Monthly Archives: September 2015

He, however, is not Alexander

Legends of Alexander

from Lee’s Summit Journal
by Bill Virgin
Full post here

I recall a story of Alexander the Great that I had heard sometime back, whether true or folklore.

It went something like this. He was walking through his military encampment and came across a sleeping soldier who was supposed to be on guard. With total disgust and rebuke Alexander awoke him and demanded to know his name. The trembling soldier muttered that his name was also Alexander. In a tone of dismay, Alexander the Great replied, “Either change your name or live up to your name.”

Fact or Fiction? It’s a close run thing but I’m going to say fiction
Any Reason Why? None of the main sources mention this anecdote. However, I have to admit, it does sound like the kind of thing Alexander would have said
Name Something Good Here. The fact that it shows Alexander walking through his camp: something that he would certainly have done; Alexander’s dismayed response. It’s so him!
By-the-bye, Alexander’s words strike me as being the exact reverse of what he told Sisygambis in regards Hephaestion: that his most loyal friend was also Alexander (Arrian II.13, Diodorus XVII.37) - I wonder if the writer had that story in mind
Rating? Four sarissae out of five. For its realism

Categories: Legends of Alexander | 1 Comment

Iron Earth and Golden Sky

Legends of Alexander

from The New Indian Express
by H. H. Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj
Full post here

There is a story from the life of Alexander the Great that illustrates the result of engaging in the desires of the world. Alexander the Great had conquered many people.

He was leading his army into the north-western part of India to conquer those people. When returning home, he asked his astrologers to tell him how and when he would die.

The astrologers told him, “0 great King, our calculations show that you will not die until the earth turns into iron and the sky is transformed into gold.” The king was overjoyed and said, “This is great news. It would take many ages for the earth to turn to iron and the sky to turn to gold. What a miracle! I am going to live for a long time.”

Alexander the Great next decided to go to Persia. On the way he had an attack of malaria, and told his chief minister who was riding alongside him on his horse, “I have a terrible fever. My strength is fading. I cannot ride any longer.”

The minister grew worried and said, “0 great King, let us ride a few miles more. We can then find a tree and you can lie down in the shade.” However, Alexander could ride no longer. He got off his horse and lay down on the hot ground.

The minister could not bear to see the great king lying in the hot sun, so he made a couch for the king by removing his own coat of iron armour that was lined with forty layers of silk so that the king could rest upon the silk. The minister then held his own shield over the king’s face to keep the sun off him.

When Alexander opened his eyes and saw the shield decorated with strips of gold, the astrologer’s prediction came to his mind. “Oh, no,” thought Alexander. “I was a fool to be happy with the astrologer’s prediction. I thought it meant I would live a long time.

Now, the prediction is true. I am lying on iron as if it were earth. The sky above me is now the gold shield.” Suddenly, the royal physician rode up on his horse to treat the king.

He examined Alexander and told the king, “I cannot deceive you. You are lying at the door of death.” Alexander cried, “Is there no remedy?” The doctor said, “No, great King, the fever is too severe. No medicine can help you.”

The king fell into despair. Although he was so weak, he could not believe his life was about to end. The king turned to his minister and said, “Please announce that I will give half my kingdom to anyone who can enable me to live long enough to have a last glimpse of my mother.” The doctor said, “Sir, that is not possible. You have only a minute or two to live.” Alexander panicked, “Whoever will let me live long enough to see my mother will receive all my conquests. I will live only on alms.” The doctor said,

“It is useless. Nothing can save you now.” Then, Alexander the Great, who had terrorized and plundered thousands of people as he conquered their nations, began to cry.

Suddenly, a saint wandered by. He looked in silence at the dying king. He then said to the minister that it was a shame that Alexander threw away all his life for temporary desires of the world. He added that the conquest of all the world is nothing compared to spiritual bliss.

Fact or Fiction? Definitely fiction
Any Reason Why? Alexander never suffered from malaria on his way back to Persia; the Macedonian army did not use iron armour; the idea of giving half or all of his kingdom away would never have occurred to Alexander; the idea of living on alms would have absurd to him; he died in Babylon, not on the road back from India; a wandering saint would never have got that close to Alexander
Name Something Good Here. The story alludes to Alexander’s religiosity. He did take omens and portents seriously (though sometimes defied them, e.g Arrian IV.4)
Rating: One sarissae out of five for being a neat tale even if not remotely true

Categories: Legends of Alexander | Leave a comment

Hair Today, Legendary Tomorrow

Just over a year ago, I wrote this post in which I disparaged the idea that Ptolemy I Soter could be responsible for the claim that Alexander forced his men to shave after almost losing an unnamed battle (but perhaps that of Issus) when a Persian soldier realised he could kill Macedonian soldiers more easily by grabbing hold of their beards and throwing them to the ground first.

I happened to return to the issue in April this year, here. A few months on, I still maintain that the idea of Alexander almost losing a battle because of his men’s beards is nonsense.

However, I have come across evidence to suggest that there really was a tradition that Alexander made his men shave in case their beards were used against them by their enemies.

I haven’t made an exciting new discovery. If you know your Plutarch, you will know which text I am about to quote. It comes from his Life of Theseus. In Chapter 5, Plutarch tells us about a tribe called the Abantes who were experts at close-order combat. He writes,

… in order to deny their enemies a hand-hold on their hair, they cut it off. No doubt Alexander of Macedon understood this, too, when he gave orders to his generals, so we are told, to have the beards of their Macedonians shaved, because these offered the easiest hold in battle.

I wonder: Plutarch’s assertion seems a very reasonable one. Could he be representing a true tradition and St Synesius, not so much a fake one, but a tradition that saw the original information - perhaps Ptolemy’s - embellished to the point where fiction overtook reality?

***

I was never fond of the Macedonians long hair in Oliver Stone’s Alexander film. As far as I was concerned, only barbarians had such flowing locks; depicting the Macedonians with them was just another absurdity in a film that already had several.

However, He Has A Wife You Know may just have put me right. In this post, the author focuses mainly on beards, but links both them and long hair when he writes,

For the Greeks facial hair, and in particular beards, denoted masculinity. Find any Greek vase depicting Greek men and you’ll witness this simple rule, beardless males are youths, those with beards are men. For a society that prized masculinity as highly as it did the very symbol of that was something quite sacred, beards weren’t to be messed with.

I have to be a bit careful here as I really don’t know much about Macedonian social customs. For all I know, the Macedonians liked having long hair and beards but did not attach the same significance to them as Greeks did.

However, while they formed a distinct society to the men down south, the two did share some important customs (e.g. religion) so it is not beyond the realms of possibility - perhaps we may say it is very likely - that they both looked at long hair and beards in the same way, too, as masculinity was definitely very important to both. If so, I owe Oliver Stone an apology.

And that is the beauty of the internet. It helps you to learn, to write, to discover, to correct, and ultimately, to improve.

Categories: By the Bye | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

Quoting and Commenting Upon Arrian

For the last two weeks I have been reading a chapter of Arrian’s Campaigns of Alexander every day, picking a quotation from it and writing a short post based upon both it and the wider chapter.

I am publishing the posts to my Alexander Facebook page. If you would like to read any of the first fourteen posts, then just click here. If you are someone who is already reading the posts and ‘Liking’ them, Thank You! It means a lot that people are taking the time to do both.

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Dionysius’ Revenge

For the last couple of years I have been making - or trying to make, anyway - a concerted effort to learn about Alexander’s life via the four principle sources (plus Justin) of his life.

Although I still have much to learn I think I am now sufficiently comfortable to now start thinking about expanding my focus a little: forwards, past the Wars of the Successors, which are already part of my reading, to the Successor kingdoms, and backwards, to classical Greece.

To that end, I went this week to see the Almeida Theatre’s production of Euripdes’ Bakkhai.

***

Euripides wrote Bakkhai - or The Bacchae as it is more commonly called - while living in the court of Archelaus I of Macedon, giving the play a nice point of connexion with Alexander.

In it, King Pentheus of Thebes tries to eliminate the worship of Dionysius in his city only for the god to take a fatal revenge on him. As if the tragedy of Pentheus’ pride is not enough for us, he is (literally) torn to shreds by his own mother, whom Dionysius has maddened along with the women of Thebes and taken into the mountains.

There is no doubt that Pentheus acts foolishly in setting himself against Dionysius; whether he deserves to be killed - and in such a gruesome way - is quite another matter, but the gods of Olympius are not known for staying their hands or acting in a half-hearted matter.

***

I first read Bakkhai a few years ago. My chief memory of it is that I found the play to be quite a disturbing and uncomfortable one. Too many mad people running around for my taste? Probably - that gave it an air of being a horror show, and I definitely not keen on horror as a literary genre, whether in books or, for example, film. I entered the Almeida, therefore, in trepidation. Would I enjoy it? Would I wake up in the middle of the night afterwards in a cold sweat? The answer to these questions is yes and no. Here is why I enjoyed the production.

Translation
This production used a translation of the play by Anne Carson. Perhaps rather cheekily, she has added some lines to Euripides’ text so that the modern world gets a mention. I’m not sure that was wholly necessary but it did not detract from the play and was a nice addition to its humorous aspect.

The Stage
The Almeida is a very small theatre. I sat in the front row and could easily touch the stage with my foot. Okay, I am quite tall so have long legs but believe me when I say you sit very close to the action. And this intensifies it, immeasurably - as if it wasn’t intense enough already. Watching this play was like being in the very middle of an unfolding disaster.

The Actors
The lead role of Dionysius was played by Ben Wishaw. With his slight frame and puppy-dog face he might seem a surprise choice to play the wild and malevolent god but Wishaw made the part his own. He did this in a number of ways: a. by the different ways he used his voice. Proud and firm, dreadful and strong for Dionysius, cockney for a Theban survivor of the god’s revenge b. by the way he acted with his body as well as his voice. For example, when he spoke of religion, Wishaw punched the palm of his hand. That’s the Greek gods to a T. c. Allied to b., by the way he used his face. Wishaw may have a ‘puppy dog’ expression but my goodness, when he narrows his eyes he is as fierce as fire. By-the-bye I am convinced that if he did weight training he would make an excellent Hephaestion to Jesse Eisenberg’s Alexander. At first sight, both men are much too small for such a role but as actors they have an inner fire that I am sure could see them do a better job than Colin Farrell and Jared Leto.

Pentheus was played by Bertie Carvel. Pentheus can’t be an easy part to play as he is rather a straight man to Dionysius’ mad character but Carvel was excellent. Straight back, smug face, full of self-assurance - that’s the Theban king through and through.

The third of the three principle actors was Kevin Harvey who played Pentheus’ grandfather, and first king of Thebes, Kadmos. I really liked his interpretation of the aged king. What really made it for me was just one detail: the way Harvey almost let his tongue hang out of the old man’s mouth. That was a little touch but spoke perfectly to Kadmos’ old and sadly decrepid state.

I can’t move on without mentioning the Chorus. The women who formed it were really, really good both in their singing and associated movements. And the way they whacked their thyrsi on the stage. At that point I really would have preferred to have been sitting a few rows back! It was very fearsome.

Alexander
I have to admit, during the play I did think to myself - Alexander would have seen this, what did he make of Bakkhai? For me this is a question worth considering as Alexander believed in the Dionysius’ reality. With that in mind, I find it very hard to believe that he would have viewed the play as no more than entertainment. Seeing the god so fearsomely portrayed surely would have made an impression on him. Perhaps we owe to such as Euripides’ play Alexander’s strong religious devotion, which he maintained all through his life.

***

Being able to visit the theatre is a great privilege. Living so close to one, as I do to the Almeida, makes me doubly lucky. Bakkhai was not only enjoyable on the night, but has giving me new things to think about thereafter; I hope, as well, that it will remind me to go back to the theatre sooner rather than later. With Medea opening at the Almeida later this month, that might just be possible.

Categories: Theatre | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

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