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arysteiaOkay, still haven't seen Alexander, and yes, still bitter. A friend with evident time on her hands (why, thank you so *much*, K!!!) linked me to the best/worst of various reviews and posts/comments, however. I soon discovered that that way madness lies, via the most egregious mangling of the English language I've ever seen, if not by rampant homophobia.
Anyone who knows me knows that I ship Alexander/Hephaistion past the point of reason and always have done, and possibly also that my OTP fervour extends to the point where I even dislike The Persian Boy, despite the fact that my childhood goddess wrote it. What drives me to comment today, however, is not the deluge of "This film is too fecking gay!!!" posts I've just waded through, but a couple of threads that actually have me more bemused.
Namely: "Alexander was a legendary womaniser!!!"; and "Alexander was every man's woman and every woman's man".
Ummmm... No. In a word, no. Not even. Not remotely.
This offends my classical historian's sensibilities (as opposed to my ingrained liberalism and human decency) *more* than the bigots weeping in the corner crying, "My hero wasn't gay! He wasn't!" Because it's so pathetically, ridiculously *wrong*. At least the homophobes can call the fact that there's no explicit evidence in their defence.
First and foremost, the second quote actually refers to Alcibiades, who *was* an equal opportunity lech, and was killed in the end by the brothers of a girl he'd seduced. It's not remotely applicable to Alexander. We can count the people (of either and neither gender) Alexander probably slept with on both hands. We can count the people we know for sure he slept with on *one* hand. The boy *didn't* get around.
"Sex and sleep remind me that I'm mortal".
To my mind one of the most telling quotes ever attributed to Alexander. Of all this man's obsessions, sex was the least. Love, yes. Affection, yes. Loyalty, camaraderie, hero worship, yes yes yes. He thrived on relationships. But sex? I'm not trying to make him out to be a monk, I can't imagine that he was. But I honestly believe he put the bulk of his massive drive into other things.
As for womanising...
He was married three times.
1) Roxana. Who incidentally was from Bactria/Sogdiana (the Afghanistan/Pakistan border), not Persia (Iran), despite the race war I saw threatening to break out on IMDB over the casting of an actress of colour.
We're told this was a case of love at first sight - that he caught her eye across a crowded room in true romance novel fashion. I'm sure she did catch *his* eye, but I'm also sure it had something to do with the fact that subduing Bactria/Sogdiana had given him far more grief than defeating Persia itself, and her father made a very useful ally in the region.
2) Stateira (Barsine)
Noone *ever* tries to pass this off as a romance. She was the daughter of the defeated Darius III, and a blatant dynastic match. Marrying her made Alexander the legitimate heir to the Achaemaenid dynasty, something which meant a lot to *him*, as well as to his new subjects. Roxana could not confer this legitimacy, because as far as the Persians were concerned she was a barbarian from a subject kingdom.
3) Parysatis
The daughter of Ochos, a previous Persian king (Darius came to the throne under murky circumstances), Alexander is said by some to have married her later on the same day as he married Stateira, in an effort to unite the royal houses. Still all about dynastic unity and stability.
Other than that, we have the *fictional* story (from the Alexander Romance, one of the world's first novels) of the Amazon Queen who felt that since she was the greatest female warrior in the world, only the greatest male warrior in the world was fit to impregnate her, and made a booty call for the purpose; and a couple of anecdotes about artists' models and the like.
Some claim also that he had an affair with a woman named Barsine (possible conflation with Stateira-Barsine above?), the widow of Memnon. I find it very unlikely that Alexander would behave so with the daughter of Artabazos, an eminent and aged friend he respected very much, but that may just be me. The evidence is inconclusive. [Or see the eminent Dr Jeanne below :-D]
To the contrary, we have the fact that he was legendary, even in his own day, for his behaviour toward captured women. A good example would be Stateira (senior), the wife of Darius and mother of his future wife. Acclaimed the most beautiful woman in Asia, the story goes that when he captured the Persian harem, courtiers exhorted him to exercise his droit du seigneur. At which he a) rebuked them for daring to suggest it; and b) refused to ever be in the same room with her. Instead he called on her *mother-in-law*, a proud old lady who became a very dear friend.
Dear God, what a womaniser! What a fiend!
As for the men... There's Hephaistion and... Anyone? No takers? No. Noone else is *ever* mentioned as a lover, in any source, even the most hostile.
And lastly, Bagoas. We don't know much about him at all, and I'll say even less, but he was there.
End of story.
Alexander had flaws certainly, and they're easy to encapsulate. Excessive drinking. A massive ego. A *very* bad temper. Satyromania was not one of them.
ETA: I just can't not talk about Hephaistion, even when I'm trying to make a different point. So I feel compelled to point out, in this essay on women, that he married Drypetis, the sister of Stateira, so that his and Alexander's sons could be cousins. Oh, and when Alexander went to see Sisygambis (Stateira senior's mother-in-law above), Hephaistion went too. It's then that the infamous "He is Alexander too" incident occurred.
I apologise if either of these points were featured in the film, but it sounds like it focused on Roxana, not Stateira.
Anyone who knows me knows that I ship Alexander/Hephaistion past the point of reason and always have done, and possibly also that my OTP fervour extends to the point where I even dislike The Persian Boy, despite the fact that my childhood goddess wrote it. What drives me to comment today, however, is not the deluge of "This film is too fecking gay!!!" posts I've just waded through, but a couple of threads that actually have me more bemused.
Namely: "Alexander was a legendary womaniser!!!"; and "Alexander was every man's woman and every woman's man".
Ummmm... No. In a word, no. Not even. Not remotely.
This offends my classical historian's sensibilities (as opposed to my ingrained liberalism and human decency) *more* than the bigots weeping in the corner crying, "My hero wasn't gay! He wasn't!" Because it's so pathetically, ridiculously *wrong*. At least the homophobes can call the fact that there's no explicit evidence in their defence.
First and foremost, the second quote actually refers to Alcibiades, who *was* an equal opportunity lech, and was killed in the end by the brothers of a girl he'd seduced. It's not remotely applicable to Alexander. We can count the people (of either and neither gender) Alexander probably slept with on both hands. We can count the people we know for sure he slept with on *one* hand. The boy *didn't* get around.
"Sex and sleep remind me that I'm mortal".
To my mind one of the most telling quotes ever attributed to Alexander. Of all this man's obsessions, sex was the least. Love, yes. Affection, yes. Loyalty, camaraderie, hero worship, yes yes yes. He thrived on relationships. But sex? I'm not trying to make him out to be a monk, I can't imagine that he was. But I honestly believe he put the bulk of his massive drive into other things.
As for womanising...
He was married three times.
1) Roxana. Who incidentally was from Bactria/Sogdiana (the Afghanistan/Pakistan border), not Persia (Iran), despite the race war I saw threatening to break out on IMDB over the casting of an actress of colour.
We're told this was a case of love at first sight - that he caught her eye across a crowded room in true romance novel fashion. I'm sure she did catch *his* eye, but I'm also sure it had something to do with the fact that subduing Bactria/Sogdiana had given him far more grief than defeating Persia itself, and her father made a very useful ally in the region.
2) Stateira (Barsine)
Noone *ever* tries to pass this off as a romance. She was the daughter of the defeated Darius III, and a blatant dynastic match. Marrying her made Alexander the legitimate heir to the Achaemaenid dynasty, something which meant a lot to *him*, as well as to his new subjects. Roxana could not confer this legitimacy, because as far as the Persians were concerned she was a barbarian from a subject kingdom.
3) Parysatis
The daughter of Ochos, a previous Persian king (Darius came to the throne under murky circumstances), Alexander is said by some to have married her later on the same day as he married Stateira, in an effort to unite the royal houses. Still all about dynastic unity and stability.
Other than that, we have the *fictional* story (from the Alexander Romance, one of the world's first novels) of the Amazon Queen who felt that since she was the greatest female warrior in the world, only the greatest male warrior in the world was fit to impregnate her, and made a booty call for the purpose; and a couple of anecdotes about artists' models and the like.
Some claim also that he had an affair with a woman named Barsine (possible conflation with Stateira-Barsine above?), the widow of Memnon. I find it very unlikely that Alexander would behave so with the daughter of Artabazos, an eminent and aged friend he respected very much, but that may just be me. The evidence is inconclusive. [Or see the eminent Dr Jeanne below :-D]
To the contrary, we have the fact that he was legendary, even in his own day, for his behaviour toward captured women. A good example would be Stateira (senior), the wife of Darius and mother of his future wife. Acclaimed the most beautiful woman in Asia, the story goes that when he captured the Persian harem, courtiers exhorted him to exercise his droit du seigneur. At which he a) rebuked them for daring to suggest it; and b) refused to ever be in the same room with her. Instead he called on her *mother-in-law*, a proud old lady who became a very dear friend.
Dear God, what a womaniser! What a fiend!
As for the men... There's Hephaistion and... Anyone? No takers? No. Noone else is *ever* mentioned as a lover, in any source, even the most hostile.
And lastly, Bagoas. We don't know much about him at all, and I'll say even less, but he was there.
End of story.
Alexander had flaws certainly, and they're easy to encapsulate. Excessive drinking. A massive ego. A *very* bad temper. Satyromania was not one of them.
ETA: I just can't not talk about Hephaistion, even when I'm trying to make a different point. So I feel compelled to point out, in this essay on women, that he married Drypetis, the sister of Stateira, so that his and Alexander's sons could be cousins. Oh, and when Alexander went to see Sisygambis (Stateira senior's mother-in-law above), Hephaistion went too. It's then that the infamous "He is Alexander too" incident occurred.
I apologise if either of these points were featured in the film, but it sounds like it focused on Roxana, not Stateira.
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Date: 2004-12-08 09:34 am (UTC)Well, I think it honestly depends on what it is. Peter DOES make some really good points, even in Alexander of Macedon. You can't throw out the baby with the bathwater. And he's the best damn editor I've ever had. LOL! He completely vetted my article on ATG's mourning, and turned it into the best piece I've ever had published. Gene Borza is very good; Peter Green is exceptional. :-D
Anyway, the thing to keep in mind about Peter is that he is, at heart, an essayist. That's the form in which he really SHINES. I highly recommend his two collections of essays, In the Shadow of the Parthenon and Classical Bearings. (In the latter, you MUST read his chapter on Macedonia; you'll laugh your head off.) Peter is also an author of historical fiction, did you know? He wrote one novel on Sappho and one on Alcibiades. But all that points to a certain flare, and Peter will sometimes sacrifice precision for a colorful description. I think your reaction as a law student is square on: "Not proven!" He'll give these thumbnail sketches of people and situations and they're almost always colorful and memorable ... but sometimes a bit rash, too.
His articles are usually more careful. An inside tip which you may know already: most of the cutting edge work in classics and ancient history appears in article form, not monographs. This is in contrast to, say, American history where getting out a book is more common. Many ancient historians will have articles by the dozens and only one or two books. Such a prominent historian as Ernst Badian has NO monographs. None. There are collections of his essays and articles, sure, but he's never written a monograph. I don't think he has the patience for it, but he has literally hundreds of articles.
In any case, one should approach Peter's work carefully, but don't ditch it out of hand. For instance, he was one of the first to point out the (what seems to me) obvious point, that Alexander's failure to marry before leaving Macedonia was not foolish, but politically very savy, preventing any single Macedonian family from gaining too much power at a critical point in his reign, when he was just establishing himself. He couldn't afford to marry in those first years.
So Peter's biography is valuable, but I don't necessarily agree with all of it. And ironically, it was Peter's summary of Hephaistion (which I remember to this DAY) as "handsome, spoilt, spiteful and fundamentally stupid" that made the little 'Hephaistion' in my head sit up and reply, "Not hardly!" And everything snowballed from there. :-D
Anyway, enough yattering, but I did want to comment on what I saw to be Peter's virtues, even if I disagree with him on his assessment of Hephaistion. :-)
As for Alexander and historians, I've known historians who either actively disliked him or found him to be boring and over-rated. I think much depends on view. I tend to view Greek history from a northern (Macedonian) lens. Other Greek-focused historians view Macedon from a southern (Greek) lens. That's significant. Because of my perspective, I tend to think Athens is over-rated. Ha! I'm much more interested in the history of non-Athenian Greek city-states, such as Thebes, Corinth, etc., and actively dislike the tendency to equate "Greek" with "Athenian" even if I understand why (we ARE prisoners of our evidence, which is mostly Athenian).
But yeah, feel free to fire off questions in, oh, about a week. (G)