"where" have you met alexander and why do you love him

[ariadne]

The questions are in the title.
Please forgive my bad english...
I have posted the same questions many years ago in this forum but i think there are lot's of new people now, so I ask them a second time.

Personnaly I've been interested on greek civilisation since my childhood and fascinated by ATG since the age of 14. I studied history and ancient Greece on college, but I did't took ATG for my final work, because it was a bit to passional in my mind for serious work...

Now I'm an adult, have a family life and don't work as a scholar, but time to time I come back to ATG figure, I read some books on him and he's on my thoughts. I'm afraid it's a fantasy...

If I'd work on psychology or sociology I'd make a study on people passionated by ATG, why and how ? S. Freud I think wrote about him in one of his books, if I remember he said that his own father was called Philip (like my own, by the way ! ), and as a child he indentified his familial situation with the oedipian triangle between ATG and his parents....
Maybe someone here knows more than me concernign Freur and ATG, it would be interesting to have a response...

Glad to see this forum is still active !

Ariadne

[jan]

From what I gather from your post is that you wish to psychoanalyze all those persons who are fascinated in Alexander the Great. Thanks for the information about Freud as I had never heard that one before. I suspect that people who are bonded through a study of Alexander are similar to those who like to read abovetopsecret discussions and posts...and all probably could use a good psychologist or psychiatrist...It is interesting as to the why and how of Alexander's drawing people's interest in him and even maintaining it after squeezing out all the juices of this famous "lemon". I am referring to the famous song years ago with the lyrics" Lemon tree very pretty but impossible to eat"...Alexander is similar to that in my opinion...He is a fantasy to today's world but a very real and serious leader of ages past, and impossible to fathom in today's changing world...those who believe that they can understand a legend are only self-deluded in my opinion which is why I believe that he continues to attract strange followers of all kinds.

I don't really care to discuss my own way of coming to learn of Alexander any longer as it has no relevance to the study of Alexander. It was and is pertinent only to myself and is not something which I wish to disclose any longer. Let us just say that he has been of great value to me and therefore I consider him to have some usefulness in my life. Thanks for asking...

[Efstathios]

Alexander would be a great research for modern psychologists, but there are not many crucial facts for someone to make a complete assessment of his character. He is generally a legend. Did he drink much or not? Did he conquer for the sake of conquering or not? And many other questions like these, that many have no answers based on hard facts. So someone could only hypothesize. Plus, you'd have to make your assessments based on his era, not ours. The mores and way of life was different at those times.

I will agree with Jan, most people are intrigued with Alexander for various reasons.

[Paralus]

Hi Stathi.

You'd best come to Aussie mate: things are getting seriously disjointed there.

Did he drink much or not?

He did.

Did he conquer for the sake of conquering or not?

He did.

[Efstathios]

Hey Michael. Nah, Greece always survives. Hard thing is to find a job right now. If it gets too ugly, i may become your neighboor

[Paralus]

Hard thing is to find a job right now. If it gets too ugly, i may become your neighboor

Any day my friend: I do run an employment agency.

[ruthaki]

I was introduced to Alexander when I was 16 and in my last year of high school wrote a novel with an Alexander theme (about the destruction of Thebes). Since then I have read and studied about him and at this moment I am starting the final chapter of a long novel about the fall of his dynasty. I have lived in Greece and visited there many times and visited all the Alexander sites there as well as some in Asia Minor.

[athenas owl]

I don't love Alexander. I am fascinated by him and his period, though. "Where" did I meet him? An anime series from the 90's. So off the wall I had to read up on him...and I completely lost interest in my old direction. About the same time I came across the literature on the Vergina tombs. Having gone to college before the discovery of the murals (when Greek painting was very little known compared to the sculpture and pottery), it opened up a whole new world.

But in the end, even though I learn more and more about everything surrounding him, he is ever more distant and unreachable. He is a mirror that others see their own world view through. The Historiography of Alexander studies is fascinating in and of itself.

Full disclosure..I am rereading Michael Wood's book again...it really hammers this point home for me.