Alexander the G proudly wears his colors on his breastplate.

It took some time, but I finally found an image that I think sheds some light on one of today's hot topics.

I can just see Freeper heads exploding at the thought. "It can't be! All gays are limp-wristed and weak! This is destroying my illusion!"

You know, King James as in "The King James Bible". That'll explode their head for sure.

:hi:

Facts are the strongest defense against bigotry.

:hi:

We have two books one that tells you that Alexander was bi and the other one that tells you that he was gay. I can bet anyone money that he was gay and the wife at home was for bearing a couple of kids that took a ton of booze to make. :evilgrin:

:hi:

:hug:

After all, it's hard to argue with the facts. Even if the facts were photoshopped in.

"An army of lovers cannot fail."

Dressed like that and were very effectionate with their horses.
Proves nothing.

While there has been a great deal of speulation about the sexuality of people over 200 years ago, one must remember that history served a totally different purpose back then. A historian was not expected to keep his personal opinion, politicla opinion, or anything else out of his recounting of history. Very few accounts that come directly from Alexanders time actually come have come down , and most accounts come from several hundred years later. Considering how little we know of the founding fathers, and how mush myth has been injected into the stories of their lives, one can imagine how much about people from over 2000 years ago is correct, and how much is propraganda.

While culturally, homosexuality was common in militaristic socieites, (like the Spartans) the fact that every young man who was placed into a military scoll was immediately paired up with a male who invariably establihsed a physical relation with their charges, dopes not necessarily mean theat the sexual preference of the charge was either heterosexual or homosexual. To many it was simply a part of "basic training" in the military. One must remember never to assign 20th century meanings to 4th century B.C. culture. Alexander may or may not have been homosexual by preference. History also point to the fact that he was blindly in love with Roxane, Who was obviously not male, and Alexanders own historian point that his marraige to her was not a result of mere political expediency. So it is difficult to make any assumption. The stigma that is attached to homosexuality is something that is relatively new in western society (though other societies in the east, such as the Confucian Chinese, paternalistic, family oriented culture, was greatly critical of homosexuality, though it again was far less socially punished...in everytthing the Chinese end up being pragamatic). Gay bashing tends to thrive in paternalistic societies where a great deal of social worth is placed on the number of children a family has. In such societies, sexual activity which does not result in children is not only frowned upon, but stignatized.

Many of the cultures that have provided histories of Alexander were such paternalistic societies. MOst of these societies were conquered by Alexander. In many of them homosexuality would have been looked down on, if not directly stigmatized. At least not to the degree that is is in our anomaly of a historic culture.

While there are good chances that Alexader was gay, or perhaps bisexual. there is a good deal that is suspect in the historcal presentation of him as being gay. Certainly there is no way of telling if Alexander was gay, participating in behvior expected in his peer group, or totally heterosexual, based on the accounts of his life or and the cultures that provided this information.

P.S. the mosaic in the post was done many centruries after Alexander lived

The horse has nothing to do with the joke.

You might want to have a closer look at Alexander's breastplate, if you'd like to be in on it.

:eyes:

Was part of my joke...

The breastplate is not clear on my computer.

I assume you are speaking of the alteration on the breastplate from the original.

But the mosaic is a well known ancient mosaic from the middleeast.