beard

[venkat]

I need the answer for his please...
Alexander the Great forbade his soldiers from wearing beards, and for a very practical reason too. If it had nothing to do with a surplus of razor blades, what was the reason?

[xxx]

Alexander did not forbid his soldiers from wearing beards.There is however a logos that has Alexander saying something along the lines of he didn't have one because it made a good hand hold for an enemy or some such.

[marcus]

To add to this - as he was the king, many (but not all) soldiers would therefore have followed his example, as the king was the ultimate trend-setter.The same thing happened in the medieval period - you find many fashions dictated by what the king chose to do. (The unproven assumption that William Rufus was homosexual came from the monks' lurid descriptions of the goings-on at court where, horror of horrors, the king and his hangers-on chose to wear their hair long! God forbid!)All the bestMarcus

[kate]

Hi,There was some discussion on Pothos quite a while ago about whether or not Alexander might have decided to be clean-shaven because his father Philip and all the older men at court had beards - as Marcus suggests it might have been a trend-setting thing with Alexander's circle all adopting the new fashion. One of the things that niggled me when watching Stone's film was how Alexander's hair got longer and longer as he went further east. Was this meant to convey a sort of decadence? All it made me think of was this saying about beards offering a good hand-hold for the enemy - imagine what you could do with all those flowing locks! Even if Alexander and the others had grown their hair I'm sure that they would have tied it up in some way when actually fighting. After all, the Spartans did.Cheers,Kate

[marcus]

Yes, I must admit that the increasingly long hair in the film was silly. It was as if Michael Bolton had put up some of the money and Stone was determined to include an hommage ... don't understand the reasoning, and it didn't look very good.(Even though I liked the film that is one of my peeves with it.)Marcus

[amyntoros]

I'm in agreement with you and Marcus about Colin's hair in the movie, except that so much had been said about it before the movie opened that I guess I just "tuned it out" by the time I saw the film. As for Alexander and his beard; Athenaeus confirms Marcus' comments about it becoming a "fashion."Athenaeus XIII. 564 f GÇô 565 b"Now you Stoics take your favourites about with their chins shaven; shaving the beard came into fashion under Alexander, as your Chrysippus says in the fourth book of his work On Pleasure and the Good. It will not be inappropriate, I am convinced, if I recall his exact words; for I like the man very much for his wide learning and respectable character. The philosopher speaks as follows: GÇ£The custom of shaving the beard increased under Alexander, although the foremost men did not follow it. Why even the flute-player Timotheus wore a long beard when he played the flute*. And at Athens they maintain that it is not so very long ago that the first man shaved his face all round, and had the nickname Shaver.GÇ¥
* In the presence of Alexander. Athen. 538 f.I know I often quote Athenaeus, but he is such a fabulous source for the more trivial subjects that our other sources ignore. :-)Best regards,Linda Ann

[kenny]

Marcus Kate.With reference to the long hair out of place your quite right.If you recall the Michael Woods programe, He referss to the Portrait by Lysippos as the image of a much older Alexander. Take a look at the image Alexanders hair is just below his ears and well kempt.While you look can you read anything else from the image Michael Wood claimed he had the look of stress and worry on his face,,, I just didnt get that. He looks steady and thoughtful to me.
Kenny

[marcus]

Hi Kenny,I understand your problem with seeing what Michael Wood means by 'stress and worry'. I often have this problem with art - people say "look at the xxx on this person's face" ... and I think "er ... where?"Perhaps I'm just a barbarian! :-)All the bestMarcus

[ruthaki]

He wore a helmet, right? That covered up the hair.
And I recall a passage from The Iliad, speaking of the men of Karystos with 'their long hair hanging down', so if he had his hair longer he wasn't the first and only warrior who did. By the way, it didn't bother me at all in the movie that his hair got longer. He was, by India, adopting a lot of the Persian fashion, and they had their hair hanging down long.

[marcus]

Hi Ruth,*If* Alexander ever wore his hair long then, of course, he wasn't the first to do so. The Spartans, too, were famous for not cutting their hair.A helmet wouldn't completely cover the hair, unless you gathered it up in a sort of hairnet first. And, where it hangs down the back it can be grabbed.However, to be fair to everyone, the original question was about the trend for going cleanshaven, rather than the length of the hair. Where Alexander's army tended towards faceless helmets, which couldn't cover up beards, it was a very pertinent issue - so it was probably a case of fashion being dictated by practicality!All the bestMarcus

[amyntoros]

Have to jump back in with a comment here, 'cause I've never truly believed that this was the real reason for Alexander wanting the army to go beardless. Honestly, I think Alexander preferred himself and his companions to be beardless and this was a handy excuse. In other words, it was *always* a fashion statement and never a practicality. Look at it this way: you're a Macedonian soldier going into battle. You either have a dirty great sarissa in front of you, you're sitting on top of a horse with a spear or sword, or you're on the ground with the same. All of these weapons are going to extend your reach considerably. If the enemy has gotten close enough to you to grab your beard, then you've already screwed up pretty badly and might even have lost your weapon. And if that's the case, why should he grab your beard in the first place? Why not just stick a sword or spear into you and be done with it? I mean, we're talking about a battle and not a wrestling match here. You don't want to grab the enemy, you want to kill him as fast as possible and move on... :-)Best regards,Linda Ann

[alejandro]

right on the nail!100% with you on this one!bestalejandro

[marcus]

Well, that could well be true. On the other hand, it *not* being a practicality depends on the phalanx *not* breaking up and getting into close quarter fighting :-)Anyway, if not all the Macedonians adopted Alexander's fashion, then it raises the question of how many of them actually *did*. After all, if 90% of the men in the ranks of the phalanx still had beards ...LOL :-)Marcus