More on Al the Pretty Darned Good.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is happy. Somewhere out there Alexander himself is having some fun (and perhaps even a ménege à trois with Hephaistion and Roxanne) laughing at all of us who are so concerned about his sexuality.

First off, your Maximum Leader exhorts all his minions to read Eric's recent post: Alexander takes a bath. It is one of the best posts your Maximum Leader has read in a long long time. It starts with religious freedom in ancient Persia. Moves on to Alexander's sexuality. Then meanders its way through to the culture wars in the US caused by the conflict between our Greco-Roman vs. Judeo-Christian heritage. It is fabulous. Go and read. (Then come back.)

Now on to Alexander...

Minion "Powermfn" wrote your Maximum Leader on this subject. Her message:

[re:Alexander] and his proclivities (ahem), which seems to be totally stressing out the current Greek government, are really rather well explained in "The Persian Boy" by Mary Renault. It seems that in ancient Greece life was way past dangerous. A man's strength was not necessarily and totally wedded (???) to his material wealth but to the coterie of powerful men around him. Powerful and totally devoted men. Committed enough to go to war for him with or without good reason. The development of the ability to gather such a coterie was begun very early on, usually by the lad's father or whatever male was titular head of the family. The first rule was these "friends" came first, last and always. The family - also a necessity (wife, assorted kiddies, relatives) - would have to win his attention in some other fashion. Inasmuch as a lot of these ancient families were not the Mayberry RFD type, a man could need as much protection from them as any other harmful source.

As to how such a coterie was gathered and maintained, tactfully speaking, simple charisma might not be enough. This book is a really good read. Renault really does her research and knows her stuff.

Your Maximum Leader has not read Renault's book, and thus feels he cannot really comment on her assertions. Although he will caution all of his minions not to derive too many historial facts from a work of historical fiction. While some fiction authors go to great lengths to assure their work is accurate historically (and your Maximum Leader is thinking of the O'Brien Aubrey/Maturin novels here); their work remains fiction.

(NB: Your Maximum Leader should note that Greek lawyers are ending their fight to stop movie distribution in Greece.)

What your Maximum Leader feels he can comment on is what he does know about sexuality in ancient Greece. In his most recent post he alluded to the concept of "love" requiring equal status. And since men and women didn't have equal status in ancient Greece, men often "loved" other men. This perhaps wasn't a terribly clear exposition of what your Maximum Leader wanted to state. In this context, physical love wasn't the only aspect of "love" about which he was speaking. Indeed, physical love wasn't the major component of true "love."

In discussing the physical love between men in ancient Greece your Maximum Leader would direct you to a good take on Alexander's bisexuality from Victor Davis Hanson. (The specific passages to which your Maximum Leader would like to cite are not individually linked. Just scroll down to the second response.) Your Maximum Leader will quote a salient portion for you:

In a word, Alexander was probably not that different from either his father or most Macedonian horse lords in their approach to sex: an interest in the feminine, whether that be women or young boys and girlish adults who served as female surrogates. The key would have been insistence of the male role in all such encounters - and eventual marriage with children.

You might also want to check out Hanson's review of the movie.

Also in the spirit of movie reviews, you should read over Wretchard at the Belmont Club follow-on to Hanson's review. There is a particularly interesting part of that post about Darius' nature. Your Maximum Leader sometimes thinks of Darius as an ancient version of Nicholas II of Russia. A nice man just overwhelmed by events. Hummm... That is probably a bad analogy. Nicholas II was a pretty useless autocrat, and Darius - while not the equal of Alexander - wasn't a lousy autocrat.

Your Maximum Leader thinks this might just about do it for the discussion of the Alexander movie. Well, perhaps there may be one more post in this topic. Mrs. Villain and your Maximum Leader may go out this weekend and see a movie. Alexander is on the short list.

Carry on.