Peribadi dan keseksualan Alexander Agung

From Wikipedia




Rencana utama: Alexander Agung
Equestrian statue of Alexander the Great, on the waterfront at Thessaloniki, capital of Greek Macedonia.
Besarkan
Equestrian statue of Alexander the Great, on the waterfront at Thessaloniki, capital of Greek Macedonia.

Alexander Agung (Alexander III dari Macedonia; bahasa Greek Μέγας Αλέξανδρος, ditransliterasikan sebagai Megas Alexandros; Julai 356 SM - 10 Jun 323 SM) dianggap sebagai salah satu daripada komander yang amat berjaya dalam sejarah dunia. Beliau menakluk hampir seluruh dunia yang dikenali oleh orang Yunani sebelum kematiannya.


[Sunting] Peribadi Alexander

Pendapat-pendapat moden mengenai Alexander terdiri daripada pelbagai idea-idea unik dan pelik yang antaranya mengatakan bahawa dia dihantar untuk menyatukan umat manusia. Satu lagi pendapat yang pelik mengatakan bahawa dia ialah seorang yang tamakkan kuasa dan ditakdirkan untuk menawan seluruh dunia. Pendapat-pendapat seumpama itu haruslah tidak dilayan dan diambil kisah kerana ia merupakan pandangan yang tidak berasas. Personaliti Alexander sehingga ke hari ini kekal menjadi tanda tanya.

Alexander diingati di Eropah, Asia Tengah, dan Barat Daya Asia sebagai seorang wira legenda. To Zoroastrians, on the other hand, he is remembered as the destroyer of their first great empire and as the destroyer of Persepolis. Ancient sources are generally written with an agenda of either glorifying or denigrating the man, making it difficult to evaluate his actual character. Most refer to a growing instability and megalomania in the years following Gaugamela, but it has been suggested that this simply reflects the Greek stereotype of an orientalizing king. The murder of his friend Clitus, which Alexander deeply and immediately regretted, is often cited as a sign of his paranoia, as is his execution of Philotas and his general Parmenion for failure to pass along details of a plot against him. However, this may have been more prudence than paranoia.

Modern Alexandrists continue to debate these same issues, among others, in modern times. One unresolved topic involves whether Alexander was actually attempting to better the world by his conquests, or whether his purpose was primarily to rule the world.

Partially in response to the ubiquity of positive portrayals of Alexander, an alternate character is sometimes presented which emphasizes some of Alexander's negative aspects. Some proponents of this view cite the destructions of Thebes, Tyre, Persepolis, and Gaza as examples of atrocities, and argue that Alexander preferred to fight rather than negotiate. It is further claimed, in response to the view that Alexander was generally tolerant of the cultures of those whom he conquered, that his attempts at cultural fusion were severely practical and that he never actually admired Persian art or culture. To this way of thinking, Alexander was, first and foremost, a general rather than a statesman.

Alexander's character also suffers from the interpretation of historians who themselves are subject to the bias and idealisms of their own time. Good examples are W. W. Tarn, who wrote during the late 19th century and early 20th century, and who saw Alexander in an extremely good light, and Peter Green, who wrote after World War II and for whom Alexander did little that was not inherently selfish or ambition-driven. Tarn wrote in an age where world conquest and warrior-heroes were acceptable, even encouraged, whereas Green wrote with the backdrop of the Holocaust and nuclear weapons. As a result, Alexander's character is skewed depending on which way the historian's own culture is, and further muddles the debate of who he truly was.

[Sunting] Cerita dan legenda

According to one story, the philosopher Anaxarchus checked the vainglory of Alexander, when he aspired to the honors of divinity, by pointing to Alexander's wound, saying, "See the blood of a mortal, not the ichor of a god." In another version, Alexander himself pointed out the difference in response to a sycophantic soldier. A strong oral tradition, although not attested in any extant primary source, lists Alexander as having epilepsy, known to the Greeks as the Sacred Disease and thought to be a mark of divine favor.

Alexander had a sister named Thessalonica married to Cassander who later founded the city of Thessaloniki after his wife. There exists a popular Greek legend [1] about a mermaid or Gorgon that lived in the Aegean for hundreds of years and was though to be Thessalonica. The legend states that when sailors in the Aegean encountered her she asked them a question: "Is Alexander the king alive?" to which the right answer would be "He lives and still rules". Any other answer would spur her rage and mean doom for the ship.

Alexander had a legendary horse named Bucephalos (meaning "ox-headed"), latinized Bucephalus, supposedly descended from the Mares of Diomedes. Alexander himself, while still a young boy, tamed this horse after experienced horse-trainers failed to do so.

There is an apocryphal tale, appearing in a redaction of the pseudo-historical Alexander Romance, which details another end for the last true Pharaoh of Egypt. Soon after Alexander's divinity was confirmed by the Oracle of Zeus Ammon, a rumor was begun that Nectanebo II did not travel to Nubia but instead to the court of Philip II of Macedon in the guise of an Egyptian magician. He coupled with Phillip's wife Olympias and from his issue came Alexander. This myth would hold strong appeal for Egyptians who desired continuity in rule and harbored a strong dislike for foreign rule.

Another legend tells of Alexander's campaign down into the Syrian world toward Egypt. On the way, he planned to lay siege to the city of Jerusalem. As the victorious armies of the Greeks approached the city, word was brought to the Jews in Jerusalem that the armies were on their way. The high priest at that time, who was a godly old man by the name of Jaddua (mentioned also in the Bible book of Nehemiah) took the sacred writings of Daniel the prophet and, accompanied by a host of other priests dressed in white garments, went forth and met Alexander some distance outside the city.

All this is from the report of Josephus, the Jewish historian, who tells us that Alexander left his army and hurried to meet this body of priests. When he met them, he told the high priest that he had had a vision the night before in which God had shown him an old man, robed in a white garment, who would show him something of great significance to himself, according to the account, the high priest then opened the prophecies of Daniel and read them to Alexander.

These prophecies were probably Daniel 11:2-5, where it was predicted that a Greek king will arise to conquer Persia and "who will rule with great power" and later "his empire will be broken up and parceled out toward the four winds of heaven." (NIV translation). This was believed to have been written at least 200 years before Alexander's birth.

In the prophecies Alexander was able to see the predictions that he would become that notable goat with the horn in his forehead, who would come from the West and smash the power of Persia and conquer the world. He was so overwhelmed by the accuracy of this prophecy and, of course, by the fact that it spoke about him, that he promised that he would save Jerusalem from siege, and sent the high priest back with honors.

[Sunting] Alexander's marriages and sexuality

Alexander's greatest emotional attachment is generally considered to have been to his companion, cavalry commander (chiliarchos) and friend since childhood, Hephaestion. He studied with Alexander, as did a handful of other children of Macedonian aristocracy, under the tutelage of Aristotle. Hephaestion makes his appearance in history at the point when Alexander reaches Troy. There the two friends made sacrifices at the shrines of the two heroes Achilles and Patroclus; Alexander honoring Achilles, and Hephaestion honoring Patroclus. As Aelian in his Varia Historia (12.7) claims, "He thus intimated that he was the object of Alexander's love, as Patroclus was of Achilles." Following Hephaestion's death, Alexander mourned him greatly, and did not eat for days.

Many have discussed Alexander's sexual leanings. Curtius reports that, "He scorned [feminine] sensual pleasures to such an extent that his mother was anxious lest he be unable to beget offspring." To encourage a relationship with a woman, King Philip and Olympias brought in a high-priced Thessalian courtesan named Callixena.

Later in life, Alexander married several princesses of former Persian territories, Roxana of Bactria, Statira, daughter of Darius III, and Parysatis, daughter of Ochus. He fathered two children, (Heracles), born by his concubine Barsine (the daughter of satrap Artabazus of Phrygia) in 327 BC, and Alexander IV of Macedon, born by Roxana shortly after his death in 323 BC.

Curtius maintains that Alexander also took in favour "Bagoas, a eunuch exceptional in beauty and in the very flower of boyhood, with whom Darius was intimate and with whom Alexander would later be intimate (not sexually as it has been misinterpreted)," (VI.5.23). Bagoas is the only one who is actually named as the eromenos — the beloved — of Alexander. Their relationship seems to have been well known among the troops, as Plutarch recounts an episode (also mentioned by Dicaearchus) during some festivities on the way back from India) in which his men clamor for him to openly kiss the young man: "Bagoas [...] sat down close by him, which so pleased the Macedonians, that they made loud acclamations for him to kiss Bagoas, and never stopped clapping their hands and shouting till Alexander put his arms round him and kissed him." At this point in time, the troops present were all survivors of the crossing of the desert. Bagoas must have endeared himself to them by his courage and fortitude during that harrowing episode. Whatever Alexander's relationship with Bagoas, it was no impediment to relations with his queen: six months after Alexander's death Roxana gave birth to his son and heir, Alexander IV. Allegations concerning Alexander's sexuality remain highly controversial and excite passions in some quarters. People of various national, ethnic and cultural origins regard him as their hero. Some argue that historical accounts describing Alexander's love for Hephaestion and Bagoas as sexual were written centuries after the fact, and thus it can never be established what the historical relationship between Alexander and his male companions were. Others argue that the same can be said about much of our information regarding Alexander. Such debates, however, are generally considered anachronistic by scholars of the period, who point out that the concept of homosexuality as understood today did not exist in Greco-Roman antiquity. Sexual attraction between males was seen as a normal and universal part of human nature since it was believed that men were attracted to beauty, an attribute of the young, regardless of gender. If Alexander's love life was transgressive, it was not for his love of beautiful youths but for his probable involvement with a woman of Persian descent Roxana. Still, the Greek sources as most scholars agree are much more reliable than the latin Curtius. For example, “When Philoxenos, the leader of the seashore, wrote to Alexander that there was a young man in Ionia whose beauty has yet to be seen and asked him in a letter if he (Alexander) would like him (the young man) to be sent over, he (Alexander) responded in a strict and disgusted manner: “You are the most hideous and malign of all men, have you ever seen me involved in such dirty work that you found the urge to flatter me with such hedonistic business?” (From Plutarch’s On the Luck and Virtue of Alexander A, 12)

“But as for the other captive women, seeing that they were surpassingly stately and beautiful, he merely said jestingly that Persian women were torments to the eyes. And displaying in rivalry with their fair looks the beauty of his own sobriety and self-control, he passed them by as though they were lifeless images for display.” (From Plutarch’s Parallel Lives: Alexander, 21)

“When Philoxenus, the commander of his forces on the sea-board, wrote that there was with him a certain Theodorus, of Tarentum, who had two young men of surpassing beauty to sell, and enquired whether Alexander would buy them, Alexander was incensed, and cried out many times to his friends, asking them what shameful thing Philoxenus had ever seen in him that he should spend his time in making such disgraceful proposals.” (From Plutarch’s Parallel Lives: Alexander, 22, 1)