Tea at Trianon: When Alexander the Great Visited the Ancient City of Troy

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, September 14, 2025

When Alexander the Great Visited the Ancient City of Troy

From The Greek Reporter:

In 334 BCE, Alexander the Great engaged in a war campaign against the mighty Persian Empire. To do so, he first invaded Anatolia, the closest region of the Persian Empire to Greece. Alexander crossed the Hellespont, thus stepping from Europe into Asia. Upon doing so, he arrived in Troad, the region surrounding the city of Troy. Despite the fact that he was on a monumental military campaign, Alexander the Great decided to take the time to visit Troy.
Just as is the case today, the Iliad was very famous among the ancient Greeks. Therefore, it makes sense that Alexander would have wanted to visit the final resting places of the most famous characters in that story. According to Diodorus Siculus:

“He visited the tombs of the heroes Achilles, Ajax, and the rest and honored them with offerings and other appropriate marks of respect.”

The traditional tomb of Achilles is not in Troy itself, but in Achilleion, another settlement in the Troad, while the traditional tomb of Ajax was in yet another settlement, Rhoiteion. Hence, Alexander the Great’s visit involved more than just visiting the city of Troy itself. (Read more.)