why Alexander would have wanted to send his body (or his ashes, rather) back to Macedonia. He would’ve wanted them near him, in the purported planned capital of his empire. He may (probably did) intend to build a more permanent memorial there, but obviously didn’t live to do so, nor do we hear about it, so we can only suppose.

I have serious qualms about making ANY connection between the Kasta (Amphipolis) Tomb and Hephaistion based on the appearance of an Eta and Phi scratched in a wall (Eph). There’s also an “Anti” there, I believe, the excavator tries to argue means “Antipatros.” (?!)

In any case, the presence of multiple skeletons points to the Kasta Tomb as a family burial. We also have dating issues. The use of blue-colored pebbles in the mosaic suggests a later date than the end of the 4th Century. ALL pebble mosaics from Aigai and Pella dated to the late 4th Century (e.g., very early Hellenistic) do not include blue. They’re nature tones with a more traditional Greek painters’ pallet. Including blue makes me want to down-date that tomb to somewhere in the 3rd century…still well within the range of the use of pebble mosaics.

As for that “mark”—there is absolutely nothing in the historical record stating that he used that as his signature. I would know. I’ve read everything written about him, in all ancient sources. Maybe he did, but there’s nothing to back it up. And there are a *whole* lot of names that start “Eta-Phi” in Greek. I just did an epigraphical study looking at them. Hephaistion is one of the most popular, but far from unique.

Last, that sort of “signature” on something constructed, from pottery to mosaics to statuary…it’s usually a CREATOR’S mark. Like a signature in the corner of a painting. Because Hephaistos was the god of craftsmen, unsurprisingly we find variations on that name (Hephaistodoros, Hephaistos, Hephaistion, Hephaistokles…etc., etc.) among craftsmen. There’s a whole family of potters using Hephaistos from Sinope, spanning a couple hundred years. There are some cases where it might indicate the owner of an object, but those are much smaller objects, like a pot, or a tool, or a caduces, and it appears (usually) in the genitive (Of ___ or ___’s).

In my considered opinion, one of the creators of the Kasta tomb probably had a name that started Eta-phi. That’s all we can safely say, I think.

Were it a cenotaph for Hephaistion, his name would appear OUTSIDE, and there wouldn’t have been a body/bodies in it. (A cenotaph is a memorial that doesn’t contain a body, either because the body was never recovered, or it’s buried elsewhere.) Again, I cannot support arguments that he was never cremated when all our sources suggest he was.

Yet even if we entertain the possibility he wasn’t, it still doesn’t line up to make the Kasta Tomb “his.” Why would what appears to be the “central” figure buried there be a woman in her 60s? (Part of why some wanted to name it Olympias’s Tomb—problems with that too.) The use of Persephone’s abduction is far more often seen in female burials. In fact, I can’t think of a male Macedonian burial with Persephone. Doesn’t mean there isn’t one—especially as new ones periodically pop up—but I can’t think of one. ( @kneelbeforeclefairy? You were just there.)

To make it line up with Hephaistion, too many things have to be “explained away.” I prefer the KISS principle. 😉

If it is a family tomb, as it seems (and as with Lyson and Kallikles), then names might appear inside near niches, but it wouldn’t be an abbreviation. So IMO, the chief excavator is trying really hard to attach her tomb to somebody famous, but using unconvincing evidence.

Given the amount of money poured into it, it was most likely a family tomb for somebody famous, or at least rich, living under the Antipatrids in the 3rd century. I’d go further to say the tomb was initially built for the older woman, then other family members were added to it later.

Who, we may never know at this remove.

That’s the curse of archaeology. Only rarely does what comes out of the ground (convincingly) match up with names in our ancient narratives.

#Hephaistion #Hephaestion #Alexander the Great #Kasta Tomb #Amphipolis Tomb #Hephaistion's death #Olympias #Macedonian funerals #Macedonian Tombs #Macedonian burials #Macedonian religion #asks

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