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Historical SummaryAS A ROMANTIC and an egoist Alexander the Great, the most dazzling figure in military annals, stands in a class by himself among mortal men. His father was Philip of Macedon, a practical genius, his mother, a wild, passionate, and visionary creature. The legacy of his parents was indelibly stamped upon his own life. Following the assassination of his father (336 B.C.), allegedly at the instigation of his mother, recently divorced, Alexander quickly seized the helm of state. He suppressed an insurrection in Thebes, leveled the city, enslaved its inhabitants, and crossed the Hellespont to conquer the mighty Persian hordes. Two great battles—Issus (333) and Arbela (331)—decided the issue. Refusing to attack Darius, the Persian ruler, under cover of night ("I will not steal a victory"), Alexander crushed the defending forces in hand-to-hand battle and pursued Darius, who was finally murdered. A ruthless conqueror, Alexander nonetheless treated the captive women of the royal household with chivalry and cautioned his soldiers against mistreating conquered females. Once he was firmly entrenched in Persia, Alexander began to adopt Persian dress and court etiquette. He counted upon the good will of the conquered people and decided to encourage intermixture of Greek and Oriental. This he did in his customary dramatic fashion. Captivated by the dancing of the beautiful Bactrian princess, Roxana, he proposed marriage to her. It was love at first sight. The marriage ceremony, picturesquely described by Chares of Mytilene, a ceremonial officer at the court of Alexander the Great, and an eyewitness at file wedding festival (Aétion, a contemporary Greek artist, made a famous painting of the wedding), united not only Alexander and Roxana, but simultaneously joined in matrimony some eighty high officials, including the great field marshals of the realm, in matrimony with eighty Persian brides. Each couple was assigned a bridal bed and a bridal chamber. Upon them all Alexander bestowed dowries. At the same time he gave wedding presents to ten thousand Macedonian soldiers whom he encouraged to marry native women. To fuse Greek and Oriental was a deliberate policy of Alexander, who selected thirty thousand native boys to be taught Greek and trained in Macedonian military methods. Reproached by his friend Cleitus for adopting Persian customs, Alexander murdered him in a drunken fury, and then proclaimed himself a deity. Said his old enemy, Demosthenes, upon news of this latest extravagance: "Let us acknowledge him the son of Zeus for all I care, or the son of Poseidon, if he prefers it." An ostentatious luxury of the rulers, a pauperization of the masses—this is the true meaning of the age of Alexander and the Hellenistic period which he inaugurated. Like the depraved Goering, Alexander loved gaudy uniforms, preferring the Persian robes and the trappings of oriental and Greek deities to the ordinary western attire. The floors of his palace were sprinkled with perfumes and fragrant wines. Myrrh and incense were burned before him. Heavy drinking and wild night life sapped his constitution. At one of these drinking bouts, Thaïs, an Athenian mistress of his general, Ptolemy (later king of Egypt), asked for the privilege of burning down the Persian palace with her own hands to avenge the sufferings of the Greeks. Led by Alexander himself, the riotous Bacchanalians are reported to have taken up firebrands and put the royal edifice to flames. At his last banquet he was very jolly, recited the Andromeda of Euripides, drank some wine, but never rose from the royal couch again. Wracked by fever, Alexander died at Babylon in his thirty-third year.
Key QuoteAlexander the Great, romantic and egoist, takes a Persian wife and simultaneously presides over the nuptials of eighty colleagues.
Chares
XII
53–55
Botsford
Sihler
New York
1915
Marriage En Masse
[331 B.C.]
After Alexander had taken Darius a prisoner, he celebrated a marriage feast for himself and his companions. Ninety-two chambers were set aside for the occasion. A house was built large enough to accommodate one hundred couches. Every couch therein was adorned with wedding trappings worth twenty minas1. Each couch was made of silver, and Alexander’s own had golden feet. To the banquet he invited all his friends, who were placed opposite to him and the other bridegrooms. Placed in their appropriate order also were all the land and naval forces and all the ambassadors who were present as well as all the other strangers staying at his court.
The reception room was furnished in the most costly and magnificent style. Beneath sumptuous tapestries were carpets of purple and scarlet and gold. To make the edifice secure, it was supported by columns twenty cubits high, plated over with gold and silver and inlaid with precious stones. The columns were encircled with costly tapestries embroidered in gold with figures of animals and suspended on gold and silver curtain rods. The pavilion was four stadia in circumference.
At the sound of a trumpet the marriage feast took place. The marriage banquet lasted five days. Gifts poured in from a great number of foreigners and Greeks as well as from some Indian tribes. Some wonderful conjurors were present. After them Alexis of Tarentum, the rhapsodist, gave a performance. Then came harpists who played without singing. Heracleitus of Tarentum and Aristocrates the Theban sang with harp accompaniment,
as did Dionysius of Heracleia and Hyperbolas of Cyzicus with the pipe.
Henceforth those who had previously been called Dionysus-flatterers were called Alexander-flatterers because they had been so lavish with their gifts, which had pleased Alexander no end. In addition, tragedians and comic actors gave performances. The crowns sent by the ambassadors and other guests wese estimated at fifteen thousand talents2.
1The Greek mina was worth about $20. Thus each couch had trappings worth $400.00.
2A talent was equal to 60 minae, or about $1200. The gifts were worth some $18,000,000.
Chicago: Chares of Mytilene, Hellenic Civilization, ed. Chares and trans. Sihler in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Co., 1951), Original Sources, accessed December 4, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=6VNKEXQLFPE5RVG.
MLA: Chares of Mytilene. Hellenic Civilization, edited by Chares, and translated by Sihler, Vol. XII, in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, edited by Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris, Harrisburg, Pa., Stackpole Co., 1951, Original Sources. 4 Dec. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=6VNKEXQLFPE5RVG.
Harvard: Chares of Mytilene, Hellenic Civilization, ed. and trans. . cited in 1951, History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. , Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, Pa.. Original Sources, retrieved 4 December 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=6VNKEXQLFPE5RVG.
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