Alexander, Unconquered
Oliver Stone's Alexander may go down as a colossal failure at the box office—the three-hour epic has made less than a quarter of its $155 million budget domestically. As director Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!) and DreamWorks ponder their own Alexander the Great, a movie about the man who had conquered the world by the time he was 25 isn't inherently misguided. Scholars say Alexander's legend is irresistibly larger than life.
"We wouldn't know anything about ancient Greece or Rome were it not for Alexander, who inaugurated the period we call Hellenistic that is the key link between the Greeks and the Romans," explains Paul Cartledge, a Greek history professor at Cambridge University in England and author of Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past. "The [Egyptian] city of Alexandria [named for Alexander] is where scholars first brought together literature and explored cutting-edge science. If not for Alexander, this could not have happened."
As Cartledge, who advised PBS and the BBC for the television series The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization, writes in the preface to his book: "[Alexander] is one of the very few genuinely iconic figures." Alexander's triumphs changed our lives forever, Cartledge contends, with achievements in war that shaped science, literature and philosophy—influencing even the emergence of Christianity.
"Bible means book in Greek," Cartledge says, "and the actual Bible is Greek, not Aramaic [the language used in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ]. The word Catholic is a Greek word which means universal." John Lewis, who teaches courses on Ancient Greece and warfare at Ashland University in Ohio, adds another term—the name of a city that's frequently in the news. "Kandahar [in Afghanistan] is derived from Alexander," says Lewis, who agrees that Alexander's greatness stems from his advancement of Western civilization, not from military conquest as such.
"Alexander was a world class military genius," Lewis says. "He had a serious sense of willpower and curiosity. He marched his army 20,000 miles—all the way to the borders of India—in 12 years, laying the whole groundwork [for Western civilization]. Greek philosophy was introduced to the east and they started speaking Greek, which became the language of the intellectuals." By comparison, when the Goths conquered Rome, Lewis points out, they did not import their Gothic culture to any similar extent. Alexander's role in spreading Greek culture is simply unmatched.
Though both scholars qualify their thoughts with an acknowledgement that what is known about Alexander's life is limited to Plutarch's biography, there is little doubt that Alexander, who was taught by the father of Western philosophy, Aristotle, revered Greek culture and brought its benefits to the farthest reaches of the world.
Moved by the writings and teachings of Homer and Aristotle, Alexander developed a passion for Greek drama, botany and zoology, which he probably learned from Aristotle. He performed theater in Asia, he sent plants and remains of animals back to Aristotle for scientific study and he was intensely interested in medicine, according to Cartledge.
In other words, Alexander is the perfect subject for classic Hollywood heroism, says Lewis, who, without commenting on Stone's movie, suggests: "If we're interested in seeing great accomplishments, then we're interested in a movie about Alexander the Great."
RELATED ARTICLES
12/10/04 - Who is Alexander the Great? The Movie and the Truth
Review - Alexander
LINKS
Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past
by Paul Cartledge
The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization:
http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/
About Paul Cartledge:
http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/htmlver/index.html
About John Lewis:
http://personal.ashland.edu/~jlewis8/
"We wouldn't know anything about ancient Greece or Rome were it not for Alexander, who inaugurated the period we call Hellenistic that is the key link between the Greeks and the Romans," explains Paul Cartledge, a Greek history professor at Cambridge University in England and author of Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past. "The [Egyptian] city of Alexandria [named for Alexander] is where scholars first brought together literature and explored cutting-edge science. If not for Alexander, this could not have happened."
As Cartledge, who advised PBS and the BBC for the television series The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization, writes in the preface to his book: "[Alexander] is one of the very few genuinely iconic figures." Alexander's triumphs changed our lives forever, Cartledge contends, with achievements in war that shaped science, literature and philosophy—influencing even the emergence of Christianity.
"Bible means book in Greek," Cartledge says, "and the actual Bible is Greek, not Aramaic [the language used in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ]. The word Catholic is a Greek word which means universal." John Lewis, who teaches courses on Ancient Greece and warfare at Ashland University in Ohio, adds another term—the name of a city that's frequently in the news. "Kandahar [in Afghanistan] is derived from Alexander," says Lewis, who agrees that Alexander's greatness stems from his advancement of Western civilization, not from military conquest as such.
"Alexander was a world class military genius," Lewis says. "He had a serious sense of willpower and curiosity. He marched his army 20,000 miles—all the way to the borders of India—in 12 years, laying the whole groundwork [for Western civilization]. Greek philosophy was introduced to the east and they started speaking Greek, which became the language of the intellectuals." By comparison, when the Goths conquered Rome, Lewis points out, they did not import their Gothic culture to any similar extent. Alexander's role in spreading Greek culture is simply unmatched.
Though both scholars qualify their thoughts with an acknowledgement that what is known about Alexander's life is limited to Plutarch's biography, there is little doubt that Alexander, who was taught by the father of Western philosophy, Aristotle, revered Greek culture and brought its benefits to the farthest reaches of the world.
Moved by the writings and teachings of Homer and Aristotle, Alexander developed a passion for Greek drama, botany and zoology, which he probably learned from Aristotle. He performed theater in Asia, he sent plants and remains of animals back to Aristotle for scientific study and he was intensely interested in medicine, according to Cartledge.
In other words, Alexander is the perfect subject for classic Hollywood heroism, says Lewis, who, without commenting on Stone's movie, suggests: "If we're interested in seeing great accomplishments, then we're interested in a movie about Alexander the Great."
RELATED ARTICLES
12/10/04 - Who is Alexander the Great? The Movie and the Truth
Review - Alexander
LINKS
Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past
by Paul Cartledge
The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization:
http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/
About Paul Cartledge:
http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/htmlver/index.html
About John Lewis:
http://personal.ashland.edu/~jlewis8/
