#Diodorus Siculus

[sarafangirlart]

I get that ppl want to make sympathetic portrayals of monsters but I don’t like it when they make them squeaky clean and pure and having done nothing wrong, like for example portraying the Minotaur as never having eaten Athenian youths, when it’s a lot more interesting that he did eat them but only bc he had no other option bc he was isolated in the labyrinth and robbed of his humanity, he is treated as a bloodthirsty monster and so grew up to be a bloodthirsty monster. I also don’t like how Theseus is demonized for this specific myth when it’s one of the few heroic and selfless things he’s actually done.

Or Medusa, sure we don’t technically get any specific stories about her turning innocent people to stone and it can be argued that the statues around her cave were warriors who came to kill her and she turned them in self defense, however, according to a rationalization by Diodorus Siculus she was a warmongering warrior queen and while this is a rationalization he likely took this from a story were she actually does attack someone, and not in self defense. It also doesn’t help that sympathetic portrayals always depict her as beautiful and/or sexualized, it really says something that male/male coded monsters are allowed to stay ugly and monstrous but their female counterparts don’t get that luxury.

The reason why Shrek is so compelling is bc he gets to be a flawed character, sure he’s defending himself from villagers that attack him but sometimes he’s the one who attacks and steals from them unprovoked, not to mention he was a jerk to Donkey and Fiona, but then he grew and changed as a person.

[katerinaaqu]

Helloo I hope you're doing well :) I was reading about Hector and realised I've never seen him outside of the Iliad. Does he appear in other texts ?

Hello and thank you very much for your sweet words and your ask! Oh yes of course. Hector appears in a plethora of ancient Greek and Roman texts but the real test is to see him outside the context of the Trojan war! Hahaha!

For example Hector appears in plenty of texts by Apollodorous in various contexts and he even mentions how Hector was the one to kill Protesilaus and that is mentioned in several sources more I believe Hyginus included as well as a writer called Philostratus mentions the death of Protesilaus by the hands of Hector. Pausanias mentions Hector in one painting or image sitting in a mourning manner next to the Ethipian king Memnon after the Thracian Thamyris. Plutarch also mentions Hector in various of his texts in the context of Trojan War. Eurypedes mentions Hector in many of his tragedies. Strabo makes mentions to Hector during his geographical expeditions. Plato mentions Hector a lot in his work (even in Apology), Pindar as well as Diodorus Siculus. Last but not least we have Aristotle who mentions Hector in various of his works.

For other roman sources we have of course the Aenead by Virgil and Ovid. Even Pliny the Elder makes mentions to Hector and of course P. Virgilius Maro as he makes commentary on Virgils' Aenead. P. Ovidius Naso also mentions him in his work among other written roman sources including Horace

For his physical description we again have the classic cases of Malalas and Dares the Phrygian. And of course again we have kinda contradictory accounts on him:

Dares the Phrygian: Hector spoke with a slight lisp. His complexion was fair, his hair curly. His eyes would blink attractively. His movements were swift. His face, with its beard, was noble. He was handsome, fierce, and high-spirited, merciful to the citizens, and deserving of love. Malalas: dark-skinned, tall, very stoutly built, strong, good nose, wooly-haired, good beard, squinting, speech defect, noble, fearsome warrior, deep-voiced.

To name a few writers who mention him! Happy to provide the passages you want in the future. Most of the contexts in which Hector is being mentioned is around the trojan war and the epic cycle or used as an example for rethorics. ^_^

And of course do not forget how Hector's name is being mentioned to Linear B tablets! ;)

I hope this helps!

[deathlessathanasia]

"And at this period in the eastern parts of the island there sprung up the Giants, as they were called; and at the time when Zeus is said to have subdued the Titans, he became enamoured of one of the nymphs, Himalia by name, and begat by her three sons, Spartaeus, Cronius, and Cytus." (Diodoros of Sicily, Library of History 5.55.5)

I love when ancient authors are like "Am I talking about the Titanomachy or the Gigantomachy right now? Who tf cares!" They were certainly less concerned about this stuff than we are. Also cudos to Zeus for managing to conquer his adversaries and to get laid in the same instance. Who can multitask like him?

[gotstabbedbyapen]

but like Zeus raped Persephone and that’s how Melinoe is as born

Yes, the birth myth of Melinoe and Zagreus didn't paint a good picture. But they were mentioned in the Orphism religion, and the Orphic hymns can be quite different from the common mythology. That's not to say the Orphic version is wrong, but it is unfair to solely use it to determine the relationships between the gods.

Aside from the Orphic hymns (and Persephone's abduction myth to an extend), Zeus and Persephone's relationship isn't that bad. There was one account where Persephone, along with Athena and Artemis, had woven robes for their father, and Zeus even distributed portions of Sicily for each girl to rule over.

And both Athena and Artemis, the myth goes on to say, who had made the same choice of maidenhood as had Core [Persephone] and were reared together with her, joined with her in gathering the flowers, and all of them together wove the robe for their father Zeus. And because of the time they had spent together and their intimacy they all loved this island [Sicily] above any other, and each one of them received for her portion a territory [...] [...] Like the two goddesses whom we have mentioned Core, we are told, received as her portion the meadows round about Enna; but a great fountain was made sacred to her in the territory of Syracuse and given the name Cyane or "Azure Fount". - Diodorus Siculus, Library of History

It's easy to focus on the gods' "bad moments" and say they're toxic, but we have to remember that not all versions are fixed canons and their relationship can be complicated - but not without the positive.

[jeannereames]

In your opinion, what is the most underrated source for Alexander's reign?

This is super easy. Diodoros, Book 17. Because he's part of the so-called "vulgate" and shorter than either Arrian or Curtius, and he can abbreviate events to the point they're not clear, he's sometimes discounted.

Yet he's not only our chief source for both Philip's reign (book 16) and that of the early Successors after Alexander (books 18-20), he records things not found in the others (like the alternative version of the battle of Granikos and several events in India that were not found in Kleitarchos, which he shares with Curtius [and Justin]). He also gives events going on in the same year in OTHER places. This helps us time things better such as Agis's Revolt. He can get dates wrong, but it was his dating that I used when writing Dancing with the Lion. He may be briefer (after all, he's writing a World History, not a specifically Alexander history), but he's not a bad historian. After reading back through books 16-18 a couple summers ago (didn't need 19-20), I decided I actually quite like his straightforward style.

So I think Diodoros is our most underrated source. I just wish we had 1) the missing pieces (several lacunae, especially over events I'd like to know more about), and 2) a commentary. Although I understand Frances Pownall is planning to work on one, bless her! She's a top tier scholar and her work on Brill's New Jacoby is stellar.

We now have this new, quite good (and cheaper) translation by Robin Waterfield to replace the not-as-good Welles' Loeb translation.

[quotesfrommyreading]

Diodorus Siculus spent much of his life describing major historical events such as the fall of Troy or the rise of Alexander the Great. But, sometime in the middle of the first century BC, the Sicilian-born Greek writer felt moved to address a contemporary issue that had captured his attention: the drinking habits of the Gauls, the Celtic people who occupied modern-day France at this time.

The Gauls were, he observed, excessively fond of wine, so much so that they usually drank it neat and often went into battle inebriated. In Siculus’s eyes, this love of the grape not only betrayed the Gauls’ lack of breeding (a civilised Roman would always dilute his wine), it also left them open to exploitation by canny Roman traders.

“Many Italian merchants, with their usual passion for money, look on the Gallic craving for wine as their treasure,” he wrote. “They transport the wine by boat on the navigable rivers and by wagon through the plains, and receive in return for it an incredibly high price.” Then, with thinly veiled incredulity, Siculus added: “For an amphora [a wheel-thrown terracotta container that typically held around 20 litres of liquid] of wine they get in return a slave – a servant in exchange for a drink!”

It will come as a shock to absolutely no one to learn that human beings were every bit as likely to succumb to the temptations of drink 2,000 years ago as they are today. What many people will find more surprising about Siculus’s words, however, is the picture they paint of relations between the Romans and their Celtic neighbours – one in which the two peoples were engaging in trade, rather than hacking each other to pieces.

In the popular imagination, the Celtic-speaking people of western Europe were constantly at war with the Romans. The truth was very different. There were battles, of course, and the relationship would eventually end in bloodshed and subjugation after Julius Caesar launched his campaigns of conquest in Gaul in 58 BC. But the violence was preceded by long periods of peace and collaboration, and that collaboration benefited both parties.

Siculus clearly thought that the Gauls were being duped by wily Roman traders. After all, in Rome a Gaulish slave would fetch five or six times the price they could command at home. But Siculus was missing the point. In Gaul, slaves were available in surplus, a result of raiding between rival tribes. Once an external market developed for slaves, raiding could be intensified to satisfy the demand. A Gaulish leader could then offload surplus slaves in return for Roman wine that, distributed to his followers, would greatly enhance his status. For the chief, then, it was a very good deal indeed.

The Roman merchants were also doing very nicely out of their trading links with the Gauls. By the late second century BC, the Roman economy was changing dramatically. Small farms were being bought up and merged into vast estates run for their aristocratic owners by managers commanding armies of slave workers. The easiest commodity to produce on the slave-manned farms was wine. But as the estates grew and became more reliant on grape monoculture, wine production began to outstrip Italian demand. For the estates in western Italy, the solution to the problem was simply to ship the surplus to the major ports of southern Gaul – Massalia (Marseilles) and Narbo (Narbonne) – where middlemen were ready to transport it to the Gauls. The slaves acquired in return were brought back to labour on the estates. It was a system that benefited everyone – except, of course, the slaves.

  —  The Celts: were they friends or foes of the Romans?

[litcest]

Semiramis and Ninyas

According to the Greek historian, Diodorus Siculus, Semiramis was the Queen of the Assyrian Empire. He writes about her in the second book of Bibliotheca historica (c. 60-30 BC), often quoting Ctesias' Persica from circa 5th century BC, a text which is now lost.

However, all indicates that Semiramis wasn't a real person, but a legendary ruler based on the real Queen Shammuramat of Assyria, who ruled besides her husband from 824 to 811 BC and then besides her son until her death in 798 BC.

In some versions of the legend of Semiramis, she has a incestuous relationship with her son, and he later murders her.

Histories, by Herodotus

The oldest preserved mention of Semiramis comes from Herodotus's work from c. 430 BC. In Histories, Semiramis is first mentioned in Book One as a rule of Babylon, who had built notable constructions on the city. In Book Three, it's stated that one of the city's gates was named in her honor. No further details about her are given.

Bibliotheca historica, by Diodorus Siculus

Semiramis was born in Syria as the daughter of the goddess Derceto (which is another name for the Phoenician Astarte) and a human man. When Derceto gave birth, embarrassed to gave laid with a mortal, she exposed the child and then killed herself. However, doves found the child and nursed her until she was found by a shepherd, who named her Semiramis and took her in as a daughter. When Semiramis reached the age to marry, officer Onnes fell in love with her and asked for her hand.

When King Ninus laid siege of Bactra, Onnes, who was the King's general, began to miss his wife, and so invited her to the battlefield. When she arrived, she notice some flaws in Bactra's defence and, along with some soldiers, managed to sneak in and capture the city.

Ninus became infatuated with Semiramis' beauty and brilliance and ordered Onnes surrendered Semiramis to him. Onnes refused at first, and, when threatened by the king, he killed himself. This allowed Ninus to freely marry Semiramis and make her his queen.

Ninus and Semiramis had a son named Ninyas, and shortly after this, Ninus died, leaving Semiramis as the queen. During her reign, she build many walls, bridges, temples and palaces, and made of Babylon one of the most influential and rich cities of the region. She refused to marry again, instead taking many lovers and then killing them.

On a visit to Egypt, Semiramis learned from the Oracle that Ninyas would conspire against her, causing he to disappear, from mortal realm but reach eternal fame. After being wounded in battle against India (which she was trying to conquer), Semiramis returned to capital, where Ninyas tried to take the throne from her. Instead of fighting against him, she passed him the crown and disappeared.

Nicolaus of Damascus

Nicolaus lived from c. 64 BC to somewhen after 4 AD. His works survive only in fragments and, in one of these fragments, we find an account of Semiramis' death.

Nicolaus writes that, according to Ctesias, an eunuch convinced Semiramis' sons with Onnes that, if Ninyas became king, the two of them would be killed and that the only way to prevent that would be for the duo to kill their mother and usurp the throne. However, as they plotted to push Semiramis off a cliff, a servant heard and told her. So Semiramis summoned her sons and the eunuch and dared them to strike against her in front of all of Assyrians.

The story cuts off at this point, but one can presume they didn't dare to kill her.

Narrations, by Conon

This text doesn't survive to us in it's entirety, but the gist of it's content has been preserved through one-paragraph summaries in Bibliotheca of Photius. It's dated between 36 BC and 17 AD.

According of Photius, Conan's ninth tale was about Semiramis, who Conan said to be the daughter (not wife) of Ninus and that:

"Semiramis, having slept with her son whether secretly and unaware or else knowingly, took him openly as her husband and from that, what was disgusting before, having sex with your mother, became good and legal for the Medes and Persians"

This is the oldest account I can find of Semiramis having committed incest. It's important to note that Photius wondered whether Conon had confused Semiramis with Atossa, a Persian queen that is sometimes referred as having married her brother, Cambyses II, and other times is given as the wife of Darius the Great and mother to Xerxes.

Fabulae, by Hyginus

The Fabulae by Hyginus is a collection of tales and lists written circa 1 AD. In his lists of "woman who killed their husbands", Hyginus cites Semiramis for killing Ninus, indicating that there must have been a version of the story that went this way. He also says that Semiramis killed herself in Babylon, by throwing herself into a pyre.

Moralia, by Plutarch

In Plutarch's writting (c. 1st Century) Semiramis is depicted as a concubine of one of Ninus' servants, until the king fell in love with her. She then manipulated Ninus into granting her the throne and then ordered the guards to kill him.

Historiae Philippicae, by Pompeius Trogus and Justinus

This one is a bit tricky to date, because while Historiae Philippicae was written by Pompeius Trogus circa 1st Century BC, the work has only been preserved through an summary written by Justinus in the late 2nd or early 3rd Century AD.

Pompeius' version must date from around the same time as Conan's writings, and it's interesting that, according to Justinus, Pompeius also mentions Semiramis incestuous desire for her son, however, in this version, the relationship wasn't consummated, as Ninyas kills her when he finds out she wants to sleep with him.

Also in this version, she takes the throne after Ninus' death, but does so disguised as a man, claiming to be Ninus' son (I guess no one questioned that the only son, Ninyas, was an infant when Ninus died). It was only after many "noble actions", having proven her right to rule, that she revealed herself a woman.

Chronicron, by Eusebius

In this work, written in the 4th Century, Eusebius cites the historian Cephalion, who lived in the 2th Century. According to Cephalion, Semiramis killed her own sons and then was killed by Ninyas.

The sons she killed are, presumably, the ones she had by Onnes.

Historiae Adversus Pagano, by Orosius

This massive history book from the 5th Century by Roman historian Orosius contains another variant of the Semiramis legend. In this account, she doesn't have a child with Ninus. Instead, she births a son from one of the many liaisons she had after becoming the solo queen.

This son is unnamed and it's not mentioned to have succeeded her on the throne like Ninyas usually does. In fact, nothing is said about Semiramis final days or what came after.

"She finally most shamelessly conceived a son, godlessly abandoned the child, later had incestuous relations with him, and then covered her private disgrace by a public crime. For she prescribed that between parents and children no reverence for nature in the conjugal act was to be observed, but that each should be free to do as he pleased."

Ecloga Chronographica, by George Syncellus

Writing from the 9th Century and referencing Ctesias', Syncellus says that Semiramis built many tombs, one for each of the lovers she buried alive.

De Mulieribus Claris, by Giovanni Boccaccio

Entering the Middle Ages, in this work composed between 1361–1362, Semiramis story gets even more 'sensational' additions: Boccaccio writes that, not only was Semiramis in love with her son, but she also created a chastity device, that was placed in every woman of the household, to prevent any other to have sex with Ninyas.

Boccaccio also adds that some belief that that Ninyas killed Semiramis out of jealousy of her having other lovers, or perhaps because he feared that a new child of hers could try to challenge him for the throne.

The Book of the City of Ladies, by Christine de Pizan

In The Book of the City of Ladies, from 1405, Semiramis is mentioned if have married Ninus, who died in battle after giving her one son. She then ruled over Assyria and waged war, adding new lands to her empire. She married her own son for she did not want another woman being crowned queen and because she believed only her son was worthy of being her husband.

de Pizan justifies Semiramis incestuous marriage by saying that, at the time there was no written law against it and that Semiramis wasn't a Christian and so shouldn't be judged by those morals (nice historical relativism of de Pizan's part).

References:

Archibald, Elizabeth. “Sex and Power in Thebes and Babylon: Oedipus and Semiramis in Classical and Medieval Texts.” The Journal of Medieval Latin, vol. 11, 2001, pp. 27–49.

Stronk, Jan. Semiramis’ Legacy: The History of Persia according to Diodorus of Sicily. Edinburgh University Press, 2017.

Worrall, Victoria Eileen. Representations of Semiramis from Antiquity to the Medieval Period. 2019.

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Scientific research supports the accuracy of Herodotus' report on mummification

"David Counsell

Proving Herodotus and Diodorus?

Headspace analysis of ‘eau de mummy’ using gas chromatography mass spectrometry

Abstract

Historical accounts of the mummification process from Herodotus (5th century BC) and Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC) report the use of a wide range of aromatic plant materials, including many common herbs and spices. Mummified remains consistently emit a musty odour, likely derived from residues of these materials. Using a sampling technique, novel in archaeology, the constituents of this odour were analysed using GCMS. The sample utilised was from a particularly pungent mummy from the Leicester Museum collection; Bes-en-mut, a priest in the temple of Min at Akhmim c. 700 BC. The results revealed the presence of a wide range of turpenoid and other compounds derived from a range of aromatic plants, including well known herbs and spices such as Cinnamon and Rosemary. The abundance of these compounds in nature make it difficult to identify in most cases exactly which plants were actually used in the embalming of Bes-en-mut, with one exception. The identification of juniperol, which is unique to the common juniper, Juniperus communis, confirms the use of juniper oil in the mummification process. Overall the results support the accuracy of the historical reports particularly that of Herodotus, whose authenticity has often been called into question."

David Counsell "Proving Herodotus and Diodorus? Headspace analysis of ‘eau de mummy’ using gas chromatography mass spectrometry", in Mummies, magic and medicine in ancient Egypt. Multidisciplinary essays for Rosalie David (edited by Campbell Price, Roger Forshaw, Andrew Chamberlain and Paul Nicholson with Robert Morkot and Joyce Tyldesley), Manchester University Press, 2016

David Counsell qualiied in medicine at Leicester in 1982 and became a consultant cardiothoracic anaesthetist at Blackpool in 1991. From 2001 he was a consultant in Wrexham and from 2010 to 2015 Chief of Staf in Anaesthetics, Pain and Critical Care at Nuield Health, The Grosvenor Hospital. He obtained the Certiicate in Egyptology at the University of Manchester in 1996 and was awarded a PhD for his research into drug and intoxicant use in ancient Egypt. He became an Honorary Research Associate at the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology at Manchester University and has lectured, published papers and made television appearances relating to opium, the blue lotus, cocaine, nicotine and the death of Tutankhamun (source: https://www.academia.edu/26057393/Mummies_Magic_and_Medicine_in_Ancient_Egypt_Multidisciplinary_Essays_for_Rosalie_David.)

[shamsaddinmegalommatis]

The Fake Texts of Ancient Greek 'Historians': the Behistun Inscription, Ctesias, Diodorus Siculus, Darius I the Great, and Semiramis

In a previous article published under the title 'Aristotle as Historical Forgery, the Western World’s Fake History & Rotten Foundations, and Prof. Jin Canrong’s Astute Comments', I wholeheartedly supported the position taken by the prominent Chinese Prof. Jin Canrong about Aristotle and I explained why Aristotle never existed as he is known today and most of his texts were not written by him, but by the pseudo-Christian Benedictine monks of Western Europe for the purpose of the ferocious imperial and theological battle that Rome carried out against New Rome-Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire. You can find the table of contents and a link to the publication at the end of the present article.   

Contents

Introduction

I. A fictional concept: the origin of the fraud

II. A construct based on posterior textual sources

III. The deceitful presentation

IV. 5th century BCE texts found in 15th c. CE manuscripts do not make 'History'.

V. Abundant evidence of lies and deliberate distortions attested in the manuscript transmission

VI. Darius I the Great, the Behistun inscription, and Ctesias

VII. The historical Assyrian Queen Shammuramat and the fictional Queen Semiramis of the 'Ancient Greek sources'

VIII. The malignant intentions of the Benedictine liars: from the historical Darius I the Great to the fictional Semiramis

IX. The vicious distortions of the Benedictine liars: from Ctesias to Herodotus

The Behistun inscription

Introduction

In the present article, I will offer a typical example of text falsification carried out by the Catholic monks, who did not 'copy and preserve' manuscripts of ancient Greek and Latin texts, as it has been mendaciously said by Western European and North American academics and lying scholars, but they purposefully falsified, distorted, concealed, destroyed and/or contrived numerous texts.

This enormous forgery took place in Western Europe between the 2nd half of the 8th century and the 1st half of the 15th century; the colonial era was launched exactly afterwards. For this reason, few manuscripts with Ancient Greek and Roman texts date before the 8th c.; in fact, most of them have been either distorted and replaced or hidden in the vast libraries still owned, controlled and administered that the anti-Christian Roman Catholic Church.

The purpose of this devious and evil effort was the fabrication of a fake narrative about the forged antiquity and the supposed importance of the Western Europeans according to the needs of world conquest, prevalence and preponderance of the pseudo-Christian Roman Catholic Church; this bogus-historical dogma, as direct opposition to and ultimate rejection of Orthodox Christianity, would be initially imposed as the 'scientific discipline of History' in Western Europe and subsequently projected onto the rest of the world by means of colonial invasion, indigenous identity destruction, moral integrity demolition, cultural heritage disintegration, educational subordination, economic exploitation, military subjugation, and socio-political domination.  

In other words, the monastical scribes and copyists created an entirely fake Euro-centric past, which became the rotten foundation of Western Europe. This fallacy became known as Judeo-Christian world and Greco-Roman civilization. However, the decipherment of ancient languages (Egyptian hieroglyphic, Old Achaemenid Iranian, Assyrian-Babylonian, Sumerian, Hurrian, Hittite, Urartu, Ugaritic, etc) and the study of millions of original texts, which were not copies of earlier sources but contemporaneous to the events that they narrated, sounded the death knell of the era of history fabrication programs.

With the post-Soviet rise of the great continental powers (China, India, Russia, etc.), the economic-military-political-ideological-educational-academic-cultural tyranny of the Western World started being overthrown throughout the earlier colonized world. The historical forgery that the colonial rulers imposed collapsed, the falsehood of the Eurocentric dogma of World History started being revealed and rejected, and an overwhelming project of total de-Westernization appeared as a prerequisite for the liberation of the Mankind from the lies of the European Renaissance, the Western Humanities, the White Supremacism, the Western European colonialism and racism, as well as from the falsehood of numerous subsystems of the construct, such as Classicism, Hellenism, Orientalism, etc.  

In our days, it is imperative for anti-colonial scholars to unveil the distortions applied to Ancient Greek and Latin texts by the medieval monks. Consequently, historians from all over the world have to work together in order to denounce and obliterate the Western fraud and the fake History of the Western Man, which consists in arbitrarily taking 14th c. CE manuscripts as authentic narratives of Ancient History.

I. A fictional concept: the origin of the fraud

Apparently, the present brief article cannot be an exhaustive presentation of the Western fraud, and of the historical forgery that the Western monks, manuscript copyists, collectors, academics and propagandists attempted to impose worldwide through colonial conquests, massacres and tyrannies. However, I can still enumerate the major founding myths of the Western World.

Two thematic circles of historical distortions and fraudulent claims made by the Western academia revolve around the following two entirely fabricated entities, which have conventionally but erroneously been called

a) "the Greco-Roman world" and

b) "Biblical Israel" and "Judeo-Christian civilization".

These ahistorical entities never existed. The original concept of those notions is purely fictional, and it therefore remains always unquestioned in the fraudulent Western universities. In this regard, the sources that the Western academics evoke to support their claims are posterior, untrustworthy, forged and therefore worthless.

At times, some of those texts represent merely ancient authors' misperceptions of earlier texts and authors; however, more often, the ancient texts have been tampered with. On other occasions, ancient texts that refute the lies of other historical sources are hidden from the general public and conventionally discussed among the Western academic accomplices.  

II. A construct based on posterior textual sources

The entire construct hinges on the deceitful presentation of several types of material forged, collected, concealed, interpreted, contextualized, narrated, repeatedly but intentionally discussed, supposedly questioned, and selectively popularized; this was due to the fact that the said material was incessantly utilized for the colonial needs and targets of the Western European powers (England, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal, and more recently the US). In fact, the Western World's fake History was created as the ultimate support of all colonial claims.

This process happened within a system in which posterior textual sources (preserved in medieval manuscripts) have occupied the central position, whereas the ancient epigraphic material, which was contemporaneous to the historical events under study, has been deliberately disregarded.

All later discovered data and pieces of information were either adjusted to the construct or methodically hidden; this is how the original concept, pathetically believed almost as a religious dogma, remained totally unchallenged down to our days.

III. The deceitful presentation

The quintessence of the deceitful presentation involves a vicious trick; people (pupils and students, but also scholars and intellectuals, as well as the general public) are taught and made accustomed to care mainly about the absolutely insignificant dates of birth and death of historical persons (authors, rulers, etc.), and not about the dates of the manuscripts in which these individuals are mentioned as supposed authors; this situation turns readers, students and scholars into pathetic idiots. 

Subsequently, we cannot seriously afford to describe Herodotus as a 5th c. BCE writer, because there is no manuscript with texts attributed to him, dating before the 10th c. CE. In addition, if we take into account the enormous number of other ancient authors decrying, denigrating and rejecting Herodotus' absurdities and malignancy, we have to permanently and irrevocably obliterate Herodotus from the History of Mankind and consider his false, paranoid and racist texts as a double Crime against the Mankind:

first, with respect to the original narrative (to which we don't have access as it was distorted by medieval monastical scribes and copyists) because the author attempted to disparage the superior Iranian civilization and the majestic Achaemenid universalist empire, while undeservedly praising the South Balkan barbarians, and

second, as regards the currently available text, which was forged as per the discriminatory intentions of the monks who altered and distorted it in their effort to fabricate the fake, modern divide (or dichotomy) East-West, and to offer a shred of historicity to it.

IV. 5th century BCE texts found in 15th c.  CE manuscripts do not make 'History'.

People get therefore addicted to considering as a true and original 'work' (of an ancient author) the manuscript (or manuscripts) in which the specific treatise, essay or book was copied perhaps 10 or 15 centuries after the author composed it. Due to a long chain of intermediaries (namely library copyists, librarians, scholars, monks, collectors, purchasers and/or statesmen), the transmitted text may have been partly or totally changed.

There is absolutely no guarantee as regards the honesty, the good intentions, the unbiased attitude, and the benevolent character of the perhaps 5, 10, 20 or 50 persons who -living in different eras and without knowing one another- may have constituted the chain of (unknown to us) intermediaries between the hand of the author and that of the last copyist whose manuscript was preserved down to our times.

Example: very little matters today whether the ancient author Diodorus Siculus or Siceliotes (西西里的狄奧多羅斯) actually lived in the 1st c. BCE or in the 3rd c. CE; quite contrarily, what is important for history-writing is the fact that the earliest known manuscript of his famous 'Bibliotheca Historica' (世界史) dates back to the 10th c. CE.

Consequently, the first piece of information that should be stated after the name of any 'ancient' Anatolian, Macedonian, Thracian, Greek, Roman and other author is the date of the earliest extant manuscript of his works.

V. Abundant evidence of lies and deliberate distortions attested in the manuscript transmission

An extraordinarily high number of original sources excavated in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, Canaan, Iran and elsewhere, and subsequently deciphered, can be dated with accuracy; example: the Annals of great Assyrian emperor Tiglath-pileser III (745-727 BCE) were written during his reign. They are contemporaneous and therefore original.

However, in striking contrast to them, almost all the manuscripts with the works of ancient Greek and Roman authors whose texts have formed the backbone of the fraudulent historical dogma of the Western academia are not contemporaneous but posterior by, at times, 1500 or 2000 years.

Even worse, numerous ancient Greek authors' texts were not preserved through a manuscript tradition at all; they were saved as references in posterior authors' works. This concerns, for instance, Ctesias (克特西亞斯), an Ancient Carian (Anatolian) physician and erudite scholar, who lived and worked in the court of the Achaemenid Iranian emperor Artaxerxes II in the 5th c. BCE.

Later, willing to offer potential guidebooks to Iran and India for the use of various peripheral peoples and tribes of the Balkan region, Ctesias elaborated in Ancient Ionian (愛奧尼亞希臘語) two treatises to describe the state of things in Iran and in India. To the Western academic bibliography, his works are known (in Latin) as 'Persica' and 'Indica'.

These texts were not saved integrally in manuscripts copied for the purpose of preserving Ctesias' works, but they were preserved in Diodorus Siculus' 'Bibliotheca Historica'. Although he is not known through authentic and contemporaneous Iranian sources, we can deduce that Ctesias certainly spoke fluently the official language of the Empire and read Old Achaemenid cuneiform. Eventually, he may have also studied and learned Babylonian and Elamite cuneiform, namely two ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform languages and writings the use of which was maintained by Iranian scribes.

Apparently, Ctesias had a firsthand insight, as he lived for many years in Parsa (Persepolis), the capital of the Achaemenid Empire and he also traveled extensively along with the Iranian emperor. But, unfortunately, the following ordeal was produced.  

VI. Darius I the Great, the Behistun inscription, and Ctesias

One century before Ctesias served Artaxerxes II, the empire of Iran was saved by Darius I the Great (大流士一世; reign: 522-486), who overthrew a usurper, namely the Mithraic (密特拉教祭司) magus Gaumata (高墨达), and by so doing, preserved on the throne a dynasty of faithful Zoroastrian (瑣羅亞斯德教徒) monarchs.

To commemorate his great victory and the consolidation of the his dynasty, Darius I the Great had an enormous rock relief and a monumental inscription (貝希斯敦銘文) engraved on the rocks of Mount Behistun (貝希斯頓山), at a distance of 150 km west of Hamadan (哈马丹; Ekbatana/埃克巴坦那) in Western Iran (15 m high by 25 m wide and 100 m up the cliff). As it can be easily understood, these events occurred after the assassination of Cambyses, at the very beginning of Darius I the Great's reign.

It goes without saying that the successors of Darius I the Great and the imperial Iranian administration knew perfectly well the historical details and were fully aware of the imperial inscription that immortalized the event, which had obviously become the cornerstone of the imperial education.    

VII. The historical Assyrian Queen Shammuramat and the fictional Queen Semiramis of the 'Ancient Greek sources'

However, one century later, when Ctesias lived in Iran, served the Iranian Emperor, and spoke Old Achaemenid Iranian (and if not, he was surrounded by the Empire's top interpreters and advisers), something disastrously odd 'happened'.

According to Diodorus Siculus, who explicitly stated that he extensively quoted from Ctesias' text (Bibliotheca Historica, II 13), the imperial Carian physician and author appears to have attributed the Behistun inscription and the rock reliefs to none else than the Assyrian Queen Shammuramat (薩穆-拉瑪特), who was the queen consort of the Assyrian Emperor Shamshi Adad V (沙姆什·阿達德五世; reign: 824-811) and co-regent (811-805) during the first years of reign of her son Adad Nirari III (阿达德尼拉里三世; reign: 811-783)!

Furthermore, in the 'Ancient Greek' text of Diodorus Siculus, the monumental inscription was said to be written in Assyrian cuneiform (Συρίοις γράμμασιν)! Even worse, in the same text (as preserved today), it was also stated that, in the rock relief, there was also a representation of the Assyrian queen!

Ctesias' text, as preserved by Diodorus Siculus, is truly abundant in information, but it is historically impossible and therefore entirely forged. Due to this and many other texts, an enormous chasm was unnecessarily formed between

a) the historical queen Shammuramat of Assyria, whose historicity is firmly undeniable, due to the existence of several contemporaneous cuneiform sources excavated in Assyria, and subsequently deciphered and published,

and

b) the purely fictional Assyrian queen Semiramis (沙米拉姆) of the posterior Ancient Greek textual sources that were supposedly 'preserved' (but in reality deliberately distorted and forged) in the Benedictine manuscripts of Western Europe's monasteries.

However, if we examine closely the facts, we will surely understand what truly occurred in this case; then, we will be able to fathom how the fake History of the Western world was fabricated.

The Behistun inscription is trilingual, as it was written in Old Achaemenid Iranian (the earliest form of written Iranian languages), Babylonian, and Elamite; this was a very common practice during the Achaemenid times (550-330 BCE). The main figure of the associated rock relief is Darius I the Great, evidently the representation of a male royal.

One way or another, with respect to the Behistun inscription and rock relief, Ctesias certainly knew everything that we know today after the successive decipherments of the Old Achaemenid, Babylonian and Elamite cuneiform writings, or perhaps even more, due to the then extant oral tradition.

VIII. The malignant intentions of the Benedictine liars: from the historical Darius I the Great to the fictional Semiramis  

The Behistun inscription is not Assyrian; the representation is not that of female royal; and the monument is totally unrelated to Shammuramat, who had lived 300 years before Darius I the Great and 400 years before Artaxerxes II's physician Ctesias. More importantly, by that time, the Assyrian Empire did not occupy the lands surrounding Behistun. Accompanied by Iranian imperial officers and his associates, Ctesias certainly learned all the details of the monumental inscription that we can now read in articles, courses, lectures, books and encyclopedias.

The narrative was a triumph for Darius I the Great and a spectacular rebuttal of the vicious Mithraic Magi who had supported the defeated evil sorcerer and villain Gaumata. Apparently, writing a guidebook for Iran to help marginal people of the Empire's Balkan periphery, Ctesias did not have any reason to say lies. Moreover, we don't have any reason to believe that Diodorus Siculus needed to distort the truth to that extent, when copying and thus preserving Ctesias' masterpiece for the posterity.

However, the transmission of the details about the Behistun inscription embarrassed the Benedictine copyists who wanted to denigrate Darius I the Great and to portray his great empire in a most derogatory manner. They had already proceeded in this manner, distorting other manuscripts, forging texts, and fabricating their pseudo-historical narratives at will.

That is why Ctesias' pertinent text, which had certainly been preserved in its original form within Diodorus Siculus' Bibliotheca Historica, was intentionally distorted by the Benedictine 'Holy Inquisition of Libraries', which fabricated the myths of today's Western world some time after the middle of the 8th c. CE. To be accurate, Ctesias' historical description was entirely replaced by a fictional and historically nonsensical account.

The unbelievable lies -invented and included in Diodorus Siculus' quotations from Ctesias- risked making of the fictional queen Semiramis a world ruler! Whereas the Assyrian Empire at the end of the 9th c. BCE did not control even the western half of today's Iranian territory, the unequivocally mythicized Semiramis had supposedly sent her armies up to India where those fictitious Assyrian soldiers were trampled by the elephants. This worthless narrative that replaced Ctesias' original text may very well have been invented as a 'historical' excuse for Alexander the Great's failure to advance deep inside India.

IX. The vicious distortions of the Benedictine liars: from Ctesias to Herodotus

But if the fictional Semiramis' Indian campaign is entirely false, so are then the preposterous narratives of Herodotus about Darius I the Great's and Xerxes I the Great's campaigns in the insignificant and barbarian circumference of South Balkans. These texts involved evil purposes, heinous anti-Iranian biases, fictional battles, racist discourses, vicious lies, incredibly large number of the Iranian armies, and absurdly high number of Iranian casualties.

The mendacious but idiotic Benedictine monks, who wrote those slander tales did not apparently expect that, sometime in the future, excavations would bring to light splendid Iranian antiquities, original cuneiform documentation, and trustworthy contemporaneous historical sources, whereas a systematic effort of decipherment would offer to people all over the world direct access to historical texts written in dead languages, thus irrevocably canceling Herodotus' nonsensical report and, even more importantly, the later distortions that the Benedictine monks made on their worthless manuscripts.

In any case, had those fictional campaigns against 'Greece' had a shred of truth to them, they would have certainly been documented one way or another in various Old Achaemenid, Babylonian, Elamite, Imperial Aramaic, Egyptian hieroglyphic or other sources; but they were not.

Even worse, the meaningless and ludicrous battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and their likes would have been commemorated by the Seleucids, the Ptolemies, and the Attalids all the way down to the Romans and the Eastern Romans. But we know quite well that the nonexistent, fictional past of the so-called Ancient Greek world was absolutely irrelevant to them: precisely because it had not yet been fabricated.

===================  

Aristotle as Historical Forgery, the Western World’s Fake History & Rotten Foundations, and Prof. Jin Canrong’s Astute Comments

Contents

I. Aristotle: a Major Founding Myth of the Western World

II. When, where and by whom was the Myth of Aristotle fabricated?

III. The Myth of Aristotle and its first Byproducts: Scholasticism, East-West Schism, the Crusades & the Sack of Constantinople (1204)

IV. Aristotelization: First Stage of the Westernization and the Colonization of the World

V. Aristotelization as Foundation of all the Western Forgeries: the so-called Judeo-Christian Heritage and the Fraud of Greco-Roman Civilization

VI. The Modern Western World as Disruption of History

VII. The Myth of Aristotle and the Monstrosity of Western Colonialism 

======================

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[a-terrible-sound]

I don’t think enough people talk about the fact that there is literally a rock in the Underworld with Theseus’ asscheeks on it

[sarafangirlart]

There is this Egyptian tradition where Rhea is married to Ammon (not identified as Kronos) and it’s so funny to me like that’s literally and ancient crack ship. Like imagine if I shipped Hera with Sett or something.

The source is Diodorus Siculus btw

[hedgewitchgarden]

“She stands beside the sick in their dreams providing remedies for their illnesses and if they declare to her their obedience then they regain their health contrary to all expectations.”

- Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica Book 1, 25 (On Isis as a dream healer)

[sarafangirlart]

Wow that is…. So fucking disgusting how does Zeus disguising himself and deceiving Alcmene not rape? How is it not “violence”? I hate this so much I know that ancient ppl had a narrower definition for rape but how is this not horrifying?

How is that not a violation of her dignity and body? How is that not disrespectful and humiliating to Amphitryon? Even in Euripides’s Heracles play he points out how absurd this is. Ppl use this myth to vilify Hera but then water down (or worse, romanticize) Zeus’s actions so much there is no explanation for this other than misogyny.

I know ppl tend to hate retellings but I would be so onboard with a solid one that doesn’t shy away from Alcmene’s trauma and anger, even Amphitryon had the opportunity to be angry but not Alcmene?

Hi, where does it say that Zeus wasn’t in love with Alcmene and only used her to birth a son? Somehow this is worse than if he just mindlessly lusted for her…

Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.9.3: "And, in general, he did not effect this union from the desire of love, as he did in the case of other women, but rather only for the sake of procreation. Consequently, desiring to give legality to his embraces, he did not choose to offer violence to Alcmenê, and yet he could not hope to persuade her because of her chastity; and so, deciding to use deception, he deceived Alcmenê by assuming in every respect the shape of Amphitryon."

[alessandroiiidimacedonia]

[fluentisonus]

this is like when you find a snake skin l but the snake itself is long gone. like the shape of this guy is here but who he actually is a mystery

[blueiscoool]

The 'Carnyx' Nightmare of the Roman Soldiers

The Carnyx was a brass musical instrument used as a psychological weapon of war by the ancient Celts between 300 BC and 200AD in western and central Europe and beyond.

The carnyx was once widespread throughout much of Europe, although only a dozen or so fragments are known to us.

It was carried by bands of Celtic mercenaries; it was present at the attack on the Greek sanctuary at Delphi in 279 BC; it defied Julius Caesar in Gaul; and it faced Claudius when he invaded Britain. They are even shown on a Buddhist sculpture in India, proof of the far-flung connections of the Iron Age world.

However, they were not only used by the Celts; they were also used by the Dacians in modern Romania. The term “Celtic” is a complicated one. The concept of a pan-European Celtic culture is a myth; rather, aspects of art and technology were shared across vast distances by diverse cultures. The carnyx was one example of this.

A 12-foot-long, thin bronze tube with right-angle bends on both ends made up the carnyx. The lower end ended in a mouthpiece, and the upper end flared out into a bell that was usually decorated to look like a wild boar’s had. Historians believe it had a tongue that flapped up and down, increasing the noise made by the instrument. The carnyx was played upright so that the boar’s head bell protruded well above the warriors’ heads. Its primary goal was to create more noise and confusion on the battlefield.

The Greek historian Polybius (206-126BC) was so impressed by the clamor of the Gallic army and the sound of the carnyx, he observed that “there were countless trumpeters and horn blowers and since the whole army was shouting its war cries at the same time there was such a confused sound that the noise seemed to come not only from the trumpeters and the soldiers but also from the countryside which was joining in the echo”.

And the Roman historian Diodorus Siculus wrote, “Their trumpets are also of a peculiar and barbaric kind which produce a harsh, reverberating sound suitable to the confusion of battle.”

Archaeologists discovered a hoard of ritually destroyed weapons in 2004, including a dozen swords, scabbards, spearheads, a shield, bronze helmets, an iron helmet shaped like a swan, a cauldron, animal remains, and seven carnyces. Before the Tintignac discovery, the remains of only five actual carnyces had been found.

The finest was unearthed in Deskford, Scotland in 1816. The Deskford carnyx only has the boar’s head bell and is missing the mane, tongue, and tubing. Images of Carnyx players have been found as well. A Roman denarius, dating from 48 BC bears a representation of a Carnyx. Three carnyx players are featured prominently on the Gundestrup Cauldron, which was found in a Danish peat bog.

One of the seven found at Tintignac, on the other hand, was almost entirely complete. The Tintignac Carnyx was broken into 40 pieces. When puzzled back together, it was found to be just an inch short of six feet long with a single missing section of the tube. The bell was a boar’s head with protruding tusks and large pointed ears. Once restored, the Tintignac Carnyx proved to be the first virtually complete carnyx ever found.

By Leman Altuntaş.

Music video by John Kenny.