Uploaded March 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Plutarch claims, in his Life of Alexander (8), that the king slept with a dagger and a special, annotated copy of Homer's Iliad under his pillow. Logistically, that's impossible. Instead, a peculiar Persian idiom (The King's Pillow, Proskephalaion Basilikon) was misunderstood by later authors, giving us this still-popular misconception.
Mentioned:
Christopher Brunelle, "Alexander's Persian Pillow and Plutarch's Cultural Commander," The Classical Journal 112.3 (2017): 280-317.
Plutarch claims, in his Life of Alexander (8), that the king slept with a dagger and a special, annotated copy of Homer's Iliad under his pillow. Logistically, that's impossible. Instead, a peculiar Persian idiom (The King's Pillow, Proskephalaion Basilikon) was misunderstood by later authors, giving us this still-popular misconception.
Mentioned:
Christopher Brunelle, "Alexander's Persian Pillow and Plutarch's Cultural Commander," The Classical Journal 112.3 (2017): 280-317.
