Alexander's appearance
Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2022 9:40 pm
In 'Faces of Power - Alexander's image and Hellenistic politics' Andrew Stewart isn't very flattering about Alexander's appearance:
Anonymous Itinerarium Alexandri 13 (ca. AD 340)
He emphasises that it was Alexander's neck that was crooked, not that he held his head tilted.Taken together, the two early traditions are not particularly flattering. Alexander was neither tall (about 5' 7") nor tanned; his neck apparently drooped and was twisted slightly towards his left shoulder, and he held his head high, tending to look upwards; he was clean-shaven; he had a loud, harsh voice; his eyes were limpid and melting; his brow was fierce; his hair formed a cowlick (anastole) above it; and there was something altogether scary in his countenance. P.73
..although a head held high and a loud voice were unmistakeable signs of strutting masculinity, white skin, melting eyes, a smooth chin, and a drooping neck signalled exactly the opposite. Whatever this strange and somewhat uncanny fusion of masculine and feminine may have contributed to his electric charisma, it certainly fascinated and perplexed his contemporaries.. P.74
It seems that Alexander was a skinny youth:Greek culture has been aptly described as a youth culture, and Apollo, its symbol, had been beardless in painting and sculpture since the sixth century; in the fifth, the younger gods like Hermes and Dionysos followed suit. The heroes present a parallel case: in the Iliad and the Odyssey they were very definitely bearded, but Alexander's ancestor Achilles loses his beard from the late sixth century, followed by many others, not least among them Herakles. Victorious athletes, too, were regularly represented as beardless.
...His was the fresh-faced youthfulness of the kouroi or of Achilles "whom he emulated from boyhood..not only was the usual image of the king as a bearded father figure inappropriate (to Alexander's youthful achievements), but a better model was ready to hand: the eternally youthful hero, out to shape the world anew. P.75
Anonymous Itinerarium Alexandri 13 (ca. AD 340)
As a youth he was of medium height and rather dry in the limbs … And as his muscles multiplied and grew, he developed a wonderful sinewy physique.