ALEXANDER THE GREAT DESCENDS TO THE DEPTH OF THE SEA

[aukepalmhof]

The stamp is designed after a miniature from a manuscript of the “Romance of Alexander in ca. 1400.

Alexander the Great (Flemish miniature)
Alexander the Great: ... born in Pella in 356 BC. Died on
June 13, 323 BC in Babylon. King since 336. Son of Philip II and Olympia.
Raised by Aristotle. Alexander took over the government after the murder of Philip II. Stations of his life were: campaign against the Thracians and Illyrians,
destruction of Thebes (335), battle against Persia (334), occupation of Asia Minor
(333), subjugation of Syria, Palestine and Egypt, campaign to northwest India
(327) and victory over the Indian king Poros (326). Due to a mutiny of his troops in Hyphasis (today Beas), Alexander had to turn back. He reached the Indus delta, retreated through the deserts of Gedrosia (today Baluchistan) and arrived in Pasargadai at the beginning of 324. Alexander died unexpectedly in Babylon in 323 BC. [Meyer] Alexander advanced his campaigns with the help of his fleet. After building a fleet, his general Nearchus led the retreat of the troops by water across the Indus, the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf to the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates.

Source: Navicula

While the bathysphere was not named until the 1930s (“bathy” from the Greek prefix for deep), humans may have been using diving bells for millennia. In the Problemata, a text contentiously credited to Aristotle, the philosopher tells how his student Alexander the Great descends to the depths of the sea in “a very fine barrel made entirely of white glass”, as a later poet would put it. The reasons for this descent differ across time. For some, it was to scout submarine defenses surrounding the city of Tyre during its siege. Others depict the Macedonian king met with a cruel vision of the great chain of being, stating, upon resurfacing, that “the world is damned and lost. The large and powerful fish devour the small fry”. In one particularly elaborate version, Alexander submerges with companions — a dog, cat, and cock — entrusting his life to a mistress who holds the cord used to retrieve the bathysphere. However, during his dive, she is seduced by a lover and persuaded to elope, dropping the chains that anchor Alexander and his animal companions to their boat. Through a gruesome utility, the pets help him survive: the cock keeps track of time in the lightless fathoms, the cat serves as a rebreather to purify the vessel’s atmosphere, and the poor hound’s body becomes a kind of airbag, propelling Alexander back to the sea’s surface.

https://publicdomainreview.org/collecti ... thysphere/
Greek 1977 1.50D sg1271, Scott?