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    A very, very Senior Member Adrian II's Avatar
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    Default Interesting article on Alexanderography

    The New York Review of Books carries an article by British classicist Mary Beard on the Roman origins of the Alexander cult:

    Even more significant is the character and the cultural background of the surviving ancient accounts of Alexander’s life. It is repeatedly said that these accounts were all written much later than the events they described. True; but more to the point is the fact that they were all written under the Roman Empire against the background of Roman imperialism. Diodorus Siculus, whose account is the earliest to survive, was writing in the late first century BC. Arrian, now the most favored source, was born in the 80s AD in the city of Nicomedia (in modern Turkey), and undertook a Roman political career, becoming consul in the 120s, and later serving as governor of Cappadocia. Of course these Roman authors did not create the story of Alexander; and of course they depended on the writings of Alexander’s contemporaries, however good, or bad, they may have been. But they are bound to have seen this story through a Roman filter, to have interpreted and adjusted what they read in the light of the versions of conquest and imperial expansion that were characteristic of their own political age.
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    COYATOYPIKC Senior Member Flatout Minigame Champion Arjos's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting article on Alexanderography

    I agree that the Romani created (or there was already) legendary image of Alexandros, but some of the reasonings I don't get them:

    - Intoxicated band in Punjab (would the author have preferred an army with waterborne diseases?)
    - "The Great" (it had only to do with the persian "king of kings" which became Basileos Megas, Antiochos III assumed that title too, maybe he was even the first to introduce it to the Romani)
    - Giving more credibility to the persian sources (obviously everything available is needed to grasp the truth, but by looking at the modern folklore in the area, Alexandros was an horned demon on earth; seems to me it would end as having the diametrical opposite of the "roman" view, but still a biased one)

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    A very, very Senior Member Adrian II's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting article on Alexanderography

    Quote Originally Posted by Arjos View Post
    I agree that the Romani created (or there was already) legendary image of Alexandros, but some of the reasonings I don't get them:

    - Intoxicated band in Punjab (would the author have preferred an army with waterborne diseases?)
    The author, in fact, is Livy. In his Alexander Discursion in Book 9 Livy opposes Alexander's leadership to the collective genius of the Roman Senate and military, obviously to the advantage of the latter:

    Would the clever generalship of one young man have succeeded in baffling the whole senate, not to mention individuals, that senate of which he, who declared that it was composed of kings, alone formed a true idea? Was there any danger of his showing more skill than any of those whom I have mentioned in choosing the site for his camp, or organising his commissariat, or guarding against surprises, or choosing the right moment for giving battle, or disposing his men in line of battle and posting his reserves to the best advantage? He would have said that it was not with Darius that he had to do, dragging after him a train of women and eunuchs, wrapped up in purple and gold, encumbered with all the trappings of state. He found him an easy prey rather than a formidable enemy and defeated him without loss, without being called to do anything more daring than to show a just contempt for the idle show of power. The aspect of Italy would have struck him as very different from the India which he traversed in drunken revelry with an intoxicated army; he would have seen in the passes of Apulia and the mountains of Lucania the traces of the recent disaster which befell his house when his uncle Alexander, King of Epirus, perished.
    Beard refers to this passage to demonstrate that even in Rome the Alexander myth was not accepted without demur.

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    Summa Rudis Senior Member Catiline's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting article on Alexanderography

    There's most likely a Dionysian aspect to Livy's presentation of Alexander and his army there, which would have raised a lot of more conservative Roman hackles.
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    A very, very Senior Member Adrian II's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting article on Alexanderography

    Quote Originally Posted by Catiline View Post
    There's most likely a Dionysian aspect to Livy's presentation of Alexander and his army there, which would have raised a lot of more conservative Roman hackles.
    Quite. I was wondering myself if the 'effeminate' image of Alexander that has been cultivated lately goes back to such Roman portrayal as well.

    AII
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    Summa Rudis Senior Member Catiline's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting article on Alexanderography

    THere's quite a good breakdown of the Ancient Sources here - http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexande...ander_z1b.html
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    Poll Smoker Senior Member CountArach's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting article on Alexanderography

    Mary Beard is simultaneously one of the most brilliant and most frustrating scholars of today... Her scepticism has allowed for radical re-thinkings of many aspects of Roman history (The Roman Triumph for example, is a fantastic read) but at times she pushes too far. There are resonances of both in this article.

    For example it is easy to see the way that Roman authors wish to appropriate Alexander's memory.* Livy wrote at 26.19 that a rumour had arisen during the life of Scipio Africanus:

    [Scipio travelling to the temple daily] revived the tale previously told of Alexander the Great and rivalling it as unfounded gossip, that his conception was due to an immense serpent, and that the form of the strange creature had very often been seen in his mother's chamber, and that, when persons came in, it had suddenly glided away and disappeared from sight. He himself never made light of men's belief in these marvels; on the contrary it was rather promoted by a certain studied practice of neither denying such a thing nor openly asserting it. Many other things of the same sort, some true, some pretended, had passed the limits of admiration for a mere man in the case of this youth. Such were the things on which the citizens relied when they then entrusted to an age far from mature the great responsibility of so important a command.

    Ignoring Livy's scepticism, which is a topic for another day, it is telling that Livy includes the topos of a hero being borne from a serpent. Even though he apparently disbelieves this tale himself he has seen fit to include it. This implies one of two things. Firstly, it is easy to see that he was trying to equate Africanus with Alexander. This was not uncommon and it is clearly important to Livy otherwise an explicit comparison would not be made (Livy is, generally speaking, fond of more indirect characterisation so an explicit comparison such as this one is suitably rare as to indicate that a certain reading is intended by Livy. Secondly, it implies that Livy expected his audience to be familiar enough with this legend from Alexander to ensure that his comparison was not lost. This is also implied by the relative sparsity of details for such a magnificent tale. Livy had a penchant for narrating in detail certain scenes that he found interesting (this particular tale is in the midst of just such an aside) and so, rather than lavashing detail, he chooses not to do so and allows the comparison to Alexander to, as it were 'auto-fill' the detail in the reader's mind. As said, this implies a high degree of familiarity, which in itself implies a wide-spread transmission of a tale of Alexander's mythological origins. This, once again, implies that such a thing already existed.

    Because of this, as well as similar cases, I would hesitate to say that the Alexander we have is wholly a Roman creation, rather he is a Greek creation that has been transmitted to us with a Roman lens further distorting it. Certainly the Romans played a large part in the creation of this legend and this resonates throughout the texts that we have on Alexander. However, the extent to which it was expected that people would associate certain topoi directly with Alexander implies that such a legend already existed prior to the Roman authors writing, which implies that the creation of the myth happened earlier and was simply expounded upon by later authors. Of course, such a hypothesis would need much further work to be proven, but it is possible that I'm right and that Beard is here vastly oversimplifying.




    *For those who are interested this argument draws on "Augustus' Conception and the Heroic Tradition" by R. S. Lorsch in Latomus 56, no. 4 (1997).
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