honey , i’m not spending an extra year in uni to get a classics degree not to respond to this directly
i) alexander had one (1) unborn child at the time of his death, because he only, miserably, managed to knock up one of his three (3) wives after his boyfriend died
–> had alexander produced more than ONE (1) child, the hellenistic age would not have been defined by the fallout caused by his generals warring to decide a successor, ultimately destroying his empire and arguably sending everyone from macedon to modern-day palestine into a cultural dark age
ii) macedonian kings took multiple wives to secure succession, a political move that alexander resisted despite the urging of both antipater and olympias (i’ll let you google them on your own time) for almost an literal
– > there’s an anecdote found in the curtius , your “historical reference” – you can google his dates – about alexander’s parents sending him a hooker because they were afraid he didn’t … how do i say it nicely? wanna fuck women
it’s absolutely true that you can’t say alexander was gay; that’s grossly reductive, because sexuality didn’t exist by modern definition in ancient times. more, alexander DID bone a woman, willingly, at one point – a satrap’s (google that) wife, named barsine, with whom he may or may not have produced a bastard child called heracles. getting dicked down doesn’t negate wanting to dick another down, an interesting concept that you would be familiar with if you took a quick jaunt out of that homophobic bubble wrap you’ve duct-taped yourself into. we also can’t FOR SURE 100% conclusively say that alexander and hephaestion boned; but plutarch, curtius, and diodorus are some notable biographers who delve into detail about alexander’s life-long, likely romantic connection to his right hand man, who he mourned so excessively at the time of his death that there was hardly a dime left for alexander’s own funeral. they didn’t make that shit up – you can google what source criticism is, but some of THEIR sources included ptolemy i soter and callisthenes – oof, more people for you to google! modern scholars from reames to borza to müller to green assume that he was getting dicked down for the above reasons, too!
at last, i shall acknowledge that my Humour Post refers to lucian (pro lapsu inter salutandum 8), who has some wink-wink-nudge-nudge content concerning who slept in whose tent when, but who wants to retread old ground? here’s another one of my favorites instead:
323 was the year of alexander’s death (historical!), but even if lucian made all of this up, as this scholar seems to nudge at, it’s still quite telling that a cultural memory and historical tradition that the romans associated with alexander included his love of massive, throbbing cocks, non?
people who share your dreadfully uninformed and outdated opinion include, if i’m not mistaken, a handful of stodgy greek lawyers, a man named william woodthorpe tarn, and helmut berve. tarn was an imperialist, and berve? a literal nazi.
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