Was Eumenes really a non Greek by birth?
Upvote:5
Eumenes was a Thracian, according to Plutarch's The Life of Eumenes:
Duris reports that Eumenes, the Cardian, was the son of a poor wagoner in the Thracian Chersonesus, yet liberally educated, both as a scholar and a soldier; and that while he was but young, Philip, passing through Cardia, diverted himself with a sight of the wrestling matches and other exercises of the youth of that place, among whom Eumenes performing with success, and showing signs of intelligence and bravery, Philip was so pleased with him as to take him into his service. But they seem to speak more probably who tell us that Philip advanced Eumenes for the friendship he bore to his father, whose guest he had sometime been. After the death of Philip, he continued in the service of Alexander, with the title of his principal secretary, but in as great favour as the most intimate of his familiars, being esteemed as wise and faithful as any person about him, so that he went with troops under his immediate command as general in the expedition against India, and succeeded to the post of Perdiccas, when Perdiccas was advanced to that of Hephaestion, then newly deceased. And therefore, after the death of Alexander, when Neoptolemus, who had been captain of his life-guard, said that he had followed Alexander with shield and spear, but Eumenes only with pen and paper, the Macedonians laughed at him, as knowing very well that, besides other marks of favour, the king had done him the honour to make him a kind of kinsman to himself by marriage. For Alexander's first mistress in Asia, by whom he had his son Hercules, was Barsine the daughter of Artabazus; and in the distribution of the Persian ladies amongst his captains, Alexander gave Apame, one of his sisters, to Ptolemy, and another, also called Barsine, to Eumenes.
The Thracians are a distinct tribe from the Scythians, so that part of Hitoshi Iwaaki's retelling is historically inaccurate. That said, both tribes were consider barbarians (~ non Greeks) in classical Greece, so that part is accurate.
More post
- 📝 How to travel from Koblenz (Germany) to Paris (France) in May 1805?
- 📝 Why did the clocks go back in Shanghai on December 31, 1927?
- 📝 How is it determined what Culture is Period/Dynasty/Civilization part of?
- 📝 Was there a King of England, or an heir to the throne, in 1831 who idolized Michael Faraday?
- 📝 How is it that King Philips War devastated the colonists so much, but the Colonists were not driven out?
- 📝 Where and how were the catapults/trebuchets operators trained?
- 📝 Why did the USSR support the PRC entry into the UN?
- 📝 Historically accurate WW2 simulation
- 📝 Were any of the historical figures of the American Civil War close at West Point?
- 📝 What are the most comprehensive historical references for ancient India?
- 📝 What types of jobs did upper class Romans do?
- 📝 Why did Ong Khan offer Temujin (young Gengis Khan) a position?
- 📝 Identify WW2 ammo
- 📝 Where can I find all Hitler speeches in original German?
- 📝 What is the average price, in silver, for a loaf of bread through history?
- 📝 Did relic sellers have a specific name or term for their profession?
- 📝 What was the situation of h*m*sexuals in the early Soviet Union?
- 📝 Buying/Renting/Leasing houses during history?
- 📝 What was the typical peasant's diet like in Europe during the High Middle Ages?
- 📝 How efficiently did the Red Army conduct itself during the invasion of Poland in 1939?
- 📝 Are there ancient historical sources which have been permanently lost?
- 📝 Does the expansion of the U.S federal government after 1865 support the argument that U.S civil war itself was about states' rights?
- 📝 Were surname upgrades a well known practice in the Spanish Empire?
- 📝 Is there any science behind this graph that suggests we'd be exploring new galaxies if not for the dark ages?
- 📝 Which early Imperial Roman writer said this about grains?
- 📝 What was the fate of the planters and their plantations following the American Civil War?
- 📝 What happened in Kazakhstan that its population dropped from 16m to 14m between 1992 - 2001?
- 📝 Tomb for Charles V (of france) and Jeanne de Bourbon in Saint Denis?
- 📝 Was the Athenian generals' trial after Arginusae a political one?
- 📝 For U.S. history 1800-1830, what was GDP by sector and industry?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Was Eumenes really a non Greek by birth?
- 📝 Was race really unimportant in the 1660's?
- 📝 Was Switzerland really impossible to invade during WW2?
- 📝 Was slavery really on the way out in the antebellum USA?
- 📝 Was Alexander the Great Greek or Macedonian?
- 📝 Was there really a navy officer named Picard at the Battle of Trafalgar?
- 📝 Did Truman really believe that Hiroshima was a military base?
- 📝 What was the first successful non violent independence movement?
- 📝 Why was the Greek alphabet not adopted by other languages, given the Greek influence?
- 📝 Was Islam really responsible for the Italian Renaissance?
- 📝 Is Caesar's birth year more certain now than it was when disputed by Mommsen?
- 📝 Constantine the Great created the Chi-Rho from the Greek word for "Christ". Why choose Greek over Latin, even though he was Roman?
- 📝 When was the first time Rome was mentioned in outside records (and specifically, in Greek ones)?
- 📝 Was FDR right that a garden hose was really $15 in 1940 (c.a. $300 today)?
- 📝 Was the Battle of Tours really the turning point for the Umayyad expansion into Europe?
- 📝 What was the northernmost region/city in the Roman Empire that spoke Greek as the native language?
- 📝 Was Classic Mayan civilization really so gruesome?
- 📝 Was PepsiCo really sixth largest military force?
- 📝 Why was Africa never really colonized?
- 📝 Was lighter or darker skin pigment valued higher in ancient Greek civilization?
- 📝 Who was the oldest woman that we know of to give birth in the Medieval Europe?
- 📝 Was Frederick II of Hohenstaufen really a medieval Dr. Mengele?
- 📝 What was the status of specialized workers during Greek times?
- 📝 Was 18th century Prussia really so militarily obsessed?
- 📝 Was Japan really part of the Axis?
- 📝 Was Sofia really demolished by Bulgarians after 1878 and why?
- 📝 Was the house of representatives really as rowdy a place as it is portrayed in the 2012 film Lincoln?
- 📝 Was classical Alexandria really this brutal and class-segregated?
- 📝 Was Operation Kugelblitz really a success for the partisans?
- 📝 When was it first noticed that airplane passengers really seemed to like tomato juice?