Named and anonymous horses

In addition to the legend(s) of Bucephalus, a form of the Alexander Romance also names another of Alexander's horses: Πετάσιος (recensio γ, Ι.19 (line 31). LGPN knows of no human bearers of that name.

Herodotus tell us that the name of Darius' horse was given on a monument, but only the name of his groom, Obares, is reported to us.

Herodotus and Muhammad Ali Jinnah on the ingredients of (an) ethnic identity

Herodotus, famously, says (that the Athenians said...):

Πολλά τε γὰρ καὶ μεγάλα ἐστὶ τὰ διακωλύοντα ταῦτα μὴ ποιέειν μηδ’ ἢν ἐθέλωμεν· πρῶτα μὲν καὶ μέγιστα τῶν θεῶν τὰ ἀγάλματα καὶ τὰ οἰκήματα ἐμπεπρησμένα τε
καὶ συγκεχωσμένα, τοῖσι ἡμέας ἀναγκαίως ἔχει τιμωρέειν ἐς τὰ μέγιστα μᾶλλον ἤ περ ὁμολογέειν τῷ ταῦτα ἐργασαμένῳ· αὖτις δὲ τὸ Ἑλληνικόν, ἐὸν ὅμαιμόν τε καὶ ὁμόγλωσσον, καὶ θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι ἤθεά τε ὁμότροπα, τῶν προδότας γενέσθαι Ἀθηναίους οὐκ ἂν εὖ ἔχοι.

8.144.2

Muhammad Ali Jinnah's reply (17 September 1944) to Gandhi’s contention (15 September 1944); “I find no parallel in history for a body of converts and their descendants claiming to be a nation apart from the parent stock":

"We maintain and hold that Muslims and Hindus are two major nations by any definition or test of a nation. We are a nation of a hundred million people, and, what is more, we are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of value and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and ambitions – in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all canons of international law we are a nation."

Architecture gets another mention in this speech of December 1946.

A 'Greek' (?) from the margins

An inscriptions from Delos mention an individual with the ethnic Βακτριανός: ἀνάθεμα Ὑσπα{ι}σίνου Βακτριανοῦ (ID 1432, cf. IK Estremo Oriente 320 for the spelling of the name). This inscription is printed as IK Estremo Oriente 321 with Ὑσπαοσόνου.

Cf. Ὑσπασίνου Μιθροάξου Βακτριανοῦ in ID 442.109 (see too 443 and the supplements in 454 and 455).

For more, see Marie-Françoise Baslez (with the observations of A. Bresson), 'Présence et traditions iraniennes dans les cites de l'Égée', Revue des Études Anciennes 87.1 (1985): 137-155.

'trans(lation) of Persian' in LSJ

LSJ s.v. ἀγαθάγγελος 'bringing good tidings, trans. of Persian Οἰβάρας, Nic.Dam.p.53.14D [= fr.66.103]'.

Ὁ δὲ ἐκέλευσεπυθέσθαι, τίς τε εἴη ὁ ἀνὴρ, καὶ ποδαπὸς γένος. Πυθομένῳ δὲ Κύρῳ ἀποκρίνεται ἐκεῖνος, ὅτι Πέρσης εἴη, Οἰβάρας ὄνομα. Καὶ ὃς ἥσθη πάνυ· ὁ γὰρ Οἰβάρας δύναται Ἑλλάδι γλώσσῃ ἀγαθάγγελος.

Look-alike: the "Macedonian" kausia in Athens and the North-West Frontier

In 1993, Imran Khan published a fine coffee-table travel book Warrior Race: The Tribal Pathans about the Tribal Areas of North-West Pakistan. Several pictures of him therein bear a striking resemblance to Hellenistic terracottas of Macedonians (found at Athens).

Macedonian boy talks among the tribal Pathans (perhaps the Πάκτυες of Herodotus 7.67.2 ff.) near the Khyber Pass.

Former Pakistani cricketer turned politician in the Athens Museum.











More seriously, note the alleged kausia: either a Macedonian import to the Hindu Kush or a warming piece of mountain headgear adopted by Alexander's army from the locals.

Isolated speech-communities and the Greeks, Part 2: Boeotians near Behistun

Diodorus Siculus, 17.110.4-5:

ἐνταῦθα δὲ μείνας ἡμέρας ἑπτὰ καὶ προσαναλαβὼν τὴν δύναμιν τριταῖος εἰς τοὺς Κέλωνας προσαγορευομένους ἧκεν, ἐν ᾧ μέχρι νῦν διαμένει γένος Βοιώτιον, κατὰ μὲν τὴν Ξέρξου στρατείαν ἀνάστατον γεγονός, μεμνημένον δ’ ἔτι τῶν πατρίων νόμων· ὄντες γὰρ οὗτοι δίφωνοι τῇ μὲν ἑτέρᾳ διαλέκτῳ ἐξωμοιώθησαν τοῖς ἐγχωρίοις, τῇ δ’ ἑτέρᾳ πλείστας τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν λέξεων διετήρουν καὶ τῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων ἔνια διεφύλαττον. 
[5] τέλος δὲ προσμείνας ἡμέρας <μέν τινας> ἀνέζευξε καὶ παρεγκλίνας τὴν ὑποκειμένην ὁδὸν θέας ἕνεκεν ἦλθεν εἰς τὴν ὀνομαζομένην Βαγιστάνην, θεοπρεπεστάτην τε χώραν οὖσαν καὶ πλήρη καρπίμων δένδρων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἁπάντων τῶν πρὸς ἀπόλαυσιν ἀνηκόντων.

There [Sambana] he remained for seven days and, proceeding with the army, came on the third day to the Celones, as they are called. There dwells here down to our time a settlement of Boeotians who were moved at the time of Xerxes's campaign [cf. Hdt.6.119], but have not forgotten their ancestral customs [cf. 19.19.2]. They are bilingual and speak like the natives in the one language, while in the other they preserve most of the Greek vocabulary, and they maintain some Greek practices.
[5] After a stay of some days he resumed his march at length and diverging from the main road for the purpose of sight-seeing he entered the region called Bagistane, a magnificent country covered with fruit trees and rich in everything which makes for good living.


...

Next, Alexander went on to a land with enormous herds of horses [6; cf. Arrian 7.13.1]. Then in Ecbatana of Media, he staged a dramatic festival and constant drinking parties [7]. Hephaestion drank very much, fell ill, and died [8].

Isolated speech-communities and the Greeks, Part 1: Alexander and the Branchidae

Quintus Curtius Rufus, History of Alexander the Great, 7.3.28-35, on the way to the River Tanais:

perventum erat in parvulum oppidum. Branchidae eius incolae erant. Mileto quondam iussu Xerxis, cum e Graecia rediret, transierant, et in ea sede constiterant, quia templum, quod Didymeon appellatur, in gratiam Xerxis violaverant. [29] mores patrii nondum exoleverant; sed iam bilingues erant paulatim a domestico externo sermone degeneres. magno igitur gaudio regem excipiunt urbem seque dedentes. Ille Milesios, qui apud ipsum militarent, convocari iubet. [30] vetus odium Milesii gerebant in Branchidarum gentem. proditis ergo, sive iniuriae, sive originis meminisse mallent, liberum de Branchidis permittit arbitrium. [31] variantibus deinde sententiis se ipsum consideraturum quid optimum factu esset ostendit. Postero die occurrentibus Branchidis secum procedere iubet; cumque ad urbem ventum esset, ipse cum expedita manu portam intrat.  [32] phalanx moenia oppidi circumire iussa, et dato signo diripere urbem proditorum receptaculum, ipsosque ad unum caedere. [33] illi inermes passim trucidantur, nec aut commercio linguae, aut supplicum velamentis precibusque inhiberi crudelitas potest. tandem ut deicerent fundamenta murorum ab imo moliuntur, ne quod urbis vestigium exstaret. [34] nemora quoque et lucos sacros non caedunt modo, sed etiam exstirpant, ut vasta solitudo et sterilis humus excussis etiam radicibus linqueretur. [35] quae si in ipsos proditionis auctores excogitata essent, iusta ultio esse, non crudelitas videretur; nunc culpam maiorum posteri luere, qui ne viderant quidem Miletum, ideo et Xerxi non potuerant prodere.

"In pursuit of Bessus they had arrived at a small town inhabited by the Branchidae who, on the orders of Xerxes, when he was returning from Greece, had emigrated from Miletus and settled in this spot. This was necessary because, to please Xerxes, they had violated the temple called the Didymeon. [29] The culture of their forebears had not yet disappeared, though they were now bilingual and the foreign tongue was gradually eroding their own. So it was with great joy that they welcomed Alexander to they surrendered themselves and their city. Alexander called a meeting of the Milesians in his force, [30] for the Milesians bore a long-standing grudge against the Branchidae as a clan. Since they were the people betrayed by the Branchidae, Alexander let them decide freely on their case, asking if they preferred to remember their injury or their common origin. [31] But when there was a difference of opinion over this, he declared that he would himself consider the best course of action. When the Branchidae met him the next day, he told them to accompany him. On reaching the city, he himself entered through the gate with a unit of light-armed troops. [32] The phalanx had been ordered to surround the city walls and, when the signal was given, to sack the city which provided refuge for traitors, killing the inhabitants to a man. [33] The Branchidae, who were unarmed, were butchered throughout the city, and neither community of language nor the olive-branches and entreaties of the suppliants could curb the savagery. Finally the Macedonians dug down to the foundations of the walls in order to demolish them and leave not a single trace of the city. [34] Woods, too, and sacred groves, they not only cut down but actually uprooted, so that nothing would remain after the removal of the roots but empty wasteland and barren soil. [35] Had this punishment been devised against the people responsible for the treachery, it might have appeared to be fair revenge rather than brutality but, as it was, the guilt of their ancestors was being atoned for by descendants who had not even seen Miletus and accordingly could not possibly have betrayed it to Xerxes."
(translation: Yardley, Penguin)

Arrian on kings and falsehood

ἀλλ’ ἐμοὶ Πτολεμαῖός τε καὶ Ἀριστόβουλος πιστότεροι ἔδοξαν ἐς τὴν ἀφήγησιν, ὁ μὲν ὅτι συνεστράτευσε βασιλεῖ Ἀλεξάνδρῳ, Ἀριστόβουλος, Πτολεμαῖοςδὲ πρὸς τῷ ξυστρατεῦσαι ὅτι καὶ αὐτῷ βασιλεῖ ὄντι αἰσχρότερον ἤ τῳ ἄλλῳ ψεύσασθαι ἦν·

Instead, both Ptolemy and Aristoboulos seemed to me to more trustworthy for the narrative: the latter because he campaigned with king Alexander - Aristoboulos - and, the former, Ptolemy, because, in addition to having campaigned in that way, it was more shameful for him to lie than for any other, because he was a king himself.

Arrian, Alexandri Anabasis Prologue 2.

Self-defence against lions

The following relief from Persepolis in Iran teaches the correct technique for fighting a lion hand-to-paw. Note, in particular the lion's (unsuccessful) blocking technique.


For a reconstruction of the context, see below.