Richard Stoneman
Biographic Data
| ID | 1002480 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Richard Stoneman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Richard |
| FAMILY NAME | Stoneman |
| SIGNATURE | STONEMAN R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Exeter |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 41 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 90 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 5 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1976 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Alexander and India
The chapter considers the motivation for Alexander the Great’s expedition to India, which took him beyond the limits of the Persian Empire he had set out to conquer. Ambition ( pothos ) is seen as more probable than either strategic necessity or scientific curiosity. The course of the campaign from November 326 to July 325 BC is outlined, and the reasons for the savagery of the fighting during the journey down the Indus are considered. The chapte…
The Cambridge Companion to Alexander the Great
Has any ancient figure captivated the imagination of people over the centuries so much as Alexander the Great? In less than a decade he created an empire stretching across much of the Near East as far as India, which led to Greek culture becoming dominant in much of this region for a millennium. Here, an international team of experts clearly explains the life and career of one of the most significant figures in world history. They introduce key t…
A History of Alexander the Great in World Culture
Alexander III of Macedon (356-323 BC) has for over 2000 years been one of the best recognized names from antiquity. He set about creating his own legend in his lifetime, and subsequent writers and political actors developed it. He acquired the surname 'Great' by the Roman period, and the Alexander Romance transmitted his legendary biography to every language of medieval Europe and the Middle East. As well as an adventurer who sought the secret of…
Alexander in the Age of Shakespeare: The Monarchicke Tragedies of Sir William Alexander
Sir William Alexander’s tragedies on classical themes include two relating to Alexander the Great: one is about the latter’s defeat of Darius III and the other follows the fortunes of the successors after Alexander’s death. (It begins with a long speech by Alexander’s ghost). This chapter aims to combat the prevailing critical contempt for these plays by demonstrating the high level of scholarship that went into their composition and the thematic…
Megasthenes' Indica: A New Translation of the Fragments with Commentary
"This book provides a new translation of all the surviving portions of the description of India written by Megasthenes in about 310 BCE, the fullest account of Indian geography, history and customs available to the classical world. Megasthenes' book, which became a classic in antiquity, now survives only in fragments preserved in other Greek and Latin authors. Stoneman's work offers a reliable and accessible version of all the writings that can p…
Alexander the Great in the Early Christian Tradition. Classical Reception and Patristic Literature, by Christian Thrue Djurslev
Geography and Ancient History
This chapter considers accounts of the geography and ancient history of India. For example, Arrian explicitly based his account of the geography and hydrography of India on Eratosthenes, who must have used Megasthenes, while Strabo incorporated his references to Megasthenes into the general discussion of these matters in which he takes issue with all his predecessors, referring also from time to time to Daimachus and Patrocles. The closest approa…
Greeks and the Art of India
This chapter considers the influence of Greek techniques on Indian art. When European scholarship moved beyond seeing Indian sculptures as “monsters” and began to discern the historical trajectory of Indian art, many were convinced that Greek art was the mainspring that got Indian sculpture going. The chronological coincidence of Alexander's arrival in the north-west appeared to explain the sudden emergence of sculpture in the Maurya lands. James…
Heracles and Dionysus
This chapter discusses how Alexander came to India with a determination to stamp on the alien land a character that he and his fellow Macedonians could recognize. In the next generation, the ethnographic approach of Megasthenes to his subject was determined in many ways by Alexander's vision of India. One notable example is his treatment of the most prominent “gods of India,” Heracles and Dionysus. Why was Alexander expecting to find these two go…
Apollonius of Tyana and Hellenistic Taxila
This chapter focuses on the sage Apollonius, from the city of Tyana in south-eastern Asia Minor, who gained fame for his wisdom and his extensive travels in the first century CE. In the following century Philostratus wrote a fictionalized biography of the sage, but it is nearly impossible to determine where fact ends and fiction begins. According to this biography, Apollonius travelled to the Far East and had discussions with the Brahmans of Taxi…
Alexander in India
This chapter considers Alexander's expedition to India. The most common explanation for his motives is his pothos , his longing to go beyond, to see what was over the next hill—for in this case, he had been led by Aristotle to suppose that once he crossed the Hindu Kush, the River of Ocean would be in sight and he could go on quickly to conquer the entire world. The motivation is explicitly romantic, and is tied up with the idea of Alexander as a…
The Trojan Elephant: Two Hundred Years of Co-existence from the Death of A lexander to the Death of Menander, 323–135 BCE
This chapter details events that occurred from 323 to 135 BCE. It shows that between the arrival of the Greeks and their departure, India became a literate culture. This does not mean that literacy was very widespread in society: it does not have to penetrate to every level to be an important technological innovation. Some Indians discovered that this new technology of the invaders was useful, and employed it for their own purposes. Not least, it…
The Greek Experience of India: From Alexander to the Indo-Greeks
When the Greeks and Macedonians in Alexander's army reached India in 326 BCE, they entered a new and strange world. They knew a few legends and travelers' tales, but their categories of thought were inadequate to encompass what they witnessed. The plants were unrecognizable, their properties unknown. The customs of the people were various and puzzling. While Alexander's conquest was brief, ending with his death in 323 BCE, the Greeks would settle…
The Alexander Romance: History and Literature
Tales of Utopia: Alexander, Cynics and Christian Ascetics
Alexander Romance
The Alexander Romance is a fictionalized life of Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great, 356–323 bce ), originating in the 3rd century BC, though the earliest evidence for its circulation in textual form is from the 3rd century ce . Originally written in Greek (in which there are five recensions), it was translated into Latin in the 4th century ce , and from the 5th century, into every language of Europe and the Middle East. It narrates Al…
The Ancient Oracles: Making the Gods Speak
For more than a thousand years, Greeks from all walks of life consulted oracles for guidance received directly from the gods. This colorful and wide-ranging survey encompasses the entire history of Greek oracles and focuses fresh attention on philosophical, psychological, and anthropological aspects of oracular consultation. It also examines how Greek oracles' practices were distinctive compared to those of their neighbors, especially in Egypt, B…
The justice of the Indians
This chapter starts with the report by Ctesias (early fourth century BCE) that the Indians are a very just people. This prompts various questions, for instance on the sources of his information and their quality, and on whether what he meant by 'just' corresponded to any Indian reality or terminology. This leads into an investigation of Greek writing on India from Homer to the Alexander Romance so as to ascertain what Greeks imagined to be the co…
Xerxes: A Persian life
"In this lively and comprehensive new biography, Richard Stoneman shows how Xerxes, despite sympathetic treatment by the contemporary Greek writers Aeschylus and Herodotus, had his reputation destroyed by later Greek writers and by the propaganda of Alexander the Great. Stoneman draws on the latest research in Achaemenid studies and archaeology to present the ruler from the Persian perspective."--Publisher's website.
Invasion (II): The Wooden Walls
This chapter focuses on Xerxes's invasion of Greece, with Athens as his main target. Xerxes remained confident despite the battering of his fleet and his considerable losses at Thermopylae. Training his sights on the hated city of Athens, Xerxes led his army in sweeping through Phocis and destroyed and plundered the sanctuary of Apollo at Abae. The destruction of sanctuaries was one of the most shocking memories that the Greeks held of the Persia…
Pindar
The 6th/5th century bce Greek melic (or songwriting) poet Pindar was the most celebrated lyricist of antiquity. His famous victory odes offer a paean to the heroic athlete, and are an attempt to encapsulate, through choral songs of acclamation, the glory of the sportsman's moment of triumph at a variety of Panhellenic festivals including the Olympic Games. His other poems, collected in thirteen books, are largely lost or fragmentary - except for …
Latin Love Poetry: Collective histories of everyday life
I hate and I love.' The Roman poet Catullus expressed the disorienting experience of being in love in a stark contradiction that has resonated across the centuries. While his description might seem to modern readers natural and spontaneous, it is actually a response planned with great care and artistry. It is that artistry, and the way in which Roman love poetry works, that this book explores. Focusing on Catullus and on the later genre of elegy …
Greek Fiction
Alexander Romance in Persia and the East
Alexander the Great of Macedon was no stranger to controversy in his own time. Conqueror of the Greek states, of Egypt and of the Persian Empire as well as many of the principalities of the Indus Valley, he nevertheless became revered as well as vilified. Was he a simply a destroyer of the ancient civilizations and religions of these regions, or was he a hero of the Persian dynasties and of Islam? The conflicting views that were taken of him in t…
In the Land of a Thousand Gods: The Indian World of the Ancient
An exploration of how the Greeks reacted to and interacted with India from the third to first centuries BCE0When the Greeks and Macedonians in Alexander's army reached India in 326 BCE, they entered a new and strange world. They knew a few legends and travelers' tales, but their categories of thought were inadequate to encompass what they witnessed. The plants were unrecognizable, their properties unknown. The customs of the people were various a…
Greek Fiction
The Novel in the Ancient World
This is the second publication in Brill's handbook series The Classical Tradition. The subject of this volume is that group of works of extended prose narrative fiction which bears many similarities to the modern novel and which appeared in the later classical periods in Greece and Rome. The ancient novel has enjoyed renewed popularity in recent years not only among students of literature, but also among those looking for new sources on the popul…
Land of the Lost Gods: The Search for Classical Greece
Who are the Brahmans? Indian lore and cynic Doctrine in Palladius' De Bragmanibus and its models
I have devoted a separate study to the question of how far the account in the Alexander Romance of Alexander's meeting with the Naked Philosophers, later known as Brahmans, rests on genuine information about India. My conclusion was that the author of the Romance knew the Alexander historians but did not add any genuine knowledge; and that he incorporated a separate text of Cynic origin, the series of ten questions and answers
The ‘Theban Eagle’
The eagle has always been recognized as one of Pindar's most potent and characteristic images. Horace borrowed it to construct the first four stanzas of his Pindaric imitation in Carm . 4.4, and he presents both himself and Pindar as soaring birds: see Carm . 4.2.25 and 2.20, where the swan outflies Daedalus and Icarus in a way that the imitators of Pindar cannot hope to do. It is standard doctrine that Pindar often describes himself as an eagle,…
The ‘Theban Eagle’
The eagle has always been recognized as one of Pindar's most potent and characteristic images. Horace borrowed it to construct the first four stanzas of his Pindaric imitation in Carm . 4.4, and he presents both himself and Pindar as soaring birds: see Carm . 4.2.25 and 2.20, where the swan outflies Daedalus and Icarus in a way that the imitators of Pindar cannot hope to do. It is standard doctrine that Pindar often describes himself as an eagle,…
The Niceties of Praise: "Notes on Pindar's "Nemeans
The Ideal Courtier: Pindar and Hieron in Pythian 2
There is some audacity in adding to the formidable list of articles on Pythian 2, which raise the questions of the structure or thematic coherence of the ode, of its specific occasion and of its relation to Pindar's biography. In this paper my aim is the circumscribed one of showing how a correct analysis of the final section of the poem (lines 72–end) can lead us to a better understanding of the nature of Pindar's poetry, and of the way in which…
Daphne into Laurel
Land of the Lost Gods: The Search for Classical Greece
Palmyra and Its Empire: Zenobia's Revolt against Rome
The Greek Alexander Romance
Mystery surrounds the parentage of Alexander, the prince born to Queen Olympias. Is his father Philip, King of Macedonia, or Nectanebo, the mysterious sorcerer who seduced the queen by trickery? One thing is certain: the boy is destined to conquer the known world. He grows up to fulfil this prophecy, building a mighty empire that spans from Greece and Italy to Africa and Asia. Begun soon after the real Alexander's death and expanded in the centur…
Alexander's Empire and the Roman Empire
Who are the Brahmans? Indian lore and cynic Doctrine in Palladius' De Bragmanibus and its models
I have devoted a separate study to the question of how far the account in the Alexander Romance of Alexander's meeting with the Naked Philosophers, later known as Brahmans, rests on genuine information about India. My conclusion was that the author of the Romance knew the Alexander historians but did not add any genuine knowledge; and that he incorporated a separate text of Cynic origin, the series of ten questions and answers
The Novel in the Ancient World
This is the second publication in Brill's handbook series The Classical Tradition. The subject of this volume is that group of works of extended prose narrative fiction which bears many similarities to the modern novel and which appeared in the later classical periods in Greece and Rome. The ancient novel has enjoyed renewed popularity in recent years not only among students of literature, but also among those looking for new sources on the popul…
Palmyra and Its Empire: Zenobia's Revolt against Rome
In the twilight of the third century C.E., the unity of the Western world was threatened by financial crisis, invasion, and plague. The Syrian city Palmyra had long protected Rome against Persian invasion, but under its queen Zenobia, Palmyra broke away from Roman hegemony. The Roman Empire had never been closer to disintegration, nor had it suffered so much before at the hands of a woman. This volume is the first comprehensive historical treatme…
Pindar: The Odes and Selected Fragments
Chapter Twelve: The legacy of Alexander in Ancient Philosophy
In literature, Alexander became a subject not only of historians but of contemporary writers of epic and, as the hero of the Alexander Romance , of the most influential work of historical fiction ever composed. An impact as wide-ranging as this prompted speculation, and accordingly Alexander became a frequent and prominent topos in philosophic writing of all kinds, from the simplest collections of exempla to the subtlest political discussions. Th…
Alexander the Great in the Arabic Tradition
The Metamorphoses of the Alexander Romance
Ancient Oracles: Making the Gods Speak
Alexander Romance in Persia and the East
Alexander the Great of Macedon was no stranger to controversy in his own time. Conqueror of the Greek states, of Egypt and of the Persian Empire as well as many of the principalities of the Indus Valley, he nevertheless became revered as well as vilified. Was he a simply a destroyer of the ancient civilizations and religions of these regions, or was he a hero of the Persian dynasties and of Islam? The conflicting views that were taken of him in t…
In the Land of a Thousand Gods: The Indian World of the Ancient
An exploration of how the Greeks reacted to and interacted with India from the third to first centuries BCE0When the Greeks and Macedonians in Alexander's army reached India in 326 BCE, they entered a new and strange world. They knew a few legends and travelers' tales, but their categories of thought were inadequate to encompass what they witnessed. The plants were unrecognizable, their properties unknown. The customs of the people were various a…
Greek Fiction
Pindar
The 6th/5th century bce Greek melic (or songwriting) poet Pindar was the most celebrated lyricist of antiquity. His famous victory odes offer a paean to the heroic athlete, and are an attempt to encapsulate, through choral songs of acclamation, the glory of the sportsman's moment of triumph at a variety of Panhellenic festivals including the Olympic Games. His other poems, collected in thirteen books, are largely lost or fragmentary - except for …
Latin Love Poetry: Collective histories of everyday life
I hate and I love.' The Roman poet Catullus expressed the disorienting experience of being in love in a stark contradiction that has resonated across the centuries. While his description might seem to modern readers natural and spontaneous, it is actually a response planned with great care and artistry. It is that artistry, and the way in which Roman love poetry works, that this book explores. Focusing on Catullus and on the later genre of elegy …
Xerxes: A Persian life
"In this lively and comprehensive new biography, Richard Stoneman shows how Xerxes, despite sympathetic treatment by the contemporary Greek writers Aeschylus and Herodotus, had his reputation destroyed by later Greek writers and by the propaganda of Alexander the Great. Stoneman draws on the latest research in Achaemenid studies and archaeology to present the ruler from the Persian perspective."--Publisher's website.
Invasion (II): The Wooden Walls
This chapter focuses on Xerxes's invasion of Greece, with Athens as his main target. Xerxes remained confident despite the battering of his fleet and his considerable losses at Thermopylae. Training his sights on the hated city of Athens, Xerxes led his army in sweeping through Phocis and destroyed and plundered the sanctuary of Apollo at Abae. The destruction of sanctuaries was one of the most shocking memories that the Greeks held of the Persia…
The justice of the Indians
This chapter starts with the report by Ctesias (early fourth century BCE) that the Indians are a very just people. This prompts various questions, for instance on the sources of his information and their quality, and on whether what he meant by 'just' corresponded to any Indian reality or terminology. This leads into an investigation of Greek writing on India from Homer to the Alexander Romance so as to ascertain what Greeks imagined to be the co…
The Ancient Oracles: Making the Gods Speak
For more than a thousand years, Greeks from all walks of life consulted oracles for guidance received directly from the gods. This colorful and wide-ranging survey encompasses the entire history of Greek oracles and focuses fresh attention on philosophical, psychological, and anthropological aspects of oracular consultation. It also examines how Greek oracles' practices were distinctive compared to those of their neighbors, especially in Egypt, B…
History (30 works) · Art (27 works) · Classical Antiquity Studies (27 works) · Ancient history (18 works) · Classics (17 works) · Literature (17 works) · Philosophy (17 works) · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies (13 works) · Byzantine Studies and History (11 works) · Law (9 works)