Why is Germanicus not as widely recognized as Alexander the Great in today’s society? I don’t know but I have the feeling that the answer is that he never became Emperor of Rome as Alexander became the monarch of three different nations, there were never any Romances written about him as there were Alexander, he never expanded Rome’s territories as Alexander expanded Greek influence... Jeez, Alexander’s Roman counterparts sure do get the short end of the stick don’t they?
It is kind of too bad about that Romance part too. In the Prose-Alexander Romance Nectanebo, the exiled last Pharaoh of Egypt of the native populace, has relations with Olympias after he comes to her one night disguised as a dragon.
Is it weird? Yeah, I mean, exiled magician king prophesies Egyptian god Amon will come to his host’s wife in a dream and conceive a son and so his answer to make it come true is to impersonate Amon by coming to her in the form of a dragon at some point during the night. Now obviously Germanicus never had the “Son of a God” thing attached to him and with Roman society basically being “man views child as his, he is the father” basically being how things went the whole son of a god or “some dude coming to his host’s wife in the form of a dragon during his host’s absence” angle doesn’t really work but I’d want to make it work because if this sort of thing goes on in the Alexander romances consider what could go on in the Germanicus Romances if there were... I don’t know.
