Citanda: The Deadly Styx River and the Death of Alexander
I don’t think we mentioned that, subsequent to all the news coverage about the possible poisoning of Alexander, Adrienne Mayor’s ‘working paper’ on the subject became available at the Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics site: The Deadly Styx River and the Death of Alexander (pdf) Here’s the abstract: Plutarch, Arrian, Diodorus, Justin, and other ancient [...]
Puddle Question: What Killed Alexander the Great?
Image by brewbooks via Flickr Those who teach grade-school level math or science are familiar with the concept of a ‘puddle question’. These are usually word problems of some sort which have more than one possible answer. From a teacher point of view, they are designed to assess how a student approaches a problem, comes [...]
Linothorax from Pompeii?
Twice in the past I have tried to blog about a project involving Linothorax, and twice the post has vanished into the ether. Hopefully, the third time’s a charm. Anyhoo, Linothorax is not some gruff, activisitic Dr Suess character … it’s a type of armour made from linen which was supposedly light and very strong. [...]
Citanda: Backpacking to Babylon
One of my spiders just dragged this back to my laptop … seems one Theodore May is retracing Alexander’s journey and is documenting his trip in a blog (along with associated tweets) called Backpacking to Babylon. Here’s a bit from the ‘about’ page: Backpacking to Babylon represents several years of dreaming and planning. This project [...]
Alexander the Great’s Tunnel?
Interesting question over at Ask MetaFilter: I can’t find much info about it online, the only information I can find is that he supposedly tunneled through Rosh Hanikra after having conquered Tyre, and the tunnel was large enough for him to march his entire army through. But why is it that can no one find [...]
Richard Stoneman on Alexander the Great
Richard Stoneman is the guest in a podcastish sort of thing from Australia’s ABC … not sure what the shelf life of it is: Alexander the Great: a life in legend – RN Book Show – 10 May 2010.
The Little Mermaid — The Greek Version
Image by lyng883 via Flickr Folks might be aware that the ‘Little Mermaid’ from Copenhagen’s harbour is temporarily residing at the Shanghai World Expo. Some press coverage includes this little tidbit: “Different cultures have different interpretations of the Mermaid. We have another story of the Mermaid,” said Flora Kotzia, a visitor from Greece. According to [...]
