Roxane and Alexander's marriage

[ancientlibrary]

I just saw this delightful passage for the first time, and thought I'd share. It also bears on Roxane and love, a topic we've been batting about. It's from Lucian's "Hermotimus or the Rival Philosophies" ( within http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/lcns210.txt )."In quite recent times the painter Aetion is said to have brought his picture, _Nuptials of Roxana and Alexander_, to exhibit at Olympia; and Proxenides, High Steward of the Games on the occasion, was so delighted with his genius that he gave him his daughter."It must have been a very wonderful picture, I think I hear some one say, to make the High Steward give his daughter to a stranger. Well, I have seen it--it is now in Italy--, so I can tell you. A fair chamber, with the bridal bed in it; Roxana seated--and a great beauty she is--with downcast eyes, troubled by the presence of Alexander, who is standing. Several smiling Loves; one stands behind Roxana, pulling away the veil on her head to show her to Alexander; another obsequiously draws off her sandal, suggesting bed-time; a third has hold of Alexander's mantle, and is dragging him with all his might towards Roxana. The King is offering her a garland, and by him as supporter and groom's-man is Hephaestion, holding a lighted torch and leaning on a very lovely boy; this is Hymenaeus, I conjecture, for there are no letters to show. On the other side of the picture, more Loves playing among Alexander's armour; two are carrying his spear, as porters do a heavy beam; two more grasp the handles of the shield, tugging it along with another reclining on it, playing king, I suppose; and then another has got into the breast-plate, which lies hollow part upwards; he is in ambush, and will give the royal equipage a good fright when it comes within reach."All this is not idle fancy, on which the painter has been lavishing needless pains; he is hinting that Alexander has also another love, in War; though he loves Roxana, he does not forget his armour. And, by the way, there was some extra nuptial virtue in the picture itself, outside the realm of fancy; for it did Aetion's wooing for him. He departed with a wedding of his own as a sort of pendant to that of Alexander; _his_ groom's-man was the King; and the price of his marriage-piece was a marriage."

[ruthaki]

Would I love a copy of that painting! Wow!

[Taphoi]

The painting exists in numerous Renaissance recreations based on Lucian's description. You probably already have a version in one of your Alexander books, e.g. Alexander the Great by Briant.Best wishes,Andrew

[susan]

I've got a photo of a tapestry from the 1600s or 1700s of the marriage of Alexander & Roxane. I'll post it later today when I've scanned it. I've no idea where the tapestry is, or when it was made; someone from Pothos posted the photo to me years ago. It's quite nice, though.Susan

[amyntoros]

There's a further reference to the painting in Lucian. (This excerpt and the footnotes are from the Loeb edition.) It also tells us something of what the ancients thought was beautiful in a woman. When's the last time you heard someone describing a beautiful woman and waxing poetic about her eyebrows? Okay, I'll admit that my father used to rave about the eyebrows of the young Elizabeth Taylor, but surely he must be an exception today? :-)Lucian. Volume IV. Essays in Portraiture. Chapters 7 - 8.Let them divide up the work, and let Euphranor colour the hair as he painted Hera's; let Polygnotus do the becomingness of her brows and the faint flush for her cheeks, just as he did Cassandra in the Lesche at Delphi, and let him also do her clothing, which shall be of the most delicate texture, so that it not only clings close where it should, but a great deal of it floats in the air. The body Apelles shall represent after the manner of his Pacate,(1) not too white but just suffused with red; and her lips shall be done by Aetion like Roxana's.(2)(1) Called Pancaste by Aelian (Var. Hist., 12, 34), Pancaspe by Pliny (35, 86). She was a girl of Larissa, the first sweetheart of Alexander the Great.(2) In the famous "Marriage of Alexander and Roxanne," described fully in Lucian's Herodotus. C. 4-6.Amyntoros