Alexander Chalkidis

Author: alexanderchalkidis

  • Extreme party games

    Some people in Thrace hang themselves as a game during drinking parties.  They make a noose above a stone that is easily overturned if you stand on it.   The noose is at just the right height.   Then, a person is chosen by drawing a lot and he has to get on the stone.  He is allowed only a small knife as he gets up on the stone and puts his head in the noose.  Then someone from the party moves the stone so he has to quickly cut the rope or die.  If he is not quick, he dies and is left hanging there.  His death is considered quite amusing.

     

    Wise men at dinner – Athenaeus.

     

  • Knowledge transfer, the godly way

    In “Against Celsus”, Origen analyzes a a mural from Samos in which Hera is showing fellating Zeus by explaining it thus:  “…he is misinterpreting the painting of the unspeakable act.    It is symbolic.  Here is receiving the words of the God Zeus, his seed of wizdom, and keeping these words within her in order to adorn the Universe with them.”

     

    Yeah right.

     

    (A more detailed scientific inquiry into the Stoics and this matter can be found in this paper.)

  • How to get her to bed

    Catch a bat and use myrh to draw this shape on its left wing.   Also the seven names of the god and then the words “May (name of woman) , the daughter of (her father’s name) , not get any sleep until she sleeps with me”.  Then let the bat away.

    -Greek Magical Papyri 

  • Tragedy saves lives

    After the disastrous events in Sicily, many Athenians were saved thanks to Euripides.  The Greeks that lived far from Athens yearned for his poetry.  Sicilians were no exception.  Even a small sample of his poetry recited by a traveler pleased them a lot.  They memorised it and passed it on with great pleasure.  Many of the people on the failed expedition to Sicily embraced Euripides on their return with much affection.  They told him that they had been released from slavery because they taught the people that had them everything they could of Euripides’ poetry.  Some had even been given drink or food after the battle as they wandered around simply for singing a choral passage from one of his plays.

    Life of Nicias – Plutarch

  • The real Fight Club

    It was almost evening at the Nemean Games when Creugas from Epidamnus and Damoxenus from Syracuse were boxing.  So they agreed that they would each allow the other on free punch to decide the match.  In those times the boxers wore soft gloves and their fingers were left uncovered.  Creugas started and punched Damoxenus in the head.  Damoxenus then asked his opponent to raise his arm.  No sooner had Creugas raised his arm, than Damoxenus used his straightened fingers to strike right under his rib-cage.  It was such a hard hit and because he had sharp fingernails that his hand went into his opponent’s body where he grabbed intestines and tore them out with force.

    However Creugas, now dead, was declared the victor by the judges because they considered the blow from each of Damoxenus’ fingers as an individual punch even though they had agreed on one punch.

    Guide to Greece – Pausanias

     

  • Lightly disguised insults

    At Miletus, the people aren’t stupid.  But they always seem to do the things that stupid people would do.

    (Nicomachean Ethics – Aristotle quoting)

  • Bad to the bone

    In places like Sparta women are treated badly.  This means that half the population lives without happiness.

    Rhetoric – Aristotle

  • Losing track of our sites

    At a place called Elis, there was a building in the marketplace.  It looked like a temple, had no walls and its roof was supported by columns of oak.  I asked the local people about this and they all agree it is a memorial, but nobody remembers what it is commemorating!

    Guide to Greece – Pausanias

  • Why is seven perfect?

    According to Photius’ Lexicon, Zeus was said to have laughed for seven days non stop when he was born.  (Reliably told to us by Theodorus of Samothrace)

  • Of mice and women

    It makes sense that any man who is a criminal or a coward, will be reborn as a woman.

    Timaeus – Plato

     

    (photo of Annie Smith Peck – mountaineer and author.)