Paul Cartledge: Alexander the Great’s Tomb Lies Under the Sea

– A large part of the criticism of the series focused on the presentation of Hephaestion as the sexual partner of Alexander. What do the ancient texts say about the love life of Alexander the Great, who is known to have fathered two children?

It’s complicated. During his lifetime, Alexander only sired one child – with a woman who was half-Greek, half-Iranian – whom they named “Heracles.” There was no marriage there, so there was no dynastic heir to the Macedonian throne. His first wife, Roxana – a Sogdian-Iranian woman – was pregnant with their first child when Alexander died [the future Alexander IV]. Therefore, Alexander was not exclusively homosexual.

Almost all ancient Greek men, especially kings, married women, but some were exclusively homosexual – one such character, Pausanias of Athens, features in Plato’s “Symposium.” In Thebes, between 378 and 338 BCE, an entire infantry battalion, the Sacred Band, consisted of 150 adult male couples. But the norm, for at least some upper-class men, was a premarital homoerotic phase – first as the “junior beloved,” then as the “senior,” adult partner.

Alexander was raised alongside his contemporary Hephaestion in Pella and educated with him by the great philosopher, Aristotle. It’s possible – and I emphasize “possible” – that they had a homoerotic, homosexual relationship, at least in their late adolescence and possibly later – remember that Alexander became king of Macedonia when he was only 20 years old. I emphasize the “possible” because no ancient source explicitly states that they were lover or beloved.

On the other hand, it is said that Alexander did indeed have a homosexual relationship, something more than an affair, with a Persian eunuch named Bagoas. For me, this means that as an adult – he was about 30 years old at the time – Alexander was not exclusively heterosexual. However, by then he had acquired not one but three wives, simultaneously: Roxana and two Persian princesses. So, he never married a Greek! Scandalous! All three of his wives were Iranians, and the one son he sired in his lifetime was with a half-Iranian woman. Interesting! Much more interesting, anyway, than the anachronistic issue of whether or not he was gay.