#because dionysos and diogenes both

[capriccio-ffxiv]

yeah I think I'm renaming Illyria's Ancient to Diogenes. (maybe only when they're* not the Azem)

But if only so I can make this joke

Dio: /holds up a plucked dodo Dio: "BEHOLD! A MAN!" Meition: "hiiiiiii" Dio: "fuck. shit. fuck. damn it." Dio: "... SHE STILL HAS FEATHERS, DAMN IT. ... BUT STARS SUNS AND SHADOWS YOU MORON, YOU'RE JUST PROVING MY POINT—" [dio is forcibly removed from Elpis]

[jeannereames]

Hello Mrs Reames! Quick question as someone that is still new to Alexander the Great, I was on TikTok the other day and someone posted a TikTok of an incident in which Alexander the Great supposedly dragged the oracle of Delphi out by her hair because she couldn't give him a prophecy that day, is this true?

Alexander and the Delphic Oracle

First, before answering, let’s do a quick PSA. I’m sure the asker meant to address me in the most polite way they knew how, and I’ve run into this error frequently with undergrads, who (at least in American public schools) are told to address a female teacher as “Ms.” or “Mrs.”

Thus, I offer this correction as gently as possible. But it’s important in an era when titles are being withheld from women as a means of belittlement—then, if a woman dares to object, they’re made fun of or called uppity and “sensitive.”* Again, I’m sure the asker here did not mean anything unkind (or they wouldn’t be asking me something in the first place!). So this is NOT a slap at them. But I’m not a Mrs. (I'm not married, and Reames is my birth name). I’m Dr. Reames or Professor Reames. You can even call me Jeanne (as long as you’re not a student in my class, ha). If you’re a (US) college student and unsure if your instructor has a PhD, “professor” is always safe. ����

Now, to the question….

Plutarch tells a rather peculiar little story of new King Alexander, on his way home from a meeting of the Corinthian League (in Corinth), stopping at Delphi to ask the oracle a question. I should add, this event occurs right after Plutarch’s description of ATG’s meeting with the Cynic philosopher Diogenes. (E.g., it’s part of a “theme.”)

Now, the Delphic oracle wasn’t open for consults all the time. She only heard them a day or so a month…and that for only some months of the year. He came at the wrong time of year (winter, when Dionysos held the oracle, not his half-brother Apollo). So she told him, “No.” Reportedly, he stormed to her little house in the village of Delphi to manhandle her, intending to drag her to the oracle for his query. She replied, “Son! You’re invincible!” Pleased with that, he let her go.

And Plutarch presents this as if it’s all a-okay.

This is weird. It’s weird that Plutarch, a priest of Delphi from Chaironeia, wasn’t up in arms about this clear affront to an honored oracle (and an old woman). It’s an act of asebia (impiety). But it would be even weirder if Alexander had actually done it. Alexander, the uber-pious.

Plutarch is the ONLY one to tell this story. Anywhere.

Yet there’s a story remarkably like it with different players set during the Third Sacred War when the Phokians had seized the Oracle. It’s this event that set off the war, and which brought ol’ Philip into southern politics and eventually landed him a seat on the Amphictyonic Council as a staunch “Defender of Apollo.” Philomelos was the leader of the Phokians early in the war. Below are both accounts, starting with Diodoros’s (original source likely Kallisthenes, who wrote a history of the war).

With the oracle in Philomelus’ hands, he instructed the Pythia to continue prophesying from the tripod in the traditional way. When she refused, he threatened her and compelled her to mount the tripod. To this display of excessive force, she responded by declaring that he could do whatever he wanted—and he was pleased by this and declared that he had the oracle that suited him. He immediately had the oracle inscribed and set up for all to see, in order to make it clear that he had the god’s permission to do whatever he wanted, and he convened an assembly at which he boosted morale in the ranks by telling them about the prophecy (Diod. 16.27.1-2, Waterfield trans).

And now, wishing to consult the god concerning the expedition against Asia, [Alexander] went to Delphi; and since he chanced to come on one of the inauspicious days, when it is not lawful to deliver oracles, in the first place he sent a summons to the prophetess. And when she refused to perform her office and cited the law in her excuse, he went up himself and tried to drag her to temple, whereupon, as if overcome by his ardour, she said: “Thou art invincible, my son!” On hearing this, Alexander said he desired no further prophecy, but had from her the oracle which he wanted (Plut. Alex. 14.4, Perrin trans.)

With Philomelos, there is no question later in Diodoros that his act was impiety. His eventual death is (partly) attributed to it. Plutarch picks up this event, dusts it off, recasts the “inquirer,” and—moreover—uses it as affirmation of Alexander’s “invincibility.” Remember “The Invincible” was his nickname in Greece in his own day. The Romans called him Magnus (the Great).

In short, Plutarch retooled the story to suit his own purposes.

So no, it never happened. At least, not with Alexander. (And he’d have been horrified, I think, to hear he’d been accused of any such thing.)

Plutarch makes these detail changes when it suits him. I have an article coming out in a year or so where I discuss this tendency and bring the receipts (of quite a few examples)—including one I think a lot of folks here will find VERY interesting. But I’m not the only one saying it about this event in particular. It’s been noted as an “odd” episode before, including by Hamilton, if I recall (who did the commentary on Plutarch). But Lara O’Sullivan really showed where it came from, source-wise, in her “Callisthenes and Alexander the Invincible God,” P. Wheatley and E. Baynham, eds., East and West in the World Empire of Alexander: Essays in Honour of Brian Bosworth. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press (2015), 35–52.

Some may still wonder why Alexander wouldn’t have gone to the oracle?

He didn’t need to. His father already had. And if later historians (such as Diodoros) reinterpreted her pronouncement to be about Philip’s murder, not the fall of Persia, it was a positive reply at the time. Going to Delphi again might risk something less flattering/hopeful. Not to mention, it was the wrong time of the year, and Alexander knew that. He had more important fish to fry. He wasn’t going to hang around, waiting (for months) for an auspicious day.

He was good with the oracle his father had got. After all, he’d been trumpeting for months that “only the name of the king had changed.” The original oracle would do just fine.

------------------------

*A BIG stink was made here in the US by the conservative media over Dr. Jill Biden being “Dr.” The initial "rebuke" stemmed from the fact her degree is “just” a doctor of education. When that faced pushback, however, conservatives on social media began to fuss, well, she wasn’t a MEDICAL doctor, so didn’t “deserve” that title. Which is silly. Doctor is the correct title for a medical doctor, as well as for a host of professional degrees, including a doctor of education, a doctor of theology, a doctor of business, etc. The degree that takes the longest to complete is the PhD, or doctor of philosophy. We’re ALL “doctors.” The problem for them was a professional woman who dared to use her title. Wasn’t she an uppity bitch?

[capriccio-ffxiv]

Illyria: scar on her left cheek; self-inflicted, doesn't like to talk about it (she has depression issues). When she's Thee WoL, big bleached set of scars over her heart and on her back which look like places where feathers might have grown once, and were torn out, plus two much bigger scars where she'd started growing wings.

Ryuu: Heals with unnatural speed due to lots and lots and LOTS of dragonsblood infusions (note: this is the only reason I can excuse Squeenix not giving Estinien scars from the Eyes, and even then I'm like COWARDS..... GIVE HIM SCARS). When she does get injured badly, the wound heals over with scales first (different texture than Au'ra scales! and red in color), then the scales shed; even then, often there's still a pattern left. She has a big one left over her torso from the first Stormblood fight with Zenos. For a while, her left eye was also a Sin Eater's (black sclera, white iris) from Light exposure on the First, but that eventually healed. Under the light of the full moon, if she's not wearing clothes (ha!), one can just barely see fractals spiraling out from her heart, but only with certain light. Mooncat Miqo'te, Duskwright Elezen, Xaela Au'ra (but NOT the Oronir, importantly), some Viera and Hrothgar, and some other nocturnal Tribes can see this better than most. Loporrits can see it quite clearly; and it's clear as day at all times to Y'shtola. These also appear during solar eclipses.

Hyperion: Most of his body save for his face, hands, and feet are covered in spiraling fractal scars, originating around his heart. These are pale white in comparison to his normal skin tone. When the Ghost Moon shows her face (only in a strong Umbral Wind), they glow bright silver.

Bit of lore about the fractal stuff under the cut...

Dio/nysos/genes: when they're not Azem, not so much scars, as piercings; a golden chain going from each nostril to each ear, which is a symbol of those officially Ostracized from Amaurot. The Ostracized can never again enter Amaurot or any place under its jurisdiction under pain of death; this is considered a mercy compared to immediate execution. The chains are delicate and beautiful, and have ornamentation related to the crime. In Diogenes' case (the name they take in exile), the crime was writing a play that a bit *too* pointedly satirized Amaurotine society; it was Emet-Selch who argued passionately for their ostracization instead of execution. When Dio is Azem (and thus Dionysos), it's because they showed Hades and Hythlodaeus the first draft of their play, and were advised to never, ever produce it for the public eye... but always keep it close to their heart.

Hyperion literally tried to sear important memories into his very soul so that Ryuu would have them in the future, as a contingency to the Grand Plan his sister Venat came up with. Selene tried to stop him, but got caught in the ritual; she (and by extension Ardbert and Kian) didn't gain anything specific save for a strong sense of connection to any of Hyperion's shards (so Cyella/Cylva, Lammitt, and Ryuu). What Ryuu once thought was a semi-precognative Echo like Mikoto's was in fact these seared-in memories (like Amon's memories of Meition & Ktisis Hyperborea). Despite his best efforts, the strongest pieces were connections to Kian, whom he met in Elpis, which initially had... not so great consequences for Kian and Ryuu both.

Ryuu still has very strong skills of not so much precognition but analysis and prediction, but those aren't supernatural (even if they might in some way tie back to what she inherited from Hyperion); the Echo just sometimes gives her an edge on what information she has to work from.

Of note: the fractal scars were not visible until she herself returned from Pandaemonium. There was a certain level of connection/alignment which had to happen, and she had to consciously make the choice to accept it. Hyperion even sent her a message along the lines of "You are your own person. I beg you, walk away from me, from my moon-shadow, from this... unless you cannot. Unless you find you have no other choice. ... and if you don't have another choice... I do not know whether to be sorry that you've been set to walk in the same footsteps of a man from a civilization that should have failed years ago, or to take some joy in the notion that someone as brilliant and worthy will continue my work. Perhaps both? Perhaps both..."

"Oh, know this, my dear spark -- if there is anything left of me in you, I am the part of you that loves you. Please never forget that. And ever if you are in the blackest night, deepest despair, hold that close. I love you. I do."

howdy! a wol question for you! that I am,,, mostly certain I havent asked yet but if I have, oh well!

does your wol/oc have any scars? if so how did they get them?

from an msq event? an accident as a child? are they large or rather small? do the scars still pain them, physically or mentally? do they wish they didnt have them? or do they enjoy their scars?

[jeannereames]

The original of Prado bronze - when was it identified as Hephaistion and why is it identified as Demetrius now? Thank you.

First, let me begin with a serious caution: unless a figure is NAMED, it’s all guesswork. Some guesses may be more sound, but ultimately, it’s opinion. What I see and what another person sees can differ, and the Prado Colossal Bronze is a good example. One of the main reasons for IDing it as Demetrios Poliorketes rests on perceived similarities to a couple other statues thought to be D.P., especially one from Herculanium. But I think D.P. appears much softer, and when the Prado is looked at full-on, the mouth is different, the chin is firmer, the face is longer, and the jaw seems squarer (although the damage makes that tough).

Now to be fair, different sculptors could be the reason for the differences, not to mention different mediums. Just compare the ATG Azara Herm to the Pergamum head to see how much difference there can be! But to me, the Prado just doesn’t look enough like Demetrios. Actually, to my mind, the Hephaistion votive (discussed below) looks more like Demetrios than the Prado Bronze!

Our biggest problem is that we lack what’s called a “portraiture tradition” for Hephaistion, unlike what we have for Alexander, or Sokrates, or Augustus, or Antinoos. No matter the slight differences in these figures, it’s usually pretty easy to guess one when you see it. That simply doesn’t exist for Hephaistion. While there may have been about a bajillion statues of him made for ATG after H. died, that didn’t survive Alexander. The Successors had every reason to promote *themselves* with Alexander, and minimize Hephaistion’s memory.

(This is one reason I’m highly skeptical that any of those figures in the Pella mosaics are Hephaistion. The lion hunt mosaic, for instance, is almost certainly Alex and *Krateros*, based on a description by the travel-writer Pausanias of a bronze [I think bronze?] group commissioned by Krateros’s son, to commemorate when his father saved the king from a lion. Pausanias describes virtually the exact same positioning. The house it came from, called the “Dionysos House,” might even have *been* Krateros’s son’s house. It’s one of the biggest of the Hellenistic-era houses in that block area. I gave it to Hephaistion’s family in the novel (*grin*) just because I wanted to be able to describe something concrete, but of course, it wouldn’t have had any lion hunt at that point.) HEPHAISTION in portraiture...the ONLY securely identified statue of him is a dedicatory votive from the Thessaloniki Museum made by one “Diogenes” to the “hero Hephaistion.” (This image is copyrighted to me, and watermarked.)

Unfortunately, it lacks what most art historians would consider distinctive, or “portrait” features. It’s of a style that resembles northern Macedonian and Thracian portraits of “hero horsemen.” The female figure in the stele (perhaps Diogenes’s wife?) is about to pour a liquid offering into the patera (offering bowl) that he’s holding in his hand--pretty standard stuff. Slap a hat on his head and he could be the Thracian Rider.

A handful of other portraits, mostly in marble, have been IDed as Hephaistion, largely because he’s positioned with Alexander as part of a sculpted set. Two of the better known are the Kyme head and the “Demetrio” statue (so-called because it was originally thought to be Demetrios, too). Yes, the Kyme head and Demetrio statue do sorta look alike, but that’s because they’re “generic ephebe.” ALL those look alike. :-) (An ephebe is a young man, usually in his late teens/early 20s. They tend to be modeled on statues of Apollo, the idealized young man.) One may as well point out that most Archaic koroi look alike!

Probably the best known “Hephaistion,” the Getty head, is also almost certainly a forgery. The other best-known Hephaistion figure is from the “Alexander Sarcophagus” (so-called because of who’s on it, not who’s in it) in the Istanbul Museum. There are actually THREE possible Hephaistions on the sarcophagus, but the best known is the central horseman in the long-side battle scene. That ID is based on the assumption it’s the burial sarcophagus of Abdalonymos, King of Sidon (who was given his position by Hephaistion). Waldemar Heckel recently tried to re-argue the sarcophagus belonged to Mazeus of Babylon, which I’m not buying (I think if fits Abdalonymos better). But if he’s right,t hat would probably throw the ID of the central rider into question. WHATever the case, again, we have a generic face. Both Alexander on the left, and “Parmenion” (so IDed by several, although Antigonos Monophthalmos has also been floated) on the right of this battle scene have, to my eye, more distinctive (e.g., portrait) features.

So how do we know Hephaistion if we see him? We don’t.

So if it’s all so IFFY, why do I consider the Prado Bronze to be Hephaistion? It owes to a couple things, which I fully admit are speculative. It was first IDed as Hephaistion as early as 1900, and a couple more have argued so since, including Manolis Andronikos, but the most recent arguments (that I know of) come from 1988 by Moreno, repeated in Smith’s HELLENISTIC ROYAL PORTRAITS (which is where I first encountered it, back in grad school).

I found three points intriguing: First, the bronze is a “colossus,” so larger-than-life, usually reserved for gods and heroes. If we do later see this transferred to kings, this portrait is early for that (310-300 BCE?). Second, Moreno thinks it’s a Lysippos and (my bad Italian aside), I found his argument convincing. Third, the head lacks a royal diadem, which we usually see with Successor kings. Granted, it IS an early statue, and those arguing for Demetrios suggest the fashion of taking up the diadema (ala, ATG) hadn’t yet caught on.

But in a nutshell, that’s why I think it could be Hephaistion: a portrait made of the “Hero Hephaistion,” possibly for a heroon, or hero shrine. That he’s not wearing the diadema may suggests it’s not meant to be a king.

So why couldn’t it just be, say, Apollo? Well, it does have a few characteristics that may suggest it’s a portrait, not a generic god. First, he’s got a crease in his forehead; this is no Apollonian ephebe. He’s older if not old, probably early 30s. He has a long face, jutting chin, and deep-set eyes (better seen side-on) under a heavy brow. Plus the wild hair recalls Alexander’s a bit. The hair is one reason he’s been suggested as Demetrios, in fact. But once more, when I look at this portrait, I just don’t see the similarity (putting below both the Prado head and the Herculanium marble).

Does that make the figure Hephaistion? Again, no. But given when it was made (310ish), if it IS a *portrait* of a person heroized, well...Hephaistion makes a pretty good bet.

So that’s the (rather long) explanation for why I still accept Moreno’s ID of the bronze as Hephaistion, and why it became my “mental image” for what Hephaistion might have looked like. But again, I FREELY admit this is all a bunch of speculation!