Aventinus' simile for the big wall

When Aventinus describes the stone blocks that Alexander used to fill in the moat around the city of Tyre during its investure, Aventinus thinks of Regensburg and its old city wall:

Then Alexander thought of an unbelievable thing, had no one for that, who could have suggested this: mobilized land and people, let them bring there big trees, that is with their branches still, the same big stones, square mined pieces (just as they are in Regensburg at the old wall) || from an old broken city nearby, sunk them in the sea, banked up from the land to the city, so that he would be able to move dry and straight from the land toward the city with the might of his army. (own translation)

Da unterstuend sich Alexander eines ungleublichen dings, het niemant darfür, das es geratten solt: pot land und leuten auf, lies zuehin pringen groß päum also ganz mit esten, dergleichen gros stainene vierecket außgehauen stuk (wie zu Regenspurg an den alten mauern sein) || von einer alten zerprochen stat daselbs, versenkts in das mer, macht vom land pis in die stat ein beschüt, das er truckens und ebens fues auf dem land mit herskraft für die stat mocht ziehen.

(Bavarian Chronicle, Bk I, Cap 158; p.347 and p.348 in the Academy edition)

Applying Peirce to Image Interpretation --- Part One

The basic notion of Charles Sanders Peirce's, that the positing of an abduced structure of some sort (e.g. a Schankian script in a Davidsonian representation world) can organize a set of disparate pieces into an explanation, is sound. The problem is how to play that through for the specific case of, say, Albrecht Altdorfer's Alexanderschlacht.

The start of the story must be the flags and the labels, because they give specifics. We also need to hold the inscription aside, because there is a strong suspicion that it is not by Altdorfer himself, but later (possibly by Jean De Pay in 1658, whose restauration receipt is already mentioned by Franz von Reber's Catalogue of the Old Pinakothek's collection of 1900 in the 8th edition, though Buchner in the 1938 Katalog for the 400th anniversary exhibition in Munich seems first to suggest that this included a reworking of that inscription).

There is a list of possible sources that Altdorfer could have used for obtaining the details of the battle. That list includes Arrianus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Justin's Epitome of Trogus, Aventinus, the Alexander Romance of Johannes Hartlieb, Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle, and Plutarch. (For some of Aventinus' views on this matter, see this post here.)

Per CSP's recommendation, we can now construct alternate worlds of various forms. The basic idea would be that Altdorfer used exactly one source. For example, as Cord Meckseper did in his article on the iconography of the battle (Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft, XXIII, 3/4, 1968, 178-185), one might assume that Schedel's Weltchronik might suffice.

The point is to expand what »suffice« might mean in terms of a strategy of mechanical interpretation. We assume that the narrative (it is not very long in Schedel) is summarized in a suitable Davidsonian event representation. This instantiation then identifies actors, actions, matériel and similar.
We also need a similar instantiation of the content of the painting itself, as an event, describing the various discernibles. Here, we can simplify the problem by delineating (e.g. with TEI standard bounding boxes) and describing at the action level (moving, turning, etc.) all those entities that any of the art historic works we have considered have identified, i.e. the superset of the interpretation constituents. Recall that we wish to model the argumentation, not automate the argumentation.

But if we have the description of the picture, and the description of the events as reported in the various sources, what then is the abduction doing for us? It is the mapping between these components, a representational correspondence. The picture has a golden-armored man riding a white horse. The story has Alexander leading a charge (say, not all sources go into that detail). The abduced mapping then says that the man on the white horse is Alexander (and by one step of inference that leads us beyond the sources, the horse is Bukephalos).

Consider the battle flag for a moment, which consist of the following pieces of information:

• the army to which the troops are attached (Greek/Macedonian or Persian, often mentioned pars pro toto via the commanders Alexander and Darius III)
• the type of troops we are talking about (here, mostly foot vs horse, i.e. infantry vs cavalry)
• the number of men present at the beginning
• the cardinalities of the categories at the end of the battle
• killed (presumably this includes missing in action, in modern parlance)
• captured (e.g. 40k Persians in Justin and Schedel)
• escaped (1k horse w/ Darius in Quintus Curtius Rufus, 4k in Arrian)

Here we are matching not against actors or roles in the script, we are matching against event statistics, so to speak, or statistics of sub-events (e.g. the troop numbers at the beginning and at the end of the battle). The flags visually represent the battle statistics (which are abstractions and therefore not visible per se).

In all of these representational mappings, we can run into four situations:

• NONE: there is something in the image that is in none of the sources (the scythes on the fleeing chariot, the chariot driver felled by the arrow, the boats on the sea), 
• ALL: there is something in the image that is in all of the sources (Alexander, Darius)
• UNIQUE: there is something in the image that is only one of the sources (the women, Oxarthes)
• SHARED: there is something that is in some, but not all of sources (the 32,000 Macedonian foot in Aventinus, Justin's Epitome of Trogus and Schedel's Weltchronik)

We have different reactions to these situations, then, as they give us different information about the question of which sources were used.

• NONE means that Altdorfer invented the matter himself
• ALL means that we cannot distinguish between the different source theories based on this piece of information
• UNIQUE means that the specific source was definitely used

SHARED has a special status, as it is often an indication of the genealogy of the sources themselves. For example, Altdorfer was not the only one working from sources, both Aventinus and Schedel had to use ancient reports to underpin their reconstructions. We may not be able to separate out Justin from Trogus, since Trogus did not survive the ravages of time as an independent source. But since Justin  (200-400 AD) is temporally before Schedel (1493) and Aventinus (1526), it is likely that Schedel used Justin (in the particular case of the 32k Macedonian foot). There are other cases were Schedel agrees with Justin, such as the number of 40k captured Persians.

The problem is trickier in the case of Aventinus, whose Bavarian Chronicle was published in 1526 when Aventinus was already living in Regensburg. Since Schedel predates Aventinus by over 30 years, and Aventinus only discusses Quintus Curtius Rufus as well as Arrian (Bk I, Cpt 153, p.337), as well as disparaging Hartliebs Romance. So perhaps Aventinus used Schedel and not Justin; unfortunately he mentions neither.

One more point about the NONE category, because Alexander's horse Bukephalos falls into it. None of the source I have looked at specifically mention that Alexander was riding Bukephalos at the battle of Issos. But Bukephalos is not invented in the same way that the chariot driver pierced by the arrow is, and not in the same way that the scythes on the carriage are. So we will have to return to the problem of this category at a later point.

But before that, we have to look at the problem of dealing with the open-ended disjunctions.

Alexander in Schedel's World Chronicle

In the World Chronicle of Hartmann Schedel (in German: Schedel, Hartmann / Alt, Georg / Wolgemut, Michael: Das buch der Cronicken vnd gedechtnus wirdigern geschichte[n], vo[n] anbegyn[n] d[er] werlt bis auf dise vnßere zeit, Nürmberg, 1493, digitised by the Bavarian State Library), reports on Alexander the Great as part of the Fifth Age of the World, beginning on sheet number LXXIV with his birth as the son of Philip Perdice.

Schedel reports that Alexander the Great brought 32k foot and 5.5k horse with him (LXXV c1), which Dareios opposed with 300,000 foot and 100,000 horse (LXXV c2). When Darius flees toward Babylon, 62,000 foot have been killed, ten thousand horse, and 40,000 captured. Of the Macedonians, 130 foot and 150 horse were killed. Alexander not only captured the camp with much gold, but also the mother, wife, sister [= which should be the same as the wife, RCK], and two daughters.

Schedel reports that Bersanem and Alexander had a child named Hercules (LXXV c2).

After Darius' flight toward Babylon, then prepares another 400k foot and another 100k horse for the final battle, which Alexander also wins (LXXV c2). Darius first is persuaded to flee, then killed by his own people, and Alexander eventually settles down in Babylon, where he is poisoned.

Schedel makes a mess of the chronology, however, having Alexander in Jerusalem and Sidon before battling Darius, even building Alexandria first (LXXV c1).

Aventinus on Alexander

The Bavarian Chronicles of Aventinus, one of the texts that Albrecht Altdorfer used for his Alexander-Schlacht, one way or another, was published in German in 1526. At this point, Aventinus was already living in Regensburg, having fled there from the anger of the Bavarian duke with assistance of the Bavarian chancellor.

The Digital Library of the Munich Center for Digitalisation of the Bavarian State Library has the scans of the Bavarian Chronicle, based on the edition of Vol IV of the Sämtliche Werke, edited by Sigmund von Riezler and Matthias von Lexer.

For the discussion of Alexander, the important parts are in Book I and range from Chapter 153 to 159.

The important points are as follows:

• Aventinus gives Arrianus and Quintus Curtius Rufus as the main sources, mentioning the Patrons of these editions as Emperor Sigmund for Arrianus and Duke Ernst of Bavaria for the Rufus edition that Erasmus of Rotterdam had overseen (Bk I, Cpt 153, p.337)
• Aventinus disparages Johannes Harlieb's rendition of the Alexander romance, though its patrons had been the Bavarian Duke Albrecht and his wife Anna of Braunschweig, criticizing its adding and deleting as well as its lack of Latin skill (Bk I, Cpt 153, p.337)
• Aventinus gives the number of 32,000 foot soldiers and 4,000 men cavalry both in his overview (Bk I, Cpt 153, p.337) as well as in his description of Alexander defeating the satraps of Darius Bk I, Cpt 157, p.346)
• The role of Alexander in the prophecy of Daniel regarding the four empires is both given at the summary beginning (Bk I, Cpt 153, p.336) as well as reiterated at the end of his biographical sketch (Bk I, Cpt 153, p.340).
• The battle with Darios at Issos is described in Cpt 158 as the First Battle (Bk I, Cpt 158 pp.346-347).
• Aventinus only gives 10,000 horse for Darios, not 100,000, as do many others (Rufus' numbers add to 62k horse, Justin gives 100k, which Schedel probably copied from there), though he agrees with the 300,000 Persian foot that Schedel gave in his Weltchronik (250k if you sum Rufus, 400k in Justin) (Bk I, Cpt 158 pp.347).
• Aventinus does not describe the women at the battle, nor how many men Darius flees with, nor how many were killed, but has Darius escape to Babylon (Bk I, Cpt 158 pp.347).
• Aventinus reports the sack of the camp, the "Wagenburg" as he puts it (Bk I, Cpt 158 pp.347).
• Aventinus does report the capture of the women and family of Darius (Bk I, Cpt 158 pp.347).
• "Captured also Dareios' mother, house wife, son, daughters, the whole women's quarters, maintained it well until his end." (Bk I, Cpt 158 pp.347)
• The "Other Battle" with Dareios at Arbela (Gaugemala) is recounted in Bk I, Cpt 159, pp.350ff. 
• Aventinus reports Alexander's becoming sick and then recovering ((Bk I, Cpt 159 pp.350), then wins the battle and Darios is killed during the retreat, while Alexander takes Babylon (Bk I, Cpt 159 p.352).

Among the more curious points are:

• Aventinus reports that Alexander fought German tribes ("Teutsche") on his northern border of Macedonia, including some Bavarians, who apparently were scared of having the sky fall on their heads only (Bk I Cpt 154-157 pp342-345).
• In reference to Rufus, Aventinus claims that 4k Suebians (with Suabia running all the way down to Poland and Hungary) were at the battle ((Bk I, Cpt 159 p.351).

Because the number of Darios horse was so low, I cross-checked them against an edition from 1580 printed in Regensburg, but the number was the same.