#Xanthippus

[laivinduroriginal]

Rolul lui Xanthippus în Apărarea Cartaginei Împotriva Campaniei Romane din Africa

Introducere În timpul Primului Război Punic (264–241 î.Hr.), Carthagina a trecut printr-o perioadă critică, în care părea incapabilă să contracareze ofensiva romană în Africa. Invazia romană condusă de Marcus Atilius Regulus în 256 î.Hr. a pus Cartagina într-o poziție vulnerabilă, în care legiunile disciplinate ale Romei păreau de neoprit. Totuși, sosirea lui Xanthippus, un lider militar spartan…

[thescopophobe]

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

And also happy hastur day (every day is hastur day) , got some doodles of him, my oc xanthippus , and a little archivist doodle as a treat!!

[saint-sebastian-coded]

for this askgame:

3, 11, 12 & 25

thank you!!

i already answered three and twenty five here (but im doing twenty five again bc fuck it)

11. Something you want to do again next year?

theres a few writing projects im quite interested in doing again both fandom and general. outside of that i would quite like to do more open water swimming

12. Talk about a new friend you made this year

so one of my uni classmates and i finally started hanging out outside of class and thats been very nice even if most of the hangouts are like studying and wanting to die over pages of latin or old english

25. Did you create any characters (in games, art, or writing) this year? Describe one

xanthippus, who's elspeth and hector's father. he's got it all: misogynist, irredeemable cuntery, stupid, entitled, thinks he's clever, is occasionally accidentally clever, killed his wives, etc

[brasideios]

Thank you for the tag @aeide Great idea 🤍

Rules: 10 (non-ancient) books for people to get to know you better, or that you just really like.

So these are my current faves from the last century or so and limited to fiction. I left out the 19th C stuff - just know that I’m an English Literature nerd, and if it was written by the Bronte sisters, George Eliot or Jane Austen, I have read it at least ten times.

1. The Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac.

I have read all of his books, and I love Dharma Bums also, but the Subterraneans speaks to the theme that will always draw me in - hopeless love. The way Kerouac writes, the deep introspection and pawing over of his thoughts is really relatable to me, and the way he is always the destroyer of his own happiness… not to ignore that this book has issues (it’s deeply of it’s time, 1950’s US) but when it comes to emotional impact, I can’t think of a better example.

2. An Imaginary Life by David Malouf.

Malouf is a contemporary Australian author who often writes in a poetic way, and An Imaginary Life is perhaps his most poetical. Its the story of Ovid’s exile to the Black Sea. There are passages in this book about home, loss and memory that will never leave me. I like all of his work though, almost without exception.

3. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

I have probably read this book fifty times. It’s funny and messed up and wild - and there isn’t another book like it. I read this when I just want to laugh and don’t want to engage my brain too much.

4. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

Like Fear and Loathing, I’ve read this book many many times. It’s wonderful though sad. The way it’s structured, so that you seem to circle around and around the story, as the story grows darker and darker… it’s truly an amazing piece of work. The movie absolutely failed to capture it.

5. The Secret River by Kate Grenville.

Another contemporary Australian author, the Secret River is historical fiction based on the white settlement of New South Wales in the early 19th Century. It is beautifully written and tackles the ugly side of colonialism head on. There are scenes in this book that made me sob. She also wrote the Lieutenant which addresses some of the same issues and it’s also very good.

6. The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey.

Another contemporary Australian author (though he lives in the US now) - as the title suggests, this is a book about Ned Kelly, the famous bushranger. It’s written in Ned Kelly’s voice, and it’s done so, so well. I can’t think of another work that is so bold in its use of voice.

7. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

I honestly struggled to decide which of his books to choose because I love his work for the way he puts words together, and he does it so incredibly well in everything he writes; however, All the Pretty Horses was the first of his I read, and it made me read all the others, so it seemed the right one to choose. No Country for Old Men and Suttree are other favourites of his.

8. Imperium by Robert Harris

The first in a trilogy - they’re all brilliant - retelling the life of Cicero. I love the way Harris writes - very clean, very light. I would give a leg to be half so good at writing to be honest.

9. The Gates of Athens by Conn Iggulden.

This follows the life of Xanthippus - Pericles’ father - during the 480s BCE. As with Harris, Iggulden’s writing is absolutely a benchmark for me. This is the first in a series and I haven’t checked in a while if the next one has been published. Note to self. He also wrote the Falcon of Sparta which was great, too.

10. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Millar.

I know there are issues with this retelling, and honestly I don’t care. The way it’s written is everything. The word craft is so beautiful; the feeling that permeates the whole story of impending doom; how every happy moment is in fact sad. It’s gorgeous. Its poetic. It speaks to that hopeless love trope I mentioned earlier. I also loved her Circe for the same reasons.

Tagging @sleeplessincarcosa @softest-punk @erzsebetrosztoczy @myriath @woodsman2b @mimbotomy @auroralykos @haythamk @theinkandthesea I want to read more from around the world so pls gimme all the recs ☺️ or ignore me - no pressure!

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Since we are on the discussion about "foreign authors who respect greek history", may I recommend Conn Iggulden? He just recently started focusing on Greece (he has written a number of historical fiction books set in Rome, Mongolia, England etc) with "The Falcon of Sparta" which is about Xenophon and the March of the 10.000 soldiers, the "Athenian" series (two books: "Gates of Athens", "Protector"), which is about the Greco-persian wars and a new addition "Golden Age" series ("Lion", thus far) which is about the rise of Pericles.

Truth is sometimes the narrative can be cliché and the dialogues chunky, but the interactions between the characters (sometimes, actual historical figures) are interesting. Then again, I mostly recommend him if you want to spend your time. His books about Greece are definitely not the worst representation.

Side note, but I don't like when he uses nicknames, like turning Xanthippus name to Xan (it doesn't make any sense, though you could say we don't use this name anymore). At least, Peri for Pericles makes so sense.

Hmmm it definitely sounds better than the popular retellings! Xan is cringeworthy but if all other elements are fairly okay, we'll forgive 😂

[spectaculardistractions]

Meanwhile these were the first that had fallen, and Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was chosen to pronounce their eulogium. When the proper time arrived, he advanced from the sepulchre to an elevated platform in order to be heard by as many of the crowd as possible, and spoke as follows: "Most of my predecessors in this place have commended him who made this speech part of the law, telling us that it is well that it should be delivered at the burial of those who fall in battle. For myself, I should have thought that the worth which had displayed itself in deeds, would be sufficiently rewarded by honours also shown by deeds; such as you now see in this funeral prepared at the people's cost. And I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth. On the one hand, the friend who is familiar with every fact of the story, may think that some point has not been set forth with that fullness which he wishes and knows it to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity. However, since our ancestors have stamped this custom with their approval, it becomes my duty to obey the law and to try to satisfy your several wishes and opinions as best I may.

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

[amorsole]

what if anacreon and xanthippus were lovers

[michaelmerulla]

Illustrations I did unofficially for game Total war Arena

unfortunately the game was canceled in january 2019

[vampiredust]

Plutarch went off on this tangent in the biography because Cato the Elder treated living things like shit and he just had to comment on it. King.

He never paid more than fifteen hundred drachmas for a slave, since he did not want them to be delicately beautiful, but sturdy workers, such as grooms and herdsmen, and these he thought it his duty to sell when they got oldish, instead of feeding them when they were useless; and that in general, he thought nothing cheap that one could do without, but that what one did not need, even if it cost but a penny, was dear; also that he bought lands where crops were raised and cattle herded, not those where lawns were sprinkled and paths swept.

 These things were ascribed by some to the man's parsimony; but others condoned them in the belief that he lived in this contracted way only to correct and moderate the extravagance of others. However, for my part, I regard his treatment of his slaves like beasts of burden, using them to the uttermost, and then, when they were old, driving them off and selling them, as the mark of a very mean nature, which recognizes no tie between man and man but that of necessity. And yet we know that kindness has a wider scope than justice. Law and justice we naturally apply to men alone; but when it comes to beneficence and charity, these often flow in streams from the gentle heart, like water from a copious spring, even down to dumb beasts. A kindly man will take good care of his horses even when they are worn out with age, and of his dogs, too, not only in their puppyhood, but when their old age needs nursing.

 While the Athenians were building the Parthenon, they turned loose for free and unrestricted pasturage such mules as were seen to be most persistently laborious. One of these, they say, came back to the works of its own accord, trotted along by the side of its fellows under the yoke, which were dragging the waggons up to the Acropolis, and even led the way for them, as though exhorting and inciting them on. The Athenians passed a decree that the animal be maintained at the public cost as long as it lived. Then there were the mares of Cimon, with which he won three victories at Olympia; their graves are near the tombs of his family. Dogs also that have been close and constant companions of men, have often been buried with honour. Xanthippus, of olden time, gave the dog which swam along by the side of his trireme to Salamis, when the people were abandoning their city, honourable burial on the promontory which is called to this day Cynossema, or Dog's Mound.

 We should not treat living creatures like shoes or pots and pans, casting them aside when they are bruised and worn out with service, but, if for no other reason, for the sake of practice in kindness to our fellow men, we should accustom ourselves to mildness and gentleness in our dealings with other creatures. I certainly would not sell even an ox that had worked for me, just because he was old, much less an elderly man, removing him for his habitual place and customary life, as it were from his native land, for a paltry price, useless as he is to those who sell him and as he will be to those who buy him.

[zerogate]

“Pipe burials” are found with both cremated and buried remains throughout Italy and are also attested in Roman Britain, Gaul, Greece, and North Africa. In these burials, a pipe was inserted with one end into the grave and the other end above ground. Pausanius, in his second-century C.E. Description of Greece, provides evidence for the function of these pipes when he relates that at Tronis in Phocis (a region of Greece), the Phocians every day brought sacrificial animals to the tomb of the founder-hero (either Xanthippus or Phocus; Pausanius is unsure) and poured blood “through a hole into the grave.”

J. C. M. Toynbee and J. Ward Perkins apply a similar interpretation to pipes and holes found with pre-Christian tombs excavated in the Vatican, seeing the pipes as conduits for wine or other libations for the dead.

James Frazer describes a discovery in two Roman cemeteries near Carthage, the city where Perpetua had her vision of Dinocrates: Each tomb encloses one or more urns containing calcined bones. Each urn is covered with a saucer, in the middle of which there is a hole; and this hole communicates with the exterior of the tomb by means of an earthenware tube placed either upright so as to come out at the top of the tomb, or slanting so as to come out at one of the sides. Thus libations poured into the tube ran down into the urn.

-- Jeffrey A. Trumbower, Rescue for the Dead -- The Posthumous Salvation of Non-Christians in Early Christianity

[rjbailey]

Wikipedia article of the day for September 5, 2020 -- Battle of the Bagradas River (255 BC)

The Wikipedia article of the day for September 5, 2020 is Battle of the Bagradas River (255 BC). The Battle of the Bagradas River was a victory by a Carthaginian army led by Xanthippus over a Roman army led by Marcus Atilius Regulus in early 255 BC, nine years into the First Punic War. The previous year Roman forces had advanced on the city of Carthage in North Africa and defeated the Carthaginian army at the Battle of Adys. In despair, the Carthaginians sued for peace, but the proposed terms were so harsh they decided to fight on. They gave charge of their army to the Spartan mercenary general Xanthippus, who led 12,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry and 100 war elephants (statuette pictured) against the Romans' 15,000 infantry and 500 cavalry. The Romans had no effective answer to the elephants, their outnumbered cavalry were chased from the field, and most of their infantry were surrounded and wiped out. The Romans subsequently evacuated Africa. The war ended in 241 BC with a Roman victory; the terms agreed were more generous than those proposed 14 years earlier.

[aph--carthage]

Did Carthage know Sparta? (i remember a spartan general helped train Carthaginian soldiers)

clever anon!  

It was a spartan mercenary general by the name of Xanthippus—and while Carthage isn’t fond of many greeks, Sparta here shares a lot of similarities to her in the way of constitution. 

…also big inspiration from how @athensandspartaadventures draws Sparta!

[leahlynnette777]

Next on my trip, I was able to attend the Funeral Oration of Pericles. This was a ceremony or ritual of sorts that was given to the men who fell in battle during the first year of the Peloponnesian War. This was a tradition carried out by ancestors that was continued by Pericles. During this funeral, the bones of those who had fallen were placed in specific places to become one with the Earth and were read a panegyric by someone chosen by the state, this was a person who was respected and had wisdom. A panegyric is a speech of praise and after it was read to the bones who belonged to respected men that fought in the war, they were then able to rest and retire all responsibilities. Pericles, who was the son of the previous general, Xanthippus, was chosen to do this honorable deed. Though Pericles was the man who gave this honorable speech, Thucydides was the man who wrote it. Pericles went on to praise as he was instructed to do by ancestors. He explained that what these people listening were about to hear could be interpreted as exaggeration of the actual happenings and envy could arise because men can only stand to listen to other men be praised for so long but that he was doing his best to tell the actual happenings of what occurred. In this he explained and discussed the wealth of Athens, how they came to it because of their ancestors and because they still continue to fight for it. He explains how no one has a government or political life like Athens. Pericles said, “Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy.” (Thucydides 36)) A democracy was born here in Athens, Pericles and others strived for equality and safety of everyone. He explained how their political life bled into their personal life and it is how they lived morally and politically. Pericles preached about how honorable these men who passed away fighting for all they built up were and he gave comfort to families of these men. He talked about the festivals and wealth they were still able to have and to hold dearly to their hearts because it’s what they fight for. He ended with, "And now that you have brought to a close your lamentations for your relatives, you may depart." (Thucydides 46)

[dionysiusi]

shout-out to my favourite minor historical figure, Xanthippus, who appeared like some sort of historical deus ex machina and literally saved Carthage’s trashy ass from immediate death by teaching its army some useful tactical shit in what I can only assume was an ‘I’ll Make A Man Out Of You’-style montage

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Punishments and the Conclusion of Herodotus’ Histories

““One must consider the end of every affair, how it will turn out.”1 Solon’s advice to Croesus has often been applied to Herodotus’ Histories themselves: Is the conclusion of Herodotus’ work a fitting and satisfying one? Older interpretations tended to criticize the final stories about Artayctes and Artembares as anticlimactic or inappropriate: Did Herodotus forget himself here, or were the stories intended as interludes, preludes to further narrative?2 Entirely opposite is the praise accorded Herodotus in a recent commentary on Book 9: “The brilliance of Herodotus as a writer and thinker is manifest here, as the conclusion of the Histories both brings together those themes which have permeated the entire work and, at the same time, alludes to the new themes of the post-war world.”3 More recent appreciation for Herodotus’ “brilliance,” then, is often inspired by the tightly-woven texture of Herodotus’narrative. Touching upon passion, revenge, noble primitivism,  East-West relations, the concluding stories at 9.108–122 recall the Prologue and Lydian logos, reinforce many of the narrative motifs that thread through the work as a whole, and (perhaps) offer a warning to the Athenians that with the emergence of the Delian League, a new cycle of tragic history may be beginning.4

One Herodotean motif that has not been explored systematically—either with regard to the Histories as a whole, or with regard to the conclusion—is the theme of punishment.5 The final three stories, disparate as they are, share one commonality: all record punishments—of Masistes’ wife, of Oeobazus, Artayctes and his son, and the threatened divine punishment of Artembares and his descendants. This is not an incidental or unimportant fact, for much of the difficulty in assessing the conclusion’s literary merit is in placing it within its proper thematic context. This context, I will argue, is that of punishments. The Histories are rife with punishments, some minor, others monstrous. Punishment, with the related themes of crime and justice, plays several significant roles: as literary spectacle, as material for ethnographic and political insight, and as vehicle for an implicit philosophy of history. All this ensures that 9.108–122 is a multi-layered and suggestive ending, offering Herodotus’ final meditation on the ongoing interplay between Greece and Asia, the ambivalence of human accomplishment, the injustice and excess that constitute so much of history, the simultaneous existence of human evil and divine justice. Before coming to the concluding punishments, however, we will first examine the various functions that punishments serve in the Histories, whether as “wonders,” as characteristic products of particular cultures and political systems, or as means for con-veying aspects of Herodotus’ historical and religious vision.” 

“   The concluding stories of 9.108–122 thus invite meditation upon the Histories as a whole, and in particular upon the themes related to punishment—desire, pleonexia, reciprocity and revenge, divine justice, the “wondrous deeds” that can be both of world-historical significance and the result of private desires. The punishments of Masistes’ wife and of Artayctes are both displays of exceptional hatred that also foreshadow the ebb of Persian power, the rise of the Athenian hegemony, a new stage in Greek-Asian relations. One should not, however, overemphasize the prospective import of the concluding stories, for they are, after all, concluding material for an already long work. Not prospective, nor simplistically retrospective, Herodotus touches upon all time periods, mingling myth (Protesilaus), archaic even legendary figures (Cyrus and Artembares), Persian-War era history (Artayctes, Xanthippus), and themes of contemporary history (Pericles, Athenian empire). Herodotus does not limit himself to strict chronological narration, but moves back and forth between generations, striving to present, as it were, a timeless presentation of the temporal. Three generation sare viewed as in a single glance; their triumphs and tragediesbecome simultaneous, inseparable aspects of the same historical movement.

Therefore, rather than Dewald’s “indeterminacy” of the concluding chapters which he links with Herodotus’ suspension of judgment about the ultimate success and morality of the Athenian empire, it might be more appropriate to describe the ending as a multivalent one that overwhelms the reader with historical resonances and quasi-philosophical considerations.These final stories offer a compressed image of Herodotean history as a whole, alluding to many of the disparate factors that make a full accounting of the past so complex. Thus, the mutilation, human sacrifice, “crucifixion,” and stoning are punishments as astonishing (θωμαστός) as any in the work; they testify to Herodotus’ abiding sensitivity to suffering, and to his ambivalent view of human nature, at once capable of high-minded virtue and heinous brutality. The punishment of Oeobazus and Artyactes provides the latest instance of the on-going crimes and retributions that constitute Greek-Asian history. The punishments furthermore offer a final instance of Herodotus’ cosmopolitan detachment, for he recognizes that atrocities were committed on all sides: Persians are punished by Persians (Masistes’ wife), by Thracians (Oeobazus), by Athenians and Elaeans (Artayctes). In the delayed punishment of Artembares’ family, Herodotus invites reflection on the aggressive attitudes that propelled the Persians (and others) to empire and eventual defeat. Haunting the whole conclusion, as the Histories as a whole, is Herodotus’ awareness of time, the inconstancy of fortune and vicissitudes of national success (1.5.4). Both immanent in and transcending these vicissitudes are the gods, just but also cruel and unpredictable in their methods of punishing an Oeobazus, Artayctes, or Artembares.

Other aspects of the conclusion echo narrative motifs that contribute to the Histories’ unity—notably, the “wise advisor,” the link between geographical environment and nomos, the contrast between noble primitives and corrupt civilizations, the struggle for freedom against slavery.37 But perhaps more im- portant than all these for understanding 9.108–122 is the theme of punishment, which has already played many roles in the Histories. In concluding with the description of four punishments, Herodotus evokes for the last time that meditative awe with which he himself approaches history: that such things were done, and will be done again, is a “wonder” not lightly to be forgotten.38″

The opening and concluding paragraphs from Will Desmond “Punishments and the conclusion of Herodotus' Histories”, available on  “https://www.academia.edu/1845415/Punishments_and_the_conclusion_of_Herodotus_Histories?swp=rr-rw-wc-43570534