Alexander the Gay?

Listen, I'm not here to support the idea that my (our?) ancestors were "queens" . I'm aware that the misinterpretation of the word "Eros" (which means much more than "love" in ancient Greek) created many misconceptions to later researchers.

But: Georgiades and his so called "Greco-report" are a bunch of ultra-right wing as*holes with an agenta.  With all due respect I'd ask you not to take them seriously...

Back to the point. We have many records in anciet comedies (mainly) of feminine homosexuals in Athens being ridiculed in the play because they show distingtly womanizing behaviour. We have reports of male slave prostirutes and vases with men couples having sex. Alcibiades was walking at the Agora dressed in purple robes that were dragging behind him and was "being feminine" (true, much to the disaproval of the Athenians - but one must also remember that he was still very popular) etc.

I don't fully understand what your point is, but I suspect we're quite close. When it comes to my sources, sorry but I'm too lazy to look for them. I simply posted what comes to mind from memory. (and once again, greco-report is not a "source"...)

There is a similar discussion going on at SMQ.  I have edited my response there and adapted it a bit.  As Yiannis has pointed out there and again here - The ancient Greek cultures had no words and no concepts that would relate to most of our usages of words relating to homosexuality (a term that was itself invented in the late 19th century).

To say that Alexander the Great was Gay or Bi or Straight is like discussing whether or not he was a good auto mechanic. Modern value judgements do not have a place in the discussion of history - they serve only to reflect how we feel about particular actions today and shed no light on the events of the past.  Can we not accept the ancients simply for who and what they were without imposing modern value judgments on them?

The best article online about Alexander's sexuality was written by Dr. Jeanne Reames-Zimmerman from The Pennsylvania State University and can be found at the best website about Alexander - see the pages here: http://www.pothos.org/alexander.asp?paraID=42 a well researched and informed opinion by one of the number of scholars that frequent pothos.org "Alexander the Great's Home on the Web".

I have not read any of Giorgiades' work - but the reviews that I have found are not complimentary about his scholarship.  I do know that 
former Yale professor John Boswell's (1947 - 1994) research would contradict Giorgiades'.  Boswell was the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of History at Yale University.  If you would like to read further, his "Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality" received a National Book award in 1981 and the first two chapters of his "Same Sex Unions in Premodern Europe" directly address the question of the acceptability of homosexuality in Greco Roman societies.

A few examples that I have culled from his and other works which seem to me to show that these relationships were not only accepted, but celebrated:  Zeus and Ganymede, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, Achilles and Patroclus, the Theban Band, Hadrian's relationship with and the ensuing cult of Antinous, Sappho's poetry, numerous vase paintings (I disagree with the numbers quoted above but have no source materials here at this time), and moving to Rome - Edward Gibbon's observation that "of the first fifteen emperors Claudius was the only one whose taste in love was entirely correct."

Greco-Roman societies did not base their sexual relationships on homo or hetero-sexuality as we see it today.  They based much of their sexual behavior on power.  The Eremenos/Erastes relationship is one example.  The head of the household could have had relations with anyone in the household - as he fundamentally owned them all - from his wife and children through servants and on to his slaves.  There were - from what I have read - no objections to men having relations with other men as long as a man did not take a passive role with someone who was his social inferior.   The objections of the Athenians to Alcabiades' behavior had only to do with his display of femininity, and therefore passivity, which was not acceptable behavior for a man in power. 

The Romans had the same objections to the rumors about Caesar being "every man's wife"; to Elagabalus' partner Hierocles being referred to as the "Husband" of the emperor; and to Nero's (second)wedding to a man in which Nero was given away as the bride.  It was not that two men were involved.  The unacceptable issue was that the emperor would take a submissive role in the relationship.  When Hadrian lost Antinous, Rome mourned with him and the cult of Antinous lasted for over 200 years.

Was Alexander gay?  Was he a good president?  I'd have to say no to both of the above.  He probably wasn't a good auto mechanic either.

Who cares of Alexander's preferences? Damn it, he was a great general and a great monarch, that's what we need to know about him, who cares about his personal affairs?

If you can find answers to historical questions in Mafredi's books, then you're the first person in the human kind to do so, mainly because his books are fiction inspired by historical events!

In every Greek forum I make the same conversation I was the only who don't supported the idea that the view of Alexander as a bisexual is a product of anti-Hellenic propaganda. The main idea is the supposed lack of written evidences about Alexander's bisexuality. The truth off course is totally different and Alexander's homosexual habits are recorded.

One ancient source is Atheneus, a Greek 2nd century AD writer, and his great word "Deipnosophistae". I will show you two very interesting parts.


And Hieronymus, in his Letters, says, that Theophrastus says, that Alexander was not much of a man for women; and accordingly, when Olympias had Given hint Callixene, a Thessalian courtesan, for a mistress, Who was a most beautiful woman, (and all this was done with the consent of Philip, for they were afraid that he was quite Impotent,) she was constantly obliged to ask him herself to do his duty by her.

King Alexander also was madly devoted to boys. Dicaearchus, at any rate, in his book On the Sacrifice at Ilium says d that he was so overcome with love for the eunuch Bagoas that, in full view of the entire theatre, he, bending over, caressed Bagoas fondly, and when the audience clapped and shouted in applause, he, nothing loath, again bent over and kissed him.

Alexander's sexuality has been the subject of wild speculation. Some have supposed that his closeness to his mother was a sign of sexual impotence. Others that he had homosexual affairs with herds of eunouchs and Hephaestion. The truth is not attainable nor of importance. For the Macedonian court homosexual and heterosexual attachments were equally reputable and had no effects in war and politics. Dissapointingly for sensationalists writers Alexander's relations with women seem to have been normal enough for a Macedonian king. Three or four wives at the age of 32 and two maybe three sons by Barsine and Roxane.

The relationship of Alexander with Hephaistion maybe is a speculation but the relationship of Alexander with Bagoas is a fact.

He was occasionally bisexual; he had no hesitation to have sex with men, it was not un-natural at those times. Aristoteles blaims ONLY sex between father and son; this means that other peoples' having sex wasn't that balimable.

So, I vote bisexual as I would vote for any ancient Greek

Istor the Macedonian

Lets not forget how Greeks scultured woman's body. Look for Aphrodite of Melos in Louvre museum site. 

Ancient Greece? such a notion or term never existed.

Alexander the Great was a Macedonian.

Edited by Bulldog - 17-May-2006 at 18:31