"The Ptolemies were Macedonians, with an admixture of a little Greek and via marriage with the Seleucids a small element of Syrian blood. (There is no evidence to make us question the paternity of any of the line and suggest that they were the product of an illicit liaison between the queen and a man other than her husband. This remains possible, if not very likely, but an uncertain basis for any argument.) The Macedonians were not an homogenous people and seem to have varied considerably in appearance and colouring. Alexander the Great was fair-haired, although it is always difficult to know precisely what this meant. A Roman copy of an earlier mosaic shows him with medium-brown hair. Fair might simply mean not black or very dark brown. On the other hand, several of the early Ptolemies were blond and comparisons of their hair to gold suggest this was more than simply not black-haired."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Historical novelistsNon-fiction authors from the United KingdomUniversity of Oxford alumniHistorians from the United KingdomNovelists from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ch. 9
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adrian_Goldsworthy
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Adrian Goldsworthy
22 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Adrian Goldsworthy →
Related Quotes
"Attila the Hun remains to this day a byword for savagery and destruction. His is one of the few names from antiquity …"
"It is widely believed that Christianity remained an essentially urban cult and that the population of the countryside…"
"On 2 August 216 BC the Carthaginian General Hannibal won one of the most complete battlefield victories in history. O…"
"Most battles from the Ancient World are now all but forgotten, for military as well as civil education has ceased to …"
"Hannibal won the battle through not only his dynamic leadership and the high quality of his army, but also because of…"
"It was very difficult to disable an opponent with a single blow; either a heavy strike to the head, a massive thrust …"
"The Roman legion was supposed to operate with wide gaps between its maniples and significant intervals between each o…"
"Hasdrubal had led his close order cavalry in a devastatingly brutal charge against the Roman right wing, shattering a…"
"There is a nightmarish quality about many of the descriptions of the aftermath of Cannae....Later sources would inven…"
"I'm English, so obviously do not have a philosophy. I am a Christian, though, if you want to know about important bel…"