Alexander's persian pillow and Plutarch's cultured Commander

• Autores: Christopher Brunelle
• Localización: Classical journal, ISSN 0009-8353, Vol. 112, Nº 3, 2017, págs. 257-278
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • This paper investigates the famous story, preserved by Plutarch (Alex. 8), that Alexander kept a copy of the Iliad under his pillow. Given the physical properties of ancient bookrolls and pillows, the anecdote cannot be accepted at face value; instead, I argue, Alexander's “pillow” was a storeroom, reflecting a Persian idiom preserved by Chares of Mytilene and underscoring Alexander's adoption of Persian court ceremonial. Plutarch's omission of this Persian origin, however, allows the anecdote to play a notable part in the larger process by which he recasts the military general as a literary connoisseur who would be perfectly at home in the culture of the Second Sophistic.