Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

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robbie
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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by robbie »

Well,

Whoever spoke those words is clearly of a very judgmental persuasion..
Just because someone famous spoke it, doesn't mean it's an absolute truth. You can pretty much find faults with everyone... even the most revered people in history..

Alex was a product of his time, formed by the prevailing values and standards of the time - he grew up in a hero-worshipping culture where you had prove yourself.
You can't really judge anyone before walking in his or hers shoes -it's too much simplistic, it's anachronistic value judgments.

Freeman says: "He was a man of his own violent times, no better or worse in his actions than Caesar or Hannibal.”

I'm not defending him, I'm just saying...
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chris_taylor
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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by chris_taylor »

robbie wrote:Well,

Whoever spoke those words is clearly of a very judgmental persuasion..
You misunderstood the quote. It was said in response to those who use modern standards of morality (warfare, human slaughter, rape) to judge Alexander and his campaign.

Chris.
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Xenophon
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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by Xenophon »

Agesilaos wrote:
Hiphys? Common people! ? The man on the Clapham omnibus does not give a flying copulation for Alexander, so I presume you mean must ill-educated public school boys; annoying but hardly 'common'.
Oh, dear! .....Do I detect just the faintest whiff of elitism here? I and most of the scholars I know who study ancient military history, including the study of the era of Alexander the Great, have never been within coo-ee of a public school.........and the man on the Clapham Omnibus has usually heard of Alexander, even if they are not so knowledgeable on the subject as the average Pothosian..... :wink:
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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by agesilaos »

This seems to be the thread for misunderstandings :) The purport of my retort was that only ill educated nobs use words like 'common', viz the former Tory whip and pleb-gate. For the record I am the product of comprehensive 'education' too; definitely an elitist too, though, only my 'elite' is not the normal 'elite', it's better and more exclusive :D

Mixing mainly with homo omnibus, I agree they have heard of AtG, but they don't care about him; you know that glazed look that comes into the eyes (even if they have just asked you to tell them about him!), mind you i'm the same when X-factor is mentioned (more elitism? Or just sound taste?).
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Paralus
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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by Paralus »

The entire thread's a nonsense and the "visited by a medium" belongs elsewhere.

Alexander was well acquainted with "ugly": he murdered Cleitus in a drunken binge and retired for three days. Alexander well knew "ugly": he was well known for sleeping well into the next day or not rising at all the following day after staying over his cups supposedly for "conversation". Alexander well knew ugly: he set the precedent for Perdiccas by murdering those of his forces who disagreed with him at Opis.

Alexander looked upon "ugly" on more than a few mornings when he looked into his shaving mirror.
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Wicked men, you sin against your fathers, who conquered the whole world under Philip and Alexander.

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robbie
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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by robbie »

I know the thread's nonsense... I never claimed otherwise. Just wanted to straighten the matter out. If it appalls you that much, there's no reason to reply to it, is there?

The mediumship post, well, I understand where you're coming from, just wanted to share with you guys, that's all. No malice intended...
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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by agesilaos »

STOP!!!!

Please. there is nothing wrong in your post, or those agaist it, but and this is a big BUT let us keep it source based ; anyone who wants to check my integrity out needs only to s
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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by Paralus »

robbie wrote:I know the thread's nonsense... I never claimed otherwise. Just wanted to straighten the matter out. If it appalls you that much, there's no reason to reply to it, is there?

The mediumship post, well, I understand where you're coming from, just wanted to share with you guys, that's all. No malice intended...
I don't see any malice - unless, possibly, you happen to be Peter Green (this thread) - only irrelevance (mediums).

As for myself (can't speak for Agesilaos), my elitism is purely pint based; halves are simply not on. Ugly is bottom of said empty pint...
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Ἐπὶ τοὺς πατέρας, ὦ κακαὶ κεφαλαί, τοὺς μετὰ Φιλίππου καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου τὰ ὅλα κατειργασμένους;
Wicked men, you sin against your fathers, who conquered the whole world under Philip and Alexander.

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Alexias
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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by Alexias »

Chris pre-empted what I was going to say, but Green's statement looks like an extrapolation of several threads in the histories that don't necessarily add up to the conclusion that Alexander actively disliked ugly people.

Firstly, Alexander was, if not exactly vain, very conscious of his looks and image - maybe one of the reasons he went against the norm and remained clean-shaven; controlled who could reproduce his image in painting and sculpture; was, I think, the first Greek king to put his image on coins (even if disguised as Heracles or Ammon); and arguably, clung onto his youth into his thirties.

He was also known to appreciate good-looking people - Bagoas was renowned for his beauty, one of Hephaestion's attractions was his handsome looks, he allegedly fell in love with Roxane on sight and she was said to be beautiful, and Darius's wife was said to be so beautiful that he said he did not trust himself in her presence.

Thirdly, there is his treatment of the eunuch Batis, brought on by Alexander's injury and frustration at the delay in the seige of Gaza and Batis's defiance. There is also the Page who was set alight with crude oil and, if memory serves me correctly, was described as plain. So Green would have it that non-beautiful people were persecuted by Alexander because he considered himself beautiful and surrounded himself with beauty.

However, the Page incident seems to have all the hallmarks of a bunch of youths horsing around, perhaps showing off in front of the king.

As for the Batis incident, I looked at the sources. Plutarch and, I think Justin, don't mention him or Alexander's treatment of him. Arrian simply says that he was a eunuch with no reference to his appearance. He doesn't mention Alexander's treatment of him either. Curtius gives the account of Alexander's treatment of him, but doesn't say that he was either a eunuch, fat or ugly. He says that he fought valiantly even after he was deserted by his men and was covered in blood, his own and his opponents - hardly possible if he was grossly overweight.

Curtius clearly blames Alexander for the shameful treatment of a valiant opponent, brought about by his overweening arrogance. So where does Green's description of Batis as ugly and corpulent come from? Is it possibly an assumption that that is what older eunuchs looked like?

PS I hope I am not being presumptuous in saying that Hiphys may have meant 'average' rather than 'common' - an understandable confusion for someone whose first language may not be English.
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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by agesilaos »

Green's source, and Curtius', is Hegesias p204 /386ff here


http://www.archive.org/stream/cu3192402 ... 3/mode/2up

It is of dubious historical value, Hegesias was a bombastic clown writing for effect, he invented the synchronism of the fire at Artemis' temple in Ephesos and Alexander's birth along with the 'witticism' which so tickled Cicero and left Plutarch cold.

The dunking of page boys in naptha is a similarly doubtful story, it is only in Plutarch, but nevertheless does not support any notion of bias on Alexander's behalf as the page volunteers for candle duty! If anything his plainness speaks against such antipathy as he was attending at the King's bath, as intimate as it gets; the Macedonians lacking a Groom of the Stool! :shock:
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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by hiphys »

Thank you very much, Alexias, you are right! I only wondered, in my poor English, why Peter Green's book is so widely known.
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chris_taylor
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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by chris_taylor »

hiphys wrote:Thank you very much, Alexias, you are right! I only wondered, in my poor English, why Peter Green's book is so widely known.Hiphys

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/

Study the headlines in that link. They come from what was until very recently the most widely read newspaper in the UK. Peter Green appeals to the same readership, for the same reasons.

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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by Taphoi »

agesilaos wrote:The dunking of page boys in naptha(sic) is a similarly doubtful story, it is only in Plutarch, but nevertheless does not support any notion of bias on Alexander's behalf as the page volunteers for candle duty! If anything his plainness speaks against such antipathy as he was attending at the King's bath, as intimate as it gets; the Macedonians lacking a Groom of the Stool! :shock:
Strabo 16.1.15 wrote:It is said that Alexander, for an experiment, poured some naphtha on a boy in a bath and brought a lamp near him; and that the boy, enveloped in flames, would have been nearly burned to death if the bystanders had not, by pouring on him a very great quantity of water, prevailed over the fire and saved his life.
:!:
agesilaos
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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by agesilaos »

Apologies, Hiphys I had no idea you were not a native English speaker hence my speed in dashing to the barricades of class war, Doh!

Mmmh, Strabo, yes my oversight, however the similarity of the two passages indicate one common source which Strabo misremembers to make Alexander himself the author of the jape rather than Athenodoros the otherwise unknown Athenian intimate of the king. Although there is a Greek in Curtius called Athenodoros, he was the short-lived , leader of the revolt in Bactria, setting himself up as king before being assassinated at the urging of his compatriot Biton; unfortunately their city is not stated and that they were both Greeks may be all that is meant ( IX 7 ivff). It is unlikely the same man is meant IMO
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Re: Did Alexander dislike ugly people??!!

Post by Paralus »

chris_taylor wrote:http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/

Study the headlines in that link. They come from what was until very recently the most widely read newspaper in the UK. Peter Green appeals to the same readership, for the same reasons.

Chris.
I think that overly harsh and inaccurate. Many may (and do) take issue with Green's view of Alexander. Green himself has said that one's view of history cannot but be coloured by the prism of the times through which one writes. In Green's case, that prism was of a Greece of the Colonels (Alexander as a recruitment tool) and a world where "geo-politco adventurism" (for want of a better way of putting it) would lead to American failure in Asia. It was also a time of long overdue reaction to Tarns absurd notion of the gentleman/philosopher-conqueror who sought a worldly brotherhood of man and whose mission was to civilise the east (as if there had been no civilisation prior to the conquest).

Which is not to say that this view has not gone too far (as Tarn before in the opposite direction) but to categorise Green as some sort of "News of the World" of ancient history is incorrect. Perhaps you should try Classical Bearings or From Alexander to Actium.
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Wicked men, you sin against your fathers, who conquered the whole world under Philip and Alexander.

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