Temples to Selecus

[johhny-turbo]

Was there really a cult dedicated to Selecus Nicator? How widespread was it and why was there not a similar one for Alexander?

[Sakkura]

Hmm, well Alexander was proclaimed son of Zeus. Maybe Seleucus saw the propaganda value of such divine association and expanded on the idea?

[Spoofa]

grr, wheres my temple to Alexander for Makedonia that gives +5 experience and morale to all units trained in Pella......... :inquisitive:

[russia almighty]

^That is somehow usable by everyone INCLUDING the Parthians and Armenians?

[Landwalker]

My chronology may be a little fuzzy, but the basic gist is this:

During his legendary campaign, Alexander was in western Egypt at a temple and managed to get himself proclaimed son of Zeus or Ra or Osiris or some such. He then went on to lay waste to the Persian Empire under Darios. During the course of the Persian campaign, Alexander tried to integrate certain eastern (Persian/Indian) political ideologies and practices into his own rule. One of these was paying obeisance to the emperor by lying prostrate on the ground before him. For the Greeks and Macedonians, this action was only practiced in the worship of gods, so Alexander's Hellenic contingents vehemently opposed/resisted the notion, because it amounted to god-worship.

I believe that the basic thrust of all this was that Alexander assumed the position, in his own mind and conduct, of something of a demigod, and did his darnedest to spread the idea. Given that the Seleucid Empire is, essentially, the most easternly-influenced of the successor states of the diadochoi, it doesn't seem surprising that the general who came into possession of these territories would also espouse a relatively eastern concept of regal divinity.

Cheers.

[gran_guitarra]

Actually Alexander had been rumoured to be the son of Zeus and a descendant of Achilles (thus having divine blood from both sides of his family) for a veeery long time. In a temple in Egypt (I think it was either in Alexandria or Tyre) he asked an oracle to answer him three questions.
The first was whether his father's (Phillip of Makedon) murderers had all been punished, to which the oracle answered yes. The second was whether he would reach his goals, to which the oracle said he would reach lands that had only been seen by the Great Heroes of Old. The final one was whether he was the son of Zeus or a mortal, to which the oracle answered go to "Insert name of some city with a temple to Zeus whose name I can't remember" and burn a sacrifice in his honor. When you are done, you will have his blessing.

Or something along those lines.

[Sakkura]

During his legendary campaign, Alexander was in western Egypt at a temple and managed to get himself proclaimed son of Zeus or Ra or Osiris or some such..
Yep, son of Zeus/Amun. The Egyptian god Amun was identified as the same god as Zeus.

[Bootsiuv]

The location was the Modern-day Siwa Oasis in the Libyan desert....I do believe it was known as Ammonion or something like that in those days...

It's actually a region in EB IIRC, and their is a wonder that describes Alexander's experiences there as well. I've actually only conquered it once in a KH game of mine, so I don't remember exactly what it was called, but I know it was the location of the temple of Zeus-Ammon....

[Cheexsta]

Seleucus was indeed worshipped as a god, possibly even in his own lifetime (as were Alexander, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, etc etc). Most of the diadochoi were worshipped as gods at some point (even Antiochus III's wife, Laodike, had a cult), except in Makedonia itself - eg Demetrius Poliorketes in Delos but not in Makedonia, and it seems that Ptolemy I was seen as a god possibly even as early as his conquest of Rhodos.

It should be noted that there doesn't seem to be any evidence that any of them (except maybe Alexander) even wanted to be worshipped as gods. Most of the time it was probably a mixture of flattery and a way of "cementing" a particular king's regime.

This is all from memory, though. There are some interesting notes here (http://www.anchist.mq.edu.au/222/lec8_oht.htm) from a lecture I attended on this topic a while back, if you don't mind a bit of reading.

[Vorian]

The Egyptian priests had to find a way to keep their status witht he change of management. By proclaiming Alexander son of Amon-Zeus they achieven two things:
a) Made sure that Alexander wouldn't move them aside with the Greek religion
b)Ensured that the population accepted the "liberation" from the Persians by the descendant of Pharaohs.

I have also read another story however, that when the priest came to greet Alexander he wanted to say "Ω Παιδίον", which means child (something like "my child" from modern priests) but not knowing Greek well enough he made a mistake saying "Ω Παιδιός" which Alexander's followers heard as " Ω παι Διός", which means "Son of Zeus"

I doubt if it's true but it's funny. A deity created by wrong spelling.

[gran_guitarra]

Alexander was never overtly proclaimed to be the son of Zeus. The oracle's message was INTERPRETED that way, but they never said, Dude, um, your the son of a God.

The oracle told Alexander to sacrifice a bull in honor of his father at the Temple of Zeus. People interpreted this to mean that he was the son of Zeus.