Monthly Archives: December 2013

Timocleia of Thebes’ Revenge

Posted on December 13, 2013 by Alexander's Other Secretary

Celebrating the deeds of the ancient ~~Macedonians~~ Greeks - the hardest (wo)men to walk the earth

For other posts in this series click here

Date 335 BC Place Thebes
All’s Well That Ends Well
Timocleia of Thebes

Timocleia of Thebes (Wikipedia)

In the first blog post in this series we looked at how Perdiccas single handedly invaded Thebes in 335 BC, and it is to that city that we now return.
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Perdiccas’ one-man invasion was quickly followed up by Alexander and the Macedonian army. Plutarch reports that the Thebans ‘fought with a superhuman courage and spirit’ but were ultimately defeated.
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Once the fighting was over, Alexander allowed the city to be sacked. He was determined to make an example of Thebes so as to dissuade other Greek cities from rising up against him.
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As the Macedonians set about stripping Thebes of her valuables, a group of Thracian soldiers serving in Alexander’s army broke into the home of a noblewoman named Timocleia. The leader of the party gave her home to his men, and took Timocleia for himself. He raped her.
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Now, while it would be true to say that even wicked men are capable of showing mercy, the Thracian captain showed by his actions on this day that the quality of his was low to non-existent. Having forced himself upon Timocleia he demanded to know whether she had hidden any of her gold or silver.
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Given what had just happened to her, Timocleia could have been forgiven for telling the captain everything in order to get him and his men out of her house. Instead, she responded with great cunning.
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Thus, she did not give way but led the way and - while her home was still being looted and her children menaced - Timocleia took the captain to a well. When you stormed the city, she told him, I threw everything down there.
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The captain approached the well and peered into its depths to see if she was telling the truth. He would soon have a much closer view, for as he looked, Timocleia approached him from behind and with an almighty shove, threw him into the well.
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We don’t know what the relative size of the Thracian captain and Timocleia was but given that men are generally bigger than women, and the fact that she would have lost a great deal of strength in trying to resist his assault, Timocleia must have been forced to use all her energy to make sure the captain went over.
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All her energy? Not quite. Having succeeded in trapping the captain, Timocleia then proceeded to stone him to death with rocks lying about the garden.
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Too late to save their leader, the Thracian soldiers realised what had happened. Interestingly, they did not kill Timocleia on the spot, but bound and led her away to Alexander for judgement. Despite what the captain had done, they must have thought that he would punish her. I fear this tells us something rather depressing about how rape was regarded as a legitimate tool of oppression in antiquity.
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As for Timocleia, was she acting on adrenaline when she killed the Thracian captain? i.e. not on her real strength. Maybe, but as I doubt that she would have been presented to Alexander until at least a little time after the assault had taken place, I am inclined to say that she was able to do what she did out of true toughness.

Timocleia and Alexander (Wikipedia)

I say this because Plutarch says that when Alexander met her, he found her in a calm state of mind and with a ‘fearless bearing’. That fearlessness led Timocleia to stand up to the enemy king with great pride. Instead of begging for mercy, she proudly told him her name and the fact that her brother had fought against him at the Battle of Chaeronea.
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There were two ways to Alexander’s heart. One was to be called Hephaestion. The other was to fight bravely against him. Or, as in Timocleia’s case, in defence of oneself. Plutarch says that he was ‘filled with admiration’ for her defiant words and the way she had revenged herself upon the Thracian captain, and ordered the release of her and her children.
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What Timocleia went through should not be suffered by anyone but it also secured her future. After Thebes was plundered and razed, Alexander ordered the population to be sold into slavery. Plutarch notes that a few people were spared this fate but does not include the nobility as a class in their number. Had the Thracian soldiers not come to her home that day, Timocleia might have been separated from her children and forced into a very cruel form of service for the rest of her days. Fate may be serrated but she also cuts both ways.
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Rating of Hard 10/10
Pro Timocleia acted with great strength, intelligence and nobility in the serve of her honour
Against Unless we say that two wrongs don’t make a right I don’t think Timocleia put a foot wrong. I reject the ‘two-wrongs’ argument because we are talking about acts of hardness in this post not morally good ones

Categories: Muscular Macedonians | Tags: Thebes, Timocleia | 2 Comments

The Bullet Point Alexander: Alexander’s Siblings

Posted on December 11, 2013 by Alexander's Other Secretary

Blog Posts for the interested and the rushed

Alexander had six siblings - two half-brothers, three half-sisters and one full-sister
CAVEAT! One of those siblings (Caranus) may not have actually existed
In the early years of the diadoch period a rumour emerged that Ptolemy I was Philip II’s son by Arsinoë. To my mind this is straight forward propaganda so I have not included Ptolemy here
Read more bullet points here

In order of year of birth:
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I PHILIP III ARRHIDAEUS

Born in 358/57 BC
Son of Philip II and Philine of Larissa
According to tradition, Philine was a woman of ill repute but Heckel rejects this
Arrhidaeus suffered from an unidentified disability throughout his life
This disability may have been epilepsy or a mental impairment of some sort
Plutarch states that the condition was brought about by Olympias when she gave him drugs (that is, to either kill him or damage his faculties sufficiently to render him unable to rival Alexander for the Macedonian throne)
In 336 BC Philip II proposed that Arrhidaeus marry Ada of Caria. Alexander’s fear that this might threaten his accession to the throne made him propose marriage to Ada
Her father, Pixodarus, was delighted by the proposal but Philip was decidedly not. He put a stop to the matter and banished those of Alexander’s friends who had helped him court Pixodarus from Macedon
Arrhidaeus’ movements during Alexander’s eastern expedition are unknown
Upon Alexander’s death, his generals proposed that Roxane’s unborn child - if a boy - be declared king. The cavalry agreed to this but the infantry demanded that Arrhidaeus be made king
Roxane did indeed give birth to a boy. He was named Alexander IV
Eumenes suggested that there should be a joint kingship. This was agreed by generals, cavalry and infantry alike
Under the terms of the deal, Craterus should have become Philip III’s guardian. As it turned out, however, Perdiccas took on that role
In 322/1 BC, Philip III married Adea, daughter of Alexander’s half-sister, Cynnane
After Perdiccas was assassinated in 320, Peeithon and and an officer named Arrhidaeus took over the regency of Philip III
(NB: The care of Philip III and Alexander IV was offered to Ptolemy but he declined)
Following the conference at Triparadeisus (320 BC), Antipater took over the regency of both kings
In 319 BC, upon Antipater’s death, Polyperchon became Philip III’s regent
In 317 BC Polyperchon formed an alliance with Olympias
To prevent Olympias gaining control over Philip III, Adea transferred his regency to Cassander
Adea tried to block Polyperchon and Olympias’ return to Macedon from Epirus but failed
Thereafter, Olympias had Arrhidaeus murdered and forced Adea to commit suicide
Philip III is buried in Aegae along with Cynnane and Adea

II CYNNANE

Spelling variations: Kynane, Kyna, Kynnana and Cyna
Born c. 358 BC
Daughter of Philip II and Audata
Marched on campaign with Philip II in the 340s and - it is said - killed an Illyrian queen ‘with her own hand’ (Heckel)
Married Amyntas son of Perdiccas III
Mother of Adea
Amyntas was the young king who Philip II acted as regent for before taking the Macedonian throne for himself (360/59 BC)
Upon Philip’s death, therefore, Amyntas had as good a claim to the throne as Alexander
For this reason Alexander had him killed in 336/35
During his Thracian campaign in 335 BC Alexander promised Cynnane to King Langarus of the Agrianes. He died, however, before any marriage could take place
During Alexander’s eastern campaign, Cynnane had Adea ‘trained in the Illyrian arts of War’ (Heckel)
Killed by Alcetas in 321 BC as she travelled to Perdiccas’ court to arrange Adea’s marriage to Philip III Arrhidaeus
Buried in Aegae alongside Adea and Philip III Arrhidaeus

III CLEOPATRA

Born between 355 - 353 BC
Daughter of Philip II and Olympias
In 336 Cleopatra married Alexander I of Epirus (her uncle)
During the wedding celebrations, Philip II was assassinated by Pausanias
In 335 BC Cleopatra gave birth to Cadmeia and Neoptolemus (twins?)
At some point after the birth of his children Alexander I went on campaign in southern Italy
During Alexander’s absence, Cleopatra ruled Epirus as the regent of her son
Alexander I died while on campaign in 331/0
After her husband’s death, Cleopatra returned to Macedon and remained there until Alexander the Great’s death in Babylon
In 322 BC Cleopatra offered to marry Leonnatus. He died before the wedding could take place
Not long later, she made a similar offer to Perdiccas. But he had already agreed to marry Nicaea, daughter of Antipater
Between c. 322 - 308 BC Cleopatra lived in Sardis (Asia Minor)
In 308 Ptolemy I proposed to her - ‘in connection with his only serious bid for greater power’ (Heckel)
Fearing the consequences of this alliance, Antigonus Monophthalmus had Cleopatra killed

IV THESSALONIKE

Spelling variations: Thettalonike and Thessalonice
Born c. 345/4 BC
Daughter of Philip II and Nicesipolis of Pherae
Jason of Pherae’s niece
Thessalonike’s mother died twenty days after her daughter’s birth
Nothing is known of Thessalonike’s life between her birth and 316/5 BC
It is possible, though, that Olympias served as her guardian during that time
In 315 BC Thessalonike was forced to marry Cassander
They had three children together - Philip, Alexander and Antipater
Cassander founded a city in Thessalonike’s honour, naming it after her
Murdered c. 296 by her son, Antipater, for not promoting his sole claim to the Macedonian throne

V EUROPA

Born in 336 BC just before Philip II’s death
Daughter of Philip II and Cleopatra Euridike
Full-sister of Caranus
Scholars who believe that Caranus existed suggest that Cleopatra was born in 337 BC
Assassinated by Olympias in the weeks/months following Philip’s death and against Alexander’s wishes

VI CARANUS

Born between 338 BC (when Philip married Cleopatra) and 336 BC (when Cleopatra was assassinated)
Son of Philip II and Cleopatra Euridike
Full-brother of Europa
Assassinated in 336 BC along with his mother and older sister, Europa
Heckel states that our only source for Caranus’ life is Justin who refers to him in his Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus
Wikipedia states that Satyrus also refers to Caranus
Heckel does not believe that Caranus existed as there would have been no time for Cleopatra to produce a second child between the birth of Europa and her death

Sources
Waldemar Heckel Who’s Who in the Age of Alexander the Great
Robin Waterfield Dividing the Spoils
Arrian The Campaigns of Alexander tr. by Aubry de Sélincourt
(with help from Wikipedia)

Categories: The Bullet Point Alexander | Tags: Alexander the Great, Caranus, Cleopatra of Macedon, Cynnane, Europa, Philip III Arrhidaeus, Thessalonike of Macedon | Leave a comment

The Mieza Book Club “Orestes: The Young Lion” (Chapters 33 – 39) Pt 2

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Alexander's Other Secretary

New to the Mieza Book Club? Read the Introduction here
Minutes of the previous meetings can be read here

Chapters 33 – 39 Pt 2
The Club reaches the end of Laura Gill’s splendid book (again).
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For The Record

Amyntas of Pella and Amyntas of Aegae were not late to this meeting but got into an argument with one another over John F. Kennedy’s response to the Cuban Missile Crisis, so did not contribute to the discussion.
Please note, the transcript contains “spoilers”.

Peucestas
Club Secretary
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Minutes
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Seleucus With Chapter 35 we enter the final stretch of the book. Now, the issue of the inevitability of Orestes’ fate comes to the fore. He also starts to form his alliances, and choose his enemies.

Theban Al Mmm. His rejection of and warning to Alastor [in Chapter 36] is chilling.

Seleucus I wonder if it marks the moment when Orestes finally stops being stroppy and moppy like Luke Skywalker and becomes a man.

Meleager If so it is sad that he does so in a very negative way. I really disliked the way he dismissed Tyndareus. It’s as if we are seeing Orestes turn into that which he hates the most. Or rather, he whom he hates the most.

Theban Al I don’t think he will but I can see why you say that.

Peucestas In Chapter 37 Orestes draws up his list of those who might help him. He also compiles his hit list. It is a nasty moment, for friends as well as enemies go onto the list - but I suppose that was how it worked back then: you kill one of my family, I kill all of yours; even if they were friendly to me.

Leonnatus Yes. I suppose God was doing a good work when he gave Moses the ‘eye for an eye’ Law. This is why it is important to look at ancient peoples from where they came rather than from our perspective. If we did the latter - now that our rule is ‘love thy enemy’ - we would think the Mosaic principle is deficient when, in fact, it was an improvement upon what came before.

Harpalus It’s rather a shame, is it not, that God didn’t tell Moses to love his enemies.

Leonnatus I am fairly confident that that would not have worked. The Israelites had not yet reached the level of being able to do so.

Harpalus That is quite a judgement on them!

Leonnatus Is it? Well, consider countries in our own day that have gone from being dictatorships to democracies. Have they done it well? In Russia, Vladimir Putin is no longer president but is a virtual anax over his people. Egypt overthrew Mubarak - a dictator - then overthrew its democratically elected president. In Afghanistan, Karzai came to power with the help of fraud. I doubt it stopped once his term started. Why have all these things happened? I would suggest it is because - by and large - Mankind simply cannot take too much change in one go. It exposes weaknesses in the new system and allows - potentially corrupt - individuals to gain too much power. In the case of Israel, I think God knew this. He knew that if he pushed Israel too far it simply wouldn’t work. One step at a time: vengeance culture to an eye-for-an-eye to love-thy-neighbour. Genius, really.

Peucestas That is fascinating, Leonnatus - for itself and also because it makes me look at Orestes with a renewed respect for its place in history. By which I mean is, it brings to the fore the fact that I am reading something based on the ideas and beliefs of a now vanished age - perhaps it is just me but I think that is easy to forget in the heat of reading. It is worth keeping in mind, though, as it enriches the reading experience.

Seleucus Yes, very eloquently put, Leonnatus, old boy; speaking of eloquence - Gill’s description of Orestes’ visit to the Pythia was perfectly written. I absolutely felt like I was there.

Harpalus I wasn’t so fond of it. I was rather confused by that scene. Was she saying that the Pythia gave her prophecies after getting high?

Seleucus Yes, that is how I read it.

Harpalus Golly.

Peucestas Seleucus mentioned Tolkien earlier. The Pythia’s prophecy ‘ “Doomed to torment, doomed to madness, doomed to wandering in darkness” evoked the memory of the drumbeats in Moria for me. Doom, doom, doom! Very spooky.

Seleucus Indeed! Right, Orestes’ trip to Delphi is followed up [in Chapter 39] by Elektra’s ritual. I also found that to be a very evocative scene. I assume that the detail comes from Gill’s own imagination as little is known about women’s religion in ancient Greece?

Harpalus No idea, dear boy, but Orestes seeing the blemished liver was a super touch. It was a pity not more was made of it.

Theban Al I suspect that was deliberate. Not knowing what the omen truly was allows the story to retain a certain level of mystery - although, I know, yes, we do know what happens at the end.

Harpalus We have commented a couple of times this evening on how Gill allows the reader to make up his own mind as to what element X means. Not permitting Orestes to see the liver properly is consistent with that approach. Gosh, I would be a terrible writer. I would want to give every last detail. I’d be perpetually worried that I wasn’t giving the reader enough so would end up giving them too much.

Theban Al It is no excuse not to write, though; your draft readers will tell you where they think you are going right or wrong!

Peucestas These are good points and now, with great sadness, chaps, I must tell you that we are now past our finishing time. The Young Lion ends in medias res so we do not need to spend too much time on it. I will, however, ask my usual Final Question: Is it a good ending. Seleucus, on behalf of the club, what say you?

Seleucus In my opinion it is an ending that does its job but no more. Ordinarily, this would be a disappointment but given that the book is part of a trilogy we should, I think, look at it as simply the end of a chapter rather than the true end of a book. In that regard, it works perfectly as it makes me want to turn the page to the next one to find out what happens next.

Peucestas Very good. Well then, on that note, I shall ask you all for your final comments. You know how we do it chaps. Seleucus, as Club President, you go first. What did you think of Orestes: The Young Lion?

Seleucus It was a good read! Theban?

Theban Al I say it was a jolly good read! Harpalus?

Harpalus With great joy, I say it was a jolly good read for anyone interested in Greek mythology! Meleager?

Meleager ’Pon my soul, and with great joy, I say it was a jolly good read for anyone interested in Greek mythology, and who is buying on a budget - the book is on sale via iBooks (and Amazon) for a very reasonable price. Leonnatus?

Leonnatus Verily, upon my soul, and with great joy, I say it was a jolly good read for anyone interested in Greek mythology, and who is buying on a budget. The book is on sale via iBooks (and Amazon) for a very reasonable price and is well worth one’s time and money. Peucestas, back to you.

Peucestas Thank you, Leonnatus; thank you, everyone. None of us are book critics, so we always try to focus on the positives on the books we read but I can honestly say that Orestes: The Young Lion has been an excellent read. By-the-bye, and I say this for readers of the transcript as well as you chaps, the edition that we read has since been updated no doubt to its further improvement. I hope I can get a hold of the latest version to see how it compares to this one. For now, though, thank you gentlemen - and readers, who I hold to be with us in spirit.

The club took a vote on this and agreed unanimously that Peucestas was right. Glasses were clinked and then drained

The Israelites sat down by the rivers of Babylon and wept; we sat down in Mieza and discussed books. And drank wine. Lots.

Orestes: The Young Lion is available to buy in various formats. Here it is at Amazon.
If you know of a book that the Mieza Book Club should read, let us know in the comments box
The Mieza Book Club will be discussing “The Bacchae” by an upcoming Greek playwright called Euripides at its next meeting

Categories: The Mieza Book Club | Tags: Laura Gill, Orestes, The Mieza Book Club | Leave a comment

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte…

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Alexander's Other Secretary

Mount Ida (Psiloritis) in Crete. Credit: sacvoyage on Tumblr)

See Soracte’s mighty peak stands deep in virgin snow
And soon the heavy-laden trees their white load will not know,
When the swiftly rushing rivers with the ice have ceased to flow.
Pile, O Thaliarchus, pile the good logs on the fire!
Fetch up some crusty four-year wine in cobwebbed Sabine jar!
Thus we’ll drive away Jack Frost, with his biting cold so dire!
Care-free, all other matters among the gods we’ll keep
They when they’ve checked the battling wind upon the boiling deep
Untossed about the cypress and the old ash tree may sleep.
Seek not to know what changes to-morrow may be found
But count as gain whatever lot the change of days brings round;
Spurn not, young friend, sweet love-making, nor yet the dances round,
While withered age is distant from thy youth frequent the plain,
The throned lawns, each fashionable haunt, a crowded lane,
And at the trysting hour, e’en night-fall, softly whispered love’s refrain.
Now doth a roguish laugh our hiding girl betray
From her dark cover, where love’s token, perforce, is snatched away,
And her ill-withstanding finger but feebly bids him nay.

(Horace Ode to Thaliarchus translated by Patrick Leigh Fermor)

I’m still heart-deep in love with Patrick Leigh Fermor’s writing so to-day, instead of a work of art by a man, here is a work of art by nature. Mount Ida has been deliberately chosen. I shall let Leigh Fermor himself explain why. It is 1944. Leigh Fermor and his band of British soldiers and Cretan Resistance have successfully kidnapped the German General Heinrich Kreipe. The Nazis are in hot pursuit as the team make their escape over the Cretan mountain range…

During the lull in the pursuit, we woke up among the rocks just as a brilliant dawn was breaking over the crest of Mount Ida. We had been toiling over it, through snow and then rain, for the last two days. Looking across the valley at this flashing mountain-crest, the general murmured to himself:

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum
Soracte…

It was one of the ones I knew! I continued from where he had broken off:

nec jam sustineant onus
Silvae laborantes, geluque
Flumina constiterint acuto,

and so on, through the remaining five stanzas to the end. The general’s blue eyes had swivelled away from the mountain-top to mine - and when I’d finished, after a long silence, he said: “Ach so, Herr Major!” It was very strange. As though, for a long moment, the war had ceased to exist. We had both drunk at the same fountains long before; and things were different between us for the rest of our time together.

(Patrick Leigh Fermor A Time of Gifts)

As the note below the photograph of Mount Ida (which today is called Psiloritis) says, the photograph comes from a Tumblr blog called Sacvoyage. I heartily recommend it to you as it includes some beautiful pictures of Greece. Also, Leigh Fermor’s translation of Horace’s Ode comes from Artemis Cooper’s biography of him (Patrick Leigh Fermor An Adventure, John Murray, 2013). Finally, here is a video of Leigh Fermor et al meeting Kreipe again many years after the war.

Categories: Art, Echoes of Alexander, Poetry | Tags: Horace, Patrick Leigh Fermor | Leave a comment

Court Notices… State of Affairs Edition

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Alexander's Other Secretary

Megas Alexandros

The King’s Speech
“I have enemies to the left of me, and enemies to the right; the barbarians want their native kings back while the Greeks are confused. My counsellors tell me that I should leave the Greeks be and bring the barbaroi under my yoke using a softly-softly approach. If I listened to them, however, Macedon would last as long as it took me to drain a krater of wine. Grasp your sarissa and sword, men; we go south to the Peloponnese on the morrow. There, the Greeks will confirm me as hegemon of the campaign agains the vile Persians! Women, embrace your men and pray for them. They leave as soldiers but with the gods’ help will return as heroes.

Alexander
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Ο ΤΟΥ ΟΙΝΟΥ ΑΝΑΞ
(The Master of the Wine)
“One of the privileges of being the Master of the Wine is hearing the King’s plans in advance. Thus, I am able to write this notice in the knowledge that Alexander has decided to march to the Peloponnese to seek Greek support for his leadership of the invasion of the Persian Empire. And by ‘seek’, I do - of course - mean ‘demand’ and ‘get’ and ‘if he isn’t given it he will massacre the whole stupid lot of them as they rightly deserve’.
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This is good news but naturally Macedonians will be concerned about their access to good wine during the coming journey. Let me assure you that I am already putting in place measures to ensure that the Pella Wine Tent is not only fully stocked during our march south but that we will have wine all the way from here to Babylon!
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Being the Master of the Wine is hard work but every time I see a drunk Macedonian stabbing his brother in the face at the end of a long and pointless argument I know I have done my bit to uphold the honour of my country and am proud.

ο του οινου αναξ
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On Offer This Week in the Pella Wine Tent
Hemera Heliou WINE
Hemera Selenes WINE
Hemera Areos WINE
Hemera Hermu WINE
Hemera Dios WINE
Hemera Aphrodites WINE
Hemera Khronu WINE

He’s not drunk, he’s just had too much to drink

This Week’s Guest Beer is Gaulish Bastard, a tough ale that goes down hard and is never far from coming back up again.

Clubs and Societies Noticeboard

Aristobulos and the Chicken
Hemera Heliou Join Aristobulos in his house at sunset as he makes a model of what Greece will look like if the Greeks refuse to submit to Alexander’s rule. It will be made of rubbish and woe with a lacing of grief and seed carved in the shape of men. These will be eaten with contempt by his chicken during the following symposium.

Gods’ Will Hunting
Hemera Selenes (at the ninth hour). Does an eagle keep flying over little Amyntas? Has he dreamt of a mysterious hand writing on the wall? Do you never believe anything Cleopatra says despite it coming true? If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’ then you need to attend Aristander’s symposium on ‘Prophecy and discernment: a guide’. After the symposium is over Aristander and his team of priests will be available to answer individual enquiries.

Sarissa Wine Club
Amyntas, Club President Writes ”Are you still feeling the disappointment of Demetrios’ recent failure to break the record for Longest Uninterrupted Drink out of a Hollowed Out Sarissa? Then come to the Pella Wine Tent any night and drink/accidentally stab yourself into oblivion with the SWC! Following a spate of copycat deaths occasioned by Demetrios’ record attempt we have 12 vacancies for club membership.”
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Union of Macedonian Mothers
Cleopatra of the UMM writes ”Due to circumstances beyond our control, Euridike’s (niece of Attalus) talk on ‘Life as a Royal Wife’ - which was due to be given on the next hemera Areos - has had to be cancelled. Permanently. Queen Olympias has kindly agreed to step in with a talk on ‘Death of a Royal Wife’.

The Broken Road by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Posted on December 4, 2013 by Alexander's Other Secretary

The Broken Road by Patrick Leigh Fermor

To paraphrase the Patient, today was a good day - I finally arrived in Constantinople
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No, I have not left home. Rather, three months after starting the book, I finally came to the end of The Broken Road - the third part of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s account of his walk across interwar Europe, from the Hook of Holland to the former capital of of the Byzantine Empire.
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Just as Leigh Fermor ‘novelised’ parts of his account I have also embellished the truth a little. The Broken Road doesn’t actually end with PLF arriving in the city we now call Istanbul. It ends mid-sentence some fifty miles away. This is because Patrick Leigh Fermor died in 2011 without finishing the last book in his trilogy. Sadly, he suffered very severe writer’s block in his later years. So much so that The Broken Road is based on an account of his journey that PLF wrote in the 60s.
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To round the book off, its editors - Artemis Cooper (who has also just written a biography of PLF) and Colin Thubron - have included excerpts from Leigh Fermor’s diary, written while he was in Constantinople. Unfortunately, they are very brief and do not do justice to the city he spent two years walking towards. Perhaps with that in mind, Cooper and Thubron end the book with Leigh Fermor’s much fuller diary entries from his visit to Mount Athos, which he sailed to after leaving Asia Minor.
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So far as The Broken Road is concerned - you can tell that the work is unfinished. By Leigh Fermor’s standards it is very unpolished. He is such a good writer, though, that even the rough work is still very good. As with the Road’s predecessors, A Time of Gifts and Between the Wood and the Water, I oscillated between marvelling at the now lost world that PLF describes and feeling great sadness over the sad fate that befell any number of the wonderful people he met. What I think I will remember the book for most, however, is the final section on Mount Athos.
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Leigh Fermor’s Holy Mountain has its sinners as well as saints, men poor in spirit as well as those who are rich but it also comes across as a place of peace and serenity. Like his book A Time to Keep Silence - which is also about visits to various monasteries - the Mount Athos is definitely a segment worth reading on a rainy day.
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I have said before that Patrick Leigh Fermor had something of Alexander the Great in him. By this I meant his adventurous spirit (though as the Kreipe Affair showed PLF was no mean soldier). I might not have mentioned The Broken Road on this blog had I not read the following on The Stone and the Star blog.

When [Leigh Fermor] wrote about Altdorfer’s famous painting The Battle of Alexander at Issus, something swept over me - I had almost forgotten that I owned a small copy of it, from the gallery in Munich where it hangs. It is a remarkable painting and I think the feeling I had (and still have) for it ties into my fascination with certain types of fantasy landscapes - the first edition I owned of The Lord of the Rings featured cover art which now looks very Altdorfer-esque to me.

I encourage you to read the whole post as it is well written and thought provoking. For my part, I shall say this -
- I am very grateful to Clarissa Aykroyd for reminding me that Leigh Fermor mentioned Alexander! It is not beyond the realms of possibility that I have mentioned this before, but I had forgotten if so and it is always nice to be reminded
- As a lifelong fan of all Tolkien’s works I appreciated the connection that she made between him and Alexander. Insofar as they thought much and lived/wrote about heroism the two men are quite similar.
- Her mention of Alexander gives me a reason here to mention a thought I had after finishing the book: how different Orthodoxy is to ancient Greek religion. Or is it? This kind of question really demands a post but I can immediately think of one point of connection: hospitality. In antiquity, Greeks were morally obliged to be hospitable (see Laura Gill’s Orestes: The Great Lion, which has been discussed elsewhere on this blog, for an example of this). So were the monks of Mt Athos. There is difference between them, though; for the ancients, they had to be hospitable or else. The monks were hospitable to Leigh Fermor for a positive reason - the love of Christ. Humans being humans, though, his passage was eased by a letter of introduction from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
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To conclude, here is a wonderful photograph I discovered on Tumblr - posted along with a few others by a user called ‘kyrosk’. It shows Mount Athos from Mount Olympus. So near… yet that road that connects them would not support even the lightest footfall.

Mount Athos from Mount Olympus

Categories: Books, Of The Moment | Tags: J. R. R. Tolkien, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Religion | 1 Comment

Letter to Arrian (18) Other Gods and Wine

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Alexander's Other Secretary

My dear Arrian,
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You begin Book Five with this quotation,

… one should not inquire too closely where ancient legends about the gods are concerned; many things which reason rejects acquire some colour of probability once you bring a god into the story.

My dear, cynical friend! How many things that were once regarded as unreasonable, nay, improbable, turned out later to be true? Rather than reject a legend because of the appearance of a god, might you at the very least ask what the god’s appearance means? Even if the god is not true, there may be truth in its appearance.

The leaders of Nysa acted most cleverly when Alexander approached their city. Rather than make war, or simply plead, for their survival, its lord, Acuphis, asked him to leave the city alone for the sake of its founder - Dionysus. I think they could only have chosen a better god if they had picked Zeus-Ammon himself.
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It is interesting to note why Alexander agreed to Acuphis’ request. Firstly, out of piety. But secondly, because,

… he felt… that his Macedonian troops would consent to share his hardships a little longer, if they knew they were in competition with Dionysus.

That is to say, in competition to go further than the god. This consideration could not have happened in a vacuum. Alexander must have heard something to the effect that (some of) his men were now getting very weary. In that light, his decision represents something of a gamble.
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Moving on, Alexander asked Acuphis to send him 3oo cavalry and 100 infantry from the governing class. In response, the newly appointed governor of Nysa asked,

‘But how, my lord, do you suppose that a city can lose a hundred good men and still be well governed?’

Acuphis managed to persuade Alexander to accept - along with the 300 cavalry - 200 inferior infantry. This reminded me of a text you may or may not be familiar with - the first book of the Jewish scriptures, which we call ‘Genesis’. There* Abraham persuades his god not to destroy Sodom or Gomorrah for the sake of 50, 45, 40, 30, 20m then finally, 10 people. If ten righteous people can be found in Sodom he will let the city live. Now, I know that Acuphis’ words are not directly analogous to Abraham’s but I do think that they echo his and confirm what Genesis implicitly teaches about how to speak to those above one in authority - cunningly. I once saw a ‘management’ book based on Alexander’s leadership; maybe there should be one on how to speak based on Abraham and Acuphis!
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Further to the above, I note that not only did Alexander agree not to take the hundred expert soldiers but also declined to take the inferior ones. Here is a man who knows that it is not numbers which win battles but excellence.
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Now, I leave Alexander and his men in Mount Merus, making crowns of ivy, drinking, ‘making merry’ and shouting ‘Euoi, Euoi, [having] lost their wits in the true Bacchic frenzy’. That must have been a happy day!
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Your friend,
.
φιλέλλην

The above picture is from Ancient History
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An index of all the letters can be found here

*Genesis 18: 20-32

Categories: Letters to Arrian | Tags: Letter, Lucius Flavius Arrianus Xenophon | Leave a comment

The Rape of Proserpina by Bernini

Posted on December 1, 2013 by Alexander's Other Secretary

More Sunday Art and Poetry here

The Rape of Proserpina by Bernini (1621-2). Detail.

Prosperina was playing in [a] glade
With her companions.
Brilliant as butterflies
They flitted hither and thither excitedly
Among lilies and violets. She was heaping
The fold of her dress with the flowers,
Hurrying to pick more, to gather most,
Piling more than any of her friends into baskets.
There the Lord of Hell suddenly saw her.
In the sweep of a single glance
He fell in love
And snatched her away -
Love pauses for nothing.
.
Terrified, she screamed for her mother,
And screamed to her friends. But louder
And again and again to her mother.
She ripped her frock from her throat downwards -
So all her cherished flowers scattered in a shower.
(The Rape of Proserpina from The Tales of Ovid tr. by Ted Hughes)

The Rape of Proserpina by Bernini (1621-2)

St Peter’s Basilica contains some of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring statues in Christendom - chief among them Michelangelo’s Pietà. However, when I visited the basilica a few years ago, it was another statue that really took my breath away. Actually, it wasn’t so much the statue as the decoration. Was it a cloud? A billowing cloak? Unfortunately, I can’t remember but the marble had been fashioned so realistically it really looked like someone was in the middle of airing the material. Even now, I am in awe of how someone was able to achieve such a dynamic and realistic effect.
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The same feeling comes upon me each time that I look at the above detail from Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Rape of Proserpina. I am sure that if Proserpina and Pluto were painted I would have trouble working out whether they were marble or models. It’s all so excitingly, poignantly, disturbingly lifelike.
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The tale of Pluto’s abduction of Ceres’ daughter Proserpina is an account of how spring/summer turns to winter and back again. ‘Rape’ here is used in its older sense of meaning ‘to abduct’ (cf. The Rape of the Sabine Women). Ted Hughes’s poem is concise and unsparing but if I could change one thing about it I would remove the word ‘Hell’ as a descriptor of Pluto/Hades it gives the wrong impression of what kind of god he was.

Categories: Art | Tags: Art, Poetry | Leave a comment

Monthly Archives: December 2013

Timocleia of Thebes’ Revenge

The Bullet Point Alexander: Alexander’s Siblings

The Mieza Book Club “Orestes: The Young Lion” (Chapters 33 – 39) Pt 2

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte…

Court Notices… State of Affairs Edition

The Broken Road by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Letter to Arrian (18) Other Gods and Wine

The Rape of Proserpina by Bernini

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