It is often claimed that in the ancient world character was believed to be something fixed, given at birth and immutable during life. This belief is said to underlie the portrayal of individuals in ancient historiography and biography, particularly in the early Roman Empire; and tc constitute the chief point of difference in psychological assumptions between ancient and modern biography. In this article, I wish to examine the truth of these claims, with particular reference to Plutarch and Tacitus.

Notes on the text and interpretation of passages in Plutarch's Life of Alexander.

Summary In October of 2018 a new trilingual Achaemenid inscription from Naqsh-e Rostam was discovered and in March of 2019 a detailed investigation of it with linguistic and historical commentary was published online in ARTA. The inscription includes a previously unknown Old Persian verb, a-f-r-[?]-a-t-i-y, which the first publishers Soheil Delshad and Mojtaba Doroodi read as *ā-fra-yāti (perhaps “he comes forward to”) or *ā-fra-θāti (“he speaks forth to”). They conclude that “an Old Persian verb with the meaning ‘to greet, to (...) bless’ (etc.) seems to be called for”. It is clear that as a result of this discovery we get an Old Persian verb which could refer to an act which the Greek verb προσκυνεῖν may have described relating to the Persians. This new evidence stimulates further discussion about the practice and meaning of proskynēsis at the royal court in the Achaemenid Empire. My article shows that all literary and pictorial evidences on proskynēsis may be divided into two groups: 1) Greek authors’ information that represents proskynēsis mainly as prostration before the King; 2) Persian bas-reliefs that depict the scenes with proskynēsis as a hand-kissing gesture. It is supposed that the previously unknown Old Persian verb (like προσκυνεῖν in Ancient Greek usage) refers not only to specific gestures, but relates to a model of behaviour (‘salutation’, ‘obeisance’, ‘greeting’, ‘worship’, ‘respect’ etc.). It is argued that Achaemenid officials performed proskynēsis before the King as hand-kissing, while the rest of the people bowed down, kneeled or prostrated. Exceptions were made only for members of the royal family who did not perform proskynēsis, but kissed the King and got a kiss from him. (shrink)

Niebuhr saw that several paragraphs had been lost from the beginning of the Caesar; Ziegler suggested that the lacuna extended to the end of the Alexander. Both hypotheses are confirmed, if the identification of two new fragments is admitted.At 10. 11 p. 368, Zonaras is epitomizing the text of Caes.; he recounts the Story of Caes. 60. 3, and continues: Editors leave the provenance of the passage unspecified: ‘addita sunt pauca de nomine Caesaris‘. The correction of the vulgar error might (...) perhaps be an inference of Zonaras himself—though such an original contribution to historical polemic would be unique; but the erroneous version, at least, must come from somewhere. It is not found in any of Zonaras' sources for this period, nor in any surviving book which he certainly knew. Nor is it likely to be an addition from his own general knowledge. (shrink)

Recent excavations in Macedonia have provided an analogy to the pillaging of the Palace at Persepolis. In plundered tombs at Aiani the excavators found a number of small gold discs with impressed rosettes and of gilded silver ivy leaves; at Katerini some thirty-five gold discs with impressed rosettes, a gold double pin, a gold ring from a sword-hilt, a bit of a gilded pectoral, gilded silver fittings once attached to a leather cuirass, many buttons and other fragments; and at Palatitsia (...) bits of a gilded bronze wreath and of a gold necklace, and an ivory fitting. It was suggested that some of these objects had been dropped when ornamental facings were being torn away from a wooden funerary couch and from clothing by the robbers, who were probably working at speed and dared not return. In the antechamber of the tomb at Katerini many of the objects I have mentioned were found inside a burnt layer, and M. Andronikos has provided the explanation that they had been burnt on the pyre outside the tomb and then brought inside with the debris of the pyre itself. Nothing else was associated with burnt material. (shrink)

This article discusses the text and interpretation of passages in Plutarch's Lives of Romulus, Agis and Cleomenes, Pericles, Brutus, Marcellus, Alexander and Marius.

Resumen Este artículo estudia la relación de Alejandro Magno con los elefantes, tanto desde el punto de vista militar como simbólico. Opera con el concepto de zoología de la realeza, analizando el status y jerarquía de caballos, águilas, leones, elefantes y dromedarios en la nueva ideología del conquistador macedonio.