The Obsession Corner

Current obsession: Alexander the Great // Psychologist psychotherapist • 37• Italy• 🌈 She/her

[jeannereames]

So I did a (brief) review of the Nolan film already on this site--inasmuch as I had things to say about it specifically.

This video is different, despite the "teaser" image. In it, I talk about a range of matters involving taking the ancient world into ours, in fictional form. Including the difference between mythic retellings and historical fiction (they are not the same).

There are better people who really specialize in Homer, to review the film. So I focused instead on my own personal experience as a writer, as much as a historian.

So if you're interested in commentary on Dancing with the Lion, there's a fair bit in here. (Some of which is not new, if you've been following me a while.) But also some broader issues.

@aldebaranarfeiniel, you were one of several inspirations for this.

[aldebaranarfeiniel]

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, professor! 🥹❤️ just imagine how I am overflowing with joy and gratitude for having been quoted! I am legit shaking right now, because I just woke up to this! @jeannereames

You said that it felt good when readers get it, and from my point of view is similarly so important when authors and experts have such a warm dialogue with us, acknowledging our points of view and being so available and engaging. ❤️ this made my whole day (well, ok, maybe year!)

Also I love the whole theme of the video, how to portray ancient worlds and the balance to maintain in this effort. It ain’t easy and it’s virtually impossible to live up to everyone’s expectations and needs but if something is made with passion and research, it has soul and it shows.

[aldebaranarfeiniel]

Scrolling through Hephaistion’s Wikipedia page (Italian and English one are both done pretty well)

How to have children together without being able to have children together: Alexandros x Hephaistion edition.

“Alexander, says Arrian, "...wanted to become the uncle of Hephaestion's children...", and it is therefore even possible to imagine that the two hoped their respective descendants might one day be united, and that, in the end, the crowns of Macedonia and Persia might be worn by a descendant of them both.”

Arrian 7.4.29

This effin’ hurts and I never thought about it:

The Italian art historian Linda De Santis has also pointed out that, besides the Iliad, Alexander found a second ideal source of inspiration in Euripides' Alcestis. There, the widower Admetus finds himself in a state of grief similar to that of the Macedonian king, and Alexander's actions mirror and retrace those of the king of Pherae (the cutting of the horses' manes, the prohibition of musical performances, and other mourning rites). Alexander almost seems to be "pointing us toward the words that flowed from the pen of his favorite tragedian in order to speak to us, across the centuries, about the depth of the feelings he had for his departed friend. In a sense, he is asserting that his relationship with Hephaestion was just as close as that of Admetus and Alcestis."

[aldebaranarfeiniel]

I will put my profession to use and I speculate (not retrospectively diagnose, which I know it’s not right, but only speculate) that Alexander the Great may have been very likely neurodivergent: I mean, cognitively gifted and ADHD.

[aldebaranarfeiniel]

“What is grief if not love persevering?”

Hamadan’s lion (ancient Ecbatana): what remains of the love and sorrow of a king

[jeannereames]

Hello Dr. Reames! Recently I read that the stone lion monument at Hamadan is supposed to have been built by ATG to commemorate the place where Hephaestion died. Is it true and is there any proof of that claim?

We don't know for absolute sure, but that's the common assumption. The one lion left was originally one of two that were mounted on either side of the old gate to the city. One was destroyed, the other damaged, but I forget when. It's pretty clearly Hellenistic in style, which is why it's tagged as something that Alexander constructed for Hephaistion. That said, no inscription survives, so who knows for sure?

Fun little detail I read years ago, but forget where: locals used to smear honey on the lion's nose as a fertility charm. Maybe they still do. 😹😹😹

[aldebaranarfeiniel]

The way in this century we are still finding funeral monuments to his bae is crazy to me

[jeannereames]

In the novels, you describe Alexandros and Hephaistion liking to sleep together, which is sweet. If you were drawing them, how would you depict them? I don't mean in sex, just snuggling? Do they like to spoon, do they like to snuggle face-to-face? (Yes, I'm a hopeless romantic!)

Interesting question. I hadn’t thought too much about it.

I wish I could draw, but I’m afraid it would amount to stick figures. LOL. And a little mush is sometimes fun. :-)

In “Moth & Flame” I had Hephaistion lounging back against Alexandros, who’s propped on the bolster. I did that because I think of Hephaistion as more comfortable being the one held, although he has a protective streak towards Alexandros, and sometimes wants to indulge it by wrapping him up. So despite the tendency to assume height would be the dictating factor, personality plays a role. Several times in each novel, I have Alexandros note that he just doesn’t do “passive” well, which would extend to how he cuddles.

When would also play a factor, thinking about it. Most of the time, Alexandros sleeps on his stomach, Hephaistion on his side.

If they’re snuggling before sleep (or after sex), I imagine them face-to-face, Hephaistion sort of enveloping Alexandros: an arm under his head, an arm around his waist, and his knee hooked over Alexandros’s hip. As Alexandros is left-handed while Hephaistion is right-handed, that would also free both of their favored hands if Alexandros sleeps on Hephaistion’s left (which I expect they’d figure out pretty fast). Face-to-face would allow them to talk more easily. I see Alexandros as the sort of person who likes to review his day to put a fork in it.

But if they were snuggling in the morning after waking, I imagine Alexandros spooning up behind Hephaistion, even though he’s shorter. Maybe that’s because I usually think of Alexandros beating Hephaistion awake, so he would move up behind Hephaistion, still on his side. While it might be more awkward, due to height, Hephaistion would like that. He could curl his legs up more tightly to eliminate some of the difference.

(This would assume Alexandros would “waste time” in the morning, snuggling. More often he’s up and out of bed to go running, and get busy with the day. FWIW, I also don’t think of him as someone who wants morning sex.)

[jeannereames]

Happy Birthday to Alexander the Great!

(Yes, it was probably the 19th, not the 20th.)

[aldebaranarfeiniel]

Omg happy birthday Aléxandros! We are still thinking about you❤️

We have airplanes ✈️ and we traveled to the moon! I don’t know you but I know you would have adored all this.

[jeannereames]

“Hephaistion was the Queen of Macedon”

— former student in a PM to me

[aldebaranarfeiniel]

~Mary Renault, “The nature of Alexander”

“Without Hephaistion, he couldn’t even bear immortality”

~Mary Renault (“The Persian Boy”)

[jeannereames]

Update: August 17th. Come watch Jenn Finn and I try to inject some rational conclusions into the discussion of what killed Der Grosse One. LOL The History Channel, not sure of the air time: check locally. Likely not available outside the US/Canada for a while. (sorry!)

[aldebaranarfeiniel]

Source:

~ https://www.academia.edu/2512445/Some_new_thoughts_on_the_death_of_Alexander_the_Great

https://www.academia.edu/2512445/Some_new_thoughts_on_the_death_of_Alexander_the_Great

“Some new thoughts on the death of Alexander the Great” , Jeanne Reames and Eugene Borza, Ancient World, 2000

[aldebaranarfeiniel]

I wouldn’t have thought I would love Hephaistion more than Alexander (whom I have loved my whole life to a concerning degree) but here we are I guess.

I just know that the ill treatment he got from some sources (Plutarch I am looking at you) came from contemporary envy and moral judgments from the historian (who projected the idea of romantic nepotism from Alexander).

History is hard towards the great character’s soulmates

[itkitay]

[itkitay]

Hephaestion and his Alexander😩

[aldebaranarfeiniel]

Awwww

[itkitay]

young alexandros and bucephalus

[eosphoroz]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the only direct quote we have from Hephaistion and I think it speaks volumes about his character and about his relationship to Alexander the Great (taking into consideration he later became Alexander's second-in-command).

Quote from Quintus Curtius Rufus, 'The History of Alexander', Book 4, 1.18

[aldebaranarfeiniel]

He is so cool🥺

[aldebaranarfeiniel]

Source:

~ https://www.academia.edu/2512445/Some_new_thoughts_on_the_death_of_Alexander_the_Great

https://www.academia.edu/2512445/Some_new_thoughts_on_the_death_of_Alexander_the_Great

“Some new thoughts on the death of Alexander the Great” , Jeanne Reames and Eugene Borza, Ancient World, 2000