How much do we dislike Cassander?

[h1bs]

I noted someone below describing Cassander
as the friend of ATG ? Was this the case ?
We know he appeared at Babylon some weeks
before the death of ATM ,& that the poisoning
theory is partly or mostly attributed to him.
Of course he did subsequently murder ATG's
mother , wife & child..so not my favourite Macedonian.

[marcus]

I have to confess that I don't really know much about Cassander. But I certainly wouldn't class him as one of Alexander's close friends - he didn't even go on the campaign, after all.He's always struck me more as being someone Alexander had to tolerate, because his father was so important - there were people I knew at school a bit like that (like when my mother used to force me to go round to David Green's house to play...).All the bestMarcus

[chris]

Hi PatYou may have been referring to the quote attributed to Jonathan Rhys Meyers (see Oliver Stone Movie entry)- so I guess we should take it with a pinch of salt - Oliver no doubt pumping up the part a bit!Regards,Chris

[Tre]

BTW, Stone intends for Alexander to be living when Alexander IV is born - he has no intention of being historically accurate.

[agesilaos]

Actually I quite like Kassander since he was the staunch ally of my favourite diadoch, Lysimachos.

[karen]

Hi all:Tre, may I ask, how do you know this? From following movie news?I'm just thinking, if Robin Lane Fox is supposed to be working as historical consultant on this movie, how can he let this sort of thing go by!? The movie is being billed as "based on" his Alexander work.To me having Kassander as a friend of A's is an obvious plot set-up. Makes it all the more horrible -- or justified, if that's the tack Stone is taking -- that Kassander betrays A. in the end. Brutus to A's Julius Caesar, I guess. A story that's been done, done, done. Well, let's hope the *other* movie is truer, and thus more interesting...Love & peace,
Karen

[Tre]

Stone has been planning on making this movie for a long time - he has Alexander poisoned in the end. He basically said 'bah' to historical accuracy. This is from an interview several years ago.

[gahauser]

How do we know he was not poisoned? Judging from the toughness of that man, (Who survived a punctured lung) It would take a toxic cup to do him in.

[Tre]

There are any one of a number of reasons why it wasn't poison, the least of which is it took 11 days for him to die.This has been discussed on the forum before and you can probably find it in the search engine.

[marcus]

In addition to Tre's answer (with which I fully agree), it is also worth bearing in mind that any person, however tough, who has narrowly survived a puntured lung, as well as numerous other wounds, is going to be far more susceptible to illness, particularly an illness that affects the bronchial tracts (or whatever they're called).It is a credit to Alexander's constitution that he took as long as 11 days to die!All the bestMarcus

[gahauser]

That's what I like about fiction....poetic license...

[Thalestris-Alexandros]

This is my theory based on biology, specifically the tiny, tiny microscopic, omnipotent protozoa:(1) Alexander traveling through the marshes
(2) His immunity compromised by past illnesses and wounds
(3 Bit by an insect; sporozoans establish a long life cycle (a few weeks); Plasmodium sporozoan "causes malaria" takes ATG as host; takes only a few days for these micro-power machines to burst out of the liver cells and invade red blood cells, destroying them, thus killing the host.
(4) Alexander suffered the symptoms of malaria, and his immunity could not fight it.Teaching 7th grade Biology is lots of fun!Cheers!
Thalestris

[agesilaos]

Back to the punctured lung; it seems more likely that Alexander's wound was not as serious as this both Curtius 9. 5. 9, 22, Plutarch Mor 327b;341c;344c and Diodoros17. 99. 3. place the wound in the breast ie the arrow lodged in the sternum this makes sense of the procedure used which is in accord with ancient medical manuals (epitomae medicae by Paulus of Aegina esp)which is a procedure to be used only if there are NO underlying vital organs; clearly not the case with a punctured lung.Alexander's recovery and continued activity becomes less of a problem (less of an impossibility!) but it does mean that Ptolemy has got it wrong. This is not tooo big a problem either as he is explicitly stated not to have been present, he knew it was a chest wound form a powerful bow and assumed a lung wound which he described from the many others he will have seen, he was mistaken, however.For a fuller discussion see Bosworth Alexander and the East pp62-5