Reviewing Alexander the Great

thomas.tmcc

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Achilles said:
Hi Thomas,

There are certain things that have changed since the ancient times…
Indeed Alexander had blonde hair.
As for Pyrrhos and the people of Epirus, a lot of them had blonde-red hair… Pyrric is connected with the word Pyr that means fire.

You may find Greeks with dark skin in Crete and Greeks with ultra white skin in the Ionian Islands. This has to do with the mix of populations during the medieval times. Crete was close to the North African pirates/raiders and Corfu was close to Venice… make the math to see the results.

The blonde color was a symbol of beauty in the ancient Greek society.


p.s my father is from Corfu
Just go`s to show you that you can learn a new thing every day! .

thomas
 

Gun Koleoglu

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Well...

Honestly guys the movie was a big dissapointment for me... First of all I hated the cinematography in the battle scenes. Too blurry especially the battle in the end that summarizes the entire Indian campaign! How can you summarize Alexander and his army going from Macedonia to freaking India in two battles. Also I believe they made him look like a little school boy. This is a guy that admired and followed the virtues Achilles and made himself the king of whereever he went through the sheer power of his intelligence and willpower for gods sake. I can see him being cruel at times but never as vulnerable as the movie made him seem at times. Also about the bisexuality I dont understand what the big fuss is. None of you guys ever read Plato´s Symposium? Besides its not significant at all if he was or not. But just for the record and for those ones that actually havent read The Symposium let me tell you that Socrates states that the homosexual relations between older man and younger man especially in the higher classes of the population was very significant to the Athenian golden age of thought for the younger man learned the wisdom of the older and he pleased the older in return. There is more to it but I cant remember honestly its been a while. Also you might say that Alexander is not Athenian, but Aristotle is and he also is the student of Plato who is the student and writer of Socrates. Well anyway i got a little carried away.
Back to the movie I think except Apollonia (angelina jolie) the casting was horrible too especially Colin Farrel. Although I usually like the guy he just didnt cut it for Alexander. Also the politics of the time were just throughly taken to consideration and insignificant incidents were blown up where as others ommited to make the story fit. Also what happened to the siege of Multon where Alexander made the decision that he would die like Achilles if he would at all and got the arrow wound that pierced his right lung as well which probably led to his sickness in Babylon later (Lungs never fully heal). Also what the hell was that ending "Write down he died of sickness instead." I really would like to see Oliver Stones documentation of Alexander being poisoned. He seems to be the only person that for sure knows what happened also conveniently his knowledge leans to the dramatical side of the spectrum of possibilities not the logical.
Well this had to come out sorry. But I was bottling these feelings up since I saw Troy about which I am not even going to start talking about but Alexander finished what Troy had started and killed a part of me...
Take Care Guys
 

hogdriver

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Kampilan said:
Was Alexander really bisexual?
That is really a mischaracterization of what did, in fact, occur amongst the Greek (and other) armies of the time. Troops were expected to know each other quite well, the better to cordinate their actions in battle. Sexual activity among these soldiers was considered a natural outgrowth of such familiarity, but was not considered evidence of homosexuality, rather an expression of fellowship and brotherhood amongst men who would spend a great deal of time together. If you read the works of Platom Socrates, Aristotle, Sophocles, Aristophanes, etc., you will find similar accounts. A further development was for younger troops to "pair" with experienced soldiers and while learning the art of war, also to learn the art of togetherness, brotherhood, comradeship.

In today's society, this is, of course, untenable. Todays soldiers are expected to foster that same brotherhood and cohesion in other manners. Conversely, the Dutch Armed Forces do allow open homosexuality, though I have no more details (I have e-mailed them to request details).

As has been said by others, what is right or wrong depends largely upon where you are standing.
 

danjon

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I thought the film was ok,i was a little dissapointed. I guess it was bound to cause debate about the bisexual aspect personally it would not suprose me i suspect he may have been, but that this was unremarkalbe in his society.
 

danjon

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besides macedonians were not always regarded by the greeks of the time as true or full greeks so perhaps there is a culture difference?
 

vicfirth311

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I have to say I enjoyed the movie, I am just now getting into Alexander and do not know much about his campagins so most of the inaccuratcies were probably over my head. About the bisexual thing, most people do not seem to realize that this is 700+ years before the Roman Empire adopts Chrisitanity as its official religion (Theodosius 395ad) the same morals and rules some deemunacceptable were not around then, people are just too stubborn and ignorant to realize this.

WHAT THE ?!? Alexander was GAY! A gay guy cant conquer the world! :rolleyes:
 

Pruitt

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Gentlemen,

It just proves a good movie can have vague or poor historical connections. Also one has to look hard at historical documents. The two British Generals that ran the British Army in World War 1 (Haig and French) were very poor at what they did. Try to find that in the official record! Most of the surviving records on Alexander were written well after he was gone. Some were propaganda put out by interested parties (Ptolemy!).

There was a Gay community in Ancient Greece. The culture back then was much different than today. With 300 different city states, what could get one hung in one town could get you a clap on the back in another. Several cultures look very suspicious to my Judeo-Christian eyes 2000+ years later! I think a certain amount of what one would consider bisexual behavior today went on. Was it universal? Probably not.

Two examples come to mind, Sparta and Thebes. In Spartan training of young boys, the youngsters were segregated from females and trained by older boys. Sexual activity is probably impossible to prevent. Men tend to repeat in adulthood what they learned as boys. In Thebes we have the Sacred Band, a Phalanx unit composed of homosexual lovers. If the activity was illegal and offenders were subject to execution, where did they get the men? The Sacred Band was later imitated as far away as Carthage.

A few words about Greek Phalanx tactics. The Greeks invented the decisive battle. These part-time soldiers wanted to hurry up, fight and get back to their fields and shops. So they came, and went straight for the other guys until one side broke. That is when the real slaughter occurred, after one side dropped their shields and ran for it. Also when the weather got warm the guys in back often took off their armor, and sometimes their clothes! Shield, pike, sword and helmet were enough. Picture yourself in the middle, pushing and shoving the guy(s) in front. Then you notice the guy in back is "excited" by all the commotion. Don't know about you guys, but that would encourge me to push to get away from the guy! If you brought the phalanx to a halt, or refused to come to grips,you could defeat the phalanx. One needs Peltasts, Slingers, Archers and Cavalry to do this. Persians had all but Slingers. They made the mistake of letting the phalanx catch them!

Persians followed more traditional tactics. Each side squared off and fired missiles at each other until one side's morale broke. Then you chased them off the field. Cavalry and chariots were very useful here. Remember there were no stirrups in this era. One had to hold on to the horse with one's knees. Persians were also very good at siege tactics and engineering. That is how they took all the Ionian Greek cities.

Some notes on the Macedonian Royal Family. The further away you were from them, the less "Greek" you considered them. The Royals had a very violent history. Few Kings died peacefully in their bed of old age. Poison and assasination were very real threats. Macedonians were also fond of holding drunken feasts that could last several days. Philip and Alexander both had a history of being violent drunks. Alexander was ruthless and a mean drunk. You did not want to be close when he got enraged. He killed more than one party guest.

There was an excellent chance Alexander was poisoned in Babylon, which is what the movie tried to say. His generals were scared to death of him and tired of campaigning. Ptolemy is one of the prime suspects. Most drunken Greek orgies envolved wine cut with water. If you wanted to get drunk really fast, you drank wine uncut (mulled). This was often used to slip poison into the wine. Alexander drank a cup of mulled wine at the orgy before he collapsed.

Oh yeah, Olympios was portrayed very well. Most Greeks thought she was a witch, being a Priestess of the Cult of Dionyses (sp?). The snakes and drunken sexual orgies would have convinced me, too. Macedoniams did not consider her Greek either. She was a princess from Epirus.

I am not sure about Alexander being Blonde, either. It has to do with the old Greek word they used. I read it supposedly meant "Brown Haired". The old Greek word they used for Blonde also meant "Ancient White/Grey Hair". As far as some mainland Greeks being fair skinned these days, it could come from any of the Northern peoples that traveled through the area in the last 2000 years. The Romans and Byzantines in particular were fond of Northern Barbarian mercenaries. I think the Greeks were not too different looking than the Thracians or the Persians.

Pruitt
 

shutumout

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Can someone in one word tell me is the movie worth watching? That's all I want to know. I don't want to know about historical inaccuracies or homosexuality. Is the movie good or not? Anyone know when it comes out on DVD?
 

ceardog

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Alexander good movie but could have been great

yeah the movie need more scenes that were important to his conquest and less about his bisexuality. his greatness lies in his ability to defeat huge armies and his use of cavalry like no one before had done.
 

Pruitt

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I would say the movie is well worth seeing. The bisexuality was included to make the movie controversial. Kind of like when her producers made Helen Degeneris come out on tv. If the film would have had too much historical data on who, what , when and where, it would not have attracted an audience and we would have seen it on PBS or the History Channel instead of at a theatre.

Pruitt
 
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