Letting off steam

This has been one heck of a day. I thought I would get out but instead I stayed home to watch some horse races, the final moments of the Seattle SeaHawks/NewOrleans game, and then turned off the t.v. to read some stuff on Pothos.org about Alexander the Great.  I read two interesting posts: one on Halicarnassus, and the other on a book review about Alexander, Man of Ancient Times. I had visited the page yesterday and had read some remarks about the book review I had posted on a book called The Golden Mean, and then read a blurb about Ruth Aki's book which she has been writing for the past ten years.  She is having it published in two editions.  It is a story of the successors to Alexander.

I did not post it anywhere but on my blogspot so I could have ready access to it outside of Pothos.org.

Since I have not read the book in any part except one excerpt which she had shared in her early years of writing it I have no idea what it will be like.

But because I continue to have my own insights into Alexander, I had stopped going to Pothos.org for some time...at one time I had interesting conversations with a guy name of Kenny.  He no longer posts there.  He had been a chef as a I recall.

But the posts that I read were quite interesting to me as I had had a regression to Hallicarnassus so that it was interesting to me to learn that Ptolemy had been a bodyguard and then got killed there. This is not the same Ptolemy who is responsible for Arrian's writings but I was reminded of how these scholars and academics love to quote from the writings of the extant sources.

I am going to pause here to take a break to eat some homemade soup I made for supper.  I made easy potato soup with ham and cheese.  It was good.


That naturally cost me my train of thought and then I began to watch the ladies figure skating.  Some young 15 year old was very impressive.  Beautiful performance.

I was talking about two stories I had read at Pothos, one of which was a book review about Alexander by a David Madsen from Seattle Washington.  An Ancient Life is the title of the book which means I will have to try to find it to read.  What caught my attention was the remarks about a mega soul.  I am sure that he instilled that idea into Alexander's head but I do not know where these men found that.  And the book is criticized for bad footnotes and references.

Oh well, the discussion on two accounts of the battle of Hallicarnassus was a bit tedious as they were more wrapped up in the manner in which the towers  had been transported, by land or sea.  It was interesting to me though to learn about Philotas's role in this battle as I am very interested in him and developing his story in my own book.  There is definitely tension between him and Alexander amounting to jealousy on Philotas's part.

Philotas is an interesting character if all the stories about him are true.  The torture he underwent and the manner in which he met his death is amazing to me.  Louis XIV and Alexander pull couple of the same stunts which I am aware of and it intrigues me to know that it is with Philotas that Alexander pulls his act and with Louis it was with Ninon Enclos as is noted by historians.  Trouble is when you rely solely upon historians, you can never be sure how accurate it is.  That is the argument that is occurring on the battle of Hallicarnassus, whose story is more correct, Arrian or Diodorus?  It would depend upon who their sources were to know how much credence to give to either but the discussion was quite extensive at Pothos.

I often wondered about all that i had experienced when going back in time in Alexnder...I was both in and out of his person many times.  It is like watching a movie or being in the movie when it happens. It is very fascinating, the very act of experiencing these events from the past in which you are in the past.  That means the past is never past at all, but buried somewhere within so that one can revisit.  It is fascinating to me just the art of being able to do it.  I still can recall it and it is a wonder to me, being like some time capsule...computers tend to imitate that a bit in the file system...one presses a button and one can read a post that one wrote months ago and bring it back into life.  Google and blogs know all about that.