– A big a part of the criticism of the collection targeted on the presentation of Hephaestion because the sexual associate of Alexander. What do the traditional texts say in regards to the love lifetime of Alexander the Nice, who is thought to have fathered two kids?
It’s sophisticated. Throughout his lifetime, Alexander solely sired one youngster – with a lady who was half-Greek, half-Iranian – whom they named “Heracles.” There was no marriage there, so there was no dynastic inheritor to the Macedonian throne. His first spouse, Roxana – a Sogdian-Iranian lady – was pregnant with their first youngster when Alexander died [the future Alexander IV]. Due to this fact, Alexander was not completely gay.
Virtually all historic Greek males, particularly kings, married ladies, however some have been completely gay – one such character, Pausanias of Athens, options in Plato’s “Symposium.” In Thebes, between 378 and 338 BCE, a complete infantry battalion, the Sacred Band, consisted of 150 grownup male {couples}. However the norm, for not less than some upper-class males, was a premarital homoerotic part – first because the “junior beloved,” then because the “senior,” grownup associate.
Alexander was raised alongside his modern Hephaestion in Pella and educated with him by the good thinker, Aristotle. It’s attainable – and I emphasize “attainable” – that that they had a homoerotic, gay relationship, not less than of their late adolescence and probably later – do not forget that Alexander turned king of Macedonia when he was solely 20 years previous. I emphasize the “attainable” as a result of no historic supply explicitly states that they have been lover or beloved.
However, it’s mentioned that Alexander did certainly have a gay relationship, one thing greater than an affair, with a Persian eunuch named Bagoas. For me, because of this as an grownup – he was about 30 years previous on the time – Alexander was not completely heterosexual. Nonetheless, by then he had acquired not one however three wives, concurrently: Roxana and two Persian princesses. So, he by no means married a Greek! Scandalous! All three of his wives have been Iranians, and the one son he sired in his lifetime was with a half-Iranian lady. Attention-grabbing! Rather more fascinating, anyway, than the anachronistic challenge of whether or not or not he was homosexual.
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