Posted on 11/26/2004 8:59:56 AM PST by SusanD
Aristotle’s dictum still stands: “He who asserts must also prove.” When you make a claim, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that claim.
Let’s ask some clear, practical questions in light of Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Did Alexander ever kiss a man on the mouth? No evidence. Did he ever play a passive or active role in same sex sexual unions? No evidence. Did he have sex of any kind with the eunuch Bagoas? No evidence. Did he ever play footsie with men or boys at a sports bar? No evidence. Did he have sex with Hephaestion or any other man, young or old? No evidence. Was he anything other than a married, heterosexual male with children who chose “power as his supreme mistress”? The answer in concert with all the primary sources is again: no evidence!
Alexander clearly distained his father Philip’s alpha male excesses and was considered something of a prig with regard to sexual matters. Interestingly enough, no one who knew them both considered Alexander either in character or in conduct to have followed in his father’s licentious footsteps. Instead it was said of him that “he gave the strange impression of one whose body was his servant.” Alexander stated that his true father figure was Aristotle, for although Philip had given him life, Aristotle had taught him how to live.
What then was Aristotle’s position on such issues. What would Alexander and Hephaestion have learned from their mentor in three years of study? In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes between what is naturally pleasurable from what is pleasurable without being naturally so.
K. J. Dover explains:
“In this latter category he puts (a) things which are pleasurable because of ‘deficiencies’ or ‘impairments’ and those who find them so, (b) things which become pleasurable through habit, and (c) things which are found pleasurable by bad natures.”[xiii]
Dover cites:
“Those who are effeminate by nature … are constituted contrary to nature; for, though male, they are so disposed that part of them (sc the rectum) is necessarily defective. Defect, if complete, causes destruction, but if not, perversion (sc. of one’s nature). … it therefore follows that they must be distorted and have an urge in a place other than (sc. that of) procreative ejaculation.”[xiv]
Dover concludes Aristotle’s thought:
“The writer’s concept of nature is not difficult to understand: a male who is physically constituted in such a way that he lacks something of the positive characteristics which distinguish male from female, and possesses instead a positively female characteristic, suffers from a constitutional defect contrary to nature, and a male who through habituation behaves in a way which is a positive differentia of females behaves as if he had such a defect.”[xv]
Non heterosexual relations are contrary to nature. But again, why should anyone care? Why would Greek lawyers be threatening to sue Oliver Stone and Warner Brothers film studios with an extrajudicial note saying that the movie is fiction and not based on fact? Is it a Bible-thumping, right-wing conspiracy? No, I believe it’s only a concern for truth - clear historical facts versus Hollywood “interpra-facts”. Gay activists say that the film soft-pedals Alexander’s sexuality. Terms such as “erotic reality denyers” and “homophobic Keystone Cops” are used of anyone who dares to challenge that Alexander might actually have been just a heterosexual guy. It is interesting to me that Alexander is not even mentioned in the important studies of homoeroticism in ancient Greece by the likes of Sir Kenneth Dover, (Greek Homosexuality, 1989), John Winkler’s The Constraints of Desire, (1990), and David Halperin’s 100 Years of Homosexuality (1990).
SUMMARY
In short, regardless of the sexual mores of Alexander’s time, coupled with the clear evidence of homoerotic relationships on the part of his father Philip II, at end the question of whether there is evidence in the ancient historians to suggest that Alexander was homosexual, bisexual, homoerotic, or anything else of the sort, just isn’t there.
Personally, I don’t care. I am neither angry nor homophobic. I just appreciate historical evidence when historical claims
I certainly do!! There was a song the ended and we'll have a Gay old time! Ican't remember it. But the word has not been used as it was originally defined for such a long time, I fear that meaning may not be ever be applied again!
Who said he was?
Now THERE'S a question worth a thread!!
"The language is very hard to define whether it belongs to Thraco-Illyrian or to Hellenic groups of Indo-European languages. Some linguists believe that tribes of mountainous Macedonia spoke an archaic language closer to Thracian or Illyrian, but people in towns and the upper classes, influenced by Greek achievements, gradually were losing their native tongue and took up Greek. Contacts with Greek Halkidiki and Thessalia regions were strengthening in the 5th and 4th centuries, and simultaneously the process of national assimilation went on. When Greece was conquered by Philip of Macedonia and occupied by his son Alexander the Great, Macedonians officially became real Hellenes."
Notice that the writer didn't say "Macedonians officially became real Greeks" ~ he'd only go so far as to point out the obvious ~ the ruling elite over the Greeks and other Hellenes were quite obviously "Hellenes".
Just what is it about the Greeks that any possible contact with the Slavic people, whether ancient or modern, is viewed so contemptuously? Ever since the Celts sailed out of their Black Sea ports circa 1275 BC the Slavs have had no trouble finding their way to Greek speaking areas such as Greece. During the Dark Ages many of them moved in, married the local governor's daughter, and began occupying a prominant place in the Greek genepool.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to remind you that when it comes to major divisions in the Indo-European languages, Western European tongues fall on the "centum" side, while Eastern European tongues, and Greek, fall on the "satem" side. Now that's some serious differences eh?!
Is that abominable or abdominal?
abominable
Macedonia wasn’t Greek? That would be like saying Peloponnesia wasn’t Greek. As to contemporary writers not saying he was gay – why would they? Bisexuality was the accepted norm.
There was a song the ended and we'll have a Gay old time
Theme song to the Flintstones?
No kidding. Attic Greece had its share of homosexuality, too.
I'm not sure what your point is.
Mine was: not all references to manly love in history and in literature implied homosexuality, though the homosexual lobby misinterprets a lot of those references as of a homosexual nature.
Are you saying they are correct and that most men who expressed love for other men were homosexual?
DON'T freakin ask, DON'T freakin tell, an DON'T freakin thow it in my face!
Acc. to the IMDB, it's in 6th place in box office take, compared to other current releases. These are stats for its third day of release.
Excellent post. The following should quench the desires of so many to force Alexander as well as the ancient Greeks into homoerotic situations they did not engage in.
http://www.grecoreport.com/debunking_the_myth_of_homosexuality_in_ancient_greece.htm
I have not seen the movie, but I have seen the ads on TV. They show Alex telling the boys not to fear death.
He sounds like draftee corporal who wishes he were a leader of men but never manages to stick his head up and fire his weapon during a firefight. My first impluse would be to frag him to keep him from getting good men hurt.
If you really went to a school where Mary Renault was considered an authority on ancient Greece, you should demand a refund of your tuition.
Off to check out the link in Post 72.
Not all or even most Greek city-states approved of the pederasty-rape of the Spartans and Athenians. Many deplored it and considered it reprehensible. Philip of Macedon disapproved of it, and to say the "Greeks" accepted this at the time is not wholly accurate. Even the Romans who adopted much of Greek culture looked down on those who practiced pederasty openly and winked at those aristocrats who had the "good taste" to emulate Athens with acceptably non-aristocratic catamites and not those who "degraded" themselves by assuming the submissive role in any circumstance.
Many deplored it and considered it reprehensible.
There is more evidence to dismiss it out of hand than there exists to accept it out of hand, as Stone and the Ivory Tower has. Claims demand evidence.
Claims demand evidence.
It demands nothing of the sort. One cannot prove a negative. To hold that up as a standard for proof is absurd and faulty logic.
What can be said is that there is positive proof of Alexander's heterosexual activity: offspring. There is no positive proof of homosexuality. Therefore all indications show that Alexander's sexual activities were hetero and nothing else.
Now, with that positive assertion, it is up to the other side to disprove the statement with a single contrary example. That's the way proof works.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.