Among the most prominent supporters of Perdikkas, son of Orontes, were his brother Alketas and Attalos, son of Andromenes, their brother-in-law. That the latter was an unwavering supporter of Perdikkas has not been challenged, nor that his career was advanced by the prestige of the ‘chiliarchos’ at the time of Alexander's death. Crucial to the discussion of the career of Attalos, therefore, is the date of his marriage to Atalante, for which we have only the ambiguous testimony of Diodoros. And, (...) while modern scholars claim that the marriage cannot be dated, they have had a tendency to assume that it was contracted during Alexander's lifetime. There is, however, a case to be made for a later date, one that will give us cause to reconsider Attalos' role in the last years of Alexander's reign and in the struggle for power that followed the King's death. (shrink)

The Periegesis of Pausanias has finally entered the world of serious literature. Long after the way was first shown, the Magnesian has arrived and duly taken his place in the intellectual world of the second century: a pilgrim to the past. Yet he was no bookish, library-bound bore. Recent studies have transformed our opinion of him as a recorder of the sites and treasures of what was, even to him, antiquity, ‘His faithfulness in reporting what he saw has, time and (...) time again, been proven at a large number of sites and could easily be demonstrated at a good many others.’ ‘The very fact that the second-century A.D. traveller Pausanias wrote at such length about the sites and monuments of Greece is itself indicative of his most important attitude towards antiquities. That is, he thought them of sufficient value to be worth recording and thought it worth travelling extensively in mainland Greece over a period of many years to see them for himself.’ And so inevitably, as respect for the author has grown, the desire to lay bare his soul has followed. Critics are unanimous in their view of a man sensitive to the resonance of the ancient and power of the past. On occasion a Herodotean fascination with the mutability of man's lot bubbles to the surface, indeed we may surmise Herodotus to have been an important influence on the Periegesis in several fundamental respects. Above all he was a man of deep learning and keen interest in the past and a faithful recorder of its remains. Archaeologists and art-historians concur. (shrink)

ThePeriegesisof Pausanias has finally entered the world of serious literature. Long after the way was first shown, the Magnesian has arrived and duly taken his place in the intellectual world of the second century: a pilgrim to the past. Yet he was no bookish, library-bound bore. Recent studies have transformed our opinion of him as a recorder of the sites and treasures of what was, even to him, antiquity, ‘His faithfulness in reporting what he saw has, time and time again, (...) been proven at a large number of sites and could easily be demonstrated at a good many others.’ ‘The very fact that the second-century A.D. traveller Pausanias wrote at such length about the sites and monuments of Greece is itself indicative of his most important attitude towards antiquities. That is, he thought them of sufficient value to be worth recording and thought it worth travelling extensively in mainland Greece over a period of many years to see them for himself.’ And so inevitably, as respect for the author has grown, the desire to lay bare his soul has followed. Critics are unanimous in their view of a man sensitive to the resonance of the ancient and power of the past. On occasion a Herodotean fascination with the mutability of man's lot bubbles to the surface, indeed we may surmise Herodotus to have been an important influence on thePeriegesisin several fundamental respects. Above all he was a man of deep learning and keen interest in the past and a faithful recorder of its remains. Archaeologists and art-historians concur. (shrink)

Scholarly opinion about Ptolemy Soter's history of Alexander has been far from unanimous. Not long ago Ptolemy was held to stand in the first rank of ancient historians. His history was described as brilliant, rational, straightforward, and exhaustive, while he himself was proclaimed a ‘second Thucydides’. In recent years, however, Ptolemy's reputation has seriously declined. His shortcomings, acknowledged also by his admirers, have been stressed and extensively analysed. Fritz Schachermeyr clearly reflected current opinion when he equated a ‘version from the (...) Hauptquartier's circles’ with a lie, a fraud, and an intentional omission. The purpose of this paper is to examine the recent reassessment of the nature and the aims of Ptolemy's work. (shrink)

New evidence often complicates as much as it clarifies. That truth is well illustrated by Stephen Tracy's recent and brilliant discovery that a tiny unpublished fragment of an Attic inscription belongs to a known decree. The decree has hitherto been recognised as an enactment of the oligarchy imposed by Antipater in 322. Its proposer, Archedicus of Lamptrae, was a leading member of the new regime and held the most influential office of state, that of anagrapheus, in 320/19.2 Appropriately enough the (...) decree confers honours upon members of the Macedonian court, but as the stone now reveals, it is phrased in a remarkable and anomalous manner: ‘in order that as many as possible of the friends of the king and of Antipater may be honoured by the Athenian people and confer benefactions upon the city’. There is no question about the meaning. The decree refers to friends of an unknown king, who are also friends of Antipater. But after Alexander's death there was a dual kingship. Philip III Arrhidaeus and Alexander IV reigned jointly and are generally termed ‘the kings’. How can the singular singular be explained? (shrink)

Scholarly opinion about Ptolemy Soter's history of Alexander has been far from unanimous. Not long ago Ptolemy was held to stand in the first rank of ancient historians. His history was described as brilliant, rational, straightforward, and exhaustive, while he himself was proclaimed a ‘second Thucydides’. In recent years, however, Ptolemy's reputation has seriously declined. His shortcomings, acknowledged also by his admirers, have been stressed and extensively analysed. Fritz Schachermeyr clearly reflected current opinion when he equated a ‘version from the (...) Hauptquartier's circles’ with a lie, a fraud, and an intentional omission. The purpose of this paper is to examine the recent reassessment of the nature and the aims of Ptolemy's work. (shrink)

New evidence often complicates as much as it clarifies. That truth is well illustrated by Stephen Tracy's recent and brilliant discovery that a tiny unpublished fragment of an Attic inscription belongs to a known decree . The decree has hitherto been recognised as an enactment of the oligarchy imposed by Antipater in 322. Its proposer, Archedicus of Lamptrae, was a leading member of the new regime and held the most influential office of state, that of anagrapheus, in 320/19.2 Appropriately enough (...) the decree confers honours upon members of the Macedonian court, but as the stone now reveals, it is phrased in a remarkable and anomalous manner: ‘in order that as many as possible of the friends of the king and of Antipater may be honoured by the Athenian people and confer benefactions upon the city’. There is no question about the meaning. The decree refers to friends of an unknown king, who are also friends of Antipater. But after Alexander's death there was a dual kingship. Philip III Arrhidaeus and Alexander IV reigned jointly and are generally termed ‘the kings’. How can the singular singular be explained? (shrink)

Among the most prominent supporters of Perdikkas, son of Orontes, were his brother Alketas and Attalos, son of Andromenes, their brother-in-law. That the latter was an unwavering supporter of Perdikkas has not been challenged, nor that his career was advanced by the prestige of the ‘chiliarchos’ at the time of Alexander's death. Crucial to the discussion of the career of Attalos, therefore, is the date of his marriage to Atalante, for which we have only the ambiguous testimony of Diodoros . (...) And, while modern scholars claim that the marriage cannot be dated, they have had a tendency to assume that it was contracted during Alexander's lifetime. There is, however, a case to be made for a later date, one that will give us cause to reconsider Attalos' role in the last years of Alexander's reign and in the struggle for power that followed the King's death. (shrink)