Talk:Personal relationships of Alexander the Great

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Two tiers[edit]

Upon what basis are we creating here a two-tiered structure of information, in which some data is declared certain and other data informed guesses? Haiduc 00:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why do we need this article?[edit]

Many get deleted but we speak about his perosnal relationships...wow, whatever!

Reference: Caratini?[edit]

Ref #11 says "Alexandre le Grand", Roger Caratini, p.170. From what I can tell, Roger Caratini never wrote a book called "Alexandre le Grand". He wrote several, but not that one. AB Bosworth, however, did write a book by that title. Also, both authors seem to be French, though the part of the article being sourced is in English. Can someone clarify? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 05:25, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Of course he wrote it, and it is one of the most famous biographies on Alexander for historians in the south of Europe. Just a search on Amazon to confirm it would have sufficed. The fact that it is not translated into English doesn't mean that the book does not exist. Why not searching info. before questioning references? --Bucephala 21:39, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alexander was a very handsome man and liked to ejectulate while watching britney spears 'Gimme gimme more video' other thaan that Alexander the Great was a homosexual.[edit]

I had seen this line here: "Alexander was a very handsome man and liked to ejectulate while watching britney spears 'Gimme gimme more video' other thaan that Alexander the Great was a homosexual." I don't think it should be included in the article since it talks about someone from the past. I just thought of informing the people that edits this page.Thanks!Valefor1023 21:30, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is obviously vandalism, you could have deleted it, as I have done. Greetings --Bucephala 21:32, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry[edit]

Sorry about that. I don't know how much and how to delete the content in this article since I'm kindda new here. I was reading this article and saw that line. I don't wanna ruin the article. Anyways, thanks for re-editing of the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Valefor1023 (talk • contribs) 21:20, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stateira?[edit]

I'm currently reading Valerio Massimos semi-fictional trilogy on Alexander the Great. It seems to put quite a lot of focus on his marriage to Stateira (daughter of Darius III) yet she isn't included in this article. Actually, none of the articles I've found regarding Alexander seem to give much notice to Stateira, and the article about Stateira II is just a stub.

Is her involvment with Alexander not as significant as I thought it was? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.239.66.41 (talk) 09:06, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Barsine[edit]

I haven't edited for awhile, but I came across this and have to point out that Heracles was certainly mentioned shortly after Alexander's death in the succession struggle. Nearchus, Barsine's son-in-law and so brother in law to Heracles put his name forward as a candidate for the kingship, but it was rejected. I'll check back in a few days, with the proper cite. Gingervlad (talk) 22:44, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dodgy disclaimer[edit]

How can you say "Many stories are told by later historians on the subject of Alexander's love affairs, but as the original sources are lost to us, it is difficult to tell fact from fiction", implying, falsely, that somehow the sources on his relationships are less credible than the sources on his entire life?! They are one and the same. Haiduc (talk) 23:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You know, we gotta stop meeting like this. I came here by way of Diogenes, and surprise-surprise here's your sig! Your edit/talk history has "NPOV violation" and "agenda" written all over it.

As a matter of fact, accounts from a person's contemporaries are far more credible than later historians. Honest scholarship will always make an effort to appeal to the original source data.

Quote: "...implying, falsely, that somehow the sources on his relationships are less credible than the sources on his entire life?! They are one and the same." <-- is pretty vague here (I would even say deliberately so), since later historians lacking direct citations from contemporaries of the time would be making a pure argument to authority on their part, correct? Obiwanjacoby (talk) 04:34, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to acquaint yourself with the sources for Alexander. We don't have any detailed contemporary accounts of his life; everything comes from at least a century afterwards (though the sources we do have had access to accounts written by people who knew Alexander firsthand). The sources we have for Alexander's relationships w/Hephaistion et al. are the same sources we have for the battle of Issus, etc. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:46, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Akhilleus, you might want to acquaint yourself with the argument at hand. I am simply arguing that accounts from a person's contemporaries are far more credible than later historians, regardless of which particular historical figure we're discussing.

They are not "one and the same" as Haiduc would have you believe. If we are lacking contemporary accounts for any historical figure, then 100-year-old scholarship after the fact still fails to be an acceptable substitute. This doesn't mean we completely reject these scholars, but nevertheless, it is a simple value judgement being argued here. The line is clearly drawn. Obiwanjacoby (talk) 01:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying. The sources we have for Alexander's relationships are ancient writers such as Plutarch, Quintus, Arrian, and Diodorus--the same sources that we use to learn about Alexander's military campaigns, etc. They relied on accounts by men who knew Alexander personally--but those accounts are now lost. The sources we've got may or may not be reliable (modern historians argue quite a bit over the accuracy of these writers), but they're what we've got. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:46, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. This is progress. Now go back and read the first statement in this thread. Haiduc is trying to level the playing field by literally saying they are one and the same. He is equivocating the value of our sources, where you are simply being honest and fully aware of the limits.

I agree with you. "They're what we got," as you say. However, Haiduc needs to level the playing field in order to shoehorn his own revisionist agenda. Look at his wiki history. He clearly wants a modern non-NPOV scholarship that suits his personal bias. Ask yourself, who are the "sources" on Alexander's relationships that are "one and the same" with the sources on his entire life? This is a deliberate ambiguity meant to get people like Robin Lane Fox in there with equal authority as Plutarch. Obiwanjacoby (talk) 19:46, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This whole article is straight-washed.[edit]

He was gay. Get over it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Glendale1 (talk • contribs) 14:23, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The article is somewhat aimless. The lead, a summary of the article, is but one sentence. Is that because there is nothing to summerise? I am not inclined enough or knowledgeable enough to make the necessary changes myself. Also, what is 'straight-washed'? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:04, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Achilles and Patroclus wikipedia page has this same issue. Very obsessed straight men who can't handle a little gay. But this article does seem a bit aimless, as Roger points out. Unfortunately, we will may see a bit of vandalism because of the right-wing tantrum throwing over the new Netflix doc, something that we delt with other at Ethnicity of Cleopatra. Kleopatra I Syra (talk) 06:19, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is no proof that Alexander the Great was a homosexual. Everything in the article is conjecture.Easeltine (talk) 23:36, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong Kleopatra I Syra (talk) 02:16, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Incomplete Aristotle Section[edit]

In the final sentence of the aforementioned section, there is a colon apparently prefacing a missing quotation. Do we know what this quote was supposed to say? Otherwise, I'd suggest deleting the sentence. Mdrewcaffin (talk) 02:14, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]