Friday, September 5, 2008
The GREAT Alexander the Great
Right off the bat I have to say, "WOW"! I have taken Art History classes and learned about this time period to a degree and we learned about Alexander and some of the pieces he is depicted in, specifically the Battle of Issus. Here is a man who has gone up against insurmountable odds over and over again and always come out on top, it makes me wonder "how did he do that?". I guess it goes back to his father teaching him war tactics mixed with some of his own masterminding (i.e., the Macedonian Phalanx). The man had to be crazy, and there were times that his sanity was questioned. He wanted to take over the world, had cheated death at least seven times (that we know about) and has legends written in books about him. One of things that amazed me the most about all of his expeditions was that after it was all over and he had died was the affect it had on the acient world. He literally embedded the Greek culture into the Middle East. What an amazing person... but he was still crazy!
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Alexander the Great was truly instrumental to the spread of Greek idealism within Western culture. I do wonder why it was that he got SO lucky all the time... Or was it really luck, one must wonder with some of these historical leaders. Especially with how important of a role they played. It almost seems like these men were a different breed, I could not imagine almost dying over and over as being a good 'day job'. For GLORY! right?
Anita, I can relate a lot to what you are saying here as well. Several years ago I was taking a Humanities course. We looked at a lot of Hellenic art and then looked at some Hellenistic art. I was aware of the shift, and that other cultures (mostly east) were starting to fuse together--and that this was the essence of "hellenistic." But the class overlooked any reason for this change other that the "melting pot" idea. It was insightful for me to read about Alexander and see what the cause for this shift was. And that it was his Dissemenation of Greek culture that also brought other cultures to Greece.
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