Alexander Chalkidis

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  • Were Greeks always easy to sway?

    It is surprising that this trick worked.  Greeks have always been more intelligent than barbarians.  And Athenias even more so, they are the smartest of all Greeks.

    Yet Pisistratus the tyrant, got his position back with a very simple trick:  he found a pretty and quite tall girl from the peasants and dressed as if she were the godess Athena.  With full armor and other accessories the girl rode with him in a chariot.  And Pisistratus had heralds announce that Athena herself was bringing him back to power.

     

    (Herodotus – Histories, 1.60)

     

  • A dog, actually my best friend. For real!

    Xenophanes often mocked Pythagoras for believing in the transmigration of souls.   According to him, once Pythagoras heard a dog which was been beaten and shouted “Stop!  Do not beat that dog!  It is the soul of a dear friend of mine, I recognize the voice!”

  • Plagiarism detection tricks

    Heraclides amazingly proposed (back then) that earth has a 24 hour cycle of revolution on its axis.  However  he wasn’t as perceptive in other matters:

    “Dionysios had written a tragedy which he called Parthenopaeus.  As a practical joke, he put Sophocles as the author when it was written .   When Heraclides quoted as if it really was by Sophocles in one of his works.  Then Dionysius told him it was a joke but of course Heraclides didn’t believe him at all.  Then Dionysius told to look at at thethe opening eight lines.  The first letter spelled the name of his lover, Pancalus.  Then Heraclides said that this may have been coincidence.

    Then Dionysius told him that he could also find an acrostic which said “Old monkeys do not fall into traps.  Well, they do in fact but it takes a long time.”  He had also hidden in the manuscript as an acrostic the phrase “Heraclides is not ashamed that he doesn’t understand writing.”

    Lives of the Philosophers – Diogenes Laertius

     

     

  • Semen tic differences

    In Histories, Herodotus claims that Ethiopians (as he had also claimed about Indians elsewhere) produce black semen.  Aristotle however criticizes this view:

    “…as if a person of black skin is black in every part.  But the teeth of a black person are white.”

     

     

  • Make books, not war

    When Athens was captured by barbarians, all the books were gathered from the city in one place so they could be burnt.   But one of the barbarians changed the minds of his fellows by saying that it would be best if the Athenians read all day as they liked, so they didn’t fight.  It would be easier in this way to hold the city.

    Zonaras

     

  • Censorship, Greek style

    With oligarchy, a few power took power and so all poets lived in fear.  It became impossible to openly make fun of anyone, they could take you to court.  Eupolis criticized Alcibiades in his work “Batpae” and decided to drown him in the sea.

    This created even more fear in poets as “Baptae” means “Bathers”.

     

  • Fifty shades of gay Spartans

    When you got married, the first night, your Spartan bride got a haircut like a man’s.  She was dressed by her attendant in male clothes and left in a dark bedroom on a couch.  You came to her carefully from the military quarters because nobody must hear you or catch you.  This goes on for some time and many Spartans even got their wives pregnant before they even saw them in daylight.

    Life of Lycourgos – Plutarch

     

  • In Praise of Baldness

    Some bald people entertain by showing how their heads can cope with everything.  They pour boiling liquids over themselves, charge headlong with a ram running from a distance, break pottery over their bald heads and anything else which will impress the audience.

    In Praise of Baldness – Synesius 

  • How long does a dramatist have to wait?

    Sophocles career started with a victory from his first play.  But Euripides started competing but didn’t win first prize until the 14 year of efforts.  Aeschylus had to wait even longer, he wrote plays for 15 years before finally winning!

  • Flies respect the Olympics

    All the time that the Games are on, the flies seems to keep a truce with the visitors and the locals in the area.    This happens even though there is much blood and meat hanging freely due to the many sacrifices to the Gods.  The flies voluntarily go to the other side of Alpheus river, they disappear from the Games.

    In many ways there are like the women, only better.  Women are not allowed at the games , the rules exclude them and the observers make sure that no women sneak in.  But the flies follow this ritual on their own free will for the entire period of the Games.

    When all the festivities are over, the return like people that have been exiled.  They pour back into the area in great numbers.

     

    On Animals – Aelian