THE WANDERING ASTRONOMER
Friday, November 24, 2023
When Alexander Wept
Do you remember that family friendly, holiday fare film "Die Hard?"
In one scene toward the beginning, the erudite arch-villain Hans Gruber, in conference with the ill-fated CEO Takagi, quoted the following
"And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer."
Smilingly, he then said, as an aside, "benefits of a classical education." And, of course, Hans was referring to none other than that Macedonian menace, Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE)
Well, Heavens to the Hellenics, ever since that m0vie was released every blessed - and accursed- classical scholar from Boris Johnson to Mary Beard to the two-person faculty of Oxford's Balliol college in 1263 to the misanthropic, craggily faced anthomaniac down the block who once constructed a replica of the Parthenon out of 22,158 popsicle sticks at the behest of his Phidias-admiring Hydrangeas, have all loudly proclaimed to the delight of the pedantic few and the chagrin of the action-flick adoring many,
"ALEXANDER NEVER DID THAT!"
Their distress is wholly understandable for one should expect the highest levels of classical scholarship in Bruce Willis movies.
Now, to be fair, as any historian would readily concede, history doesn't record every single moment. It is perfectly possible that during a rare moment of repose, that indefatigable culture absorber realized that he would eventually deplete Earth's reserve of unconquered continents and felt a twinge of grief at the prospect that someday his globetrotting, sword-swinging escapades would one day draw to close. However, the basis of these classicists' vehement objections is that no classical source ever mentioned that Alexander wept when looking upon the breadth of his domain. It never happened and, even if it did happen, it wasn't recorded and so someone like Hans Gruber, our learned terrorist- spoiler: he was actually just a robber - obviously didn't have a classical education. Sheesh. Next thing you know these over-educated egg-heads will insist that Hans Gruber was just a fictional character.
It made me wonder, though, "What is the basis of this mis-quote?" Just like you're wondering right now, "Why is he writing about this nonsense in an astronomy blog?" Simple. The investigation into the matter revealed a shocking truth. As it turns out, Alexander the Great was indeed said to have wept on one occasion: when speaking to an astronomer. Well, naturally. This tear-inducing star gazer's name was the philosopher Anaxarchus (380-320BCE).* In his masterful essay 'On The Tranquility of Mind," the Greek philosopher Plutarch (46-119 CE) wrote that
‘Alexander wept when he heard Anaxarchus discourse about an infinite number of worlds, and when his friends inquired what ailed him, “Is it not worthy of tears,” he said, “that, when the number of worlds is infinite, we have not yet become lords of a single one?’
Well. So, instead of decrying the lack of worlds to conquer, Alexander realized that despite his assiduous efforts, he failed to become the emperor of just one.
However, that is not the most gobstopping aspect of that quote. Here, we refer not to the desperate lamentations of an inveterate conquest-seeker. Instead, regard the bold assertion of this audacious Middle Platonist philosopher/astronomer: the number of worlds is infinite. That was the kind of heretical twaddle which sent Giordano Bruno, the most celebrated of all astronomical martyrs, straight to the stake in 1600. Yet, here we see the same idea openly expressed nearly two millennia earlier.
The weeping Alexander
You understand that we were all under the impression that the Pre-Copernican world was steeped in hopeless ignorance. We thought that everyone was perfectly content to be bound in a cosmic nut-shell harboring a handful of worlds draped in a veil of star-punctured darkness with nothing but the deepest hollows of nothing beyond it. Alas, this assumption -a perfect example of the snobbery of chronology- is utterly false. Not everyone looked out at the heavens and imagined a dearth of worlds. Some perceived the plethora of planets that modern-day astronomers are now detecting by the thousands.** And, this perception long predated the invention the telescope (1608; Hans Lippershey)
The mood-befouling Anaxarchus
Perhaps most interestingly, this belief in an infinitude of worlds was predicated solely on intuition. It was assumed that the celestial realm possessed the same inexhaustible fecundity that was observed within the terrestrial one. Despite not being able to see any world beyond Saturn, the cosmos was presumed by Anaxarchus to harbor myriad, even innumerable planets. Now, centuries later, astronomers have provided visual evidence in support of his audacious claim.
We can cite two take-aways from today's article.
First, Hellenic astronomy was far more advanced than we could have ever imagined! Of course, the astoundingly complex Antikythera Mechanism, a topic for another day, should give us at least a keyhole-sized insight into the sophistication of this ancient, underestimated culture.
Second, of course, is Alexander, the quintessential empire builder who seemed to have leapt Athena-like out of the Iliad and embodied the grandest traits of its most formidable antagonists. The world-bestriding colossus who, like the precious few similarly driven by such unbounded ambition, blazed fire in his wake as he strove in the most desperate earnest to subdue this unresting Earth.
And an astronomer made him cry.
*Wait! You referred to him as an 'astronomer,' not a philosopher. True. Yet, remember, Anaxarchus lived in a time well before the modern University practice of academic differentiation that separates philosophers and astronomers by at least five floors. The former housed within a sumptuously furnished atrium-lit penthouse while the latter is relegated to tenebrous dungeons where the trustees can't see them.
**5539 confirmed detections so far. Trillions remain hidden..for now.