Did Netflix "Make" Alexander The Great Gay?

today's video is sponsored by Squarespace well hello everyone and welcome back to my channel so because I live under a rock um I was alerted recently about um an Alexander the Great controversy happening over on the interwebs all thanks to one of my subscribers I want to say zofie or Sophie thank you so much so Netflix's latest drama documentary Alexander the making of a God has caused quite a Ruckus online which seems to be primarily motivated by the show's very early depiction of a romantic relationship between Alexander the Great and his Confidant and friend hetian Greece's Minister for culture Lena Mendy criticized the show saying that it was an quote extremely poor quality fiction and quote low content Rife with historical inaccuracies similarly Demetrius the president of the Christian Orthodox farride political party Nikki called the series quote deplorable unacceptable and unhistorical and said it aimed to subliminally convey the notion that homosexuality was acceptable in ancient times an element that has no basis okay so these quotes present us with two quite significant questions to confront in this video the first is that is there truly no basis to the idea that homosexuality was acceptable in ancient times as Demetrius claims and secondly is the depiction of Alexander and her fisan historically inaccurate and completely pure fiction well before we get into to all the details of this let's take a moment to thank today's sponsor cuz this is going to be a bit of a long video so thank you so much to Squarespace for sponsoring today's video I have built all of my main websites over the past few years with Squarespace because I love how intuitive and easy it makes website design and layout I don't know anything about coding but that's not necessary with Squarespace because you simply drag and drop your content where you want it unlike all the other platforms that made it really frustrating cuz every you put one code wrong and it all just blows apart 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about Alexander the Great so let's first start talking about queer culture in ancient Greece now whilst it's very easy for me to use terms such as homosexual gay or queer in this video as part of the discussion we have to highlight first and foremost that modern dichotomization of homo and heterosexuality did not apply to the ancient world so I'm going to take a leaf from Thomas K hub's book on homosexuality in Greece and Rome he uses the term homosexual gay and queer in the book quote not out of any conviction that a fundamental identity exists between ancient and modern practices or self-conceptions but as a convenient shorthand linking together a range of different phenomena involving same gender love and or sexual activity also important to note cuz I'm talking about um Alexander the Great in this video I'm going to be talking mainly about male on male love interests in this video I'm not going to touch on safo because that's a whole other concept entirely so this confront the first question Tak into consideration that homosexuality was not a thing in the ancient world as we understand it was homosexuality considered unacceptable in the ancient Greece as Demetrius claims it was we can't an acronis impose our conceptualizations of sexuality and desire upon the Ancients as how they can sexualize attraction is very different to how we do now but Hubbard's book covers a lot of the basis here highly recommend it I've linked it all down with all the resources in the description box so if we're looking at textual discussions of same gender attraction we have quite a few case studies to refer to as habbard points out some forms of sexual preference were considered a distinguishing characteristic of individuals herard notes that many texts regard such preferences as inborn qualities and thus essential aspects of human identity the earliest philosophical account of male sexual passivity from the presocratic philosopher pides traces it to a failure of male and female seed to blend properly at a moment of conception interestingly other medical writers consider effeminacy in men and masculinity in women to be genetically determined Aristotle believed that the desire to be uh now how can I say this in a very um YouTube appropriate way Aristotle believed that the desire to have a male within oneself as another male arose from a physiological deformity I know either A congenital defect or due to abuse as a child later aristal texts considered all manner of sexual preferences to be determined by the position of heavenly bodies at one's birth yet our earliest literary source of what we would classify as homosexuality was in the work of the a Amic poet arilus in the early 7th Century BCE who spoke of men with different natures and therefore different sexual preferences later theognis wrote of boy love as a distinctive lifestyle not shared by all men but he Compares it favorably to the love of women the early fifth century lyric poet pindar contrasted men devoted to women with those who appreciated boys and generalized that different love tickles the fancies of different folks if Demetrius is to argue that homosexuality as we would conceptualize it in the ancient world was not accepted in ancient Greece we need to remind him of early Greek athletes who practiced in the nude partly to showcase the beauty of young male Bodies in Motion an aesthetic preference echoed further by Greek's preference for male nudes in archaic and classical sculpture naturally also the pester the privately owned wrestling school was a favorite Gathering Place for upper class adolescent boys and their older admirers and pindar noted how athletic males were more attractive to both men and women of all ages and also to deny the homosexual Locust of the drunken culture that was the Symposium is to deny all artistic representation saying otherwise but did the ancient Greeks deem what we would class as homosexuality as unacceptable well let's look at Arguments for and against it shall we in his essay Law Society and homosexuality in classical Athens David Cohen explains that quote distinction between active and passive roles in male sexuality defined the Contours of the permissible and impermissible in pedisic courtship and other forms of homoerotic behavior among the Greeks we are told active homosexuality was regarded as Perfectly Natural sexual desire was not distinguished according to its object and there was however a Prohibition against males of any age adopting a submissive role that was worthy of a free citizen so what was Cohan saying here well what he's arguing is that homoeroticism in ancient Greece was not entirely straightforward pun intended there were a lot of contradictions which zenfon himself highlights by pointing out how Greek laws and customs regarding pedy the relationship between men and a boy differed across States many laws were put in place to protect young boys the future of the poce from disenfranchisement and the corruption that they believed came from being placed into a submissive role which disqualified them from becoming citizens you see the concern among citizens particularly Athenians was not the male or male nature of the relationship per se but the protection of young boys for the future of the city as a submissive boy subjected to sexual competition for honor of his adult male as a submissive boy subjected to the sexual competition for Honor by his adult male pursuer found himself in the role of a woman and young boys in the role of a woman woman could not be trusted to uphold a strong poce as this was not a woman's Forte so there's something here about the making a boy a woman argument and Cohen goes into that Cohen argues that being an object which was desired courted and receptive within sexual intercourse was considered a passive role and paity was a woman's nature not a man's he backs up his Claim by highlighting how xenophon refers to the hubristic practice of using men as women and Plato arguing that the man who adopts a passive role in homosexual intercourse could be rebuked as an impersonator of the female a situation which was regarded as against nature by the time he wrote laws Plato concluded that homerotic relationships were against nature and should be banned for the ideal state yet interestingly there's no evidence that any of his contemporaries or predecessors shared this view in contrast Zenon presents hro or Hero's love for the Youth dialogus as seemingly driven by the needs of human nature and many passages never Aristotle accepts pedy as part of life we have another quite interesting contradiction to the idea that queer love was not acceptable in ancient Greece as there was well documented notion of Honor being bestowed upon men who successfully courted young men well how can this be I mean surely the shame of being the passive young boy would reflect upon his male pursuer well this is why it's all complicated and not so clean clut so Cohen argues that honor existed in polarity to shame one could not exist without the other the pursuing lover known as the aases gained honor in his success and shame in his rejection yet his success came at the defeat of the arom menos the person who is pursued for according to penus in the Symposium it was shameful to gratify the arrestes put a pin in that argument we'll come back to that because there's a misreading here but anyway Cohen argues that one man's honor came at another man's expense and this agonistic sexuality couldn't manifest when pursuing a woman unless she was married and then there could be a cockold but such courtship came at a risk to torture mutilation and death to the pursuer should a man attempt to woo a woman who was married to I don't know a talented Soldier you see unmarried women were not courted in ancient Greece as they were married very very young so young boys were perfect for sexual competition of Honor in ancient Greece according to Cohen's argument however in response to Cohen's paper Clifford hindley stresses his doubts about Cohen's readings asking if this meant that sexual relationships between Ares and Aram menos were generally regarded as necessarily shameful to the younger partner hindley argues that Cohen completely misreads porus claim in Plato's Symposium that it is shameful to gratify the aases because the full quote reads as such for these pandemi and lovers are men who have brought their approach into being with the result that some people go so far as to say that it is shameful to gratify an arrestes you see the full quote in context demonstrates that penus clearly did not share the view attributed to some people nor it's implied would the majority of Athenians agree with this when discussing the inoni Aristotle details how harmodius and aristan were the first people to have a statue erected of them in the Agora at Athens in honor of them having slain hipparchus and his brother hippus who together had exercised tyranical rule in the city towards the end of the 6th century B.C as hindley writes harmodius and aristan were lovers Ares and arenos and their exploit was frequently referred to by later writers as much in celebration of their relationship as part of inaugurating the era of democracy an unbefitting response to a society seemingly riddled with shame over homosexuality as Demetrius would claim to suppose that homoerotic intercourse was inconsistent with the pursuit of goodness in ancient Greece hindley argues would be to import judeo-christian morality into an alien context as Binger and katagi explain in their paper the age of Love gender and erotic reciprocity in archaic Greece attraction between individuals was not based on categories that we would consider today such as gender but on their status as a free person or those outside that status such as enslaved people foreigners aliens Etc I say all this knowing it would be too much of an oversimplification to say that there was a general acceptance or unacceptance of homosexual attraction in ancient Greece as habbard points out in Greece quote suspicion of homosexual relations of any sort seems most pronounced in those genres of discourse that were designed to appeal to the masses resentment of sociopolitical Elites I Amic poetry comedy forensic oratory and popular street preaching end quote okay so homoerotic lovers were frequently sazed but is satirization of a subject enough to constitute a claim that the subject was unacceptable in a culture well I would argue not because none of our world politicians would be in power were that the case and interestingly it would seem that from the evidence of the satirization of homosexual or homoerotic relationships particularly between men it was due more to the elite status of these relationships rather than the nature of the attraction after all the association of pedy was with upper class venues like the Symposium and the wrestling school and that suggests in of itself that it was an upper class phenomenon and as herard points out at least in Athens anyway only men with a certain amount of wealth Leisure and education were in a position to provide boys with the attraction and courtship gifts that they might expect whether tangible or intangible so with that off way let's get to an answer of the other question here did Alexander the Great like men or did Netflix make him gay in his book C is described hean as quote by far the dearest of all the king's friends he has been brought up with Alexander and shared all his Secrets okay so whilst there is no evidence that the two had a sexual relationship there is also no social cultural evidence to suggest they would not have and it's convenient that we don't have any evidence because we have extensive Ive sociocultural evidence that cultures following the macedonians would have deliberately censored any explicit reference to these two being Glovers had there been any so it is understandable why we don't have any evidence but let's talk about why people assume that they could have been we've already discussed in the last section about the idea of submission and due to the attributes towards submission and implied femininity many scholars have argued that bisexual eraser occurred not only in later writings of Alexander but in ancient ones because whilst it was very common discussions of pederasty being somewhat known about in Greek and Macedonian cultures Alexander's possible relationship with adult men was not considered a okay regarding the ideas of submission and femininity you see haisan uh was allegedly taller and much more handsome than Alexander and that in of itself would have made the great leader the submissive and The Feminine in the position and naturally censorship of such Dynamic would be intended to conceal such submissive femininity from the great leader and why do we think there's been censorship well haisan was Alexander's second in command yet he is strangely absent from many instances where he should have been referenced and many ancient historians give vague verbiage around their relationship what we do know is that this the pair likely began their friendship during their adolescence while her Feist was employed as a royal page to Philip II herian was implied to be of noble Heritage with his father being part of the kings in a circle herian was one of the boys selected by Philip II to go to Misa a remote west side of Pella to study under Aristotle with Alexander in 343 BCE and Aristotle as we know supported the social tradition of pederasty in his politics Aristotle wrote quote the lawgiver has divided many wise measures to to secure and benefit the moderation at table and the segregation of the women in order that they may not bear many children for which purpose he instituted association with the male sex so whilst we have no proof of such a relationship between heran and Alexander ancient texts and comments made within them not only sometimes suggest an intimate relationship between the pair but they also comment on a notable lack of interest in woman on Alexander's behalf off with his own mother concerned that he would never father an air we see in aanus 435a quote olympius Alexander's mother actually sent the outstandingly beautiful thalanany Calen to bed with him he being Alexander and Philip Abed her in this for they were concerned lest taking precautions lest he might should be a guyus olympas frequently begged her to have sex with Alexander so in his book Alexander of Macedon Peter Green analyzed this extract stating that quote both Philipi and olympius were worried by the boy's lack of heterosexual interests they feared he might be turning out to be a girlish invert known as a gyus and frequently begged Alexander to have intercourse with this woman which did not suggest great enthusiasm on his part historian Robin Lane Fox described the relationship between Alexander and heran quite frankly quote heran was the man whom Alexander loved and for the rest of their lives the relationship remained as intimate as it is now irrecoverable Alexander was only defeated once the cynic philosophers said long after his death and that was by haisan thighs Athena Richardson covers the relationship between Alexander and heran in great depth in her essay Alexander the Great and heran censorship and bisexual eraser in post Macedonian Society she points out that Alexander famously visited Troy in 334 BCE a trip which has been viewed by many as an act of posos by Alexander with his deep connection with the hero Achilles Roman author elen described the visit in his various histories noting how quote Alexander crowned the tomb of Achilles and her fisan that of Petrus signifying that he was as dear to Alexander as Petrus was to Achilles now obviously this quote leads to the separate debate about the nature of the relationship between the mythical Achilles and tras one which has been bumped into Limelight thanks to novels such as the song of Achilles the reason people apply a homoerotic relationship between Achilles and petus is the notification of such a relationship being insinuated in Plato which later likely inspired the Greek Statesman esin to employ the two in his own speech regarding them as lovers esz said quote I will speak first of Homer whom we rank among the oldest and wisest po although he speaks in many places of Petras and achilles he hides their love and avoids giving a name to their friendship thinking that the exceeding greatness of their affection is Manifest to such of his hearers as are educated men Richardson explains in her essay that the purpose of the speech in 346 to5 BCE was to publicly accuse a man called timus for being unfit to involve himself in public life due to misconduct while serving as the bassador to Philip II esin aimed to distance the image of the chased Achilles and pus with the accused Markus whom esz disparaged as quote wanting and overcome with by forbidden lusts these charges included Prosecuting himself to male clients in which tamarcus was said to be the submissive beloved although no proof was provided of Tam Marcus's selling himself he was punished by disenfranchisement this case study can be used as an example as to why later writers were promptly inclined to eras any suggestion or reference to Alexander's bisexual nature or what we were class as bisexual today there are more documented mentions of possible male lovers of Alexander according to quintus courteous Rufus the last aramid ruler Darius III reportedly had a young unic lover named beas who was presented to Alexander the Great upon the ruler's death the goas is not discussed in the Alexander Narrative of Arian or even than that of diodora culus however according to ctus mooas was an influential lover of Alexander and supposedly manipulated the new Persian king into executing the worthy Persian Noble orine due to only being mentioned three times in surviving ancient sources many question the legitimacy of beas's existence but Scholars are less interested in whether the unic truly existed and more interested in the purpose of his supposed existence in Alexander's story with the themes of bad kingship and supposed Oriental corruption or Alexander being associated with him men in Macedonia were not expected to choose their lovers based on gender and as such even the term bisexual for Alexander is redundant as Richardson points out our contemporary identity politics particularly around sexuality is regressive in comparison to ancient times stigmatization around Alexander's alleged male lovers revolved around his possible status of being subm missive rather than a lover of men whether or not Netflix made Alexander gay can never be denied or verified because the connection the two shared died with them several thousand years ago and is completely inaccessible to us not only textually and empirically but inaccessible to our very understanding of language regarding love attraction and sexuality in ancient Greece we will never know thank you so much for watching this video thank you so much for Sophia for sending the requests and I'm always open to requests down below this is quite fun I haven't done a history essay in a we while all the references that I mentioned in the video are linked down below with other resources if you're interested thank you to my patreons for making this possible as well and I will see you soon for another video and remember books save lives so keep reading oh I have such a stuffy nose and it's hurting so much it's like itchy itchy why is it itchy I can't breathe I can't speak I can't even hear myself speak I must sound insane in this video

Channel: Lady of the Library

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Id: faMTR7WWZ2I

Length: 23min 41sec (1421 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 13 2024