Personal relationships of Alexander the Great
This article's factual accuracy is disputed. (April 2020) |
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Early rule
Conquest of the Persian Empire
Expedition into India
Death and legacy
Cultural impact
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The historical and literary tradition describes several of
Relationships
Ancient authors see this and other anecdotes as proof of Alexander's self-control in regards to sensual pleasures, and accounts are also known of Alexander's stern refusal to accept indiscreet offers from men who tried to pimp him male prostitutes, among whom, according to Aeschines and Hypereides, was the renowned Athenian orator Demosthenes. According to Carystius (as quoted by Athenaeus), when Alexander praised the beauty of a boy at a gathering, probably a slave belonging to one Charon of Chalcis, the latter asked the boy to kiss Alexander, but Alexander refused, to spare Charon the embarrassment of having to share his boy's affections.[5]
According to Plutarch, the only woman with whom Alexander had sex before his first marriage was
No record at all exists of such a woman accompanying his march; nor of any claim by her, or her powerful kin, that she had born him offspring. Yet twelve years after his death a boy was produced, seventeen years old...a claimant and shortlived pawn in the succession wars...no source reports any notice whatever taken by him of a child who, Roxane's being posthumous, would have been during his lifetime his only son, by a near-royal mother. In a man who named cities after his horse and dog, this strains credulity.[6]
Regardless, ancient reports state that Alexander and Barsine became lovers, as Alexander was enthralled by her beauty and knowledge of Greek literature.[4]
Alexander married three times: to
Diodorus Siculus writes, "Then he put on the Persian diadem and dressed himself in the white robe and the Persian sash and everything else except the trousers and the long-sleeved upper garment. He distributed to his companions cloaks with purple borders and dressed the horses in Persian harness. In addition to all this, he added concubines to his retinue in the manner of Darius, in number not less than the days of the year and outstanding in beauty as selected from all the women of Asia. Each night these paraded about the couch of the king so that he might select the one with whom he would lie that night. Alexander, as a matter of fact, employed these customs rather sparingly and kept for the most part to his accustomed routine, not wishing to offend the Macedonians."[7]
According to Plutarch, Alexander once sought a sexual encounter with
Aristotle
Aristotle was the head of the royal academy of
Alexander also received his primary education on the
Hephaestion
Alexander had a close emotional attachment to his companion,
According to Robin Lane Fox, Alexander and Hephaestion were possible lovers. After Hephaestion's death in Oct 324 BC, Alexander mourned him greatly and did not eat for days.[12] Alexander held an elaborate funeral for Hephaestion at Babylon, and sent a note to the shrine of Ammon, which had previously acknowledged Alexander as a god, asking them to grant Hephaestion divine honours. The priests declined, but did offer him the status of divine hero. Alexander died soon after receiving this letter; Mary Renault suggests that his grief over Hephaestion's death had led him to be careless with his health. Alexander was overwhelmed by his grief for Hephaestion, so much that Arrian records that Alexander "flung himself on the body of his friend and lay there nearly all day long in tears, and refused to be parted from him until he was dragged away by force by his Companions".[13]
Campaspe
Campaspe, also known as Pancaste, is thought to have been a prominent citizen of Larissa in Thessaly, and may have been the mistress of Alexander. If this is true, she was one of the first women with whom Alexander was intimate; Aelian even surmises that it was to her that a young Alexander lost his virginity.
One story tells that Campaspe was painted by Apelles, who enjoyed the reputation in Antiquity for being the greatest of painters. The episode occasioned an apocryphal exchange that was reported in the sources for the life of Alexander in Pliny's Natural History. Robin Lane Fox traces her legend back to the Roman authors Pliny the Elder, Lucian of Samosata and Aelian's Varia Historia.
Campaspe became a generic poetical pseudonym for a man's mistress.
Barsine
The story may be true, but if so, it raises some difficult questions. The boy would have been Alexander's only child born during his lifetime (Roxane's son was born posthumously). Even if Alexander had ignored him, which seems highly unlikely, the Macedonian Army and the successors would certainly have known of him, and would almost certainly have drawn him into the succession struggles which ensued upon Alexander's death. Yet we first hear of the boy twelve years after Alexander's death, when a boy was produced as a claimant to the throne. Especially since Alexander's own half brother
Roxana
Ancient historians, as well as modern ones, have also written on Alexander's marriage to
As soon as Alexander died in 323 BC, Roxana murdered Alexander's two other wives. Roxana wished to cement her own position and that of her son, unborn at that time, by ridding herself of a rival who could be—or claim to be—pregnant. According to Plutarch's account,
Roxana bore Alexander a posthumous child also named Alexander (Alexander IV), 2 months after Alexander the Great died.
Bagoas
Ancient sources tell of another favorite, Bagoas; a eunuch "in the very flower of boyhood, with whom Darius was intimate and with whom Alexander would later be intimate."[26] Plutarch recounts an episode (also mentioned by Dicaearchus) during some festivities on the way back from India in which his men clamor for him to kiss the young man: "We are told, too, that he was once viewing some contests in singing and dancing, being well heated with wine, and that the Macedonians' favourite, Bagoas, won the prize for song and dance, and then, all in his festal array, passed through the theatre and took his seat by Alexander's side; at sight of which the Macedonians clapped their hands and loudly bade the king kiss the victor, until at last he threw his arms about him and kissed him tenderly." Athenaeus tells a slightly different version of the story — that Alexander kissed Bagoas in a theater and, as his men shouted in approval, he repeated the action.[27]
The Roman historian
A novel by Mary Renault, The Persian Boy, chronicles that story with Bagoas as narrator [29]
See also
- Ancient Greek eros
Notes
- ^ Athenaeus. "Deipnosophistae, book 10".
- ^ ISBN 978-3110556759.
- ISBN 978-1597975193.
- ^ ISBN 978-0521148443.
- ISBN 978-0520234307.
- ^ Renault, pp. 110.
- ^ Diodorus XVII.77.5
- ISSN 1471-6844.
- ^ Shields, Christopher (2016). "Aristotle's Psychology". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 ed.).
- ISBN 978-0-520-27586-7.
- ^ "Plutarch – Life of Alexander (Part 1 of 7)". penelope.uchicago.edu. Loeb Classical Library. 1919. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
- ^ Fox (1980) p. 67.
- ^ Arrian 7.14.13
- ^ "White Nationalists call ancient Greek homosexuality a "myth"". Pharos. 13 July 2018. Retrieved 2 February 2024.
- ^ Georgiades, Adonis (2004). Homosexuality In Ancient Greece The Myth Is Collapsing. p. 187.
- ^ a b c Cartledge 2004, p.205
- ^ "Caratini, p. 170.
- ^ Justinius 9.10.
- ^ "Philip Arrhidaeus - Livius". www.livius.org. Retrieved 2017-10-06.
- ^ Curtius Rufus, Quintus (1946). History of Alexander the Great of Macedonia (in Latin and English). Translated by Rolfe, John Carew. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 543.
- ^ "The election of Arrhidaeus - Livius". www.livius.org. Retrieved 2017-10-06.
- ^ Renault, pp. 110–11.
- ^ Fox (1980), p. 298.
- ^ Wilcken.
- ^ Carney (2000), p. 110.
- ^ Rufus, VI.5.23.
- ^ Deipnosophistae, 13d.
- ISBN 978-1-4051-9572-0.
- ISBN 9780099463481..
References
- Primary sources:
- Justinus, Junianus, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus
- Rufus, Quintus Curtius, Historiae Alexandri Magni.
- Secondary sources:
- Cartledge, Paul. "Alexander the Great: hunting for a new past?" History Today, 54 (2004).
- Cartledge, Paul. Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past. Woodstock, NY; New York: The Overlook Press, 2004 (hardcover, ISBN 1-4000-7919-5).
- ISBN 0-316-29108-0.
- Fox, Robin Lane, "Riding with Alexander" Archaeology, September 14, 2004.
- Daniel Ogden, Alexander the Great: Myth, Genesis, and Sexuality. University of Exeter Press, 2011.
- ISBN 0-394-73825-X.
- Wilcken, Ulrich, Alexander the Great, W. W. Norton & Company; Reissue edition (March 1997). ISBN 0-393-00381-7.