#strabo

Correct me if I’m wrong abt smth

There seems to be plenty of parallelism with Cephalus who seems to be the beginning of the line of Odysseus or at least the founder of his kingdom and Odysseus himself. For starters we also have a tragic tale between Cephalus and his wife Procris (although their story is massively different than what we see between Odysseus and Penelope) in which Cephalus and Procris swear to each other to be loyal and according to sources like Hyginus we even hear a similar recognition game process such as between Odysseus and Penelope

Yes we see Cephalus being loved by the goddess Eos (Dawn) and him rejecting her and Eos kidnapped him and carried him over to Syria and even she tries to break his bond with Procris (see for example Calypso comparing herself to Penelope to manipulate Odysseus into seeing her as the better option). The iconography between Odysseus and Cephalus is very similar too. See for example this red-figure kylix that belongs to the painter Douris:

Eos appears to grab Cephalus bu the arm, pulling him out of his way. Cephalus is dressed in chlamys almost identical to the one Odysseus has in his, let's say depiction in the underworld and he wears a Petassos hat, significant part of people traveling or working outside. He is even holding two spears which was also a description Odysseus has more often whatnot (see for example when he is ready to fight Skylla in the Odyssey). I actually love this image at how scared and surprised Cephalus seems while Eos seems literally ready to pull him up at the sky.

A lovely day for a wander around the reserve at WWT Castle Espie.

Taurisci / Norici: according to Strabo the Taurisci were an individual tribe while the Norici was a collective - and he goes further to say that the Taurisci were also Norici, 'of the north'.

Peter Berresford Ellis, in Celt and Greek: Celts in the Hellenic World, suggests that Alexander may have made an agreement with Celtic chieftains to secure his northern borders while he campaigned in Persia. As evidence, he points to Macedonian coinage found among Celtic settlements north of Greece during this period.

He also argues that the famous exchange, where the Celts, when asked what they feared most, replied that they only feared the sky falling, has been misunderstood by historians as arrogance or bravado. Instead, he suggests it could have been a form of oath, similar to vows found in Irish law tracts and medieval texts like Táin Bó Cúailnge or Welsh Canu Taliesin, implying a pledge to uphold their agreement.

Arrian further notes that Ptolemy records another instance of Celtic envoys traveling to Babylon, though they ultimately attended Alexander’s funeral instead.

Do you think such a meeting and agreement between Alexander and the Celts could have realistically taken place? And how plausible is Ellis’ suggestion of the agreement being made there?

Strabo also talks about this event too, and includes the same query by Alexander and response from the Celts (7.3.8), naming Ptolemy as the source—who we also know was one of Arrian’s sources. Arrian (1.4.6-8) elaborates more, although whether he simply included more from Ptolemy or added some is hard to say.

Arrian’s goal seems to have been to show that, in the beginning, Alexander wasn’t well known, and the Celts felt no need to fear him. The Celts show up again later, meeting him on his final trip to Babylon. They came with a bunch of other envoys, including Iberians [Spain] (7.15.4), and that time, they came because his fame had extended in the way he’d long ago hoped for. Yet Arrian’s later wording is a bit confusing, as it almost implies Alexander had no familiarity with them. Odd, given the earlier encounter. (Maybe Arrian just meant the Iberians, or this was a larger group of Celts than those he’d met before; the Greek is unclear.)

Anyway, there’s an interesting discussion of Arrian’s use of the Celts here to frame Alexander’s recognition by “the whole world” at the end of his career compared to the outset. I read it recently but now can’t find it, or even remember who it was. My brain is saying Dan Leon, but it’s not in his book index. I looked for it this afternoon but have other stuff I need to do, so can’t spent a lot of time running it down when my initial guesses failed. If I stumble over it later, I’ll post the author/article.

Anyway, I do think there’s something to the proposal that Arrian used it that way … which, of course, doesn’t at all negate the possibility that at least the first meeting happened, and Ptolemy remembered the odd thing they said. The suggestion that it might be part of an oath is intriguing. The Greeks routinely misunderstood other people’s customs, filtering them through their own cultural biases. Perhaps Arrian then took it a step further, using Ptolemy’s report of what they said to Alexander for his own ends. The phrasing IS a bit different between Strabo and Arrian.

So, we have two filters between what actually occurred, and us: Ptolemy and Strabo/Arrian. This is one of those times I REALLY regret not having a more complete account from Diodoros, or the missing first two books of Curtius.

Our lack of sources for Alexander’s first two years means his European campaigns are the most under-reported and overlooked in his career. We see this repeatedly not only in historical biographies, but also (especially) in fictional treatments. For instance, the recent Netflix series spent zero time on it, even Thebes, because they were in a hurry to get to the Asian clash.

Yet the Thracian-Illyrian campaigns give us our first look at just what a startlingly good tactician Alexander was. While it may be a while till I get back to the ATG series, a good two-thirds of King will be set in Europe. Maybe the whole thing. It depends on how long it takes me to cover what I want to cover. But I do not intend to short-change that northern campaign.