pothos.org

Jan1. Persian did not offer Alexander their children - he was offered young male prostitutes (not children) by a petty king. He refused - the inference is not that he disapproved of homosexuality or same sex relations but of being offered what were basically prostitutes. And two - which suggested th...

Ah - right. It sounds like someone paraphrased Plutarch, and then the new version has done the rounds. Thanks for the reference, once again!You are right - it could have been slightly tongue in cheek - it is so hard to tell with some of his utterances. L.

Always listen to the locals...If the guide books says don't go out on the river without a hat in high summer, then don't do it...

Well, I think it is important, in as much as anything is important. It explains tensions within the high command, for one thing. When and where they were lovers, we don't know - whether this was a long term relationship or a sporadic one, or even a late blossoming one, but there seems to have been c...

Or another angle is that Alexander took himself seriously, and that what he embodied - his ideals, and his values and qualities - were of great importance and central to how he saw the world. Hence there is the story (I read on a Christian website, of all places) in which he is dealing with a soldie...

This is what I often quote when it is said the the Greeks had no notion of different sexualities - eg homo and hetero...it may be different slant on the issue, but different "types" are clearly defined. Of course, that is just what Plato said - it does not follow that this was a idely held...

Don't go there, Marcus.....Linda

I was just going to ask if anyone had seen it. The review in the Guardian says it is better than Troy and Alexander, put together. At least, it tries to address the east/west issues, which "Alexander" just didn't touch at all.It has Orlando Bloom in it. All you need to know. All I need to ...

I understand the issues in assessing infant mortality - also in a society which was plagued with wars, or drought, or plagues(!) it would be hard to get consistency from year to year probably. So far, all I have come up with is contracts with wet-nurses in ancient Egypt, which is a fascinating enoug...

Thank you for the link.Yes, I do have a tendency to start of putting a different point, and then agreeing with the original poster. I am getting therapy for it.One of the databases I do have access to at work is a medical one, so I'll see if there is anything about infant mortality in the ancient wo...

HiI suppose my main point is that because Philip did not have a lot of children, doesn't necessary mean that babies died. I don't know what the infant mortality was in those days - was it greater than in Victorian England (a very unhealthy time..)However, I do think it *likely* that there were child...

I am sorry - Alexander was not bi-polar. People with bi-polar are seriously ill. I think it is far more interesting to see Alexander as a man who lived and played hard, and who was subject to the pressures that could affect someone with so much power, wealth, ambition, and so many enemies. He lived ...

Although, amyntoros, just because a thing is possible, does not mean that it is probable, to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes. I really don't think we can know, unless more evidence emerges. You can say it is likely a new-ish wife would have become pregnant fairly quickly, indeed that would have been expe...

i agree that it is a good plot device, but if it were true, then surely some other author woudl have mentioned it? eg, Alexander's rampage against the Cossaeans was put down to catharsis after Hephaestion's death. Surely the death of a son would be mentioned in the same light?

Actually, I think Star Trek's Captain Kirk is quite a good "reimaging" of Alexander. In a sixties tv context of course, but Kirk had his own Gordian knot situation - in a simulated battle, he reprogrammed the computer. Some of the Star Trek plots were based on Greek myths. I am *not* a tre...