Semantic range of PROSKUNEW

Mary L B Pendergraft pender at wfu.edu
Thu Jun 25 08:41:24 EDT 1998



One piece of evidence for evaluating the sense of PROSKUNEW is the
turning-point in biographies of Alexander the Great that historians call by
shorthand the proskynesis crisis.  After Alexander conquered Darius he
began to adopt more and more Persian customs for himself, and the last
straw for many of his Greek and Macedonian generals was his demand that
they bow before him, as the Persian king's subjects had bowed before him.
This was clearly repugnant to their sense of what was appropriate for free
people, and suggests that they did not consider it an activity that took
place between equals.

Mary


Mary Pendergraft
Associate Professor of Classical Languages
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem  NC  27109-7343
336-758-5331 (NOTE:  this is a new number)	 pender at wfu.edu



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