“I have wrestled with Thanatos knee to knee and I know how death is vanquished.
Man’s immortality is not to live forever; for that wish is born of fear.
Each moment free from fear makes a man immortal.”
Mary Renault, Fire from Heaven: A Novel of Alexander the Great
What Alexander is saying is that he had danced with death, Thanatos, the god of death. He described his dance as wrestling knee to knee with him. However, Alexander’s point about wrestling with death is not that we will live forever. He says that our desire to live forever is a wish born from the fear of death. We are immortal each moment that we are free of fear. We can be immortal in the moment that we are not fearful.
A great catharsis occurs when one begins the process Alexander’s point. The Greek word Κάθαρσης (catharsis) means “purification” or “cleansing.” Aristotle, another Greek, used the term in his writings as an emotionally cleansing process as it relates to fear. Addressing fear is cathartic; it is liberating. When one begins addressing the reality of death, one experiences liberation.
Left : A pencil drawing of the the so-called Dying Alexander portrait statue, Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
Right : A pencil drawing of “Der Krieger” / “The Warrior”, after a drawing by Ivo Saliger (Austrian painter and etcher), created in 1918.
Alexander III of Macedon (Greek: Αλέξανδρος Γʹ ὁ Μακεδών; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (Ancient Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγας) was a king (basileus) of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty.
He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of 20.
He spent most of his ruling years on an unprecedented military campaign through Asia and northeast Africa, and by the age of 30, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from Greece to northwestern India.
UNDEFEATED in battle and is widely considered one of history’s most successful military commanders.
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