Paul Kriwaczek, In search of Zarathrustra, 2002 [ ]
circle in the sand
p.160
Antiochus Epiphanes (Greek) and his army had paused in Eluesis, on the outskirts of Alexandria, when the Roman legate Gaius Popillus Laenas demanded to see him.
The two men squared up to each other in front of Antiochus's tent. Gaius Popillus (Roman) ordered Antiochus (Greek) to evacuate Egypt. Antiochus (Greek) refused. The Roman threatened. The Greek prevaricated. In the end, the legate (Gaius Popillus Laenas, Roman) lost patience and presented the king (Antiochus Epiphanes, Greek) with an ultimatum: Either you withdraw here and now, or Rome itself will declare war on you and your kingdom. Antiochus asked for time to consider. Whereupon the Roman rudely walked around the Greek king, drawing a line in the sand with his baton of office. Then he drew his sword. You will not leave this circle, he told the abashed Antiochus (Greek), until you have given me your answer.
Antiochus knew that he couldn't prevail against the power of Rome and had to agree to withdraw. It was during his disappointed journey back home to his Syrian capital that he apparently decided to reassert his lost dignity by the political equivalent of kicking the cat. At least he could show those damned Jews who was master. He sent his army off to attack Jerusalem. The general in command knew enough about Judaism to wait until the Sabbath, when he reckoned, rightly, that the orthodox wouldn't fight. The city was sacked, the walls broken, the building burned and much of the population slaughtered or taken into slavery.
(In search of Zarathrustra : the first prophet and ideas that changed the world, Paul Kriwaczek. -- 1st American ed., © 2002, p.160)
(In search of Zarathrustra : the first prophet and ideas that changed the world, written by Paul Kriwaczek. -- 1st American ed., Originally published: London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002.; 1. Zoroaster--influence.; 2. Zoroastrianism-influence.; © 2002; )
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Keith Houston, The book: a cover-to-cover exploration of the most powerful object of our time, 2016
p.19, pp.21─24
p.19
The invention of parchment [[ especially prepared animal skin, highly processed to be written on ]] is traditionally ascribed to King Eumenes II of Pergamon, ruler from 197 to 159 BCE of a Greek city-state located in what is now northwestern Turkey. Pergamon comprised only the city itself and a few local towns when Eumenes was crowned as king, but at his death 38 years later it had been transformed into a political, martial, and cultural powerhouse.1 Chief among his achievements was the founding of a great library to rival that of Alexandria, and Eumenes's institution boasted some 200,000 volumes at its peak.2 The Pergamenes' book-collecting mania was so notorious that citizens of the nearby town of Scepsis, having inherited Aristotle's library from one of the late philosopher's students, took the extraordinary step of burying its literary treasure to stop it falling into the hands of their acquisitive neighbors.3 Nor did Eumenes stop at books: in a bid to assemble a staff worthy of his new library he approached Aristophanes, the chief librarian at Alexandria, to offer him a job. The Egyptian king Ptolemy clapped the librarian in irons to ensure his continued loyalty.4
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pp.21─24
p.21
Pergamon's invention might never have left the land of its birth were it not for the war that convulsed Egypt at the midpoint of Eumenes's reign. In 173 BCE, Rome was growing apprehensive about a “cloud in the east”──the predatory Greek king Antiochus IV, head of the Seleucid dynasty, uncle of Egypt's Ptolemy VI Philometor, and ruler of a swath of the ancient world that scretched from the Aegean sea in the west to the Gulf of Oman in the east.12 Worried that Antiochus [IV] planned to annex his newphew's kingdom, Rome sent a delegation to Philometor at Alexandria under cover ofpaying tribute to the young king. The envoys' real mission was to monitor the increasingly febrile atmosphere in the region.13
It was not long before the situation deteriorated. Philometor, who had ruled with his mother until her death in 176 BCE (his name meant “he who loves his mother”), had fallen under the influence of ambitious advisers and in 170 BCE, still only a teenager, he was persuaded to invade a disputed part of the Seleucid empire known as Coele-Syria.14
p.22
The invasion was a disaster.
Forewarned, Antiochus [IV] defeated the invading Egyptian army and promptly counter attacked. Within a year he had occupied Egypt and coerced Ptolemy into declaring Antiochus [IV] as his “protector”, reducing the pharoah to little more than a puppet king.15 Only Alexandria eluded Antiochus's grasp: besieged and running out of food, its citizens nevertheless proclaimed Philometor's younger brother ── Ptolemy VIII Euergetes,* or “benefactor” ── to be Egypt's rightful ruler.16 With control of Egypt's monarch snatched away, the frustrated Antiochus [IV] released Philometor and withdrew, calculating that an Egypt divided between two feuding kings would be easier to subdue.17
The Ptolemies did not oblige. Philometor and Euergetes reconciled to face their uncle together. Exasperated, in 168 BCE Antiochus [IV] invaded a second time, sweeping aside the remnants of Egyptian opposition as he marched directly to Alexandria. He was drawn up short four miles from the city by a group of men led by a Roman senator: this was Gaius Popilius Laenas, a notoriously short-tempered troubleshooter dispatched by the Senate in response to the Ptolemies' pleas for help.18 As the invading general approached the Roman deputation with his arm outstretched in greeting, Popilius pressed into Antiochus's hand a tablet bearing the Senate's ultimatum: leave Egypt or suffer the consequences. Before the stunned Antiochus could reply, Popilius drew a circle in the sand around him with his staff and, essentially, dare the conqueror to cross the line. “Before you step out of that circle”, Popilius said, “give me a reply to lay before the senate.”19
Mulling Popilius's demand, and aware of the might of the state on whose behalf it has been issued, Antiochus [IV] eventually offered the meek reply, “I will do what the senate thinks right.” Popilius accepted his hand in friendship.
p.23
THe Seleucid king withdrew his forces from Egypt, the Ptolemies were restored to power, and the crisis was averted.20
The name of this conflict, the so-called 6th Syrian war, hardly resounds through history. The Ptolemies and Seleucids had been quarreling over Coele-Syria for a hundred years, and after five earlier conflicts fought by the same dynasties over the same parcel of land, a 6th must have paled into irrelevance.21 If Antiochus's invasion is mentioned at all outside of academic circles, it is usually because of Popilius's brazen treatment of the invader: according to the author William Safire, the circle that Popilius drew in the desert outside Alexandria has a decent claim to being the origin of the phrase “a line in the sand”. (Its main competitor is the story of William B. Travis, lieutenant colonel at the Alamo, who drew a line in the sand with his sabre and said to his men, “Those prepared to die for freedom's cause, come across to me.”)22
For ancient scribes and scholars, however, the 6th Syrian war was a watershed. Egypt's economy was wrecked, with papyrus exports driven down and eventually halted altogether, and the literate societies of the ancient world suffered accordingly.23 Unexpectedly, though, Pergamon's Eumenes II, he of the renowed library, seemed to have the papyrus shortage solved almost before it arose.
In 168 and 167 BCE, as the war in Egypt came to a close, Eumenes's brother Attalus was in Rome on diplomatic business. Among the Pergamene delegation was Crates of Mallus, chief scholar at Pergamon's library, who craved the same approval that the Romans accorded to Aristarchus, his rival at the Library of Alexandria.24 (Aristarchus had succeeded Aristophanes, the jailbird librarian.) Unfortunately, Crates's visit did not begin well: he fell into an open sewer on the city's Palatine hill and broke his leg in the process. The librarian made the most of his forced convalescence by delivering lecturess to rapt Roman audiences, sparking a renewed interest in grammar and literary criticism as he did so. Though the content of his talks has been lost, the medium on which they were written has not: Crates's books were made of parchment, in the Pergamene fashion, and a Rome starved of papyrus was eager to learn more about this promising replacement. Ever ready to curry favor with his hosts, Crates ordered a shipment to be brought to Rome, and so parchment began its relentless spread across the ancient world.25
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p.24
An untanned skin is rawhide, not leather;
The innovation that distinguished parchment from leather was not chemical, but mechanical.28
( Keith Houston, The book: a cover-to-cover exploration of the most powerful object of our time, Keith Houston (shadycharacter.co.uk), 2016, 002.09 Houston, )
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In 168 BC, a Roman Consul named Gaius Popillius Laenas drew a circular line in the sand around King Antiochus IV of the Seleucid Empire, then said, "Before you cross this circle I want you to give me a reply for the Roman Senate" – implying that Rome would declare war if the King stepped out of the circle without committing to leave Egypt immediately. Weighing his options, Antiochus wisely decided to withdraw. Only then did Popillius agree to shake hands with him.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_in_the_sand_%28phrase%29
)
In 168 BC Antiochus led a second attack on Egypt and also sent a fleet to capture Cyprus. Before reaching Alexandria, his path was blocked by a single, old Roman ambassador named Gaius Popillius Laenas, who delivered a message from the Roman Senate directing Antiochus to withdraw his armies from Egypt and Cyprus, or consider themselves in a state of war with the Roman Republic. Antiochus said he would discuss it with his council, whereupon the Roman envoy drew a line in the sand around him and said, "Before you cross this circle I want you to give me a reply for the Roman Senate" – implying that Rome would declare war if the King stepped out of the circle without committing to leave Egypt immediately.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiochus_IV
)
While Antiochus was busy in Egypt, a rumor spread that he had been killed. The deposed High Priest Jason gathered a force of 1,000 soldiers and made a surprise attack on the city of Jerusalem. The High Priest appointed by Antiochus, Menelaus, was forced to flee Jerusalem during a riot. On the King's return from Egypt in 167 BC enraged by his defeat, he attacked Jerusalem and restored Menelaus, then executed many Jews.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiochus_IV
)
Maccabean Revolt
The First and Second Book of Maccabees painted the Maccabean Revolt as a national resistance to a foreign political and cultural oppression.
According to Joseph P. Schultz:
Modern scholarship on the other hand considers the Maccabean revolt less as an uprising against foreign oppression than as a civil war between the orthodox and reformist parties in the Jewish camp.
It seems that the traditionalists, with Hebrew/Aramaic names like Onias, contested with the Hellenizers with Greek names like Jason and Menelaus over who would be the High Priest.[12] Other authors point to possible socio/economic motives in addition to the religious motives behind the civil war.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiochus_IV
)
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πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ,ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ,ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα
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──From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations
(Ackoff's best : his classic writings on management, Russell L. Ackoff., © 1999, hardcover, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., p.139)
“This [copy & paste reference note] is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is [archive] with the understanding that the [researcher, investigator] is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.”
──From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations
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