Outline of Gods Among Men

Last Updated: 2024-08-19

What follows is a rough outline of Gods Among Men, my projected epic poem about Pyrrho and Alexander the Great. Currently I plan to write it as a Bildungsroman, chronologically tracing Pyrrho's philosophical awakening from his youth in Elis, through Alexander's campaigns in Egypt, Persia, and India, then home again to Greece.

  1. 343 BCE (age ~17) - Elis - Pyrrho awakens to the love of wisdom by reading Democritus; the latter’s method of appearances vs his dogmatic conclusions (atoms and the void, the infinity of worlds, etc.); his travels as an example to Pyrrho; studies with Phaedo of Elis, the youngest student of Socrates.
  2. 341 BCE (age ~19) - Athens - Pyrrho goes to Athens, the philosophic center of ancient Greece; studies with Speusippos and Xenocrates around the time of the former's death in 339/338 and the election of Xenocrates as his successor to be scholiarch of the Academy (a lesson about not starting a school?); exposure to the thought of Heraclitus and the other Socratic schools; the confusion induced by mere opinion; Platonic dialectic; the Platonic disrespect for Democritus.
  3. 339 BCE (age ~21) - Megara - Pyrrho studies with Stilpo, who emphasizes freedom, self-control, and self-sufficiency in a kind of proto-Cynicism (and also denies the reality of motion and change); Megarian paradoxes and dialectic.
  4. 337 BCE (age ~23) - Abdera - Pyrrho travels north to study with Anaxarchus as a successor to Democritus; exposure to the overtly skeptical teachings of Metrodorus.
  5. 336 BCE (age ~24) - Pella - Pyrrho meets Aristotle; Philipp’s assassination; the accession of Alexander; non-contradiction in logic vs. epallaxis in biology; Aristotle is to Philip & Antipater as Anaxarchus & Onesicritus are to Alexander.
  6. 335 BCE (age ~25) - Corinth - Alexander’s meeting with Diogenes the Cynic; the latter’s refutation of Stilpo on motion; the conversion of Onesicritus; the Cynic philosopher vs. the ruling powers.
  7. 333 BCE (age ~27) - Egypt - Kallisthenes and the deification of Alexander, who as a Ptolemaic god has power over everyone, whereas Pyrrho wants power only over himself (cf. Stilpo); different customs in different cultures (cf. Herodotus & Montaigne).
  8. 331/328 BCE (age ~29-32) - Persepolis to Bactria - interactions with a Zoroastrian going home from the imperial capital; the Manichean vision of life; certainty about good and evil (etc.) vs. neverending skepsis; the death of Kallisthenes as a lesson to Pyrrho about not fighting temporal power.
  9. 326 BCE (age ~34) - Gandhara (Taxila) - Dandamis and the gymnosophists; Jains, early Buddhists, Ajivikas (but they too opposed temporal power); further strengthening of Pyrrho’s skepsis; Apelles and the sponge as a metaphor for achieving ataraxia after the frustrations of inquiry.
  10. 323 BCE (age ~37) - Susa - study and friendship with Kalanos and the latter’s suicide.
  11. 323 BCE (age ~37) - Babylon - the death of Alexander and the ensuing chaos; widespread speculation about causes and plots (including the suggestion that Aristotle had Antipater poison Alexander); skepsis about these claims and counter-claims as a source of calm in the storm, and as inoculation against unreason; the desire to know vs the desire for power.
  12. 332 BCE (age ~38) - from Babylon to Elis by way of Athens - the death of Anaxarchus; Aristotle revisited; the law of non-contradiction; Pyrrho as the finest "specimen" of Alexander’s expedition; Pyrrho's nostos after twenty years away from Elis; completing the praxis of the epic.

Peter Saint-Andre > Writings > Gods Among Men